Part 16 (1/2)
Frank was indignant; the Registrar explained that the kissing of the bride was an old custom still retained among the lower cla.s.ses, but Frank was not to be mollified, and the unhappy clerk was ordered to leave the room.
The wedding party drove to the Temple, where champagne was awaiting them; and when health and happiness had been drunk the critics left, and the party became a family one.
Mike was in his bedroom; he was too indolent to move out of Escott's rooms, and by avoiding him he hoped to avert expulsion and angry altercations. The night he spent in gambling, the evening in dining; and some hours of each afternoon were devoted to the composition of his trilogy. Now he lay in his arm-chair smoking cigarettes, drinking lemonade, and thinking. He was especially attracted by the picture he hoped to paint in the first play of John and Jesus; and from time to time his mind filled with a picture of Herod's daughter. Closing his eyes slightly he saw her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, scarce hidden beneath jewels, and precious scarves floated from her waist as she advanced in a vaulted hall of pale blue architecture, slender fluted columns, and pointed arches. He sipped his lemonade, enjoying his soft, changing, and vague dream. But now he heard voices in the next room, and listening attentively he could distinguish the conversation.
”The drivelling idiot!” he thought. ”So he's gone and married her--that s.l.u.t of a barmaid! Mount Rorke will never forgive him. I wouldn't be surprised if he married again. The idiot!”
The reprobate father declared he had not hoped to see such a day, so let bygones be bygones, that was his feeling. She had always been a good daughter; they had had differences of opinion, but let bygones be bygones. He had lived to see his daughter married to a gentleman, if ever there was one; and his only desire was that G.o.d might spare him to see her Lady Mount Rorke. Why should she not be Lady Mount Rorke? She was as pretty a girl as there was in London, and a good girl too; and now that she was married to a gentleman, he hoped they would both remember to let bygones be bygones.
”Great Scott!” thought Mike; ”and he'll have to live with her for the next thirty years, watching her growing fat, old, and foolish. And that father!--won't he give trouble! What a pig-sty the fellow has made of his life!”
Lizzie asked her father not to cry. Then came a slight altercation between Lizzie and her husband, in which it was pa.s.sionately debated whether Harry, the brother, was fitted to succeed Mike on the paper.
”How the fellow has done for himself! A nice sort of paper they'll bring out.”
A cloud pa.s.sed over Mike's face when he thought it would probably be this young gentleman who would continue his articles--_Lions of the Season_.
”You have quarrelled with Mike,” said Lizzie, ”and you say you aren't going to make it up again. You'll want some one, and Harry writes very nicely indeed. When he was at school his master always praised his writing. When he is in love he writes off page after page. I should like you to see the letters he wrote to ...”
”Now, Liz, I really--I wish you wouldn't ...”
”I am sure he would soon get into it.”
”Quite so, quite so; I hope he will; I'm sure Harry will get into it--and the way to get into it is for him to send me some paragraphs.
I will look over his 'copy,' making the alterations I think necessary. But for the moment, until he has learned the trick of writing paragraphs, he would be of no use to me in the office. I should never get the paper out. I must have an experienced writer by me.”
Then he dropped his voice, and Mike heard nothing till Frank said--
”That cad Fletcher is still here; we don't speak, of course; we pa.s.sed each other on the staircase the other night. If he doesn't clear out soon I'll have to turn him out. You know who he is--a farmer's son, and used to live in a little house about a mile from Mount Rorke Castle, on the side of the road.”
Mike thrilled with rage and hatred.
”You brute! you fool! you husband of a bar-girl!--you'll never be Lord Mount Rorke! He that came from the palace shall go to the garret; he that came from the little house on the roadside shall go to the castle, you brute!”
And Mike vowed that he would conquer sloth and lasciviousness, and outrageously triumph in the gaudy, foolish world, and insult his rival with riches and even honour. Then he heard Lizzie reproach Frank for refusing her first request, and the foolish fellow's expostulations suscitated feelings in Mike of intense satisfaction.
He smiled triumphantly when he heard the old man's talents as accountant referred to.
”Father never told you about his failure,” said Lizzie. Then the story with all its knots was laboriously unravelled.
”But,” said the old man, ”my books were declared to be perfect; I was complimented on my books; I was proud of them books.”
”Great Scott! the brother as sub-editor, the father as book-keeper, the sister as wife--it would be difficult to imagine anything more complete. I'm sorry for the paper, though;--and my series, what a hash they'll make of it!” Taking the room in a glance, and imagining the others with every piece of furniture and every picture, he thought--”I give him a year, and then these rooms will be for sale. I shall get them; but I must clear out.”
He had won four hundred pounds within the last week, and this and his share in a play which was doing fairly well in the provinces, had run up his balance at the bank higher than it had ever stood--to nearly a thousand pounds.
As he considered his good fortune, a sudden desire of change of scene suddenly sprang upon him, and in full revulsion of feeling his mind turned from the long hours in the yellow glare of lamp-light, the staring faces, the heaps of gold and notes, and the cards flying silently around the empty s.p.a.ce of green baize; from the long hours spent correcting and manipulating sentences; from the heat and turmoil and dirt of London; from Frank Escott and his family; from stinking, steamy restaurants; from the high flights of stairs, and the prost.i.tution of the Temple. And like b.u.t.terflies above two flowers, his thoughts hovered in uncertain desire between the sanct.i.ty of a honeymoon with Lily Young in a fair enchanted pavilion on a terrace by the sea, near, but not too near, white villas, in a place as fairylike as a town etched by Whistler, and some months of pensive and abstracted life, full to overflowing with the joy and eagerness of incessant cerebration; a summer spent in a quiet country-side, full of field-paths, and hedge-rows, and shadowy woodland lanes--rich with red gables, surprises of woodbine and great sunflowers--where he would walk meditatively in the sunsetting, seeing the village lads and la.s.sies pa.s.s, interested in their homely life, so resting his brain after the day's labour; then in his study he would find the candles already lighted, the kettle singing, his books and his ma.n.u.scripts ready for three excellent hours; upon his face the night would breathe the rustling of leaves and the rich odour of the stocks and tall lilies, until he closed the window at midnight, casting one long sad and regretful look upon the gold mysteries of the heavens.
So his reverie ran, interrupted by the conversation in the next room.
He heard his name mentioned frequently. The situation was embarra.s.sing, for he could not open a door without being heard. At last he tramped boldly out, slamming the doors after him, leaving a note for Frank on the table in the pa.s.sage. It ran as follows--”I am leaving town in a few days. I shall remove my things probably on Monday. Much obliged to you for your hospitality; and now, good-bye.”