“Without the assistance of brandy and cigars.”
“Yes.”
“And without any money.”
“With only a little. I know you’ll laugh at me; but I make pictures to myself of a sort of life which I think would suit us, and be very different from this hideous way of living, with which I have become so sick that I loathe it.”
“Something like Juan and Haidée, with Planty Pall coming after you, like old Lambro.” By the nickname of Planty Pall George Vavasor intended to designate Lady Glencora’s present husband.
“He’d get a divorce, of course, and then we should be married. I really don’t think he’d dislike it, when it was all done. They tell me he doesn’t care for her.”
“You have seen her since her marriage?”
“Yes; twice.”
“And have spoken to her?”
“Once only,—so as to be able to do more than ask her if she were well. Once, for about two minutes, I did speak to her.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said it would be better that we should not meet. When she said that, I knew that she was still fond of me. I could have fallen at her feet that moment, only the room was full of people. I do think that she is fond of me.”
Vavasor paused a few minutes. “I dare say she is fond of you,” he then said; “but whether she has pluck for such a thing as this, is more than I can say. Probably she has not. And if she has, probably you would fail in carrying out your plan.”
“I must get a little money first,” said Burgo.
“And that’s an operation which no doubt you find more difficult every day, as you grow older.”
“It seems to be much the same sort of thing. I went to Magruin this morning.”
“He’s the fellow that lives out near Gray’s Inn Lane?”
“Just beyond the Foundling Hospital. I went to him, and he was quite civil about it. He says I owe him over three thousand pounds, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference.”
“How much did you ever have from him?”
“I don’t recollect that I ever absolutely had any money. He got a bill of mine from a tailor who went to smash, and he kept on renewing that till it grew to be ever so many bills. I think he did once let me have twenty-four pounds,—but certainly never more than that.”
“And he says he’ll give you money now? I suppose you told him why you wanted it.”
“I didn’t name her,—but I told him what would make him understand that I hoped to get off with a lady who had a lot of tin. I asked him for two hundred and fifty. He says he’ll let me have one hundred and fifty on a bill at two months for five hundred,—with your name to it.”
“With my name to it! That’s kind on his part,—and on yours too.”
“Of course I can’t take it up at the end of two months.”
“I dare say not,” said Vavasor.
“But he won’t come upon you then,—nor for a year or more afterwards. I did pay you what you lent me before.”
“Yes, you did. I always thought that to be a special compliment on your part.”
“And you’ll find I’ll pull you through now in some way. If I don’t succeed in this I shall go off the hooks altogether soon; and if I were dead my people would pay my debts then.”
Before the evening was over Vavasor promised the assistance asked of him. He knew that he was lending his name to a man who was utterly ruined, and putting it into the hands of another man who was absolutely without conscience in the use he would make of it. He knew that he was creating for himself trouble, and in all probability loss, which he was ill able to bear. But the thing was one which came within the pale of his laws. Such assistance as that he might ask of others, and had asked and received before now. It was a reckless deed on his part, but then all his doings were reckless. It was consonant with his mode of life.
“I thought you would, old fellow,” said Burgo, as he got up to go away. “Perhaps, you know, I shall pull through in this; and perhaps, after all, some part of her fortune will come with her. If so you’ll be all right.”
“Perhaps I may. But look here, Burgo,—don’t you give that fellow up the bill till you’ve got the money into your fist.”
“You may be quite easy about that. I know their tricks. He and I will go to the bank together, and we shall squabble there at the door about four or five odd sovereigns,—and at last I shall have to give him up two or three. Beastly old robber! I declare I think he’s worse than I am myself.” Then Burgo Fitzgerald took a little more brandy and water and went away.
He was living at this time in the house of one of his relatives in Cavendish Square, north of Oxford Street. His uncles and his aunts, and all those who were his natural friends, had clung to him with a tenacity that was surprising; for he had never been true to any of them, and did not even pretend to like them. His father, with whom for many years he had not been on speaking terms, was now dead; but he had sisters whose husbands would still open their houses to him, either in London or in the country;—would open their houses to him, and lend him their horses, and provide him with every luxury which the rich enjoy,—except ready money. When the uttermost stress of pecuniary embarrassment would come upon him, they would pay something to stave off the immediate evil. And so Burgo went on. Nobody now thought of saying much to reproach him. It was known to be waste of words, and trouble in vain. They were still fond of him because he was beautiful and never vain of his beauty;—because in the midst of his recklessness there was always about him a certain kindliness which made him pleasant to those around him. He was soft and gracious with children, and would be very courteous to his lady cousins. They knew that as a man he was worthless, but nevertheless they loved him. I think the secret of it was chiefly in this,—that he seemed to think so little of himself.
But now as he walked home in the middle of the night from Cecil Street to Cavendish Square he did think much of himself. Indeed such self-thoughts come naturally to all men, be their outward conduct ever so reckless. Every man to himself is the centre of the whole world;—the axle on which it all turns. All knowledge is but his own perception of the things around him. All love, and care for others, and solicitude for the world’s welfare, are but his own feelings as to the world’s wants and the world’s merits.
He had played his part as a centre of all things very badly. Of that he was very well aware. He had sense enough to know that it should be a man’s lot to earn his bread after some fashion, and he often told himself that never as yet had he earned so much as a penny roll. He had learned to comprehend that the world’s progress depends on the way in which men do their duty by each other,—that the progress of one generation depends on the discharge of such duties by that which preceded it;—and he knew that he, in his generation, had done nothing to promote such progress. He thoroughly despised himself,—if there might be any good in that! But on such occasions as these, when the wine he had drunk was sufficient only to drive away from him the numbness of despair, when he was all alone with the cold night air upon his face, when the stars were bright above him and the world around him was almost quiet, he would still ask himself whether there might not yet be, even for him, some hope of a redemption,—some chance of a better life in store for him. He was still young,—wanting some years of thirty. Could there be, even for him, some mode of extrication from his misery?
We know what was the mode which now, at this moment, was suggesting itself to him. He was proposing to himself, as the best