Thank goodness Grandon was at the House. So, after a hurried toilet, I went on to Grosvenor Square. The young ladies were both out. Lady Bridget had taken advantage of the _chaperonage_ of a newly-married rather fast female cousin, to go to a ball. Lady Ursula had gone to a solitary tea with a crabbed old aunt. Lady Broadhem was in her own sitting-room, lying on a couch behind a table covered with papers. She looked wearily up when I entered, and held out a thin hand for me to do what I liked with. "How good of you to come, dear Frank!" she said. It was the first time she had ever called me Frank, and I knew she expected me to acknowledge it by pressing her fingers, so I squeezed them affectionately. "Broadhem said if I wanted to make sure of you I ought to have brought Ursula"s name into the telegraph, but I told him her mother"s would do as well."
"What does the----" I am afraid I mentally said "old girl"--"want, I wonder? It must be really serious, or she would have shammed agitation.
There is something about this oily calm which is rather portentous. Then she has taken care to have every member of the family out of the house.
What is she ringing the bell for now?"
"Tell Lady Ursula when she comes home that I am engaged particularly, and will come up and see her in her bedroom before she goes to bed,"
said Lady Broadhem to the servant who answered it.
"Does not Lady Ursula know of my having come to town in answer to your summons?" I asked.
"No, dear child; why should I inflict my troubles upon her? Even Broadhem, to whom I was obliged to speak more openly, only suspects the real state of the case. I have reserved my full confidence for my future son-in-law."
I lifted up my eyes with a rapturous expression, and played with a paper-knife. She wanted me to help her on with an obvious remark, which I declined to make; so, after a pause, she went on, with a deep sigh,----
"What sad news we keep on getting of those poor dear Confederates, Frank!"
"Let us hope they will recover," said I, encouragingly.
"Oh, but they do keep on falling so, it is quite dreadful."
"There was no great number of them fell at Wilmington."
"How stupid I am!" she said; "my poor mind gets quite bewildered. I was thinking of stock, not men; they went down again three more yesterday, and my broker declines altogether to carry them on from one account to another any more. I bought at 60, and they have done nothing but go down ever since. I generally go by Lord Staggerton"s advice, and he recommended me to sell a bear some months ago; but that stupid little Spiffy Goldtip insisted that it was only a temporary depression, and now he says how could he know that President Davis would replace Johnston by Hood."
"Very tiresome of Davis: but you should have employed more than one broker," I remarked. "Persons of limited capital and speculative tendencies should operate mysteriously. Your right hand should not know what your left hand is doing."
"Hush, Frank! you can surely be business-like without being profane. I was completely in Spiffy"s hands; Lady Mundane told me she always let him do for her, and"--here Lady Broadhem lowered her voice--"I _know_ he has access to the best sources of information. I used to employ Staggerton, but he is so selfish that he never told me the best things; besides which, of course, I was obliged to have him constantly to dinner; and his great delight was always to say things which were calculated to shock my religious friends. Moreover, he has lately been doing more as a promoter of new companies than in buying and selling.
Now Spiffy is so very useful in society, and has so much tact, that although there are all kinds of stories against him, still I did not think there was any sufficient reason to shut him out of the house.
There was quite a set made against the poor little man at one time--worldly people are so hard and uncharitable; so, partly for the sake of his aunt, Lady Spiffington, who was my dear friend, and partly, indeed, because Staggerton had really become useless and intolerable, I put my affairs entirely into Spiffy"s hands."
"And the result is?" I asked.
"That I must pay up 27,000 to-morrow," said Lady Broadhem, with the impenitent sigh of a hardened criminal.
"You should have kept his lordship to act as a check on the Honourable Spiffington," I said; "but I cannot advise now, unless I know everything."
A faint tinge suffused Lady Broadhem"s cheek as she said, "What more do you want to know?"
"Exactly what money you possess, and exactly how it is invested."
"I don"t see that that is at all necessary. Here is Spiffington"s letter, from which you will see how much I must pay to-morrow; my a.s.surance that I cannot produce so large a sum at such short notice is enough."
"You can surely have no difficulty in finding some one who would lend you the money, provided you were to pay a sufficiently high rate of interest."
The tinge which had not left Lady Broadhem"s cheek deepened as she answered me, "Frank, it was on no hasty impulse that I telegraphed for you. I do not feel bound to enter into all the details of my private affairs, but I do feel that if there is one man in the world upon whom, at such a crisis, I have a right to rely, it is he to whom I have promised my daughter, and who professes to be devotedly attached to her."
"In short, Lady Broadhem," said I, rising and taking up my hat, "you are willing to part with your daughter to me on condition of my paying a first instalment of 27,000 down, with the prospect of "calls" to an unlimited extent looming in the background. I doubt whether you will find Chundango prepared to go into such a very hazardous speculation, but I should recommend you to apply to him."
At that moment I heard Lady Ursula"s voice in the hall, and the rustle of her dress as she went up-stairs. I was on my way to the door, but I stopped abruptly, and turned upon Lady Broadhem. She was saying something to which I was not attending, but now was suddenly paralysed and silenced as I looked at her fixedly. If a glance can convey meaning, I flatter myself my eyes were not devoid of expression at that moment.
"What!" I thought, "is it reserved for the mother of the girl I love to make me call her "a hazardous speculation"?" It is impossible for me to describe the intensity of the hatred which I felt at this moment for the woman who had caused me for one second to think of Ursula as a marketable commodity, who should be offered for purchase to an Oriental adventurer. The only being I despised more than Lady Broadhem was myself;--because she chose to take my angel off the pedestal on which I had placed her and throw her into the dirt, was I calmly to acquiesce in the proceeding? The storm raging within me seemed gradually to blind me to external objects; my great love was battling with remorse, indignation, and despair; and I stood wavering and distracted, looking, as it were, within for rest and without for comfort, till the light seemed to leave my eyes, and the fire which had flashed from them for a moment became suddenly extinguished.
I was recalled to consciousness by an exclamation from Lady Broadhem.
"Heavens, Frank, don"t stare so wildly--you quite frighten me! I have only asked for your advice, and you make use of expressions and fly off in a manner which nothing but the excitability of your temperament can excuse. I a.s.sure you I am worried enough without having my cares added to by your unkindness. There, if you want to know the exact state of my affairs, look through my papers--you will find I am a woman of business; and I have got an accurate list which I shall be able to explain. Of course all the more important original doc.u.ments are at my solicitor"s."
I sat moodily down without answering this semi-conciliatory, semi-plaintive speech. I did not even take the trouble to a.n.a.lyse it. I felt morally and physically exhausted. The long journey, the suspense, and this _denouement_, had prostrated me. I took up the papers Lady Broadhem offered me, and turned them vacantly over. I read the list, but failed to attach any meaning to the items over which my gaze listlessly wandered. I felt that Lady Broadhem was watching me curiously, but every effort I made to grasp the details before me failed hopelessly. At last I threw the packet down in despair, and, leaning over the table, clasped my bursting forehead with my hands.
"Dear Frank," said Lady Broadhem, and for the first time her voice betrayed signs of genuine emotion, "I know I have been very imprudent, but I did it all for the best. You can understand now why I hesitated to tell you everything at first. You don"t know how much it has cost me, and to what means I am obliged to resort to keep up my courage; besides, I have got into such a habit of concealment that I could not bear that even you should know the desperate state of our affairs, though I had no idea that in so short a time you could have unravelled such complicated accounts and arrived at the terrible result. Perhaps you would like me to leave you for a few moments. I will go and say good-night to Ursula, whom I heard going up-stairs just now."
I heard Lady Broadhem leave the room, but did not raise my head, and indeed only slowly comprehended the purport of her last speech. As it dawned upon me, the hopelessness of the whole situation seemed to overwhelm me. Chaos and ruin like gaunt spectres stared me in the face!
What mattered it if the Broadhem family were bankrupt in estate, if I was to become bankrupt in mind? What matter if they lost all their worldly possessions? Had I not lost all hope of Ursula since I had heard of her attachment to Grandon, and with her every generous impulse of my nature? Why should I save the family, even if I could? Why in this desert of my existence spend a fortune on an oasis I was forbidden ever to enter or enjoy? Why should I bring offerings to the shrine at which I might never worship? The whole temple that enclosed it was tottering.
Instead of helping to prop it up, why not, like Samson, drag it down and let it bury me in its ruin? I threw myself on the couch from which Lady Broadhem had risen, and, turning my face to the wall, longed with an intense desire for an eternal release. At that moment my hand, which I had thrust under the pillow, came in contact with something hard and cold. I drew it out, and was startled to find that it was a small vial labelled "POISON." I am not naturally superst.i.tious, but this immediate response to my thoughts seemed an indication so direct as to be almost supernatural. I had hardly framed in definite terms the idea of a suicide which should at once end my agony, when the means thereto were actually placed in my very hand. Even had I doubted, the inward sense, the inspiration to which I trust, and which has never yet failed me, said, Drink! It even whispered aloud, Drink! From every corner of the room came soft pleasant murmurs of the same word. Beautiful sirens floating round me bade me drink. Every thought of moral evil vanished in connection with this final act. I looked forward with rapture to the long sleep before me, and with a smile of the most intense and fervent grat.i.tude I raised the bottle to my lips. I remember thinking at the moment, "The smile is very important--it shall play upon my lips to the end. Ursula, I die happy, for my last thought is, that in the spirit I shall soon revisit thee," and the liquid trickled slowly down my throat.
It was not until I had drained the last drop that I suddenly recognised the taste. It was the "pick-me-up" I always get at Harris"s, the apothecary in St James"s Street, when my fit of nervous exhaustion come on, but there seemed rather more of the spirituous ingredient in it than usual. The life-stream began to tingle back through all my fibres--my miseries took grotesque forms. "Ha! ha! Lady Broadhem! the means you take to keep up your courage, which you so delicately alluded to just now, have come in most opportunely. What a fool I was to make mountains out of molehills, and call the little ills of life miseries! We will soon see what these little imprudences are the old lady talks of." And I took up the papers with a hand rapidly becoming steady, and glanced over them with an eye no longer confused and dim. Oh the pleasure of the sensation of this gradual recovery of vigour of mind and force of body!
I was engaged in this task, and making the most singular and startling discoveries, the nature of which I shall shortly disclose, when I heard Lady Broadhem coming down-stairs. I felt so angry with her for having been the means of tempting me to commit a great sin, and for the trouble she was causing me generally, that I followed the first impulse which my imagination suggested as the best means of revenging myself upon her.
Accordingly, when the door opened, she found me stretched at full length on the sofa, my form rigid, my face fixed, my eyes staring, my hands clenched, and my whole att.i.tude as nearly that of a person in a fit as I had time to make it.
"Gracious, what is the matter?" said she.
My lips seemed with difficulty to form the word "poison."
"Frank, speak to me!" and she seized my hand, which was not so cold as I could have wished it, but which fell helplessly by my side as she let it drop.
"Poison!" I this time muttered audibly.
"Where did you get it?" said she, snappishly. For it began to dawn upon her that I was not poisoned at all, but had discovered her secret. I turned my thumb languidly in the direction of under the pillow. She hastily thrust in her hand and pulled out the empty bottle. "You fool"--she actually used this expression; I have heard other ladies do the same--"you fool," and she was literally furious, "what did you go poking under the pillow for? You are no more poisoned than I am; it is a draught I am obliged to take for nervous depression, and your imagination has almost frightened you into a fit. I put "poison" on it to keep the servants from prying. Come, get up, be a man--do," and Lady Broadhem gave me her hand, in consideration for my weakness to help myself up by.
"Dearest Lady Broadhem," said I, pressing it to my lips, "I cannot tell what comfort you give me. I was just beginning to regret the world I thought I was about to leave for ever, when your a.s.surance that I have not taken poison, but a tonic, makes me feel as grateful to you as if you had saved my life. I confess that, when I found that you considered your affairs to be so desperate that you had provided the most effectual mode of escape from them, I envied the superior foresight which you had displayed, and determined to repair my error. If it is worth dear Lady Broadhem"s while to poison herself, I thought, it is surely worth mine.
But, after all, suicide is a cowardly act either in a man or a woman; better far face the ills of life with the aid of stimulants, than fly for refuge in the agony of a financial crisis to the shop of an apothecary."
"You are an incomprehensible creature, Frank," said Lady Broadhem; "I am sure I hope for her own sake that Ursula will understand you better than I do; but as your humours are uncertain, and you seem able to go into these affairs now, I think we had better not waste any more time; only I do wish" (with a wistful glance at the bottle) "you would provide yourself with your own draughts in future."
"How lucky," thought I, as I put on a business-like air, and methodically began arranging the papers according to their docquets.
"Now, if it had been just the other way, and her ladyship had taken the draught instead of me, how completely I should have been at her mercy?
Now I am master of the situation."
""Greek loan, thirty thousand,"" I read, going down the list; "I am afraid this is rather a losing business. I see they have been already held over for some months. I suppose some of the 27,000 is to be absorbed there."
"Yes," said Lady Broadhem; "because if I can carry on for another fortnight, I have got information which makes it certain I shall recover on them."
"What is this? five hundred pounds" worth of dollar bonds?" I went on.
"Oh, I only lost a few pounds on them. I bought them at threepence apiece and sold them at twopence. Spiffy got me to take them off his hands, and, in fact, made a great favour of it, as he says there is nothing people make money more surely out of than dollar bonds."
"Bubbs"s Eating-house and Cigar Divan Company, Holborn. Well, there is a strong direction. How do you come by so many shares?"
"Lord Staggerton was one of the promoters, and had them allotted to me,"
said Lady Broadhem. "He also was kind enough to put me into two Turkish baths, a monster hotel, and a music-hall. You will see that I lost heavily in the Turkish baths and the hotel, but the music-hall is paying well. Spiffy says I ought never to stay so long in anything as I do; in and out again, if it is only half a per cent, is his system; but Staggerton used to look after my interests, and managed them very successfully. I am afraid that all my troubles commenced when I quarrelled with him. He is now promoting two companies which I hear most highly spoken of, but he says I must take my chance with others about shares, and he won"t advise me in the matter. One is "The Metropolitan Crossing-Sweeping Company," of which he"s to be chairman, and the other is the "Seaside Bathing-Machine Company." Spiffy says they will both fail, because Staggerton has not the means of having them properly brought out. Bodwinkle won"t speak to him, and unless either he or the Credit Foncier bring a thing out, there is not the least chance of its taking with the public. They don"t so much look at the merits of the speculation as at the way in which it is put before them; and with this system of rigging the market, so many people go in like me only to get out again, that it is becoming more and more difficult every day to start anything new. Oh dear," said Lady Broadhem, "how exhausted it always makes me to talk "City!" I only want to show you that I understand what I am about, and that if you can only help to tide me over this crisis, something will surely turn up a prize."