after the excitement of the past few days, and her terrible experience in hamburg, to say nothing of the fact that she had landed from a steamer under peculiar circumstances, and had been tramping the country half the night, it is not to be wondered at that by the time we reached park lane valerie was completely knocked up. pharos had accordingly insisted that she should at once retire to her room and endeavour to obtain the rest of which she stood so much in need.
“for the next few weeks — that is to say, until the end of the season — i intend that you shall both enjoy yourselves,” he said with the utmost affability, when we were alone together, “to the top of your bent. and that reminds me of something, forrester. your betrothal must be announced as speedily as possible. it is due to valerie that this should be done. i presume you do not wish the engagement to be a long one?”
“indeed i do not,” i answered, not, however, without a slight feeling of surprise that he should speak so openly and so soon upon the subject. “as you may suppose, it cannot be too short to please me. and our marriage?”
“your marriage can take place as soon after the season as you please,” he continued with the same extraordinary geniality. “you will not find me placing any obstacles in your way.”
“but you have never asked me as to my means, or my power to support her,” i said, putting his last remark aside as if i had not heard it.
“i have not,” he answered. “there is no need for me to do so. your means are well known to me; besides, it has always been my intention to make provision for valerie myself. provided you behave yourselves, and do not play me any more tricks such as i had to complain of in hamburg, you will find that she will bring you a handsome little nest-egg that will make it quite unnecessary for you ever to feel any anxiety on the score of money. but we will discuss all that more fully later on. see, here are a number of invitations that have arrived for us. it looks as if we are not likely to be dull during our stay in london.”
so saying, he placed upwards of fifty envelopes before me, many of which i was surprised to find were addressed to myself. these i opened with the first feeling of a return to my old social life that i had experienced since i had re-entered london. the invitations hailed, for the most part, from old friends. some were for dinners, others for musical “at homes,” while at least a dozen were for dances, one of the last-named being from the duchess of amersham.
“i have taken the liberty of accepting that on your behalf,” said pharos, picking the card up. “the duchess of amersham and i are old friends, and i think it will brighten valerie and yourself up a little if we look in at her ball for an hour or so to-night.”
“but surely,” i said, “we have only just reached london, and ——” here i paused, not knowing quite how to proceed.
“what objection have you to raise?” he asked, with a sudden flash of the old angry look in his eyes.
“my only objection was that i thought it a little dangerous,” i said. “on your own confession, it was the plague from which valerie was suffering in hamburg.”
pharos laughed a short, harsh laugh, that grated upon the ear.
“you must really forgive me, forrester, for having deceived you,” he said, “but i had to do it. it was necessary for me to use any means i could think of for getting you to england. as you have reason to know, valerie is possessed of a peculiarly sensitive temperament. she is easily influenced, particularly by myself, and the effect can be achieved at any distance. if i were in london and she in vienna, i could, by merely exercising my will, not only induce her to do anything i might wish, but could make her bodily health exactly what i pleased. you will therefore see that it would be an easy task for me to cause her to be taken ill in hamburg. her second self — that portion of her mind which is so susceptible to my influence, as you saw for yourself — witnessed my arrival in prague and at the hotel. as soon as i entered the room in which she was waiting for me, the attraction culminated in a species of fainting fit. i despatched you post haste to a chemist with a prescription which i thought would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for you to get made up. at any rate it would, i knew, serve my purpose if it kept you some time away.”
“then you mean that while i was hurrying from place to place like a madman, suffering untold agonies of fear, and believing that valerie’s life depended upon my speed, you were in reality deceiving me?”
“if i am to be truthful, i must confess that i was,” he replied; “but i give you my word the motive was a good one. had i not done so, who knows what would have happened? the plague was raging on the continent, and you were both bent on getting away from me again on the first opportunity. what was the result? working on your fears for her, i managed to overcome the difficulties and got you safely into england. valerie has not been so ill as you supposed. i have sanctioned your engagement, and, as i said just now, if you will let me, will provide for you both for life, and will assist in lifting you to the highest pinnacle of fame. after this explanation, surely you are not going to be ungenerous enough to still feel vindictive against me?”
“it was a cruel trick to play me,” i answered; “but since the result has not been so serious as i supposed, and you desire me to believe you did it all with a good object, i will endeavour to think no more about it.”
“you have decided sensibly,” he said. “and now let us arrange what we shall do this evening. my proposal is that we rest this afternoon, that you dine with me at my club, the antiquarian, in the evening, and that afterwards i show you london as i see it in my character of pharos the egyptian. i think you will find the programme both interesting and instructive. during the evening we might return here, pick valerie up, and go on to the duchess of amersham’s ball. does that meet with your approval?”
i was so relieved at finding that valerie had not really been attacked by the plague, that, however much i should have liked to spend the evening alone with her, i could see no reason for declining pharos’s invitation. i accordingly stated that i should be very glad to do as he wished.
we followed out his plan to the letter. after lunch we retired to our respective apartments and rested until it was time to prepare for the evening. at the hour appointed i descended to the drawing-room, where i found pharos awaiting me. he was dressed as i had seen him at lady medenham’s well-remembered “at home”— that is to say, he wore his velvet jacket and black skull cap, and, as usual, carried his gold-topped walking-stick in his hand.
“the carriage is at the door, i think,” he said as i entered, “so if you are ready we will set off.”
a neat brougham was drawn up beside the pavement; we took our places in it, and ten minutes later had reached the antiquarian club, of all the establishments of the kind in london perhaps the most magnificent. wide and lofty, and yet boasting the most harmonious proportions, the dining-room at the antiquarian club always remains in my mind the most stately of the many stately banqueting halls in london. pharos’s preference, i found, was for a table in one of the large windows overlooking the embankment and the river, and this had accordingly been prepared for him.
“if you will sit there,” said pharos, motioning with his hand to a chair on the right, “i will take this one opposite you.”
i accordingly seated myself in the place he indicated.
the dinner was perfect in every respect. my host himself, however, dined after his own fashion, in the manner i have elsewhere described. nevertheless, he did the honours of the table with the most perfect grace, and had any stranger been watching us, he would have found it difficult to believe that the relationship existing between us was not of the most cordial nature possible.
by eight o’clock the room was crowded, and with as fine a collection of well-born, well-dressed, and well-mannered men as could be found in london. the decorations, the portraits upon the walls, the liveried servants, the snowy drapery and sparkling silver, all helped to make up a picture that, after the sordidness of the margrave of brandenburg, was like a glimpse of a new life.
“this is the first side of that london life i am desirous of presenting to you,” said pharos, in his capacity of showman, after i had finished my dessert and had enjoyed a couple of glasses of the famous antiquarian port —“one side of that luxury and extravagance which is fast drawing this great city to its doom. now, if you have quite finished, we might move on.”
i acquiesced, and we accordingly descended to the hall and donned our coats.
“if you would care to smoke, permit me to offer you one of the same brand of cigarettes of which you expressed your approval in naples,” said pharos, producing from his pocket a silver case, which he handed to me. i took one of the delicacies it contained and lit it. then we passed out of the hall to pharos’s own carriage, which was waiting in the street for us. “we will now return to pick up valerie, after which we will drive to amersham house, where i have no doubt we shall meet many of those whom we have seen here to-night.”
we found valerie awaiting us in the drawing-room. she was dressed for the ball, and, superb as i thought she looked on the evening she had been presented to the emperor in prague, i had to confess to myself that she was even more beautiful now. her face was flushed with excitement, and her lovely eyes sparkled like twin stars. i hastened to congratulate her on her altered appearance, and had scarcely done so before the butler announced that the carriage was at the door, whereupon we departed for carlton house terrace.
on the subject of the ball itself it is not my intention to say very much; let it suffice that, possibly by reason of what followed later, it is talked of to this day. the arrangements were of the most sumptuous and extravagant description; princes of the blood and their wives were present, cabinet ministers jostled burly country squires upon the staircase, fair but haughty aristocrats rubbed shoulders with the daughters of american millionaires, whose money had been made goodness knows where or how; half the celebrities of england nodded to the other half; but in all that distinguished company there was no woman to eclipse valerie in beauty, and, as another side of the picture, no man who could equal pharos in ugliness. much to my astonishment the latter seemed to have no lack of acquaintances, and i noticed also that everyone with whom he talked, though they paid the most servile attention to his remarks while he was with them, invariably heaved a sigh of relief when he took his departure.
at two o’clock valerie was tired, and we accordingly decided to leave. but i soon found that it was not to return home. having placed my darling in her carriage, pharos directed the coachman to drive to park lane, declaring that we preferred to walk.
it was a beautiful night, cool and fresh, with a few clouds in the southwest, but brilliant starlight overhead. leaving carlton house terrace, we passed into waterloo place, ascended it as far as piccadilly, and then hailed a cab.
“our evening is not completed yet,” said pharos. “i have still some places to show you. it is necessary that you should see them, in order that you may appreciate what is to follow. the first will be a fancy dress ball at covent garden, where yet another side of london life is to be found.”
if such a thing could possibly have had any effect, i should have objected; but so completely did his will dominate mine, that i had no option but to consent to anything he proposed. we accordingly stepped into the cab and were driven off to the place indicated. from the sounds which issued from the great building as we entered it, it was plain that the ball was proceeding with its accustomed vigour, a surmise on our part which proved to be correct when we reached the box pharos had bespoken. a floor had been laid over the stalls and pit, and upon this upwards of fifteen hundred dancers, in every style of fancy dress the ingenuity of man could contrive, were slowly revolving to the music of a military band. it was a curious sight, and at any other time would have caused me considerable amusement. now, however, with the fiendish face of pharos continually at my elbow, and his carping criticisms sounding without ceasing in my ear, mocking at the people below us, finding evil in everything, and hinting always at the doom which was hanging over london, it reminded me more of dante’s inferno than anything else to which i could liken it. for upwards of an hour we remained spectators of it. then, with a final sneer, pharos gave the signal for departure.
“we have seen the finest club in europe,” he said, as we emerged into the cool air of bow street, “the most fashionable social event of the season, and a fancy dress ball at covent garden. we must now descend a grade lower, and, if you have no objection, we will go in search of it on foot?”
i had nothing to urge against this suggestion, so, turning into long acre, we passed through a number of squalid streets, with all of which pharos seemed to be as intimately acquainted as he was in the west-end, and finally approached the region of seven dials — that delectable neighbourhood bordered on the one side by shaftesbury avenue, and on the other by drury lane. here, though it was by this time close upon three o’clock, no one seemed to have begun to think of bed. in one narrow alley through which we were compelled to pass at least thirty people were assembled, more than half of which number were intoxicated. a woman was screaming for assistance from a house across the way, and a couple of men were fighting at the further end of an adjoining court. in this particular locality the police seemed as extinct as the dodo. at any other time, and in any other company, i should have felt some doubt as to the wisdom of being in such a place at such an hour. but with my present companion beside me i felt no fear.
we had walked some distance before we reached the house pharos desired to visit. from its outward appearance it might have been a small drinking-shop in the daytime; now, however, every window was closely shuttered, and not a ray of light showed through chink or cranny. approaching the door he knocked four times upon it, whereupon it was opened on a chain for a few inches. a face looked through the aperture thus created, and pharos, moving a little closer, said something in a whisper to it.
“beg pardon, sir,” said the woman, for a woman i soon discovered it was. “i didn’t know as it was you. i’ll undo the chain. is the gentleman with you safe?”
“quite safe,” pharos replied. “you need have no fear of him. he is my friend.”
“in you come, then,” said the woman to me, my character being thus vouched for, and accordingly in i stepped.
dirty as were the streets outside, the house in which we now stood more than equalled them. the home of captain wisemann in hamburg, which i had up to that time thought the filthiest i had ever seen, was nothing to it. taking the candle in her hand, the old woman led us along the passage toward another door. before this she paused and rang a bell, the handle of which was cleverly concealed in the woodwork. almost instantly it was opened, and we entered a room the like of which i had never seen or dreamt of before. its length was fully thirty feet, its width possibly fifteen. on the wall above the fireplace was a gas bracket, from the burner of which a large flame was issuing with a hissing noise. in the center of the room was a table, and seated round it were at least twenty men and women, who, at the moment of our entering, were engaged upon a game the elements of which i did not understand. on seeing us the players sprang to their feet with one accord, and a scramble ensued for the money upon the table. a scene of general excitement followed, which might very well have ended in the gas being turned out and our finding ourselves upon the floor with knives between our ribs, had not the old woman who had introduced us called out that there was no need for alarm, and added, with an oath — what might in pharos’s case possibly have been true, but in mine was certainly not — that we had been there hundreds of times before, and were proper sort o’ gents. thereupon pharos contributed a sovereign to be spent in liquid refreshment, and when our healths had been drunk with a variety of toasts intended to be complimentary, our presence was forgotten, and the game once more proceeded. one thing was self-evident: there was no lack of money among those present, and when a member of the company had not the wherewithal to continue the gamble, he in most cases produced a gold watch, a ring, or some other valuable from his pocket, and handed it to a burly ruffian at the head of the table, who advanced him an amount upon it which nine times out of ten failed to meet with his approval.
“seeing you have not been here before,” said pharos, “i might explain that this is the most typical thieves’ gambling hell in london. there is not a man or woman in this room at the present moment who is not a hardened criminal in every sense of the word. the fellow at the end narrowly escaped the gallows, the man on his right has but lately emerged from seven years’ penal servitude for burglary. the three sitting together next the banker are at the present moment badly wanted by the police, while the old woman who admitted us, and who was once not only a celebrated variety actress, but an exceedingly beautiful woman, is the mother of that sickly youth drinking gin beside the fireplace, who assisted in the murder of an old man in shaftesbury avenue a fortnight or so ago, and will certainly be captured and brought within measurable distance of the gallows before many more weeks have passed over his head. have you seen enough of this to satisfy you?”
“more than enough,” i answered truthfully.
“then let us leave. it will soon be daylight, and there are still many places for us to visit before we return home.”
we accordingly bade the occupants of the room good-night, and, when we had been escorted to the door by the old woman who had admitted us, left the house.
from the neighbourhood of seven dials pharos carried me off to other equally sad and disreputable quarters of the city. we visited salvation army shelters, the cheapest of cheap lodging-houses, doss-houses in comparison to which a workhouse would be a palace; dark railway arches, where we found homeless men, women, and children endeavouring to snatch intervals of rest between the visits of patrolling policemen; the public parks, where the grass was dotted with recumbent forms, and every seat was occupied; and then, turning homewards, reached park lane just as the clocks were striking seven, as far as i was concerned sick to the heart, not only of the sorrow and the sin of london, but of the callous indifference to it displayed by pharos.
