AN UNKNOWN FRIEND.
As they drove into town, Uncle David was thinking how awkward it would
be if Sir Reginald should have recovered his activity, and dispatched a
messenger to recall Alice, and await their arrival at his door. Well, he
did not want a quarrel; he hated a fracas; but he would not send Alice
back till next morning, come what might; and then he would return with
her, and see Lord Wynderbroke again, and take measures to compel an
immediate renunciation of his suit. As for Reginald, he would find
arguments to reconcile him to the disappointment. At all events, Alice
had thrown herself upon his protection, and he would not surrender her
except on terms.
Uncle David was silent, having all this matter to ruminate upon. He left
a pencilled line for Sir Henry Margate, his brother's physician, and
then drove on towards home.
Turning into Saint James's Street, Alice saw her brother standing at the
side of a crossing, with a great-coat and a white muffler on, the air
being sharp. A couple of carriages drawn up near the pavement, and the
passing of two or three others on the outside, for a moment checked
their progress, and Alice, had not the window been up, could have spoken
to him as they passed. He did not see them, but the light of a lamp was
on his face, and she was shocked to see how ill he looked.
"There is Dick," she said, touching her uncle's arm, "looking so
miserable! Shall we speak to him!"
"No, dear, never mind him--he's well enough." David Arden peeped at his
nephew as they passed. "He is beginning to take an interest in what
really concerns him."
She looked at her uncle, not understanding his meaning.
"We can talk of it another time, dear," he added with a cautionary
glance at the maid, who sat in the corner at the other side.
Richard Arden was on his way to the place where he meant to recover his
losses. He had been playing deep at Colonel Marston's lodgings, but not
yet luckily. He thought he had used his credit there as far as he could
successfully press it.
The polite young men who had their supper there that night, and played
after he left till nearly five o'clock in the morning, knew perfectly
what he had lost at the Derby; but they did not know how perilously, on
the whole, he was already involved. Was Richard Arden, who had lost
nearly seven hundred pounds at Colonel Marston's little gathering,
though he had not paid them yet, now quite desperate? By no means. It is
true he had, while Vandeleur was out, made an excursion to the City,
and, on rather hard terms, secured a loan of three hundred pounds--a
trifle which, if luck favoured, might grow to a fortune; but which, if
it proved contrary, half an hour would see out.
He had locked this up in his desk, as a reserve for a theatre quite
different from Marston's little party; and on his way to that more
public and also more secret haunt, he had called at his lodgings for it.
It was not that small deposit that cheered him, but a curious and
unexpected little note which he found there. It presented by no means a
gentlemanlike exterior. The hand was a round clerk's-hand, with
flourishing capitals, on an oblong blue envelope, with a vulgar little
device. A dun, he took it to be; and he was not immediately relieved
when he read at the foot of it, "Levi." Then he glanced to the top, and
read, "DEAR SIR."
This easy form of address he read with proper disdain.
"I am instructed by a most respectable party who is desirous to
assist you, to the figure of £1,000 or upwards, at nominal
discounts, to meet you and ascertain your wishes thereupon, if
possible to-night, lest you should suffer inconvenience.
"Yours truly,
"ISRAEL LEVI.
"P.S.--In furtherance of the above, I shall be at Dignum's Divan,
Strand, from 11 P.M. to-night to 1 A.M."
Here then, at last, was a sail in sight!
With this note in his pocket, he walked direct to the place of
rendezvous, in the Strand. It was on his way that, unseen by him, his
sister and his uncle had observed him, on their drive to David Arden's
house.
There were two friends only whom he strongly suspected of this very
well-timed interposition--there was Lady May Penrose, and there was
Uncle David. Lady May was rich, and quite capable of a generous
sacrifice for him. Uncle David, also rich, would like to show an
intimidating front, as he had done, but would hardly like to see him go
to the wall. There was, I must confess, a trifling bill due to Mr.
Longcluse, who had kindly got or given him cash for it. It was something
less than a hundred pounds--a mere nothing; but in their altered
relations, it would not do to permit any miscarriage of this particular
bill. He might have risked it in the frenzy of play. But to stoop to ask
quarter from Longcluse was more than his pride could endure. No; nor
would the humiliation avail to arrest the consequences of his neglect.
In the general uneasiness and horror of his situation, this little point
was itself a centre of torture, and now his unknown friend had come to
the rescue, and in the golden sunshine of his promise it, like a hundred
minor troubles, was dissolving.
In Pall Mall he jumped into a cab, feeling strangely like himself again.
The lights, the clubs, the well-known perspectives, the stars above him,
and the gliding vehicles and figures that still peopled the streets, had
recovered their old cheery look; he was again in the upper world, and
his dream of misery had broken up and melted. Under the great coloured
lamp, yellow, crimson, and blue, that overhung the pavement, emblazoned
on every side with transparent arabesques, and in gorgeous capitals
proclaiming to all whom it might concern "DIGNUM'S DIVAN," he dismissed
his cab, took his counter in the cigar shop, and entered the great rooms
beyond. The first of these, as many of my readers remember, was as large
as a good-sized Methodist Chapel; and five billiard-tables, under a
blaze of gas, kept the many-coloured balls rolling, and the marker busy,
calling "Blue on brown, and pink your player," and so forth; and
gentlemen young and old, Christians and Hebrews, in their shirt-sleeves,
picked up shillings when they took "lives," or knocked the butts of
their cues fiercely on the floor when they unexpectedly lost them.
Among a very motley crowd, Richard Arden slowly sauntering through the
room found Mr. Levi, whose appearance he already knew, having once or
twice had occasion to consult him financially. His play was over for the
night. The slim little Jew, with black curly head, large fierce black
eyes, and sullen mouth, stood with his hands in his pockets, gaping
luridly over the table where he had just, he observed to his friend
Isaac Blumer, who did not care if he was hanged, "losht sheven pound
sheventeen, ash I'm a shinner!"
Mr. Levi saw Richard Arden approaching, and smiled on him with his wide
show of white fangs. Richard Arden approached Mr. Levi with a grave and
haughty face. Here, to be sure, was nothing but what Horace Walpole used
to call "the mob." Not a human being whom he knew was in the room; still
he would have preferred seeing Mr. Levi at his office; and the audacity
of his presuming to grin in that familiar fashion! He would have liked
to fling one of the billiard-balls in his teeth. In a freezing tone, and
with his head high, he said,--
"I think you are Mr. Levi."
"The shame," responded Levi, still smiling; "and 'ow ish Mr. Harden
thish evening?"
"I had a note from you," said Arden, passing by Mr. Levi's polite
inquiry, "and I should like to know if any of that money you spoke of
may be made available to-night."
"Every shtiver," replied the Jew cheerfully.
"I can have it all? Well, this is rather a noisy place," hesitated
Richard Arden, looking around him.
"I can get into Mishter Dignum's book-offish here, Mr. Harden, and it
won't take a moment. I haven't notes, but I'll give you our cheques, and
there'sh no place in town they won't go down as slick as gold. I'll
fetch you to where there's pen and ink."
"Do so," said he.
In a very small room, where burned a single jet of gas, Mr. Arden signed
a promissory note for, £1,012 10s., for which Mr. Levi handed him
cheques of his firm for £1,000.
Having exchanged these securities, Richard Arden said--
"I wish to put one or two questions to you, Mr. Levi." He glanced at a
clerk who was making "tots" from a huge folio before him, on a slip of
paper, and transferring them to a small book, with great industry.
Levi understood him and beckoned in silence, and when they both stood in
the passage he said--
"If you want a word private with me, Mr. Harden, where there'sh no one
can shee us, you'll be as private as the deshert of Harabia if you walk
round the corner of the shtreet."
Arden nodded, and walked out into the Strand, accompanied by Mr. Levi.
They turned to the left, and a few steps brought them to the corner of
Cecil Street. The street widens a little after you pass its narrow
entrance. It was still enough to justify Mr. Levi's sublime comparison.
The moon shone mistily on the river, which was dotted and streaked, at
its further edge with occasional red lights from windows, relieved by
the black reflected outline of the building which made their
back-ground. At the foot of the street, at that time, stood a clumsy
rail, and Richard Arden leaned his arm on this, as he talked to the Jew,
who had pulled his short cloak about him; and in the faint light he
could not discern his features, near as he stood, except, now and then,
his white eye-balls, faintly, as he turned, or his teeth when he smiled.