No Man's Friend

Book I. Westbourne-on-sea

Chap. Page I. The Elvani Family 3 II. The Visitors' List 13 III. The Regatta at Westbourne-upon-Sea . . 34 IV. Mr. Ranwick at Home 67 V. Mr. Searle 91 VI. Friendly, or Unfriendly 106 VII. Surveillance 127 Vin. Paves the Way for many Changes . . 142 IX. Mr. Harland's Ultimatum .... 161 X. The Elvani Family is Broken Up for Ever . 174

Book II. Damaris

I. Mr. Harland is Himself Again . . . 193 II. Mrs. Courtenay Tells the News . . .213 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. Chap. Page III. Damaris 230 IV. Two Homes 243 V. Inquisitive Philosophy . . . . 266 VI. Damaris's Character Develops Itself . . 294 VII. Courtenay's Love Suit

BOOK I. WESTBOURNE-ON-SEA.

VOL. I. B

Chapter I

the elvani family. They came into the old town of Westbourne at eleven o'clock at night. The clocks in the new town — that of Westbourne-upon-Sea, a mile and a quarter distant — had already struck eleven ; but then Westbourne-upon-Sea was a modern, fast, go-a-head place, and not to be relied upon. The bells began chiming the hour in the old turret of Westbourne Church as the Elvanis — father, mother, and daughters — tramped into the town, slowly, erratically, and with heads butting agaiust the wind and rain which had been in their faces all the way, like adverse fates. They had walked their two-and-twenty miles, those four fragments of society ; and the rate at b2 which they had walked, together with the jour ney and the stormy nature of the day, had told upon them, and rendered them grateful for the first sight of the town, and the flecks of light, here and there, in the windows of cottagers and townsfolk who were up late that night.

The father of the family in a ragged great coat, too small for him, but a world too wide, stalked on in advance, clutching a something to his breast, that looked like a wooden baby in a green baize bag; and glancing behind now and then at her who came more slowly in his wake, and whom he might be guiding by the sparks which the wind blew across the dark ness from the short pipe he held between his teeth. Following him the mother of the family — the Signora Elvani of public life — a woman who seemed to have been made to match her husband, so gaunt and angular was her outline in the shadows. She too carried a rigid substance in green baize, which she clutched with equal tenacity to her breast, and even screened with a portion of that scanty shawl which might have more profitably covered her chest from the cold.

She looked behind occasionally at those who loitered in her rear, as her husband looked at her. Ten yards in the background at least, followed the elder daughter, an attenuated child in a squelched bonnet, a short ragged frock, black stockings, and old boots down at heel, a girl evidently lame and footsore, and over-weighted with a bundle of "properties" which was slung across her right shoulder, and to which she clung with two thin, bony hands. Five yards from her, the junior member of the family, evident by her stature even in that murkiness of atmosphere ; a child that had also something in green baize to carry, and was also spare of form, poorly clad, down at heel, and lame. " I said that we'd do it by eleven, Caroline," said the man in advance, without removing his pipe from his mouth ; " and there it strikes from Westbourne Church, by jingo !

Where are the girls ? " " They're coming on. Damaris," she said, looking over her shoulder, " are you there ? " " I'm here, safe enough. Is this Westbourne?" " Yes." " Thank God for it then, for I'm dead beat," said the child ; " here's Eunice with more life than I have. Why, she's singing now!" " There's much to sing about just now, I must say," said Mrs. Elvani, with emphasis. " Come on, you two ! " On into the old town accordingly, keeping to the middle of the road in preference to a footpath of flints, neatly laid enough, but not choice walking for people with tender feet ; turning suddenly to the left, away from the broader thoroughfare, and into a narrow street smelling of imperfect drainage, stopping for a moment to collect their forces together, and then toiling one after another up the steep and time-worn steps that led into the ' Ship ' inn.

Time was when the ' Ship ' had been a respectable place and frequented by respectable people ; many years ago that was, however, before physicians talked too much about the purity of air and mildness of climate peculiar to Westbourne, and speculative gentlemen ran up their rows of terraces on the great cliffs facing the sea, and hotels were found to pay in the new town. Then the ' Ship ' had no more visitors, and even fourth-rate commercial travellers took their samples of groceries and patent-medicines to other quarters less saline and low. Saline — for the Westbourne boatmen lived in the old town still, which appeared to have gone further inland and out of the way, as though ashamed of its dashing neighbour and namesake ; and these boatmen clung to the ' Ship,' and smoked long pipes in its grimy parlour, and swore a good deal when times were hard and fish were scarce.

Low, very low indeed for a quarter of the year — for it was the only house-of-call for tramps, that had a connection with tramps, and where tramps for the nonce might consider themselves at home. So the ' Ship ' had lost caste, and had it not been for the antiquity of the thing, and the tact of the landlord, would have lost its licence with its former dignity. For they quarrelled at the ' Ship ' not unfrequently, and when rival itinerants met in the tap-room in the season, the place was resonant with altercation until they turned into the stable-yard and settled differences by force of arms. There was no doubt that the place was full enough on that particular night in August on which our story opens. The door of the taproom, and the windows of the tap-room were open, the tobacco smoke was thick and dense despite the thorough draught, and before one grew accustomed to the atmosphere, it was difficult to distinguish through the fog the faces or figures of the people who talked so loudly and volubly, and hammered so noisily their beer-mugs on the table.

" What Elvani, and the old woman, and the lot o' you!" exclaimed the landlord, emerging into the passage as the wayfarers came up the steps, " blest if I can stow you anywhere, upon my soul." "Full?" " Chock full to busting — everybody's come to Westbourne this Regatta time, and you won't get the pull like you did last year, my boy." "Perhaps not," said Elvani, nodding, "but we've our connection, and it will stand by us, I'll be bound ! We shan't go to the wall without an effort of our own, for there's talent in us, Jones, and principle, and style." " Ah," replied Jones, " I will say that myself, though I'm no judge of style, and likes the comic business best, and b'lieves it pays best in the long run. You'll find a corner, I daresay, to stow yourselves in for an hour, but there's no room to sleep you anywheres.

A wet night, Mrs. Elvani ; up to business the night-afore, like a woman of business as you are, my dear." " Ah ! yes ! " said Mrs. Elvani, rather wearily, and without paying any heed to the familiar peroration of the landlord. " Let us come in and sit down." " We've walked forty miles if we've walked a step to-day," said Mr. Elvani, "and the old lady's tired." " Two-and-twenty by the last milestone," corrected his wife. " Oh ! two-and-twenty was it ? " said he, easily. " Ah ! but then we missed our way twenty times at least, and as misses are as good as miles, why that makes forty-two, eh, Jones ? " Jones condescended to laugh at this stale joke. " Dashed if you ain't allers in spirits, guv'nor. Go in and cheer them up a bit, they're as sulky as bears about the wet. They don't take things kindly, they don't do credit to the house ; they don't drink as they ought.

They're as scaly a lot," he added, behind his hand, " as ere I seed come into a man's parlour." "And you'll turn me and my family, old customers and good ones, Jones," said Mr. Elvani, with consummate tact, " you'll turn us into the wet and windy streets for a lot of new-fangled nondescripts that don't thank you for your hospitality. Jones, it's unfriendly, to say the least of it." " Well, look a-here ; we're blazing full, but you can keep the place you settles down in ; there's the loft over the stables for the missus and young uns if they like it better. And it's not everybody that I'd let go into my loft, with hens there, and new laid eggs seven a shilling, strike me dead ! " " Jones, you're a good fellow. A mug of ale, a quartern of gin, a big loaf, some cheese, a clean pipe, and a screw, old boy.

Hollo ! you girls. Why they've gone to sleep on the door step, both of them, side by side like a couple of paroquets. Hi Eunice ! hi Damaris ! " The girls, tired out by their father's loquacity, had seated themselves on the top step, and were fast asleep with their bundles in their laps. "Do you want to catch your death of cold, and be no good in the morning, Damaris? " said the father, when the eldest girl was awake and standing by him ; " upon my word, girl, you should be more careful of the consequences." " To catch cold, and die and be buried somewhere near the place where the clock strikes. I don't fancy, father, that I should care, or that anybody else would," she added with a short laugh, " for it's hard lines." " Hard lines ! " repeated the father, " that is a vulgar phrase ; who taught you that ?

" " You did." "A slangy phrase which I have picked up in low company somewhere, and which I sliould not have repeated," remarked her father ; "don't say it again, Damaris, — it jars ! You're cold." " As a stone." " Come into the warm room and have a little ale with some gin in it, you'll not talk of being buried then." Father and daughter passed into the tap room, whither Mrs. Elvani and the youngest born had preceded them, after Eunice had been also reprimanded iu her turn for her carelessness, — her wickedness in trying to kill herself in that way ! "Do you want to die and leave no one to care for me? " the mother had said with a half jealous cry; "sitting on wet stones, you foolish thing, you." " Die, mother ! I want to live to be sure. To live with you, and Damaris, and , and father, when he don't drink !

" " Who says he drinks ? " " They talk about him — wherever we go — a little." " Oh ! a little. And he only drinks a little, mind you ! And that's when we have been in luck's way, and his spirits are good. How the smoke makes one's eyes water, Eunice ; everything right in the bag, girl ? " " Quite right," had been the sharp answer as they entered the tap-room or bar-parlour of the • Ship,' and plunged into the cloud-land which met them there. It was evident that Signor and Signora Elvani had each a favourite daughter.

Chapter II. The Visitors' List

It was a heterogeneous company assembled in the tap-room of the ' Ship ' that night. The eve of the Regatta at Westbourne-on-Sea had brought together all the strange nomadic atoms peculiar to regattas, and to those festivi ties which lure a sight-seeing public towards them. When the Elvani family had settled down — which they did with considerable diffi culty — and had become accustomed to the apartment and the smoke within it, they had leisure to take stock of their companions, to recognize, and to be recognized by, many wan derers like themselves. There were the eternal Ethiopians, six in number — men whom they had met at the races last week, and at a fair the week before ; and there were an opposition lot, who had turned up unexpectedly at the ' Ship ' also, and were at daggers drawn with the first comers.

There had been an effort, earlier in the evening, to make things pleasant, and buy off the super fluous itinerants — but the effort had ended in personalities and one fight in the skittle-ground ; and tliere were a dozen blackguards, with sooty complexions, ready to overstock the market's demand for blackguards in the morning. It might have been a pleasant evening, if it had not been for these opposing elements of dis cord, who sat glancing at each other like imps of darkness, and ready at a word to make a general melee of it. The Italian with his monkey had come the night before, having made a mistake in the day, and the two were fast asleep in the corner, brothers-in-arms, the taller one with his head on the organ. There were a couple of acrobats, haggard-looking beings, who had retired into private life, and whose fleshings were dry ing before the kitchen-fire downstairs; and there were four Germans, with three brass instru ments and a drum, and these had represented all the " professional " class until the arrival of the Elvanis, at whom three-fourths of the pro fession swore as at a fresh intrusion.

But the room, whicii was a very long, barn-like place, was crowded with the Westbourne boatmen, and by boatmen who had come from various places round the coast to compete with them, and were waiting for their boats by the first early train to-morrow, heavy-booted, bronze-faced men, who regarded the " profession " curiously, and smoked long clay-pipes, and talked of little else but their crafts, the voyages made in them, and the races won in past regattas. Throw in a blind man and his dog — a man who was really blind, or who thought it policy to keep up the delusion even when off duty ; and a man and woman who intended to sell cards of the Regatta in the morning, and the reader has all the select company at the ' Ship ' before him. " Well, there's enough on us now, at any rate," grumbled one of the negro melodists, " all in the musical line too, barring you coves," nodding at the acrobats — " and I've no doubt we shall have half-a-dozen more in the moruing.

Who'd a thought of you lot turning up with yer ting-tang stuff at this out-of-the-way place." "The more the merrier, Barnes," said Mr. Elvani, cheerfullv. 7 ¥ Mr. Barnes did not see that. Mr. Barnes d'd all the more that came to add to the merriment and take their share in the super fluous cash that might be afloat next morning. Mr. Barnes was argumentative also, and spoke contemptuously of Westbourne-on-Sea, and the second Regatta that ever the beggarly (here he d'd again with considerable volubility) watering place had been able to afford. " Oh, but look here, Barnes, I spotted this place first," said Elvani. " I was here last year before you fellows thought of it. I've been here five summers for a fortnight at a time." " More fool you," said Barnes. Mr. Elvani said complacently that he had made it pay, and Mr. Barnes told him that he was a liar.

" And if you make it pay to-morrow, blarm me," cried Barnes ; " for if we don't drown you with the row we make, I'm a Dutchman." " If you don't make less row now, some of you chaps '11 get shot out of winder," cried an indignant boatman. " What do you keep growling about, you quarrelsome beggar, you ? Hasn't Mr. Elvarnish as much right as you to the town ? Blessed if he don't behave better in it, at any rate." " Who's talking to you ? " growled Barnes. "Thank you, Mr. Wads. I drink your health ; and here's a toast with it. Live and let live ! " said Elvani. " But, damn it, you won't let us live ! " cried Barnes. " In my line and after my fashion," con tinued Elvani, " I try to be respectable and to please respectable people. I shall not interfere with your connection, Mr. Barnes." "Why do you keep talking to the fellow?

" said his wife at this juncture. " Can't you let him rail on and take no notice ? " " My dear, we are not to be put down by sham niggers and their Seven Dials vulgarisms. On our own ground too, Westbourne-upon- Sea." " The girls are asleep. Will you let them sleep or not ? " asked Mrs. Elvani, querulously. " My dear — by all means. But their sup per ? " " Ah ! better have their supper and go to bed in earnest perhaps, in the loft," said Mrs. Elvani ; " we shall be poisoned with this vol. I. c tobacco else. Eunice — Damaris — don't sleep there ! " " Nice names them," said the incorrigible Barnes to his neighbour, " almost swell names, and suits swells who don't like vulgarity. Seen better days, you lot o' course. Kept a carridge and pair, p'raps, and did the nobby in Rotten-row." " At least, Mr. Barnes, we — " "Hush!" cried Mrs. Elvani, pulling her husband by the sleeve; "is this a place to brag of what we have been, or what we might have been, if the drink had not got hold of you ?

" "Got hold of me ! " cried Mr. Elvani, in mild surprise. " Well, that's a good one ; and I have known when to stop all my life. Caro line, you are severe." "Bread and cheese, please," said Mrs. Elvani. "It's late already; and these men will sit here all night." " Ah, bread and cheese — there, my dear, your favourite crust." The Elvanis declined further argument for the present, and paid attention to their supper. The customers began to thin ; those who had been fortunate enough to secure beds, to go lumbering in their heavy boots upstairs, and those less fortunate to drop off to sleep, one by one, at their tables, leaving but a few restless nomads talking and arguing still. The smoke began to clear away somewhat, and the Elvanis to become more prominent characters ; to loom forth from the mist, as it were, life-portraits for any who cared to study human nature at that hour and in that wretched place.

Let us sketch them in outline as they sit there, for they have their parts to play in this story, and they influence many whose time has not come to strut their brief hour before the reader here. Mr. Elvani, a tall man of forty years or thereabouts, a sallowfaced man, with long hair of an incipient grey, and a ratty moustache of the same hue, to which his hand had a habit of wandering, and of twitching at in a nervous and characteristic fashion. A man very much lined, who had evidently experienced much privation, and did not look the strongest in the world after his hard battle with life ; his hard struggle mayhap for the life that was in him still. A thin-faced man with downcast C grey eyes, that robbed his face of a shrewdness that had been natural to it once, and wras evident at times still when he looked straight before him, which was not often.

A man whose hand shook as he cut his bread and cheese, and who assumed a nonchalant air, as though to hide that little trait of nervous ness. For he had been disturbed by Mr. Barnes's comments upon his family's appearance, and was even at that moment cogitating some severe reflections upon Barnes, should that ill-tempered individual annoy him further before the night was out. His wife was of a more reticent disposition, probably of a character more strong, judging by the upper hand which she had assumed that evening, although we will not judge by ap pearances yet a while. A tall woman, her husband's junior by eight years we may say, though looking as old as he, as tired, as care worn, or timeworn, or both, and as grey. A woman who had fretted more at her position, it was just possible — if the Elvanis had really fallen from a higher estate — one who had re sisted every step downward, clinging to the rocks on either side, and setting her back TnE visitors' list. 21 against the moral impetus which forced her slowly but surely to the lower ground.

A woman terribly worn, terribly soured by mis fortune, but with strength in her yet to do her day's work with the rest. And the children ? drifting on with father and mother along the same road, parts of the machinery by which money was earned, and the fleeting interest of the lounger awakened. We need draw but little attention to them in this place, they are lay figures for the nonce, and do not live in this chapter. Dark-faced, dark haired children, both of them, with features so sharpened by poverty, that it was difficult to determine what they might have been under circumstances apart from these. Children with a strong resemblance to each other, albeit the brow of the elder one with the outlandish name, as Mr. Barnes had observed, was more prominent, and seemed to send the eyes further back into the head.

When supper was over it was twelve o'clock. The numbers had considerably thinned in the bar-parlour of the ' Ship,' and there were not more than six wide awake and watchful. Amongst the latter was Barnes, a man great in the comic line when facing the public with his gang, but brutal and acrimonious at the side scenes of life, as are many of his betters, and with less excuse perhaps. Barnes was still suffering from the appearance of the Elvani family; he had not grown accustomed to their intrusion ; he had not expected them at Westbourne, and he felt the disappointment acutely. By his side a companion, also one of the wakeful few, smoking a short pipe after the usual fashion, and regarding the Elvanis with attention as they proceeded to collect their properties together. "Better all in the loft along with the chil dren and me," said Mrs. Elvani to her husband in a whisper, which did not escape the op position, however.

" We shan't take anything, mum," said Barnes, ironically ; " we're not genteel, but we shan't take any of yer traps." " I don't know that we're compelled to trust you," replied Mrs. Elvani, shortly. "Come, girls." " Well, I've heard of imperence and cheek," said the man by Barnes's side, who had not hitherto spoken ; " but I think that we've had enuf of it for one night. Hitalians ain't generally so fast in their langwidge, though people who purtend to be air, o' course." " We don't want to argue any more with you, my friend," said Elvani. " I'm only sorry that our coming here has put you out so much." " Ah ! I daresay you are. Sorry, too, that we know all about you, and that you're about as much a furriner as I'm a black man, Mr. Wooster." Mr. and Mrs. Elvani did not appear greatly discomfited by the discovery; they were sur prised for an instant, then they continued loading their children and themselves with the chattels that they had carried two-and twenty miles that day.

" Ain't I right about it ? " asked Barnes's friend. " Quite right, my good fellow," said Elvani, cheerfully. " Worcester it is, though how the deuce you found me out puzzles my compre hension. Elvani is a better public name, but Worcester might draw a little more, even now," he added, with a sigh. " Ah ! you was in the sterrups once, and no mistake. I was a super in the chorus when you were coming the bounce as tenor. Too proud to look upon a feller like me then." " Proud enuf now, Jack," growled Barnes. " Too proud of that name to hawk it about the streets, at all events," said Mr. Worcester, whom we will call by his right name from this time. " And so you were one of the chorus at the Theatre Royal George? I'll be back in a minute, and we'll have a glass together for the sake of auld lang syne."

" That's more sociable," said Jack, " by a long sight. Eh, Barnes? " " I don't want his glass — I don't want nothing more to do with nobody to-night." And Barnes, aggrieved at the turn which affairs had taken, curled himself into the hard corner of the wooden settee on which he was ensconced, and proceeded to make an effort to slumber with the rest. Meanwhile the Worcesters passed from the house to the stable-yard, preceded by the land lord with a lantern, Mrs. Worcester scolding her lord and husband all the way. " You'll go back and drink with those men who have insulted us all the evening — you'll let yourself be talked over by them, and make yourself their butt." " Upon my soul, Caroline, no ! " " Why should we mix with them ? We can keep ourselves apart from them, if we like ? " " Certainly we can."

" We're low enough ; but we can go lower still." "Ah! yes — that's true." " You'll not want any more money to-night?" " Why, no — that is, we're expected to help the house a little — and if I can't sleep, and we get talking, why we become thirsty, eh ! landlord ? Ah, ah ! the landlord sees the joke." " You must give your orders afore half-arter twelve, as I locks up the bar, and goes to-bed." " Exactly. Caroline, my dear, I think six pence, or a shilling will be sufficient." " There is sixpence." " Ahem ! thank you," said the recipient. " Now you go first, and I'll pass up the property. You'll dress first thing to-morrow, all of you." "Yes." "The guitars are quite right, and none the worse for the wet. It's dark, but dry now," he said, looking up at the black sky ; " please God, we shall have it fine to-morrow."

" Please God we shall ! " murmured the woman, reaching out her hand for the lantern, with which the landlord backed, however. " Why you'll set the blessed place a fire," said he ; "I can't have a light up there." " I'll put it out directly I've done the child ren's hair," said Mrs. Worcester, " but I must make them look nice for to-morrow." " Why didn't you do their 'airs up in the parlour." " With those wretches to laugh at me and them. Those vile, gin-soddened wretches!" she cried passionately ; " not I. Give me the light, and take my word that your stables shall be safe." "Mrs. Elvani may be trusted with sheet lightning, Jones," observed Mr. Worcester, proudly. " Well, there's the light," said Jones re luctantly, " and it's ony you lot that would ever get it out of me. But you've been allers on the square, and that suits the ' Ship.' And here's the ' Westbourne Times ' of yesterday to curl the young 'uns' hair with."

"Thank you, Mr. Jones," said Mrs. Wor cester with more gentleness. "You're kind to us ; you know that we haven't been always like this, and you feel for our position." " That's it, p'raps." Jones departed, and Mrs. Worcester and the children ascended to the loft by means of a rickety ladder that had been placed there for the purpose. The properties were passed up one and one, Mr. Worcester following promptly with the bundle which the elder girl had carried. " It's roomy, and the hay smells sweet," said Mr. Worcester, looking round him with his head craned forward to avoid contact with the roof ; " upon my honour many worse places than this might be found for honest folk." " A loft over a stable ! " muttered Mrs. Wor cester. " A lodging we can pay for, Caroline," said her husband gently. * " I don't complain.

You never hear me complain of my life, Worcester." " Well, no." " Only of you sometimes ; and you will not get drunk to-night?" " Drunk ! what on sixpence. Certainly not." " Bid the children good night then." "Good night, Damaris my dear," he said, stooping and kissing his eldest daughter. " We settle down here for a week, in the old country place that you like so much. Good night, Eunice." " Eunice, kiss your father," said Mrs. Wor cester. Eunice raised her thin face at this appeal, and Mr. Worcester kissed her also, and then with a final embrace to his wife, this affec tionate father and husband went down the ladder, pushed the ladder after his descent upwards into the loft, and walked across the yard towards the house again. " Now, if he keeps steady to-night, we may make money in the morning," the wife said, looking after him.