Somehow Good Part 81

"I have a piece of news to tell that will be a great surprise to you. I am engaged to Conrad Vereker. Perhaps, though, I oughtn't to say as much as that, because it hasn't gone any farther at present than me promising not to marry any one else, and as far as I can see I might have promised any man that.

"Now, don't write and say you expected it all along, because I shan't believe you.

"Of course, tell anybody you like--only I hope they'll all say that's no concern of theirs. I should be so much obliged to them. Besides, so very little has transpired to go by that I can't see exactly what they could either congratulate or twit about. Being engaged is so very shadowy. Do you remember our dancing-mistress at school, who had been engaged seven years to a dancing-master, and then they broke it off by mutual consent, and she married a Creole? And they'd saved up enough for a school of their own all the time! However, as long as it's distinctly understood there's to be no marrying at present, I don't think the arrangement a bad one. Of course, you'll understand I mean other girls, and the sort of men they get engaged to. With Prosy it's different; one knows where one is. Only I shouldn't consider it honourable to jilt Prosy, even for the sake of remaining single. You see what I mean.

"The reason of pencil (don't be alarmed!) is that I am writing this in bed, having been too long in the water. It's to please Prosy, because my System has had a shake. I _am_ feeling very queer still, and can't control my thumb to write. I must tell you about it, or you'll get the story somewhere else and be frightened.

"It was all Jeremiah's fault, and I really can't think what he was doing. He admits that he was seedy, and had had a bad night. Anyhow, it was like this: I followed him down to the pier very early before breakfast, and you remember where the man was fishing and caught nothing that day? Well, what does Jeremiah do but just walk plump over the edge. I had all but got to him, by good luck, and of course I went straight for him and caught him before he sank. I induced him not to kick and flounder, and got him inside a life-belt they threw from the pier, and then I settled to leave him alone and swim to the steps, because you've no idea how I felt my clothes, and it would have been all right, only a horrible heavy petticoat got loose and demoralised me. I don't know how it happened, but I got all wrong somehow, and a breaker caught me. _Don't get drowned_, Tishy; or, if you do, _don't be revived again_!

I don't know which is worst, but I think reviving. I can't write about it. I'll tell you when I come back.

"They won't tell me how long I was coming to, but it must have been much longer than I thought, when one comes to think of it. Only I can't tell, because when poor dear Prosy had got me to[A]--down at Lloyd's Coffeehouse, where old Simon sits all day--and I had been wrapped up in what I heard a Scotchman call 'weel-warmed blawnkets,' and brought home in a closed fly from Padlock's livery stables, I went off sound asleep with my fingers and toes tingling, and never knew the time nor anything. (Continuation bit.) This is being written, to tell you the truth, in the small hours of the morning, in secrecy with a guttering candle. It seems to have been really quite a terrible alarm to poor darling mother and Jeremiah, and much about the same to my medical adviser, who resuscitated me on Marshall Hall's system, followed by Silvester's, and finally opened a vein. And there was I alive all the time, and not grateful to Prosy at all, I can tell you, for bringing me to.

I have requested not to be brought to next time. The oddity of it all was indescribable. And there, now I come to think of it, I've never so much as seen the Octopus since Prosy and I got engaged. I shall have to go round as soon as I'm up.

(Later continuation bit--after breakfast.) Do you know, it makes me quite miserable to think what an anxiety I've been to all of them! Mother and J. can't take their eyes off me, and look quite wasted and resigned. And poor dear Prosy! How ever shall I make it up to him? Do you know, as soon as it was known I was to,[B] the dear fellow actually tumbled down insensible! I had no idea of the turn-out there's been until just now, when mother and Jeremiah confessed up. Just fancy it! Now I must shut up to catch the post.

"Your ever affect. friend,

"SALLY."

[Footnote A: Part of a verb to _get to_, or _bring to_. Not very intelligible!]

[Footnote B: See note, p. 563.][Transcriber's Note: This footnote refers to Footnote A]

"MY DEAR BRADSHAW,

"I am so very much afraid you and your wife may be alarmed by hearing of the events of this morning--possibly by a press-paragraph, for these things get about--that I think it best to send you a line to say that, though we have all had a terrible time of anxiety, no further disastrous consequences need be antic.i.p.ated. Briefly, the affair may be stated thus:

"Fenwick and Miss Nightingale were on the pier early this morning, and from some unexplained false step F. fell from the lower stage into the water. Miss N. immediately plunged in to his rescue, and brought him in safety to a life-buoy that was thrown from the pier. It seemed that she then started to swim back, being satisfied of his safety till other help came, but got entangled with her clothes and went under. She was brought ash.o.r.e insensible, and remained so nearly four hours. For a long time I was almost without hope, but we persevered against every discouragement, with complete final success. I am a good deal more afraid now of the effect of the shock on Mrs.

Fenwick and her husband than for anything that may happen to Miss N., whose buoyancy of const.i.tution is most remarkable.

You will guess that I had rather a rough time (the news came rather suddenly to me), and all the more (but I know you will be glad to hear this) that Miss N. and your humble servant had only just entered on an engagement to be married at some date hereafter not specified. I am ashamed to say I showed weakness (but not till I was sure the lungs were acting naturally), and had to be revived with stimulants! I am all right now, and, do you know, I really believe my mother will be all the better for it; for when she heard what had happened, she actually got up and _ran_--yes, ran--to Lloyd's Coffeehouse (you remember it?), where I was just coming round, and had the satisfaction of telling her the news. I cannot help suspecting that her case may have been wrongly diagnosed, and that the splanchnic ganglion and solar plexus are really the seat of the evil. If so, the treatment has been entirely at fault.

"I shall most likely be back to-morrow, so keep your congrats.

for me, old chap. No time for a letter. Love from us all to yourself and Mrs. J. B.

"Yours ever,

"CONRAD VEREKER.

"P.S.--I reopen this (which I wrote late last night) to say that Miss N., so far from having acquired a horror of the water (as is usual in such cases), talks of 'swimming over the ground' if the weather clears. I fear she is incorrigible."

THE END