The Finger of Fate: A Romance. Reid Mayne
the solicitor himself, but the head clerk of his office. General Harding had written no letter lately to Messrs Lawson and Son (the name of the firm), either in reference to him or any other matter. “He’s not going, to send it,” bitterly soliloquised Henry as he left the solicitor’s office. “I suppose I’m not punished enough – so he thinks, with my precious brother to back him. Well, he can keep it. I shall never ask another shilling from him, if I have to starve.”
There is a sort of pleasure in this self-abnegation – at least, during the incipient stages of it. But it is a pleasure traceable rather to revenge than virtue, and often dies out before the passion that has given it birth.
With Henry Harding it was not so short-lived. His spirit had been sorely chafed by the treatment he had received both from his sweetheart and his father. He could not separate them in his mind; and his resentment, directed against both, was strong enough to lead him to almost any resolution. He formed that of not going back to the office of the solicitor, and he kept it. It cost him a struggle, to which, perhaps, a less proud spirit would have yielded, for he was soon suffering from want of cash. His spendthrift life had suddenly come to an end, since he had no means of continuing it; and he was forced to the reflection how he could find the means of a mere living. He had changed his quarters to a cheaper hotel, but even this would require cash to pay for it, so that his circumstances were approaching desperation. What was he to do? Enlist in the army? Offer himself on board a merchant ship? Drive a cab? Carry a sandwich? Or sweep a crossing? None of these occupations were exactly suited to his taste. Better than any or all of them – go abroad. There, if it come to the worst, he could try one or the other.
But there were other chances to be found abroad; and abroad he determined upon going. Fortunately he had sufficient left to carry him across the sea, even the great Atlantic Ocean; for, if his coin had been all spent, he had still something in the shape of a valuable watch, pins, rings, and other bijouterie, that could be converted into currency. These would yield enough to pay his passage to any part of the New World – for he intended going there, or to some distant land, far away from his father and Belle Mainwaring.
He had converted his chattels into cash – a thing that can be done in London in an incredibly short space of time, if we are not particular about the price. He had made a visit to the West India Docks, for the purpose of inspecting an advertised ship, and was returning home not over-satisfied either with himself or his fortunes. The berth offered him was shabby, and not cheap, and he had hesitated about accepting it. He had gone afterwards to Greenwich Park – the Elysian fields of the humble excursionist – and there, of course, partaken of tea and shrimps. It was nearly twelve at night as he dismounted from the knife-board of a Holborn ’bus, and turned down Little Queen Street on the way to his quarters in Essex Street, Strand. He had taken a Paddington omnibus as the only one plying westward at that late hour.
As he stepped into the little street his eye fell upon an oyster-shop, usually open to the latest hours of the night, and some of the earliest of the morning. Not satisfied with the Greenwich diet of tea and shrimps – long since digested – he entered the oyster-shop, and gave an order for a dozen of those delicious bivalves to be opened for him. There was another guest standing before the bar – a young man who having gone in before him, had given a similar order, and was already engaged in swallowing the shell-fish.
With the appearance of this young man Henry Harding was strangely impressed. He was handsome, of a complexion almost olive, dark curling hair, a full round eye, and an aquiline nose – features that at once proclaimed him a foreigner. The few words to which he gave utterance confirmed it. They were spoken in very imperfect English, with an accent which appeared to be Italian. Notwithstanding a somewhat threadbare suit of clothes, his bearing told either of birth or breeding; in short, one could not have made much of a mistake in supposing him to have been brought up a gentleman.
If Henry Harding had been asked why the young man interested him, he, perhaps, could not have told. But it was his well-bred air, coupled with garments that scarce corresponded; and, above all, the idea that he was looking upon a stranger in a strange land, alone, perhaps friendless – a foreshadowing of his own future. These were the thoughts passing in his mind, which at the moment made him look with a friendly eye upon his fellow oyster-eater at the bar.
He was in the mood to have addressed him; but a certain air of seriousness in the young man’s countenance, coupled with the fact of his speaking English so imperfectly, with a fear that the intrusion might be mistaken, hindered the young ex-squire of the Chilterns from taking this liberty.
The other merely glanced at him, and noticing an aristocratic face, with a Bond Street style of dress, supposed, no doubt, that he was standing beside some “swell,” who had stepped out of the Casino close by. Such a character would be no company for him; and with this reflection he finished his oysters, paid for them over the counter, and passed out into the street.
The young Englishman saw him depart with a reflection just bordering on pain. There was a face that had strangely interested him. It was not likely in the great world of London he would ever see it again. Besides, he would soon himself be beyond the confines of that world, still further lessening the chances of a re-encounter. With this thought he dismissed the stranger from his mind, paid the reckoning at the oyster-bar, and made a fresh start for his lodgings in the Strand.
He had cleared Little Queen Street, and entered the sister street of similar name. The night was a dark one, and not a soul was to be seen or met: for he was now outside the meretricious circle of which at that hour the Holborn Casino is the centre.
He had turned his face towards Lincoln’s Inn Fields, as along the western edge of this square was the shortest route to Essex Street. The ponderous arch was before him, and he was proceeding quietly towards it, when, under the long, low passage, dimly lit, he perceived what appeared to be the figures of three men. One of them was apparently tipsy, the other two taking care of him.
He didn’t much relish squeezing past this group; but there was no help for it, so he kept on. When close up to them he saw that the drunken man was absolutely helpless, his legs refusing to do him the slightest service, and he was only prevented from sinking down on the pavement by the support of his companions, one on each side of him. They halted under the shadow of the archway, and did not show any signs of moving onward. Perhaps they had had a long walk since leaving their “public,” and wanted a little rest. That was no business of Henry Harding’s, and he was quite contented to pass on without interfering – the more so as the countenance of one of the sober parties of the trio, turned for a moment towards him as he came up, clearly counselled the shunning of its owner.
He was passing on, and had already got beyond the group, when curiosity prompted him to glance back. The face of a man so helplessly intoxicated as the one supported between the other two could not be other than a curious spectacle.
Henry Harding looked upon it. There was a lamplight near that enabled him to do so, and further to distinguish the countenance of the inebriate. It was not without an exclamation of surprise that he recognised the features which had so strangely interested him – those of the stranger late seen in the oyster-shop!
“What’s this?” he exclaimed, suddenly turning upon his heel, and facing the trio. “This gentleman drunk?”
“Drunk as Bacchis!” answered one of the men. “We’re tryin’ to get ’im home, an’ ha’ been at it for the best part o’ an hour.”
“Indeed!”
“Yis, sir. He’s had a drop too much, as ye see. He’s a friend of ours, and we don’t want the perlice to take him to the station.”
“Of course you don’t,” said the young sprig of Beechwood Park, now fully comprehending the case. “Well, that’s kind of you both, but, as I am also a friend of this gentleman, you had better leave him in my charge, and save yourselves any farther trouble. Do you agree to it?”
“Agree be blowed! What do you mean?”
“This!” shouted Henry, who could no longer restrain his indignation. “This!” he repeated, delivering a blow of his stout Buckinghamshire stick upon the head of one of the supporters – “and this!” he cried thrice in rapid succession, as the stick descended