commenced by taking the other side. Certainly a more paradoxical, and provoking,
and obstinate, and contradictory disputant than Mr. Phil, I never knew. I never
met Dr. Johnson, who died before I came up to town; but I do believe Phil Firmin
would have stood up and argued even with him.
At these Thursday divans the host provided the modest and kindly refreshment,
and Betsy the maid, or Virgilio the model, travelled to and fro with glasses and
water. Each guest brought his own smoke, and I promise you there were such
liberal contributions of the article, that the studio was full of it; and new
comers used to be saluted by a roar of laughter as you heard, rather than saw,
them entering, and choking in the fog. It was, "Holloa, Prodgers! is that you,
old boy?" and the beard of Prodgers (that famous sculptor) would presently loom
through the cloud. It was, "Newcome, how goes?" and Mr. Clive Newcome (a
mediocre artist I must own, but a famous good fellow, with an uncommonly pretty
villa and pretty and rich wife at Wimbledon) would make his appearance, and be
warmly greeted by our little host. It was, "Is that you, F. B.? would you like a
link, old boy, to see you through the fog?" And the deep voice of Frederick
Bayham, Esquire (the eminent critic on Art), would boom out of the tobaccomist,
and would exclaim, "A link? I would like a drink." Ah, ghosts of youth, again ye
draw near! Old figures glimmer through the cloud. Old songs echo out of the
distance. What were you saying anon about Dr. Johnson, boys? I am sure some of
us must remember him. As for me, I am so old, that I might have been at Edial
school??the other pupil along with little Davy Garrick and his brother.
We had a bachelor's supper in the Temple so lately that I think we must pay but
a very brief visit to a smoking party in Thornhaugh Street, or the ladies will
say that we are too fond of bachelor habits, and keep our friends away from
their charming and amiable society. A novel must not smell of cigars much, nor
should its refined and genteel page be stained with too frequent brandy and
water. Please to imagine, then, the prattle of the artists, authors, and
amateurs assembled at Ridley's divan. Fancy Jarman, the miniature painter,
drinking more liquor than any man present, asking his neighbour (sub voce) why
Ridley does not give his father (the old butler) five shillings to wait;
suggesting that perhaps the old man is gone out, and is getting
seven-and-sixpence elsewhere; praising Ridley's picture aloud, and sneering at
it in an undertone; and when a man of rank happens to enter the room, shambling
up to him, and fawning on him, and cringing to him with fulsome praise and
flattery. When the gentleman's back is turned, Jarman can spit epigrams at it. I
hope he will never forgive Ridley, and always continue to hate him; for hate him
Jarman will, as long as he is prosperous, and curse him as long as the world
esteems him. Look at Pym, the incumbent of Saint Bronze hard by, coming in to
join the literary and artistic assembly, and choking in his white neckcloth to
the diversion of all the company who can see him! Sixteen, eighteen, twenty men
are assembled. Open the windows, or sure they will all be stifled with the
smoke! Why, it fills the whole house so, that the Little Sister has to open her
parlour window on the ground-floor, and gasp for fresh air.
Phil's head and cigar are thrust out from a window above, and he lolls there,
musing about his own affairs, as his smoke ascends to the skies. Young Mr.
Philip Firmin is known to be wealthy, and his father gives very good parties in
Old Parr Street, so Jarman sidles up to Phil and wants a little fresh air too.
He enters into conversation by abusing Ridley's picture that is on the easel.
"Everybody is praising it; what do you think of it, Mr. Firmin? Very queer
drawing about those eyes, isn't there?"
"Is there?" growls Phil.
"Very loud colour."
"Oh!" says Phil.
"The composition is so clearly prigged from Raphael."
"Indeed!"
"I beg your pardon. I don't think you know who I am," continues the other, with
a simper.
"Yes, I do," says Phil, glaring at him. "You're a painter, and your name is Mr.
Envy."
"Sir!" shrieks the painter; but he is addressing himself to the tails of Phil's
coat, the superior half of Mr. Firmin's body is stretching out of the window.
Now, you may speak of a man behind his back, but not to him. So Mr. Jarman
withdraws, and addresses himself, face to face, to somebody else in the company.
I daresay he abuses that upstart, impudent, bumptious young doctor's son. Have I
not owned that Philip was often very rude? and to-night he is in a specially bad
humour.
As he continues to stare into the street, who is that who has just reeled up to
the railings below, and is talking in at Mrs. Brandon's window? Whose
black-guard voice and laugh are those which Phil recognizes with a shudder? It
is the voice and laugh of our friend Mr. Hunt, whom Philip left, not very long
since, near his father's house in Old Parr Street; and both of those familiar
sounds are more vinous, more odious, more impudent than they were even two hours
ago.
"Holloa! I say!" he calls out with a laugh and a curse. "Pst! Mrs.
Whatdyoucallem! Hang it! don't shut the window. Let a fellow in!" and as he
looks towards the upper window, where Philip's head and bust appear dark before
the light, Hunt cries out, "Holloa! what game's up now, I wonder? Supper and
ball. Shouldn't be surprised." And he hiccups a waltz tune, and clatters time to
it with his dirty boots.
"Mrs. Whadyoucall! Mrs. B??!" the sot then recommences to shriek out. "Must see
you??most particular business. Private and confidential. Hear of something to
your advantage." And rap, rap, rap, he is now thundering at the door. In the
clatter of twenty voices few hear Hunt's noise except Philip; or, if they do,
only imagine that another of Ridley's guests is arriving.
At the hall door there is talk and altercation, and the high shriek of a
well-known odious voice. Philip moves quickly from his window, shoulders friend
Jarman at the studio door, and hustling past him obtains, no doubt, more good
wishes from that ingenious artist. Philip is so rude and overbearing that I
really have a mind to depose him from his place of hero, only, you see, we are
committed. His name is on the page overhead, and we can't take it down and put
up another. The Little Sister is standing in her hall by the just opened door,
and remonstrating with Mr. Hunt, who appears to wish to force his way in.
"Pooh! shtuff, my dear! If he's here I musht see him??particular business??get
out of that!" and he reels forward against little Caroline's shoulder.
"Get away, you brute, you!" cries the little lady. "Go home, Mr. Hunt; you are
worse than you were this morning." She is a resolute little woman, and puts out
a firm little arm against this odious invader. She has seen patients in hospital
raging in fever: she is not frightened by a tipsy man. "La! is it you, Mr.
Philip? Whoever will tak
e this horrid man? He ain't fit to go upstairs among the
gentlemen; indeed he ain't."
"You said Firmin was here??and it isn't the father. It's the cub! I want the
doctor. Where's the doctor?" hiccups the chaplain, lurching against the wall;
and then he looks at Philip with bloodshot eyes, that twinkle hate. "Who wantsh
you, I shlike to know? Had enough of you already to-day. Conceited brute. Don't
look at me in that sortaway! I ain't afraid of you?? ain't afraid anybody. Time
was when I was a young man fight you as soon as look at you. I say, Philip!"
"Go home, now. Do go home, there's a good man," says the landlady.
"I say! Look here??hic??hi! Philip! On your word as a gentleman, your father's
not here? He's a sly old boots, Brummell Firmin is??Trinity man??I'm not a
Trinity man??Corpus man. I say, Philip, give us your hand. Bear no malice. Look
here??something very particular. After dinner??went into Air Street?? you
know??rouge gagne, et couleur??cleaned out, on the honour of a gentleman and
Master of Arts of the university of Cambridge. So was your father??no, he went
out in medicine. I say, Philip, hand us out five sovereigns, and let's try the
luck again! What, you won't? It's mean, I say. Don't be mean.
"Oh, here's five shillings! Go and have a cab. Fetch a cab for him, Virgilio,
do!" cries the mistress of the house.
"That's not enough, my dear!" cries the chaplain, advancing towards Mrs.
Brandon, with such a leer and air, that Philip, half choked with passion, runs
forward, grips Hunt by the collar, and crying out, "You filthy scoundrel; as
this is not my house, I may kick you out of it!"??in another instant has run
Hunt through the passage, hurled him down the steps, and sent him sprawling into
the kennel.
"Row down below," says Rosebury, placidly, looking from above. "Personal
conflict. Intoxicated individual ??in gutter. Our impetuous friend has floored
him."
Hunt, after a moment, sits up and glares at Philip. He is not hurt. Perhaps the
shock has sobered him. He thinks, perhaps, Philip is going to strike again.
"Hands off, BASTARD!" shrieks out the prostrate wretch.
"O Philip, Philip! He's mad, he's tipsy!" cries out the Little Sister, running
into the street. She puts her arms round Philip. "Don't mind him, dear??he's
mad! Policeman! The gentleman has had too much. Come in, Philip; come in!"
She took him into her little room. She was pleased with the gallantry of the
boy. she Liked to see him just now, standing over her enemy, courageous,
victorious, her champion. "La! how savage he did look; and how brave and strong
you are! But the little wretch ain't fit to stand before such as you!" And she
passed her little hand down his arm, of which the muscles were all in a quiver
from the recent skirmish.
"What did the scoundrel mean by calling me bastard?" said Philip, the wild blue
eyes glaring round about with more than ordinary fierceness.
"Nonsense, dear! Who minds anything he says, that beast? His language is always
horrid; he's not a gentleman. He had had too much this morning when he was here.
What matters what he says? He won't know anything about it to-morrow. But it was
kind of my Philip to rescue his poor little nurse, wasn't it? Like a novel. Come
in, and let me make you some tea. Don't go to no more smoking: you have had
enough. Come in and talk to me."
And, as a mother, with sweet pious face, yearns to her little children from her
seat, she fondles him, she watches him; she fills her teapot from her singing
kettle. She talks??talks in her homely way, and on this subject and that. It is
a wonder how she prattles on, who is generally rather silent. She won't see
Phil's eyes, which are following her about very strangely and fiercely. And when
again he mutters, "What did he mean by??" "La, my dear, how cross you are!" she
breaks out. "It's always so; you won't be happy without your cigar. Here's a
cheeroot, a beauty! Pa brought it home from the club. A China captain gave him
some. You must light it at the little end. There!" And if I could draw the
picture which my mind sees of her lighting Phil's cheroot for him, and smiling
the while,??of the little innocent Dalilah coaxing and wheedling this young
Samson, I know it would be a pretty picture. I wish Ridley would sketch it for
me.
CHAPTER XII. DAMOCLES.
On the next morning, at an hour so early that Old Parr Street was scarce awake,
and even the maids who wash the broad steps of the houses of the tailors and
medical gentlemen who inhabit that region had not yet gone down on their knees
before their respective doors, a ring was heard at Dr. Firmin's night-bell, and
when the door was opened by the yawning attendant, a little person in a grey
gown and a black bonnet made her appearance, handed a note to the servant, and
said the case was most urgent and the doctor must come at once. Was not Lady
Humandhaw the noble person whom we last mentioned, as the invalid about whom the
doctor and the nurse had spoken a few words on the previous evening? The Little
Sister, for it was she, used the very same name to the servant, who retired
grumbling to waken up his master and deliver the note.
Nurse Brandon sate awhile in the great gaunt dining-room where hung the portrait
of the doctor in his splendid black collar and cuffs, and contemplated this
masterpiece until an invasion of housemaids drove her from the apartment, when
she took refuge in that other little room to which Mrs. Firmin's portrait had
been consigned.
"That's like him ever so many years and years ago," she thinks. "It is a little
handsomer; but it has his wicked look that I used to think so killing, and so
did my sisters both of them??they were ready to tear out each other's eyes for
jealousy. And that's Mrs. Firmin's! Well, I suppose the painter haven't
flattered her. If he have she could have been no great things, Mrs. F.
couldn't." And the doctor, entering softly by the opened door and over the thick
Turkey carpet, comes up to her noiseless, and finds the Little Sister gazing at
the portrait of the departed lady.
"Oh, it's you, is it? I wonder whether you treated her no better than you
treated me, Dr. F.? I've a notion she's not the only one. She don't look happy,
poor thing," says the little lady.
"What is it, Caroline?" asks the deep-voiced doctor; "and what brings you so
early?"
The Little Sister then explains to him. "Last night after he went away Hunt
came, sure enough. He had been drinking. He was very rude, and Philip wouldn't
bear it. Philip had a good courage of his own and a hot blood. And Philip
thought Hunt was insulting her, the Little Sister. So he up with his hand, and
down goes Mr. Hunt on the pavement. Well, when he was down he was in a dreadful
way, and he called Philip a deadful name."
"A name? what name?" Then Caroline told the doctor the name Mr. Hunt had used;
and if Firmin's face usually looked wicked, I daresay it did not seem very
angelical when he heard how this odious name had been applied to his son. "Can
he do Philip a
mischief?" Caroline continued. "I thought I was bound to tell his
father. Look here, Dr. F., I don't want to do my dear boy a harm.??But suppose
what you told me last night isn't true??as I don't think you much
mind!??mind??saying things as are incorrect you know, when us women are in the
case. But suppose when you played the villain, thinking only to take in a poor
innocent girl of sixteen, it was you who were took in, and that I was your real
wife after all? There would be a punishment!"
"I should have an honest and good wife, Caroline," said the doctor, with a
groan.
"This would be a punishment, not for you, but for my poor Philip," the woman
goes on. "What has he done, that his honest name should be took from him?? and
his fortune perhaps? I have been lying broad awake all night thinking of him.
Ah, George Brandon! Why, why did you come to my poor old father's house, and
bring this misery down on me, and on your child unborn?"
"On myself, the worst of all," says the doctor.
"You deserve it. But it's us innocent that has had, or will have to suffer most.
O George Brandon! Think of a poor child, flung away, and left to starve and die,
without even so much as knowing your real name! Think of your boy, perhaps
brought to shame and poverty through your fault!"
"Do you suppose I don't often think of my wrong?" says the doctor. "That it does
not cause me sleepless nights, and hours of anguish? Ah! Caroline!" and he looks
in the glass.??"I am not shaved, and it's very unbecoming," he thinks; that is,
if I may dare to read his thoughts, as I do to report his unheard words.
"You think of your wrong now it may be found out, I daresay!" says Caroline.
"Suppose this Hunt turns against you? He is desperate; mad for drink and money;
has been in gaol??as he said this very night to me and my papa. He'll do or say
anything. If you treat him hard, and Philip have treated him hard??not harder
than served him right though??he'll pull the house down and himself under it,
but he'll be revenged. Perhaps he drank so much last night, that he may have
forgot. But I fear he means mischief, and I came here to say so, and hoping that
you might be kept on your guard, Doctor F., and if you have to quarrel with him,
I don't know what you ever will do, I am sure??no more than if you had to fight
a chimney-sweep in the street. I have been awake all night thinking, and as soon
as ever I saw the daylight, I determined I would run and tell you."
"When he called Philip that name, did the boy seem much disturbed?" asked the
doctor.
"Yes; he referred to it again and again??though I tried to coax him out of it.
But it was on his mind last night, and I am sure he will think of it the first
thing this morning. Ah, yes, doctor! conscience will sometimes let a gentleman
doze; but after discovery has come, and opened your curtains, and said, 'You
desired to be called early!' there's little use in trying to sleep much. You
look very much frightened, Doctor F." the nurse continues. "You haven't such a
courage as Philip has; or as you had when you were a young man, and came a
leading poor girls astray. You used to be afraid of nothing then. Do you
remember that fellow on board the steamboat in Scotland in our wedding-trip?
and, la, I thought you was going to kill him. That poor little Lord Cinqbars
told me ever so many stories then about your courage and shooting peple. It
wasn't very courageous, leaving a poor girl without even a name, and scarce a
guinea, was it? But I ain't come to call up old stories??only to warn you. Even
in old times, when he married us, and I thought he was doing a kindness, I never
could abide this horrible man. In Scotland, when you was away shooting with your
poor little lord, the things Hunt used to say and look was deadful. I wonder how
ever you, who were gentlemen, could put up with such a fellow! Ah, that was a
sad honeymoon of ours! I wonder why I'm a thinking of it now? I suppose it's