The 'Banks of Jordan' was a public-house in the city, which from its appearance did not seem to do a very thriving trade; but as it was carried on from year to year in the same dull, monotonous, dead-alive sort of fashion, it must be surmised that some one found an interest in keeping it open.
Charley, when he entered the door punctually at two o'clock, saw that it was as usual nearly deserted. One long, lanky, middle-aged man, seedy as to his outward vestments, and melancholy in countenance, sat at one of the tables. But he was doing very little good for the establishment: he had no refreshment of any kind before him, and was intent only on a dingy pocket-book in which he was making entries with a pencil.
You enter the 'Banks of Jordan' by two folding doors in a corner of a very narrow alley behind the Exchange. As you go in, you observe on your left a little glass partition, something like a large cage, inside which, in a bar, are four or five untempting-looking bottles; and also inside the cage, on a chair, is to be seen a quiet-looking female, who is invariably engaged in the manufacture of some white article of inward clothing. Anything less like the flashy-dressed bar-maidens of the western gin palaces it would be difficult to imagine. To this encaged sempstress no one ever speaks unless it be to give a rare order for a mutton chop or pint of stout. And even for this she hardly stays her sewing for a moment, but touches a small bell, and the ancient waiter, who never shows himself but when called for, and who is the only other inhabitant of the place ever visible, receives the order from her through an open pane in the cage as quietly as she received it from her customer.
The floor of the single square room of the establishment is sanded, and the tables are ranged round the walls, each table being fixed to the floor, and placed within wooden partitions, by which the occupier is screened from any inquiring eyes on either side.
Such was Mr. Jabesh M'Ruen's house-of-call in the city, and of many a mutton chop and many a pint of stout had Charley partaken there while waiting for the man of money. To him it seemed to be inexcusable to sit down in a public inn and call for nothing; he perceived, however, that the large majority of the frequenters of the 'Banks of Jordan' so conducted themselves.
He was sufficiently accustomed to the place to know how to give his orders without troubling that diligent barmaid, and had done so about ten minutes when Jabesh, more punctual than usual, entered the place. This Charley regarded as a promising sign of forthcoming cash. It very frequently happened that he waited there an hour, and that after all Jabesh would not come; and then the morning visit to Mecklenburg Square had to be made again; and so poor Charley's time, or rather the time of his poor office, was cut up, wasted, and destroyed.
'A mutton chop!' said Mr. M'Ruen, looking at Charley's banquet. 'A very nice thing indeed in the middle of the day. I don't mind if I have one myself,' and so Charley had to order another chop and more stout.
'They have very nice sherry here, excellent sherry,' said M'Ruen. 'The best, I think, in the city—that's why I come here.'
'Upon my honour, Mr. M'Ruen, I shan't have money to pay for it until I get some from you,' said Charley, as he called for a pint of sherry.
'Never mind, John, never mind the sherry to-day,' said M'Ruen. 'Mr. Tudor is very kind, but I'll take beer;' and the little man gave a laugh and twisted his head, and ate his chop and drank his stout, as though he found that both were very good indeed. When he had finished, Charley paid the bill and discovered that he was left with ninepence in his pocket.
And then he produced the bill stamp. 'Waiter,' said he, 'pen and ink,' and the waiter brought pen and ink.
'Not to-day,' said Jabesh, wiping his mouth with the table-cloth. 'Not to-day, Mr. Tudor—I really haven't time to go into it to-day—and I haven't brought the other bills with me; I quite forgot to bring the other bills with me, and I can do nothing without them,' and Mr. M'Ruen got up to go.
But this was too much for Charley. He had often before bought bill stamps in vain, and in vain had paid for mutton chops and beer for Mr. M'Ruen's dinner; but he had never before, when doing so, been so hard pushed for money as he was now. He was determined to make a great attempt to gain his object.
'Nonsense,' said he, getting up and standing so as to prevent M'Ruen from leaving the box; 'that's d—— nonsense.'
'Oh! don't swear,' said M'Ruen—'pray don't take God's name in vain; I don't like it.'
'I shall swear, and to some purpose too, if that's your game. Now look here——'
'Let me get up, and we'll talk of it as we go to the bank—you are so unpunctual, you know.'
'D—— your punctuality.'
'Oh! don't swear, Mr. Tudor.'
'Look here—if you don't let me have this money to-day, by all that is holy I will never pay you a farthing again—not one farthing; I'll go into the court, and you may get your money as you can.'
'But, Mr. Tudor, let me get up, and we'll talk about it in the street, as we go along.'
'There's the stamp,' said Charley. 'Fill it up, and then I'll go with you to the bank.'
M'Ruen took the bit of paper, and twisted it over and over again in his hand, considering the while whether he had yet squeezed out of the young man all that could be squeezed with safety, or whether by an additional turn, by giving him another small advancement, he might yet get something more. He knew that Tudor was in a very bad state, that he was tottering on the outside edge of the precipice; but he also knew that he had friends. Would his friends when they came forward to assist their young Pickle out of the mire, would they pay such bills as these or would they leave poor Jabesh to get his remedy at law? That was the question which Mr. M'Ruen had to ask and to answer. He was not one of those noble vultures who fly at large game, and who are willing to run considerable risk in pursuit of their prey. Mr. M'Ruen avoided courts of law as much as he could, and preferred a small safe trade; one in which the fall of a single customer could never be ruinous to him; in which he need run no risk of being transported for forgery, incarcerated for perjury, or even, if possibly it might be avoided, gibbeted by some lawyer or judge for his malpractices.
'But you are so unpunctual,' he said, having at last made up his mind that he had made a very good thing of Charley, and that probably he might go a little further without much danger. 'I wish to oblige you, Mr. Tudor; but pray do be punctual;' and so saying he slowly spread the little document before him, across which Scatterall had already scrawled his name, and slowly began to write in the date. Slowly, with his head low down over the table, and continually twisting it inside his cravat, he filled up the paper, and then looking at it with the air of a connoisseur in such matters, he gave it to Charley to sign.
'But you haven't put in the amount,' said Charley.
Mr. M'Ruen twisted his head and laughed. He delighted in playing with his game as a fisherman does with a salmon. 'Well—no—I haven't put in the amount yet. Do you sign it, and I'll do that at once.'
'I'll do it,' said Charley; 'I'll say £15, and you'll give me £10 on that.'
'No, no, no!' said Jabesh, covering the paper over with his hands; 'you young men know nothing of filling bills; just sign it, Mr. Tudor, and I'll do the rest.' And so Charley signed it, and then M'Ruen, again taking the pen, wrote in 'fifteen pounds' as the recognized amount of the value of the document. He also took out his pocket-book and filled a cheque, but he was very careful that Charley should not see the amount there written. 'And now,' said he, 'we will go to the bank.'
As they made their way to the house in Lombard Street which Mr. M'Ruen honoured by his account, Charley insisted on knowing how much he was to have for the bill. Jabesh suggested £3 10s.; Charley swore he would take nothing less than £8; but by the time they had arrived at the bank, it had been settled that £5 was to be paid in cash, and that Charley was to have the three Seasons for the balance whenever he chose to send for them. When Charley, as he did at first, positively refused to accede to these terms, Mr. M'Ruen tendered him back the bill, and reminded him with a plaintive voice that he was so unpunctual, so extremely unpunctual.
Having reached the bank, which the money-lender insisted on Charley entering with him, Mr. M'Ruen gave the cheque across the counter, and wrote on the back of it the form in which he would take the money, whereupon a note and five sovereigns were handed to him. The cheque was for £15, and was payable to C. Tudor, Esq., so that proof might be forthcoming at a future time, if necessary, that he had given to his customer full value for the bill. Then in the outer hall of the bank, unseen by the clerks, he put, one after another, slowly and unwillingly, four sovereigns into Charley's hand.
'The other—where's the other?' said Charley.
Jabesh smiled sweetly and twisted his head.
'Come, give me the other,' said Charley roughly.
'Four is quite enough, quite enough for what you want; and remember my time, Mr. Tudor; you should remember my time.'
'Give me the other sovereign,' said Charley, taking hold of the front of his coat.
'Well, well, you shall have ten shillings; but I want the rest for a purpose.'
'Give me the sovereign,' said Charley, 'or I'll drag you in before them all in the bank and expose you; give me the other sovereign, I say.'
'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mr. M'Ruen; 'I thought you liked a joke, Mr. Tudor. Well, here it is. And now do be punctual, pray do be punctual, and I'll do anything I can for you.'
And then they parted, Charley going westward towards his own haunts, and M'Ruen following his daily pursuits in the city.
Charley had engaged to pull up to Avis's at Putney with Harry Norman, to dine there, take a country walk, and row back in the cool of the evening; and he had promised to call at the Weights and Measures with that object punctually at five.
'You can get away in time for that, I suppose,' said Harry.
'Well, I'll try and manage it,' said Charley, laughing.
Nothing could be kinder, nay, more affectionate, than Norman had been to his fellow-lodger during the last year and a half. It seemed as though he had transferred to Alaric's cousin all the friendship which he had once felt for Alaric; and the deeper were Charley's sins of idleness and extravagance, the wider grew Norman's forgiveness, and the more sincere his efforts to befriend him. As one result of this, Charley was already deep in his debt. Not that Norman had lent him money, or even paid bills for him; but the lodgings in which they lived had been taken by Norman, and when the end of the quarter came he punctually paid his landlady.
Charley had once, a few weeks before the period of which we are now writing, told Norman that he had no money to pay his long arrear, and that he would leave the lodgings and shift for himself as best he could. He had said the same thing to Mrs. Richards, the landlady, and had gone so far as to pack up all his clothes; but his back was no sooner turned than Mrs. Richards, under Norman's orders, unpacked them all, and hid away the portmanteau. It was well for him that this was done. He had bespoken for himself a bedroom at the public-house in Norfolk Street, and had he once taken up his residence there he would have been ruined for ever.
He was still living with Norman, and ever increasing his debt. In his misery at this state of affairs, he had talked over with Harry all manner of schemes for increasing his income, but he had never told him a word about Mr. M'Ruen. Why his salary, which was now £150 per annum, should not be able to support him, Norman never asked. Charley the while was very miserable, and the more miserable he was, the less he found himself able to rescue himself from his dissipation. What moments of ease he had were nearly all spent in Norfolk Street; and such being the case how could he abstain from going there?
'Well, Charley, and how do 'Crinoline and Macassar' go on?' said Norman, as they sauntered away together up the towing-path above Putney. Now there were those who had found out that Charley Tudor, in spite of his wretched, idle, vagabond mode of life, was no fool; indeed, that there was that talent within him which, if turned to good account, might perhaps redeem him from ruin and set him on his legs again; at least so thought some of his friends, among whom Mrs. Woodward was the most prominent. She insisted that if he would make use of his genius he might employ his spare time to great profit by writing for magazines or periodicals; and, inspirited by so flattering a proposition, Charley had got himself introduced to the editor of a newly-projected publication. At his instance he was to write a tale for approval, and 'Crinoline and Macassar' was the name selected for his first attempt.
The affair had been fully talked over at Hampton, and it had been arranged that the young author should submit his story, when completed, to the friendly criticism of the party assembled at Surbiton Cottage, before he sent it to the editor. He had undertaken to have 'Crinoline and Macassar' ready for perusal on the next Saturday, and in spite of Mr. M'Ruen and Norah Geraghty, he had really been at work.
'Will it be finished by Saturday, Charley?' said Norman.
'Yes—at least I hope so; but if that's not done, I have another all complete.'
'Another! and what is that called?'
'Oh, that's a very short one,' said Charley, modestly.
'But, short as it is, it must have a name, I suppose. What's the name of the short one?'
'Why, the name is long enough; it's the longest part about it. The editor gave me the name, you know, and then I had to write the story. It's to be called "Sir Anthony Allan-a-dale and the Baron of Ballyporeen."'
'Oh! two rival knights in love with the same lady, of course,' and Harry gave a gentle sigh as he thought of his own still unhealed grief. 'The scene is laid in Ireland, I presume?'
'No, not in Ireland; at least not exactly. I don't think the scene is laid anywhere in particular; it's up in a mountain, near a castle. There isn't any lady in it—at least, not alive.'
'Heavens, Charley! I hope you are not dealing with dead women.'
'No—that is, I have to bring them to life again. I'll tell you how it is. In the first paragraph, Sir Anthony Allan-a-dale is lying dead, and the Baron of Ballyporeen is standing over him with a bloody sword. You must always begin with an incident now, and then hark back for your explanation and description; that's what the editor says is the great secret of the present day, and where we beat all the old fellows that wrote twenty years ago.'
'Oh!—yes—I see. They used to begin at the beginning; that was very humdrum.'
'A devilish bore, you know, for a fellow who takes up a novel because he's dull. Of course he wants his fun at once. If you begin with a long history of who's who and all that, why he won't read three pages; but if you touch him up with a startling incident or two at the first go off, then give him a chapter of horrors, then another of fun, then a little love or a little slang, or something of that sort, why, you know, about the end of the first volume, you may describe as much as you like, and tell everything about everybody's father and mother for just as many pages as you want to fill. At least that's what the editor says.'
'Meleager ab ovo may be introduced with safety when you get as far as that,' suggested Norman.
'Yes, you may bring him in too, if you like,' said Charley, who was somewhat oblivious of his classicalities. 'Well, Sir Anthony is lying dead and the Baron is standing over him, when out come Sir Anthony's retainers——'
'Out—out of what?'
'Out of the castle: that's all explained afterwards. Out come the retainers, and pitch into the Baron till they make mincemeat of him.'
'They don't kill him, too?'
'Don't they though? I rather think they do, and no mistake.'
'And so both your heroes are dead in the first chapter.'
'First chapter! why that's only the second paragraph. I'm only to be allowed ten paragraphs for each number, and I am expected to have an incident for every other paragraph for the first four days.'
'That's twenty incidents.'
'Yes—it's a great bother finding so many.—I'm obliged to make the retainers come by all manner of accidents; and I should never have finished the job if I hadn't thought of setting the castle on fire. 'And now forked tongues of liquid fire, and greedy lambent flames burst forth from every window of the devoted edifice. The devouring element——.' That's the best passage in the whole affair.'
'This is for the Daily Delight, isn't it?'
'Yes, for the Daily Delight. It is to begin on the 1st of September with the partridges. We expect a most tremendous sale. It will be the first halfpenny publication in the market, and as the retailers will get them for sixpence a score—twenty-four to the score—they'll go off like wildfire.'
'Well, Charley, and what do you do with the dead bodies of your two heroes?'
'Of course I needn't tell you that it was not the Baron who killed Sir Anthony at all.'
'Oh! wasn't it? O dear—that was a dreadful mistake on the part of the retainers.'
'But as natural as life. You see these two grandees were next-door neighbours, and there had been a feud between the families for seven centuries—a sort of Capulet and Montague affair. One Adelgitha, the daughter of the Thane of Allan-a-dale—there were Thanes in those days, you know—was betrothed to the eldest son of Sir Waldemar de Ballyporeen. This gives me an opportunity of bringing in a succinct little account of the Conquest, which will be beneficial to the lower classes. The editor peremptorily insists upon that kind of thing.'
'Omne tulit punctum,' said Norman.
'Yes, I dare say,' said Charley, who was now too intent on his own new profession to attend much to his friend's quotation. 'Well, where was I?—Oh! the eldest son of Sir Waldemar went off with another lady and so the feud began. There is a very pretty scene between Adelgitha and her lady's-maid.'
'What, seven centuries before the story begins?'
'Why not? The editor says that the unities are altogether thrown over now, and that they are regular bosh—our game is to stick in a good bit whenever we can get it—I got to be so fond of Adelgitha that I rather think she's the heroine.'
'But doesn't that take off the interest from your dead grandees?'
'Not a bit; I take it chapter and chapter about. Well, you see, the retainers had no sooner made mincemeat of the Baron—a very elegant young man was the Baron, just returned from the Continent, where he had learnt to throw aside all prejudices about family feuds and everything else, and he had just come over in a friendly way, to say as much to Sir Anthony, when, as he crossed the drawbridge, he stumbled over the corpse of his ancient enemy—well, the retainers had no sooner made mincemeat of him, than they perceived that Sir Anthony was lying with an open bottle in his hand, and that he had taken poison.'
'Having committed suicide?' asked Norman.
'No, not at all. The editor says that we must always have a slap at some of the iniquities of the times. He gave me three or four to choose from; there was the adulteration of food, and the want of education for the poor, and street music, and the miscellaneous sale of poisons.'
'And so you chose poisons and killed the knight?'
'Exactly; at least I didn't kill him, for he comes all right again after a bit. He had gone out to get something to do him good after a hard night, a Seidlitz powder, or something of that sort, and an apothecary's apprentice had given him prussic acid in mistake.'
'And how is it possible he should have come to life after taking prussic acid?'
'Why, there I have a double rap at the trade. The prussic acid is so bad of its kind, that it only puts him into a kind of torpor for a week. Then we have the trial of the apothecary's boy; that is an excellent episode, and gives me a grand hit at the absurdity of our criminal code.'
'Why, Charley, it seems to me that you are hitting at everything.'
'Oh! ah! right and left, that's the game for us authors. The press is the only censor morum going now—and who so fit? Set a thief to catch a thief, you know. Well, I have my hit at the criminal code, and then Sir Anthony comes out of his torpor.'
'But how did it come to pass that the Baron's sword was all bloody?'
'Ah, there was the difficulty; I saw that at once. It was necessary to bring in something to be killed, you know. I thought of a stray tiger out of Wombwell's menagerie; but the editor says that we must not trespass against the probabilities; so I have introduced a big dog. The Baron had come across a big dog, and seeing that the brute had a wooden log tied to his throat, thought he must be mad, and so he killed him.'
'And what's the end of it, Charley?'
'Why, the end is rather melancholy. Sir Anthony reforms, leaves off drinking, and takes to going to church everyday. He becomes a Puseyite, puts up a memorial window to the Baron, and reads the Tracts. At last he goes over to the Pope, walks about in nasty dirty clothes all full of vermin, and gives over his estate to Cardinal Wiseman. Then there are the retainers; they all come to grief, some one way and some another. I do that for the sake of the Nemesis.'
'I would not have condescended to notice them, I think,' said Norman.
'Oh! I must; there must be a Nemesis. The editor specially insists on a Nemesis.'
The conclusion of Charley's novel brought them back to the boat. Norman, when he started, had intended to employ the evening in giving good counsel to his friend, and in endeavouring to arrange some scheme by which he might rescue the brand from the burning; but he had not the heart to be severe and sententious while Charley was full of his fun. It was so much pleasanter to talk to him on the easy terms of equal friendship than turn Mentor and preach a sermon.
'Well, Charley,' said he, as they were walking up from the boat wharf—Norman to his club, and Charley towards his lodgings—from which route, however, he meant to deviate as soon as ever he might be left alone—'well, Charley, I wish you success with all my heart; I wish you could do something—I won't say to keep you out of mischief.'
'I wish I could, Harry,' said Charley, thoroughly abashed; 'I wish I could—indeed I wish I could—but it is so hard to go right when one has begun to go wrong.'
'It is hard; I know it is.'
'But you never can know how hard, Harry, for you have never tried,' and then they went on walking for a while in silence, side by side.
'You don't know the sort of place that office of mine is,' continued Charley. 'You don't know the sort of fellows the men are. I hate the place; I hate the men I live with. It is all so dirty, so disreputable, so false. I cannot conceive that any fellow put in there as young as I was should ever do well afterwards.'
'But at any rate you might try your best, Charley.'
'Yes, I might do that still; and I know I don't; and where should I have been now, if it hadn't been for you?'
'Never mind about that; I sometimes think we might have done more for each other if we had been more together. But remember the motto you said you'd choose, Charley—Excelsior! We can none of us mount the hill without hard labour. Remember that word, Charley—Excelsior! Remember it now—now, to-night; remember how you dream of higher things, and begin to think of them in your waking moments also;' and so they parted.
Yes—now is the time to remember it, if it is ever to be remembered to any advantage. He went on with stoic resolution to the end of the street, determined to press home and put the last touch to 'Crinoline and Macassar;' but as he went he thought of his interview with Mr. M'Ruen and of the five sovereigns still in his pocket, and altered his course.
Charley had not been so resolute with the usurer, so determined to get £5 from him on this special day, without a special object in view. His credit was at stake in a more than ordinary manner; he had about a week since borrowed money from the woman who kept the public-house in Norfolk Street, and having borrowed it for a week only, felt that this was a debt of honour which it was incumbent on him to pay. Therefore, when he had walked the length of one street on his road towards his lodgings, he retraced his steps and made his way back to his old haunts.
The house which he frequented was hardly more like a modern London gin-palace than was that other house in the city which Mr. M'Ruen honoured with his custom. It was one of those small tranquil shrines of Bacchus in which the god is worshipped perhaps with as constant a devotion, though with less noisy demonstrations of zeal than in his larger and more public temples. None absolutely of the lower orders were encouraged to come thither for oblivion. It had about it nothing inviting to the general eye. No gas illuminations proclaimed its midnight grandeur. No huge folding doors, one set here and another there, gave ingress and egress to a wretched crowd of poverty-stricken midnight revellers. No reiterated assertions in gaudy letters, each a foot long, as to the peculiar merits of the old tom or Hodge's cream of the valley, seduced the thirsty traveller. The panelling over the window bore the simple announcement, in modest letters, of the name of the landlady, Mrs. Davis; and the same name appeared with equal modesty on the one gas lamp opposite the door.
Mrs. Davis was a widow, and her customers were chiefly people who knew her and frequented her house regularly. Lawyers' clerks, who were either unmarried, or whose married homes were perhaps not so comfortable as the widow's front parlour; tradesmen, not of the best sort, glad to get away from the noise of their children; young men who had begun the cares of life in ambiguous positions, just on the confines of respectability, and who, finding themselves too weak in flesh to cling on to the round of the ladder above them, were sinking from year to year to lower steps, and depths even below the level of Mrs. Davis's public-house. To these might be added some few of a somewhat higher rank in life, though perhaps of a lower rank of respectability; young men who, like Charley Tudor and his comrades, liked their ease and self-indulgence, and were too indifferent as to the class of companions against whom they might rub their shoulders while seeking it.
The 'Cat and Whistle,' for such was the name of Mrs. Davis's establishment, had been a house of call for the young men of the Internal Navigation long before Charley's time. What first gave rise to the connexion it is not now easy to say; but Charley had found it, and had fostered it into a close alliance, which greatly exceeded any amount of intimacy which existed previously to his day.
It must not be presumed that he, in an ordinary way, took his place among the lawyers' clerks, and general run of customers in the front parlour; occasionally he condescended to preside there over the quiet revels, to sing a song for the guests, which was sure to be applauded to the echo, and to engage in a little skirmish of politics with a retired lamp-maker and a silversmith's foreman from the Strand, who always called him 'Sir,' and received what he said with the greatest respect; but, as a rule, he quaffed his Falernian in a little secluded parlour behind the bar, in which sat the widow Davis, auditing her accounts in the morning, and giving out orders in the evening to Norah Geraghty, her barmaid, and to an attendant sylph, who ministered to the front parlour, taking in goes of gin and screws of tobacco, and bringing out the price thereof with praiseworthy punctuality.
Latterly, indeed, Charley had utterly deserted the front parlour; for there had come there a pestilent fellow, highly connected with the Press, as the lamp-maker declared, but employed as an assistant shorthand-writer somewhere about the Houses of Parliament, according to the silversmith, who greatly interfered with our navvy's authority. He would not at all allow that what Charley said was law, entertained fearfully democratic principles of his own, and was not at all the gentleman. So Charley drew himself up, declined to converse any further on politics with a man who seemed to know more about them than himself, and confined himself exclusively to the inner room.
On arriving at this elysium, on the night in question, he found Mrs. Davis usefully engaged in darning a stocking, while Scatterall sat opposite with a cigar in his mouth, his hat over his nose, and a glass of gin and water before him.
'I began to think you weren't coming,' said Scatterall, 'and I was getting so deuced dull that I was positively thinking of going home.'
'That's very civil of you, Mr. Scatterall,' said the widow.
'Well, you've been sitting there for the last half-hour without saying a word to me; and it is dull. Looking at a woman mending stockings is dull, ain't it, Charley?'
'That depends,' said Charley, 'partly on whom the woman may be, and partly on whom the man may be. Where's Norah, Mrs. Davis?'
'She's not very well to-night; she has got a headache; there ain't many of them here to-night, so she's lying down.'
'A little seedy, I suppose,' said Scatterall.
Charley felt rather angry with his friend for applying such an epithet to his lady-love; however, he did not resent it, but sitting down, lighted his pipe and sipped his gin and water.
And so they sat for the next quarter of an hour, saying very little to each other. What was the nature of the attraction which induced two such men as Charley Tudor and Dick Scatterall to give Mrs. Davis the benefit of their society, while she was mending her stockings, it might be difficult to explain. They could have smoked in their own rooms as well, and have drunk gin and water there, if they had any real predilection for that mixture. Mrs. Davis was neither young nor beautiful, nor more than ordinarily witty. Charley, it is true, had an allurement to entice him thither, but this could not be said of Scatterall, to whom the lovely Norah was never more than decently civil. Had they been desired, in their own paternal halls, to sit and see their mother's housekeeper darn the family stockings, they would, probably, both of them have rebelled, even though the supply of tobacco and gin and water should be gratuitous and unlimited.
It must be presumed that the only charm of the pursuit was in its acknowledged impropriety. They both understood that there was something fast in frequenting Mrs. Davis's inner parlour, something slow in remaining at home; and so they both sat there, and Mrs. Davis went on with her darning-needle, nothing abashed.
'Well, I think I shall go,' said Scatterall, shaking off the last ash from the end of his third cigar.
'Do,' said Charley; 'you should be careful, you know; late hours will hurt your complexion.'
'It's so deuced dull,' said Scatterall.
'Why don't you go into the parlour, and have a chat with the gentlemen?' suggested Mrs. Davis; 'there's Mr. Peppermint there now, lecturing about the war; upon my word he talks very well.'
'He's so deuced low,' said Scatterall.
'He's a bumptious noisy blackguard too,' said Charley; 'he doesn't know how to speak to a gentleman, when he meets one.'
Scatterall gave a great yawn. 'I suppose you're not going, Charley?' said he.
'Oh yes, I am,' said Charley, 'in about two hours.'
'Two hours! well, good night, old fellow, for I'm off. Three cigars, Mrs. Davis, and two goes of gin and water, the last cold.' Then, having made this little commercial communication to the landlady, he gave another yawn, and took himself away. Mrs. Davis opened her little book, jotted down the items, and then, having folded up her stockings, and put them into a basket, prepared herself for conversation.
But, though Mrs. Davis prepared herself for conversation, she did not immediately commence it. Having something special to say, she probably thought that she might improve her opportunity of saying it by allowing Charley to begin. She got up and pottered about the room, went to a cupboard, and wiped a couple of glasses, and then out into the bar and arranged the jugs and pots. This done, she returned to the little room, and again sat herself down in her chair.
'Here's your five pounds, Mrs. Davis,' said Charley; 'I wish you knew the trouble I have had to get it for you.'
To give Mrs. Davis her due, this was not the subject on which she was anxious to speak. She would have been at present well inclined that Charley should remain her debtor. 'Indeed, Mr. Tudor, I am very sorry you should have taken any trouble on such a trifle. If you're short of money, it will do for me just as well in October.'
Charley looked at the sovereigns, and bethought himself how very short of cash he was. Then he thought of the fight he had had to get them, in order that he might pay the money which he had felt so ashamed of having borrowed, and he determined to resist the temptation.
'Did you ever know me flush of cash? You had better take them while you can get them,' and as he pushed them across the table with his stick, he remembered that all he had left was ninepence.
'I don't want the money at present, Mr. Tudor,' said the widow. 'We're such old friends that there ought not to be a word between us about such a trifle—now don't leave yourself bare; take what you want and settle with me at quarter-day.'
'Well, I'll take a sovereign,' said he, 'for to tell you the truth, I have only the ghost of a shilling in my pocket.' And so it was settled; Mrs. Davis reluctantly pocketed four of Mr. M'Ruen's sovereigns, and Charley kept in his own possession the fifth, as to which he had had so hard a combat in the lobby of the bank.
He then sat silent for a while and smoked, and Mrs. Davis again waited for him to begin the subject on which she wished to speak. 'And what's the matter with Norah all this time?' he said at last.
'What's the matter with her?' repeated Mrs. Davis. 'Well, I think you might know what's the matter with her. You don't suppose she's made of stone, do you?'
Charley saw that he was in for it. It was in vain that Norman's last word was still ringing in his ears. 'Excelsior!' What had he to do with 'Excelsior?' What miserable reptile on God's earth was more prone to crawl downwards than he had shown himself to be? And then again a vision floated across his mind's eye of a young sweet angel face with large bright eyes, with soft delicate skin, and all the exquisite charms of gentle birth and gentle nurture. A single soft touch seemed to press his arm, a touch that he had so often felt, and had never felt without acknowledging to himself that there was something in it almost divine. All this passed rapidly through his mind, as he was preparing to answer Mrs. Davis's question touching Norah Geraghty.
'You don't think she's made of stone, do you?' said the widow, repeating her words.
'Indeed I don't think she's made of anything but what's suitable to a very nice young woman,' said Charley.
'A nice young woman! Is that all you can say for her? I call her a very fine girl.' Miss Golightly's friends could not say anything more, even for that young lady. 'I don't know where you'll pick up a handsomer, or a better-conducted one either, for the matter of that.'
'Indeed she is,' said Charley.
'Oh! for the matter of that, no one knows it better than yourself, Mr. Tudor; and she's as well able to keep a man's house over his head as some others that take a deal of pride in themselves.'
'I'm quite sure of it,' said Charley.
'Well, the long and the short of it is this, Mr. Tudor.' And as she spoke the widow got a little red in the face: she had, as Charley thought, an unpleasant look of resolution about her—a roundness about her mouth, and a sort of fierceness in her eyes. 'The long and the short of it is this, Mr. Tudor, what do you mean to do about the girl?'
'Do about her?' said Charley, almost bewildered in his misery.
'Yes, do about her. Do you mean to make her your wife? That's plain English. Because I'll tell you what: I'll not see her put upon any longer. It must be one thing or the other; and that at once. And if you've a grain of honour in you, Mr. Tudor—and I think you are honourable—you won't back from your word with the girl now.'
'Back from my word?' said Charley.
'Yes, back from your word,' said Mrs. Davis, the flood-gates of whose eloquence were now fairly opened. 'I'm sure you're too much of the gentleman to deny your own words, and them repeated more than once in my presence—Cheroots—yes, are there none there, child?—Oh, they are in the cupboard.' These last words were not part of her address to Charley, but were given in reply to a requisition from the attendant nymph outside. 'You're too much of a gentleman to do that, I know. And so, as I'm her natural friend—and indeed she's my cousin, not that far off—I think it's right that we should all understand one another.'
'Oh, quite right,' said Charley.
'You can't expect that she should go and sacrifice herself for you, you know,' said Mrs. Davis, who now that she had begun hardly knew how to stop herself. 'A girl's time is her money. She's at her best now, and a girl like her must make her hay while the sun shines. She can't go on fal-lalling with you, and then nothing to come of it. You mustn't suppose she's to lose her market that way.'
'God knows I should be sorry to injure her, Mrs. Davis.'
'I believe you would, because I take you for an honourable gentleman as will be as good as your word. Now, there's Peppermint there.'
'What! that fellow in the parlour?'
'And an honourable gentleman he is. Not that I mean to compare him to you, Mr. Tudor, nor yet doesn't Norah; not by no means. But there he is. Well, he comes with the most honourablest proposals, and will make her Mrs. Peppermint to-morrow, if so be that she'll have it.'
'You don't mean to say that there has been anything between them?' said Charley, who in spite of the intense desire which he had felt a few minutes since to get the lovely Norah altogether off his hands, now felt an acute pang of jealousy.' You don't mean to say that there has been anything between them?'
'Nothing as you have any right to object to, Mr. Tudor. You may be sure I wouldn't allow of that, nor yet wouldn't Norah demean herself to it.'
'Then how did she get talking to him?'
'She didn't get talking to him. But he has eyes in his head, and you don't suppose but what he can see with them. If a girl is in the public line, of course any man is free to speak to her. If you don't like it, it is for you to take her out of it. Not but what, for a girl that is in the public line, Norah Geraghty keeps herself to herself as much as any girl you ever set eyes on.'
'What the d—— has she to do with this fellow then?'
'Why, he's a widower, and has three young children; and he's looking out for a mother for them; and he thinks Norah will suit. There, now you have the truth, and the whole truth.'
'D—— his impudence!' said Charley.
'Well, I don't see that there's any impudence. He has a house of his own and the means to keep it. Now I'll tell you what it is. Norah can't abide him—'
Charley looked a little better satisfied when he heard this declaration.
'Norah can't abide the sight of him; nor won't of any man as long as you are hanging after her. She's as true as steel, and proud you ought to be of her.' Proud, thought Charley, as he again muttered to himself, 'Excelsior!'—'But, Mr. Tudor, I won't see her put upon; that's the long and the short of it. If you like to take her, there she is. I don't say she's just your equal as to breeding, though she's come of decent people too; but she's good as gold. She'll make a shilling go as far as any young woman I know; and if £100 or £150 are wanting for furniture or the like of that, why, I've that regard for her, that that shan't stand in the way. Now, Mr. Tudor, I've spoke honest; and if you're the gentleman as I takes you to be, you'll do the same.'
To do Mrs. Davis justice, it must be acknowledged that in her way she had spoken honestly. Of course she knew that such a marriage would be a dreadful misalliance for young Tudor; of course she knew that all his friends would be heart-broken when they heard of it. But what had she to do with his friends? Her sympathies, her good wishes, were for her friend. Had Norah fallen a victim to Charley's admiration, and then been cast off to eat the bitterest bread to which any human being is ever doomed, what then would Charley's friends have cared for her? There was a fair fight between them. If Norah Geraghty, as a reward for her prudence, could get a husband in a rank of life above her, instead of falling into utter destruction as might so easily have been the case, who could do other than praise her—praise her and her clever friend who had so assisted her in her struggle?