The disguise was complete, and it certainly made the fellow infinitely better looking than he was in his customary habit, and far more attractive to the “feminine” mind than in either of his former disguises.
He had come down to Severntown partly out of curiosity, partly on speculation, with a personal desire to ferret out poor Dibble’s “little game,” and also to run through Avonworth valley, and take a peep at the neighbourhood of Barton Hall. His recent advertising scheme had supplied him with a little ready cash, and he had augmented this at écarté in a recently-established gambling-house, where he was unknown.
In funds, and anxious to make up a sufficient sum to enable him to set up as a gentleman on the Continent, he had waited upon Mr. Richard Tallant under an assumed name, and that gentleman had denied all knowledge of him to his face. He would have no more dealings with his police-hunted friend, and they had parted in anger, Richard Tallant threatening to hand his former companion over to the police as an impostor, and Mr. Gibbs making a vow as he left the high steps of the fine West End house, to be revenged on “this mushroom upstart.”
Defiance and assumption seemed to be the leading features of Richard Tallant’s policy. He defied everybody, he assumed an air of injured dignity upon the slightest reference to his past career, talked of envy, hatred, and malice, almost wept at his father’s name, and gave splendid illustrations of his wealth in noble public subscriptions. Scarcely a list of public donors to any charity that appeared in the Times without Richard Tallant held a place there. He had even astonished the citizens of Severntown lately by suddenly appearing as a subscriber to various local institutions. His father had rarely done as much as this, though Severntown was the capital of the county in which he resided; and people soon began to say that young Tallant was not such a bad fellow after all.
The actions which he had threatened progressed very slowly. Writs had been issued in several cases; but nothing further seemed to have been done. This, however, speedily closed the mouths of other people who might be inclined to say malicious things about the disgraced director of the Eastern Bank. It is astonishing how people shrink before the threat of an action for libel and slander, and it oftentimes happens that those persons who are most ready to talk of vindicating their characters, and who threaten actions for that purpose, are often all that their traducers have said of them. A public man with a tolerably settled conscience, and assured of his own probity, does not trouble himself much about the cavillers who attack him, unless they attempt to undermine his credit: then if he cannot afford to have his credit undermined, he will blaze out at his libeller, and endeavour to put himself right with the world. If he has money enough to stand the undermining principle, he treats it with contempt.
It was so with Richard Tallant: he was not an honest man, and not so rich as he professed to be; and this made it all the more necessary that he should set up for an injured man and a wealthy one. He convinced many people that he was the latter, and they speedily gave him credit for being the former.
And thus it was that he had refused to sully even his memory with a knowledge of Shuffleton Gibbs, who at once in his own way held his head above the plebeian upstart, and thought of his own “gentle blood.”
“I will show the trumpery humbug, whether a Gibbs—the last of his race—shall be scorned for naught by a mushroom iron-dealer. Shuffleton Gibbs snubbed and threatened with the police!—Gibbs, the greatest swell of all Oxford undergraduates, the pride of the river and the forum, the man who drove the best cattle, and gave the most sumptuous dinners! It is certainly going hard with me now, but it shall go harder with Richard Tallant,” and Gibbs smiled sardonically, as he quietly wended his way homewards, and revolved in his mind the notion of visiting Severntown.
Not only was the ex-swell amongst the audience at the beginning of that evening’s entertainment, in which Mr. and Mrs. Dibble figured so prominently, but he remained afterwards, and took a lively interest in “the mysterious lady” whom he applauded loudly.
She was a lively pleasant looking girl, this showman’s daughter, active of limb and nimble of tongue. There was something in her appearance far beyond the ordinary show girl. Then she was young and full of life and buoyancy. She evidently enjoyed the part she played. The wonder and amazement of the younger portion of her audience, and the undisguised admiration with which some of the elder ones contemplated her round little figure, her painted cheeks, and her well-formed arms, gave her a real pleasure. She was slightly coarse in her manners, as the reader has already seen: added to this she was vain, so the applause of the miscellaneous low-bred audiences before whom she performed was agreeable to her; and on the evening in question she was particularly delighted at the marked way in which the nearest approach to a gentleman she had even seen in the Temple, expressed his approval of her tricks and of her personal appearance.