Here and Hereafter Part 23

"Now that _is_ silly, Mr Peters. The tree _will_ come down before they begin to build."

"No, it will not," said Peters.

One day, while Peters was lying under the tree, a party of men came and took measurements, and cut lines in the turf, but they did not attempt to touch the tree. Peters chuckled.

But next morning he was awakened by a sound of sawing. A party of labourers had come early, and were at work on the tree, sawing off the heavy lower boughs. Peters leant half out of the window in his night-shirt and shook his fist at them. He was wild with excitement.

"Leave my tree alone!" he screamed.

The men stopped work for a minute. Two of them laughed. One of them shouted up to him:

"Hold your row, you old fool! It ain't your tree."

"It _is_ mine," cried Peters. "I shall come down to you and stop you.

I'm coming now." Then he fell back on the bed fainting.

Mrs Marks was much alarmed, and--whether Peters liked it or not--insisted on having a doctor.

When the doctor came downstairs she met him in the pa.s.sage. "Well, sir?"

she said.

"I can do nothing--might have done if I'd been called in years ago. It's the heart. He can't last long. Don't let him be excited, and I'll send you something to give him for these fainting attacks."

Mrs Marks was a hard woman, but she wiped her eyes with her ap.r.o.n. "He's been here so long, you see," she explained.

Peters protested against the doctor. It was a foolish expense, if he was certain to die.

"I've got a little put by--yes, that's true. But it's all to go to Elsa, you see, and I don't want any of it wasted."

The blinds were drawn in order that he might not be excited by seeing the felling of the tree; but he could hear the work going on, though he pressed his thin hands to his ears.

As the sun shone in at his window one morning, and he lay awake in bed, a big, swift shadow swept across the blind, and then came a deafening crash.

Peters half raised himself in bed, one hand on his heart. His voice came in a whisper, "My G.o.d!"

He sank quite gently back again on the bed, and did not move.

THE NIGHT OF GLORY

It was half-past six at night when she came down from the workrooms and out into the street. She was an intensely anaemic girl, neatly dressed, thin, tired. Given better health, she would not have been unattractive; given a better way of life, she would have had better health.

A gentleman of forty-five crossed the street towards her, raised his hat, and said, "You're late to-night."

She took absolutely no notice, and slightly quickened in her pace.

"Please do not hurry," he said. "I have so much to say to you." Then she turned round on him and was very furious. If he bothered her any more she would hand him over to the police.

"Pray don't misunderstand me," said the gentleman, plaintively; "I would not insult you or treat you with anything but the greatest respect on any account."

"Then what on earth do you want?" she said rather irritably.

"I will put it as briefly as I can. I happen to be very wealthy. I can enjoy nothing--the day for that has gone past for me. I wish for one night to see somebody else enjoy something. It had to be somebody who did not usually spend money freely; somebody who worked hard; somebody who had refinement and education. I thought, and I still think, that I have found all these things in you. Will you come with me? Dinner, a theatre or a music-hall, a little supper at the Carlton, and then my brougham shall drive you home. You will be rendering me the greatest possible service."

She was a girl that was quite used to taking care of herself. If she had not much confidence in him, she had great confidence in herself. She could, at any rate, test it, and abandon the experiment when it pleased her.

"But," she said, "I have no proper dress for that kind of thing."

"You know what the proper dress would be?"

"Of course I do. It's my business."

"Very well, then, the rest is simple. You will go immediately and get all that you require in that way--dress, gloves, everything. Do not think about money, merely exercise the excellent taste which you show in your present costume. If the dress gives you the least pleasure, I know that it will give me much more. I shall be your debtor."

"It is like a fairy tale," she said.

"My brougham is here, and at your service."

The electric brougham slid noiselessly up to them. They got in.

In the brougham she watched him nervously, sideways. Yes, he was forty-five. His dark hair was grey on the temples; there was a melancholy cruelty in his thin-lipped mouth; but the greenish eyes, strong and searching, were not the eyes of one who had out-lived himself.

"I can't understand," she said. "What do you mean? You can't enjoy anything?"

"Almost that. I am, unfortunately, one who must have novelty. There are many women to whom I have given pretty toys and suppers at the Carlton.

That--well, that was another affair. This is quite different. To-night I give for no other motive than to bring enjoyment to you. You see? I shall enjoy it second-hand. Tell me all about the dress."

She laughed. "Oh! you wouldn't understand if I did. I am going to Lambert's. One of the ladies there is a great friend of mine. Lucky that I am stock size, isn't it?"

"Very," said the man, with enthusiasm. He had not the faintest notion what stock size meant.

When the brougham stopped at Lambert's she seemed a little troubled.

"Half an hour is the least time I can possibly be," she said. "You won't like waiting."

"Like it? It will be a luxury to me. n.o.body has dared to make me wait for twenty years. You shall do it. Your foot is on my neck. Seriously, I have one or two little things to do myself. In the meantime"--he handed her a roll of notes--"get everything you want and pay for it."

She was fully three-quarters of an hour away, but she was a very transfigured maiden when the commissionaire opened the door of the brougham for her. Excitement, or a touch of rouge, had put a little colour into her pale face. Her dark hair was beautiful, and becomingly dressed. For the rest, all was perfect, from that shapely head down to the white satin shoes.

"Will this do?" she said eagerly.

"It is superb. You are transformed."

"That's quite true," she said. "I don't seem to myself to be the same kind of person. I don't think the same way. Oh! please, it didn't take nearly all that money. Look, I have got it here somewhere." She fumbled under her cloak.