Emilia, for the last two Sundays, had taken Mr. Barrett's place at the organ. She was playing the prelude to one of the evening hymns, when the lover, whose features she dreaded to be once more forgetting, appeared in the curtained enclosure. A stoppage in the tune, and a prolonged squeal of the instrument, gave the congregation below matter to speculate upon. Wilfrid put up his finger and sat reverently down, while Emilia plunged tremblingly at the note that was howling its life away. And as she managed to swim into the stream of the sacred melody again, her head was turned toward her lover under a new sensation; and the first words she murmured were, "We have never been in church together, before."
"Not in the evening," he whispered, likewise impressed.
"No," said Emilia softly; flattered by his greater accuracy.
If Wilfrid could have been sure that he would be perfect master of that sentimental crew known to him under the denomination of his feelings, the place he selected for their parting interview might be held creditable to this young officer's acknowledged strategical ability. It was a place where any fervid appeals were impossible; where he could contemplate her, listen to her, be near her, alone with her, having nothing to dread from tears, supplications, or passion, as a consequence of the short indulgence of his tenderness. But he had failed to reckon on the chances that he himself might prove weak and be betrayed by the crew for whose comfort he was always providing; and now, as she sat there, her face being sideways to him, the flush of delight faint on her cheek, and her eyelids half raised to the gilded pipes, while full and sonorous harmony rolled out from her touch, it seemed the very chorus of the heavens that she commanded, and a subtle misty glory descended upon her forehead, which he was long in perceiving to be cast from a moisture on his eyelids.
When the sermon commenced, Emilia quitted the organ and took his hand.
In very low whispers, they spoke:
"I have wanted to see you so!"
"You see me now, little woman."
"On Friday week next I am to go away."
"Nonsense! You shall not."
"Your sisters say, yes! Mr. Pericles has got my father's consent, they say, to take me to Italy."
"Do you think of going?"
Emilia gazed at her nerveless hands lying in her lap.
"You shall not go!" he breathed imperiously in her ear.
"Then you will marry me quite soon?" And Emilia looked as if she would be smiling April, at a word.
"My dear girl!" he had an air of caressing remonstrance.
"Because," she continued, "if my father finds me out, I must go to Italy, or go to that life of torment in London—seeing those Jew-people— horrible!—or others and the thought of it is like being under the earth, tasting bitter gravel! I could almost bear it before you kissed me, my lover! It would kill me now. Say! say! Tell me we shall be together. I shudder all day and night, and feel frozen hands catching at me. I faint—my heart falls deep down, in the dark…I think I know what dying is now!"
She stopped on a tearless sob; and, at her fingers' ends, Wilfrid felt the quivering of her frame.
"My darling!" he interjected. He wished to explain the situation to her, as he then conceived it. But he had, in his calculation, failed also to count on a peculiar nervous fretfulness, that the necessity to reiterate an explanation in whispers must superinduce. So, when Emilia looked vacant of the intelligence imparted to her, he began anew, and emphatically; and ere he was half through it, Mr. Marter, from the pulpit underneath, sent forth a significant reprimand to the conscience of a particular culprit of his congregation, in the form of a solemn cough. Emilia had to remain unenlightened, and she proceeded to build on her previous assumption; doing the whispering easily and sweetly; in the prettiest way from her tongue's tip, with her chin lifted up; and sending the vowels on a prolonged hushed breath, that seemed to print them on the hearing far more distinctly than a volume of sound. Wilfrid fell back on monosyllables. He could not bring his mouth to utter flinty negatives, so it appeared that he assented; and then his better nature abused him for deluding her. He grew utterly ashamed of his aimless selfish double- dealing. "Can it be?" he questioned his own mind, and listened greedily to any mental confirmations of surpassing excellence in her, that the world might possibly acknowledge. Having, with great zeal, created a set of circumstances, he cursed them heartily, after the fashion of little people. He grew resigned to abandon Lady Charlotte, and to give his name to this subduing girl; but a comfortable quieting sensation came over him, at the thought that his filial duty stood in the way. His father, he knew, was anxious for him to marry into a noble family— incomprehensibly anxious to have the affair settled; and, as two or three scenes rose in his mind, Wilfrid perceived that the obstacle to his present fancy was his father.
As clearly as he could, with the dread of the preacher's admonishing cough before him, Wilfrid stated the case to Emilia; saying that he loved her with his whole heart; but that the truth was, his father was not in a condition of health to bear contradiction to his wishes, and would, he was sure, be absolutely opposed to their union. He brought on himself another reprimand from Mr. Marter, in seeking to propitiate Emilia's reason to comprehend the position rightly; and could add little more to the fact he had spoken, than that his father had other views, which it would require time to combat.
Emilia listened attentively, replying with a flying glance to the squeeze of his hand. He was astonished to see her so little disconcerted. But now the gradual fall of Mr. Marter's voice gave them warning.
"My lover?" breathed Emilia, hurriedly and eagerly; questioning with eye and tone.
"My darling!" returned Wilfrid.
She sat down to the organ with a smile. He was careful to retreat before the conclusion of the service; somewhat chagrined by his success. That smile of hers was inexplicable to him.
CHAPTER XXIV
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."