CHAPTER XXXV.
IN WHICH AN ENTIRELY NEW, AND, AS WILL BE SEEN HEREAFTER, A MOSTIMPORTANT CHARACTER IS INTRODUCED.
The servants, I mean the stable servants, who lived in the mews whereCharles did, had a club; and, a night or two after he had seen Mary inthe square, he was elected a member of it. The duke's coachman, a wiry,grey, stern-looking, elderly man, waited upon him and informed him ofthe fact. He said that such a course was very unusual--in fact, withoutprecedent. Men, he said, were seldom elected to the club until they wereknown to have been in good service for some years; but he (coachman) hadthe ear of the club pretty much, and had brought him in triumphant. Headded that he could see through a brick wall as well as most men, andthat when he see a _gentleman_ dressed in a livery, moping and broodingabout the mews, he had said to himself that he wanted a little company,such as it was, to cheer him up, and so he had requested the club, &c.;and the club had done as he told them.
"Now this is confoundedly kind of you," said Charles; "but I am not agentleman; I am a gamekeeper's son."
"I suppose you can read Greek, now, can't you?" said the coachman.
Charles was obliged to confess he could.
"Of course," said the coachman; "all gamekeepers' sons is forced tolearn Greek, in order as they may slang the poachers in an unknowntongue. Fiddle-dedee! I know all about it; least-wise, guess. Come alongwith me; why, I've got sons as old as you. Come along."
"Are they in service?" said Charles, by way of something to say.
"Two of 'em are, but one's in the army."
"Indeed!" said Charles, with more interest.
"Ay; he is in your governor's regiment."
"Does he like it?" said Charles. "I should like to know him."
"Like it?--don't he?" said the coachman. "See what society he gets into.I suppose there ain't no gentlemen's sons troopers in that regiment, eh?Oh dear no. Don't for a moment suppose it, young man. Not at all."
Charles was very much interested by this news. He made up his mind thereand then that he would enlist immediately. But he didn't; he onlythought about it.
Charles found that the club was composed of about a dozen coachmen andsuperior pad-grooms. They were very civil to him, and to one another.There was nothing to laugh at. There was nothing that could be torturedinto ridicule. They talked about their horses and their business quitenaturally. There was an air of kindly fellowship, and a desire formutual assistance among them, which, at times, Charles had not noticedat the university. One man sang a song, and sang it very prettily, too,about stag-hunting. He had got as far as--
"As every breath with sobs he drew, The labouring buck strained full in view,"
when the door opened, and an oldish groom came in.
The song was not much attended to now. When the singer had finished, theothers applauded him, but impatiently; and then there was a generalexclamation of "Well?"
"I've just come down from the Corner. There has been a regular runagainst Haphazard, and no one knows why. Something wrong with the horse,I suppose, because there's been no run on any other in particular, onlyagainst him."
"Was Lord Ascot there?" said some one.
"Ah, that he was. Wouldn't bet though, even at the long odds. Said he'dgot every sixpence he was worth on the horse, and would stand where hewas; and that's true, they say. And master says, likewise, that LordWelter would have taken 'em, but that his father stopped him."
"That looks queerish," said some one else.
"Ay, and wasn't there a jolly row, too?"
"Who with?" asked several.
"Lord Welter and Lord Hainault. It happened outside, close to me. LordHainault was walking across the yard, and Lord Welter came up to him andsaid, 'How d'ye do, Hainault?' and Lord Hainault turned round and said,quite quiet, 'Welter, you are a scoundrel!' And Lord Welter said,'Hainault, you are out of your senses;' but he turned pale, too, and helooked--Lord! I shouldn't like to have been before him--and LordHainault says, 'You know what I mean;' and Lord Welter says, 'No, Idon't; but, by Gad, you shall tell me;' and then the other says, assteady as a rock, 'I'll tell you. You are a man that one daren't leave awoman alone with. Where's that Casterton girl? Where's Adelaide Summers?Neither a friend's house, nor your own father's house, is any protectionfor a woman against you.' 'Gad,' says Lord Welter, 'you were prettysweet on the last-named yourself, once on a time.'"
"Well!" said some one, "and what did Lord Hainault say?"
"He said, 'you are a liar and a scoundrel, Welter.' And then Lord Weltercame at him; but Lord Ascot came between them, shaking like anything,and says he, 'Hainault, go away, for God's sake; you don't know what youare saying.--Welter, be silent.' But they made no more of he than----"(here our friend was at a loss for a simile).
"But how did it end?" asked Charles.
"Well," said the speaker, "General Mainwaring came up, and laid his handon Lord Welter's shoulder, and took him off pretty quiet. And that's allI know about it."
It was clearly all. Charles rose to go, and walked by himself fromstreet to street, thinking.
Suppose he _was_ to be thrown against Lord Welter, how should he act?what should he say? Truly it was a puzzling question. The anomaly of hisposition was never put before him more strikingly than now. What couldhe say? what could he do?
After the first shock, the thought of Adelaide's unfaithfulness was notso terrible as on the first day or two; many little unamiable traits ofcharacter, vanity, selfishness, and so on, unnoticed before, began tocome forth in somewhat startling relief. Anger, indignation, and love,all three jumbled up together, each one by turns in the ascendant, werethe frames of mind in which Charles found himself when he began thinkingabout her. One moment he was saying to himself, "How beautiful she was!"and the next, "She was as treacherous as a tiger; she never could havecared for me." But, when he came to think of Welter, his angerovermastered everything, and he would clench his teeth as he walkedalong, and for a few moments feel the blood rushing to his head andsinging in his ears. Let us hope that Lord Welter will not come acrosshim while he is in that mood, or there will be mischief.
But his anger was soon over. He had just had one of these fits of angeras he walked along; and he was, like a good fellow, trying to conquerit, by thinking of Lord Welter as he was as a boy, and before he was avillain, when he came before St. Peter's Church, in Eaton Square, andstopped to look at some fine horses which were coming out of Salter's.
At the east end of St. Peter's Church there is a piece of bare whitewall in a corner, and in front of the wall was a little shoeblack.
He was not one of the regular brigade, with a red shirt, but an "Arab"of the first water. He might have been seven or eight years old, but wassmall. His whole dress consisted of two garments; a ragged shirt, withno buttons, and half of one sleeve gone, and a ragged pair of trousers,which, small as he was, were too small for him, and barely reached belowhis knees. His feet and head were bare; and under a wild, tangled shockof hair looked a pretty, dirty, roguish face, with a pair of grey,twinkling eyes, which was amazingly comical. Charles stopped, watchinghim, and, as he did so, felt what we have most of us felt, I daresay--that, at certain times of vexation and anger, the company andconversation of children is the best thing for us.
The little man was playing at fives against the bare wall, with suchtremendous energy, that he did not notice that Charles had stopped, andwas looking at him. Every nerve in his wiry, lean little body was bracedup to the game; his heart and soul were as deeply enlisted in it, asthough he were captain of the eleven, or stroke of the eight.
He had no ball to play with, but he played with a brass button. Thebutton flew hither and thither, being so irregular in shape, and the boydashed after it like lightning. At last, after he had kept upfive-and-twenty or so, the button flew over his head, and lighted atCharles's feet.
As the boy turned to get it, his eyes met Charles's, and he stopped,parting the long hair from his forehead, and gazing on him, till thebeautiful little face--beautif
ul through dirt and ignorance andneglect--lit up with a smile, as Charles looked at him, with the kind,honest old expression. And so began their acquaintance, almost comicallyat first.
Charles don't care to talk much about that boy now. If he ever does, itis to recall his comical, humorous sayings and doings in the first partof their strange friendship. He never speaks of the end, even to me.
The boy stood smiling at him, as I said, holding his long hair out ofhis eyes; and Charles looked on him and laughed, and forgot all aboutWelter and the rest of them at once.
"I want my boots cleaned," he said.
The boy said, "I can't clean they dratted top-boots. I cleaned a groom'sboots a Toosday, and he punched my block because I blacked the tops.Where did that button go?"
And Charles said, "You can clean the lower part of my boots, and do noharm. Your button is here against the lamp-post."
The boy picked it up, and got his apparatus ready. But, before he began,he looked up in Charles's face, as if he was going to speak; then hebegan vigorously, but in half a minute looked up again, and stopped.
Charles saw that the boy liked him, and wanted to talk to him; so hebegan, severely--
"How came you to be playing fives with a brass button, eh?"
The boy struck work at once, and answered, "I ain't got no ball."
"If you begin knocking stamped pieces of metal about in the street,"continued Charles, "you will come to chuck-farthing, and fromchuck-farthing to the gallows is a very short step indeed, I can assureyou."
The boy did not seem to know whether Charles was joking or not. He casta quick glance up at his face; but, seeing no sign of a smile there, hespat on one of his brushes, and said--
"Not if you don't cheat, it aint."
Charles suffered the penalty, which usually follows on talking nonsense,of finding himself in a dilemma; so he said imperiously--
"I shall buy you a ball to-morrow; I am not going to have you knockingbuttons about against people's walls in broad daylight, like that."
It was the first time that the boy had ever heard nonsense talked in hislife. It was a new sensation. He gave a sharp look up into Charles'sface again, and then went on with his work.
"Where do you live, my little manikin?" said Charles directly, in thatquiet pleasant voice I know so well.
The boy did not look up this time. It was not very often, possibly, thathe got spoken to so kindly by his patrons; he worked away, and answeredthat he lived in Marquis Court, in Southwark.
"Why do you come so far, then?" asked Charles.
The boy told him why he plodded so wearily, day after day, over here inthe West-end. It was for family reasons, into which I must not go tooclosely. Somebody, it appeared, still came home, now and then, just oncein a way, to see her mother, and to visit the den where she was bred;and there was still left one who would wait for her, week afterweek--still one pair of childish feet, bare and dirty, that would patterback beside her--still one childish voice that would prattle with her,on her way to her hideous home, and call her sister.
"Have you any brothers?"
Five altogether. Jim was gone for a sojer, it appeared, and Nipper wassent over the water. Harry was on the cross--
"On the cross?" said Charles.
"Ah!" the boy said, "he goes out cly-faking, and such. He's a prig, anda smart one, too. He's fly, is Harry."
"But what is cly-faking?" said Charles.
"Why a-prigging of wipes, and sneeze-boxes, and ridicules, and such."
Charles was not so ignorant of slang as not to understand what hislittle friend meant now. He said--
"But _you_ are not a thief, are you?"
The boy looked up at him frankly and honestly, and said--
"Lord bless you, no! I shouldn't make no hand of that. I ain't braveenough for that!"
He gave the boy twopence, and gave orders that one penny was to be spentin a ball. And then he sauntered listlessly away--every day morelistless, and not three weeks gone yet.
His mind returned to this child very often. He found himself thinkingmore about the little rogue than he could explain. The strange babble ofthe child, prattling so innocently, and, as he thought, so prettily,about vice, and crime, and misery; about one brother transported, one athief--and you see he could love his sister even to the very end of itall. Strange babble indeed from a child's lips.
He thought of it again and again, and then, dressing himself plainly,he went up to Grosvenor Square, where Mary would be walking with LordCharles Herries's children. He wanted to hear _them_ talk.
He was right in his calculations; the children were there. All three ofthem this time; and Mary was there too. They were close to the rails,and he leant his back on them, and heard every word.
"Miss Corby," said Gus, "if Lady Ascot is such a good woman, she will goto heaven when she dies?"
"Yes, indeed, my dear," said Mary.
"And, when grandma dies, will she go to heaven, too?" said the artfulGus, knowing as well as possible that old Lady Hainault and Lady Ascotwere deadly enemies.
"I hope so, my dear," said Mary.
"But does Lady Ascot hope so? Do you think grandma would be happyif----"
It became high time to stop master Gus, who was getting on too fast.Mary having bowled him out, Miss Flora had an innings.
"When I grow up," said Flora, "I shall wear knee-breeches and top-boots,and a white bull-dog, and a long clay pipe, and I shall drive intoHenley on a market-day and put up at the Catherine Wheel."
Mary had breath enough left to ask why.
"Because Farmer Thompson at Casterton dresses like that, and he is sucha dear old darling. He gives us strawberries and cream; and in hisgarden are gooseberries and peacocks; and the peacock's wives don'tspread out their tails like their husbands do--the foolish things. Now,when I am married----"
Gus was rude enough to interrupt her here. He remarked--
"When Archy goes to heaven, he'll want the cat to come to bed with him;and, if he can't get her, there'll be a pretty noise."
"My dears," said Mary, "you must not talk anymore nonsense; I can'tpermit it."
"But, my dear Miss Corby," said Flora, "we haven't been talkingnonsense, have we? I told you the truth about Farmer Thompson."
"I know what she means," said Gus; "we have been saying what came intoour heads, and it vexes her. It is all nonsense, you know, about yourwearing breeches and spreading out your tail like a peacock; we mustn'tvex her."
Flora didn't answer Gus, but answered Mary by climbing on her knee andkissing her. "Tell us a story, dear," said Gus.
"What shall I tell?" said Mary.
"Tell us about Ravenshoe," said Flora; "tell us about the fishermen, andthe priest that walked about like a ghost in the dark passages; andabout Cuthbert Ravenshoe, who was always saying his prayers; and aboutthe other one who won the boat race."
"Which one?" said silly Mary.
"Why, the other; the one you like best. What was his name?"
"Charles!"
How quietly and softly she said it! The word left her lips like a deepsigh. One who heard it was a gentleman still. He had heard enough,perhaps too much, and walked away towards the stable and thepublic-house, leaving her in the gathering gloom of the summer's eveningunder the red hawthorns, and laburnums, among the children. And, as hewalked away, he thought of the night he left Ravenshoe, when the littlefigure was standing in the hall all alone. "She might have loved me, andI her," he said, "if the world were not out of joint; God grant it maynot be so!" And although he said, "God grant that she may not," hereally wished it had been so; and from this very time Mary began to takeAdelaide's place in his heart.
Not that he was capable of falling in love with any woman at this time.He says he was crazy, and I believe him to a certain extent. It was aremarkably lucky thing for him that he had so diligently neglected hiseducation. If he had not, and had found himself in his present position,with three or four times more of intellectual cravings to be satisfied,he would
have gone mad, or taken to drinking. I, who write, have seenthe thing happen.
But, before the crash came, I have seen Charles patiently spending themorning cutting gun-wads from an old hat, in preference to going to hisbooks. It was this interest in trifles which saved him just now. Hecould think at times, and had had education enough to think logically;but his brain was not so active but that he could cut gun-wads for anhour or so; though his friend William could cut one-third more gun-wadsout of an old hat than he.
He was thinking now, in his way, about these children--about Gus andFlora on the one hand, and the little shoeblack on the other. Both soinnocent and pretty, and yet so different. He had taken himself from theone world and thrown himself into the other. There were two worlds andtwo standards--gentlemen and non-gentlemen. The "lower orders" did notseem to be so particular about the character of their immediaterelations as the upper. That was well, for he belonged to the formernow, and had a sister. If one of Lord Charles Herries's children hadgone wrong, Gus and Flora would never have talked of him or her to astranger. He must learn the secret of this armour which made the poor soinvulnerable. He must go and talk to the little shoeblack.
He thought that was the reason why he went to look after the littlerogue next day; but that was not the real reason. The reason was, thathe had found a friend in a lower grade than himself, who would admirehim and look up to him. The first friend of that sort he had made sincehis fall. What that friend accidentally saved him from, we shall see.