One Of Them

“And so you have seen it,” said Paten, sarcastically. “I wish you ‘d be frank with me, and say how far the flirtation went between you.”

“Not half so far as I wished it, my boy. That’s all the satisfaction you ‘ll get from me.”

This was said with a certain irritation of manner that for a while imposed silence upon each.

“Have you got a cheroot?” asked Paten, after a while; and the other flung his cigar-case across the table without speaking.

“I ordered that fellow in Geneva to send me two thousand,” said Paten, laughing; “but I begin to suspect he had exactly as many reasons for not executing the order.”

“Marry that girl, Ludlow, and you ‘ll get your ‘bacco, I promise you,” said Stocmar, gayly.

“That’s all easy talking, my good fellow, but these things require time, opportunity, and pursuit. Now, who’s to insure me that they ‘d not find out all about me in the mean while? A woman does n’t marry a man with as little solicitation as she waltzes with him, and people in real life don’t contract matrimony as they do in the third act of a comic opera.”

“Faith, as regards obstacles, I back the stage to have the worst of it,” broke in Stocmar. “But whose cab is this in such tremendous haste, – Trover’s? And coming up here too? What’s in the wind now?”

He had but finished these words when Trover rushed into the room, his face pale as death, and his lips colorless.

“What’s up? – what’s the matter, man?” cried Stocmar.

“Ruin’s the matter – a general smash in America – all securities discredited – bills dishonored – and universal failure.”

“So much the worse for the Yankees,” said Paten, lighting his cigar coolly.

A look of anger and insufferable contempt was all Trover’s reply.

“Are you deep with them?” asked Stocmar, in a whisper to the banker.

“Over head and ears,” muttered the other; “we have been discounting their paper freely all through the winter, till our drawers are choke-full of their acceptances, not one of which would now realize a dollar.”

“How did the news come? Are you sure of its being authentic?”

“Too sure; it came in a despatch to Mrs. Morris from London. All the investments she has been making lately for the Heathcotes are clean swept away; a matter of sixty thousand pounds not worth as many penny-pieces.”

“The fortune of Miss Leslie?” asked Stocmar.

“Yes; she can stand it, I fancy, but it’s a heavy blow too.”

“Has she heard the news yet?”

“No, nor Sir William either. The widow cautioned me strictly not to say a word about it. Of course, it will be all over the city in an hour or so, from other sources.”

“What do you mean to do, then?”

“Twist is trying to convert some of our paper into cash, at a heavy sacrifice. If he succeed, we can stand it; if not, we must bolt to-night.” He paused for a few seconds, and then, in a lower whisper, said, “Is n’t she game, that widow? What do you think she said? ‘This is mere panic, Trover,’ said she; ‘it’s a Yankee roguery, and nothing more. If I could command a hundred thousand pounds this minute, I ‘d invest every shilling of it in their paper; and if May Leslie will let me, you ‘ll see whether I ‘ll be true to my word.’”

“It’s easy enough to play a bold game on one’s neighbor’s money,” said Stocmar.

“She’d have the same pluck if it were her own, or I mistake her much. Has he got any disposable cash?” whispered Trover, with a jerk of his thumb towards Paten.

“Not a sixpence in the world.”

“What a situation!” said Trover, in a whisper, trembling with agitation. “Oh, there’s Heathcote’s brougham, – stopping here too! See! that’s Mrs. Morris, giving some directions to the servant. She wants to see you, I’m sure.”

Stocmar, making a sign to Trover to keep Paten in conversation, hurried from the room just in time to meet the footman in the corridor. It was, as the banker supposed, a request that Mr. Stocmar would favor her with “one minute” at the door. She lifted her veil as he came up to the window of the carriage, and in her sweetest of accents said, —

“Can you take a turn with me? I want to speak to you.”

He was speedily beside her; and away they drove, the coachman having received orders to make one turn of the Cascine, and back to the hotel.

“I’m deep in affairs this morning, my dear Mr. Stocmar,” began she, as they drove rapidly along, “and have to bespeak your kind aid to befriend me. You have not seen Clara yet, and consequently are unable to pronounce upon her merits in any way, but events have occurred which require that she should be immediately provided for. Could you, by any possibility, assume the charge of her to-day, – this evening? I mean, so far as to convey her to Milan, and place her at the Conservatoire.”

“But, my dear Mrs. Morris, there is an arrangement to be fulfilled, – there is a preliminary to be settled. No young ladies are received there without certain stipulations made and complied with.”

“All have been provided for; she is admitted as the ward of Mr. Stocmar. Here is the document, and here the amount of the first half-year’s pension.”

“‘Clara Stocmar,’” read he. “Well, I must say, madam, this is going rather far.”

“You shall not be ashamed of your niece, sir,” said she, “or else I mistake greatly your feeling for her aunt.” Oh! Mr. Stocmar, how is it that all your behind-scene experiences have not hardened you against such a glance as that which has now set your heart a-beating within that embroidered waistcoat? “My dear Mr. Stocmar,” she went on, “if the world has taught me any lesson, it has been to know, by an instinct that never deceives, the men I can dare to confide in. You had not crossed the room, where I received you, till I felt you to be such. I said to myself, ‘Here is one who will not want to make love to me, who will not break out into wild rhapsodies of passion and professions, but who will at once understand that I need his friendship and his counsel, and that’” – here she dropped her eyes, and, gently suffering her hand to touch his, muttered, “and that I can estimate their value, and try to repay it.” Poor Mr. Stocmar, your breathing is more flurried than ever. So agitated, indeed, was he, that it was some seconds ere he became conscious that she had entered upon a narrative for which she had bespoken his attention, and whose details he only caught some time after their commencement. “You thus perceive, sir,” said she, “the great importance of time in this affair. Sir William is confined to his room with gout, in considerable pain, and, naturally enough, far too much engrossed by his sufferings to think of anything else; Miss Leslie has her own preoccupations, and, though the loss of a large sum of money may not much increase them, the disaster will certainly serve to engage her attention. This is precisely the moment to get rid of Clara with the least possible éclat; we shall all be in such a state of confusion that her departure will scarcely be felt or noticed.”

“Upon my life, madam,” said Stocmar, drawing a long breath, “you frighten – you actually terrify me; you go to every object you have in view with such energy and decision, noting every chance circumstance which favors you, so nicely balancing motives, and weighing probabilities with such cool accuracy, that I feel how we men are mere puppets, to be moved about the board at your will.”

“And for what is the game played, my dear Mr. Stocmar?” said she, with a seductive smile. “Is it not to win some one amongst you?”

“Oh, by Jove! if a man could only flatter himself that he held the right number, the lottery would be glorious sport.”

“If the prize be such as you say, is not the chance worth something?” And these words were uttered with a downcast shyness that made every syllable of them thrill within him.

“What does she mean?” thought he, in all the flurry of his excited feelings. “Is she merely playing me off to make use of me, or am I to believe that she really will – after all? Though I confess to thirty-eight – I am actually no more than forty-two – only a little bald and gray in the whiskers, and – confound it, she guesses what is passing through my head. – What are you laughing at; do, I beg of you, tell me truly what it is?” cried he, aloud.

“I was thinking of an absurd analogy, Mr. Stocmar; some African traveller – I’m not sure that it is not Mungo Park – mentions that he used to estimate the depth of the rivers by throwing stones into them, and watching the time it took for the air bubbles to come up to the surface. Now, I was just fancying what a measure of human motives might be fashioned out of the interval of silence which intervenes between some new impression and the acknowledgment of it. You were gravely and seriously asking yourself, ‘Am I in love with this woman?’”

“I was,” said he, solemnly.

“I knew it,” said she, laughing. “I knew it.”

“And what was the answer – do you know that too?” asked he, almost sternly.

“Yes, the answer was somewhat in this shape: ‘I don’t half trust her!’”

They both laughed very joyously after this, Stocmar breaking out into a second laugh after he had finished.

“Oh! Mr. Stocmar,” cried she, suddenly, and with an impetuosity that seemed beyond her control, “I have no need of a declaration on your part. I can read what passes in your heart by what I feel in my own. We have each of us seen that much of life to make us afraid of rash ventures. We want better security for our investments in affection than we used to do once on a time, not alone because we have seen so many failures, but that our disposable capital is less. Come now, be frank, and tell me one thing, – not that I have a doubt about it, but that I ‘d like to hear it from yourself, – confess honestly, you know who I am and all about me?”

So sudden and so unexpected was this bold speech, that Stocmar, well versed as he was in situations of difficulty, felt actually overcome with confusion; he tried to say something, but could only make an indistinct muttering, and was silent.

“It required no skill on my part to see it,” continued she. “Men so well acquainted with life as you, such consummate tacticians in the world’s strategies, only make one blunder, but you all of you make that: you always exhibit in some nameless little trait of manner a sense of ascendancy over the woman you deem in your power. You can’t help it. It’s not through tyranny, it’s not through insolence, – it is just the man-nature in you, that’s all.”

“If you read us truly, you read us harshly too,” began he. But she cut him short, by asking, —

“And who was your informant? Paten, was n’t it?”

“Yes, I heard everything from him,” said he, calmly.

“And my letters – have you read them too?”

“No. I have heard him allude to them, but never saw them.”

“So, then, there is some baseness yet left for him,” said she, bitterly, “and I ‘m almost sorry for it. Do you know, or will you believe me when I tell it, that, after a life with many reverses and much to grieve over, my heaviest heart-sore was ever having known that man?”

“You surely cared for him once?”

“Never, never!” burst she out, violently. “When we met first, I was the daily victim of more cruelties than might have crushed a dozen women. His pity was very precious, and I felt towards him as that poor prisoner we read of felt towards the toad that shared his dungeon. It was one living thing to sympathize with, and I could not afford to relinquish it, and so I wrote all manner of things, – love-letters I suppose the world would call them, though some one or two might perhaps decipher the mystery of their meaning, and see in them all the misery of a hopeless woman’s heart. No matter, such as they were, they were confessions wrung out by the rack, and need not have been recorded as calm avowals, still less treasured up as bonds to be paid off.”

“But if you made him love you – ”

“Made him love me!” repeated she, with insolent scorn; “how well you know your friend! But even he never pretended that. My letters in his eyes were I O U’s, and no more. Like many a one in distress, I promised any rate of interest demanded of me; he saw my misery, and dictated the terms.”

“I think you judge him hardly.”

“Perhaps so. It is little matter now. The question is, will he give up these letters, and on what conditions?”

“I think if you were yourself to see him – ”

“I to see him! Never, never! There is no consequence I would not accept rather than meet that man again.”

“Are you not taking counsel from passion rather than your real interest here?”

“I may be; but passion is the stronger. What sum in money do you suppose he would take? I can command nigh seven hundred pounds. Would that suffice?”

“I cannot even guess this point; but if you like to confide to me the negotiation – ”

“Is it not in your hands already?” asked she, bluntly. “Have you not come out here for the purpose?”

“No, on my honor,” said he, solemnly; “for once you are mistaken.”

“I am sorry for it. I had hoped for a speedier settlement,” said she, coldly. “And so, you really came abroad in search of theatrical novelties. Oh dear!” sighed she, “Trover said so; and it is so confounding when any one tells the truth!”

She paused, and there was a silence of some minutes. At last she said: “Clara disposed of, and these letters in my possession, and I should feel like one saved from shipwreck. Do you think you could promise me these, Mr. Stocmar?”

“I see no reason to despair of either,” said he; “for the first I have pledged myself, and I will certainly do all in my power for the second.”

“You must, then, make me another promise: you must come back here for my wedding.”

“Your wedding!”

“Yes. I am going to marry Sir William Heathcote,” said she, sighing heavily. “His debts prevent him ever returning to England, and consequently I ran the less risk of being inquired after and traced, than if I were to go back to that dear land of perquisition and persecution.”

“The world is very small nowadays,” muttered Stocmar. “People are known everywhere.”

“So they are,” said she, quickly. “But on the Continent, or at least in Italy, the detectives only give you a nod of recognition; they do not follow you with a warrant, as they do at home. This makes a great difference, sir.”

“And can you really resign yourself, at your age and with your attractions, to retire from the world?” said he, with a deep earnestness of manner.

“Not without regret, Mr. Stocmar. I will not pretend it But remember, what would life be if passed upon a tightrope, always poising, always balancing, never a moment without the dread of a fall, never a second without the consciousness that the slightest divergence might be death! Would you counsel me to face an existence like this? Remember, besides, that in the world we live in, they who wreck character are not the calumnious, they are simply the idle, – the men and women who, having nothing to do, do mischief without knowing. One remarks that nobody in the room knew that woman with the blue wreath in her hair, and at once she becomes an object of interest. Some of the men have admired her; the women have discovered innumerable blemishes in her appearance. She becomes at once a topic and a theme, – where she goes, what she wears, whom she speaks to, are all reported, till at length the man who can give the clew to the mystery and ‘tell all about her’ is a public benefactor. At what dinner-party is he not the guest? – what opera-box is denied him? – where is the coterie so select at which his presence is not welcome so long as the subject is a fresh one? They tell us that society, like the Church, must have its ‘autos da fé,’ but one would rather not be the victim.”

Stocmar gave a sigh that seemed to imply assent.

“And so,” said she, with a deeper sigh, “I take a husband, as others take the veil, for the sake of oblivion.”

While she said this, Stocmar’s eyes were turned towards her with a most unfeigned admiration. He felt as he might have done if a great actress were to relinquish the stage in the climax of her greatest success. He wished he could summon courage to say, “You shall not do so; there are grander triumphs before you, and we will share them together;” but somehow his “nerve” failed him, and he could not utter the words.

“I see what is passing in your heart, Mr. Stocmar,” said she, plaintively. “You are sorry for me, – you pity me, – but you can’t help it. Well, that sympathy will be my comfort many a day hence, when you will have utterly forgotten me. I will think over it and treasure it when many a long mile will separate us.”

Mr. Stocmar went through another paroxysm of temptation. At last he said, “I hope this Sir William Heathcote is worthy of you, – I do trust he loves you.”

She held her handkerchief over her face, but her shoulders moved convulsively for some seconds. Was it grief or laughter? Stocmar evidently thought the former, for he quickly said, “I have been very bold, – very indiscreet. Pray forgive me.”

“Yes, yes, I do forgive you,” said she, hurriedly, and with her head averted. “It was my fault, not yours. But here we are at your hotel, and I have got so much to say to you! Remember we meet to-night at the ball. You will know me by the cross of ribbon on my sleeve, which, if you come in domino, you will take off and pin upon your own; this will be the signal between us.”

“I will not forget it,” said he, kissing her hand with an air of devotion as he said “Good-bye!”

“I saw her!” whispered a voice in his ear. He turned; and Paten, whose face was deeply muffled in a coarse woollen wrapper, was beside him.

CHAPTER XXXIII. SIR WILLIAM IN THE GOUT

SIR William Heathcote in his dressing-room, wrapped up with rugs, and his foot on a stool, looked as little like a bridegroom as need be. He was suffering severely from gout, and in all the irritable excitement of that painful malady.

A mass of unopened letters lay on the table beside him, littered as it was with physic bottles, pill-boxes, and a small hand-bell. On the carpet around him lay the newspapers and reviews, newly arrived, but all indignantly thrown aside, uncared for by one too deeply engaged in his sufferings to waste a thought upon the interests of the world.

“Not come in yet, Fenton?” cried he, angrily, to his servant. “I ‘m certain you ‘re mistaken; go and inquire of her maid.”

“I have just asked mamselle, sir, and she says her mistress is still out driving.”

“Give me my colchicum; no, the other bottle, – that small phial. But you can’t drop them. There, leave it down, and send Miss Leslie here.”

“She is at the Gallery, sir.”

“Of course she is,” muttered he, angrily, below his breath; “gadding, like the rest. Is there no one can measure out my medicine? Where’s Miss Clara?”

“She’s in the drawing-room, sir.”

“Send her here; beg her to do me the favor,” cried he, subduing the irritation of his manner, as he wiped his forehead, and tried to seem calm and collected.

“Did you want me, grandpapa?” said the young girl, entering, and addressing him by the title she had one day given him in sportiveness, and which he liked to be called by.

“Yes,” said he, roughly, for his pain was again upon him. “I wanted any one that would be humane enough to sit with me for a while. Are you steady enough of hand to drop that medicine for me, child?”

“I think so,” said she, smiling gently.

“But you must be certain, or it won’t do. I ‘d not like to be poisoned, my good girl. Five-and-twenty drops, – no more.”

“I ‘ll count them, sir, and be most careful,” said she, rising, and taking the bottle.

“Egad, I scarcely fancy trusting you,” said he, half peevishly. “A giddy thing like you would feel little remorse at having overdone the dose.”

“Oh, grandpapa!”

“Oh, of course you ‘d not do it purposely. But why am I left to such chances? Why is n’t your mother here? There are all my letters, besides, unread; and they cannot, if need were, be answered by this post.”

“She said that she ‘d be obliged to call at the bank this morning, sir, and was very likely to be delayed there for a considerable time.”

“I ‘m sure I cannot guess why. It is Trover and Twist ‘s duty to attend to her at once. They would not presume to detain her, Oh! here comes the pain again! Why do you irritate me, child, by these remarks? Can’t you see how they distress me?”

“Dear grandpapa, how sorry I am! Let me give you these drops.”

“Not for the world! No, no, I ‘ll not be accessary to my own death. If it come, it shall come at its own time. There, I am not angry with you, child; don’t get so pale; sit down here, beside me. What’s all this story about your guardian? I heard it so confusedly last night, during an attack of pain, I can make nothing of it.”

“I scarcely know more of it myself, sir. All I do know is that he has come out from England to take me away with him, and place me, mamma says, at some Pensionnat.”

“No, no; this mustn’t be, – this is impossible! You belong to us, dear Clara. I ‘ll not permit it Your poor mamma would be heart-broken to lose you.”

Clara turned away, and wiped two large tears from her eyes; her lips trembled so that she could not utter a word.

“No, no,” continued he; “a guardian is all very well, but a mother’s rights are very different, – and such a mother as yours, Clara! Oh! by Jove! that was a pang! Give me that toast-and-water, child!”

It was with a rude impatience he seized the glass from her hand, and drank off the contents. “This pain makes one a downright savage, my poor Clara,” said he, patting her cheek, “but old grandpapa will not be such a bear to-morrow.”

“To-morrow, when I’m gone!” muttered she, half dreamily.

“And his name? What is it?”

“Stocmar, sir.”

“Stocmar, – Stocmar? never heard of a Stocmar, except that theatrical fellow near St. James’s. Have you seen him, child?”

“No, sir. I was out walking when he called.”

“Well, do the same to-morrow,” cried he, peevishly, for another twitch of gout had just crossed him. “It’s always so,” muttered he; “every annoyance of life lies in wait for the moment a man is laid up with gout, just as if the confounded malady were not torture enough by itself. There’s Charley going out as a volunteer to India, for what or why no one can say. If there had been some insurmountable obstacle to his marriage with May, he ‘d have remained to overcome it; but because he loves her, and that she likes him– By Jove, that was a pang!” cried he, wiping his forehead, after a terrible moment of pain. “Isn’t it so, Clara?” he resumed. “You know better than any of us that May never cared for that tutor fellow, – I forget his name; besides, that’s an old story now, – a matter of long ago. But he will go. He says that even a rash resolve at six-and-twenty is far better than a vain and hopeless regret at six-and-forty; but I say, let him marry May Leslie, and he need neither incur one nor the other. And so this guardian’s name is Harris?”

“No, grandpapa, Stocmar.”

“Oh, to be sure. I was confounding him with another of those stage people. And what business has he to carry you off without your mother’s consent?”

“Mamma does consent, sir. She says that my education has been so much neglected that it is actually indispensable I should study now.”

“Education neglected! what nonsense! Do they want to make you a Professor of the Sorbonne? Why, child, without any wish to make you vain, you know ten times as much as half the collegiate fellows one meets, what with languages, and music, and drawing, and all that school learning of mamma’s own teaching. And then that memory of yours, Clara; why, you seem to me to forget nothing.”

“I remember but too well,” muttered she to herself.

“What was it you said, child? I did not catch it,” said he. And then, not waiting for her reply, he went on: “And all your high spirits, my little Clara, where are they gone? And your odd rhymes, that used to amuse me so? You never make them now.”

“They do not cross my mind as they used to do,” said she, pensively.

“You vote them childish, perhaps, like your dolls?” said he, smiling.

“No, not that. I wish with all my heart I could go back to the dolls and the nursery songs. I wish I could live all in the hour before me, making little dramas of life, with some delightful part for myself in each, and only to be aroused from the illusion to join a real world. Just as enjoyable.”