The Three Clerks Part 43

And now for Somerset House.'

"Arrived at those ancient portals, he recklessly threw eighteenpence to the cabman, and ran up the stone stairs which led to his office. As he did so the clock, with iron tongue, tolled four. But what recked he what it tolled? He rushed into his room, where his colleagues were now locking their desks, and waving abroad his hat and his umbrella, repeated the chorus of his song. 'She's mine, she's mine--

The loveliest lady that ever was seen Is the lovely Lady Crinoline;

and she's mine, she's mine!'

"Exhausted nature could no more. He sank into a chair, and his brother clerks stood in a circle around him. Soon a spirit of triumph seemed to actuate them all; they joined hands in that friendly circle, and dancing with joyful glee, took up with one voice the burden of the song--

'Oh how she walks, And how she talks, And sings like a bird serene, But of this be sure, While the world shall endure, The loveliest lady that ever was seen Is still the Lady Crinoline-- The lovely Lady Crinoline.'

"And that old senior clerk with the thin grey hair--was he angry at this general ebullition of joy? O no! The just severity of his discipline was always tempered with genial mercy. Not a word did he say of that broken promise, not a word of the unchecked diocesan balance, not a word of Sir Gregory's anger. He shook his thin grey locks; but he shook them neither in sorrow nor in anger. 'G.o.d bless you, Maca.s.sar Jones,', said he, 'G.o.d bless you!'

"He too had once been young, had once loved, had once hoped and feared, and hoped again, and had once knelt at the feet of beauty. But alas! he had knelt in vain.

"'May G.o.d be with you, Maca.s.sar Jones,' said he, as he walked out of the office door with his coloured bandana pressed to his eyes.

'May G.o.d be with you, and make your bed fruitful!'

"'For the loveliest lady that ever was seen Is the lovely Lady Crinoline,'

shouted the junior clerks, still dancing in mad glee round the happy lover.

"We have said that they all joined in this kindly congratulation to their young friend. But no. There was one spirit there whom envy had soured, one whom the happiness of another had made miserable, one whose heart beat in no unison with these jocund sounds. As Maca.s.sar's joy was at its height, in the proud moment of his triumph, a hated voice struck his ears, and filled his soul with dismay once more.

"'There's two to one still on the Lying-in,' said this hateful Lucifer.

"And so Maca.s.sar was not all happy even yet, as he walked home to his lodgings.

"CHAPTER VI

"We have but one other scene to record, but one short scene, and then our tale will be told and our task will be done. And this last scene shall not, after the usual manner of novelists, be that of the wedding, but rather one which in our eyes is of a much more enduring interest. Crinoline and Maca.s.sar were duly married in Bloomsbury Church. The dresses are said to have come from the house in Hanover Square. Crinoline behaved herself with perfect propriety, and Maca.s.sar went through his work like a man.

When we have said that, we have said all that need be said on that subject.

"But we must beg our readers to pa.s.s over the s.p.a.ce of the next twelve months, and to be present with us in that front sitting-room of the elegant private lodgings, which the married couple now prudently occupied in Alfred Place. Lodgings! yes, they were only lodgings; for not as yet did they know what might be the extent of their income.

"In this room during the whole of a long autumn day sat Maca.s.sar in a frame of mind not altogether to be envied. During the greater portion of it he was alone; but ever and anon some bustling woman would enter and depart without even deigning to notice the questions which he asked. And then after a while he found himself in company with a very respectable gentleman in black, who belonged to the medical profession. 'Is it coming?'

asked Maca.s.sar. 'Is it, is it coming?'

"'Well, we hope so--we hope so,' said the medical gentleman. 'If not to-day, it will be to-morrow. If I should happen to be absent, Mrs. Gamp is all that you could desire. If not to-day, it will certainly be to-morrow,'--and so the medical gentleman went his way.

"Now the coming morrow would be Maca.s.sar's birthday. On that morrow he would be twenty-six.

"All alone he sat there till the autumn sun gave way to the shades of evening. Some one brought him a mutton chop, but it was raw and he could not eat; he went to the sideboard and prepared to make himself a gla.s.s of negus, but the water was all cold. His water at least was cold, though Mrs. Gamp's was hot enough. It was a sad and mournful evening. He thought he would go out, for he found that he was not wanted; but a low drizzling rain prevented him. Had he got wet he could not have changed his clothes, for they were all in the wardrobe in his wife's room.

All alone he sat till the shades of evening were hidden by the veil of night.

"But what sudden noise is that he hears within the house? Why do those heavy steps press so rapidly against the stairs? What feet are they which are so busy in the room above him? He opens the sitting-room door, but he can see nothing. He has been left there without a candle. He peers up the stairs, but a faint glimmer of light shining through the keyhole of his wife's door is all that meets his eye. 'Oh, my aunt! my aunt!' he says as he leans against the banisters. 'My aunt, my aunt, my aunt!'

"What a birthday will this be for him on the morrow! He already hears the sound of the hospital bells as they ring with joy at the acquisition of their new wealth; he must dash from his lips, tear from his heart, banish for ever from his eyes, that vision of a sweet little cottage at Brompton, with a charming dressing-room for himself, and gas laid on all over the house.

"'Lodgings! I hate, I detest lodgings!' he said to himself.

'Connubial bliss and furnished lodgings are not compatible. My aunt, my aunt, for what misery hast thou not to answer! Oh, Mrs.

Gamp, could you be so obliging as to tell me what o'clock it is?'

The last question was asked as Mrs. Gamp suddenly entered the room with a candle. Maca.s.sar's watch had been required for the use of one of the servants.

"'It's just half-past heleven, this wery moment as is,' said Mrs.

Gamp; 'and the finest boy babby as my heyes, which has seen a many, has ever sat upon.'

"Up, up to the ceiling went the horsehair cushion of the lodging-house sofa--up went the footstool after it, and its four wooden legs in falling made a terrible clatter on the mahogany loo-table. Maca.s.sar in his joy got hold of Mrs. Gamp, and kissed her heartily, forgetful of the fumes of gin. 'Hurrah!' shouted he,'

hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! Oh, Mrs. Gamp, I feel so--so--so--I really don't know how I feel.'

"He danced round the room with noisy joy, till Mrs. Gamp made him understand how very unsuited were such riotous ebullitions to the weak state of his lady-love upstairs. He then gave over, not the dancing but the noise, and went on capering round the room with suppressed steps, ever and anon singing to himself in a whisper,

'The loveliest lady that ever was seen Is still the Lady Crinoline.'

"A few minutes afterwards a knock at the door was heard, and the monthly nurse entered. She held something in her embrace; but he could not see what. He looked down pryingly into her arms, and at the first glance thought that it was his umbrella. But then he heard a little pipe, and he knew that it was his child.

"We will not intrude further on the first interview between Maca.s.sar and his heir."

'And so ends the romantic history of "Crinoline and Maca.s.sar",'

said Mrs. Woodward; 'and I am sure, Charley, we are all very much obliged to you for the excellent moral lessons you have given us.'

'I'm so delighted with it,' said Katie; 'I do so like that Maca.s.sar.'

'So do I,' said Linda, yawning; 'and the old man with the thin grey hair.'

'Come, girls, it's nearly one o'clock, and we'll go to bed,' said the mother. 'Uncle Bat has been asleep these two hours.'

And so they went off to their respective chambers.

CHAPTER XXIII

SURBITON COLLOQUIES

All further conversation in the drawing-room was forbidden for that night. Mrs. Woodward would have willingly postponed the reading of Charley's story so as to enable Katie to go to bed after the accident, had she been able to do so. But she was not able to do so without an exercise of a species of authority which was distasteful to her, and which was very seldom heard, seen, or felt within the limits of Surbiton Cottage. It would moreover have been very ungracious to snub Charley's ma.n.u.script, just when Charley had made himself such a hero; and she had, therefore, been obliged to read it. But now that it was done, she hurried Katie off to bed, not without many admonitions.

'Good night,' she said to Charley; 'and G.o.d bless you, and make you always as happy as we are now. What a household we should have had to-night, had it not been for you!'

Charley rubbed his eyes with his hand, and muttered something about there not having been the slightest danger in the world.

'And remember, Charley,' she said, paying no attention to his mutterings, 'we always liked you--liked you very much; but liking and loving are very different things. Now you are a dear, dear friend--one of the dearest.'

In answer to this, Charley was not even able to mutter; so he went his way to the inn, and lay awake half the night thinking how Katie had kissed his hand: during the other half he dreamt, first that Katie was drowned, and then that Norah was his bride.