Peregrine's Progress Part 50

"If you've enough o' the rhino, son."

For answer I drew a bank note from my pocket at random and laid it upon the small counter.

"You have, b' James!" quoth the little man, "a fi'-pun note!" And thrusting needle into the garment he was making he rose with brisk alacrity. "What d'ye want in my way, son?"

"Everything!" said I.

"And here's the place t' get it, b' James! I've everything in clothes from the cradle to the grave--infant, child, youth and man, births, marriages or deaths, 'igh-days or 'olydays--I can fit ye with any style, any size and for any age, occasion or re-quirement."

So saying, he ushered me into a small room behind the shop where he proceeded to whisk forth a bewildering array of garments for my inspection, until table and chairs were piled high and myself dazed with their infinite variety.

"B' James!" cried the little man, blinking, "I'll turn ye out as n.o.bby a little spark as ever c.o.c.ked a neye at a sighin' young fe-male. Look at this coat, the roll o' this collar up to your ears, and as for b.u.t.tons--well, look at 'em--see 'em flash! As for weskits, see 'ere, son, climbin' roses worked into true-lover's knots and all pure silk!

Then 'ere's a pair o' pantaloons as no blushin' nymp' could resist--an' you shall 'ave the lot--ah, an' I'll throw in a ruffled shirt--for four-pun' ten--take 'em or leave 'em!"

"Thank you, I think I'll leave them," said I. "My desire is for things a little less ostentatious--"

"Os-ten--ha, certainly! Say no more, son, look around an' take y'r choice--"

At last, and almost in spite of the small tailor, I selected a suit a little less offensive than most, the which I donned forthwith and found it fit me none so ill; shirt, shoes, stockings and a hat completed my equipment, and though the garments were anything but elegant, yet my appearance, so much as I could see of it in the small, cracked mirror, was, on the whole, not displeasing, I thought. At the tailor's suggestion I purchased three extra shirts, as many cravats, stockings and a neckcloth.

"And now," said I, as he tied up the somewhat unwieldy parcel, "what do I owe you?"

"Well, son--I mean, sir," he answered, peering at me over his spectacles, "them beautiful clothes has turned you from n.o.body as matters into somebody as do; your credit is rose five hundred, ah, a thousand per cent and I ought to charge ye a couple o' hundred guineas, say--but seein' as you're you an' I'm me--let's call it fi'-pun!"

So having paid the tailor, I bade him good afternoon and strode forth into the street and, though a little conscious of my new clothes and somewhat hampered by the bulbous parcel beneath my arm, felt myself no longer in danger of being roared at to hold horses or proffered alms by kindly old ladies. I strolled along at leisurely pace, casting oblique and surrept.i.tious glances at my reflection in shop windows, whereby I observed that my new garments fitted me better than I had supposed, though it seemed the hair curled beneath my hat brim in too generous luxuriance; so perceiving a barber's adjacent, I entered and gave my head to the ministrations of a chatty soul whose tongue wagged faster than his snipping scissors. Shorn of my superabundant locks, I sallied forth, and chancing upon a jeweller's shop, I entered and purchased a silver watch for the Tinker, another for Jessamy Todd, and lastly a gold locket and chain for Diana.

CHAPTER XXIX

TELLS OF AN OMINOUS MEETING

Precisely upon the stroke of half-past four I turned under the arch of the "Chequers" inn and, coming into the yard, looked about for Diana.

The place was fairly a-throng with vehicles, farmers' gigs, carts, curricles and the like; in one corner of the long penthouse I espied the Tinker's cart with Diogenes champing philosophically at a truss of hay, but Diana herself was nowhere to be seen. Therefore, having deposited my parcel in the cart among divers other packages (which I took to be the stores Jeremy had mentioned), I seated myself in a remote and shady corner and glanced around. Horses munched and snorted all about me, unseen hostlers hissed and whistled, and a man in a smart livery hung upon the bridles of two horses harnessed to a handsome closed travelling carriage, blood-horses that tossed proud heads and stamped impatient hoofs, insomuch that the groom alternately cursed and coaxed them, turning his head ever and anon to glance towards a certain back door of the inn with impatient expectancy. And thus it befell that I began to watch this door also and as the moments elapsed there waked within me a strange and bodeful trembling eagerness, a growing anxiety to behold what manner of person that door would soon open for. So altogether unaccountable and disquieting was this feeling that I rose to my feet and in this moment the door swung wide and a man appeared.

He was tall and slim and superlatively well clad, his garments of that quiet elegance which is the mark of exceeding good taste; but it was his face that drew and held my gaze, a handsome face, paler by contrast with the raven blackness of flowing, curled hair, a delicate-nostrilled, aquiline nose, a thin-lipped mouth and smooth jut of pointed chin. All this I saw as he stood as if awaiting some one, half-turned upon the steps, a magnificent and shapely figure, tapping impatiently at glittering, be-ta.s.selled boot with slender, gold-mounted cane. And then--Diana appeared and paused in the doorway to stare up at him while he smiled down on her, and I saw his smiling lips move in soft speech as, with a hateful and a.s.sured deliberation, his white fingers closed upon her round, sunburned arm and he gestured gracefully towards the carriage with his cane.

"Ah, d.a.m.n you--stand off!" I cried, and clenching my fists I sprang forward, raging. As I came he swung about to meet me, the slender cane quivering in his grip, and thus for a moment we faced each other. And now I saw he was older than I had thought and, meeting the intensity of these smouldering eyes, beholding quivering nostrils and relentless mouth and chin, my flesh crept with a fierce and unaccountable loathing of the man and, unheeding the threat of the cane, I leapt on him like a mad creature. I felt the sharp pain of a blow as the cane snapped asunder on my body and I was upon him, pounding and smiting with murder in my heart. Then the long white hand seized my collar and whirled me aside with such incredible strength that I fell and lay for a moment half-stunned as, without a glance towards me, he opened the carriage door and imperiously motioned Diana to enter.

"Come, my G.o.ddess, let us fly!" said he, soft-voiced and smiling. But as he approached her, she tossed aside her basket, stooped, and I saw the evil glitter of her little knife; the gentleman merely laughed softly and made deliberately towards her; then, as she crouched to spring, I scrambled to my feet.

"Don't!" I cried. "Don't! Not you, Diana! Throw me your knife--leave him to me--"

At this the gentleman paused to glance from Diana to me and back again.

"Aha, Diana, is it?" said he. "You'll be worth the taming--another time, chaste G.o.ddess! Venus give you to my arms some day! Here's for your torn coat, my sorry Endymion!" Saying which, he tossed a guinea to me and, stepping into the carriage, closed the door. The staring groom mounted, the horses pranced, but, as the carriage moved off, I s.n.a.t.c.hed up the coin and, leaping forward, hurled it through the open window into the gentleman's pale, smiling face.

"d.a.m.n you!" I panted. "G.o.d's curse on you--I'll see you dead--some day!" And then the carriage was gone and I, gasping and trembling, stood appalled at the wild pa.s.sion of murderous hate that surged within me. And in this awful moment, sick with horrified amaze since I knew myself a murderer in my soul, I was aware that Diana had picked up my new hat whence it had fallen and was tenderly wiping the dust from it.

"Why, Peregrine," sighed she reproachfully, "you've had all your curls cut off!"

"To the devil with my curls! Come, let us go!" And s.n.a.t.c.hing my hat I clapped it on and led the way across the yard and, heedless of the spectators who gaped and nudged each other, we got into the cart, paid our dues, and drove out into the High Street, nor did we exchange a word until we had left the town behind us; then:

"Why are you so frightful angry, Peregrine?"

"Ah, why?" I groaned. "What madness was it that would have driven me to murder? Had you but thrown me your knife I should have stabbed him--killed him where he stood--and loved the doing of it. Oh, horrible!"

"No, wonderful!" sighed she, laying her hand on my drooping shoulder.

"I--I liked you for it! You weren't afraid this time. Did he hurt you?"

"Not much."

"And he tore your fine new coat--the beast! Never mind, I'll mend it for you to-night, if you like."

"I can buy another," said I gloomily.

"No, that would be wicked, wasteful extravagance, Peregrine, and I can mend it beautifully."

"Very well!" I sighed.

"That's three times you fights for me, Peregrine."

"And been worsted on each occasion!" said I.

"No, you beats Gabbing d.i.c.k, remember," said she consolingly, her hand on my shoulder again. "And I--I likes you in your new clothes, though I wish you had your curls back again because--"

"How came you at the inn with that man?" I demanded suddenly.

"I had been selling my last few baskets."

"And he saw you?"

"Yes."

"And spoke to you?"

"Yes."

"And he--tried to--kiss you, I suppose?"

"Yes--but what's it matter; don't let's talk of it any more, Peregrine."

"And did he kiss you--did he?" At this she began to frown. "Did he kiss you, Diana--answer me?"

"I'll not!" said she, setting her chin.