“‘This will never do,’ murmured Wake, in a low voice. ‘Say something – tell a story – but let us keep moving.’
“And Collins began some narrative of his early experiences on the Turf. The story, like all such, was the old burden of knave and dupe, – the man who trusted and the man who cheated. None of us paid much attention to the details, but drank away at our wine, and sent the decanters briskly round, when suddenly, at the mention of a horse being found dead in his stall on the morning he was to have run, Hawke broke in with ‘Nobbled! Just like me!’
“Though the words were uttered in a sort of revery, and with a bent-down head, we all were struck dumb, and gazed ruefully at each other. ‘Where’s Towers all this time?’ said Collins to me, in a whisper. I looked at my watch, and saw that it was forty-four minutes since he left the room. I almost started up from my seat with terror, as I thought what this long absence might portend. Had he actually gone off, leaving us all to the perils that were surrounding us? Was it that he had gone to betray us to the law? I could not speak from fear when the door opened, and he came in and sat down in his place. Though endeavoring to seem easy and unconcerned, I could mark that he wore an air of triumph and success that he could not subdue.
“‘Here comes the brew,’ said he, as the servant brought in a large smoking bowl of fragrant mixture.
“‘I ‘ll not touch it!’ said Hawke, with a resolute tone that startled us.
“‘What! after giving me more than half an hour’s trouble in preparing it,’ said Towers. ‘Come, old fellow, that is not gracious.’
“‘Drink it yourselves!’ said Hawke, sulkily.
“‘So we will, after we have finished this Burgundy,’ said Towers. ‘But, meanwhile, what will you have? It’s poor fun to sit here with an empty glass.’ And he filled him out a goblet of the milk-punch and placed it before him. ‘Here’s to the yellow jacket with black sleeves,’ said he, lifting his glass; ‘and may we see him the first “round the corner.”’
“‘First “round the corner!”’ chorused the rest of us. And Hawke, catching up the spirit of the toast, seized his glass and drank it off.
“‘Iknew he ‘d drink his own colors if he had one leg in the grave!’ said Towers.
“The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten at the moment. It was the hour I was to meet her in the shrubbery; and so, pretending to go in search of my cigar-case, I slipped away and left them. As I was passing behind Hawke’s chair, he made a gesture to me to come near him. I bent down my head to him, and he said, ‘It won’t do this time; she ‘ll not meet you, Paul.’ These were the last words I ever heard him speak.”
When Paten had got thus far, he walked away from his friend, and, leaning his arm on the bulwark, seemed overwhelmed with the dreary retrospect. He remained thus for a considerable time, and only rallied as Stocmar, drawing his arm within his, said, “Come, come, this is no fresh sorrow now. Let me hear the remainder.”
“He spoke truly,” said he, in a broken voice. “She never came! I walked the grounds for above an hour and a half, and then I came back towards the cottage. There was a light in her room, and I whistled to attract her notice, and threw some gravel against the glass, but she only closed the shutters, and did not mind me. I cannot tell you how my mind was racked between the actual terror of the situation and the vague dread of some unknown evil. What had produced this change in her? Why had she broken with me? Could it be that Towers had seen her in that long interval he was absent from the table, and, if so, to what intent? She always hated and dreaded him; but who could tell what influence such a man might acquire in a moment of terrible interest? A horrible sense of jealousy – not the less maddening that it was shadowy and uncertain – now filled my mind; and – would you believe it? – I thought worse of Towers for his conduct towards me than for the dreadful plot against Hawke. Chance led me, as I walked, to the bank of the little lake, where I stood for some time thinking. Suddenly a splash – too heavy for the spring of a fish – startled me, and immediately after I heard the sound of some one forcing his way through the close underwood beside me. Before I had well rallied from my astonishment, a voice I well knew to be that of Towers, cried out, —
“‘Who ‘s there? – who are you?’
“I called out, ‘Hunt, – Paul Hunt!’
“‘And what the devil brings you here, may I ask?’ said he, insolently, but in a tone that showed he had been drinking deeply.
“It was no time to provoke discord; it was a moment that demanded all we could muster of concession and agreement, and so I simply told how mere accident had turned my steps in this direction.
“‘What if I said I don’t believe you, Paul Hunt?’ retorted he, savagely. ‘What if I said that I see your whole game in this business, and know every turn and every trick you mean to play us?’
“If you had not drunk so much of Godfrey’s Burgundy,’ said I, ‘you ‘d never have spoken this way to an old friend.’
“‘Friend be – !’ cried he, savagely. ‘I know no friends but the men who will share danger with you as well as drink out of the same bottle. Why did you leave us this evening?’
“‘I’ll be frank with you, Tom,’ said I. ‘I had made a rendezvous with Louisa; but she never came.’
“‘Why should she?’ muttered he, angrily. ‘Why should she trust the man who is false to his pals?’
“‘That I have never been,’ broke I in. ‘Ask Hawke himself. Ask Godfrey, and he’ll tell you whether I have ever dropped a word against you.’
“‘No, he would n’t,’ said he, doggedly.
“‘I tell you he would,’ cried I. ‘Let us go to him this minute.’
“‘I ‘d rather not, if the choice were given me,’ said he, with a horrid laugh.
“‘Do you mean,’ cried I, in terror, – ‘do you mean that it is all over?’
“‘All over!’ said he, gravely, and as though his clouded faculties were suddenly cleared. ‘Godfrey knows all about it by this time,’ muttered he, half to himself.
“‘Would to Heaven we had never come here!’ burst I in, for my heart was breaking with anguish and remorse. ‘How did it happen, and where?’
“‘In the chair where you last saw him. We thought he had fallen asleep, and were for having him carried up to bed, when he gave a slight shudder and woke up again.
“Where’s Loo?” cried he, in a weak voice; and then, before we could answer, he added, “Where ‘s Hunt?”
“‘"Paul was here a moment ago; he ‘ll be back immediately.”
“‘He gave a laugh, – such a laugh I hope never to hear again. Cold as he lies there now, that terrible grin is on his face yet. You ‘ve done it this time, Tom,” said he to me, in a whisper. “What do you mean?” said I. “Death!” said he; “it’s all up with me, – your time is coming.” And he gave a ghastly grin, sighed, and it was over.’
“We both sat down on the damp ground, and never spoke for nigh an hour. At last Tom said, ‘We ought to be back in the house, and trying to make ourselves useful, Paul.’
“I arose, and walked after him, not knowing well whither I was going. When we reached the little flower-garden, we could see into the dining-room. The branch of wax-candles were still lighted, but burnt down very low. All had left; there was nothing there but the dead man sitting up in his chair, with his eyes staring, and his chin fallen. ‘Craven-hearted scoundrels!’ cried Towers. ‘The last thing I said was to call in the servants, and say that their master had fainted; and see, they have run away out of sheer terror. Ain’t these hopeful fellows to go before the coroner’s inquest?’ I was trembling from head to foot all this while, and had to hold Towers by the arm to support myself. ‘You are not much better!’ said he, savagely. ‘Get to bed, and take a long sleep, man. Lock your door, and open it to none till I come to you.’ I staggered away as well as I could, and reached my room. Once alone there, I fell on my knees and tried to pray, but I could not. I could do nothing but cry, – cry, as though my heart would burst; and I fell off asleep, at last, with my head on the bedside, and never awoke till the next day at noon. Oh!” cried he, in a tone of anguish, “do not ask me to recall more of this dreadful story; I’d rather follow the others to the scaffold, than I ‘d live over again that terrible day. But you know the rest, – the whole world knows it. It was the ‘Awful Tragedy in Jersey’ of every newspaper of England; even to the little cottage, in the print-shop windows, the curiosity of the town was gratified. The Pulpit employed the theme to illustrate the life of the debauchee; and the Stage repeated the incidents in a melodrama. With a vindictive inquisitiveness, too, the Press continued to pry after each of us, whither we had gone, and what had become of us. I myself, at last, escaped further scrutiny by the accidental circumstance of a pauper, called Paul Hunt, having died in a poor-house, furnishing the journalist who recorded it one more occasion for moral reflection and eloquence. Collins lived, I know not how or where. She sailed for Australia, but I believe never went beyond the Cape.”
“And you never met her since?”
“Never.”
“Nor have you held any correspondence together?”
“None, directly. I have received some messages; one to that purport I have already told you. Indeed, it was but t’ other day that I knew for certain she was in Europe.”
“What was she in appearance, – what style and manner of person?”
“You shall guess before I tell you,” said Paten, smiling sadly.
“A dark-eyed, dark-haired woman, – brunette, – tall, – with a commanding look, – thin lips, – and strongly marked chin.”
“Here,” said he, approaching the binnacle lantern, and holding out a miniature he had drawn from his breast, – “here you can recognize the accuracy of your description.”
“But can that be like her?”
“It is herself; even the careless ease of the attitude, the voluptuous indolence of the ‘pose,’ is all her own.”
“But she is the very type of feminine softness and delicacy. I never saw eyes more full of gentle meaning, nor a mouth more expressive of womanly grace.”
“There is no flattery in the portrait; nay, it wants the great charm she excelled in, – that ever changeful look as thoughts of joy or sadness would flash across her.”
“Good Heavens!” cried Stocmar. “How hard it is to connect this creature, as she looks here, with such a story!”
“Ah, my friend, these have been the cruel ones, from the earliest time we hear of. The more intensely they are womanly, the more unrelenting their nature.”
“And what do you mean to do, Ludlow? for I own to you I think she is a hard adversary to cope with.”
“I’ ll marry her, if she ‘ll have me.”
“Have you? Of course she will.”
“She says not; and she generally keeps her word.”
“But why should you wish to marry her, Ludlow? You have already told me that you know nothing of her means, or how she lives; and, certainly, the memories of the past give small guarantee for the future. As for myself, I own to you, if there was not another woman – ”
“Nay, nay,” broke in Paten, “you have never seen her, – never spoken to her.”
“You forget, my dear fellow, that I have passed a life in an atmosphere of mock fascinations; that tinsel attractions and counterfeit graces would all fail with me.”
“But who says they are factitious?” cried Paten, angrily. “The money that passes from hand to hand, as current coin, may have some alloy in its composition a chemist might call base, but it will not serve to stamp it as fraudulent. I tell you, Stocmar, it is the whole fortune of a man’s life to be associated with such a woman. They can mar or make you.”
“More likely the first,” muttered Stocmar. And then added aloud, “And as to her fortune, you actually know nothing.”
“Nothing beyond the fact that there’s money somewhere. The girl or she, I can’t say which, has it.”
“And of course, in your eyes, it ‘s like a pool at écarté: you don’t trouble your head who are the contributors?”
“Not very much if I win, Stocmar!” said he, resuming at once all the wonted ease of his jovial manner.
Stocmar walked the deck in deep thought. The terrible tale he had just heard, though not new in all its details, had impressed him fearfully, while at the same time he could not conceive how a man so burdened with a horrible past could continue either to enjoy the present or speculate on the future.
At last he said, “And have you no dread of recognition, Ludlow? Is the danger of being known and addressed by your real name not always uppermost with you?”
“No, not now. When I first returned to England, after leaving the Austrian service, I always went about with an uneasy impression upon me, – a sort of feeling that when men looked at me they were trying to remember where and when and how they had seen that face before; but up to this none have ever discovered me, except Dell the detective officer, whom I met one night at Cremorne, and who whispered me softly, ‘Happy to see you, Mr. Hunt. Have you been long in England?’ I affected at first not to understand him, and, touching his hat politely, he said: ‘Well, Sir, – Jos. Dell. If you remember, I was there at the inquest.’ I invited him to share a bottle of wine with me at once, and we parted like old friends. By the way,” added he, “there was that old pyrotechnist of yours, – that drunken rascal, —he knew me too.”
“Well, you ‘re not likely to be troubled with another recognition from him, Ludlow.”
“How so? Is the fellow dead?”
“No; but I ‘ve shipped him to New York by the ‘Persia.’ Truby, of the Bowery Theatre, has taken a three years’ lease of him, and of course cocktails and juleps will shorten even that.”
“That is a relief, by Jove!” cried Paten. “I own to you, Stocmar, the thought of being known by that man lay like a stone on my heart. Had you any trouble in inducing him to go?”
“Trouble? No. He went on board drunk; he ‘ll be drunk all the voyage, and he ‘ll land in America in the same happy state.”
Paten smiled pleasantly at this picture of beatitude, and smoked on. “There’s no doubt about it, Stocmar,” said he, sententiously, “we all of us do make cowards of ourselves quite needlessly, imagining that the world is full of us, canvassing our characters and scrutinizing our actions, when the same good world is only thinking of itself and its own affairs.”
“That is true in part, Ludlow. But let us make ourselves foreground figures, and, take my word for it, we ‘ll not have to complain of want of notice.”
Paten made a movement of impatience at this speech, that showed how little he liked the sentiment, and then said, —
“There are the lights of Ostend. What a capital passage we have made! I can’t express to you,” said he, with more animation, “what a relief it is to me to feel myself on the soil of the Continent. I don’t know how it affects others, but to me it seems as if there were greater scope and a freer room for a man’s natural abilities there.”
“I suppose you think we are cursed with ‘respectability’ at home.”
“The very thing I mean,” said he, gayly; “there’s nothing I detest like it.”
“Colonel Paten,” cried the steward, collecting his fees.
“Are you Colonel?” asked Stocmar, in a whisper.
“Of course I am, and very modest not to be Major-General. But here we are, inside the harbor already.”
Were we free to take a ramble up the Rhine country, and over the Alps to Como, we might, perhaps, follow the steps of the two travellers we have here presented to our reader. They were ultimately bound for Italy, but in no wise tied by time or route. In fact, Mr. Stocmar’s object was to seek out some novelties for the coming season. “Nihil humanum a me alienum puto” was his maxim. All was acceptable that was attractive. He catered for the most costly of all publics, and who will insist on listening to the sweetest voices and looking at the prettiest legs in Europe. He was on the lookout for both. What Ludlow Paten’s object was the reader may perhaps guess without difficulty, but there was another “transaction” in his plan not so easily determined. He had heard much of Clara Hawke, – to give her her true name, – of her personal attractions and abilities, and he wished Stocmar to see and pronounce upon her. Although he possessed no pretension to dispose of her whatever, he held certain letters of her supposed mother in his keeping which gave him a degree of power which he believed irresistible. Now, there is a sort of limited liability slavery at this moment recognized in Europe, by which theatrical managers obtain a lease of human ability, for a certain period, under nonage, and of which Paten desired to derive profit by letting Clara out as dancer, singer, comedian, or “figurante,” according to her gifts; and this, too, was a purpose of the present journey.
The painter or the sculptor, in search of his model, has no higher requirements than those of form and symmetry; he deals solely with externals, while the impresario most carry his investigations far beyond the category of personal attractions, and soar into the lofty atmosphere of intellectual gifts and graces, bearing along with him, at the same time, a full knowledge of that public for whom he is proceeding; that fickle, changeful, fanciful public, who sometimes, out of pure satiety with what is best, begin to long for what is second-rate. What consummate skill must be his who thus feels the pulse of fashion, recognizing in its beat the indications of this or that tendency, whether “society” soars to the classic “Norma,” or descends to the tawdry vulgarisms of the “Traviata”! No man ever accepted more implicitly than Mr. Stocmar the adage of “Whatever is, is best.” The judgment of the day with him was absolute. The “world” a toujours raison, was his creed. When that world pronounced for music, he cried, “Long live Verdi!” when it decided for the ballet, his toast was, “Legs against the field!” Now, at this precise moment, this same world had taken a turn for mere good looks, – if it be not heresy to say “mere” to such a thing as beauty, – and had actually grown a little wearied of roulades and pirouettes; and so Stocmar had come abroad, to see what the great slave market of Europe could offer him.
Let us suppose them, therefore, pleasantly meandering along through the Rhineland, while we turn once more to those whom we have left beyond the Alps.
CHAPTER XXVII. THE FRAGMENT OF A LETTER
The following brief epistle from Mrs. Morris to her father will save the reader the tedious task of following the Heathcote family through an uneventful interval, and at the same time bring him to that place and period in which we wish to see him. It is dated Hôtel d’Italie, Florence: —
“Dear Papa, – You are not to feel any shock or alarm at the black margin and wax of this epistle, though its object be to inform you that I am a widow, Captain Penthony Morris having died some eight months back in Upper India; but the news has only reached me now. In a word, I have thought it high time to put an end to this mythical personage, whose cruel treatment of me I had grown tired of recalling, and, I conclude, others of listening to. Now, although it may be very hard on you to go into mourning for the death of one who never lived, yet I must bespeak your grief, in so far as stationery is concerned, and that you write to me on the most woe-begone of cream-laid, and with the most sorrow-struck of seals.
“There was, besides, another and most cogent reason for my being a widow just now. The Heathcotes are here, on their way to Rome, and, like all English people, eager to go everywhere, do everything, and know everybody; the consequence is eternal junketing and daily dinner-parties. I need not tell you that in such a caravanserai as this is, some one would surely turn up who should recognize me; so there was nothing for it but to kill Captain M. and go into crape and seclusion. As my bereavement is only a sham, I perform the affliction without difficulty. Our mourning, too, becomes us, and, everything considered, the incident has spared us much sight-seeing and many odious acquaintances.
“As it is highly important that I should see and consult you, you must come out here at once. As the friend and executor of poor ‘dear Penthony,’ you can see me freely, and I really want your advice. Do I understand you aright about Ludlow? If so, the creature is a greater fool than I thought him. Marrying him is purely out of the question. Of all compacts, the connubial demands implicit credulity; and if this poor man’s tea were to disagree with him, he ‘d be screaming out for antidotes before the servants, and I conclude that he cannot expect me to believe in him. The offer you have made him on my part is a great and brilliant one, and, for the life of me, I cannot see why he should hesitate about it, though I, perhaps, suspect it to be this. Like most fast men, – a very shallow class, after all, – his notion is that life, like a whist-party, requires an accomplice. Now, I would beg him to believe this is not the case, and that for two people who can play their cards so well as we can, it is far better to sit down at separate tables, where no suspicion of complicity can attach to us. I, at least, understand what suits my own interest, which is distinctly and emphatically to have nothing to do with him. You say that he threatens, – threatens to engulf us both. If he were a woman, the menace would frighten me, but men are marvellously conservative in their selfishness, and so I read it as mere threat.
“It is, I will say, no small infliction to carry all this burden of the past through a present rugged enough with its own difficulties. To feel that one can be compromised, and, if compromised, ruined at any moment, – to walk with a half-drawn indictment over one, – to mingle in a world where each fresh arrival may turn out accuser, – is very, very wearisome, and I long for security. It is for this reason I have decided on marrying Sir William instead of his son. The indiscretion of a man of his age taking a wife of mine will naturally lead to retirement and reclusion from the world, and we shall seek out some little visited spot where no awkward memories are like to leave their cards on us. I have resigned myself to so much in life, that I shall submit to all this with as good a grace as I have shown in other sacrifices. Of course L. can spoil this project, – he can upset the boat, – but he ought to remember, if he does, that he was never a good swimmer. Do try and impress this upon him; there are usually some flitting moments of every day when he is capable of understanding a reason. Catch one of these, dear pa, and profit by it. It is by no means certain that Miss L. would accept him; but, certainly, smarting as she is under all manner of broken ties, the moment is favorable, and the stake a large one. Nor is there much time to lose, for it seems that young Heathcote cannot persuade the Horse Guards to give him even a ‘Cornetcy,’ and is in despair how he is to re-enter the service; the inevitable consequence of which will be a return home here, and, after a while, a reconciliation. It is only wise people who ever know that the science of life is opportunity, everything being possible at some one moment, which, perhaps, never recurs again.
“I scarcely know what to say about Clara. She has lost her spirits, though gained in looks, and she is a perfect mope, but very pretty withal. She fancies herself in love with a young college man lately here, who won all the disposable hearts in the place, and might have had a share even in mine, if he had asked for it. The greater fool he that he did not, since he wanted exactly such guidance as I could give to open the secret door of success to him. By the way, has his father died, or what has become of him? In turning over some papers t’other day, the name recurred with some far from pleasant recollections associated with it. Scientific folk used to tell us that all the constituents of our mortal bodies became consumed every seven years of life. And why, I ask, ought we not to start with fresh memories as well as muscles, and ignore any past beyond that short term of existence? I am perfectly convinced it is carrying alone bygones, whether of events or people, that constitutes the greatest ill of life. One so very seldom repents of having done wrong, and is so very, very sorry to have lost many opportunities of securing success, that really the past is all sorrow.
“You have forgotten to counsel me about Clara. The alternative lies between the stage and a convent. Pray say which of the two, in these changeful times, gives the best promise of permanence; and believe me
“Your affectionate daughter,
“Louisa.”