“Dick Millet,” cried Morrison, “you mean well, but I can’t bear this. Either be silent or go. If I think of the scene on that dreadful night when I was sent home by a note written by that scoundrel of a brother-in-law of yours – ”
“Meaning yourself?” said Dick coolly.
“I mean that double-faced, double-lived, double-dyed traitor, John Huish.”
“What!”
“The man who has fleeced me more than Malpas – curse him! – ever did.”
“Gently! I won’t sit and hear John Huish maligned like that.”
“Maligned!” cried Morrison, with a bitter laugh.
“As if anyone could say anything bad enough of the scoundrel!”
“Look here, Frank,” said Dick rather warmly, “I came here to try and do you a good turn, not to hear John Huish backbitten. He’s a good, true-hearted fellow, who has been slandered up and down, and he don’t deserve it.”
Morrison sat up, stared at him in wonder, and then burst into a scornful laugh.
“Dick Millet,” he exclaimed, “you called me a fool a little while ago. I won’t call you so, only ask you whether you don’t think you are one.”
“I dare say I am,” said Dick sharply. “But look here, are you prepared to prove all this about John Huish?”
“Every bit of it, and ten times as much,” said Morrison. “Why, this scoundrel won or cheated me of the money that paid for his wedding trip. He was with me till the last instant. Yes, and, as well as I can recollect, after he had got your sister away.”
Dick’s cigar went out, and his forehead began to pucker up.
“Look here,” he said: “you told me that he sent you the note that made you go home that night. Where were you?”
“At a supper with some actresses.”
“But John Huish was not there!”
“Not there. Why, he was present with the lady who was his companion up to the time that he honoured your sister with his name. I believe he visits her now.”
“I can’t stand this,” cried Dick, throwing away his cigar. “How a fellow who calls himself a man can play double in this way gets over me. Frank Morrison, if I did as much I should feel as if I had ‘liar’ written on my face, ready for my wife to see. It’s too much to believe about John Huish. I can’t – I won’t have it. Why, it would break poor little Gerty’s heart.”
“Break her heart!” said Morrison bitterly. “Perhaps she would take a leaf out of her sister’s book.”
“Confound you, Frank Morrison!” cried Dick, in a rage, as he jumped up and faced his brother-in-law. “I won’t stand it. My two sisters are as pure as angels. Do you dare to tell me to my face that you believe Renée guilty?”
There was a dead silence in the room, and at last Frank Morrison spoke.
“Dick,” he said, and his voice shook, “you are a good fellow. You are right: I am a fool and a scoundrel.”
“Yes,” cried Dick; “but do you dare to tell me you believe that of Renée?”
“I’d give half my life to know that she was innocent,” groaned Morrison.
“You are a fool, then,” cried Dick, “or you’d know it. There, I didn’t come to quarrel, but to try and make you both happy; and now matters are ten times worse. But I won’t believe this about John.”
“It’s true enough,” said Morrison sadly. “Poor little lass! I liked Gertrude. You should not have let that scoundrel have her.”
“We have a weakness for letting our family marry scoundrels.”
“Yes,” said Morrison, speaking without the slightest resentment; “she had better have had poor Lord Henry Moorpark.”
“Oh!” said Dick. “There, I’m going. ’Day.”
He moved towards the door, but Morrison stopped him.
“Dick,” he said; “did Renée know you were coming?”
“No,” was the curt reply.
“Is she – is she still at your uncle’s?”
“Yes, nearly always.”
“Is she – is she well?”
“No. She is ill. Heartsick and broken; and if what you say is true, she will soon have poor Gerty to keep her company.”
Dick Millet hurried away from his brother-in-law’s house, pondering upon his own love matters, and telling himself that he had more to think of than he could bear.
In happy ignorance of her ladyship’s prostrate state, John Huish, soon after his brother-in-law’s departure, hurried off to pay a hasty visit to his club, where he asked to see the secretary, and was informed that that gentleman was out. He threw himself into a cab, looking rather white and set of countenance as he had himself driven to Finsbury Square, where Daniel looked at him curiously as he ushered him into the doctor’s room.
“My dear, dear boy, I am glad!” cried the doctor, dashing down his glasses. “You did the old lady, after all, and carried the little darling off. Bless her heart! Why, the gipsy! Oh, won’t I talk to her about this. That’s the best thing I’ve known for years. What does your father say?”
“He wrote me word that he was very glad, and said he should write to Gertrude’s uncle.”
“Ah, yes. H’m!” said the doctor. “Best thing, too. They were once very great friends, John.”
“Yes, I have heard so,” said Huish. “I think Captain Millet loved my mother.”
“H’m, yes,” said the doctor, nodding. “They quarrelled. Well, but this is a surprise! You dog, you! But the secrecy of the whole thing! How snug you kept it! But, I say, you ought to have written to us all.”
“Well, certainly, I might have written to you, doctor, but I confess I forgot.”
“I say, though, you should have written to the old man.”
“We did, letter after letter.”
“Then that old – there, I won’t say what, must have suppressed them. She was mad because her favourite lost. It would have been murder to have tied her up to that wreck. I say, though, my boy,” continued the doctor seriously, “I don’t think you ought to have carried on so with Frank Morrison. He has had D.T. terribly.”
“What had that to do with me?” said Huish. “If a man will drink, he must take the consequences.”
“Exactly,” said the doctor coldly; “but his friends need not egg him on so as to win his money.”
“He should not choose scoundrels for his companions,” said Huish coldly.
“H’m, no, of course not,” said the doctor, coughing, and hurrying to change the conversation. “By the way, why didn’t you tell me all this when you came last?”
“How could I?” said Huish, smiling. “I was not a prophet.”
“Prophet, no! but why keep it secret then?”
“Secret? Well,” said Huish; “but really – I was not justified in telling it then.”
“What I not when you had been married?”
“I don’t understand you,” said Huish, with his countenance changing.
“I mean,” said the doctor, “why didn’t you tell me when you were here a fortnight ago; and – let me see,” he continued, referring to his note-book, “you were due here last Wednesday, and again yesterday.”
John Huish drew a long breath, and the pupils of his eyes contracted as he said quietly:
“Why, doctor, I told you that I had been on the Continent, and only returned two days ago.”
“Yes; of course. We know – fashionable fibs: Out of town; not at home, etcetera, etcetera.”
“My dear doctor,” said Huish, fidgeting slightly in his seat, “I have always made it a practice to try and be honest in my statements. I tell you I only came back two days ago.”
“That be hanged, John Huish!” cried the doctor. “Why, you were here a fortnight ago yesterday.”
“Nonsense,” cried Huish excitedly. “How absurd!”
“Absurd? Hang it, boy! do you think I’m mad? Here is the entry,” he continued, reading. “Seventh, John Huish, Nervous fit – over-excitement – old bite of dog – bad dreams – dread of hydrophobia. Prescribed, um – um – um – etcetera, etcetera. Now then, what do you say to that?”
“You were dreaming,” said Huish.
“Dreaming?” said the doctor, laughing. “What! that you – here, stop a moment.” He rang the bell. “Ask Daniel yourself when you were here last.”
“What nonsense!” said Huish, growing agitated. Then as the door opened, “Daniel,” he said quietly, “when was I here last?”
“Yesterday fortnight, sir,” said the man promptly.
“That will do, Daniel!” and the attendant retired as Huish sank back in his chair, gazing straight before him in a strange, vacant manner. “What a fool I am!” muttered the doctor. “I’ve led him on to it again. Hang it! shall I never understand my profession?”
“I’ll go now,” said Huish drearily, as he rose; but Dr Stonor pressed him back in his seat.
“No, no; sit still a few minutes,” he said quietly.
“I – I thought it was gone,” said Huish; “and life seemed so bright and happy on ahead. Doctor, I’ve never confessed, even to you, what I have suffered from all this. I have felt horrible at times. The devil has tempted me to do the most dreadful things.”
“Poor devil!” said the doctor. “What a broad back he must have to bear all that the silly world lays upon it!”
“You laugh. Tell me, what does it mean? How is it? Do I do things in my sleep, or when I am waking, and then do they pass completely away from my memory? Tell me truly, and let me know the worst. Am I going to lose my reason?”
“No, no, no!” cried the doctor. “Absurd! It is a want of tone in the nerves – a little absence of mind. The liver is sluggish, and from its stoppage the brain gets affected.”
“Yes; that is what I feared,” cried Huish excitedly.
“Not as you mean, my dear boy,” cried the doctor. “When we say the brain is affected, we don’t always mean madness. What nonsense! The brain is affected when there are bad headaches – a little congestion, you know. These fits of absence are nothing more.”
“Nothing more, doctor?” said Huish dejectedly. “If I could only think so! Oh, my darling! my darling,” he whispered to himself, as his head came down upon his hands for a moment when he started up, for Dr Stonor’s hand was upon his arm. “Oh, doctor!” he cried in anguished tones, “I am haunted by these acts which I do and forget. I am constantly confronted with something or another that I cannot comprehend, and the dread is always growing on me that I shall some day be a wreck. Oh, I have been mad to link that poor girl’s life to such a life as mine! Doctor – doctor – tell me – what shall I do?”
“Be a man,” said the doctor quietly, “and don’t worry yourself by imagining more than is real. You are a deal better than when I saw you last. You have not worried yourself more about the bite?”
“No, I have hardly thought of it. Dog-bite? But tell me, doctor, would the virus from a dog-bite have any effect upon a man’s mental organisation?”
“Oh no, my dear boy; but you are better in health.”
“I felt so well and happy to-day,” he cried, “that all seemed sunshine. Now all is cloud.”
“Of course; yes!” said the doctor. “That shows you how much the imagination has to do with the mental state. The greater part of my patients are ill from anxiety. Now, look here, my dear John, the first thing you have to bear in mind is that every man is a screw. There may be much or little wrong, and it may vary from a tiny discoloration from rust, up to a completely worn-out worm or a broken head. Your little ailment is distressing; but so is every disorder. Keep yourself in good health, take matters coolly, and in place of getting worse you may get better, perhaps lose the absence of mind altogether. If you do not – bear it like a man. Why trouble about the inevitable? I am getting on in years now, and, my dear fellow, I know that some time or other I shall be lying upon my deathbed gasping for the last breath I shall have to draw. Now, my dear boy, do I sit down and make my life miserable because some day I have got to die? Does anybody do so except a fool, and those weakly-strung idiots who make death horrible when it is nothing but the calm rest and sleep that comes to the worn-out body? No; we accept the inevitable, enjoy life as it is given us, make the best of our troubles and pains, and thank God for everything. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, doctor, yes,” said the young man sadly. “But this is very dreadful!”
“So is a bad leg,” said the doctor sharply. “There, I’ll speak frankly to you if you’ll sit up and look me full in the face. Come, for your young wife’s sake, shake off this weak nervousness, and be ready to fight. Don’t lie down and ask disease to conquer you. Why, my dear boy, speaking as an old fisherman, you’re as sound as a roach, and as bright as a bleak. Be a man, for your wife’s sake, be a man!”
Huish drew a long breath. The doctor had touched the right chord, and he sat up, looking pale but more himself.
“Now then,” said the doctor, “I speak to you fairly as one who has had some experience of such matters, but who honestly owns that he finds life too short to master a thousandth part of what he ought to know. I say, then, look here,” he continued, thrusting his hands through his crisp hair, “your state puzzles me: pulse, countenance, eye, all say to me that you are quite well; but you every now and then contradict it. What I tell you, then, is this, and of it I feel sure. It lies in your power to follow either of two roads you please: You can be a healthy, vigorous man, clear of intellect, save a cloud or two now and then which you must treat as rainy days, or you can force yourself by your despondency into so low a mental state that you may become one of my patients. Now, then, which is it to be, my sturdy young married man? Answer for Gertrude’s sake.”
“There is only one answer,” cried Huish, springing up. “For Gertrude’s sake.”
“That’s right,” cried the doctor, shaking his hand warmly. “Spoken like a man.”
“But will you prescribe? Shall I take anything?”
“Bah! Stuff! Doctor’s stuff,” he added, laughing. “My dear boy, that dearly beloved, credulous creature, the human being, is never happy unless he is taking bottles and bottles of physic, and boxes and boxes of pills. Look at the fortunes made by it. Human nature will not believe that it can be cured without medicine, when in most cases it can. Why, my dear boy, your daily food is your medicine, your mental and bodily food. There, be off, go and enjoy the society of your dear little wife. Go and row her up the river, or drive her in the park; go in the country and pick buttercups, and run after butterflies, and eat bread-and-butter; sleep well, live well and innocently, and believe in the truest words ever written: ‘Care killed the cat!’ Don’t let it kill you.”
“No, I can’t afford to let it kill me,” said Huish, smiling.
“Never mind your sore finger, my boy; everybody has got a sore place, only they are divided into two classes: those who show them, and those who do not so much as wear a stall. Good-bye; God bless you, my boy! I wish I had your youth and strength, and pretty wife, and then – ”
“Then what, doctor?” said Huish, smiling, and looking quite himself.
“Why, like you, you dog, I should not be satisfied. Be off; I shall come and see you soon. Where’s your address? Love to my little Gertrude; and John, tell her if – eh? – by-and-by – ”
“Nonsense!” cried Huish, flushing with pleasure. “I shall tell her no such thing.”
“You will,” said the doctor, grinning. “Oh, that’s the address, eh? Westbourne Road. Good-bye.”
“I don’t understand him,” said the doctor thoughtfully, as soon as he was alone. “He is himself to-day; last time he was almost brutal. Heaven help him, poor fellow! if – No, no; I will not think that. But he is terribly unhinged at times.”
Volume Two – Chapter Thirteen.
Clotilde is Triumphant
Palace Gardens, Kensington, was selected by Elbraham for the scene of his married life, and here he was to take the fair Clotilde upon their return from their Continental trip.
“It’s all bosh, Litton, that going across to Paris; and on one’s wedding day,” said the great financier. “Can’t we get off it?”
“Impossible, I should say,” replied Litton. “You see, you are bound to make yours the most stylish of the fashionable marriages of the season.”
“Oh yes, of course – that I don’t mind; and I’ll come out as handsome as you like for the things to do it with well; but I do kick against the run over to Paris the same day.”
“And why?” said Litton wonderingly.
“Well, the fact is, my boy, I never could go across the Channel without being terribly ill. Ill! that’s nothing to my feelings. I’m a regular martyr, and I feel disposed to strike against all that. Why not say the Lakes?”
“Too shabby and cockneyfied.”
“Wales?”
“Worse still.”
“Why not Scotland?”
“My dear sir, what man with a position to keep up would think of going there? I’ll consult Lady Littletown, if you like.”
“Lord, no; don’t do that,” said Elbraham. “She’s certain to say I must go to Paris; and so sure as ever I do have to cross, the Channel is at its worst.”
“But it is a very short passage, sir. You’ll soon be over; and in society a man of your position is forced to study appearances.”
“How the deuce can a fellow study appearances at a time like that?” growled Elbraham. “I always feel as if it would be a mercy to throw me overboard. ’Pon my soul I do.”
“I’ll see if I cannot fee the clerk of the weather for you, and get you a smooth passage this time,” said Litton, laughing; and the matter dropped.
There were endless other little matters to settle, in all of which Litton was the bridegroom’s ambassador, carrying presents, bringing back messages and notes, and in one way and another thoroughly ingratiating himself in Clotilde’s favour, that young lady condescending to smile upon him when he visited Hampton Court.
The Palace Gardens house was rapidly prepared, and, thanks to Arthur Litton, who had been consulted on both sides, and finally entrusted with the arrangements, everything was in so refined a style that there was but little room for envy to carp and condemn.
Certainly, Lady Littletown had had what Mr Elbraham called a finger in the pie, and had added no little by her advice and counsel in making the interior the model it was.
“For,” said Elbraham, in a little quiet dinner with her ladyship at Hampton, “I’m not particular to a few thousands. All I say is, let me have something to look at for my money; and I say, Litton, draw it mild, you know.”
“I don’t understand you,” said that gentleman. “Do you mean don’t have the decorations too showy?”
“Not I. Have ’em as showy as you like. Get out with you; how innocent we are!”
“Really, Mr Elbraham, I do not know what you mean,” said Litton stiffly.
“Go along with you,” chuckled Elbraham. “I say, draw it mild. Of course you’ll make your bit of commission with the furniture people; but draw it mild.”
Litton flushed with annoyance and indignation, probably on account of his having received a promise of a cheque for two hundred pounds from a firm if he placed the decorating and furnishing of Mr Elbraham’s new mansion in their hands.
A look from Lady Littletown quieted him, and that lady laughed most heartily.
“Oh, you funny man, Elbraham! really you are, you know, a very funny man.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” chuckled the financier; “I like my joke. But look here, Litton, I don’t get married every day, and want to do it well. I’m not going to put on the screw, I can tell you. You furnish the place spiff, and bring me the bills afterwards, and I’ll give you cheques for the amounts. If there is a bit of discount, have it and welcome; I shan’t complain so long as the thing is done well.”
So Arthur Litton contented himself with calling the financier “a coarse beast,” declined to be more fully offended, and aided by Lady Littletown, who worked hard for nothing but the kudos, furnished the house in admirable style, received the cheques from Elbraham, who really did pay without grumbling, and soothed his injured feelings with the very substantial commission which he received.
Upon one part of the decorations Lady Littletown prided herself immensely, and that was upon the addition to the drawing-room of a very spacious conservatory built upon the model of her own; and this she laboured hard to fill with choice foliage plants and gaily petalled exotics of her own selection.
Her carriage was seen daily at the principal florists’, and Elbraham had to write a very handsome cheque for what he called the “greenstuff”; but it was without a murmur, and he smiled with satisfaction as Lady Littletown triumphantly led him in to see the result of her toil.
“Yes,” he said, “tip-top – beats the C.P. hollow! Puts one a little in mind of what the Pantheon used to be when I was a boy.”
“But, my dear Elbraham, is that all you have to say?” exclaimed her ladyship.
“Well, since you put it like that, Lady Littletown, I won’t shilly-shally.”
“No, don’t – pray don’t. I like to hear you speak out, Elbraham – you are so original.”
“Oh, I am, am I?” he said. “Well, you know – well, I was going to say, don’t you think some of those statues are a little too prononsay, as you people call it, you know?”
“Naughty man!” exclaimed her ladyship. “I will not have fault found with a thing, especially as I brought our sweet Clotilde here, and she was perfectly charmed with all she saw. The flowers are really, really – ”
“Well, they are not amiss,” said the financier; and he went up to a wreath of stephanotis with such evident intention of picking a “buttonhole” that Lady Littletown hooked him with the handle of her sunshade, uttering a scream of horror the while.
“Mustn’t touch – naughty boy!” she cried. “How could you?”
“Oh, all right,” said Elbraham, grinning hugely at the idea of not being allowed to touch his own property; and then he suffered himself to be led through the various rooms, one and all replete with the most refined luxuries of life.
“Now, you do think it is nice, my dear Elbraham?” said her ladyship.
“Nice? It’s clipping! Might have had a little more voluptuousness; but Litton says no, so I don’t complain. I say: Clotilde – you know, eh?”
“Yes, dear Elbraham. What of her?”
“She ought to be satisfied, eh?”
“She is charmed; she really loves the place. Come, I’ll tell you a secret. The darling – ah, but you’ll betray me?”
“No – honour bright!” cried Elbraham, laying his hand upon the side of his waistcoat.
“Well, I’ll tell you, then; but, mind, it is sacred.”
“Of course – of course.”
“The darling begged me to bring her up to see the delicious nest being prepared for her; but it was to be a stolen visit, for she said she could never look you in the face again if she thought you knew.”
“Dear girl!” ejaculated Elbraham. “Yes, she is so sweet and unworldly and innocent! Do you know, my dear Elbraham,” said Lady Littletown, “a man like you, for whom so many mothers were bidding – ”
“Ah, yes, I used to get a few invitations,” said Elbraham complacently.
“I used to hear how terribly you flirted at Lady Millet’s with those two daughters,” said Lady Littletown playfully.
“By George! no. However, the old woman was always asking me to her at-homes and dinners, and to that wedding; but I never went.”
“I knew it,” said Lady Littletown to herself. “How mad she must be! Ah me!” she continued mournfully, “there are times when I feel as if I have done wrong in furthering this match.”
“The deuce you do! Why?” ejaculated Elbraham. “Because my sweet Clotilde is so unused to the ways of the world, and it is such a terrible stride from her present home to the head of such an establishment as this.”
“Oh, that be hanged!” cried Elbraham. “’Tis a change, of course – a precious great change from those skimpily-furnished apartments at Hampton Court.”
“But show is not everything, my dear Elbraham,” said Lady Littletown, laying a finger impressively upon the financier’s arm.
“No, it is not; but people like it. I’ll be bound to say Clotilde likes this place.”
“She was in raptures – she could hardly contain her delight. Her sweet innocent ways of showing her pleasure made my heart bound. Ah, Elbraham, you have won a prize!”
“So has she,” he said gruffly. “I don’t know but what she has got the best of the bargain.”
“Oh, you conceited man! how dare you say so? But it is only your quaintness.”
“I say, though,” cried Elbraham, “she did like the place?”
“I cannot tell you how much she was delighted.”
“Did she say anything about me?”
“Oh yes; she was prattling artlessly about you for long enough – about your kindness, your generosity, the richness of the jewels you had given her. You sadly extravagant man! I can’t tell you half what she said; but I really must take you to task for spoiling her so.”
Elbraham coughed and cleared his throat.
