Mrs. Roper promised accordingly, and Johnny Eames was left under her charge. He did ask for the latch-key, and Mrs. Roper answered as she was bidden. But he asked again, having been sophisticated by the philosophy of Cradell, and then Mrs. Roper handed him the key. She was a woman who plumed herself on being as good as her word, not understanding that anyone could justly demand from her more than that. She gave Johnny Eames the key, as doubtless she had intended to do; for Mrs. Roper knew the world, and understood that young men without latch-keys would not remain with her.
“I thought you didn’t seem to find it so dull since Amelia came home,” said Cradell.
“Amelia! What’s Amelia to me? I have told you everything, Cradell, and yet you can talk to me about Amelia Roper!”
“Come now, Johnny—.” He had always been called Johnny, and the name had gone with him to his office. Even Amelia Roper had called him Johnny on more than one occasion before this. “You were as sweet to her the other night as though there were no such person as L. D. in existence.” John Eames turned away and shook his head. Nevertheless, the words of his friend were grateful to him. The character of a Don Juan was not unpleasant to his imagination, and he liked to think that he might amuse Amelia Roper with a passing word, though his heart was true to Lilian Dale. In truth, however, many more of the passing words had been spoken by the fair Amelia than by him.
Mrs. Roper had been quite as good as her word when she told Mrs. Eames that her household was composed of herself, of a son who was in an attorney’s office, of an ancient maiden cousin, named Miss Spruce, who lodged with her, and of Mr. Cradell. The divine Amelia had not then been living with her, and the nature of the statement which she was making by no means compelled her to inform Mrs. Eames that the young lady would probably return home in the following winter. A Mr. and Mrs. Lupex had also joined the family lately, and Mrs. Roper’s house was now supposed to be full.
And it must be acknowledged that Johnny Eames had, in certain unguarded moments, confided to Cradell the secret of a second weaker passion for Amelia. “She is a fine girl—a deuced fine girl!” Johnny Eames had said, using a style of language which he had learned since he left Guestwick and Allington. Mr. Cradell, also, was an admirer of the fair sex; and, alas! that I should say so, Mrs. Lupex, at the present moment, was the object of his admiration. Not that he entertained the slightest idea of wronging Mr. Lupex—a man who was a scene-painter, and knew the world. Mr. Cradell admired Mrs. Lupex as a connoisseur, not simply as a man. “By heavens! Johnny, what a figure that woman has!” he said, one morning, as they were walking to their office.
“Yes; she stands well on her pins.”
“I should think she did. If I understand anything of form,” said Cradell, “that woman is nearly perfect. What a torso she has!”
From which expression, and from the fact that Mrs. Lupex depended greatly upon her stays and crinoline for such figure as she succeeded in displaying, it may, perhaps, be understood that Mr. Cradell did not understand much about form.
“It seems to me that her nose isn’t quite straight,” said Johnny Eames. Now, it undoubtedly was the fact that the nose on Mrs. Lupex’s face was a little awry. It was a long, thin nose, which, as it progressed forward into the air, certainly had a preponderating bias towards the left side.
“I care more for figure than face,” said Cradell. “But Mrs. Lupex has fine eyes—very fine eyes.”
“And knows how to use them, too,” said Johnny.
“Why shouldn’t she? And then she has lovely hair.”
“Only she never brushes it in the morning.”
“Do you know, I like that kind of deshabille,” said Cradell. “Too much care always betrays itself.”
“But a woman should be tidy.”
“What a word to apply to such a creature as Mrs. Lupex! I call her a splendid woman. And how well she was got up last night. Do you know, I’ve an idea that Lupex treats her very badly. She said a word or two to me yesterday that—,” and then he paused. There are some confidences which a man does not share even with his dearest friend.
“I rather fancy it’s quite the other way,” said Eames.
“How the other way?”
“That Lupex has quite as much as he likes of Mrs. L. The sound of her voice sometimes makes me shake in my shoes, I know.”
“I like a woman with spirit,” said Cradell.
“Oh, so do I. But one may have too much of a good thing. Amelia did tell me—only you won’t mention it.”
“Of course, I won’t.”
“She told me that Lupex sometimes was obliged to run away from her. He goes down to the theatre, and remains there two or three days at a time. Then she goes to fetch him, and there is no end of a row in the house.”
“The fact is, he drinks,” said Cradell. “By George, I pity a woman whose husband drinks—and such a woman as that, too!”
“Take care, old fellow, or you’ll find yourself in a scrape.”
“I know what I’m at. Lord bless you, I’m not going to lose my head because I see a fine woman.”
“Or your heart either?”
“Oh, heart! There’s nothing of that kind of thing about me. I regard a woman as a picture or a statue. I dare say I shall marry some day, because men do; but I’ve no idea of losing myself about a woman.”
“I’d lose myself ten times over for—”
“L. D.,” said Cradell.
“That I would. And yet I know I shall never have her. I’m a jolly, laughing sort of fellow; and yet, do you know, Caudle, when that girl marries, it will be all up with me. It will, indeed.”
“Do you mean that you’ll cut your throat?”
“No; I shan’t do that. I shan’t do anything of that sort; and yet it will be all up with me.”
“You are going down there in October—why don’t you ask her to have you?”
“With ninety pounds a year!” His grateful country had twice increased his salary at the rate of five pounds each year. “With ninety pounds a year, and twenty allowed me by my mother!”
“She could wait, I suppose. I should ask her, and no mistake. If one is to love a girl, it’s no good one going on in that way!”
“It isn’t much good, certainly,” said Johnny Eames. And then they reached the door of the Income-tax Office, and each went away to his own desk.
From this little dialogue, it may be imagined that though Mrs. Roper was as good as her word, she was not exactly the woman whom Mrs. Eames would have wished to select as a protecting angel for her son. But the truth I take to be this, that protecting angels for widows’ sons, at forty-eight pounds a year, paid quarterly, are not to be found very readily in London. Mrs. Roper was not worse than others of her class. She would much have preferred lodgers who were respectable to those who were not so—if she could only have found respectable lodgers as she wanted them. Mr. and Mrs. Lupex hardly came under that denomination; and when she gave them up her big front bedroom at a hundred a year, she knew she was doing wrong. And she was troubled, too, about her own daughter Amelia, who was already over thirty years of age. Amelia was a very clever young woman, who had been, if the truth must be told, first young lady at a millinery establishment in Manchester. Mrs. Roper knew that Mrs. Eames and Mrs. Cradell would not wish their sons to associate with her daughter. But what could she do? She could not refuse the shelter of her own house to her own child, and yet her heart misgave her when she saw Amelia flirting with young Eames.
“I wish, Amelia, you wouldn’t have so much to say to that young man.”
“Laws, mother.”
“So I do. If you go on like that, you’ll put me out of both my lodgers.”
“Go on like what, mother? If a gentleman speaks to me, I suppose I’m to answer him? I know how to behave myself, I believe.” And then she gave her head a toss. Whereupon her mother was silent; for her mother was afraid of her.
CHAPTER V
About L. D.
Apollo Crosbie left London for Allington on the thirty-first of August, intending to stay there four weeks, with the declared intention of recruiting his strength by an absence of two months from official cares, and with no fixed purpose as to his destiny for the last of those two months. Offers of hospitality had been made to him by the dozen. Lady Hartletop’s doors, in Shropshire, were open to him, if he chose to enter them. He had been invited by the Countess de Courcy to join her suite at Courcy Castle. His special friend, Montgomerie Dobbs, had a place in Scotland, and then there was a yachting party by which he was much wanted. But Mr. Crosbie had as yet knocked himself down to none of these biddings, having before him when he left London no other fixed engagement than that which took him to Allington. On the first of October we shall also find ourselves at Allington in company with Johnny Eames; and Apollo Crosbie will still be there—by no means to the comfort of our friend from the Income-tax Office.
Johnny Eames cannot be called unlucky in that matter of his annual holiday, seeing that he was allowed to leave London in October, a month during which few choose to own that they remain in town. For myself, I always regard May as the best month for holiday-making; but then no Londoner cares to be absent in May. Young Eames, though he lived in Burton Crescent and had as yet no connection with the West End, had already learned his lesson in this respect. “Those fellows in the big room want me to take May,” he had said to his friend Cradell. “They must think I’m uncommon green.”
“It’s too bad,” said Cradell. “A man shouldn’t be asked to take his leave in May. I never did, and what’s more, I never will. I’d go to the Board first.”
Eames had escaped this evil without going to the Board, and had succeeded in obtaining for himself for his own holiday that month of October, which, of all months, is perhaps the most highly esteemed for holiday purposes. “I shall go down by the mail-train to-morrow night,” he said to Amelia Roper, on the evening before his departure. At that moment he was sitting alone with Amelia in Mrs. Roper’s back drawing-room. In the front room Cradell was talking to Mrs. Lupex; but as Miss Spruce was with them, it may be presumed that Mr. Lupex need have had no cause for jealousy.
“Yes,” said Amelia, “I know how great is your haste to get down to that fascinating spot. I could not expect that you would lose one single hour in hurrying away from Burton Crescent.”
Amelia Roper was a tall, well-grown young woman, with dark hair and dark eyes—not handsome, for her nose was thick, and the lower part of her face was heavy, but yet not without some feminine attractions. Her eyes were bright; but then, also, they were mischievous. She could talk fluently enough; but then, also, she could scold. She could assume sometimes the plumage of a dove; but then again she could occasionally ruffle her feathers like an angry kite. I am quite prepared to acknowledge that John Eames should have kept himself clear of Amelia Roper; but then young men so frequently do those things which they should not do!
“After twelve months up here in London one is glad to get away to one’s own friends,” said Johnny.
“Your own friends, Mr. Eames! What sort of friends? Do you suppose I don’t know?”
“Well, no. I don’t think you do know.”
“L. D.!” said Amelia, showing that Lily had been spoken of among people who should never have been allowed to hear her name. But perhaps, after all, no more than those two initials were known in Burton Crescent. From the tone which was now used in naming them, it was sufficiently manifest that Amelia considered herself to be wronged by their very existence.
“L.S.D.,” said Johnny, attempting the line of a witty, gay young spendthrift. “That’s my love—pounds, shillings, and pence; and a very coy mistress she is.”
“Nonsense, sir. Don’t talk to me in that way. As if I didn’t know where your heart was. What right had you to speak to me if you had an L. D. down in the country?”
It should be here declared on behalf of poor John Eames that he had not ever spoken to Amelia—he had not spoken to her in any such phrase as her words seemed to imply. But then he had written to her a fatal note of which we will speak further before long, and that perhaps was quite as bad—or worse.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Johnny. But the laugh was assumed, and not assumed with ease.
“Yes, sir; it’s a laughing matter to you, I dare say. It is very easy for a man to laugh under such circumstances—that is to say, if he is perfectly heartless—if he’s got a stone inside his bosom instead of flesh and blood. Some men are made of stone, I know, and are troubled with no feelings.”
“What is it you want me to say? You pretend to know all about it, and it wouldn’t be civil in me to contradict you.”
“What is it I want? You know very well what I want; or rather, I don’t want anything. What is it to me? It is nothing to me about L. D. You can go down to Allington and do what you like for me. Only I hate such ways.”
“What ways, Amelia?”
“What ways! Now, look here, Johnny: I’m not going to make a fool of myself for any man. When I came home here three months ago—and I wish I never had;”—she paused here a moment, waiting for a word of tenderness; but as the word of tenderness did not come, she went on—”but when I did come home, I didn’t think there was a man in all London could make me care for him—that I didn’t. And now you’re going away, without so much as hardly saying a word to me.” And then she brought out her handkerchief.
“What am I to say, when you keep on scolding me all the time?”
“Scolding you!—And me too! No, Johnny, I ain’t scolding you, and don’t mean to. If it’s to be all over between us, say the word, and I’ll take myself away out of the house before you come back again. I’ve had no secrets from you. I can go back to my business in Manchester, though it is beneath my birth, and not what I’ve been used to. If L. D. is more to you than I am, I won’t stand in your way. Only say the word.”
L. D. was more to him than Amelia Roper—ten times more to him. L. D. would have been everything to him, and Amelia Roper was worse than nothing. He felt all this at the moment, and struggled hard to collect an amount of courage that would make him free.
“Say the word,” said she, rising on her feet before him, “and all between you and me shall be over. I have got your promise, but I’d scorn to take advantage. If Amelia hasn’t got your heart, she’d despise to take your hand. Only I must have an answer.”
It would seem that an easy way of escape was offered to him; but the lady probably knew that the way as offered by her was not easy to such an one as John Eames.
“Amelia,” he said, still keeping his seat.
“Well, sir?”
“You know I love you.”
“And about L. D.?”
“If you choose to believe all the nonsense that Cradell puts into your head, I can’t help it. If you like to make yourself jealous about two letters, it isn’t my fault.”
“And you love me?” said she.
“Of course I love you.” And then, upon hearing these words, Amelia threw herself into his arms.
As the folding doors between the two rooms were not closed, and as Miss Spruce was sitting in her easy-chair immediately opposite to them, it was probable that she saw what passed. But Miss Spruce was a taciturn old lady, not easily excited to any show of surprise or admiration; and as she had lived with Mrs. Roper for the last twelve years, she was probably well acquainted with her daughter’s ways.
“You’ll be true to me?” said Amelia, during the moment of that embrace—”true to me for ever?”
“Oh, yes; that’s a matter of course,” said Johnny Eames. And then she liberated him; and the two strolled into the front sitting-room.
“I declare, Mr. Eames,” said Mrs. Lupex, “I’m glad you’ve come. Here’s Mr. Cradell does say such queer things.”
“Queer things!” said Cradell. “Now, Miss Spruce, I appeal to you—Have I said any queer things?”
“If you did, sir, I didn’t notice them,” said Miss Spruce.
“I noticed them, then,” said Mrs. Lupex. “An unmarried man like Mr. Cradell has no business to know whether a married lady wears a cap or her own hair—has he, Mr. Eames?”
“I don’t think I ever know,” said Johnny, not intending any sarcasm on Mrs. Lupex.
“I dare say not, sir,” said the lady. “We all know where your attention is riveted. If you were to wear a cap, my dear, somebody would see the difference very soon—wouldn’t they, Miss Spruce?”
“I dare say they would,” said Miss Spruce.
“If I could look as nice in a cap as you do, Mrs. Lupex, I’d wear one to-morrow,” said Amelia, who did not wish to quarrel with the married lady at the present moment. There were occasions, however, on which Mrs. Lupex and Miss Roper were by no means so gracious to each other.
“Does Lupex like caps?” asked Cradell.
“If I wore a plumed helmet on my head, it’s my belief he wouldn’t know the difference; nor yet if I had got no head at all. That’s what comes of getting married. It you’ll take my advice, Miss Roper, you’ll stay as you are; even though somebody should break his heart about it. Wouldn’t you, Miss Spruce?”
“Oh, as for me, I’m an old woman, you know,” said Miss Spruce, which was certainly true.
“I don’t see what any woman gets by marrying,” continued Mrs. Lupex. “But a man gains everything. He don’t know how to live, unless he’s got a woman to help him.”
“But is love to go for nothing?” said Cradell.
“Oh, love! I don’t believe in love. I suppose I thought I loved once, but what did it come to after all? Now, there’s Mr. Eames—we all know he’s in love.”
“It comes natural to me, Mrs. Lupex. I was born so,” said Johnny.
“And there’s Miss Roper—one never ought to speak free about a lady, but perhaps she’s in love too.”
“Speak for yourself, Mrs. Lupex,” said Amelia.
“There’s no harm in saying that, is there? I’m sure, if you ain’t, you’re very hard-hearted; for, if ever there was a true lover, I believe you’ve got one of your own. My!—if there’s not Lupex’s step on the stair! What can bring him home at this hour? If he’s been drinking, he’ll come home as cross as anything.” Then Mr. Lupex entered the room, and the pleasantness of the party was destroyed.
It may be said that neither Mrs. Cradell nor Mrs. Eames would have placed their sons in Burton Crescent if they had known the dangers into which the young men would fall. Each, it must be acknowledged, was imprudent; but each clearly saw the imprudence of the other. Not a week before this, Cradell had seriously warned his friend against the arts of Miss Roper. “By George, Johnny, you’ll get yourself entangled with that girl.”
“One always has to go through that sort of thing,” said Johnny.
“Yes; but those who go through too much of it never get out again. Where would you be if she got a written promise of marriage from you?” Poor Johnny did not answer this immediately, for in very truth Amelia Roper had such a document in her possession.
“Where should I be?” said he. “Among the breaches of promise, I suppose.”
“Either that, or else among the victims of matrimony. My belief of you is, that if you gave such a promise, you’d carry it out.”
“Perhaps I should,” said Johnny; “but I don’t know. It’s a matter of doubt what a man ought to do in such a case.”
“But there’s been nothing of that kind yet?”
“Oh dear, no!”
“If I was you, Johnny, I’d keep away from her. It’s very good fun, of course, that sort of thing; but it is so uncommon dangerous! Where would you be now with such a girl as that for your wife?”
Such had been the caution given by Cradell to his friend. And now, just as he was starting for Allington, Eames returned the compliment. They had gone together to the Great Western station at Paddington, and Johnny tendered his advice as they were walking together up and down the platform.
“I say, Caudle, old boy, you’ll find yourself in trouble with that Mrs. Lupex, if you don’t take care of yourself.”
“But I shall take care of myself. There’s nothing so safe as a little nonsense with a married woman. Of course, it means nothing, you know, between her and me.”
“I don’t suppose it does mean anything. But she’s always talking about Lupex being jealous; and if he was to cut up rough, you wouldn’t find it pleasant.”
Cradell, however, seemed to think that there was no danger. His little affair with Mrs. Lupex was quite platonic and safe. As for doing any real harm, his principles, as he assured his friend, were too high. Mrs. Lupex was a woman of talent, whom no one seemed to understand, and, therefore, he had taken some pleasure in studying her character. It was merely a study of character, and nothing more. Then the friends parted, and Eames was carried away by the night mail-train down to Guestwick.
How his mother was up to receive him at four o’clock in the morning, how her maternal heart was rejoicing at seeing the improvement in his gait, and the manliness of appearance imparted to him by his whiskers, I need not describe at length. Many of the attributes of a hobbledehoy had fallen from him, and even Lily Dale might now probably acknowledge that he was no longer a boy. All which might be regarded as good, if only in putting off childish things he had taken up things which were better than childish.
On the very first day of his arrival he made his way over to Allington. He did not walk on this occasion as he had used to do in the old happy days. He had an idea that it might not be well for him to go into Mrs. Dale’s drawing-room with the dust of the road on his boots, and the heat of the day on his brow. So he borrowed a horse and rode over, taking some pride in a pair of spurs which he had bought in Piccadilly, and in his kid gloves, which were brought out new for the occasion. Alas, alas! I fear that those two years in London have not improved John Eames; and yet I have to acknowledge that John Eames is one of the heroes of my story.
On entering Mrs. Dale’s drawing-room he found Mrs. Dale and her eldest daughter. Lily at the moment was not there, and as he shook hands with the other two, of course, he asked for her.
“She is only in the garden,” said Bell. “She will be here directly.”