The Way We Live Now Part 58

"Does she see Felix Carbury?"

"I think she does," said Paul.

"Then it doesn't matter whether the woman's her aunt or not. I'll go and see her and try to get her back to Bungay."

"Why not send for John Crumb?"

Roger hesitated for a moment, and then answered, "He'd give Felix such a thrashing as no man ever had before. My cousin deserves it as well as any man ever deserved a thrashing; but there are reasons why I should not like it. And he could not force her back with him. I don't suppose the girl is all bad,--if she could see the truth."

"I don't think she's bad at all."

"At any rate I'll go and see her," said Roger. "Perhaps I shall see your widow at the same time." Paul sighed, but said nothing more about his widow at that moment. "I'll walk up to Welbeck Street now,"

said Roger, taking his hat. "Perhaps I shall see you to-morrow." Paul felt that he could not go to Welbeck Street with his friend.

He dined in solitude at the Beargarden, and then again made that journey to Islington in a cab. As he went he thought of the proposal that had been made to him by Melmotte. If he could do it with a clear conscience, if he could really make himself believe in the railway, such an expedition would not be displeasing to him. He had said already more than he had intended to say to Hetta Carbury; and though he was by no means disposed to flatter himself, yet he almost thought that what he had said had been well received. At the moment they had been disturbed, but she, as she heard the sound of her mother coming, had at any rate expressed no anger. He had almost been betrayed into breaking a promise. Were he to start now on this journey, the period of the promise would have pa.s.sed by before his return. Of course he would take care that she should know that he had gone in the performance of a duty. And then he would escape from Mrs. Hurtle, and would be able to make those inquiries which had been suggested to him. It was possible that Mrs. Hurtle should offer to go with him,--an arrangement which would not at all suit him.

That at any rate must be avoided. But then how could he do this without a belief in the railway generally? And how was it possible that he should have such belief? Mr. Ramsbottom did not believe in it, nor did Roger Carbury. He himself did not in the least believe in Fisker, and Fisker had originated the railway. Then, would it not be best that he should take the Chairman's offer as to his own money? If he could get his 6,000 back and have done with the railway, he would certainly think himself a lucky man. But he did not know how far he could with honesty lay aside his responsibility; and then he doubted whether he could put implicit trust in Melmotte's personal guarantee for the amount. This at any rate was clear to him,--that Melmotte was very anxious to secure his absence from the meetings of the Board.

Now he was again at Mrs. Pipkin's door, and again it was opened by Ruby Ruggles. His heart was in his mouth as he thought of the things he had to say. "The ladies have come back from Southend, Miss Ruggles?"

"Oh yes, sir, and Mrs. Hurtle is expecting you all the day." Then she put in a whisper on her own account. "You didn't tell him as you'd seen me, Mr. Montague?"

"Indeed I did, Miss Ruggles."

"Then you might as well have left it alone, and not have been ill-natured,--that's all," said Ruby as she opened the door of Mrs.

Hurtle's room.

Mrs. Hurtle got up to receive him with her sweetest smile,--and her smile could be very sweet. She was a witch of a woman, and, as like most witches she could be terrible, so like most witches she could charm. "Only fancy," she said, "that you should have come the only day I have been two hundred yards from the house, except that evening when you took me to the play. I was so sorry."

"Why should you be sorry? It is easy to come again."

"Because I don't like to miss you, even for a day. But I wasn't well, and I fancied that the house was stuffy, and Mrs. Pipkin took a bright idea and proposed to carry me off to Southend. She was dying to go herself. She declared that Southend was Paradise."

"A c.o.c.kney Paradise."

"Oh, what a place it is! Do your people really go to Southend and fancy that that is the sea?"

"I believe they do. I never went to Southend myself,--so that you know more about it than I do."

"How very English it is a little yellow river and you call it the sea! Ah you never were at Newport!"

"But I've been at San Francisco."

"Yes; you've been at San Francisco, and heard the seals howling.

Well; that's better than Southend."

"I suppose we do have the sea here in England. It's generally supposed we're an island."

"Of course;--but things are so small. If you choose to go to the west of Ireland, I suppose you'd find the Atlantic. But n.o.body ever does go there for fear of being murdered." Paul thought of the gentleman in Oregon, but said nothing;--thought, perhaps, of his own condition, and remembered that a man might be murdered without going either to Oregon or the west of Ireland. "But we went to Southend, I, and Mrs.

Pipkin and the baby, and upon my word I enjoyed it. She was so afraid that the baby would annoy me, and I thought the baby was so much the best of it. And then we ate shrimps, and she was so humble. You must acknowledge that with us n.o.body would be so humble. Of course I paid.

She has got all her children, and nothing but what she can make out of these lodgings. People are just as poor with us;--and other people who happen to be a little better off, pay for them. But n.o.body is humble to another, as you are here. Of course we like to have money as well as you do, but it doesn't make so much difference."

"He who wants to receive, all the world over, will make himself as agreeable as he can to him who can give."

"But Mrs. Pipkin was so humble. However, we got back all right yesterday evening, and then I found that you had been here,--at last."

"You knew that I had to go to Liverpool."

"I'm not going to scold. Did you get your business done at Liverpool?"

"Yes;--one generally gets something done, but never anything very satisfactorily. Of course it's about this railway."

"I should have thought that that was satisfactory. Everybody talks of it as being the greatest thing ever invented. I wish I was a man that I might be concerned with a really great thing like that. I hate little peddling things. I should like to manage the greatest bank in the world, or to be Captain of the biggest fleet, or to make the largest railway. It would be better even than being President of a Republic, because one would have more of one's own way. What is it that you do in it, Paul?"

"They want me now to go out to Mexico about it," said he slowly.

"Shall you go?" said she, throwing herself forward and asking the question with manifest anxiety.

"I think not."

"Why not? Do go. Oh, Paul, I would go with you. Why should you not go? It is just the thing for such a one as you to do. The railway will make Mexico a new country, and then you would be the man who had done it. Why should you throw away such a chance as that? It will never come again. Emperors and kings have tried their hands at Mexico and have been able to do nothing. Emperors and kings never can do anything. Think what it would be to be the regenerator of Mexico!"

"Think what it would be to find one's self there without the means of doing anything, and to feel that one had been sent there merely that one might be out of the way."

"I would make the means of doing something."

"Means are money. How can I make that?"

"There is money going. There must be money where there is all this buying and selling of shares. Where does your uncle get the money with which he is living like a prince at San Francisco? Where does Fisker get the money with which he is speculating in New York? Where does Melmotte get the money which makes him the richest man in the world? Why should not you get it as well as the others?"

"If I were anxious to rob on my own account perhaps I might do it."

"Why should it be robbery? I do not want you to live in a palace and spend millions of dollars on yourself. But I want you to have ambition. Go to Mexico, and chance it. Take San Francisco in your way, and get across the country. I will go every yard with you. Make people there believe that you are in earnest, and there will be no difficulty about the money."

He felt that he was taking no steps to approach the subject which he should have to discuss before he left her,--or rather the statement which he had resolved that he would make. Indeed every word which he allowed her to say respecting this Mexican project carried him farther away from it. He was giving reasons why the journey should not be made; but was tacitly admitting that if it were to be made she might be one of the travellers. The very offer on her part implied an understanding that his former abnegation of the engagement had been withdrawn, and yet he shrunk from the cruelty of telling her, in a sideway fashion, that he would not submit to her companionship either for the purpose of such a journey or for any other purpose. The thing must be said in a solemn manner, and must be introduced on its own basis. But such preliminary conversation as this made the introduction of it infinitely more difficult.

"You are not in a hurry?" she said.

"Oh no."

"You're going to spend the evening with me like a good man? Then I'll ask them to let us have tea." She rang the bell and Ruby came in, and the tea was ordered. "That young lady tells me that you are an old friend of hers."

"I've known about her down in the country, and was astonished to find her here yesterday."

"There's some lover, isn't there;--some would-be husband whom she does not like?"

"And some won't-be husband, I fear, whom she does like."