Oh, foolish, panting, timid little heart, why did she feign to be unconscious of his coming! Why wish herself so far away, yet be so flutteringly happy there!
"I felt sure it was you," said John, when he overtook her in the sanctuary of Garden Court. "I knew I couldn"t be mistaken."
She was SO surprised.
"You are waiting for your brother," said John. "Let me bear you company."
So light was the touch of the coy little hand, that he glanced down to a.s.sure himself he had it on his arm. But his glance, stopping for an instant at the bright eyes, forgot its first design, and went no farther.
They walked up and down three or four times, speaking about Tom and his mysterious employment. Now that was a very natural and innocent subject, surely. Then why, whenever Ruth lifted up her eyes, did she let them fall again immediately, and seek the uncongenial pavement of the court?
They were not such eyes as shun the light; they were not such eyes as require to be h.o.a.rded to enhance their value. They were much too precious and too genuine to stand in need of arts like those. Somebody must have been looking at them!
They found out Tom, though, quickly enough. This pair of eyes descried him in the distance, the moment he appeared. He was staring about him, as usual, in all directions but the right one; and was as obstinate in not looking towards them, as if he had intended it. As it was plain that, being left to himself, he would walk away home, John Westlock darted off to stop him.
This made the approach of poor little Ruth, by herself, one of the most embarra.s.sing of circ.u.mstances. There was Tom, manifesting extreme surprise (he had no presence of mind, that Tom, on small occasions); there was John, making as light of it as he could, but explaining at the same time with most unnecessary elaboration; and here was she, coming towards them, with both of them looking at her, conscious of blushing to a terrible extent, but trying to throw up her eyebrows carelessly, and pout her rosy lips, as if she were the coolest and most unconcerned of little women.
Merrily the fountain plashed and plashed, until the dimples, merging into one another, swelled into a general smile, that covered the whole surface of the basin.
"What an extraordinary meeting!" said Tom. "I should never have dreamed of seeing you two together here."
"Quite accidental," John was heard to murmur.
"Exactly," cried Tom; "that"s what I mean, you know. If it wasn"t accidental, there would be nothing remarkable in it."
"To be sure," said John.
"Such an out-of-the-way place for you to have met in," pursued Tom, quite delighted. "Such an unlikely spot!"
John rather disputed that. On the contrary, he considered it a very likely spot, indeed. He was constantly pa.s.sing to and fro there, he said. He shouldn"t wonder if it were to happen again. His only wonder was, that it had never happened before.
By this time Ruth had got round on the farther side of her brother, and had taken his arm. She was squeezing it now, as much as to say "Are you going to stop here all day, you dear, old, blundering Tom?"
Tom answered the squeeze as if it had been a speech. "John," he said, "if you"ll give my sister your arm, we"ll take her between us, and walk on. I have a curious circ.u.mstance to relate to you. Our meeting could not have happened better."
Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh against the basin"s rim, and vanished.
"Tom," said his friend, as they turned into the noisy street, "I have a proposition to make. It is, that you and your sister--if she will so far honour a poor bachelor"s dwelling--give me a great pleasure, and come and dine with me."
"What, to-day?" cried Tom.
"Yes, to-day. It"s close by, you know. Pray, Miss Pinch, insist upon it.
It will be very disinterested, for I have nothing to give you."
"Oh! you must not believe that, Ruth," said Tom. "He is the most tremendous fellow, in his housekeeping, that I ever heard of, for a single man. He ought to be Lord Mayor. Well! what do you say? Shall we go?"
"If you please, Tom," rejoined his dutiful little sister.
"But I mean," said Tom, regarding her with smiling admiration; "is there anything you ought to wear, and haven"t got? I am sure I don"t know, John; she may not be able to take her bonnet off, for anything I can tell."
There was a great deal of laughing at this, and there were divers compliments from John Westlock--not compliments HE said at least (and really he was right), but good, plain, honest truths, which no one could deny. Ruth laughed, and all that, but she made no objection; so it was an engagement.
"If I had known it a little sooner," said John, "I would have tried another pudding. Not in rivalry; but merely to exalt that famous one. I wouldn"t on any account have had it made with suet."
"Why not?" asked Tom.
"Because that cookery-book advises suet," said John Westlock; "and ours was made with flour and eggs."
"Oh good gracious!" cried Tom. "Ours was made with flour and eggs, was it? Ha, ha, ha! A beefsteak pudding made with flour and eggs! Why anybody knows better than that. I know better than that! Ha, ha, ha!"
It is unnecessary to say that Tom had been present at the making of the pudding, and had been a devoted believer in it all through. But he was so delighted to have this joke against his busy little sister and was tickled to that degree at having found her out, that he stopped in Temple Bar to laugh; and it was no more to Tom, that he was anathematized and knocked about by the surly pa.s.sengers, than it would have been to a post; for he continued to exclaim with unabated good humour, "flour and eggs! A beefsteak pudding made with flour and eggs!"
until John Westlock and his sister fairly ran away from him, and left him to have his laugh out by himself; which he had, and then came dodging across the crowded street to them, with such sweet temper and tenderness (it was quite a tender joke of Tom"s) beaming in his face, G.o.d bless it, that it might have purified the air, though Temple Bar had been, as in the golden days gone by, embellished with a row of rotting human heads.
There are snug chambers in those Inns where the bachelors live, and, for the desolate fellows they pretend to be, it is quite surprising how well they get on. John was very pathetic on the subject of his dreary life, and the deplorable makeshifts and apologetic contrivances it involved, but he really seemed to make himself pretty comfortable. His rooms were the perfection of neatness and convenience at any rate; and if he were anything but comfortable, the fault was certainly not theirs.
He had no sooner ushered Tom and his sister into his best room (where there was a beautiful little vase of fresh flowers on the table, all ready for Ruth. Just as if he had expected her, Tom said), than, seizing his hat, he bustled out again, in his most energetically bustling, way; and presently came hurrying back, as they saw through the half-opened door, attended by a fiery-faced matron attired in a crunched bonnet, with particularly long strings to it hanging down her back; in conjunction with whom he instantly began to lay the cloth for dinner, polishing up the wine-gla.s.ses with his own hands, brightening the silver top of the pepper-caster on his coat-sleeve, drawing corks and filling decanters, with a skill and expedition that were quite dazzling. And as if, in the course of this rubbing and polishing, he had rubbed an enchanted lamp or a magic ring, obedient to which there were twenty thousand supernatural slaves at least, suddenly there appeared a being in a white waistcoat, carrying under his arm a napkin, and attended by another being with an oblong box upon his head, from which a banquet, piping hot, was taken out and set upon the table.
Salmon, lamb, peas, innocent young potatoes, a cool salad, sliced cuc.u.mber, a tender duckling, and a tart--all there. They all came at the right time. Where they came from, didn"t appear; but the oblong box was constantly going and coming, and making its arrival known to the man in the white waistcoat by b.u.mping modestly against the outside of the door; for, after its first appearance, it entered the room no more. He was never surprised, this man; he never seemed to wonder at the extraordinary things he found in the box, but took them out with a face expressive of a steady purpose and impenetrable character, and put them on the table. He was a kind man; gentle in his manners, and much interested in what they ate and drank. He was a learned man, and knew the flavour of John Westlock"s private sauces, which he softly and feelingly described, as he handed the little bottles round. He was a grave man, and a noiseless; for dinner being done, and wine and fruit arranged upon the board, he vanished, box and all, like something that had never been.
"Didn"t I say he was a tremendous fellow in his housekeeping?" cried Tom. "Bless my soul! It"s wonderful."
"Ah, Miss Pinch," said John. "This is the bright side of the life we lead in such a place. It would be a dismal life, indeed, if it didn"t brighten up to-day"
"Don"t believe a word he says," cried Tom. "He lives here like a monarch, and wouldn"t change his mode of life for any consideration. He only pretends to grumble."
No, John really did not appear to pretend; for he was uncommonly earnest in his desire to have it understood that he was as dull, solitary, and uncomfortable on ordinary occasions as an unfortunate young man could, in reason, be. It was a wretched life, he said, a miserable life. He thought of getting rid of the chambers as soon as possible; and meant, in fact, to put a bill up very shortly.
"Well" said Tom Pinch, "I don"t know where you can go, John, to be more comfortable. That"s all I can say. What do YOU say, Ruth?"
Ruth trifled with the cherries on her plate, and said that she thought Mr Westlock ought to be quite happy, and that she had no doubt he was.
Ah, foolish, panting, frightened little heart, how timidly she said it!
"But you are forgetting what you had to tell, Tom; what occurred this morning," she added in the same breath.
"So I am," said Tom. "We have been so talkative on other topics that I declare I have not had time to think of it. I"ll tell it you at once, John, in case I should forget it altogether."
On Tom"s relating what had pa.s.sed upon the wharf, his friend was very much surprised, and took such a great interest in the narrative as Tom could not quite understand. He believed he knew the old lady whose acquaintance they had made, he said; and that he might venture to say, from their description of her, that her name was Gamp. But of what nature the communication could have been which Tom had borne so unexpectedly; why its delivery had been entrusted to him; how it happened that the parties were involved together; and what secret lay at the bottom of the whole affair; perplexed him very much. Tom had been sure of his taking some interest in the matter; but was not prepared for the strong interest he showed. It held John Westlock to the subject even after Ruth had left the room; and evidently made him anxious to pursue it further than as a mere subject of conversation.
"I shall remonstrate with my landlord, of course," said Tom; "though he is a very singular secret sort of man, and not likely to afford me much satisfaction; even if he knew what was in the letter."
"Which you may swear he did," John interposed.
"You think so?"
"I am certain of it."
"Well!" said Tom, "I shall remonstrate with him when I see him (he goes in and out in a strange way, but I will try to catch him tomorrow morning), on his having asked me to execute such an unpleasant commission. And I have been thinking, John, that if I went down to Mrs What"s-her-name"s in the City, where I was before, you know--Mrs Todgers"s--to-morrow morning, I might find poor Mercy Pecksniff there, perhaps, and be able to explain to her how I came to have any hand in the business."