The Town Traveller Part 16

Gammon laughed.

"It's all right, Polly. Don't be afraid. All between me and you. But I'll bet he didn't tell you where he was living?"

She shook her head.

"Of course not, I knew that," said Gammon, with a mysterious air.

"Well, go on. He met you again, didn't he?"

"Once more, only once."

"Yes, and gave you little presents and told you to be a good gyurl and never disgrace your uncle. Oh, I know him! But he took precious good care not to let you know where he lived."

"But you know?" she exclaimed.

"No fear, Polly. You shall, too, if you have patience, though I don't say it'll be just yet."

A few more questions, and the girl had told everything--Mr. Clover's failure to keep the third appointment and her fruitless watchings since then.

"He got a bit timid, Polly, you see," exclaimed Gammon. "And he was right, too; you couldn't keep it to yourself, you see. You spoil everything with that temper of yours, my dear. Don't be cross, my beauty; it don't matter much, comes to the same thing in the end. Now just look here, Polly. You haven't seen those two ladies again, nor either one of them?"

"You're wrong there," she cried triumphantly.

"Hollo! Steady, Polly. It wasn't the foreigner then?"

"How did you know?"

Gammon chuckled over his good luck.

"Never mind. We'll come to that another time. Who was she with, my dear?"

"Another lady and gentleman, much younger than her. I stood near 'em as long as I could and listened with all my ears, but I couldn't hear nothing any use. But I saw as they went away in a private kerridge, all three together; I saw that much."

"And found where they went to?"

"Go along. How could I?"

"Might have been managed, Polly," he answered musingly. "Never mind, better luck next time. What you've got to do, my angel, is to find where that lady lives--the one that sat next our friend, you know, not the foreigner. Keep your eyes open, Polly, and be smart, and if you tell me where she lives then I shall have something more to say to you.

It's between me and you, my beauty. You just bring me that little bit of information and you won't regret it."

CHAPTER XIV

MR. PARISH PURSUES A BROUGHAM

Christopher Parish lived at home, that is to say, he was not a lodger under an alien roof, like the majority of such young men in London, but abode with his own people--his mother, his elder brother, and his brother's wife. They had a decent little house in Kennington, managed--rather better than such houses generally are--by Mrs. Parish the younger, who was childless, and thus able to devote herself to what she called "hyjene," a word constantly on her lips and on those of her husband. Mr. Theodore Parish, aged about five-and-thirty, was an audit clerk in the offices of a railway company, and he loved to expatiate on the hardship of his position, which lay in the fact that he could not hope for a higher income than one hundred and fifty pounds, and this despite the trying and responsible nature of the duties he discharged.

After dwelling upon this injustice he would add, with peculiar gravity, that really in certain moods one all but inclined to give a hearing to the arguments of socialistic agitators. In other moods, and these more frequent, Mr. Parish indulged in native optimism, tempered by anxiety in matters of "hyjene." He was much preoccupied with the laundry question.

"Now, are you quite sure, Ada, that this laundress is a conscientious woman? Does she manage her establishment on modern principles? I beg you will make a personal inspection. If ever a laundress refuses to let you make a personal inspection be sure there is something wrong. Just think how vital it is, this washing question. We send our clothes, our personal garments, to a strange house to be mixed with--"

And so on at great length, Mrs. Theodore listening patiently and approvingly. With equal solicitude did they discuss the food upon their table.

"Theo, I shall have to change our baker."

"Ah, indeed! Why?"

"I hardly like to tell you, but perhaps I had better. I have only just found out that a sewer-trap quite close to his shop gives out a most offensive _affluvia_, especially in this hot weather. The air must be full of germs. I hardly know whet her we ought to eat even this loaf.

What do you think?"

Every one's dinner was spoilt. Theodore declared that really, when one considered the complicated and expensive machinery of local government, if sewer traps and _affluvias_ were allowed to exist in the immediate neighbourhood of bakers' shops, why it really made one inclined to think and ask whether there might not be something in the arguments of the Socialists.

Christopher one day brought home some knickknack which he had bought from a City pedlar, one of those men who stand at the edge of the pavement between a vigilant police and a menacing vehicular traffic. It amused his sister-in-law, who showed it to her husband. Theodore having learnt whence it came was not a little concerned.

"Now, if that isn't like Christopher! When will that boy learn ordinary prudence? The idea of buying things from a man whose clothes more likely than not reek with infection! Dear me! Has he never reflected where those fellows live? Destroy the thing at once and wash your hands very carefully, I beg. I do hope you haven't been making pastry or lemonade? As if the inevitable risks of life were not enough."

It was, of course, utterly unsuspected by the elder members of the household that Christopher had "formed a connexion," in so innocent a sense, with a young woman who sold programmes and took tips at the theatre. That connexion had come about in the simplest way. One Sunday evening, a year ago, Christopher was returning from Clapham Common on the top of a crowded tram, and next to him sat a girl with a fresh colour, whom he eyed with respectfully furtive admiration. This young person had paid her fare, but carelessly dropped the ticket, and it chanced that an inspector who came on board at a certain point raised the question whether she had really paid. The conductor weakly expressed a doubt, suggesting that this pa.s.senger had ascended with two or three other people since his last collection of fares. Here was a chance for young Mr. Parish, who could give conscientious evidence.

Very hot in the face, he declared, affirmed, and a.s.severated that the young lady was telling the truth, and his energy at length prevailed.

Of course, this led to colloquy between the two. Polly Sparkes, for she it was, behaved modestly but graciously. It was true she had exhibited short temper in her pa.s.sage with the officials, but Christopher thought this a becoming spirit. In his eyes she was lovely, and could do nothing amiss. When she alighted he did so too, frowning upon the conductor by way of final rebuke. Their ways appeared to be the same, as if inadvertently they walked together along Kennington Road. And so pleasant was their conversation that Polly went some way past Mrs.

Bubb's before saying that she must bid her new companion good-bye.

Trembling at his audacity, Christopher humbly put the question whether he might not hope to see the young lady again; and Polly laughed and t.i.ttered, and said she didn't know, but _p'r'aps_. Thereupon Mr. Parish nervously made an offering of his name and address, and Polly, t.i.ttering again, exclaimed that they lived quite near each other, and playfully made known the position of her dwelling. So were the proprieties complied with, and so began the enslavement of Christopher.

He had since told all there was to tell about his family and circ.u.mstances, Polly in return throwing out a few vague hints as to her own private affairs. Christopher would have liked to invite her to his home, but lacked courage; his mother, his brother, and Mrs.

Theodore--what would they say? The rigour of their principles overawed him. He often thought of abandoning his home, but neither for that step had he the necessary spirit of independence. Miss Sparkes no longer seemed to him of virtues compact; he sadly admitted in his wakeful hours that she had a temper; he often doubted whether she ever gave him a serious thought. But the fact remained that Polly did not send him about his business, and at times even seemed glad to see him, until that awful night when, by deplorable accident, he encountered her near Lincoln's Inn. That surely was the end of everything. Christopher, after tottering home he knew not how, wept upon his pillow. Of course he was jealous as well as profoundly hurt. Not without some secret reason had Polly met him so fiercely, brutally. He would try to think of her no more; she was clearly not destined to be his.

For a full fortnight he shunned the whole region of London in which Polly might be met. He was obliged, of course, to pa.s.s each night in Kennington, but he kept himself within doors there. Then he could bear his misery no longer. Three lachrymose letters had elicited no response; he wrote once more, and thus:

DEAREST MISS SPARKES,

If you do not wish to be the cause of my death I hereby ask you to see me, if only for the very shortest s.p.a.ce of time. If you refuse I know I shall do something rash. To-night and tomorrow night at half-past ten I will be standing at the south end of Westminster Bridge. The _river_ will be near me if _you_ are not; remember that.

Yours for now and eternity, C.J.P.

To this dread summons Polly at length yielded. She met Christopher, and they paced together on the embankment in front of St. Thomas's Hospital. It rained a little, and was so close that they both dripped with perspiration.

"P'r'aps I was a bit short with you," Polly admitted after listening to her admirer's remonstrances, uttered in a choking voice. "But I can't stand being spied after, and spied after I won't be."

"I have told you, Polly, at the very least sixty or seventy times, that I've never done such a thing, and wouldn't, and couldn't. It never came into my 'ead."

"Well, then, we won't say no more about it, and don't put me out again, that's all."

"But there's something else, Polly. You know very well, Polly, what a lot I think of you, don't you now?"

"Oh, I dessay," she replied with careless indulgence.