The Fever of Life E-Book

Fergus Hume

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The Fever of Life written by a prolific English novelist Fergus Hume. This book is one of many works by him. Published in 1892. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

The Fever of Life

By

Fergus Hume

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I. PINCHLER'S DOCKYARD.

CHAPTER II. WANTED, A CHAPERON.

CHAPTER III. THE WOMAN WITH THE FIERCE EYES.

CHAPTER IV. WHAT MRS. BELSWIN HAD TO SAY.

CHAPTER V. THE PRODIGAL SON.

CHAPTER VI. THE DRAGON.

CHAPTER VII. THE GARDEN OF HESPERIDES.

CHAPTER VIII. MRS. BELSWIN'S CORRESPONDENCE.

CHAPTER IX. A RUSTIC APOLLO.

HAPTER X. A BOUDOIR CONSULTATION.

CHAPTER XI. THE ART OF DINING.

CHAPTER XII. ARS AMORIS.

CHAPTER XIII. EXIT MRS. BELSWIN.

CHAPTER XIV. SIGNOR FERRARI DECLINES.

CHAPTER XV. THE RETURN OF THE WANDERER.

CHAPTER XVI. FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED.

CHAPTER XVII. BEFORE THE STORM.

CHAPTER XVIII. FACE TO FACE.

CHAPTER XIX. THE OUTER DARKNESS.

CHAPTER XX. A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR.

CHAPTER XXI. ARCHIE MAKES HIS PLANS.

CHAPTER XXII. MRS. BELSWIN CONSIDERS WAYS AND MEANS.

CHAPTER XXIII. BETTER LEAVE WELL ALONE.

CHAPTER XXIV. A MEMORY OF THE PAST.

CHAPTER XXV. SILAS PLAYS HIS LITTLE GAME.

CHAPTER XXVI. VAE VICTIS.

CHAPTER XXVII. THE CASE.

CHAPTER XXVIII. WHAT MRS. BELK FOUND.

CHAPTER XXIX. DANGER.

CHAPTER XXX. A CLEVER DEFENCE.

CHAPTER XXXI. A TRAGIC SITUATION.

CHAPTER XXXII. NEWS FROM AUSTRALIA.

CHAPTER XXXIII. MR. DOMBRAIN SHOWS HIS TEETH.

CHAPTER XXXIV. IN OPEN COURT.

CHAPTER XXXV. EXPIATION.

CHAPTER XXXVI. A MEMORY OF THE PAST.

CHAPTER I.PINCHLER'S DOCKYARD.

"Fashion for the nonce surrenders Giddy Mayfair's faded splendours, And with all her sons and daughters Hastens to health-giving waters; Rests when curfew bells are ringing, Rises when the lark is singing, Plays lawn tennis, flirts and idles, Laying snares for future bridals; Thus forgetting pleasures evil, In return to life primeval."

It was Toby Clendon who named it "Pinchler's Dockyard "—Toby Clendon, young, handsome, and a trifle scampish, who wrote witty essays for The Satirist, slashing criticisms for The Bookworm, and dainty society verses for any journal which chose to pay for such poetical effusions. A very cruel remark to make about Mrs. Pinchler's respectable private hotel at Marsh-on-the-Sea; but then the truth is always cruel, and Mr. Clendon proved the truth of his statement in this wise—

"A dockyard is a place where broken-down ships are repaired. Man, by poetical license, is a ship on the ocean of life. Some broken-down human ships under stress of circumstance put in to Pinchler's private hotel for repair in the matter of bodily ailments. Pinchler's harbours these broken-down human ships, therefore Pinchler's is a human dockyard. Strike out the word human as redundant, and there you are, Pinchler's Dockyard."

A whimsical deduction, doubtless, yet by no means void of a certain amount of truthful humour, as the guests at Pinchler's private hotel were for the most part deficient as regards physical completeness. If the lungs were healthy the liver was out of order. Granted that the head was "all there," the legs were not, unless one leg counted as two. Splendid physique, but something wrong with the internal organs. Yes, certainly a good many human ships were undergoing repair under the calculating eye of Mrs. Pinchler; and as her establishment was not healthy enough for a hotel nor sickly enough for an hospital, Toby Clendon's intermediate term "dockyard" fitted it exactly; so Pinchler's Dockyard it was called throughout Marsh-on-the-Sea.

It was a square red-brick house, built on a slight eminence, and facing the salt sea breeze of the Channel. On the one side a pleasant garden, on the other smooth green tennis lawns, and in front a mixture of turf, of flower-beds, and of gravel, sloping down to the road which divided it from the stony sea beach. A short distance away to the right was Marsh-on-the-Sea, with its rows of gleaming white houses set on the heights, while below was the red-roofed quaint old town, built long before its rival above became famous as a watering-place. To the left, undulating hills, clumps of trees, tall white cliffs, and here and there pleasant country houses, showing themselves above the green crests of their encircling woods. Add to this charming prospect a brilliant blue sea, a soft wind filled with the salt smell of the waters, and a sun tempered by intervening clouds, and it will be easily seen that Marsh-on-the-Sea was a pleasantly situated place, and Pinchler's Dockyard was one of the pleasantest houses in it.

"And why," said Mr. Clendon, continuing an argument, "and why English people want to go to the Riviera for beauty, when they have all this side of the Channel to choose from is more than I can make out."

It was just after luncheon, and the wrecks at present being repaired in the dockyard were sunning themselves on the tennis lawn. Some were reading novels, others were discussing their ailments, a few ladies were working at some feminine embroidery, a few gentlemen were smoking their after-dinner pipe, cigar, cigarette, as the case might be, and all were enjoying themselves thoroughly in their different ways.

Toby himself, arrayed in spotless white flannels, with a blue-ribboned straw hat was lying ungracefully on the grass, smoking a cigarette, and talking in an affectedly cynical vein to three ladies. There was Mrs. Valpy, fat, ponderous and plethoric; Miss Thomasina Valpy, her daughter, familiarly called Tommy, a charmingly pretty girl, small, coquettish and very fascinating in manner. As a rule, men of susceptible hearts fell in love with Tommy; but when they heard Mrs. Valpy say that she was like Thomasina when young, generally retreated in dismay, having a prophetic vision that this fragile, biscuit-china damsel would resemble her mother when old, and as Mrs. Valpy—well they never proposed, at all events.

There was a third lady present, Miss Kaituna Pethram, who was staying at Pinchler's with the Valpys, and without doubt she was very handsome; so handsome, indeed, that Tommy's brilliant beauty paled before her sombre loveliness. She was dark, unusually dark, with a pale, olive-coloured skin, coils of splendid dusky hair, luminous dark eyes, and clearly-cut features, which were not exactly European in their outline. Neither was her Christian name European, and this being taken in conjunction with her un-English look, led some people to think she had African blood in her veins. In this supposition, however, they were decidedly wrong, as there was no suggestion of the negro in her rich beauty. Indian? not delicate enough, neither as regards features nor figure. Spanish? no; none of the languor of the Creole; then no doubt Italian; but then she lacked the lithe grace and restless vivacity of the Latin race. In fact Miss Kaituna Pethram puzzled every one. They were unable to "fix her," as the Americans say, and consequently gave up the unguessable riddle of her birth in despair.

As a matter of fact, however, she was the descendant, in the third generation, of that magnificent New Zealand race, now rapidly dying out—the Maories, and the blending of the dusky Polynesian with the fair European had culminated in the production of this strange flower of two diverse stocks—neither wholly of the one nor of the other, but a unique blending of both. Her great grandparents had been full-blooded Maories, with uncivilised instincts and an inborn preference for a savage life. Their daughter, also a full-blooded Maori, being the daughter of a chief, had married a European settler, and the offspring of this mixed marriage was Kaituna's mother, a half-caste, inheriting the civilised culture of her father, and the savage instincts of her mother. Kaituna was born of this half-caste and an English father, therefore the civilised heredity prevailed; but she still retained the semblance, in a minor degree, of her primeval ancestry, and without doubt, though ameliorated by two generations of European progenitors on the male side, there lurked in her nature the ineradicable instincts of the savage.

Of course, self-complacent Europeans, pure-blooded in themselves, never argued out the matter in this wise, and were apt to look down on this inheritor of Maori ancestry as "a nigger," but were decidedly wrong in doing so, as the magnificent race that inhabits New Zealand is widely removed from the African black. At all events, whatever they might think, Kaituna Pethram was a uniquely beautiful girl, attractive to a very great degree, and inspiring more admiration than the undecided blondes and brunettes who moved in the same circle cared to acknowledge. Toby Clendon was not in love with her, as he preferred the saucy manner and delicate beauty of Miss Valpy, but Archie Maxwell, who was the best looking young man at Pinchler's, had quite lost his heart to this unique flower of womanhood, and the damsels of Pinchler's resented this greatly. Mr. Maxwell, however, was at present engaged in talking to some of them at a distance, and if his eyes did wander now and then to where Clendon was playing Shepherd Paris to goddesses three—Mrs. Valpy being Minerva in her own opinion—they did their best to enchain his attention and keep him to themselves. Kaituna herself did not mind, as she was not particularly taken with Mr. Maxwell, and was quite content to lie lazily back in her chair under the shelter of a large red sunshade and listen to Toby Clendon's desultory conversation.

It was a pleasant enough conversation in a frivolous fashion. Mr. Clendon made startling statements regarding the world and its inhabitants, Kaituna commented thereon. Tommy sparkled in an idle, girlish way, and Mrs. Valpy, with sage maxims, culled from the monotonous past of an uneventful life, supplied the busy element requisite in all cases. Three of the party were young, the fourth was gracefully old, so, juvenility predominating, the conversation rippled along pleasantly enough.

After the patriotic Toby had made his remark concerning the superiority of things English over all the rest of the world, Kaituna waved the banner of Maoriland, and laughed softly.

"Ah! Wait till you see New Zealand."

"Ultima Thule," said Clendon classically. "Eh I why should I go there, Miss Pethram?"

"To see what nature can do in the way of beautiful landscape."

"I am a domestic being, Miss Pethram, and find the domestic scenery of England sufficiently beautiful to satisfy my artistic longings. New Zealand, I have been told, is an uncivilised country, full of horrid woods and wild beasts."

"There are no wild beasts at all," replied Kaituna indignantly, "and the bush is not horrid. As to it being uncivilised, that is the mistake you English make."

"Oh, the contempt in the term 'you English,'" interjected Toby, impudently.

"We have cities, railways, theatres, musical societies, shops, and everything else necessary to make life pleasant. That is civilisation, I suppose. We have also great plains, majestic mountains, splendid rivers, undulating pasture lands and what not. This is uncivilised—if you like to call it so. England is pretty—oh yes, very pretty, but tame like a garden. One gets tired of always living in a garden. A garden is nature's drawing-room. I don't say a word against England, for I like it very much, but at times I feel stifled by the narrowness of the place. England is very beautiful, yes; but New Zealand," concluded Miss Pethram with conviction, "New Zealand is the most beautiful place in the whole world."

"My dear," said Mrs. Valpy in a patronising manner, "are you not going a little too far? I've no doubt the place you come from is very nice, very nice indeed, but to compare it with England is ridiculous. You have no city, I think, like London. No, no! London is cosmopolitan, yes—quite so."

Having stated this plain truth, Mrs. Valpy looked round with a fat smile of triumph and resumed her knitting, while Tommy dashed into' the conversation with slangy vivacity.

"Oh, I say, you know, New Zealand's a place where you can have a high old time, but London's the place for larks."

"Why not the country," said Clendon drily, "the morning lark."

"Oh, I don't mean that sort of lark," interrupted Tommy ingeniously, "the evenin' lark; my style, you know. Waltzin', flirtin', talkin', jolly rather."

"You move in the highest circles, Tommy," said Kaituna, who was a somewhat satirical damsel. "You drop your 'g's.'"

"Better than dropping your 'h's'."

"Or your money," said Toby, lighting a fresh cigarette. "I don't know what we're all talking about."

"I think," observed Mrs. Valpy in a geographical style, "we were discussing the Islands of New Zealand."

"Rippin' place," said Tommy gaily.

"Thomasina, my dear," remarked her Johnsonian mamma, "I really do not think that you are personally——"

"Acquainted with the place! No! I'm not. But Kaituna has told me a lot. Archie Maxwell has told me more——"

"Mr. Maxwell?" interposed Kaituna, quickly. "Oh, yes! he said that he had visited Auckland on his way to Sydney—but you can't tell New Zealand from one city."

"Ex pede Herculem," said the classical Toby, "which, being translated means—by the foot shall ye know the head."

"Auckland isn't the head of New Zealand. It was, but now Wellington is the capital. The city of wooden match-boxes built in a draughty situation."

"How unpatriotic."

"Oh, no, I'm not, Mr. Clendon. But I reserve my patriotism for Dunedin?"

"You mean Edinburgh.

"I mean the new Edinburgh with the old name, not the old Edinburgh with the new name."

"Epigrammatic, decidedly. This is instructive, Miss Pethram. Do they teach epigram in the schools of Dunedin?"

"And why not? Do you think Oxford and Cambridge monopolise the learning of nations? We also in Dunedin," concluded Kaituna proudly, "have an university."

"To teach the young idea how to shoot—delightful."

"But I thought there was no game to shoot," said Tommy wickedly.

Mrs. Valpy reproved the trio for their frivolous conversation.

"You are all talking sad nonsense."

"On the contrary, gay nonsense," retorted Clendon lightly; "but I foresee in this badinage the elements of an article for The Satirist. Miss Pethram, I am going to use you as copy. Tell me all about yourself."

"To be published as an essay, and ticketed 'The New Pocahontas.'"

"Perhaps," replied the essayist evasively, "for you are a kind of nineteenth century Pocahontas. You belong to the children of Nature."

"Yes, I do," said Kaituna, quickly; "and I'm proud of it. My father went out to New Zealand a long time ago, and there married my mother, who was the daughter of a Maori mother. My grandmother was the child of a chief—a real Pocahontas."

"Not quite; Pocahontas was a chieftainess in her own right."

"And died at Wapping, didn't she?" said Mrs. Valpy, placidly. "Of course the dark races always give way to the superiority of the white."

Kaituna looked indignantly at this fat, flabby woman, who spoke so contemptuously of her Maori ancestors, who were certainly superior to Mrs. Valpy from a physical point of view, and very probably her equal mentally in some ways. It was no use, however, arguing with Mrs. Valpy over such a nice point, as she was firmly intrenched behind her insular egotism, and would not have understood the drift of the argument, with the exception that she was a white, and therefore greatly superior to a black. Toby saw the indignant flash in her eyes, and hastened to divert the chance of trouble by saying the first thing that came into his mind.

"Is your mother in England, Miss Pethram?"

"My mother is dead."

"Oh! I beg—I beg your pardon," said Toby, flustering a little at his awkwardness: "I mean your father."

"My father," replied Kaituna, cheerfully. "Oh, he is out in New Zealand again. You know, we lived out there until a year ago. Then my father, by the death of his elder brother, became Sir Rupert Pethram, so he brought me home. We always call England home in the Colonies. He had to go out again about business; so he left me in Mrs. Valpy's charge."

"Delighted to have you, my dear," murmured the old lady, blinking her eyes in the sunshine like an owl. "You see, Mr. Clendon, we are near neighbours of Sir Rupert's down in Berkshire."

"Oh!" said Clendon, raising himself on his elbow with a look of curiosity in his eyes, "that is my county. May I ask what particular part you inhabit?"

"Near Henley."

"Why, I lived near there also."

"What," cried Tommy, with great surprise, "can it be that you are a relative of Mr. Clendon, the Vicar of Deswarth?"

"Only his son."

"The young man who would not become a curate?"

"It didn't suit me," said Toby, apologetically; "I'm far too gay for a curate. It's a mistake putting a square peg into a round hole, you know; and I make a much better pressman than a preacher."

"It is a curious thing we never met you, Mr. Clendon," observed Mrs. Valpy, heavily; "but we have only been at 'The Terraces' for two years."

"Oh, and I've been away from the parental roof for five or six years. I do not wonder at never meeting you, but how strange we should meet here. Coincidences occur in real life as well as in novels, I see."

"Mr. Maxwell told me he met a man in London the other day whom he had last seen in Japan," said Kaituna, smiling.

"Maxwell is a wandering Jew—an engineering Cain."

"Hush! hush!" said Mrs. Valpy, shocked like a good church-woman, at any reference to the Bible in light conversation. "Mr. Maxwell is a very estimable young man."

"I called him Cain in a figurative sense only," replied Toby, coolly; "but if you object to that name, let us call him Ulysses."

"Among the sirens," finished Kaituna, mischievously.

Tommy caught the allusion, and laughed rudely. Confident in her own superiority regarding beauty, she was scornful of the attempts of the so-called sirens to secure the best-looking man in the place, so took a great delight in drawing into her own net any masculine fish that was likely to be angled for by any other girl. She called it fun, the world called it flirtation, and her enemies called it coquetry; and Toby Clendon, although not her enemy, possibly agreed with the appropriateness of the term. But then he was her lover; and lovers are discontented if they don't get the object of their affections all to themselves.

"The sirens!" repeated Miss Valpy, scornfully. "What, with voices like geese? What humbug! Let us take Archie Maxwell Ulysses away from the sirens, Kaituna."

"No, no, don't do that!" said Kaituna with a sudden rush of colour; "it's a shame."

"What! Depriving them of their big fish? Not at all. It's greedy of them to be so selfish. I'll call him. Mr. Maxwell!"

"It's very chilly here," said Kaituna, rising to her feet. "Mr. Clendon, my shawl, please. Thank you I'm going inside."

"Because of Mr. Maxwell?" asked Miss Valpy, maliciously.

"No. I'm expecting some letters from Mr. Dombrain. Oh, here is Mr. Maxwell. Au revoir," and Miss Pethram walked quickly away towards the house.

Maxwell having extricated himself from the company of the sirens, who looked after their late captive with vengeful eyes, saw Kaituna depart, and hesitated between following her or obeying the invitation of Miss Valpy. His heart said "Go there," the voice of Tommy said "Come here," and the unfortunate young man hesitated which to obey. The lady saw his hesitation, and, purposely to vex Mr. Clendon, settled the question at once.

"Mr. Maxwell, come here. I want you to play lawn-tennis."

"Certainly, Miss Valpy," said Maxwell, with sulky civility.

"Why, I asked you to play twice this afternoon, and you refused," cried Clendon, in some anger.

"Well, I've changed my mind but you can play also, if you like."

"No, thank you. I've—I've got an engagement."

Tommy moved close to the young man and laughed.

"You've got a very cross face."

At this Clendon laughed also, and his cross face cleared.

"Oh, I'll be delighted to play."

"And what about Miss Pethram?" asked Maxwell, rather anxiously.

"Miss Pethram has gone inside to await the arrival of the post."

"Isn't she coming out again?"

"I think not."

"If you will excuse me, Miss Valpy, I won't play just at present."

"Oh, never mind."

So Maxwell stalked away in a very bad temper with himself, with Miss Pethram, and with everything else. In any one but a lover it would have been sulks, but in the ars amoris it is called despair.

Tommy held her racket like a guitar, and, strumming on it with her fingers, hummed a little tune—a vulgar little tune which she had picked up from a common street boy—

"Tho' I'm an earl,

And she's a girl,

Far, far below my level,

Oh, Mary Jane,

You give me pain,

You wicked little——"

"Thomasina!" cried the scandalised Mrs. Valpy, and Thomasina laughed.

CHAPTER II.WANTED, A CHAPERON.

"We are told in stories olden Dragons watched the apples golden,

Quick to send a thief to Hades.

Now no fruit the world-tree ladens, Apples gold are dainty maidens,

And the dragons are old ladies."

After dinner—a meal cooked, conducted, and eaten on strictly digestive principles—most of the inmates of Pinchler's retired to bed. Sleep was necessary to the well-being of these wrecks of humanity, so those who could sleep went to their repose with joyful hearts, and those who could not, put off the evil hour precluding a restless night by going to the drawing-room for a little music.

Here they sat in melancholy rows round the room, comparing notes as to their physical sensations, and recommending each other patent medicines. Some of the younger people sang songs and played popular airs on the out-of-tune piano furnished by Pinchler's. During the intervals between the songs scraps of curious conversation could be heard somewhat after this fashion—

"There's nothing like a glass of hot water in the morning."

"Dry toast, mind; butter is rank poison."

"Rub the afflicted part gently and breathe slowly."

"Put a linseed poultice at the nape of the neck."

With such light and instructive conversation did the wrecks beguile their leisure hours, keeping watchful eyes on the clock so as not to miss taking their respective medicines at the right times. Mrs. Pinchler, a dry, angular woman with a glassy eye and a fixed smile, revolved round the drawing-room at intervals, asking every one how they felt.