Cashel Byron's Profession: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Miss Carew remorselessly carried out her intention of going to
London, where she took a house in Regent's Park, to the
disappointment of Alice, who had hoped to live in Mayfair, or at
least in South Kensington. But Lydia set great store by the high
northerly ground and open air of the park; and Alice found almost
perfect happiness in driving through London in a fine carriage and
fine clothes. She liked that better than concerts of classical
music, which she did not particularly relish, or even than the
opera, to which they went often. The theatres pleased her more,
though the amusements there were tamer than she had expected.
Society was delightful to her because it was real London society.
She acquired a mania for dancing; went out every night, and seemed
to herself far more distinguished and attractive than she had ever
been in Wiltstoken, where she had nevertheless held a sufficiently
favorable opinion of her own manners and person.

Lydia did not share all these dissipations. She easily procured
invitations and chaperones for Alice, who wondered why so
intelligent a woman would take the trouble to sit out a stupid
concert, and then go home, just as the real pleasure of the evening
was beginning.

One Saturday morning, at breakfast, Lydia said,

"Your late hours begin to interfere with the freshness of your
complexion, Alice. I am getting a little fatigued, myself, with
literary work. I will go to the Crystal Palace to-day, and wander
about the gardens for a while; there is to be a concert in the
afternoon for the benefit of Madame Szczymplica, whose playing you
do not admire. Will you come with me?"

"Of course," said Alice, resolutely dutiful.

"Of choice; not of course," said Lydia. "Are you engaged for
to-morrow evening?"

"Sunday? Oh, no. Besides, I consider all my engagements subject to
your convenience."

There was a pause, long enough for this assurance to fall perfectly
flat. Alice bit her lip. Then Lydia said, "Do you know Mrs. Hoskyn?"

"Mrs. Hoskyn who gives Sunday evenings? Shall we go there?" said
Alice, eagerly. "People often ask me whether I have been at one of
them. But I don't know her--though I have seen her. Is she nice?"

"She is a young woman who has read a great deal of art criticism,
and been deeply impressed by it. She has made her house famous by
bringing there all the clever people she meets, and making them so
comfortable that they take care to come again. But she has not,
fortunately for her, allowed her craze for art to get the better of
her common-sense. She married a prosperous man of business, who
probably never read anything but a newspaper since he left school;
and there is probably not a happier pair in England."

"I presume she had sense enough to know that she could not afford to
choose," said Alice, complacently. "She is very ugly."

"Do you think so? She has many admirers, and was, I am told, engaged
to Mr. Herbert, the artist, before she met Mr. Hoskyn. We shall meet
Mr. Herbert there to-morrow, and a number of celebrated persons
besides--his wife, Madame Szczymplica the pianiste, Owen Jack the
composer, Hawkshaw the poet, Conolly the inventor, and others. The
occasion will be a special one, as Herr Abendgasse, a remarkable
German socialist and art critic, is to deliver a lecture on 'The
True in Art.' Be careful, in speaking of him in society, to refer to
him as a sociologist, and not as a socialist. Are you particularly
anxious to hear him lecture?"

"No doubt it will be very interesting," said Alice. "I should not
like to miss the opportunity of going to Mrs. Hoskyn's. People so
often ask me whether I have been there, and whether I know this,
that, and the other celebrated person, that I feel quite embarrassed
by my rustic ignorance."

"Because," pursued Lydia, "I had intended not to go until after the
lecture. Herr Abendgasse is enthusiastic and eloquent, but not
original; and as I have imbibed all his ideas direct from their
inventors, I do not feel called upon to listen to his exposition of
them. So that, unless you are specially interested--"

"Not at all. If he is a socialist I should much rather not listen to
him, particularly on Sunday evening."

So it was arranged that they should go to Mrs. Hoskyn's after the
lecture. Meanwhile they went to Sydenham, where Alice went through
the Crystal Palace with provincial curiosity, and Lydia answered her
questions encyclopedically. In the afternoon there was a concert, at
which a band played several long pieces of music, which Lydia seemed
to enjoy, though she found fault with the performers. Alice, able to
detect neither the faults in the execution nor the beauty of the
music, did as she saw the others do--pretended to be pleased and
applauded decorously. Madame Szczymplica, whom she expected to meet
at Mrs. Hoskyn's, appeared, and played a fantasia for pianoforte and
orchestra by the famous Jack, another of Mrs. Hoskyn's circle. There
was in the programme an analysis of this composition from which
Alice learned that by attentively listening to the adagio she could
hear the angels singing therein. She listened as attentively as she
could, but heard no angels, and was astonished when, at the
conclusion of the fantasia, the audience applauded Madame
Szczymplica as if she had made them hear the music of the spheres.
Even Lydia seemed moved, and said,

"Strange, that she is only a woman like the rest of us, with just
the same narrow bounds to her existence, and just the same prosaic
cares--that she will go by train to Victoria, and from thence home
in a common vehicle instead of embarking in a great shell and being
drawn by swans to some enchanted island. Her playing reminds me of
myself as I was when I believed in fairyland, and indeed knew little
about any other land."

"They say," said Alice, "that her husband is very jealous, and that
she leads him a terrible life."

"THEY SAY anything that brings gifted people to the level of their
own experience. Doubtless they are right. I have not met Mr.
Herbert, but I have seen his pictures, which suggest that he reads
everything and sees nothing; for they all represent scenes described
in some poem. If one could only find an educated man who had never
read a book, what a delightful companion he would be!"

When the concert was over they did not return directly to town, as
Lydia wished to walk awhile in the gardens. In consequence, when
they left Sydenham, they got into a Waterloo train, and so had to
change at Clapham Junction. It was a fine summer evening, and Alice,
though she thought that it became ladies to hide themselves from the
public in waiting-rooms at railway stations, did not attempt to
dissuade Lydia from walking to and fro at an unfrequented end of the
platform, which terminated in a bank covered with flowers.

"To my mind," said Lydia, "Clapham Junction is one of the prettiest
places about London."

"Indeed!" said Alice, a little maliciously. "I thought that all
artistic people looked on junctions and railway lines as blots on
the landscape."

"Some of them do," said Lydia; "but they are not the artists of our
generation; and those who take up their cry are no better than
parrots. If every holiday recollection of my youth, every escape
from town to country, be associated with the railway, I must feel
towards it otherwise than did my father, upon whose middle age it
came as a monstrous iron innovation. The locomotive is one of the
wonders of modern childhood. Children crowd upon a bridge to see the
train pass beneath. Little boys strut along the streets puffing and
whistling in imitation of the engine. All that romance, silly as it
looks, becomes sacred in afterlife. Besides, when it is not
underground in a foul London tunnel, a train is a beautiful thing.
Its pure, white fleece of steam harmonizes with every variety of
landscape. And its sound! Have you ever stood on a sea-coast skirted
by a railway, and listened as the train came into hearing in the far
distance? At first it can hardly be distinguished from the noise of
the sea; then you recognize it by its vibration; one moment
smothered in a deep cutting, and the next sent echoing from some
hillside. Sometimes it runs smoothly for many minutes, and then
breaks suddenly into a rhythmic clatter, always changing in distance
and intensity. When it comes near, you should get into a tunnel, and
stand there while it passes. I did that once, and it was like the
last page of an overture by Beethoven--thunderingly impetuous. I
cannot conceive how any person can hope to disparage a train by
comparing it with a stage-coach; and I know something of
stage-coaches--or, at least, of diligences. Their effect on the men
employed about them ought to decide the superiority of steam without
further argument. I have never observed an engine-driver who did not
seem an exceptionally intelligent mechanic, while the very writers
and artists who have preserved the memory of the coaching days for
us do not appear to have taken coachmen seriously, or to have
regarded them as responsible and civilized men. Abuse of the railway
from a pastoral point of view is obsolete. There are millions of
grown persons in England to whom the far sound of the train is as
pleasantly suggestive as the piping of a blackbird. Again--is not
that Lord Worthington getting out of the train? Yes, that one, at
the third platform from this. He--"She stopped.

Alice looked, but could see neither Lord Worthington nor the cause
of a subtle but perceptible change in Lydia, who said, quickly,

"He is probably coming to our train. Come to the waiting-room." She
walked swiftly along the platform as she spoke. Alice hurried after
her; and they had but just got into the room, the door of which was
close to the staircase which gave access to the platform, when a
coarse din of men's voices showed that a noisy party were ascending
the steps. Presently a man emerged reeling, and at once began to
execute a drunken dance, and to sing as well as his condition and
musical faculty allowed. Lydia stood near the window of the room and
watched in silence. Alice, following her example, recognized the
drunken dancer as Mellish. He was followed by three men gayly
attired and highly elated, but comparatively sober. After them came
Cashel Byron, showily dressed in a velveteen coat, and
tightly-fitting fawn-colored pantaloons that displayed the muscles
of his legs. He also seemed quite sober; but he was dishevelled, and
his left eye blinked frequently, the adjacent brow and cheek being
much yellower than his natural complexion, which appeared to
advantage on the right side of his face. Walking steadily to
Mellish, who was now asking each of the bystanders in turn to come
and drink at his expense, he seized him by the collar and sternly
bade him cease making a fool of himself. Mellish tried to embrace
him.

"My own boy," he exclaimed, affectionately. "He's my little
nonpareil. Cashel Byron again' the world at catch weight. Bob
Mellish's money--"

"You sot," said Cashel, rolling him about until he was giddy as well
as drunk, and then forcing him to sit down on a bench; "one would
think you never saw a mill or won a bet in your life before."

"Steady, Byron," said one of the others. "Here's his lordship." Lord
Worthington was coming up the stairs, apparently the most excited of
the party.

"Fine man!" he cried, patting Cashel on the shoulder. "Splendid man!
You have won a monkey for me to-day; and you shall have your share
of it, old boy."

"I trained him," said Mellish, staggering forward again. "I trained
him. You know me, my lord. You know Bob Mellish. A word with your
lordship in c-confidence. You ask who knows how to make the beef go
and the muscle come. You ask--I ask your lordship's pard'n. What'll
your lordship take?"

"Take care, for Heaven's sake!" exclaimed Lord Worthington,
clutching at him as he reeled backward towards the line. "Don't you
see the train?"

"_I_ know," said Mellish, gravely. "I am all right; no man more so.
I am Bob Mellish. You ask--"

"Here. Come out of this," said one of the party, a powerful man with
a scarred face and crushed nose, grasping Mellish and thrusting him
into the train. "Y'll 'ave to clap a beefsteak on that ogle of
yours, where you napped the Dutchman's auctioneer, Byron. It's got
more yellow paint on it than y'll like to show in church to-morrow."

At this they all gave a roar of laughter, and entered a third-class
carriage. Lydia and Alice had but just time to take their places in
the train before it started.

"Eeally, I must say," said Alice, "that if those were Mr. Cashel
Byron's and Lord Worthington's associates, their tastes are very
peculiar."

"Yes," said Lydia, almost grimly. "I am a fair linguist; but I did
not understand a single sentence of their conversation, though I
heard it all distinctly."

"They were not gentlemen," said Alice. "You say that no one can tell
by a person's appearance whether he is a gentleman or not; but
surely you cannot think that those men are Lord Worthington's
equals."

"I do not," said Lydia. "They are ruffians; and Cashel Byron is the
most unmistakable ruffian of them all."

Alice, awestruck, did not venture to speak again until they left the
train at Victoria. There was a crowd outside the carriage in which
Cashel had travelled. They hastened past; but Lydia asked a guard
whether anything was the matter. He replied that a drunken man,
alighting from the train, had fallen down upon the rails, and that,
had the carriage been in motion, he would have been killed. Lydia
thanked her informant, and, as she turned from him, found Bashville
standing before her, touching his hat. She had given him no
instructions to attend. However, she accepted his presence as a
matter of course, and inquired whether the carriage was there.

"No, madam," replied Bashville. "The coachman had no orders."

"Quite right. A hansom, if you please." When he was gone she said to
Alice, "Did you tell Bashville to meet us?"

"Oh, DEAR, no," said Alice. "I should not think of doing such a
thing."

"Strange! However, he knows his duties better than I do; so I have
no doubt that he has acted properly. He has been waiting all the
afternoon, I suppose, poor fellow."

"He has nothing else to do," said Alice, carelessly. "Here he is. He
has picked out a capital horse for us, too."

Meanwhile, Mellish had been dragged from beneath the train and
seated on the knee of one of his companions. He was in a stupor, and
had a large lump on his brow. His eye was almost closed. The man
with the crushed nose now showed himself an expert surgeon. While
Cashel supported the patient on the knee of another man, and the
rest of the party kept off the crowd by mingled persuasion and
violence, he produced a lancet and summarily reduced the swelling by
lancing it. He then dressed the puncture neatly with appliances for
that purpose which he carried about him, and shouted in Mellish's
ear to rouse him. But the trainer only groaned, and let his head
drop inert on his breast. More shouting was resorted to, but in
vain. Cashel impatiently expressed an opinion that Mellish was
shamming, and declared that he would not stand there to be fooled
with all the evening.

"If he was my pal 'stead o' yours," said the man with the broken
nose, "I'd wake him up fast enough."

"I'll save you the trouble," said Cashel, coolly stooping and
seizing between his teeth the cartilage of the trainer's ear.

"That's the way to do it," said the other, approvingly, as Mellish
screamed and started to his feet. "Now, then. Up with you."

He took Mellish's right arm, Cashel took the left, and they brought
him away between them without paying the least heed to his tears,
his protestations that he was hurt, his plea that he was an old man,
or his bitter demand as to where Cashel would have been at that
moment without his care.

Lord Worthington had taken advantage of this accident to slip away
from his travelling companions and drive alone to his lodgings in
Jermyn Street. He was still greatly excited; and when his valet, an
old retainer with whom he was on familiar terms, brought him a
letter that had arrived during his absence, he asked him four times
whether any one had called, and four times interrupted him by scraps
of information about the splendid day he had had and the luck he was
in.

"I bet five hundred even that it would be over in a quarter of an
hour; and then I bet Byron two hundred and fifty to one that it
wouldn't. That's the way to doit; eh, Bedford? Catch Cashel letting
two hundred and fifty slip through his fingers! By George, though,
he's an artful card. At the end of fourteen minutes I thought my
five hundred was corpsed. The Dutchman was full of fight; and Cashel
suddenly turned weak and tried to back out of the rally. You should
have seen the gleam in the Dutchman's eye when he rushed in after
him. He made cock-sure of finishing him straight off."

"Indeed, my lord. Dear me!"

"I should think so: I was taken in by it myself. It was only done to
draw the poor devil. By George, Bedford, you should have seen the
way Cashel put in his right. But you couldn't have seen it; it was
too quick. The Dutchman was asleep on the grass before he knew he'd
been hit. Byron had collected fifteen pounds for him before he came
to. His jaw must feel devilish queer after it. By Jove, Bedford,
Cashel is a perfect wonder. I'd back him for every cent I possess
against any man alive. He makes you feel proud of being an
Englishman."

Bedford looked on with submissive wonder as his master, transfigured
with enthusiasm, went hastily to and fro through the room,
occasionally clinching his fist and smiting an imaginary Dutchman.
The valet at last ventured to remind him that he had forgotten the
letter.

"Oh, hang the letter!" said Lord Worthington. "It's Mrs. Hoskyn's
writing--an invitation, or some such rot. Here; let's see it."

"Campden Hill Road, Saturday.

"My dear Lord Worthington,--I have not forgotten my promise to
obtain for you a near view of the famous Mrs. Herbert--'Madame
Simplicita,' as you call her. She will be with us to-morrow evening;
and we shall be very happy to see you then, if you care to come. At
nine o'clock, Herr Abendgasse, a celebrated German art critic and a
great friend of mine, will read us a paper on 'The True in Art'; but
I will not pay you the compliment of pretending to believe that that
interests you, so you may come at ten or half-past, by which hour
all the serious business of the evening will be over."

"Well, there is nothing like cheek," said Lord Worthington, breaking
off in his perusal. "These women think that because I enjoy life in
a rational way I don't know the back of a picture from the front, or
the inside of a book from the cover. I shall go at nine sharp."

"If any of your acquaintances take an interest in art, I will gladly
make them welcome. Could you not bring me a celebrity or two? I am
very anxious to have as good an audience as possible for Herr
Abendgasse. However, as it is, he shall have no reason to complain,
as I flatter myself that I have already secured a very distinguished
assembly. Still, if you can add a second illustrious name to my
list, by all means do so."

"Very good, Mrs. Hoskyn," said Lord Worthington, looking cunningly
at the bewildered Bedford. "You shall have a celebrity--a real
one--none of your mouldy old Germans--if I can only get him to come.
If any of her people don't like him they can tell him so. Eh,
Bedford?"

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