Will Warburton Part 23

"I shall be delighted, if you don't mind the trouble. I have an appointment with Miss Cross. She has found rooms which she thinks will suit me, and we're going to look at them together."

"So you have decided for London?"

"I think so. The rooms are at Chelsea, in Oakley Crescent. I know how fond you are of London, and how well you know it. And I know so little; only a street or two here and there. I mean to remedy my ignorance. If ever you have an afternoon to spare, Mr. Warburton, I should be so glad if you would let me go with you to see interesting places."

For an instant, Will was surprised, confused, but Rosamund's entire simplicity and directness of manner rebuked this sensation. He replied in a corresponding tone that nothing would please him more. They were now at the railway station, and the train approached. Rosamund having sprung into a carriage, gave her hand through the window, saying:

"I may be settled in a day or two. You will hear--"

With the sentence unfinished, she drew back, and the train rolled away.

For a minute or two, Warburton stood on the platform, his lips mechanically prolonging the smile which had answered Miss Elvan's, and his thoughts echoing her last words. When he turned, he at first walked slowly; then his pace quickened, and he arrived at the Pomfrets' house, as though on urgent business. In the garden he caught sight of Ralph, recovered from his attack of gout, sitting at his ease, pipe in mouth.

Will told of his meeting with Miss Elvan.

"Yes, yes; she's off to London town--wants to live there, like all the rest of the young people. In thirty years' time she'll have had enough of it, and be glad to creep into a quiet corner like this. My wife's in the house, teaching our new maid to make tea-cakes--you shall have some at five o'clock. I wonder whether any girl could be found nowadays who knows how to make tea-cakes? There's Rosamund--she knows no more about that kind of thing than of ship-building. Do you know any young lady who could make a toothsome tea-cake?"

"I'm not quite sure," answered Will reflectively, "but I have one in mind who perhaps does--it wouldn't surprise me."

"That's to your credit. By the bye, you know that Norbert has been here."

"Yes, I heard of it. He wrote to tell me."

"Aye, but he's been twice--did you know that? He was here yesterday."

"Indeed?"

Ralph looked at the other with an odd smile.

"One might have expected a little awkwardness between them," he continued. "Not a bit of it. There again--your girl of to-day; she has a way of her own with all this kind of thing. Why they just shook hands as if they'd never been anything but pleasant friends. All the same, as I tell you, Norbert has been a second time."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Warburton.

Will had purposed getting back to the shop about seven o'clock. He was, indeed, back in London at that hour, but his state of mind tempted him to shirk squalid duty; instead of turning toward Fulham Road, he took his way into the Strand, and there loitered in the evening sunshine, self-reproachful, yet enjoying the unwonted liberty. It was dinner-time; restaurants exhaled their pungent odours, and Will felt sharpening appet.i.te. For the first time since his catastrophe, he granted himself the dinner of a well-to-do man, and, as would naturally befall in such a case, made his indulgence large.

Several days pa.s.sed and brought no letter from any one. But at midnight on Sat.u.r.day, there lay awaiting him a letter addressed in Sherwood's well-known hand. G.o.dfrey began by excusing himself for his delay in replying; he had had rather a nasty attack of illness, and was only now able to hold his pen. But it was lucky he had not written before; this very morning there had reached him the very best news. "The father of the man who owes me ten thousand pounds is dying. Off and on he has been ill for a long time, but I hear at length that there can be no doubt whatever that the end is near. I can't pretend to any human feeling in this matter; the man's death means life for us--so the world goes. Any day now, you may have a telegram from me announcing the event. Of the prompt payment of the debt as soon as my friend inherits, there is no shadow of doubt. I therefore urge you very strongly not to make a disclosure. It will be needless. Wait till we see each other. I am still in Ireland--for a reason which I will explain when we meet."

Will drew a long breath. If ever news came opportunely, it was this. He threw up the window of his stuffy little sitting-room, and looked out into the summer night. The murmur of London once more made music to his ears.

CHAPTER 29

Rosamund took the Chelsea lodgings proposed to her by Bertha Cross, and in a few days went to live there. The luggage which she brought from Ashtead enabled her to add a personal touch to the characterless rooms: in the place of the landlady's ornaments, which were not things of beauty, she scattered her own _bibelots_, and about the walls she hung a number of her own drawings, framed for the purpose, as well as several which bore the signature, "Norbert Franks." Something less than a year ago, when her father went abroad, their house at Bath had been given up, and the furniture warehoused; for the present, Rosamund and her sister were content to leave things thus. The inheritance of each amounted only to a few hundred pounds.

"It's enough to save one from worry for a year or two," said Rosamund to her friend Bertha. "I'm not extravagant; I can live here very comfortably. And there's a pleasure in the thought that one's work not only _may_ succeed but _must_."

"I'm sure I hope so," replied Bertha, "but where's the _must_?"

"What am I to do if it doesn't?" asked Miss Elvan, with her sweet smile, and in a tone of irresistible argument.

"True," conceded her humorous friend. "There's no other way out of the difficulty."

This was on the day of Rosamund's coming to Chelsea. A week later, Bertha found the sitting-room brightened with the hanging water-colours, with curtains of some delicate fabric at the windows, with a new rug before the fire place.

"These things have cost so little," said Rosamund, half apologetically.

"And--yes, I was obliged to buy this little tea service; I really couldn't use Mrs. Darby's; it spoilt the taste of the tea. Trifles, but they really have their importance; they help to keep one in the right mind. Oh, I must show you an amusing letter I've had from Winnie.

Winifred is prudence itself. She wouldn't spend a sixpence unnecessarily. 'Suppose one fell ill,' she writes, 'what a blessing it would be to feel that one wasn't helpless and dependent. Oh, do be careful with your money, and consider very, very seriously what is the best course to take in your position.' Poor, dear old Winnie! I know she frets and worries about me, and pictures me throwing gold away by the handful. Yet, as you know, that isn't my character at all. If I lay out a few sovereigns to make myself comfortable here, I know what I'm doing; it'll all come back again in work. As you know, Bertha, I'm not afraid of poverty--not a bit! I had very much rather be shockingly poor, living in a garret and half starved, than just keep myself tidily going in lodgings such as these were before I made the little changes.

Winnie has a terror of finding herself dest.i.tute. She jumped for joy when she was offered that work, and I'm sure she'd be content to live there in the same way for years. She feels safe as long as she needn't touch her money."

Winifred Elvan, since her father's death, had found an engagement as governess in an English family at St. Jean de Luz. This, in the younger sister's eyes, involved a social decline, more disagreeable to her than she chose to confess.

"The one thing," pursued Rosamund, "that I really dread, is the commonplace. If I were utterly, wretchedly, grindingly poor, there'd be at all events a savour of the uncommon about it. I can't imagine myself marrying a prosperous shopkeeper; but if I cared for a clerk who had nothing but a pound a week, I would marry him to-morrow."

"The result," said Bertha, "might be lamentably commonplace."

"Not if it was the right sort of man.--Tell me what you think of that bit." She pointed to a framed drawing. "It's in the valley of Bida.s.soa."

They talked art for a little, then Rosamund fell into musing, and presently said:

"Don't you think Norbert has behaved very well."

"How well?"

"I mean, it would have been excusable, perhaps, if he had betrayed a little unkind feeling toward me. But nothing of the kind, absolutely nothing. I'm afraid I didn't give him credit for so much manliness.

When he came to Ashtead the second time, of course I understood his motive at once. He wished to show me that his behaviour at the first meeting wasn't mere bravado and to a.s.sure me that I needn't be afraid of him. There's a great deal of delicacy in that; it really pleased me."

Bertha Cross was gazing at her friend with a puzzled smile.

"You're a queer girl," she remarked.

"Queer? Why?"

"Do you mean that you were really and truly surprised that Mr. Franks behaved like a gentleman?"

"Oh, Bertha!" protested the other. "What a word!"

"Well, like a man, then."

"Perhaps I oughtn't to have felt that," admitted Rosamund thoughtfully.

"But I did, and it meant a good deal. It shows how very right I was when I freed myself."

"Are you quite sure of that?" asked Bertha, raising her eyebrows and speaking more seriously than usual.

"I never was more sure of anything."

"Do you know, I can't help thinking it an argument on the other side."

Rosamund looked her friend in the eyes.