Chapter VI: Jack Shows His Teeth

Fortune seemed to be looking kindly on Mary and Ellinor now, when the former, through an advertisement, got a couple of pupils, little girls, in the neighbourhood of Portman Square, and the latter had actually sold her landscape, and started another.

'The Linn on the May' had caught the eye of Sir Redmond Sleath when passing the shop window, not that he particularly cared about pictures or art of any kind, save the culinary one, but he thought he recognised the subject--even the style and the landscape--and on looking more closely, after adjusting his inevitable eyeglass, an exclamation of surprise or satisfaction, perhaps both, escaped him on discovering the initials 'E.W.' in one of the lower corners, and he entered the shop at once to inspect the landscape more closely.

'I think I know the artist,' said he to the bowing dealer, who was not much accustomed to visitors of Sleath's style and bearing. 'A young lady, is she not?'

'Yes, sir--yes--Miss Ellinor Wellwood.'

'I thought so. I'll take her work.'

'Thank you, sir. Shall I send it to your address, your club, or where, sir?'

'Neither. I'll take it with me.'

Cautious in his plans, Sleath was reluctant to give his address, but the price was soon agreed upon, and the money paid.

'I want a pair, and will order just such another,' said he. 'Perhaps you can give me Miss Ellinor Wellwood's address?'

'Certainly, sir. She lives very near this.'

'Near this! By Jove!'

He obtained the number and the street, and went off with the landscape, and with curious emotions of hope and evil blended exultantly in his heart.

'Paddington?' he muttered, as he walked off towards the Marble Arch. 'D--nme, what a game! Are they so reduced, or so ignorant, as to hang out there? Courage, Redmond, my boy, and that charming bit of muslin may be your own yet.'

Sleath had been told plainly enough, and sternly too, by Colville, at Lady Dunkeld's ball, that Mary and Ellinor were his cousins, who were ignorant of his identity; but the too-knowing baronet did not believe a word of his assertions, and, seeing the matter through the medium of his own evil mind, supposed the story was 'only a red herring drawn across the scent'--a dodge for purposes of the Guardsman's own--so he sought counsel of Mr. John Gaiters, while the latter prepared for him some brandy and seltzer-water.

'I am awfully spoony on a girl, Gaiters,' said he.

'That is nothing new, Sir Redmond; but it won't last.'

'It never does, I fear.'

'Certainly not with you, sir,' was the flippant reply of the valet.

'Here is her name and address. You will know her again when you see her, but she must not know you. Find out all about her--who she is living with, and all the rest of it--and you will do for me that which nothing can repay.'

'By jingo, sir, I would rather do something that could be repaid.'

'Here is a fiver, anyway, and now be off.'

Duly instructed, a couple of days afterwards, and disguised by a false beard and moustache, and clad in a tolerably accurate morning suit, Mr. John Gaiters, turning up his already tip-tilted nose at having to traverse so unaristocratic a locality as Paddington, soon found the terrace and the number, and after an external survey of the house, by means of the knocker brought to the door a little maid-of-all-work, on whose cheeks was the black smudge so usual to her class.

'Is your mistress at home?' he inquired, blandly.

'Yes, sir.'

'Ah, is she handsome? But I need not ask,' he added, insinuatingly.

'Why, sir?'

'Because, unless her beauty were not of a more than ordinary character, she could not afford to have one so excelling as you by her side.'

This high-flown speech, which Gaiters copied from some of his master's, caused the little housemaid to think he was mad or tipsy, and she was about to close the door with some precipitation, when Mrs. Fubsby appeared, and, on inquiring for Miss Ellinor Wellwood, he was informed she was at home.

The dealer had promptly informed Ellinor that a companion was wanted for her landscape, and while intent among the many in her portfolio, she was not surprised when Mrs. Fubsby announced a gentleman visitor, who knew her face instantly, though she failed to recognise the bearer of many gifts of flowers and game when at Birkwoodbrae.

With all his vulgar assurance, the valet felt himself for a little time daunted or abashed by the presence and bearing of Ellinor, to whom with some hesitation he told the object of his visit--he had bought her picture, and a friend of his wished one precisely like it; and while he was speaking, Jack, the terrier, with a dog's strange instincts, maintained a most unpleasant snarling under the sofa, and Gaiters, remembering the episode of his master, felt correspondingly uneasy. For 'though love be proverbially blind, hatred has a sharp sight,' and so had Jack, who showed his white glittering teeth from time to time. 'Human beings have their instinctive likes and dislikes, and why not dogs?' asks a writer. 'We cannot tell what expression of countenance they consider malevolent, or menacing, or murderous; but certain it is that they often exhibit unaccountable antipathy to some individual, while most affectionate and amicable towards all the rest of the world.'

So Jack's antipathy to Sleath now extended to his emissary Gaiters.

The landscape was soon agreed about--money was no object to the visitor, who quickly selected a subject from a rough sketch, which Ellinor perceived with some surprise he held upside-down, a curious fancy in a connoisseur and patron of art, and, in the interests of his knavish master, Gaiters, anxious to learn the entire _carte du pays_, said,

'Do you live here alone, Miss Wellwood?'

'I am not Miss Wellwood--my sister is,' replied Ellinor, with a little hauteur of manner.

'Is she, too, an artist?'

'No.'

'And you live together--so sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing her.'

Ellinor thought this evinced curiosity; but, thinking she might advance the interests of Mary, she said, as Mr. Gaiters took up his hat,

'At this hour she is usually with her pupils at Portmore Square.'

'Ah--at this hour; we must make a note of that,' thought Mr. John Gaiters, and, forgetting again to refer to the landscape, he bowed himself out, hailed a hansom, and drove away, having obtained all the information his master wanted--to wit, that the sisters were living together, unprotected, in somewhat humble lodgings, and that Ellinor, at the particular time mentioned, was always alone.

'Such a pleasant and haffable gentleman, and with such 'ansome whiskers,' commented Mrs. Fubsby. 'Drat that dog--why did it worrit so about him!'

The report made to Sir Redmond by his subservient emissary piqued and encouraged him in his nefarious schemes.

'Every woman has her price,' thought he, as he sipped his wine that evening after a cosy dinner at his club, and dreamily gazed down the gas-lighted vista of Pall Mall; 'if not to me, this little one will become the prize--the prey of some other fellow; so, with the basis I have for future operations, why not to me? On some pretence or other I snail get her wheedled over to the Continent, and then the game is my own.'

In his instance it could not be said that

'Evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart,'

for he gave his whole thoughts, and his heart too--such as the latter was--to the consideration and perfection of his schemes, and exulted in the idea of outwitting Colville, if he knew--as Sleath scarcely doubted he did--the residence of the sisters.