That Villain, Romeo!

Front matter

! POPULAR NEW NOVELS. Six Shillings Each. DAVID BROOME. By Mns. Robert O'Reilly. Illustrated by F. Barnard. AS IN A LOOKING GLASS. By F. C. Philips, with a Frontispiece by Gordon Browne. THAT VILLAIN, ROMEO! By J. Fitzgerald Molloy. COWARD AND COQUETTE. By the Author of " The Parish of Hilby," &c. PROPER PRIDE. By B. M. Croker. PRETTY MISS NEVILLE. By B. M. Croker. LESS THAN KIN. By J. E. Panton. LIL LORIMER. By Theo Gift. THE FLOWER OF DOOM. By Miss Betham-Edwabds. GREAT PORTER SQUARE : A Mystery. By B. L. Farjeon. THE HOUSE OF WHITE SHADOWS. By B. L. Farjeon. VIVA. By Mrs. Forrester, Author of "My Lord and My Lady," &c. THE PRETTIEST WOMAN IN WARSAW. By Mabel Collins. WARD & DOWNEY, PUBLISHERS, LONDON. i:V J. FITZGERALD MOLLOY, AUTHOK OF "Court Life Below Stairs; or, London Under the Georges.

"Royalty Restored; or. London Under Charles II." "The Life and Adventures of Peg Woffington." •' 'Tis he, that villain. Romeo! Romeo m,d Julie,. Act I., Scene V. WARD & DOWNEY, 12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C. 1886. [All rights reserved.] PRINTED by KELLY AND CO., 1ATE STREET, IINCOIN'S INN FIEIDS ; AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.

Preface

. Some years ago a version of this story appeared under another title. Little of its former self, however, remains, save the outline of the plot. A fresh back ground has been supplied to the action, new dialogue has been furnished to the actors, characters who formerly sought attention have made their exit, those who lingered in the background have come to the front. In its present condition it is hoped the book may find favour with a public which has already honoured its writer with approval. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. — In .Marcus Phillips' Studio . . 1 II. — Newton Mahrix gives Advice . 20 III. — The Fencing Lesson ... 28 IV. — Marcus Phillips enters Society . . 41 V. — The Beggar Maid's Picture . . 54 VI. — The Beggar Maid's Father . . .73 VII. — In the Grosvenor Gallery . . 93 VIII.— A Morning Call . . . .105 IX. — Is this A Dream ? . . . . 116 X. — Padre Pallamaiu .... 133 XI. — The Captain Speaks like a Father . 146 XII. — Guy Rutherford Appears . . . 154 XIII. — An After-Dinner Chat . . . 164 XIV. — The Picture Purchased . . . 175 XV. — Good-bye to Bohemia . . . 182 XVI.— One Summer Day . . . .197 XVII.— Only a Rag ..... 213 XVI1L— Farewell . . . . .227 XIX. — Left Alone ..... 247 XX. — An Understanding .... 259 XXI.— A New Life .... 265 XXII. — Receiving Society .... 273 XXIII.— My Heart is Sair .... 282 XXIV.— Home Again ..... 288 XXV.— In Peril ..... 298 XXVI. — On the Brink . . . . 306 XXVII.— Lost . . . .sis I THAT VILLAIN, ROMEO !

Chapter I. In Marcus Phillips' Studio

One afternoon, towards the end of March, an artist sat painting the portrait of a young girl in an attic studio in Fitzroy Street, Bloomsbury, a quarter sacred to Bohemians. In appearance he was scarce more than four-and-twenty ; she was yet in her teens. From the expression of his eyes and play of his features it was evident his labour was one of love — nor was it lost. The drawing on his canvas was free and bold, the colouring rich and harmonious, the likeness speaking. " Now, Capri, sit quiet," said Marcus Phillips, holding his brush in the air and looking medi tatively from his canvas to the girl's face. " Ah ! that is easier said than done, Marc," she answered familiarly calling him by an abbre viation of his name. " You know I can seldom remain still — unless when I am thinking deeply."

" Then you do think ? " " Such a question to ask," she said petulantly. EOiMEO! " Do you believe I am always the child I appear ? " " I should be sorry if you were not," he answered, dashing in some reds on the canvas. " Ah ! Marc," she said, after a slight pause, " there are days when I think until my head aches, and nights when I lie awake till morn ing, wondering where the current of my life will bear me." She tossed her head back as she spoke, and gave a quick, impatient sigh. " There, you have moved again. You would test the patience of Fra Angelico himself. Turn your face more this way ; that's better." And, nothing loath, the artist rose, and taking her face between his hands, set it in the required position. " Now about your future, Capri," he com menced. " Every man and woman has a destiny to fulfil ; would it not be better to let Fate work out the riddle of your life than for you to waste time in speculative dreams that may end in disappointment ?

Your fate will overtake you in good time." "I don't know. It seems so slow in comino-. I have listened for its approach for years, and listened in vain. Fate seems so slow." " And you are so young." " Not so very young," she answered, thought fully. "I am just eighteen; and besides, we who are born in the south mature quickly. Heaven IN MARCUS PHILLIPS' STUDIO. 3 help me ; I shall soon be what is termed a young lady, and have to call you Mr. Phillips." She laughed merrily and musically as a child at this verbal picture of herself. "I can never imagine you as a prim, stolid piece of English humanity," said he. " From being which may all the saints preserve me," she answered. Then, after a moment, she continued, in a lower and more serious tone, " I often wish I was not such a Bohemian as I am.

It's all very well and pleasant when you are young, but here in England a girl must grow respectable and staid when she leaves her teens." " Must she?" with an air of pert inquiry. " Yes ; not that I care so much about respectability, it always seems to make people heavy and stupid. Ah," she continued, after a moment's pause, " if I were only rich I would not care for respectability." " There are better things than money, Capri," he said, laying down his brush suddenly, and speaking with a more serious air than her words seemed to warrant. " I don't know what they are," she replied, looking away because not caring to meet his eyes. " Perhaps not now, but you will some day." " No, Marc, I never shall. Women are always older than men in thought and experience ; believe me, there is nothing so good in life as gold."

She moved her head deliberately and gazed 1—2 ROMEO! 4 out through the attic-window. Over the roofs of the opposite houses she could see the tops of some green trees that nourished in a neighbouring square. "Few have known the want of money more than I, Capri ; but I have not lived until now without discovering the limits of its power. It can buy many valuable things, I grant you, but never honest friendship, never unselfish love." He looked at her as he spoke, but her eyes were turned from him, and resolutely refused to meet his gaze. "You can live without these, you cannot without gold," she answered shortly, nay almost bitterly. " And what a hard, cold, sunless life it would be without them," he said, going over to the chimney-piece and slowly filling his pipe. Then he struck a light, came back, and took up the brushes once more.

" Money attracts friends, just as flowers allure bees," she commenced, " and money buys love every day." This time she laughed, and looked the painter in the face. " I wish the man joy of his bargain who buys love." " Do you ? " she asked, curtly. " But then such strong expressions as buying or selling are not used ; ' marriage settlements ' is the correct phrase. Cupid perhaps, has grown old and wise now-a-days, and thrown off the bandage from AV MARCUS PHILLIPS' STUDIO. 5 his eyes. At all events he sees sufficiently well to fire the heart of a woman with love only for men with heavy rent-rolls or good balances at their bankers." " You are unjust, ma chere," he answered reprovingly. "No, 1 speak truth. We no longer live in Arcadia, Marc ; I wish we did. The poor, dear old gods and goddesses fell in love much as they pleased, without any thought of money, or carriages, or clothes, and a happy time they had of it, I suppose."

The artist made no answer for a few minutes. Then he took the pipe from his mouth and said with an air of feeling and concern in his mellow voice : " Something has gone wrong with you to-day which forces you to speak so bitterly." Her face flushed in an instant. " Perhaps ; there would be nothing new in that." " Tell me all about it ; that will relieve you." "And annoy you." " Cannot you trust me ? You know you pro mised to regard me as your friend." She jumped up suddenly and flung her arms impetuously round his neck, knocking the palette from his hand, which descended, paint-side down wards, on the floor. " You are the best and dearest friend man or woman ever had," she said, and, with the freedom and impulsiveness of a child, she kissed him heartily on the forehead. TH.iT VILLAIN, ROMEO.' 6 The blood came into his face, a new light sprang into his eves.

"Now, Capri, what is it ? " he asked, when she had released him from the pleasant burden of her arms, and hastily resumed her seat once more. Then, while waiting for her answer, he took the palette up, and washed off some of the colours which had got confusingly mixed in their fail. She did not answer, and he went on, " You can tell me while I add these few touches. We must take advantage of what light is left us ; then you will make some coffee, and we will be as jolly as " " As Bacchantes. Ah ! Marc, I sometimes think you must have been a faun, and have lived iu Arcadia. The air and freshness of the glad golden age clings about you still. I feel satisfied you once danced in cool, fragrant woods to the sound of Pan's pipes : sported with dryads bound in chains of fadeless roses and sacred myrtle ; and rollicked with delight at the revels of old Silenus."

" How happy I must have been ! " " And would be yet, but that you fell in love with one of the daughters of men, for which offence you were turned out of Arcadia, made human, and sent into this matter-of-fact, beef and-plum-pudding-eating age to live in an atelier and paint pot boilers." " I wish I could go back," he replied, laughing at the picture she had drawn. " I fear you would be unfit for such a life, now you have lived among the children of men and tasted the bitter fruit of knowledge. Hav ing once been human, you could never again regain your faun-like simplicity ; just as those who have once sinned, repent as they may, can never recover the innocence they have lost." " Perhaps I could. I might remember my humanity as a dream." "And do we never long for what we have known in dreams ?

" she asked, thoughtfully, and then sat silently whilst the artist put some touches here and there on the canvas before him. At last he looked up and said, " You have not yet told me what put you out of humour to-day." " Oh ! it was nothing new, the same old thing over and over again. Father has had a quarrel with his landlady about rent ; he hasn't a penny, and won't be paid his pension until the end of next week." " And meanwhile " He lives by his wits or borrows from his friends. I'm getting sick, terribly sick, of such a life. I have known it for years and years, until I have come to believe it will run on for ever." " And how do you manage, Capri ? " " Oh ! I always come right somehow. Father says Mrs. Fum's bark is worse than her bite, and I know she must have been ' put out,' as HAT VILLAIN, ROMEO! she says, or she would never have spoken to him as she did to-day.

I teach her two daughters singing, and I have made them like me — I never have much trouble in making people care for me — and their love is a safe passport to their mother's heart ; so for my sake Mrs. Fum will say no more to him at present. But it's miserable having a father who is always on the watch to take in a friend or borrow from a chance acquaintance; and wretched living in a back pair for which you are alwaj's in debt. I often steal up and down stairs like a culprit. I know I cannot bear it much longer ; some last straw will break my back one day, and then I'll " "You'll what?" " God knows ; I do not — I wish I did ; go on the stage if I can, but father will not allow me if he can prevent it. Besides, I do not want to leave him yet ; if I did, I suppose he would go to the bad — not that my staying does much to save him.

" But then he is your only relative, and you must not leave him until you give some one the right to protect you for life," said the artist, looking at her wistfully. " I suppose you mean until I marry. That may be a long time— longer than I can afford to wait," she answered. After this they were silent for a while. She was thinking of her future life, the painter was wishing to heaven he were rich. "Father is so foolish, I cannot respect him even if I try," she said, after a few minutes. " Last quarter, when he got his pension, he ordered a supper, and half a dozen of claret without ever letting me know, and asked Lord Harrick — for next to a good dinner he best loves a lord— and some young men, mere acquaintances, with good names and bad manners, whom he met at the gymnasium where he gives fencing lessons ; but he never asked Newton Marrix or dear old Pallamari, who have often proved his best friends."

" You see, your father is not Bohemian enough to care for the society of a music-teacher or the company of an author still at the foot of Parnassus." " Perhaps not, but he appreciates their occa sional loans. Yesterday he asked one of his gymnasium friends for a sovereign in advance of his fencing lesson fees, and the worthy youth blankly refused." She laughed, half bitterly, half amusedly, at the thought. " I often wonder at Captain Dankers having had such a Bohemian daughter," said the artist. " I will tell 3*ou my history by-and-by, in confidence, just as actors did in old dramas, when they brought chairs to the footlights, and discoursed to audiences of their bosom secrets." " Very well ; now I have done for to-day," he said, laying his brush aside and looking at the canvas criticallv.

Capri stood up, and stared over his shoulder long and anxiously at the half-finished picture "You have made me look very beautiful," she said to him softly ; " but why didn't you paint me as some other character than the beggar maid ? " " I don't know. I thought it suited you best. Whom would you have me paint you as- Ophelia, Desdemona, Cleopatra ? " " No, Marc, none of these. I suppose, woman like, I am hard to please. Ophelia and Desde mona were foolish creatures, who suffered for their love, and I am not sufficiently majestic for Cleopatra. After all, the beggar maid may suit me best. In Tobe and crown tiie kings stept down To meet and greet her on her way ; " It is no wonder," said the lords, " She is more beautiful than day." ' Beauty, after all, does a good deal for its pos sessors in this world of ours."

" And is often a fatal gift." " That depends, my friend," she answered, looking at the canvas again, and then at the reflection of her face which she caught in a little mirror hanging on the wall close by. Knowing she possessed the divine gift of beauty, she felt proud of nature's priceless dowry. Her features were Grecian in cast ; the forehead low and square, the brows straight and well marked, the nose delicate as chiselled IN MARCUS PHILLIPS ' STUDIO. 11 marble, the mouth full and ripe, at once indi cating sensitiveness and love of pleasure. Her clear, olive complexion, dark, almond-shaped eyes, and blue-back hair marked her as being of foreign descent. The artist gravely watched the child-like delight she exhibited as she gazed at her reflection in the little square of mirror. And as he looked his face glowed with pleasure ; but suddenly, as if some unpleasant thought had struck him, he sighed and turned away.

" Beauty," said he, removing the easel, and placing a little table in the centre of the room, "is like money, there are some boons it cannot bring its owner." " Ay, but there are many good things it can," she answered. " Now get me some coffee, Marc, and don't philosophise. Besides, I have not lived so long in the world without seeing and knowing the market value of physical loveliness. Human nature is human nature, and a woman's handsome face has often ruled the wisest, bravest, and best men before now. 'It is no wonder, said the lords.' Now I'll boil the water, and 3-011 shall lay the table as well as you can, for men are awkward in matters domestic." She knelt down on the hearth, fanned the smouldering embers to a flame, boiled the water and made coffee. The artist picked up a palette-knife from the floor, removed some paint-brushes from the chairs, placed his picture against the wall, laid the table, and finally produced a fresh French .' 12 roll and a chicken and ham sausage from a little black-looking cupboard set high in the wall.

Then they sat down as merry as two children. " It's a pity 3^ou are poor, Marc ; I mean that you are not rich, which is almost the same," the girl said, suspending a morsel of sausage between her lips and the plate, and looking into the artist's thoughtful face. "Why is it a pity? I am quite happy as I am." " Ah ! you do not understand the pomp and circumstances of wealth." She answered half jestingly. " So much the better, say I." "If 3Tou were rich, you would have a studio with velvet curtains, a stained floor, Persian rugs, statues of old gods and graces, Italian engravings, Chippendale furniture — have a little more coffee, — quaint carvings, and Indian fans. Ah ! would not all that be delightful ? " "Then I'm certain I should not be half so happy as I am now, for I could never sit down to a table I had laid myself, and drink tea alone with 3Tou."

"It's coffee. But, I would certainly come and see you, and we would drink tea out of six mark china cups, and have it brought in b3T a page ; and you would have a new velvet coat, and get your hair cut — though that would be a pity — and wear a tall, shining hat " " In the studio ? " " You interrupt me ; not in the studio, of course. J3. MARCUS PHILLIPS' STUDIO. 13 Then you would paint me hke one of Rubens' women, in lustrous velvet and with braided hair." She sighed as she spoke and glanced round the studio, noting its small square of threadbare carpet, looking like a little island in a great ocean of room, its tattered sofa uncertain in the springs, and its few chairs mercifully covered with cheap chintz. '* What is the use of sighing for the moon when one must remain on the earth ? " he asked.

" Well, the moon will come down to you some day : I mean you will be rich. Pallamari says vou have genius, and he knows a great deal about art." " Pallamari is an indulgent friend." " But likewise an honest critic. Besides, I know there is that nameless something in your work that makes one look at it twice and remember it long." " I am sorry the hanging committee at Burl ington House does not share your opinion." "But you know well enough the committee's opinion is worth nothing. The public laughs at it now that its errors have become patent to all men. When you are famous and daub, you will get fifty times the price you do now for the careful work you call pot-boilers." " When did you turn prophetess ? " " Never mind when. You will become famous, I know ; but, my dear Marc, you will have to wait."

"If I had any one to wait with me, I should not mind," he said in an earnest voice, looking her full in the face as he spoke. " You are but twenty-four, and a mere boy yet," she replied, with a merry little laugh that had a sweet silvery peal in its tone. " Why should you want any one to wait with you, burden you, and half starve with you on love in a London attic. Now don't frown at me in that way or I shall cry. I am only cruel to be kind." He did not answer ; a troubled look came into his face, and he turned his eyes away from her. " Now, it's different with a woman," she went on again, after a few seconds' pause ; " men toil through the best days of their lives for name and independence — gifts of fortune which a woman with a pretty face, but without an ounce of brains may gain in a day or an hour by inducing the possessor of both to fall in love with and marry her.

It is the duty of every woman to secure unto herself the good things of this life byT way of compensation for the sacrifice of her liberty at the hymeneal altar." " Capri," he said, suddenly, and her quick ear detected that his voice was harsh for once, " you are preaching down your heart — your better self." His frank, blue eyes looked at her question ingly ; she lowered her head and made no answer, for she knew he had spoken wisely. "Take some sausage; I am not saying any thing wrong. Circumstances make us all what we are. I often think my whole life, so far as it has gone, has been a mistake. I cannot see why I came into existence at all ; but, once being here, I must do the best I can for myself, yet it takes such a time waiting before the best comes." "Time is woman's greatest enemy."

" Don't get epigrammatical ;i" then changing her voice to a softer key, she went on, " since my earliest dajrs I have known what the want of money means, and it has made existence terribly hard for me. Indeed I think I never really was a child." " If so, I am sorry ; a happy childhood is the best portion of life, as dawn is the fairest part of day ; no period afterwards, no matter how bright, can make up for it searly freshness and awaken ing joys," said he, thinking the while of his boyhood's years. " Perhaps not," she said, tapping her spoon against the empty tea-cup. " But one cannot shape one's earlier life any more than one can help being born. If my darling mother had lived, I think I should be happier than I am now, and better." " And so should I be if mine were alive," said the artist quickly, glad to have this bond of sympathy between them.

" My mother," said Capri, " sang in the opera at San Carlo in Naples. She was a lovely woman endowed with that type of beauty which withers quickly. My father, then an English officer string at Naples on sick leave, saw her one night at the theatre and fell desperately in love with her. She repaid him with an affection which ended only with life." Capri paused a moment. She was not certain if the church had pronounced a benison on her parents' union, concerning which she wisely held her tongue. " My mother continued on the stage for some time," the girl went on, " and I was born in the island which gave me its name and little more. Then she lost her voice, fell into a consumption, and was able to earn no more money. My father, I know, must always have been selfish ; indeed I fear he was something of a scamp.

When she could hold her engagement no longer at the opera, his love grew cold. Then pro mising to send for her speedily, he returned to England, at the call of duty, he said. But with us of Southern blood the voice of duty is un heeded when the lord of love cries aloud. His return without her broke my mother's heart, his subsequent coldness hastened her death." The girl's voice grew plaintive, her eyes became liquid with tears. " The remembrance of my mother brings to mind the face of a woman who suffered much with patience. Some friends of hers were kind and good ; they were humble people, but they loved her, and afterwards loved me for her sake. She was unwilling to die, poor soul, and would cling about me, kissing me passionately, her pale face wet with tears. One day she lay white, rigid, and cold ; some one said she was at rest.

Then I learned I was left alone in life, and all the world seemed blank. I stayed with my friends. Brown-faced Teresina, who said her rosary by day and night, loved me as if I had been her child. God had sent me to her in her old age, she said, for she had borne no children. The old padre taught me to read and write ; and expressed his sorrow that it wTas all he could do for me : in reality he had done much. Thanks to his teaching 1 knew Dante and Tasso from cover to cover before I had numbered ten years. Old Baptista, with eyes black as coal, gave me lessons in music and singing ; he played the organ of our little church where I sang on Sundays and feast da3Ts ; he said I had the voice of an angel. I think I could have lived happily for life with those good, simple people, and I have often wished I had been allowed to remain there.

But it was not to be. When I was about ten years old my father came to Naples in order to take me back with him to England. I cried as if my heart would break, and begged and prayed of him to let me remain with my good old friends ; but it was no use. The time which followed was one of misery for me. He had lost his mone3*, and had to retire from the army on half-pay. After a while, overcoming his pride, he commenced giving fencing lessons, which he soon found added considerably to his means, and so we've gone on ever since. Now you know all my early history," she added. " I sometimes wonder if I shall ever see Capri again. It is a beautiful spot, the sun never shines so bright, the sky never looks so blue as there. The memory of the place haunts me some days like a dream. I see the little cabin where I used to live on the beach, the bare-legged fisher men in their red caps, the brown-sailed fishing boats high on the sands, the 3rellow nets drying in the sun ; see Naples tying asleep in hazy light, and then hear the sea beating in for ever on the shore like music."

" It has made you a poetess." " It would have done the same with any one living there." " After all I am not sorry you left, for if you had not come to England I should never have seen and known you." " Perhaps not, perhaps yes. I believe in fate, and fate is stronger than death. If Ave were destined to meet we should do so, though I never left the island and you never wanted a fencing lesson." " Who can say ? " " Dearest delights come to an end, you know, in this weary world, and so have your sausage and roll and the coffee and my talk, and I must return home," she said, rising from the table. _ " When shall you be able to give me another sitting?" he asked, willing to keep her as Ion" as she would stay. " I cannot say. I may be able to come to morrow. I will if I can. I always like to have a talk with you ; it's the next best thing to having a conversation with myself.