DIRE NECESSITY
THE Irish lord had a word to say to his wife, before he submitted to
her the letter which he had just written.
He had been summoned to a meeting of proprietors at the office of the
newspaper, convened to settle the terms of a new subscription rendered
necessary by unforeseen expenses incurred in the interests of the
speculation. The vote that followed, after careful preliminary
consultation, authorised a claim on the purses of subscribing
proprietors, which sadly reduced the sum obtained by Lord Harry's
promissory note. Nor was this inconvenience the only trial of endurance
to which the Irish lord was compelled to submit. The hope which he had
entertained of assistance from the profits of the new journal, when
repayment of the loan that he had raised became due, was now plainly
revealed as a delusion. Ruin stared him in the face, unless he could
command the means of waiting for the pecuniary success of the
newspaper, during an interval variously estimated at six months, or
even at a year to come.
"Our case is desperate enough," he said, "to call for a desperate
remedy. Keep up your spirits, Iris--I have written to my brother."
Iris looked at him in dismay.
"Surely," she said, "you once told me you had written to your brother,
and he answered you in the cruellest manner through his lawyers."
"Quite true, my dear. But, this time, there is one circumstance in our
favour--my brother is going to be married. The lady is said to be an
heiress; a charming creature, admired and beloved wherever she goes.
There must surely be something to soften the hardest heart in that
happy prospect. Read what I have written, and tell me what you think of
it."
The opinion of the devoted wife encouraged the desperate husband: the
letter was dispatched by the post of that day.
If boisterous good spirits can make a man agreeable at the
dinner-table, then indeed Mr. Vimpany, on his return to the cottage,
played the part of a welcome guest. He was inexhaustible in gallant
attentions to his friend's wife; he told his most amusing stories in
his happiest way; he gaily drank his host's fine white Burgundy, and
praised with thorough knowledge of the subject the succulent French
dishes; he tried Lord Harry with talk on politics, talk on sport, and
(wonderful to relate in these days) talk on literature. The preoccupied
Irishman was equally inaccessible on all three subjects. When the
dessert was placed on the table--still bent on making himself agreeable
to Lady Harry--Mr. Vimpany led the conversation to the subject of
floriculture. In the interests of her ladyship's pretty little garden,
he advocated a complete change in the system of cultivation, and
justified his revolutionary views by misquoting the published work of a
great authority on gardening with such polite obstinacy that Iris
(eager to confute him) went away to fetch the book. The moment he had
entrapped her into leaving the room, the doctor turned to Lord Harry
with a sudden change to the imperative mood in look and manner.
"What have you been about," he asked, "since we had that talk in the
Gardens to-day? Have you looked at your empty purse, and are you wise
enough to take my way of filling it?"
"As long as there's the ghost of a chance left to me," Lord Harry
replied, "I'll take any way of filling my purse but yours."
"Does that mean you have found a way?"
"Do me a favour, Vimpany. Defer all questions till the end of the
week."
"And then I shall have your answer?"
"Without fail, I promise it. Hush!"
Iris returned to the dining-room with her book; and polite Mr. Vimpany
owned in the readiest manner that he had been mistaken.
The remaining days of the week followed each other wearily. During the
interval, Lord Harry's friend carefully preserved the character of a
model guest--he gave as little trouble as possible. Every morning after
breakfast the doctor went away by the train. Every morning (with
similar regularity) he was followed by the resolute Fanny Mere.
Pursuing his way through widely different quarters of Paris, he
invariably stopped at a public building, invariably presented a letter
at the door, and was invariably asked to walk in. Inquiries, patiently
persisted in by the English maid, led in each case to the same result.
The different public buildings were devoted to the same benevolent
purpose. Like the Hotel Dieu, they were all hospitals; and Mr.
Vimpany's object in visiting them remained as profound a mystery as
ever.
Early on the last morning of the week the answer from Lord Harry's
brother arrived. Hearing of it, Iris ran eagerly into her husband's
room. The letter was already scattered in fragments on the floor. What
the tone of the Earl's inhuman answer had been in the past time, that
it was again now.
Iris put her arms round her husband's neck. "Oh, my poor love, what is
to be done?"
He answered in one reckless word: "Nothing!"
"Is there nobody else who can help us?" she asked.
"Ah, well, darling, there's perhaps one other person still left,"
"Who is the person?"
"Who should it be but your own dear self?"
She looked at him in undisguised bewilderment: "Only tell me, Harry,
what I can do?"
"Write to Mountjoy, and ask him to lend me the money."
He said it. In those shameless words, he said it. She, who had
sacrificed Mountjoy to the man whom she had married, was now asked by
that man to use Mountjoy's devotion to her, as a means of paying his
debts! Iris drew back from him with a cry of disgust.
"You refuse?" he said.
"Do you insult me by doubting it?" she answered.
He rang the bell furiously, and dashed out of the room. She heard him,
on the stairs, ask where Mr. Vimpany was. The servant replied: "In the
garden, my lord."
Smoking a cigar luxuriously in the fine morning air, the doctor saw his
excitable Irish friend hastening out to meet him.
"Don't hurry," he said, in full possession of his impudent good-humour;
"and don't lose your temper. Will you take my way out of your
difficulties, or will you not? Which is it--Yes or No?"
"You infernal scoundrel--Yes!"
"My dear lord, I congratulate you."
"On what, sir?"
"On being as great a scoundrel as I am."