The Three Clerks Part 52

In a little time she was better, and then she burst out laughing again. 'I wonder why the man went on when he was so tired. What a stupid man he must be!'

Gertrude and Linda both laughed in order to comfort her and bring her round.

'Do you know, I think it was because he didn't know how to say 'stop' in English;' and then she burst out laughing again, and that led to another fit of hysterical tears.

When they reached home Gertrude and Linda soon got her into bed.

Linda was to sleep with her, and she also was not very long in laying her head on her pillow. But before she did so Katie was fast asleep, and twice in her sleep she cried out, 'Oh, Charley!

Oh, Charley!' Then Linda guessed how it was with her sister, and in the depths of her loving heart she sorrowed for the coming grief which she foresaw.

When the morning came Katie was feverish, and had a headache. It was thought better that she should remain in town, and Alaric took Linda down to Hampton. The next day Mrs. Woodward came up, and as the invalid was better she took her home. But still she was an invalid. The doctor declared that she had never quite recovered from her fall into the river, and prescribed quiet and cod-liver oil. All the truth about the Chiswick fete and the five hours' dancing, and the worn-out shoes, was not told to him, or he might, perhaps, have acquitted the water-G.o.ds of the injury.

Nor was it all, perhaps, told to Mrs. Woodward.

'I'm afraid she tired herself at the ball,' said Mrs. Woodward.

'I think she did a little,' said Linda.

'Did she dance much?' said Mrs. Woodward, looking anxiously.

'She did dance a good deal,' said Linda.

Mrs. Woodward was too wise to ask any further questions.

As it was a fine night Alaric had declared his intention of walking home from Mrs. Val's party, and he and Charley started together. They soon parted on their roads, but not before Alaric had had time to notice Charley's perverse stupidity as to Miss Golightly.

'So you wouldn't take my advice about Clementina?' said he.

'It was quite impossible, Alaric,' said Charley, in an apologetic voice. 'I couldn't do it, and, what is more, I am sure I never shall.'

'No, not now; you certainly can't do it now. If I am not very much mistaken, the chance is gone. I think you'll find she engaged herself to that Frenchman tonight.'

'Very likely,' said Charley.

'Well--I did the best I could for you. Good night, old fellow.'

'I'm sure I'm much obliged to you. Good night,' said Charley.

Alaric's suggestion with reference to the heiress was quite correct: M. Jaquetanape had that night proposed, and been duly accepted. He was to present himself to his loved one's honourable mother on the following morning as her future son-in-law, comforted and supported in his task of doing so by an a.s.surance from the lady that if her mother would not give her consent the marriage should go on all the same without it. How delightful to have such a dancer for her lover! thought Clementina. That was her 'Excelsior.'

Charley walked home with a sad heart. He had that day given a pledge that he would on the morrow go to the 'Cat and Whistle,'

and visit his lady-love. Since the night when he sat there with Norah Geraghty on his knee, now nearly a fortnight since, he had spent but little of his time there. He had, indeed, gone there once or twice with his friend Scatterall, but had contrived to avoid any confidential intercourse with either the landlady or the barmaid, alleging, as an excuse for his extra-ordinary absence, that his time was wholly occupied by the demands made on it by the editor of the _Daily Delight_. Mrs. Davis, however, was much too sharp, and so also we may say was Miss Geraghty, to be deceived. They well knew that such a young man as Charley would go wherever his inclination led him. Till lately it had been all but impossible to get him out of the little back parlour at the 'Cat and Whistle'; now it was nearly as difficult to get him into it. They both understood what this meant.

'You'd better take up with Peppermint and have done with it,'

said the widow. 'What's the good of your shilly-shallying till you're as thin as a whipping-post? If you don't mind what you're after he'll be off too.'

'And the d---- go along with him,' said Miss Geraghty, who had still about her a tw.a.n.g of the County Clare, from whence she came.

'With all my heart,' said Mrs. Davis; 'I shall save my hundred pounds: but if you'll be led by me you'll not throw Peppermint over till you're sure of the other; and, take my word for it, you're----'

'I hate Peppermint.'

'Nonsense; he's an honest good sort of man, and a deal more likely to keep you out of want than the other.'

Hereupon Norah began to cry, and to wipe her beautiful eyes with the gla.s.s-cloth. Hers, indeed, was a cruel position. Her face was her fortune, and her fortune she knew was deteriorating from day to day. She could not afford to lose the lover that she loved, and also the lover that she did not love. Matrimony with her was extremely desirable, and she was driven to confess that it might very probably be either now or never. Much as she hated Peppermint, she was quite aware that she would take him if she could not do better. But then, was it absolutely certain that she must lose the lover that so completely suited her taste? Mrs.

Davis said it was. Norah herself, confiding, as it is so natural that ladies should do, a little too much in her own beauty, thought that she couldn't but have a chance left. She also had her high aspirations; she desired to rise in the world, to leave goes of gin and screws of tobacco behind her, and to reach some position more worthy of the tastes of a woman. 'Excelsior,'

translated doubtless into excellent Irish, was her motto also. It would be so great a thing to be the wife of Charles Tudor, Esq., of the Civil Service, and more especially as she dearly and truly loved the same Charles Tudor in her heart of hearts.

She knew, however, that it was not for her to indulge in the luxury of a heart, if circ.u.mstances absolutely forbade it. To eat and drink and clothe herself, and, if possible, to provide eating and drinking and clothes for her future years, this was the business of life, this was the only real necessity. She had nothing to say in opposition to Mrs. Davis, and therefore she went on crying, and again wiped her eyes with the gla.s.s-cloth.

Mrs. Davis, however, was no stern monitor, unindulgent to the weakness of human nature. When she saw how Norah took to heart her sad fate, she resolved to make one more effort in her favour.

She consequently dressed herself very nicely, put on her best bonnet, and took the unprecedented step of going off to the Internal Navigation, and calling on Charley in the middle of his office.

Charley was poking over the Kennett and Avon lock entries, with his usual official energy, when the office messenger came up and informed him that a lady was waiting to see him.

'A lady!' said Charley: 'what lady?' and he immediately began thinking of the Woodwards, whom he was to meet that afternoon at Chiswick.

'I'm sure I can't say, sir: all that she said was that she was a lady,' answered the messenger, falsely, for he well knew that the woman was Mrs. Davis, of the 'Cat and Whistle.'

Now the clerks at the Internal Navigation were badly off for a waiting-room; and in no respect can the different ranks of different public offices be more plainly seen than in the presence or absence of such little items of accommodation as this. At the Weights and Measures there was an elegant little chamber, carpeted, furnished with leathern-bottomed chairs, and a clock, supplied with cream-laid note-paper, new pens, and the _Times_ newspaper, quite a little Elysium, in which to pa.s.s half an hour, while the Secretary, whom one had called to see, was completing his last calculation on the matter of the decimal coinage. But there were no such comforts at the Internal Navigation. There was, indeed, a little room at the top of the stairs, in which visitors were requested to sit down; but even here two men were always at work--at work, or else at play.

Into this room Mrs. Davis was shown, and there Charley found her.

Long and intimately as the young navvy had been acquainted with the landlady of the 'Cat and Whistle,' he had never before seen her arrayed for the outer world. It may be doubted whether Sir John Falstaff would, at the first glance, have known even Dame Quickly in her bonnet, that is, if Dame Quickly in those days had had a bonnet. At any rate Charley was at fault for a moment, and was shaking hands with the landlady before he quite recognized who she was.

The men in the room, however, had recognized her, and Charley well knew that they had done so.

'Mr. Tudor,' she began, not a bit abashed, 'I want to know what it is you are a-going to do?'

Though she was not abashed, Charley was, and very much so.

However, he contrived to get her out of the room, so that he might speak to her somewhat more privately in the pa.s.sage. The gentlemen at the Internal Navigation were well accustomed to this mode of colloquy, as their tradesmen not unfrequently called, with the view of having a little conversation, which could not conveniently be held in the public room.

'And, Mr. Tudor, what are you a-going to do about that poor girl there?' said Mrs. Davis, as soon as she found herself in the pa.s.sage, and saw that Charley was comfortably settled with his back against the wall.

'She may go to Hong-Kong for me.' That is what Charley should have said. But he did not say it. He had neither the sternness of heart nor the moral courage to enable him to do so. He was very anxious, it is true, to get altogether quit of Norah Geraghty; but his present immediate care was confined to a desire of getting Mrs. Davis out of the office.

'Do!' said Charley. 'Oh, I don't know; I'll come and settle something some of these days; let me see when--say next Tuesday.'

'Settle something,' said Mrs. Davis. 'If you are an honest man, as I take you, there is only one thing to settle; when do you mean to marry her?'

'Hush!' said Charley; for, as she was speaking, Mr. Snape came down the pa.s.sage leading from Mr. Oldeschole's room. 'Hush!' Mr.

Snape as he pa.s.sed walked very slowly, and looked curiously round into the widow's face. 'I'll be even with you, old fellow, for that,' said Charley to himself; and it may be taken for granted that he kept his word before long.

'Oh! it is no good hushing any more,' said Mrs. Davis, hardly waiting till Mr. Snape's erect ears were out of hearing. 'Hushing won't do no good; there's that girl a-dying, and her grave'll be a-top of your head, Mr. Tudor; mind I tell you that fairly; so now I want to know what it to you're a-going to do.' And then Mrs. Davis lifted up the lid of a market basket which hung on her left arm, took out her pocket-handkerchief, and began to wipe her eyes.

Unfortunate Charley! An idea occurred to him that he might bolt and leave her. But then the chances were that she would make her way into his very room, and tell her story there, out before them all. He well knew that this woman was capable of many things if her temper were fairly roused. And yet what could he say to her to induce her to go out from that building, and leave him alone to his lesser misfortunes?

'She's a-dying, I tell you, Mr. Tudor,' continued the landlady, 'and if she do die, be sure of this, I won't be slow to tell the truth about it. I'm the only friend she's got, and I'm not going to see her put upon. So just tell me this in two words--what is it you're a-going to do?' And then Mrs. Davis replaced her kerchief in the basket, stood boldly erect in the middle of the pa.s.sage, waiting for Charley's answer.

Just at this moment Mr. Snape again appeared in the pa.s.sage, going towards Mr. Oldeschole's room. The pernicious old man! He hated Charley Tudor; and, to tell the truth, there was no love lost between them. Charley, afflicted and out of spirits as he was at the moment, could not resist the opportunity of being impertinent to his old foe: 'I'm afraid you'll make yourself very tired, Mr. Snape, if you walk about so much,' said he. Mr. Snape merely looked at him, and then hard at Mrs. Davis, and pa.s.sed on to Mr. Oldeschole's room.

'Well, Mr. Tudor, will you be so good as to tell me what it is you're going to do about this poor girl?'