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Tag: Nineteenth Century popular culture

  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Sixteenth Instalment

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Sixteenth Instalment

    Prior to the two Australian newspaper series we’re using to reconstruct The Mystery of the Marsh, the novel appeared serialized in the New York Ledger during the period December 1882 — March 1883. You may recall that Smith moved from Europe to the United States in 1870, residing there until his death in 1890. According to Montague Summers, the author of A Gothic Bibliography (1941; 1964), by that time Smith’s fortune was ‘wasted’, owing to his ‘too ample charities and generosity’, and he died ‘in obscurity, if not indeed in actual want.’

    During that period, Smith wrote original stories for the New York Ledger, a so-called ‘six-cent weekly’ offering diverse family entertainment, but catering mostly for a female readership, with an emphasis on romantic fiction (‘Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls’; Stanford U).

    In considering provenance, as tempting as it is to suggest that Mystery of the Marsh was first published in the New York Ledger, Summers cautions that in America Smith ‘republished many of his old tales and wrote some new romances the titles of which it is baffling to trace.’ The problem is exacerbated by the fact that many stories published in London were given no explicit byline, but rather advertised as ‘By the author of such-and-such.’ It would seem a fool’s errand to go wading through a morass of digitized newspapers in search of a serialized text whose author was unstated and title unsure.

    The copy referenced in the New York Ledger is itself  hard to access. Earhart and Jewell explain how

    While the works of major writers and periodicals are being digitized, there is limited funding for others. For example, scholars have no electronic or even microfilm access to the New York Ledger, the newspaper where Fanny Fern, among the most famous women writers in the nineteenth century, published her weekly columns from 1856 to 1872.

    The American Literature Scholar in the Digital Age, (U of Michigan P, 2011)

    There is little if any doubt, however, that the work is Smith’s own, given its style, catalogue attributions, and details of reference, some of which I’ve mentioned in previous notes. It seems to me that, in one sense, while we cannot know exactly when the work first appeared, such a limitation adds a certain interest to the work, being a function of the channels and technologies of the text’s transmission.

    More on technicalities in a later post. For the time being, let us leave them behind and turn to the pleasure of the text. In this week’s chapter, the Paris duel and its aftermath; and some dubious characters find themselves ensnared. This instalment’s featured image shows a daytime view of one of the ‘alleys’ of the Luxembourg where the duel is fought.

    CHAPTER SIXTEEN

    Result of the Duel — The Victor and his Friends Make Good their Retreat to London — Lord Bury Once More in the Country — Plot and Counterplot

    On reaching the alley of the Luxembourg — the one skirted by the dead wall in which Marshal Ney was shot for his fidelity to the first Napoleon, and truth compels us to add, undoubted treason to Louis the Eighteenth — the late revellers, their eyes still sparkling under the influence of the wine cup, advanced with a confident if not cheerful air, followed by the three Englishman, whose demeanor appeared far more serious.

    Allée au jardin du Luxembourg, Vincent van Gogh, 1886

    At a distance, but out of sight, Monsieur Vezin, with several agents of police, were on their track. The clever detective had received not only his reward, but instructions. If Lord Bury fell, he was to take no steps against the liberty of his antagonist. If Clarence succumbed, he was not to use the information he had obtained or arrest him. The only circumstances under which the last step would be taken — his refusal to fight — did not seem likely to occur; he was already on the ground.

    Although little more than boys in years, the students were men of the world as far as the punctilios of the duel are concerned. They had secured the services of a surgeon on their way to the Luxembourg, measured the ground with mathematical exactness, and placed the pistol in the hands of their principal.

    It had been agreed that the combatants should fire together.

    The fall of the handkerchief was followed by the instantaneous discharge of the weapons. Lord Bury still stood erect, although the ball of Clarence had slightly grazed his temple. Marsham lay senseless on the ground, bleeding from a severe wound in his throat.

    The surgeon approached, looked in his face, and shook his head gravely. Despite the semi-Bohemian life he led, he was a man of honor. Turning to the English group, he said:

    ‘You had better retire, gentlemen, and provide for your safety. The result threatens to be serious, and the government of the day sets its face against duelling.’

    Captain Seymour had taken the precaution of keeping the carriage waiting at the gate of the Luxembourg. In less than an hour Bury and his friends had quitted Paris and were on their way to the nearest frontier town in Belgium.

    Monsieur Vezin took care they were not too closely followed.

    Meanwhile Marsham had been taken back to his hotel, and further surgical assistance sent for.

    * * *

    Tact is one of those qualities which some men are born with; few things are more difficult to acquire. Experience can only partially supply its absence. It lacks the smoothness, the ready spontaneity of the former; then it sometimes blunders, which tact carefully avoids.

    ‘Here, you girls,’ exclaimed Sir George Meredith, handing the “Morning Post” — the fashionable journal of the day — to his daughter as they sat at luncheon, ‘see if you can solve this riddle. I can make nothing of it.’

    Clara addressed herself to the paragraph in the “Morning Post,” and had not proceeded far before a deadly paleness overspread her countenance, and she fell, half-fainting, from her chair.

    With the assistance of Lady Kate and Rose Neville, who were staying at the Hall, the housekeeper and female servants conveyed the deeply agitated girl to her own room. A groom was dispatched to the nearest physician by her half distracted parent, who at intervals stood puzzling his brains as to the cause of the sudden attack. Slowly the perception dawned upon his mind that something in the “Post” had occasioned it

    Snatching up the paper, he perused the paragraph a second time. For the benefit of our readers we shall transcribe it :

    ‘Paris. — Duel in High Life. — On the l8th instant a hostile meeting took place in the garden of the Luxembourg, between Captain Lord B—, of the Guards, and Lieutenant M—-, whose late retirement from the service caused considerable comment in fashionable circles. Both the combatants wore wounded; his lordship in the temple; his antagonist far more seriously in the throat. His life, we hear, is despaired of.’

    What renders the affair still more distressing is the fact of the father of Lord B— being married to the mother of the gentleman whose life is despaired of.

    ‘B stands for Bury,’ muttered the baronet, after reading the paragraph a second and third time. ‘He would never be such a fool as to call Marsham to account, and yet M— designates the rascal clearly enough.’

    ‘But why should Clara faint on reading the news?’ he added.

    Glancing his eyes once more over the journal, he detected a paragraph which had escaped his attention:

    ‘Lord Bury, we are happy to hear, has arrived safely from Paris, and is now staying with his regiment at Knightsbridge.’

    And a little lower down he read:

    ‘Viscount and Viscountess Allworth left town last night for the continent. The state of Mr. M— is considered hopeless.’

    ‘Served the rascal right, if it is really the man I suspect,’ said Sir George, by way of comment. ‘But I have no time to think of him. My mind is occupied with Clara. What could her fainting mean?’

    The speaker paced the apartment for several minutes. A smile at last appeared upon his honest countenance.’ An idea had struck him — one that, we shrewdly suspect, has already occurred to our readers.

    ‘If it should be so,’ he muttered, ‘I have a great mind to write and remind him of his promised visit. But first for the “Morning Post.”‘

    Carefully marking the two last bits of gossip, he directed the housekeeper to convey the paper to Lady Kate Kepple.

    ‘A clever girl that,’ he thought. ‘She will know what I mean. Girls understand each other.’

    Two hours elapsed before his niece made her appearance. She entered the room with a smiling face that boded favourable intelligence of the patient.

    ‘Clara is much better!’ she exclaimed. ‘Quite recovered from her fainting fit. The heat of the weather. Nothing serious.’

    ‘No doubt’ of it,’ replied the baronet. ‘I felt it myself. Dreadfully warm.’

    The morning had been a frosty one. The speakers looked in each other’s face, and laughed. A sense of the ridiculous had struck them both.

    ‘Sir George,’ observed the young lady, regarding him archly, ‘are you aware that you are a very deceitful, treacherous old gentleman?’

    ‘Treacherous and deceitful!’ exclaimed her relative. ‘What can you mean?’

    ‘Exactly what I said,’ answered Kate; ‘and you know it. But we will not discuss the question. It can do no good. If I had a secret,’ she added, ‘I should be very careful how I gave you a clue to it.’

    ‘All girls have their secret,’ observed the father of Clara, playfully, ‘and I feel certain that you are no exception to the rule, for you have a heart.’

    Lady Kate coloured to the temples.

    ‘So you may just as well confess it,’ added the speaker.

    ‘When I have,’ she answered laughingly, as she quitted the room, ‘I will come to you for advice; but not till then.’

    The worthy baronet felt particularly well satisfied with himself. He had acted most diplomatically; conveyed the information he wished to his daughter without permitting his suspicions as to the cause of her illness to appear.

    That same day he wrote to his nephew, alluded frankly to the reports he had read, and asked him candidly how much truth he was to attribute to them. He concluded the letter by reminding him of his promised visit to the country.

    That will do,’ he said, after reading  it  twice; ‘must not appear too pressing. Clara would never forgive me. I wish she were well married.’

    ‘Just the thing,’ thought his lordship, on perusing the invitation. ‘A few weeks rest will be welcome to me. I wonder if Clara knew of her father’s writing. Don’t be conceited, Bury,’ he added, smiling to himself;  ‘even if she does know of it, it means nothing. What more natural? It must be awfully dull in the country.’

    Ten days later he was on his way to Norfolk, but not alone. Tom Randal accompanied him in the character of his valet.

    It is the privilege of every officer in the army to take one man from his regiment to act as a servant, not that the young guardsman had the slightest intention of entrusting his person to the care of the rustic lover of the pretty Phoebe, who, excited by the hope of meeting his sweetheart again, and, if possible, shaking her resolution, forgot all about his determination of wearing no other livery than that of his country.

    ‘Tom,’ said his captain, when everything was settled; ‘we travel in mufti.’

    Mufti, in military parlance, means plain clothes.

    ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ continued the speaker, ‘but you can wear your uniform only on Sundays; weekdays you will have to dress in –‘

    ‘Your Lordship’s livery,’ interrupted the farmer’s son, in a tone of wounded pride.

    The officer fixed his eyes keenly upon him.

    ‘You deserve that I should say yes, for doubting me,’ he replied. ‘Do you think I could humiliate you? I had no other means of obtaining your temporary leave of absence, or I would have tried it. Take that card, Tom, to my tailor. He will supply you with plain clothes that will not disgrace your father’s son — and on Sundays you may break the hearts of half the village girls by wearing your uniform — and a deuced fine fellow you look in it.’

    ‘Phœbe,’ he added, ‘will scarcely be able to resist it.’

    Needless to say, poor Tom Randal was profuse in his gratitude. At the appointed time they started on their journey.

     * * *

    Like a solitary spider in its web, Mr. Brit, senior, sat alone in his chambers. The clerks had quitted at the usual hour, but their employer remained under pretence of having important papers to look through; but in reality to hold a meeting with his agent and confederate, the money lender.

    Benoni, who, whilst seeming attentive only to his duties, had eyes and ears for everything that transpired, was not deceived by their ruse. He had already acquired one piece of practical knowledge in his new profession — that the last thing a lawyer gives is his reason for any act. He prefers putting forth the pretence. Instead of returning as his fellow clerks did, to his lodgings, he resolved to remain in the neighbourhood of the Old Jury and watch the proceedings of his employer.

    To this degrading action he was impelled by a double motive  — curiosity and fear. The allurements of London had already proved too much for him; he had yielded to their blandishments and plunged, without making any real resistance, into a career of vice. As is usual in such cases, the first false step forced on a second. To supply the means of extravagance, the unfortunate youth had appropriated a check, left by a country client in settlement of an account; and even that was not the worst — he had endorsed it with his employer’s name.

    No wonder the possible consequence of this rash act haunted him. He saw but one way of escaping from it — discovering something so damaging to the reputation of the pious Mr. Brit that might in turn place that gentleman in his power.

    It was a terrible game of see-saw Benoni was playing. At one end of the balance stood the hangman with his rope; at the other, even if he succeeded, shame and exposure.

    The odds were desperately in favor of the elder rogue.

    Benoni had concealed himself in a dark, narrow passage, bordered by dirty, gloomy-looking houses. At night the passage was a solitude; few except the hungry and destitute invaded it — or the criminal.

    After standing two hours upon the watch, a prey to his remorseful fears, the concealed spy saw the old money lender, Moses, glide like a shadow from his own den to that of the respectable Mr. Brit.

    ‘Something,’ he thought, ‘but not sufficient. If I could but overhear their conversation.’

    Whilst he stood puzzling his fevered brain to contrive the means, two men, who, from the bottom of the passage, had been watching his proceedings, crept stealthily towards him. They were meanly dressed, their faces partially hid by high shirt collars, then just coming into vogue, and long woollen wrappers twisted loosely round their necks.

    No echoing footfall gave warning of their approach. A cloak was thrown suddenly over the head of the spy, who felt himself dragged still farther into the passage, then down a short flight of steps, leading, as he rightly conjectured, to the basement of one of the houses.

    The prisoner, who had never been remarkable for courage, believing himself to have fallen into the hands of justice, fainted.

    On recovering his senses he found himself seated in an arm chair, his arms bound, and the cloak still over his face. Certain animals, we are told, when closely pressed by the hunter, will pretend to be dead. Benoni was not much of a naturalist, but he had read the Greek fable, and, although restored to consciousness, made up his mind to act the insensible.

    He was rewarded by hearing the following conversation between his captors:

    ‘I tell you,’ said the tallest of the two, ‘it is useless to trust him. He has not the courage of a hare. Can’t you see what a miserable cur he is?’

    ‘But he is cunning,’ replied a thin, squeaking voice, which the listener thought he recognised.

    ‘What security will his cunning give for his fidelity?’

    ‘None; but I have a better than that — his neck.’

    The tall man repeated the words.

    ‘Yes,’ continued the former speaker. ‘He has committed a breach of trust; forged old Brit’s name to a check; no great amount, but sufficient to hang him. The warrant is out.’

    Benoni with difficulty suppressed a groan.

    ‘On his return to his lodgings he will be arrested.’

    At this revelation the prisoner experienced a fresh access of terror. His limbs trembled in every joint, and, yet faithful to the part he was acting, he gave no signs of consciousness till the cloak had been removed and a glass of cold water dashed in his face, when he opened first one eye, then the other, and stared languidly round the room.

    ‘Ah, Wickwar,’ he said, In a faint tone, ‘is that you?’

    ‘In person,’ chuckled the man.

    ‘Always playing some practical joke.’

    ‘You will find it no joke,’ observed the squeaking voice, dryly.

    Benoni recognised in its answer the confidential clerk of Mr. Moses, the money-lender, and experienced an unpleasant choking sensation at his throat.

    ‘Look you,’ continued the speaker. ‘I don’t know that I am much better than you are — only a little more prudent. My employer has no hold on me. Yours has upon you. I have engaged myself to serve this gentleman, who has fallen into the hands of our masters, who are great rogues, but exceedingly clever ones. I am bound to carry out my promise. Now, if you could undertake to guide him to a place of safety, perhaps — mind, I only say perhaps — I might connive at your escaping with him. Do you know of such a place?’

    ‘I do!’ exclaimed Benoni, eagerly. ‘A retreat where the staunchest bloodhounds of the law would not attempt to penetrate.’

    ‘Is it far from London?’

    ‘Thirty miles.’

    ‘By land or water?’

    ‘Much the same either way,’ was the reply. ‘But by water would be safest. What day is it?’

    ‘Thursday.’

    ‘Then I am certain I could perform my promise,’ observed Benoni. ‘There will be boats in the river laden with wild fowl, game and spirits. Four hours’ sharp rowing will land us safely in the Bittern’s Marsh.’

    After a few whispered words between the two men the proposal was agreed to.

    ‘Listen to me,’ said the eldest. ‘Guide me safely to the place you name, and you will not only secure your own safety, but a handsome reward. Attempt to betray me, and I will  blow your brains out. I will not be taken alive.’

    To prove this threat was not an idle one, he drew from his pocket a pair of pistols.

    The three speakers quitted the basement together.

    At the entrance of the passage Wickwar gave a low whistle, and presently a dingy looking cab was seen driving along the Old Jury. Benoni and the tall man entered it, when it immediately drove off. The money-order clerk stood watching it as it disappeared.

    ‘The fools!’ he muttered to himself. ‘Bully and coward — they are well matched.’

    Waiting till the rattle of the wheels ceased to be heard, the schemer crossed rapidly to the other side of the streets and began groping his way in the dark up the stairs leading to the chamber of the respectable Mr. Brit.

    It was no part of that gentleman’s policy — all lawyer’s are gentlemen by act of Parliament — to drive the fugitive, who was no other than their dupe Burcham, out of the country, but to frighten him into some place of concealment where he could communicate neither with friends nor receive advice. The transactions with his dupe through his agent, Moses, had been most profitable, and promised to be more so, but he well knew they could not bear the light. It was with this view the scene we have described had been enacted.

    Needless to add that Wickwar was in the plot.

    ‘Capital, my dear fellow, capital!’ said the lawyer, in a tone of satisfaction, when the last-named personage entered the chambers. ‘Could not have done it better myself.’

    ‘Peautiful!’ exclaimed the Jew. You think he will be quite safe?’

    ‘As in the grave,’ answered the clerk, confidently. ‘Few,’ he added, have ever escaped from the Bittern’s Marsh.’

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Notes and References

    he had read the Greek fable: Seems to be Aesop’s fable of the cat and the mice.

    Mufti, in military parlance, means plain clothes: See Hobson-Jobson: a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive by Sir Henry Yule et al (London: Murray, 1903). Jump to page on Internet Archive.

    Luxembourg Gardens and Latin Quarter locations:

    Montague Summers. A Gothic Bibliography. NY: Russell & Russell, 1964 (1941). Jump to page on Internet Archive.

  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Fifteenth Instalment

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Fifteenth Instalment

    The scene shifts to Paris, where Smith can draw upon his youthful experience of bohemian life in the Latin Quarter.  A character in our upper echelon has gone there to take care of some … unfinished business — of the serious kind. Here we meet a new brand of character, a detective by the name of Monsieur Vezin. Although, while in the process of introducing him Smith alludes to Poe (1809–49), this Vezin is hardly the stature of the brilliant Le Chevalier Auguste Dupin — the world’s first fictional detective — of The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter. One has only to look at his coarse, mercenary nature and how he snaps up such a mundane mission. Dupin would never lower himself.

    In saying so, I don’t mean to detract from Smith. On the contrary, his subtle realistic approach compares favourably with Poe’s spectacle and artifice, as entertaining as these are in their own right. (An escaped orangutan did it?!)

    Smith’s seemingly gratuitous reference to Poe is complicated, but worth a few minutes trying to untangle. The historical Duchess de Berry (Maria Carolina Ferdinanda Luise; 1798–1870) is famous for her intrigue against Louis Philippe I, King of France, in whose place she aimed to ‘restore’ her son Henri as the legitimate descendant of the overthrown Bourbon dynasty.  In an incident well-known in the history of cryptography, she sent an encrypted letter to a group of anti-monarchists in Paris, advising them she had arrived in order to mount the insurrection. Unfortunately, she forgot to supply them with the cipher-key (the key explaining which ciphers in the message correspond to which letters of the alphabet).

    It was the great politician and orator, the lawyer Pierre-Antoine Berryer, who reputedly worked out the key — definitely not a detective named Vezin. Poe used the idea in his story The Gold-bug, where the plot turns on deciphering an encoded message just as Berryer did. On the other hand, this particular letter of the Duchess’ doesn’t seem to have been ‘compromising’ as such. Perhaps Smith mixes in a vague allusion to Poe’s ‘purloined letter’, since its disclosure ‘would bring in question the honor of a personage of most exalted station’ (Poe, PL).

    Later in the chapter, out of the blue, Smith makes further reference to the absence of a figurative ‘key’, this time in the form of a Latin quotation: ‘nil nisi clavis [deest]’ (‘nothing is wanting but the key’), an arcane Masonic catechism. Does he mean to imply, more broadly, that there exists a missing master-key to some overarching mystery? Shades of Umberto Eco. Is it for the reader, or yet for the author himself to uncover?

    And we notice the echoing of names and identities. ‘Marsham’ has become ‘Marsh’, recalling the eponymous Bittern’s Marsh. We have ‘Lord Bury’, the alluded ‘Duchess of Berry’ and ‘Berryer’. Don’t tell me something is going to be found buried in the marsh?

    Yet the substance of the story unfolds in a straightforward, naturalistic fashion, without a defined, singular, impelling mystery. It is as though the entry of the Poe-esque character, Vezin, acts as a stimulus for ideas that are more characteristic of the Dupin-style of detective fiction, the precursor to the twentieth-century mystery genre. Many incidents in Smith’s novel have a ‘mystery’ or unknown quantity attached to them, waiting to be revealed: boys who turn out to be girls; dark plots; characters with obscure histories in the marsh; and those who have disappeared back into the Bittern’s Marsh …

    Naturally enough, the contemporary reader cannot expect it to conform to a modern mystery. But nevertheless, the conventions of the genre may skew one’s expectations.

    CHAPTER FIFTEEN

    A Glance at Paris — The Avenger on the Track — Students’ Orgie — Preliminaries of a Duel

    When Lord Bury started for France it was with the full intention of calling Clarence Marsham to account for his unmanly conduct to Lady Kate.

    Our traveller’s first halting-place was Paris. It was not his lordship’s first visit to the gay metropolis of our Gallic neighbors. He had been there twice before; seen something of its dissipations, without plunging over head and ears into them. Escaped from the fire, in fact, with only a few feathers singed.

    Faithful to the object of his journey, knowing the character and habits of the man he sought, he frequented once more the scenes he had formerly visited. They failed, however, to attract him. His mind had acquired a more manly tone.

    Paris, Grands Boulevards 1860. Etching

    It is astonishing how soon a naturally healthy appetite sickens of the sugared dainties of our youth.

    Not having discovered Clarence Marsham where he thought he would be found, Lord Bury addressed himself first to the English embassy; next to the prefecture of the police. Neither of them could afford the information be required. No passport in the name of Marsham had been viséd at either place.

    Travelling with a Secretary of State’s passport, which the English Government grants only to the favourite few, his lordship had been received with great civility by the authorities, who really felt anxious to oblige him.

    As he was leaving the prefecture — it was his third visit — a little old man, who had very much the air of a retired grocer or small shopkeeper, addressed him, and after a profusion of bows, such as Frenchmen alone know how to make, blandly inquired if he could be of any service.

    ‘I fear not,’ was the reply. ‘I have already had two interviews with the minister of police, who assures me that everything has been done that could be done.’

    ‘Officially?’ inquired the old man.

    ‘Of course.’ The querist smiled sarcastically. There was an expression of something very like contempt in his small, twinkling grey eyes at the obtuseness of the Englishman that roused the anger of the latter, who asked himself if the Frenchman had played with or been mocking him. Monsieur Vezin noticed this, and hastened to dissipate it.

    ‘No, no, my lord,’ he said, eagerly. ‘The prefect of the police can have no interest in deceiving you. What I meant was simply this: Official investigations are not always the most satisfactory. They have so much to attend to.’

    The traveller naturally felt surprised at finding his thoughts so accurately interpreted, and eyed the speaker more closely.

    ‘You know me?’ he observed.

    The detective smiled.

    ‘I know everyone who comes to Paris in his own name and with a legitimate passport,’ he replied. ‘And those who do not, I know where to find them.’

    ‘Who are you, sir?’

    ‘I am Vezin.’

    I know not whether it tells in their favour or not as a people, but the French have long been celebrated for the marvellous astuteness of their police. It is a speciality, and they are proud of it. And yet, singular contradiction, the humblest tradesman or mechanic would consider himself insulted by being taken for a member of it. Hint to a Frenchman of the middle classes that his morals are loose, he will only laugh at you. Accuse him of untruthfulness, he merely shrugs his shoulders. Call him a spy, and he is ready to fight you.

    Lord Bury was no stranger to the name of the detective. It was of European reputation, although he had not yet made the famous stroke by which he discovered the compromising letter of the Duchess de Berry, which the American poet, Poe, has made such a clever use of.

    ‘It is not the means I should prefer,’ he thought, but Clarence Marsham has left me no other.’

    Turning to the old man, he added, aloud:

    ‘I think, Monsieur, that you can be of use to me.’

    Vezin bowed.

    ‘This is no place for confidence,’ continued the speaker. ‘Follow me to my hotel, where we can converse more freely.’

    ‘With pleasure, my lord.’

    Once seated at the Bristol — the then fashionable hotel — his lordship described his anxiety to discover the whereabouts of Clarence Marsham, but not his motives; in this he was wrong. A detective is something like a confessor — he should be trusted with everything or nothing. The young Englishman ought to have understood this — perhaps he did — but his pride revolted at the thought of painting one so nearly connected with him in his true colours.

    Monsieur Vezin looked puzzled — just sufficiently to justify his asking a few questions.

    ‘Very clear,’ he said;  ‘in fact, perfectly lucid; still in certain cases we require an excess of light. Has the Englishman — I wish to put it as delicately as possible, done anything to render him amenable to the laws?’

    ‘His offence is a social one,’ was the evasive answer.

    ‘And you are in Paris to call him to an account?’ continued the former. ‘You need not reply. I can read the intention in your flashing eyes. I have nothing to do with that. If Mr. Clarence Marsham is in Paris I pledge my reputation to discover his retreat — but it will cost both time and money.’

    ‘You shall have no cause to complain,’ observed Lord Bury, haughtily. ‘Find his address, that is all I ask. You may leave the rest to me.’

    Monsieur Vezin thought so too.

    Three days after the above conversation the detective made his appearance at the Hotel Bristol again;  his employer saw by his eyes that he had been successful.

    ‘Well?’ he exclaimed eagerly.

    ‘I am on the track my lord.’

    ‘Pshaw! Only on the track?’

    ‘That is something,’ observed Monsieur Vezin, quietly; ‘a pledge that I shall run him to earth, as your fox-hunting countrymen say. There is but one difficulty. He has a Secretary of State’s passport,’ he added, significantly, ‘in the name of Marsh.’

    ‘My father must have procured it for him,’ thought Lord Bury, bitterly.

    ‘That there may be no errors,’ continued his visitor, ‘I have called to consult with you before I proceed any further.’

    ‘Not for the world!’ exclaimed his lordship, eagerly. ‘Leave him to me.’

    ‘He has signed a false name.’

    ‘With no political or fraudulent intentions. I can answer for that.’

    ‘Still it is a serious offence by the laws of France. I ought to arrest him.’

    ‘Come, come, Monsieur Vezin,’ said the Englishman, forcing a smile. ‘You are, I am convinced, too gallant a gentleman’ — the word gentleman stuck in his throat — ‘not to appreciate the difficulty in which such a step would place me; my honour and courage might be suspected — the world would suppose that I feared to meet him.’

    ‘It is possible,’ observed the Frenchman, musingly.

    ‘Of course it is,’ said his employer. ‘Let us see if duty or sentiment cannot hit upon a compromise.’

    A compromise was hit upon. Needless to say, it took a tangible shape, and the following agreement made: At an early hour the following morning, Monsieur Vezin was to accompany Lord Bury and two of his English friends, to point out the house in the students’ quarters where Clarence Marsham had taken up his abode. If he accepted the duel, well, the police would wink at its taking place. If he refused, they were at once to arrest him.

    ‘I shall be sure to hit him,’ thought his lordship, as he quitted his hotel in search of a second.

    The detective muttered something very similar as he walked towards the prefecture of police; to be sure, the words were somewhat different.

    ‘He means mischief. I can see it in his eyes,’ he said. ‘Bah! What is it to me if one English dog shoots another? — a troublesome affair off my mind, even if I am well paid for it.’

    ‘The Latin Quarter of Paris has a type apart from the rest of  the pleasure-loving city. It is the centre of Bohemian life in all its varieties. Students, grisettes, dealers in books, old coins, bric-a-brac, antique furniture, costumes and armor, indispensable accessories of the painter’s studio, locate themselves chiefly in the street of the Ancient Comedy, where the once celebrated Cafe Procope still. opens wide its doors. The brilliant galaxy, Balzac, Lamartine, dear old Béranger, Victor Hugo, have long since disappeared from the busy stage of Parisian life.

    Student life in the Latin Quarter has changed but little. Its amusements, occupations, habits, vices, and, let us add, virtues, are still pretty much the same as when the author shared it some fifty years ago. A little study, great extravagance, loyal generosity to a comrade in distress, a rude sense of honor where their own sex are concerned, a general disregard of it towards the weaker and more helpless one.

    Street in Latin Quarter, 1862, photograph, Charles Marville. Source: nga.gov

    The houses occupied by the students are exceedingly numerous. The steady ones board; the pleasure-seeking merely lodge in them. Each set of rooms is a separate fortress; their occupants band in strict alliance for self-defence.

    In the middle ages, the members of the university braved the crown — frequently gave laws to it. At the present day they brave only the police, unless a revolution happens to be upon the tapis; then something like their old spirit returns to them.

    In the street of the Ancient Comedy stands a large hotel which, for nearly a century, has been a favorite abode with the semi-Bohemian race we have just described. On the first floor of the building, Clarence Marsham — or rather Clarence Marsh, as his passport designated him — had engaged one of the most roomy and best apartments. Compared with his neighboring lodgers, his surroundings might be termed luxurious; still they were a sad falling off from the regimental club and the splendors of Allworth House. The youthful profligate did not, however, regret the change very much. In Paris he had found what he deemed compensation in the alluring pleasures of the French metropolis.

    Although his mother had reduced his allowance by one half, Clarence Marsham appeared a veritable Crœsus to his new acquaintances, who ate his suppers, drank his wines, and occasionally borrowed a few francs from him. Not that he was by any means a generous lender; it was a tax he had to pay, and he paid it grudgingly.

    Our roué, who was fast gliding into the habits and manners of his new associates, had invited some half dozen of them to a late breakfast in his rooms. Amongst others were Duhammel, the son of a rich notary; Alfred Oufroy, of an old Norman family; Alphonse Dubarry; St. Ange, brother to the great advocate, — all of them giddy, pleasure loving youths, but extremely sensitive on the one great point of French honor — courage.

    As for morals, in the strict sense of the word, we fear they scoffed at them.

    From Scenes de la vie de boheme (1850), Henri Murger, illustr. Maurice Berty.
    From La Vie de Boheme (1850), Henri Murger, illustr. Maurice Berty.

    The revel was at its height — continued from the orgies of the preceding night — orgies which we cannot take upon ourselves to describe, even if we had the inclination. Glasses were drained, plans for fresh dissipations laid out, and vows of eternal friendship — false as dicers’ oaths — exchanged.

    One instant, bursts of equivocal jest; the next, the half-drunken madcaps broke into one of their student songs — honoured traditions in the Latin Quarter. Their fathers and grandfathers most probably, had sung them under similar circumstances, with the same noisy accompaniments of jingling glasses and rattling of forks and knives.

    Brother students, we are met for mirth and delight,
    And joy the bright goblet of Bacchus shall fill;
    For though woman, dear women, be absent to-night,
    The spell of her beauty is over us still.
    ‘Twas wisely decreed by our masters of old,
    To refuse them degrees, ‘spite entreaties and sighs;
    For once in our halls they would rule uncontrolled,
    And govern each class by the light of their eyes.
    Then think not in Bacchus alone we delight,
    And seek but the cup of the wine-god to fill:
    For though woman, dear woman, be absent to-night,
    The spell of her beauty is over us still.

    The cheers which followed the song and chorus had barely subsided when Monsieur Bellot, the proprietor of the hotel, entered the room. His appearance was hailed by the revellers with bursts of laughter and applause. Clarence insisted on his drinking a glass of champagne in honor of his guests. The Frenchman bowed, swallowed the wine, then gravely informed the host that three gentlemen were in the ante-room who insisted on seeing him.

    The young Englishman looked disconcerted. The recollection of the false passport, and his assumed name, suggested suspicions of the police.

    ‘Who are they?’ he demanded after a pause. ‘Frenchmen?’

    ‘No,’ replied Mons. Bellot, ‘Englishmen. I can swear to that. But their cards,’ he added, at the same time, ‘will doubtless inform you of the purport of their visit.’

    The roué read the names of three officers of Lord Bury’s regiment. His enemy had found him.

    ‘Yes, certainly!’ exclaimed the latter, enforcing a laugh to conceal his embarrassment. ‘They are old friends, show them in.’

    The students noticed with surprise that the three Englishmen, when they entered the room, instead of rushing to their host, embracing him, and indulging in a succession of gyrations which it would puzzle a mathematician to describe, bowed stiffly, and the eldest one, advancing towards Clarence, requested the favour of a private conversation with him.

    ‘A duel,’ whispered Oufroy.

    Duhammel thought it looked very like one.

    ‘How odd these islanders are,’ added a third student. ‘Three seconds to carry one message. But, nil nisi clavis, we have not the key of the enigma yet.’

    ‘You may speak before these gentlemen,’ exclaimed Marsham, in a tone of bravado, trusting that his guests would stand by him.

    ‘Tiens!’ said one of them. ‘The insular appears civilised.’

    Considering that barely four years had elapsed since the battle of Waterloo had been fought, this was rather a handsome admission for a Frenchman to make.

    ‘My Lord Bury,’ said the second, ‘feeling deeply insulted in his honour and personal dignity by the conduct of Mr. Marsh’– he gave him his assumed name — ‘towards a lady whose name it would be indelicate to mention, demands immediate satisfaction for the outrage.’

    Although Clarence was not particularly brave, he was far from being, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, a coward. He knew that his lordship was a dead shot, and began to reflect whether some means might not be found to avoid the meeting. What made the affair more difficult was the Englishman had delivered his message in excellent French.

    ‘Mon Dieu!’ whispered Oufroy in his ear. ‘What are you hesitating about?’

    ‘Looking for his lost courage,’ suggested another of the students.

    Clarence turned towards them, his mind being made up at last.

    ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you are, I believe, all of you, my excellent good friends.’

    To this there succeeded a dead silence His guests were waiting.

    ‘I am placed in a position of extreme delicacy,’ added the speaker, ‘and solicit your advice, pledging myself, of course, to act on it.’

    At this there was a faint murmur of approval.

    ‘The gentleman who has challenged me is so nearly related to me that I hesitate about accepting the provocation.’

    ‘Is he a brother?’ asked Duhammel, the oldest of the Frenchmen present.

    ‘No. His father is the husband of my mother.’

    An ironical smile — in fact, it amounted almost to a sneer — curled the lips of the students, who unanimously assured the speaker that so slight a degree of relationship presented no obstacle to his accepting the duel.

    ‘Curse them!’ muttered Clarence to himself. ‘I am in for it.’ Speaking aloud he added: ‘Thanks, gentlemen; you have relieved my mind of a painful doubt. Perhaps you will arrange the time and place of meeting with my adversary?’

    ‘It must be instantly,’ observed Captain Seymour, the name of the messenger. ‘His lordship is waiting in the Alley of the Luxembourg, hard by.’

    ‘Is the offence so deadly?’ asked Duhammel.

    ‘Most deadly,’ was the reply. Walking close to Clarence, he whispered in his ear: ‘Choose at once ‘between the satisfaction demanded or being arrested, dragged through the streets of Paris, for travelling under a false name and passport.’

    ‘And can you reconcile to yourselves turning informers?’

    ‘Under ordinary circumstances, certainly not; but by violating the laws of honor you have placed yourself beyond the pale of society. The police are already in the hotel, ready to arrest you. The exposure once made, his friends cannot permit Lord Bury to meet you.’

    ‘And shall I fall?’

    ‘You need not trouble yourself for any after results,’ observed Captain Seymour, dryly.

    ‘Should I be the victor?’ added Clarence.

    ‘In that case,’ remarked the former, ‘neither my brother officers nor myself will feel called upon .to denounce you.’

    Cornered at every point, the cowardly insulter of Lady Kate resolved to take the desperate chance. Walking to the table he tossed off in succession two or three glasses of wine; then, turning to his student friends, exclaimed, in an almost joyous tone:

    ‘I am ready.’

    The former had already supplied themselves with both swords and pistols, that the principal might have the choice of weapons on the ground.

    ‘And now, gentlemen, where to?’ inquired Duhammel.

    ‘To the garden of the Luxembourg,’ answered Captain Seymour, gravely.

    A few minutes later the speakers passed by the Odeon, where a bal masque had been held the preceding night. Several of the students who had attended it recognised Clarence and his friends as they passed them.

    Death and dissipation jostled each other on the street. They are old acquaintances, and a familiar nod was all that seemed necessary.

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Notes, References, Further Reading

    orangutan: To counterbalance my glib comment, see Sydney Lévy, ‘Why an Ourang-Outang? Thinking and Computing with Poe‘, at Épistémocritique: Littérature et savoirs.

    orgie: Fr. orgy

    grisette: ‘1. A young French working-class woman; 2. A young woman combining part-time prostitution with some other occupation.’ Merriam-Webster.

    upon the tapis: from Fr. ‘sur le tapis’ = ‘on the carpet’; in the context, ‘on the table-cloth’, or ‘under consideration’, as in the English idiom ‘on the table’.

    Crœsus: King of Lydia, 560–547 BCE, whose riches came from gold in the sands of the River Pactolus, where King Midas washed his hands.

    false as dicers’ oaths: ‘Such an act / That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, / Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose / From the fair forehead of an innocent love / And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows / As false as dicers’ oaths: O, such a deed […]’ (Hamlet iii.4). That is, as untrustworthy as a dicer’s vow to quit gambling.

    [Louis de Loménie], R.M. Walsh, trans. ‘Berryer’ in Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France (1841). Available free at Internet Archive.

    Henri Murger, La Vie de Boheme (1850). Available free at Internet Archive.

    Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (1841), ‘The Purloined Letter’ (PL) (1844), ‘The Gold-bug’ (1843).

    William F. Friedman, ‘Edgar Allan Poe, Cryptographer’ in L.J. Budd and E.H. Cady eds.,  On Poe (1993).

  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Fourteenth Instalment

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Fourteenth Instalment

    What a presumption of Burcham’s that Lady Kate’s cousin Clara Meredith will drop everything and marry him because an inheritance of five thousand a year hinges on it! He doesn’t need Mr. Brit to tell him there will be possibly much more for him when her father dies, issues of marriage and inheritance dictating the distribution of property. The situation reflects something of the dominion that the “unfair sex” held over women to a large extent in the Victorian era, much depending on class. Generally speaking, a wife had no separate legal existence from her husband, who had power over her property, estates, any earnings she might have, custody of children, and her body. It was not until 1891 that a court of law overturned a man’s right to keep his wife at home under lock and key (Perkin).

    A private system of law, however, enabling upper-class Englishwomen to hold separate estates and income, made them perhaps the most liberated wives in the world.

    In this respect, Clara is not atypical of a woman from the untitled gentry. Raised in protective families,

    They were not reared as shrinking violets; almost without exception they were brought up in the country, outdoor life being considered more important than other forms of education. But these half-educated, horse-loving girls often married young and became great hostesses in London. They were considered among the most politically minded women in Europe. They learned from their elders, but had their own views and expected to air them. (Perkin 101)

    It was a pivotal time, with moves to guarantee the financial protection of women in the upper and middle classes a thin end of the wedge for emancipation of women throughout society.

    “The Young Bride” 1875, Mary Cassatt. Source: wikiart.org

    Tied up in the conniving around the issue of Clara’s inheritance, we are introduced to a stereotyped caricature of a Jewish man, a money-lender brought in furtively by Burcham’s lawyer, Roland Brit.

    The figure strikes us as unfunny and at least in poor taste, reflecting echoes of systemic anti-semitism. It is a serious issue even in the present day, with  the theatrical representation of characters such as Shylock and Fagin encountering criticism.

    ‘The Merchant of Venice’ perpetuates vile stereotypes of Jews. So why do we still produce it? […] It is time to say “never again” to this historical aberration. Every time it is produced, the play introduces new audiences to vile medieval tropes of Jew-hatred that we should have long ago left behind.

    Steve Frank, Washington Post

    It’s not just this latest hook-nosed rendition of Oliver! that offends — it’s wrong to revive it at all … Fagin was written in the 19th century but his character is rooted in the middle ages and it is regressive to revive this musical. I have no problems with presenting “bad Jews”, but let them be fleshed-out characters, not stereotypes.

    Julia Pascal, The Guardian, Australian edition

    CHAPTER FOURTEEN

    Still in the Country — The Unexpected Inheritance — A Proposal of Marriage Rejected, and the Vow of Vengeance

    Still in the country! Yes, dear reader, and we can’t get out of it just at present without leaving a blot in our history, which, in your interest as well as our own, we have not the slightest intention of doing. So, for a brief spell, you must be content to hear more of rural walks, flowers, rustic friends and acquaintances. For several months Lady Kate and her Cousin Clara pursued the even tenor of their lives. The latter had all but forgotten the terrible trial she had been subjected to at Allworth Park — her perilous journey and the incidents connected with it — all but one: the gallant youth who had protected her. Sometimes she saw him in her dreams. She could not be blamed for that. No girl can help her dreams, we all know.

    The family party at the Hall were seated at the breakfast table on a delicious morning in autumn, when the owner rather startled his daughter and visitors by suddenly exclaiming:

    ‘Zounds! How unexpected!’ as he dropped the newspaper he had been reading.

    ‘What is unexpected, papa?’ inquired Clara.

    ‘Lady Burcham is dead,’ replied the baronet. ‘Apoplexy! Always thought it would end that way. Great feeder. Would not take exercise. Never could coax her into the hunting-field.’

    ‘I have never frequented the hunting field,’ observed Lady Montague, gravely.

    ‘Hem,’ coughed Sir George. ‘Very different person. She was exceedingly stout, you are gracefully thin, and are several years younger,’ he added.

    ‘Five or six, at the least,’ said her ladyship, somewhat reassured by his last observation. ‘She was rich, I believe.’

    ‘Not one of our great county fortunes,’ remarked the host, ‘ but handsomely well off. The estate is worth eight thousand a year at the very least. I suppose her scamp of a nephew will come in for it. As her heir-at-law, I shall be expected to attend the funeral. Great bore:’

    ‘Perhaps she has left you a legacy,’ observed Lady Kate.

    ‘Don’t want it,’ answered the old gentleman, sharply. ‘Enough money of my own already; more would be a plague to me.’

    ‘Oh! Oh!’ exclaimed the cousins, laughingly; ‘money a plague! Only consider the good one can do with it.’

    ‘Not,’ added Clara, looking suddenly serious, ‘that it can ever compensate for the loss of those we love. If it could I should hate it.’

    Her father marked the tears ready to start at the thought so unexpectedly conjured up, and silently kissed them away.

    That same evening’s post brought a letter to the baronet from the solicitors of the deceased lady, informing him of her death and inviting him to attend the funeral at Burcham House that day week. The letter was signed ‘Brit and Son.’

    Funerals sometimes have their comic as well as serious aspect, especially when the dead have left no grateful hearts to mourn for them — no recollection of charities unostentatiously performed, no memories of sympathies with the living, no offspring’s tears to fall upon the coffin. These are tokens which no number of distant expectant heirs, no pomp of heraldry or luxuries of woe, can replace. Without them the velvet pall and emblazoned escutcheon are merely empty, idle mockeries.

    Such was the aspect which the great hall of Burcham House displayed on the day of the late owner’s funeral. Cousins, nephews, and yet more distant relatives had gathered from the neighbouring counties to listen to her will. No one except the solicitors had the slightest idea of its contents, and as the lady had been exceedingly capricious whilst living, even those relatives who had most offended her were not without hopes.

    Such was the scene when Sir George Meredith arrived at the Hall, where he was received by the steward and lawyers. Brit, whose visage was of the exact professional length befitting the occasion, was the most serious one in the room.

    As for Burcham, who had borrowed money of his aunt, vexed, annoyed, and disgusted her in various ways, he scarcely hoped to be remembered in the disposition of her property, and witnessed the arrival of the heir-at-law with a smile of indifference. As he frequently boasted to his. friends, he would die game anyhow.

    When the testament was opened, its contents surprised every one. The testatrix bequeathed her estates to her nephew, Master Burcham, and Clara Meredith, jointly, share and share alike, provided they contracted matrimony within the space of two years from the old lady’s death; and in the event of the above-mentioned marriage not taking place, the estates to be sold and the funds distributed to such charities as her valued friend and sole executor, Joshua Brit, senior of the firm of Brit and Son, Old Jury, London, should name for that purpose.

    There was a general murmur of disappointment when the lawyer concluded the reading of the will.

    Sir George Meredith felt greatly surprised, but in no way disappointed at the disposition of the deceased lady’s property. Burcham regarded him with a triumphant air. It never entered into his coarse imagination that any girl would reject five thousand a year, even if it had the trifling incumbrance of a husband attached to it.

    ‘Once my wife,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I will pay Clara and her father off old scores. There is a long debt standing between us.’

    He had not forgotten the threat of the stocks; it rankled deeply in his memory.

    As the baronet was about entering his carriage to return home, the executor advanced obsequiously and inquired if he had any instructions to leave with him.

    ‘No,’ replied the old gentleman in a tone of surprise. ‘What can I have to say in the affair? It does not rest with me.’

    The next instant he drove away.

    ‘It will never be a match,’ muttered the lawyer. ‘They despise him. What are five thousand a year to Sir George Meredith and his daughter? The charities will come in for the property. What a vast amount of good it will do, especially as I have the management of the revenues.’

    From that hour the length of the old schemer’s visage gradually decreased.

    ‘I say, old fellow,’ said Burcham, after the mourners — all more or less disappointed — had taken their leave, ‘don’t you think the old girl made a foolish will’? I ought to have been left sole heir. Not that I suppose it much signifies,’ he added.

    ‘Probably not,’ answered the executor. ‘My late respected client was a most conscientious woman, and the estate being hers before her marriage concluded she had a right to dispose of it as she pleased,. You forget she was a Meredith.’

    ‘No I don’t, curse her.’

    ‘Oh, Mr. Burcham!’ exclaimed the lawyer, greatly shocked, or pretending to be so. He was a great stickler for the proprieties.

    ‘Well, you need not repeat it,’ replied the co-heir. ‘But it is very provoking to be compelled to marry a girl I don’t care a straw for.’

    ‘With five thousand a year,’ added Mr. Brit; ‘and heaven knows how much more when her father dies.’

    ‘It may turn out for the best, after all,’ observed the former speaker, musingly. ‘Anyway, I am in for the matrimonial noose. How soon ought I to propose?’

    ‘Not before a month, at the very earliest,’ was the reply; ‘it would not look well.’ ‘

    I have a month’s fling before me, at any rate,’ exclaimed the roue. ‘ I say, old fellow, you could not let me have a couple of hundred pounds, could you?’

    ‘It is against the articles of the firm to lend money,’ was the cautious answer, ‘or I should be happy to oblige you. Others are less scrupulous; and with your prospects there ought not to be any difficulty, especially as the sum is a trifling one.’

    ‘Try Moses again,’ said Burcham. ‘But he is such an unreasonable rascal. I suppose I may refer him to you?’

    ‘Yes, certainly; but if you take my advice you will have nothing to do with him.’

    ‘Ah, I forgot he’s a neighbour of yours. You know him?’

    ‘Slightly,’ replied the lawyer, repressing a smile.

    A blush of indignation rose on the countenance of Clara Meredith when the baronet informed her of the conditions of Lady Burcham’s will.

    ‘How intensely absurd!’ she exclaimed. ‘I would rather die than marry him. Of course, papa, you told him so?’ she added.

    ‘No.’

    ‘No!’ repeated the indignant girl.

    ‘The rejection must come from you,’ continued Sir George. ‘I have no right to decide for you.’

    ‘And I must really go through the form of listening to him?’

    ‘I fear so.’

    ‘And give him a civil answer?’

    ‘It is the custom of such occasions.’

    ‘Why, papa, you speak as coolly as if you thought it possible I should accept him, and I think it very unkind of you.’

    Her father drew towards her and kissed her.

    ‘You must not be so impetuous, pet,’ he said,’ and jump at such rash conclusions. You ought to know that I would rather see you in your coffin than the wife of Burcham, or of any man,’ he added, ‘whom you could not respect as well as love. I fear, Clara, you are a little capricious.’

    ‘How can you be so unjust, papa.’

    ‘You have refused Wiltshire?’

    ‘Yes, papa.’

    ‘And Sir John Radcliff?’

    ‘Oh, he is so insipid.’

    And the speaker was about to enumerate several others of her rejected admirers, when his daughter sprang upon his lap and threw her arms about his neck, exclaiming as she did so:

    ‘How sly you have been, papa! I did not think you had noticed their attentions. Why, are you in such a hurry to get rid of your saucy girl?’

    ‘No,’ replied the baronet fondly. ‘It is that before I die I wish to see you the wife of some good and honorable man, who will insure your happiness. I care not how poor he is, provided his character is unblemished and you love him, You have carte blanche in your choice. I know,’ he added, ‘that you will never abuse it by giving your hand to any one who is not in the true sense of the word a gentleman.’

    Involuntarily the thoughts of the speaker reverted to his nephew, Lord Bury, who appeared to him to be just the husband he would have selected for his daughter, but as unfortunately there did not appear the slightest chance of such an attachment, he tried to dismiss the subject from his mind.

    Clara felt but too glad to escape from the room, and so the conversation terminated. Possibly she feared to be further questioned, or, what is still more probable, began to understand her own heart.

    When Lawyer Brit declared that he never lent money, those who knew him well — and there were a few such’ persons in the world — would have construed his declaration in an exactly opposite sense. The fact was that he did lend money, and to a very large extent, but not in his own name. He was far too cautious for that. Like other successful rogues, he had learnt during his long practice the value of the word reputation –that is to say, its commercial value. Besides this, he had other reasons: His connection with certain important charities, whose well-meaning, but easily duped directors were exceedingly sensitive on such subjects. The concerns were prosperous. It not only provided them with fat salaries, but enabled them to provide for younger sons and dependants by secretaryships,  inspectorships, auditors, and other profitable employments.

    Many of the public charities in England are, no doubt, admirably administered. Some — suppose we say, tolerably. Others are as much a business as the dealings in dry goods, tobaccos, teas or sugars.

    Lawyer Brit employed therefore an agent in his pecuniary transactions — the same Mr. Moses to whom Burcham alluded on the executor’s refusal to advance him the two hundred pounds. The said Moses was one of the most abused persons in London, and yet it was extraordinary how many respectable persons had transactions with him. The smooth-faced principal in his schemes of usury —  the man who found the money, and profited so largely by them — was the first to condemn him. Whenever Moses made his appearance at the lawyer’s offices the latter would make difficulties about seeing him, wring his hands, look virtuously indignant, and wonder how his respectable clients could entangle themselves by dealings with such a disreputable person. This little by-play he enacted for the benefit of his clerks, who would be sure to repeat it. It deceived most of them; not all, perhaps. Benoni already began to have an inkling as to the true character of his employer. The lessons of the old schoolmaster had not been thrown away upon his son. Benoni was a close, though a silent, observer.

    On his return to London the head of this prosperous firm had a long interview with his son, Roland, in his private room. Even to him it was limited. True his new clerk had inspired him with a favourable opinion, but Mr. Brit acted only on certainties. The youth had not compromised himself yet.

    ‘Well, Roland,’ said his parent, ‘ have you calculated the amount of Burcham’s securities — the exact value of  his remaining interest in the property?’

    ‘About four thousand pounds, sir.’

    ‘Under the hammer?’

    ‘Of course,’ replied the son. ‘We make no allowance for fancy values,’

    ‘Right; very right, my boy,’ observed his senior. ‘Sentiment is only another name for weakness in all business transactions. Is Moses informed that I wish to see him?’

    ‘He will call at one, sir.’

    ‘Very good. Contrive to be in the clerks’ office when he arrives. Make the usual difficulties. Moses will understand it. It might be as well to have some slight altercation with him, Nothing serious, of course,’

    Roland Brit smiled at what he considered unnecessary precautions. The young spider knew all the capabilities of the paternal web — its elastic strength, powers of retaining the foolish insect once entangled in its meshes; but he had not the experience of the old one.

    Mr. Brit had rather a foolish habit for a person in his position of talking to himself when alone. He was aware of this, and standing orders had been given than none of the clerks should enter his private room without first knocking at outward doors, of which there were two — one of oak, the other of green baize.

    ‘Everything appears safe,’ muttered the lawyer, as he closed them both after his son, and had thrown himself into an easy-chair. ‘Burcham’s property — Burcham’s estate — will stand another thousand, although I did not calculate on paying so much for it. Nor will I,’ he added, ’till I get him completely in my power. I must risk something for the charities. Last year’s subscription fell short. Not much — not much,’ he repeated, reflectively. ‘Still a wise man should not neglect the first signs of danger. Lady Burcham’s bequest will place them beyond danger, I can only secure it for them. The world thinks I am overpaid for my services. It little knows the anxieties I endure, and all in the cause of charity.’

    If, as an old proverb asserts, that charity begins at home, the subtle schemer had some reason perhaps for his conclusions.

    The author has taken his readers thus far into his confidence in order to prepare them for the plan the lawyer had concocted for the ruin of Mr. Burcham, who, in his dealings with the respectable Moses, had not, as yet, committed an act to place his liberty at his mercy. He was a coarse brutal bully, as well as a fool; but nothing more.

    It never entered Mr. Brit’s calculations that Clara Meredith would reject the fortune and the husband. Could he have been assured of that he would not have taken so much trouble. Rich as he was, he felt that he could not have refused it, no matter what the conditions.

    Hearing his son’s voice in dispute the lawyer broke off the train of reflection as he hastened into the clerks’ office, where he found his son, as he expected, having warm words with the Jew moneylender.

    ‘My father will not see you,’ said Roland, as his father, as he entered from his private room.

    ‘Pisiness is pisiness,’ answered the Israelite, who perfectly understood the part he was to act. ‘One of his clients has –‘

    ‘Mr. Moses,’ said the head of the firm, interrupting him, ‘this is really intolerable. I have already informed you more than once that when you have any affairs in which my clients are interested, it would be more agreeable to communicate by letter.’

    ‘It is pressing.’

    ‘I cannot help that.’

    ‘Ferry vell; den I will ruin your client  — send him to prison for debt — sell him up, and all because he has a bad lawyer.’

    Mr. Brit looked exceedingly distressed. ‘If the case is really so urgent –‘

    ‘I tells you it is urgent,’ interrupted the money-lender. ‘The writs are out, I have got judgment against him.’

    ‘Against whom?’

    ‘Your client — Mr. Burcham.’

    ‘Improvident young man,’ sighed the lawyer. ‘After all my friendly warnings, too. I suppose I must see you.’

    ‘It vill be better.’

    ‘Step this way,’ said the head of the firm. ‘What a scandal for an office like mine.’

    Like two actors satisfied with their exertions, the speakers entered the private room together and closed the doors care. fully after them. Once alone, they regarded each other in the face, shook hands, and indulged in a quiet chuckle.

    ‘Peautiful!’ exclaimed the visitor.

    ‘Not so loud, Mr. Moses,’ replied the lawyer. ‘It really was exceedingly well acted.’

    ‘It is too bad,’ observed Roland Brit, as the speakers disappeared, ‘that my father, who abhors all such practices, should be exposed to this annoyance.’

    All the clerks, as in duty and prudence bound, expressed great sympathy with this natural indignation. All but Benoni; he was reflecting upon it.

    The sum of one thousand pounds was duly advanced by the accommodating Mr. Moses to dupe Burcham, but not till after a number of letters from the latter, filled with false statements sufficient at any time to establish a charge of fraud, had passed between them.

    ‘I don’t quite understand the affair,’ observed the ostensible money-lender, at the conclusion of the transaction. ‘You bid me not to set a detective to watch him.’

    ‘Not for your life,’ ejaculated the lawyer. ‘Make no movement without my orders.’

    ‘I vill not; but I forsee it vill pring troubles.’

    Mr. Brit regarded him earnestly. It was the first time he had ever heard a word of remonstrance from his lips.

    ‘If you are dissatisfied,’ he remarked, sternly.

    Moses resumed his former subservient manner.

    ‘Not at all, not at all, mine good Mr. Brit, If I feels just a little uneasy, it was on your accounts, not mine own.’

    ‘Very well, sir, I will understand it so.’

    Notwithstanding his assertion to the contrary, Mr. Moses did not feel satisfied with the transaction — not on account of its immorality — he was above such vulgar scruples; all he doubted was its safety.

    After enjoying a month’s dissipation in London, Burcham returned to the country to propose to Clara Meredith. Never for an instant from the first reading of the will had he entertained a doubt of her accepting him. Five thousand a year, he concluded rarely went begging. Great, therefore, was his astonishment, to say

    nothing of his mortification, when the young lady, after listening with exemplary patience to his rough style of wooing, civilly, but decidedly, rejected him.

    ‘You can’t mean it!’ he said. ‘It will ruin me.’

    ‘I am not responsible for that.’

    ‘And the five thousand a year?’

    ‘I do not require it; and the condition renders it impossible I should accept it,’ added the firm-hearted girl.

    ‘O, nonsense! You only say this to tease me.’

    ‘Believe me, I have no such wish,’ replied Clara, who began to feel tired as well as disgusted at the interview. ‘You do not know me, Mr. Burcham.’

    ‘Nor you me,’ explained the disappointed suitor, scowling fearfully. ‘It is a plot to ruin me, rob me of my inheritance, and drive me from the county. I will be revenged; I will thwart your hopes and prospects at every turn! I could not rest in my grave unless I had obtained satisfaction for this cruel, heartless insult!’

    Although not in the least terrified by his menaces, Clara Meredith rang the bell, and her father entered the room, accompanied by Lady Kate. The coward and bully — for none else would insult a woman — sullenly withdrew.

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Reference and Further Reading

    • Joan Perkin, Women and Marriage in Nineteenth Century England (Routledge, 1989)
    • Todd M. Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 1656 – 2000 (U of California P, 2002)
  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Thirteenth Instalment

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Thirteenth Instalment

    Almost a century and a half has passed since Smith launched his penny blood, so it is natural that a mere aside by the narrator can set off a question mark that repays investigation. In considering the theory of literature, the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur describes how a text moves from the world of human experience, through a state of representation and back again. In defining this mimetic process, he places significance upon the role of the reader, because “It is by way of reading that literature returns to life, that is, to the practical and affective field of existence.”

    This is the same for any poem or fiction, but the idea seems to ring particularly true in a case like this, where Smith’s novel has lain dormant in a sense, like a sunken ship. The reader feels to some degree at sea, becomes aware of a lack of particular background schema here and there, due to their separation from the author’s life-world, such as was encoded in the text.

    George “Beau” Brummell, watercolor by Richard Dighton (1805)

    So, for example, Smith characterises the son of Benoni’s new employer as dressing appropriately for his drudging work in the legal office, but after hours transforming into a clothes-horse and butterfly, in attire of which “even Beau Brummell  — the D’Orsay of the day” might have approved. These are “beaux” or “dandies,” men extravagantly attentive to dress and fashion, a determining trait to which further characteristics tend to adhere, until the individual assumes proportions of influence, grandeur and, inevitably, caricature. Smith lends the moral taint of the dandy to Roland Brit, to contrast the upstanding firm into which William Whiston is to pass. The narrator’s digression into the meaning of Goliah Gob’s pet word “frimicating” echoes the theme.

    The “fop” is the historical predecessor to both, and epitomizes a perceived risible and foolish aspect of an excessive devotion to livery; originally and for some centuries, the word meant any kind of fool at all. Though the pejorative sense may adhere in one way or another, the beau and dandy can become a figure of influence, occupying the highest echelons — consider the dandy George IV, Prince of Wales and Prince Regent, far from the least.

    It was thanks to having attracted the attention of the prince that George ‘Beau’ Brummell rose to prominence, setting fashions, holding society in thrall as he strutted among the upper crust, about the salons, parks, clubs and gambling rooms. Some facility with wit is prerequisite to maintaining the position, in order to command fear. When someone offered Brummell a lift to Lady Jersey’s ball, he declined with

     But pray, how are you to go? You surely would not like to get up behind; no that would not be right, and yet it will scarcely do for me to be seen in the same carriage with you.

    Wharton and Wharton

    Fittingly, the Beau’s decline into misery was initiated by an ill-measured remark he made when dining with the Prince Regent and feeling like some more wine: “Wales, ring the bell!” The prince rang, but said to the servant who answered, “Order Mr. Brummell’s carriage.”

    The French amateur painter Alfred Count D’Orsay cannot strictly speaking be claimed to have inherited Brummell’s “descending mantle,” Grace and Philip Wharton consider (Wits and Beaux of Society, 1890) “for he had other and higher tastes than mere dress“. So perhaps that is a fine point of differentiation between beau and dandy.

    Alfred, Count D’Orsay, by Sir George Hayter (1839)

    With his winning tongue, his daring and skill at arms, the irresistably handsome lady-killer, broad-shouldered and slim-waisted, witty, pretty good rider to hounds, irreproachably gotten-up, debonair Count D’Orsay shone in  the Park and dining room. Together with the ultra-glamorous Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington — his mother-in-law and recognised lover — the two ruled from her brilliant London salon, which attracted the likes of Disraeli, Dickens and Hans Christian Anderson. Even Lord Byron, whom the pair befriended, admired  D’Orsay’s writing.

    His imitators were so avid and so numerous that an antagonist was once dissuaded from issuing him a challenge to a duel when it was pointed out that if D’Orsay fought him, everyone else would be wanting to do likewise. D’Orsay commented:

    It’s lucky I’m a Frenchman and don’t suffer from the dumps. If I cut my throat, tomorrow there’d be three hundred suicides in London, and for a time at any rate the race of dandies would disappear.

    Shore

    In his heyday, tailors paid him to wear their creations, and even inserted banknotes into the pockets. On one occasion when the custom was overlooked, D’Orsay had his valet return the garment with his complaint that ‘the lining of the pockets had been forgotten’.

    D’Orsay like Brummell underwent an ignominious descent, fleeing London from creditors, whom to pay was beneath his dignity, to die bankrupt and broken in Paris a few years later.

    CHAPTER THIRTEEN

    Goliah Gob Arrives Safely in London — Visits to our Hero — The Letter — Benoni Enters the Office of Brit and Son — Whose Practice is in a Different Line from Richard Winston’s

    Lawyer Whiston had gone to his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Bunce was now regularly employed, at a fair salary, as one of the regular clerks, Up to the present date the conduct of the poor tramp had proved exemplary. He not only wrote a good band, but showed himself quick and intelligent, but, what was better still, grateful. He had a fulcrum at last. His employer felt some thing more than satisfied with him.

    Law clerks in England are divided into two classes — articled and unarticled. The first are expected to become full-fledged attorneys in something less than three years, and must posses considerable means, for the process of hatching them is an expensive one. The stamp on their articles costs one hundred pounds; next, the premium to the firm, frequently amounting to a much larger sum. A few of the less fortunate scribes contrive to get admitted by hard work, attending closely to the interests of their employers, who, after years of service, make them a present of their indentures; rarely, however, before they have earned them. We have observed it as rather a singular fact, that men so admitted rarely rise to any great eminence in their profession; probably because the opportunity arrives too late. Whatever the motives of his generosity — and gratitude, we suspect, was not the only one — Richard Whiston, after a few weeks’ trial of his capabilities and conduct, gave Bunce his articles and paid all the expenses, taking his acknowledgement for the same. He also allowed him a moderate salary.

    Even his nephew felt surprised at this liberality, but he felt no jealousy; on the contrary, he rejoiced in the good, fortune of the friendless adventurer.

    ‘I suppose, nephew,’ observed the lawyer, as they sat conversing over the breakfast table, ‘you are somewhat puzzled by my conduct to your friend, Bunce.’

    ‘Exceedingly, sir,’ replied the youth; ‘but not more puzzled than glad. He will prove himself worthy of it.’

    ‘I hope so.’

    ‘And I feel certain of it.’

    ‘It is a speculation,’ observed his relative, thoughtfully. ‘I wish to attach him to me, and to know where to place my hand upon him at any moment.’

    ‘A speculation!’ replied our hero, more and more mystified.

    ‘Yes; but not a moneyed one. And now let us speak of your prospects. I have changed my mind respecting you — that is, if you agree to my proposal. Instead of giving you a stool in my office, I wish you to go to college. You possess fair abilities, and if I have read you rightly, are not without ambition. You shall have the chance I threw away.’

    ‘My dear, kind uncle!’ exclaimed William. ‘Could I have made a choice, it is the very one I would have selected; but the expense — the –‘

    ‘You need not trouble your head about that,’ interrupted Richard Whiston, with a smile. ‘Of course,’ he prudently added, ‘I shall expect you to make it as light as possible. You may. attain a scholarship.’

    ‘I will do my best,’ observed the nephew.

    ‘Not for the money value, but for the distinction,’ added the old gentleman. ‘The fact is I felt so confident you would accede to my views that I have already entered your name on the books of St. John’s College, Cambridge. No thanks; your conduct will be the best acknowledgement you can make me. I trust to that.’

    ‘And it shall not disappoint you,’ thought William Whiston, as the speaker left to go to his office. ‘Kind, generous man! I should be a wretch indeed to prove unworthy of his bounty.’

    Our hero was reflecting on the above conversation, and the unexpected change in his prospects when his friend, Goliah, came bouncing into the room. There was a red spot on his brow, and the youth saw that something had occurred to make him angry.

    ‘Dear old fellow!’ he exclaimed, shaking him warmly by the hand. ‘I was just wishing for some one to congratulate me. I feel so happy to see you.’

    ‘I believe that,’ answered the rustic, ‘for I knowed Lonnon could, not change ’ee; but that old fellow in the hall, when I told him I was come to see thee, said he would inquire if ’ee wor at ome, and threatened to ’noance me. Gorry, I would ha loiked to see ’m try it.’

    Our hero could scarcely repress a smile.

    ‘What be thee a grinning at?’ demanded Goliah.

    ‘Only at a slight mistake. Nothing of any consequence,’ replied his friend; ‘The footman meant to be civil. Of course, he knew that I would see you. By announcing you, he merely intended to say that he would let me know you were here. London ways,’ he added, ‘are not like our simple, homely ways in the country. So you must forgive him.’

    ‘No more they be, the frimicating fools.’

    “Frimicating” is an expressive word, and ought to be admitted into our best dictionaries. It means conceited, artificial. In the eastern counties of England it is in general use.

    After delivering his load of hay, Goliah had rushed off to Soho Square without waiting for breakfast. Of course he had to refresh the inner man. While doing so, William had ample time to read his cousin’s letter.

    ‘Kind, affectionate girl!’ he said as his visitor, whose appetite was satisfied at last, dropped his knife and fork by the side of his plate; ‘but I think she alarms herself unnecessarily. Benoni can do me no injury. Besides, why should he?’

    ‘Can’t tell; sartin he be no friend. I wish thee had seen the look he gave thee when thee turned thee back on him at Deerhurst.’

    ‘As to her mother’s meeting him at the back of the orchard, it must have been for the love of gossip.’

    ‘Aye! aye!’ observed Goliah. ‘Peggy Hurst be mortal curious, for sure. Still I beant quite satisfied in my mind. London be a queer sort of a place.’

    ‘There is no Bittern’s Marsh in it,’ remarked William.

    ‘Maybe there are worse things,’ replied his friend. ‘Come home wi’ me,’ he added, coaxingly; ‘thee needn’t go to thee uncle’s. Mother and I ha’ talked it all over. There be a hearty welcome for thee at the farm. Do come, Willie. It beant home without thee.’

    ‘Dear, true friend,’ said the youth, affected not only by the generous offer, but the touching simplicity of the words in which it was made. ‘I feel all your kindness, but let us talk the matter over calmly. I am not to remain in London.’

    ‘The Lord be praised for that!’ ejaculated his hearer. ‘I am going to Cambridge,’ continued the youth. ‘My uncle wishes it, and I most ardently desire it.’

    ‘And what be thee a goin’ there for?’

    ‘To complete my education.’

    ‘Edication!’ repeated the rustic. ‘Why, thee do know twice, or, for the matter of that, three times as much as I do. Thee wor allays first in school.’

    The speaker could not be accused justly of exaggerating his friend’s attainments.

    ‘You must not flatter me, Goliah,’ said his friend, with a slight touch of humour.

    ‘No. I won’t, Willie, I won’t.’

    ‘I cannot go against my uncle’s and my own interests. That would be folly as well as ingratitude.’

    ‘Are thee to be a parson, then?’

    ‘No. A barrister.’

    Had the speaker declared his intention of changing himself into a hippopotamus it would have conveyed the same amount of information to his rustic friend, who observed that anything was better than being a lawyer.

    The speakers passed the greater part of the day together. William bought a very pretty ring for his cousin, in answer to her letter, and quite won the heart of his companion, by encouraging him in his courtship of Susan.

    ‘You must speak boldly,’ he observed; — there was little fear of her admirer overdoing it. ‘You can’t expect a modest, sensible girl should throw herself into your arms unasked.’

    ‘Gorry! wouldn’t I catch her!’ ejaculated the rustic.

    To crown his satisfaction, William Whiston rode all the way through the city in Goliah’s waggon, and only parted from him when he had seen him safely on the high road to Deerhurst; and on that same evening Benoni arrived in London.

    The offices of Brit and Son, to whom, to use a mercantile phrase, he had been consigned, were situated in the Old Jury nearly two miles distant from Lincoln’s Inn Fields, so that for the present there appeared but little chance of the former friends meeting. Neither of them wished it.

    Our hero, because, it would recall painful recollections of former intimacy, and feelings which, reason as we may, will exert an influence over us; Benoni, from that lingering sense of shame which shows the heart not to be all corrupt.

    The Old Jury is a very different locality from the place where Richard Whiston’s offices were situated. It is a dull, gloomy street, almost in the heart of London, where every foot of ground is, figuratively speaking, worth its weight in gold; in other words, rents are enormously high, and the gains of those who occupy the offices or houses proportionately large to enable the tenant to pay them.

    The practice of Brit and Son was in some respects a peculiar one. They were solicitors to several religious societies, and treasurers to more than one wealthy charity. Criminal suits they rarely undertook, unless in the interests of their clients. The world considered them highly respectable, and so they were as far as outward appearances were concerned. What they really were will be seen as our tale progresses.

    Joshua Brit dressed to his reputation; in fact dress was a part of it; — a plain suit of black, cambric ruffles, white cravat, no collar, and powdered hair, which somewhat toned down the restless activity of his small dark eyes. His son copied his father pretty closely,  allowing for the difference in their age — copied him in the office, and in business hours; but once released from the drudgery of the office, the grub became a butterfly. Even Beau Brummel — the D’Orsay of the day — might have pronounced his attire passable. He had been named Roland, after one of the most popular preachers of the day.

    Such were the persons who received Benoni when the latter was introduced into their private room to present his credentials.

    ‘Well acquainted with London?’ inquired the old gentleman, after a few preliminary remarks.

    ‘The first time, sir, I have been here. My father advised me to be upon my guard; said it was a dangerous place for young men.’

    Brit junior gave a faint smile.

    ‘I trust,’ added the speaker, ‘I shall not be led astray.’

    ‘With the Lord’s help,’ piously ejaculated the head of the firm.

    ‘Certainly, sir — with the Lord’s help. We cannot stand alone.’

    This, in a youth of eighteen, was perhaps just a little overdone.

    Roland Brit looked at him a second time, but there was no smile upon his visage. On the contrary, he regarded the speaker curiously.’

    I am happy to find,’ observed his father, ‘that my old acquaintance, Blackmore, has instilled such excellent principles in his son. We shall get on very well, no doubt. We undertake no questionable cases. Good morning. The managing clerk has instructions to appoint you to a desk, and will set you to work at once.’

    Benoni bowed and withdrew.

    ‘What do you think of our new clerk?’ said Brit senior, turning to his son as soon as they were alone.

    ‘Humbug,’ replied the young man.

    The old gentleman looked rather surprised. The mild cant of the youth had produced rather a favourable impression upon him; and yet, having practised it so long himself, he ought to have judged it at its exact value.

    ‘Have you not condemned him too hastily?’ he asked.

    ‘Humbug,’ repeated Roland Brit, still more emphatically. ‘Can’t say at present whether dangerous or not. Possibly he may prove useful. But I shall keep an eye upon him.’

    Here the conversation ended, and here we must leave the Old Jury firm, principals and clerk, for some time, whilst we return to the country — to green trees and graceful hedge-rows, enameled flowers — nature’s gems upon earth’s bosom. She requires no other.

    Lady Montague, after presenting her niece at the first drawing-room, and giving one brilliant ball to introduce her to society, had quitted London to pay a long promised visit to Sir George Meredith and his daughter. The girls were cousins, and already inclined to like each other. In retiring thus early in the season from observation, the polite old maid had a double purpose in view. In the first place, she wished the rumours, which were growing fainter every day, to die entirely out — be buried in the tomb of a hundred other forgotten scandals. Next she desired to secure to Lady Kate, in the event of her own death, a trustworthy guardian and protector in the person of the baronet.

    In the course of a few weeks the liking had ripened into a warm attachment for each other. Unreserved confidence already existed between them. When we say unreserved, it is just possible there might be one little secret reserved on either side. If so, it was only natural. They had never yet acknowledged it even to themselves, and probably were unconscious of it.

    Sir George and his daughter, who at first had missed the society of Lord Bury more than they cared to confess, began to get reconciled to it. Lady Montague was an admirable hand at piquet — the only game the baronet really cared about; and they sat down to it every evening.

    As for the fair cousins, we might as well attempt to describe the grateful gyrations of the swallow, or count the vibrations on the painted wings of the butterfly, as give a list of their occupations, in which the claims of charity had no small share. They walked and rode together, amused themselves in the garden, for both dearly loved flowers; visited the schools, and once or twice, by Clara’s persuasion — much to Lady Montague’s dismay — Kate allowed herself to be tempted into the hunting field; but when the dear old maid found that most of the daughters of the country families did the same, she contented with herself with observing that things were different in her young days.

    In the evenings the cousins had music and singing. Of course they had their little innocent plots; they would scarcely have been girls had it been otherwise. Amongst others, the one, half formed by Clara, in the interests of Phœbe and Tom was not lost sight of.

    The time had almost arrived to commence the execution.

    ‘What a delightful thing it must be to have a father!’ observed Lady Kate Kepple, with a sigh, as she and her cousin stood watching the bees in their glass hives in the flower garden. ‘If I did not love you so much how I should envy you.’

    Clara silently kissed her.

    ‘Some one to watch and care for our happiness, who is ever preparing some little graceful surprise expressive of affection. How old are you, coz?’

    ‘I shall be nineteen in two months. Why do you ask?’

    ‘Nothing serious. A little curiosity, perhaps.’

    Clara Meredith regarded her for an instant, then broke into a merry laugh.

    ‘You dear little hypocrite!’ she exclaimed. ‘I see it all. Papa has been consulting you respecting a birthday present for me.’

    ‘I promised not to tell,’ observed her cousin, artlessly.

    ‘And kept your promise as papa, I suspect, intended it should be kept. How else could you advise both?’

    ‘Sir George has seen such a love of a bracelet at Rundel and Bridge’s,’ said Kate.

    ‘I have more than a dozen already, and rarely wear one of them,’ replied her friend.

    ‘And a diamond and opal cross,’ added the former. ‘I like opals.’

    ‘And I prefer pearls; but as I have two sets already, they would be useless,’ observed Clara. ‘What I wish for is a farm.’

    ‘A farm!’ repeated her cousin, greatly surprised.

    ‘Yes, a farm of three hundred acres of land, more or less, as I heard the steward say, to have and to hold, dispose of the rents as I please — buy feathers with them if it takes my fancy, or pug dogs.’

    ‘Your father will doubtless buy you one,’ said Lady Kate, looking very much puzzled, for she knew the speaker to be anything but mercenary.

    The laughing girl shook her head.

    ‘That would not answer,’ she exclaimed. ‘What I want is the Home Farm — the one,’ she added, seeing that Kate did not quite understand her — ‘that Farmer Randal is the tenant of. His lease expires, I know, in six months.’

    There was no further mystification possible. The purpose of the speaker became clear, and the girls laughed and chatted over their plot to promote the happiness of the rustic lovers.

    It would have been difficult to find an elderly gentleman more surprised than Sir George Meredith when Lady Kate Kepple informed him of his daughter’s wishes respecting the Home Farm. The suggestion might have puzzled a wiser head than his.

    ‘The Home Farm!’ he ejaculated. ‘What can she want the Home Farm for?’

    ‘Possibly for pin money,’ answered the fair girl, laughing.

    The baronet repeated the words mechanically.

    ‘You have no idea how expensive they are,’ continued the former. ‘No lady can make a presentable toilet without them. They serve so many purposes. Keep things in their place. Sometimes,’ she added, archly, ‘they serve to attach them together.’

    Still the gentleman looked mystified.

    ‘My dear uncle, how obtuse you are! Can’t you see that if the Home Farm were Clara’s, she could let it to whom she pleased — Farmer Randal, his son Tom, or the pretty Phœbe?’

    Sir George Meredith indulged in a hearty laugh. He comprehended the plot at once.

    ‘She shall have it !’ he exclaimed. ‘What a fool I was to suspect my child of a selfish thought! Let it to whom she pleases? Make ducks and drakes of the rent, if she likes. Spend it in white mice and pug dogs. So this is the birthday present Clara wished for?’

    Lady Kate nodded her head in the affirmative.

    ‘She shall have the bracelet, too,’ added the speaker. ‘Gad! I feel so delighted with the girl’s ingenuity that I could find it in my heart to purchase half Rundel and Bridge’s stock, if she desired it.’

    ‘My dear uncle, you must not be too extravagant. The bracelet and opal cross will be quite sufficient.’

    ‘That girl,’ thought the old gentleman, as his niece quitted the room, ‘has a clear head for business. The cross! Humph! I ought to have thought of that. Cost another thousand! Phsaw! what signifies money? The only use I can see in it is to make those around us happy. Rather expensive though.’

    Would that more possessors of the golden gifts of fortune shared the speaker’s opinion!

    The transfer of the farm had been duly made, and a few days afterwards, as the two cousins were taking their morning ride, they encountered old Randal, looking exceedingly dejected and miserable. The absence of his son had told upon him. The farmer had been up to London, taking a hundred pounds with him to purchase Tom’s discharge; but the colonel of the regiment had refused his consent. Lord Bury advised him, but who prompted his lordship we must leave our readers to guess.

    Tom also had declared that he would never quit the service unless to marry Phœbe.

    No wonder his father felt down-hearted and miserable. On seeing the young ladies approach, he doffed his hat, as usual, to them.

    ‘Good morning, Mr. Randal,’ said Clara. ‘Sorry to see you looking so unwell.’

    ‘Worry, Miss. It be all worry,’ replied the farmer. ‘That boy o’ mine is a killin’ on me. Would you believe it? He has gone and ’listed.’

    The young ladies expressed by their looks a proper amount of surprise.

    ‘Tried to buy him off,’ continued the speaker, ‘but Tom wouldn’t leave, and the officer refused to let him go. But I don’t wonder at that. They won’t catch a recruit like my Tom every day. Hard lines for me, beant it, my lady? I am in great trouble.’

    ‘I am not surprised.at that,’ observed Clara Meredith. ‘I thought something quite dreadful would occur. Some persons are so very obstinate.’

    ‘Ain’t they?’ replied old Randal, not suspecting for an instant that the word obstinate had been intended to apply to himself.

    ‘I be goin’, to the Hall,’ he added, ‘to see Sir George about a new lease of the Home Farm, and ask him to speak a good word for me to some of his great friends in London. I must have Tom back.’

    The cousins continued their ride.

    Great was the astonishment of the farmer when, on his arrival at the Hall, Sir George Meredith informed him that he had given the Home Farm to his daughter, Clara, and that any application for a new lease must be made to her.

    ‘You will find her very reasonable, I expect,’ he added. ‘I have no longer any control over it.’

    ‘Well,’ said the old man, upon whose obtuse mind a faint glimmering of light was beginning to dawn. ‘I and mine have been upon the land more nor a hundred years. The land is good land. Can’t deny that. But, then, I allays paid my rent regularly — voted on the right side. I think you ought to have renewed my lease while it was in your power.’

    The baronet winced. It went rather against the grain to plot against his old tenant.

    ‘My daughter, no doubt, will consider these claims,’ he observed.

    ‘Maybe she will, and maybe she wont,’ remarked the farmer.

    ‘Anything else I can do for you?’

    ‘Thank ’ee, Sir George. My boy, Tom, is ’listed.’

    ‘So I have heard.’

    ‘If your honour would only speak a good word to the big guns in London, maybe they might let him off.’

    ‘I will write this very day,’ replied the old gentleman; ‘do everything in my power. But don’t you think,’ he added, ‘it would be wiser, to let your son have his own way?’

    ‘And marry the organist’s daughter?’ exclaimed the visitor, greatly exasperated. ‘Never! Never! I see it all. Thee be agi’n me too. But I won’t give way. Let the farm go. My young lady may lease it to Phœbe, if she likes. I shall have land enough of my own left to live upon.’

    ‘Very glad to hear it, Mr. Randal,’ remarked the gentleman. ‘I always thought you were a prudent person. I will not forget the letter I promised. Good morning.’

    His visitor caught up his hat and quitted the room, muttering as he did so:

    ‘Gentle and simple, they be all ag’in me; but I beant beaten yet.’ We fear not.

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Notes, References, Further Reading

    Frimicating: has an entry in Joseph Wright’s English dialect dictionary, being the complete vocabulary of all dialect words still in use, or known to have been in use during the last two hundred years (1900):

    Old Jury: Alternate form of “Old Jewry, a street running from the north side of the POULTRY to GRESHAM STREET, so called as being in the Middle Ages the Jews’ quarter of the city” Wheatley, London Past and Present (1891).

    William Jesse, The Life of George Brummell, commonly called Beau Brummell (1884). Available free at Google Books.

    Grace and Philip Wharton, The Wits and Beaux of Society, 2 vols. (1890). Available free at Project Gutenberg.

    William Teignmouth Shore, D’Orsay; or, The complete dandy (1911). Available free at Project Gutenbeg.

    Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Vol. 3 (1988).

     

  • J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Twelfth Instalment

    J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Twelfth Instalment

    Margaret Oliphant’s essay ‘The Byways of Literature: Reading for the Million’ (1858) is something of a seminal study in literature and popular culture. Her elegant piece is by turns endearing — particularly in her approval of our man Smith — and a worry for its tone of condescension towards ‘the Million,’ meaning the multitude, the ‘lower classes’.

    Let us give the masses all credit for their gift of reading; but before we glorify ourselves over the march of intelligence, let us pause first to look into their books.

    There is an irony, which is to some extent to be borne out:

    These unfortunate masses! When first the schoolmaster began to be abroad, how tenderly we took care of the improvement of their minds, and how zealously exerted ourselves to make literature a universal dominie, graciously enlightening the neophyte on every subject under heaven!

    Edinburgh-born ‘Mrs Oliphant’ (née Wilson, 1828–97) did not herself hail from an aristocratic background but a more bourgeois family. Her father was employed as a clerk in the customs and excise service, and she was afforded an education solid enough for her subsequently to produce more than ninety novels, among more than one hundred books. She was well received by critics and was Queen Victoria’s favourite novelist.

    Margaret Oliphant (1828–97)

    She fell out of currency until the late twentieth century, when some of her works returned into print, in an atmosphere of renewed interest in women’s writing. Merryn Williams compares her to Jane Austen and George Eliot and considers her ‘indispensible reading for anyone interested in women in the nineteenth century‘ (Women in the English Novel, 1800–1900).

    Bear in mind that the occasional tone of condescension I mentioned is characteristic of the era, in which a revolution in industry — including the attachment of a steam engine to a rotary printing press capable of printing on both sides of a sheet of paper — made possible the production of millions of copies of a single page in a day, and thus the birth of a mass media. Political, moral and financial imperatives came into play: on the one hand, considerations of the education, edification, ‘betterment’ and socializing of the masses; on the other, anxieties about the breakdown of social order.

    Questions arose such as, What kind of reading is appropriate for the working class (obviously, something useful)? And even fears about the ‘contamination’ of one class by another — more than a metaphor when it came down to instituting public libraries.

    In her essay, Oliphant writes of a summer afternoon in a cathedral town. She has charge of a restless child, whom she takes to a grassy patch by the cathedral, beyond the ‘verdant turf of the cathedral close’, having spent sixpence on some miscellaneous literature to amuse her with. The child is more fascinated with the ‘living daisies outside better than the dead effigies within’, and Oliphant spreads the papers out on the grass.

    Grave literature and learning, decorum and dignity, the authorities of society, stood represented in those grave old houses, from which no careless human eye looked out; and scattered over the daisies, with the wind among their leaves, lay the unauthoritative, undignified, unlearned broadsheets, which represent literature to a great portion of our country people, despite of all the better provision made for their pleasure.

    There could not possibly be a more marked or total contrast than between the object of our immediate attention and the scene.

    Thus is revealed an epiphany, which is not too far from the reader-response and reception theories of nowadays, to the effect that, ‘the multitude’, the reading public — those girls in the mills — will freely take what it pleases and do as it likes with the literature that is put in front of it. And so it ought.

    But here’s the good part. Whom should she uncover from her little trove of cheap writings among the daisies? Of course:

    Here is one personage, for instance, whom rival publications vie for the possession of, and whom the happy successful competitor advertises with all the glow and effusion of conscious triumph,—J. F.; nay, let us be particular,— John Frederick Smith, Esq. This gentleman is a great author, though nobody (who is anybody) ever was aware of it […]

    [Y]et we protest we never read a word of his writings, nor heard a whisper of his existence, until we spread out our sixpenny budget of light literature upon the June daisies. What matter? His portrait, from a photograph by Mayall, may be had in those regions where his sway is acknowledged; and the everybody, who is nobody, bestows upon him that deep-rolling subterraneous universal applause which is fame.

    CHAPTER TWELVE

    Goliah Gob’s Watch — Great Excitement in the Village of Deerhurst — Two Fathers and Two Sons — Viscount Allworth and Lord Bury — The Schoolmaster and Benoni

    Our readers, we flatter ourself, will step back with pleasure to see what some of their old acquaintances have been doing all this time.

    There was great excitement in the village of Deerhurst when it was known that Goliah Gob had received a splendid gold watch from one of the girls he assisted to rescue, and the interest was still further increased by the mysterious manner in which it had been conveyed to him — left at his mother’s farm by an itinerant preacher who had slept at the house overnight, and found on the table in his room, addressed to the honest rustic.

    It was a great puzzle to him, no doubt. But the London lawyer knew how to choose his agents.

    Peggy Hurst spitefully declared, without ever seeing it, that the watch would prove brass. Even Susan doubted, but it might be otherwise.

    We wonder if she had an eye to future contingencies. At any rate, she gave her mother, who watched her with the stealthiness of a lynx, no reasonable cause of complaint. She quitted her home, which had become intolerably dull since the departure of William, only on Sundays, to accompany her father to church. Not even his wife’s influence could prevent the old man from attending it. He had done naught to disgrace himself, he said, and would not give his neighbours cause to blame him.

    Mrs. Hurst prudently abstained. She had not forgotten the scene in the justice room at Squire Tyrell’s, the insults of the crowd, and above all, the triumphant, jeering glances of the Widow Gob.

    Absenting herself from church was the one weak spot in the programme she had traced for keeping Goliah and her daughter apart. There might be nothing between them at present; she admitted that, and determined within herself there never should be if she could prevent it.

    The last few days had greatly intensified her hatred of the Gob dynasty.

    ‘Mind and return as soon as the service is over,’ she said, after carefully tying her husband’s cravat.

    ‘I don’t expect anyone will invite us to stay,’ observed her husband, dryly.

    ‘And look closely after Susan,’ added his wife.

    ‘Aye, aye. I’ll take care on her.’

    ‘And watch if she exchanges looks or words with any of the singers in the organ galleries.’

    ‘I can’t,’ said the farmer.

    ‘Nonsense, Peter.’

    ‘I won’t,’ he added, firmly. ‘Susan be a good girl. Why should I play the spy upon her and feel ashamed to look my own child in the face? And it is my opinion there be naught to spy out. Now you know my meaning.’

    Mrs. Hurst looked thunderstruck. It was the first symptom of rebellion against domestic government that had occurred since they had been married. No wonder it startled, if it did not greatly alarm her.

    As for her daughter, she appeared rather amused than otherwise at her mother’s astonishment. Possibly she also did not place much confidence in her father’s resolution.

    ‘Peter,’ gasped his wife, in a tragic tone, ‘answer me one question.’

    ‘I will if I can.’

    ‘Are you in your right senses?’

    ‘No.’ The admission seemed to afford Peggy considerable relief.

    ‘I thought not,’ she muttered.

    ‘But I am coming to them,’ added her husband.

    Catching up his hat with an air of determination, the speaker quitted the kitchen, and, accompanied by Susan, started on his way to church; and Peggy, disconcerted by forebodings of the approaching end of her reign, sank into her easy chair to meditate.

    The truth was, she had stretched her authority too far. She muttered to herself: ‘He misses Willie, and the loss has made him mad.’

    This conclusion appeared to afford her considerable relief.

    ‘It can’t last, and it sha’n’t last,’ she resumed. ‘Why, Peter never ventured to cry snip unless I first said snap! and now — We shall see, we shall see. I’d rather die than give in to him. What would Mrs. Gob say?’

    Many wives have made similar resolutions before, and yet been obliged eventually to yield. Patience, gentle reader; the domestic battle is only just commenced. A shot from the outposts; nothing more.

    Up to our present writing we have barely alluded to the village schoolmaster, and yet he is destined to play an important part in our tale, as well as his treacherous son, Benoni.

    Theophilus Blackmore — or old Theo, as his pupils called him — seemed to have been born without any strong moral perceptions; and yet he was neither dissipated in his habits, vindictive in temper, nor naturally inclined to cruelty. He had no sympathies, no hates, but looked upon life as a mathematical problem, which, once solved, could have no further interest for him.

    His one solitary passion was for books; provided that were gratified, the world with its petty rivalries, jealousies, ambitions and crimes, might jog on as it pleased. They were the one necessity of his existence; he hungered for them.

    Reading had made him a ripe scholar. Science rendered him familiar with the latest discoveries; and yet he had never applied his knowledge to any practical or useful purposes.

    The Village Schoolmaster (1881), Charles West Cope. Source: Leicester Arts and Museums. Public Domain.

    When we say the old man had no sympathies, we ought to have admitted one exception. He felt a sort of dreamy kind of regard for his son Benoni. He had educated, but failed to make a man of him. All the higher qualities of manhood were lacking — honor, truthfulness, courage, fidelity in friendship.

    The fatal influences of his childhood clung to the young hypocrite still.

    How the old schoolmaster ever thought of marrying was a wonder to most persons who knew him. Possibly he wanted a cook or housekeeper. Certain it is that love had small, if any, share in his resolution. Since the death of his wife he had never been known to allude to her. In short, there appeared to be a mystery about the man which no one had ever been able to fathom.

    For several days the continued presence of Benoni in the house failed to excite his attention. When he did notice it he attributed it to the absence of his companion, Willie. As weeks passed, and the youth still avoided going to the village, or event attending church service on Sundays, the curiosity of Theophilus Blackmore became excited; not that he thought of questioning him. He knew his soon too well for that. Truthfulness was not one of Benoni’s characteristics. He took a surer way, and speedily learnt from his pupils the story of the boy’s treachery.

    Some parents would have felt grieved — would have remonstrated, corrected; not so the old bookworm. He regarded it as a thing that was to be — a mere incident in the drama of existence.

    The state of quietude was broken by a very unusual circumstance — the arrival of a visitor, who drove directly to their solitary abode, and remained nearly two hours in close conversation with the owner. Vainly did Benoni try to catch the subject — he was not above listening — but the door of the room was kept locked till the departure of the stranger.

    The following day his father delighted his pupils by informing them that for three days they might take a holiday — business of importance obliging him to pass that period in London. In short, he at once dismissed them, and as they quitted the school-room, settled himself down to one of his favourite authors. The curiosity of his son was excited to the highest pitch.

    ‘Did you say you were going to London?’ he demanded, alter a pause, trusting that his father might impart something more.

    ‘Did you not hear me?’

    ‘Am I to accompany you?’

    ‘No.’

    The querist looked terribly disappointed.

    ‘I have never been in London,’ he observed.

    ‘And what would you do there?’ inquired Mr. Blackmore, sharply. ‘You have not a single friend or acquaintance there that I am aware of. You might have had one, but foolishly lost him by your treachery.’

    The youth colored deeply.

    ‘To preserve a friend,’ added the speaker, ‘we must observe the laws which govern friendship — truth, honor, sincerity.’

    ‘Do you reproach me?’ exclaimed Benoni, getting excited.

    ‘I never indulge in reproaches,’ observed his father, for the first time raising his eyes from the volume before him. ‘They do no good. Besides, you would not feel them.’

    ‘And whose the fault?’ retorted the young man. ‘Yours! You trained me to distrust the natural feelings of the heart, calling them weakness; taught me to be as cold and artificial as yourself; and now find fault with your own work.

    ‘I tried to make you a philosopher,’ said the schoolmaster.

    ‘And trained a hypocrite,’ replied his son.

    ‘We will not dispute on terms,’ remarked the book-worm. ‘They are convertible, as mathematics teaches. What folly induced you to release the two ruffians in the Red Barn?’

    ‘They were from the Bittern’s Marsh,’ answered the youth, sullenly.

    ‘Ah!’ ejaculated his hearer.

    ‘And recognised me.’

    ‘That gave the act some show of reason,’ observed Mr. Blackmore after a pause. ‘An excuse, but not a necessity,’ he added. ‘You should have consulted me.’

    ‘There was no time for consultation. I had to decide,’ replied his son. ‘Consult, indeed! Father,’ he continued, ‘has there ever existed the least confidence between us? I know as little of your past life as of the future. That you are a cold selfish hypocrite, I have long since discovered; but there my knowledge ends. It would be better for us to part.’

    ‘What!’ said the old man sarcastically. ‘The tiger cub would break its chain?’

    ‘You should have forged it stronger,’ was the muttered reply.

    His parent closed the book he had been reading, and commenced pacing up and down the room for several minutes, muttering to himself, ‘Kismet! Kismet!’ the Arabic word for fate. Suddenly he paused in his peregrination, and fixed his glaring blue eyes upon the inflamed countenance of the speaker.

    ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘It is time that we should part. Cold as you think me, I will not suffer you to cast yourself upon the world without some chance of escaping shipwreck. But you must leave the means to me. This visit to London is most opportune. Yes, yes,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I will insist upon it. You must await my return. My absence will not exceed three days. Promise me.’

    Benoni pledged his word to remain. Nor that the speaker placed much reliance upon it; he trusted more to the fact that, with the exception of a few shillings, he knew him to be penniless. That same evening he started upon his journey, and at the time appointed returned to Deerhurst.

    Vainly did his son try to read in his face the success or disappointment of his hopes. The countenance of the Sphinx could not have been more impassive. Unable to endure the suspense of doubt, he boldly questioned him.

    ‘Have you succeeded?’ he demanded.

    ‘Yes,’ was the reply, ‘In a week or two you will enter the office of Brit and Son, London.’

    ‘What are they?’

    ‘Lawyers.’

    ‘Only lawyers!’ remarked Benoni, in a tone of disappointment.

    ‘Did you expect to be articled to a cabinet minister?’ asked his father, sarcastically. ‘Such personages do not generally take apprentices.’

    ‘No. But I –‘

    ‘Shall I tell you what a lawyer really is?’ continued, the former, interrupting him. ‘He is the depository of secrets affecting the honor, and sometimes the fortune, and sometimes the lives, of his clients; an agent to baffle the ends of justice more frequently than to assist them. The fortunes of the fools who trust them pass through their hands, which are birdlimed, and some of the feathers of the golden geese are sure to stick to them. Only lawyers!’ he repeated. ‘You are unworthy to be my pupil if you fail to find your advantage in this.’

    ‘But all lawyers are not alike,’ suggested the young man.

    ‘Perhaps not,’ was the reply. ‘I only state the rule, and waste no time or thought upon the exceptions, I know what is best for you.’

    His son thought so, too, and began to feel pleased with the idea, although it was not the profession he would have chosen. But, then, it promised change — change from the dreary, dull, unloving home to the busy realities of life; activity, success, and possibly revenge upon his former friend, Willie, whose honest scorn of his treachery had deeply stung him.

    Two weeks before the departure of Benoni for London there was to be a wedding at Deerhurst church, which Susan naturally felt desirous of attending. All girls like to be present at weddings; at least we never knew one that did not.

    Peggy Hurst made but a faint attempt to prevent her daughter from going. The wish was so natural. Then her father spoke out, and somehow his wife felt less inclined to oppose him than formerly. It did not appear quite so safe. She was a tactician in her way, and husbanded her forces for serious occasions.

    The church was crowded, as is usual on such occasions. The farmer met several old friends and acquaintances, who appeared something less inclined than lately to censure him very strongly. The fact was, they knew where the shoe pinched. They were mostly married men, and had worn it themselves, Opinions, like the weathercock, were veering round in the old man’s favour.

    Whilst he was chatting with some and shaking hands with others Susan contrived to slip from his side, and made her way to the organ-gallery. Behind the instrument she found Goliah. Of course she appeared very much surprised.

    ‘Dear me, Mr. Gob,’ she exclaimed. ‘You here!’

    ‘Ees,’ answered the rustic; ‘beant this the place?’

    She had forgotten, for the instant, a message she had sent him. There was no time for coquetting. She felt that, and came at once to her purpose.

    ‘I am uneasy in my mind’ she began. ‘Benoni is about leaving for London, and I have written a letter to put my cousin on his guard, for I feel certain some treachery is intended. He has twice held long talks with mother at the bottom of the orchard. I dare not post it in the village. Mother and post-mistress are too intimate. Can’t you take it?’

    ‘You may swear to that,’ replied her admirer — ‘not that I ever heard of thee swearing. I be goin’ wi’ a load of hay in the mornin’. Dear! Dear!’ he added. ‘I do feel mortal bad.’

    ‘What can be the matter with you?’ inquired Susan, archly .

    ‘I think it be love. And now the murder’s out!’

    ‘Nonsense!’ said the village beauty, as she disappeared down the gallery staircase. ‘Mrs. Gob’s dumplings were too heavy! It can only be indigestion!’

    The honest fellow looked after her wistfully.

    ‘It beant dumplings,’ he muttered. ‘Mother’s dumplings are allays light. What will I do?’ he added. ‘Sartin it be love!’

    We think so, too.

    Viscount Allworth would have made an excellent stage manager of a vaudeville theatre. Neither was he without some talent for tragedy. His mise en scene, too, was admirable. He could set his face to any expression he pleased, for, like the Roman actor who of old had worn the mask so long, his features took the impress of bronze.

    For several days his lordship had been expecting a visit from his son, and remained at home, watching with calm confidence his arrival. No sooner did he perceive the brougham enter the square than he walked deliberately to the mirror in the dressing-room, to arrange his countenance for the occasion. Satisfied of his artistic success, he seated himself at a table. The bell had rung for the performance. He was ready.

    ‘Welcome, my dear boy!’ he exclaimed, as the young man entered the apartment. ‘I am glad you are come. I have been anxiously expecting you.’

    ‘Doubtless, my lord,’ was the reply, ‘for the honour of our name is dear to me.’

    ‘The honour of our name is untouched.’

    ‘Hear me, father –‘

    ‘You must first hear me,’ interrupted the aged hypocrite, with well-affected dignity. ‘Unjust accusations are always regretted; forbearance rarely is so. You have heard the rumours?’

    Lord Bury bowed in the affirmative. I have done everything in my power to stifle them — not without success, I flatter myself. Something also I have exacted by way of atonement. Clarence Marsham has quitted the army.’

    ‘His debts compelled him.’

    ‘Not so,’ observed his parent. ‘Lady Allworth was quite prepared to pay them but I refused to listen to any compromise.’

    ‘And where is the scoundrel now?’ demanded the visitor, the, frown upon his brow slightly relaxing.

    ‘In France.’

    ‘Paris?’

    ‘I presume so.’

    At the very moment he uttered the equivocating lie the speaker had a letter dated from Dinent, in Brittany, written by his step-son, in his pocket.

    ‘What more can I do?’ continued his father. ‘I cannot divorce my wife because her son has acted like a fool. Is it not better to let the rumors quietly die out than to create any further scandal? My own conduct has been perfectly clear in the affair, but I leave the decision with you.’

    ‘Possibly you are right,’ observed Lord Bury, after reflecting on the circumstances. ‘At least, I shall not oppose it; but this acquiescence, forced upon me by consideration for my cousin, Kate, will not prevent me from proceeding immediately to Paris and calling Clarence to account.’

    ‘I have no opinion to offer on that point,’ observed the viscount, gravely. ‘And now, Egbert,’ he continued, ‘weigh all that has taken place calmly; question me on any point of my conduct you please, I am ready to answer you.’

    ‘Father,’ replied the young guardsman, ‘I would fain believe, and dare not question you, lest some painful doubts should be re-awakened. God forgive you if you have deceived me!’

    It is a hard thing to force upon a son the terrible conviction that his father is a villain. Lord Bury took his leave, hoping and trusting probably against his better reason. A few minutes after his departure Lady Allworth entered the dressing-room. She had overheard every word that passed.

    ‘Admirable!’ she said. ‘Yes; I think I have pretty well mystified him. We have now a clear field before us. ‘But the bonds?’ he added, eagerly.

    ‘Shall be paid the instant you have signed the lease of the Bittern’s Marsh.’

    This edition © 2019 Furin Chime, Michael Guest

    Notes, References, Further Reading

    dominie: Scottish English term for a schoolmaster.

    [Margaret Oliphant], The Byways of Literature: Reading for the Million’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 84 (August 1858) 200-16. Available at Internet Archive. [Author’s name not given on the text.]

    John Sutherland, ed., Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction, 2d ed. (Routledge, 1988).

    Victorian Fiction Research Guides, ‘Margaret Oliphant‘.

    Lewis C. Roberts, ‘Disciplining and Disinfecting Working-Class Readers in the Victorian Public Library’, Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1998),105-132.