“It seems to me, Hawbury,”
said Dacres, after a period of thoughtful silence “it
seems to me that when you talk of people having their
heads turned, you yourself comprehend the full meaning
of that sensation?”
“Somewhat.”
“You knocked under at once, of course, to your
Ethel?”
“Yes.”
“And feel the same way toward her yet?”
“Yes.”
“Hit hard?”
“Yes; and that’s what
I’m coming to. The fact is, my whole business
in life for the last year has been to find her out.”
“You haven’t dawdled so much, then, as
people suppose?”
“No; that’s all very well
to throw people off a fellow’s scent; but you
know me well enough, Dacres; and we didn’t dawdle
much in South America, did we?”
“That’s true, my boy;
but as to this lady, what is it that makes it so hard
for you to find her? In the first place, is she
an American?”
“Oh no.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, accent, manner, tone, idiom,
and a hundred other things. Why, of course, you
know as well as I that an American lady is as different
from an English as a French or a German lady is.
They may be all equally ladies, but each nation has
its own peculiarities.”
“Is she Canadian?”
“Possibly. It is not always
easy to tell a Canadian lady from an English.
They imitate us out there a good deal. I could
tell in the majority of cases, but there are many
who can not be distinguished from us very easily.
And Ethel may be one.”
“Why mayn’t she be English?”
“She may be. It’s impossible to perceive
any difference.”
“Have you ever made any inquiries about her
in England?”
“No; I’ve not been in
England much, and from the way she talked to me I
concluded that her home was in Canada.”
“Was her father an Englishman?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Couldn’t you find out?”
“No. You see he had but
recently moved to Montreal, like Willoughby; and I
could not find any people who were acquainted with
him.”
“He may have been English all the time.”
“Yes.”
“And she too.”
“By Jove!”
“And she may be in England now.”
Hawbury started to his feet, and stared
in silence at his friend for several minutes.
“By Jove!” he cried; “if
I thought that, I swear I’d start for home this
evening, and hunt about every where for the representatives
of the Orne family. But no surely
it can’t be possible.”
“Were you in London last season?”
“No.”
“Well, how do you know but that she was there?”
“By Jove!”
“And the belle of the season, too?”
“She would be if she were there, by Jove!”
“Yes, if there wasn’t another present
that I wot of.”
“Well, we won’t argue
about that; besides, I haven’t come to the point
yet.”
“The point?”
“Yes, the real reason why I’m here, when
I’m wanted home.”
“The real reason? Why, haven’t you
been telling it to me all along?”
“Well, no; I haven’t got to the point
yet.”
“Drive on, then, old man.”
“Well, you know,” continued
Hawbury, “after hunting all through Canada I
gave up in despair, and concluded that Ethel was lost
to me, at least for the present. That was only
about six or seven months ago. So I went home,
and spent a month in a shooting-box on the Highlands;
then I went to Ireland to visit a friend; and then
to London. While there I got a long letter from
my mother. The good soul was convinced that I
was wasting my life; she urged me to settle down, and
finally informed me that she had selected a wife for
me. Now I want you to understand, old boy, that
I fully appreciated my mother’s motives.
She was quite right, I dare say, about my wasting
my life; quite right, too, about the benefit of settling
down; and she was also very kind to take all the trouble
of selecting a wife off my hands. Under other
circumstances I dare say I should have thought the
matter over, and perhaps I should have been induced
even to go so far as to survey the lady from a distance,
and argue the point with my mother pro and con.
But the fact is, the thing was distasteful, and wouldn’t
bear thinking about, much less arguing. I was
too lazy to go and explain the matter, and writing
was not my forte. Besides, I didn’t want
to thwart my mother in her plans, or hurt her feelings;
and so the long and the short of it is, I solved the
difficulty and cut the knot by crossing quietly over
to Norway. I wrote a short note to my mother,
making no allusion to her project, and since then
I’ve been gradually working my way down to the
bottom of the map of Europe, and here I am.”
“You didn’t see the lady, then?”
“No.”
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know the lady?”
“No.”
“Odd, too! Haven’t you any idea?
Surely her name was mentioned?”
“No; my mother wrote in a roundabout
style, so as to feel her way. She knew me, and
feared that I might take a prejudice against the lady.
No doubt I should have done so. She only alluded
to her in a general way.”
“A general way?”
“Yes; that is, you know, she
mentioned the fact that the lady was a niece of Sir
Gilbert Biggs.”
“What!” cried Dacres, with a start.
“A niece of Sir Gilbert Biggs,” repeated
Hawbury.
“A niece of Sir Gilbert
Biggs?” said Dacres, slowly. “Good
Lord!”
“Yes; and what of that?”
“Very much. Don’t
you know that Minnie Fay is a niece of Sir Gilbert
Biggs?”
“By Jove! So she is.
I remember being startled when you told me that, and
for a moment an odd fancy came to me. I wondered
whether your child-angel might not be the identical
being about whom my poor dear mother went into such
raptures. Good Lord! what a joke! By Jove!”
“A joke!” growled Dacres.
“I don’t see any joke in it. I remember
when you said that Biggs’s nieces were at the
bottom of your troubles, I asked whether it might
be this one.”
“So you did, old chap; and I
replied that I hoped not. So you need not shake
your gory locks at me, my boy.”
“But I don’t like the looks of it.”
“Neither do I.”
“Yes, but you see it looks as
though she had been already set apart for you especially.”
“And pray, old man, what difference
can that make, when I don’t set myself apart
for any thing of the kind?”
Dacres sat in silence with a gloomy
frown over his brow.
“Besides, are you aware, my
boy, of the solemn fact that Biggs’s nieces
are legion?” said Hawbury. “The man
himself is an infernal old bloke; and as to his nieces heavens
and earth! old! old as Methuselah; and
as to this one, she must be a grandniece a
second generation. She’s not a true, full-blooded
niece. Now the lady I refer to was one of the
original Biggs’s nieces. There’s no
mistake whatever about that, for I have it in black
and white, under my mother’s own hand.”
“Oh, she would select the best of them for you.”
“No, she wouldn’t. How do you know
that?”
“There’s no doubt about that.”
“It depends upon what you mean
by the best. The one you call the best
might not seem so to her, and so on. Now
I dare say she’s picked out for me a great,
raw-boned, redheaded niece, with a nose like a horse.
And she expects me to marry a woman like that! with
a pace like a horse! Good Lord!”
And Hawbury leaned back, lost in the
immensity of that one overwhelming idea.
“Besides,” said he, standing
up, “I don’t care if she was the angel
Gabriel. I don’t want any of Biggs’s
nieces. I won’t have them. By Jove!
And am I to be entrapped into a plan like that?
I want Ethel. And what’s more, I will have
her, or go without. The child-angel may be the
very identical one that my mother selected, and if
you assert that she is, I’ll be hanged if I’ll
argue the point. I only say this, that it doesn’t
alter my position in the slightest degree. I don’t
want her. I won’t have her. I don’t
want to see her. I don’t care if the whole
of Biggs’s nieces, in solemn conclave, with old
Biggs at their head, had formally discussed the whole
matter, and finally resolved unanimously that she
should be mine. Good Lord, man! don’t you
understand how it is? What the mischief do I care
about any body? Do you think I went through that
fiery furnace for nothing? And what do you suppose
that life on the island meant? Is all that nothing?
Did you ever live on an island with the child-angel?
Did you ever make a raft for her and fly? Did
you ever float down a river current between banks
burned black by raging fires, feeding her, soothing
her, comforting her, and all the while feeling in
a general fever about her? You hauled her out
of a crater, did you? By Jove! And what of
that? Why, that furnace that I pulled Ethel out
of was worse than a hundred of your craters.
And yet, after all that, you think that I could be
swayed by the miserable schemes of a lot of Biggs’s
nieces! And you scowl at a fellow, and get huffy
and jealous. By Jove!”
After this speech, which was delivered
with unusual animation, Hawbury lighted a cigar, which
he puffed at most energetically.
“All right, old boy,”
said Dacres. “A fellow’s apt to judge
others by himself, you know. Don’t make
any more set speeches, though. I begin to understand
your position. Besides, after all ”
Dacres paused, and the dark frown
that was on his brow grew still darker.
“After all what?” asked
Hawbury, who now began to perceive that another feeling
besides jealousy was the cause of his friend’s
gloomy melancholy.
“Well, after all, you know,
old fellow, I fear I’ll have to give her up.”
“Give her up?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what you said
before, and you mentioned Australia, and that rot.”
“The more I think of it,”
said Dacres, dismally, and regarding the opposite
wall with a steady yet mournful stare “the
more I think of it, the more I see that there’s
no such happiness in store for me.”
“Pooh, man! what is it all about?
This is the secret that you spoke about, I suppose?”
“Yes; and it’s enough
to put a barrier between me and her. Was I jealous?
Did I seem huffy? What an idiot I must have been!
Why, old man, I can’t do any thing or say any
thing.”
“The man’s mad,”
said Hawbury, addressing himself to a carved tobacco-box
on the table.
“Mad? Yes, I was mad enough
in ever letting myself be overpowered by this bright
dream. Here have I been giving myself up to a
phantom an empty illusion and
now it’s all over. My eyes are open.”
“You may as well open my eyes
too; for I’ll be hanged if I can see my way
through this!”
“Strange! strange! strange!”
continued Dacres, in a kind of soliloquy, not noticing
Hawbury’s words. “How a man will sometimes
forget realities, and give himself up to dreams!
It was my dream of the child-angel that so turned
my brain. I must see her no more.”
“Very well, old boy,”
said Hawbury. “Now speak Chinese a little
for variety. I’ll understand you quite
as well. I will, by Jove!”
“And then, for a fellow that’s
had an experience like mine before and
since,” continued Dacres, still speaking in the
tone of one who was meditating aloud “to
allow such an idea even for a moment to take shape
in his brain! What an utter, unmitigated, unmanageable,
and unimprovable idiot, ass, dolt, and blockhead!
Confound such a man! I say; confound him!”
And as Dacres said this he brought
his fist down upon the table near him with such an
energetic crash that a wine-flask was sent spinning
on the floor, where its ruby contents splashed out
in a pool, intermingled with fragments of glass.
Dacres was startled by the crash,
and looked at it for a while in silence. Then
he raised his head and looked at his friend. Hawbury
encountered his glance without any expression.
He merely sat and smoked and passed his fingers through
his pendent whiskers.
“Excuse me,” said Dacres, abruptly.
“Certainly, my dear boy, a thousand
times; only I hope you will allow me to remark that
your style is altogether a new one, and during the
whole course of our acquaintance I do not remember
seeing it before. You have a melodramatic way
that is overpowering. Still I don’t see
why you should swear at yourself in a place like Naples,
where there are so many other things to swear at.
It’s a waste of human energy, and I don’t
understand it. We usedn’t to indulge in
soliloquies in South America, used we?”
“No, by Jove! And look
here, old chap, you’ll overlook this little
outburst, won’t you? In South America I
was always cool, and you did the hard swearing, my
boy. I’ll be cool again; and what’s
more, I’ll get back to South America again as
soon as I can. Once on the pampas, and I’ll
be a man again. I tell you what it is, I’ll
start to-morrow. What do you say? Come.”
“Oh no,” said Hawbury,
coolly; “I can’t do that. I have business,
you know.”
“Business?”
“Oh yes, you know Ethel, you know.”
“By Jove! so you have. That alters the
matter.”
“But in any case I wouldn’t
go, nor would you. I still am quite unable to
understand you. Why you should grow desperate,
and swear at yourself, and then propose South America,
is quite beyond me. Above all, I don’t
yet see any reason why you should give up your child-angel.
You were all raptures but a short time since.
Why are you so cold now?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Dacres.
“So you said ever so long ago.”
“It’s a sore subject, and difficult to
speak about.”
“Well, old man, I’m sorry
for you; and don’t speak about it at all if
it gives you pain.”
“Oh, I’ll make a clean
breast of it. You’ve told your affair, and
I’ll tell mine. I dare say I’ll feel
all the better for it.”
“Drive on, then, old man.”
Dacres rose, took a couple of glasses
of beer in quick succession, then resumed his seat,
then picked out a cigar from the box with unusual
fastidiousness, then drew a match, then lighted the
cigar, then sent out a dozen heavy volumes of smoke,
which encircled him so completely that he became quite
concealed from Hawbury’s view. But even
this cloud did not seem sufficient to correspond with
the gloom of his soul. Other clouds rolled forth,
and still others, until all their congregated folds
encircled him, and in the midst there was a dim vision
of a big head, whose stiff, high, curling, crisp hair,
and massive brow, and dense beard, seemed like some
living manifestation of cloud-compelling Jove.
For some time there was silence, and
Hawbury said nothing, but waited for his friend to
speak.
At last a voice was heard deep,
solemn, awful, portentous, ominous, sorrow-laden,
weird, mysterious, prophetic, obscure, gloomy, doleful,
dismal, and apocalyptic.
“Hawbury!”
“Well, old man?”
“HAWBURY!”
“All right.”
“Are you listening?”
“Certainly.”
“Well I’m married!”
Hawbury sprang to his feet as though he had been shot.
“What!” he cried.
“I’m married!”
“You’re what? Married?
You! married! Scone Dacres! not you not
married?”
“I’m married!”
“Good Lord!”
“I’m married!”
Hawbury sank back in his seat, overwhelmed
by the force of this sudden and tremendous revelation.
For some time there was a deep silence. Both
were smoking. The clouds rolled forth from the
lips of each, and curled over their heads, and twined
in voluminous folds, and gathered over them in dark,
impenetrable masses. Even so rested the clouds
of doubt, of darkness, and of gloom over the soul
of each, and those which were visible to the eye seemed
to typify, symbolize, characterize, and body forth
the darker clouds that overshadowed the mind.
“I’m married!”
repeated Dacres, who now seemed to have become like
Poe’s raven, and all his words one melancholy
burden bore.
“You were not married when I
was last with you?” said Hawbury at last, in
the tone of one who was recovering from a fainting
fit.
“Yes, I was.”
“Not in South America?”
“Yes, in South America.”
“Married?”
“Yes, married.”
“By Jove!”
“Yes; and what’s more, I’ve been
married for ten years.”
“Ten years! Good Lord!”
“It’s true.”
“Why, how old could you have been when you got
married?”
“A miserable, ignorant, inexperienced dolt,
idiot, and brat of a boy.”
“By Jove!”
“Well, the secret’s out;
and now, if you care to hear, I will tell you all
about it.”
“I’m dying to hear, dear boy; so go on.”
And at this Scone Dacres began his story.