Part 4

Useless, alas! now were the regrets and repentances of his reverend father. Vain were the efforts of the private detectives whom he engaged. The advertisements that he caused to be inserted in the papers brought no response, and, after five years of fruitless labour and unavailing self-reproach, his family came to the conclusion that he was dead. He had perished from hunger, perhaps, or had hurried himself into the presence of his Maker, goaded to distraction by the paternal taunts. The reflection that his innocence had been established ameliorated to some little extent the pangs of mother and sister. But the very thought which gave them consolation added to the poignancy of the father’s feelings. He mourned in secret, and cried with the man of yore,—

“Would to God I had died for him! My son, my son!”

At the very point where Brixton Rise merges into Brixton Hill there is an avenue. It is a very well-kept avenue, and a stately row of young trees runs along each side of it. A notice-board informs the passers-by that there is “No Thoroughfare,” and that this trimly-kept approach is “Private.” On some fine days honest people are beguiled by the spectacle of half-a-dozen men with cropped hair and unbecoming uniform repairing the roadway. These operators are directed by another person. He is also in uniform, and carries side arms and a musket—for the avenue leads to Brixton Gaol, and the sullen road-menders are inmates of that suburban retreat. It is perhaps within the knowledge of the reader that military prisoners are now received in the Brixton seminary; if not, the reader must take it from me that it is so.

One wild November morning the gates of Brixton Gaol opened and let loose a prisoner who had been confined for an assault on his superior officer, that gallant captain having contributed somewhat to the offence by dubbing the man a thief. He was a fine, soldierly-looking young fellow of two-and-twenty, though he looked much more. When he came to the end of the avenue he found the chaplain waiting there, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather.

“Good-morning,” said the chaplain—a kind-hearted Devonshire parson, who took more than the usual perfunctory interest in his patients, as he was wont to call them.

“Good-morning, sir,” replied the soldier, respectfully, and with an accent of surprise.

“You have no money, I suppose?”

“Not a sou, your reverence,” replied the man.

“Then,” said the chaplain, “here are two shillings. They will at least keep you for a day or two. Seek work and keep honest. God bless you.”

“Heaven reward you!” replied the man, writhing under the kindness of the clergyman. The visitant to the outer world did not move, however. He looked up and down the hill, as if hesitating in what direction he should go.

“That,” said the parson, pointing down the hill, “that is the way to London”—saying which he turned up the avenue, and so re-entered the precincts of the gaol. But the man did not take the direction indicated by his benefactor. There was something in the atmosphere of Brixton which seemed to agree with him. He found its attractions more considerable than do most visitors to the noted locality. He wandered in an aimless way up and down by-streets. But the police—always solicitous about the welfare of discharged prisoners—kept their eyes on him. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. And he repeated with something of bitter irony in his tone the parting admonition of the chaplain.

“‘Seek work and keep honest!’ No easy matter, Mr. Parson, with these sleuth-hounds on the trail.”

Towards evening he entered a small beer-house in the Cornwall Road, a thoroughfare not far removed from the gaol. Here he refreshed himself with bread and cheese and beer. Here also he found company who did not object to his society, for it is a comforting reflection that there are more wicked people outside gaols than in them. And among these excellent fellows he spent the time, until at the hour of twelve the landlord was obliged to turn his customers into the bleak and blustrous night.

The man bade good-bye to his companions, and sought the high road. He proceeded up the hill with his back turned on London. When he came to the substantial house of the Rev. Stanley Blewton he stopped, looked up and down the road to see that he was not followed, and then passed into the clergyman’s front garden, creeping forward under the shadow of the bushes.

At one o’clock in the morning the reverend occupant of the house was wakened by a noise below; he listened, warned his wife to keep quiet, drew on his trousers, took his revolver, and crept downstairs in his naked feet. Yes, the thief had entered the library. Mr. Blewton was, as we have seen, a person of some determination. He opened the library door and said,—

“Speak, or I’ll fire.”

“It is—” But the voice was not allowed to proceed. The sound indicated the position of the robber. The minister fired two barrels in the direction of the voice, and heard a body fall with a groan of—

“Oh—father—you—have—killed—me!”

Then there was silence. Then another groan, and the fall of another man. When the servants came with a light they found the dead body of the father stretched by the dead body of the son.

IX. _A PHILANTHROPIC_ “_MASHER_.”

AN elderly man with a pleasant expression, iron-grey hair, and faultlessly dressed may occasionally be seen walking along the shady side of St. James’s Street in the early afternoon. He gazes a good deal under the bonnets of the pretty women. But there is a demure and half-respectful expression in his glance which withers any rising feeling of resentment. His age and his unmistakably sympathetic half-smile give him an immunity which would not be extended to younger and bolder men. He is known to society as the Hon. Archibald Flodden.

Flodden is a member of three excellent clubs. His name is on some extremely desirable visiting lists. He goes to church when in town every Sunday morning. His conduct in public is most exemplary. And yet, somehow, Flodden has no men friends. He has money, and therefore can always command the society of a select circle of parasites. But men who ought to be in his own set—or of whose set he ought to be—do not care for his company. Nor do the female leaders of society give him great countenance. He is not, perhaps, regarded exactly as a _mauvais sujet_. But it is generally admitted that there is something queer about Flodden.

This sentiment was not, of course, inspired originally by the fact that after two years of domestic infelicity his wife left him, taking her infant daughter with her. Society naturally took the man’s part. The wife placed herself outside the pale, and Flodden never asked her to re-enter it. He took the matter philosophically, gave up his house in Sloane Square, took chambers in the Albany, refused all communication with his wife, and led the life of a sedate and philanthropic bachelor. For eighteen years he has led this blameless and almost idyllic life, and yet there exists in society an undefined distrust of him which is utterly unaccountable.

But though the great ladies of society, guided by an infallible instinct, do not regard the Hon. Archie Flodden with favour, there are certain other desirable persons who worship him as the very _beau ideal_ knight. These are ladies of the middle-class, the wives of professional men, or the gushing ornaments of suburban Bohemia. Their experience of gentlemen is, perhaps, limited. They may be excused, therefore, in mistaking Flodden’s tinsel of politeness for the gold of real gallantry.

It is quite surprising the number of interesting young persons of the emotional and impressionable kind who have acquired a sincere, romantic, but quite Platonic, regard for Mr. Flodden. Happy chance has in the majority of instances procured the introduction; and, as a rule, the male relatives of the ladies are quite unaware of the discreet intimacy existing between Flodden and their women-folk. Indeed, these male relatives are all mere brutes, and it is part of Flodden’s edifying mission to sympathise with these dear creatures, to express distress that their sweetness should be wasted on such clods of earth, and generally to insinuate comparisons between himself and the lawful husband, which are infinitely detrimental to the latter.

This hoary-headed squire of dames has the pleasantest possible little five o’clock teas at his chambers in the Albany, and sometimes as many as eight, or even nine, of his young friends will join him at that simple repast. Lord Roach (“Cock” Roach he used to be called in his regiment), who lives in the next set, seeing the ladies file out at half-past six or so, has put it about that Flodden keeps a dancing academy. But, though there is occasionally a little piano playing, there has never been a dance; indeed, the entertainment is chiefly conversational. Mr. Flodden never used a rude or an improper expression. He has, however, a wonderful knack of leading the conversation into doubtful topics. The chaste annals of the Divorce Court afforded him much agreeable food for comment. He would argue with some of his impressionable admirers as to the possibility of a purely Platonic affection, and at times he would scribble off an epigram in choice French on some living beauty, notorious for the number of her amours. These trifles, written in a formal but trembling hand, have found themselves in the private albums of many an honest house in the suburbs. The ladies who were the objects of his disinterested regard invariably alluded to him as “a dear, kind creature,” the “most gentlemanly person,” “so sympathetic,” and the rest. The more gushing, recklessly declared him to be a “duck.” Dean Swift, remembering his own definition of the phrase, would have called him “a nice man.”

One hot afternoon in the July of last year, Mr. Flodden sat in his luxurious chambers surrounded by half-a-dozen of his female admirers, descanting on the superiority of French art as illustrated by the examples which adorned his walls. Having exhausted this topic, he proceeded to one more calculated to stimulate the curiosity of his guests.

“I have got a little surprise for you, my dear ladies: a fresh addition to our charmed, and may I say charming, circle.”

Six fragile cups descended from twelve ruby lips, and twelve eyes opened wide with curiosity.

“Such a charming creature—so young, so beautiful, so romantic, and so unfortunate.” Six long-drawn sighs.

“Husband a cruel brute; absolutely beats her.”

Twelve eyes cast in mute appeal to the heaven that exists above Albany ceilings. Then the still, small voice of a sympathetic inquirer—

“And where did you meet this—this—paragon?”

“A secret, my dear madam, an absolute and positive secret. She was on her way to give lessons—she sings divinely—in order to maintain her keeper in tobacco and beer. Faugh!”

Six more long-drawn sighs.

“If she keep her appointment she will be here directly. She is a shy, reserved little creature, but should, I think, in such genial society thaw somewhat. Yes, she really must thaw.”

In five minutes Flodden’s man—a highly-respectable person, well versed in his master’s little ways—announced Mrs. Bird. This was the lady who had so greatly fascinated the philanthropist, thereby driving six sympathetic souls into paroxysms of jealousy.

It must be admitted that anything less reserved or shy than Mrs. Bird had never before been presented to six neglected matrons. Mrs. Bird was stylishly dressed, greatly made up, and exhibited the undefinable _cachet_ of the professional. She called Mr. Flodden “old chappie,” shook hands, unintroduced, with the assembled tea-drinkers, hoped they were quite jolly, and then asked the master of the establishment for a brandy and soda. That worthy man of the world had turned red and white and even blue. He was completely thunder-struck. It was evident he must stop the compromising flow of her conversation. The modest woman of his rambles had suddenly become transformed into a something too terrible for contemplation. A brilliant idea. He would ask her to sing. Mrs. Bird was a woman of a most obliging disposition. She sat down at the piano and dashed off a showy prelude and commenced her song. You remember the effect of Captain Shandon’s tipsy ditty upon the good Colonel Newcome; an effect somewhat similar was now produced on the neglected wives. Mrs. Bird warbled out with unctuous accent one of the most notorious ballads of a Parisian _café chantant_. The matrons rose for shawls, and the songstress, apprehending their intention, jumped from the piano and burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Flodden looked humiliated beyond measure; there was not a pennyweight of philanthropy left in him.

“This is awful!” he exclaimed; “in heaven’s name who and what are you?”

“I am your daughter Gwendolyn,” she hissed.

At that moment voices were heard from without—Flodden’s man shouting, “You sha’n’t go in,” and another voice consigning Flodden’s man to Hades. Then the door was thrust open, and a cad in loud check trousers, a green-coloured Newmarket coat, a white hat and innumerable rings, stood bowing to the assembled company. He eventually fixed a somewhat bloodshot eye on the philanthropist and said,—

“Now, then, my festive fossil, when next you go a followin’ other men’s wives, you see as they ain’t your own daughters! I’m the Great O’Daniel, the star comique. Gwen’s my wife, an’ you’re my pa-in-lor. Here’s a horder; give us a turn and bring your lady friends with you. My new song, ‘The Elderly Masher,’ is no end of a go. Come along, Gwen. Good-bye, par. Ladies, bong joor!”

So saying he tucked Gwendolyn under his arm, bowed, and left the apartment. The other guests retired in solemn silence, wiser, and, let us hope better, women.

And that was Mr. Flodden’s last five o’clock tea at the Albany.

X. _A DISHONOURED BILL_.

THE bill itself, considering the prospects of the acceptor, was not for a very alarming amount. He was heir to a baronetcy and £50,000 per annum. The bill was for “a monkey”—or, in more intelligible phraseology than that usually adopted by the acceptor himself, for the sum of five hundred pounds sterling. The extraordinary circumstance about the bill was that the acceptor, Harry Jermyn, paid Abednego, of Throgmorton Street, interest at the rate of sixty per cent. per annum for the accommodation, and that in addition he had to take part of the proceeds in the shape of a park hack, which he found difficulty in selling to a cab proprietor for a five-pound note. The consideration deducted from the bill in respect of this animal was fifty pounds.

Harry Jermyn was a _mauvais sujet_; that is to say, he was a young gentleman kept by his father on a short allowance. He gambled a little, went to all the races, was a member of the Raleigh and other social centres of a similar kind, and evinced a considerable interest in the drama—that is to say, at theatres where the sacred lamp was kept burning. In fact, he resembled hundreds of other young men of our acquaintance; and probably he would not have been called a _mauvais sujet_ were it not that the old baronet restricted him to means inadequate to supply his simple desires.

Mr. Abednego was not a _mauvais sujet_. He was a most respectable man; had a house in Mayfair, another in Richmond, and a mansion in Scotland which he modestly called his shooting box. He occasionally entertained live lords, who borrowed his money and sneered at him behind his back. He had contrived to obtain a seat on a county bench, and was a Colonel of Volunteers in the same happy county, by reason of which he was known to society at large as Colonel Abednego.

When Harry Jermyn’s bill fell due he rushed down in a hansom to Abednego’s office in Throgmorton Street, and was—after an ominous delay—admitted to the sanctum of the great Abednego himself. That potentate did not rise, but nodded quickly to his visitor, with a short, and by no means encouraging, “Mornin’.”

Harry was a man with a fine flow of animal spirits, and was not to be dashed by the studied coolness of his reception.

“I say, old chappie,” he replied, with the greatest good humour, “what’s the matter? Feel a little chippy this morning? or lost a point or two at sixpenny whist last night—eh?”

“Mr. Jermyn, this is the City,” said the money-lender. “What is your business?”

“Well, the fact is, old boy,” answered Jermyn, sitting on the edge of the table opposite the financier, “that damn bill of mine falls due to-morrow.”

“Well?”

“And of course you’ll renew?”

“Of course I’ll do nothing of the kind,” answered Abednego, rising and taking out his watch.

Harry’s jaw fell considerably. His former experience of this exemplary man had not prepared him for this. It had only prepared him for the incurring of fresh interest and the possession of park hacks anything _but_ fresh.

“But look here, old man, I _must_ have the coin, don’t you know?”

Young Jermyn considered this sort of argument unanswerable. His host resumed his seat, and looking the young man in the face, said,—

“Well, I found her expensive myself. I’m not surprised that _you_ do.”

Harry jumped from his seat on the table, and exclaimed, “What in Hades do you mean?”

“I mean Baby Somerville of the Frivolity.”

“You scoundrel!” shouted the borrower, “she is my wife. I have married her.”

“You lie,” quietly answered Mr. Abednego.

Of course a blow followed. When Abednego had pulled himself together, and wiped the blood from his face, he said, in tones now quivering with rage,—

“You young scoundrel, you shall suffer for this!”

That was the end of the interview. Jermyn withdrew at once, wrathful and defeated, and next day the bill for “a monkey” was dishonoured.

Now, strange as it may appear, Harry Jermyn had really married Baby Somerville of the Frivolity, a shapely, vain, and heartless woman, incapable of an affection, except perhaps for some brute of a chorus man. There was a period in her career, however, when she was considered _chic_ by a certain number of men about town. Jermyn unfortunately allowed his passion to take an honourable direction. He wanted to have her all to himself; and she, knowing him to be heir to a baronetcy, without any conventional coyness consented to be his wife. But at the time of his marriage, and until he heard it on the day before his bill was dishonoured, he had no suspicion that Abednego had been among the admirers of his wife; and when he taxed her with it, she denied the fact with such accent of sincerity that he clasped her to his heart and called her by a hundred endearing names. He was, you see, an indubitable _mauvais sujet_.

Mr. and Mrs. Jermyn were spending the early days of their married life on the upper Thames, where, to her credit be it said, the lady affected a pretty interest in waving corn, and floating lily leaves, and shrilling larks, and other beauties which, I am told, abound in the neighbourhood of that incomparable stream; and, on the Sunday following the unpleasant interview with the magnate of Throgmorton Street, Mr. Jermyn was sculling his young bride in the skiff which he had purchased for her, and called after her name.

It was a glorious July day, and the river was crowded with craft of every description.

The lock at — was open and half full when they reached it. Jermyn took his skiff gently in, and held on to the side of a launch, the deck of which was crowded with laughing women and men in gorgeous array. In the cabin a lunch was laid, and cases of champagne reposed pleasantly in the stern. Jermyn cursed his indiscretion a moment after, when he discovered that a number of the sirens on deck were members of the Frivolity chorus. But the worst was to come. Abednego, flashing with diamonds, exquisitely raddled as to his cheeks, stood at the tiller, and addressing Mrs. Jermyn, said, with an air of easy familiarity,—

“Hallo, Baby, how are you gettin’ on, eh?”

That was bad enough, but when Harry turned sharply round on his wife, he saw her big eyes turned longingly on the resplendent Hebrew, and her smile cast boldly on his painted countenance. At that moment the devil entered into Jermyn’s soul as surely as ever it took possession of the Gadarene swine. His lips turned blue, his face was livid; but he made no other sign. His was the last boat to leave the lock. He rowed steadily on, and never spoke to the woman he had loved so well and so unwisely.

Mr. Abednego had enjoyed a real good time on board the launch, and on his way down stopped at the famous riparian village of —. Here also Jermyn landed some time after. He sent his wife home by train, and put up at the same hotel as that occupied by his opulent rival.

No one ever knew how it happened. Close to the village there is a lock, and by the lock is what is called a hook—a horseshoe of water running round from a point above it, and, after making a vast circuit, emerging at a point below. For the most part this hook is shallow, but in places it is deep as the wells described by Herodotus. At six o’clock on the following morning, Abednego, who was fond of the water, repaired to a remote part of the hook. Five minutes after Harry Jermyn also proceeded to the bathing place. He must, however, have selected a spot out of sight of the “Colonel,” for that gentleman was unfortunately drowned without Jermyn’s even having seen him. A certain mark was discovered round Abednego’s throat, but the coroner very sagely informed the jury that with that they had nothing to do—it might be a mark of long-standing. Mr. Jermyn volunteered evidence as to having seen nobody in the vicinity of the hook. Verdict in accordance with such evidence as was produced—“Accidental death.”

Six months afterwards the famous case of Jermyn _v._ Jermyn, Smith, Jones, and Another was heard, which, as the public will recollect, resulted in a verdict for the husband, who is now a prematurely aged and curiously reticent man—the inheritor of a baronetcy and fifty thousand pounds a year.

XI. _A MAN OF GENIUS_.

FELIX CARTER was always on the look out for unappreciated genius, the which, when discovered, he would clothe, feed, and house until the time came—as it invariably did come—when he found out that the gold was tinsel. He never for one moment suspected that he himself was the happy possessor of that divine endowment which he so reverenced in others. And yet his friends all swore that if any man ever were gifted with genius, Felix Carter was that individual. He was a sort of artistic Admirable Crichton. He painted exquisite pictures. He had written three novels. Plays of his had been produced with success. And he played the violin like a very Paganini. Acquaintances spoke of him as being eccentric. But every man is accounted eccentric whose talents cover a wide area and whose heart is abnormally large.

Play writing, novel spinning, and violin practice Felix regarded as recreations. His real profession was that of an artist. And his big bachelor establishment in a North Western suburb of London will be remembered as the scene of some brilliant receptions, at not a few of which Carter’s latest Man of Genius would put in an appearance, to the great surprise of guests, who very properly refused to see any merit whatever in his utterances. Sometimes three or four undesirable pensioners would be quartered on the establishment. And although Carter’s friends deplored the circumstance, not one of them dare remonstrate. He was the victim of perpetual disappointment in his _protégés_, but would resent any interference with his practical philanthropy.