Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (146 page)

“Anything wrong with the lock?” asked Valentine from above. He was rather surprised at the time that elapsed without his hearing the house-door shut.

“All quite right, sir,” said Mrs. Peckover; adding in a whisper to Zack: — ”Hush! don’t say a word!”

“Don’t let him keep you in the cold with his nonsense,” said Valentine.

“My nonsense! — ” began Zack, indignantly.

“He’s going, sir,” interrupted Mrs. Peckover. “I shall be upstairs in a moment.”

“Come in, dear, pray! You’re letting all the cold air into the room,” exclaimed the voice of Mrs. Blyth.

The door of the room closed again.

“What
are
you driving at?” asked Zack, in extreme bewilderment.

“I only want you to give her some other present,” said Mrs. Peckover, in her most persuasive tones. “You may think it all a whim of mine, if you like — I dare say I’m an old fool; but I don’t want you to give her a Hair Bracelet.”

“A whim of yours!!!” repeated Zack, with a look which made Mrs. Peckover’s cheeks redden with rising indignation. “What! a woman at your time of life subject to whims! My darling Peckover, it won’t do! My mind’s made up to give her the Hair Bracelet. Nothing in the world can stop me — except, of course, Madonna’s having a Hair Bracelet already, which I know she hasn’t.”

“Oh! you know that, do you, you mischievous Imp? Then, for once in a way, you just know wrong!” exclaimed Mrs. Peckover, losing her temper altogether.

“You don’t mean to say so? How very remarkable, to think of her having a Hair Bracelet already, and of my not knowing it! — Mrs. Peckover,” continued Zack, mimicking the tone and manner of his old clerical enemy, the Reverend Aaron Yollop, “what I am now about to say grieves me deeply; but I have a solemn duty to discharge, and in the conscientious performance of that duty, I now unhesitatingly express my conviction that the remark you have just made is — a flam.”

“It isn’t — Monkey!” returned Mrs. Peckover, her anger fairly boiling over, as she nodded her head vehemently in Zack’s face.

Just then, Valentine’s step became audible in the room above; first moving towards the door, then suddenly retreating from it, as if he had been called back.

“I hav’n’t let out what I oughtn’t, have I?” thought Mrs. Peckover; calming down directly, when she heard the movement upstairs.

“Oh, you stick to it, do you?” continued Zack. “It’s rather odd, old lady, that Mrs. Blyth should have said nothing about this newly-discovered Hair Bracelet of yours while I was talking to her. But she doesn’t know, of course: and Valentine doesn’t know either, I suppose? By Jove! he’s not gone to bed yet: I’ll run back, and ask him if Madonna really
has
got a Hair Bracelet!”

“For God’s sake don’t! — don’t say a word about it, or you’ll get me into dreadful trouble!” exclaimed Mrs. Peckover, turning pale as she thought of possible consequences, and catching young Thorpe by the arm when he tried to pass her in the passage.

The step up stairs crossed the room again.

“Well, upon my life,” cried Zack, “of all the extraordinary old women

“Hush! he’s going to open the door this time; he is indeed!”

“Never mind if he does; I won’t say anything,” whispered young Thorpe, his natural good nature prompting him to relieve Mrs. Peckover’s distress, the moment he became convinced that it was genuine.

“That’s a good chap! that’s a dear good chap!” exclaimed Mrs. Peckover, squeezing Zack’s hand in a fervor of unbounded gratitude.

The door of Mrs. Blyth’s room opened for the second time.

“He’s gone, sir; he’s gone at last!” cried Mrs. Peckover, shutting the house door on the parting guest with inhospitable rapidity, and locking it with elabourate care and extraordinary noise.

“I must manage to make it all safe with Master Zack tomorrow night; though I don’t believe I have said a single word I oughtn’t to say,” thought she, slowly ascending the stairs. “But Mr. Blyth makes such fusses, and works himself into such fidgets about the poor thing being traced and taken away from him (which is all stuff and nonsense), that he would go half distracted if he knew what I said just now to Master Zack. Not that it’s so much what I said to
him,
as what he made out somehow and said to
me.
But they’re so sharp, these young London chaps — they are so awful sharp!”

Here she stopped on the landing to recover her breath; then whispered to herself, as she went on and approached Mr. Blyth’s door:

“But one thing I’m determined on; little Mary shan’t have that Hair Bracelet!”

Even as Mrs. Peckover walked thinking all the way up-stairs, so did Zack walk wondering all the way home.

What the deuce could these extraordinary remonstrances about his present to Madonna possibly mean? Was it not at least clear from Mrs. Peckover’s terror when he talked of asking Blyth whether Madonna really had a Hair Bracelet, that she had told the truth after all? And was it not even plainer still that she had let out a secret in telling that truth, which Blyth must have ordered her to keep? Why keep it? Was this mysterious Hair Bracelet mixed up somehow with the grand secret about Madonna’s past history, which Valentine had always kept from him and from everybody? Very likely it was — but why cudgel his brains about what didn’t concern him? Was it not — considering the fact, previously forgotten, that he had but fifteen shillings and threepence of disposable money in the world — rather lucky than otherwise that Mrs. Peckover had taken it into her head to stop him from buying what he hadn’t the means of paying for? What other present could he buy for Madonna that was pretty, and cheap enough to suit the present state of his pocket? Would she like a thimble? or an almanack? or a pair of cuffs? or a pot of bear’s grease?

Here Zack suddenly paused in his mental interrogatories; for he had arrived within sight of his home in Baregrove Square.

A change passed over his handsome face: he frowned, and his colour deepened as he looked up at the light in his father’s window.

“I’ll slip out again to-night, and see life,” he muttered doggedly to himself, approaching the door. “The more I’m bullied at home, the oftener I’ll go out on the sly.”

This rebellious speech was occasioned by the recollection of a domestic scene, which had contributed, early that evening, to swell the list of the Tribulations of Zack. Mr. Thorpe had moral objections to Mr. Blyth’s profession, and moral doubts on the subject of Mr. Blyth himself — these last being strengthened by that gentleman’s own refusal to explain away the mystery which enveloped the birth and parentage of his adopted child. As a necessary consequence, Mr. Thorpe considered the painter to be no fit companion for a devout young man; and expressed, severely enough, his unmeasured surprise at finding that his son had accepted an invitation from a person of doubtful character. Zack’s rejoinder to his father’s reproof was decisive, if it was nothing else. He denied everything alleged or suggested against his friend’s reputation — lost his temper on being sharply rebuked for the “indecent vehemence” of his language — and left the paternal tea-table in defiance, to go and cultivate the Fine Arts in the doubtful company of Mr. Valentine Blyth.

“Just in time, sir,” said the page, grinning at his young master as he opened the door. “It’s on the stroke of eleven.”

Zack muttered something savage in reply, which it is not perhaps advisable to report. The servant secured the lock and bolts, while he put his hat on the hall table, and lit his bedroom candle.

Rather more than an hour after this time — or, in other words, a little past midnight — the door opened again softly, and Zack appeared on the step, equipped for his nocturnal expedition.

He hesitated, as he put the key into the lock from outside, before he closed the door behind him. He had never done this on former occasions; he could not tell why he did it now. We are mysteries even to ourselves; and there are times when the Voices of the future that are in us, yet not ours, speak, and make the earthly part of us conscious of their presence. Oftenest our mortal sense feels that they are breaking their dread silence at those supreme moments of existence, when on the choice between two apparently trifling alternatives hangs suspended the whole future of a life. And thus it was now with the young man who stood on the threshold of his home, doubtful whether he should pursue or abandon the purpose which was then uppermost in his mind. On his choice between the two alternatives of going on, or going back — which the closing of a door would decide — depended the future of his life, and of other lives that were mingled with it.

He waited a minute undecided, for the warning Voices within him were stronger than his own will: he waited, looking up thoughtfully at the starry loveliness of the winter’s night — then closed the door behind him as softly as usual — hesitated again at the last step that led on to the pavement — and then fairly set forth from home, walking at a rapid pace through the streets.

He was not in his usual good spirits. He felt no inclination to sing as was his wont, while passing through the fresh, frosty air: and he wondered why it was so.

The Voices were still speaking faintly and more faintly within him. But we must die before we can become immortal as they are; and their language to us in this life is often as an unknown tongue.

BOOK II. THE SEEKING.

CHAPTER I. THE MAN WITH THE BLACK SKULL-CAP.

The Roman poet who, writing of vice, ascribed its influence entirely to the allurement of the fair disguises that it wore, and asserted that it only needed to be seen with the mask off to excite the hatred of all mankind, uttered a very plausible moral sentiment, which wants nothing to recommend it to the admiration of posterity but a seasoning of practical truth. Even in the most luxurious days of old Rome, it may safely be questioned whether vice could ever afford to disguise itself to win recruits, except from the wealthier classes of the population. But in these modern times it may be decidedly asserted as a fact, that vice, in accomplishing the vast majority of its seductions, uses no disguise at all; appears impudently in its naked deformity; and, instead of horrifying all beholders, in accordance with the prediction of the classical satirist, absolutely attracts a much more numerous congregation of worshippers than has ever yet been brought together by the divinest beauties that virtue can display for the allurement of mankind.

That famous place of public amusement known, a few years since, to the late-roaming youth of London by the name of the Snuggery, affords, among hosts of other instances which might be cited, a notable example to refute the assertion of the ancient poet. The place was principally devoted to the exhibition of musical talent, and opened at a period of the night when the performances at the theaters were over. The orchestral arrangements were comprised in one bad piano, to which were occasionally added, by way of increasing the attractions, performances on the banjo and guitar. All the singers were called “ladies and gentlemen;” and the one long room in which the performances took place was simply furnished with a double row of benches, bearing troughs at their backs for the reception of glasses of liquor.

Innocence itself must have seen at a glance that the Snuggery was an utterly vicious place. Vice never so much as thought of wearing any disguise here. No glimmer of wit played over the foul substance of the songs that were sung, and hid it in dazzle from too close observation. No relic of youth and freshness, no artfully-assumed innocence and vivacity, concealed the squalid deterioration of the worn-out human counterfeits which stood up to sing, and were coarsely painted and padded to look like fine women. Their fellow performers among the men were such sodden-faced blackguards as no shop-boy who applauded them at night would dare to walk out with in the morning. The place itself had as little of the allurement of elegance and beauty about it as the people. Here was no bright gilding on the ceiling — no charm of ornament, no comfort of construction even, in the furniture. Here were no viciously-attractive pictures on the walls — no enervating sweet odors in the atmosphere — no contrivances of ventilation to cleanse away the stench of bad tobacco-smoke and brandy-flavour ed human breath with which the room reeked all night long. Here, in short, was vice wholly undisguised; recklessly showing itself to every eye, without the varnish of beauty, without the tinsel of wit, without even so much as the flavour of cleanliness to recommend it. Were all beholders instinctively overcome by horror at the sight? Far from it. The Snuggery was crammed to its last benches every night; and the proprietor filled his pockets from the purses of applauding audiences. For, let classical moralists say what they may, vice gathers followers as easily, in modern times, with the mask off, as ever it gathered them in ancient times with the mask on.