NEW HORIZONS
When Ishmael laid his aching head upon the pillow one night a week later in the Tavistock Square house of Mr. Alderman Killigrew it carried within a whirl of impressions so confused that days would have been needed in which to sort them out. London—the London of the 'sixties—noisy with hoofs and iron-bound wheels upon its cobbles and macadam, dark with slums that encroached upon its gayest ways, glittering with night-houses and pleasure gardens that focussed light till dawn, brightened as with clustered bubbles by the swelling skirts of ladies of the whole world and the half, was, though smaller, ignorant of electric light, and without half the broad spaces and great buildings of the London of to-day, still more sparkling and gayer in its effect because life was less hidden. The 'sixties were not squeamish, though they were prudish; a man's own womenfolk were less noticeable than to-day, not only in such minor detail as the exclusion of them from the tops of omnibuses; but they, after all, were but a fraction of what went to make up spectacular life. Those were the days of bloods—when an officer and a gentleman went as a matter of course to all the cockpits and gaming houses, the night clubs and rings sacred to the "fancy"; when it was still the thing for a gentleman to spend his nights in drinking champagne and playing practical jokes that were forgiven him as a high-spirited young man who must sow his wild oats and garnish each word of conversation with an oath. From the comparative respectability of Cremorne and Motts, and the frankly shady precincts of the "Pie" and the "Blue Posts" down to places considerably worse, London was an enormous gamut of opportunities for "seeing life."
Killigrew, as a merchant's son, however well off, could not penetrate to the most sacred precincts—Motts was more or less barred to him; but on the other hand he was in the midst of what was always called the "Bohemian" set—in which were many artists, both the big and the little fry. One could "see life" there too, though, as usual, most of the artists were very respectable people. It was a respectable art then in vogue in England. Frith was the giant of the day, and from the wax figures at Madame Tussaud's to pictures such as the "Rake's Progress" the plastic arts had a moral tendency. Even the animals of Sir Edwin Landseer were the most decorous of all four-footed creatures; Killigrew blasphemed by calling the admired paintings still-life studies of animals. But then Killigrew was from Paris and chanted the newer creed; he was always comparing London unfavourably with Paris even when he was showing it off most.
The house in Tavistock Square was grand beyond anything Ishmael had ever imagined, if a little dismal too. It was furnished with a plethora of red plush, polished mahogany, and alabaster vases; while terrible though genuine curios from Mr. Killigrew's foreign agents decorated the least likely places. You were quite likely to be greeted, on opening your wardrobe, by a bland ostrich egg, which Mrs. Killigrew, the vaguest of dear women, would have thrust there and forgotten. She had a deeply-rooted conviction that there was something indecent about an ostrich egg—probably its size, emphasising that nakedness which nothing exhibits so triumphantly as an egg, had something to do with it.
Mrs. Killigrew was nothing if not "nice," but she was something much better than that too. Ishmael, though he could no more help laughing at her than could anyone else, soon felt a genuine affection for her that he never lost. She was a little wide-eyed, wistful-looking woman, really supremely contented with life, and, though kindness itself, quite incapable of realising that anyone could ever really be unhappy or wicked. "I'm sure the dear Lord knows what's best for us all," was her comfortable creed, that in one less sweet-natured would have made for selfishness.
"I'm sure that'll be very nice, my dears," was her invariable comment on any programme suggested by the young men; and there was a legend in the family that Killigrew—or Joseph, as his mother always called him in full—had once said to her: "How would it be, mother, if I were to murder the Guv'nor and then take you round the world with me on the money? We could settle in the South Sea Islands, and I'd marry a darky and you could look after the picaninny grandchildren?" To which Mrs. Killigrew had responded: "Yes, dear, that will be very nice; and on your way, if you're passing the fishmongers', will you tell him to alter the salmon for this evening to cod, as your father won't be in to dinner?"
Mr. Killigrew was a thin, pale man, not at all the typical prosperous merchant, with a skin like the shiny outside of a cold suet pudding, a high wall of forehead, and the thin-lipped mouth of a lawyer. Perhaps it was because of that mouth he was such a successful trader, while the brow provided him with enough philosophy to bear gladly with a child so different from himself—always a hard blow to egoism.
Mr. Killigrew approved of Ishmael; he liked his keenness on whatever appertained to his trade as an agriculturist, and he himself being concerned in the import of several tropical fruits and products, went with the young man to the great Horticultural Show at South Kensington, while the scornful Joe betook himself to the races; and Mrs. Killigrew, though she declined both outings, was sure that they would be very nice.
They were—though Killigrew lost so much money that he was afraid to come home and spent the night imbibing champagne and repentance at the Hummums, and Ishmael bought Indian corn and a kind of yam which he thought could be induced to flourish in West Penwith, which incidentally it did so far as foliage went, though it always obstinately refused to bear fruit. The following mid-day Joe sent for Ishmael to the Hummums, and from that comfortable if somewhat dingy hostelry set out, in the gayest spirits, to track down a money-lender who would oblige on no better security than his assurance that the Guv'nor would pay up when he had got over the shock.
Success in this put Killigrew into the wildest spirits, and he forthwith took unto himself a young man whom he ran into as he and Ishmael were going into the Blue Posts for a before-dinner drink. The young man was none other than Carminow, grown very tall and melancholy-looking, with an extravagantly high collar, much swathed with a voluminous black silk cravat and a fancy waistcoat. Carminow, who under a manner of deepest gloom concealed a nature as kind and as disconcertingly morbid as of yore, was unaffectedly charmed to see his old schoolfellows, and said so. He had better control over the letter "r" than in his boyhood, but his employment of it was still uncertain and quite irrational. He linked an arm in each and said gravely: "Will you come with me to see the execution at Newgate to-mowwow morning? They are twying new experiments with the dwop, and it should be intewesting."