CHAPTER XII.
Mr. George Vavasor at Home.
It cannot perhaps fairly be said that George Vavasor was anunhospitable man, seeing that it was his custom to entertain hisfriends occasionally at Greenwich, Richmond, or such places; andhe would now and again have a friend to dine with him at his club.But he never gave breakfasts, dinners, or suppers under his ownroof. During a short period of his wine-selling career, at whichtime he had occupied handsome rooms over his place of business inNew Burlington Street, he had presided at certain feasts given tocustomers or expectant customers by the firm; but he had not foundthis employment to his taste, and had soon relinquished it to oneof the other partners. Since that he had lived in lodgings in CecilStreet,--down at the bottom of that retired nook, near to the riverand away from the Strand. Here he had simply two rooms on the firstfloor, and hither his friends came to him very rarely. They came veryrarely on any account. A stray man might now and then pass an hourwith him here; but on such occasions the chances were that the visithad some reference, near or distant, to affairs of business. Eatingor drinking there was never any to be found here by the most intimateof his allies. His lodgings were his private retreat, and they wereso private that but few of his friends knew where he lived.
And had it been possible he would have wished that no one should haveknown his whereabouts. I am not aware that he had any special reasonfor this peculiarity, or that there was anything about his mode oflife that required hiding; but he was a man who had always lived asthough secrecy in certain matters might at any time become usefulto him. He had a mode of dressing himself when he went out at nightthat made it almost impossible that any one should recognise him. Thepeople at his lodgings did not even know that he had relatives, andhis nearest relatives hardly knew that he had lodgings. Even Katehad never been at the rooms in Cecil Street, and addressed all herletters to his place of business or his club. He was a man who wouldbear no inquiry into himself. If he had been out of view for a month,and his friends asked him where he had been, he always answered thequestion falsely, or left it unanswered. There are many men of whomeverybody knows all about all their belongings;--as to whom everybodyknows where they live, whither they go, what is their means, and howthey spend it. But there are others of whom no man knows anything,and George Vavasor was such a one. For myself I like the open babblerthe best. Babbling may be a weakness, but to my thinking mystery is avice.
Vavasor also maintained another little establishment, down inOxfordshire; but the two establishments did not even know of eachother's existence. There was a third, too, very closely hidden fromthe world's eye, which shall be nameless; but of the establishment inOxfordshire he did sometimes speak, in very humble words, among hisfriends. When he found himself among hunting men, he would speak ofhis two nags at Roebury, saying that he had never yet been able tomount a regular hunting stable, and that he supposed he never would;but that there were at Roebury two indifferent beasts of his if anyone chose to buy them. And men very often did buy Vavasor's horses.When he was on them they always went well and sold themselvesreadily. And though he thus spoke of two, and perhaps did not keepmore during the summer, he always seemed to have horses enough whenhe was down in the country. No one even knew George Vavasor not tohunt because he was short of stuff. And here, at Roebury, he kepta trusty servant, an ancient groom with two little bushy grey eyeswhich looked as though they could see through a stable door. Manywere the long whisperings which George and Bat Smithers carried onat the stable door, in the very back depth of the yard attached tothe hunting inn at Roebury. Bat regarded his master as a man whollydevoted to horses, but often wondered why he was not more regular inhis sojournings in Oxfordshire. Of any other portion of his master'slife Bat knew nothing. Bat could give the address of his master'sclub in London, but he could give no other address.
But though Vavasor's private lodgings were so very private, he had,nevertheless, taken some trouble in adorning them. The furniture inthe sitting-room was very neat, and the book-shelves were filledwith volumes that shone with gilding on their backs. The inkstand,the paper-weight, the envelope case on his writing-table were allhandsome. He had a single good portrait of a woman's head hanging onone of his walls. He had a special place adapted for his pistols,others for his foils, and again another for his whips. The room wasas pretty a bachelor's room as you would wish to enter, but youmight see, by the position of the single easy-chair that was broughtforward, that it was seldom appropriated to the comfort of more thanone person. Here he sat lounging over his breakfast, late on a Sundaymorning in September, when all the world was out of town. He wasreading a letter which had just been brought down to him from hisclub. Though the writer of it was his sister Kate, she had not beenprivileged to address it to his private lodgings. He read it veryquickly, running rapidly over its contents, and then threw it asidefrom him as though it were of no moment, keeping, however, anenclosure in his hand. And yet the letter was of much moment, andmade him think deeply. "If I did it at all," said he, "it would bemore with the object of cutting him out than with any other."
The reader will hardly require to be told that the him in questionwas John Grey, and that Kate's letter was one instigating her brotherto renew his love affair with Alice. And Vavasor was in truth wellinclined to renew it, and would have begun the renewing it at once,had he not doubted his power with his cousin. Indeed it has been seenthat he had already attempted some commencement of such renewal atBasle. He had told Kate more than once that Alice's fortune was notmuch, and that her beauty was past its prime; and he would no doubtrepeat the same objections to his sister with some pretence ofdisinclination. It was not his custom to show his hand to the playersat any game that he played. But he was, in truth, very anxious toobtain from Alice a second promise of her hand. How soon after thathe might marry her, would be another question.
Perhaps it was not Alice's beauty that he coveted, nor yet her moneyexclusively. Nevertheless he thought her very beautiful, and wasfully aware that her money would be of great service to him. But Ibelieve that he was true in that word that he spoke to himself, andthat his chief attraction was the delight which he would have inrobbing Mr. Grey of his wife. Alice had once been his love, hadclung to his side, had whispered love to him, and he had enough ofthe weakness of humanity in him to feel the soreness arising fromher affection for another. When she broke away from him he hadacknowledged that he had been wrong, and when, since her engagementwith Mr. Grey, he had congratulated her, he had told her in his quiet,half-whispered, impressive words how right she was; but not the less,therefore, did he feel himself hurt that John Grey should be herlover. And when he had met this man he had spoken well of him tohis sister, saying that he was a gentleman, a scholar, and a manof parts; but not the less had he hated him from the first momentof his seeing him. Such hatred under such circumstances was almostpardonable. But George Vavasor, when he hated, was apt to follow uphis hatred with injury. He could not violently dislike a man and yetnot wish to do him any harm. At present, as he sat lounging in hischair, he thought that he would like to marry his cousin Alice; buthe was quite sure that he would like to be the means of putting astop to the proposed marriage between Alice and John Grey.
Kate had been very false to her friend, and had sent up to herbrother the very letter which Alice had written to her after thatmeeting in Queen Anne Street which was described in the lastchapter,--or rather a portion of it, for with the reserve common towomen she had kept back the other half. Alice had declared to herselfthat she would be sure of her cousin's sympathy, and had written outall her heart on the matter, as was her wont when writing to Kate."But you must understand," she wrote, "that all that I said to himwent with him for nothing. I had determined to make him know thateverything between us must be over, but I failed. I found that I hadno words at command, but that he was able to talk to me as though Iwere a child. He told me that I was sick and full of phantasies, andbade me change the air. As he spoke in this way, I could not helpfeeling how right he was to use
me so; but I felt also that he,in his mighty superiority, could never be a fitting husband for acreature so inferior to him as I am. Though I altogether failedto make him understand that it was so, every moment that we weretogether made me more fixed in my resolution."
This letter from Alice to Kate, Vavasor read over and over again,though Kate's letter to himself, which was the longer one, he hadthrown aside after the first glance. There was nothing that he couldlearn from that. He was as good a judge of the manner in which hewould play his own game as Kate could be; but in this matter he wasto learn how he would play his game from a knowledge of the othergirl's mind. "She'll never marry him, at any rate," he said tohimself, "and she is right. He'd make an upper servant of her; veryrespectable, no doubt, but still only an upper servant. Now withme;--well, I hardly know what I should make of her. I cannot think ofmyself as a man married." Then he threw her letter after Kate's, andbetook himself to his newspaper and his cigar.
It was two hours after this, and he still wore his dressing-gown, andhe was still lounging in his easy-chair, when the waiting-maid atthe lodgings brought him up word that a gentleman wished to see him.Vavasor kept no servant of his own except that confidential groomdown at Bicester. It was a rule with him that people could be betterserved and cheaper served by other people's servants than by theirown. Even in the stables at Bicester the innkeeper had to find whatassistance was wanted, and charge for it in the bill. And GeorgeVavasor was no Sybarite. He did not deem it impracticable to put onhis own trousers without having a man standing at his foot to hold upthe leg of the garment. A valet about a man knows a great deal of aman's ways, and therefore George had no valet.
"A gentleman!" said he to the girl. "Does the gentleman look like apublic-house keeper?"
"Well, I think he do," said the girl.
"Then show him up," said George.
And the gentleman was a public-house keeper. Vavasor was pretty sureof his visitor before he desired the servant to give him entrance.It was Mr. Grimes from the "Handsome Man" public-house and tavern, inthe Brompton Road, and he had come by appointment to have a littleconversation with Mr. Vavasor on matters political. Mr. Grimes wasa man who knew that business was business, and as such had someconsiderable weight in his own neighbourhood. With him politics wasbusiness, as well as beer, and omnibus-horses, and foreign wines;--inthe fabrication of which latter article Mr. Grimes was supposedto have an extended experience. To such as him, when intent onbusiness, Mr. Vavasor was not averse to make known the secrets of hislodging-house; and now, when the idle of London world was either atmorning church or still in bed, Mr. Grimes had come out by appointmentto do a little political business with the lately-rejected member forthe Chelsea Districts.
Vavasor had been, as I have said, lately rejected, and the new memberwho had beaten him at the hustings had sat now for one session inparliament. Under his present reign he was destined to the honour ofone other session, and then the period of his existing glory,--forwhich he was said to have paid nearly six thousand pounds,--would beover. But he might be elected again, perhaps for a full period of sixsessions; and it might be hoped that this second election would beconducted on more economical principles. To this, the economical viewof the matter, Mr. Grimes was very much opposed, and was now waitingupon George Vavasor in Cecil Street, chiefly with the object ofopposing the new member's wishes on this head. No doubt Mr. Grimes waspersonally an advocate for the return of Mr. Vavasor, and would do allin his power to prevent the re-election of the young Lord Kilfenora,whose father, the Marquis of Bunratty, had scattered that sixthousand pounds among the electors and non-electors of Chelsea; buthis main object was that money should be spent. "'Tain't altogetherfor myself," he said to a confidential friend in the same way ofbusiness; "I don't get so much on it. Perhaps sometimes not none. Maybe I've a bill agin some of those gents not paid this werry moment.But it's the game I looks to. If the game dies away, it'll never begot up again;--never. Who'll care about elections then? Anybody'd goand get hisself elected if we was to let the game go by!" And so,that the game might not go by, Mr. Grimes was now present in Mr. GeorgeVavasor's rooms.
"Well Mr. Grimes," said George, "how are you this morning? Sit down,Mr. Grimes. If every man were as punctual as you are, the world wouldgo like clock-work; wouldn't it?"
"Business is business, Mr. Vavasor," said the publican, after havingmade his salute, and having taken his chair with some little show ofmock modesty. "That's my maxim. If I didn't stick to that, nothingwouldn't ever stick to me; and nothing doesn't much as it is. Timesis very bad, Mr. Vavasor."
"Of course they are. They're always bad. What was the Devil madefor, except that they should be bad? But I should have thought youpublicans were the last men who ought to complain."
"Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor; why, I suppose of all the men as is putupon, we're put upon the worst. What's the good of drawing of beer,if the more you draw the more you don't make. Yesterday as ever waswas Saturday, and we drawed three pound ten and nine. What'll thatcome to, Mr. Vavasor, when you reckons it up with the brewer? Why,it's a next to nothing. You knows that well enough."
"Upon my word I don't. But I know you don't sell a pint of beerwithout getting a profit out of it."
"Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor. If I hadn't nothink to look to but beer Icouldn't keep a house over my head; no I couldn't. That house of minebelongs to Meux's people; and very good people they are too;--havemade a sight of money; haven't they, Mr. Vavasor? I has to get my beerfrom them in course. Why not, when it's their house? But if I sellstheir stuff as I gets it, there ain't a halfpenny coming to me out ofa gallon. Look at that, now."
"But then you don't sell it as you get it. You stretch it."
"That's in course. I'm not going to tell you a lie, Mr. Vavasor. Youknow what's what as well as I do, and a sight better, I expect.There's a dozen different ways of handling beer, Mr. Vavasor. Butwhat's the use of that, when they can take four or five pounds a dayover the counter for their rot-gut stuff at the 'Cadogan Arms,' and Ican't do no better nor yet perhaps so well, for a real honest glassof beer. Stretch it! It's my belief the more you poison their liquor,the more the people likes it!"
Mr. Grimes was a stout man, not very tall, with a mottled red face,and large protruding eyes. As regards his own person, Mr. Grimesmight have been taken as a fair sample of the English innkeeper,as described for many years past. But in his outer garments he wasvery unlike that description. He wore a black, swallow-tailed coat,made, however, to set very loose upon his back, a black waistcoat,and black pantaloons. He carried, moreover, in his hands a blackchimney-pot hat. Not only have the top-boots and breeches vanishedfrom the costume of innkeepers, but also the long, particolouredwaistcoat, and the birds'-eye fogle round their necks. They getthemselves up to look like Dissenting ministers or undertakers,except that there is still a something about their rosy gills whichtells a tale of the spigot and corkscrew.
Mr. Grimes had only just finished the tale of his own hard ways as apublican, when the door-bell was again rung. "There's Scruby," saidGeorge Vavasor, "and now we can go to business."