A Simpleton Part 11

He drove back crestfallen, bitter, and, for once in his life, heart-sick, and drew up at his lodgings. Here he found attendants waiting to receive him.

A sheriff's officer took his dogcart and horse under a judgment; the disturbance this caused collected a tiny crowd, gaping and grinning, and brought Phoebe's white face and eyes swollen with weeping to the window.

Falcon saw her and brazened it out. "Take them," said he, with an oath.

"I'll have a better turn-out by to-morrow, breakfast-time."

The crowd cheered him for his spirit.

He got down, lit a cigar, chaffed the officer and the crowd, and was, on the whole, admired.

Then another officer, who had been hunting him in couples with the other, stepped forward and took HIM, for the balance of a judgment debt.

Then the swell's cigar fell out of his mouth, and he was seriously alarmed. "Why, Cartwright," said he, "this is too bad. You promised not to see me this month. You pa.s.sed me full in the Strand."

"You are mistaken, sir," said Cartwright, with sullen irony. "I've got a twin-brother; a many takes him for me, till they finds the difference."

Then, lowering his voice, "What call had you to boast in your club you had made it right with Bill Cartwright, and he'd never see you? That got about, and so I was bound to see you or lose my bread. There's one or two I don't see, but then they are real gentlemen, and thinks of me as well as theirselves, and doesn't blab."

"I must have been drunk," said Falcon apologetically. "More likely blowing a cloud. When you young gents gets a-smoking together, you'd tell on your own mothers. Come along, colonel, off we go to Merrimashee."

"Why, it is only twenty-six pounds. I have paid the rest."

"More than that; there's the costs."

"Come in, and I'll settle it."

"All right, sir. Jem, watch the back."

"Oh, I shall not try that game with a sharp hand like you, Cartwright."

"You had better not, sir," said Cartwright; but he was softened a little by the compliment.

When they were alone, Falcon began by saying it was a bad job for him.

"Why, I thought you was a-going to pay it all in a moment."

"I can't; but I have got a friend over the way that could, if she chose.

She has always got money, somehow."

"Oh, if it is a she, it is all right."

"I don't know. She has quarrelled with me; but give me a little time.

Here! have a gla.s.s of sherry and a biscuit, while I try it on."

Having thus m.u.f.fled Cartwright, this man of the world opened his window and looked out. The crowd had followed the captured dogcart, so he had the street to himself. He beckoned to Phoebe, and after considerable hesitation she opened her window.

"Phoebe," said he, in tones of tender regret, admirably natural and sweet, "I shall never offend you again; so forgive me this once. I have given that girl up."

"Not you," said Phoebe, sullenly.

"Indeed I have. After our quarrel, I started to propose to her; but I had not the heart; I came back and left her."

"Time will show. If it is not her, it will be some other, you false, heartless villain."

"Come, I say, don't be so hard on me in trouble. I am going to prison."

"So I suppose."

"Ah! but it is worse than you think. I am only taken for a paltry thirty pounds or so."

"Thirty-three, fifteen, five," suggested Cartwright, in a m.u.f.fled whisper, his mouth being full of biscuit.

"But once they get me to a sponging-house, detainers will pour in, and my cruel creditors will confine me for life."

"It is the best place for you. It will put a stop to your wickedness, and I shall be at peace. That's what I have never known, night or day, this three years."

"But you will not be happy if you see me go to prison before your eyes.

Were you ever inside a prison? Just think what it must be to be cooped up in those cold grim cells all alone; for they use a debtor like a criminal now."

Phoebe shuddered; but she said, bravely, "Well, tell THEM you have been a-courting. There was a time I'd have died sooner than see a hair of your head hurt; but it is all over now; you have worn me out."

Then she began to cry.

Falcon heaved a deep sigh. "It is no more than I deserve," said he.

"I'll pack up my things, and go with the officer. Give me one kind word at parting, and I'll think of it in my prison, night and day."

He withdrew from the window with another deep sigh, told Cartwright, cheerfully, it was all right, and proceeded to pack up his traps.

Meantime Phoebe sat at her window and cried bitterly. Her words had been braver than her heart.

Falcon managed to pay the trifle he owed for the lodgings, and presently he came out with Cartwright, and the attendant called a cab. His things were thrown in, and Cartwright invited him to follow. Then he looked up, and cast a genuine look of terror and misery at Phoebe. He thought she would have relented before this.

Her heart gave way; I am afraid it would, even without that piteous and mute appeal. She opened the window, and asked Mr. Cartwright if he would be good enough to come and speak to her.

Cartwright committed his prisoner to the subordinate, and knocked at the door of Phoebe's lodgings. She came down herself and let him in. She led the way upstairs, motioned him to a seat, sat down by him, and began to cry again. She was thoroughly unstrung.

Cartwright was human, and muttered some words of regret that a poor fellow must do his duty.

"Oh, it is not that," sobbed Phoebe. "I can find the money. I have found more for him than that, many's the time." Then, drying her eyes, "But you must know the world, and I dare say you can see how 'tis with me."

"I can," said Cartwright, gravely. "I overheard you and him; and, my girl, if you take my advice, why, let him go. He is a gentleman skin deep, and dresses well, and can palaver a girl, no doubt; but bless your heart, I can see at a glance he is not worth your little finger, an honest, decent young woman like you. Why, it is like b.u.t.ter fighting with stone. Let him go; or I will tell you what it is, you will hang for him some day, or else make away with yourself."

"Ay, sir," said Phoebe, "that's likelier; and if I was to let him go to prison, I should sit me down and think of his parting look, and I should fling myself into the water for him before I was a day older."

"Ye mustn't do that anyway. While there's life there's hope."

Upon this Phoebe put him a question, and found him ready to do anything for her, in reason--provided he was paid for it. And the end of it all was, the prisoner was conveyed to London; Phoebe got the requisite sum; Falcon was deposited in a third-cla.s.s carriage bound for Ess.e.x. Phoebe paid his debt, and gave Cartwright a present, and away rattled the train conveying the handsome egotist into temporary retirement, to wit, at a village five miles from the Dales' farm. She was too ashamed of her young gentleman and herself to be seen with him in her native village.

On the road down he was full of little practical attentions; she received them coldly; his mellifluous mouth was often at her car, pouring thanks and praises into it; she never vouchsafed a word of reply. All she did was to shudder now and then, and cry at intervals.

Yet, whenever he left her side, her whole body became restless; and when he came back to her, a furtive thrill announced the insane complacency his bare contact gave her. Surely, of all the forms in which love torments the heart, this was the most terrible and pitiable.