Mr. Pole was closeted in his City counting-house with Mr. Pericles,
before a heap of papers and newly-opened foreign letters; to one of
which, bearing a Russian stamp, he referred fretfully at times, as if
to verify a monstrous fact. Any one could have seen that he was not in
a condition to transact business. His face was unnaturally patched with
colour, and his grey-tinged hair hung tumbled over his forehead like
waves blown by a changeing wind. Still, he maintained his habitual
effort to look collected, and defeat the scrutiny of the sallow-eyed
fellow opposite; who quietly glanced, now and then, from the nervous
feet to the nervous fingers, and nodded to himself a sardonic outlandish
nod.
“Now, listen to me,” said Mr. Pericles. “We shall not burst out about
zis Riga man. He is a villain,--very well. Say it. He is a villain,--say
so. And stop. Because” (and up went the Greek's forefinger), “we must
not have a scandal, in ze fairst place. We do not want pity, in ze
second. Saird, we must seem to trust him, in spite. I say, yeas! What
is pity to us of commerce? It is contempt. We trust him on, and we lose
what he pocket--a sossand. We burst on him, and we lose twenty, serty,
forty; and we lose reputation.”
“I'd have every villain hanged,” cried Mr. Pole. “The scoundrel! I'd
hang him with his own hemp. He talks of a factory burnt, and dares to
joke about tallow! and in a business letter! and when he is telling one
of a loss of money to that amount!”
“Not bad, ze joke,” grinned Mr. Pericles. “It is a lesson of coolness.
We learn it. But mind! he say, 'possible loss.' It is not positif. Hein!
ze man is trying us. So! shall we burst out and make him desperate? We
are in his hand at Riga, you see?”
“I see this,” said Mr. Pole, “that he's a confounded rascal, and I'll
know whether the law can't reach him.”
“Ha! ze law!” Mr. Pericles sneered. “So you are, you. English. Always,
ze law! But, we are men--we are not machine. Law for a machine, not
a man! We punish him, perhaps. Well; he is punished. He is
imprisoned--forty monz. We pay for him a sossand pound a monz. He is
flogged--forty lashes. We pay for him a sossand pound a lash. You can
afford zat? It is a luxury like anozer. It is not for me.”
“How long are we to trust the villain?” said Mr. Pole. “If we trust him
at all, mind! I don't say I do, or will.”
“Ze money is locked up for a year, my friend. So soon we get it, so soon
he goes, from ze toe off.” Mr. Pericles' shining toe's-tip performed
an agile circuit, and he smoothed his square clean jaw and venomous
moustache reflectively. “Not now,” he resumed. “While he hold us in his
hand, we will not drive him to ze devil, or we go too, I believe, or
part of ze way. But now, we say, zat money is frozen in ze Nord. We
will make it in Australie, and in Greek waters. I have exposed to you my
plan.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Pole, “and I've told you I've no pretensions to be a
capitalist. We have no less than three ventures out, already.”
“It is like you English! When you have ze world to milk, you go to
one point and stick. It fails, and you fail. What is zat word?”--Mr.
Pericles tapped his brow--“pluck,--you want pluck. It is your decadence.
Greek, and Russian, and Yankee, all zey beat you. For, it is pluck. You
make a pin's head, not a pin. It is in brain and heart you do fail. You
have only your position,--an island, and ships, and some favour. You
are no match in pluck. We beat you. And we live for pleasure, while you
groan and sweat--mon Dieu! it is slavery.”
Mr. Pericles twinkled his white eyes over the blinking merchant, and
rose from his chair, humming a bit of opera, and announcing, casually,
that a certain prima-donna had obtained a divorce from her husband.
“But,” he added suddenly, “I say to you, if you cannot afford to
speculate, run away from it as ze fire. Run away from it, and hold
up your coat-tail. Jump ditches, and do not stop till you are safe
home--hein? you say 'cosy?' I hear my landlady. Run till you are safe
cosy. But if you are a man wis a head and a pocket, zen you know that
'speculate' means a dozen ventures. So, you come clear. Or, it is ruin.
It is ruin, I say: you have been playing.”
“An Englishman,” returned Mr. Pole, disgusted at the shrugs he had
witnessed--“an Englishman's as good as any of you. Look at us--look at
our history--look at our wealth. By Jingo! But we like plain-dealing and
common sense; and as to afford, what do you mean?”
“No, no,” Mr. Pericles petitioned with uplifted hand; “my English is
bad. It is--ah! bad. You shall look it over--my plan. It will strike
your sense. Next week I go to Italy. I take ze little Belloni. You will
manage all. I have in you, my friend, perfec' confidence. An Englishman,
he is honest. An Englishman and a Greek conjoined, zey beat ze world!
It is true, ma foi. For zat, I seek you, and not a countryman.
A Frenchman?--oh, no! A German?--not a bit! A Russian?--never! A
Yankee?--save me! I am a Greek--I take an Englishman.”
“Well, well, you must leave me to think it over,” said Mr. Pole,
pleasantly smoothed down. “As to honesty, that's a matter of course with
us: that's the mere footing we go upon. We don't plume ourselves upon
what's general, here. There is, I regret to say, a difference between
us and other nations. I believe it's partly their religion. They swindle
us, and pay their priests for absolution with our money. If you're a
double-dyed sinner, you can easily get yourself whitewashed over there.
Confound them! When that fellow sent no remittance last month, I told
you I suspected him. Who was, the shrewdest then? As for pluck, I
never failed in that yet. But, I will see a thing clear. The man who
speculates blindfold, is a fowl who walks into market to be plucked.
Between being plucked, and having pluck, you'll see a distinction when
you know the language better; but you must make use of your head, or the
chances are you won't be much of a difference,--eh? I'll think over your
scheme. I'm not a man to hesitate, if the calculations are sound. I'll
look at the papers here.”
“My friend, you will decide before zat I go to Italy.” said Mr.
Pericles, and presently took his leave.
When he was gone, Mr. Pole turned his chair to the table, and made an
attempt to inspect one of the papers deliberately. Having untied it,
he retied it with care, put it aside, marked 'immediate,' and read the
letter from Riga anew. This he tore into shreds, with animadversions on
the quality of the rags that had produced it, and opened the important
paper once more. He got to the end of a sentence or two, when his
fingers moved about for the letter; and then his mind conceived a
necessity for turning to the directory, for which he rang the bell. The
great red book was brought into his room by a youthful clerk, who waited
by, while his master, unaware of his presence, tracked a name with his
forefinger. It stopped at Pole, Samuel Bolton; and a lurking smile was
on the merchant's face as he read the name: a smile of curious meaning,
neither fresh nor sad; the meditative smile of one who looks upon
an afflicted creature from whom he is aloof. After a lengthened
contemplation of this name, he said, with a sigh, “Poor Chump! I wonder
whether he's here, too.” A search for the defunct proved that he was out
of date. Mr. Pole thrust his hand to the bell that he might behold poor
Chump in an old directory that would call up the blotted years.
“I am here, sir,” said his clerk, who had been holding deferential watch
at a few steps from the table.
“What do you do here then, sir, all this time?”
“I waited, sir, because--”
“You waste and dawdle away twenty or thirty minutes, when you ought to
be doing your work. What do you mean?” Mr. Pole stood up and took an
angry stride.
The young man could scarcely believe his master was not stooping to jest
with him. He said: “For that matter, sir, it can't be a minute that I
have been wasting.”
“I called you in half an hour ago,” returned Mr. Pole, fumbling at his
watch-fob.
“It must have been somebody else, sir.”
“Did you bring in this directory? Look at it! This?”
“This is the book that I brought in, sir.”
“How long since?”
“I think, not a minute and a half, sir.”
Mr. Pole gazed at him, and coughed slowly. “I could have sworn...” he
murmured, and commenced blinking.
“I suppose I must be a little queer,” he pursued; and instantly his
right hand struck out, quivering. The young clerk grasped it, and drew
him to a chair.
“Tush,” said his master, working his feverish fingers across his
forehead. “Want of food. I don't eat like you young fellows. Fetch me
a glass of wine and a biscuit. Good wine, mind. Port. Or, no; you can't
trust tavern Port:--brandy. Get it yourself, don't rely on the porter.
And bring it yourself, you understand the importance? What is your
name?”
“Braintop,” replied the youth, with the modesty of one whose name has
been too frequently subjected to puns.
“I think I never heard so singular a name in my life,” Mr. Pole
ejaculated seriously. “Braintop! It'll always make me think of brandy.
What are you waiting for now?”
“I took the liberty of waiting before, to say that a lady wished to see
you, sir.”
Mr. Pole started from his chair. “A foreign lady?”
“She may be foreign. She speaks English, sir, and her name, I think, was
foreign. I've forgotten it, I fear.”
“It's the wife of that fellow from Riga!” cried the merchant. “Show her
in. Show her in, immediately. I suspected this. She's in London, I know.
I'm equal to her: show her in. When you fetch the Braintop and biscuit,
call me to the door. You understand.”
The youth affected meekly to enjoy this fiery significance given to his
name, and said that he understood, without any doubt. He retired, and in
a few moments ushered in Emilia Belloni.
Mr. Pole was in the middle of the room, wearing a countenance of marked
severity, and watchful to maintain it in his opening bow; but when he
perceived his little Brookfield guest standing timidly in the doorway,
his eyebrows lifted, and his hands spread out; and “Well, to be sure!”
he cried; while Emilia hurried up to him. She had to assure him that
everything was right at home, and was next called upon to state what had
brought her to town; but his continued exclamation of “Bless my soul!”
reprieved her reply, and she sat in a chair panting quickly.
Mr. Pole spoke tenderly of refreshments; wine and cake, or biscuits.
“I cannot eat or drink,” said Emilia.
“Why, what's come to you, my dear?” returned Mr. Pole in unaffected
wonder.
“I am not hungry.”
“You generally are, at home, about this time--eh?”
Emilia sighed, and feigned the sad note to be a breath of fatigue.
“Well, and why are you here, my dear?” Mr. Pole was beginning to step to
the right and the left of her uneasily.
“I have come--” she paused, with a curious quick speculating look
between her eyes; “I have come to see you.”
“See me, my dear? You saw me this morning.”
“Yes; I wanted to see you alone.”
Emilia was having the first conflict with her simplicity; out of which
it was not to issue clear, as in the foregone days. She was thinking of
the character of the man she spoke to, studying him, that she might win
him to succour the object she had in view. It was a quality going, and a
quality coming; nor will we, if you please, lament a law of growth.
“Why, you can see me alone, any day, my dear,” said Mr. Pole; “for many
a day, I hope.”
“You are more alone to me here. I cannot speak at Brookfield. Oh!”--and
Emilia had to still her heart's throbbing--“you do not want me to go to
Italy, do you?”
“Want you to go? Not a bit. There is some talk of it, isn't there? I
don't want you to go. Don't you want to go.”
“No! no!” said Emilia, with decisive fervour.
“Don't want to go?”
“No: to stay! I want to stay!”
“Eh? to stay?”
“To stay with you! Never to leave England, at least! I want to give up
all that I may stay.”
“All?” repeated Mr. Pole, evidently marvelling as to what that
sounding box might contain; and still more, perplexed to hear Emilia's
vehement--“Yes! all!” as if there were that in the mighty abnegation to
make a reasonable listener doubtful.
“No. I really don't want you to go,” he said. “In fact,” and the
merchant's hospitable nature was at war with something in his mind, “I
like you, my dear; I like to have you about me. You're cheerful; you're
agreeable; I like your smile; your voice, too. You're a very pleasant
companion. Only, you know, we may break up our house. If the girls get
married, I must live somewhere in lodgings, and I couldn't very well ask
you to cook for me.”
“I can cook a little,” Emilia smiled. “I went into the kitchen, till
Adela objected.”
“Yes, but it wouldn't do, you know,” pursued Mr. Pole, with the
seriousness of a man thrown out of his line of argument. “You can cook,
eh? Got an idea of it? I always said you were a useful little woman. Do
have a biscuit and some wine:--No? well, where was I?--That confounded
boy. Brainty-top, top! that's it Braintop. Was I talking of him, my
dear? Oh no! about your getting married. For if you can cook, why not?
Get a husband and then you won't got to Italy. You ought to get one.
Some young fellows don't look for money.”
“I shall make money come, in time,” said Emilia; in the leaping ardour
of whose eyes might be seen that what she had journeyed to speak was
hot within her. “I know I shall be worth having. I shall win a name, I
think--I do hope it!”
“Well, so Pericles says. He's got a great notion of you. Perhaps he
means it himself. He's rich. Rash, I admit. But, as the chances go, he's
tremendously rich. He may mean it.”
“What?” asked Emilia.
“Marry you, you know.”
“Ah, what a torture!”
In that heat of her feelings she realized the horror of the words to
her, with an intensity that made them seem to quiver like an arrow in
her breast.
“You don't like him?” said Mr. Pole.
“Not love him! not love him!”
“Yes, yes, but that comes after marriage. Often the case. Look here:
don't you go against your interests. You mustn't be flighty. If Pericles
speaks to you, have him. Clap your hands. Dozens of girls would, that I
know.”
“But, oh!” interposed Emilia; “if he married me he would kiss me!”
Mr. Pole coughed and blinked. “Well!” he remarked, as one gravely
cogitating; and with the native delicacy of a Briton turned it off in a
playful, “So shall I now,” adding, “though I ain't your husband.”
He stooped his head. Emilia put her hands on his shoulders, and
submitted her face to him.
“There!” went Mr. Pole: “'pon my honour, it does me good:--better than
medicine! But you mustn't give that dose to everybody, my dear. You
don't, of course. All right, all right--I'm quite satisfied. I was only
thinking of you going to Italy, among those foreign rascals, who've no
more respect for a girl than they have for a monkey--their brother. A
set of swindlers! I took you for the wife of one when you came in, at
first. And now, business is business. Let's get it over. What have you
come about? Glad to see you--understand that.”
Emilia lifted her eyes to his.
“You know I love you, sir.”
“I'm sure you're a grateful little woman.”
She rose: “Oh! how can I speak it!”
An idea that his daughters had possibly sent her to herald one of the
renowned physicians of London, concerning whom he was perpetually being
plagued by them, or to lead him to one, flashed through Mr. Pole. He was
not in a state to weigh the absolute value of such a suspicion, but it
seemed probable; it explained an extraordinary proceeding; and, having
conceived, his wrath took it up as a fact, and fought with it.
“Stop! If that's what you've come for, we'll bring matters to a crisis.
You fancy me ill, don't you, my dear?”
“You do not look well, sir.”
Emilia's unhesitating reply confirmed his suspicion.
“I am well. I am, I say! And now, understand that, if that's your
business, I won't go to the fellow, and I won't see him here. They'll
make me out mad, next. He shall never have a guinea from me while I
live. No, nor when I die. Not a farthing! Sit down, my dear, and wait
for the biscuits. I wish to heaven they'd come. There's brandy coming,
too. Where's Braintop?”
He took out his handkerchief to wipe his forehead, and jerked it like a
bell-rope.
Emilia, in a singular bewilderment, sat eyeing a beam of sombre city
sunlight on the dusty carpet. She could only suppose that the offending
“he” was Wilfrid; but, why he should be so, she could not guess: and how
to plead for him, divided her mind.
“Don't blame him; be angry with me, if you are angry,” she began softly.
“I know he thinks of you anxiously. I know he would do nothing to hurt
you. No one is so kind as he is. Would you deprive him of money, because
he offends you?”
“Deprive him of money,” repeated Mr. Pole, with ungrudging accentuation.
“Well, I've heard about women, but I never knew one so anxious for a
doctor to get his fee as you are.”
Emilia wonderingly fixed her sight on him an instant, and, quite
unillumined, resumed: “Blame me, sir. But, I know you will be too kind.
Oh! I love him. So, I must love you, and I would not give you pain. It
is true he loves me. You will not see him, because he loves me?”
“The doctor?” muttered Mr. Pole. “The doctor?” he almost bellowed;
and got sharp up from his chair, and looked at himself in the glass,
blinking rapidly; and then turned to inspect Emilia.
Emilia drew him to her side again.
“Go on,” he said; and there became visible in his face a frightful
effort to comprehend her, and get to the sense of her words.
And why it was so frightful as to be tragic, you will know presently.
He thought of the arrival of Braintop, freighted with brandy, as the
only light in the mist, and breathing heavily from his nose, almost
snorting the air he took in from a widened mouth, he sat and tried to
listen to her words as well as for Braintop's feet.
Emilia was growing too conscious of her halting eloquence, as the
imminence of her happiness or misery hung balancing in doubtful scales
before her.
“Oh! he loves me, and I love him,” she gasped, and wondered why words
should be failing her. “See us together, sir, and hear us. We will make
you well.”
The exclamation “Good Lord!” groaned out in a tone as from the lower
pits of despair, cut her short.
Tearfully she murmured: “You will not see us, sir?”
“Together?” bawled the merchant.
“Yes, I mean together.”
“If you're not mad, I am.” And he jumped on his legs and walked to the
farther corner of the room. “Which of us is it?” His features twitched
in horribly comic fashion. “What do you mean? I can't understand a word.
My brain must have gone;” throwing his hand over his forehead. “I've
feared so for the last four months. Good God! a lunatic asylum! and
the business torn like a piece of old rag! I know that fellow at
Riga's dancing like a cannibal, and there--there 'll be articles in the
papers.--Here, girl! come up to the light. Come here, I say.”
Emilia walked up to him.
“You don't look mad. I dare say everybody else understands you. Do
they?”
The sad-flushed pallor of his face provoked Emilia to say: “You ought to
have the doctor here immediately. Let me bring him, sir.”
A gleam as of a lantern through his oppressive mental fog calmed the
awful irritability of his nerves somewhat.
“You've got him outside?”
“No, sir.”
The merchant's eagerness faded out. He put his hand to her shoulder, and
went along to a chair, sinking into it, and closing his eyelids. So they
remained, Emilia at his right hand. She watched him breathing with a
weak open mouth, and thought more of the doctor now than of Wilfrid.