Book: M. or N. Similia similibus curantur.

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[Illustration: "Two of the police had now arrived." (_Page_ 295)]




M. or N.

"_Similia similibus curantur_"


By G.J. Whyte-Melville




CONTENTS

CHAP.


I. "Small and Early"

II. "Nightfall"

III. Tom Ryfe

IV. Gentleman Jim

V. The Cracksman's Checkmate

VI. A Reversionary Interest

VII. Dick Stanmore

VIII. Nina

IX. The Usual Difficulty

X. The Fairy Queen

XI. In the Scales

XII. "A Cruel Parting"

XIII. Sixes and Sevens

XIV. The Officers' Mess

XV. Mrs. Stanmore at Home

XVI. "Missing--A Gentleman"

XVII. "Wanted--A Lady"

XVIII. "The Coming Queen"

XIX. An Incubus

XX. "The Little Cloud"

XXI. Furens Quid Faemina

XXII. "Not for Joseph"

XXIII. Anonymous

XXIV. Parted

XXV. Coaxing a Fight

XXVI. Baffled

XXVII. Blinded

XXVIII. Beat

XXIX. Night-Hawks

XXX. Under the Acacias




M. or N.

"_Similia similibus curantur_"




CHAPTER I


"SMALL AND EARLY"


A wild wet night in the Channel, the white waves leaping, lashing, and
tumbling together in that confusion of troubled waters, which nautical
men call a "cross-sea." A dreary, dismal night on Calais sands: faint
moonshine struggling through a low driving scud, the harbour-lights
quenched and blurred in mist. Such a night as bids the trim French
sentry hug himself in his watch-coat, calmly cursing the weather,
while he hums the chorus of a comic opera, driving his thoughts by
force of contrast to the lustrous glow of the wine-shop, the sparkling
eyes and gold ear-rings of Mademoiselle Therese, who presides over
Love and Bacchus therein. Such a night as gives the travellers in the
mail-packet some notion of those ups and downs in life which landsmen
may bless themselves to ignore, as hints to the Queen's Messenger,
seasoned though he be, that ten minutes more of that heaving,
pitching, tremulous motion would lay him alongside those poor sick
neophytes whom he pities and condemns; reminding him how even _he_ has
cause to be thankful when he reflects that, save for an occasional
Levanter, the Mediterranean is a mill-pond compared to La Manche. Such
a night as makes the hardy fisherman running for Havre or St. Valerie
growl his "Babord" and "Tribord" in harsher tones than usual to his
mate, because he cannot keep his thoughts off Marie and the little
ones ashore; his dark-eyed Marie, praying her heart out to the Virgin
on her knees, feeling, as the fierce wind howls and blusters round
their hut, that not on her wedding-morning, not on that summer eve
when he won her down by the sea, did she love her Pierre so dearly,
as now in this dark boisterous weather, that causes her very flesh to
creep while she listens to its roar. Nobody who could help it would
be abroad on Calais sands. "Pas meme un Anglais!" mutters the sentry,
ordering his firelock with a ring, and wishing it was time for the
Relief. But an Englishman _is_ out nevertheless, wandering aimlessly
to and fro on the beach; turning his face to windward against the
driving rain; trying to think the wet on his cheek is all from
_without_; vainly hoping to stifle grief, remorse, anxiety, by
exposure and active bodily exercise.

"How could I stay in that cursed room?" he mutters, striding wildly
among the sand-hills. "The very tick of the clock was enough to drive
one mad in those long fearful pauses--solemn and silent as death!
Can't the fools do anything for her? What is the use of nurses and
doctors, and all the humbug of medicine and science? My darling! my
darling! It was too cruel to hear you wailing and crying, and to know
I could do you no good! What a coward I am to have fled into the
wilderness like a murderer! I couldn't have stayed there, I feel I
couldn't! I wish I hadn't listened at the door! Only yesterday you
seemed so well and in such good spirits, with your dark eyes looking
so patiently and fondly into mine! And now, if she should die!--if she
should die!"

Then he stands stock-still, turning instinctively from the wind like
one of the brutes, while the past comes back in a waking dream so akin
to reality, that even in his preoccupation he seems to live the last
year of his life over again. Once more he is at the old place in
Cheshire, whither he has gone like any other young dandy, an agreeable
addition to a country shooting-party because of his chestnut locks,
his blue eyes, his handsome person, and general recklessness of
character; agreeable, he reflects, to elderly _roues_ and established
married women, but a scarecrow to mothers, and a stumbling-block to
daughters, as being utterly penniless and rather good-for-nothing.
Once more he comes down late for dinner, to find a vacant place by
that beautiful girl, with her delicate features, her wealth of raven
hair, above all, with the soft, sad, dreamy eyes, that look so loving,
so trustful, and so good. In such characters as theirs these things
are soon accomplished. A walk or two, a waltz, a skein of silk to
wind, a drive in a pony-carriage, an afternoon church, and behold them
in the memorable summer-house, where he won her heart--completely and
unreservedly, while flinging down his own! Then came all the sweet
excitement, all the fascinating mystery of mutual understanding, of
stolen glances, of hidden meanings in the common phrases and daily
courtesies of social life. It was so delightful for each to feel that
other existence bound up in its own, to look down from their enchanted
mountain, with pity not devoid of contempt on the commonplace dwellers
on the plain, undeterred by proofs more numerous perhaps on the hills
of Paphos than in any other airy region, that

"Great clymbers fall unsoft;"

to know that come sorrow, suffering, disgrace, or misfortune, there
was refuge and safety for the poor, broken-winged bird, though its
plumage were torn by the fowler's cruelty, or even soiled in the storm
of shame. Alas! that the latter should arrive too soon!

Perhaps of this young couple, the girl, in her perfect faith and
entire self-sacrifice, may have been less aghast than her lover at the
imminence of discovery, reprobation, and scorn. When no other course
was left open, she eloped willingly enough with the man she had
trusted--shutting her eyes to consequences, in that recklessness
of devotion which, lead though it may to much unhappiness in life,
constitutes not the least lovable trait of the female character, so
ready to burst into extremes of right and wrong.

Besides, who cares for consequences at nineteen, with the sun glinting
on the waves of the Channel, the sea-air freshening cheek and brow,
the coast of Picardy rising bright and glistening, in smiles of
welcome, and the dear, fond face looking down so proudly and wistfully
on its treasure? Consequences indeed! They have been left with the
heavy baggage at London Bridge, to reach their proper owner possibly
hereafter in Paris; but meantime, with this fresh breeze blowing--on
the blue sea--under the blue sky--they do not exist--there are no such
things!

These young people were very foolish, very wicked, but they loved each
other very dearly. Mr. Bruce was none of those heartless, unscrupulous
Lovelaces, oftener met with in fiction than in real life, who can
forget they are _men_ as well as gentlemen; and when he crossed the
Channel with Miss Algernon, it was from sheer want of forethought,
from mismanagement, no doubt, but still more from misfortune, that she
was Miss Algernon still.

To marry, was to be disinherited--that he knew well enough; but
neither he nor his Nina, as he called her, would have paused for this
consideration. There were other difficulties, trivial in appearance,
harassing, vexatious, insurmountable in reality, that yet seemed
from day to day about to vanish; so they waited, and temporised, and
hesitated, till the opportunity came of escaping together, and they
availed themselves of it without delay.

Now they had reached French ground, and were free, but it was too
late! That was why Mr. Bruce roamed so wildly to-night over the Calais
sands, tortured by a cruel fear that he might lose the treasure of his
heart for ever; exaggerating, in that supreme moment of anxiety, her
sufferings, her danger, perhaps even her priceless value to himself.

To do him justice, he did not think for an instant of the many galling
annoyances to which both must be subjected hereafter in the event of
her coming safely through her trial. He found no time to reflect on a
censorious world, an outraged circle of friends, an infuriated family;
on the cold shoulder Mrs. Grundy would turn upon his darling, and the
fair mark he would himself be bound to offer that grim old father, who
had served under Wellington, or that soft-spoken dandy brother in
the Guards, unerring at "rocketers," and deadly for all ground
game, neither of whom would probably shoot the wider, under the
circumstances that he, the offender, felt in honour he must stand at
least one discharge without retaliation, an arrangement which makes
twelve paces uncomfortably close quarters for the passive and
immovable target. He scarcely dwelt a moment on the bitter scorn with
which his own great-uncle, whose natural heir he was, would calmly and
deliberately curse this piece of childish folly, while he disinherited
its perpetrator without scruple or remorse. He never even considered
the disadvantage under which a life that ought to be very dear to him
was now opening on the world: a life that might be blighted through
its whole course by his own folly, punished, a score of years hence,
for unwittingly arriving a few weeks too soon. No! He could think
of nothing but Nina's anguish and Nina's danger; could only wander
helplessly backwards and forwards, stupefied by the continuous gusts
of that boisterous sea-wind, stunned by the dull wash of the incoming
tide, feeling for minutes at a time, a numbed, apathetic impotency;
till, roused and stung by a rush of recurring apprehensions, he
hastened back to his hotel, white, agitated, dripping wet, moving
with wavering gestures and swift, irregular strides, like a man in a
trance.

At the foot of the staircase he ran into the arms of a dapper French
doctor, young, yet experienced, a man of science, a man of pleasure,
an anatomist, a dancer, a philosopher, and a dandy--who put both hands
on his shoulders, and looked in his face with so comical an expression
of congratulation, sympathy, pity, and amusement, that Mr. Bruce's
fears vanished on the instant, and he found voice to ask, in husky
accents, "if it was over?"

"Over!" repeated the doctor. "Pardon, my good sir. For our interesting
young friend it is only just begun. A young lady, monsieur, a
veritable little aristocrat, with a delicate nose, and, my faith,
sound and powerful lungs! I make you my compliment, monsieur. I am
happy to be the first to advertise you of good news. It is late. Let
madame be kept tranquil. You will permit me to wish you good-night. I
will return again in the morning."

"And she is safe?" exclaimed Bruce, crushing the doctor's hand in a
grasp like a vice.

"Safe!" answered the little man. "Parbleu--yes--for the present, safe
as the mole in the harbour, and likely to remain so if you will only
keep out of the room. Come, you shall see her for one quiet little
moment. She desires it so much. And when I scratch at the door thus,
you will come out. Agreed? Enter, then. You shall embrace your child."

So the good-natured man turned into the hotel again, to conduct Mr.
Bruce back to the door from which he had fled in anguish an hour or
two ago, and was thus five minutes too late for another professional
engagement, which could not be postponed, but went on indeed very well
without him, the expectant lady being a person of experience, the wife
of a Calais fisherman, and now employed for the thirteenth time in her
yearly occupation. But this has nothing to do with Mr. Bruce.

That gentleman stole on tiptoe through the darkened room, catching a
glimpse, as he passed the tawdry mirror on the chimney-piece, of a
very pale and anxious face strangely unlike his own, while from behind
the half-drawn bed-curtains he heard a quiet placid breathing, and a
weak, faint voice with its tender whisper, "Charlie, are you there?
My darling, I begged so hard to see you for one minute, and--Charlie
dear, to--to show you _this_."

_This_ was a morsel of something swathed up in wrappings, round which
the young mother's arm was folded with proud, protecting love; but I
think he had been too anxious about the woman to feel a proper elation
in his new position as father to the child. The tears came thick to
his eyes once more, while he caught the pale, fragile hand that lay so
weary and listless on the counterpane, to press it against his lips,
his cheeks, his forehead, murmuring broken words of endearment, and
gratitude, and joy.

She would have kept him there all night: she would have talked to him
for an hour, feeble as she was, of that little being, in so short a
time promoted to its sovereignty of Baby (with a capital B), in which
she had already discovered instincts, qualities, high reasoning
powers, noble moral characteristics: but the doctor's tap was heard,
"scratching," as he called it, at the door, and Bruce, too happy not
to be docile, had the good sense to obey his summons without delay.

"Let them sleep, monsieur," said the Frenchman, struggling into his
great-coat, and hurrying down-stairs. "It will do them more good
than all your prevision and all my experience. I will return in the
morning, to inquire after madame and to renew my acquaintance with
mademoiselle--I should say with 'your charming mees.' Monsieur, you
are now father of a family--you should keep early hours. Good-night,
then--till to-morrow."

Bruce looked after him with a blessing on his lips, and a fervent
thanksgiving in his heart to the Providence that had spared him
his treasure. For the moment, I believe, he completely forgot that
important personage with whom originated all their anxiety and
discomfort. To men, indeed, there is so little individuality about
a Baby, that, I fear, it has to be weaned and vaccinated, and to go
through many other processes before it ceases to be a thing, and
rather an inconvenient one. No; Bruce went to his own sitting-room,
with his heart so full of his Nina, there was scarcely place for other
considerations; therefore, instead of going to bed, he kicked off
his wet boots, turned on a brilliant illumination of gas, and threw
himself into an arm-chair--to smoke. After the excitement he had
lately passed through, the first few whiffs of his cigar were soothing
and consolatory in the extreme, but reflection comes with tobacco, not
less surely than warmth comes with fire; and soon he began to see the
crowd of fresh difficulties which the events of to-night would
bring swarming round his devoted head. How he cursed his foolish
calculations, his ill-judged caution, his cowardly scruples, thus to
have postponed the ceremony of marriage till too late. How impossible
it would be now, to throw dust in the eyes of society as to dates and
circumstances! how fruitless the reparation which should certainly be
put off no longer, no, not a day! It seemed so hard that he, of all
the world, should have injured the woman who loved him, the woman whom
he so devotedly loved in return. He almost hated the innocent baby for
its inopportune arrival; but remembering how that poor little creature
too must bear the punishment of his crime, he flung the end of his
cigar against the stove with a curse, and for one moment--only one
bitter, painful moment--found himself wishing he had never met, never
loved, his darling; had left the lamb at peace in its fold, the rose
ungathered on its stalk.

The clock did not tick twice before there came a reaction. It seemed
so impossible that they should be independent of each other. He would
not be himself without Nina! and the flow of his affection, like
the back-water of a mill-stream, returned only the stronger for its
momentary interruption. After all, Nina was everything, Nina was the
first consideration. Something must be done at once. As soon as she
could bear it, that ceremony must be gone through which should have
been performed long ago. He was young, he was impatient, he would fain
be at work without delay; so he turned to his writing-table, and began
opening certain letters that had already followed him into France, but
that he had laid aside without examination, in the excitement of the
last few hours.

They were not calculated to afford him much distraction. A circular
from a coal company, a couple of invitations to dinner, a tailor's
bill, and a manifesto from the firm, calling attention to the powers
of endurance with which their little account had "made running" for a
considerable period, while promising a "lawyer's letter" to enforce
payment of the same. Next this hostile protocol lay a business-like
missive bearing a Lincoln's Inn look about it not to be mistaken, and
which Bruce determined he would leave unopened till the morning, when,
if Nina had slept, and was doing well, he felt nothing in the world
could make him unhappy.

"Serves me right, though," he yawned, "for deserting Poole. _He_
wouldn't have bothered me for a miserable pony at such a time as
this;" and flinging off his clothes, in less than five minutes he was
as fast asleep as if he had never known an anxiety in the world, but
was lulled by the soothing considerations of a well-spent past, an
untroubled conscience, and a balance at his banker's!

So he slept and dreamed not, as those sleep who are thoroughly
out-wearied in body and mind, waking only when the sun had been up
more than an hour, and the stormy night had given place to a clear,
unclouded day.

The Channel was all blue and white now; the rollers, as they subsided
into a long heaving ground-swell, bringing in with them a freight
of health and freshness to the shore. The gulls were soaring and
screaming round the harbour, edging their wings with gold as they
dipped and wheeled in the morning light. Everything spoke of hope and
happiness and vitality. Bruce opened his window, drew in long breaths
of the keen, reviving air, and stole to listen at Nina's door.

How his heart went up in gratitude to heaven! Mother and child were
sleeping--so peacefully, so soundly. Mother and child! At that early
period the dearest, the sweetest, the holiest link of human love--the
gold without the dross, the flower without the insect, the wine
without the headache, the full fruition of the feelings without the
wear and tear of the heart.

He could have kissed the antiquated French chambermaid, dressed like
a Sister of Mercy, who met him in the passage, and wishing "Monsieur"
good-morning, congratulated him with tears of honest sympathy in her
glittering, bold black eyes. He _did_ give a five-franc piece to the
alert and well-dressed waiter, who looked as if he had never been in
bed, and never required to go. It may be this impulse of generosity
reminded him that five-franc pieces were likely to be scarce with him
in future, and an unpleasant association of ideas brought the lawyer's
letter to his mind. There it lay, square and uncompromising, between
his watch and his cigar-case. He opened it, I am afraid, with a truly
British oath.

He turned quite white when he read it the first time, but the blood
rushed to his temples on a second perusal, and he flung himself
down on his knees at the windowsill, thanking Providence, somewhat
inconsiderately, for the benefits that only came to him through
another man's death.

This letter, indeed, though the composition of a lawyer, had not been
written at the instance of his long-suffering tailor, but was from the
solicitor who conducted the business of his family. It advised him, in
very concise language, of his great-uncle's sudden "demise," as it was
worded, "intestate"; informing him that he thus became heir, as next
of kin, to the whole personal and real property of the deceased, and
concluded with sincere congratulations on his accession to a fine
fortune, not without a hope that their firm might continue to manage
his affairs, and afford him the same satisfaction that had always been
expressed by his late lamented relative, etc. The surprise staggered
him like a blow. From such blows, however, we soon "come to time,"
willing to take any amount of similar punishment. He gave himself
credit for self-denial in not waking Nina on the instant to tell
her of their good fortune. Still more, he plumed himself on his
forethought in resolving to ask her doctor's leave before he entered
on so exciting a topic with the invalid. He longed to tell somebody.
He was so happy, so elated, so thankful! and yet, amidst all his joy,
there rankled an uncomfortable sensation of remorse and self-reproach
when he thought of the little blighted life, the little injured
helpless creature nestling to its young mother's side in the next
room.




CHAPTER II


"NIGHTFALL"


It is more than twenty years ago, and yet how vividly it all comes
back to him to-night!

The sun has gone down in streaks of orange and crimson over the
old oaks that crown the deer-park sloping upward to the rear of
Ecclesfield Manor. Mr. Bruce walks across a darkened room to throw the
window open for a gasp of fresh evening air, laden with the perfume of
pinks, carnations, and moss-roses in the garden below. _Her_ garden!
Is it possible? Something in the action reminds him of that bright,
hopeful morning at Calais. Something in the scent of the flowers
steals to his brain, half torpid and benumbed; his heart contracts
with an agony of physical suffering. "My darling! my darling!" he
murmurs, "shall I never see you tying those flowers again?" and
turning from the window, he falls on his knees by the bedside with
a passionate burst of weeping that, like blood-letting to the body,
restores the unwelcome faculty of consciousness to his mind. When
he raises his head again he knows well enough that the one great
misfortune has arrived at last--that henceforth for _him_ there may
come, in the lapse of long years, resignation, even repose, but hope
and happiness no more.

Even now, though he wonders at his own callousness, he can bear to
look on the bed through a mist of tears; and, so looking, feels
his intellect failing in its effort to grasp the calamity that has
befallen him.

There she lies, like a dead lily, his own, his treasure, his beloved;
the sweet face, calm and placid, with its chiselled ivory features,
its smooth and gentle brow, has already borrowed a higher, a more
perfect beauty from the immortality on which it has entered. Not
fairer, not lovelier did she look that well-remembered evening when he
first knew her pure and priceless heart was his own, though she has
borne him a daughter--nay, two daughters (and he winces with a fresh
and different pain)--the younger as old as she was then. Her raven
hair is parted soft and silky off those pale, delicate temples; her
long black lashes rest upon the waxen cheek. No; she never looked as
beautiful, not in the calm sleep he used to watch so lovingly; and now
the deep, fond eyes must open on his own no more. She was so gentle,
too, so patient, so sweet-tempered, and O, so true. He had been a man
of the world, neither better nor worse than others: he knew women
well; knew how rare are the good ones; knew the prize he had won, and
valued it--yes, he was sure he always valued it as it deserved.
What was the use? Had she not far better have been like the
others--petulant, wilful, capricious, covetous of admiration, careless
of affection, weak-headed, shallow-hearted, and desirous only of that
which could not possibly be her own? Such were most of the women
amongst whom he had been thrown in his youth; but O, how unlike her
who was lying dead there before his eyes.

"For men at most differ as heaven and earth,
But women, worst and best, as heaven and hell."

He felt so keenly now that she had been his better angel for more than
twenty years; that but for her he might long ago have deteriorated to
selfishness and cynicism, or sunk into that careless philosophy which
believes only in the tangible, the material, and the present.

A good woman's lot may be linked to that of a bad man; she may even
love him very dearly, and yet retain much of her purer, better nature
amidst all the mire in which she is steeped; but it is not so with us.
To care for a bad woman is to be dragged down to her level, inch by
inch, till the intellect itself becomes sapped in a daily degradation
of the heart. From such slavery emancipation is cheap under any
suffering, at any sacrifice. The lopping of a limb is a painful
process, but above a gangrened wound experienced surgeons amputate
without scruple or remorse.

On the other hand, a true woman's affection is of all earthly
influences the noblest and most elevating. It encourages the highest
and gentlest qualities of man's nature--his enterprise, courage,
patience, sympathy, above all, his trust. Happy the pilgrim on whose
life such a beacon-star has shone out to guide him in the right way;
thrice happy if it sets not until it has lured him so far that he will
never again turn aside from the path.

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