The Finger of Fate Part 9

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 pa.s.sion 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 circ.u.mstances were approaching desperation. What was he to do? Enlist in the army? Offer himself on board a merchant s.h.i.+p? 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 Ess.e.x 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 sh.e.l.l-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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 Ess.e.x Street. The ponderous arch was before him, and he was proceeding quietly towards it, when, under the long, low pa.s.sage, 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 Buckinghams.h.i.+re stick upon the head of one of the supporters--"and this!" he cried thrice in rapid succession, as the stick descended on the skull of the second scoundrel, and all three, garrotters and garrotted, sank together upon the pavement.

By the merest accident in the world, a policeman appeared upon the spot.

In Lincoln's Inn Fields there are no area safes, and a great scarcity of rabbit-pie. As a consequence, the guardians of the night may be seen occasionally upon their beat; and, as good-luck would have it, one, sauntering along Great Queen Street, heard the scuffle in the archway, and hastened towards the spot.

He came up in time to a.s.sist Henry Harding in securing the two garrotters, and stripping them of the spoils they had taken from the person of the stranger, of which they had already possessed themselves.

All went together to the police-station, the stranger having by this time partially recovered from his intoxication--_of chloroform_--whence, in a cab, he was taken by Henry Harding to his own lodgings, and left there--with a promise on the part of his rescuer to return to him on the following day.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

TURNED ARTIST.

A slight incident--the dropping of a pin, or the turning of a straw--may affect the whole current of a man's life. There may be a fixed fate: but if so, it often seems to be brought about, or depend upon, circ.u.mstances purely accidental. Had Henry Harding not gone home by Holborn Bars; had he not got down at the corner of Little Queen Street; had he not taken a fancy for sh.e.l.l-fish; had he not that day done a hundred other things, all of which may have indirectly conducted to the encounter described;--his after life might have been as different from what is to be chronicled, as if it were that of some other man.

In a week from that time he might have been on his way to the West Indies, or some part of the great American continent, perhaps never to come back; whereas in a week from that time he was sitting in a studio, with a palette on his left thumb, a brush in his right hand, and an easel in front of him, while the cla.s.sic blouse of brown holland and the embroidered smoking-cap told that he had turned artist.

The change in his life's programme can be easily explained. The gentleman he had rescued from the garrotters had become his patron; and, listening to the counsels of the young Italian artist--for such was he-- he had himself taken to painting as a means of procuring his livelihood.

Nor was it such a despairing adventure. He had already displayed taste in his school-drawings, and was, moreover, gifted with that apt.i.tude for the art that usually leads to success. Almost from the first day spent in the studio he was enabled to produce sketches that could be sold; and these were followed by those "furniture pictures" which have given not only practice but material support to many a struggling artist afterwards eminent in his profession, and who otherwise might never have been heard of.

The young Italian painter--Luigi Torreani by name--was himself but a beginner; but with that talent both of conception and execution, which distinguishes the countrymen of t.i.tian, he was rapidly rising in his profession. He had got beyond the point of painting for mere bread, and was receiving a price for his pictures that promised something more than a subsistence.

It was upon the strength of his own success that he had given counsel to his new acquaintance. He had done so, after ascertaining something of the situation and prospects of the strong, gallant youth who had done him such an essential service. Henry at the time had told him but little of his antecedents. This was not needed to a mind generous as that of Luigi Torreani, and a heart at the same time touched with a sense of grat.i.tude. On discovering the young Englishman's project of self-banishment from his native land, he combated the idea with his counsel, and proposed, in the event of his abandoning it, to instruct him in his own art. In fine, his proposal was accepted, and Henry Harding adopted the profession of painter.

From acquaintances thus strangely introduced to each other, the two young men, not greatly differing in years, became fast friends, sharing apartments, table, studio together, and for many months the friendly a.s.sociation was continued. It was interrupted only by the advice of Luigi, who, deeply interested in the success of his brother artist, became desirous that the latter should spend some time in Rome, to perfect himself in his art by contemplating those cla.s.sic forms so plentiful in the ancient metropolis of the world. For himself, the young Italian needed no such suggestive models. A Roman by birth, he had commenced his studies in their midst, and had ended by transferring his practice to that metropolis where the painting of them was sure to be best paid for. The education of his pupil, then, was to be the reverse of his own. The young English gentleman accepted the advice, less from any profound love of his art or ambition to excel in it, than from a longing, such as most youths feel, to look upon Italy. Italy!

the cla.s.sic land of our school-boy exercises! the land of bright skies and soft summer scenes! the land of Ta.s.so, of Ariosto, Byron, Boccaccio, and the brigands! Who does not desire to behold such a country, cla.s.sically poetical in its past, romantically picturesque in its present, and, it is hoped, to be free and prosperous in its future?

Henry Harding longed to look upon this land; and mingled with his longings was a hope he might there find _Lethe_, or at least some solace for his spirit, still suffering sorely from the cruel treatment he had received--from a double disappointment to his affection and his love.

So long as he remained in England amid its _souvenirs_ and scenes, these sad memories would ever remain fresh. Perhaps in a foreign land, with strange objects under his eye, strange voices sounding in his ear, he might be enabled to realise the truth of the oft-quoted adage, "Absence conquers love."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A SKETCHER SURPRISED.

On the road to Rome, leading out into the Campagna, a young man might have been seen wending his way towards the hill country where shoot down the spurs of the Apennines. At a glance he was not an Italian. A fine open face, with cheeks of ruddy hue, curls caressing them, of a rich auburn colour; but, above all, a frame of strong, almost herculean, build, borne forward by a free unfettered step, p.r.o.nounced a son of the north--a Saxon! A portfolio under his arm, a palette carried in his left hand alongside, some half-dozen camel's-brushes, clearly proclaimed his profession--a painter in search of a subject.

There was nothing in all this to attract the attention of those he met or pa.s.sed upon the route--neither the personal appearance of the painter nor the paraphernalia that declared his calling. An artist on the roads around Rome is an ent.i.ty that may be often encountered--though perhaps not so often as a bandit.

If any one took notice of the individual in question, it was merely to remark that he was a stranger--_un Inglese_--and perhaps wonder why he was trudging out towards the hills, while he might be enjoying himself ten times better in the cabarets and inns of the Eternal City.

That the artist in question was "_Inglese_," no one who saw him doubted; nor will the reader, when told that he was no other than Henry Harding.

Why he was upon a Roman instead of an English road is already known.

Flung upon his own resources in the great city of London--too proud to return to his father's home, stung by what he fancied to have been a refusal to his last request--he had, under the tutelage of his Italian friend, now taken to painting as his profession. He had not stained canvas without some success--enough to justify him in following the advice of Luigi Torreani, and completing his studies under the bright skies of Italy, and amid the cla.s.sic scenes of the seven-hilled city.

Thither had he found his way, with no other support than the precarious earnings of his pencil. This was fully evidenced by his threadbare coat and chafed _chaussure_, as he trudged afoot along the dusty road of the Romagna.

Whither was he going? He was far enough out to have almost lost sight of the Eternal City, and those cla.s.sic monuments that only give proof of its decay. These, one would think, should have been the objects of his study--the subjects upon which to perfect it. And so they had been. He had painted them one after another--portal and palace, sculptured figure and fresco, Capitol and Coliseum--till his head was tired with such art delineation; and he was now on his way to the hills, to drink from the pure fountain of Nature--to fling rock and stream and tree upon the canvas, under the light of an Italian sun, and the canopy of an azure sky.

It was his first journey to the Campagna; he was going without a guide, only inquiring now and then for Valdiorno, a small mountain town lying near the Neapolitan frontier. To the "_sindico_" of this place he carried a letter of introduction, obtained from his son, who was the young Italian artist he had left behind him in London. But the chief object of this country excursion was to find some scene _paintable_, and worthy of being painted.