"Oh, I ask your pardon," said Mr. Poole, with an angry growl. "I have no need to force myself on any man. But I beg you to believe that if I presumed to seek your acquaintance, it was to do you a service siryes, a private service, sir." He lowered his voice into a whisper, and laid his finger on his nose: "There's one Jasper Losely, sireh? Oh, sir, I'm no mischief-maker. I respect family secrets. Perhaps I might be of use, perhaps not."
"Certainly not to me, sir," said Darrell, flinging the cloak he had now found across his shoulders, and striding from the house. When he entered his carriage, the footman stood waiting for orders. Darrell was long in giving them. "Anywhere for half an hourto St. Paul's, then home." But on returning from this objectless plunge into the City, Darrell pulled the check-string: "To Belgrave SquareLady Dulcett's."
The concert was half over; but Flora Vyvyan had still guarded, as she had promised, a seat beside herself for Darrell, by lending it for the present to one of her obedient vassals. Her face brightened as she saw Darrell enter and approach. The vassal surrendered the chair. Darrell appeared to be in the highest spirits; and I firmly believe that he was striving to the utmost in his powerwhat? to make himself agreeable to Flora Vyvyan? No; to make Flora Vyvyan agreeable to himself. The man did not presume that a fair young lady could be in love with him; perhaps he believed that, at his years, to be impossible. But he asked what seemed much easier, and was much harderhe asked to be himself in love.
CHAPTER V
IT IS ASSERTED BY THOSE LEARNED MEN WHO HAVE DEVOTED THEIR LIVES TO THE STUDY OF THE MANNERS AND HABIT OF INSECT SOCIETY, THAT WHEN A SPIDER HAS LOST ITS LAST WEB, HAVING EXHAUSTED ALL THE GLUTINOUS MATTER WHEREWITH TO SPIN ANOTHER, IT STILL. PROTRACTS ITS INNOCENT EXISTENCE, BY OBTRUDING ITS NIPPERS ON SOME LESS WARLIKE BUT MORE RESPECTABLE SPIDER, POSSESSED OF A CONVENIENT HOME AND AN AIRY LARDER. OBSERVANT MORALISTS HAVE NOTICED THE SAME PECULIARITY IN THE MANEATER, OR POCKET-CANNIBAL.
Eleven o'clock, A.M., Samuel Adolphus Poole, Esq., is in his parlour, the house one of those new dwellings which yearly spring up north of the Regent's Park,dwellings that, attesting the eccentricity of the national character, task the fancy of the architect and the gravity of the beholdereach tenement so tortured into contrast with the other, that, on one little rood of ground, all ages seemed blended, and all races encamped. No. 1 is an Egyptian tomb!Pharaohs may repose there! No. 2 is a Swiss chaletWilliam Tell may be shooting in its garden! Lo! the severity of Doric columnsSparta is before you! Behold that Gothic porchyou are rapt to the Norman days! Ha! those Elizabethan mullions Sidney and Raleigh, rise again! Ho! the trellises of Chinacome forth, Confucius, and Commissioner Yeh! Passing a few paces, we are in the land of the Zegri and Abencerrage:
'Land of the dark-eyed maid and dusky Moor.'
Mr. Poole's house is called Alhambra Villa! Moorish verandahsplate- glass windows, with cusped heads and mahogany sashesa garden behind, a smaller one in frontstairs ascending to the doorway under a Saracenic portico, between two pedestalled lions that resemble poodlesthe whole new and lustrousin semblance stone, in substance stucco-cracks in the stucco denoting "settlements." But the house being let for ninety-nine yearsrelet again on a running lease of seven, fourteen, and twenty-one- the builder is not answerable for duration, nor the original lessee for repairs. Take it altogether, than Alhambra Villa masonry could devise no better type of modern taste and metropolitan speculation.
Mr. Poole, since we saw him between four and five years ago, has entered the matrimonial state. He has married a lady of some money, and become a reformed man. He has eschewed the turf, relinquished Belcher neckcloths and Newmarket coats-dropped his old-bachelor acquaintances. When a man marries and reforms, especially when marriage and reform are accompanied with increased income, and settled respectably in Alhambra Villa relations, before estranged, tender kindly overtures: the world, before austere, becomes indulgent. It was so with Pooleno longer Dolly. Grant that in earlier life he had fallen into bad ways, and, among equivocal associates, had been led on by that taste for sporting which is a manly though a perilous characteristic of the true-born Englishman; he who loves horses is liable to come in contact with blacklegs; the racer is a noble animal; but it is his misfortune that the better his breeding the worse his company:Grant that, in the stables, Adolphus Samuel Poole had picked up some wild oatshe had sown them now. Bygones were bygones. He had made a very prudent marriage. Mrs. Poole was a sensible womanhad rendered him domestic, and would keep him straight! His uncle Samuel, a most worthy man, had found him that sensible woman, and, having found her, had paid his nephew's debts, and adding a round sum to the lady's fortune, had seen that the whole was so tightly settled on wife and children that Poole had the tender satisfaction of knowing that, happen what might to himself, those dear ones were safe; nay, that if, in the reverses of fortune, he should be compelled by persecuting creditors to fly his native shores, law could not impair the competence it had settled upon Mrs. Poole, nor destroy her blessed privilege to share that competence with a beloved spouse. Insolvency itself, thus protected by a marriage settlement, realises the sublime security of VIRTUE immortalised by the Roman muse:
Mr. Poole was an active man in the parish vestryhe was a sound politicianhe subscribed to public charitieshe attended public dinners he had votes in half a dozen public institutionshe talked of the public interests, and called himself a public man. He chose his associates amongst gentlemen in businessspeculative, it is true, but steady. A joint-stock company was set up; he obtained an official station at its board, coupled with a salarynot large, indeed, but still a salary.
"The money," said Adolphus Samuel Poole, "is not my object; but I like to have something to do." I cannot say how he did something, but no doubt somebody was done.
Mr. Poole was in his parlour, reading letters and sorting papers, before he departed to his office in the West End. Mrs. Poole entered, leading an infant who had not yet learned to walk alone, and denoting, by an interesting enlargement of shape, a kindly design to bless that infant, at no distant period, with a brother or sister, as the case might be.
"Come and kiss Pa, Johnny," said she to the infant. "Mrs. Poole, I am busy," growled Pa.
"Pa's busyworking hard for little Johnny. Johnny will be better for it some day," said Mrs. Poole, tossing the infant half up to the ceiling, in compensation for the loss of the paternal kiss.
"Mrs. Poole, what do you want?"
"May I hire Jones's brougham for two hours to-day, to pay visits? There are a great many cards we ought to leave; is there any place where I should leave a card for you, loveyany person of consequence you were introduced to at Mrs. Haughton's last night? That great man they were all talking about, to whom you seemed to take such a fancy, Samuel, duck"
"Do get out! that man insulted me, I tell you."
"Insulted you! No; you never told me."
"I did tell you last night coming home."
"Dear me, I thought you meant that Mr. Hartopp."
"Well, he almost insulted me, too. Mrs. Poole, you are stupid and disagreeable. Is that all you have to say?"
"Pa's cross, Johnny dear! poor Pa!people have vexed Pa, Johnny naughty people. We must go or we shall vex him too."
Such heavenly sweetness on the part of a forbearing wife would have softened Tamburlane. Poole's sullen brow relaxed. If women knew how to treat men, not a husband, unhenpecked, would be found from Indos to the Pole.
And Poole, for all his surly demeanour, was as completely governed by that angel as a bear by his keeper.
"Well, Mrs. Poole, excuse me. I own I am out of sorts to-daygive me little Johnnythere (kissing the infant; who in return makes a dig at Pa's left eye, and begins to cry on finding that he has not succeeded in digging it out)take the brougham. Hush, Johnnyhushand you may leave a card for me at Mr. Peckham's, Harley Street. My eye smarts horribly; that baby will gouge me one of these days."
Mrs. Poole had succeeded in stilling the infant, and confessing that Johnny's fingers are extremely strong for his agebut, adding that babies will catch at whatever is very bright and beautiful, such as gold and jewels and Mr. Poole's eyes, administers to the wounded orb so soothing a lotion of pity and admiration that Poole growls out quite mildly: "Nonsense, blarneyby the by, I did not say this morning that you should not have the rosewood chiffoniere!"
"No, you said you could not afford it, duck; and when Pa says he can't afford it, Pa must be the judgemust not he, Johnny dear?"
"But perhaps I can afford it. Yes, you may have it yes, I say, you shall have it. Don't forget to leave that card on Peckhamhe's a moneyed man. There's a ring at the bell. Who is it? run and see."
Mrs. Poole obeyed with great activity, considering her interesting condition. She came back in half a minute. "Oh, my AdolphusI oh, my Samuel! it is that dreadful-looking man who was here the other evening stayed with you so long. I don't like his looks at all. Pray don't be at home."
"I must," said Poole, turning a shade paler, if that were possible. "Stopdon't let that girl go to the door; and youleave me." He snatched his hat and gloves, and putting aside the parlour-maid, who had emerged from the shades below in order to answer the "ring," walked hastily down the small garden.
Jasper Losely was stationed at the little gate. Jasper was no longer in rags, but he was coarsely cladclad as if he had resigned all pretence to please a lady's eye, or to impose upon a West-End tradesmana check shirta rough pea-jacket, his hands buried in its pockets.
Poole started with wellsimulated surprise. "What, you! I am just going to my officein a great hurry at present."
"Hurry or not, I must and will speak to you," said Jasper, doggedly.
"What now? then, step in;only remember I can't give you snore than five minutes."
The rude visitor followed Poole into the back parlour, and closed the door after him.
Leaning his arm over a chair, his hat still on his head, Losely fixed his fierce eyes on his old friend, and said in a low, set, deterinined voice: "Now, mark me, Dolly Poole, if you think to shirk my business, or throw me over, you'll find yourself in Queer Street. Have you called on Guy Darrell, and put my case to him, or have you not?"