I wish I could reproduce the tone in which my aunt uttered my name! it would cause the edges of the sheet of paper on which I am writing to curl.
Another source of annoyance was the manner in which the red-faced gentleman persisted in sticking to us, like a limpet--as if he were a member of the party. Jane and Ellen kept themselves glued together. On Ellen"s right was Daniel Dyer, and on Jane"s left was the red-faced gentleman. This was a condition of affairs of which my aunt strongly disapproved. She remonstrated with the stranger, but without the least effect. I tried my hand on him, and failed. He was the best-tempered and thickest-skinned individual I ever remember to have met.
"It"s this way," I explained--he needed a deal of explanation. "This lady has brought these people for a little pleasure excursion to town, for the day only; and, as these young ladies are in her sole charge, she feels herself responsible for them. So would you just mind leaving us?"
It seemed that he did mind; though he showed no signs of having his feelings hurt by the suggestion, as some persons might have done.
"Don"t you worry, governor; I"ll help her look after "em. I"ve looked after a few people in my time, so the young lady can trust me--can"t you, miss?"
Jane giggled. My impression is that my aunt felt like shaking her. But just then I made a discovery.
"Hallo! Where"s the youngster?"
My aunt twirled herself round.
"Stephen! Goodness! where has that boy gone to?"
Jane looked through the gla.s.s which ran all along one side of the corridor.
"Why, miss, there"s Stephen Treen over in that crowd there."
"Go and fetch him back this instant."
I believe that my aunt spoke without thinking. It did seem to me that Jane showed an almost criminal eagerness to obey her. Off she flew into the grounds, through the great door which was wide open close at hand, with Ellen still glued to her arm, and Daniel Dyer at her heels, and the red-faced gentleman after him. Almost in a moment they became melted, as it were, into the crowd and were lost to view. My aunt peered after them through her gla.s.ses.
"I can"t see Stephen Treen--can you?"
"No, aunt, I can"t. I doubt if Jane could, either."
"Thomas! What do you mean? She said she did."
"Ah! there are people who"ll say anything. I think you"ll find that, for a time, at any rate, you"ve got three more members of the party off your hands."
"Thomas! How can you talk like that? After bringing us to this dreadful place! Go after those benighted girls at once, and bring them back, and that wretched Daniel Dyer, and that miserable child, and Matthew Holman, too."
It struck me, from her manner, that my aunt was hovering on the verge of hysterics. When I was endeavouring to explain how it was that I did not see my way to start off, then and there, in a sort of general hunt, an official, sauntering up, took a bird"s-eye view of Mrs. Penna.
"Hallo, old lady what"s the matter with you? Aren"t you well?"
"No, I be not well--I be dying. Take me home and let me die upon my bed."
"So bad as that, is it? What"s the trouble?"
"I"ve been up all night and all day, and little to eat and naught to drink, and I be lame."
"Lame, are you?" The official turned to my aunt. "You know you didn"t ought to bring a lame old lady into a crowd like this."
"I didn"t bring her. My nephew brought us all."
"Then the sooner, I should say, your nephew takes you all away again, the better."
The official took himself off. Mr. Poltifen made a remark. His tone was a trifle sour.
"I cannot say that I think we are spending a profitable and pleasurable day in London. I understood that the object which we had in view was to make researches into d.i.c.kens"s London, or I should not have brought my books."
The "parish idiot" began to moan.
"I be that hungry--I be! I be!"
"Here," I cried: "here"s half-a-crown for you. Go to that refreshment-stall and cram yourself with penny buns to bursting point."
Off started Sammy Trevenna; he had sense enough to catch my meaning. My aunt called after him.
"Sammy! You mustn"t leave us. Wait until we come."
But Sammy declined. When, hurrying after him, catching him by the shoulder, she sought to detain him, he positively showed signs of fight.
Oh! it was a delightful day! Enjoyable from start to finish. Somehow I got Mrs. Penna, with my aunt and the remnant, into the main building and planted them on chairs, and provided them with buns and similar dainties, and instructed them not, on any pretext, to budge from where they were until I returned with the truants, of whom, straightway, I went in search. I do not mind admitting that I commenced by paying a visit to a refreshment-bar upon my own account--I needed something to support me. Nor, having comforted the inner man, did I press forward on my quest with undue haste. Exactly as I expected, I found Jane and Ellen in a sheltered alcove in the grounds, with Daniel Dyer on one side, the red-faced gentleman on the other, and Master Stephen Treen nowhere to be seen. The red-faced gentleman"s friendship with Jane had advanced so rapidly that when I suggested her prompt return to my aunt, he considered himself ent.i.tled to object with such vehemence that he actually took his coat off and invited me to fight. But I was not to be browbeaten by him; and, having made it clear that if he attempted to follow I should call the police, I marched off in triumph with my prizes, only to discover that the young women had tongues of their own, with examples of whose capacity they favoured me as we proceeded. I believe that if I had been my aunt, I should, then and there, have boxed their ears.
My aunt received us with a countenance of such gloom that I immediately perceived that something frightful must have occurred.
"Thomas!" she exclaimed, "I have been robbed!"
"Robbed? My dear aunt! Of what--your umbrella?"
"Of everything!"
"Of everything? I hope it"s not so bad as that."
"It is. I have been robbed of purse, money, tickets, everything, down to my pocket-handkerchief and bunch of keys."
It was the fact--she had. Her pocket, containing all she possessed--out of Cornwall--had been cut out of her dress and carried clean away. It was a very neat piece of work, as the police agreed when we laid the case before them. They observed that, of course, they would do their best, but they did not think there was much likelihood of any of the stolen property being regained; adding that, in a crowd like that, people ought to look after their pockets, which was cold comfort for my aunt, and rounded the day off nicely.
Ticketless, moneyless, returning to Cornwall that night was out of the question. I put "the party" up. My aunt had my bed, Mrs. Penna was accommodated in the same room, the others somewhere and somehow. I camped out. In the morning, the telegraph being put in motion, funds were forthcoming, and "the party" started on its homeward way. The railway authorities would listen to nothing about lost excursion tickets. My aunt had to pay full fare--twenty-one and twopence halfpenny--for each. I can still see her face as she paid.
Two days afterwards Master Stephen Treen and Mr. Matthew Holman were reported found by the police, Mr. Holman showing marked signs of a distinct relapse from grace. My aunt had to pay for their being sent home. The next day she received, through the post, in an unpaid envelope, the lost excursion tickets. No comment accompanied them. Her visiting-card was in the purse; evidently the thief, having no use for old excursion tickets, had availed himself of it to send them back to her. She has them to this day, and never looks at them without a qualm.
That was her first excursion; she tells me that never, under any circ.u.mstances, will she try another.
The Irregularity of the Juryman
Chapter I
THE JURYMAN IS STARTLED
His first feeling was one of annoyance. All-round annoyance.