by Ouida
“You infernal scoundrel! These are my dead mother’s jewels!”
“I know they are, sir. They were doing no good here; and you told the ladies yesterday as all jewellery was an abomination.”
“This is probably not the first time by many that you have robbed me?”
“I let nobody else steal a farthing from you, sir.”
“Indeed! You like vicarious virtue! How could you open the cabinet? It has a Bramah lock.”
“And this here’s a Bramah pick-lock, sir,” says Critchett, displaying an elegant little tool.
“You infernal scoundrel!” repeats Bertram. “If I did my duty, I should give you to the police.”
“Oh, no, sir, you couldn’t do that to be consistent; and consistency is the first of virtues. I’ve heard you say, sir, that prevention is suggestion, and that if there was no constables there’d be no crime. In locking up this cabinet you put into my mind the idea of opening it. It is you, sir, who are to blame, not I.”
Critchett smiles demurely as he repeats these words.
“You have debased me, sir, by making me fill a servile office,” he adds. “No man should serve another. You’ve said so often.”
Bertram is silent, unspeakably annoyed, mortified, and distressed. He cannot discuss ethics with a treacherous valet.
“I believed in you, Critchett,” he says, after a pause.
Critchett smiles.
“I know you did, sir; you believe in a lot o’ things as won’t wash.”
“And you feel no remorse for having deceived me?”
“No, sir. Remorse aren’t seen outside the theatres, I think. ’Tis a word, sir. ’Tis only a word.”
Bertram is silent. The cheap cynicism of this man, who has lived beside him during a dozen years, is revolting.
“You are aware I could have you arrested?” he says, after a pause.
“No, sir, you couldn’t,” replies Critchett, calmly. “You’d be giving the lie to all your own theories. Try and look at it philosophic-like, sir.”
Bertram feels a violent longing to call up the policeman now passing by the rails of the Green Park. He puts a five-pound note on the table.
“Take your wage for the coming month, and begone.”
“It is usual, sir,” objects Critchett, “to give more than a month’s anticipatory honorarium on parting after such long association.”
This is the drop too much which makes the cup of Bertram’s patience overflow.
“You impudent villain,” he exclaims. “The only payment you deserve is the treadmill. Do not stretch my patience too far.” Critchett perceives that his long docile victim is roused, and may become dangerous.
He retreats meekly.
“Would you wish to examine my portmanteau, sir?”
“No,” says Bertram. “Begone.”
Critchett bows very low.
“I have only put your theories into practice, sir,” he says, when he has reached a safe distance; “and you will be sorry if you send me away. You won’t find another Critchett very easily.”
Bertram turns his back on him; he feels again a great inclination to summon the constable who is walking in the street below.
The man having at last departed, he picks up the various objects and begins to replace them in the drawers of the cabinet. He is depressed and humiliated. For over twelve years he has implicitly trusted Critchett, believed in him, extolled him, and depended on him; taking his excellent service as a surety for moral excellence, as most of us do with our servants.
The cool impertinence with which the thief has quoted his own writings and sayings against him mortifies him; he is conscious that Critchett must have always considered him an ineffable idiot. It is not soothing to one’s self-respect to realise that for more than a dozen years one has been made a fool of successfully.
The sight of his mother’s jewels also saddens him; he had been her favourite son, and he had loved her tenderly.
“You will keep them for your wife, Wilfrid,” she had said to him, when she had given him the pearls and other ornaments on her death-bed.
What would his mother say, were she living, to such a wife for him as poor little Annie Brown? Poor Annie! Who said “as how” and “umberellar,” and who “liked to ‘ear the growlers come rattlin’ ‘ome o’ nights.”
“Mr. Bertram,” says the voice of Annie at that moment timidly. She has come through the anteroom of which Critchett has left the door open behind him. She wears the same clothes that she wore in the Park, but she carries no baskets on her arms.
Noticing Bertram’s preoccupied and distressed expression and the litter of objects on the floor, she is afraid she appears at an inopportune moment.
“Lord’s sakes, sir!” she murmurs, “what hev happened?”
“Critchett is a thief, Annie.
I caught him in the act,” replies Bertram, with tragic force.
“Mother always knew as he was so, sir,” replies the girl, not astonished. “But she didn’t dare to tell you. You was that fond on him.”
“How could she possibly Know?”
“Well, sir, he was allers a-boasting of ‘ow he fleeced you. I believe all the gentlemen’s gentlemen in these ’ere parts o’ London know how he tricked ye. Law, sir, he even pawned your shirts!”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Well, you see, sir, we didn’t like to lose a man his place.”
“You condoned a felony sooner?”
“Please, sir, I don’t know what that is. But poor folk don’t never take the bread out of each other’s mouths. And, besides, you wouldn’t have believed anybody against Critchett, sir. You were that wrapped up in him.”
“How cruelly one may be deceived!”
“’Tis easy to deceive you, sir, as instead of seeing people as they is, you see ’em as you fancies ’em to be.”
“Perhaps so. I fear I am a greater fool than I thought.”
“Oh, no, sir; only too trustin’ like.”
“Well, well,” says Bertram, much irritated, “Critchett is a thing of the past. We will never speak of him. But why have you come to my rooms, my dear girl? It is not — not quite — correct. — Cæsar’s wife you know. But perhaps you never heard of her—”
“No, sir. Who was the lady? I only came to say a word, Mr. Bertram. There aren’t no harm in it, though mother would be angry over the place.”
“If you had sent me a line I would have called on you.”
“You see, sir, mother’s and sister Kate’s at home, they’d hear every word, and I want to speak to you all alone. I won’t be many minutes. I don’t think it’s any harm my comin’, though mother would be fit to kill me if she knew—”
“Your mother is quite right in her views, Annie. Young women cannot be too circumspect.”
“I’m alius circumspec’, sir; and — oh, Lord, Mr. Bertram, what a beautiful string o’ pearls!”
“They were my mother’s, Annie. They will be yours.”
“Mine, sir! Lord, never! The idea of Critchett takin’ them pearls. Why they must be worth thousands and thousands!”
“No, a few hundreds. My mother left these things to me for my wife when I should have one. They are very sacred to me. They will be as dear to you, Annie, I am sure?”
“Oh, sir, they’ll never be mine. You might as well talk of my wearin’ the crown of England.”
“Always low and servile comparisons, Annie!”
“Lord, sir, be a queen’s crown low?”
“To think of it as a desirable and enviable thing is extremely low.”
“I’m afraid, sir, I don’t understand. Will you please put up these pearls? They’re that beautiful I don’t dare touch ’em.”
“They will be my wife’s. Therefore I repeat they will be yours.”
“That’s what I come to say to you, sir. What we have thought of won’t never be. Can’t never be. Tisn’t in reason. When the ‘bus run over me in Piccadilly last year, and you picked me up and took
me ‘ome, you seemed like a prince to me, sir—”
“Always vulgar and servile comparisons!”
“And when you come about our place, mother said to me, ‘That gent don’t mean no good, and it’s the broom I’ll take to him’; and Sam he said, ‘If he’s harter Hann I’ll give ’im a ‘idin’.’ And then you said we was to marry, and mother said it was all moon-shine, and Sam didn’t like the idea of it; but you said it would be a beautiful example to all classes, and I — I — well I couldn’t believe my ears, Mr. Bertram.”
“What is the use of going over all this ground, Annie?”
“I want you to understand, sir. I’ve been thinkin’ and thinkin’ of all you said yesterday, and I see, sir, as how you haven’t a mite o’ love for me, and it makes me feel cold all over like—”
“Oh, why do you want love? It is something so vulgar, so unspiritual, so indicative of an unoccupied mind! I have the highest respect for you, which I am about to prove in the strongest manner that any man can prove his sentiments—”
“Yes, I know, sir; but — but—”
“But there are finer sentiments than love!”
“Perhaps there are, sir, for the quality. But love’s poor people’s feast; the only one they ever knows all their days. And — you — don’t love me?” She looks at him fixedly.
He is embarrassed.
“Should I have given you my mother’s pearls if I did not?”
“You haven’t giv’ ’em, and I haven’t took ’em. Some other than me’ll wear ’em. I came to say to you, Mr. Bertram, that I won’t never marry you. Mother says as ‘ow you’ve come into a great fortune; but, whether you’re rich or poor, that’s nothing to me. I won’t marry you, ‘cos we’d be miserable; and that’s what I come here all alone today to say to you.”
“You are faithless, Annie!”
“No, sir; I’m faithful. As for me, I’ll remember ye all my days. P’rhaps I’ll marry, p’rhaps I won’t; but I’ll never forget you, and I’ll pray for you every night.”
Bertram is touched and astonished.
“But, my dear little girl, you have my word of honour. I can’t retract it. I will try and make you happy, Annie.”
“I’m sure you would try, sir; but you couldn’t do it. You’d make me miserable. You haven’t any love for me; you have said you hadn’t. I couldn’t live like that. I’d work on my knees for you all the day long, but I couldn’t stand your chilly pity and your smiling scorn. I’d die of shame and sorrow!”
“My poor child, you exaggerate immensely. You don’t understand what sincere regard I have for you, how honestly I will try to do my duty by you.”
“Sir, I ain’t more fit for you than my poor sun-browned throat be fit for a lady’s jewels. You’ve had a hobby, and you’ve rid it hard, and I was a part of it for awhile. But ’twas only a fancy. Lord! how clear I saw it all when you spoke so scornful-like o’ love! Love may be a ordinary valleyless sort o’ thing like buttercups and daisies, but how them little blossoms do make a glory on a dusty common! It’s the buttercups and daisies as I want, sir; not them cold, white pearls.”
“Poor little Annie! I can’t give you what I have not.”
“No, sir, that’s just it; the fault ain’t none o’ yours. Don’t think as I blame ye, sir, or cast a word against ye. We are as we are made. But it is goodbye, sir, and goodbye it must be for ever. Don’t ye worry or fret. ‘Taint no fault o’ yours. We’re too wide apart, and ’twas folly to think as we could ever be one.”
Her voice breaks down, her tears fall; Bertram takes her hands in his and kisses her on the forehead.
“Dear little Annie! I feel as if I had sinned against you! and yet God knows I had the best intentions; and if I deceived any one, I deceived myself first of all.”
The tramp of heavy steps is heard in the rooms beyond, and Annie’s elder brother, Sam, dashes the door-curtains aside and enters, wildly flourishing a driving-whip.
“Yah! Bloated aristocrat! I’ve nabbed ye at last! Shame on ye! Shame on ye, too, Hann!” he yells at the top of his voice. “Out o’ this room, gal, whilst I gi’e your bloomin’ nob the lickin’ he deserves. ’Tis for this we pore workin’- folk toils and moils and starves, to hev our wimmen-kind trod under foot like dirt by blackguard swells! Sister Kate, at ‘ome, says to me, ‘Sam, run quick and ye’ll catch ’em together.’ And I meets yer servant in the street, and he says, too, ‘Run, Sam, and ye’ll catch ’em together.’ But I never thought, respectable as our fam’ly is, and so mealy-mouthed as is Sister Hann—”
Bertram coldly interposes.
“When you have done yelling, my good youth, will you listen to a word of common sense?”
“Oh, Sam, are you mad?” cries Annie. “Kate never meant anything of the kind. You know Mr. Bertram has ever treated me as if I was a waxworks under a glass case.”
“Take off your hat, put down your whip, apologise to your sister, and listen to me,” says Bertram, with authority.
But the youth is in no mood to hear or to obey. He has taken a glass of gin with a fellow-cabby, and his blood is on fire.”
“I won’t listen to you, nor to nobody. Ye’ll get yer thrashin’ at last, you scoundrel, as preaches to the pore.”
He advances on Bertram, whirling his horsewhip, with a broken lash, above his head. Bertram eyes him calmly, remembers old Oxford rows, straightens his arm, and meets him with a scientific blow which sends him backward on the floor.
“Don’t scream, Annie. I have not hurt your brother; but he must have a lesson,” he says, as he picked up the whip which has dropped, breaks it, in two, and throws the pieces in a corner. “Get up, you dolt, and ask your sister’s pardon,” he adds, severely, “for brawling in her presence.”
Sam Brown does get up, stupidly and slowly, looks around him bewildered, with a dazed, blind look.
“You hits uncommon hard,” he mutters, when he becomes fully alive to the position which he occupies.
“Certainly, I hit hard when I hit at all. You insulted me and, more gravely still, your sister. I am perfectly ready to marry her; but she will not marry me. Can you put that into your brain and understand it?” Sam stares and rubs his aching head.
“Lord, sir, do you mean as Hann hev jilted you?”
“Oh, Sam, how can you!” cries his sister.
“I believe that is what you would call it in your world,” says Bertram, with a slight smile. “Your sister does not wish to marry me. She thinks — perhaps she is right — that I am not worthy of her.”
“Oh, Mr. Bertram! I never —— —”
“She is my dear little friend, Sam,” continues Bertram; “she will always be my friend; and if you presume to slight or worry her in any kind of way, you will have to deal with me. You know now how I treat affronts.”
The youth is still stupid and ruefully rubbing his pate.
“Lawk a mussy! If you would be spliced to her, she is a darned fool.”
“She is a little sage and a little saint. See her safe home, and there are two sovereigns to buy a new whip.”
“Oh, don’t take the money, Sam!” cries Annie.
But Sam pockets the sovereigns.
“Strikes me, mister, you owes me more than that,” he mutters. “’Tis assault and battery.”
“I shall give you no more money,” says Bertram, very decidedly. “I will knock you down again if you like.”
“Come away, Sam,” says Annie, pulling him towards the door. “Oh Sam, aren’t you ashamed?”
“Naw, I ain’t,” says her brother. “Kate said, ‘Run and you’ll find ’em together.’ I run and I did find ye together. How was I to know?”
“Oh, come away, Sam,” repeats his sister, in anguish. “Come away. You disgrace yourself and me. I’ll tell mother.”
Sam is suddenly subdued and greatly alarmed.
“Naw, don’t tell mother,” he mutters, and suffers himself to be led away.
“Oh, I am so ashamed! so ashamed, Mr. Bertram!” says Annie. “Do
pray forgive him. He is only a lad.”
“I would forgive him much heavier offences. He is your brother.”
“God bless you, sir,” she says, softly, looking back at him as she goes out of the door.
“Dear little girl! Dear, honest little girl!” murmurs Bertram. “I will try and get her the kitchen, and the muffin, and the cat, which form her ideal, and some good fellow to sit with her by the hearth. Good Heavens! Can one ever be grateful enough for being saved from relationship to Sam? What an exciting and exhausting day! And I have been very Philistine!”
He looks wearily round the room; it has become shockingly disordered; the drawers of the cabinet are still on the floor; the chairs which fell are still upside down; the broken whip lies in the corner; he is extremely thirsty, and he has not an idea where the mineral waters or the syphon of seltzer, or even the glasses, are kept. In a single quarter of an hour without Critchett order and harmony have been replaced by chaos.
“What miserable, helpless creatures we are!” he reflects. “Of course it all comes from the utterly false system of one person leaning on others.”
Yet he reluctantly realises that this false system has its merits, as far as individual comfort goes.
At that moment there is a sharp ring at the door-bell, and a moment later still a male voice cries:
“Can I come in, Bertram?”
“You, Stanhope?” says Bertram, in extreme surprise.
“Myself,” replies the newcomer.
He is Sir Henry Stanhope, the Home Secretary of the actual Government. Bertram was his fag at Eton, and a good deal of cordial feeling has always existed between them, despite the vast and irreconcilable difference of their political and social opinions. Sir Henry regards him as a maniac, but an interesting and lovable maniac. Bertram regards him in return as a hopeless Philistine, but a Philistine who means well and has good points, and who is, in the exercise of his horrible office, admirably conscientious. His conscientiousness has not, however, prevented him from allowing to go to the gallows a victim of prejudice who killed his wife because he was tired of seeing her red hair — a misguided aesthete for whose release Bertram pleaded in vain. Since the time of this unfortunate affair there has been some chillness in the relations of Stanhope and himself.