Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (165 page)

This was the problem which Mat set off to solve to his own perfect satisfaction, in the silence and loneliness of a long night’s walk.

In what precise number of preliminary mental entanglements he involved himself; before arriving at the desired solution, it would not be very easy to say. As usual, his thoughts wandered every now and then from his subject in the most irregular manner; actually straying away, on one occasion as far as the New World itself; and unintelligibly occupying themselves with stories he had heard, and conversations he had held in various portions of that widely-extended sphere, with vagabond chance-comrades from all parts of civilized Europe. How his mind ever got back from these past times and foreign places to present difficulties and future considerations connected with the guest who was expected in Kirk Street, Mat himself would have been puzzled to tell. But it did eventually get back, nevertheless; and, what was still more to the purpose, it definitely and thoroughly worked out the intricate problem that had been set it to solve.

Not a whispered word of the plan he had now hit on dropped from Mat’s lips, as, turning it this way and that in his thoughts, he walked briskly back to town in the first fresh tranquillity of the winter morning. Discreet as he was, however, either some slight practical hints of his present project must have oozed out through his actions when he got back to London; or his notion of the sort of hospitable preparation which ought to be made for the reception of Mr. Blyth, was more barbarously and extravagantly eccentric than all the rest of his notions put together.

Instead of going home at once, when he arrived at Kirk Street, he stopped at certain shops in the neighbourhood to make some purchases which evidently had reference to the guest of the evening; for the first things he bought were two or three lemons and a pound of loaf sugar. So far his proceedings were no doubt intelligible enough; but they gradually became more and more incomprehensible when he began to walk up and down two or three streets, looking about him attentively, stopping at every locksmith’s and ironmonger’s shop that he passed, waiting to observe all the people who might happen to be inside them, and then deliberately walking on again. In this way he approached, in course of time, a very filthy little row of houses, with some very ill-looking male and female inhabitants visible in detached positions, staring out of windows or lingering about public-house doors.

Occupying the lower story of one of these houses was a small grimy shop, which, judging by the visible stock-in-trade, dealt on a much larger scale in iron and steel ware that was old and rusty, than in iron and steel ware that was new and bright. Before the counter no customer appeared; behind it there stood alone a squalid, bushy browed, hump-backed man, as dirty as the dirtiest bit of iron about him, sorting old nails. Mat, who had unintelligibly passed the doors of respectable ironmongers, now, as unintelligibly, entered this doubtful and dirty shop; and addressed himself to the unattractive stranger behind the counter. The conference in which the two immediately engaged was conducted in low tones, and evidently ended to the satisfaction of both; for the squalid shopman began to whistle a tune as he resumed his sorting of the nails, and Mat muttered to himself; “That’s all right,” as he came out on the pavement again.

His next proceeding — always supposing that it had reference to the reception of Mr. Blyth — was still more mysterious. He went into one of those grocer’s shops which are dignified by the title of “Italian Warehouses,” and bought a small lump of the very best refined wax! After making this extraordinary purchase, which he put into the pocket of his trousers, he next entered the public-house opposite his lodgings; and, in defiance of what Zack had told him about Valentine’s temperate habits, bought and brought away with him, not only a fresh bottle of Brandy, but a bottle of old Jamaica Rum besides.

Young Thorpe had not returned from Mr. Blyth’s when Mat entered the lodgings with these purchases. He put the bottles, the sugar, and the lemons in the cupboard — cast a satisfied look at the three clean tumblers and spoons already standing on the shelf — relaxed so far from his usual composure of aspect as to smile — lit the fire, and heaped plenty of coal on, to keep it alight — then sat down on his bearskins — wriggled himself comfortably into the corner, and threw his handkerchief over his face; chuckling gruffly for the first time since the past night, as he put his hand in his pockets, and so accidentally touched the lump of wax that lay in one of them.

“Now I’m all ready for the Painter-Man,” growled Mat behind the handkerchief, as he quietly settled himself to go to sleep.

CHAPTER X. THE SQUAW’S MIXTURE.

Like the vast majority of those persons who are favored by Nature with, what is commonly termed, “a high flow of animal spirits,” Zack was liable, at certain times and seasons, to fall from the heights of exhilaration to the depths of despair, without stopping for a moment, by the way, at any intermediate stages of moderate cheerfulness, pensive depression, or tearful gloom. After he had parted from his mother, he presented himself again at Mr. Blyth’s house, in such a prostrate condition of mind, and talked of his delinquencies and their effect on his father’s spirits, with such vehement bitterness of self-reproach, as quite amazed Valentine, and even alarmed him a little on the lad’s account. The good-natured painter was no friend to contrite desperation of any kind, and no believer in repentance, which could not look hopefully forward to the future, as well as sorrowfully back at the past. So he laid down his brush, just as he was about to begin varnishing the “Golden Age;” and set himself to console Zack, by reminding him of all the credit and honour he might yet win, if he was regular in attending to his new studies — if he never flinched from work at the British Museum, and the private Drawing School to which he was immediately to be introduced — and if he ended as he well might end, in excusing to his father his determination to be an artist, by showing Mr. Thorpe a prize medal, won by the industry of his son’s hand in the Schools of the Royal Academy.

A necessary characteristic of people whose spirits are always running into extremes, is that they are generally able to pass from one change of mood to another with unusual facility. By the time Zack had exhausted Mr. Blyth’s copious stores of consolation, had partaken of an excellent and plentiful hot lunch, and had passed an hour up stairs with the ladies, he predicted his own reformation just as confidently as he had predicted his own ruin about two hours before; and went away to Kirk Street, to see that his friend Mat was at home to receive Valentine that evening, stepping along as nimbly and swinging his stick as cheerfully, as if he had already vindicated himself to his father by winning every prize medal that the Royal Academy could bestow.

Seven o’clock had been fixed as the hour at which Mr. Blyth was to present himself at the lodgings in Kirk Street. He arrived punctual to the appointed time, dressed jauntily for the occasion in a short blue frock coat, famous among all his acquaintances for its smartness of cut and its fabulous old age. From what Zack had told him of Mat’s lighter peculiarities of character, he anticipated a somewhat uncivilized reception from the elder of his two hosts; and when he got to Kirk Street, he certainly found that his expectations were, upon the whole, handsomely realized.

On mounting the dark and narrow wooden staircase of the tobacconist’s shop, his nose was greeted by a composite smell of fried liver and bacon, brandy and water, and cigar smoke, pouring hospitably down to meet him through the crevices of the drawing-room door. When he got into the room, the first object that struck his eyes at one end of it, was Zack, with his hat on, vigorously engaged in freshening up the dusty carpet with a damp mop; and Mat, at the other, presiding over the frying-pan, with his coat off, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, a glass of steaming hot grog on the chimney-piece above him, and a long pewter toasting-fork in his hand.

“Here’s the honoured guest of the evening arrived before I’ve swabbed down the decks,” cried Zack, jogging his friend in the ribs with the long handle of the mop.

“How are you, to-night?” said Mat, with familiar ease, not moving from the frying-pan, but getting his right hand free to offer to Mr. Blyth by taking the pewter toasting-fork between his teeth. “Sit down anywhere you like; and just holler through the crack in the floor, under the bearskins there, if you want anything out of the Bocker-shop, below.” — (“He means Tobacco when he says Bocker,” interposed Zack, parenthetically.) “Can you set your teeth in a baked tater or two?” continued Mat, tapping a small Dutch oven before the fire with his toasting-fork. “We’ve got you a lot of fizzin’ hot liver and bacon to ease down the taters with what you call a relish. Nice and streaky, ain’t it?” Here the host of the evening stuck his fork into a slice of bacon, and politely passed it over his shoulder for Mr. Blyth to inspect, as he stood bewildered in the middle of the room.

“Oh, delicious, delicious!” cried Valentine, smelling as daintily at the outstretched bacon as if it had been a nosegay. “Really, my dear sir — .” He said no more; for at that moment he tripped himself up upon one of some ten or a dozen bottle-corks which lay about on the carpet where he was standing. There is very little doubt, if Zack had not been by to catch him, that Mr. Blyth would just then have concluded his polite remarks on the bacon by measuring his full length on the floor.

“Why don’t you put him into a chair?” growled Mat, looking round reproachfully from the frying-pan, as Valentine recovered his erect position again with young Thorpe’s assistance.

“I was just going to swab up that part of the carpet when you came in,” said Zack, apologetically, as he led Mr. Blyth to a chair.

“Oh don’t mention it,” answered Valentine, laughing. “It was all my awkwardness.”

He stopped abruptly again. Zack had placed him with his back to the fire, against a table covered with a large and dirty cloth which flowed to the floor, and under which, while he was speaking, he had been gently endeavoring to insinuate his legs. Amazement bereft him of the power of speech when, on succeeding in this effort, he found that his feet came in contact with a perfect hillock of empty bottles, oyster-shells, and broken crockery, heaped under the table. “Good gracious me! I hope I’m doing no mischief!” exclaimed Valentine, as a miniature avalanche of oyster-shells clattered down on his intruding foot, and a plump bottle with a broken neck rolled lazily out from under the table-cloth, and courted observation on the open floor.

“Kick about, dear old fellow, kick about as much as you please,” cried Zack, seating himself opposite Mr. Blyth, and bringing down a second avalanche of oyster-shells to encourage him. “The fact is, we are rather put to it for space here, so we keep the cloth always laid for dinner, and make a temporary lumber-room of the place under the table. Rather a new idea that, I think — not tidy perhaps, but original and ingenious, which is much better.”

“Amazingly ingenious!” said Valentine, who was now beginning to be amused as well as surprised by his reception in Kirk Street. “Rather untidy, perhaps, as you say, Zack; but new, and not disagreeable I suppose when you’re used to it. What I like about all this,” continued Mr. Blyth, rubbing his hands cheerfully, and kicking into view another empty bottle, as he settled himself in his chair — ”What I like about this is, that it’s so thoroughly without ceremony. Do you know I really feel at home already, though I never was here before in my life? — Curious, Zack, isn’t it?”

“Look out for the taters!” roared Mat suddenly from the fireplace. Valentine started, first at the unexpected shout just behind him, next at the sight of a big truculently-knobbed potato which came flying over his head, and was dexterously caught, and instantly deposited on the dirty table-cloth by Zack. “Two, three, four, five, six,” continued Mat, keeping the frying-pan going with one hand, and tossing the baked potatoes with the other over Mr. Blyth’s head, in quick succession for young Thorpe to catch. “What do you think of our way of dishing up potatoes in Kirk Street?” asked Zack in great triumph. “It’s a little sudden when you’re not used to it,” stammered Valentine, ducking his head as each edible missile flew over him — ”but it’s free and easy — it’s delightfully free and easy.” “Ready there with your plates. The liver’s a coming,” cried Mat in a voice of martial command, suddenly showing his great red-hot perspiring face at the table, as he wheeled round from the fire, with the hissing frying-pan in one hand and the long toasting-fork in the other. “My dear sir, I’m shocked to see you taking all this trouble,” exclaimed Mr. Blyth; “do pray let me help you!” “No, I’m damned if I do,” returned Mat with the most polite suavity and the most perfect good humor. “Let him have all the trouble, Blyth,” said Zack; “let him help you, and don’t pity him. He’ll make up for his hard work, I can tell you, when he sets in seriously to his liver and bacon. Watch him when he begins — he bolts his dinner like the lion in the Zoological Gardens.”