It would have been a severe blow to his penetration and self-esteem had he been wrong, but it so happened that he was right.
And now, before introducing him to Madeline, let us pause and take a little sketch of Robert West, millionaire, who had made considerable capital out of the fact, and taken the lead socially during the recent voyage, from whist and deck-quoits to the usual complimentary letter to the captain. He is a man of fifty-five, or a little more, short, spare, dapper, with a thin face, hair between fair and grey, quick bright hazel eyes, a carefully trimmed short beard, and waxed moustache. There are a good many deep wrinkles about his eyes, and when he raises his cap he no longer looks (as he does otherwise, and at a short distance) a man of five and thirty, but his full age, for we perceive that his head is as bald as a billiard ball. (N.B.—His photographs are invariably taken in his hat.) He is dressed in the most approved manner, and by the best tailor in Melbourne; a fat little nugget hangs from his watch-chain; a perennial smile adorns his face, although he has a singularly hard and suspicious eye. His history and antecedents may be summed up in a few sentences: His father, an English yeoman of a respectable old stock, committed forgery, and was transported to Port Philip in 1823; he got a ticket-of-leave, acquired land, squatted, married in Port Philip, now Victoria. His success was fitful, owing to drought, scab, and the many other evils to which an Australian settler is heir. However, he gave his son a fairly good education in England. He desired him to make a figure as a gentleman. To this end he pinched and struggled and scraped, and finally sent Robert down to Melbourne with a certain sum of money, and a stern determination to grapple with and conquer fortune. Privately Robert despised his horny-handed old father, the ex-convict. He hated a squatter’s life—loathed dingoes, dampers, buck-jumpers, and wool, and he soon fell into a comfortable berth in a land-agent’s office, and being steady, capable, hard-headed (and hard-hearted), prospered rapidly; in his young days everything in Melbourne was of Tropical growth.
He married a veritable hot-house flower—his employer’s only daughter—a pretty, indolent, excitable, extravagant creature, with French blood in her veins, who carried him up a dozen rungs of the social ladder, and brought him a fortune. Her house—in Toorak—her splendid dresses, entertainments, and equipages were the talk and envy of her neighbours and sex; she was in with the Government House set, and she lived in an incessant round of gaiety, a truly brilliant butterfly.
After six years of married life, she died of consumption; and her widower was not inconsolable. He kept on the big house, he frequented his club, he heaped up riches, he gambled with selections as others do with cards; he was not behind-hand in the great land boom which led to that saturnalia of wild speculation which demoralized the entire community. Suburban lands were forced up to enormous prices—a thousand times their value; people bought properties in the morning and sold them in the afternoon at an advance of thousands of pounds. New suburbs, new banks, new tenements sprang up like mushrooms, under the influence of adventurous building societies, and every one was making an enormous fortune—on paper.
When the gigantic bubble burst, the consequences were terrible, involving the ruin of thousands. Robert West had seen that the crash must come, but believed that he would escape. He tempted fortune too rashly. Just a few more thousands, and he would sell out; but his greed was his bane. He had not time to stand from under when the whole card house toppled over and his fortunes fell.
He was left almost penniless: the banks had collapsed, land and estate was unsaleable. He was at his wits’ end. He seriously contemplated suicide, but after all decided to see the thing out—that is, his own life. He went to Sydney; he kept his head above water; he looked about keenly for a plank of security, and providence—luck—threw him one. Land he had taken with grumbling reluctance as part payment of an ancient debt—land he had never been within five hundred miles of—proved to be a portion of the celebrated Waikatoo gold mines. He was figuratively and literally on the spot at once; his old trade stood to him. He traded, and sold, and realized, keeping a certain number of shares, and then turned his back on greater Britain for ever, intending to enjoy life, and to end his days in Britain the less. Money was his dear and respected friend; he loved it with every fibre of his little shrivelled heart. Ambition was his ruling passion, and rank his idol. To rank he would abase himself, and grovel in the gutter; to rank he intends to be allied before he is much older—if not in his own proper person, he will at least be the father-in-law of a peer. Money for the attainment of this honour was no object; and as his sharp, eager eyes fell on the pretty frightened face that was looking diffidently round the many groups standing on the deck of the steamer, he told himself, with a thrill of ecstasy, “That if that girl in the black hat is Madeline—by Jove! she will do!”
CHAPTER XIII.
MR. WEST’S WISHES.
Standing close to Mr. West—or, rather, Mr. West had attached himself to him—was his favourite fellow-traveller, a young and somewhat impecunious nobleman—Lord Anthony Foster—the son of a duke, whose pedigree was much longer than his purse, and one of a large family. Most of this family were already established in life, and had repaired their shattered fortunes by a prudent and wealthy marriage; but Lord Tony, as he was called, preferred his liberty. He was fond of sport and travelling, and was postponing the evil day (as he considered it) which, alas! must sooner or later overtake him, for his private fortune was small. His elder brother, the present duke, was close-fisted, and his personal expenses, do as he would, invariably exceeded his expectations—it is a little way they have with many people—and although he had no extravagant tastes (so he declared), yet he was liberal, and liked to “do things comfortably.” In his appearance no one would suspect that the blood of a hundred earls ran in his veins; in fact (low be it whispered), he was a rather common-looking young man—short, square, with a turned-up nose, wide nostrils, a wide mouth, and a faint light moustache; his complexion was tanned to mahogany, but a pair of merry blue eyes, and an open, good-humoured countenance made up for many deficiencies. He was not a ladies’ man, but popular with men; not at all clever, but ever ready to laugh at other folk’s good things, and his own mistakes—shrewd enough, too; a capital shot, an untiring angler, an enterprising traveller, and, according to his own account, an unparalleled sleeper. He had no profession, no ties, no landed estates to look after—the world was his landed estate—and he was now returning from a long tour of inspection in Japan and Australia.
Lord Tony had met Mr. West in Sydney society, and Mr. West had taken an immense fancy to him, and had privately arranged the date of his own departure so as to secure the young lord as a fellow-passenger. He had also shared his cabin. In this unaffected young man, with a pleasant, hearty manner, and a large connection in the peerage, he saw a link to upper circles, and a ready ladder for his nimble and ambitious foot.
Mr. West was determined to get into society, to enjoy his money, to be in the swim, and to make a splash! He had obtained one or two good introductions to merchant princes, and he had cemented a fast friendship with Lord Tony. Friendships grow quickly at sea, though these same friendships frequently languish and fade on shore. He had frequently and pointedly alluded to “his only child,” “his daughter,” “his little heiress;” he had displayed with pride the photograph of a very charming girl in her early teens; he had thrown out hints, that if she married to please him—a nice, unaffected, well-connected young fellow, who would give her a coronet on her handkerchief—the money to spend and keep up her position would be his affair.