AN INTRODUCTION.
Nemo repente fit turpissimus, and nobody becomes by design a journalist. Men drift into the evil trade as they drift into drink, crime, or politics — by force of circumstances. They take it up first because they’ve nothing else ready to hand to do, and they go on with it because they see no possible way of getting out of it. Paul Gascoyne, however, by way of the exception to every rule, having thus unexpectedly drifted into the first head-waters of a journalistic career, began seriously to contemplate making his work in life of it. In this design he was further encouraged by the advice and assistance of Mr. Solomons, who would have energetically protested against anything so vulgar as schoolmastering, as being likely to interfere with his plans for Paul’s brilliant future; but who considered an occasional excursion into the domain of literature as by no means derogatory to the dignity even of one who was destined to become, in course of time, a real live baronet. Nay, Mr. Solomons went so far in his commendation of the craft as to dwell with peculiar pride and pleasure on the career of a certain noble lord who was not ashamed in his day to take his three guineas a column from a distinguished weekly, and who afterward, by the unexpected demise of an elder brother, rose to the actual dignity of a British marquisate. These things being so, Mr. Solomons opined that Paul, though born to shine in courts, might blamelessly contribute to the Monday Remembrancer, and might pocket his more modest guinea without compunction in such excellent company. For what company can be better than that of the Lords of the Council, endowed, as we all well know them to be, with grace, wisdom, and understanding?
Moreover, Mr. Solomons had other ideas of his own for Paul in his head. It would be so well for Leo to improve his acquaintance with the future bearer of the Gascoyne title; and it would be so well for Paul to keep up his connection with the house of Solomons by thus associating from time to time with Mr. Lionel. For this double-barreled purpose, Mr. Solomons suggested that Paul should take rooms in the same house with Lionel, and that they should to some extent share expenses together, so far as breakfast, lights, and firing were concerned. From which acute suggestion Mr. Solomons expected a double advantage — as the wisdom of our ancestors has proverbially phrased it, he would kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, Paul and Lionel would naturally be thrown much into one another’s society, and, on the other hand, Lionel’s living expenses would be considerably diminished by Paul’s co-operation.
To Paul himself the arrangement was a trifle less satisfactory. Mr. Lionel Solomons was hardly the sort of person he would have spontaneously chosen as the friend and companion of his enforced solitude. Paul’s tastes and ideas had undergone a considerable modification at Oxford, and he was well aware of the distinctions of tone which marked off Mr. Lionel from the type of men with whom he had now long been accustomed to associate. But still, he never dreamt of opposing himself in this matter to Mr.
Solomons’ wishes. The habit of acquiescence in all Mr. Solomons’ plans for the future had been so impressed upon his mind by constant use that he could hardly throw it off in a month or two; and he went uncomplainingly, if not quite cheerfully, to share the hospitality of Mr. Lionel’s rooms in a small back street off a Pimlico highway.
For the first few weeks Paul was busy enough, endeavoring to gain himself an entry into the world of journalism. And by great good luck his preliminary efforts were unexpectedly, and it must be confessed unwontedly, successful. As a rule, it is only by long and strenuous pushing that even good workmen succeed in making their way into that most crowded and difficult of all trades or professions. But there is luck in everything, even in journalism; and Paul herein was exceptionally lucky. Mrs. Douglas, feeling herself almost personally responsible for the mishap in Greats — for, if only she had nobbled the examiners in time, might she not have managed to secure for him at least a decent Second — endeavored to make up for her remissness on that important occasion by using all her best backstairs wiles and blandishments on the persons of all the editors and leader writers of her wide acquaintance. Now the London press, as is well beknown to those curious in such matters, is almost entirely manned and run by Oxford graduates. Among these magnates of the journalistic world Mrs. Douglas possessed no small feminine influence; her dearest friend was married to the staff of the Times, and two of her second cousins were respectively engaged to the French politics of the Planet and the art-criticism of the hebdomadal Correspondent. By dexterously employing her persuasive powers on these potent ladies, Mrs. Douglas managed to secure for Paul’s maiden efforts the difficult favor of editorial consideration. The rest Paul worked on his own account. For although, as his first editor had justly remarked, he couldn’t write worth a kick when he began his experiments, he sat down so resolutely to conquer the intricacies of English style, that before three weeks were fairly over his manuscript made as decent copy as that of many journalists to the manner born, with less brains and perception than the young Oxford postulant.
It was during these first weeks of toilsome apprenticeship that an event happened of great importance to Paul’s future history, though at the moment he himself saw in it nothing more than the most casual incident of everyday existence.
One Saturday afternoon Mr. Lionel returned home early from the city, on fashionable promenade intent, and proposed to Paul to accompany him to the Park, to take the air and inspect the marriageable young ladies of this isle of Britain there on view to all and sundry. “Let’s have a squint at the girls,” indeed, was Mr. Lionel’s own precise and classical suggestion for their afternoon’s entertainment.
For a moment Paul demurred. “I want to get this article finished,” he said, looking up from his paper with a rather wearied air. “I’m trying one on spec for the Monthly Intelligence.”
“Rot!” Mr. Lionel ejaculated with profound emphasis. “You’re working too hard, Gascoyne; that’s just the matter with you. We don’t work like that in the city, I can tell you. You’re muddling your brains with too much writing. Much better come out a walk with me this afternoon, and do the Park. You can’t expect to hook an heiress, you know, if you don’t let the heiresses see you put yourself in evidence. Besides your article’ll be all the better for a little freshening up. You’re getting dull for want of change. Come along with me to the Row, an you’ll see what’ll stir up your Pegasus to a trot, I’ll bet you four-pence.” Even in metaphor fourpence was Mr. Lionel’s extreme extravagance in the matter of risking money needlessly.
Paul sighed a faint sigh. He had never yet dared to confide to Mr. Lionel the painful announcement that he was no longer intent on the prospective pursuit of the British heiress, but he admitted to himself the justice of the other plea that he needed change; for, indeed, of late he had been sticking a great deal too close to the literature of his country. So, after a moment’s hesitation, he rose from his desk, and, putting off his working coat, endued himself in his best editor-visiting clothes for the afternoon’s stroll, and sallied forth into the street with Mr. Lionel.
As they went toward the Park, Mr. Lionel regaled his fellow-lodger with various amusing anecdotes of Mr. Solomons’ cuteness, and of the care with which he audited his nephew’s accounts, paying special attention to the item of sundries in the expenditure column. At these anecdotes Paul was somewhat surprised, for Mr. Solomons had always seemed to him lavish in only one respect; and that was on Mr. Lionel’s personal expenses. He had fancied, indeed — and he still continued to fancy — that Mr. Solomons spoilt his nephew. That was not Mr. Lionel’s own opinion, however. He descanted much upon his uncle’s “closeness,” and upon his want of sympathy with a fellow’s natural wish to “see life.”
“Never mind, though,” Mr. Lionel remarked at last, with a significant gesture of his protruding lips. “The two old men’ll drop off before long; and then, Gascoyne, you and I will have our innings.”
Paul was shocked at the heartless levity of the phrase, and, indeed, the whole point of view was one entirely foreign to him. “I don’t feel like that myself,” he said, drawing back, a little disgusted. “I hope my father will live for many years yet. And I’m sure Mr. Solomons has always been very good to you.”
Mr. Lionel’s face broke into a genial smile. “Come, come,” he said frankly, “none of that humbug, you know. We’re alone, and I aint going to peach on you to the worthy governor. Don’t go trying to talk any nonsense to me, for it don’t go down. You must want to succeed to your title, naturally.”
Paul hardly even liked to continue the discussion, his companion’s tone was so intensely distasteful to him; but he felt called upon to dissent. “You’re mistaken,” he said curtly. “I’m not talking humbug. My father is extremely near and dear to me. And as to the baronetcy, I hate the very idea of it. Had it rested from the first outset with me to take it or leave it, I don’t think I’d ever so much as have even claimed it.”
“Well, you are a rum chap!” Mr. Lionel interjected, much amused. “For my own part, you know, I’d give a thousand pounds down to have such prospects as you have. And it won’t be so long before you come into them, either. The old man drove me up to my uncle’s the last time I was at Hillborough, and I thought he was looking precious shaky. I only wish my own respected uncle was one-half as near popping off the hooks as he is. But that’s the worst of my old boy. He’s a tough sort, he is: belongs to the kind that goes on living forever. The doctors say there’s something the matter with his heart, to be sure, and that he mustn’t excite himself. But, bless your soul! the stingy old beggar’s too cunning to excite himself. He’ll live till he’s ninety, I verily believe, just on purpose to stick to his tin and spite me. And I, who’d make so much better a use of the money than he does — I’ll be turned sixty, I expect, before ever I come into it.”
Paul was too disgusted even to answer. His own obligations to Mr. Solomons, if any, were far less in every way than Mr. Lionel’s; but he couldn’t have endured so to speak or think of any man to whom he owed the very slightest gratitude.
They went on into the Park with more or less of conversation, and strolled up and down the Row for some time, Mr. Lionel, with a flower gaily stuck in his button-hole and a cane poised gracefully in his lemon-gloved hand, staring hard into the face of every girl he passed, and Paul half-regretting in his own soul he had consented to come out before the eyes of the town in such uncongenial company. At last, as they neared the thronged corner by Hyde Park Gate, Paul was roused from a reverie into which he had momentarily fallen by hearing a familiar voice at his side fall musically on his ear, exclaiming with an almost imperceptible foreign accent, “What! you here, Mr. Gascoyne? How charming! How delightful!”
The heir to the baronetcy turned quickly round, and beheld on a chair in the well-dressed crowd the perennial charms of little Mme. Ceriolo.
She looked younger and prettier even than she had looked at Mentone. Mme. Ceriolo made a point, in fact, of looking always her youngest and prettiest in London — for hers was the beauty which is well under the control of its skillful possessor. To be pretty in London may pay any day. A great city incloses such endless possibilities. And indeed, there, among the crowd of unknown faces, where he felt acutely all the friendless loneliness of the stranger in a vast metropolis, Paul was really quite pleased to see the features of the good-humored little adventuress. He shook hands with her warmly in the innocence of his heart, and stopped a moment to exchange reminiscences. Mme. Ceriolo’s face lighted up at once (through the pearl powder) with genuine pleasure. This was business, indeed. She saw she had made a momentary conquest of Paul, and she tried her best to follow it up, in order, if possible, to insure its permanence. For a British baronet, mark you, is never to be despised, above all by those who have special need of a guarantee passport to polite society.
“So I have to congratulate you,” she said archly, beaming on him through her glasses, “upon securing the little American heiress. Ah, you thought I didn’t know; but a little bird told me. And to tell you the truth, I felt sure of it myself the moment I saw you with her on the hills at Mentone.”
Paul, glancing round with burning cheeks, would have given anything that minute to sink into the ground. There, before the face of assembled London! and the people on all the neighboring chairs just craning their necks to catch the smallest fragments of their conversation.
“I — I don’t quite understand,” he stammered out nervously.
“Oh, yes,” Mme. Ceriolo went on, as cool as a cucumber and still smiling benignly. “She’d made up her mind to be Lady Gascoyne, I know, or to perish in the attempt; and now, we hear, she’s really succeeded.”
As she spoke, Mme. Ceriolo cast furtive eyes to right and left to see whether all her neighbors duly observed the fact that she was talking to a prospective man of title. At that open acknowledgment of Paul’s supposed exalted place in the world the necks of the audience craned still more violently. A young man of rank, then, in the open marriage market, believed to have secured a wealthy American lady!
“You’re mistaken,” Paul answered, speaking rather low and trembling with mortification. “I am not engaged to Miss Boyton at all.” Then he hesitated for a second, and, after a brief pause, in spite of Mr. Lionel’s presence (as witness for Mr. Solomons to so barefaced a dereliction of duty) he added the further incriminating clause, “And I don’t mean to be.”
The interest of the bystanders reached its highest pitch. It was as good as a paragraph in a society paper. The young man of title disclaimed the hand of the American heiress!
“But Mr. Armitage told me so,” Mme. Ceriolo retorted, with womanly persistence.
“Mr. Armitage is hardly likely to be so well informed on the point as I am myself,” Paul answered, flushing red.
“Why, it was Miss Boyton herself who assured him of the fact,” Mme. Ceriolo went on, triumphant. “And I suppose Miss Boyton ought at least to know about her own engagement.”
“You’re mistaken,” Paul answered, lifting his hat curtly and moving off at once to cut short the painful colloquy. And the bystanders, whispering low behind their hands and fans to one another, opined there would soon be a sensation for society in the shape of another aristocratic breach-of-promise case.
As they mingled in the crowd once more, Mr. Lionel, turning to his companion, exclaimed with very marked approbation, “That’s a devilish fine woman, anyhow, Gascoyne. Who the dickens is she?”
Paul explained in a few words what little he knew about Mme. Ceriolo’s position and antecedents.
“I like that woman,” Mr. Lionel went on, with the air of a connoisseur in female beauty. “She’s got fine eyes, by Jove, and I’m death on eyes. And then her complexion! Why didn’t you introduce me? I should like to cultivate her.”
“I’ll introduce you if we pass her again,” Paul answered, preoccupied. He was wondering in his own mind what Mr.
Lionel would think of this awful resolution of his about the American heiress.
For the moment, however, Mr. Lionel, intent on his own thoughts, was wholly absorbed in his private admiration of Mme. Ceriolo’s well-developed charms. “As fine looking a young woman as I’ve seen for a fortnight,” he went on meditatively. “And did you notice, too, how very hard she looked at me?”
“No, I didn’t,” Paul answered, just stifling a faint smile of contempt; “but, to tell you the truth, I think she’d look hard at anybody upon earth who looked hard at her. And she’s scarcely young. She’s not far off forty, if anything, I fancy.” (At twenty-two, as we all know, forty seems quite mediaeval.)
“Let’s go back and pass her again,” Lionel exclaimed with effusion, turning round once more.
Paul shrank from the ordeal of facing those craning bystanders a second time; but he hadn’t the courage to say no to his impetuous companion. Mr. Lionel’s enthusiasm was too torrential to withstand. So they threaded their way back among the crowd of loungers.
Fortunately, by this time, Mme. Ceriolo had risen from her seat, after taking her full pennyworth, and was walking briskly and youthfully toward them. She met them once more — not quite undesignedly either — with a sweet smile of welcome on those cherry lips of hers. (You buy the stuff for ten sous a stick at any coiffeur’s in the Palais Royal.)
“My friend was anxious to make your acquaintance,” Paul said, introducing him. “Mr. Lionel Solomons — Mme. Ceriolo.”
“Not a son of Sir Saul Solomons?” Mme. Ceriolo exclaimed, inventing the existence of that eponymous hero on the spot with ready cleverness to flatter her new acquaintance’s obvious snobbery.
“No, not a son,” Mr. Lionel answered airily, rising to the fly at once; “but we belong, I believe, to the same family.” Which, if Sir Saul Solomons had possessed any objective reality at all, would, no doubt, in a certain broad sense, have been about as true as most other such claims to distinguished relationship.
Mme. Ceriolo measured her man accurately on the spot. “Ah, that dear Sir Saul,” she said, with a gentle sigh. “He was so good, so clever; I was always so fond of him! And you’re like him, too! The same profile! The same features! The same dark eyes and large full-browed forehead!” This was doubtless, also, in an ethical sense, strictly correct; for Mr. Lionel’s personal characteristics were simply those of the ancient and respected race to whom he owed his existence, and of which, apparently, the hypothetical Sir Saul was likewise a bright and shining example.
“May we walk your way?” Mr. Lionel said, gallantly ogling his fair companion.
Mme. Ceriolo was always professionally amiable. She accorded that permission with her most marked amiability.
They walked and talked for half an hour in the Park. Then Paul got tired of his subordinate part, and strolled off by himself obligingly. Mr. Lionel waited, and had ten minutes alone with his new-found charmer.
“Then I may really come and call upon you?” he asked at last in a melting tone, as he grasped her hand — somewhat hard — at parting.
Mme. Ceriolo’s eyes darted a glance into his that might have intoxicated a far stronger man than Lionel Solomons. “There’s my card,” she said, with a gracious smile, producing the famous pasteboard with the countess’ coronet stamped on it in relief. “A humble hotel — but I like it myself, because it reminds me of my beloved Tyrol.
Whenever you like, Mr. Solomons, you may drop in to see me. Any relation of that admirable Sir Saul, I need hardly say, is always welcome.”
Mr. Lionel went home to his rooms in Pimlico that afternoon half an inch taller — which would make him fully five feet six in his high-heeled walking shoes on a modest computation.