Chapter XIII: Another Conquest

Town was at its dreariest; the little people in Camden Town and Hackney had followed the great people in Belgravia and Tyburnia, by going away; only they went to Southend or Margate instead of Scotland or Biarritz. It was the last possible time of the year at which one would imagine festivity could take place; and yet from the aspect of No. 20, Adalbert Crescent, Navarino Road, Dalston, it was evident that festivity was intended. The general servant of the establishment had washed the upper half of her face, and hooked the lower half of her gown--an extraordinary occurrence which meant something. The fishmonger had sent in a lobster, and half a newspaper--folded in cornucopia fashion--full of shrimps; the à-la-mode-beef house had been ransacked for the least-stony piece of cold meat which it possessed; and from the greengrocer had been obtained a perfect grove of salad and cress. Looking at these preparations, Miss Augusta Manby might well feel within herself a certain sentiment of pride, and a consciousness that Adalbert Crescent was equal to the occasion.

Miss Augusta Manby had been a workwoman at Madame Clarisse's; but she had long left that patrician establishment, and started on her own account. The name of her late employer figured under her own on the brass plate which adorned her door; and this recommendation, and her own talent in reducing bulging waists, and "fitting" generally obstinate figures, had procured for her a vast amount of patronage in the clerk-inhabited district where she had pitched her tent.

In the fulness of delight at her success, Miss Manby had taken advantage of the occasion of her birthday to summon her friends to rejoice with her at a little festive gathering, and the advent of those friends she was then awaiting.

"I think it will all do very well," she said to herself, after surveying the preparations; "and I am sure it ought to go off nicely. I should have been afraid to ask Fanny Stafford if Bella Merton and her brother had not been coming; but she has quite West End manners, and he is very nice-looking and very well-behaved. It's a pity I could not avoid asking Gus; but he would have been sure to have heard of it; and then, if he had been left out, there would have been a pretty to-do."

A ring at the bell stopped Miss Manby's soliloquy, and she rushed to the glass to "put herself tidy," as she phrased it. There was no need for this performance in Miss Manby's case, as the glass reflected a pretty little face of the snub-nose, black-eyes, white-teeth, and oiled-hair order, and a very pretty little figure, which the owner took care should be well, though not expensively, got up.

The arrivals were Miss Bella Merton--a young lady who officiated as clerk at Mr. Kammerer's, the photographer's in Regent Street, kept the appointment ledger, entered the number of copies ordered, and received the money from the sitters--and her brother, a book-keeper in Repp and Rumfitt's drapery establishment.

"So good of you, Bella dear, to be the first!" said Miss Manby, welcoming a tall dashing-looking young woman, who darted into the room after the half-cleansed servant had broken down in announcing "Miss Merting."--"And you too, Mr. John; I scarcely thought you would have taken the trouble to come from the West End to this outlandish place."

Mr. John, as she called him, who was a tall well-built young man, dressed in a black frock coat, waistcoat, and trousers, relieved by an alarmingly vivid-blue necktie, merely bowed his acknowledgments; but his sister, who had thrown off a coquettish little black-silk cloak, and what was known amongst her friends as a "duck of a bonnet," and who was then smoothing her hair before the one-foot-square looking-glass over the chimney-piece, said:

"My dear Augusta, what nonsense it is! we should be thankful to escape from that hot dusty town to this--well, really, this rural retreat. And as for coming early, there's nothing doing now at the West, so that one can leave when one likes."

Miss Augusta Manby then took upon herself to remark that that was one compensation for her exile from the realms of fashion. All seasons, she remarked, were the same at Dalston, where people had new clothes when the old ones were worn out, and never studied times or seasons.

"And now tell me, dear, who are coming?" said Bella Merton, while her brother John sat in the window-seat, and tried to derive a gleam of satisfaction from the inspection of the fashion-plates in _La Belle Assemblée_; "of course that dear delightful old Gus--and who else?"

"I have asked Fanny Stafford, and she has promised to come."

"No! that is fun!" said Bella Merton, laughing.

"And Mr. Burgess----"

"No! that's better still!" said Bella, laughing more heartily: "what! _our_ Mr. Burgess?"

"Of course. Did he not tell you?"

"Not one single word, dear. But of course I understand why!" and the young lady relapsed into fits of merriment.

"You have all the joke to yourself at present, Bella," said John Merton, looking up from his fashion-book.

"And you won't have any of it, so far as I can see, during any part of the evening, my poor old John!" said his sister.

"I'm sorry I can't understand your West End wit, Bella dear," said their hostess, with some asperity.

"You will see it all in a minute," said Bella, striving to compose her countenance. "Burgess has been raving-mad in love with Fanny Stafford, whom he has only seen for an instant, ever since Mr. Kammerer gave him her photograph to tint. My brother John, here, of course fell over head and ears directly he saw her; and there's another man of a different kind, with no end of money and position and all that, about whom I must say nothing. So much for Fanny Stafford. But what's to become of you and me, Augusta? There's nobody left for us but old Gus."

"What's that you are saying about old Gus?" said a fat jolly voice, belonging to a fat jolly man, of about forty years of age, who entered the room at the moment.

This was Augustus Manby, the hostess's brother, a tea-taster attached to an establishment in Mincing Lane--a convivial soul, and a thorough vulgarian.

"Saying!" said Bella Merton, whose two hands he was wringing, after having given his sister a smacking kiss; "that we should have no one but you to flirt with, all the other men would be absorbed by Fanny Stafford."

"Well, they are welcome so far as I am concerned," said plain-spoken Gus. "She's a nice girl, Fanny; but I don't like them red, and I do like more of them; and that's the fact."

"Hush! do be quiet," said his sister, as the bell sounded again; and the next minute Fanny Stothard entered the room.

She looked so lovely, that Gus almost audibly recalled his opinion. The exercise had given a colour to her cheeks and a brilliancy to her eyes. Her dress fitted her to perfection, and there was an indefinable something about her which stamped her superiority to those among whom she then was. She was warmly welcomed by all, and had scarcely gone through their greetings when Mr. Burgess joined and completed the little party.

Mr. Burgess was a small consumptive-looking young man, principally remarkable for the length of his hair and the smallness of his cravat. Believing in his destiny as an "arteeste," he had originally entered as a student at the Royal Academy; but after severe objurgations from the authorities there, had subsided into colouring pictures for the photographers, by which he realised a decent income. He entered the room with a bound suggestive of hope and joy; but on seeing Fanny he sighed deeply, and abandoned himself to misery.

Then they all bustled about, and the cloth was laid, and the provisions produced, and the half-cleansed servant appeared periodically, staggering under large pewter vessels containing malt liquor; and the gentlemen pressed the ladies to eat and to drink; and the ladies would not be persuaded without a great deal of pressing on the gentlemen's part; and so the meal was gone through with much giggling and laughter, but without any regular talk.

That began when the hostess had fetched from a cupboard, where they were imbedded in layers of brown-paper patterns and bygone fashion-books, and watched over by an armless papier-mâchè idol, two bottles of spirits; and when the gentlemen had brewed themselves mighty jorums of grog, and helped the ladies to delicate wine-glasses of the same beverage. And thus it commenced:

"Things must be dull with you now at Clarisse's, Fanny dear?" said the hostess.

"Dull!" said Fanny: "I never knew anything like it. I don't mean written orders from the country, of course; but we only had one customer in our place the whole of last week."

"What will you bet me, Fanny," said Bella Merton, "that I don't tell you that customer's name?"

"Why, how can you possibly know it? She----"

"I don't speak of a she! I mean a he," said Bella, laughing.

"Hes ain't milliners' customers," said Mr. Burgess, with a titter.

"Ain't they?" said John Merton, with a savage expression on his good-looking face; "but they are sometimes, worse luck!"

"My customer, at all events, was a lady," said Fanny, rather disapproving of this turn of the conversation.

"Yes; but she was accompanied by a gentleman," said Bella, still laughing; "and, as John says, gentlemen have no right in milliners' showrooms."

"I suppose that even Mr. John Merton would not object to a father's accompanying his daughter to a milliner's showroom?" said Fanny, beginning to be piqued.

"Mr. John Merton merely spoke generally, Miss Stafford," said John, with a bow. "He would not have taken the liberty to apply his observation to any particular case."

"This is perfectly delicious!" cried Bella Merton, clapping her hands. "I knew I should soon set you all by the ears. But we have wandered from my original proposition. Can I, or can I not, tell you the name of the gentleman who came with his daughter, as you say, to your place last week?"

"I daresay you can," said Fanny Stothard, "though how you gained your information it would be impossible for me to say."

"Don't tell her, Miss Stafford," said John Merton; "don't help her in the least degree. It's scarcely a fair subject of conversation; at least, it's one which I'm sure has no interest for me."

"Was he a nice cross old dear?" said his sister; "and didn't he like to hear about the fine gentleman that admired Fanny?"

John Merton looked so black at this remark, that Mr. Burgess thought it best to cut into the conversation. So he said:

"But you haven't yet told us the name of the gentleman. Miss Merton."

"Haven't I?" said Bella; "well, I'll be as good as my word. Colonel Orpington. Am I right, Fanny?"

"I daresay you are. Miss Orpington's father came with her. What his title may be I haven't the least idea."

"But he knows what your title is, dear, and accords it to you quite publicly."

"And what title does he give Miss Stafford, pray?" asked John Merton, angrily.

"That of the prettiest girl in London!"

"I never heard a swell go so near the truth," growled John, half pleased and half annoyed.

"Don't you think it is almost time for you to speak a little more plainly, Bella?" asked Fanny. "How do you know this Colonel Orpington, and what has he been saying about me?"

"_This_ Colonel Orpington, indeed!" cried Miss Merton. "My dear, _this_ Colonel Orpington is simply one of the best men of the day, extremely rich, and--well, you know--one of those nice fellows who are liked by everybody. He came into our place the other day, and when I looked up from my desk in the front room, where I was writing a private letter--for I had nothing else to do--I saw him; and I thought to myself, 'I know you, Colonel Orpington! I've seen you about often. So you've come for a sitting, have you? Won't Mr. Kammerer be wild to think you should have come when he was out of town!' However, he came straight towards me; and he took off his hat, like a gentleman as he is, and he said, 'There is a portrait in a frame outside the door which strikes me as a wonderful example of photography, of which I am a connoisseur.' I knew what he meant at once, bless you; but I said, 'You mean the gentleman in the skull-cap and the long beard--Professor Gilks?' He muttered something about Professor Gilks--I daren't say what--but then said No; he meant the coloured female head--was it for sale? I told him I could not answer him without referring to Mr. Kammerer, who was at Ramsgate. The Colonel begged me to telegraph to him, and he would call next day. He did call next day, took the photograph, and paid twenty guineas for it, which was a good thing for Mr. Kammerer."

"Very likely," burst in John Merton; "but a bad thing for art, and decency, and----"

"Don't distress yourself, John! Very likely it was all you say; but, you see, Mr. Kammerer is not here for you to pitch into, and Fanny couldn't help her portrait being bought by an admirer. Oh, he was an admirer, Fanny; for when I tied it up for him, he said out, 'It's lovely, but it doesn't do justice to the original.' And when I asked him did he know the original, he said he thought he had had that honour. And so it's no good your bursting into virtuous indignation."

Her brother shrugged his shoulders and was silent; but Fanny Stothard said:

"Don't you think this joke has gone far enough? Augusta and Mr. Burgess here are sitting in wild astonishment, as well they may be. Let us change the conversation for the few minutes before we break up."

Late that night Fanny Stothard sat on the side of her bed in her room in South Molton Street, her hands clasped behind her head, her body gently swaying to and fro as she pondered over all she had heard that evening. On the table lay a letter from Paul Derinzy. It was the second she had had, and he had not been away from London five days. The first she had torn at eagerly and devoured its contents at once; this lay unopened.

"Very rich, that woman said," she muttered, "and a great man in his way. Fancy his buying the portrait, and after only seeing me once! That was very nice of him. Not in the least old-looking, and everybody likes him, Bella said. What a funny thing his recognising that photograph, and---- How horrible the journey home was to-night, and what detestable people in the omnibus!--such pushing and tramping on one's feet, and--I had no idea of that! I thought he looked hard at me once or twice, but I never imagined that he took any particular notice. Colonel Orpington! I shall look out his name in the _Court Guide_ to-morrow, when I get to George Street, and see all about him. Had the honour of knowing me, he told Bella Merton! Ugh! how sick I am of this room, and how wearied of this life! Ah well, Paul's letter will keep till to-morrow; I'm sure I know what it's about. That was really very nice about the portrait! I wonder when Colonel Orpington will come back to town?"

Then she frowned a little as she said, "What could have made that young man, Bella's brother, so disagreeable about all that? He couldn't possibly--and yet I don't know. He looked so earnestly at me, and spoke so strongly about that business of the portrait, that I have half an idea he resented it on my behalf. What impertinence! And yet he meant merely to show his regard for me. How dreadfully in earnest he seemed! And Paul too! I shall have a difficulty in managing them all, I see that clearly."