Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Five.
Vive L’amour
“Yes, Mr Canau is at home,” said a very mealy-faced girl, who replied to Harry Clayton’s knock; and he was shown into a barely-furnished but neat parlour, to wait while, apparently, some lesson was being concluded in the back room, where a voice could be heard counting loudly: – “One, two, three; one, two, three;” and a duet between pianoforte and violin appeared to be in fierce progress. Then there was silence, a buzz of voices, and very tightly dressed, very fierce-looking – with his closely-cut hair, as he walked behind an enormous moustache, – the little exile entered.
“Ah! mon cher, cher ami!” he exclaimed; and in a moment his arms were round his visitor. But directly after, he seemed to recollect himself, and drew back hastily to hold out his hand. “I beg pardon – thousand pardons; but I shall never be an Englishman.”
Then, running to the door, he cried in a loud voice, “Mes amis – mes amis – entrez.”
Harry Clayton’s heart beat, as the next minute Jared Pellet entered with Patty and Janet, who both started with surprise, Patty colouring deeply, and the latter looking from one to the other with something nearly akin to anger.
Harry hesitated but for one moment; and then, obeying the dictates of his heart, and heedless of the presence of father and friends, caught Patty in his arms, and kissed her tenderly.
“Aha!” said Canau; “but you do not apologise, as I did, mon ami. I did draw back, and make offer of my hand.”
“So I do – now and for ever,” cried Harry, “if Patty here will take it. You will forgive me, I know, Mr Pellet, for seeming brusque, but I cannot talk, – I cannot make professions. I am indeed, though, earnest and true, and I believe that you have read me aright.”
“Yes, yes – yes, yes,” said Jared, softly. “I know, but it is not for me to read. We will go and sit with Janet, and you will join us soon.”
“But, papa!” cried Patty, blushing a deeper crimson, as she hurried to his side.
“Well, my child,” he said, as he kissed her white forehead fondly, “shall I stay then?”
“Miss Pellet will, I hope, give me a short interview alone,” said Harry, crossing to her side as Canau and Janet left the room.
“Patty, dear Patty,” he said, “I am no courtly wooer, only a poor student.”
“No, no!” exclaimed Jared. “Haven’t we seen the honours you have won.”
“I have little to offer,” continued Harry, “but the true love of an honest man; but it is so true, so unselfish a love, that I blush not to offer it here in your father’s presence. But I have much to learn from you, for I tremble – this is not the welcome I had hoped to receive. You shrank from me almost with coldness, though you know that from our first meeting I have loved you. Mine may be a simple love, but I offer you a heart that never gave thought to another. But still I would not press you for that which was not yours to give. Tell me that you are not free in thought, and I will say no more.”
There was a few moments’ pause, during which Jared fiercely stroked his cheek, and then thrust his hands into his pockets, shrugging his shoulders almost up to his ears, à la Canau, – but, though Patty essayed to speak, her words were inaudible, as she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
Treading upon tip-toe as if he were amongst pedal-keys, Jared softly left the room, and for the next few minutes, Harry, grown eloquent with affection, pleaded his cause earnestly, till Janet glided in, looking curiously from one to the other.
“Ah, Janet!” exclaimed Harry, catching her hands in his, “you know how I have loved her from the first. You will speak for me, will you not?”
“No; why should I?” said Janet, coldly, as she turned from him to Patty, taking her to her breast in a motherly fashion, as if to protect her. “She is rich now, and you are proud to know her; but look back at when she was poor. You were ashamed to know her then before your fine friends. And then look at your cruel suspicions. Do you think I could not read them all? I have told her a hundred times over that yours was but a passing fancy – that you saw her pretty face, and liked it, and – and that was all.”
“I was weak and unjust, I know,” said Harry; “but have I not tried to expiate my sin? But why do you speak of a passing fancy? What do you mean? How can you be so unjust? Are there to be fresh riddles now?”
“Why should you trouble her when you are promised to some one else?” cried Janet, fiercely, as she turned upon him, holding Patty to her breast the while, and stroking her luxuriant hair.
“I! Promised to some one else?” exclaimed Harry. “Well, yes,” he added, gloomily. “I suppose it is to be so – to Alma Mater – to my studies.”
“Hush, Patty. No; I will not be silent,” cried Janet, excitedly; for Patty had turned imploringly to her. “I will speak to him – I will not be silent. Have you,” she exclaimed to Harry, “have you forgotten your stay in Essex, at a pleasant house with a lawn in front, stretching down to the road?”
She looked at him searchingly, as if she would read his very thoughts, while she awaited his answer.
“Forgotten! no, certainly not,” said Harry. “Nearly two years ago, was it not?”
“Yes, yes; I see that you remember,” cried Janet, with a tinge of sarcasm in her tones.
“Well!” said Harry, looking from one to the other in evident perplexity, for Patty’s eyes were fixed upon him anxiously, as if her happiness depended upon his answer.
“Well!” said Janet, scornfully, “do you remember?”
“You are speaking in riddles,” cried Harry, almost angrily, in his turn. “What does this mean? If you allude to my visit nearly two years since, with a brother student to his home – yes, I was there a week – a pleasant, happy week of home-life, such as I have seldom known.”
“Happy, no doubt,” said Janet, harshly.
There was a simple look of wonder and bewilderment in Harry’s face that directly disarmed suspicion, and the harsh aspect slowly faded from Janet’s countenance as the young man said calmly —
“Janet, I cannot understand what you would accuse me of; but it cannot be any falling away from my love for Patty; and as to being promised to another, I never till now spoke words of love to woman.”
The doubt and suspicion faded away still further, to leave poor Janet’s countenance almost sweet in its expression of loving sadness, as she turned away to whisper in her friend’s ear, and to kiss her fondly; and her eyes were suffused with tears, as she gently pressed back Patty’s clinging hands, and glided from the room.
For, trembling, fluttering, half-pained, half-joyous, Patty would have followed, but there were other hands to arrest her half-way; and as the door softly swung to, she felt herself drawn unresisting, now, closer and closer, to another’s breast.
Shall we tell of the words that fell now from Harry’s impassioned lips? – of the gentle, dove-like eyes that now looked up, half-scared, half-wonderingly in his, till that look was subdued and softened into one that was all love? Of the hour, that fled like minutes, as he drew the yielding little form closer, till her breath fanned his cheek, and her red, half-pouted lips seemed to ask the kiss they dared not then return? Enough, if we say that, as Harry sat proudly there, and whispered of the future, it was with a little head nestling in his breast; and when – how long after, neither knew – Jared was heard loudly approaching the room, violently humming one of the melodies from “Zampa,” and, of course, so pre-occupied, that he stumbled over the mat, and kicked it back into its place before rattling the door handle and entering, they did not move; why should they?
Jared stood and gazed for a moment with bended head, half smiling, and evidently about to utter some bantering remark; but it did not leave his lips, which began to twitch, and his face to work as he turned from them.
“Father, dear father!” cried Patty, as she fled to his side, “you are not angry?”
“Angry? No, my darling, I am not angry,” and he drew her to him to kiss her tenderly. “I am not angry, but glad and thankful to see my child happy. It brings back thoughts of old times when I – but this will not do. And what will somebody at home say to it all? I am a weak old fogey, and let you have your own way, but there is moth – I mean mamma, to consult, remember.”
At that moment the door was once more softly opened, and Janet entered slowly, to look at the trio inquiringly, till in Harry’s happy face she read all she wished to learn, and pressed his hand as he led her to a chair, sitting down by her side, and talking to her for some time, so that father and daughter might converse for a while without interruption.
Evening fell upon them unawares, and the black shadows made Janet’s countenance darker still, as, at last, gazing earnestly in Harry’s face, she laid one bony hand on his, and tried to speak, but the words died inaudibly away.
“Did you wish to ask me something?” said Harry, softly; for he had in those happy hours learned the poor girl’s secret.
“Yes.”
“You may trust me,” he said, gently; “but you are a woman of strong good sense. Let me ask you something first – Is it wise?”
“I think so,” said Janet, sadly. “I am not mad now. I suffered then, but it has passed away, to leave me wiser and better, I hope. Do you think,” she added, somewhat bitterly, “that I shall be like the little one that cried for the moon?”
Harry was silent for a while, thinking, but he was interrupted by Janet’s whisper —
“Tell me – is he well?”
“Yes,” said Harry.
“And you have seen him?”
“Not for above a year.”
“But you have had news; tell me what it is.”
Harry was again thoughtful and silent. Should he tell her or no? The blow must come some day; had it not better fall upon her now, and be at an end?
“Do you fear to tell me?” she said again.
Harry’s answer was to draw Sir Francis Redgrave’s letter from his pocket, and place it in her hands.
“Read it,” he said, “when you are alone.”
Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Six.
At the New Home
Parted at last, for Harry had seen father and daughter into an omnibus, one which must have been Ben Jonson’s “chariot at hand here of love, in which my lady rideth,” and drawn by swans or doves, instead of a jangling piece of wood and iron work, with a wretched knacker on either side of the pole. How memory, though, dwelt upon her whose soft kiss – the first – was yet dewy sweet upon his lips – upon his, for she was his promised wife; and as he passed through the streets, walking as if upon air, flushed, proud, happy, he saw nothing but the bright future his fancy painted.
Then came the recollection of Janet, and he admired her as he thought of the calm resignation with which she seemed to pour out the lavish tenderness of her nature upon Patty.
At this point Harry glided selfishly away again in thought to add fresh colouring to his happy future.
Harry was early at Highgate the next day, to find Mrs Jared very stern and uncompromising; but he was too much for her in his downright honest declaration.
“Don’t be hard upon me, Mrs Pellet – don’t send me away; for indeed I love her very, very dearly.”
Mrs Jared was beaten, as well she might be, for there were Jared and Patty looking on. It was not consistent, she knew; but Harry stayed that day and dined with them, and saw Jared ready to go off to the vicar’s, stay to have a string tucked in here – Jared always was great in strings – and a brushing there; while, in the exertion of making the most of himself, he burst a pearl button off his wrist-band.
And now Patty was called into requisition to sew that button on again; and I vow and declare that the fresh disc of pearl which she held between her lips while she made a knot at the end of her thread, was not so bright and pure-looking as the little regular teeth over which Harry went into raptures.
Who would not have been Jared, and had that downy cheek laid against his wrist? Why, if it had been any other wrist, it must have beat and throbbed at a redoubled rate! Or who would not have been the thread which Patty bit in two when the button had been duly stabbed in all its eyes over and over again? Why, that thread must have been conscious, and enjoyed it, or it never would have held out so long, instead of being bitten through at first!
Jared gone, leaving Harry Clayton in his fold amongst the lambs of his flock. Very reprehensible, no doubt; but no worse than Mrs Jared’s behaviour. For though left at home as guardian, she either turned wilfully blind, or else her assertion was true that there was so much to settle and arrange that she thought she never should get to be at home in her new house. In fact, she was constantly away; and when by chance she did come into the room, it was to murmur to Patty about some precious thing or another that she was sure must have been left at Duplex Street.
Strange proceedings there were that afternoon at Highgate. Why could not Harry allow Patty to busily ply her needle instead of insisting upon holding one hand in his? Why, too, must he fancy that he had grown domestic, and want to help and prepare the tea? for in spite of the change in circumstances, it was hard work for Mrs Pellet and Patty to break themselves of their old homely ways. Harry kept the latter in a state of nervous flutter the whole time as he whispered. But then, at a certain stage in their existence, people do make themselves so absurd, or rather, as Richard Pellet used to say, “such fools.” The fact is, lovers imagine the whole world to be blind to their actions, when the fact is – bless the sweet innocency of their hearts! – the handkerchief is around their own eyes.
Yes; Harry must make the toast, which ought now, of course, to have been made in the kitchen – and fill up a great deal of the available space by the fire, manifesting not the slightest intention of going away so long as he could feast his eyes. There was no one there but a couple of small Pellets – little round Pellets, who sat very still, and looked on most solemnly. It was not at all surprising, seeing how such instruction is neglected at our great seats of learning, that Harry Clayton, in spite of honours, should burn that toast very often, and leave great white patches where all should have been brown.
Yes; they were as homely as ever at Highgate, though in the midst of plenty; for Mrs Jared said that she could never settle to the ways adopted by some people, even if she had a million a week. And now she was away inspecting a regiment of white jam-pots suffering from an attack of mould; so if there was any cause for the ruddy glow in Patty’s cheeks, it must have been due to a combination of Mrs Jared’s unconventional behaviour, and the example set by Adam and Eve some little time since; though there is still the possibility of the fire being to blame.
That afternoon glided away magically, and Jared was late for tea. It did not matter in the least, though he apologised for being so long away. And then what an evening was spent! for Canau arrived with Janet and a long black case, the sight of which set Jared’s fingers strumming upon the table.
Musical, of course, they were all the evening, and to Patty the notes now were those of love. But there was room for sadness even then, and Patty’s heart felt heavy as she saw the yearning, eager, almost envious look in Janet’s eyes, and thought of the poor girl’s future, till she crossed the room, and told her that she should always be happy could they but be near.
Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Seven.
In the Reflector
Jared Pellet used to declare with a grim smile that he thought he had been more happy as a poor man in Duplex Street than he was now that he had inherited his brother’s property and thriving business; for he had never known how much misery, poverty, and wretchedness was in the world before the secretaries of different charities began taking ample care to keep him well-informed upon the subject. Jared used to say he thought, he was not sure though, he almost found the money a trouble to him; in fact, it would have been a burden if he had not somewhat lightened it by the arrangement he made respecting Harry and the money brought by his mother into the firm. He did not now find so much time for dreaming over his old organ, sooner than part from which he would almost have given up the worldly goods now in his possession.
The old house was kept on for some time in Duplex Street almost intact; and when it was decided to give it up, Mrs Jared had a good long cry over it, in spite of its pinched looks and bare rooms, but where she said that she had passed so many, many happy hours, gone never to return.
Wonderful was the collection of odds and ends brought away to be deposited in the wealthy new home – one and all articles that it was declared to be impossible to leave behind. One was Jared’s glue-pot, which showed its malignant disposition to the very last, and, after being wrapped up carefully in paper, proved to have a quantity of nasty, foul, sticky water somewhere in its internal regions, which ran out all over the other objects packed in the box.
Patty, too, must be obstinate about the old tin-kettle of a piano, with the rusty wires, being left behind. What were instruments of great compass from Broadwood or Collard? They could not make her feel that she was to desert old friends. How many boxes of strange pieces of ware, and fragments of this and that, were packed up under the name of playthings, it is hard to say.
One, at least, of Mrs Jared’s weaknesses has been already mentioned. This may not come in the same list, but during the arrangements what time the house in Duplex Street was turned what she called inside out, and the question was in full discussion as to what was to be taken, what left to be sold, this lady suddenly exclaimed, in answer to expostulations – “What! leave that rolling-pin and paste-board? No, not if I know it: I’ve had them twenty years, and – ”
The remainder of Mrs Jared’s speech was inaudible from her head suddenly disappearing in the depths of a big box, where she was rolling the implements in question in the folds of an old scorched ironing-blanket for safety. It is worthy of remark, that at the time Mrs Jared was packing, her jacket was hung beside her on the knob of the door, and that jacket was handsome, and of ermine.
“Well, dear, is there anything else you would like to take?” said Jared.
“Yes; that there is!” was the reply, as Mrs Jared took down a bunch of extremely dusty sweet herbs from a hook in the kitchen ceiling, and placed it beside the swaddled rolling-pin. “Yes; the things were hard enough to get together, and somehow I can hardly realise, even now, that we can afford to leave them behind!”
After that night in the church, Jared took a dislike to the reflector, for as to giving up the right to conducting the service at St Runwald’s, that was out of the question, and Mr Timson used to boast to the vicar that they had not only the best, but the richest organist in London. And it was only occasionally, as a personal favour, to one of the above gentlemen, that a stranger was allowed to try the instrument.
That reflector Jared took down himself from over the keyboard of the organ, and old Purkis bore it into the damp vestry, where in course of time its reflective power became almost nil.
But though Jared no longer possessed a reflector in which he could gaze and dream, and conjure up the past, yet one has a mirror of the mind upon which, after a breath, the surface shines as I sit late this wintry night, as Purkis sat of old in the dim shades of the gloomy old church, listening to the inspiring music of the grand old organ, thundering in peals, wailing in sighs, or pouring forth jubilant melody. For above me in the distance, from behind a curtain suspended to a brass rod, rises a faint glow as from some soft light, above which start up, like the golden pillars dimly seen when the northern lights flush the wintry sky, the mighty pipes whose summits are in the deep obscurity which clouds the open roof of the edifice. And in my mirror what is there first? An indelible picture? No; for it fades to give place to others, as now there is visible Jared’s patient lined old face poring over music-book and keyboard by the light of one feeble candle which seems to shed a halo round his quaint old head.
Now the interior of the old church by day, with Jared at the organ. A bright spring morning, and the organist in the morning costume of a glossy black dress-coat and trousers – Tim Ruggles’ cut for a ducat! – white vest, and patent leather-boots. His grizzly hair has a peculiar knotty appearance? and did any mirror reflect odours, most surely there would be a smell of curling-tongs and singeing. There is a camellia, too, in his button-hole, and he has just hurried up-stairs, splitting a pair of white kid-gloves all to ribbons in dragging them off. Crash! That’s the brass curtain-rings on the rod, so that Jared can screw himself round and gaze down into the church, now that he has taken a music-book from the locker and placed it upon the stand of the opened organ.
The sun streams through the tinted windows in golden and ruddy glories piercing the sombre twilight of the church with rays whereon dance myriad motes of dust – dust perhaps mingled with that of the generations of the past. Jared is looking over the heads of many people anxiously towards the chancel; and now seems to come a strange rushing sound, and a dull creak, creak, which makes the towering old instrument to shudder. But that is only Ichabod Gunnis, grown tall and out of leathers, toiling away at the long handle of the bellows till the little weight tells that the wind-chest is full.
And now here comes the party which Jared left in the vestry, for there is a buzz of excitement in the church, and heads are craning, while Tim Ruggles is so excited that he stands up on the cushions of the pew he helps to occupy so as to have a better view of what is going on.
Here they come! No, they don’t; that’s only old Purkis in full uniform, plump, ruddy, glistening with moisture that he is too dignified to remove, as he rolls solemnly down the nave towards the door, waving the people back with his cane. Smile? Not he! beadles don’t smile in public life, only when out of uniform; and as to using a handkerchief, he could not do that, unless compelled by such a fleshquake or sneeze as now shakes Mr Purkis’s frame, caused by that sooty dust that pervades the church, and not by damp.
But now they do come: Patty leaning upon the arm of Harry Clayton; Timson next, rounder than ever, with Janet on his arm – bridesmaids – more friends – a bright confusion of figures, with only one here and there to be recognised in the mirror. But there is Canau; there Mr Grey, who has doffed his surplice; and, right at the back, there is Mrs Purkis, crying and laughing together, but turning solemn directly after, as becomes the pew-opener of St Runwald’s.
Peal up the wedding-march, old Jared! But Jared can’t play; not he. He has blundered several chords, though no one is a bit the wiser. He would break down, only he has known the piece by heart for years. There is music open, stave and cleff and crotchet and quaver; but the big-headed notes seem to be bobbing up and down upon their spindle bodies, and wagging their tails, and waltzing round and round. And really the book might just as well be in the locker as upon the stand; for, though Jared knows it not, it is upside down. There is dew all over Jared’s spectacles, and they refuse to be seen through, while a great tear has trickled down, gathering strength from affluents as it proceeds, till it hangs upon the tip of Jared’s nose, to go plash down at last upon the central G natural of the fingerboard. And there are more weak tears stealing down from behind his spectacles to moisten his cheeks. They might be taken for perspiration, since he is smiling as he plays mechanically, for he never performed in a more soulless fashion in his life.
But then he always was weak, and queer, and unbusinesslike; and “some people are such fools!” It could hardly be expected that at such a time he should be exact in his fingering; but his actions are so odd that one might say, “Bring a strait waistcoat,” only that he is in one already, which crackles at every motion. And now comes a dismal groan, due to the exciting event; for, probably for only the third or fourth time in his life – being, in spite of his vagaries, a most exemplary bellows-boy – Ichabod has let the wind out of the organ.
It does not matter, for the wedding-party is already in the porch, being waited on by a deputation from the Campanological Brethren, in the shape of Beaky Jem of the tenor, who grins and rubs his Roman rostrum as he growls out something about the bells. Timson is at him, though, fighting hard to get a hand into his tight pocket, and fighting just as hard to get it out with what must have been a satisfactory answer; for St Runwald’s peal asserts itself this day, far above the roar of the streets, ringing out merrily in thousands of changes, stimulated by the “sight o’ beer that there was in that belfry sewerly.”
The mirror blank, and then a tall, pale woman listening with clasped hands to a never-wearying tale told her by a strangely-wrinkled little man, who sits and pretends to smoke, and pokes at and arranges the scrubby trifle of hair by his temples with the stem of his pipe – a tale of a little gentle child whose spirit fled as he slept, holding her to his quaint but loving breast. How many times Tim Ruggles has told of little Pine it were hard to say, but neither he nor his listener ever tires; and perhaps it is due to their hands that flowers bloom so sweetly upon the little grave. The fount of tears might have been dry before now; but no! there is always one ready to fall to the child’s memory. A strange, quiet woman this, who rarely speaks, seldom smiles, save when Patty Clayton enters with a dimple-faced baby, and sits and lets the pale, silent woman kneel by her side, and gaze with a yearning love at the tiny piece of humanity, which coos and laughs in her face.
Jared again, and grown older. The man who was puzzled years before by a letter in French from a small Norman town, saying that the writer had been much surprised at not seeing Monsieur Pellet after his note appointing an interview; but that arrangements could be entered into for the reception of one lady boarder. Jared could not understand this letter, but the truth forced itself upon him at last, that it must have been intended for his brother, who was on his way to keep his appointment when that stern voice cried “Stay!”
Jared is in his old place, with two fresh cherubs perched there, one on either side of the organ – fresh-coloured, bright-eyed, restless cherubs, upon whom the old wooden bloated angels of the instrument look jealously down. And there sits “Grandpa,” pretending to practise, but a very slave to the whims and caprices of these household gods. Wonderful now are the variations made upon the pieces played: pedals are pressed down by tiny feet, stops are pulled out or pushed in; then bass or treble discords are played at unexpected times by little pudgy hands; or in the midst of the grand composition of some noble old master, the organ once more gives forth its dying wails, for the wind is out, through Ichabod Gunnis playing at “bo-peep” between the curtains with one of the cherubs, and miscalculating the lasting properties of a well-pumped, full chest of wind. But all this does not trouble Jared, who looks the picture of earthly happiness.
Poor Jared! he is head of the Austin Friars establishment, but he is afraid of the manager there, and slinks guardedly in and out. He goes every other day, because his son-in-law wishes it; but Jared is always very nervous, and fancies that the manager looks down upon him, because he comes up every Sunday from Highgate to play St Runwald’s organ, and afterwards eat a modest chop in Fleet Street with Canau, who generally has been with him to help him with the stops.
The scenes come quickly now across the face of the mirror – scenes of grey old men smoking long pipes, and playing cribbage or whist at Harry’s place, or at Jared’s home; of life’s downward course made smoother for many by the heaped-up wealth that Jared inherits; of old Timson standing before the organist, with hands beneath his coat-tails, and a frown upon his brow, though there is an odd twinkle in his eye as he points to a deficiency in the poor-box, reproached the while by the vicar, who goes with the churchwarden to empty the boxes upon the very next day, to find that deficiency is amply made up.
No glance at mirror now, but a long gaze from a seat at the reality. There is the faint glow from behind the curtain; the softened tones are pealing and quivering in the air as they float round the darkened church. The music is sweet but sad, and the soft strains thrill as they sound funereal – dirge-like. Is it the touch of Jared? The tall golden pipes stand up ray-like, and they quiver in the glow. The hour is late, the streets are getting hushed, and the solemnity of the place seems oppressive, aided as it is in its influence upon the senses by the wailing strains that sob through the air.
Silence for awhile, and the sense of oppression more heavy; but now once more come the swelling softened tones of the grand old instrument – strains wild and extemporised – music that is almost palpable, as it flows current-like through nave, aisles, and chancel – sad music, solemn strains – and then once more silence.
A strange thrill now, but only for an instant, of jarring pain; for the old clock chimes the hour, and each lapse of time is beaten out upon bell-rim by a ponderous hammer, and the lumbering old machinery is set to work by its weights, and hammers out a mutilated version of the Old Hundredth Psalm, before the clicking, grinding works stand still, and the brazen clangour dies away.