The Town Traveller Part 37

"I have already communicated with your aunt. I dare say you would like to go and see her."

But neither for this had Polly any present inclination. She wanted to be alone and to reflect. Having made sure that she was not likely to visit Mrs. Clover forthwith, Greenacre took his leave, blending a decent melancholy with the air of importance and hurry proper to a man involved in so much business.

This week she had not entered for the missing word compet.i.tion; and as few things interested Polly in which she had no personal concern, the morning on which the result was published found her in her ordinary frame of mind. She was thinking of Gammon, determined to hold him to his engagement, but more out of obstinacy than in obedience to the dictates of her heart, which had of late grown decidedly less fervid.

Gammon could keep her respectably; he would make a very presentable husband; she did not fear ill treatment from him. On the other hand, she felt only too certain that he would be the stronger. When it came to a struggle (the inevitable result of marriage in Polly's mind) Gammon was not the man to give in. She remembered the battle at Mrs.

Bubb's. All very well, that kind of thing, in days of courtship, but after marriage--no! Some girls might be willing to find their master.

Polly had always meant to rule, and that undisputedly.

Breakfasting in her bedroom at ten o'clock, she was surprised by the receipt of a telegram. It came from Christopher Parish and ran thus:

"Great news. Do meet me at entrance to Liverpool Street Station one o'clock. Wonderful news."

What this news could be puzzled her for a moment; then she remembered that Mr. Parish had spoke of a possible "rise" at Swettenham's early in the New Year. That must be it. He had got an increase of salary; perhaps five shillings a week more; no doubt.

Would that make any difference? Was it "good enough"? So her thoughts phrased the anxious question.

Regarding Christopher one thing was certain--he would be her very humble slave. She imagined herself his wife, she pictured him inclining to revolt, she saw the results of that feeble insubordination, and laughed aloud. Christopher was respectable; he would undoubtedly continue to rise at Swettenham's, he would take a pride in the magnificence of her costume. When her temper called for natural relief she could quarrel with him by the hour without the least apprehension, and in the end would graciously forgive him. Yes, there was much to be said for Christopher.

A little before one o'clock she was at Liverpool Street, sheltered from a drizzle that brought down all the smoke of myriad chimneys. A slim figure in overcoat and shining hat rushed through the puddles towards her, waving an umbrella to the peril of other people speeding only less frantically.

"Polly! I've got it!"

He could gasp no more; he seized her arm as if for support.

"How much is it?" she asked calmly.

"Five hundred and fifty pounds! _Hyjene_!"

"What--five hundred and fifty a year?"

Christopher stared at her.

"You don't understand. The missing word. I've got it this week. Cheque for five hundred and fifty pounds! _Hyjene_!"

"_Reely_!"

"Look here--here's the cheque! _Hyjene_!"

Polly fingered the paper, studied the inscription. All the time she was thinking that this sum of money would furnish a house in a style vastly superior to that of Mrs. Nibby's. Mrs. Nibby would go black in the face with envy, hatred, and malice. As she reflected Christopher talked, drawing her to the least-frequented part of the huge roaring railway station.

"Will you, Polly? Why don't you speak? Do, Polly, do!"

She all but spoke, would have done but for an ear-rending whistle from an engine.

"I shall have a rise, too, Polly. I'm feeling my feet at Swettenham's.

Who knows what I may get to? Polly, I might--I might some day have a big business of my own, and build a house at Eastbourne. It's all on the cards, Polly. Others have done it before me. Swettenham began as a clerk--he did. Think Polly, five hundred and fifty pounds!--_Hyjene_!"

She met his eye; she nodded.

"You _will_?"

"Don't mind if I do."

"Hooray! _Hyjene_ forever! Hooray-ay-ay!"

CHAPTER XXVII

THE TRAVELLER AT REST

Two or three days after this Gammon heard unexpectedly from Mrs.

Clover, who enclosed for his perusal a letter she had just received from Polly Sparkes. What, she asked, could be the meaning of Polly's reference to her deceased uncle? Was there never to be an end of mysteries and miseries in relation to that unhappy man?

Turning to Polly's scrawl (which contrasted so strongly with Mrs.

Clover's neat, clear hand), Gammon discovered the pa.s.sage which had disturbed his correspondent. "You mustn't expect me to go into black for your husband, for uncle I won't call him. I heard about him coming to you for money and then taking his hook because detectives was after him. A nice sort of man. It's a pity he had to be buried at the bottom of the sea, where you can't put up a monniment to him, as I'm sure you would like to do. So this is all I have to say, and I shall not trouble you again."

Here was no puzzle for Gammon, who had approved Greenacre's scheme for finally getting rid of Mr. Clover. But Polly's letter began with an announcement which occasioned him the greatest surprise he had known since the identification of Clover with Lord Polperro. So completely did it engross and confuse his mind that not until some quarter of an hour elapsed could he think about the pa.s.sage quoted above. "I write to inform you," began Miss Sparkes, without any introductory phrase, "that I am going to be married to a gentleman who has a high place at Swettenham's, the big tea merchants, and his name is Mr. Parish. He has won the missing word, which is five hundred and fifty pounds, and which, every penny of it, he will spend on furniture at one of the best places. You shall have one of our cards when we send them out, though I cannot say you have behaved accordingly. The reason I do not invite you to the wedding is because Mr. Parish's friends are very particular."

After reading these remarkable lines again and again Mr. Gammon was much disposed to shout; but something restrained him. He felt, perhaps, that shouting would be inadequate or even inappropriate. When his first emotions subsided he went quietly forth from the house (it was evening) and took a walk about the adjacent streets, stopping at a stationer's to purchase note-paper. Returned to his room he gently whistled an old-fashioned melody; his face pa.s.sed from grave thoughtfulness to a merry smile. Before going to bed he meant to write a letter, but there was no hurry; two hours had to pa.s.s before the midnight collection.

The letter was brief, lucid, sensible. He explained to Mrs. Clover that the painfulness and difficulty of her situation since Lord Polperro's death had impelled him to a strange, but harmless and justifiable, expedient for putting her affairs in order. He made known the nature of the artifice, which, "for several reasons," he had tried in the first instance upon Polly Sparkes, with complete success. If Mrs. Clover took his advice she would straightway go into moderate mourning and let it be known that her husband was dead. Reserve as to details would seem strange to no one; ordinary acquaintances might be told that Mr. Clover had died abroad, friends and relatives that he had died at sea. He hoped she would not be offended by what he had done, as it relieved her from a wretched burden of secrecy, and greatly improved the position of her daughter, Miss Minnie. She need not reply to this letter unless she liked, and he would make an opportunity of calling upon her before very long.

A week pa.s.sed without reply.

By discreet inquiry Gammon learnt that Mrs. Clover had a.s.sumed the garb of widowhood, and this was quite enough.

"There," he said to himself, "there's an end of lies!" And he shook his shoulders as if to get quite clear of the unpleasant entanglement; for, Mr. Gammon, though ingenious at a pinch, had no natural bent towards falsehood. To be rid at almost the same moment of Mr. Clover and Polly Sparkes seemed to him marvellous good luck; and in these bitter, sodden days of the early year he was lighter hearted than for many months.

He had heard from Polly:

"DEAR MR. GAMMON,

"I don't think we are suited to each other, which is better for both parties. I shall send you a wedding-card in a few days, and I'm sure I wish you all happiness. And so I remain with my best respects,

"Yours truly Miss SPARKES"

This time Mr. Gammon felt no restraint upon his mirth. He threw his head back and roared joyously. That same day he went to a jeweller's and purchased--for more than he could afford--a suitable trinket, and sent it with a well-meaning note to Polly's address.

Winter brightened into spring, spring bloomed into summer. Gammon had paid several visits to the china shop, where all was going very well indeed. Minnie Clover now spent her evenings almost invariably with the young man interested in ceramic art, but it never disturbed Gammon to have ocular evidence of the fact. With Mrs. Clover he conversed in the respectfully familiar tone of an old friend, now and then reporting little matters which concerned his own welfare, such as his growing conviction that at Quodlings' he had found a "permanency," and his decision to go no more to Dulwich, to sell all his bow-wows, to find another employment for leisure hours.

But he was not wholly at ease. Time after time he had purposed making a confession to Mrs. Clover, time after time he "funked it"--his own mental phrase--and put it off.

He grew discontented with his room at Mrs. Bubb's. In getting up these bright mornings he looked with entirely new distaste upon the prospect from his window at the back. Beneath lay parallel strips of ground, divided from each other by low walls. These were called the "gardens"

of the houses in Kennington Road, but no blade of gra.s.s ever showed upon the black, hard-trodden soil. Lank fowls ran about among discarded furniture and indescribable rubbish, or children--few as well-tended as Mrs. Bubb's--played and squabbled under the dropping soot. Beyond rose a huge block of tenements, each story entered from an external platform, the levels connected by flights of iron steps; the lofty roof, used as a drying ground by the female population, was surrounded with iron railings. Gammon had hitherto seen nothing disagreeable in this outlook, nor had the shrieks and curses which at night too frequently sounded from the huge building ever troubled his repose. But he was growing fastidious. He thought constantly of a clean little street not far from Battersea Park--of a gleaming china shop--of a little parlour which seemed to him the perfection of comfort and elegance.