The Girl on the Boat Part 31

In a less softened mood, the first thing Mr. Bennett would have done on crossing the threshold of the door facing the staircase would have been to notice resentfully that Mr. Mortimer, with his usual astuteness, had collared the best bedroom in the house. The soft carpet gave out no sound as Mr. Bennett approached the wide and luxurious bed. The light of the candle fell on the back of a semi-bald head. Mr. Mortimer was sleeping with his face buried in the pillow. It cannot have been good for him, but that was what he was doing. From the portion of the pillow in which his face was buried strange gurgles proceeded, like the distant rumble of an approaching train on the Underground.

"Mortimer," said Mr. Bennett.

The train stopped at a station to pick up pa.s.sengers, and rumbled on again.

"Henry!" said Mr. Bennett, and nudged his sleeping friend in the small of the back.

"Leave it on the mat," mumbled Mr. Mortimer, stirring slightly and uncovering one corner of his mouth.

Mr. Bennett began to forget his remorse in a sense of injury. He felt like a man with a good story to tell who can get n.o.body to listen to him. He nudged the other again, more vehemently this time. Mr. Mortimer made a noise like a gramophone when the needle slips, moved restlessly for a moment, then sat up, staring at the candle.

"Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!" said Mr. Mortimer, and sank back again. He had begun to rumble before he touched the pillow.

"What do you mean, rabbits?" said Mr. Bennett sharply.

The not unreasonable query fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mortimer was already entering a tunnel.

"Much too pink!" he murmured as the pillow engulfed him.

What steps Mr. Bennett would have taken at this juncture, one cannot say. Probably he would have given the thing up in despair and retired, for it is weary work forgiving a sleeping man. But, as he bent above his slumbering friend, a drop of warm grease detached itself from the candle and fell into Mr. Mortimer's exposed ear. The sleeper wakened.

"What? What? What?" he exclaimed, bounding up. "Who's that?"

"It's me--Rufus," said Mr. Bennett. "Henry, I'm dying!"

"Drying?"

"Dying!"

Mr. Mortimer yawned cavernously. The mists of sleep were engulfing him again.

"Eight rabbits sitting on the lawn," he muttered. "But too pink! Much too pink!"

And, as if considering he had borne his full share in the conversation and that no more could be expected of him, he snuggled down into the pillow again.

Mr. Bennett's sense of injury became more acute. For a moment he was strongly tempted to try the restorative effects of candle-grease once more, but, just as he was on the point of succ.u.mbing, a shooting pain, as if somebody had run a red-hot needle into his tongue, reminded him of his situation. A dying man cannot pa.s.s his last hours dropping candle-grease into people's ears. After all, it was perhaps a little late, and there would be plenty of time to become reconciled to Mr.

Mortimer to-morrow. His task now was to seek out Bream and bring him the glad news of his renewed engagement.

He closed the door quietly, and proceeded upstairs. Bream's bedroom, he knew, was the one just off the next landing. He turned the handle quietly, and went in. Having done this, he coughed.

"Drop that pistol!" said the voice of Jane Hubbard immediately, with quiet severity. "I've got you covered!"

Mr. Bennett had no pistol, but he dropped the candle. It would have been a nice point to say whether he was more perturbed by the discovery that he had got into the wrong room, and that room a lady's, or by the fact that the lady whose wrong room it was had pointed what appeared to be a small cannon at him over the foot of the bed. It was not, as a matter of fact, a cannon but the elephant gun, which Miss Hubbard carried with her everywhere--a girl's best friend.

"My dear young lady!" he gasped.

On the five occasions during recent years on which men had entered her tent with the object of murdering her, Jane Hubbard had shot without making inquiries. What strange feminine weakness it was that had caused her to utter a challenge on this occasion, she could not have said.

Probably it was due to the enervating effects of civilisation. She was glad now that she had done so, for, being awake and in full possession of her faculties, she perceived that the intruder, whoever he was, had no evil intentions.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"I don't know how to apologise!"

"That's all right! Let's have a light." A match flared in the darkness.

Miss Hubbard lit her candle, and gazed at Mr. Bennett with quiet curiosity. "Walking in your sleep?" she inquired.

"No, no!"

"Not so loud! You'll wake Mr. Hignett. He's next door. That's why I took this room, in case he was restless in the night."

"I want to see Bream Mortimer," said Mr. Bennett.

"He's in my old room, two doors along the pa.s.sage. What do you want to see him about?"

"I wish to inform him that he may still consider himself engaged to my daughter."

"Oh, well, I don't suppose he'll mind being woken up to hear that. But what's the idea?"

"It's a long story."

"That's all right. Let's make a night of it."

"I am a dying man. I awoke an hour ago with a feeling of acute pain...."

Miss Hubbard listened to the story of his symptoms with interest but without excitement.

"What nonsense!" she said at the conclusion.

"I a.s.sure you...."

"I'd like to bet it's nothing serious at all."

"My dear young lady," said Mr. Bennett, piqued. "I have devoted a considerable part of my life to medical study...."

"I know. That's the trouble. People oughtn't to be allowed to read medical books."

"Well, we need not discuss it," said Mr. Bennett stiffly. He resented being dragged out of the valley of the shadow of death by the scruff of his neck like this. A dying man has his dignity to think of. "I will leave you now, and go and see young Mortimer." He clung to a hope that Bream Mortimer at least would receive him fittingly. "Good-night!"

"But wait a moment!"

Mr. Bennett left the room, unheeding. He was glad to go. Jane Hubbard irritated him.

His expectation of getting more satisfactory results from Bream was fulfilled. It took some time to rouse that young man from a slumber almost as deep as his father's; but, once roused, he showed a gratifying appreciation of the gravity of affairs. Joy at one half of his visitor's news competed with consternation and sympathy at the other half. He thanked Mr. Bennett profusely, showed a fitting concern on learning of his terrible situation, and evinced a practical desire to help by offering him a bottle of liniment which he had found useful for gnat-stings. Declining this, though not ungratefully, Mr. Bennett withdrew and made his way down the pa.s.sage again with something approaching a glow in his heart. The glow lasted till he had almost reached the landing, when it was dissipated by a soft but compelling voice from the doorway of Miss Hubbard's room.

"Come here!" said Miss Hubbard. She had put on a blue bath-robe, and looked like a pugilist about to enter the ring.

"Well?" said Mr. Bennett coldly, coming nevertheless.

"I'm going to have a look at that tongue of yours," said Jane firmly.