Read Ebook: Miss Mephistopheles: A Novel (Sequel to Madame Midas.) by Hume Fergus

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Ebook has 2275 lines and 62243 words, and 46 pages

hat made me take up writing?" repeated Stewart, staring vaguely into the fire. "Lord knows--destiny, I suppose--I've had a queer sort of life altogether. I was born of poor but honest parents, quite the orthodox style of thing, isn't it?"

"Are your parents alive?"

"Dead!" laconically.

There was a pause of a few moments, during which time Keith was evidently deep in thought.

"According to Sir Walter Scott," he observed at length, "every Scotchman has a pedigree. I've got one as long as the tail of a kite, only not so useful. I'd sell all my ancestors, as readily as Charles Surface did his, for a few pounds. My people claim to be connected with the royal Stewarts."

"Your name is spelt differently."

"It's spelt correctly," retorted Keith coolly, "in the good old Scottish fashion; as for the other, it's the French method acclimatised by Mary Stuart when she married the Dauphin of France."

"Well, now I know your pedigree, what is the story of your life?"

"My life?--oh! I'm like Canning's knife-grinder. 'Story, I've got none to tell.' My father and mother found royal descent was not bread and butter, so they sold the paternal acres and came out to Australia, where I was born. The gold fever was raging then, but I suppose they inherited the bad luck of the Stewarts, for they did not make a penny; then they started a farm in Gippsland and ruined themselves. My father died of a broken heart, and my mother soon followed, so I was left an orphan with next to nothing. I wandered all over Australia, and did anything that turned up. Suppressing the family pride, I took a situation in a Sandhurst store, kept by a man called Proggins, and there I met Eug?nie Rainsford, who, as I told you, taught the juvenile Progginses. I had a desultory sort of education from my father, and having read a good deal, I determined to take to literature, inspired, I suppose, by the poetic melancholy of the Australian bush. I wrote poetry with the usual success; I then went on the stage, and found I wasn't a heaven-born genius by any means, so I became a member of the staff of a small country paper, wrote brilliant articles about the weather and crops, varied by paste-and-scissors' work. Burned the midnight oil, and wrote some articles, which were accepted in Melbourne, so, with the usual prudence of genius, I threw up my billet and came down here to set the Thames, or rather the Yarra, on fire. Needless to remark, I didn't succeed or I shouldn't be here, so there is my history in a nutshell."

"And Miss Rainsford?"

"Oh, I engaged myself to her before I left Sandhurst," said Keith, his face growing tender, "bless her--the letters she has written me have been my bulwark against despair--ah! what a poor devil a man is in this world without a good woman's love to comfort him."

"Are you doing anything now?" said Ezra thoughtfully.

"Nothing. I'm leading a hand-to-mouth, here-to-day-gone-to-morrow existence. I'm a vagabond on the face of the earth, a modern Cain, Bonnie Prince Charlie in exile--the infernal luck of my royal ancestors still sticks to me, but, ah, bah!" shrugging his shoulders, "don't let's talk any more, old chap, we can resume the subject to-morrow, meanwhile play me something. I'm in a poetic mood, and would like to build castles in the air."

Ezra laughed, and, turning to the piano, began to play one of Henselt's morceaux, a pathetic, dreamy melody, which came stealing softly through the room, and filled the soul of the young man with vague yearnings.

Staring idly into the heart of the burning coals, he saw amid the bluish flames and red glimmer of the fire a vision of the dear dead days of long ago--shadows appeared, the shadows of last year.

A glowing sunset, bathing a wide plain in delicate crimson hues; a white gate leading to a garden bright with flowers, and over the gate the shadow of a beautiful woman stood talking to the shadow of a man--himself. Mnenosyne--saddest of deities--waved her wand, and the shadows talked.

"And when will you come back, Keith?" asked the girl shadow.

"When I am a great man," replied the other shadow proudly. "I am riding forth like Poe's knight in search of El Dorado."

"El Dorado is far away," returned the sweet voice of the girl; "it is the Holy Grail of wealth, and can never be discovered."

"I will find it," replied the man shadow hopefully. "Meanwhile, you will wait and hope."

"I will wait and hope," replied the girl, smiling sadly; and the shadows parted.

The rain beat steadily against the panes, the soft music stole through the room, and Stewart, with idle gaze, stared into the burning heart of the fire, as if he expected to find there the El Dorado of his dreams.

After a storm comes a calm; so next morning the sun was shining brightly in the blue sky, and the earth had that clean, wholesome appearance always to be seen after heavy rains. The high wind had dried the streets, the drenched foliage of the trees in the Fitzroy Gardens looked fresh and green, and there was a slight chilliness in the atmosphere which was highly invigorating. Indeed, it was like a spring morning, mildly inspiriting; whilst all around there seemed to be a pleasant sense of new-born gladness quickening both animal and vegetable life.

Stewart appeared to have quite recovered from his megrims of the previous night, and strolled gaily along, every now and then inhaling a long breath of the keen air. Ezra, who was watching him closely, saw from his actions his intense appreciation of his surroundings, and was satisfied that the young man possessed in a high degree that poetical instinct which has such an affinity with the joyousness or gloom of Nature.

"Ah! this is a morning when it is good to live," said Keith brightly. "I always envied the satyrs and dryades of heathendom, with their intense animal enjoyment of Nature--not sensuality, but exuberant capability of enjoying a simple life."

"Like that with which Hawthorn endowed Donatallo?" suggested Ezra.

"Poor Donatallo!" said Stewart, with a sigh; "he is a delightful illustration of the proverb, 'Where ignorance is bliss'--he was happy till he loved--so was Undine till she obtained a soul."

"You seem to have read a great deal?" observed Lazarus, looking at him.

"Oh, faith; my reading has been somewhat desultory," replied Stewart carelessly. "All is fish that comes to my net, and the result is a queer jumble of information; but let us leave this pleasant gossiping, and come down to this matter-of-fact world. How do you think I can better my position?"

"I hardly know as yet," replied the Jew, thoughtfully caressing his beard; "but if you want immediate work, I can put you in the way of obtaining employment."

"Literary work?"

"Unfortunately no--a clerkship in a--a--well, an office."

"Ugh! I hate the idea of being cribbed and confined in an office; it's such an artificial existence. However, beggars can't be choosers, so tell me all about it."

"My father wants a clerk," said Ezra deliberately, "and if I recommended you I think you could get the position."

"Humph! And what is your father's occupation?"

"Not a very aristocratic one,--a pawnbroker."

Keith stopped short, and looked at his companion in surprise.

"I can't imagine you being the son of a pawnbroker," he said in a puzzled tone.

"Why not?" asked Ezra serenely. "I must be the son of some one."

"Yes; but a pawnbroker, it's so horribly un-poetical. Your father ought to have been a man of letters--of vague speculations and abstruse theories--a modern Rabbi Judah holding disputations about the Talmud."

Lazarus shrugged his shoulders, and walked slowly onward, followed by his companion.

"My dear lad, the days of Maimonides are past, and we are essentially a money-making race. The curse which Jehovah pronounced on the Jews was the same as that of Midas--they turn everything they touch into gold."

"A pleasant enough punishment."

"Midas did not find it so; but to resume--my father, Jacob Lazarus, has his shop in Russell Street, so I will speak to him to-day, and if he is agreeable, I will take you with me to-morrow. I've no doubt you'll get the billet, but the wages will be small."

"At all events, they will keep body and soul together till I find my El Dorado."

"You refer to literary fame, I suppose. How did you first take to writing?"

"I think you asked me that question last night," said Keith, smiling, "and I told you I couldn't explain. Like Pope, I lisped in numbers, and the numbers came. I've no doubt they were sufficiently bad. I'm sure I don't know why all authors begin with verse; perhaps it's because rhymes are so easy--fountain suggests mountain, and dove is invariably followed by love."

"Have you had any articles accepted since your arrival in Melbourne?"

"One or two, but generally speaking, no one acknowledges that a possible Shakespeare or Dickens is embodied in me. I've sent plays to managers, which have been declined on the plea that all plays come from London. I have seen editors, and have been told there was no room on the press--publishers have seen me, and pointed out that a colonial novel means ruination--encouraging for the future brainworkers of Australia, isn't it?"

"We must all serve our apprenticeship," answered Lazarus quietly. "The longest lane has a turning."

"No doubt; but my particular lane seems devilish long."

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