William Shakespeare - "The Tragedie of Coriolanus"

G.A. Henty - "Won by the Sword"

James Buchanan - "State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan"

Unknown - "The World English Bible (WEB): 2 John"

The Woman Hater

C >> Charles Reade >> The Woman Hater




Low courtesy; profound bows; exit deputation enchanted with her; _manet_
Klosking with the freedom of the city in her hand and ingratitude in her
heart; for her one idea was to get hold of Mr. Joseph Ashmead directly
and reproach him severely for all this, which she justly ascribed to his
machinations.

The cunning Ashmead divined her project, and kept persistently out of her
way. That did not suit her neither. She was lonely. She gave the waiter a
friendly line to bring him to her.

Now, mind you, she was too honest to pretend she was not going to scold
him. So this is what she wrote:





"MY FRIEND--Have you deserted me? Come to me, and be remonstrated. What
have you to fear? You know so well how to defend yourself.

INA KLOSKING."





Arrived in a very few minutes Mr. Ashamed, jaunty, cheerful, and
defensive.

Ina, with a countenance from which all discontent was artfully extracted,
laid before him, in the friendliest way you can imagine, an English
Bible. It was her father's, and she always carried it with her. "I wish,"
said she, insidiously, "to consult you on a passage or two of this book.
How do you understand this:

"'When thou doest thine alms, do not send a trumpet before thee, as the
hypocrites do.'

"And this:

"'When thou doest thine alms, let not thy right hand know what thy left
hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret; and thy Father, which seeth
in secret, shall reward thee openly.'"

Having pointed out these sentences with her finger, she looked to him for
his interpretation. Joseph, thus erected into a Scripture commentator,
looked at the passages first near, and then afar off, as if the true
interpretation depended on perspective. Having thus gained a little time,
he said, "Well, I think the meaning is clear enough. We are to hide our
own light under a bushel. But it don't say an agent is to hide his
employer's.'

"Be serious, sir. This is a great authority."

"Oh, of course, of course. Still--if you won't be offended, ma'am--times
are changed since then. It was a very small place, where news spread of
itself; and all that cannot be written for theatrical agents, because
there wasn't one in creation."

"And so now their little customs, lately invented, like themselves, are
to prevail against God's im-mor-tal law!" It was something half way
between Handel and mellowed thunder the way her grand contralto suddenly
rolled out these three words. Joseph was cunning. He put on a crushed
appearance, deceived by which the firm but gentle Klosking began to
soften her tone directly.

"It has given me pain," said she, sorrowfully. "And I am afraid God will
be angry with us both for our ostentation."

"Not He," said Joseph, consolingly. "Bless your heart, He is not half so
irritable as the parsons fancy; they confound Him with themselves."

Ina ignored this suggestion with perfect dignity and flowed on: "All I
stipulate now is that I may not see this pitiable parade in print."

"That is past praying for, then," said Ashmead, resolutely. "You might as
well try to stop the waves as check publicity--in our day. Your
munificence to the poor--confound the lazy lot!--and the gratitude of
those pompous prigs, the deputation--the presentation--your admirable
reply--"

"You never heard it, now--"

"Which, as you say, I was not so fortunate as to hear, and so must
content myself with describing it--all this is flying north, south, east,
and west."

"Oh no, no, no! You have not _advertised_ it?"

"Not advertised it! For what do you take me? Wait till you see the bill I
am running up against you. Madam, you must take people as they are. Don't
try to un-Ashmead _me;_ it is impossible. Catch up that knife and kill
me. I'll not resist; on the contrary, I'll sit down and prepare an
obituary notice for the weeklies, and say I did it. BUT WHILE I BREATHE I
ADVERTISE."

And Joseph was defiant; and the Klosking shrugged her noble shoulders,
and said, "You best of creatures, you are incurable."

To follow this incident to its conclusion, not a week after this scene,
Ina Klosking detected, in an English paper,

"A CHARITABLE ACT.

"Mademoiselle Klosking, the great contralto, having won a large sum of
money at the Kursaal, has given a thousand pounds to the poor of the
place. The civic authorities hearing of this, and desirous to mark their
sense of so noble a donation, have presented her with the freedom of the
burgh, written on vellum and gold. Mademoiselle Klosking received the
compliment with charming grace and courtesy; but her modesty is said to
have been much distressed at the publicity hereby given to an act she
wished to be known only to the persons relieved by her charity."





Ina caught the culprit and showed him this. "A thousand pounds!" said
she. "Are you not ashamed? Was ever a niggardly act so embellished and
exaggerated? I feel my face very red, sir."

"Oh, I'll explain that in a moment," said Joseph, amicably. "Each nation
has a coin it is always quoting. France counts in francs, Germany in
thalers, America in dollars, England in pounds. When a thing costs a
million francs in France, or a million dollars in the States, that is
always called a million pounds in the English journals: otherwise it
would convey no distinct idea at all to an Englishman. Turning thalers
and francs into pounds--_that_ is not _exaggeration;_ it is only
_translation."_

Ina gave him such a look. He replied with an unabashed smile.

She shrugged her shoulders in silence this time, and, to the best of my
belief, made no more serious attempts to un-Ashmead her Ashmead.





A month had now passed, and that was a little more than half the dreary
time she had to wade through. She began to count the days, and that made
her pine all the more. Time is like a kettle. Be blind to him, he flies;
watch him, he lags. Her sweet temper was a little affected, and she even
reproached Ashmead for holding her out false hopes that his
advertisements of her gains would induce Severne to come to her, or even
write. "No," said she; "there must be some greater attraction. Karl says
that Miss Vizard, who called upon me, was a beauty, and dark. Perhaps she
was the lovely girl I saw at the opera. She has never been there since:
and he is gone to England with people of that name."

"Well, but that Miss Vizard called on you. She can't intend to steal him
from you."

"But she may not know; a woman may injure another without intending. He
may deceive her; he has betrayed me. Her extraordinary beauty terrifies
me. It enchanted me; and how much more a man?"

Joseph said he thought this was all fancy; and as for his advertisements,
it was too early yet to pronounce on their effect.

The very day after this conversation he bounced into her room in great
dudgeon. "There, madam! the advertisements _have_ produced an effect; and
not a pleasant one. Here's a detective on to us. He is feeling his way
with Karl. I knew the man in a moment; calls himself Poikilus in print,
and Smith to talk to; but he is Aaron at the bottom of it all, and can
speak several languages. Confound their impudence! putting a detective on
to _us,_ when it is they that are keeping dark."

"Who do you think has sent him?" asked Ina, intently.

"The party interested, I suppose."

"Interested in what?"

"Why, in the money you won; for he was drawing Karl about that."

"Then _he_ sent the man!" And Ina began to pant and change color.

"Well, now you put it to me, I think so. Come to look at it, it is
certain. Who else _could_ it be? Here is a brace of sweeps. They wouldn't
be the worse for a good kicking. You say the word, and Smith shall have
one, at all events."

"Alas! my friend," said Ina, "for once you are slow. What! a messenger
comes here direct from _him;_ and are we so dull we can learn nothing
from him who comes to question us? Let me think."

She leaned her forehead on her white hand, and her face seemed slowly to
fill with intellectual power.

"That man," said she at last, "is the only link between him and me. I
must speak to him."

Then she thought again.

"No, not yet. He must be detained in the house. Letters may come to him,
and their postmarks may give us some clew."

"I'll recommend the house to him."

"Oh, that is not necessary. He will lodge here of his own accord. Does he
know you?"

"I think not."

"Do not give him the least suspicion that you know he is a detective."

"All right, I won't."

"If he sounds you about the money, say nobody knows much about it, except
Mademoiselle Klosking. If you can get the matter so far, come and tell
me. But be _you_ very reserved, for you are not clear."

Ashmead received these instructions meekly, and went into the _salle 'a
manger_ and ordered dinner. Smith was there, and had evidently got some
information from Karl, for he opened an easy conversation with Ashmead,
and it ended in their dining together.

Smith played the open-handed country man to the life--stood champagne.
Ashmead chattered, and seemed quite off his guard. Smith approached the
subject cautiously. "Gamble here as much as ever?"

"All day, some of them."

"Ladies and all?"

"Why, the ladies are the worst."

"No; are they now? Ah, that reminds me. I heard there was a lady in this
very house won a pot o' money."

"It is true. I am her agent."

"I suppose she lost it all next day?"

"Well, not all, for she gave a thousand pounds to the poor."

"The dressmakers collared the rest?"

"I cannot say. I have nothing to do except with her theatrical business.
She will make more by that than she ever made at play."

"What, is she tip-top?"

"The most rising singer in Europe."

"I should like to see her."

"That you can easily do. She sings tonight. I'll pass you in."

"You are a good fellow. Have a bit of supper with me afterward. Bottle of
fizz."

These two might be compared to a couple of spiders, each taking the other
for a fly. Smith was enchanted with Ina's singing, or pretended. Ashmead
was delighted with him, or pretended.

"Introduce me to her," said Smith.

"I dare not do that. You are not professional, are you?"

"No, but you can say I am, for a lark."

Ashmead said he should like to; but it would not do, unless he was very
wary.

"Oh, I'm fly," said the other. "She won't get anything out of me. I've
been behind the scenes often enough."

Then Ashmead said he would go and ask her if he might present a London
manager to her.

He soon brought back the answer. "She is too tired to-night: but I
pressed her, and she says she will be charmed if you will breakfast with
her to-morrow at eleven." He did not say that he was to be with her at
half-past ten for special instructions. They were very simple. "My
friend," said she, "I mean to tell this man something which he will think
it his duty to telegraph or write to _him_ immediately. It was for this I
would not have the man to supper, being after post-time. This morning he
shall either write or telegraph, and then, if you are as clever in this
as you are in some things, you will watch him, and find out the address
he sends to."

Ashmead listened very attentively, and fell into a brown study.

"Madam," said he at last, "this is a first-rate combination. You make him
communicate with England, and I will do the rest. If he telegraphs, I'll
be at his heels. If he goes to the post, I know a way. If he posts in the
house, he makes it too easy."

At eleven Ashmead introduced his friend "Sharpus, manager of Drury Lane
Theater," and watched the fencing match with some anxiety, Ina being
little versed in guile. But she had tact and self-possession; and she was
not an angel, after all, but a woman whose wits were sharpened by love
and suffering.

Sharpus, alias Smith, played his assumed character to perfection. He gave
the Klosking many incidents of business and professional anecdotes, and
was excellent company. The Klosking was gracious, and more _bonne enfant_
than Ashmead had ever seen her. It was a fine match between her and the
detective. At last he made his approaches.

"And I hear we are to congratulate you on success at _rouge et noir_ as
well as opera. Is it true that you broke the bank?"

"Perfectly," was the frank reply.

"And won a million?"

"More or less," said the Klosking, with an open smile.

"I hope it was a good lump, for our countrymen leave hundreds of
thousands here every season."

"It was four thousand nine hundred pounds, sir."

"Phew! Well, I wish it had been double. You are not so close as our
friend here, madam."

"No, sir; and shall I tell you why?"

"If you like, madam," said Smith, with assumed indifference.

"Mr. Ashmead is a model agent; he never allows himself to see anybody's
interests but mine. Now the truth is, another person has an interest in
my famous winnings. A gentleman handed 25 pounds to Mr. Ashmead to play
with. He did not do so; but I came in and joined 25 pounds of my own to
that 25 pounds, and won an enormous sum. Of course, if the gentleman
chooses to be chivalrous and abandon his claim, he can; but that is not
the way of the world, you know. I feel sure he will come to me for his
share some day; and the sooner the better, for money burns the pocket."

Sharpus, alias Smith, said this was really a curious story. "Now
suppose," said he, "some fine day a letter was to come asking you to
remit that gentleman his half, what should you do?"

"I should decline; it might be an _escroc._ No. Mr. Ashmead here knows
the gentleman. Do you not?"

"I'll swear to him anywhere."

"Then to receive his money he must face the eye of Ashmead. Ha! ha!"

The detective turned the conversation, and never came back to the
subject; but shortly he pleaded an engagement, and took his leave.

Ashmead lingered behind, but Ina hurried him off, with an emphatic
command not to leave this man out of his sight a moment.

He violated this order, for in five minutes he ran back to tell her, in
an agitated whisper, that Smith was, at that moment, writing a letter in
the _salle 'a manger._

"Oh, pray don't come here!" cried Ina, in despair. "Do not lose sight of
him for a moment."

"Give me that letter to post, then," said Ashmead, and snatched one up
Ina had directed overnight.

He went to the hotel door, and lighted a cigar; out came Smith with a
letter in his very hand. Ashmead peered with all his eyes; but Smith held
the letter vertically in his hand and the address inward. The letter was
sealed.

Ashmead watched him, and saw he was going to the General Post. He knew a
shorter cut, ran, and took it, and lay in wait. As Smith approached the
box, letter in hand, he bustled up in a furious hurry, and posted his own
letter so as to stop Smith's hand at the very aperture before he could
insert his letter. He saw, apologized, and drew back. Smith laughed, and
said, "All right, old man. That is to your sweetheart, or you wouldn't be
in such a hurry."

"No; it was to my grandmother," said Ashmead.

"Go on," said Smith, and poked the ribs of Joseph. They went home
jocular; but the detective was no sooner out of the way than Ashmead
stole up to Ina Klosking, and put his finger to his lips; for Karl was
clearing away, and in no hurry.

They sat on tenter-hooks and thought he never would go. He did go at
last, and then the Klosking and Ashmead came together like two magnets.

"Well?"

"All right! Letter to post. Saw address quite plain--Edward Severne,
Esq."

"Yes."

"Vizard Court."

"Ah!"

"Taddington--Barfordshire--England."

Ina, who was standing all on fire, now sat down and interlaced her hands.
"Vizard!" said she, gloomily.

"Yes; Vizard Court," said Ashmead, triumphantly; "that means he is a
large landed proprietor, and you will easily find him if he is there in a
month."

"He will be there," said Ina. "She is very beautiful. She is dark, too,
and he loves change. Oh, if to all I have suffered he adds _that_--"

"Then you will forgive him _that,"_ said Ashmead, shaking his head.

"Never. Look at me, Joseph Ashmead."

He looked at her with some awe, for she seemed transformed, and her
Danish eye gleamed strangely.

"You who have seen my torments and my fidelity, mark what I say: If he is
false to me with another woman, I shall kill him--or else I shall hate
him."





She took her desk and wrote, at Ashmead's dictation,

"Vizard Court, Taddington, Barfordshire."



CHAPTER XIX.

THE next morning Vizard carried Lord Uxmoor away to a magistrates'
meeting, and left the road clear to Severne; but Zoe gave him no
opportunity until just before luncheon, and then she put on her bonnet
and came downstairs; but Fanny was with her.

Severne, who was seated patiently in his bedroom with the door ajar, came
out to join them, feeling sure Fanny would openly side with him, or slip
away and give him his opportunity.

But, as the young ladies stood on the broad flight of steps at the hall
door, an antique figure drew nigh--an old lady, the shape of an egg, so
short and stout was she. On her head she wore a black silk bonnet
constructed many years ago, with a droll design, viz., to keep off sun,
rain, and wind; it was like an iron coal scuttle, slightly shortened; yet
have I seen some very pretty faces very prettily framed in such a bonnet.
She had an old black silk gown that only reached to her ankle, and over
it a scarlet cloak of superfine cloth, fine as any colonel or queen's
outrider ever wore, and looking splendid, though she had used it forty
years, at odd times. This dame had escaped the village ill, rheumatics,
and could toddle along without a staff at a great, and indeed a fearful,
pace; for, owing to her build, she yawed so from side to side at every
step that, to them who knew her not, a capsize appeared inevitable.

"Mrs. Judge, I declare," cried Zoe.

"Ay, Miss Hannah Judge it is. Your sarvant, ma'am;" and she dropped two
courtesies, one for each lady.

Mrs. Judge was Harrington's old nurse. Zoe often paid a visit to her
cottage, but she never came to Vizard Court except on Harrington's
birthday, when the servants entertained all the old pensioners and
retainers at supper. Her sudden appearance, therefore, and in gala
costume, astonished Zoe. Probably her face betrayed this, for the old
lady began, "You wonder to see me here, now, doan't ye?"

"Well, Mrs. Judge," said Zoe, diplomatically, "nobody has a better right
to come."

"You be very good, miss. I don't doubt my welcome nohow."

"But," said Zoe, playfully, "you seldom do us the honor; so I _am_ a
little surprised. What can I do for you?"

"You does enough for me, miss, you and young squire. I bain't come to ask
no favors. I ain't one o' that sort. I'll tell ye why I be come. 'Tis to
warn you all up here."

"This is alarming," said Zoe to Fanny.

"That is as may be," said Mrs. Judge; "forwarned, forearmed, the by-word
sayeth. There is a young 'oman a-prowling about this here parish as don't
belong to _hus."_

"La," said Fanny, "mustn't we visit your parish if we were not born
there?"

"Don't you take me up before I be down, miss," said the old nurse, a
little severely. "'Tain't for the likes of you I speak, which you are a
lady, and visits the Court by permission of squire; but what I objects to
is--hinterlopers." She paused to see the effect of so big a word, and
then resumed, graciously, "You see, most of our hills comes from that
there Hillstoke. If there's a poacher, or a thief, he is Hillstoke; they
harbors the gypsies as ravage the whole country, mostly; and now they
have let loose this here young 'oman on to us. She is a POLL PRY: goes
about the town a-sarching: pries into their housen and their vittels, and
their very beds. Old Marks have got a muck-heap at his door for his
garden, ye know. Well, miss, she sticks her parasole into this here, and
turns it about, as if she was agoing to spread it: says she, 'I must know
the de-com-po-si-tion of this 'ere, as you keeps under the noses of your
young folk.' Well, I seed her agoing her rounds, and the folk had told me
her ways; so I did set me down to my knitting and wait for her, and when
she came to me I offered her a seat; so she sat down, and says she 'This
is the one clean house in the village,' says she: 'you might eat your
dinner off the floor, let alone the chairs and tables.' 'You are very
good, miss,' says I. Says she, 'I wonder whether upstairs is as nice as
this?' 'Well,' says I, 'them as keep it downstairs keeps it hup; I don't
drop cleanliness on the stairs, you may be sure.' 'I suppose not,' says
she, 'but I should like to see.' That was what I was a-waiting for, you
know, so I said to her, 'Curiosity do breed curiosity,' says I. 'Afore
you sarches this here house from top to bottom I should like to see the
warrant.' 'What warrant?' says she. 'I've no warrant. Don't take me for
an enemy,' says she. 'I'm your best friend,' says she. 'I'm the new
doctor.' I told her I had heard a whisper of that too; but we had got a
parish doctor already, and one was enough. 'Not when he never comes anigh
you,' says she, 'and lets you go half way to meet your diseases.' 'I
don't know for that,' says I, and indeed I haan't a notion what she
meant, for my part; but says I, 'I don't want no women folk to come here
a-doctoring o' me, that's sartin.' So she said, 'But suppose you were
very ill, and the he-doctor three miles off, and fifty others to visit
afore you?' 'That is no odds,' says I; 'I would not be doctored by a
woman.' Then she says to me, says she, 'Now you look me in the face.' 'I
can do that,' says I; 'you, or anybody else. I'm an honest woman, _I_
am;' so I up and looked her in the face as bold as brass. 'Then,' says
she, 'am I to understand that, if you was to be ill to-morrow, you would
rather die than be doctored by a woman?' She thought to daant me, you
see, so I says, 'Well, I don't know as I oodn't.' You do laugh, miss.
Well, that is what she did. 'All right,' says she. 'Make haste and die,
my good soul,' says she, 'for, while you live, you'll be a hobelisk to
reform.' So she went off, but I made to the door, and called after her I
should die when God pleased, and I had seen a good many young folk laid
out, that looked as like to make old bones as ever she
does--chalk-faced-- skinny---to-a-d! And I called after her she was no
lady. No more she ain't, to come into my own house and call a decent
woman 'a hobelisk!' Oh! oh! Which I never _was,_ not even in my giddy
days, but did work hard in my youth, and am respect for my old age."

"Yes, nurse, yes; who doubts it?"

"And nursed young squire, and, Lord bless your heart, a was a poor puny
child when I took him to my breast, and in six months the finest,
chubbiest boy in all the parish; and his dry-nurse for years arter, and
always at his heels a-keeping him out of the stable and the ponds, and
consorting with the village boys; and a proper resolute child he was, and
hard to manage: and my own man that is gone, and my son 'that's not so
clever as some,'* I always done justice by them both, and arter all to be
called a hobelisk--oh! oh! oh!"

* Paraphrase for the noun substantive "idiot." It is also a specimen of
the Greek figure "litotes."

Then behold the gentle Zoe with her arm round nurse's neck, and her
handkerchief to nurse's eyes, murmuring, "There--there--don't cry, nurse;
everybody esteems you, and that lady did not mean to affront you; she did
not say 'obelisk;' she said 'obstacle.' That only means that you stand in
the way of her improvements; there was not much harm in that, you know.
And, nurse, please give that lady her way, to oblige me; for it is by my
brother's invitation she is here."

"Ye doan't say so! What, does he hold with female she-doctoresses?"

"He wishes to _try_ one. She has his authority."

"Ye doan't say so!"

"Indeed I do."

"Con--sarn the wench! why couldn't she says so, 'stead o' hargefying?"

"She is a stranger, and means well; so she did not think it necessary.
You must take my word for it."

"La, miss, I'll take your'n before hers, you _may_ be sure," said Mrs.
Judge, with a decided remnant of hostility.

And now a proverbial incident happened. Miss Rhoda Gale came in sight,
and walked rapidly into the group.

After greeting the ladies, and ignoring Severne, who took off his hat to
her, with deep respect, in the background, she turned to Mrs. Judge.
"Well, old lady," said she cheerfully, "and how do you do?"

Mrs. Judge replied, in fawning accents, "Thank you, miss, I be well
enough to get about. I was a-telling 'em about you-- and, to be sure, it
is uncommon good of a lady like you to trouble so much about poor folk."

"Don't mention it; it is my duty and my inclination. You see, my good
woman, it is not so easy to cure diseases as people think; therefore it
is a part of medicine to prevent them: and to prevent them you must
remove the predisposing causes, and to find out all those causes you must
have eyes, and use them."

"You are right, miss," said La Judge, obsequiously. "Prevention is better
nor cure, and they say 'a stitch in time saves nine.'"

"That is capital good sense, Mrs. Judge; and pray tell the villagers
that, and make them as full of 'the wisdom of nations' as you seem to be,
and their houses as clean--if you can."

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