Mary Braddon - Mohawks - A Novel. Volume 3 of 3

Vyvyan Topsparkle had done nothing to hazard those solid investments or to jeopardise his hereditary income; but he liked to trifle with the surplus thousands which accumulated at his banker's, and which even Judith's extravagance could not exhaust; he liked to sail his light bark over the billows of speculation, fanned by the summer winds of chance and change, and glorying in his skill as a navigator. Ombre and quadrille had very little excitement for him, but he loved to watch the fluctuations of a speculative stock, and to sell out at the critical moment when a bubble was on the point of bursting. He had been either wonderfully clever or wonderfully lucky; for he had contrived with but few exceptions to emerge from every risky enterprise with a profit. Such trivial speculations were but playing with money, and made no tangible impression upon the bulk of his wealth: but as the miser loves to hoard his guineas in a chest under his bed and to handle and toy with them, so Mr. Topsparkle loved to play at speculation, and to warm the dull blood of age with the fever of the money market.

He was sitting before a boule bureau, with three rows of pigeon-holes stuffed with papers in front of him, and a litter of papers on his desk, when Fétis entered, carrying his master's periwig. The room was spacious, half dressing-room and half study, with panelled walls richly adorned with old Italian pottery, and a fireplace in an angle of the room, with a mantelpiece carried up to the ceiling by narrow shelves and quaint divisions, all filled with curios; delf and china, India monsters, Dutch teapots, German chocolate-pots, jars, and tea-cups. In one window stood the toilet-table, a veritable laboratory, before which Mr. Topsparkle sat for an hour every morning while his complexion was composed for the day. In the corner opposite the fireplace was the triangular closet in which Mr. Topsparkle's full-bottomed wig was besprinkled with maréchale powder. The atmosphere of the room was loaded with various perfumes, including a faint suggestion of burnt rappee, a kind of snuff which had been fashionable ever since a fire at a famous tobacconist's, which had thrown a large quantity of scorched snuff upon the market, and had given the bucks a new sensation and a new taste.

Fétis put the wig on a stand near the dressing-table, adjusted the feathery curls carefully with delicate finger-tips, fell a step or two back to contemplate his work, gazing at it dreamily as at the perfection of beauty, suggesting the august countenance of its wearer, who was looking over a sheaf of documents and seemed preoccupied.

His valet watched him deferentially for some minutes, and then coughed gently as if to attract attention.

Topsparkle looked up suddenly. He had not heard the cautious opening of the door or the velvet tread of his slave.

"Your wig is quite ready, sir."

"I am not ready for it yet."

"Could I speak with you, sir, for a minute?"

"Of course, you can always speak with me. What do you want?"

Mr. Topsparkle laid down his papers, and faced about as he asked the question.

"I am sorry to say, sir, that fortune has been against me since I came back to London. I have lost heavily at basset, and I am in sore need of money."

"Again!" exclaimed Topsparkle impatiently; "you are everlastingly a loser. What right has a fellow of your quality to gamble? Dice and cards are a diversion for gentlemen, sir."

"Fellows of my quality are human, sir, and have minds that are subject to temptation and example. We can but imitate our betters. As for cards and dice, I am drawn into play by gentlemen who come to my house and are gracious enough to invite my company."

"They should know their position better than to associate with a lodging-house keeper."

"O sir, these are gentlemen of rank; dukes, marquises, earls, who have no fear of derogating by low company. They stand secure in a nobility three and four centuries old. My society cannot degrade them ."

"How much do you want?" asked Topsparkle, with suppressed rage.

He took some papers out of the pigeon-hole labelled F, and turned them over with a hand that shook a little, till he came to one which he drew out and unfolded. It was a list of figures, headed by the name of Fétis, and against each amount there was a date.

"If you would oblige me with a paltry thousand, sir, I could set myself right. I have the honour to owe seven hundred and fifty to his grace the Duke of Bolton."

"A thousand pounds! Egregious insolence. Do you know that you had three thousand, in sums of five hundred, from me last winter? Four thousand a year! Was ever valet paid such wages since the world began?"

"Nay, sir, it is not every valet who has the honour to serve a gentleman in whose exorbitant income thousands count as hundreds do with meaner men. Nor do I rank with the common herd of servants; I have been your secretary and your confidant, often your nurse, and sometimes even your physician. I have prescribed for you in some of the most difficult occasions of your life – and successfully. I have made an end of your trouble."

"You are a villain," said Topsparkle, sitting in a brooding attitude, staring at the carpet.

"I do not pretend – never have pretended – to be a saint. A man of rigid principles would not have served you as I have done. I have been useful to your loves and to your antipathies. I do not expect to be paid as a common servant. I have a claim upon your fortune inferior to none."

"O, you are a vastly clever person, and no doubt think you have been useful to me. Well, I will advance this money – mind, as I advanced the last, on your note of hand. It must be a loan."

"I have no objection, sir."

There had been many such transactions. Fétis thought that this loan theory was a salve to his employer's wounded pride. He would not suppose himself completely under the influence of his servant. He would assert an independent position, play the patron, hug himself with the idea of power over his slave.

"He would never dare to sue me for the money," Fétis told himself. "It can be no more than an empty form."

And with this sense of security Fétis signed anything that was offered to him for signature. He had lived a good many years in London, but was still a thorough Frenchman in his profound ignorance of English law, and he had, moreover, a somewhat exaggerated estimate of his influence over his master. He had never yet failed in his attacks upon Mr. Topsparkle's purse, and he thought his resources in that direction were almost unlimited. This had encouraged him in extravagance, and had fostered the habit of reckless gaming, which was the open vice of the age.

"You ought to be making a fortune, not losing one, Fétis, with such a house as yours," said Topsparkle, counting over a bundle of bank-notes after the note of hand had been duly executed. "I am told that the most fashionable men in town patronise your supper-room, and build their occasional nests upon your upper floors, where you have bachelor quarters, as I understand, for gentlemen who are in town for too short a season to disturb the desolation of their family mansions."

"The business is not unprofitable," replied Fétis deprecatingly, "and my patrons are among the flower of the aristocracy. But I have an expensive wife."

"What can we expect, my good fellow, when at our age we marry reigning beauties," asked Topsparkle lightly. "Your lady was a dancer at the Opera House, as I am told, and a toast among the bloods who frequent the green-room. Did you think she would transform herself into a Dutch housewife, tuck up her sleeves and peel vegetables in the kitchen, because you chose to marry her?"

"Unhappily she has caught the infection of that accursed house, and plays as deep as a lady of fashion," said Fétis ruefully.