Charles Lever - The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II

“Mine are not very far from the focal distance at this moment,” said Grounsell, with savage energy; “so fetch your hat, sir, at once, or – ”

“Unless I prefer a cap, you were going to add,” interposed Jekyl, with a sweet smile.

“We must use speed, sir, or we shall be too late,” rejoined the doctor.

“I flatter myself few men understand a rapid toilet better,” said Jekyl, rising from the table; “so if you’ll amuse yourself with ‘Bell’s Life,’ ‘Punch,’ or Jules Janin, for five minutes, I ‘m your man.”

“I can be company for myself for that space, sir,” said the other, gruffly, and turned to the window; while Jekyl, disappearing behind the drapery that filled the doorway, was heard humming an opera air from within.

Grounsell was in no superlative mood of good temper with the world, nor would he have extended to the section of it he best knew the well-known eulogy on the “Bayards.” “Swindlers,” “Rakes,” and “Vagabonds” were about the mildest terms of the vocabulary he kept muttering to himself, while a grumbling thunder-growl of malediction followed each. The very aspect of the little chamber seemed to offer food for his anger; the pretentious style of its decoration jarred and irritated him, and he felt a wish to smash bronzes and brackets and statues into one common ruin.

The very visiting-cards which lay scattered over a Sèvres dish offended him; the names of all that were most distinguished in rank and station, with here and there some little civility inscribed on the corner, – “Thanks,” “Come, if possible,” or “Of course we expect you,” – showing the social request in which Jekyl stood.

“Ay,” muttered he to himself, “here is one that can neither give dinners nor balls, get places nor pensions nor orders, lend money nor lose it, and yet the world wants him, and cannot get on without him. The indolence of profligacy seeks the aid of his stimulating activity, and the palled appetite of sensualism has to borrow the relish from vice that gives all its piquancy. Without him as the fly-wheel, the whole machinery of mischief would stand still. His boast is, that, without a sou, no millionnaire is richer than he, and that every boon of fortune is at his beck. He might add, that in his comprehensive view of wickedness he realizes within himself all the vice of this good capital. I ‘d send such a fellow to the treadmill; I ‘d transport him for life; I ‘d sentence him to hunt kangaroos for the rest of his days; I’d – ” He stopped short in his violent tirade; for he suddenly bethought him how he himself was at that very moment seeking aid and assistance at his hands; and somewhat abashed by the recollection, he called out, “Mr. Jekyl, are you ready yet?”

No answer was returned to this question, and Grounsell repeated it in a louder voice. All was silent, and not even the dulcet sounds of the air from “Lucia” broke the stillness; and now the doctor, losing all patience, drew aside the curtain and looked in. The chamber was empty, and Jekyl was gone! His little portmanteau, and his still smaller carpet-bag, his hat-case, his canes – every article of his personnel – were away; and while Grounsell stood cursing the “little rascal,” he himself was pleasantly seated opposite Lady Hester and Kate in the travelling-carriage, and convulsing them with laughter at his admirable imitation of the poor doctor.

Great as was Grounsel’s anger at this trickery, it was still greater when he discovered that he had been locked in. He quite forgot the course of time passed in his meditations, and could not believe it possible that there was sufficient interval to have effected all these arrangements so speedily.

Too indignant to brook delay, he dashed his foot through the door, and passed out The noise at once summoned the people of the house to the spot, and, to Grounsell’s surprise, the police officer amongst them, who, in all the pomp of office, now barred the passage with a drawn sword.

“What is it? – what’s this?” cried he, in astonishment.

“Effraction by force in case of debt is punishable by the 127th section of the ‘Code,’” said a dirty little man, who, with the air of a shoeblack, was still a leading member of the Florence “Bar.”

“I owe nothing here, – not a farthing, sir; let me pass,” cried Grounsell.

“‘Fathers for sons of nonage or over that period, domiciliated in the same house,’” began the Advocate, reading out of a volune in his hand, “‘are also responsible.’”

“What balderdash, sir! I have no son; I never was married in my life; and as for this Mr. Jekyl, if you mean to father him on me, I’ll resist to the last drop of my blood.”

“‘Denunciation and menace, with show of arms or without,’” began the lawyer again, “‘are punishable by fine and imprisonment.’”

Grounsell was now so worked up by fury that he attempted to force a passage by main strength; but a general brandishing of knives by all the family, from seven years of age upwards, warned him that the attempt might be too serious, while a wild chorus of abusive language arose from various sympathizers who poured in from the street to witness the scene.

A father who would not pay for his own son! an “assassin,” who had no bowels for his kindred; a “Birbante,” a “Briccone,” and a dozen similar epithets, rattled on him like hail, till Grounsell, supposing that the “bite” might be in proportion to the “bark,” retreated into a small chamber, and proposed terms of accommodation. Few men take pleasure in acquitting their own debts, fewer still like to pay those of their neighbors, and Grounsell set about the task in anything but a pleasant manner. There was one redeeming feature, however, in the affair. Jekyl’s schedule could not have extracted a rebuke from the severest Commissioner of Bankruptcy. His household charges were framed on the most moderate scale of expenditure. A few crowns for his house-rent, a few “Pauls” for his eatables, and a few “Grazie” for his washing, comprised the whole charge of his establishment, and not even Hume would have sought to cut down the “estimates.” Doubtless more than one half of the demands were unjust and extortionate, and many were perhaps already acquitted; but as all the rogueries were but homoeopathic iniquities after all, their doses might be endured with patience. His haste to conclude the arrangements had, however, a very opposite tendency. The more yielding he became, the greater grew their exactions, and several times the treaty threatened to open hostilities again; and at last it was full an hour after Jekyl’s departure that Grounsell escaped from durance, and was free to follow George Onslow to Pratolino.

With his adventures in the interval the reader is sufficiently acquainted; and we now come back to that moment where, bewildered and lost, he sat down upon the bench beside the high-road.

It was already past noon when Grounsell reached Florence. He was delayed at the gate by the authorities examining a peasant’s cart in front of him, – a process which appeared to take a most unusual degree of care and scrutiny, – and thus gave the doctor another occasion for inveighing against the “stupid ignorance of foreigners, who throw every possible impediment in the way of traffic and intercourse.”

“What have they discovered now?” cried he, testily, as in a crowd of vehicles, of all sorts and sizes, he was jammed up like a coal-vessel in the river. “Is the peasant a revolutionary general in disguise? or has he got Bibles or British cutlery under the straw of his baroccino?”

“No, Eccellenza.” (Every one in a passion in Italy is styled Eccellenza, as an “anodyne.”) “It’s a sick man, and they don’t know what to do with him.”