Laid up in Lavender Part 10

Really it was, and we stumped down the steps in great delight. Only I felt a little anxious about Kitty's answer, for though I had a suspicion that her affections were inclined in the right direction, I could not be sure. The young soldier might not have won her heart as he had mine: so that I was still more pleased when the Colonel informed me that he believed Jim intended to put it to the test this very afternoon.

"She is at home," I said, standing still.

"Ha! ha! ha!" he responded, taking my arm to lead me on.

But I declined to move. "I'll tell you what," I said--"it is a quarter to four; if Jim has not popped the question by now, he is not the man I think him. Let us go home, Colonel, and hear the news."

He demurred a little, but I had him in a hansom in the time it takes to blow "Lights out," and we were bowling along Piccadilly in two minutes more. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, and, following the direction of his hand, I was in time to catch a glimpse of Jim's face--no other's--as he shot past us in a cab going eastwards. It left us in no doubt, for the lad's cheeks were flushed and his eyes shining, and as he swept by and saw us, he raised his hat with a gesture of triumph.

"Gad!" the Colonel exclaimed, "I'll bet a guinea he has kissed her!

Happy dog!"

"Tra! la! la!" I answered. "I dare swear we shall not find Kitty in tears."

The words were scarcely out of my mouth when the cab swerved to one side, throwing me against my companion. I heard our driver shout, and caught sight of a bareheaded man mixed up with the near shaft. The next moment we gave a lurch and stopped, and a crowd came round us.

The Colonel was the first out, but I joined him as quickly as I could.

"I do not think he is much hurt, sir," I heard the policeman say. "He is drunk, I fancy. Come, old chap, pull yourself together," he continued, giving a shake to the grey-haired man whom he and a bystander were supporting. "There, hold up now. Here is your hat. You are all right."

And sure enough the man, whose red nose and shabby attire lent probability to the policeman's charge, managed when left to himself to keep his balance; but with some wavering. "Hallo!" he muttered, looking uncertainly upon the crowd round him. "Is my son here to take me home? Isaac? Where is Isaac?"

"He's one part shaken," the policeman said, viewing him with an air of experience. "And three parts drunk. He had better go to the station."

"Where do you live?" the Colonel asked.

"Greek Street, Soho, number twenty-seven, top floor"--this was answered glibly enough. "And I'll tell you what," the man added with a drunken hiccough and a reel which left him on the policeman's shoulder--"if any gentleman will take another gentleman home, I will make him rich beyond the dreams of avarice. I'll present him his weight in gold. That I will. His weight in gold!"

"I think----" the Colonel began, turning and meeting my eye.

"His weight in gold!" murmured the drunken man.

"Quite so!" I said, accepting the Colonel's unspoken suggestion. "We will see him home, policeman." And paying our cabman, I hailed a crawling four-wheeler, into which the officer bundled our man. We got in, and in a moment were jolting eastwards at a snail's pace.

"Perhaps we might have sent some one with him," the Colonel said, looking at me apologetically.

"Not at all!" I answered. I have no doubt that we both had the same feeling, that, happy ourselves, it behooved us to do a good turn to this poor wretch, whose shaking hands and tattered clothes showed that he had almost reached the bottom of the hill. I have seen more than one brother officer, once as gallant a lad as Jim, brought as low; and, perhaps, but for Providence, old Joe Bratton himself---- But there, it may have been some such thought as this, or it may have been an extra gla.s.s of sherry at lunch, made us take the man home. We did it; and the Lord only knows why fellows do things--good or bad.

Hauling out our charge at the door of twenty-seven, we guided him up the dingy stairs, the gibberish which he never ceased to repeat about the dreams of avarice and our weight in gold sounding ten times as absurd on the common stairs of this dirty tenth-rate lodging-house.

The attic gained, he straightened himself, and, winking at us with drunken gravity, he laid his hand upon the latch of one of the doors.

"You shall see--what you shall see!" he muttered, and throwing open the door he stumbled into the room. The Colonel raised his eyebrows in a protest against our folly, but entered after him, and I followed.

We found only one person in the garret, which was as miserable and poverty-stricken as a room could be; and he rose and faced us with an exclamation of anger. He was a young fellow, twenty years old perhaps, of middle size, sallow and dark-eyed; to my thinking half-starved. The drunken man seemed unaware of his feelings, however; for he balanced himself on the floor between us, and waved his hand towards him.

"Here you are, gentlemen!" he cried. "I'm a man of my word! Let me introduce you! My son, Isaac Gold. Did not I tell you? Present you--your weight in gold--or nearly so!"

"Father!" the lad said, eyeing him gloomily, "go and lie down."

"Great joke! Your weight in gold, gentlemen!"

"Your father was knocked down by a cab," the Colonel said quietly, "and finding that he was not able to take care of himself we brought him home."

The young man looked at us furtively, but he did not answer. Instead, he took his father by the arm and forced him gently to a mattress which lay in one corner, half hidden by a towel-rail--the latter bearing a shirt, evidently home-washed and hung out to dry. Twice the old fool started up muttering the same rubbish; but the third time he went off into a heavy sleep. There was something pitiful to my eyes in the boy's patience with him: so that when the lad turned to us at last, and, with eyes which resented our presence, bade us begone if we had satisfied our curiosity, I was not surprised that the Colonel held his ground. "I am afraid you are badly off," he said gently.

"What's that to you?" was the other's insolent reply. "Do you want to be paid for your services?"

"Steady! steady, my lad!" I put in. "You get nothing by that."

"I think I know you," the Colonel continued, regarding him steadily.

"There was a charge preferred against you, or some one of your name, a few weeks ago, of personating a candidate at the examination for commissions in the army. The charge failed, I know."

The young man's colour rose as the Colonel spoke. But his manner indicated rather triumph than shame, and his dark eyes sparkled with malice as he retorted: "It failed? Yes, you are right there. You have been in the army yourself, I dare say?"

"I have," the Colonel said gravely.

"An honourable profession, is it not?" the lad continued in a tone of mockery. "How many of your young friends, do you think, pa.s.s in honestly? It is a compet.i.tive examination, too, mind you. And how many do you think employ me--me--to pa.s.s for them?"

"You should be ashamed to boast of it," the Colonel replied, "if you are not afraid."

"And what should they be? Tell me that!"

"They are mean fellows, whoever they are."

"So! so! You think so!" the young man laughed triumphantly. And then all at once the light seemed to die out of his clever face, and I saw before me only a half-starved lad, with his shabby clerk's coat b.u.t.toned up to his throat to hide the want of a shirt. The same change was visible, I think, to the Colonel's eye; for he looked at me and muttered something about the cab. Understanding that he wanted a word with the young fellow alone, I went to the window and for a moment or so pretended to gaze through its murky panes. When I turned, the two men were talking by the door; the drunken father was snoring behind his improvised screen; and on a painted deal table beside me I remarked the one and only article of luxury in the room--a small soiled alb.u.m. With a grunt I threw it open. It disclosed the portraits of two lads, simpering whiskerless faces, surmounting irreproachable dog-collars and sporting pins. I turned a page and came on two more bearing a family resemblance in features, dog-collars, and pins to the others. I turned again with a pish! and a pshaw! and found a vacant place, and opposite it--a portrait of Jim!

I stared at it for a moment in unthinking wonder, and then in a twinkling it flashed across me what these portraits were, and above all, what this portrait of Jim, placed in this scoundrel's alb.u.m meant. I remembered how anxious the Colonel had been as the lad's examination drew near; how bitterly he had denounced the compet.i.tive system, and vowed a dozen times a day that, what with pundits and crammers and young officers who should have been girls and gone to Girton, the service was going to the dogs. "To the dogs, do you hear me, sir!" And then I recalled his great relief when the boy came out quite high up; and the change which had at once taken place in his sentiments. "We must move with the times, sir; it is no good running your head against a brick wall! We must move with the times, begad!"

and so forth. And--well, I let fall a pretty strong word, at which the Colonel turned.

"What is it, Major?" he said. But, seeing me standing motionless by the window, he turned again and spoke to the young man beside him.

"Well, think about it, and let me know at that address. Now," he continued, advancing towards me, "what is it, Joe?"

"What is what?" I said. I had shut the alb.u.m by this time, and was standing between him and the table on which it lay. I do not know why--perhaps it came of the kindness he had been doing--but I noticed in a way I had never noticed before what a fine figure of a man, tall and straight, my old comrade still was. And a bit of a dimness, such as I have experienced once or twice lately when I have taken a third gla.s.s of sherry at lunch, came over my sight. "Confound it!" I said.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Something in my eye!"

"Let me get it out," he said--always the kindest fellow under the sun.

"No! I'll get it out myself!" I snarled like a bear with a sore head.

And, without stopping to explain I plunged out of the room and down the stairs. The Colonel, wondering no doubt what was the matter with me, followed more at his leisure, after pausing to say a last word to the young rascal at the door, whom I had not had the patience to speak to: so that I had already closed a warm dispute with the cabman, by sending him off with a flea in his ear and his fare to a sixpence, when the Colonel overtook me.

"What is up, Joe?" he asked, laying his hand on my shoulder.

"That d----d dizziness came over me again. But there, I have always said the '73 sherry at the club is not sound. I do not feel quite up to the mark," I continued with truth. "I think I will go home alone, Colonel--for to-day, if you do not mind."

"I do mind," he said stoutly. "You may want an arm." But somehow I made it clear to him that I would rather go alone, and that the walk would do me good, and he got into a hansom at last and drove off, his grey moustache and fine old nose peering at me round the side of the cab, until a corner hid him altogether.

I walked on a few paces, waving my umbrella cheerfully. Then I stopped, and, retracing my steps, I mounted the staircase of twenty-seven, and without parley opened the door. The young fellow we had left was pacing the floor, turning over in his mind, I fancied, what the Colonel had said to him. He stood still on seeing me, and then glanced round the room. "Have you forgotten anything?" he said.