Book: Night and Morning, Volume 2

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Night and Morning, Volume 2




"Not at all strange. Ask the beggar whom he gets the most pence from--
the fine lady in her carriage--the beau smelling of eau de Cologne?
Pish! the people nearest to being beggars themselves keep the beggar
alive. You were friendless, and the man who has all earth for a foe
befriends you. It is the way of the world, sir,--the way of the world.
Come, eat while you can; this time next year you may have no beef to your
bread."

Thus masticating and moralising at the same time, Mr. Gawtrey at last
finished a breakfast that would have astonished the whole Corporation of
London; and then taking out a large old watch, with an enamelled back--
doubtless more German than its master--he said, as he lifted up his
carpet-bag, "I must be off--tempos fugit, and I must arrive just in time
to nick the vessels. Shall get to Ostend, or Rotterdam, safe and snug;
thence to Paris. How my pretty Fan will have grown! Ah, you don't know
Fan--make you a nice little wife one of these days! Cheer up, man, we
shall meet again. Be sure of it; and hark ye, that strange place, as you
call it, where I took you,--you can find it again?"

"Not I."

"Here, then, is the address. Whenever you want me, go there, ask to see
Mr. Gregg--old fellow with one eye, you recollect--shake him by the hand
just so--you catch the trick--practise it again. No, the forefinger
thus, that's right. Say 'blater,' no more--'blater;'--stay, I will write
it down for you; and then ask for William Gawtrey's direction. He will
give it you at once, without questions--these signs understood; and if
you want money for your passage, he will give you that also, with advice
into the bargain. Always a warm welcome with me. And so take care of
yourself, and good-bye. I see my chaise is at the door."

As he spoke, Gawtrey shook the young man's hand with cordial vigour, and
strode off to his chaise, muttering, "Money well laid out--fee money; I
shall have him, and, Gad, I like him,--poor devil!"




CHAPTER V.

"He is a cunning coachman that can turn well in a narrow room."
Old Play: from Lamb's _Specimens_.

"Here are two pilgrims,
And neither knows one footstep of the way."
HEYWOOD's Duchess of Suffolk, Ibid.

The chaise had scarce driven from the inn-door when a coach stopped to
change horses on its last stage to the town to which Philip was, bound.
The name of the destination, in gilt letters on the coach-door, caught
his eye, as he walked from the arbour towards the road, and in a few
moments he was seated as the fourth passenger in the "Nelson Slow and
Sure." From under the shade of his cap, he darted that quick, quiet
glance, which a man who hunts, or is hunted,--in other words, who
observes, or shuns,--soon acquires. At his left hand sat a young woman
in a cloak lined with yellow; she had taken off her bonnet and pinned it
to the roof of the coach, and looked fresh and pretty in a silk
handkerchief, which she had tied round her head, probably to serve as a
nightcap during the drowsy length of the journey. Opposite to her was a
middle-aged man of pale complexion, and a grave, pensive, studious
expression of face; and vis-a-vis to Philip sat an overdressed, showy,
very good-looking man of about two or three and forty. This gentleman
wore auburn whiskers, which met at the chin; a foraging cap, with a gold
tassel; a velvet waistcoat, across which, in various folds, hung a golden
chain, at the end of which dangled an eye-glass, that from time to time
he screwed, as it were, into his right eye; he wore, also, a blue silk
stock, with a frill much crumpled, dirty kid gloves, and over his lap lay
a cloak lined with red silk. As Philip glanced towards this personage,
the latter fixed his glass also at him, with a scrutinising stare, which
drew fire from Philip's dark eyes. The man dropped his glass, and said
in a half provincial, half haw-haw tone, like the stage exquisite of a
minor theatre, "Pawdon me, and split legs!" therewith stretching himself
between Philip's limbs in the approved fashion of inside passengers. A
young man in a white great-coat now came to the door with a glass of warm
sherry and water.

"You must take this--you must now; it will keep the cold out," (the day
was broiling,) said he to the young woman.

"Gracious me!" was the answer, "but I never drink wine of a morning,
James; it will get into my head."

"To oblige me!" said the young man, sentimentally; whereupon the young
lady took the glass, and looking very kindly at her Ganymede, said, "Your
health!" and sipped, and made a wry face--then she looked at the
passengers, tittered, and said, "I can't bear wine!" and so, very slowly
and daintily, sipped up the rest. A silent and expressive squeeze of the
hand, on returning the glass, rewarded the young man, and proved the
salutary effect of his prescription.

"All right!" cried the coachman: the ostler twitched the cloths from the
leaders, and away went the "Nelson Slow and Sure," with as much
pretension as if it had meant to do the ten miles in an hour. The pale
gentleman took from his waistcoat pocket a little box containing gum-
arabic, and having inserted a couple of morsels between his lips, he next
drew forth a little thin volume, which from the manner the lines were
printed was evidently devoted to poetry.

The smart gentleman, who since the episode of the sherry and water had
kept his glass fixed upon the young lady, now said, with a genteel smirk:

"That young gentleman seems very auttentive, miss!"

"He is a very good young man, sir, and takes great care of me."

"Not your brother, miss,--eh?"

"La, sir--why not?"

"No faumily likeness--noice-looking fellow enough! But your oiyes and
mouth--ah, miss!"

Miss turned away her head, and uttered with pert vivacity: "I never likes
compliments, sir! But the young man is not my brother."

"A sweetheart,--eh? Oh fie, miss! Haw! haw!" and the auburn-whiskered
Adonis poked Philip in the knee with one hand, and the pale gentleman in
the ribs with the other. The latter looked up, and reproachfully; the
former drew in his legs, and uttered an angry ejaculation.

"Well, sir, there is no harm in a sweetheart, is there?" "None in the
least, ma'am; I advoise you to double the dose. We often hear of two
strings to a bow. Daun't you think it would be noicer to have two beaux
to your string?" As he thus wittily expressed himself, the gentleman
took off his cap, and thrust his fingers through a very curling and
comely head of hair; the young lady looked at him with evident coquetry,
and said, "How you do run on, you gentlemen!"

"I may well run on, miss, as long as I run aufter you," was the gallant
reply.

Here the pale gentleman, evidently annoyed by being talked across, shut
his book up, and looked round. His eye rested on Philip, who, whether
from the heat of the day or from the forgetfulness of thought, had pushed
his cap from his brows; and the gentleman, after staring at him for a few
moments with great earnestness, sighed so heavily that it attracted the
notice of all the passengers.

"Are you unwell, sir?" asked the young lady, compassionately.

"A little pain in my side, nothing more!"

"Chaunge places with me, sir," cried the Lothario, officiously. "Now
do!" The pale gentleman, after a short hesitation, and a bashful excuse,
accepted the proposal. In a few moments the young lady and the beau were
in deep and whispered conversation, their heads turned towards the
window. The pale gentleman continued to gaze at Philip, till the latter,
perceiving the notice he excited, coloured, and replaced his cap over his
face.

"Are you going to N----? asked the gentleman, in a gentle, timid voice.

"Yes!"

"Is it the first time you have ever been there?"

"Sir!" returned Philip, in a voice that spoke surprise and distaste at
his neighbour's curiosity.

"Forgive me," said the gentleman, shrinking back; "but you remind me of-
of--a family I once knew in the town. Do you know--the--the Mortons?"

One in Philip's situation, with, as he supposed, the officers of justice
in his track (for Gawtrey, for reasons of his own, rather encouraged than
allayed his fears), might well be suspicious. He replied therefore
shortly, "I am quite a stranger to the town," and ensconced himself in
the corner, as if to take a nap. Alas! that answer was one of the many
obstacles he was doomed to build up between himself and a fairer fate.

The gentleman sighed again, and never spoke more to the end of the
journey. When the coach halted at the inn,--the same inn which had
before given its shelter to poor Catherine,--the young man in the white
coat opened the door, and offered his arm to the young lady.

"Do you make any stay here, sir?" said she to the beau, as she unpinned
her bonnet from the roof.

"Perhaps so; I am waiting for my phe-a-ton, which my faellow is to bring
down,--tauking a little tour."

"We shall be very happy to see you, sir!" said the young lady, on whom
the phe-a-ton completed the effect produced by the gentleman's previous
gallantries; and with that she dropped into his hand a very neat card, on
which was printed, "Wavers and Snow, Staymakers, High Street."

The beau put the card gracefully into his pocket-leaped from the coach-
nudged aside his rival of the white coat, and offered his arm to the
lady, who leaned on it affectionately as she descended.

"This gentleman has been so perlite to me, James," said she. James
touched his hat; the beau clapped him on the shoulder,--"Ah! you are not
a hauppy man,--are you? Oh no, not at all a hauppy man!--Good day to
you! Guard, that hat-box is mine!"

While Philip was paying the coachman, the beau passed, and whispered
him--

"Recollect old Gregg--anything on the lay here--don't spoil my sport if
we meet!" and bustled off into the inn, whistling "God save the king!"

Philip started, then tried to bring to mind the faces which he had seen
at the "strange place," and thought he recalled the features of his
fellow-traveller. However, he did not seek to renew the acquaintance,
but inquired the way to Mr. Morton's house, and thither he now proceeded.

He was directed, as a short cut, down one of those narrow passages at the
entrance of which posts are placed as an indication that they are
appropriated solely to foot-passengers. A dead white wall, which
screened the garden of the physician of the place, ran on one side; a
high fence to a nursery-ground was on the other; the passage was lonely,
for it was now the hour when few persons walk either for business or
pleasure in a provincial town, and no sound was heard save the fall of
his own step on the broad flagstones. At the end of the passage in the
main street to which it led, he saw already the large, smart, showy shop,
with the hot sum shining full on the gilt letters that conveyed to the
eyes of the customer the respectable name of "Morton,"--when suddenly the
silence was broken by choked and painful sobs. He turned, and beneath a
_compo portico_, jutting from the wall, which adorned the physician's door,
he saw a child seated on the stone steps weeping bitterly--a thrill shot
through Philip's heart! Did he recognise, disguised as it was by pain
and sorrow, that voice? He paused, and laid his hand on the child's
shoulder: "Oh, don't--don't--pray don't--I am going, I am indeed:" cried
the child, quailing, and still keeping his hands clasped before his face.

"Sidney!" said Philip. The boy started to his feet, uttered a cry of
rapturous joy, and fell upon his brother's breast.

"O Philip!--dear, dear Philip! you are come to take me away back to my
own--own mamma; I will be so good, I will never tease her again,--never,
never! I have been so wretched!"

"Sit down, and tell me what they have done to you," said Philip, checking
the rising heart that heaved at his mother's name.

So, there they sat, on the cold stone under the stranger's porch, these
two orphans: Philip's arms round his brother's waist, Sidney leaning on
his shoulder, and imparting to him--perhaps with pardonable exaggeration,
all the sufferings he had gone through; and, when he came to that
morning's chastisement, and showed the wale across the little hands which
he had vainly held up in supplication, Philip's passion shook him from
limb to limb. His impulse was to march straight into Mr. Morton's shop
and gripe him by the throat; and the indignation he betrayed encouraged
Sidney to colour yet more highly the tale of his wrongs and pain.

When he had done, and clinging tightly to his brother's broad chest,
said--

"But never mind, Philip; now we will go home to mamma."

Philip replied--

"Listen to me, my dear brother. We cannot go back to our mother. I will
tell you why, later. We are alone in the world-we two! If you will come
with me--God help you!--for you will have many hardships: we shall have
to work and drudge, and you may be cold and hungry, and tired, very
often, Sidney,--very, very often! But you know that, long ago, when I
was so passionate, I never was wilfully unkind to you; and I declare now,
that I would bite out my tongue rather than it should say a harsh word to
you. That is all I can promise. Think well. Will you never miss all
the comforts you have now?"

"Comforts!" repeated Sidney, ruefully, and looking at the wale over his
hands. "Oh! let--let--let me go with you, I shall die if I stay here.
I shall indeed--indeed!"

"Hush!" said Philip; for at that moment a step was heard, and the pale
gentleman walked slowly down the passage, and started, and turned his
head wistfully as he looked at the boys.

When he was gone. Philip rose.

"It is settled, then," said he, firmly. "Come with me at once. You
shall return to their roof no more. Come, quick: we shall have many
miles to go to-night."




CHAPTER VI.

"He comes--
Yet careless what he brings; his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn;
And having dropp'd the expected bag, pass on----
To him indifferent whether grief or joy."
COWPER: Description of the Postman.

The pale gentleman entered Mr. Morton's shop; and, looking round him,
spied the worthy trader showing shawls to a young lady just married. He
seated himself on a stool, and said to the bowing foreman--

"I will wait till Mr. Morton is disengaged."

The young lady having closely examined seven shawls, and declared they
were beautiful, said, "she would think of it," and walked away. Mr.
Morton now approached the stranger.

"Mr. Morton," said the pale gentleman; "you are very little altered. You
do not recollect me?"

"Bless me, Mr. Spencer! is it really you? Well, what a time since we
met! I am very glad to see you. And what brings you to N----?
Business?"

"Yes, business. Let us go within?"

Mr. Morton led the way to the parlour, where Master Tom, reperched on the
stool, was rapidly digesting the plundered muffin. Mr. Morton dismissed
him to play, and the pale gentleman took a chair.

"Mr. Morton," said he, glancing over his dress, "you see I am in
mourning. It is for your sister. I never got the better of that early
attachment--never."

"My sister! Good Heavens!" said Mr. Morton, turning very pale; "is she
dead? Poor Catherine!--and I not know of it! When did she die?"

"Not many days since; and--and--" said Mr. Spencer, greatly affected, "I
fear in want. I had been abroad for some months: on my return last week,
looking over the newspapers (for I always order them to be filed), I read
the short account of her lawsuit against Mr. Beaufort, some time back.
I resolved to find her out. I did so through the solicitor she employed:
it was too late; I arrived at her lodgings two days after her--her
burial. I then determined to visit poor Catherine's brother, and learn
if anything could be done for the children she had left behind."

"She left but two. Philip, the elder, is very comfortably placed at
R----; the younger has his home with me; and Mrs. Morton is a moth--that
is to say, she takes great pains with him. Ehem! And my poor--poor
sister!"

"Is he like his mother?"

"Very much, when she was young--poor dear Catherine!"

"What age is he?"

"About ten, perhaps; I don't know exactly; much younger than the other.
And so she's dead!"

"Mr. Morton, I am an old bachelor" (here a sickly smile crossed Mr.
Spencer's face); "a small portion of my fortune is settled, it is true,
on my relations; but the rest is mine, and I live within my income. The
elder of these boys is probably old enough to begin to take care of
himself. But, the younger--perhaps you have a family of your own, and
can spare him!"

Mr. Morton hesitated, and twitched up his trousers. "Why," said he,
"this is very kind in you. I don't know--we'll see. The boy is out now;
come and dine with us at two--pot-luck. Well, so she is no more!
Heigho! Meanwhile, I'll talk it over with Mrs. M."

"I will be with you," said Mr. Spencer, rising.

"Ah!" sighed Mr. Morton, "if Catherine had but married you she would have
been a happy woman."

"I would have tried to make her so," said Mr. Spencer, as he turned away
his face and took his departure.

Two o'clock came; but no Sidney. They had sent to the place whither he
had been despatched; he had never arrived there. Mr. Morton grew
alarmed; and, when Mr. Spencer came to dinner, his host was gone in
search of the truant. He did not return till three. Doomed that day to
be belated both at breakfast and dinner, this decided him to part with
Sidney whenever he should be found. Mrs. Morton was persuaded that the
child only sulked, and would come back fast enough when he was hungry.
Mr. Spencer tried to believe her, and ate his mutton, which was burnt to
a cinder; but when five, six, seven o'clock came, and the boy was still
missing,--even Mrs. Morton agreed that it was high time to institute a
regular search. The whole family set off different ways. It was ten
o'clock before they were reunited; and then all the news picked up was,
that a boy, answering Sidney's description, had been seen with a young
man in three several parts of the town; the last time at the outskirts,
on the high road towards the manufacturing districts. These tidings so
far relieved Mr. Morton's mind that he dismissed the chilling fear that
had crept there,--that Sidney might have drowned himself. Boys will
drown themselves sometimes! The description of the young man coincided
so remarkably with the fellow-passenger of Mr. Spencer, that he did not
doubt it was the same; the more so when he recollected having seen him
with a fair-haired child under the portico; and yet more, when he
recalled the likeness to Catherine that had struck him in the coach, and
caused the inquiry that had roused Philip's suspicion. The mystery was
thus made clear--Sidney had fled with his brother. Nothing more,
however, could be done that night. The next morning, active measures
should be devised; and when the morning came, the mail brought to Mr.
Morton the two following letters. The first was from Arthur Beaufort.

"SIR,--I have been prevented by severe illness from writing to yon
before. I can now scarcely hold a pen; but the instant my health is
recovered I shall be with you at N ---, on her deathbed, the mother of
the boy under your charge, Sidney Morton, committed him solemnly to me.
I make his fortunes my care, and shall hasten to claim him at your kindly
hands. But the elder son,--this poor Philip, who has suffered so
unjustly,--for our lawyer has seen Mr. Plaskwith, and heard the whole
story--what has become of him? All our inquiries have failed to track
him. Alas, I was too ill to institute them myself while it was yet time.
Perhaps he may have sought shelter, with you, his uncle; if so, assure
him that he is in no danger from the pursuit of the law,--that his
innocence is fully recognised; and that my father and myself implore him
to accept our affection. I can write no more now; but in a few days I
shall hope to see you.
"I am, sir, &c.,
"ARTHUR BEAUFORT.
"Berkely Square. "


The second letter was from Mr. Plaskwith, and ran thus:

"DEAR MORTON,--Something very awkward has happened,--not my fault, and
very unpleasant for me. Your relation, Philip, as I wrote you word, was
a painstaking lad, though odd and bad mannered,--for want, perhaps, poor
boy! of being taught better, and Mrs. P. is, you know, a very genteel
woman--women go too much by manners--so she never took much to him.
However, to the point, as the French emperor used to say: one evening he
asked me for money for his mother, who, he said, was ill, in a very
insolent way: I may say threatening. It was in my own shop, and before
Plimmins and Mrs. P.; I was forced to answer with dignified rebuke, and
left the shop. When I returned, he was gone, and some shillings-
fourteen, I think, and three sovereigns--evidently from the till,
scattered on the floor. Mrs. P. and Mr. Plimmins were very much
frightened; thought it was clear I was robbed, and that we were to be
murdered. Plimmins slept below that night, and we borrowed butcher
Johnson's dog. Nothing happened. I did not think I was robbed; because
the money, when we came to calculate, was all right. I know human
nature. He had thought to take it, but repented--quite clear. However,
I was naturally very angry, thought he'd comeback again--meant to reprove
him properly--waited several days--heard nothing of him--grew uneasy--
would not attend longer to Mrs. P.; for, as Napoleon Buonaparte observed,
'women are well in their way, not in our ours.' Made Plimmins go with me
to town--hired a Bow Street runner to track him out--cost me L1. 1s, and
two glasses of brandy and water. Poor Mrs. Morton was just buried--quite
shocked! Suddenly saw the boy in the streets. Plimmins rushed forward
in the kindest way--was knocked down--hurt his arm--paid 2s. 6d. for
lotion. Philip ran off, we ran after him--could not find him. Forced to
return home. Next day, a lawyer from a Mr. Beaufort--Mr. George
Blackwell, a gentlemanlike man called. Mr. Beaufort will do anything for
him in reason. Is there anything more I can do? I really am very uneasy
about the lad, and Mrs. P. and I have a tiff about it: but that's
nothing--thought I had best write to you for instructions.
"Yours truly,
"C. PLASHWITH.

"P. S.--Just open my letter to say, Bow Street officer just been here--
has found out that the boy has been seen with a very suspicious
character: they think he has left London. Bow Street officer wants to go
after him--very expensive: so now you can decide."


Mr. Spencer scarcely listened to Mr. Plaskwith's letter, but of Arthur's
he felt jealous. He would fain have been the only protector to
Catherine's children; but he was the last man fitted to head the search,
now so necessary to prosecute with equal tact and energy.

A soft-hearted, soft-headed man, a confirmed valtudinarian, a day-
dreamer, who had wasted away his life in dawdling and maundering over
Simple Poetry, and sighing over his unhappy attachment; no child, no
babe, was more thoroughly helpless than Mr. Spencer.

The task of investigation devolved, therefore, on Mr. Morton, and he went
about it in a regular, plain, straightforward way. Hand-bills were
circulated, constables employed, and a lawyer, accompanied by Mr.
Spencer, despatched to the manufacturing districts: towards which the
orphans had been seen to direct their path.




CHAPTER VII.

"Give the gentle South
Yet leave to court these sails."
BEAUMONT AND FLLTCHER: Beggar's Bush.

"Cut your cloth, sir,
According to your calling."--Ibid.

Meanwhile the brothers were far away, and He who feeds the young ravens
made their paths pleasant to their feet. Philip had broken to Sidney the
sad news of their mother's death, and Sidney had wept with bitter
passion. But children,--what can they know of death? Their tears over
graves dry sooner than the dews. It is melancholy to compare the depth,
the endurance, the far-sighted, anxious, prayerful love of a parent, with
the inconsiderate, frail, and evanescent affection of the infant, whose
eyes the hues of the butterfly yet dazzle with delight. It was the night
of their flight, and in the open air, when Philip (his arms round
Sidney's waist) told his brother-orphan that they were motherless. And
the air was balmy, the skies filled with the effulgent presence of the
August moon; the cornfields stretched round them wide and far, and not a
leaf trembled on the beech-tree beneath which they had sought shelter.
It seemed as if Nature herself smiled pityingly on their young sorrow,
and said to them, "Grieve not for the dead: I, who live for ever, I will
be your mother!"

They crept, as the night deepened, into the warmer sleeping-place
afforded by stacks of hay, mown that summer and still fragrant. And the
next morning the birds woke them betimes, to feel that Liberty, at least,
was with them, and to wander with her at will.

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