No other way

Front matter

NOVELS By SIR WALTER BESANT & JAMES RICE. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. each ; post 8vo., boards, 2s. each; cloth, 2s. 6d. each.

READY-MONEY MORTIBOY. | BY CELIA’S ARBOUR.

THE GOLDEN BUTTERELY. | THE CHAPLAIN OF THE FLEET.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE I THE LADY'S DILEMMA = = = = 1 II, ON THE POOR SIDE . - - - 8} Ill, A STRANGE MARRIAGE - - - - 43 IV, RETIREMENT = = = = = 163 Vv. THE SLEEP OF SNOW - - - - 78 VI. BY CHANCE - - - - - 93

Vl. AFTER THE MORNING SERVICE - - - 108 VIII. BACKSTAIRS RUMOURS - - - = Wis Ix, AN UNFORTUNATE FAMILY - - = 138 X. FOR ATONEMENT - - - - = alee: XI, LOVE ENTERS = = - - LOO XII. LORD STRATHERRICK ACTS . - - 179 XIM. “TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT’ - - - 198 XIV. WHAT THE WIFE SAID - - - - 211 XV. DUST, ASHES, AND AMAZEMENT - = - 226 XVI. CONFESSION - - - - - 239 XVII. GREAT HERMITAGE STREET = = - 254

XVIII. ONLY A HOUSEBREAKER = - - = 270 vl

Chapter I The Lady's Dilemma

Tue lady sat at the open window of her lodging in King Street, Covent Garden. It was a lodging over a printshop, the sign of which, a Silver Quill, argent on gules, dangled from the front of the house and creaked in the wind. The front-room, where she sat and lived, commanded a fine view of the street; the back-room, in which she slept, overlooked the churchyard of St. Paul’s, where funerals all day long inclined the heart to wholesome meditation. Both in the front and at the back there was apparent to the senses the neighbourhood of the market. Since the time was late June and the season was warm and fine, one perceived in the mingled waves of fragrance the crushed strawberry of yesterday, the decayed cherry of last week, the trampled peas, broken lettuce leaves; the pungent spring onion of every day ; last year’s russets rotten; the cabbage-stalks which lay about in heaps, and all the things which are offered for sale in that great market. It is not, taken altogether, an exhilarating fragrance ; but the residents of King Street are accustomed to it; they have it with them all the year round, and at 1 every season ; they no more complain of it than the people near Billingsgate complain of the smell of fish which hangs for ever in the air.

The lady was a widow—quite a young widow—not more than four-and-twenty ; the weeds which spoke of her condition were modified, so to speak, in such a way as to betoken a widowhood of two years at least; they signified by their shape, by the manner of wearing them, by some feminine cunning which it would be difficult to explain— yet it was to be discerned—by some artful touch invisible yet perceptible, by the hand which pats the bow and smooths the strings, and introduces some small change into the fall of the drapery, a confession of Christian resignation ; perhaps they signified also—though this the widow would never allow (she was herself unconscious of it: the thing was due to her dressmaker)—the fact that she was at last inclined—the mind sometimes works unconsciously, and, like a watch, is only shown to be at work by the breathing (which in the engine of time is a ticking)—to consider dispassionately and critically, yet with a certain sympathy, any overtures which might be made—should such present themselves—of entering again upon the married state, which is consecrated by Holy Church, yet denounced by poet and satirist as offering fewer prizes than the State Lottery.

This morning, however, her face belied her dress. There was no look of Venus on it; there was no softness of possible love. Her face, comely and attractive, of the softer kind, with a cheek like a peach, and eyes large, limpid, and full of sunshine, was now disturbed and jangled, like a harpsichord out of tune, with anxiety and doubt. It was full of care, and care had no business with such a face; it was full of trouble, and trouble was an emotion for which that face was not intended by Nature; her lips trembled, and they ought to have smiled; her cheek, which should have remained soft and touched with a tender hue of the wild rose in June, changed colour as her thoughts went wandering here and there, and always came back to the same point, whatever that was; the tears gushed out and rolled down her cheek. Had there been any young man present of reasonable feeling for the sex, he would have cast himself at her feet crying aloud that her face was made for happiness, and that he would himself, at any cost, take upon himself, with no other hope of reward than to see her once more free from trouble, all her cares, her anxieties, and the consequences, if any, of her follies, if there had been follies, or of her misfortunes, if there had been misfortunes.

On her table lay two or three open letters; she glanced at them from time to time, not as if to derive consolation or hope from their utterances, but as if to hear their reproaches, as if she could not choose but look upon them.

The letters were, in truth, accusing voices ; they accused the lady, though not in words, of follies and extravagances; they warned her, too late, of what may happen to a woman left early in life without a guide and counsellor: a woman who understands nothing—it is a common failing with women—of the simple rules of compound addition and subtraction, and therefore goes on spending without comprehension of what her expenditure means until the day comes when she finds herself at the end of her fortune, and with no apparent means of paying for her food and dress and lodging. ‘These letters showed her that she was that most unfortunate person, a woman in debt, who cannot pay her debts, or if she pays is left destitute without friends to come to her assistance. ‘The o end of such a woman is clear: she must take shelter in a prison, where in a short time the manners, the language, the dress, the thoughts, of the polite world drop away from her, and like the other residents she becomes plunged in the sink of physical want, physical suffering, and sacrifices all those scruples which, outside, raise men and women to a higher level.

If bitterness and self-reproach and humiliation are wholesome correctives for the soul, even though they come too late to save from open shame, then, indeed, Isabel Weyland this morning was taking a sovereign remedy against I know not how many plaguy disorders and diseases of the soul—such as vanity, self-conceit, complacency, pride of family, pride of rank, the self-respect which is akin to arrogance, and the whole innumerable tribe of impish ailments.

The street below was crowded with people; all day long and most of the night there is a full and flowing tide of human life flowing up and down the street, which is not, however, one of the most fashionable resorts of London. In the morning, from three o’clock till noon, there are the people of the market—the porters who carry baskets on their heads, the barrows filled with fruit and vegetables, which are carried away to be hawked about the streets of the City and suburbs ; after noon there are the people who walk in the Piazza—a crowd of well-dressed people, yet not like the beaux of the Park; they are country people, members of Parliament, lawyers, actors of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, poets and wits; in the evening there are the people who frequent the coffee-houses, the taverns, and the gaming-tables ; later on there are the people who take supper after the play and drink in the night-houses among the ribald company of the place. No sooner have the rakes gone away to bed than the market people begin again, so that for the whole four-and-twenty hours there is in King Street a continual flocking of folk to Covent Garden, and a continued noise of footsteps, voices, barrows, drays and carts, with the frequent fights of hackney coachmen, chairmen, and the porters of the market.

The lady looked out upon the street. The beaux walked delicately, thin clouded canes hanging from their ruffled wrists; the porters carried baskets of fruit upon their heads, rudely pushing their way within the posts ; the street criers, in unending procession, bawled their wares— fruit from the market; fish from Billingsgate; herbs for medicines; laces, gingerbread, needles and pins, matches, rabbits, poultry, baskets, “knives to grind” and “kettles to mend”; hackney-coaches rattled over the stones; the brewer’s dray with the casks of beer dragged heavily, grunting and groaning; ladies with dingle-dangle hoops, fans hanging from their arms, and little caps tied modishly under their chins, slowly walked along to the Piazza, where they would meet their gallants; old gentlemen, their age betrayed by the shaky knees, stopped in front of the printshops, of which there were many in King Street.

The lady’s Christian name you have heard was Isabel. Her surname was Weyland. She was the widow of the late Honourable Ronald Weyland, only brother of the Earl of Stratherrick in the Scottish Peerage, and one of His Majesty’s High Commissioners for the Hanaper. He died, unfortunately for his wife, when still no more than six-and-twenty. This bereavement fell upon her three years before the morning when we find her in King Street. She had been living the life of a lady of quality and fortune, without sufficient means, and her present difficulties were the result.

She looked down upon the dear delightful epitome of the town; she looked, but she paid small attention. If she noticed the moving panorama at all, it was only to ask herself, with a sinking heart, how long it would be before the sight of this free and cheerful life, this contemplation of the world in action, which fills the young with longing, inspires manhood, and makes old age forget its cares, would be finally closed to her by the shutting of a door. In imagination she heard the slam, and the turning of a key in a lock; in her mind she heard its harsh grating. The thought of this possibility transformed the crowd below her; they were no longer common people, pretenders of fashion, demireps: they became glorified, happy beyond all expression, enviable beyond all words. Truth to say, the current of life in King Street is a turbid stream at best; there are dens and purlieus about Covent Garden of which men do not speak to women, which women, even with other women, profess not to know either by name or by reputation. But to Isabel this morning the street became a sparkling brook, bright and transparent, prattling over pebbles, in comparison with the murky stagnation of the prison which awaited her.

For, indeed, the time had at last arrived—the time certain to arrive for those who live beyond their means— when the catchpole threatens, and the bailiff murmurs, and the creditor, a truculent and relentless person, holds out his hand, and says: ‘ Pay me; I will wait no longer— pay me, or else

‘Oh,’ she groaned, ‘I have been a fool! Heavens! what a fool I have been !’

She had indeed. Yet, at such a crisis in her affairs, self-reproach helped her not. A way had to be found— some way, any way, of borrowing, of raising money, of prolonging credit; some way, else her creditors shuddered and trembled.

She might write to them ; she might call upon them and plead with them. If they would forbear, she would pay, perhaps, at some future time, but she had no security to offer. If they would not forbear, if they took such revenge as was in their power, she would never be able to pay them. Alas! she was herself the daughter of a City merchant; she knew what was thought and said of the debtor who would not or could not pay his debts; she knew the rage, the thirst for revenge, that fills the breast of the tradesman who finds that he has made a bad debt.

Why, his business, his profits, his livelihood—all depend upon the payment of debts; nothing can be invented or allowed by the law which can be too bad for the defaulting debtor ; the prisons are fall of poor wretches who would pay if they could, but, being locked-up and forbidden to work, cannot pay. She knew that an appeal to the mercy of her creditors would only harden their hearts, while it would only humiliate her with no result.

She thought of flight—but whither? And when her slender stock was gone, what should she do next ?

And again she clasped her hands and wailed: ‘ Alas! I have been a fool—a fool! What a fool I have been!’

She took up one of the letters and read it again, although she knew it by heart. It was from a draper on Ludgate Hill. ‘Why,’ she moaned, ‘I have been a customer of the man ever since I married. Yet he threatens me!’ It was true that she had ordered many ° things of him and had paid for most ; but, then, she had not paid for the last things, which were costly. And now he had written to her with words unmistakable.

She

‘Mapam,

‘I beg respectfully to call your immediate attention to the very large account now standing unpaid in my book. I find that it is now nothing less than £95 5s. 11d. I must therefore most reluctantly request you to discharge this debt at once. I cannot believe that the widow of the late Hon. Ronald Weyland and the sister-in-law of Lord Stratherrick is unable to pay a bill of £95 only. Indeed, my own position forbids me to wait. I have, therefore, to inform you that if within four-and-twenty hours I do not receive the money in full, I must take the usual steps and issue a writ. In that case the money must be paid in full with costs and immediately. If it is not paid, I shall have to instruct my attorney to proceed as the law permits and directs.

‘Madam, I cannot believe that a lady who has dealt with me for so long, and until this year with no difficulty about payment, will fail to meet her just liabilities. I could in ordinary circumstances wait your pleasure, but at the present moment my position is serious, and I know not what may happen to me unless this money is paid.

‘T have the honour to remain, madam,

‘Your most obedient and humble servant, ‘ JosrepH Futron.’

When she had read this letter through for the tenth time, she laid it down upon the table, and, with her chin in her hand, she fell into another meditation of a most unpleasing nature.

She was interrupted by the servant of the house, who came to tell her that Mr. Fulton was below, and begged the honour of speech with her.

The writer of the letter followed the maid upstairs, and entered without further ceremony. He was a man of short stature and of appearance displeasing. Although he was dressed as a citizen of substance and position, with silver buttons to his coat, silver buckles to his shoes, and white silk stockings, his face was marked by intemperance ; his short neck lay in folds over his lace cravat; his cheeks were red and swollen ; his nose was painted—these are all indications of strong drink. Moreover, his voice was thick and his shoulders unsteady, as if, which was indeed the case, he had recently come from a tavern. It is not uncommon for a respectable citizen to show signs of drink in the evening, perhaps in the afternoon; but it is not, happily, usual for a man of business to betray this indulgence in the morning.

‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I come to ask if you have received my letter.’

‘Sir, I have received it; I have read it. Here it is on my table.’

‘And what, madam, may I ask, is your answer ?”

‘My answer . . . my answer, Mr. Fulton? I have not yet thought of an answer. The letter only arrived this morning. Perhaps in a month or two :

‘No, madam. By your leave, not a month or two—not a day or two.’

‘Permit me to remind you, Mr. Fulton, that, when I ordered these things, one of the reasons which persuaded me to take them was your assurance that I should be allowed six months’ credit.’

‘I do not remember any such assurance,’ he replied boldly.

‘Come, Mr. Fulton! I think if you rack your brains a little you will remember that promise of six months’ credit, of which only six weeks have expired. My answer, sir, is that I must take that credit. I want that credit, and I must have it!’

‘Madam, as regards that promise’—his voice grew thicker—‘I cannot remember it. How, then, can I allow it 2?”

‘Sir’—the lady’s temper began to rise—‘I perceive that you do not intend to remember your promise. I have therefore nothing more to say. I have no answer to give. You will do what you please. But I demand that credit.’

The man’s manner changed. He became suddenly cringing, and he tried to be persuasive. He leaned over the table and essayed a smile, which became a fixed grin.

‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I am most unwilling to press you, but my own affairs

* Your own affairs, sir ?”

‘ My own affairs, madam.’ He hesitated, and spoke at random. ‘They are in confusion. I know not what may happen. In fine, I am urgently in want of the money.’

‘Can a substantial citizen of Ludgate Hill be in urgent want of £95 ””

‘You mistake, madam.’ He rose up with dignity. ‘Every man in business is sometimes pressed. It is not the amount—it is the occasion.’

‘I must take that credit you promised. I am sorry for your position.’

‘ As for my position, it was never more assured. I am a citizen—a freeman of the Drapers’ Company; my affairs are on a large scale. I am considered as the equal of any merchant,’ he assured her with swelling words and looks.

‘I must take that credit,’ she persisted.

‘Madam ’—his face became purple—‘I must have that money.’ He banged the table with his fist. ‘I say that I must have that money :

Now, here the lady made a great and grievous mistake. For she ought to have referred the question to an attorney ; there was nothing unusual in a credit of six months, and, which was more important, the debt would have been found on examination to be due to the man’s creditors, and not to himself. For, instead of being a prosperous tradesman, as he asserted, he was nothing better than a man of straw, who intended to get this money for himself and to defraud his creditors. The man, in a word, might threaten, but he could do nothing. This, however, the lady did not know.

‘ Go,’ she said; ‘ you will do what you please.’

The man hesitated. The lady pointed to the door. Her face was hard and her manner unbending.

‘You will take the consequences ?” he said.

‘Go.’ Again she pointed to the door.

‘You will take the consequences of robbing—yes, of robbing—a substantial City merchant, madam—a substantial :

The lady rose. He said no more, but vanished. She sank back into her chair.

‘Oh! she groaned again, ‘ what a fool, what a fool I have been !

She took up a second letter. It was from her dressmaker, a certain Mrs. Brymer, and was much shorter, yet to the same effect :

‘Mapa, ‘I am most sorry to trouble you, or any of my customers. I can wait, as a rule, for a long time. But your bill is now, I find, upwards of £70; this is too large a bill to run on any longer. The necessities of my business compel me to ask for payment as soon as it is convenient to yourself. It is with the greatest reluctance that I press you for payment. Suffer me to call upon you to-morrow about noon. We may perhaps find means to adjust this difficulty quickly and without trouble. I assure you that I have assisted many ladies to get through difficulties, and at the same time to pay me their liabilities.

‘IT remain, madam, with much respect, ‘Your obedient servant, ‘Parry Brymer.’

‘The letter is not threatening like the other,’ Isabel murmured, ‘ but I know the woman. She is very resolute. I am more afraid of her than of the man Fulton. What will she say when I confide the whole to her ?

She started and turned pale. For there was a step on the stair; the sound of a step may be a sound of terror to a debtor. This was the step of her dressmaker—of the creditor who was going to call at twelve. What should she come for but to beg, to accuse, and to threaten ?

A tap at the door, and her visitor turned the handle and came in.

It was, in fact, none other than the dressmaker, Mrs. Brymer, author of the short epistle you have heard. Isabel half rose; she gasped out certain words that meant nothing ; she sank back in her chair, sick and faint with terror. She had never before been dunned, and she knew not what her creditors could do.

The woman was plainly dressed ; she was a little woman and now old; her face was lined and seamed with a thousand crows’-feet—it was the face of a woman much occupied with affairs, shrewd and hard. It was also_ stamped with the wisdom that comes to some women of experience and affairs. She looked very wise and as inscrutable as an oracle. She stood in the door for a minute looking with curiosity at her customer, as if she would learn the whole truth from her face. ‘Then she advanced a step, closed the door softly, and rapped the table, not threateningly, but softly, with her knuckles.

‘Well, madam ?” she said.

Mrs. Weyland inclined her head. She could not speak.

‘I am very sorry, madam, to be importunate

‘If you can give me time

Mrs, Brymer—everybody knows her shop in Monmouth Street; there is no more celebrated dressmaker in the whole of London—smiled quietly. There was no appearance of threatening about the woman; she was not uncivil or disrespectful; but her face expressed her resolution : she was come to get her money.

‘You ask for time, madam. Truly I would give you with pleasure as much time as you please—all the time there is—if you can show me how much the better you would be if you had it, or how much better I should be. Take time, madam, if you please, but it is not unreasonable to ask what security you have to offer in case I give you time.’

‘No, it is not unreasonable. And yet—and yet—oh, Mrs. Brymer, what answer am I to make?

She began to cry again; the tears were real, they were not affected ; but if they were designed to soften the dressmaker’s heart they were quite useless. A woman has very little sympathy with another woman’s tears.

Mrs. Brymer took a chair and planted it opposite to her customer. Then she sat down firmly and with resolution.

a a 14 NO OTHER WAY

‘Now,’ she said, ‘I have come for an explanation and a confession.”

‘ A confession ?”

Mrs. Weyland made a show of sitting upright with indignation.

‘Madam, I know a few things, but not all. I know that you are ruined ; you have lost, I believe, the whole of the fortune that your husband left you—it was £4,000—at the card-table ; you are in debt to others besides myself: if you cannot pay what you owe . . . but, indeed, I am sure that you know the terrible alternative ?

‘Mrs. Brymer,’ Isabel replied with some dignity, ‘if you know all this, there is no necessity for you to rehearse it. Nor is there any necessity for me to confess my affairs to you.’

‘They are my own affairs. Your ladyship owes me the sum of £70 with some shillings and pence. I can no more afford to lose this money than you can afford to pay it.

‘Then I do not understand ——’

‘Madam, I will be plain with you. Let me know exactly the state of your affairs, and I may be able to help you, but on conditions. Believe me, I know the affairs of many ladies. You will never repent your confidence.’

‘The only help I want is money or time. And that you cannot give me.’

‘There are other ways besides finding money or time. Let me remind your ladyship that if you do not get help and cannot pay your debts the end is certain. You can, therefore, do no harm to your affairs by letting me know the truth, and you may find it to your advantage. My reason for offering to help you is nothing in the world but to get payment of my claim.’

* How can you help me to pay your claim ?”

‘'That you shall learn presently. Meantime, let me know your position.’

There was some comfort in merely talking over her position, even though it was with a threatening creditor.

Isabel sighed. ‘ Well, then, ask me any questions you please, and I will answer truthfully.’

‘ Your husband died some three years ago. He left you a small fortune.’ :

‘Is any of this money left? I believe that there is none.’

‘Very little. To be frank with you, not more than about £180,

‘ What has become of it? I was right in saying that it has been lost at the hazard-table ?”

‘Some of it. I know not how much. I kept no record. Some at cards ; some on dress; some this way and that way—how should I know where it has gone ?”

‘And you have debts. What is the amount of your debts ?”

‘I owe Mr. Fulton, draper, of Ludgate Hill, a bill of £95. He said that I might wait for six months, but now he presses. I owe you the sum of £70. Those are the only large debts. There are also a few trifles :

‘Oh! Mr. Fulton presses you, does he ?”

‘He presses me and threatens me.’

‘ Have you anything besides that small sum of money ?”

‘My dresses and a little jewellery, worth—I know not——

‘Humph! Your husband, however, had an_ elder brother—Lord Stratherrick.’

‘But he is quite ruined ; he has gambled away everything—his life interest in his estates, his pictures, his library, everything is gone. He now lives in a corner of his empty house. He can do nothing for me, even if he was desirous of helping me. But he is a selfish man, like all gamblers.’

‘You have friends of your own, however. You are not destitute of friends.’

‘Mrs. Brymer, I will be quite frank with you. My father, now old, is wealthy. But he is a Nonconformist, and he is austere. He has never forgiven me for my marriage. He considered my husband a profligate, because he was a man of quality—my husband, the most sober and sensible of men! My father would not consent to the marriage, so I ran away and was married at Mayfair.’

‘When your father knows your position, he will perhaps relent.’

‘You do not know him. He might relent if my misfortunes were due to other causes. But I have wasted £4,000 and more. He is a merchant who looks upon prodigality with horror. I have a brother as well; he is more austere than my father and more unforgiving ; he looks to the succession. If he finds out about the debts and the card-table, there will no longer be any hope for me. He will so represent the affair to my father that forgiveness will be impossible. If I can conceal the truth, perhaps my father may once more regard me as a daughter.’

‘It is unfortunate. Would they consent to see you consigned to a debtors’ prison ?

‘It would be the cause of a final cutting-off. My brother would find something in the Bible that would sanction hardness of heart. Believe me, Mrs. Brymer, I have no hope at all of any relief from my own people if they learn the truth about my affairs.’

‘You owe one creditor £95, and another £70; you have in hand about £180 or thereabouts, with a little jewellery. And you have no prospect of assistance from anyone. ‘Truly, madam, the position is most serious.’

‘It is indeed serious.’

‘Then, madam ’—the dressmaker drew her chair a little nearer and dropped her voice almost to a whisper—‘ we must consider my method.’

‘Do you really mean that you can find a way ?”

‘There is but one way, and that way will terrify you at first. Do not start and protest that you cannot and you will not consent. It is a way that has been adopted by many ladies of fashion, though, for good reasons, they do not boast of it. At first it may seem impossible, but I can show you that it is not only possible, but easy of execution.’