Sketches by Boz Read online

  The room-door opened—“Mr. Barton!” said the servant.

  “Confound the man!” murmured Malderton. “Ah! my dear sir, how d'ye do! Any news?”

  “Why no,” returned the grocer, in his usual bluff manner. “No, none partickler. None that I am much aware of. How d'ye do, gals and boys? Mr. Flamwell, sir—glad to see you.”

  “Here's Mr. Sparkins!” said Tom, who had been looking out at the window, “on SUCH a black horse!” There was Horatio, sure enough, on a large black horse, curvetting and prancing along, like an Astley's supernumerary. After a great deal of reining in, and pulling up, with the accompaniments of snorting, rearing, and kicking, the animal consented to stop at about a hundred yards from the gate, where Mr. Sparkins dismounted, and confided him to the care of Mr. Malderton's groom. The ceremony of introduction was gone through, in all due form. Mr. Flamwell looked from behind his green spectacles at Horatio with an air of mysterious importance; and the gallant Horatio looked unutterable things at Teresa.

  “Is he the Honourable Mr. Augustus What's-his-name?” whispered Mrs. Malderton to Flamwell, as he was escorting her to the dining-room.

  “Why, no—at least not exactly,” returned that great authority—“not exactly.”

  “Who IS he then?”

  “Hush!” said Flamwell, nodding his head with a grave air, importing that he knew very well; but was prevented, by some grave reasons of state, from disclosing the important secret. It might be one of the ministers making himself acquainted with the views of the people.

  “Mr. Sparkins,” said the delighted Mrs. Malderton, “pray divide the ladies. John, put a chair for the gentleman between Miss Teresa and Miss Marianne.” This was addressed to a man who, on ordinary occasions, acted as half-groom, half-gardener; but who, as it was important to make an impression on Mr. Sparkins, had been forced into a white neckerchief and shoes, and touched up, and brushed, to look like a second footman.

  The dinner was excellent; Horatio was most attentive to Miss Teresa, and every one felt in high spirits, except Mr. Malderton, who, knowing the propensity of his brother-in-law, Mr. Barton, endured that sort of agony which the newspapers inform us is experienced by the surrounding neighbourhood when a pot-boy hangs himself in a hay-loft, and which is “much easier to be imagined than described.”

  “Have you seen your friend, Sir Thomas Noland, lately, Flamwell?” inquired Mr. Malderton, casting a sidelong look at Horatio, to see what effect the mention of so great a man had upon him.

  “Why, no—not very lately. I saw Lord Gubbleton the day before yesterday.”

  “All! I hope his lordship is very well?” said Malderton, in a tone of the greatest interest. It is scarcely necessary to say that, until that moment, he had been quite innocent of the existence of such a person.

  “Why, yes; he was very well—very well indeed. He's a devilish good fellow. I met him in the City, and had a long chat with him. Indeed, I'm rather intimate with him. I couldn't stop to talk to him as long as I could wish, though, because I was on my way to a banker's, a very rich man, and a member of Parliament, with whom I am also rather, indeed I may say very, intimate.”

  “I know whom you mean,” returned the host, consequentially—in reality knowing as much about the matter as Flamwell himself.—“He has a capital business.”

  This was touching on a dangerous topic.

  “Talking of business,” interposed Mr. Barton, from the centre of the table. “A gentleman whom you knew very well, Malderton, before you made that first lucky spec of yours, called at our shop the other day, and—”

  “Barton, may I trouble you for a potato?” interrupted the wretched master of the house, hoping to nip the story in the bud.

  “Certainly,” returned the grocer, quite insensible of his brotherin-law's object—“and he said in a very plain manner—”

  “FLOURY, if you please,” interrupted Malderton again; dreading the termination of the anecdote, and fearing a repetition of the word “shop.”

  “He said, says he,” continued the culprit, after despatching the potato; “says he, how goes on your business? So I said, jokingly—you know my way—says I, I'm never above my business, and I hope my business will never be above me. Ha, ha!”

  “Mr. Sparkins,” said the host, vainly endeavouring to conceal his dismay, “a glass of wine?”

  “With the utmost pleasure, sir.”

  “Happy to see you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We were talking the other evening,” resumed the host, addressing Horatio, partly with the view of displaying the conversational powers of his new acquaintance, and partly in the hope of drowning the grocer's stories—“we were talking the other night about the nature of man. Your argument struck me very forcibly.”

  “And me,” said Mr. Frederick. Horatio made a graceful inclination of the head.

  “Pray, what is your opinion of woman, Mr. Sparkins?” inquired Mrs. Malderton. The young ladies simpered.

  “Man,” replied Horatio, “man, whether he ranged the bright, gay, flowery plains of a second Eden, or the more sterile, barren, and I may say, commonplace regions, to which we are compelled to accustom ourselves, in times such as these; man, under any circumstances, or in any place—whether he were bending beneath the withering blasts of the frigid zone, or scorching under the rays of a vertical sun—man, without woman, would be—alone.”

  “I am very happy to find you entertain such honourable opinions, Mr. Sparkins,” said Mrs. Malderton.

  “And I,” added Miss Teresa. Horatio looked his delight, and the young lady blushed.

  “Now, it's my opinion—” said Mr. Barton.

  “I know what you're going to say,” interposed Malderton, determined not to give his relation another opportunity, “and I don't agree with you.”

  “What!” inquired the astonished grocer.

  “I am sorry to differ from you, Barton,” said the host, in as positive a manner as if he really were contradicting a position which the other had laid down, “but I cannot give my assent to what I consider a very monstrous proposition.”

  “But I meant to say—”

  “You never can convince me,” said Malderton, with an air of obstinate determination. “Never.”

  “And I,” said Mr. Frederick, following up his father's attack, “cannot entirely agree in Mr. Sparkins's argument.”

  “What!” said Horatio, who became more metaphysical, and more argumentative, as he saw the female part of the family listening in wondering delight—“what! Is effect the consequence of cause? Is cause the precursor of effect?”

  “That's the point,” said Flamwell.

  “To be sure,” said Mr. Malderton.

  “Because, if effect is the consequence of cause, and if cause does precede effect, I apprehend you are wrong,” added Horatio.

  “Decidedly,” said the toad-eating Flamwell.

  “At least, I apprehend that to be the just and logical deduction?” said Sparkins, in a tone of interrogation.

  “No doubt of it,” chimed in Flamwell again. “It settles the point.”

  “Well, perhaps it does,” said Mr. Frederick; “I didn't see it before.”

  “I don't exactly see it now,” thought the grocer; “but I suppose it's all right.”

  “How wonderfully clever he is!” whispered Mrs. Malderton to her daughters, as they retired to the drawing-room.

  “Oh, he's quite a love!” said both the young ladies together; “he talks like an oracle. He must have seen a great deal of life.”

  The gentlemen being left to themselves, a pause ensued, during which everybody looked very grave, as if they were quite overcome by the profound nature of the previous discussion. Flamwell, who had made up his mind to find out who and what Mr. Horatio Sparkins really was, first broke silence.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said that distinguished personage, “I presume you have studied for the bar? I thought of entering once, myself—indeed, I'm rather intimate with some of the highes
t ornaments of that distinguished profession.”

  “N-no!” said Horatio, with a little hesitation; “not exactly.”

  “But you have been much among the silk gowns, or I mistake?” inquired Flamwell, deferentially.

  “Nearly all my life,” returned Sparkins.

  The question was thus pretty well settled in the mind of Mr. Flamwell. He was a young gentleman “about to be called.”

  “I shouldn't like to be a barrister,” said Tom, speaking for the first time, and looking round the table to find somebody who would notice the remark.

  No one made any reply.

  “I shouldn't like to wear a wig,” said Tom, hazarding another observation.

  “Tom, I beg you will not make yourself ridiculous,” said his father. “Pray listen, and improve yourself by the conversation you hear, and don't be constantly making these absurd remarks.”

  “Very well, father,” replied the unfortunate Tom, who had not spoken a word since he had asked for another slice of beef at a quarter-past five o'clock, P. M., and it was then eight.

  “Well, Tom,” observed his good-natured uncle, “never mind! I think with you. I shouldn't like to wear a wig. I'd rather wear an apron.”

  Mr. Malderton coughed violently. Mr. Barton resumed—“For if a man's above his business—”

  The cough returned with tenfold violence, and did not cease until the unfortunate cause of it, in his alarm, had quite forgotten what he intended to say.

  “Mr. Sparkins,” said Flamwell, returning to the charge, “do you happen to know Mr. Delafontaine, of Bedford-square?”

  “I have exchanged cards with him; since which, indeed, I have had an opportunity of serving him considerably,” replied Horatio, slightly colouring; no doubt, at having been betrayed into making the acknowledgment.

  “You are very lucky, if you have had an opportunity of obliging that great man,” observed Flamwell, with an air of profound respect.

  “I don't know who he is,” he whispered to Mr. Malderton, confidentially, as they followed Horatio up to the drawing-room. “It's quite clear, however, that he belongs to the law, and that he is somebody of great importance, and very highly connected.”

  “No doubt, no doubt,” returned his companion.

  The remainder of the evening passed away most delightfully. Mr. Malderton, relieved from his apprehensions by the circumstance of Mr. Barton's falling into a profound sleep, was as affable and gracious as possible. Miss Teresa played the “Fall of Paris,” as Mr. Sparkins declared, in a most masterly manner, and both of them, assisted by Mr. Frederick, tried over glees and trios without number; they having made the pleasing discovery that their voices harmonised beautifully. To be sure, they all sang the first part; and Horatio, in addition to the slight drawback of having no ear, was perfectly innocent of knowing a note of music; still, they passed the time very agreeably, and it was past twelve o'clock before Mr. Sparkins ordered the mourning-coach-looking steed to be brought out—an order which was only complied with, on the distinct understanding that he was to repeat his visit on the following Sunday.

  “But, perhaps, Mr. Sparkins will form one of our party to-morrow evening?” suggested Mrs. M. “Mr. Malderton intends taking the girls to see the pantomime.” Mr. Sparkins bowed, and promised to join the party in box 48, in the course of the evening.

  “We will not tax you for the morning,” said Miss Teresa, bewitchingly; “for ma is going to take us to all sorts of places, shopping. I know that gentlemen have a great horror of that employment.” Mr. Sparkins bowed again, and declared that he should be delighted, but business of importance occupied him in the morning. Flamwell looked at Malderton significantly.—“It's term time!” he whispered.

  At twelve o'clock on the following morning, the “fly” was at the door of Oak Lodge, to convey Mrs. Malderton and her daughters on their expedition for the day. They were to dine and dress for the play at a friend's house. First, driving thither with their bandboxes, they departed on their first errand to make some purchases at Messrs. Jones, Spruggins, and Smith's, of Tottenham-court-road; after which, they were to go to Redmayne's in Bond-street; thence, to innumerable places that no one ever heard of. The young ladies beguiled the tediousness of the ride by eulogising Mr. Horatio Sparkins, scolding their mamma for taking them so far to save a shilling, and wondering whether they should ever reach their destination. At length, the vehicle stopped before a dirty-looking ticketed linen-draper's shop, with goods of all kinds, and labels of all sorts and sizes, in the window. There were dropsical figures of seven with a little three-farthings in the corner; “perfectly invisible to the naked eye;” three hundred and fifty thousand ladies” boas, FROM one shilling and a penny halfpenny; real French kid shoes, at two and ninepence per pair; green parasols, at an equally cheap rate; and “every description of goods,” as the proprietors said—and they must know best—“fifty per cent. under cost price.”

  “Lor! ma, what a place you have brought us to!” said Miss Teresa; “what WOULD Mr. Sparkins say if he could see us!”

  “Ah! what, indeed!” said Miss Marianne, horrified at the idea.

  “Pray be seated, ladies. What is the first article?” inquired the obsequious master of the ceremonies of the establishment, who, in his large white neckcloth and formal tie, looked like a bad “portrait of a gentleman” in the Somerset-house exhibition.

  “I want to see some silks,” answered Mrs. Malderton.

  “Directly, ma'am.—Mr. Smith! Where IS Mr. Smith?”

  “Here, sir,” cried a voice at the back of the shop.

  “Pray make haste, Mr. Smith,” said the M. C. “You never are to be found when you're wanted, sir.”

  Mr. Smith, thus enjoined to use all possible despatch, leaped over the counter with great agility, and placed himself before the newly-arrived customers. Mrs. Malderton uttered a faint scream; Miss Teresa, who had been stooping down to talk to her sister, raised her head, and beheld—Horatio Sparkins!

  “We will draw a veil,” as novel-writers say, over the scene that ensued. The mysterious, philosophical, romantic, metaphysical Sparkins—he who, to the interesting Teresa, seemed like the embodied idea of the young dukes and poetical exquisites in blue silk dressing-gowns, and ditto ditto slippers, of whom she had read and dreamed, but had never expected to behold, was suddenly converted into Mr. Samuel Smith, the assistant at a “cheap shop;” the junior partner in a slippery firm of some three weeks” existence. The dignified evanishment of the hero of Oak Lodge, on this unexpected recognition, could only be equalled by that of a furtive dog with a considerable kettle at his tail. All the hopes of the Maldertons were destined at once to melt away, like the lemon ices at a Company's dinner; Almack's was still to them as distant as the North Pole; and Miss Teresa had as much chance of a husband as Captain Ross had of the north-west passage.

  Years have elapsed since the occurrence of this dreadful morning. The daisies have thrice bloomed on Camberwell-green; the sparrows have thrice repeated their vernal chirps in Camberwell-grove; but the Miss Maldertons are still unmated. Miss Teresa's case is more desperate than ever; but Flamwell is yet in the zenith of his reputation; and the family have the same predilection for aristocratic personages, with an increased aversion to anything LOW.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE BLACK VEIL

  One winter's evening, towards the close of the year 1800, or within a year or two of that time, a young medical practitioner, recently established in business, was seated by a cheerful fire in his little parlour, listening to the wind which was beating the rain in pattering drops against the window, or rumbling dismally in the chimney. The night was wet and cold; he had been walking through mud and water the whole day, and was now comfortably reposing in his dressing-gown and slippers, more than half asleep and less than half awake, revolving a thousand matters in his wandering imagination. First, he thought how hard the wind was blowing, and how the cold, sharp rain would be at that moment beating in his face, if he were not comfortably ho
used at home. Then, his mind reverted to his annual Christmas visit to his native place and dearest friends; he thought how glad they would all be to see him, and how happy it would make Rose if he could only tell her that he had found a patient at last, and hoped to have more, and to come down again, in a few months” time, and marry her, and take her home to gladden his lonely fireside, and stimulate him to fresh exertions. Then, he began to wonder when his first patient would appear, or whether he was destined, by a special dispensation of Providence, never to have any patients at all; and then, he thought about Rose again, and dropped to sleep and dreamed about her, till the tones of her sweet merry voice sounded in his ears, and her soft tiny hand rested on his shoulder.

  There WAS a hand upon his shoulder, but it was neither soft nor tiny; its owner being a corpulent round-headed boy, who, in consideration of the sum of one shilling per week and his food, was let out by the parish to carry medicine and messages. As there was no demand for the medicine, however, and no necessity for the messages, he usually occupied his unemployed hours—averaging fourteen a day—in abstracting peppermint drops, taking animal nourishment, and going to sleep.

  “A lady, sir—a lady!” whispered the boy, rousing his master with a shake.

  “What lady?” cried our friend, starting up, not quite certain that his dream was an illusion, and half expecting that it might be Rose herself.—“What lady? Where?”

  “THERE, sir!” replied the boy, pointing to the glass door leading into the surgery, with an expression of alarm which the very unusual apparition of a customer might have tended to excite.

  The surgeon looked towards the door, and started himself, for an instant, on beholding the appearance of his unlooked-for visitor.

  It was a singularly tall woman, dressed in deep mourning, and standing so close to the door that her face almost touched the glass. The upper part of her figure was carefully muffled in a black shawl, as if for the purpose of concealment; and her face was shrouded by a thick black veil. She stood perfectly erect, her figure was drawn up to its full height, and though the surgeon felt that the eyes beneath the veil were fixed on him, she stood perfectly motionless, and evinced, by no gesture whatever, the slightest consciousness of his having turned towards her.