Mr Facey Romford's Hounds (4 page)

A
RRIVED IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS
, Facey's earliest visit was to the well-known Soapey Sponge, in Jermyn Street, St. James's. Soapey in bygone days had been a guest of Facey's, and had lost a certain sum of “sivin pun ten” to him at Blind Hookey, which no amount of coaxing or bullying had ever been able to extract from him. Indeed, latterly the letters had been returned to Facey through the dead-letter office. This was not to be borne, and Facey was now more than ever determined to have his dues, or to know the “reason why.” We may mention that Soapey, on his marriage with the fascinating actress, Miss Lucy Glitters, had set up a cigar and betting shop, a happy combination, that promised extremely well at the outset, but an unfeeling legislature, regardless of vested interests, had presently interposed, and put a stop to the betting department. So Soapey had to extinguish his lists, and Lucy and he were reduced to the profits of the cigar shop alone,—“
WHOLESALE, RETAIL, AND FOR EXPORTATION
,” as the circular brass front and window blind announced.

Now, though Lucy's attractions were great, and though she never sold even one of her hay-and-brown-paper cigars under sixpence, or ever gave change for a shilling, still Soapey and she could not make both ends meet; and when poverty comes in at the door, love will fly out of even a glittering cigar-shop window. So it was with the Sponges. Deprived of his betting recreation, Soapey took to idle and expensive habits; so true is the saying that

He frequented casinoes and billiard-rooms, danced at Cremorne, and often did not come home till daylight did appear. All this went sadly against the till; and the rent and the rates and taxes, to say nothing of the tradesmen's bills, were more difficult to collect on each succeeding quarter. With this falling fortune friend Facey arrived in town to further complicate disasters. He took twopennyworth of Citizen 'bus from Lisson Grove as far as the Piccadilly Circus, and then, either not knowing the country, or with a view of drawing up wind, threw himself into cover at the St. James's Street end of Jermyn Street, instead of at the Haymarket end, where one would have thought his natural genius would have suggested the Sponges would be found. To be sure he had not been much about town; Oncle Gilroy, for obvious reasons, having kept him as much as he could in the country. As we said before, it being the winter season, when day is much the same as night in London, Facey lounged leisurely along the gaslit street, one roguish eye reading the names and callings of the shops on his left, the other raking the opposite side of the way; but though he drew along slowly and carefully, examining as well the doors as the windows, no Sponge sign, no cigar warehouse, greeted his optics. Fish, books, boxes, bacon, boots, shoes, everything but Sponges.

So he came upon the 'bus-crowded Regent Street, not having had a whiff of a cigar save from the passers-by. There then he stood at the corner of the street biting his nails, lost in astonishment at the result. “Reg'lar do,” muttered he; “beggar's bolted,” looking back on the long vista of lamps he had passed. “Well, that's a nice go,” said he; “always thought that fellow was a sharper.” Just then an unhandsome Hansom came splashing and tearing along the way he had come, and dashing across Regent Street pursued the continuous route beyond.

“May as well cast across here,” said Facey to himself, picking his way over the muddy street, taking care of his buttoned boots as he went. His sagacity was rewarded by reading “Jermyn Street” on the opposite wall. “For-rard! for-rard!” he cheered himself, thinking the cigar shop scent improved as he went. Indeed he quickly came upon a baccy shop, green door, red blinds, all indicative of a find, for no sooner does one tradesman get well-established than another comes as near as he can get to pick away part of his custom.

Just then Facey's keen eye caught sight of two little over-dressed snobs stopping suddenly at a radiant shop window a few paces further on, and advancing stealthily along, as if going up with his gun to a point, the words “Devilish 'andsome” fell upon his ear. Looking over their shoulders there appeared the familiar figure of Mrs Sponge behind the counter. Mrs Sponge, slightly advanced in
embonpoint
since he saw her, but still in the full bloom of womanly beauty. She was dressed in a semi-evening costume, low-necked lavender-coloured silk dress, with an imitation black Spanish mantilla thrown gracefully over her swan-like neck and drooping well-rounded shoulders. The glare of the gaslight illumined her clear Italian-like complexion, and imparted a lustre to a light bandeau of brilliants that encircled her jet black hair. Altogether she looked very bewitching. There was a great hairy fellow in the shop, as big as Facey, and better made, who kept laughing and talking, and “Lucy”-ing Mrs Sponge in the familiar way fools talk to women in bars and cigar rooms. The little snobs were rather kept at bay by the sight; not so friend Facey, who brushed past them and boldly entered the once famous “Sponge Cigar and Betting-Rooms.” Lucy started with a half-suppressed shriek at the sight, for Romford at any time would have been formidable, but a black Romford was more than her nerves could bear. Added to this she knew who had returned the dunning letters, and feared the visit boded no good.

“Well, and how goes it?” said Facey, advancing, and tendering his great ungloved hand.

“Pretty well, thank you, Mr Romford,” replied Lucy, shaking hands with him.

“And how's the old boy?” asked Facey, meaning Soapey.

“He's pretty well, too, thank you,” replied Mrs Sponge.

“At home?” asked Facey, with an air of indifference.

“Well—no—” hesitated Lacy, “he's just gone out to his drill. He is one of the West Middlesex.” (He was up-stairs dressing to go to the billiard-room.)

The hairy monster seeing he was superseded presently took his departure, and the little snobs having passed on, the two were left together; so Facey taking a chair planted himself just opposite the door, as well to stare at her as to stem the tide of further custom. It was lucky he did, for Sponge coming down-stairs peeped through the dun-hole of the little retiring-room, and recognising his great shoulders and backward-growing whiskers, beat a retreat and stole out the back way.

“And may I ask who you are in mourning for?” inquired Lucy, as soon as the first rush of politeness was over.

“Oh, me Oncle, me Oncle Gilroy,” replied Facey.

“Gone at last, is he,” said Lucy, who recollected to have heard about him.

“Gone at last,” assented Facey, with a downward nod.

“Well, and I hope he's left you something 'andsome,” observed Lucy.

“Leave! Oh, bless you, I never expected nothin' from him. He had a wife and ever so many bairns.”

“You don't say so!” exclaimed Lucy, clasping her beautiful hands; “I always understood he was a bachelor. Well, Mr S.
will
be astonished when he hears that,” added she, turning her lustrous darkly-fringed eyes up to the ceiling.

“Fact, however,” said Facey significantly.

“You surprise me,” said Lucy, fearing the little debt would not be wiped off. “Well,” continued she, “it's lucky for those that can do without.”

“Ah, that's another matter,” muttered Facey, who saw how it bore on the sivin pun ten. “Money's always acceptable,” continued he, looking round the shining shop and wondering if he would ever get paid. There seemed plenty of stock, provided the barrels and canisters were not all dummies. How would it do to take it out in kind? Better get money if he could, thought he. Facey then applied himself to sounding Lucy as to where Sponge was likely to be found. Oh, he would be sure to find him at any time; could scarcely come wrong. He hadn't been gone five minutes when Mr Romford came. Would be so vexed when he returned to find he'd missed him. Facey rather doubted this latter assertion, and was half inclined to ask why Soapey had not answered his letters, but Lucy being too pretty to have any words with, and appearing to believe what she said, he pretended that he did too, and shortly afterwards left to get a beefsteak dinner at the Blue Posts in Cork Street. As he turned out of the shop he encountered a blear-eyed brandy-faced man, with a numbered badge on his breast, and an old red cotton kerchief twisted carelessly round his battered hat, whose seedy greasy clothes seemed greatly in want of a washing. The wearer started at the sight of our friend. It was none other than Soapey Sponge's late job stud groom, Mr Leather, crawling from the cab-stand for his weekly stipend of eighteenpence of hush-money for a certain horse robbery he had been engaged in with Mr Sponge before he married Lucy, and the aged head within the battered hat was the one that butted the Romford stomach, and knocked its owner neck and crop backward down-stairs. (
Vide
“Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour.”) Romford, however, did not recognise it, and Leather wisely thinking the reminiscence would not be productive of a tip, let him pass; so, after strolling into the Haymarket, Leather returned leisurely to Lucy, and told her that he real
lie
did believe he'd seen that Mr Romford Facey wot wanted to steal his old master's clothes. And Lucy said he had. The fact was that Romford Facey, as Mr Leather called him, had wanted to detain the clothes for this identical sivin pun ten he now came in quest of, and Leather showing fight had ultimately been the victor, butting Facey backward downstairs and putting his shoulder out. Leather had long tried for sixpence a week extra for this service, but had not succeeded in getting it.

L
ONDON WAS VERY EMPTY. THERE
were as many waiters as guests at the Carlton, and White's was equally deserted. A man might walk a long time before he would be hailed,—a very long time before anybody would ask him to dine.

Mr Facey Romford vacillated between the Blue Posts in Cork Street, John o' Groat's in Rupert Street, and Soapey Sponge's in Jermyn Street. Still he never could find Soapey at home. Call early, call late, call when he would, he was never to be seen. Lucy was charged with excuses, and she did her spiriting so kindly and gently that Facey almost began to be reconciled to not seeing him. Still, sivin pun ten was a deal of money, a deal at any time, a great deal to a man who had just been defrauded of an ample fortune, and had to begin the world afresh. Ah, indeed! groaned Facey, as he lay in his attic bed above the ham and beef shop at his new lodging in Beak Street, thinking it over. What should it be? If that old scoundrel hadn't deceived him he might have made a great fortune as a civil engineer; been a second Stephenson or Brunel; for our friend had a good opinion of his abilities,—few men better. Facey was quite puzzled what to do. He couldn't return to his theodolite, to levels and surveys—

And drag at each remove a lengthening chain.

He wouldn't mind being an auctioneer, or station-master, if there was a good salary and he could steal away for a little shooting now and then. He wouldn't mind being a chief constable, or even a super, if they would let him hunt his horse occasionally,—could trap a thief with any one. His decided
forte
, however, was for dogs and horses. He wouldn't mind a farm, provided he had the game also; but then, under this confounded new system of improvement, it required capital; so did a horse-dealer, so did everything. That was what floored him. In vain he thought of something horsey, out-of-doorish and exhilarating, that could be worked without any money; nothing of the sort ever occurred to him.

A man's bright ideas generally come when he least expects them; they occur to some in shaving, some in smoking, some in thinking, some in batting, some in boating. Romford caught inspiration by staring into a saddler's shop window in Oxford Street. There he saw sundry busy men in their shirt sleeves, sewing and stitching and hammering away at saddles and horsey things. These being interesting to horsey men, he stuck his thumbs into his armlets and stood straddling and eyeing the operation, looking at saddles in every stage of advancement, from the trees up to the final finish. “Dash it, why shouldn't I be a saddler?” thought he; “could fit one on as well as any man.” And then the confounded money question arose again.

Well, but he might be master of the horse to some great man who had not as much leisure and experience as himself.
That would do!
Mr Romford master of the horse to an earl or a duke say. That would sound well! Would buy the horses and the forage, pocket the percentage, and ride for nothing. And he was half inclined to step into Wilkinson and Kidd's and ask if they knew of anything of the sort,—ask as if it were for a friend,—a young man in whom he took an interest. While he was thus cogitating, his keen eye caught sight of a man fitting a hunting-horn to a saddle, which carried him away on the moment. From the horse to the hound is an easy and natural transition, which, coupled with the mastership of the horse, then uppermost in Facey's mind, struck the train of thought right into the kennel line, and caused him to hit off the idea of being a master of hounds. A master of hounds! That was the thing—the very thing for his money!—or rather, his no money—and he gave his great thigh a slap that sounded like the report of a pistol. “Well done, ingenuity!” cried he, swinging his right arm about, sending an old apple-woman into the gutter, as he rolled away from the window, feeling a new, renovated, regenerated man. A pack of hounds was the very thing to his mind, the very thing of all others that he would have liked best if he had got that wicked old man's money, though he now thought it had been so ill made that it would never have prospered with him. And Facey wondered that the idea had never struck him before: it seemed so natural and obvious, that he could not think how it had happened. Money! It required no money! The people who wanted the sport would find the money. He would find discretion and judgment. He knew all the ins and outs of management,—how a twenty pund horse was made into a fifty,—where to buy meal, where to buy oats, where to buy hay, where to buy everything. Then he would hunt the hounds himself,—do for pleasure what others did for pay,—and could soon fashion a light, active, 'cute lad with brains in his head into a whip. He knew how to get helpers at the exact market price,—he would be his-own stud-groom,—master of horse to himself. His hunting would get him shooting, and shooting would get him fishing, and the three would get him into society, and there was no saying but he might get an heiress after all. And Facey congratulated himself uncommonly on his sagacity, and retraced his steps to the Blue Posts, and then back to Soapey's, with a light elasticity that he had never known since the death of Oncle Gilroy. Still there was no Soapey to be seen in Jermyn Street. Lucy was there, neat and pretty as usual, with the accustomed levee of nincompoops, all looking out for a smile. A mortgagee to the extent of sivin pun ten might well exercise acts of ownership, and Facey rolled in with such an air of importance that several of the small fry slunk away in alarm, thinking Facey was Soapey, and might perhaps spin them into the street. And as Soapey knew better than appear when Facey was there, the latter had the shop pretty much to himself; a presence, however, that did not at all contribute to the increase of custom. But as Facey had no share in the profits, and found the shop a very convenient lounge, he just dropped in whenever it suited him, getting his pipe and his porter from the Black Horse over the way. Lucy was always neat and nicely dressed, and partly from having an excellent figure of her own, and partly because the space behind the counter was rather contracted, she did not counteract Nature's gifts by making herself into a haystack with hoops, but just put on as much something as made her clothes stand out below. She was always busy with her needle,—always either making her own clothes or mending Soapey's, which latter were sometimes rather dilapidated.