On a fine morning, two days after Miss Lambert's visit to Mr Hancock, Mr Bevan entered his sitting-room in the "Albany" dressed for going out. He wore a tea rose in his buttonhole, and Strutt, who followed his master, bore in his hands a glossy silk hat far more carefully than if it had been a baby.
A most comfortably furnished and tastefully upholstered room was this in which Charles Bevan smoked his one cigar and drank his one whisky and seltzer before retiring to bed each night; everything spoke of an orderly and well-regulated mind; of books there were few in bindings sedate as their subject matter, and they had the air of prisoners rarely released from the narrow cases that contained them. On the walls hung a series of Gillray's engravings depicting "the flagitious absurdities of the French during their occupation of Egypt." On the table reposed the Field, the Times, and the Spectator (uncut).
But what the deuce can he want? said Charles, who was holding an open letter in his hand. It was a letter from the family lawyer asking his attendance in Southampton Row at his earliest convenience.
Maybe, said Strutt, blowing away a speck of dust that had dared to settle on the hat, "Maybe, sir, it's about the lawsuit."
Bevan put the letter in his pocket, took his hat and stick from the faithful Strutt and departed.
He made for "Brooks'."
Mr Bevan patronised "Brooks'" and the "Reform."
In the deserted smoking-room of "Brooks'" he sat down to write some letters, and here followeth the correspondence of a modern Chesterfield.
"To J. Holdsworth,
Hay Street, Pimlico.
"Sir,—The thing you sent for my inspection yesterday is no use. I'm not anxious to buy camels. Please do not trouble any more in the matter. I wasted half an hour over this yesterday and my time is valuable if the time of your groom is not.—Yours truly,
"C. M. Bevan."
"To Mrs Neurapath,
Secretary to Neurapath's Home for
Lost and Starving Cats, Bermondsey.
"Madam,—In answer to your third demand for a contribution to your funds, I write to tell you that it is my fixed rule never to contribute to private charities.—Yours, etc.,
"C. M. Bevan."
"To Messrs Teitz;
Breeches Makers, Oxford Street.
"Sir,—Please send your foreman to see me in the 'Albany' to-morrow at ten A.M. The breeches don't fit.—Yours, etc.,
"C. M. Bevan."
"To Miss Pamela Pursehouse,
The Roost, Rookhurst, Kent.
"My Dearest Pam,—Just a line scribbled in a hurry to say I will be down in a few days. I am writing this at 'Brooks''. It's a beautiful morning, but I expect it will be a scorching day, like yesterday, it's always the way with this beastly climate, one is either scorched, or frozen, or drowned. Just as I am writing this, old Sir John Blundell has come into the room, he's the most terrible bore, mad on roses and can't talk of anything else, he's fidgetting about behind me trying to attract my attention, so I have to keep on writing and pretending not to see him. I'm sorry the buff Orpington cock is dead, was he the one who took the first prize? I'll get you another if you let me know where to send. I think there are some buff Orpingtons at Highshot but am not sure, I don't take any interest in hens—only of course in yours. They say hen-farming pays on a big scale, but I don't see where the profit can come in. Thank goodness, that old fool Blundell has just gone out—now I must stop,—With love, ever yours (etc., etc.),
"Charley."
The author of this modern Englishman's love letter, having stamped and deposited his correspondence in the club letter-box, entered the hansom which had been called for him, and proceeded to his solicitor, James Hancock, of the firm of Hancock & Hancock, Southampton Row.
When Bevan was shown in, Mr Hancock was seated at his desk table, writing a letter with a quill pen. He tossed his spectacles up on his forehead and held out his hand.
I am sorry to have put you to the inconvenience of calling, said he, crossing his legs, and playing with a paper knife, "but the fact is, I have received a communication from the other side, who seem anxious to bring this affair to a conclusion."
Oh, do they? said Charles Bevan.
The fact is, continued the elder gentleman slapping his knee with the flat of the paper knife as he spoke, "the fact is, Mr George Lambert is in very great financial straits, and if the truth were known, I verily believe the truth would be that he is quite insolvent."
Charles made no reply.
But he will go on fighting the case, unless we can come to terms, even though he has to borrow money for the purpose, for he is a very litigious man this Mr George Lambert, a very litigious man!
Well, let him fight, cried Charles; "I ask nothing better."
Still, said the old lawyer, "I thought it better to lay before you the suggestion that has come from the other side, and which is simply this——" He paused, drew a tortoiseshell snuff-box from his pocket, and took a furious pinch of snuff. "Which is simply this, that each party pay their own costs, and that the fishing rights be shared equally. We beat them in the Queen's Bench, but when the matter comes before the Court of Appeal, who knows but——"
Pay what? cried Charles Bevan. "Pay my own costs after having fought so long, and nearly beaten this pirate, this poacher! Show me the letter containing this proposal, this infamous suggestion."
Dear me, dear me, my dear sir, pray do not take the matter so crookedly, cried the man of law lowering his spectacles and beginning to mend a quill pen in an irritable manner. "There is nothing infamous in this proposal, and indeed it reached me not through the mediumship of a letter, but of a young lady. Mr George Lambert's daughter called upon me in person, a most—er—charming young lady. She gave me to understand from her conversation—her most artless conversation—that her unfortunate father is on the brink, the verge, I may say the verge of ruin. But he himself does not see it, pig-headed man that he is. In fact she, the young lady herself, does not seem to see it. Dear me, dear me, their condition makes me shudder."
When did she call? asked Bevan.
Two days ago, blurted out the old lawyer splitting the quill and nearly cutting his finger with the penknife.
Why was I not informed sooner of this disgraceful proposition, demanded Bevan.
I declare I have been so busy—— said the other.
Well, tell George Lambert, I will fight as long as I have teeth to fight with, and if I lose the action I'll break him anyhow, foamed Charles who was now in the old-fashioned port-wine temper, which was an heirloom in the Bevan family. "I'll buy up his mortgages and foreclose, tell his wretched daughter——"
Mr Bevan, suddenly interposed the lawyer, "Miss Fanny Lambert is a most charming lady for whom I have a deep respect—I may say a very deep respect—the suggestion came from her informally. I doubt indeed if Mr George Lambert would listen to any proposals for an amicable settlement, he declares you have treated him, to use his expression—er—not as one gentleman should treat another."
Charles turned livid.
Where does this Lambert live now?
At present he resides I believe, at his town house 'The Laurels,' Highgate——. Why! Mr Bevan——
Charles had risen.
He said I was not a gentleman, did he? and you listened to him, I suppose, and agreed with him, and you—no matter, I'll be my own solicitor, I'll go and see him, and tell him he ought to be ashamed of tampering with my business people through the medium of his daughter. Yes, we'll see—'The Laurels' Highgate.
Mr Bevan, Mr Bevan! cried old James Hancock in despair.
But Mr Bevan was gone, strutting out like an enraged turkey-cock through the outer office.
I am afraid I have but made matters worse, I am afraid I have but made matters worse, moaned the peace-loving Mr Hancock, rubbing his shrivelled hands together in an agony of discomfiture, whilst Charles Bevan hailed a cab outside, determined to have it out man to man with this cousin who had dared to say that a Bevan had behaved in a dishonourable manner.
Up in Highgate an hour later you might have seen a hansom driving about, pausing here and there to ask of policemen, pedestrians, and others for "The Laurels."
There's a' many Laurels, said the milkman, who was also the first director, and so after awhile Mr Bevan found to his cost.
But at last they found, with the aid of a local directory, the right one, a spacious house built of red brick seen through an avenue of lime trees all abuzz with bees.
There was no sign of life in the little gate lodge, and the entrance gate was pushed back; the orderly eye of Charles Bevan noticed that it was half off its hinges; also, that the weeds in the avenue were rampant.
A laburnum had pushed its way through the limes, and a peony, as large almost as a cabbage, had laid its head on the avenue-way, presenting a walk-over-me-I-don't-care appearance, quite in accordance with the general aspect of things.
The hansom drew up at the door and the traveller from Southampton Row flung away his cigar end, alighted, and ran up the three steps leading to the porch. He rang the bell, and then stood wondering at the luxuriance of the wisteria that overspread the porch, and contemplating the hind hocks of the cab-horse which had been fired.
What he was about to do or say when he found himself in the presence of his enemy was not very clear to the mind of Mr Bevan. What did occur to him was that George Lambert would have the advantage over him in the interview, seeing that he would be in his own house—on his own dunghill, so to speak.
He might have got into the hansom and returned to town, but that would have been an admission to himself that he had committed a fault, and to admit themselves in fault, even to themselves, was never a way with the Bevans.
So he rang and waited, and rang again.
Presently shuffling footsteps sounded from behind the door which opened some two inches, disclosing a pale, blue eye, part of a nose, and an uncertain coloured fringe.
What do you want? cried a voice through the crack.
Does Mr George Lambert live here?
He does, but he's from home.
Dear me, murmured Charles, whose curiosity was now greatly aroused by the neglected aspect of the place and the mysterious personage hidden by the door. He felt a great desire to penetrate further into the affairs of his enemy and see what was to be seen.
Is Miss Lambert in?
Yus.
Then give her my card, please. I would like to speak to her.
The person behind the door undid the chain, satisfied evidently by Bevan's voice and appearance that he was not a dun or a robber. The door opened disclosing a servant maid, very young and very dirty.
This ash-cat took the piece of pasteboard, and made a pretence of reading it, invited Charles to enter, and then closing the door, and barring it this time as if to keep him in, should he try to escape, led the way across a rather empty hall to a library.
Here she invited him to sit down upon a chair, having first dusted it with her apron, and declaring that she would send Miss Fanny to him in "a minit," vanished, and left him to his meditations.
Most extraordinary place, said Charles, glancing round at the books in their cases. "Most extraordinary place I ever entered."
As he looked about him, he heard the youthful servant's voice raised now to its highest pitch, and calling "Miss Fanny, Miss Fanny, Miss F-a-a-anny" and dying away as if in back passages.
The library was evidently much inhabited by the Lamberts; it was pleasantly perfumed with tobacco, and in the grate lay the expiring embers of a morning fire. The Lamberts were evidently not of the order of people who extinguish their fires on the first of May. There were whips and fishing-rods, and a gun or two here and there, and books everywhere about, besides those on the shelves. The morning paper lay spread open on the floor, where it had been cast by the last reader, and on the floor lay other things, which in most houses are to be found on tables, envelopes crumpled up, letters, and other trifles.
On a little table by the window grew an orange-tree in a flower-pot, bearing oranges as large as marrow-fat peas; through the half-open window came wasps in and out, the perfume of mignonette and the murmur of distant bees.
He came to the window and looked out.
Outside lay the ruins of a garden bathed in the golden light of summer, the light that
"Speaks wide and loud From deeps blown clean of cloud, As though day's heart were proud And heaven's were glad.
"Beyond lay a paddock in whose centre lay the wraith of a tennis lawn; the net hung shrivelled between the tottering poles, and close to the net he saw the forlorn figure of a girl playing what seemed a fantastic game of tennis all alone.
She would hit the ball into the air and strike it back when it fell; if it went over the net she would jump after it.
Now appeared the slattern maid, card between finger and thumb, picking her way like a cat along the tangled garden path in the direction of the girl.
Mr Bevan turned away from the window and looked at the books lining the wall, his eye travelling from Humboldt's works to the tooled back of Milton—he was trying to recollect who Schopenhauer was—when of a sudden the door opened and an amazingly pretty girl of the old-fashioned school of beauty entered the room. She was dark, and she came into the room laughing, yet with a half-frightened air as if fearful of being caught missing from some old canvas.
You won't tell, said she as they shook hands like intimate acquaintances. "If father knew I had asked Mr Hancock, you know what, he'd kill me; I really believe he would." She put down her tennis racquet on the table, her hat she had left outside, and evidently in a hurry, to judge by the delightful disorder of her hair.
Mr Bevan, who was trying to stiffen his lip and appear very formal, had taken his seat on a low chair which made him feel dwarfed and ridiculous. He had also, unfortunately, left his hat on the table some yards away, and so had nothing with which to occupy his hands; he was, therefore, entirely at the mercy of Miss Lambert, who had taken an armchair near by, and was now chattering to him with the familiarity, almost, of a sister.
It seems so fortunate, you know, said she suddenly, discarding a discussion about the weather. "It seems so fortunate that idea of mine of speaking to Mr Hancock. I hate fighting with people, but father loves it; he'd fight with himself, I think, if he could find no one else, and still, if you knew him, he's the sweetest-tempered person in the world, he is, he would do anything for anybody, he would lay his life down for a friend. But you will know him now, now that that terrible affair about the fish stream is settled."
Mr Bevan swallowed rapidly and cast frantic glances at his hat. Had Miss Lambert been of the ordinary type of girl he might possibly have intimated that the fish stream business was not so settled as she supposed, but with this sweet-tongued and friendly beauty, it was impossible. He felt deeply exasperated at the false position in which he found himself, and was endeavouring to prepare some reply of a non-committal character when, of a sudden, his eye caught a direful sight, which for a moment made him forget both fish stream and false position—the little boot of Miss Lambert peeping from beneath her skirt was old and broken.
I would not deny him anything, goodness knows, continued Fanny Lambert, as if she were talking of a child. "But this action costs such a lot, and there are so many people he could fight cheaply with if he wants to," she broke into an enchanting little laugh. "I think, really, it's the expense that makes him think so much of it; he has a horror of cheap things."
Cheap things are never much good, conceded Mr Bevan, upon whose mind a dreadful sort of imbecility had now fallen, his will cried out frantically to his intellect for help, and received none. Here had he come to demand explanations, to put his foot down—alas! what is the will of man beside the beauty of a woman?
That's what father says, said Fanny. "But as for me, I love them, that is to say bargains, you know."
The door burst open and a sort of poodle walked in, he was not exactly Russian and not exactly French, he had points of an Irish water-spaniel. Bevan gazed at him and marvelled.
Having inspected the pattern of the visitor's trousers, and seeming therewith content Boy-Boy—such was his name—flung himself on the floor and into sleep beside his mistress.
He sleeps all day, said Fanny, "and I wish he wouldn't, for he spends the whole night barking and rushing after the cats in the garden. Isn't he just like a door mat, and doesn't he snore?"
He certainly does.
I got him for three and sixpence and an old pair of boots from one of those travelling men who grind scissors and things, said Miss Lambert, looking lovingly at her bargain. "He was half starved and so thin. He ate a whole leg of mutton the first day we had him."
That was very unwise, said Mr Bevan, who always shone on the topic of dogs or horses; "you should never give dogs much meat."
He took it, said Fanny. "It was so clever of him, he hid it in the garden and buried the bone—who is that at the door, is that you, Susannah?"
Luncheon is ready, Miss, said the voice of Susannah, who spoke in a muted tone as if she were announcing some unsavoury fact of which she was half ashamed.
Charles Bevan rose to go.
Oh, but you'll stay to luncheon, said Fanny.
I really—I have an engagement—that is a cab waiting. Then addressing his remarks to the eyes of Miss Lambert, "I shall be delighted if such a visitation does not bore you."
Not a bit—Susannah, hang Mr Bevan's hat up in the hall. Come this way.
Mr Bevan followed his hostess across the hall to the breakfast-room; as he followed he heard with a shudder Susannah attempting to hang his hat on the high hall rack, and the hat falling off and being pursued about the floor.
Luncheon was laid in a free-handed and large-hearted manner. Three whitings on a dish of Sheffield plate formed the piece de résistance, there was jam which appeared frankly in a pot pictured with plums, but in the centre of the table stood a vase of Venetian glass filled with roses.
As they took their seats Susannah, who had apparently been seized with an inspiration, appeared conveying a bottle of B?llinger in one hand, and a bottle of Gold-water in the other.
I brought them from the cellar, Miss, said the maid with a side glance at Charles—she was a good-natured-looking girl when not defending the hall door, but her under jaw seemed like the avenue gate, half off its hinges, and her intellect to be always oozing away through her half-open mouth. "They were the best I could find."
That's right, Susannah, said her mistress; "try if you can get one of those little bottles of port, the ones with red seals on them and cobwebs; and close the door."
Mr Bevan opened the champagne and helped himself, Miss Lambert announcing the fact that she was a teetotaler.
There is a man in the kitchen, said she, after an apology for the general disorder of things, and for the whiting which were but indifferently cooked. "James, you know, and when he is in the kitchen whilst meals are being prepared Susannah loses her head and often spoils things. Father generally sends him out to dig in the garden whilst she is cooking. I didn't send him to-day because he won't take orders from me, only from father. He says a man cannot serve two masters; he is always making proverbs and things, his father was a stationer and he has written poetry. He might have been anything only for his wife, he told me so the other night. It does seem such a pity."
Yes, said Charles tentatively, wondering who "James, you know" might be.
What is he?
He's in the law, said Miss Lambert cautiously, then after a moment's hesitation, "I don't see why I shouldn't tell you, you are our cousin. Father had a debt and——"
You don't mean to say he's——
Yes, he has come to take possession as they call it.
Mr Bevan laid down his knife and fork.
Good gracious!
I never cried so much as when he came, said Fanny, stroking the head of Boy-Boy, who was resting beside her; "it seemed so terrible. I never knew what a comfort he would turn out; he fetches the coals for Susannah and pumps the water. It sounds strange to say it, but I don't know what we should do without him now."
Oh, you poor child, thought Charles, "how much you must have suffered at the hands of that pig-headed fool of a father of yours—to think of a good estate coming to this!"
Tell me, he said aloud, "how long has that man been here?"
A week, said Fanny, "but it seems a year."
Who—er—put him in.
A Mr Isaacs.
What was the debt for, Cousin Fanny?
We went to Paris.
I don't——
I wanted to go to Paris, and father said I should, but he would have to think first about the money. Then he went into the library, and took me on his knee, and smoked a pipe. He always gets money when he sits and has what he calls a 'good think' and smokes a pipe. So he got the money and we went to Paris. We had a lovely time!
And then, said Bevan with an expression on his face as if he were listening to a fairy tale which he had to believe, "I suppose Mr Isaacs applied for his money?"
He sent most impertinent letters, said Fanny, "and I told father not to mind them, then James came."
Mr Bevan went on with his luncheon, all his anger against his cousin, George Lambert, had vanished. Anger is impossible to a sane mind when the object of that anger turns out to be a lunatic.
He went on with his luncheon; though the whiting were indifferently cooked, the champagne was excellent, and his hostess exquisite. It was hard to tell which was more attractive, her face or her voice, for the voice of Miss Lambert was one of those fatal voices that we hear perhaps twice in a lifetime, and never forget, perfectly modulated golden, soothing—maddening.
Now tell me, said Mr Bevan, they were walking in the garden after luncheon, "tell me, Cousin Fanny"—Miss Lambert, had vanished with the B?llinger—"don't you think your father is a little bit—er—extravagant?"
He may be a bit extravagant, murmured Fanny, plucking a huge daisy and putting it in her belt. "But then—he is such a dear, and I know he tries to economise all he can, he sold the carriage and horse only a month ago, and just look at the garden! he wont go to the expense of a gardener but does it all himself; it would be disgraceful only it's so lovely, with all the things running wild; see, here is one of his garden gloves."
She picked a glove out of a thorn bush and kissed it, and put it in her pocket.
He does the garden himself!
He and James.
You don't mean——
Mr Isaacs' man, they have dug up a lot of ground over there and planted asparagus. James was a gardener once, but as I have told you, he had misfortunes and had to take to the law. He is awfully poor, and his wife is ill; they live in a little street near Artesian Road, and father has been to see her; he came with me, and we brought her some wine; I carried it in a basket. See, is not that a beautiful rose? she smiled at the rose, and Charles could not but admire her beauty.
And then, resumed Fanny, the smile fading as the wind turned the rose's face away, "father is so unfortunate, all the people he lends money to won't pay him back, and stocks and shares and things go up and down, and always the wrong way, so he says, and he gets into such a rage with the house because he can't mortgage it—it was left in trust for me—and we can't let it, so we have to live in it."
Why can you not let it?
Because of the ghost.
Good gracious goodness! gobbled Charles, taking the cigar from his mouth. "What nonsense are you talking, Cousin Fanny? Ghost! there are no such things as ghosts."
Aren't there? said Fanny. "I wish you saw our one."
Do you really mean to try to make me believe—— cried Charles, then he foundered, tied up in his own vile English.
We did let it once, a year ago, to a Major Sawyer, said Fanny, and she smiled down the garden path at some presumably pleasant vision. "It was in May; we let it to him for three months and went down to Ramsgate to economise. Major Sawyer moved in on a Friday; I remember that, for the next day was Saturday, and I shall never forget that Saturday.
We were sitting at breakfast, when a telegram was brought, it was from the Major, and it was from the South Kensington Hotel; it said, as well as I can remember, 'Call without a moment's delay.'
Of course we thought 'The Laurels' were burnt down, and you can fancy the fright we were in, for it's not insured—at least the furniture isn't.
Not insured! groaned Charles.
No; father says houses never catch fire if they are not insured, and he wouldn't trust himself not to set it on fire if it was insured, so it's not insured.
Go on.
Let us sit down on this seat. Well, of course we thought we were ruined, and father was perfectly wild to get up to town and know the worst, he can't stand suspense. He wanted to take a special train, and there was a terrible scene at the station; you know we have Irish blood in us: his mother was Irish, and Fanny Lambert, my great-grandmother, the one that hung herself, was an Irishwoman. There was a terrible scene at the station, because they wouldn't take father's cheque for the extra twenty-five pounds for the special train. 'I tell you I'm ruined,' said father, but the station-master, a horrible little man with whiskers, said he couldn't help that. Oh! the world is horribly cold and cruel, said Fanny, drawing closer to her companion, "when one is in a strange place, where one doesn't know people. Once father gets to know people he can do anything with them, for every one loves him. The wife of the hotel-keeper where we stayed in Paris wept when we had to go away without our luggage."
I should think so.
"You see we only took half of the money we got from Mr Isaacs to Paris; we locked half of it up in the bureau in the library for fear we would spend it, then when the fortnight was up we hadn't enough for the bill. Father wanted to leave Boy-Boy, but they said they'd sooner keep the luggage. They were very nice over it, the hotel-keeper and his wife, but people are horrid when they don't know one. Well, we came by a later train, and found Major Sawyer waiting for us at the South Kensington Hotel. He was such a funny old man with fiery eyes and white hair that stood up. We did not see Mrs Sawyer, so we supposed she had been burnt in the fire; but we scarcely had time to think, for the Major began to abuse father for having let him such a house.
"I was awfully frightened, and father listened to the abuse quite meekly, you see he thought Mrs Sawyer was burnt. Then it came out that there had been no fire, and I saw father lift up his head, and put his chin out, and I stopped my ears and shut my eyes.
I suppose he gave it to old Sawyer.
Didn't he! Mrs Sawyer told me afterwards that the Major had never been spoken to so before since he left school, and that it had done him a world of good—poor old thing!
But what was it all about—I mean what made him leave the house?
Why, the ghost, to be sure. The first night he was in the house he went poking about looking for burglars, and saw it or heard it, I forget which; they say he did not stop running till he reached the police station, and that's nearly a mile away, and he wouldn't come back but took a cab to the hotel in his pyjamas. But the funny thing is, that ever since the day father abused him, he has been our best friend; he's helped us in money matters lots of times, and he always sends us hares and things when he goes shooting. The ghost always brings us luck when she can—always.
You believe in Luck?
I believe in everything, so does father.
And this ghost, it's a 'she' you said, I think?
It's Fanny Lambert.
Oh!
My great-grandmother.
Tell me about her, said Charles, lighting a new cigar and leaning back luxuriously on the seat.
The seat was under a chestnut tree, before them lay a little wilderness, sunflowers unburst from the bud, stocks, and clove pinks.
In its centre stood a moss-grown sun-dial bearing this old dial inscription in Latin, "The hours pass and are numbered." From this wilderness of a garden came the drone of bees, a dreamy sound that seemed to refute the motto upon the dial.
She lived, said Fanny, "a hundred, or maybe two hundred, years ago; anyhow it was in the time of the Regency—and I wish to goodness I had lived then."
Why?
Oh, it must have been such fun.
How do you know about the time of the Regency?
I have read about it in the library, there are a lot of old books about it, and one of them is in handwriting, not in print. You know in those times the Lamberts lived here at 'The Laurels,' just as we do, that's what makes the house so old; and the Prince Regent used to drive up here in a carriage and pair of coal-black horses. He was in love with Mrs Lambert, and she was in love with him. I don't wonder at her.
Well, you ought to wonder at her, said Charles in a hectoring voice, blowing a cloud of smoke at a bumble-bee that had alighted on Fanny's dress, and was rubbing its hands together as if in satisfaction at the prosperous times and the plenty of flowers.
Don't blow smoke at the poor thing. Isn't he fat!—there, he is gone. Why ought I to wonder at her?
Because she was married.
Why shouldn't she be married?
Ahem! said Charles, clearing his throat.
Why?
I meant to say that she should not have loved the Prince.
Why not? he was awfully good to them. Do you know George, Fanny's husband, must have been very like father; he was like him in face, for we have a miniature of him, but he was like him in other ways, too. He would sit up at Crockfords—what was Crockfords?
A kind of club, I believe.
He would sit up at Crockfords playing cards all night, and he killed a man once by hitting him over the head with a poker; the jury said the man died of apoplexy, but he kept the man's wife and children always afterwards, and that is just what father would have done.
I know, said Charles, "at least I can imagine him; but, all the same, I don't think you know what marriage is."
Oh yes, I do!
What is it, then?
It's a blessed state, said Fanny, breaking into a joyous laugh; "at least I read so in some old book."
We were talking of the Prince Regent, I think, said Charles rather stiffly.
Were we? Oh yes, I remember. Well, they loved each other so much that the old book said it was a matter of common rumour, whatever that means. One night at Crockfords Mr Bevan—he was an ancestor of yours—flew into a frightful temper over some nonsense—a misdeal at cards I think it was—and called George Lambert a name, an awfully funny name; what was this it was? let me think——
Don't think, don't think, go on with the story, cried Charles in an agony.
And George Lambert slapped Mr Bevan's face, and serve him right, too.
What is that you say? cried Charles, wattling like a turkey-cock.
I said serve him right! cried Fanny, clenching her little fists.
Look here—— said Charles, then suddenly he became dumb, whilst the breeze wandered with a rustling sound through the desolate garden, bearing with it from some distant street the voice of a man crying "Herrings," as if to remind them that Highgate was no longer the Highgate of the Regency.
Well? said Fanny, still with a trace of defiance in her tone.
Nothing, answered Charles meekly. "Go on with your story."
Fanny nestled closer to him as if to make up, and went on:
"The Prince was in the room, and every one said he turned pale; some people said he cried out, 'My God, what an occurrence!' and some people said he cried out, 'Gentlemen, gentlemen!' And the old Marquis of Bath dropped his snuff-box, though what that has to do with the story I don't know. At all events, the Prince left immediately, for he had an appointment to meet Fanny, and have supper with her. He must have said something nasty to her, for instead of having supper with him, she took a carriage and drove home here. She seemed greatly distressed; the servants said she spent the night walking up and down the blue corridor crying out, 'O that I ever loved such a man!' and 'Who would have thought men were so cruel!' Then, when her husband came back from fighting a duel with Mr Bevan, she was gone. All her jewels were gone too; she must have hidden them somewhere, for they were never found again.
"They found her hanging in a clothes closet quite dead; she had hung herself with her garters—she must have had a very small neck, I'm sure I couldn't hang myself with mine—and now she haunts the corridor beckoning to people to follow her.
Have you ever seen her?
No, but I am sure I have heard her at nights sometimes, when the wind is high. Father O'Mahony wanted to lay her, but I told father not to let him, she's said to be so lucky.
Lucky, indeed, to lose you a good tenant!
It was the luckiest thing she ever did, for the hotel was awfully expensive.
Why did you not take apartments, then?
Oh, they are so lonely and so poky, and landladies rob one so.
Is your father a Roman Catholic?
He is.
What are you?
I am nothing, said Fanny, proclaiming her simple creed with all the simplicity of childhood, and a smile that surely was reflected on the Recording Angel's face as he jotted down her reply.
Does your father know of this state of your mind? asked Charles in a horrified voice.
Yes, and he is always trying to convert me to 'the faith,' as he calls it. We have long arguments, and I always beat him. When he can find nothing more to say, he always scratches his dear old head and says, 'Anyhow you're baptised, and that's one comfort,' then we talk of other things, but he did convert me once.
How was that?
I was in a hurry to try on a frock, said this valuable convert to the Church; "at least the dressmaker was waiting, so I gave in, but only for once."
What do you believe in, then? asked Charles, glancing fearfully at the female atheist by his side, who had taken her garden hat from her head and was swinging it by the ribbon.
I believe in being good, and I believe in father, and I believe one ought always to make every one as happy as possible and be kind to animals. I believe people who ill-treat animals go to hell—at least, I hope they do.
Do you believe in heaven? asked Mr Bevan in a pained voice.
Of course I do.
Then you are not an atheist, in a voice of relief.
Of course I'm not. Who said I was?
You did.
I didn't. I'd sooner die than be an atheist. One came here to dinner once; he had a red beard, and smoked shag in the drawing-room. Ugh! such a man!
Do you believe in God?
I used to, when I was a child. I was always told He would strike me dead if I told a lie, and then I found that He didn't. It was like the man who lived in the oven. I was always told that the Black Man who lived in the oven would run away with me if I stole the jam; and one day I stole the jam, and opened the oven door and looked in. I was in a terrible fright, but there wasn't any man there.
It's very strange, said Charles.
That there wasn't a man there?
I was referring, said Charles stiffly, "to such thoughts in the mind of one so young as you are."
Oh, I'm as old as the hills, cried Fanny in the voice of a blasé woman of the world, making a grab at a passing moth and then flinging her hat after it, "as old as the—mercy! what's that?"
Miss Fanny! cried the voice of Susannah, who was lowing like a cow through garden and shrubbery in search of her missing mistress, "Miss Fah-ny, Miss——"
That's tea, said Fanny, rising, and leading the way to the house.
Charles Bevan followed his cousin to the house. His orderly mind could never have imagined of its own volition a ménage like that of the Lamberts. He revolted at it, yet felt strangely fascinated. It was like watching people dancing on a tight rope half cut in two, sailors feasting and merry-making on a sinking wreck, children plucking flowers on the crumbling edge of a cliff.
Tea was laid in state in the drawing-room, a lovely old room with tapestried walls, and windows that opened upon the garden; or at least that part of it which had been robbed of its roses and converted into a kitchen-garden during one of George Lambert's economical fits.
That is the asparagus bed, said Fanny proudly.
It was like a badly-ploughed field, and Charles' eye travelled slowly over its ridges and hollows.
Have you a potato bed? he asked, his mind subconsciously estimating the size of the Lamberts' Highgate estate on the basis that their potato crop was in proportion to their asparagus.
Oh, we buy our potatoes and cabbages and things, said Fanny; "they are cheap."
But asparagus takes such a time to grow—four years, I think it is.
Oh, surely not so long as that? said the girl, taking her seat at the tea-table. "Why, oak trees would grow quicker than that; besides, James said we would have splendid asparagus next spring, and he was a professed gardener before his misfortunes overtook him. Do you take sugar?"
Yes, please, said Charles, wearily dropping into a low chair and wondering vaguely at the angelic beauty of the girl's face.
And what, may I ask, were the 'misfortunes' that overtook James?
His wife, poor thing, took to drink, said she, with so much commiseration in her tone that she might have been a disciple of the new criminology, "and that broke his heart and took all his energy away."
Do you believe him?
Why not? He is a most devoted creature; and he is going to give up the business he is in and stay on when father pays Mr Isaacs. I hope we will never part with James.
Susannah, in honour of the guest, had produced the best tea service, a priceless set of old Sèvres. The tray was painted with Cupidons blowing trumpets as if in honour of the victory of Susannah over mischance, in that she had conveyed them upstairs by some miracle unsmashed.
There was half a cake by Buszard; the tea, had it been paid for, would have cost five shillings a pound, but the milk was sky blue.
As Fanny was cutting up the cake in liberal slices as if for a children's party, two frightful-looking cats walked into the room with all the air of bandits. One was jet black and one was brindled; both looked starved, and each wore its tail with a pump-handle curve after the fashion of a lion's when marauding.
Fanny regarded them lovingly, and poured out a saucerful of the blue milk which she placed on the floor.
Aren't they angels?
Well, if you ask me, said Charles Bevan, as if he were giving his opinion on some object of vértu, "I'd say they were more like—the other things."
I know they are not pretty, said Fanny regretfully, "but they are faithful. They always come to tea just as if they were invited."
I wonder your poodle—I mean the dog, lets them in.
Boy-Boy?—Oh, he only barks at things at night when they can't see him; he would run from a mouse, he's such a dear old coward. Aren't they thirsty?
Where did you get them? I should think they would be hard to match.
I didn't get them: they are not ours, they just come in.
Do you mean to say you let stray cats in like that?
I don't let them in, they come in through a hole in the scullery window.
Goodness gracious!
Sometimes the kitchen is full of cats; they seem to know.
That fools live here, thought Charles.
And Susannah spends all her time turning them out—all, of course, except the black ones.
Why not the black ones?
Because they are lucky; did you not know that? It's frightfully unlucky to turn a black cat out.
Why not fill up the hole and stop them from getting in?
Susannah has stuffed it up with old stockings and things till she's weary; they butt it in with their heads.
Why not have a new pane put in?
Father has talked of that, but I have always changed the conversation, and then he forgets.
You like cats?
I love them.
Charles looked gloomily at the grimalkins.
Seems to me you must have your food stolen.
We used to, but Susannah locks everything up now before she goes to bed.
She inverted the milk jug to show the cats that there was no milk left, and the intelligent creatures comprehending left the room, the black leading the way.
Faithful creatures! sneered Charles.
Aren't they! Oh, but, Cousin Charles—I mean Mr——
No; call me Cousin Charles.
—I've given the cats all the milk!
No matter, said Charles magnanimously. "The poor beggars wanted it more than I. I never drink more than one cup of tea; it makes me nervous."
How good you are! she murmured. "You remind me of father."
Charles moved uneasily in his chair.
From somewhere in the distance came the sound of Susannah singing and cleaning a window, a song like a fetish song interrupted by the sound of the window being closed to see if it was clean enough, and flung up again with a jerk, that spoke of dissatisfaction. These sounds of a sudden ceased.
They were succeeded by the murmur of voices, a footstep, then a tap at the door, followed by the voice of Susannah requesting her mistress to step outside for a moment.
I know what that always means, murmured the girl in a resigned voice, as she rose from the table and left the room.
Charles Bevan rose from his chair and went to the window.
These people want protecting, he said to himself frowning at the asparagus bed. "Irresponsibility when it passes a certain point becomes absolute lunacy. Fanny and her father ought to be in a lunatic asylum with their ghosts, and cats, and rubbish, only I don't believe any lunatic asylum would take them in; they would infect the other patients and make them worse. Good Heavens! it makes me shudder. They must be on the verge of the workhouse, making asparagus beds, and drinking champagne, and flying off to Paris, and feeding every filthy stray cat with food they must want for themselves. Poor devils—I mean damned fools. Anyhow, I must be going." The recollection of a certain lady named Pamela Pursehouse arose coldly in his mind now that Miss Lambert was absent from the room, and the little "still voice," whatever a still voice may be, said something about duty.
He determined to flee from temptation directly his hostess returned, but he reckoned without Fate.
The door opened and Fanny entered with a face full of tragedy.
She closed the door.
What do you think Susannah has told me? She spoke in a low voice as if death were in the house.
What?
James has come in and he has—had too much!
You don't mean to say that he is intoxicated?
I do, said Fanny with her voice filled with tears.
How disgraceful! I will go down and turn him out. Then he remembered that he could not very well turn him out considering that he was in possession.
For goodness sake don't even hint that to him, or he may go, cried Fanny in alarm, "for, when he gets like this, he always talks of leaving at once, because his calling is a disgrace to him, and if he went, Susannah would follow him."
But, my dear girl, cried Charles, "how dare that wretched Susannah—ahem—why, he's a married man, you told me so; surely she knows that."
Yes, she knows that, but she says she can't help herself.
I never met such people before! said Charles, addressing a jade dragon on the mantelpiece—"I mean," he said, putting his hands in his trousers' pockets and addressing his boots, "such a person as Susannah."
Her mother ran away with her father, murmured Fanny in extenuation, "so I suppose it is in the blood. But I wish we could do something with James. If he would even go to bed, but he sits by the kitchen fire crying, and that sets Susannah off. She will be ill for days after this. He said it was a cigar some one gave him that reminded him of his better days——"
Bother his better days!
——and he went to try and drown the recollection of them. It is so stupid of him, he knows how drink flies to his head; you would never imagine if you could see him now that he has only had two glasses of beer.
I will go down to the kitchen and speak to him, said Charles.
But, Cousin Charles, said Fanny, plucking at his coat, "be sure and speak gently."
I will, said Mr Bevan.
Then I'll go with you, said she.
James, a long ill-weedy looking man, was seated before the kitchen fire on a chair without a back; Susannah, on hearing their footsteps, darted into the scullery.
Now, James, now, James, said Charles Bevan, speaking in a paternal voice, "what is the meaning of all this? How did you get yourself into this condition?"
James turned his head and regarded Charles. He made a vain endeavour to speak and rise from his chair at one and the same time, then he collapsed and his tears returned anew.
At the sound, Susannah in the scullery threw her apron over her head and joined in, whilst Fanny looked out of the window and sniffled.
I never saw such a lot of people! cried Charles in desperation. "James, James, be a man."
How can he, said Fanny, controlling her voice, "when he is in this terrible state? Cousin Charles, don't you think you could induce him to go to bed?"
I think I could, said Charles grimly, "if you show me the way to his room."
When will your father come back? asked Charles as he returned to the kitchen, having deposited the man of law on his bed and shaken his fist in his face as a token of what he would get if he rose from it.
Not till this evening, late, said Fanny.
Then I must wait till he returns, or till this person recovers himself. I cannot possibly leave you alone in the house with a tipsy man.
Oh yes, do stay till father returns. I want you to meet him so much, said Fanny, all her grief vanishing in smiles.
Susannah, we'll have supper at eight.
Yes, miss.
I am almost glad, said Fanny, as she tripped up the kitchen stairs before her cousin, "I am almost glad James took it into his head to get tipsy, you'd have gone away if he hadn't, without seeing father; it seems almost like Providence. Mercy! it's six o'clock."
She glanced at the great old hall clock ticking away the moments, even as it had done when George the Third was king, and Charles took his watch out to verify the time, but he did not catch the old clock tripping.
Now we must think about supper, said Fanny, in a busy voice. "You must be dying of hunger. What do you like best?"
But you have not dined, Fanny.
Oh, we always call dinner 'luncheon,' and have it in the middle of the day; it saves trouble, and it is less worry. Then, after a moment's pause: "I wish we had a lobster, but I don't think there is one. I know there is a beefsteak."
She went to the kitchen stairs.
Susannah!
Yes, miss, answered a dolorous voice from below.
Have you a lobster in the house?
No, miss.
You have a beefsteak?
A sound came as of search amongst the plates on the dresser.
The beefsteak is gone, Miss Fanny.
Now, where can that beefsteak have gone to? murmured the girl, whilst Charles called to mind the criminal countenances of the two faithful cats, and the business-like manner in which they had left the room.
Search again, Susannah.
A frightful crash of crockery came as a reply.
Susannah!
Yes, miss.
Don't look any more, I will go out and buy something.
Don't mind me, said Charles. "Anything will do for me; I am used—I mean——"
I am not going to have father come back and find you starved to death; he'd kill me. I'm going out marketing; will you come?
With pleasure.
Then wait till I fetch my hat and a basket.
May I light a cigar?
Yes, smoke everywhere, every one does, and she rushed upstairs for her hat. A moment later she returned, hat on head, and bearing in her hand a little basket adorned with blue ribbons: a pound of tea would have freighted it.
How on earth is she going to get the dinner into that? thought her companion, as he unbarred the hall door and followed her down the steps.
Then they found themselves walking down the weed-grown avenue, the birds twittering overhead in the light of the warm June evening.
That he should be going "a-marketing" in Highgate accompanied by a pretty girl with a basket did not, strangely enough, impress Charles Bevan as being an out-of-the-way occurrence.
He felt as if he had known the Lamberts for years—a good many years. He no longer contemplated the joyous tragedy of their life wholly as a spectator; he had become suddenly and without volition one of the actors, a subordinate actor—a thinking part, one might call it.
The fearful fascination exercised by these people seemed, strange to say, never so potent as when exercised upon hard-headed people, as Major Sawyer and many another could have told.
I love marketing, said Fanny, as they trudged along, "at least buying things."
Have you any money?
Lots, said Miss Lambert, producing a starved-looking purse.
She opened it and peeped in at the three and sixpence it contained, and then shut it with a snap as if fearful of their escaping.
What do you like next best to marketing? asked Charles in the sedate voice of a heavy father speaking to his favourite child.
Opening parcels.
I don't quite——
Oh, you know—strange parcels when they come, or when father brings them, one never knows what may be in them—chocolate creams or what. I wonder what father will bring me back this time?
Where has he gone to?
He has gone to get some money.
He will be back this evening?
Yes, unless he finds it difficult getting the money. If he does, he won't be home till morning. She spoke as an Indian squaw might speak, whose father or husband has gone a-hunting, whilst Charles marvelled vaguely.
But suppose—he doesn't get any money?
Oh, he will get it all right, people are so good to him. Poor, dear Mr Hancock——
She stopped suddenly.
Yes, yes.
He said we weren't to tell.
She spoke in a secretive voice which greatly inflamed her companion's curiosity.
You might tell me, but don't if you don't want to.
Yes, said Fanny. "I don't think it matters now that you are friends with us, and we're all the same family. Father's dividends had not come in, and he lent us the money to pay the bills."
What bills?
The butcher's bill, and Stokes the baker's bill, and the milk bill, and some others.
Hancock lent you the money to pay your bills? cried Charles, feeling like a person in a dream.
Yes, old Mr Hancock, your Mr Hancock.
But he never told me he was a friend of your father's; besides, he is my solicitor.
He never saw us before this week.
Tell me all about it, and how you came to know him so intimately, and how he paid your bills, commanded Mr Bevan.
There was, just here on the road, a seat dropped incontinently by the County Council; they sat upon it whilst she told her tale.
"It was the other day. Father had not slept all night thinking of the action. He came into my bedroom at two in the morning to tell me that if he lost it before the House of Lords, he would take it before the Queen in Council. He had been sitting up reading 'Every Man his Own Lawyer.' Well, next morning a lot of people came asking for their money, the butcher and all those, and we hadn't any. Father said it was all your fault, and he wished he had never seen the fish stream. I was so frightened by the way he was bothering himself about everything—for, as a rule, you know he is the most easy-tempered man in the world as long as he has got his pipe. Well, a friend advised me to go privately to your lawyer and try to stop the action. So I went to Mr Hancock.
" "At first he seemed very stiff, and glared at me through his spectacles; but, after a while, as I told him all about ourselves, he stopped shuffling his feet, and listened with his hand to his ear as if he were deaf, and he took a smelling bottle out of a drawer of his desk and snuffed at it, and said, 'Dear me, how very extraordinary!' Then he called me his 'Poor child!' and asked me had I had any luncheon. I said 'Yes,' though I hadn't—I wasn't hungry. Well, we talked and talked, and at last he said he would come back with me home, for that our affairs were in a dreadful condition and we didn't seem to know it. He said he would come as a friend and try to forget that he was a lawyer. Well, he came here with me. Father was upstairs in his bedroom, and I poked my head in and told him your lawyer wanted to see him in the drawing-room.
" "I didn't tell him it was I who had fetched him, for I knew he would simply go mad if he thought I had been meddling with the action; besides, Mr Hancock said I had better not, as he simply called as a friend. Down came father and went into the drawing-room. I was in an awful fright, too frightened even to listen at the door. I made Susannah listen after a while, and she said they were talking about roses—I felt so relieved.
" "I sent Susannah in with wine, and Mr Hancock stayed to supper. After supper they had cigars and punch, and I played to them on the piano, and father sang Irish songs, and Mr Hancock told us awfully funny stories all about the law, and said he was a bachelor and envied father because he had a daughter like me. Then he talked about our affairs, and said he would require more punch before he could understand them; so he had more punch, and father showed him the housekeeping books, and he looked over them reading them upside down and every way. Then he wrote out a cheque to pay the books, with one eye shut, whilst father wrote out bills, you know, to pay the cheque, and then he kissed me and said good-bye to father and went away crying.""
"But, cried Charles, utterly astounded at this artless revelation of another man's folly, "old Hancock never made a joke in his life—at least to me—and he's an awful old skinflint and never lent any man a penny, so they say."
He made lots of jokes that night, anyhow, said Fanny, "and lent father over twenty pounds, too; and only yesterday a great bunch of hothouse flowers came from Covent Garden with his card for me."
Old fool! said Charles.
He is not an old fool, he's a dear old man, and I love him. Come on, or the shops will be closed.
You seem to love everything, said Mr Bevan in a rather stiff tone, as they meandered along near now to the street where shops were.
I do—at least everything I don't hate.
Whom do you hate?
No one just now. I never hate people for long, it is too much trouble. I used to hate you before I knew you. I thought you were a man with a black beard; you see I hadn't seen you.
But, why on earth did you think I had a black beard?
I don't know. I suppose it was because I hate black beards.
So you don't hate me?
No, indeed.
And as every one you don't hate, you—— I say, what a splendid evening this is! it is just like Italy. I mean, it reminds me of Italy.
And here are the shops at last, said Fanny, as if the shops had been travelling to them and had only just arrived.
She stopped at a stationer's window.
I want to get some envelopes. Come in, won't you?
She bought a packet of envelopes for fourpence. Charles turned away to look at some of the gaudily-bound Kebles, Byrons, and Scotts so dear to the middle-class heart, and before he could turn again she had bought a little prayer-book with a cross on it for a shilling. The shopman was besetting her with a new invention in birthday cards when Charles broke the spell by touching her elbow with the head of his walking stick.
Don't you think, said he when they were safely in the street, "it is a mistake buying prayer-books, these shop-keepers are such awful swindlers?"
I bought it for Susannah, explained Fanny. "It's a little present for her after the way James has gone on. Look at this dear monkey."
A barrel organ of the old type was playing by the pavement, making a sound as if an old man gone idiotic were humming a tune to himself. A villainous-looking monkey on the organ-top, held out his hand when it saw Fanny approaching. It knew the world evidently, or at least physiognomy, which is almost the same thing.
He takes it just like a man, she cried, as the creature grabbed one of her pennies and then nearly broke its chain trying to get at her to tear the rose from her hat. "Look, it knows the people who are fond of it; it is just like a child."
Charles tore her from the monkey, only for a milliner's shop to suck her in.
I must run in here for a moment, it's only about a corset I ordered; I won't be three minutes.
He waited ten, thinking how strange it was that this girl saw something attractive in nearly everything—strange cats, monkeys, and even old Hancock.
At the end of twenty minutes' walking up and down, he approached the milliner's window and peeped into the shop.
Fanny was conversing with a tall woman, whose frizzled black hair lent her somehow the appearance of a Frenchwoman.
The Highgate Frenchwoman was dangling something gaudy and flimsy before Fanny's eyes, and the girl had her purse in her hand.
Charles gave a sigh, and resumed his beat like a policeman.
At last she came out, carrying a tissue-paper parcel.
Well, have you got your—what you called for?
No, it's not ready yet; but I've got the most beautiful—Oh my goodness me!—how stupid I am!
What?
I have only three halfpence left, and I have forgotten the eggs and things for supper.
Give me your purse, and let me look into it, he said, taking the little purse and turning away a moment. Then he handed it back to her; she opened it and peeped in, and there lay a sovereign.
It's just what father does, she said, looking up in the lamp-light with a smile that somehow made Mr Bevan's eyes feel misty. "What makes you so like him in everything you do?" And somehow these words seemed to the correct Mr Bevan the sweetest he had ever heard.
Then they marketed after the fashion of youth when it finds itself the possessor of a whole sovereign. Fanny laying out the money as the fancy took her, and with the lavishness so conspicuously absent in the dealings of your mere millionaire.
They then returned to "The Laurels," Charles Bevan carrying the parcels.
The dining-room of "The Laurels" was a huge apartment furnished in the age of heavy dinners, when a knowledge of comparative anatomy and the wrist of a butcher were necessary ingredients in the composition of a successful host.
Here Susannah, to drown her sorrows in labour and give honour to the guest, had laid the supper things on a lavish scale. The Venetian vase, before-mentioned, stood filled with roses in the centre of the table, and places were laid for six—all sorts of places. Some of the unexpected guests were presumably to sup entirely off fish, to judge by the knives and forks set out for them, and some were evidently to be denied the luxury of soup. That there was neither soup nor fish mattered little to Susannah.
The cellar, to judge by the sideboard, had been seized with a spirit of emulation begotten of the display made by the plate pantry, and had sent three representatives from each bin. The sideboard also contained the jam-pot, the bread tray, and butter on a plate: commestables that had the abject air of poor relations admitted on sufferance, and come to look on.
Here entered Fanny, followed by Mr Bevan, laden with parcels.
The girl's hat was tilted slightly sideways, her raven hair was in revolt, and her cheeks flushed with happiness and the excitement of marketing.
Susannah followed them. She wore a wonderful white apron adorned with frills and blue ribbons, a birthday present from her mistress, only brought out on state occasions.
Three candles only! said the mistress of the house, glancing at the table and the three candles burning on it. "That's not enough; fetch a couple more, and, Susannah, bring the sardine opener."
Why don't you light the gas? asked her cousin, putting his parcels down and glancing at the great chandelier swinging overhead.
I would, only father has had a fight with the gas company and they've cut it off. Now let's open the parcels; put the candles nearer.
Mr Bevan's parcels contained a box of sardines, a paysandu ox tongue, and a basket of peaches; Fanny's, the before-mentioned prayer-book, envelopes, and in the tissue-paper parcel a light shawl or fichu of fleecy silk dyed blue.
She cast her hat off, and throwing the fichu round her neck, hopped upon a chair, candle in hand, and glanced at herself in a great mirror on the opposite wall.
It makes me look beautiful! she cried. "And I have half a mind to keep it for myself."
Why—for whom did you buy it, then?
For James' wife, Mrs Regan.
Oh!
She is ill, you know, and I am going to see her again to-morrow. I hate going to see sick people, but father says whenever we see a lame dog we should put our shoulders to the wheel and help him over the stile, and she's a lame dog, if ever there was one. That's right, Susannah, put the candles here, and give me the can opener; I love opening tins, and there is a little prayer-book I got for you when I was out.
Thank you, miss, said Susannah in a muffled voice, putting the little prayer-book under her apron with one hand, and snuffing a candle with the finger and thumb of the other. "Can I get you anything more, miss?"
Nothing. Is James all right?
He's asleep now, miss, answered the maid, closing her mouth for once in her life by some miracle of Love, and catching in her breath through her nose.
That will do, Susannah, hastily said her mistress, who knew this symptom of old, and what it foreboded; "I'll ring if I want you. Bring up the punch things at ten, just as you always bring them."
Susannah left the room making stifled sounds, and Fanny, with Mrs Regan's fichu about her neck, attacked the sardine tin with the opener.
Let me, said Charles.
No, no; you open the champagne, and put the peaches on a plate, and I'll open the tins. Bring over the bread and butter and jam. I wish we had some ice for the champagne, but the fishmonger—forgot to send it. Bother this knife!
She laboured away, with her cheeks flushed; a lock of black hair hanging loose lent her a distracted air, and made her so lovely in the eyes of Charles that he put the bread platter down on top of the butter plate, so that the butter pat clung to the bottom of the bread platter, and they had to scrape it off, one holding the platter, one scraping with the knife, and both hands touching.
We have had that bread plate ever since I can remember, she said, as they seated themselves to the feast, "and I wouldn't have anything happen to it for earths, not that the butter will do it any harm. Isn't the text on it nice?"
Charles examined the bread platter gravely.
'Want not,' he read. He looked in vain for the "Waste not," but that part of the maxim was hidden by the carved representation of a full ear of corn.
It's a very nice—motto. Have some champagne?
No thanks, I only drink water, wine flies to my head; I am like James. I am going to have a peach—have one.
Thank you, I am eating sardines. You remind me of the old gentleman—he was short-sighted—who offered me a pinch of snuff once when I was eating a sole.
Fanny, with her teeth set in the peach, gave a little shriek of laughter, but Mr Bevan was perfectly grave. Still, for perhaps the first time in his life, he felt his possibilities as a humorist, and determined to exploit them.
Talking about ghosts—ghosts and mothers-in-law, to the medium intellect, are always fair game,—"talking about ghosts," said he, "you said, I think, Cousin Fanny——"
Call me Fanny, said that lady, who, having eaten her peach, was now helping herself to sardines. "I hate that word 'cousin,' it sounds so stiff. What about ghosts?"
About ghosts, he answered slowly, his new-found sense of humour suddenly becoming lost. "Oh yes, you said, Fanny, that a ghost was haunting this house."
Yes, Fanny Lambert. I told you she hid her jewels before she hung herself. When people see her she is always beckoning them to follow her. We found James insensible one night on the landing upstairs; he told us next morning he had seen her, and she had beckoned him to follow her, and after that he remembered nothing more.
A sure sign there were spirits in the house.
Wasn't it? But why, do you think, does she beckon people?
Perhaps she beckons people to show them where the jewels are hidden.
Oh! cried Fanny; "why did we never think of that before? Of course that is the reason—and they are worth two hundred thousand pounds. We must have the panels in the corridor taken down. I'll make father do it to-morrow. Two hundred thousand pounds: what is that a year?"
Ten thousand.
Fancy father with ten thousand a year! Mr Bevan shuddered. "We can have a steam yacht, and everything we want. I feel as if I were going mad," said Miss Lambert, with the air of a person who had often been mad before and knew the symptoms.
The door opened and Susannah appeared with the punch things. "Susannah, guess what's happened—never mind, you'll know soon. Have you got the lemon and the sugar? That is right."
And Miss Lambert, forgetting for a moment fortune, turned her attention to the manufacturing of punch.
Susannah withdrew, casting her eyes over Fanny and Charles as she went, and seeming to draw her under-lip after her.
When the door was shut, Miss Lambert looked into the punch bowl to see if it was clean, and, having turned a huge spider out of it, went to the sideboard.
You are not going to make punch in this great thing?
I am, said Fanny, returning with a bottle in each hand and one under her arm.
Go on, said Charles resignedly. "May I smoke?"
Of course, smoke. Open me this champagne.
You are not going to put champagne in punch?
Everything is good in punch. Father learned how to make it in Moscow, when he was dining with the Hussars there. After dinner a huge bowl was brought in, and everything went in—champagne, whisky, brandy, all the fruit from the dessert; then they set it on fire, and drank it, burning.
Has your father ever made punch like that?
No, but now I've got him away, I am going to try.
Pop went the champagne cork, and the golden wine ran creaming into the bowl.
Now the brandy.
But this will be cold punch.
Yes, it's just as good; milk punch is always cold.
I'm blest if this is milk punch, said Mr Bevan, as he looked fearfully into the bowl; "but go on."
I am going as quick as I can, she replied. Then the whisky went in, and half a tumblerfull of cura?oa also, the lemon cut in slices and the peaches that remained.
I haven't anything more to throw in, said Fanny, casting her eye over the sardines and the ox tongue. "We ought to have grapes and things; no matter, stir it up and set it on fire, and see what it tastes like."
But, my dear child, said the horrified Charles, as he stirred the seething mixture with the old silver ladle into whose belly a guinea had been beaten. "You surely don't expect me to drink this fearful stuff? I thought you were making it for fun."
You taste it and see, but set it on fire first.
He struck a match.
It won't catch fire! he cried. "Knew it wouldn't."
Well, taste it cold; it smells delicious.
She plucked a rose from the vase and strewed the petals on the surface of the liquid to help the taste, whilst Mr Bevan ladled some into a glass.
It's not bad, 'pon my word it's not bad; the cura?oa seems to blend all the other flavours together, but it's fearfully strong.
Wait—she ran to the sideboard for a bottle of soda water.
Mix it half and half, and see how it tastes.
That's better.
Then we'll take it into the library, it's more comfortable there. You carry the bowl, and I will bring the candles.
What are these? asked Mr Bevan, as he removed some papers from the library table to make room for the punch bowl.
Oh, some papers of father's.
The Rorkes Drift Gold Mines.
Yes, she said, glancing over his shoulder. "I remember now; those are the things I am to get a silk dress out of when they go to twenty. Father is mad over them; he says nothing will stop them when they begin to move, whatever that means."
Well, they have moved with a vengeance, for only yesterday I heard they had gone into liquidation.
All the good luck seems coming together, said Fanny with a happy sigh, as Charles went to the window and looked out at the moon, rising in a cloudless sky over the forsaken garden and ruined tennis ground. "Not that it matters much if we get those jewels whether the old mines go up or down; still, no matter how rich one becomes, more money is always useful."
Yes, I suppose it is, said he, looking with a troubled but sentimental face at the moon. "Tell me, Fanny, do you know much about the Stock Exchange?"
Oh, heaps.
What do you know?
I know that Brighton A's are called Doras—no, Berthas—no, I think it's Doras—and Mexican Railways are going to Par, and the Kneedeep Mines are going to a hundred and fifty, and father has a thousand of them he got for sixpence a share, and he gave me fifty for myself, but I'm not to sell them till they go to a hundred. Aren't stockbrokers nice-looking, and always so well dressed? I saw hundreds of them one day father left me for a moment in Angel Court whilst he ran in to see his broker—Oh yes! and the bears are going to catch it at the next settlement.
Do you know what 'bears' are?
No, said Fanny, "but they're going to catch it whatever they are, for I heard father say so—Oh, what a moon! I am sure the fairies must be out to-night."
You don't mean to say you believe in such rubbish as fairies?
Of course I believe in them; not here in Highgate, perhaps, for there are too many people, but in woods and places.
But there are no such things, it has been proved over and over again; no one believes in them nowadays.
Did you never see the mushrooms growing in rings? Well, how could they grow like that if they were not planted, and who'd be bothered planting umbrella mushrooms in rings but the fairies?
Does your father believe in them?
Never asked him, but of course he does; every one does—even Susannah.
She went to the table and blew out the candles.
What are you doing now?
Blowing out the lights; it's so much nicer sitting in the moonlight. Fill your glass and sit down beside me.
Extraordinary child, thought Mr Bevan, doing as he was bid, whilst she opened the window wide to "let the moon in."
Other things came too, a night moth and a perfume of decaying leaves, the souls of last year's sun-flowers and hollyhocks were abroad to-night; the distant paddock seemed full of cats, to judge by the sounds that came from it, and bats were flickering in the air. The voice of Boy-Boy, metallic and rhythmical as the sound of a trip hammer, came from a distant corner of the garden where he had treed a cat.
Quick, said Fanny, drawing in her head and pulling her companion by the arm, "and you'll be in time to see our tortoise."
Charles regarded the quadruped without emotion.
I don't see the necessity for such frightful haste.
Still, if you'd been a moment sooner the moonlight would have been on him; he was shining a moment ago like silver. Do you know what a tortoise is? it's a sign of age. You and I will be some day like that tortoise, without any teeth, wheezing and coughing and grubbing along; and may-be we will look back and think of this night when we were young—Oh, dear me, I wish I were dead!
Why, why, what's the matter now—Fanny?
I don't want to grow old, pouted Miss Lambert.
When two people grow old together, began Mr Bevan in whose brain the punch was at work, "they do not notice the—that is to say, age really does not matter. Besides, a woman is only as old as she feels—I mean as she looks."
The fumes of the punch of a sudden took on themselves a form as of the pale phantom of Pamela Pursehouse, and the phantom cried, "Begone, flee from temptation whilst you may."
Before him the concrete form of Miss Lambert sitting in the corner of the window-seat and bathed in moonlight, said to him, "Hug me."
Her eyes were resting upon him, then she gazed out at the garden and sighed.
Charles took her hand: it was not withdrawn. "I must be going now," he said.
She turned from the garden and gazed at him in silence.
A few minutes later, feeling clouds beneath his feet and all sorts of new sensations around his heart, he was walking down the weed-grown avenue, Boy-Boy at his heels barking and snarling, satisfied no doubt by some preternatural instinct that do what he might he would not be kicked.
Ere he had reached the middle of the avenue he heard a voice calling, "Cousin Charley!"
Yes, Fanny.
Come back soon!
"The Laurels, 11 p.m.
"I have been going to write for the last few days, but have been so busy. I could go on the picnic to-day if it would suit you I'll call at the studio at one o'clock. If you can't come, send me a wire. Oh, I forgot to say Mr Hancock came home the other day with me and had a long talk with father, and Mr Bevan called to-day and was awfully jolly, and I'll tell you all about it when we meet. Give my love to Mr Verneede.
"In haste to catch the post.
"P.S.—I'm in such good spirits. F. L."
It was the morning after the day on which Mr Bevan had called at "The Laurels." Leavesley was in bed, and reading the above, which had come by the early post, and which Belinda had thrust under his door, together with a circular and a bill for colours.
Hurrah! cried Mr Leavesley, and then "Great Heavens!" He jumped out of bed, and rummaged wildly in his pockets. He found seven and sixpence in silver, and a penny and a halfpenny in coppers, a stump of pencil, a tramway ticket with a hole punched in it, and a Woodbine cigarette packet containing one cigarette. He placed the money on the wash-hand-stand, then he sat for a moment on the side of his bed disconsolate.
The most beautiful day that ever dawned, the most beautiful girl in the world, a chance of taking her up the river, and seven and six to do it on!
He curled his toes about. Yesterday, in a fit of righteousness, he had paid a tailor two pounds ten on account. He contemplated this great mistake gloomily. Wild ideas of calling on Mark Moses & Sonenshine and asking for the two pounds ten back crossed his mind, to be instantly dispelled.
The only two men in London who could possibly help him with a loan were, to use a Boyle-Rochism, in Paris. Mrs Tugwell, his landlady, was at Margate, and he was in the middle of his tri-monthly squabble with his uncle. He called up the ghost of his aunt Patience Hancock, and communed with her just for the sake of self-torture, and the contemplation of the hopeless.
Then he rang his bell, which Belinda answered.
Breakfast at once, Belinda.
Yessir, and here's another letter as hes just come, she poked a square envelope under the door. Leavesley seized it with a palpitating heart; it was unstamped, and had evidently been left in by hand.
This is the God from the Machine, he thought. "There's money in it, I know. It always happens like this when things are at their worst."
We all have these instincts at times: the contents of an unopened letter or parcel seem endowed with a voice; who has not guessed the fateful news in a telegram before he has broken open the envelope, even as Leavesley guessed the contents of the letter in his hand?
He tore it open and took out a sheet of paper and a pawnbroker's duplicate. The letter ran:—
"NO. 150A KING'S ROAD,
"OVER THE BACON SHOP.
"Dear Leavesley,—I am in bed, not suffering from smallpox, croup, spinal meningitis, or any wasting or infectious disease. I am in bed, my dear Leavesley, simply for want of my trousers. Robed in Jones' long ulster, which reacheth to my heels, I took the aforesaid garments yester-even after dusk to my uncle. If help does not come they will have to take me to the workhouse in a blanket. I enclose duplicate. Three and sevenpence would release me and them.
"'The die is cast
And this is the last.'
"From
The Captain.
'P.S.—If you have no money send me the 'Count of Monte Cristo'—you have a copy; or the 'Multi-Millionaire.' I have nothing to read but a Financial News of the day before yesterday."
Leavesley groaned and laughed, and groaned again. Then he got into his bath and splashed; as he splashed his spirits rose amazingly.
The Captain's letter had electrified the Bohemian part of his nature; instead of depressing him it had done the reverse. Here was another poor devil worse off than himself. Leavesley had six pair of trousers.
The Captain, in parenthesis let me say, has no part in this story. He wasn't a captain, he was a relic of the South African War, a gentleman with a taste for drink, amusing, harmless, and amiable. I only introduce him on account of the telepathic interest of his letter, or rather of the way in which Leavesley divined its contents.
Seven and sixpence—I mean seven and sevenpence halfpenny, is not a bit of use, said the painter to himself when he had finished breakfast, "so here goes."
He put three and sevenpence in an envelope with the pathetic duplicate, addressed it to Captain Waring, rang for Belinda; and when that much-harried maid-of-all-work appeared, told her to take it as soon as she could to Captain Waring, down the road over the bacon shop, also to call at Mr Verneede's and ask him to come round at twelve.
Then he reached down a finished picture, wrapped it in brown paper, put the parcel under his arm and started off.
He took a complication of omnibuses, and arrived in Wardour Street about half-past nine.
Mr Fernandez is gone to the country on pizzines, said the Jew-boy slave of the picture dealer, who came from the interior of the gloomy shop like a dirty gnome, called forth by the ring of the door bell.
Oh, d——n! said Leavesley.
He's gone on pizzines, replied the other.
Where's he gone to?
Down in the country.
Look here, I want to sell a picture.
Mr Fernandez is gone on pizzines.
Oh, dash Mr Fernandez! Is there no one here I can show the thing to? He knows me.
There's only me, said the grimy sphinx.
Can you buy it?
No, I ain't no use for buying. Mr Fernandez is gone on——
Oh, go to the devil!
This is a nice sort of thing, said Leavesley to himself as he stood in Wardour Street perspiring. "There's nothing for it now but a frontal attack on uncle."
He made for Southampton Row, reaching the office at ten o'clock, about five minutes after James Hancock.
Hancock was dealing with his morning correspondence. A most unbendable old gentleman he looked as he sat at his table before a pile of letters, backed by the numerous tin boxes Leavesley knew so well. Boxes marked "The Gleeson Estate," "Sir H. Tempest, Bart," etc. Boxes that spoke of wealth and business in mocking tones to the unfortunate artist, who felt very much as the grasshopper must have felt in the presence of the industrious ant. Despite this he noticed that his uncle was more sprucely dressed than usual, and that he had on a lilac satin tie.
Hancock looked at his nephew over his spectacles, then through his spectacles, then he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead.
Good morning, uncle.
Good morning.
I just looked in, said Leavesley, in a light-hearted way, "as I was going by, to see how you were."
This was a very bad opening.
Sit down, said Hancock. "Um—I wasn't aware that there was anything the matter with me."
You were complaining of the gout last time.
Oh, bother the gout! said the old gentleman, who hated to be reminded of his infirmity. "It isn't gout—Garrod says it's Rheumatoid Arthritis."
Leavesley repented of having played the gout gambit.
—Rheumatoid Arthritis. Well, what are you doing?
Oh, I'm painting.
Are you selling? said Hancock, "that's more to the point."
Oh yes, I'm selling—mildly.
Um!
I sold two pictures quite recently.
I always told you, said the lawyer, ignoring the last statement in a most irritating way, and speaking as if Leavesley were made of glass and all his affairs were arranged inside him for view like damaged goods in a shop window—"I always told you painting doesn't pay. If you had come into the office you might have got on well; but there you are, you've made your bed, and on it you must lie," then in a voice three shades gloomier, "on it you must lie."
Leavesley glanced at the office clock, it pointed to quarter past ten, and Fanny was due at one.
I had a little business to talk to you about, he said. "Look here, will you give me a commission?"
A what?
A commission for a picture.
And five pounds on account, was in his brain, but it did not pass his tongue.
A picture? said Hancock. "What on earth do I want with pictures?"
Let me paint your portrait.
Hancock made a movement with his hand as if to say "Pish!"
Well, look here, said Leavesley, with the cynicism of despair, "let me paint Bridgewater, let me paint the office, whitewash the ceilings, only give me a show."
I would not mind the money I have spent on you, said Hancock, ignoring all this, "the bills I have paid, if, to use your own expression, there was any show for it; but, as far as I can see, you are like a man in a quagmire, the only advance you are making, the only advance visible to mortal eye, is that you are getting deeper into debt;" then two tones lower, "deeper into debt."
Well, see here, lend me a fiver, cried Leavesley, now grown desperate and impudent.
James Hancock put his fingers into the upper pocket of his waistcoat, and Leavesley's heart made a spring for his throat.
But Mr Hancock did not produce a five-pound note. He produced a small piece of chamois leather with which he polished his glasses, which he had taken off, in a reflective manner.
I'm awfully hard up for the moment, and I have pressing need of it. I don't want you to give me the money, I'll pay it back.
Mr Hancock put on his glasses again.
You come to me as one would come to a milch cow, as one would come to a bank in which he had a large deposit.
He put his hand in his breast-pocket and took out a note-case that seemed simply bursting with bank-notes.
Now if I accommodate you with a five-pound note I must know, at least, what the pressing need is you speak of.
I want to take a girl up the river, for one thing, answered his nephew, who could no more tell him a lie about the matter, than he could steal a note from that plethoric note-case.
James Hancock replaced the case in his pocket and made a motion with his hands as if to say "that ends everything."
Leavesley rose to go.
I'd have paid you it back. No matter. I'm going to write a book, and make money out of it. I'll call it the 'Art of Being an Uncle.'
Hancock made a motion with his hands that said, "Go away, I want to read my letters."
Now, look here, said Leavesley, with his hand on the door handle, and inspired with another accession of impudence, "if you'd take ten pounds and put it in your pocket, and come with me and her, and have a jolly good day on the river, wouldn't it be better than sitting in this stuffy old office making money that is no use to any one—you can only live once."
Go away! said his uncle.
I'm going. Tell me, if I went round to aunt would she accommodate me, do you think?
Accommodate you to make a fool of yourself with a girl? I hope not, I sincerely hope not.
Well, I'll try. Good day.
Good day.
Leavesley went out, and shut the door. Then he suddenly turned, opened the door and looked in.
I say, uncle!
Well? replied the unfortunate Mr Hancock, in a testy voice.
Did you never make a fool of yourself with a girl?
The old gentleman grew suddenly so crimson that his nephew shut the door and bolted. He little guessed how àpropos that question was.