The Finger of Fate: A Romance

Besides the note written to his father, he had addressed one to the footman, simply directing this individual to pack up his clothes, guns, canes, and other impedimenta, and send them on to Paddington station, “till called for.” This was done; and the luggage, in due time, arrived at the hotel where he was staying. Some eight or ten pounds of loose money, that chanced to be in his pocket on leaving home, was all the cash he commanded; and this was out of his pocket before he had been half that number of days in London.

For the first time in his life he began to find what an inconvenient thing it is to be without cash, especially in the streets of a large city – though he yet only knew it as an inconvenience. He expected his father would accede to the request he had made, and send an order for the payment of the thousand pounds. To allow time for the transaction, he kept away from the solicitor’s office for nearly a week. He then called to make the inquiry. It was simply whether any communication relating to him had been received from his father. In case there had been none, he did not wish the lawyer to be any wiser about the affair. None had been – not any. This was the answer given him.

In three days he called again, and reiterated his former inquiry almost word for word. Almost word for word was the answer he had – not from the solicitor himself, but the head clerk of his office. General Harding had written no letter lately to Messrs Lawson and Son (the name of the firm), either in reference to him or any other matter. “He’s not going, to send it,” bitterly soliloquised Henry as he left the solicitor’s office. “I suppose I’m not punished enough – so he thinks, with my precious brother to back him. Well, he can keep it. I shall never ask another shilling from him, if I have to starve.”

There is a sort of pleasure in this self-abnegation – at least, during the incipient stages of it. But it is a pleasure traceable rather to revenge than virtue, and often dies out before the passion that has given it birth.

With Henry Harding it was not so short-lived. His spirit had been sorely chafed by the treatment he had received both from his sweetheart and his father. He could not separate them in his mind; and his resentment, directed against both, was strong enough to lead him to almost any resolution. He formed that of not going back to the office of the solicitor, and he kept it. It cost him a struggle, to which, perhaps, a less proud spirit would have yielded, for he was soon suffering from want of cash. His spendthrift life had suddenly come to an end, since he had no means of continuing it; and he was forced to the reflection how he could find the means of a mere living. He had changed his quarters to a cheaper hotel, but even this would require cash to pay for it, so that his circumstances were approaching desperation. What was he to do? Enlist in the army? Offer himself on board a merchant ship? Drive a cab? Carry a sandwich? Or sweep a crossing? None of these occupations were exactly suited to his taste. Better than any or all of them – go abroad. There, if it come to the worst, he could try one or the other.

But there were other chances to be found abroad; and abroad he determined upon going. Fortunately he had sufficient left to carry him across the sea, even the great Atlantic Ocean; for, if his coin had been all spent, he had still something in the shape of a valuable watch, pins, rings, and other bijouterie, that could be converted into currency. These would yield enough to pay his passage to any part of the New World – for he intended going there, or to some distant land, far away from his father and Belle Mainwaring.

He had converted his chattels into cash – a thing that can be done in London in an incredibly short space of time, if we are not particular about the price. He had made a visit to the West India Docks, for the purpose of inspecting an advertised ship, and was returning home not over-satisfied either with himself or his fortunes. The berth offered him was shabby, and not cheap, and he had hesitated about accepting it. He had gone afterwards to Greenwich Park – the Elysian fields of the humble excursionist – and there, of course, partaken of tea and shrimps. It was nearly twelve at night as he dismounted from the knife-board of a Holborn ’bus, and turned down Little Queen Street on the way to his quarters in Essex Street, Strand. He had taken a Paddington omnibus as the only one plying westward at that late hour.

As he stepped into the little street his eye fell upon an oyster-shop, usually open to the latest hours of the night, and some of the earliest of the morning. Not satisfied with the Greenwich diet of tea and shrimps – long since digested – he entered the oyster-shop, and gave an order for a dozen of those delicious bivalves to be opened for him. There was another guest standing before the bar – a young man who having gone in before him, had given a similar order, and was already engaged in swallowing the shell-fish.

With the appearance of this young man Henry Harding was strangely impressed. He was handsome, of a complexion almost olive, dark curling hair, a full round eye, and an aquiline nose – features that at once proclaimed him a foreigner. The few words to which he gave utterance confirmed it. They were spoken in very imperfect English, with an accent which appeared to be Italian. Notwithstanding a somewhat threadbare suit of clothes, his bearing told either of birth or breeding; in short, one could not have made much of a mistake in supposing him to have been brought up a gentleman.

If Henry Harding had been asked why the young man interested him, he, perhaps, could not have told. But it was his well-bred air, coupled with garments that scarce corresponded; and, above all, the idea that he was looking upon a stranger in a strange land, alone, perhaps friendless – a foreshadowing of his own future. These were the thoughts passing in his mind, which at the moment made him look with a friendly eye upon his fellow oyster-eater at the bar.

He was in the mood to have addressed him; but a certain air of seriousness in the young man’s countenance, coupled with the fact of his speaking English so imperfectly, with a fear that the intrusion might be mistaken, hindered the young ex-squire of the Chilterns from taking this liberty.

The other merely glanced at him, and noticing an aristocratic face, with a Bond Street style of dress, supposed, no doubt, that he was standing beside some “swell,” who had stepped out of the Casino close by. Such a character would be no company for him; and with this reflection he finished his oysters, paid for them over the counter, and passed out into the street.

The young Englishman saw him depart with a reflection just bordering on pain. There was a face that had strangely interested him. It was not likely in the great world of London he would ever see it again. Besides, he would soon himself be beyond the confines of that world, still further lessening the chances of a re-encounter. With this thought he dismissed the stranger from his mind, paid the reckoning at the oyster-bar, and made a fresh start for his lodgings in the Strand.

He had cleared Little Queen Street, and entered the sister street of similar name. The night was a dark one, and not a soul was to be seen or met: for he was now outside the meretricious circle of which at that hour the Holborn Casino is the centre.

He had turned his face towards Lincoln’s Inn Fields, as along the western edge of this square was the shortest route to Essex Street. The ponderous arch was before him, and he was proceeding quietly towards it, when, under the long, low passage, dimly lit, he perceived what appeared to be the figures of three men. One of them was apparently tipsy, the other two taking care of him.

He didn’t much relish squeezing past this group; but there was no help for it, so he kept on. When close up to them he saw that the drunken man was absolutely helpless, his legs refusing to do him the slightest service, and he was only prevented from sinking down on the pavement by the support of his companions, one on each side of him. They halted under the shadow of the archway, and did not show any signs of moving onward. Perhaps they had had a long walk since leaving their “public,” and wanted a little rest. That was no business of Henry Harding’s, and he was quite contented to pass on without interfering – the more so as the countenance of one of the sober parties of the trio, turned for a moment towards him as he came up, clearly counselled the shunning of its owner.

He was passing on, and had already got beyond the group, when curiosity prompted him to glance back. The face of a man so helplessly intoxicated as the one supported between the other two could not be other than a curious spectacle.

Henry Harding looked upon it. There was a lamplight near that enabled him to do so, and further to distinguish the countenance of the inebriate. It was not without an exclamation of surprise that he recognised the features which had so strangely interested him – those of the stranger late seen in the oyster-shop!

“What’s this?” he exclaimed, suddenly turning upon his heel, and facing the trio. “This gentleman drunk?”

“Drunk as Bacchis!” answered one of the men. “We’re tryin’ to get ’im home, an’ ha’ been at it for the best part o’ an hour.”

“Indeed!”

“Yis, sir. He’s had a drop too much, as ye see. He’s a friend of ours, and we don’t want the perlice to take him to the station.”

“Of course you don’t,” said the young sprig of Beechwood Park, now fully comprehending the case. “Well, that’s kind of you both, but, as I am also a friend of this gentleman, you had better leave him in my charge, and save yourselves any farther trouble. Do you agree to it?”

“Agree be blowed! What do you mean?”

“This!” shouted Henry, who could no longer restrain his indignation. “This!” he repeated, delivering a blow of his stout Buckinghamshire stick upon the head of one of the supporters – “and this!” he cried thrice in rapid succession, as the stick descended on the skull of the second scoundrel, and all three, garrotters and garrotted, sank together upon the pavement.

By the merest accident in the world, a policeman appeared upon the spot. In Lincoln’s Inn Fields there are no area safes, and a great scarcity of rabbit-pie. As a consequence, the guardians of the night may be seen occasionally upon their beat; and, as good-luck would have it, one, sauntering along Great Queen Street, heard the scuffle in the archway, and hastened towards the spot.

He came up in time to assist Henry Harding in securing the two garrotters, and stripping them of the spoils they had taken from the person of the stranger, of which they had already possessed themselves. All went together to the police-station, the stranger having by this time partially recovered from his intoxication —of chloroform– whence, in a cab, he was taken by Henry Harding to his own lodgings, and left there – with a promise on the part of his rescuer to return to him on the following day.

Chapter Fourteen

Turned Artist

A slight incident – the dropping of a pin, or the turning of a straw – may affect the whole current of a man’s life. There may be a fixed fate: but if so, it often seems to be brought about, or depend upon, circumstances purely accidental. Had Henry Harding not gone home by Holborn Bars; had he not got down at the corner of Little Queen Street; had he not taken a fancy for shell-fish; had he not that day done a hundred other things, all of which may have indirectly conducted to the encounter described; – his after life might have been as different from what is to be chronicled, as if it were that of some other man.

In a week from that time he might have been on his way to the West Indies, or some part of the great American continent, perhaps never to come back; whereas in a week from that time he was sitting in a studio, with a palette on his left thumb, a brush in his right hand, and an easel in front of him, while the classic blouse of brown holland and the embroidered smoking-cap told that he had turned artist.

The change in his life’s programme can be easily explained. The gentleman he had rescued from the garrotters had become his patron; and, listening to the counsels of the young Italian artist – for such was he – he had himself taken to painting as a means of procuring his livelihood. Nor was it such a despairing adventure. He had already displayed taste in his school-drawings, and was, moreover, gifted with that aptitude for the art that usually leads to success. Almost from the first day spent in the studio he was enabled to produce sketches that could be sold; and these were followed by those “furniture pictures” which have given not only practice but material support to many a struggling artist afterwards eminent in his profession, and who otherwise might never have been heard of.

The young Italian painter – Luigi Torreani by name – was himself but a beginner; but with that talent both of conception and execution, which distinguishes the countrymen of Titian, he was rapidly rising in his profession. He had got beyond the point of painting for mere bread, and was receiving a price for his pictures that promised something more than a subsistence.

It was upon the strength of his own success that he had given counsel to his new acquaintance. He had done so, after ascertaining something of the situation and prospects of the strong, gallant youth who had done him such an essential service. Henry at the time had told him but little of his antecedents. This was not needed to a mind generous as that of Luigi Torreani, and a heart at the same time touched with a sense of gratitude. On discovering the young Englishman’s project of self-banishment from his native land, he combated the idea with his counsel, and proposed, in the event of his abandoning it, to instruct him in his own art. In fine, his proposal was accepted, and Henry Harding adopted the profession of painter.

From acquaintances thus strangely introduced to each other, the two young men, not greatly differing in years, became fast friends, sharing apartments, table, studio together, and for many months the friendly association was continued. It was interrupted only by the advice of Luigi, who, deeply interested in the success of his brother artist, became desirous that the latter should spend some time in Rome, to perfect himself in his art by contemplating those classic forms so plentiful in the ancient metropolis of the world. For himself, the young Italian needed no such suggestive models. A Roman by birth, he had commenced his studies in their midst, and had ended by transferring his practice to that metropolis where the painting of them was sure to be best paid for. The education of his pupil, then, was to be the reverse of his own. The young English gentleman accepted the advice, less from any profound love of his art or ambition to excel in it, than from a longing, such as most youths feel, to look upon Italy. Italy! the classic land of our school-boy exercises! the land of bright skies and soft summer scenes! the land of Tasso, of Ariosto, Byron, Boccaccio, and the brigands! Who does not desire to behold such a country, classically poetical in its past, romantically picturesque in its present, and, it is hoped, to be free and prosperous in its future?

Henry Harding longed to look upon this land; and mingled with his longings was a hope he might there find Lethe, or at least some solace for his spirit, still suffering sorely from the cruel treatment he had received – from a double disappointment to his affection and his love. So long as he remained in England amid its souvenirs and scenes, these sad memories would ever remain fresh. Perhaps in a foreign land, with strange objects under his eye, strange voices sounding in his ear, he might be enabled to realise the truth of the oft-quoted adage, “Absence conquers love.”

Chapter Fifteen

A Sketcher Surprised

On the road to Rome, leading out into the Campagna, a young man might have been seen wending his way towards the hill country where shoot down the spurs of the Apennines. At a glance he was not an Italian. A fine open face, with cheeks of ruddy hue, curls caressing them, of a rich auburn colour; but, above all, a frame of strong, almost herculean, build, borne forward by a free unfettered step, pronounced a son of the north – a Saxon! A portfolio under his arm, a palette carried in his left hand alongside, some half-dozen camel’s-brushes, clearly proclaimed his profession – a painter in search of a subject.

There was nothing in all this to attract the attention of those he met or passed upon the route – neither the personal appearance of the painter nor the paraphernalia that declared his calling. An artist on the roads around Rome is an entity that may be often encountered – though perhaps not so often as a bandit.

If any one took notice of the individual in question, it was merely to remark that he was a stranger —un Inglese– and perhaps wonder why he was trudging out towards the hills, while he might be enjoying himself ten times better in the cabarets and inns of the Eternal City.

That the artist in question was “Inglese,” no one who saw him doubted; nor will the reader, when told that he was no other than Henry Harding.

Why he was upon a Roman instead of an English road is already known. Flung upon his own resources in the great city of London – too proud to return to his father’s home, stung by what he fancied to have been a refusal to his last request – he had, under the tutelage of his Italian friend, now taken to painting as his profession. He had not stained canvas without some success – enough to justify him in following the advice of Luigi Torreani, and completing his studies under the bright skies of Italy, and amid the classic scenes of the seven-hilled city. Thither had he found his way, with no other support than the precarious earnings of his pencil. This was fully evidenced by his threadbare coat and chafed chaussure, as he trudged afoot along the dusty road of the Romagna.

Whither was he going? He was far enough out to have almost lost sight of the Eternal City, and those classic monuments that only give proof of its decay. These, one would think, should have been the objects of his study – the subjects upon which to perfect it. And so they had been. He had painted them one after another – portal and palace, sculptured figure and fresco, Capitol and Coliseum – till his head was tired with such art delineation; and he was now on his way to the hills, to drink from the pure fountain of Nature – to fling rock and stream and tree upon the canvas, under the light of an Italian sun, and the canopy of an azure sky.

It was his first journey to the Campagna; he was going without a guide, only inquiring now and then for Valdiorno, a small mountain town lying near the Neapolitan frontier. To the “sindico” of this place he carried a letter of introduction, obtained from his son, who was the young Italian artist he had left behind him in London. But the chief object of this country excursion was to find some scene paintable, and worthy of being painted.

He had not made many miles along his route before he was tempted to stop, and this more than once. Every turn of the road presented him with a landscape; every peasant would have made a picture. He resisted these allurements with the thought, that these landscapes, so near to the city, might all have been sketched before; while the peasants could be caught at any time, in the streets of Rome itself, and there painted in all their picturesqueness.

On towards some shaggy hills he saw looming out in the distance; and on went he, until near the close of the day he found himself toiling up a steep ravine, whose every turn gave him a tableau worthy of being transferred to canvas, framed, and conspicuously suspended against the walls of the Royal Academy.

After a slight repast drawn from his wallet, and a smoke from his meerschaum pipe, he set about painting a scene, he had at length selected. He fought against the fatigue of his journey, for the sake of catching a magnificent mellow sunset that had welcomed his approach to the place. He had no need to add to the “composition” of his picture. Rocks, trees, cliffs, torrents foaming over them, points of chiaro and oscuro, abruptly contrasted – all were under his eye. If there was aught wanting to give life to the landscape, it was only a few figures – animal or human – and these he could fill in according to his fancy.

“Ah,” he reflected aloud, “just the scene for a band of brigands. I’d give something to have a half-dozen of them in the foreground. I could then make a picture of these fantastic Turpins drawn from real life – a thing, I take it, which has never been done before. That would be something to hang up in the Royal Academy – something worth wasting colour and canvas on. I’d give – ”

“How much?” answered a voice that seemed to issue out of the rocks behind him. “How much would you give, Master Painter, for that you speak o’? If you bid high enough, I dare say I mout find the means o’ accommodatin’ you.”

Along with the voice came the footsteps of a man – not in soft, stealthy tread, as of one approaching unawares, but with a quick thump, as the man himself dropped down from a rock above upon the little platform where the artist had planted his sticks. The latter looked up, at first in surprise, then rather in pleased admiration. He was thinking only of his art, and before him stood the very model of his imagination – a man clad in a complete suit of plush and coloured velvet, breeched, bandaged, and belted, with a plumed hat upon his head, and a short carbine across his arms – in costume and caparison the beau-ideal of a brigand. Two things alone hindered him from appearing the true heroic type of stage representation, such as we are accustomed to see in “Mazzaroni” and the “Devil’s Brother.” There was a broad Saxon face, and a tongue unmistakably from the shire of Somerset. Both were so marked, that but for the velveteen knee-breeches, the waist-belt, the elaborately buttoned vest, and the plumed hat upon his head, Henry Harding might have thought himself at home, and in the presence of a man he had met before.

Ere the young artist had sufficiently recovered from his surprise to respond to the unexpected salutation, the picturesque stranger continued —

“Want to paint brigands, do ye? Well, there’s a chance for ye now. The band’s close by. Jess wait a bit; I’ll call ’em down. Hey, there, captin!” he cried, changing his English to Italian, “ye may come on. It’s only one o’ them poor devils o’ daubers from the city. He wants to take our likenesses. I s’pose you’ve no objection to his doin’ it?”

Before the painter could make response, or remove his paraphernalia out of the way, the ledge he had selected for his “point of view” was crowded with figures – one and all of them so picturesquely attired, that had they stood in the Corso, or elsewhere within police protection, he would have been only too delighted to have painted them with the most Pre-Raphaelitish detail. As it was, all thoughts of art were chased out of his mind. He saw that he was encircled by banditti!

To attempt to retreat was out of the question. They were above, below, on all sides of him. Even had he been swifter than any of the gang, their carbines were slung handy en bandoulière; and a volley from these would certainly have checked his flight. There was no alternative but to resign himself to his fate – which was now to be made a captive.

Chapter Sixteen

Empty Pockets

If he who had surprised the painter at his task did not present the exact classic type of the stage bandit, there was one upon the ground who did. This man stood a little in advance of the others with that easy air that betokened authority. There was no mistaking his position. He was the chief. His dress did not differ, in cut or fashion, so materially from that of his followers; it was only more costly in the material. Where their breeches were velveteen, his was of the finest silk velvet. Besides, there was a glitter about his arms and a sparkle on the clasp which held the plume in his Calabrian hat that bespoke real jewellery. His face, moreover, was not of the common cast; it was of the true Roman type, the nose and chin of exceeding prominence, with a broad oval jaw-bone indicative of determination. He might have been deemed handsome but for an expression of ferocity – animal, almost brutal – that gleamed and sparkled in his coal-black eyes. If not handsome, he was sufficiently striking, and Henry Harding might have fancied himself confronted by the renowned Fra Diavolo. Had he stepped from behind the proscenium of the scenic stage, or come bounding from a “back flat,” the Transpontine spectators would have hailed him as the hero they had come to the theatre to see.