Night and Morning, Complete

The next day being Sunday, the bureau was closed, and Philip and Gawtrey repaired to the convent. It was a dismal-looking place as to the exterior; but, within, there was a large garden, well kept, and, notwithstanding the winter, it seemed fair and refreshing, compared with the polluted streets. The window of the room into which they were shown looked upon the green sward, with walls covered with ivy at the farther end. And Philip’s own childhood came back to him as he gazed on the quiet of the lonely place.

The door opened—an infant voice was heard, a voice of glee—of rapture; and a child, light and beautiful as a fairy, bounded to Gawtrey’s breast.

Nestling there, she kissed his face, his hands, his clothes, with a passion that did not seem to belong to her age, laughing and sobbing almost at a breath.

On his part, Gawtrey appeared equally affected: he stroked down her hair with his huge hand, calling her all manner of pet names, in a tremulous voice that vainly struggled to be gay.

At length he took the toys he had brought with him from his capacious pockets, and strewing them on the floor, fairly stretched his vast bulk along; while the child tumbled over him, sometimes grasping at the toys, and then again returning to his bosom, and laying her head there, looked up quietly into his eyes, as if the joy were too much for her.

Morton, unheeded by both, stood by with folded arms. He thought of his lost and ungrateful brother, and muttered to himself:

“Fool! when she is older, she will forsake him!”

Fanny betrayed in her face the Italian origin of her father. She had that exceeding richness of complexion which, though not common even in Italy, is only to be found in the daughters of that land, and which harmonised well with the purple lustre of her hair, and the full, clear iris of the dark eyes. Never were parted cherries brighter than her dewy lips; and the colour of the open neck and the rounded arms was of a whiteness still more dazzling, from the darkness of the hair and the carnation of the glowing cheek.

Suddenly Fanny started from Gawtrey’s arms, and running up to Morton, gazed at him wistfully, and said, in French:

“Who are you? Do you come from the moon? I think you do.” Then, stopping abruptly, she broke into a verse of a nursery-song, which she chaunted with a low, listless tone, as if she were not conscious of the sense. As she thus sang, Morton, looking at her, felt a strange and painful doubt seize him. The child’s eyes, though soft, were so vacant in their gaze.

“And why do I come from the moon?” said he.

“Because you look sad and cross. I don’t like you—I don’t like the moon; it gives me a pain here!” and she put her hand to her temples. “Have you got anything for Fanny—poor, poor Fanny?” and, dwelling on the epithet, she shook her head mournfully.

“You are rich, Fanny, with all those toys.”

“Am I? Everybody calls me poor Fanny—everybody but papa;” and she ran again to Gawtrey, and laid her head on his shoulder.

“She calls me papa!” said Gawtrey, kissing her; “you hear it? Bless her!”

“And you never kiss any one but Fanny—you have no other little girl?” said the child, earnestly, and with a look less vacant than that which had saddened Morton.

“No other—no—nothing under heaven, and perhaps above it, but you!” and he clasped her in his arms. “But,” he added, after a pause—“but mind me, Fanny, you must like this gentleman. He will be always good to you: and he had a little brother whom he was as fond of as I am of you.”

“No, I won’t like him—I won’t like anybody but you and my sister!”

“Sister!—who is your sister?”

The child’s face relapsed into an expression almost of idiotcy. “I don’t know—I never saw her. I hear her sometimes, but I don’t understand what she says.—Hush! come here!” and she stole to the window on tiptoe. Gawtrey followed and looked out.

“Do you hear her, now?” said Fanny. “What does she say?”

As the girl spoke, some bird among the evergreens uttered a shrill, plaintive cry, rather than song—a sound which the thrush occasionally makes in the winter, and which seems to express something of fear, and pain, and impatience. “What does she say?—can you tell me?” asked the child.

“Pooh! that is a bird; why do you call it your sister?”

“I don’t know!—because it is—because it—because—I don’t know—is it not in pain?—do something for it, papa!”

Gawtrey glanced at Morton, whose face betokened his deep pity, and creeping up to him, whispered,—

“Do you think she is really touched here? No, no,—she will outgrow it—I am sure she will!”

Morton sighed.

Fanny by this time had again seated herself in the middle of the floor, and arranged her toys, but without seeming to take pleasure in them.

At last Gawtrey was obliged to depart. The lay sister, who had charge of Fanny, was summoned into the parlour; and then the child’s manner entirely changed; her face grew purple—she sobbed with as much anger as grief. “She would not leave papa—she would not go—that she would not!”

“It is always so,” whispered Gawtrey to Morton, in an abashed and apologetic voice. “It is so difficult to get away from her. Just go and talk with her while I steal out.”

Morton went to her, as she struggled with the patient good-natured sister, and began to soothe and caress her, till she turned on him her large humid eyes, and said, mournfully,

“Tu es mechant, tu. Poor Fanny!”

“But this pretty doll—” began the sister. The child looked at it joylessly.

“And papa is going to die!”

“Whenever Monsieur goes,” whispered the nun, “she always says that he is dead, and cries herself quietly to sleep; when Monsieur returns, she says he is come to life again. Some one, I suppose, once talked to her about death; and she thinks when she loses sight of any one, that that is death.”

“Poor child!” said Morton, with a trembling voice.

The child looked up, smiled, stroked his cheek with her little hand, and said:

“Thank you!—Yes! poor Fanny! Ah, he is going—see!—let me go too—tu es mechant.”

“But,” said Morton, detaining her gently, “do you know that you give him pain?—you make him cry by showing pain yourself. Don’t make him so sad!”

The child seemed struck, hung down her head for a moment, as if in thought, and then, jumping from Morton’s lap, ran to Gawtrey, put up her pouting lips, and said:

“One kiss more!”

Gawtrey kissed her, and turned away his head.

“Fanny is a good girl!” and Fanny, as she spoke, went back to Morton, and put her little fingers into her eyes, as if either to shut out Gawtrey’s retreat from her sight, or to press back her tears.

“Give me the doll now, sister Marie.”

Morton smiled and sighed, placed the child, who struggled no more, in the nun’s arms, and left the room; but as he closed the door he looked back, and saw that Fanny had escaped from the sister, thrown herself on the floor, and was crying, but not loud.

“Is she not a little darling?” said Gawtrey, as they gained the street.

“She is, indeed, a most beautiful child!”

“And you will love her if I leave her penniless,” said Gawtrey, abruptly. “It was your love for your mother and your brother that made me like you from the first. Ay,” continued Gawtrey, in a tone of great earnestness, “ay, and whatever may happen to me, I will strive and keep you, my poor lad, harmless; and what is better, innocent even of such matters as sit light enough on my own well-seasoned conscience. In turn, if ever you have the power, be good to her,—yes, be good to her! and I won’t say a harsh word to you if ever you like to turn king’s evidence against myself.”

“Gawtrey!” said Morton, reproachfully, and almost fiercely.

“Bah!—such things are! But tell me honestly, do you think she is very strange—very deficient?”

“I have not seen enough of her to judge,” answered Morton, evasively.

“She is so changeful,” persisted Gawtrey. “Sometimes you would say that she was above her age, she comes out with such thoughtful, clever things; then, the next moment, she throws me into despair. These nuns are very skilful in education—at least they are said to be so. The doctors give me hope, too. You see, her poor mother was very unhappy at the time of her birth—delirious, indeed: that may account for it. I often fancy that it is the constant excitement which her state occasions me that makes me love her so much. You see she is one who can never shift for herself. I must get money for her; I have left a little already with the superior, and I would not touch it to save myself from famine! If she has money people will be kind enough to her. And then,” continued Gawtrey, “you must perceive that she loves nothing in the world but me—me, whom nobody else loves! Well—well, now to the shop again!”

On returning home the bonne informed them that a lady had called, and asked both for Monsieur Love and the young gentleman, and seemed much chagrined at missing both. By the description, Morton guessed she was the fair incognita, and felt disappointed at having lost the interview.

CHAPTER V

“The cursed carle was at his wonted trade,Still tempting heedless men into his snare,In witching wise, as I before have said;But when he saw, in goodly gear array’d,The grave majestic knight approaching nigh,His countenance fell.”—THOMSON, Castle of Indolence.

The morning rose that was to unite Monsieur Goupille with Mademoiselle Adele de Courval. The ceremony was performed, and bride and bridegroom went through that trying ordeal with becoming gravity. Only the elegant Adele seemed more unaffectedly agitated than Mr. Love could well account for; she was very nervous in church, and more often turned her eyes to the door than to the altar. Perhaps she wanted to run away; but it was either too late or too early for the proceeding. The rite performed, the happy pair and their friends adjourned to the Cadran Bleu, that restaurant so celebrated in the festivities of the good citizens of Paris. Here Mr. Love had ordered, at the epicier’s expense, a most tasteful entertainment.

“Sacre! but you have not played the economist, Monsieur Lofe,” said Monsieur Goupille, rather querulously, as he glanced at the long room adorned with artificial flowers, and the table a cingitante couverts.

“Bah!” replied Mr. Love, “you can retrench afterwards. Think of the fortune she brought you.”

“It is a pretty sum, certainly,” said Monsieur Goupille, “and the notary is perfectly satisfied.”

“There is not a marriage in Paris that does me more credit,” said Mr. Love; and he marched off to receive the compliments and congratulations that awaited him among such of the guests as were aware of his good offices. The Vicomte de Vaudemont was of course not present. He had not been near Mr. Love since Adele had accepted the epicier. But Madame Beavor, in a white bonnet lined with lilac, was hanging, sentimentally, on the arm of the Pole, who looked very grand with his white favour; and Mr. Higgins had been introduced, by Mr. Love, to a little dark Creole, who wore paste diamonds, and had very languishing eyes; so that Mr. Love’s heart might well swell with satisfaction at the prospect of the various blisses to come, which might owe their origin to his benevolence. In fact, that archpriest of the Temple of Hymen was never more great than he was that day; never did his establishment seem more solid, his reputation more popular, or his fortune more sure. He was the life of the party.

The banquet over, the revellers prepared for a dance. Monsieur Goupille, in tights, still tighter than he usually wore, and of a rich nankeen, quite new, with striped silk stockings, opened the ball with the lady of a rich patissier in the same Faubourg; Mr. Love took out the bride. The evening advanced; and after several other dances of ceremony, Monsieur Goupille conceived himself entitled to dedicate one to connubial affection. A country-dance was called, and the epicier claimed the fair hand of the gentle Adele. About this time, two persons not hitherto perceived had quietly entered the room, and, standing near the doorway, seemed examining the dancers, as if in search for some one. They bobbed their heads up and down, to and fro stopped—now stood on tiptoe. The one was a tall, large-whiskered, fair-haired man; the other, a little, thin, neatly-dressed person, who kept his hand on the arm of his companion, and whispered to him from time to time. The whiskered gentleman replied in a guttural tone, which proclaimed his origin to be German. The busy dancers did not perceive the strangers. The bystanders did, and a hum of curiosity circled round; who could they be?—who had invited them?—they were new faces in the Faubourg—perhaps relations to Adele?

In high delight the fair bride was skipping down the middle, while Monsieur Goupille, wiping his forehead with care, admired her agility; when, to and behold! the whiskered gentleman I have described abruptly advanced from his companion, and cried:

“La voila!—sacre tonnerre!”

At that voice—at that apparition, the bride halted; so suddenly indeed, that she had not time to put down both feet, but remained with one high in the air, while the other sustained itself on the light fantastic toe. The company naturally imagined this to be an operatic flourish, which called for approbation. Monsieur Love, who was thundering down behind her, cried, “Bravo!” and as the well-grown gentleman had to make a sweep to avoid disturbing her equilibrium, he came full against the whiskered stranger, and sent him off as a bat sends a ball.

“Mon Dieu!” cried Monsieur Goupille. “Ma douce amie—she has fainted away!” And, indeed, Adele had no sooner recovered her, balance, than she resigned it once more into the arms of the startled Pole, who was happily at hand.

In the meantime, the German stranger, who had saved himself from falling by coming with his full force upon the toes of Mr. Higgins, again advanced to the spot, and, rudely seizing the fair bride by the arm, exclaimed,—

“No sham if you please, madame—speak! What the devil have you done with the money?”

“Really, sir,” said Monsieur Goupille, drawing tip his cravat, “this is very extraordinary conduct! What have you got to say to this lady’s money?—it is my money now, sir!”

“Oho! it is, is it? We’ll soon see that. Approchez donc, Monsieur Favart, faites votre devoir.”

At these words the small companion of the stranger slowly sauntered to the spot, while at the sound of his name and the tread of his step, the throng gave way to the right and left. For Monsieur Favart was one of the most renowned chiefs of the great Parisian police—a man worthy to be the contemporary of the illustrious Vidocq.

“Calmez vous, messieurs; do not be alarmed, ladies,” said this gentleman, in the mildest of all human voices; and certainly no oil dropped on the waters ever produced so tranquillising an effect as that small, feeble, gentle tenor. The Pole, in especial, who was holding the fair bride with both his arms, shook all over, and seemed about to let his burden gradually slide to the floor, when Monsieur Favart, looking at him with a benevolent smile, said—

“Aha, mon brave! c’est toi. Restez donc. Restez, tenant toujours la dame!”

The Pole, thus condemned, in the French idiom, “always to hold the dame,” mechanically raised the arms he had previously dejected, and the police officer, with an approving nod of the head, said,—

“Bon! ne bougez point,—c’est ca!”

Monsieur Goupille, in equal surprise and indignation to see his better half thus consigned, without any care to his own marital feelings, to the arms of another, was about to snatch her from the Pole, when Monsieur Favart, touching him on the breast with his little finger, said, in the suavest manner,—

“Mon bourgeois, meddle not with what does not concern you!”

“With what does not concern me!” repeated Monsieur Goupille, drawing himself up to so great a stretch that he seemed pulling off his tights the wrong way. “Explain yourself, if you please! This lady is my wife!”

“Say that again,—that’s all!” cried the whiskered stranger, in most horrible French, and with a furious grimace, as he shook both his fists just under the nose of the epicier.

“Say it again, sir,” said Monsieur Goupille, by no means daunted; “and why should not I say it again? That lady is my wife!”

“You lie!—she is mine!” cried the German; and bending down, he caught the fair Adele from the Pole with as little ceremony as if she had never had a great-grandfather a marquis, and giving her a shake that might have roused the dead, thundered out,—

“Speak! Madame Bihl! Are you my wife or not?”

“Monstre!” murmured Adele, opening her eyes.

“There—you hear—she owns me!” said the German, appealing to the company with a triumphant air.

“C’est vrai!” said the soft voice of the policeman. “And now, pray don’t let us disturb your amusements any longer. We have a fiacre at the door. Remove your lady, Monsieur Bihl.”

“Monsieur Lofe!—Monsieur Lofe!” cried, or rather screeched the epicier, darting across the room, and seizing the chef by the tail of his coat, just as he was half way through the door, “come back! Quelle mauvaise plaisanterie me faites-vous ici? Did you not tell me that lady was single? Am I married or not: Do I stand on my head or my heels?”

“Hush-hush! mon bon bourgeois!” whispered Mr. Love; “all shall be explained to-morrow!”

“Who is this gentleman?” asked Monsieur Favart, approaching Mr. Love, who, seeing himself in for it, suddenly jerked off the epicier, thrust his hands down into his breeches’ pockets, buried his chin in his cravat, elevated his eyebrows, screwed in his eyes, and puffed out his cheeks, so that the astonished Monsieur Goupille really thought himself bewitched, and literally did not recognise the face of the match-maker.

“Who is this gentleman?” repeated the little officer, standing beside, or rather below, Mr. Love, and looking so diminutive by the contrast that you might have fancied that the Priest of Hymen had only to breathe to blow him away.

“Who should he be, monsieur?” cried, with great pertness, Madame Rosalie Caumartin, coming to the relief, with the generosity of her sex.—“This is Monsieur Lofe—Anglais celebre. What have you to say against him?”

“He has got five hundred francs of mine!” cried the epicier.

The policeman scanned Mr. Love, with great attention. “So you are in Paris again?—Hein!—vous jouez toujours votre role!

“Ma foi!” said Mr. Love, boldly; “I don’t understand what monsieur means; my character is well known—go and inquire it in London—ask the Secretary of Foreign Affairs what is said of me—inquire of my Ambassador—demand of my—”

“Votre passeport, monsieur?”

“It is at home. A gentleman does not carry his passport in his pocket when he goes to a ball!”

“I will call and see it—au revoir! Take my advice and leave Paris; I think I have seen you somewhere!”

“Yet I have never had the honour to marry monsieur!” said Mr. Love, with a polite bow.

In return for his joke, the policeman gave Mr. Love one look—it was a quiet look, very quiet; but Mr. Love seemed uncommonly affected by it; he did not say another word, but found himself outside the house in a twinkling. Monsieur Favart turned round and saw the Pole making himself as small as possible behind the goodly proportions of Madame Beavor.

“What name does that gentleman go by?”

“So—vo—lofski, the heroic Pole,” cried Madame Beavor, with sundry misgivings at the unexpected cowardice of so great a patriot.

“Hein! take care of yourselves, ladies. I have nothing against that person this time. But Monsieur Latour has served his apprenticeship at the galleys, and is no more a Pole than I am a Jew.”

“And this lady’s fortune!” cried Monsieur Groupille, pathetically; “the settlements are all made—the notaries all paid. I am sure there must be some mistake.”

Monsieur Bihl, who had by this time restored his lost Helen to her senses, stalked up to the epicier, dragging the lady along with him.

“Sir, there is no mistake! But, when I have got the money, if you like to have the lady you are welcome to her.”

“Monstre!” again muttered the fair Adele.

“The long and the short of it,” said Monsieur Favart, “is that Monsieur Bihl is a brave garcon, and has been half over the world as a courier.”

“A courier!” exclaimed several voices.

“Madame was nursery-governess to an English milord. They married, and quarrelled—no harm in that, mes amis; nothing more common. Monsieur Bihl is a very faithful fellow; nursed his last master in an illness that ended fatally, because he travelled with his doctor. Milord left him a handsome legacy—he retired from service, and fell ill, perhaps from idleness or beer. Is not that the story, Monsieur Bihl?”

“He was always drunk—the wretch!” sobbed Adele. “That was to drown my domestic sorrows,” said the German; “and when I was sick in my bed, madame ran off with my money. Thanks to monsieur, I have found both, and I wish you a very good night.”

“Dansez-vous toujours, mes amis,” said the officer, bowing. And following Adele and her spouse, the little man left the room—where he had caused, in chests so broad and limbs so doughty, much the same consternation as that which some diminutive ferret occasions in a burrow of rabbits twice his size.

Morton had outstayed Mr. Love. But he thought it unnecessary to linger long after that gentleman’s departure; and, in the general hubbub that ensued, he crept out unperceived, and soon arrived at the bureau. He found Mr. Love and Mr. Birnie already engaged in packing up their effects.

“Why—when did you leave?” said Morton to Mr. Birnie.

“I saw the policeman enter.”

“And why the deuce did not you tell us?” said Gawtrey.

“Every man for himself. Besides, Mr. Love was dancing,” replied Mr. Birnie, with a dull glance of disdain. “Philosophy,” muttered Gawtrey, thrusting his dresscoat into his trunk; then, suddenly changing his voice, “Ha! ha! it was a very good joke after all—own I did it well. Ecod! if he had not given me that look, I think I should have turned the tables on him. But those d–d fellows learn of the mad doctors how to tame us. Faith, my heart went down to my shoes—yet I’m no coward!”

“But, after all, he evidently did not know you,” said Morton; “and what has he to say against you? Your trade is a strange one, but not dishonest. Why give up as if–”

“My young friend,” interrupted Gawtrey, “whether the officer comes after us or not, our trade is ruined; that infernal Adele, with her fabulous grandmaman, has done for us. Goupille will blow the temple about our ears. No help for it—eh, Birnie?”

“None.”

“Go to bed, Philip: we’ll call thee at daybreak, for we must make clear work before our neighbours open their shutters.”

Reclined, but half undressed, on his bed in the little cabinet, Morton revolved the events of the evening. The thought that he should see no more of that white hand and that lovely mouth, which still haunted his recollection as appertaining to the incognita, greatly indisposed him towards the abrupt flight intended by Gawtrey, while (so much had his faith in that person depended upon respect for his confident daring, and so thoroughly fearless was Morton’s own nature) he felt himself greatly shaken in his allegiance to the chief, by recollecting the effect produced on his valour by a single glance from the instrument of law. He had not yet lived long enough to be aware that men are sometimes the Representatives of Things; that what the scytale was to the Spartan hero, a sheriff’s writ often is to a Waterloo medallist: that a Bow Street runner will enter the foulest den where Murder sits with his fellows, and pick out his prey with the beck of his forefinger. That, in short, the thing called LAW, once made tangible and present, rarely fails to palsy the fierce heart of the thing called CRIME. For Law is the symbol of all mankind reared against One Foe—the Man of Crime. Not yet aware of this truth, nor, indeed, in the least suspecting Gawtrey of worse offences than those of a charlatanic and equivocal profession, the young man mused over his protector’s cowardice in disdain and wonder: till, wearied with conjectures, distrust, and shame at his own strange position of obligation to one whom he could not respect, he fell asleep.

When he woke, he saw the grey light of dawn that streamed cheerlessly through his shutterless window, struggling with the faint ray of a candle that Gawtrey, shading with his hand, held over the sleeper. He started up, and, in the confusion of waking and the imperfect light by which he beheld the strong features of Gawtrey, half imagined it was a foe who stood before him.