What Will He Do with It? — Volume 07

CHAPTER V

IT IS ASSERTED BY THOSE LEARNED MEN WHO HAVE DEVOTED THEIR LIVES TO THE STUDY OF THE MANNERS AND HABIT OF INSECT SOCIETY, THAT WHEN A SPIDER HAS LOST ITS LAST WEB, HAVING EXHAUSTED ALL THE GLUTINOUS MATTER WHEREWITH TO SPIN ANOTHER, IT STILL. PROTRACTS ITS INNOCENT EXISTENCE, BY OBTRUDING ITS NIPPERS ON SOME LESS WARLIKE BUT MORE RESPECTABLE SPIDER, POSSESSED OF A CONVENIENT HOME AND AN AIRY LARDER. OBSERVANT MORALISTS HAVE NOTICED THE SAME PECULIARITY IN THE MANEATER, OR POCKET-CANNIBAL.

Eleven o'clock, A.M., Samuel Adolphus Poole, Esq., is in his parlour, —the house one of those new dwellings which yearly spring up north of the Regent's Park,—dwellings that, attesting the eccentricity of the national character, task the fancy of the architect and the gravity of the beholder—each tenement so tortured into contrast with the other, that, on one little rood of ground, all ages seemed blended, and all races encamped. No. 1 is an Egyptian tomb!—Pharaohs may repose there! No. 2 is a Swiss chalet—William Tell may be shooting in its garden! Lo! the severity of Doric columns—Sparta is before you! Behold that Gothic porch—you are rapt to the Norman days! Ha! those Elizabethan mullions— Sidney and Raleigh, rise again! Ho! the trellises of China—come forth, Confucius, and Commissioner Yeh! Passing a few paces, we are in the land of the Zegri and Abencerrage:

'Land of the dark-eyed maid and dusky Moor.'

Mr. Poole's house is called Alhambra Villa! Moorish verandahs—plate- glass windows, with cusped heads and mahogany sashes—a garden behind, a smaller one in front—stairs ascending to the doorway under a Saracenic portico, between two pedestalled lions that resemble poodles—the whole new and lustrous—in semblance stone, in substance stucco-cracks in the stucco denoting "settlements." But the house being let for ninety-nine years—relet again on a running lease of seven, fourteen, and twenty-one- the builder is not answerable for duration, nor the original lessee for repairs. Take it altogether, than Alhambra Villa masonry could devise no better type of modern taste and metropolitan speculation.

Mr. Poole, since we saw him between four and five years ago, has entered the matrimonial state. He has married a lady of some money, and become a reformed man. He has eschewed the turf, relinquished Belcher neckcloths and Newmarket coats-dropped his old-bachelor acquaintances. When a man marries and reforms, especially when marriage and reform are accompanied with increased income, and settled respectably in Alhambra Villa— relations, before estranged, tender kindly overtures: the world, before austere, becomes indulgent. It was so with Poole—no longer Dolly. Grant that in earlier life he had fallen into bad ways, and, among equivocal associates, had been led on by that taste for sporting which is a manly though a perilous characteristic of the true-born Englishman; he who loves horses is liable to come in contact with blacklegs; the racer is a noble animal; but it is his misfortune that the better his breeding the worse his company:—Grant that, in the stables, Adolphus Samuel Poole had picked up some wild oats—he had sown them now. Bygones were bygones. He had made a very prudent marriage. Mrs. Poole was a sensible woman—had rendered him domestic, and would keep him straight! His uncle Samuel, a most worthy man, had found him that sensible woman, and, having found her, had paid his nephew's debts, and adding a round sum to the lady's fortune, had seen that the whole was so tightly settled on wife and children that Poole had the tender satisfaction of knowing that, happen what might to himself, those dear ones were safe; nay, that if, in the reverses of fortune, he should be compelled by persecuting creditors to fly his native shores, law could not impair the competence it had settled upon Mrs. Poole, nor destroy her blessed privilege to share that competence with a beloved spouse. Insolvency itself, thus protected by a marriage settlement, realises the sublime security of VIRTUE immortalised by the Roman muse:

 
                    —"Repulse nescia sordidae,
                    Intaminatis fulget honoribus;
                    Nec sumit ant ponit secures
                    Arbitrio popularis aurae."
 

Mr. Poole was an active man in the parish vestry—he was a sound politician—he subscribed to public charities—he attended public dinners he had votes in half a dozen public institutions—he talked of the public interests, and called himself a public man. He chose his associates amongst gentlemen in business—speculative, it is true, but steady. A joint-stock company was set up; he obtained an official station at its board, coupled with a salary—not large, indeed, but still a salary.

"The money," said Adolphus Samuel Poole, "is not my object; but I like to have something to do." I cannot say how he did something, but no doubt somebody was done.

Mr. Poole was in his parlour, reading letters and sorting papers, before he departed to his office in the West End. Mrs. Poole entered, leading an infant who had not yet learned to walk alone, and denoting, by an interesting enlargement of shape, a kindly design to bless that infant, at no distant period, with a brother or sister, as the case might be.

"Come and kiss Pa, Johnny," said she to the infant. "Mrs. Poole, I am busy," growled Pa.

"Pa's busy—working hard for little Johnny. Johnny will be better for it some day," said Mrs. Poole, tossing the infant half up to the ceiling, in compensation for the loss of the paternal kiss.

"Mrs. Poole, what do you want?"

"May I hire Jones's brougham for two hours to-day, to pay visits? There are a great many cards we ought to leave; is there any place where I should leave a card for you, lovey—any person of consequence you were introduced to at Mrs. Haughton's last night? That great man they were all talking about, to whom you seemed to take such a fancy, Samuel, duck—"

"Do get out! that man insulted me, I tell you."

"Insulted you! No; you never told me."

"I did tell you last night coming home."

"Dear me, I thought you meant that Mr. Hartopp."

"Well, he almost insulted me, too. Mrs. Poole, you are stupid and disagreeable. Is that all you have to say?"

"Pa's cross, Johnny dear! poor Pa!—people have vexed Pa, Johnny— naughty people. We must go or we shall vex him too."

Such heavenly sweetness on the part of a forbearing wife would have softened Tamburlane. Poole's sullen brow relaxed. If women knew how to treat men, not a husband, unhenpecked, would be found from Indos to the Pole.

And Poole, for all his surly demeanour, was as completely governed by that angel as a bear by his keeper.

"Well, Mrs. Poole, excuse me. I own I am out of sorts to-day—give me little Johnny—there (kissing the infant; who in return makes a dig at Pa's left eye, and begins to cry on finding that he has not succeeded in digging it out)—take the brougham. Hush, Johnny—hush—and you may leave a card for me at Mr. Peckham's, Harley Street. My eye smarts horribly; that baby will gouge me one of these days."

Mrs. Poole had succeeded in stilling the infant, and confessing that Johnny's fingers are extremely strong for his age—but, adding that babies will catch at whatever is very bright and beautiful, such as gold and jewels and Mr. Poole's eyes, administers to the wounded orb so soothing a lotion of pity and admiration that Poole growls out quite mildly: "Nonsense, blarney—by the by, I did not say this morning that you should not have the rosewood chiffoniere!"

"No, you said you could not afford it, duck; and when Pa says he can't afford it, Pa must be the judge—must not he, Johnny dear?"

"But perhaps I can afford it. Yes, you may have it yes, I say, you shall have it. Don't forget to leave that card on Peckham—he's a moneyed man. There's a ring at the bell. Who is it? run and see."

Mrs. Poole obeyed with great activity, considering her interesting condition. She came back in half a minute. "Oh, my Adolphus—I oh, my Samuel! it is that dreadful-looking man who was here the other evening— stayed with you so long. I don't like his looks at all. Pray don't be at home."

"I must," said Poole, turning a shade paler, if that were possible. "Stop—don't let that girl go to the door; and you—leave me." He snatched his hat and gloves, and putting aside the parlour-maid, who had emerged from the shades below in order to answer the "ring," walked hastily down the small garden.

Jasper Losely was stationed at the little gate. Jasper was no longer in rags, but he was coarsely clad—clad as if he had resigned all pretence to please a lady's eye, or to impose upon a West-End tradesman—a check shirt—a rough pea-jacket, his hands buried in its pockets.

Poole started with well—simulated surprise. "What, you! I am just going to my office—in a great hurry at present."

"Hurry or not, I must and will speak to you," said Jasper, doggedly.

"What now? then, step in;—only remember I can't give you snore than five minutes."

The rude visitor followed Poole into the back parlour, and closed the door after him.

Leaning his arm over a chair, his hat still on his head, Losely fixed his fierce eyes on his old friend, and said in a low, set, deterinined voice: "Now, mark me, Dolly Poole, if you think to shirk my business, or throw me over, you'll find yourself in Queer Street. Have you called on Guy Darrell, and put my case to him, or have you not?"

"I met Mr. Darrell only last night, at a very genteel party." (Poole deeined it prudent not to say by WHOM that genteel party was given, for it will be remembered that Poole had been Jasper's confidant in that adventurer's former designs upon Mrs. Haughton; and if Jasper knew that Poole had made her acquaintance, might he not insist upon Poole's reintroducing him as a visiting acquaintance?) "A very genteel party," repeated Poole. "I made a point of being presented to Mr. Darrell, and very polite he was at first."

"Curse his politeness—get to the point."

"I sounded my way very carefully, as you may suppose; and when I had got him into friendly chat, you understand, I began; Ah! my poor Losely, nothing to be done there—he flew off in a tangent—as much as desired me to mind my own business, and hold my tongue; and upon my life, I don't think there is a chance for you in that quarter."

"Very well—we shall see. Next, have you taken any steps to find out the girl, my daughter?"

"I have, I assure you. But you give me so slight a clue. Are you quite sure she is not in America after all?"

"I have told you before that that story about America was all bosh! a stratagem of the old gentleman's to deceive me. Poor old man," continued Jasper, in a tone that positively betrayed feeling, "I don't wonder that he dreads and flies me; yet I would not hurt him more than I have done, even to be as well off as you are—blinking at me from your mahogany perch like a pet owl with its crop full of mice. And if I would take the girl from him, it is for her own good. For if Darrell could be got to make a provision on her, and, through her, on myself, why, of course the old man should share the benefit of it. And now that these infernal pains often keep me awake half the night, I can't always shut out the idea of that old man wandering about the world, and dying in a ditch. And that runaway girl—to whom, I dare swear, he would give away his last crumb of bread—ought to be an annuity to us both: Basta, basta! As to the American story—I had a friend at Paris, who went to America on a speculation; I asked him to inquire about this Willaim Waife and his granddaughter Sophy, who were said to have sailed for New York nearly five years ago, and he saw the very persons—settled in New York—no longer under the name of Waife, but their true name of Simpson, and got out from the man that they had been induced to take their passage from England in the name of Waife, at the request of a person whom the mail would not-give up, but to whom he said he was under obligations. Perhaps the old gentleman had done the fellow a kind turn in early life. The description of this /soi-disant/ Waife and his grandchild settles the matter—wholly unlike those I seek; so that there is every reason to suppose they must still be in England, and it is your business to find them. Continue your search—quicken your wits—let me be better pleased with your success when I call again this day week—and meanwhile four pounds, if you please—as much more as you like."

"Why, I gave you four pounds the other day, besides six pounds for clothes; it can't be gone."

"Every penny."

"Dear, dear! can't you maintain yourself anyhow? Can't you get any one to play at cards? Four pounds! Why, with your talent for whist, four pounds are a capital!"

"Whom can I play with! Whom can I herd with? Cracksmen and pickpockets. Fit me out; ask me to your own house; invite your own friends; make up a rubber, and you will then see what I can do with four pounds; and may go shares if you like, as we used to do."

"Don't talk so loud. Losely, you know very well that what you ask is impossible. I've turned over a new leaf."

"But I've still got your handwriting on the old leaf."

"What's the good of these stupid threats? If you really wanted to do me a mischief, where could you go to, and who'd believe you?"

"I fancy your wife would. I'll try. Hillo—"

"Stop—stop—stop. No row here, sir. No scandal. Hold your tongue, or I'll send for the police."

"Do! Nothing I should like better. I'm tired out. I want to tell my own story at the Old Bailey, and have my revenge upon you, upon Darrell, upon all. Send for the police."

Losely threw himself at length on the sofa—(new morocco with spring cushions)—and folded his arms.

"You could only give me five minutes—they are gone, I fear. I am more liberal. I give you your own time to consider. I don't care if I stay to dine; I dare say Mrs. Poole will excuse my dress."

"Losely, you are such a—fellow! If I do give you the four pounds you ask, will you promise to shift for yourself somehow, and molest me no more?"

"Certainly not. I shall come once every week for the same sum. I can't live upon less—until—"

"Until what?"

"Until either you get Mr. Darrell to settle on me a suitable provision; or until you place me in possession of my daughter, and I can then be in a better condition to treat with him myself; for if I would make a claim on account of the girl, I must produce the girl, or he may say she is dead. Besides, if she be as pretty as she was when a child, the very sight of her might move him more than all my talk."

"And if I succeed in doing anything with Mr. Darrell, or discovering your daughter, you will give up all such letters and documents of mine as you say you possess?"

"'Say I possess!' I have shown them to you in this pocket-book, Dolly Poole—your own proposition to rob old Latham's safe."

Poole eyed the book, which the ruffian took out and tapped. Had the ruffian been a slighter man, Poole would have been a braver one. As it was—he eyed and groaned. "Turn against one's own crony! So unhandsome, so unlike what I thought you were."

"It is you who would turn against me. But stick to Darrell or find me my daughter, and help her and me to get justice out of him; and you shall not only have back these letters, but I'll pay you handsomely— handsomely, Dolly Poole. Zooks, sir—I am fallen, but I am always a gentleman."

Therewith Losely gave a vehement slap to his hat, which, crushed by the stroke, improved his general appearance into an aspect so outrageously raffish, that but for the expression of his countenance the contrast between the boast and the man would have been ludicrous even to Mr. Poole. The countenance was too dark to permit laughter. In the dress, but the ruin of fortune—in the face, the ruin of man. Poole heaved a deep sigh, and extended four sovereigns.

Losely rose and took them carelessly. "This day week," he said—shook himself—and went his way.

CHAPTER VI

FRESH TOUCHES TO THE THREE VIGNETTES FOR THE BOOK OF BEAUTY.

Weeks passed—the London season was beginning—Darrell had decided nothing—the prestige of his position was undiminished,—in politics, perhaps higher. He had succeeded in reconciling some great men; he had strengthened—it might be saved—a jarring cabinet. In all this he had shown admirable knowledge of mankind, and proved that time and disuse had not lessened his powers of perception. In his matrimonial designs, Darrell seemed more bent than ever upon the hazard—irresolute as ever on the choice of a partner. Still the choice appeared to be circumscribed to the fair three who had been subjected to Colonel Morley's speculative criticism—Lady Adela, Miss Vipont, Flora Vyvyan. Much pro and con might be said in respect to each. Lady Adela was so handsome that it was a pleasure to look at her; and that is much when one sees the handsome face every day,—provided the pleasure does not wear off. She had the reputation of a very good temper; and the expression of her countenance confirmed it. There, panegyric stopped; but detraction did not commence. What remained was inoffensive commonplace. She had no salient attribute, and no ruling passion. Certainly she would never have wasted a thought on Mr. Darrell, nor have discovered a single merit in him, if he had not been quoted as a very rich man of high character in search of a wife, and if her father had not said to her: "Adela, Mr. Darrell has been greatly struck with your appearance—he told me so. He is not young, but he is still a very fine looking man, and you are twenty-seven. 'Tis a greater distinction to be noticed by a person of his years and position, than by a pack of silly young fellows, who think more of their own pretty faces than they would ever do of yours."

"If you did not mind a little disparity of years, he would make you a happy wife; and, in the course of nature, a widow, not too old to enjoy liberty, and with a jointure that might entitle you to a still better match."

Darrell thus put into Lady Adela's head, he remained there, and became an /idee fixe/. Viewed in the light of a probable husband, he was elevated into an "interesting man." She would have received his addresses with gentle complacency; and, being more the creature of habit than impulse, would no doubt, in the intimacy of connubial life, have blest him, or any other admiring husband, with a resaonable modicum of languid affection. Nevertheless, Lady Adela was an unconscious impostor; for, owing to a mild softness of eye and a susceptibility to blushes, a victim ensnared by her beauty would be apt to give her credit for a nature far more accessible to the romance of the tender passion than, happily perhaps for her own peace of mind, she possessed; and might flatter himself that he had produced a sensation which gave that softness to the eye and that damask to the blush.

Honoria Vipont would have been a choice far more creditable to the good sense of so mature a wooer. Few better specimens of a young lady brought up to become an accomplished woman of the world. She had sufficient instruction to be the companion of an ambitious man-solid judgment to fit her for his occasional adviser. She could preside with dignity over a stately household—receive with grace distinguished guests. Fitted to administer an ample fortune, ample fortune was necessary to the development of her excellent qualities. If a man of Darrell's age were bold enough to marry a young wife, a safer wife amongst the young ladies of London he could scarcely find; for though Honoria was only three-and- twenty, she was as staid, as sensible, and as remote from all girlish frivolities, as if she had been eight-and-thirty. Certainly had Guy Darrell been of her own years, his fortunes unmade, his fame to win, a lawyer residing at the back of Holborn, or a pretty squire in the petty demesnes of Fawley, he would have had no charm in the eyes of Honoria Vipont. Disparity of years was in this case no drawback but his advantage, since to that disparity Darrell owed the established name and the eminent station which made Honoria think she elevated her own self in preferring him. It is but justice to her to distinguish here between a woman's veneration for the attributes of respect which a man gathers round him, and the more vulgar sentiment which sinks the man altogether, except as the necessary fixture to be taken in with general valuation. It is not fair to ask if a girl who entertains a preference for one of our toiling, stirring, ambitious sex, who may be double her age or have a snub nose, but who looks dignified and imposing on a pedestal of state, whether she would like him as much if stripped of all his accessories, and left unredeemed to his baptismal register or unbecoming nose. Just as well ask a girl in love with a young Lothario if she would like him as much if he had been ugly and crooked. The high name of the one man is as much a part of him as good looks are to the other. Thus, though it was said of Madame de la Valliere that she loved Louis XIV: for himself and not for his regal grandeur, is there a woman in the world, however disinterested, who believes that Madame de la Valliere would have liked Louis XIV. as much if Louis XIV. had been Mr. John Jones; Honoria would not have bestowed her hand on a brainless, worthless nobleman, whatever his rank or wealth. She was above that sort of ambition; but neither would she have married the best-looking and worthiest John Jones who ever bore that British appellation, if he had not occupied the social position which brought the merits of a Jones within range of the eyeglass of a Vipont.

Many girls in the nursery say to their juvenile confidants, "I will marry the man I love." Honoria had ever said, "I will only marry the man I respect." Thus it was her respect for Guy Darrell that made her honour him by her preference. She appreciated his intellect—she fell in love with the reputation which the intellect had acquired. And Darrell might certainly choose worse. His cool reason inclined him much to Honoria. When Alban Morley argued in her favour, he had no escape from acquiescence, except in the turns and doubles of his ironical humour. But his heart was a rebel to his reason; and, between you and me, Honoria was exactly one of those young women by whom a man of grave years ought to be attracted, and by whom, somehow or other, he never is; I suspect, because the older we grow the more we love youthfulness of character. When Alcides, having gone through all the fatigues of life, took a bride in Olympus, he ought to have selected Minerva, but he chose Hebe.

Will Darrell find his Hebe in Flora Vyvyan? Alban Morley became more and more alarmed by the apprehension. He was shrewd enough to recognise in her the girl of all others formed to glad the eye and plague the heart of a grave and reverend seigneur. And it might well not only flatter the vanity, but beguile the judgment, of a man who feared his hand would be accepted only for the sake of his money, that Flora just at this moment refused the greatest match in the kingdom, young Lord Vipont, son of the new Earl of Montfort, a young man of good sense, high character, well- looking as men go—heir to estates almost royal; a young man whom no girl on earth is justified in refusing. But would the whimsical creature accept Darrell? Was she not merely making sport of him, and if, caught by her arts, he, sage and elder, solemnly offered homage and hand to that /belle dedaigneuse/ who had just doomed to despair a comely young magnet with five times his fortune, would she not hasten to make hirer the ridicule of London.

Darrell had perhaps his secret reasons for thinking otherwise, but he did not confide them even to Alban Morley. This much only will the narrator, more candid, say to the reader: If out of the three whom his thoughts fluttered round, Guy Darrell wished to select the one who would love him best—love him with the whole fresh unreasoning heart of a girl whose childish forwardness sprang from childlike innocence, let him dare the hazard of refusal and of ridicule; let him say to Flora Vyvyan, in the pathos of his sweet deep voice: "Come and be the spoiled darling of my gladdened age; let my life, ere it sink into night, be rejoiced by the bloom and fresh breeze of the morning."

But to say it he must wish it; he himself must love—love with all the lavish indulgence, all the knightly tenderness, all the grateful sympathising joy in the youth of the beloved, when youth for the lover is no more, which alone can realise what we sometimes see, though loth to own it—congenial unions with unequal years. If Darrell feel not that love, woe to him, woe and thrice shame if he allure to his hearth one who might indeed be a Hebe to the spouse who gave up to her his whole heart in return for hers; but to the spouse who had no heart to give, or gave but the chips of it, the Hebe indignant would be worse than Erinnys!

All things considered, then, they who wish well to Guy Darrell must range with Alban Morley in favour of Miss Honoria Vipont. She, proffering affectionate respect—Darrell responding by rational esteem. So, perhaps, Darrell himself thought, for whenever Miss Vipont was named he became more taciturn, more absorbed in reflection, and sighed heavily, like a man who slowly makes up his mind to a decision, wise, but not tempting.