Mr. Ely returned to town on the following morning, and Miss Truscott was an engaged young woman. The interval between the moment of her becoming engaged and the departure of the gentleman was not--we are rather at a loss for the proper word to use--let us put it, was not exactly so pleasant as it might have been.
Although the man and the maid had plighted troth they certainly did not seem like lovers; they scarcely even seemed to be friends. The position seemed to be a little strained. Mr. Ely noticed this as the day wore on. He resented it.
In the garden after dinner he relieved his mind. The lady was seated, the admirable Pompey on her knee, so engaged in reading as to appear wholly oblivious that the gentleman was in her neighbourhood. For some time Mr. Ely fidgeted about in silence. The lady did not appear even to notice that. At last he could keep still no longer.
"You seem very fond of reading?"
"I am." The lady did not even take her eyes off her book to answer him, but read tranquilly on.
"I hope I'm not in your way."
"Not at all"; which was true enough. He might have been miles away for all the notice the lady appeared to take of him.
"One has to come into the country to learn manners."
"One has to come into the country to do what?"
As if conscious that he was skating on thin ice, Mr. Ely endeavoured to retrace his steps.
"Considering that only this morning you promised to be my wife, I think that you might have something to say."
Partially closing the book, but keeping one slender finger within it to mark the place, the lady condescended to look up.
"Why should you think that?"
"I believe it is usual for persons in our situation to have something to say to each other, but I don't know, I'm sure."
The lady entirely closed her book and placed it on a little table at her side. "What shall we talk about?"
The gentleman was still. Under such circumstances the most gifted persons might have found it difficult to commence a conversation.
"Are you interested in questions of millinery?"
"In questions of millinery!"
"Or do you take a wider range, and take a living interest in the burning questions of the progress of revolution and the advance of man?"
Mr. Ely felt clear in his own mind that the lady was chaffing him, but he did not quite see his way to tell her so.
"I'm fond of common sense."
"Ah, but common sense is a term which conveys such different meanings. I suppose, that, in its strictest definition, common sense is the highest, rarest sense of all. I suppose that you use the term in a different way."
This was exasperating. Mr. Ely felt it was.
"I suppose you mean that I'm a fool."
"There again--who shall define folly? The noblest spirits of them all have been by the world called fools."
Miss Truscott gazed before her with a rapt intensity of vision, as though she saw the noble spirits referred to standing in the glow of the western sky.
"I must say you have nice ideas of sociability."
"I have had my ideas at times. I have dreamed of a social intercourse which should be perfect sympathy. But they were but dreams."
Mr. Ely held his peace. This sort of thing was not at all his idea of conversation. It is within the range of possibility to suspect that his idea of perfect conversation was perfect shop--an eternal reiteration of the ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of stocks and shares. However that might be, it came to pass that neither of these two people went in a loverlike frame of mind to bed. But this acted upon each of them in different ways.
For instance, it was hours after Miss Truscott had retired to her chamber before the young lady placed herself between the sheets. For a long time she sat before the open window, looking out upon the star-lit sky. Then she began restlessly pacing to and fro. All her tranquillity seemed gone.
"I have been ill-mannered--and a fool!"
And again there was that hysteric interlacing of her hands which seemed to be a familiar trick of hers when her mind was much disturbed.
"I have made the greatest mistake of all. I have promised myself to a man I--loathe."
She shuddered when she arrived at that emphatic word.
"A man with whom I have not one single thing in common; a man who understands a woman as much as--less than Pompey does. I believe that selfish Pompey cares for me much more. A man whose whole soul is bound up in playing conjuring tricks with stocks and shares. And where are all my dreams of love? Oh! they have flown away!"
Then she threw herself upon the bed and cried.
"Oh, Willy! Willy! why have you been false? If you had been only true! I believe that I am so weak a thing that if you should call to me to-morrow, I would come."
After she had had enough of crying--which was only after a very considerable period had elapsed--she got up and dried her eyes--those big eyes of hers, whose meaning for the life of him Mr. Ely could not understand!
"What does it matter? I suppose that existence is a dead level of monotony. If even for a moment you gain the heights, you are sure to fall, and your state is all the worse because you have seen that there are better things above."
This was the lady's point of view. The gentleman's was of quite another kind. As he had said, sentiment was not at all his line. When he reached his room, he wasted no time getting into bed. While he performed his rapid toilet he considered the situation in his own peculiar way.
"That's the most impudent girl I ever met."
This he told himself as he took off his coat.
"I like her all the better for it, too."
Here he removed his vest.
"She doesn't care for me a snap--not one single rap. I hate your spoony kind of girl, the sort that goes pawing a man about. If she begins by pawing you she'll be pawing another fellow soon. Oh! I've seen a bit of it, I have!"
Here he removed his collar and tie.
"What I want's a woman who can cut a dash--not the rag-bag sort, all flounces and fluster--but a high-toned dash, you know. The sort of woman that can make all the other women want to have her life; who can sit with two hundred other women in a room and make 'em all feel that she doesn't know that there's another person there. By Jove! she'd do it, too!"
Mr. Ely laughed. But perhaps--as he was a sort of man who never laughed, in whom the bump of humour was entirely wanting--it would be more correct to describe the sound he made as a clearing of the throat. At this point he was engaged in details of the toilet into which it would be unwise to enter. But we really cannot refrain from mentioning what a very little man he looked in his shirt. Quite different to the Mr. Ely of the white waistcoat and frockcoat.
The next morning he took his departure. He had been under the painful necessity of spending one day away from town; he could not possibly survive through two. In fact he tore himself away by the very earliest train--in his habits he was an early little man--not with reluctance but delight: by so early a train, indeed, that he had left long before his lady-love came down. Mrs. Clive did the honours and sped the parting guest. She, poor lady, was not used to quite such early hours and felt a little out of sorts, but she did her best.
"Shall I give dear Lily a message when you are gone?"
Mr. Ely was swallowing ham and eggs as though he were engaged in a match against time. A healthy appetite for breakfast was one of his strong points.
"Tell her that dog of hers is ever so much too fat."
Pompey, who was at that moment reclining on a cushion on the rug, was perhaps a trifle stout--say about as broad as he was long. Still, Mrs. Clive did not like the observation all the same.
"Pompey is not Lily's dog, but mine."
"Ah! then if I were you, I'd starve the beggar for a week."
Mrs. Clive bridled. If she had a tender point it was her dog.
"I can assure you, Mr. Ely, that the greatest care is taken in the selection of dear Pompey's food."
"That's where it is, you take too much. Shut him in the stable, with a Spratt's biscuit to keep him company."
"A Spratt's biscuit!--Pompey would sooner die!"
"It wouldn't be a bad thing for him if he did. By the look of him he can't find much fun in living--it's all that he can do to breathe. It seems to me every woman must have some beast for a pet. An aunt of mine has got a cat. Her cat ought to meet your dog. They'd both of them be thinner before they went away."
It is not surprising that Mr. Ely did not leave an altogether pleasant impression when he had gone. That last allusion to his aunt's cat rankled in the old lady's mind.
"A cat! My precious Pompey!" She raised the apoplectic creature in her arms; "when you have such an objection to a cat! It is dreadful to think of such a thing, even when it is spoken only in jest."
But Mr. Ely had not spoken in jest. He was not a jesting kind of man.
When Miss Truscott made her appearance she asked no questions about her lover. If he had sent a message, or if he indeed had gone, she showed no curiosity upon these points at all. She seemed in a dreamy frame of mind, as if her thoughts were not of things of life but of things of air. She dawdled over the breakfast-table, eating nothing all the while. And when she had dismissed the meal she dawdled in an easy chair. Such behaviour was unusual for her, for she was not a dawdling kind of girl.
In the afternoon she took a book and went for a ramble out of doors. It was a novel of the ultra-sentimental school, and only the other day the first portion of the story had impressed her with the belief that it was written by a person who had sounded the heights and depths of life. She thought differently now. It was the story of a woman who, for love's sake, had almost--but not quite--thrown her life away This seemed to her absurd, for, in the light of her new philosophy, she thought she knew that the thing called love was non-existent in the world. And for love's sake to throw one's life away!
It was not until she reached a leafy glade which ran down to the edge of the cliff that she opened the book. She seated herself on a little mossy bank with her back against the trunk of a great old tree, and placed the book on her knees. After she had read for a time she began to be annoyed. The heroine, firmly persuaded that life without love was worthless, was calmly arranging to sacrifice as fine prospects as a woman ever had, so as to enable her to sink to the social position of her lover, an artisan. The artisan belonged to the new gospel which teaches that it is only artisans who have a right to live. He was a wood-engraver, she was the daughter of a hundred earls. As a wood-engraver--who declined to take large prices for his work--he considered that she was in an infinitely lower sphere than he: a state of degradation to be sorrowed over at the best. So she was making the most complicated arrangements to free herself from the paternity--and wealth--of the hundred earls.
Miss Truscott became exceedingly annoyed at the picture of devotion presented by these two, and threw the book from her in disgust.
"What nonsense it all is! How people do exaggerate these things. I don't believe that love makes the slightest difference in anybody's life. I do believe that people love a good dinner, or a pretty frock, or ten thousand pounds a year, but anything else----!" She shrugged her shoulders with a significant gesture. "There may be weak-minded people somewhere who believe in love, but even that sort is the love that loves and rides away. As for love in married life! In the present state of society, if it did exist it is quite clear to me that it would be the most uncomfortable thing about the whole affair. Mr. Ely is a sensible man. He wants a wife, not a woman who loves him. That's the royal road to marriage!"
As Miss Truscott arrived at this conclusion, she rose from her mossy seat and shook herself all over, as if she were shaking off the last remnants of her belief in love.
"Miss Truscott!"
She stood amazed, motionless, with a curious, sudden fascination as the sound of a voice fell on her ears. It came again.
"Miss Truscott, won't you turn and look at me?"
She turned and looked, and there was a man. She seemed wonderstruck. A very perceptible change came over her. She became more womanly as she looked: softer, more feminine. The scornful look passed from her eyes and face and bearing. She became almost afraid.
"Mr. Summers! Is it you?"
It was a new voice which spoke, a voice which Mr. Ely would never live to hear. And in it there was a hidden music which was sweeter that the music of the birds.
"Yes, Miss Truscott, it is I."
He held out his hand. She timidly advanced, and he advanced a step, and their two hands met. And their eyes met, too. And both of them were still. Then she gently disengaged her hand, and looked at the bracken at her feet.
"Some spirit of the wild wood must have led me. I have come straight up from the station here. It must have been some curious instinct which told me where you would be found."
"Oh, I am often here--you know that I am often here."
"I know you used to be."
"I think that most of my habits are still unchanged. And where have you been this great, long time? I thought that you would never come again."
"Did you think that? Is that true?"
He leaned forward. He spoke in a low, eager, insistent tone, which, for some cause, made the blood surge about the region of her heart, and made her conscious that new life was in her veins.
"Oh! I did not think of it at all. Out of sight is out of mind, you know!"
"And I have been thinking of you all the time. You have been with me in my dreams both day and night. Your face has stared at me from every canvas which I touched. You were at the end of every brush. Everything I tried to paint turned into you. I thought my heart would burst at the anticipation of meeting you again."
She was silent: for the world she could not have spoken then. This sceptic maiden, who but a moment back was so incredulous of the existence of the thing called love, was stricken dumb, conquered by the magic of the spell woven by this man's tongue and eyes.
"I tried to paint you, and I failed--there are fifty failures in my room! But one night there came to me the glamour of my lady's eyes. At the first dawn of day I stood before my canvas, and all at once, as if it were by witchcraft, I had you there. You shall look at that portrait one fine day, and you shall know that I have you even when you are not near. And so, through all the weary time, you have been there; sleeping and waking I have had you by my side. And you--not once--have thought of me!"
Silence. Then she raised her head and looked at him.
"I have thought of you--at times."
"What times?"
There was a pause before she spoke, as if each was conscious of a fascination in the other's glance; eyes continued looking into eyes.
"All times--I think."
"Lady of my heart's desire!"
He still carried the bludgeon which we have seen he had in Mr. Ash's office. He let it fall upon the ground. He stretched out his two hands, and, as if unconsciously, she yielded hers to his. So they were face to face, hands clasped in hands.
"Love lives no longer now. They tell us that it is only in the fables it is found. Yet I think that they are wrong--nay, it is certain that I know they are--for I love you better than my life!"
Silence. Even the myriad sounds of nature seemed to be suddenly quite still. There was no rustling of leaves, no twittering of birds, there was not even audible the murmuring of the sea. And he went on--
"I pray you tell me--do you love me?"
"Willy!"
That was all she said. Then he stooped and kissed her on the lips. "My dear!" he said.
Then they were still. He did not even draw her to him. He only held her hands and looked upon her face. And she regarded him with shy, proud eyes.
"Why have you been so long?"
"Because I had made myself a promise."
"What promise?"
"That I would earn my prize."
"How could you do that?"
"Ah! how indeed! For, truly, it could not be earned. But when I saw you first I was the laziest of men. Until that hour I had thrown my life away. I told myself that until I had done something to redeem the past, until I had made my mark upon the time, I might not make my petition for the prize."
"Then it is your fault, my friend."
"If there is a fault, it certainly is mine, for I am full of fault. But what especial evil have I done?"
She removed her hands from his, and tapping a pebble with her little foot, she smiled.
"You can never guess."
"Is it so black a crime?"
Suddenly she put her two hands to her face and laughed. But her cheeks were crimson all the same.
"Oh! what have I done? I shall never dare to tell." She peeped at him round the edges of her hands. "Shall you be angry with me, Will?"
"Never, if you call me Will!"
"Do you know--- But let me begin at the beginning." She removed her hands, and putting them behind her back, looked at him shyly, and then looked down. "Do you know, I thought that you would never come again." He laughed, and there was something in his laughter made her laugh too. "So I was not happy--for I loved you all the time." He laughed again, and, putting his arm about her waist, drew her closer to his side. "Do you know what happened yesterday?"
"Did the cat drink all the cream?"
"No, worse than that--for we haven't got a cat. Have you forgotten Pompey, sir? Somebody asked me to be his wife!"
"What! Who?"
"Do you know Mr. Frederic Ely?"
"Good heavens! Was he the man?"
"What man? Willy--surely you do not know!"
"So that was what he was coming into the country for! To think of the little beggar's impudence. And I wished him luck, by gad!"
He laughed. But she was still.
"Willy! what do you mean? Do you know all about it, then?"
"Why, it was a bargain, sweet. He was to try his luck, and then I mine. I was so sure of you, you see!"
She released herself from his embrace, and again covering her face with her hands, she shivered.
"What have you done?"
"It was this way; let me unfold the tale. I went to Mr. Ash and told him what you know: how all my life was centred in my love for you. He told me that just before I came another man had brought to him the self-same tale."
"Surely not quite the same? Surely he did not say that all his life was centred in his love for me?"
"No, not exactly that! Yet, sweet, why not? For who shall know you and not love you as his life? But at least another man had come to him who wished to win your hand--that priceless hand! And he had given him his word. So it was agreed that he should try his fortune first, and if he failed--I knew that he would fail!--I should try mine. And if I won--ah, how I longed to win!--Mr. Ash would crown success with his consent."
Silence reigned again. They stood a little way apart, he with his eyes fixed on her face, she with hers upon the ground.
"What have I done?" The words were whispered in an undertone. Then she looked up at him with a sudden fire in her eyes. "Do you know what I have done? I have promised this other man to be his wife."
"What! Good God! Lily! what do you mean?"
"He asked me to be his wife. I said I would. I thought that you were false, you see."
"You thought that I was false! But--it is madness! It is a foolish dream!"
"Do not look so utterly dismayed. You said that you would not be vexed, you know. Besides, now it is another thing."
"Another thing! But--Lily, tell me exactly what it is that you have done."
"I will tell you just exactly what it is that I have done. To begin, then. You see, I have not been happy--ever since you went away."
"You foolish maid! And yet you wisest of them all."
"I waited--oh, Will, I waited such a weary time! I thought that you would write, or--or do something that you never did. And at last I began to think that waiting was in vain. And when I was in the most hopeless of my hopeless moods--it was no further back than yesterday, yet it seemed years ago!"--she put forth her hand and touched his arm, and he laughed beneath his breath--"a letter came from Mr. Ash. He said that Mr. Ely was coming here. I showed the letter to my aunt. She seemed to take it for granted that I would do exactly what my guardian wished me to--as though it were a decree that was written in the skies. So when he came, and asked me to be his wife--just out of spite and wickedness I said I would. He never asked me if I loved him; he never pretended even to love me. It was just a bargain: I was to be his wife."
"My little love! What is it you have done? And now, pray, what is it that you mean to do?"
"I shall write and tell him I have changed my mind."
"Changed your mind! What do you suppose that he will say to that?"
"Why, what can he say? It is like a commercial treaty which is in the air. There are some of the clauses to which I am unable to agree. So I withdraw from the negotiations and refuse to sign."
"One thing is sure: you cannot be his wife."
"Will, I am just like you! I love you better than my life!"
"Sweetheart! Then I have won the prize! I thought that I had won the prize! Will you forgive me my presumption in that I thought that I had won the prize?"
"You should not have kept me so long waiting. It is your fault that I have sinned."
"You shall not have cause again to esteem me false; and observe, fair maid, I had a higher estimate of you."
"Willy! That is unkind!"
Then she turned her face up to his, and when he saw that sweet face upturned and those sweet eyes, what could he do but kiss, not once nor twice, but many times, those sweetest lips? And by this time the two were close together. He had his arm about her waist and pressed her to his breast.
"Do you know that, from my point of view, fair queen, this was worth waiting for?"
"And do you know, sir, that is my point of view as well?"
Then there was silence, and they feasted on the love that was in each other's eyes.
"Lily! Mr. Summers!"
And while they were still engaged in this delectable pursuit, all at once their names were spoken from behind; and turning, they saw that Mrs. Clive was standing in the shadow of the trees.
Mrs. Clive had the faithful Pompey in her arms. That faithful animal was out for exercise, and exercise meant as a rule, to him, being carried all the way. His mistress stared at the lovers, and the lovers, taken aback for a moment, stared at her.
"Can I believe my eyes!"
In her amazement she let the faithful creature fall. Pompey gave a dismal groan. He did not belong to the order of dogs who can fall with comfort to themselves. Where he fell he lay. In the agitation of her feelings Mrs. Clive did not notice the quadruped's distress.
"Lily! Is it possible it is my niece!"
Quite possible, it seemed, and not at all surprising, either.
Recovering from the first momentary shock, Miss Truscott was the most charming niece alive. Removing herself from the gentleman's near neighbourhood, she inclined her body and gave a little graceful curtsey--a prettier curtsey never yet was seen.
"Yes, aunty, it is I." Then she drew herself up straight. "You always said I was your niece." Then she turned to the gentleman. "Willy, don't you know my aunt?"
Mr. Summers laughed. The old lady bridled, but the gentleman, not at all abashed, took off his hat and advanced to her with outstretched hand.
"Mrs. Clive, it is twelve months since I saw you. I am afraid you have forgotten me."
But he was mistaken if he thought that she would take his hand. There never was an old lady with a stiffer mien, and she was at her stiffest now. She had her mittened hands down by her sides, and looked him in the face as though she could not see that he was there.
"I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir."
This was a fib, but there are occasions when fibs must be expected.
"My name is Summers--William Summers. I thought I heard you just now mention me by name. And I, at least, have not forgotten the pleasant hours I spent with you last year."
"Lily, I must trouble you to come with me."
That was the only answer he received to his small compliment. With her most unbending air the old lady turned to go. But the impression she desired to convey was in a measure spoiled. In sweeping round--her action could only be described as sweeping round--she kicked the faithful Pompey; and when the faithful Pompey received that kick he raised a dreadful howl, and that dreadful howl awoke the echoes far and wide. In an instant Mr. Summers had the ill-used creature in his arms.
"Poor Pompey! I am afraid you have hurt him, Mrs. Clive. How well he looks! See, Mrs. Clive, he seems in pain. I'm afraid you must have kicked him in the side, and in his condition that is rather a serious thing. Don't you know me, Pompey?"
It appeared that Pompey did, for, in a feeble kind of way, he put out his tongue and licked his protector's nose. Such a sight could not but touch the lady's heart. Still, of course, it was out of the question that she should unbend.
"I must trouble you, sir, to let me have my dog."
"Permit me to carry him for you towards the house. I'm sure he is in pain--see how still he is."
If stillness were a sign of pain, then the faithful beast must have been pretty constantly in pain, for motion--or emotion--of any sort was not in Pompey's line. Mrs. Clive would have grasped the subterfuge if she had been left alone, but her perfidious niece came to the gentleman's aid. She began to stroke and caress the faithful beast.
"Poor Pompey! Poor 'ickle Pompey, then! I hope he has not broken any bones. Do you think it is his ribs?"
Miss Truscott's back was turned to Mrs. Clive. If the aunt had seen the way in which her niece glanced under her long eyelashes at the gentleman in front of her she would have seized the animal and marched away.
"I scarcely think it is his ribs."
It was not probable, considering how they were swathed in fat.
"Perhaps it is his leg."
"I hope that it is not."
Mr. Summers threw such a tone of doubt into this expression of his hopes that Mrs. Clive's heart gave quite a jump. Her Pompey's leg! Broken! And by her! But she was not by any means going to give in yet. There was the bearded gentleman holding the wheezing quadruped as though it were the most precious thing on earth, and there was her niece very close in front of him. All her sense of moral rectitude was up in arms.
"Lily! I am surprised at you!"
"Surprised at me, aunty! Why? Because you have broken Pompey's leg? I didn't do it, it was you. Supposing he should die? You know what a delicate constitution he always had."
"It is quite possible the injury is less serious than we suppose"; this the gentleman suggested in a consoling kind of way, "though"--here some one gave the dog a pinch, and the dog gave expression to his feelings in a howl--"though decidedly he seems in pain. I think that I had better go on with him straight to the house."
"Lily! I insist upon your coming here."
Miss Truscott did as she was told. With meek face and downcast eyes she fell in decorously by the old lady's side. Mr. Summers, ignored and snubbed, but still triumphant, bore Pompey away in front.
"Lily, what is the meaning of all this?"
"I think you must have let Pompey fall, and then have kicked him when he fell. I cannot see how you can have done it; you are so careful as a rule."
"I am not speaking about the dog; you know that very well. I am speaking of the--the extraordinary scene I interrupted."
"Willy was telling me that he loved me."
"Willy was telling you what! And who is Willy, pray?"
"Willy is Mr. Summers's Christian name."
"Lily, are you stark, raving mad? Have you forgotten what happened yesterday? Are you aware that it is not four-and-twenty hours since you promised Mr. Frederic Ely to be his wife?"
"Yes, auntie; but I have changed my mind."
"You have--what?"
"I have changed my mind."
Mrs. Clive was so overcome that she sank down on a grassy bank which they were passing. It was a thing she had not done for years. She was always under the impression that the grass was damp--even when it burned you as you touched it with the palm of your hand.
"Lily, either you are mad or I must be. Changed your mind! Do you think that in such a matter it is possible for a woman to change her mind?"
"It would seem to be, wouldn't it? Especially when you look at me."
"You treat it as a jest! The most astounding behaviour I ever heard of! I don't wish to forget myself if you have done so; I simply call it the most astounding behaviour I ever heard of! A niece of mine!"
"Perhaps that's it. I--I have such a remarkable aunt."
The temptation was irresistible, but the effect was serious. For some moments Mrs. Clive sat speechless with indignation. Then she rose from the mossy bank and walked away without a word. Left behind, Miss Truscott covered her face with her hands and laughed--a little guiltily, it seemed. Then she went after. So the march to the house resolved itself into a procession of three.
In the meantime Mr. Ely was dreaming of his love. It sounds contradictory at first, bearing in mind that he was not a man of sentiment; but the fact was that in his case absence made the heart grow distinctly fonder. By the time he reached Ryde Miss Truscott occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of all else; he never even troubled himself about the purchase of a paper--which was fortunate, for at that hour none had yet arrived from town, and to him the local prints were loathsome. All the way on the boat he dreamed--yes, literally dreamed--of the girl he left behind him. More than once, incredible though it may appear, he sighed.
"She don't care for me a snap, not a single rap, by Jove she don't!"
He sighed when he said this, for, for some occult reason, the idea did not seem to amuse him so much as it had done last night.
"I don't know why she shouldn't, though. Perhaps she thought I didn't want her. More I didn't then, though I don't see why she shouldn't if I did. I know how to make a girl like me as well as any man--look at the Rosenbaums!"
He sighed again. It was "look at the Rosenbaums," indeed! When he thought of those six young women, with their well-developed noses and the fringe of hair upon their upper lips, and of their twice-hammered father, and then of Miss Truscott, that vision of a fair woman, with her noble bearing, her lovely face, and her wondrous eyes, the contrast went deeply home. He felt that he was a lucky--and yet not altogether a lucky--man.
"She's going to be my wife, that's one thing, anyhow."
The Isle of Wight is a great place for honeymoons. It lends itself naturally to couples in a certain phase of their existence. Such a couple were on board the boat with Mr. Ely. Their demeanour was tender towards each other.
"Couple of idiots!" said Mr. Ely to himself as he observed this pair; "it makes a man feel ill to look at them!"
She was a pretty girl, and he was not an ugly man; she hung upon his arm and looked into his eyes. It was plain the honeymoon was not yet done for them. In spite of his disgust, Mr. Ely found himself thinking, almost unconsciously, of another figure and of another pair of eyes--of that other figure hanging upon his arm, and of that other pair of eyes looking into his. He sighed again.
"She doesn't care for me a snap, by Jove!"
Instead of amusing him, it seemed that this reflection began to give him pain. The little man looked quite disconsolate.
"I'll make her, though! I will! If--if it costs me a thousand pounds!"
He had been on the point of stating the cost he was willing to incur at a much higher sum than this. He had been on the very verge of saying that he would make her care for him if it cost him every penny he had. But prudence stepped in, and he limited the amount to be squandered to a thousand pounds, which was not so bad for a man who did not believe in sentiment. But a singular change had come over him between Shanklin and Stokes Bay.
The change was emphasised by a little encounter which he had with a friend in the train. He had taken his seat in the corner of a carriage, when the door was darkened by a big, stout man, who was all hair and whiskers and gorgeous apparel.
"What, Ely! My boy, is it bossible it is you!
"Rosenbaum! What the devil brings you here?"
"Ah! what the teffel is it brings you?"
Mr. Rosenbaum spoke with a decidedly German accent. He settled himself in the seat in front of Mr. Ely, and beamed at him, all jewellery and smiles. It was as though some one had applied a cold douche to the small of Mr. Ely's back. He was dreaming of the sweetest eyes, and his too-friendly six-daughtered friend--the man who had been hammered twice!--appeared upon the scene. It was a shock. But Mr. Rosenbaum seemed beamingly unconscious of anything of the kind. The train started, and he began a conversation--which rather hung fire, by the way.
"It is some time since we have seen you in Queen's Gate."
Queen's Gate was where Mr. Rosenbaum resided. After each "hammering"--mysterious process!--he had moved into a larger house. It had been first Earl's Court, then Cromwell Road, and now Queen's Gate.
"Been so much engaged."
Mr. Rosenbaum was smoking a huge cigar, and kept puffing out great clouds of smoke. Mr. Ely was engaged on a smaller article, which scarcely produced any smoke at all. They had the compartment to themselves; Mr. Ely would rather have seen it full. He knew his friend.
"Miriam has missed you."
Miriam was the eldest of the six: the one whose nose and moustache were most developed; a sprightly maiden of thirty or thirty-one. "So has Leah."
Leah was a year or so younger than her sister, and quite as keen.
Mr. Ely drew in his lips. He had once played cards with Miss Leah Rosenbaum, and detected her in the act of cheating. He admired the woman of business, but regretted his eighteenpence.
"I've no doubt she has."
"That's a fine girl, Leah! A smart girl, too." Mr. Ely had not the slightest doubt of her "smartness," not the least. "She'll be a fortune to any man. She's very fond of you."
Mr. Ely was certainly not fond of her, but he could scarcely say so to her father's face. So he kept still.
"Rachel, she miss you too."
Silence. Mr. Ely saw plainly that he was going to be missed by all the six. Since he could not escape from the train while it was travelling at the rate of forty miles an hour, the only course open was to sit still and say as little as he could. He knew his friend too well to suppose that anything he could say would induce him to turn the conversation into other channels. The fond father went blandly on.
"She say you gave her a little gift, eh? That so?"
"Never gave her anything in my life."
"No! She says you gave her a lock of your hair; it was little to you, it was much to her. Rachel, she treasures up these little things. She show it me one day; she says she keep it here."
Mr. Rosenbaum patted his waistcoat in the region where his heart might anatomically be supposed to be.
"I tell you what it is, Rosenbaum, your girls are like their father, smart."
"We're not fools," admitted Mr. Rosenbaum.
"One night, when I was asleep on the couch in that back room of yours in Cromwell Road--before you failed last time"--it is within the range of possibility that this allusion was meant to sting, but Mr. Rosenbaum smoked blandly on--"that girl of yours cut off some of my hair, and drew blood in doing it, by George!"
"Ah! she says you give it her--from sympathy, my friend. She admire you very much, that girl."
Mr. Ely kept silence. If there was any one of the six he disliked more than the others it was the young lady whom her father said admired him very much--Miss Rachel Rosenbaum. Some fathers, if they had had the names of three of their daughters received in this rather frigid way, would have changed the subject perhaps. But if Mr. Rosenbaum had not been a persevering man, his address would not have been Queen's Gate. Besides, Mrs. Rosenbaum was dead, and he had to act the parts of mother and father too. And there were six.
"Judith, she miss you too."
This was the fourth; there still were two to follow. Mr. Ely resolved to have a little plunge upon his own account.
"Doing anything in Unified?"
Mr. Rosenbaum looked at him, puffed out a cloud of smoke, and smiled. "I say, Judith, she miss you too."
"And I said, 'Doing anything in Unified?'"
Mr. Rosenbaum leaned forward and laid his great, fat, jewelled hand on Mr. Ely's knee. "Now, my friend, there is a girl for you; plump, tender--what an eye!"
"And what a nose! And a moustache!" was on Mr. Ely's lips, but he refrained.
"That girl just twenty-four, and she weigh a hundred and seventy pound--she do credit to any man. And, my goodness, how she is fond of you, my boy!"
A vision passed before Mr. Ely's mental eye of the girl whom he had left behind. And then he thought of the young lady whose chief qualification was that she weighed a hundred and seventy pounds at twenty-four.
"She not a worrying girl, that Judith; that's the sort of wife for a man to have who wants to live an easy life. She let him do just what he please, and never say a word."
Mr. Ely fidgeted in his seat. "I say, Rosenbaum, I wish you'd try some other theme."
Mr. Rosenbaum held up his fat forefinger, with its half a dozen rings, and wagged it in Mr. Ely's face. "But the great point is Sarah, my good friend; there is something between you and she."
"What the dickens do you mean?"
"Oh! you know what I mean. What passed between you on the river that fine day?"
"What fine day?"
"What fine day! So there has been more than one! That I did not know; the one it was enough for me."
"And upon my word, with all due respect to Miss Sarah Rosenbaum, it was enough for me."
"You did not kiss her, eh? You did not kiss her that fine day?"
"I don't know if I kissed her or she kissed me. I say, Rosenbaum, those girls of yours don't seem to keep many secrets from their father."
"That is as good a girl as ever lived; you will do justice to her, eh?"
"I hope I should do justice to every girl."
"So! That is it! You would marry half a dozen, perhaps!"
"By George, I don't believe you'd offer any objection if I wanted to!"
Mr. Rosenbaum sat back in his seat. Apparently this observation did go home. He appeared to reflect, but he showed that he was by no means beaten by suddenly discovering a fresh attack.
"My good friend, you think you are a clever man. I allow you are no fool, but you have met your match in me."
In his secret heart Mr. Ely was quite willing to allow the fact.
"You have played with my six daughters--very good! You have trifled with their hearts. I say not any word, but there is one of them you must marry, and Ruth is she."
Mr. Ely was silent. He kept his eyes cast down. Mr. Rosenbaum, on the other hand, kept his eyes fixed upon his good friend's face.
"Come, I am her father. When is it to be?"
Then Mr. Ely did look up. The two friends' glances met; Mr. Ely certainly did not flinch.
"It won't do; try some other lay."
"What you mean--try some other lay?"
"Mean what I say."
"You never asked her to marry you?"
"I swear I never did."
"You never gave her to understand that you wished her for your wife, eh?"
"I'm not responsible for her understanding."
"So--that is it!--I see! Griffith of Tokenhouse Yard is your solicitor--not so?"
Mr. Rosenbaum took out a note-book and a pencil-case.
"What's it matter to you?"
"My good friend, it matters this. Before we reach Waterloo you tell me the day on which you marry Ruth, or to-morrow a writ issues for breach of promise."
"Issue fifty writs for all I care."
"You have played hanky-panky with my six daughters, but we have you on the last; at least, we'll see."
"I guess we will. Take my advice, Rosenbaum, and don't you be a fool. I never asked your daughter in my life to marry me."
"We'll talk of that a little later on. There is a letter and some other little things which will make a sensation when they are produced in Court. You understand that it is my duty to see that you do not break my daughter's heart."
"Which of them? All six?"
"At present it is with Ruth we are concerned."
"Oh, Ruth be hanged!"
With that observation the conversation closed. The remainder of the journey passed in silence. But when they reached Waterloo Mr. Rosenbaum remarked--
"Well, my friend, what is it to be? Will you name the day?"
"Name your grandmother!" Mr. Ely courteously rejoined. And with that courteous rejoinder he left the train.