The regiment to which Ensign afterwards Lieutenant Somerton was attached had its station in London, and this gave him an opportunity of keeping up his friendship with Mr. Williamson.
The Lieutenant had become quite a dashing young officer, and his adventures began early, as we shall learn from an elaborate confession which he made to Mr. Williamson before he had worn his epaulettes six months.
They were sitting at the window of a famous hotel at Brighton, whither they had gone together for a day’s lounge. It was a pleasant summer day, and after dinner, when Paul, smoking a cigar somewhat rapidly and drinking a little more wine than was customary for him to drink, said:
“I have been trying to tell you about something that has happened to me lately.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Williamson, in his lazy fashion putting up his legs upon a vacant chair, and nodding a smiling signal of approval.
Paul hesitated, and said it was rather a long story, and he fidgetted with a tassel that hung from the sword he had laid upon the window seat.
“All right, mon gallant homme, proceed!” said the literary barrister.
Paul gave a long pull and a strong pull at his cigar, and said he would proceed. “I must tell you,—I can’t rest unless I do,—so here goes.”
“Open confession is good for the soul,” said Mr. Williamson; “the auricular business is not to my fancy. But there, go on, Lieutenant, I am getting interested.”
“About a month ago Captain Macshawser gave me a tip about a certain steeple-chase, and his information turned out wrong, and——”
“You laid a wager and lost, yes,” said Mr. Williamson, looking out to the sea, and smoking with perfect content.
“And then, in order to get back what I lost, I ventured to take the odds about Fleetwing, and was unsuccessful again,” said Paul, with boyish frankness.
“Very good; I am glad of it,” said Mr. Williamson. “I hope you have been so well punished that you will, like the burnt child, dread the fire in the future.”
Paul did not like the quiet tone of authority and rebuke in which his friend appeared to speak; but he felt that the barrister was in the right, and had his interest at heart.
“You don’t sympathise with me much?” said Paul, moving uneasily in his seat, and smoking by fits and starts.
“O yes, I do, Lieutenant—O yes, I do; I fancy that Macshawser’s a humbug; but I interrupt your narrative.”
“Well; these losses, and some extra expenditure which I felt called upon to make in a little dinner to some fellows belonging to the Guards, run away with my allowance twice over before I knew where I was.”
“You have been going it, as the saying is,—been fast in the double sense. We say a man is fast who is fond of gaiety, keeps late hours, bets on horse races, and takes ‘tips.’ In Yorkshire, a man who is ‘hard up’ is said to be fast,—fast for money. Are you fast for money now? If so, how much do you want?” said Mr. Williamson still, looking before him far away at the ships in the distance.
“You had better let me tell you the whole story through,” Paul replied. “I was ashamed to let anybody know that I wanted money; I could not summon courage even to tell you, and should not have had courage to do so even now but for another circumstance which has arisen out of it.”
“You are too modest,” said Mr. Williamson.
“I thought of a hundred ways of raising money, and I knew that some of our fellows borrow money of Jews; I did not know what to do. Whilst I was sitting over the Times and a cigar in my own quarters, my eye caught an advertisement about ‘money to lend.’”
Mr. Wilkinson grew particularly interested at this point, for a detective friend of his had told him some time ago that he had been on the trail of Shuffleton Gibbs, who had slipped him, in the character, he believed, of an advertising money-lender.
“I replied to the advertisement, and had a letter by return of post requesting me to call at No. 15, Chaucer-street, Lincoln’s-inn-fields. I called, and was requested to fill up a long form, in which I answered a great many questions; but I concealed my connection with the army. My life was to be insured, and a bill of exchange, backed by one good name besides my own, for two hundred and fifty pounds would secure to me two hundred for three months. I paid the two guineas and a fee the next day for medical examination. Two days afterwards they informed me that the medical officer of the company had made an unfavourable report with regard to the state of my health, and that the loan could not therefore be granted.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Williamson, lighting another cigar.
“I asked for the return of the fees which I had paid, and was informed that no fees were ever returned. I felt that I had been swindled, but still could not rest until I had undergone an examination by our own surgeon, and been reported sound in wind and limb.”
“Well,” said Mr. Wilkinson, “you have been making experience; your story grows in interest; make a clean breast of it, perhaps I can help you.”
“I did not know what to do next; somehow these advertisements attracted my attention again. I found one which really did seem honest. It stated that gentlemen in the army and others requiring temporary loans might obtain them with strict privacy on application to Mr. Jefferson Crawley, at Titchwell-street West. I wrote to Mr. Crawley, determined not to be done a second time. I was desired to call, and with some difficulty I found the place—rather a queer place, too; through a mews, and in a back, out-of-the-way corner I found a shabby-looking office, and entered. A small boy sat at a small desk and said his master was out, and whilst he was saying so a girl came into the office by a flight of stairs at the back.”
“Oh, there’s a woman in the case, is there?” said Mr. Wilkinson, in a somewhat cynical tone.
Paul threw the stump end of a cigar out of window, and coughed to conceal some little confusion which this part of the narrative occasioned him.
“I know you will say I have been a fool,” he said, with unusual energy; “but I can’t help it.”
“The first part of the confession has a good sound—confession and then repentance; but ‘can’t help it’ is a horse of another colour. Out with the whole story, my friend; you will find me mum as a priest, and I’ll give you absolution, too.”
“A beautiful-looking girl she was; I was quite struck by her appearance—so unexpected, you know.”
“Yes; go on,” said Mr. Williamson.
“She said she must apologize for Mr. Crawley; he had been quite unexpectedly called away and would not return until evening; but she was acquainted with my business, and would I kindly step inside for a moment. I followed her into a small room, a miserable sort of attempt at a parlour, wretchedly furnished. I took a seat and almost forgot my business—I was so taken up with the woman. She was to ask if I knew Captain Macshawser, and if that officer would join me in a bill. I felt ashamed to talk about the subject to a woman, and especially such a pretty one, and I said as much, but in a different way.”
“You let her see that you were admiring her, of course,” said Mr. Williamson, adding, sotto voce, “innocent youth!”
“How it was I don’t know, but we got into a long conversation, and it came out quite by accident that she knew Severntown, and she spoke about the place so familiarly that I felt sure I had seen her before. I thought so at first, and was convinced of it when she mentioned the old cathedral city. I don’t know how long I stayed, but I said no more about money, and I never felt so much pleasure in talking to a girl in all my life. I went away, promising to call again, and I secretly hoped that Mr. Crawley would still be from home at my next visit.”
“And who was the lady, pray?” asked the barrister.
“I did not inquire at that time,” said Paul; “I longed so to see her again, that I called in the afternoon, and she was out; I was very much disappointed. The boy said she would be in soon, and I sat down and waited. I felt miserable, I hardly knew why. I asked the scrubby-looking clerk if the young lady were Mr. Crawley’s daughter? He said ‘No.’ Was she his sister? I asked. ‘No,’ he said again. Somehow, I felt as if I dare not ask if she were his wife. Whilst I was thinking and wondering who she could be—such a sweet charming girl in such a place (Paul went on excitedly)—in she came. I jumped up and shook hands with her, and felt as if I had known her for years.”
Here Paul rose from his seat and walked about the room. Mr. Williamson had never seen him so agitated before. He had no idea that there was so much fire and enthusiasm in the young fellow. The barrister left the ships at sea, and watched his young friend with a kindly interest which he had not exhibited hitherto during the conversation.
“She asked me to come in,” said Paul, still pacing the room. “We talked again of anything and everything but the business upon which I was supposed to have called. I could see that she was troubled about something—how I had courage enough to press her upon the subject I don’t know, but I did, and she began to cry.”
“Curse their tears!” said the barrister, between his teeth, as he removed his legs from the vacant chair, and, planting them firmly on the floor, gazed steadfastly at Paul.
“I took her hand; I don’t know what I said, but I think it was that I loved her, and begged to know how I could be of service to her. She looked up at me—with such despair that I could almost have cried myself—and begged me not to talk of love; she was married!”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Williamson. The remark was wrung from him, not so much by Paul’s story as by a touch of memory.
“I knew she was—I felt almost from the first that she was married; it seemed as if some devil whispered it in my ear to mock me; but it only made me love her ten times more.”
“Unhappy boy!” said the barrister, quite sadly—“unhappy boy!”
“Her husband treated her cruelly, she said; he was a swindler, a thief, everything that was bad, and he had married her merely that she might assist him in his conspiracies. She would rather die than continue such a life, and I could not help but feel that the love she had inspired in me was returned; she seemed almost delirious for a time, asked me not to leave her, and clasped her hand to her head. At this the office-boy came in, and taking some water from a jug, said, ‘Put that on the top of her head,’ I obeyed him mechanically, and then the girl was herself again. ‘Peter,’ she said to the boy, ‘you will not mention what has occurred to Mr. Crawley.’ ‘Of course I shan’t,’ said the boy, and then she begged me to go. I made her promise to let me help her in some way, and she cautioned me not to have anything to do with her husband. She said I might call the next night at six. I kissed her and left the house, not knowing where I was or what I was doing.”
“By Jove,” said Mr. Williamson, “it is an exciting story, and you tell it well, Paul; but I fear it is a sad affair: you are getting into troubled waters. Rest awhile, light another cigar, let us have some more sherry, and then you can go on; I think I know the end of it—poor fellow!”
The barrister put his hand quite affectionately on the Lieutenant’s shoulder, and then rang the bell, saying all the time, “Poor fellow!—poor fellow!”