A PICTURE FOR ASMODEO’S CLOAK.
O for the pen of that ready writer who is always in the humour for
work, who can always write, sir, who is never at a loss, who sits down
before a ream of foolscap paper, and tosses off sheet after sheet, sir,
until he is surrounded by piles of manuscript! I have seen him do it,
continues the friend at our elbow--seen him do it. And then there’s
Miss ----, who is so awfully popular, you know, and stands to her work
like an artist at his easel; she can write two novels a year like fun,
and clever books too. George So-and-so, he goes down on his knees to
write, and turns off slip after slip like a gusset and band coming out
of a sewing machine. Mrs. ---- plods away all day long, whether she
likes it or not--pegs away, sir, and produces a certain amount of
copy before she dines; and she can write two books at once, sir, like
winking. That’s the woman for my money.
O for the pen of one of these ready writers, that we might throw off in
a few rapid pages the conclusion of all that romantic story which Paul
Somerton told the barrister a few evenings after that day at Brighton.
If we sat before that ream of foolscap, and filled every sheet, we
could not do full justice to the extraordinary narrative, nor to the
imagination of Mrs. Jefferson Crawley, the young lady whom you met in
the early part of our history as the showman’s daughter. You remember
how she gobbled up the tripe on that first evening, when Mr. Dibble
joined the company of the Temple of Magic to do the outside business.
You would hardly give her credit for imaginative power. She handled the
cards well, and was great in the basket trick, but you would not expect
her to possess what phrenologists call Ideality, in a large degree.
Perhaps the education which she had received in a few months as the
wife of our old acquaintance Mr. Gibbs, _alias_ Jefferson Crawley,
had been beneficial to her in this respect. Mr. Crawley nevertheless
had been disappointed in the young woman. He did not find that her
abilities as a shuffler at cards were of any great benefit to him; but
she was useful in some respects. There was an air of respectability
that was beneficial sometimes in speaking of “my wife,” and introducing
Mrs. Crawley, though the class of persons to whom introductions usually
took place cast knowing glances at each other, and commenced desperate
flirtations with the young lady immediately. This was useful too,
and Mr. Gibbs sometimes traded upon it in a way that was by no means
pleasant to the showman’s daughter. She was not a refined young woman
as you have seen, not over-particular as you know; but she was vain
of her good looks, and had just sufficient of woman’s _amour propre_,
speedily to contract a contempt for a husband who was base enough and
mean enough to be utterly indifferent to his wife’s honour.
These two soon understood each other, almost indeed from the moment
when Mr. Jefferson Crawley, having run away with the young woman,
wished to set aside the ceremony of marriage which Christabel, the
mysterious lady, had punctiliously insisted upon. What a wedding
it was! What a honeymoon! Yet not stranger than ten thousand other
weddings and honeymoons. Truth stranger than fiction! If that strange
little fellow on two sticks who appeared so mysteriously to Don
Cleofas, would come and take you for an evening’s ramble, you would
see in half an hour how far fiction falls short of the realities of
life; how far the darkest pictures which those ready writers have
limned in pen and ink are less appalling than the realities of sin,
and wickedness, and woe, which exist in the dark places of our modern
Babylon! Ask that detective officer who used to visit the late Mr.
Christopher Tallant at Barton Hall; he could tell you some rare tales
of the class of people to whom Mr. and Mrs. Crawley belong. But even
that gentleman would be surprised if Asmodeus sat him down upon St.
Paul’s, and unroofed a few hundred yards of that mass of brick, behind
which the great game of life is being played out in ten thousand
different ways.
Before Mr. Gibbs had been married three months, he gave his wife
permission to find a better home if she could. He vowed he had no
desire to limit anybody’s freedom. As far as the work of the household
went, he said, looking round the miserable den, he thought he should
lose nothing by the departure of the lady of the house. He could easily
get somebody else to come and clean his boots, and cut bread and butter
for him. If the young lady thought it would advance her prospects to
leave his humble roof, she might go; he should put no advertisement in
the papers for her, he should employ no private detective to hunt her
up: he was exceedingly obliged to her for becoming his wife, highly
honoured in fact, if not more so, but he should not break his heart if
she returned to the sawdust and naphtha lamps of the Temple of Magic.
And so the young lady disappeared accordingly; but that wonderful
account which she gave of her early life, and which Lieutenant Somerton
repeated to the barrister, left out altogether those incidents to which
her husband had alluded. She certainly did justice to the gambler’s
tuition. Old Martin could never have taught her to be such a clever
dissembler; and that melancholy clown who had on his deathbed presented
her father with Momus, had certainly not wit enough to instruct her in
such delicate cunning.
The daughter of respectable parents at Severntown, her father died
early, and left her with a widowed mother. She had received but little
education in consequence, and was obliged to go out to service. Her
mother soon afterwards died, and then she was left alone in the wide,
wide world. She had lived for some time with her aunt, who was then a
wealthy lady, residing at Carter Street West, but had since lost all
her money in the panic, and had gone to Paris. Her aunt was too poor to
take her along with her, or she would have done so; but she recommended
her to a lady in whose service she had endeavoured to study, and carry
out the good advice which her dear aunt had given her. The lady had a
son who came to see her at intervals, a very handsome young gentleman,
and who seemed very good. He was very kind to her, and she often saw
him watching her. One day when his mamma (who was a widow) had gone
out, he made love to her, and soon after he asked her to be engaged to
him: she wished to ask the permission of her mistress, but he would not
hear of it; she would never consent he said, and one day he persuaded
her to elope with him, and in the end, after a long struggle between
duty and inclination, she gave way.
And here it appeared the young lady had broken down in tears, and Paul
had soothed her, and vowed eternal love, like a weak, infatuated, silly
fellow that he was. We almost question whether, had she told him the
whole truth of her life, he would not have done just the same.
She soon discovered that her husband was a bad man, a gambler, and
everything that was wicked, and she went to his mother to beg her
forgiveness, and asked to be taken back as her servant. The old lady
had ordered her to be turned out of the house, and her husband laughed
and jeered at her when she related the incident to him. She had never
really loved him, but had hoped to have a home, and to find peace, and
she tried to love him, and was a faithful true wife to him; but oh, he
led such a life! he was a cheat, a forger, everything that was bad, and
not the old lady’s son after all, but the son of her first husband, who
was a dissipated man, and had died of _delirium tremens_.
How Paul pitied her! O, if she had not been married! he had exclaimed
in his ecstacy, as he looked into her deep eyes, and nursed her hand
in his.
She sighed at this, and wept again, and said there was something yet
which she had not told him. Some day he should know all. Meanwhile she
was so good, so kind, so affectionate. Mrs. Dibble even went so far as
to say that if she had not been brought up at a boarding-school, she
ought to have been, for her manners were quite boarding-school, and her
disposition was heavenly.
Paul sent her books of poems, and novels, and all sorts of works,
to read, that she might be amused and improve her mind; and it was
astonishing how rapidly the young lady mastered their contents, and how
ably she used the sentiments of some of those poems that were full of
love and tenderness. It was surely native inborn tact this. The cynic
would say that all women have it; that nature has given them cunning
instead of physical strength. What a woman this would have been with a
good education! What a woman with the French language on her tongue!
The judgment of Shuffleton Gibbs when he sat in the show and thought he
could make a fortune by her cleverness at cards, was that of a shrewd
observer, though he had been disappointed.
What happy days these were to the Lieutenant, what happy hours, these
stolen intervals, as Chrissy got better. Chrissy she had always been
called she said, and that was nearer the truth than any other word
she had spoken; for that old clown who taught her to read and write,
had called her Chris in those wild days of her childhood. With good
treatment and comfort, she had soon recovered her strength, and the
roses came back to her cheeks, the roundness to her arms, and the
brightness to her eyes. There was a little vulgarity in her appearance,
and in her manners. The red in her cheeks was not of a delicate rosy
hue, and her voice could not be called musical. Her nose was anything
but classical,--not that we care for classical noses; no, nor for
classical foreheads either for that matter. To Paul Somerton Chrissy
was beautiful, and that which you would call vulgar he looked upon as
frankness and innocence, which charmed him all the more on that account.
Mr. Williamson soon had a surfeit of all this. The Lieutenant became
quite a bore to him, and as obstinate as a mule. He would take no
advice, and listen to no arguments that in any way interfered with his
wild idea of living with this woman in some distant land. That special
feature of interest in the woman’s history which had, as you will
remember, brought up the name of Shuffleton Gibbs, soon disappeared;
for Chrissy had described to Paul a young and dashing fellow as her
husband, and they had both taken the description as true of course. The
Lieutenant might have asked Macshawser what sort of a fellow Crawley
was; but neither he nor the clever barrister thought of this, or if
they had, perhaps the Lieutenant would have put his veto upon such a
course, seeing that it might in some way have led to the detection of
Paul as Chrissy’s protector.
Now, Mr. Arundel Williamson had been hit in some escapade of his youth
in which a married woman was concerned; and it was this you know which
excited his sympathy so much for Paul, or he would long since have
shunned that young gentleman’s society, though the fellows at the club
to which the barrister belonged liked the Lieutenant for his pleasant,
outspoken, honest manners, his free and easy and unsophisticated ways,
and the perfect absence of military snobbism which was characteristic
of him. But a good deal of this was assumed as a sort of standing
argument against the barrister’s advice to Paul to give up his schemes
with regard to the lady whom he loved so much, and remember that his
duty to his family, to himself, aye, and to the army, was to avoid a
disgraceful _liaison_.
Paul had once or twice become quite eloquent on this point, reminded
the barrister of his philosophy, quoted some of those very broad
maxims which Mr. Williamson had repeated in that little room in
the Temple, talked of equality, and raved against all aristocratic
assumption on the score of birth and position. When the barrister
replied, and endeavoured to show that the Lieutenant was making use of
arguments which did not apply to the present case, Paul would hurl at
him all kinds of absurd aphorisms about love equalising all ranks, and
then rave about his own birth--a bailiff’s son, sir!
The only point upon which the barrister got the better of his friend,
was when he quietly rehearsed the penalties attendant upon the crime of
abduction, and more particularly the severity of the punishment which
the law awarded to bigamy. Paul certainly retaliated with the Divorce
Court, but he found himself weak in the combat, very weak when the
barrister talked of bigamy. The time came however when that difficulty
was at an end.
Three months of this feverish and wicked dream of love had passed, and
Paul had worshipped the idol which the fickle, cynical god, whom the
classics supposed to reign supreme in affairs of the heart, had set
up. How the rosy youth must have laughed (not in his sleeve, for he
never had any sleeves according to the painters) at the simplicity of
this young fellow who wore Her Majesty’s uniform! Perhaps Asmodeo was
the true god after all; the lame monster with his goat legs, his long
visage, his sharp chin, and his demoniacal eyes and mouth, is certainly
a more fitting spirit to preside over some of Love’s entanglements than
he of the gilded wings and the quiver full of arrows. But he boasted of
assuming whatever shape he willed, and confessed that it was necessary
to look well sometimes; Vice never pleased half so well unless it had a
fair appearance.
Lieutenant Somerton did not dream of gods at all in the matter, and he
would not have indulged his fancy upon such a cynical fellow as Asmodeo
for a moment; he was in love, over head and ears, madly in love with
this woman, who thrust that wooden spoon into the bowl at the roadside
inn, and ate her share of the repast like--well, like a vagabond, as
she was, you know, in the eyes of the law--like a rogue and vagabond;
for the law combines the two in its harsh description of the poor
stroller. The Lieutenant would surely have been disenchanted if Signor
Asmodeo had taken the bandage from his eyes and shown him that incident
in the past; or that little scene in the show when Mr. Shuffleton
Gibbs, his dire enemy, had made love to her, and succeeded in his suit.
What a clever girl she was! The god “so gloriously celebrated by
Agrippa and the Clavicula Salomonis,” and his friend Don Cleofas
would have been delighted with her. His Spanish majesty would surely
have painted her image on his cloak, and illustrated her curious and
brilliant career!
One fine summer evening, when a gentle rain had washed the dust out
of the two trees which lived out a shambling sort of existence at
the back of the house where Mrs. Dibble consented to act the part
of guardian to that poor persecuted orphan, whom she loved as if she
were her own--on a bright summer evening when the sun was shining
out after the rain, and a refreshing breeze came up the Thames and
moved the leaves of the trees in question, Chrissy leaned upon Paul
Somerton’s shoulder, and told him that she must leave him on the next
day. She was now quite well, she said, and her gratitude to him for his
great kindness compelled her to take this course. His honourable and
respectful conduct towards her, and her love for him, too, all urged
departure. She had deceived him, deceived him wickedly, and had never
until now felt courage enough to tell him how much she had wronged him.
Paul grew terribly alarmed at her earnest words, and begged her not to
tell him, not to talk of leaving him. Where could she go? He could not
live without her. O, that cursed marriage! O cruel Fate that had not
brought her to him in the days of her early life! It seemed to him,
he said, that he had known her always. Her face was familiar to him
when first he saw her. Paul had often said this, and poor Chrissy felt
satisfied in her own mind that he must have seen that mysterious lady
of the Temple of Magic; but, of course, she never assisted his memory
one jot, and if memory had given him a quiet nudge in connection with
his visit to Severntown with Mrs. Dibble, he would have repudiated the
suggestion with scorn.
When he exclaimed, O that cursed marriage! Chrissy held down her head
and sighed and wept and murmured out some pathetic words of Thomas
Moore’s about forgiveness. She had rehearsed this point before Mrs.
Dibble’s glass, and had committed the words to memory for the purpose
a week previously. She knew that Paul could not marry her because she
was Crawley’s wife; she knew that a divorce was a serious business,
and that it might lead to the exposure of her real history. So she had
resolved, the first week she was in Paul’s care, that when she was
once firmly secure of his love, she would make a pathetic confession of
being single, and then fall at his feet and implore his forgiveness.
How cleverly she did this it is unnecessary to say. It was a splendid
success; the confession jumped so well with the Lieutenant’s wishes
that he blotted out the past at once, forgave her, and in his blind
mad fashion felt perfectly happy. He went to his quarters that night
determined to exchange into a regiment that was abroad or going abroad,
and marry this poor girl, who had been so wronged, and who had knelt at
his feet until his heart ached for her, and whose future happiness he
vowed should be his continual care.
Mrs. Dibble had told dear Chrissy that she expected her husband coming
to spend a day with them in the course of a fortnight; and as the
chatty, old woman had told dear Chrissy how she had found poor Thomas
with a set of nasty, dirty show people, dear Chrissy thought it best to
bring her grand scheme of a new start in life to an early conclusion.
O, how she would love to go to India or anywhere beyond the seas, where
she could begin her life anew, and prove to her dear, dear Paul, the
depth of woman’s gratitude and love!