Hard Cash

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Now the evening before his visit to the Dodds, Dr. Sampson dined with the
Hardies, and happened to mention the "Dodds" among his old patients: "The
Dodds of' Albion Villa?" inquired Miss Hardie, to her brother's no little
surprise. "Albyn fiddlestick!" said the polished doctor. "No! they live
by the water-side; used to; but now they have left the town, I hear. He
is a sea-captain and a fine lad, and Mrs. Dodd is just the best-bred
woman I ever prescribed for, except Mrs. Sampson."

"It _is_ the Dodds of Albion Villa," said Miss Hardie. "They have two
children: a son; his name is Edward; and a daughter, Julia; she is rather
good-looking; a Gentleman's Beauty."

Alfred stared at his sister. Was she blind? with her "rather
good-looking."

Sampson was quite pleased at the information. "N' listen me! I saved that
girl's life when she was a year old."

"Then she is ill now, doctor," said Alfred hastily. "Do go and see her!
Hum! The fact is, her brother is a great favourite of mine." He then told
him how to find Albion Villa. "Jenny, dear," said he, when Sampson was
gone, "you never told me you knew her."

"Knew who, dear?"

"Whom? Why Dodd's sister."

"Oh, she is a new acquaintance, and not one to interest you. We only meet
in the Lord; I do not visit Albion Villa; her mother is an amiable
worldling."

"Unpardonable combination!" said Alfred with a slight sneer. "So you and
Miss Dodd meet only at church!"

"At church? Hardly. She goes to St. Anne's: sits under a preacher who
starves his flock with moral discourses, and holds out the sacraments of
the Church as the means of grace."

Alfred shook his head good-humouredly. "Now, Jenny, that is a challenge;
and you know we both got into a fury the last time we were betrayed into
that miserable waste of time and temper, Theological discussion. No,
no:--

Let sects delight to bark and bite
For 'tis their nature to;
Let gown and surplice growl and fight,
For Satan makes them so.

But let you and I cut High Church and Low Church, and be brother and
sister. Do tell me in English where you meet Julia Dodd; that's a dear;
for young ladies 'meeting in the Lord' conveys no positive idea to my
mind."

Jane Hardie sighed at this confession. "We meet in the cottages of the
poor and the sick, whom He loved and pitied when on earth; and we, His
unworthy servants, try to soothe their distress, and lead them to Him who
can heal the soul as well as the body, and wipe away all the tears of all
His people."

"Then it does you infinite credit, Jane," said Alfred, warmly. "Now, that
is the voice of true religion; and not the whine of this sect, nor the
snarl of that. And so she joins you in this good work? I am not
surprised."

"We meet in it now and then, dear; but she can hardly be said to have
joined me: I have a district, you know; but poor Mrs. Dodd will not allow
Julia to enlist in the service. She visits independently, and by fits and
starts; and I am afraid she thinks more of comforting their perishable
bodies than of feeding their souls. It was but the other day she
confessed to me her backwardness to speak in the way of instruction to
women as old as her mother. She finds it so much easier to let them run
on about their earthly troubles: and of course it is much _easier._ Ah!
the world holds her still in some of its subtle meshes."

The speaker uttered this sadly; but presently, brightening up, said, with
considerable _bonhomie,_ and almost a sprightly air: "But she is a dear
girl, and the Lord will yet light her candle."

Alfred pulled a face as of one that drinketh verjuice unawares; but let
it pass: hypercriticism was not his cue just then. "Well, Jenny," said
he, "I have a favour to ask you. Introduce me to your friend, Miss Dodd.
Will you?"

Miss Hardie coloured faintly. " I would rather not, dear Alfred: the
introduction could not be for her eternal good. Julia's soul is in a very
ticklish state; she wavers as yet between this world and the other world;
and it won't do; it won't do; there is no middle path. You would very
likely turn the scale, and then I should have fought against her
everlasting welfare--my friend's."

"What, am I an infidel?" inquired Alfred angrily. Jane looked distressed.
"Oh no, Alfred; but you are a worldling."

Alfred, smothering a strong sense of irritation, besought her to hear
reason; these big words were out of place here. "It is Dodd's sister; and
he will introduce me at a word, worldling as I am."

"Then why urge me to do it, against my conscience?" asked the young lady,
as sharply as if she had been a woman of the world. " You cannot be in
_love_ with her, as you do not know her."

Alfred did not reply to this unlucky thrust, but made a last effort to
soften her. "Can you call yourself my sister, and refuse me this trifling
service, which her brother, who loves her and esteems her ten times more
sincerely than you do, would not think of refusing me if he was at home?"

"Why should he? He is in the flesh himself; let the carnal introduce one
another. I really must decline; but I am very, very sorry that you feel
hurt about it."

"And I am very sorry I have not an amiable worldling for my sister,
instead of an unamiable and devilish conceited Christian." And with these
bitter words, Alfred snatched a candle and bounced to bed in a fury. So
apt is one passion to rouse up others.

Jane Hardie let fall a gentle tear: but consoled herself with the
conviction that she had done her duty, and that Alfred's anger was quite
unreasonable, and so he would see as soon as he should cool.

The next day the lover, smarting under this check, and spurred to fresh
efforts, invaded Sampson. That worthy was just going to dine at Albion
Villa, so Alfred postponed pumping him till next day. Well, he called at
the inn next day, and if the doctor was not just gone back to London!

Alfred wandered disconsolate homewards.

In the middle of Buchanan Street, an agitated treble called after him,
"Mr. Halfred! hoh, Mr. Halfred!" He looked back and saw Dick Absalom, a
promising young cricketer, brandishing a document and imploring aid. "Oh,
Master Halfred, dooce please come here. I durstn't leave the shop."

There is a tie between cricketers far too strong for social distinctions
to divide, and, though Alfred muttered peevishly, "Whose cat is dead
now?" he obeyed the strange summons.

The distress was a singular one. Master Absalom, I must premise, was the
youngest of two lads in the employ of Mr. Jenner, a benevolent old
chemist, a disciple of Malthus. Jenner taught the virtues of drugs and
minerals to tender youths, at the expense of the public. Scarcely ten
minutes had elapsed since a pretty servant girl came into the shop, and
laid a paper on the counter, saying, "Please to make that up, young man."
Now at fifteen we are gratified by inaccuracies of this kind from ripe
female lips: so Master Absalom took the prescription with a complacent
grin; his eye glanced over it; it fell to shaking in his hand, chill
dismay penetrated his heart; and, to speak with oriental strictness, his
liver turned instantly to water. However, he made a feeble clutch at
Mercantile Mendacity, and stammered out, "Here's a many ingredients, and
the governor's out walking, and he's been and locked the drawer where we
keeps our haulhoppy. You couldn't come again in half an hour, Miss, could
ye?" She acquiesced readily, for she was not habitually called Miss, and
she had a follower, a languid one, living hard by, and belonged to a
class which thinks it consistent to come after its followers.

Dicky saw her safe off, and groaned at his ease. Here was a prescription
full of new chemicals, sovereign, no doubt, _i.e.,_ deadly when applied
Jennerically; and the very directions for use were in Latin words he had
encountered in no prescription before. A year ago Dicky would have
counted the prescribed ingredients on his fingers, and then taken down an
equal number of little articles, solid or liquid, mixed them, delivered
them, and so to cricket, serene; but now, his mind, to apply the
universal cant, was "in a transition state." A year's practice had
chilled the youthful valour which used to scatter Epsom salts or oxalic
acid, magnesia or corrosive sublimate. An experiment or two by himself
and his compeers, with comments by the coroner, had enlightened him as to
the final result on the human body of potent chemicals fearlessly
administered, leaving him dark as to their distinctive qualities applied
remedially. What should he do? Run with the prescription to old Taylor in
the next street, a chemist of forty years? Alas! at his tender age he had
not omitted to chaff that reverend rival persistently and publicly.
Humble his establishment before the King Street one? Sooner perish drugs,
and come eternal cricket! And after all, why not? Drummer-boys, and
powder-monkeys, and other imps of his age that dealt destruction, did not
depopulate gratis; Mankind acknowledged their services in cash: but old
Jenner, taught by Philosophy through its organ the newspapers that
"knowledge is riches," was above diluting with a few shillings a week the
wealth a boy acquired behind his counter; so his apprentices got no
salary. Then why not shut up the old rogue's shutters, and excite a
little sympathy for him, to be followed by a powerful reaction on his
return from walking; and go and offer his own services on the
cricket-ground to field for the gentlemen by the hour, or bowl at a
shilling on their balls?

"Bowling is the lay for me," said he; "you get money for that, and you
only bruise the gents a bit and break their thumbs: you can't put their
vital sparks out as you can at this work."

By a striking coincidence the most influential member of the cricket club
passed while Dick was in this quandary.

"Oh, Mr. Halfred, you was always very good to me on the ground--you
couldn't have me hired by the club, could ye? For I am sick of this
trade; I wants to bowl."

"You little duffer!" said Alfred, "cricket is a recreation, not a
business. Besides, it only lasts five months. Unless you adjourn to the
anitipodes. Stick to the shop like a man, and make your fortune."

"Oh, Mr. Halfred," said Dick sorrowfully, "how can I find fortune here?
Jenner don't pay. And the crowner declares he will not have it; and the
Barton _Chronicle_ says us young gents ought all to be given a holiday to
go and see one of us hanged by lot. But this is what have broke this
camel's back at last; here's a dalled thing to come smiling and smirking
in with, and put it across a counter in a poor boy's hand. Oh! oh! oh!"

"Dick," said Alfred, "if you blubber, I'll give you a hiding. You have
stumbled on a passage you can't construe. Well, who has not? But we don't
shed the briny about it. Here, let me have a go at it."

"Ah! I've heard you are a scholard," said Dick, "but you won't make out
this; there's some new preparation of mercury, and there's musk, and
there's horehound, and there's a neutral salt: and dal his old head that
wrote it!"

"Hold your jaw, and listen, while I construe it to you. _'Die Mercurii,_
on Wednesday--_decima hora vespertina,_ at ten o'clock at night--_eat in
Musca:'_ what does that mean? _'Eat in Musca?'_ I see! this is modern
Latin with a vengeance. 'Let him go in a fly to the Towns-hall. _Saltet,_
let him jump--_cum tredecim caniculis,_ with thirteen little
dogs--_praesertim meo,_ especially with my little dog.' Dicky, this
prescription emanates from Bedlam direct. _'Domum reddita'_--hallo! it is
a woman, then. 'Let _her_ go in a fly to the--Town-hall, eh?' 'Let _her_
jump, no, dance, with thirteen whelps, especially mine.' Ha! ha! ha! And
who is the woman that is to do all this I wonder?"

"Woman, indeed!" said a treble at the door! "no more than I am; it's for
a young lady. O jiminy!"

This polite ejaculation was drawn out by the speaker's sudden recognition
of Alfred, who had raised his head at her remonstrance, and now started
in his turn; for it was the black-eyed servant of Albion Villa. They
looked at one another in expressive silence.

"Yes, sir, it is for my young lady. Is it ready, young man?"

"No, it ain't: and never will," squealed Dick angrily "It's a vile 'oax;
and you ought to be ashamed of yourself bringing it into a respectable
shop."

Alfred silenced him, and told Sarah he thought Miss Dodd ought to know
the nature of this prescription before it went round the chemists.

He borrowed paper of Dick and wrote:

"Mr. Alfred Hardie presents his compliments to Miss Dodd, and begs leave
to inform her that he has, by the merest accident, intercepted the
enclosed prescription. As it seems rather a sorry jest, and tends to
attract attention to Miss Dodd and her movements, he has ventured with
some misgivings to send it back with a literal translation, on reading
which it will be for Miss Dodd to decide whether it is to circulate.

"'On Wednesday, at ten P.M., let her go in a fly to the Town-hall, and
dance with thirteen little {little dogs, puppies, whelps,} especially
with mine: return home at six A.M. and sleep till dinner, and repeat the
folly as occasion serves.'"

"Suppose I could get it into Miss's hands when she's alone?" whispered
Sarah.

"You would earn my warmest gratitude."

"'Warmest gratitude!' Is that a warm gownd, or a warm clock, I wonder?"

"It is both, when the man is a gentleman, and a pretty, dark- eyed girl
pities him and stands his friend."

Sarah smiled, and whispered, "Give it me; I'll do my best."

Alfred enclosed the prescription and his note in one cover, handed them
to her, and slipped a sovereign into her hand. He whispered, "Be
prudent."

"I'm dark, sir," said she: and went off briskly homewards, and Alfred
stood rapt in dreamy joy, and so self-elated that, had he been furnished
like a peacock, he would have instantly become a "thing all eyes," and
choked up Jenner's shop, and swept his counter. He had made a step
towards familiarity, had written her a letter; and then, if this
prescription came, as he suspected, from Dr. Sampson, she would perhaps
be at the ball. This opened a delightful vista. Meantime, Mrs. Dodd had
communicated Sampson's opinion to Julia, adding that there was a
prescription besides, gone to be made up. "However, he insists on your
going to this ball."

Julia begged hard to be excused: said she was in no humour for balls: and
Mrs. Dodd objecting that the tickets had actually been purchased, she
asked leave to send them to the Dartons. "They will be a treat to Rose
and Alice; they seldom go out: mamma, I do so fear they are poorer than
people think. May I?"

"It would be but kind," said Mrs. Dodd. "Though really why my child
should always be sacrificed to other people's children----"

"Oh, a mighty sacrifice!" said Julia. She sat down and enclosed the
tickets to Rose Darton, with a little sugared note. Sarah, being out,
Elizabeth took it. Sarah met her at the gate, but did not announce her
return: she lurked in ambush till Julia happened to go to her own room,
then followed her, and handed Alfred's missive, and watched her slily,
and being herself expeditious as the wind in matters of the heart, took
it for granted the enclosure was something very warm indeed; so she said
with feigned simplicity, "I suppose it is all right now, miss?" and
retreated swelling with a secret, and tormented her fellow-servants all
day with innuendoes dark as Erebus.

Julia read the note again and again: her heart beat at those few
ceremonious lines. "He does not like me to be talked of," she said to
herself. "How good he is! What trouble he takes about me! Ah! _he will be
there!_"

She divined rightly; on Wednesday, at ten, Alfred Hardie was in the
ball-room. It was a magnificent room, well lighted, and at present not
half filled, though dancing had commenced. The figure Alfred sought was
not there; and he wondered he had been so childish as to hope she would
come to a city ball. He played the fine gentleman; would not dance. He
got near the door with another Oxonian, and tried to avenge himself for
her absence on the townspeople who were there by quizzing them.

But in the middle of this amiable occupation, and indeed in the middle of
a sentence, he stopped short, and his heart throbbed, and he thrilled
from head to foot; for two ladies glided in at the door, and passed up
the room with the unpretending composure of well-bred people. They were
equally remarkable; but Alfred saw only the radiant young creature in
flowing muslin, with the narrowest sash in the room, and no ornament but
a necklace of large pearls and her own vivid beauty. She had altered her
mind about coming, with apologies for her vacillating disposition so
penitent and disproportionate that her indulgent and unsuspecting mother
was really quite amused. Alfred was not so happy as to know that she had
changed her mind with his note. Perhaps even this knowledge could have
added little to that exquisite moment, when, unhoped for, she passed
close to him, and the fragrant air from her brushed his cheek, and seemed
to whisper, "Follow me and be my slave."

CHAPTER V

HE did follow her, and, convinced that she would be engaged ten deep in
five minutes, hustled up to the master of the ceremonies and begged an
introduction. The great banker's son was attended to at once. Julia saw
them coming, as her sex can see, without looking. Her eyes were on fire,
and a delicious blush on her cheeks, when the M. C. introduced Mr. Alfred
Hardie with due pomp. He asked her to dance.

"I am engaged for this dance, sir," said she softly.

"The next?" asked Hardie timidly.

"With pleasure."

But when they had got so far they were both seized with bashful silence;
and just as Alfred was going to try and break it, Cornet Bosanquet, aged
18, height 5 feet 4 inches, strutted up with clanking heel, and, glancing
haughtily up at him, carried Julia off, like a steam-tug towing away some
fair schooner. To these little thorns society treats all anxious lovers,
but the incident was new to Alfred, and discomposed him; and, besides, he
had nosed a rival in Sampson's prescription. So now he thought to
himself, "that little ensign is 'his puppy.'"

To get rid of Mrs. Dodd he offered to conduct her to a seat. She thanked
him; she would rather stand where she could see her daughter dance: on
this he took her to the embrasure of a window opposite where Julia and
her partner stood, and they entered a circle of spectators. The band
struck up, and the solemn skating began.

"Who is this lovely creature in white?" asked a middle-aged solicitor.
"In white? I did not see any beauty in white," replied his daughter. "Why
there, before your eyes," said the gentleman, loudly.

"What, that girl dancing with the little captain? I don't see much beauty
in her. _And_ what a rubbishing dress."

"It never cost a pound, making and all," suggested another Barkingtonian
nymph.

"But what splendid pearls!" said a third: "can they be real?"

"Real! what an idea!" ejaculated a fourth: "who puts on real pearls as
big as peas with muslin at twenty pence the yard?"

"Weasels!" muttered Alfred, and quivered all over: and he felt to Mrs.
Dodd so like a savage going to spring, that she laid her hand upon his
wrist, and said gently, but with authority, "Be calm, sir! and oblige me
by not noticing these people."

Then they threw dirt on her bouquet, and then on her shoes, while she was
winding in and out before their eyes a Grace, and her soft muslin
drifting and flowing like an appropriate cloud round a young goddess.

"A little starch would make it set out better. It's as limp as a towel on
the line."

"I'll be sworn it was washed at home."

"Where it was made."

"I call it a rag, not a gown."

"Do let us move," whispered Alfred.

"I am very comfortable here," whispered Mrs. Dodd. "How can these things
annoy my ears while I have eyes? Look at her: she is the best-dressed
lady in the room; her muslin is Indian, and of a quality unknown to these
provincial shopkeepers; a rajah gave it us: her pearls were my mother's,
and have been in every court in Europe; and she herself is beautiful,
would be beautiful dressed like the dowdies who are criticising her: and
I think, sir, she dances as well as any lady can encumbered with an Atom
that does not know the figure." All this with the utmost placidity.

Then, as if to extinguish all doubt, Julia flung them a heavenly smile;
she had been furtively watching them all the time, and she saw they were
talking about her.

The other Oxonian squeezed up to Hardie. "Do you know the beauty? She
smiled your way.

"Ah!" said Hardie, deliberately, "you mean that young lady with the court
pearls, in that exquisite Indian muslin, which floats so gracefully,
while the other muslin girls are all crimp and stiff; like little pigs
clad in crackling."

"Ha! ha! ha! Yes. Introduce me."

"I could not take such a liberty with the queen of the ball."

Mrs. Dodd smiled, but felt nervous and ill at ease. She thought to
herself, "Now here is a generous, impetuous thing." As for the hostile
party, staggered at first by the masculine insolence of young Hardy, it
soon recovered, and, true to its sex, attacked him obliquely, through his
white ladye.

"Who _is_ the beauty of the ball ?" asked one, haughtily.

"I don't know, but not that mawkish thing in limp muslin."

"I should say Miss Hetherington is the belle," suggested a third.

"Which is Miss Hetherington?" asked the Oxonian coolly of Alfred.

"Oh, she won't do for us. It is that little chalk-faced girl, dressed in
pink with red roses; the pink of vulgarity and bad taste."

At this both Oxonians laughed arrogantly, and Mrs. Dodd withdrew her hand
from the speaker's arm and glided away behind the throng. Julia looked at
him with marked anxiety. He returned her look, and was sore puzzled what
it meant, till he found Mrs. Dodd had withdrawn softly from him; then he
stood confused, regretting too late he had not obeyed her positive
request, and tried to imitate her dignified forbearance.

The quadrille ended. He instantly stepped forward, and bowing politely to
the cornet, said authoritatively, "Mrs. Dodd sends me to conduct you to
her. With your permission, sir." His arm was offered and taken before the
little warrior knew where he was.

He had her on his arm, soft, light, and fragrant as zephyr, and her cool
breath wooing his neck; oh, the thrill of that moment! but her first word
was to ask him, with considerable anxiety, "Why did mamma leave you?"

"Miss Dodd, I am the most unhappy of men."

"No doubt! no doubt!" said she, a little crossly. She added with one of
her gushes of naivete, "and I shall be unhappy too if you go and
displease mamma."

"What could I do? A gang of snobbesses were detracting from--somebody. To
speak plainly, they were running down the loveliest of her sex. Your
mamma told me to keep quiet. And so I did till I got a fair chance, and
then I gave it them in their teeth." He ground his own, and added, "I
think I was very good not to kick them."

.Julia coloured with pleasure, and proceeded to turn it off. "Oh! most
forbearing and considerate," said she. "Ah! by the way, I think I did
hear some ladies express a misgiving as to the pecuniary value of my
costume; ha! ha! Oh--you--foolish!--Fancy noticing that! Why it is in
little sneers that the approval of the ladies shows itself at a ball, and
it is a much sincerer compliment than the gentlemen's bombastical
praises: 'the fairest of her sex,' and so on; that none but the 'silliest
of her sex' believe."

"Miss Dodd, I never said the fairest of her sex. I said the loveliest."

"Oh, that alters the case entirely," said Julia, whose spirits were
mounting with the lights and music, and Alfred's company; "so now come
and be reconciled to the best and wisest of her sex; ay, and the
beautifullest, if you but knew her sweet, dear, darling face as I do.
There she is; let us fly."

"Mamma, here is a penitent for you, real or feigned, I don't know which."

"Real, Mrs. Dodd," said Alfred. " I had no right to disobey you and risk
a scene. You served me right by abandoning me; I feel the rebuke and its
justice. Let me hope your vengeance will go no further."

Mrs. Dodd smiled at the grandiloquence of youth, and told him he had
mistaken her character. "I saw I had acquired a generous, hot-headed
ally, who was bent on doing battle with insects; so I withdrew; but so I
should at Waterloo, or anywhere else where people put themselves in a
passion."

The band struck up again.

"Ah!" said Julia, "and I promised you this dance; but it is a waltz and
my guardian angel objects to the _valse a deux temps._"

"Decidedly. Should all the mothers in England permit their daughters to
romp and wrestle in public, and call it waltzing, I must stand firm till
they return to their senses."

Julia looked at Alfred despondently. He took his cue and said with a
smile, "Well, perhaps it is a little rompy; a donkey's gallop and then
twirl her like a mop."

"Since you admit that, perhaps you can waltz properly?" said Mrs. Dodd.