After the shout of applause this time fell a little shower of coppers. The Negro, with as much rapidity as he had before shown deliberateness, placed the heavier stone on the piece of board and shot it still further behind him by the force of the mere muscles of his jaws.
"He's about done now," said the landlord of the Hanover to the air. Leigh was no longer near, and no one else within hail seemed worthy of a prosperous licensed victualler's speech outside his own bar and house. Inside the portals he was a publican, outside he was a private being with individual existence, rights and tastes, an impressively large waistcoat and watch-chain to match, and an opinion of himself out of all proportion with even his waistcoat or watch-chain. When half a man is concealed from you behind a counter, his individuality can never impress you nearly so much as when he stands forth disenthralled from sole to crown. The ordinary man glides into his most private aspect when he slips behind the door of his own home; the publican when he emerges from his house.
The Negro now took up the two stones and placing the less on the greater and the greater on the white ledge of wood jerked them both together over his head, as easily as he had thrown the light one by itself.
Then he made a gesture for silence. All the spectators were more than attentive, all except Oscar Leigh, who with the air of one in a trance of perplexity and wonder stole glances at the exquisite line of the girl's cheek and forehead; no more of her face could be seen from his position. She was bent forward and breathless with excitement. She had often seen feats of strength and dexterity before, many more wonderful than Sam's; but she had never until now stood in the arena with the performer. The propinquity was fascinating, the presence horrible, the situation novel, exciting, confounding.
Black Sam drew the two stones towards him with his huge unhandsome feet, and stooped down, holding the piece of wood still in his mouth. He moved his feet a little this way, a little that, selecting their final resting place with care. He passed the cubes back between his legs and, setting one on the other, sat on the upper of the two, looked up and expanding his chest drew a full breath. The people could not now take their gaze off him if they tried. Still Oscar Leigh had no eyes for him. He watched the girl as though his life, the fate of his soul, depended on not losing sight of her for an instant. "She must have seen me, and yet she does not notice me! Are her presence here and her indifference to my presence the result of magic--of real magic, not charlatan tricks?" he thought.
Black Sam lifted his body a couple of inches, resting his entire weight on his feet then passing his hands back he slid them under the lower cube, and raised both hands from the ground, the lower cube resting on the palms. With back bent like a bow he thrust out his head, holding the piece of board in his mouth parallel to the horizon, then he swung his body, first forward, then backward, and with a prodigious effort and violent thrust of his arms and head between his legs, threw the two cubes up into the air, straightened himself like a flash, stepped back a pace and, still holding the piece of white board in his enormous mouth parallel to the horizon, caught the two cubes on it as they fell.
There was a loud cry of exultation. Hanbury forgot the girl by his side, forgot everything but the black man and his feat and shouted:
"Well done by----, Nigger!"
Dora started as though she had been stung. She had more horror of an oath than of a serpent or a blow. She had never heard one so near her before. The words men utter with no thought behind them beyond the desire for emphasis had to her a meaning, not only a meaning through the reason but through the imagination. When she heard the oath her imagination became filled with the spectacle of an august and outraged Presence. Profanity was more horrible to her than almost any other crime. It was a deliberate impiety, a daring and blasphemous insolence.
Hanbury became conscious of the girl's presence by her abrupt withdrawal of her hand from his arm. He turned his eyes, flashing with admiration of the Negro's dexterity and strength. "Wasn't that good?" he asked Dora joyously.
She looked bewildered, and glanced hastily round as though seeking a way of escape. She opened her mouth to speak, but no word came.
"What is it?" he asked in alarm. "Are you not well, Dora?"
"Oh, Jack, how dreadful! You terrify me!"
"I--I--I," he cried swiftly, and in sore and sudden perplexity and dismay. He had shouted out the oath without consciousness that he spoke. In a moment his words came back upon his ears and he recollected her dread. He flushed with confusion and remorse. "Oh, Dora, I beg your pardon, I am miserably ashamed of myself. There is no excuse for me; it was the act of a blackguard--worse still, Dora, of a cad. Pray, pray forgive me."
"I--I am frightened now," she said turning pale and swaying slightly to and fro. She looked at the entrance to Welbeck Place; it was by this time choked up with a dense crowd of people watching the performance.
"Would you like to go away dear? You look ill. Oh, pray forgive me! What I said was forced from me by the excitement of the moment. It was only the result of a bad habit. There was no meaning in my words."
She began to recover her equanimity. To force a way through that crowd would be very disagreeable to her. She replaced her hand on Hanbury's arm saying: "No. Let us stay and see this out. I am all right again. I am very foolish, Jack. Try to forgive me, Jack."
"Forgive you, my darling! Forgive you for what? The only thing I can't forgive you for is tolerating a beast like me."
"Hush, Jack! Don't speak of it again. I am quite well now, and you are the dearest Jack in the world, only don't say that dreadful thing any more, it makes me quite ill. It may be silly, but I cannot help myself. What is the Negro going to do now? Look!"
"I don't know. I don't care. I only care for you, about you, and here I have distressed you, shocked you. It is horrible. You feared to stay lest the Nigger should use strong language, and now it is I, your protector, who offends against good manners and good morals, and outrages your ears!" He had drawn her close to him by the hand that lay on his arm and was pouring his words in a low voice into her ears, his eyes blazing with earnestness, his face working with solicitude and remorse.
"There, Jack, it is all over and forgiven long ago. If you want to please me, let the matter rest. I am much interested in the performance. I never saw anything like it before. Tell me what he is doing now? I cannot make out. What does he mean by throwing himself down in that way and lying still? What are the people laughing at? Is he ill? Is he hurt? Why doesn't someone go to him? What do these foolish people mean by laughing? The man is hurt? Look, look! They cannot see. They are all in front of him. Look there! What is that oozing under his face? Go, see, help him, Jack. Look under his face on the ground! That is Blood!"
John Hanbury did not move. He too had seen something was wrong. He too saw the swelling pool of bright scarlet blood under the black face of the Negro now lying at full length. Still, he did not move. He had grown deadly pale and cold and limp. His head felt light, the colour faded out of objects, and everything became a white and watery blue. The light shivered and then grew faint and far away. Sounds waxed thin, attenuated, confused.
"I can't go, Dora. I am not well. I always faint at the sight of blood," and he staggered back, dragging her with him until he leaned against the blank wall of Forbes's bakery. She disengaged her arm from his, and sought to support him with both her hands. His legs suddenly bent under him, and he slipped from her grasp and fell with legs thrust out across the flagway, and back drooping sideway and forward partly supported by the wall.
At that moment Oscar Leigh stepped back from his post on the curb, and uncovering his head, bowed lowly to Dora, and said: "I beg your pardon. Will you allow me to assist you?"
In her haste, confusion, anxiety, Dora glanced but casually at the speaker, saying: "It is not I who want assistance, but he."
"I would assist even my rival for your sake," he said humbly, bowing low and remaining bent before her. "I did not hope to meet you again so soon. I did not think it would be my good luck to meet you once more to-day until I called at Grimsby Street."
The girl looked at Hanbury's recumbent form with anxiety and dread, and then in dire perplexity at the hunchback who had just raised his uncovered head: "If you will be so good as to help me I shall be very much obliged. Oh! I am terrified. But I do not know what you mean by saying you met me to-day. I have, I think, never seen you until now. What shall I do? Is there a doctor here?"
"He has only fainted. Never seen me before! Never at Eltham yesterday! Not to-day! Not this morning, Miss Grace, am I mad."
"You are mistaken. I never saw you before. My name is not Grace. My name is Ashton, and this is Mr. John Hanbury. Oh! will no one help me?"
The crowd had by this time gathered closely round the prostrate Negro. No one but Leigh was near Miss Ashton and Hanbury.
Leigh seized Hanbury and drew him away from the wall. "The best thing we can do is to lay him flat. So! The others are too busy with the Nigger, and we are better off without a crowd, they would only keep the air away. Pray, forgive and forget what I said, Miss Ashton. I was sure you were Miss Grace, a lady I know, whom I met yesterday and this morning. Such a likeness never was before, but I can see a little difference now; a difference now that you look at me and speak." He had placed the young man flat on his back, and was gazing up into the face of the girl with a look half of worship, half of fear.
She could not see or hear clearly. "Oh! can nothing be done for him?" she cried pitiously. She fell upon her knees beside the prostrate man, and raised his head in her arms.
"Don't do that. Do not raise his head. Have no fear. I will fetch some brandy. Here, bathe his forehead with this. I will be back in a moment." He handed her a small silver flask of eau-de-cologne from which he had screwed the top, and then hastened away.
He skirted the crowd and rushed into the Hanover, crying out "Brandy!" The place was deserted. No one in front of the counter. No one in the bar. With strength and agility, for which none would give him credit, he seized the top of the counter in his long arms, and drew himself up on it, and jumped into the bar, clutched a bottle of brandy from a shelf, and with a glass in his other hand was back over the counter again in a minute, and hurrying to where Dora knelt beside the insensible Hanbury. Leigh knocked the head off the bottle with a blow of his stick, shook out half the brandy to carry away the splinters, and poured some of what was left into the glass.
"Can you open his mouth? Let me try. Raise his head now." He knelt down and endeavoured to force the spirit into Hanbury's mouth. "Now, please, stand up. Leave him to me. You are not strong." She hesitated to rise. "Oh, pray get up! You will only make yourself ill. He will be quite well in a few minutes."
The girl rose. She was trembling violently. She placed one hand against the wall to steady herself. Her breath came short and sharp.
Leigh forced the mouth open and moistened them with brandy and moistened the temples also. Dora, weak and pale and terrified, with lips apart, looked out of dilated eyes down on the swooning man.
In a few seconds he showed signs of life. His eyelids flickered, his chest heaved, his colour began to return, he sighed and raised his hand. Leigh lifted his head higher and forced more of the brandy into his mouth. Then he got up, and stood waiting the result. Gradually Hanbury came to himself, and with the joint aid of Leigh and Dora tottered to his feet.
"There, take some more of this," said Leigh holding out the glass to Hanbury. The latter passed his hand across his eyes to collect his faculties and clear his vision.
"I must have fainted," he whispered. "Is the man dead? I fainted twice before when I saw blood. Once at the gymnasium. Is he dead?"
"Swallow the stuff," said Leigh. "It will put you right." He looked around. The crowd bearing in its core the form of the Negro, was moving through the archway at the bottom of Welbeck Place into the Mews. "I don't know whether he is really dead or not. It looks like it. Do you feel better?"
"Thank you, I feel quite well again. Would you mind fetching a cab. Dora, I am very sorry for my miserable weakness. I could not help it. I am everlastingly disgraced. Would you be kind enough to fetch a cab?"
The request was addressed to Leigh, who glanced with pity and worship at Dora, and said, without looking away:
"Yes; I'll go for a cab. You are not able to walk yet. Stay here till I come back. Will you have more?" He turned and held out the neckless bottle to Hanbury.
"No, thank you."
Leigh threw the bottle and glass into the road and hastened off on his errand. He had no thought of serving Hanbury. If the young man had been alone Leigh would have left him where he stood until the convalescent was strong enough to shift for himself. But he was under a double spell, the spell of the extraordinary likeness between this girl, Miss Ashton, and that other girl, Miss Grace, and the spell of Miss Ashton's beauty. As a rule his thought was clear, and sharp, and particular; now it was misty, dim, glorious, vague. Edith Grace had, at first sight, wrought a charm upon him such as he had never known' before; Dora Ashton renewed and heightened the charm and carried it to an intolerable yearning and rapture. He was beside himself.
"Dora," said Hanbury, after a little while and much thought, "Will you promise me one thing?" He looked around. They were quite alone. The crowd had followed the bearers of the Negro into the mews, through which there was a short cut to an hospital.
"Yes, if I can do what you ask, Jack."
"Say nothing to a soul about my fainting. You will not tell your father or mother, or my mother? I was able to keep the other occasions quiet. If this got about I should have to clear out of London. I'd be the laughing stock of the clubs. That man need not know more than he has seen."
"But he will return with the cab. You can ask him not to say anything about it."
"Come, Dora," he said, with sudden and feverish energy, "let us go. I feel a horrible repugnance to this place."
"But the man with the cab? He will be here in a minute," she said, looking at him in pain and surprise. Surely he was selfish.
"No, no. Not a second. I feel as if I should faint again. There isn't a cab-rank within a mile, and he cannot be back for half-an-hour. Come, Dora."
She took his proffered arm with a view to giving, not receiving, aid, and he hurried her along Chetwynd Street until he met the first cross road leading north; into this he hastened, casting a quick glance behind, and finding to his great relief that he was not followed. After a couple of hundred yards he reduced the pace, and said: "I am afraid, Dora, I have been going too fast for you; but I would not wish for anything that my name should get into the newspapers in connection with this miserable affair and place. It would be bad enough to have a fellow's name connected with such a place as Chetwynd Street; but to have it published that a fellow fainted there because he saw a Nigger drop dead, would be against a fellow for life. It would be worse than an accusation of crime--it would make a man ridiculous."
"And I wonder," said the girl, looking up quietly at him, "how my name would look in print connected with this miserable affair and place, and that Negro andyou?"
He stopped short, dropped her arm, and looked at her with an expression of alarm and apology. "Dora, Dora. I beg your pardon. I most sincerely beg your pardon. There is something wrong with me to-day. I never thought of that. You would not, Dora, be very much put out if you saw your name connected with mine in print? Our engagement is not public, but there is no reason it should not."
"Under these circumstances? I should most surely not like the publicity of the papers. But I did not think of that until you spoke of your own name."
He looked at her as she walked now slowly by his side. He felt cut to the quick, and the worst of it was he experienced no resentment, was not cheered and sustained by anger. He had allowed consideration for his own personal risk to swallow up all consideration for everyone else, Dora Ashton included. If a line of soldiers were drawn across this wretched street with levelled rifles, and his moving towards them would draw their fire into his breast, he would there and then have marched up to them rather than that harm should touch Dora.
It was in accordance with Dora's wishes the engagement between them had not been announced. She had views which in the main he shared and admired. She was intensely independent. Why should the world know they were pledged to one another? It was no affair of the world's. But to have her name bracketed with his in newspapers andthentheir engagement announced, would be hideous, unbearable to her.
He would freely give his life to save her from hurt, but to be laughed at--Oh! Any man who was half a man would rather die heroically than be laughed at. To be the subject of amusing paragraphs in the sly evening papers! To be ironically complimented on his nerve--Oh! To become a by-word! To hear men at the clubs chuckle and whisper "Nigger!" and then chuckle again and say louder some word that had nothing to do with the matter! To be asked significantly if he felt better, and recommended tonics and a bracing climate! Oh! To see the hall-porter smile! To be asked by the waiter if he wished his coffee black! Oh! Oh! Oh!
"There's a cab at the end of the street," she said.
"So there is--a four-wheeler, too." He started at her voice, and then called the cab. "I cannot tell you how much I am ashamed of myself, for the third time to-day," he said to her.
"Of fainting?" she asked coldly, chillily.
"I could not help that. No! Not--not of fainting. I was ashamed of the fainting a few minutes ago. I was not thinking of that now. It was wrong of me to faint, no doubt."
"You could not help it, you know," she said coldly still.
"I could not help it then, but I should have taken precautions against anything of the kind by familiarizing myself with unpleasant and trying sights. No man ought to be a----"
"Woman," she said, finishing the sentence for him with an icy laugh. His want of consideration had exasperated her.
"Yes," he said gravely, "no man ought to be a woman."
"But which is it more like a woman, to faint at a hideous sight or run away from a paltry unpleasantness?"
His face grew very dark. He did not answer.
At this moment, the four-wheeler he had called drew up. Hanbury opened the door, and handed her in. He was about to follow when she stopped him with a gesture. "It now occurs to me that you had better go back and see that man who was so good to me, and whom you sent for the cab for yourself." Her eyes were flashing angrily now.
"Why?" he asked with the door in his hand.
"Well, I just recollect that I gave him your name and my own. You had better see him if you want to keep our names out of the papers. Drive on."
John Hanbury turned away and began retracing his steps slowly. When he reached Chetwynd Street he looked up and down it anxiously. He saw no appearance of anything unusual, no undue crowd, no hurrying of people; he heard no loud talk, no excited exclamations.
He had now completely recovered from the effect of the weakness which had seized him a few minutes ago. He stood at the corner, and drew himself up to his full height, with his chin well in, his head back, and a contemptuous look on his face.
He was dark-eyed, dark-skinned, dark-bearded, close upon six feet, good-looking, but not handsome, and yet his face was more attractive than most faces regularly ordered. The whole mask was extremely mobile, and always changing when he spoke, or when the current of his thoughts altered; a flashing and flitting light seemed to come, not from his eyes only, but from all his face. The eyes were large and restless, or perhaps it would be more correct to say unresting, and when animated they flamed and burned with passion and earnestness. His figure was thick-set for his years, but his height carried off the bulk. He was lithe, active, hardy, and the last man anyone would expect to faint or show physical weakness. Some men who became illustrious surgeons have had to overcome this revulsion from blood, and horror at the sight of it.
He turned to the right and began walking rapidly. A few small groups of people were gathered around the mouth of Welbeck Place, discussing the event of that afternoon. Hanbury looked around. If that man had come back with a cab he must have dismissed it, for no cab was in sight.
For a moment he paused in doubt. He approached one of the little knots of people. "Could you tell me, if you please, where I should be likely to see a low-sized gentleman who carries a heavy stick? I think he belongs to this neighbourhood," said Hanbury to a man standing at the corner, a very low-looking type of man, in a shabby jacket.
"You mean little Mr. Leigh?" said the man.
"I don't know his name. He is a small man, and there is something wrong with his back."
"It's Mr. Leigh you want," said the man. "That's him; 'e's a humpback."
"Yes," said Hanbury, who had waited in vain for an answer to his question. The man in the jacket had forgotten his question. He was in sore want of sixpence, and was wondering how he could come by the money. On principle he had no objection to using honest means, provided they were not laborious. He was not a good specimen of the natives of this part of London.
"Do you know where I should be likely to find him?"
"Where you'd be likely to find 'im? No I don't. If 'e was about 'ere you couldn't see 'im very heasy, 'e's that small, and 'e isn't about hany where, as you can see if you look." The speaker had observed Leigh go into the Hanover five minutes before, and knew he was even now in the private bar. But then he wanted sixpence badly, and saw a chance of making it out of this stranger and his knowledge of Leigh's person, ways and locality.
Hanbury looked around as if about seeking information elsewhere. The man felt the money slipping through his fingers, and hastened to add, "I'm hout of work, I ham, gov'nor, an' I'd be glad of hany job.You'd never be hable to find 'im 'ere, but I think I could, if you want me to."
"Very good. If you find out for me where he is I'll give you half-a-crown," said Hanbury, putting his hand in his trouser's pocket.
This was a serious and perplexing matter for the man in the jacket. It would be only right to show a pretence of earning the money, and it would be unsafe to leave the offerer of the reward alone, for he might fall into the hands of sharks, and so the half-crown might get into the pocket of some one not half so deserving as he. "I'm not sure, sir, where 'e is, but if you come with me I'll show you where I think 'e is." He led the way to the door of the Hanover, and pointing to the entrance marked "Private" said: "If you try in there, and if you don't find 'im I'll go round with you, sir, to all the places 'e's likely to be in, for I'm 'ard set for what you was so kind has to promise me." This was a very excellent way out of his difficulty. It secured the reward in the present, and saved appearances at the expense of a promise which he knew need not be fulfilled.
Hanbury looked in, and seeing Leigh, paid the man in the jacket the money and entered the private bar. The dwarf was there alone. This apartment had few visitors until evening, and all the idle people had been drawn off in the wake of the Negro's litter. Even Williams the landlord had been induced by curiosity to make one of the crowd.
"Hah," said Leigh, when he saw Hanbury come in and shut the door. "You thought better of waiting for that cab. I wasn't very long. I am glad you came back. I hope you are again quite well? Eh?" His words and accent were polite--too polite the young man thought. There was a scornful glitter in the hunchback's eyes. A huge volume bound in red cloth lay on the polished metal counter beside him. When Hanbury saw the volume his face flushed vividly. The book was thePost Office Directory.
"I am quite well again, thank you. I came back on purpose to see you." He drew a high stool towards him and sat down, trying to cover his confusion by the act.
"Greatly honoured, I'm sure," said the other man, with all the outward seeming of sincerity, but with that nasty glitter in the bright deep-sunken eyes.
"No, no," said Hanbury, with emphatic gestures of his arms. "My going off so suddenly must have seemed strange----"
"Oh dear no! Hah! I have often heard of men going off in a dead faint in the same way. I was just trying to make up my mind which of the Hanburys in theDirectoryyou were. Let me see," opening the huge book.
"I don't mean my--my illness. That's not what I meant when I said 'going off.' I meant that you must have been surprised at my going away before you came back with the cab. But I was anxious to get away, and quite confused at the moment, and it was not until the lady with me reminded me of your kindness that I resolved to come back. I am sure I don't know how to thank you sufficiently. Only for you I cannot think how I should have got on. The lady----"
"'Miss Ashton,' she told me her name was," said Leigh, with a peculiar smile that made the young man flush again. The implication he took of the smile being that she was able to speak when he was senseless.
"Yes," he said with constraint; he could not bring himself to utter her name in such a low place, a common pot-house!
"May I ask you if you are Mr. John Hanbury?"
"That is my name," said he, looking around apprehensively.
"Hah! I thought so. I had the honour of hearing you speak----"
Hanbury again looked round as though in fear of hearing his own name, and interposed: "Please do not. You will add to the great favour you have already done me if you say nothing of that kind. I am most anxious to have a little conversation--private conversation with you--this is no place," again he cast his eyes around him apprehensively. There was no one but the potman, Tom Binns, in the bar, and in the "public department," only the man who had got the half-crown.
"It is the best, the only good place, hereabouts, unless you would condescend to cross my humble threshold and accept the poor hospitality I can offer you." It is difficult to say where the politeness was overdone in the manner, but the overdoing was as conspicuous in the manner as in the words; but again allowance is always made for people of exceptional physical formation. Hanbury could not tell why he disliked this man and shrank from him, but he looked on him as if he were a dangerous wild beast playing at being tame. He did want five minutes' talk with him. It could do no harm to accept his invitation.
He got briskly off the stool, saying: "I shall be delighted to go to your place with you, I am sure."
Leigh led the way in ceremonious silence, and opened the private door in Chetwynd Street, and bowed his guest in, saying: "I shall have to trouble you to climb two pair of stairs. The poor of earth, we are told, will be rich hereafter. In this life, anyway, they live always nearest to Heaven."
Preceded by Hanbury he mounted to his flat, and ushered his companion into the sitting-room.
"I am only an humble clockmaker, and in my business it is as well to keep an eye on the sun. One cannot guard too carefully against imposture. Pray take a chair. You were pleased to say you wished to speak to me in private. We are alone on this floor. No one can hear us."
Hanbury felt greatly relieved. This was the only man who knew his name. There had not yet been time for him to tell it to any one likely to publish it in the newspapers. He began:
"In the first place I have again to thank you most sincerely for your great services to me a while ago. Believe me, I am very grateful and shall always hold myself your debtor."
"You are too kind. It is a pleasure to do a little service for a gentleman like Mr. Hanbury, the great orator. If only Chetwynd Street knew it had so distinguished a visitor it would be very proud, although the cause in which I heard you speak in Bloomsbury is not very popular in the slums of Westminster. However, you may rest assured the public shall not be allowed to remain in ignorance of the distinction conferred upon our district, this obscure and poor and unworthy corner of Westminster. When you saw me in the Hanover, I was preparing a little paragraph for the papers." The dwarf smiled ambiguously.
Hanbury started and coloured and moved his feet impatiently, uneasily. He could not determine whether the clockmaker was sincere or not in what he had said in the earlier portions of this speech; he was startled by what he said at the end. "Mr. Leigh, you have done me a favour already, a great favour, a great service. They say one is always disposed to help one he has helped before. Do me another service and you will double, you will quadruple, my gratitude. Say nothing to any one of seeing me here, above all let nothing get into the papers about it."
"Hah," said Leigh, throwing himself back on his chair, thrusting his hands down to the bottom of his trousers' pockets and looking out of the window. "Hah! I see! I understand. A woman in the case," in a tone of conviction and severity. He did not remove his eyes from the window.
The colour on Hanbury's face deepened. His eyes flashed. It was intolerable that this low, ill-shapen creature should refer to Dora, to Dora to whom he was engaged, who was to be his wife, as "a woman in the case." Something disgraceful generally attaches to the phrase. Anyway, there was nothing for it but to try to muzzle Leigh. He forced himself to say calmly. "Oh, dear no. Not in the unpleasant sense. The lady who was with me is----"
"Miss Ashton."
"Yes. She told me she gave you her name and mine. Well, Mr. Leigh, you are good enough to say you remember me as a speaker in Bloomsbury. I am seriously thinking of adopting a public career. I could not, for a time at all events, appear on any platform of disputed principles if this unfortunate fainting of mine got into the papers. Some opponent would be certain to throw it in my face. Will you do me the very great favour of keeping the matter to yourself?"
Hanbury was extremely earnest; he leaned forward on his chair and gesticulated energetically. Leigh swiftly turned his face from the window and said: "It can't be done, Mr. Leigh. I suppose you will allow that I, even humble I, may have principles as well as you?"
"Most assuredly, and it would be bad for the community if all public men agreed. Politics would then corrupt from stagnation."
"Well," said the clockmaker, shaking himself into an attitude of resoluteness. "You are a Tory, I am a Radical. Fate has delivered you into my hands, why should I spare you, why should I not spoil you?"
Hanbury winced and wriggled. This was very unlooked-for and very unpleasant. "I may have spoken on a Tory platform but I have never adopted fully the Tory programme----"
"Tory programme, bah! There never was and never can be such a thing, except it be a programme to cry. 'Hold on.'"
"Well, let me substitute Tory platform for Tory programme; anyway, whatever side I may take the publication of this affair would cast such ridicule upon me that I should be compelled to keep off any kind of platform for a time."
"You are an extremely able speaker for so young a man. Mr. Hanbury, I am afraid it is my duty to send a paragraph to the papers. A paragraph of that kind always tells. Anything unkind and true invariably amuses our own side and injures the other side and sticks like wax."
Hanbury writhed. "The hideous beast," he thought. He would have liked to throw the little monster through the window. He rose and began walking up and down the room hastily. "Mr. Leigh, if you will not, as a party man, let this unfortunate thing lie still, will you oblige me personally and say nothing about it? If you do I will consider myself under a deep obligation to you." He had an enormously exaggerated idea of the importance of the affair, but so have most men and particularly young men when the affair threatens to cover them with scorn or ridicule.
"A personal favour from me to you. On what grounds do you put the request?"
"On any honourable grounds you please. You said you were not rich----"
"I did not say I was corrupt." His manner was quick, abrupt, final. His face darkened. His eyes glittered. "Mr. Hanbury you are a rich man----"
"Not rich, surely."
"You are rich compared with any man in this street. You are a rich man. You got your money without work or risk. You are young and clever and tall and straight and healthy and good-looking and eloquent and dear to the most beautiful lady I ever laid eyes on----"
"Curse him!" thought Hanbury, but he held his peace, remained without movement of limb or feature.
"Rich, good-looking, sound, beloved, eloquent, young. Look at me with the eyes of your mind, and the eyes of your body. Poor, ill-favoured, marred and maimed, loathed, ungifted in speech, middle-aged. Do not stop me. I have no chance if I allow you, a gentleman of your eloquence, to speak against me. Think of it all, and then work out a little calculation for me, and tell me the result. Will you do so candidly, fairly, honestly?"
"Yes, indeed, I will."
"Very well. You who are gifted as I have said, come to me who am afflicted as I have said, and ask me to do you a favour, ask me to sell you a favour. Suppose the favour you ask me to do you cost me ten, at how much do you estimate its value to you?"
"A hundred. Anything you like."
"I am not thinking of money."
"Nor am I. Anything ten-fold returned to you I will freely give."
"Wait a moment. Let me think a while."
Hanbury ceased to walk up and down, and stood in the window leaning against the old-fashioned folding shutters painted the old-fashioned dirty drab.
Leigh sat with his chin sunken deeply on his chest, and his eyes fixed on the floor. Then he spoke in a low tone, a tone half of reverie:
"Nature deals in wonders, and I am one of them. And I in turn deal in wonders, and there are many of them. If I chose I could show you the most wonderful clock in all the world, and I could show you the most wonderful gold in all the world, more wonderful a thousand times than mystery gold. But I will not show you these things now. I will show you a more wonderful thing still. Will you come with me a little way?"
"Yes, but you have not set me that question in arithmetic yet."
"I cannot do so until you have come a little way with me. I want to show you the most wonderful thing you ever saw."
"May I ask what it is?"
"Youneed not be afraid."
"Why need not I be afraid?"
"Becauseyouare not hump-backed and chicken-breasted and lop-sided and dwarfed and hideous."
"But what are you taking me to see?"
"Something more wonderful and more precious than any mystery gold, than my own miracle gold or my clock, and yet of a kind common enough."
"What?"
"A woman."
"But why should I go?"
"Come, and if you ask me that when you have seen, I will ask nothing for my silence."
"Only a woman?"
"Only a woman."
They descended the stairs.
That morning when Edith Grace fell asleep in the corner of the third-class carriage, on her way from Millway to London, she sank into the most profound unconsciousness. No memory of life disturbed her repose. No dreams intruded. The forward movement of the train was unheeded. The vibration did not break in upon her serenity. At the various stations where the train stopped people got in or out, the door banged, men and women talked to one another, the engine shrieked, and still Edith not only slept, but slept as peacefully and free from vision or fear as though all were silent and at rest. Before closing her eyes she took fully into her mind the friendly porter's assurance there would be no need to change her carriage between Millway and the end of her journey.
When she opened her eyes they had arrived at Grosvenor Road, where tickets are taken up for Victoria. She was conscious of being shaken by the shoulder; she awoke and saw opposite her a stout, kind-faced countrywoman, with a basket on her arm. The woman said: "This is Grosvenor Road. We are just at Victoria. They want your ticket."
Two other women were in the carriage--no man. A ticket-collector standing at the door, impatient of delay, was flicking the tickets in his hand.
She started and coloured, and sat upright with all haste and began searching quickly, anxiously, despairingly. Her memory up to the moment of giving the money to the friendly porter was perfect. After that all was dim until all became blank in sleep. She could not clearly recollect the man's giving her the ticket. She remembered a dull sensation in her hand, as though she had felt him thrust the ticket into it, and she remembered a still duller sensation of peace and ease, as though she believed all was right till her journey's end. Then came complete oblivion. She was now burning with confusion and dismay.
"Ticket, please, the train is waiting."
"I--I can't find my ticket."
"Pray, try. The train is waiting."
"I cannot find it."
The collector said nothing, but made a sign, and entered the compartment. The train moved on. "Try your pockets well, miss," said the collector civilly; "you are sure to find the ticket. You had one, of course?"
She tried her pocket and stood up and looked around her. Misfortunes came thick upon her. She had but just escaped from Eltham House, had thrown up her situation, had been wandering about the country all the morning, and now was back in London without a ticket or a sixpenny piece! People were sent to prison for travelling without a railway ticket. She had slept nothing last night, was she to spend this night in gaol? She sat down in despair.
"Indeed, I cannot find it." She was white now, and the trembling with which she had been seized on finding her loss had gone. She was pale, cold, hopeless, indifferent.
"Where did you come from?"
"Millway. I got in at Millway. The porter said he would get my ticket for me. I gave him all the money I had, only enough for the ticket, and----"
"Did he give you the ticket?"
"I don't know."
"Don't know! Don't know whether he gave you the ticket or not?" The collector's manner, which had been sympathetic and encouraging, hardened into suspiciousness.
"I do not know. I fell asleep in the carriage, and did not wake up until just now. What shall I do?"
"You will have to pay your fare from Millway."
"But I can't. I told you I haven't any money. I gave it all to the porter."
"If you haven't a ticket and can't pay it will be a bad job. Is it likely any friend of yours will be waiting for you at the station?"
"Oh, no! I am coming up quite unexpectedly."
"It's a bad job, then," said the collector.
"But you will let me go home? You will not keep me here? You will not detain me?" she asked piteously. Her indifference was passing away and she was becoming excited at hideous possibilities conjured up by her imagination while the train glided slowly into the terminus.
"I don't know. We must see what the Inspector says."
The train had stopped and the two other women got out, the one who had spoken to her saying: "I hope it will be all right, my dear. You don't look as if you was up to anything bad. You don't look like one of them swindling girls that they sent to prison for a fortnight last week."
"Oh, my God!" cried Edith piteously, as she stepped out on the platform. She covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
She was one of the last passengers to leave the train and the shallow fringe of alighting passengers had thinned and almost cleared away. She felt completely overwhelmed, as if she should die. She caught with one hand the side of the open carriage door for support, and kept the other hand before her face. She ceased to sob, or cry or weep. The collector and two guards were standing round her, waiting until she should recover herself. Presently a fourth man came up slowly from the further end of the train and stood among the three men.
"What is the matter?" he asked softly of one of the guards. "Has anything happened to the lady? Is she ill?"
A shiver went through Edith. There was something familiar in the voice, but unfamiliar in the tone.
"Lost her ticket and hasn't got any money. We have sent for the Inspector," answered the collector.
"Pooh, money," said the new-comer contemptuously. "I have money. Where has the lady come from? How much is the fare?"
"Come from Millway," answered the collector.
"Millway! So have I. What class? First?"
"No; Third. Five and twopence."
"Here you are." The new-comer held out his hand to the collector with money in it.
"This gentleman offers to pay, miss," said the collector turning to Edith. "Am I to take the money?"
The girl swayed to and fro, and did not answer. It was plain she heard what had been said. Her movement was an acknowledgment she had heard. She did not answer because she did not know what to say. Two powerful emotions were conflicting in her. The feeling of weakness was passing away. She was trying to choose between gaol (for so the matter seemed to her) and deliverance athishands.
"Of course, the lady will allow me to arrange this little matter for her. She can pay me back at any time. I will give her my name and address: Oscar Leigh, Forbes's bakery, Chetwynd Street."
"Am I to take the money, miss? We are losing time. The train is going to back out. Here's the Inspector. Am I to take the five and twopence from this gentleman?"
"Yes," she whispered. She loosed her hold upon the carriage door, but did not take down her hand from her face.
The collector wrote out and thrust a ticket into her disengaged hand. The touch of the hand recalled the dim memory of what had happened earlier that day. Her fingers closed firmly, instinctively, on the paper.
"Now, miss, it's all right. Please stand away. The train is backing out."
She dropped her hand from her face, moved a pace from the edge of the platform and looked round. She knew she should see him with her eyes, she had heard him with her ears. She shrank from the sight of him, she shrank still more from the acknowledgment she should have to make.
Leigh was standing in front of her, leaning on his stick and gazing intently at her. With a cry of astonishment he let his stick fall and threw up his arms. "Miss Grace! Miss Grace, as I am alive! Miss Grace here! Miss Grace here now!"
He dropped his arms. His cry and manner bereft her of the power of speech. She felt abashed and confounded. She seemed to have treated badly this man who had just delivered her from a serious and humiliating difficulty.
"Pray excuse me," he said, bowing low and raising his hat as he picked up his stick. "The sight of you astonished me out of myself. I thought you were miles and miles away. I thought you were at Eltham House. To what great misfortune does my poor mother owe your absence? You are not--please say you are not ill?"
"I am not ill." It was very awkward that he should speak of his mother's loss, of her abandoning his mother. She had felt a liking in their short acquaintance for the poor helpless old woman. She had come away without saying a word to Mrs. Leigh. True, she had left a note, and as she was quitting the place that morning the note had not been where she had placed it. Perhaps it had merely been blown down or knocked away by the wind or by herself, or by him in the dark. She was conscience-stricken at having deserted Mrs. Leigh, she was bewildered at the inconsistency of his words now, and his visit to that room from which he believed she had fled last night. She had, too, overheard him say to his mother that he would put something right in Eltham for her this day. She had gathered he had had no intention of leaving Eltham until about noon, and it was not nine o'clock yet! He surely did not know she was in that dark room when he made the soliloquy. To suppose he thought she was there would be madness. He knew at that time she had left the house with the intention of not returning and he believed she had not returned. How then could he imagine she was still at Eltham? Why had he left Millway so early? Ah, yes, of course, as far as that went, Mrs. Brown must have discovered her flight on missing the key of the gate from its hook in the little hall of the gate-house. She must have given information and he must have come up by this train, but why? Ah, the whole thing was horribly confused, and dull, and dim, and she heard a buzzing in her ears.
All this went through her mind as quickly as wind through a tree, and like wind through a tree touching and moving the many boughs and branches of thought in her mind simultaneously.
Leigh, upon hearing her say "I am not ill," drew back with a gesture of astonishment and protest, and said, "You were not ill, and yet you fled from us, Miss Grace! Then we must have been so unfortunate as to displease Miss Grace unwittingly. But you are tired, child, and I am inconsiderate to keep you waiting. You are going where?" His voice became suave and gracious. His manner showed to advantage contrasted with his half sly and wholly persistent manner of yesterday.
"I was going home to Grimsby Street."
"Then this is our way. You have no baggage, I presume?"
"No, I left it behind me. I also left a note----"
"Hah! Here we are. Now Miss Grace, you must be far too tired and put out by your early journey and this most unpleasant experience on the platform to be allowed by me to speak a word of explanation. Pray step in. I shall call to enquire how you are later in the day."
He hurried her into a four-wheeler and gave the driver his fare and the address before she had time to hesitate or protest. Then he turned briskly away, and leaving the terminus, clambered to the top of an omnibus going east.
When he arrived at the Bank he descended. He looked sharply around, and after scrutinizing the faces of all those standing or moving slowly near him, walked rapidly a few hundred yards back over the way the omnibus had come, along clattering and roaring Cheapside. Then he pulled up suddenly, and cast quick, furtive glances at the men on either side, particularly those who were standing, and those moving slowly.
It was certain Oscar Leigh was trying to find out if he was watched.
"Hah!" cried he under his breath. "No one. All right." He then turned into one of the narrow streets leading south out of the main thoroughfare and walked rapidly. Here were large, slow-moving vans and carts and drays in the roadway and a thin stream of men, with now and then a woman of homely aspect and dingy garments, hurrying by. As one walked it was quite possible to take note of every person and no one escaped the dark flashing eyes of Leigh. In the eyes of City men when they walk about through the mazes of their own narrow domain there is always an introspective look. They are not concerned with the sticks and stones or the people they encounter. They know every stick and stone by rote and they are not abroad to meet people in the street, but to call upon people in warehouses, shops, or offices. Their eyes are turned inward, for their minds are busy. As they step swiftly forward they are devising, inventing, calculating, plotting, planning. They are on their way from one place to another and all the things they pass by are to them indifferent. They have the air of sleep-walkers who have only their bournes in their minds and are heedless of all things encountered by the way.
Oscar Leigh was the very opposite to the denizens of the City. His whole attention was given to his environment. He kept on the left-hand pavement and close to the houses so that he could see all before him without turning his head. Thus he obviated any marked appearance of watchfulness.
When he came to a cross street he stood still, looked back and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. He waited a minute and then, muttering again a satisfied "Hah! No one," struck into the cross street by the left and proceeded very slowly. This was a still narrower artery than the former one. When he reached the end of it he paused once more, and stood regarding the ground he had just covered. It was plain that by this time all anxiety had been removed from his mind.
He faced about, threading his way through alleys of great secrecy and gloom and silence, and moved in a south-easterly direction until he emerged at the head of London Bridge.
He crossed the river on foot, and keeping to the right through mean streets out of Borough High Street found himself in London Road, where from noon to midnight, all the year round, a market for the poor is held on the pavement and in the kennel.
He crossed this street and entered another, Tunbridge Street, the dirtiest and dingiest one he had yet traversed. It seemed given up wholly to vehicles out of work. Here were a couple of dozen large, unhandsome, stores, warehouses and small factories, and half-a-dozen of very poor houses, let in tenements. An ill-smelling, close, foul, low-lying, little-used street.
The ground floor of one of the houses was devoted to commerce. The floor, as far in as one could see, was littered with all kinds of odds and ends of metal machines and utensils and implements. On a washed-out blue fascia-board, in washed-out white letters, over the door, were the words "John Timmons," in large letters, and beneath in small letters, once black and now a streaky grey, "marine store dealer." Into the misty twilight of this house of bankrupt and forgeless Vulcan Leigh disappeared. Any one passing down Tunbridge Street a quarter of a minute after he stepped across the threshold would not have been able to detect any living being in the business establishment of Mr. John Timmons, marine-store dealer.
But if a listener had been at the back of the store, behind the boiler of a donkey-engine, or leant over the head of the dark cellar in the left corner, he would have heard the following dialogue carried on by careful whispers in the darkness below:
"Yes. I have come back sooner than I expected. I went to Birmingham yesterday morning to consult a very clever mechanist there about the new movement for the figures of time in my clock--Hah!"
"You told me you were going away, but I thought it was to Edinburgh."
"Hah!" said the former speaker, "I changed my mind about Edinburgh and went to Birmingham instead. I thought when I was speaking to you last that Edinburgh would be best, but I got the name of the best man in Birmingham and went to him instead. My friend in Birmingham not only put me right about the new movement, but when I told him I thought I was on the point of perfecting my discovery of the combination in metals he told me he would be able to find a market for me if I was sure the new compound was equal to representation. Of course, I told him the supply would be limited until I could arrange for a proper laboratory and for help. I explained that no patent could protect all the processes of manufacture and that for the present the method must be a profound secret. I also told him I proposed calling my invention Miracle Gold."
"No doubt about no patent being sufficient to protect. You were right enough there. Ho-ho-ho-ho."
"It was best to say that. Anyway, he is ready to take any quantity, if the thing is equal to representation."
"There's no doubt it will be. Ho-ho-ho-ho."
"I told him my great difficulty at present, was the colour--that it was very white--too like Australian gold--too much silver."
"Ho-ho-ho-ho, that was clever, very clever. You are the cleverest man I ever met, Mr. ----."
"Hah--stop. Isn't it best not to mention names here?"
"Well, it's always best to be on the safe side and even walls can't tell what they don't hear, can they?"
"I told him also that for the present the quantity would be small of the miracle gold, but that I hoped soon to increase the supply as soon as I got fully to work."
"That's true."
"He says he will take all I can make, no matter how much, if it is equal to representation----"
"Ho-ho-ho-ho! Equal to representation! That's splendid. I can't help laughing at that."
"No. It was clever of me. But the affair is hardly a laughing matter. May I beg of you not to laugh in that way again? I dare say the most uncomfortable place after a prison into which anyone goes is a grave, and this place looks and smells like a grave. Besides, there is fearful danger in this affair, fearful danger. Pray don't laugh."
"But you will go on with the thing now?"
"Yes, I will go on with it. But, observe, I cannot increase my risk by a grain weight. I am already risking too much. I deal, mind you, with nothing but thealloy."
"I don't want you to deal with anything else. You know nothing of the matter beyond the alloy. What did the Birmingham gentleman say the stuff would be worth?"
"In the pure metal state?"
"Of course. After you are done with it?"
"Hah! He will not say until he has a specimen. When can you have some ready?"
"Now. This minute. Will you take it away with you?"
"No, not now. What are you doing tonight?"
"Nothing particular."
"Can you come to my place between twelve and half past?"
"Certainly."
"Without fail?"
"I'll be there to the minute you say."
"Very well. Let it be twelve exactly. I have a most excellent reason of my own for punctuality. Bring some of the alloy with you. Knock at the door once, one knock, the door in Chetwynd Street, mind. I'll open the door for you myself. Mind, not a word to a soul, and above all don't go into the Hanover hard by. I have reasons for this--most important reasons."
"Do not fear. I shall be there punctually at twelve. I never go into public houses. I can't afford it. They are places for only talking and drinking and I can't afford either. Are you going?"
"Yes. I must run away now. The National Gallery folk are in a fog about a Zuccaro. They are not certain whether it is genuine or not. There is a break in the pedigree and they will do nothing until I have seen the picture and pronounced upon it. Good-bye. Twelve sharp."
"Good-bye. I'll not keep you waiting for me to-night."
Oscar Leigh came quickly out into Tunbridge Street and thence into London Road, and got on the top of an omnibus going north. He changed to the top of one going west when he reached Ludgate Circus.
If you have sharp eyes, and want to see with them that you are not followed, the top of an omnibus is an excellent way of getting about through London.
Leigh alighted from the second omnibus at Charing Cross, and walked from that straight to the Hanover in Chetwynd Street. The nation was not that day made richer by his opinion of the genuineness of the alleged Zuccaro, nor had he up to this moment conceived the advisability of inventing the mummified Egyptian prince, much less of buying his highness, with a view to painting the dial of his clock with the asphalatum from the coffin.
He had spent the time between his arrival at Victoria and his brandy and soda with Williams at the Hanover in going to and coming back from Tunbridge Street, and in his visit to John Timmons, marine-store dealer.