"Oh, Madge, Madge," thought I, "if you could see what your folly has led to!"
CHAPTER XVI.
_Follows the Fortunes of Madge and Ned._
But Madge could know nothing yet of that night"s occurrence. She was then many miles out to sea, her thoughts perhaps still lingering behind with her old life, but bound soon to overtake her, and to pa.s.s far ahead to the world she was sailing for, the world of her long-cherished desires.
I shall briefly relate a part of what she afterward recounted to me.
The voyage from New York to Bristol lasted six weeks. She suffered much from her cramped quarters, from the cold weather, from seasickness; but she bore up against her present afflictions, in the hope of future compensations. She put away from her, with the facility of an ambitious beauty, alike her regrets for the past, and her misgivings of the future.
Not to risk any increase of those misgivings, she refrained from questioning Ned as to his resources, nor did she require of him a minute exposition of his plans. She preferred to leave all to him and to circ.u.mstance, considering that, once launched upon the sea of London, and perfectly unrestricted as to her proceedings, she could make shift to keep afloat. She had an earnest of the power of her beauty, in its effect upon the ship"s captain, who, in the absence of pa.s.sengers, was the only person aboard whose admiration was worth playing for. She had the place of honour at his table, and in her presence he was nothing but eyes and dumb confusion, while the extraordinary measures he took for her comfort proclaimed him her willing slave.
She listened without objection or comment when Ned, in confidential moods, forced his purposes upon her attention.
"We"ll make "em stare, my dear," said he. "We"ll make "em open their eyes a bit; just you wait! We"ll find lodgings somewhere in the thick of the town, and I"ll take you to the theatres, and to walk in St.
James Park, and to the public a.s.semblies, and wherever you"re sure to be seen. I wish "twere Summer; then there"d be Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and all that. "Tis a bad time of year in London now; but we"ll do our best. There"ll be young sparks of quality enough, to ask each other who that G.o.ddess is, and that Venus, and that angel, and all that kind of thing; and they"ll be mad to make your acquaintance. They"ll take note of me, and when they see me at the coffee-houses and faro-tables, they"ll fall over one another in the rush to know me, and to be my friends. And I"ll pick out the best, and honour "em with invitations to call at our lodgings, and there"ll be my pretty sister to mix a punch for us, or pour out tea for us; and once we let "em see we"re as good quality as any of "em, and won"t stand any d.a.m.n" nonsense," why, you leave it to brother Ned to land a fat fish, that"s all!"
She had a fear that his operations might at length become offensive to her taste, might stray from the line of her own ambitions; but she saw good reason to await developments in silence; and to postpone deviating from Ned"s wishes, until they should cease to forward hers.
Upon her landing at Bristol, and looking around with interest at the shipping which reminded her of New York but to emphasise her feeling of exile therefrom, her thrilling sense of being at last in the Old World, abated her heaviness at leaving the ship which seemed the one remaining tie with her former life. If ever a woman felt herself to be entering upon life anew, and realised a necessity of blotting the past from memory, it was she; and well it was that the novelty of her surroundings, the sense of treading the soil whereon she had so long pined to set foot, aided her resolution to banish from her mind all that lay behind her.
The time-worn, weather-beaten aspect of the town, its old streets thronged with people of whom she was not known to a soul, would have made her disconsolate, had she not forced herself to contemplate with interest the omnipresent antiquity, to her American eyes so new. And so, as she had heroically endured seasickness, she now fought bravely against homesickness; and, in the end, as nearly conquered it as one ever does.
"Twas a cold ride by stage-coach to London, at that season; there were few travellers in the coach, and those few were ill-natured with discomfort, staring fiercely at the two strangers--whose strangeness they instantly detected by some unconscious process--as if the pair were responsible for the severe February weather, or guilty of some unknown crime. At the inns where they stopped, for meals and overnight, they were subjected to a protracted gazing on the part of all who saw them--an inspection seemingly resentful or disapproving, but indeed only curious. It irritated Madge, who asked Ned what the cause might be.
"Tut! Don"t mind it," said he. ""Tis the way of the English, everywhere but in London. They stare at strangers as if they was in danger of being insulted by "em, or having their pockets picked by "em, or at best as if they was looking at some remarkable animal; but they mean no harm by it."
"How can they see we are strangers?" she queried. "We"re dressed like them."
"G.o.d knows! Perhaps because we look more cheerful than they do, and have a brisker way, and laugh easier," conjectured Ned. "But you"ll feel more at home in London."
By the time she arrived in London, having slept in a different bed each night after landing, and eaten at so many different inns each day, Madge felt as if she had been a long while in England.[8] She came to the town thus as to a haven of rest; and though she was still gazed at for her beauty, it was not in that ceaseless and mistrustful way in which she had been scrutinised from top to toe in the country; moreover, the names of many of the streets and localities were familiar to her, and in her thoughts she had already visited them: for these reasons, which were more than Ned had taken account of, she did indeed feel somewhat at home in London, as he had predicted.
The night of their arrival was pa.s.sed at the inn, in the Strand, where the coach had set them down. The next morning Ned chose lodgings in Craven Street: three rooms, const.i.tuting the entire first floor; which Madge, though she thought the house had a dingy look, found comfortable enough in their faded way; and wherein the two were installed by noon. They spent the afternoon walking about the most famous streets, returning to their lodgings for dinner.
"I think," said Ned, while they were eating, ""twon"t do any harm to get on one of your best gowns, and your furbelows, and we"ll go to the play, and begin the campaign this very night."
"Bless me, no! I"m tired to death with sightseeing," replied Madge. "I could fall asleep this moment. Besides, who"s here to dress my hair? I couldn"t go without a commode."
"Oh, well, just as you like. Only be pleased to remember, ma"am, my purse isn"t a widow"s mite--widow"s cruse of oil, I mean, that runs for ever. I"ve been at a great expense to bring you here, and pounds and shillings don"t rain from heaven like--like that stuff the Jews lived on for forty years in the wilderness. The sooner we land our fish, the sooner we"ll know where the money"s coming from. I sha"n"t be able to pay for lodgings and meals very long."
"Why, "tis a pretty pa.s.s if you"ve no more money--"
"Well, it _is_ a pretty pa.s.s, and that"s just what it is. I didn"t count the cost when I made the generous offer to bring you. Oh, we can last a week or so yet, but the sooner something is done, the sooner we shall be easy in our minds. On second thoughts, though, you"d better go to bed and rest. It mightn"t be well to flash on the town to-night, looking f.a.gged, and without your hair dressed, and all that. So you go to bed and I"ll go around and--call upon a few friends I made when I was here before."
Ned had so improved his attire, by acquisitions in New York, Bristol, and London, that his appearance was now presentable in the haunts of gentlemen. So he went out, leaving her alone. She could no longer postpone meditating upon what was before her.
Now that she viewed it for the first time in definite particulars, its true aspect struck her with a sudden dismay. She was expected to do nothing less than exhibit herself for sale, put herself up at auction for the highest bidder, set out her charms as a bait. And when the bait drew, and the bidders offered, and the buyer awaited--what then?
She would never, her pride alone would never let her, degrade herself to a position at the very thought of which she caught her breath with horror. Come what may, the man who purchased her must put the transaction into the form of marriage. True, she was already married, in the view of the law; but, with a woman"s eye for essentials, she felt her divorce from Philip already accomplished. The law, she allowed, would have to be satisfied with matters of form: but that was a detail to be observed when the time came; Philip would not oppose obstacles.
So she would let matters take their course, would wait upon occurrences. In very truth, to put herself on view with intent of catching a husband, of obtaining an establishment in life, was no more than young ladies of fashion, of virtue, of piety, did continually, under the skilled direction of the most estimable mothers. In Madge"s case, the only difference was, on the one side, the excuse of necessity; on the other side, the enc.u.mbrance of her existing marriage. But the latter could be removed, whereas the former would daily increase.
She must, therefore, benefit by Ned"s operations as long as they did not threaten to degrade her. By the time they did threaten so, she would have gained some experience of her own, circ.u.mstances would have arisen which she could turn to her use. Of actual dest.i.tution, never having felt it, she could not conceive; and therefore she did not take account of its possibility in her case.
So, having recovered from her brief panic, she went to bed and slept soundly.
The next morning Ned was in jubilant spirits. His visit the previous night had been to a gaminghouse in Covent Garden, and fortune had showered him with benefactions. He saw the margin of time at their disposal lengthened by several weeks. He bade his sister put herself at her best, drank with her to their success, and went and engaged a hairdresser and a maid. They went that night, in a hackney-coach, to the play at Drury Lane.
The open-mouthed gazing of her new maid, the deftly spoken admiration of her hairdresser, and the mirror upon her dressing-table, had prepared Madge for triumph. Her expectations were not disappointed, but they were almost forgotten. Her pleasure at sight of the restless, chattering crowd; her interest in the performance; her joy in seeing, in fine: supplanted half the consciousness of being seen. But she was, indeed, stared at from all parts of the house; people looked, and nudged one another; and the powdered bucks and beauties in the side-boxes, glancing up, forgot their own looks in examining hers.
Ned was elated beyond measure. He praised her all the way home in the coach, and when they stood at last on the step of their lodging-house, he waited a moment before going in, and looked back toward the Strand, half-thinking that some susceptible and adventurous admirer might have followed their conveyance to the door.
The next day, Sunday, he took her to church, at St. James"s in Piccadilly, where they had difficulty in getting seats, and where several pious dowagers were scandalised at the inattention of their male company to the service. Ned walked out alone in the afternoon, but, to his surprise, he was not accosted by any gentleman pretending to recognise him as some one else, as a means of knowing him as himself.
On Monday he made himself seen at numerous coffee-houses and taverns, but, although he came upon two or three faces that he had noted in the theatre, no one looked at him with any sign of recollection. "Well, well," thought he, and afterward said to Madge, "in time they will come to remember me as the lovely creature"s escort; at first their eyes will be all for the lovely creature herself."
They went to Covent Garden that evening, and to the Haymarket the next; and subsequently to public a.s.semblies: Madge everywhere arresting attention, and exciting whispers and elbowings among observers wherever she pa.s.sed. At the public b.a.l.l.s, she was asked to dance, by fellows of whom neither she nor Ned approved, but who, Ned finally came to urge, might be useful acquaintances as leading to better ones. But she found all of them contemptible, and would not encourage any of them.
"If we could only get an invite to some private entertainment, the thing would be done in a jiffy," said Ned, "but d.a.m.n it, you won"t lead on any of these fellows--sure they must know ladies to whom they would mention you."
"I shouldn"t think much of ladies that sought acquaintances on _their_ recommendation."
"Why, curse it, we must begin somewhere, to get in."
"If we began where these could open the doors, I warrant we shouldn"t get very far in."
"Rat me if I understand why the men that are taken with you at the play, and elsewhere--real gentlemen of quality, some of "em--never try to follow you up through me. I"ve put myself in their way, the Lord knows. Maybe they think I"m your husband. Curse it, there _is_ a difficulty! If you walked alone, in St. James Park, or past the clubs--?"
"You scoundrel, do you think I"ve come to that?"
Her look advised him not to pursue his last suggestion. By this time his expectations from their public appearances together had been sadly dampened. They must make acquaintances; creditable ones, that is to say, for of another kind he had enough and to spare.
But at last, after some weeks, during which he remained unapproached, and at the end of which he came to a belated perception of the insuperable barrier between the elect and the undesirable, and of his own ident.i.ty with the latter cla.s.s, he decided he must fall back upon his friends for what they might be worth. He had undergone many snubs in his efforts to thrust himself upon fine gentlemen in taverns, coffee-houses, and gaming-places. As for Madge, her solitude had been mitigated by her enjoyment of plays and sights, of the external glimpses of that life to which her entrance seemed impossible.
Ned began therefore to bring his a.s.sociates to their lodgings: chiefly, a gambling barrister of Lincoln"s Inn, a drunken cashiered captain of marines, and a naval surgeon"s mate with an unhealthy outbreak on his face. One meeting with each rascal sufficed to make Madge deny her presence upon his next visit. At this Ned raged, declaring, that these gentlemen, though themselves in adverse circ.u.mstances, had relations and friends among the quality or the wealthy. And at length he triumphantly made good his a.s.sertion by introducing a youth to whom the barrister had introduced him, and who, he whispered to Madge, though not blessed with a t.i.tle, was the heir in prospect of an immense fortune. It came out that he was the son of a prosperous fishmonger in the city.
He was a fat, good-humoured fellow, expensively dressed, and clean, being in all these points an exception among Ned"s acquaintances.
Madge found him, as a mere acquaintance, more amusing than intolerable; but as a possible husband, not to be thought of save with laughter and contempt.
Her refusal to consider him in the desired light, made Ned very wroth; and in revenge he went out, and, between drink and gaming, rid himself of every penny he possessed. He thereupon begged that Madge would let him p.a.w.n some of her jewelry. She refused to do so; until their landlady threatened ejection and suit.
After that, matters went from bad to worse. With part of the money obtained upon what trinkets she gave him, Ned tried to repair his fortunes at the gaming-table; and that failing, he consoled himself in drunkenness. More of her valuables were demanded; yielded up after terrible quarrels with Ned, and humiliating scenes with the landlady.
The visits to the play ceased, the maid was discharged, the hairdresser was no more brought into requisition. Their fall to dest.i.tution was worthy of the harebrained design, the bungling conduct, of Ned; the childish inexperience, the blind confidence, of Madge. "Twas a fall as progressive as a series of prints by Hogarth.
The brother was perpetually in liquor; he no longer took Madge out with him. Often he stayed away nights and days at a time.