Chapter IX In London once more
Of course, a hale man with a strong will of his own, numerous vices, rapidly-decreasing years, and strong, if misplaced, convictions, was more than an unmarried, inexperienced, woman of my age could be expected to manage.
As time progressed I gave up attempting to reform grandpapa, and simply contented myself with praying that he might complete his career without falling into absolute crime. The thought of seeing him in a felon’s dock at the last haunted me like a nightmare. He would get younger and less familiar with the wicked ways of the world daily. As a young man, he was one for whom traps, snares, and pitfalls had never been set in vain. When he reached a hundred and eight he would look and feel twenty years of age under the New Scheme. Then, how probable that the poor old man might fall a prey to some iniquitous schemer! I told him my fears, and he sneered bitterly, and said:
“Yes, a pretty old cough-drop I should look, shouldn’t I, being sentenced to penal servitude for life—at a hundred and nine years of age? Then you’d see an advertisement in the papers, ‘Wanted, at Portland Prison, a wet nurse for the notorious forger and embezzler, Daniel Dolphin.’ Bless you, Martha, there’s some real fun in store for you and me yet.”
I cried and begged him not to say such things. It was a horrible thought, and yet had a ray of comfort in it, that if I could only keep the old man fairly straight for the next five years, or less, he would then be at my mercy again. By that time somebody would certainly have to be a second mother to grandpapa.
We “shot the moon” on a night when there was none. Our next move took us back to town. I hired a little flat, No. 1, Oxford Mansions, a snug place enough, near Earl’s Court. According to custom, we left no address behind us, and began life anew. I was obliged to drop all my old friends in Peckham Rye and Ealing for grandpapa’s sake. I had met Mrs. Hopkins at Whiteley’s, and told her the old man was dead. She pressed me to come and see her, and I answered that I would write. Then I hastened away to the Drugs Department, leaving her in the Haberdashery, astonished and disappointed. My heart sorrowed, for I loved the good woman; but there was nothing else to be done. On another occasion grandpapa took me to the Royal Figi Exhibition at Earl’s Court, and we ran right on top of the Bangley-Browns. The girls recognised me, and whispered to their mother; but, of course, they did not know grandpapa. He was twenty years younger than when they last saw him. Mrs. Bangley-Brown turned very red, and sailed towards me; but I dodged with my grandpapa round a refreshment building, and then dragged him through a crowd to the entrance of the Exhibition, finally escaping in a hansom cab.
“What do I care?” he said. “I’d like to have spoken to her again. I spotted ’em before you did. She wasn’t half a bad old bounder. Those gals don’t go off apparently; too much torso and not enough tin, eh?”
In this painful style did the old man speak of two perfect ladies, whose only crime was a hereditary inclination to enbonpoint. I toned him down when I could, but he rarely listened to me now. It was as his sister that I posed at No. 1, Oxford Mansions. He had grown into a very corpulent, big-bearded man. He wore white waistcoats, and followed fashion, and took particular pains with his person. He abandoned politics and began to develop interest in City affairs. Once he brought home a new friend who he said was on the Stock Exchange—a most gentlemanly, polite individual, who treated me with a courtesy and consideration to which I had long been a stranger. After he had gone, grandpapa told me he was somebody of great importance.
“He’s floating a fine scheme that’s got thousands in it,” he explained. “We dined at Richmond with some friends last week, and, coming home in the drag, Phil Montague—that’s his name—let me into a secret or two, and promised me shares. Mind, Martha, I’m doing this for you. Don’t say I never think of you. When I’m gone, you’ll draw many a fine dividend from the ‘Automatic Postcard Company.’ And when you draw ’em, think of me, far away—probably frying.”
Mr. Phil Montague called again, and, finally, I know that grandpapa took at least a thousand pounds of his capital out of Something Three Per Cents, and put them into Automatic Postcards. Then he suddenly determined to go upon the Stock Exchange himself. I think that he would have carried out this mad project, but other affairs distracted his attention. Hardly was the company of Mr. Phil Montague well floated when that gentleman called again, dined by invitation, and broached a new scheme to grandpapa.
This man represents my own greatest failure as a student of character. I was utterly deceived in him. He simply laid himself out to deceive me. Doubtless he felt that if he could get me on his side he would be able to deal with grandpapa all the more easily. Outwardly Mr. Montague was both religious and modest; which qualities, openly paraded in a stockbroker, appeared very beautiful to me. He also quoted Scripture, not ostentatiously, but evidently from habit. He constantly alluded to his dead mother, and told me that he took exotics to her grave at Brompton every second Sunday afternoon. How many financiers would do that? He never talked business in front of me, and I found after he had known my grandpapa about a month that the old man began to grow very secretive and peculiar. A cunning furtive look appeared in his eye; he was away from home—in the City and elsewhere—a great deal; he avoided discussion of his affairs as far as possible. Once I asked him some question about Mr. Montague’s own status, and he laughed, and answered in bad taste—
“Spoons, eh? Well, Martha, old chip, I believe he’s gone on you, too, or else he’s playing the fool because he thinks it will please me. ‘Fine woman, your sister,’ he said to me last week. ‘Fine for her age—she’s sixty,’ I answered.”
“Grandfather, you know I’m not!”
“Well, you look it, every hour of it. But he pretended to be surprised, and said it was strange you hadn’t made some good man happy before now.”
“I think he is a very worthy, honourable gentleman, grandfather, and I wish you would try and be more like him.”
“Bless you, Phil’s all right. We’re great pals. And he’s got some brains under that sanctified manner, too. We have a little bit of fun in hand just now that means a pile for us both, if I’m not mistaken.”
At this moment Mr. Montague himself was announced, and, without waiting to enquire of grandpapa whether I might do so, I asked him boldly of what nature was his new enterprise.