DOMESTIC TROUBLES.
When Crosbie was making his ineffectual inquiry after Lady De
Courcy's bracelet at Lambert's, John Eames was in the act of entering
Mrs. Roper's front door in Burton Crescent.
"Oh, John, where's Mr. Cradell?" were the first words which greeted
him, and they were spoken by the divine Amelia. Now, in her usual
practice of life, Amelia did not interest herself much as to the
whereabouts of Mr. Cradell.
"Where's Cradell?" said Eames, repeating the question. "Upon my word,
I don't know. I walked to the office with him, but I haven't seen him
since. We don't sit in the same room, you know."
"John!" and then she stopped.
"What's up now?" said John.
"John! That woman's off and left her husband. As sure as your name's
John Eames, that foolish fellow has gone off with her."
"What, Cradell? I don't believe it."
"She went out of this house at two o'clock in the afternoon, and has
never been back since." That, certainly, was only four hours from
the present time, and such an absence from home in the middle of
the day was but weak evidence on which to charge a married woman
with the great sin of running off with a lover. This Amelia felt,
and therefore she went on to explain. "He's there upstairs in the
drawing-room, the very picture of disconsolateness."
"Who,--Cradell?"
"Lupex is. He's been drinking a little, I'm afraid; but he's very
unhappy, indeed. He had an appointment to meet his wife here at four
o'clock, and when he came he found her gone. He rushed up into their
room, and now he says she has broken open a box he had and taken off
all his money."
"But he never had any money."
"He paid mother some the day before yesterday."
"That's just the reason he shouldn't have any to-day."
"She certainly has taken things she wouldn't have taken if she'd
merely gone out shopping or anything like that, for I've been up in
the room and looked about it. She'd three necklaces. They weren't
much account; but she must have them all on, or else have got them in
her pocket."
"Cradell has never gone off with her in that way. He may be a fool--"
"Oh, he is, you know. I've never seen such a fool about a woman as he
has been."
"But he wouldn't be a party to stealing a lot of trumpery trinkets,
or taking her husband's money. Indeed, I don't think he has anything
to do with it." Then Eames thought over the circumstances of the
day, and remembered that he had certainly not seen Cradell since
the morning. It was that public servant's practice to saunter into
Eames's room in the middle of the day, and there consume bread and
cheese and beer,--in spite of an assertion which Johnny had once made
as to crumbs of biscuit bathed in ink. But on this special day he had
not done so. "I can't think he has been such a fool as that," said
Johnny.
"But he has," said Amelia. "It's dinner-time now, and where is he?
Had he any money left, Johnny?"
So interrogated, Eames disclosed a secret confided to him by his
friend which no other circumstances would have succeeded in dragging
from his breast.
"She borrowed twelve pounds from him about a fortnight since,
immediately after quarter-day. And she owed him money, too, before
that."
"Oh, what a soft!" exclaimed Amelia; "and he hasn't paid mother a
shilling for the last two months!"
"It was his money, perhaps, that Mrs. Roper got from Lupex the day
before yesterday. If so, it comes to the same thing as far as she is
concerned, you know."
"And what are we to do now?" said Amelia, as she went before her
lover upstairs. "Oh, John, what will become of me if ever you serve
me in that way? What should I do if you were to go off with another
lady?"
"Lupex hasn't gone off," said Eames, who hardly knew what to say
when the matter was brought before him with so closely personal a
reference.
"But it's the same thing," said Amelia. "Hearts is divided. Hearts
that have been joined together ought never to be divided; ought
they?" And then she hung upon his arm just as they got to the
drawing-room door.
"Hearts and darts are all my eye," said Johnny. "My belief is that
a man had better never marry at all. How d'you do, Mr. Lupex? Is
anything the matter?"
Mr. Lupex was seated on a chair in the middle of the room, and was
leaning with his head over the back of it. So despondent was he in
his attitude that his head would have fallen off and rolled on to the
floor, had it followed the course which its owner seemed to intend
that it should take. His hands hung down also along the back legs of
the chair, till his fingers almost touched the ground, and altogether
his appearance was pendent, drooping, and wobegone. Miss Spruce
was seated in one corner of the room, with her hands folded in her
lap before her, and Mrs. Roper was standing on the rug with a look
of severe virtue on her brow,--of virtue which, to judge by its
appearance, was very severe. Nor was its severity intended to be
exercised solely against Mrs. Lupex. Mrs. Roper was becoming very
tired of Mr. Lupex also, and would not have been unhappy if he also
had run away,--leaving behind him so much of his property as would
have paid his bill.
Mr. Lupex did not stir when first addressed by John Eames, but a
certain convulsive movement was to be seen on the back of his head,
indicating that this new arrival in the drawing-room had produced
a fresh accession of agony. The chair, too, quivered under him, and
his fingers stretched themselves nearer to the ground and shook
themselves.
"Mr. Lupex, we're going to dinner immediately," said Mrs. Roper. "Mr.
Eames, where is your friend, Mr. Cradell?"
"Upon my word I don't know," said Eames.
"But I know," said Lupex, jumping up and standing at his full height,
while he knocked down the chair which had lately supported him. "The
traitor to domestic bliss! I know. And wherever he is, he has that
false woman in his arms. Would he were here!" And as he expressed
the last wish he went through a motion with his hands and arms which
seemed intended to signify that if that unfortunate young man were in
the company he would pull him in pieces and double him up, and pack
him close, and then despatch his remains off, through infinite space,
to the Prince of Darkness. "Traitor," he exclaimed, as he finished
the process. "False traitor! Foul traitor! And she too!" Then, as he
thought of this softer side of the subject, he prepared himself to
relapse again on to the chair. Finding it on the ground he had to
pick it up. He did pick it up, and once more flung away his head over
the back of it, and stretched his finger-nails almost down to the
carpet.
"James," said Mrs. Roper to her son, who was now in the room, "I
think you'd better stay with Mr. Lupex while we are at dinner. Come,
Miss Spruce, I'm very sorry that you should be annoyed by this kind
of thing."
"It don't hurt me," said Miss Spruce, preparing to leave the room.
"I'm only an old woman."
"Annoyed!" said Lupex, raising himself again from his chair, not
perhaps altogether disposed to remain upstairs while the dinner, for
which it was intended that he should some day pay, was being eaten
below. "Annoyed! It is a profound sorrow to me that any lady should
be annoyed by my misfortunes. As regards Miss Spruce, I look upon her
character with profound veneration."
"You needn't mind me; I'm only an old woman," said Miss Spruce.
"But, by heavens, I do mind!" exclaimed Lupex; and hurrying forward
he seized Miss Spruce by the hand. "I shall always regard age as
entitled--" But the special privileges which Mr. Lupex would have
accorded to age were never made known to the inhabitants of Mrs.
Roper's boarding-house, for the door of the room was again opened at
this moment, and Mr. Cradell entered.
"Here you are, old fellow, to answer for yourself," said Eames.
Cradell, who had heard something as he came in at the front door,
but had not heard that Lupex was in the drawing-room, made a slight
start backwards when he saw that gentleman's face. "Upon my word and
honour," he began;--but he was able to carry his speech no further.
Lupex, dropping the hand of the elderly lady whom he reverenced, was
upon him in an instant, and Cradell was shaking beneath his grasp
like an aspen leaf,--or rather not like an aspen leaf, unless an
aspen leaf when shaken is to be seen with its eyes shut, its mouth
open, and its tongue hanging out.
"Come, I say," said Eames, stepping forward to his friend's
assistance; "this won't do at all, Mr. Lupex. You've been drinking.
You'd better wait till to-morrow morning, and speak to Cradell then."
"To-morrow morning, viper," shouted Lupex, still holding his prey,
but looking back at Eames over his shoulder. Who the viper was had
not been clearly indicated. "When will he restore to me my wife? When
will he restore to me my honour?"
"Upon-on-on-on my--" It was for the moment in vain that poor Mr.
Cradell endeavoured to asseverate his innocence, and to stake his
honour upon his own purity as regarded Mrs. Lupex. Lupex still held
to his enemy's cravat, though Eames had now got him by the arm, and
so far impeded his movements as to hinder him from proceeding to any
graver attack.
"Jemima, Jemima, Jemima!" shouted Mrs. Roper. "Run for the police;
run for the police!" But Amelia, who had more presence of mind than
her mother, stopped Jemima as she was making to one of the front
windows. "Keep where you are," said Amelia. "They'll come quiet in a
minute or two." And Amelia no doubt was right. Calling for the police
when there is a row in the house is like summoning the water-engines
when the soot is on fire in the kitchen chimney. In such cases good
management will allow the soot to burn itself out, without aid from
the water-engines. In the present instance the police were not called
in, and I am inclined to think that their presence would not have
been advantageous to any of the party.
"Upon-my-honour--I know nothing about her," were the first words
which Cradell was able to articulate, when Lupex, under Eames's
persuasion, at last relaxed his hold.
Lupex turned round to Miss Spruce with a sardonic grin. "You hear his
words,--this enemy to domestic bliss,--Ha, ha! man, tell me whither
you have conveyed my wife!"
"If you were to give me the Bank of England I don't know," said
Cradell.
"And I'm sure he does not know," said Mrs. Roper, whose suspicions
against Cradell were beginning to subside. But as her suspicions
subsided, her respect for him decreased. Such was the case also with
Miss Spruce, and with Amelia, and with Jemima. They had all thought
him to be a great fool for running away with Mrs. Lupex, but now
they were beginning to think him a poor creature because he had not
done so. Had he committed that active folly he would have been an
interesting fool. But now, if, as they all suspected, he knew no
more about Mrs. Lupex than they did, he would be a fool without any
special interest whatever.
"Of course he doesn't," said Eames.
"No more than I do," said Amelia.
"His very looks show him innocent," said Mrs. Roper.
"Indeed they do," said Miss Spruce.
Lupex turned from one to the other as they thus defended the man
whom he suspected, and shook his head at each assertion that was
made. "And if he doesn't know who does?" he asked. "Haven't I seen
it all for the last three months? Is it reasonable to suppose that
a creature such as she, used to domestic comforts all her life,
should have gone off in this way, at dinner-time, taking with her my
property and all her jewels, and that nobody should have instigated
her; nobody assisted her! Is that a story to tell to such a man as
me! You may tell it to the marines!" Mr. Lupex, as he made this
speech, was walking about the room, and as he finished it he threw
his pocket-handkerchief with violence on to the floor. "I know what
to do, Mrs. Roper," he said. "I know what steps to take. I shall put
the affair into the hands of my lawyer to-morrow morning." Then he
picked up his handkerchief and walked down into the dining-room.
"Of course you know nothing about it?" said Eames to his friend,
having run upstairs for the purpose of saying a word to him while he
washed his hands.
"What,--about Maria? I don't know where she is, if you mean that."
"Of course I mean that. What else should I mean? And what makes you
call her Maria?"
"It is wrong. I admit it's wrong. The word will come out, you know."
"Will come out! I'll tell you what it is, old fellow, you'll get
yourself into a mess, and all for nothing. That fellow will have you
up before the police for stealing his things--"
"But, Johnny--"
"I know all about it. Of course you have not stolen them, and of
course there was nothing to steal. But if you go on calling her Maria
you'll find that he'll have a pull on you. Men don't call other men's
wives names for nothing."
"Of course we've been friends," said Cradell, who rather liked this
view of the matter.
"Yes,--you have been friends! She's diddled you out of your money,
and that's the beginning and the end of it. And now, if you go on
showing off your friendship, you'll be done out of more money. You're
making an ass of yourself. That's the long and the short of it."
"And what have you made of yourself with that girl? There are worse
asses than I am yet, Master Johnny." Eames, as he had no answer ready
to this counter attack, left the room and went downstairs. Cradell
soon followed him, and in a few minutes they were all eating their
dinner together at Mrs. Roper's hospitable table.
Immediately after dinner Lupex took himself away, and the
conversation upstairs became general on the subject of the lady's
departure.
"If I was him I'd never ask a question about her, but let her go,"
said Amelia.
"Yes; and then have all her bills following you, wherever you went,"
said Amelia's brother.
"I'd sooner have her bills than herself," said Eames.
"My belief is, that she's been an ill-used woman," said Cradell. "If
she had a husband that she could respect and have loved, and all that
sort of thing, she would have been a charming woman."
"She's every bit as bad as he is," said Mrs. Roper.
"I can't agree with you, Mrs. Roper," continued the lady's champion.
"Perhaps I ought to understand her position better than any one here,
and--"
"Then that's just what you ought not to do, Mr. Cradell," said Mrs.
Roper. And now the lady of the house spoke out her mind with much
maternal dignity and with some feminine severity. "That's just what
a young man like you has no business to know. What's a married
woman like that to you, or you to her; or what have you to do with
understanding her position? When you've a wife of your own, if ever
you do have one, you'll find you'll have trouble enough then without
anybody else interfering with you. Not but what I believe you're
innocent as a lamb about Mrs. Lupex; that is, as far as any harm
goes. But you've got yourself into all this trouble by meddling, and
was like enough to get yourself choked upstairs by that man. And
who's to wonder when you go on pretending to be in love with a woman
in that way, and she old enough to be your mother? What would your
mamma say if she saw you at it?"
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Cradell.
"It's all very well your laughing, but I hate such folly. If I see a
young man in love with a young woman, I respect him for it;" and then
she looked at Johnny Eames. "I respect him for it,--even though he
may now and then do things as he shouldn't. They most of 'em does
that. But to see a young man like you, Mr. Cradell, dangling after an
old married woman, who doesn't know how to behave herself; and all
just because she lets him to do it;--ugh!--an old broomstick with a
petticoat on would do just as well! It makes me sick to see it, and
that's the truth of it. I don't call it manly; and it ain't manly, is
it, Miss Spruce?"
"Of course I know nothing about it," said the lady to whom the appeal
was thus made. "But a young gentleman should keep himself to himself
till the time comes for him to speak out,--begging your pardon all
the same, Mr. Cradell."
"I don't see what a married woman should want with any one after her
but her own husband," said Amelia.
"And perhaps not always that," said John Eames.
It was about an hour after this when the front-door bell was rung,
and a scream from Jemima announced to them all that some critical
moment had arrived. Amelia, jumping up, opened the door, and then the
rustle of a woman's dress was heard on the lower stairs. "Oh, laws,
ma'am, you have given us sich a turn," said Jemima. "We all thought
you was run away."
"It's Mrs. Lupex," said Amelia. And in two minutes more that ill-used
lady was in the room.
"Well, my dears," said she, gaily, "I hope nobody has waited dinner."
"No; we didn't wait dinner," said Mrs. Roper, very gravely.
"And where's my Orson? Didn't he dine at home? Mr. Cradell, will you
oblige me by taking my shawl? But perhaps you had better not. People
are so censorious; ain't they, Miss Spruce? Mr. Eames shall do it;
and everybody knows that that will be quite safe. Won't it, Miss
Amelia?"
"Quite, I should think," said Amelia. And Mrs. Lupex knew that she
was not to look for an ally in that quarter on the present occasion.
Eames got up to take the shawl, and Mrs. Lupex went on.
"And didn't Orson dine at home? Perhaps they kept him down at the
theatre. But I've been thinking all day what fun it would be when he
thought his bird was flown."
"He did dine at home," said Mrs. Roper; "and he didn't seem to like
it. There wasn't much fun, I can assure you."
"Ah, wasn't there, though? I believe that man would like to have me
tied to his button-hole. I came across a few friends,--lady friends,
Mr. Cradell, though two of them had their husbands; so we made a
party, and just went down to Hampton Court. So my gentleman has gone
again, has he? That's what I get for gadding about myself, isn't it,
Miss Spruce?"
Mrs. Roper, as she went to bed that night, made up her mind that,
whatever might be the cost and trouble of doing so, she would lose no
further time in getting rid of her married guests.