The Professor then became demonstratively absorbed in the Sabellians, or Bopsius, or both, and Laet.i.tia acted as instructed, but without coming on the newspaper-paragraph. She couldn"t ask for a clue after so broad a hint, so she had to be contented with supposing her father referred to the return of Sir Charles Penderfield, Bart., as a Home Rule Unionist and Protectionist Free Trader. Only if it was that, it was the first she had ever known of her father being aware of the Bart."s admiration for herself. So she made the tea, and waited till the pen-scratching stopped, and the Sabellians or Bopsius were blotted, glanced through, and ratified.
"There, that"ll do for that, I suppose." His tone surrendered the grievance as an act of liberality, but maintained the principle.
"Well, have we found it?"
"Found what?"
"The heroic rescue--at your place--Saint Somebody--Saint Sena.n.u.s...."
"No! Do show me that." Laet.i.tia forms a mental image of a lifeboat going out to a wreck. How excited Sally must have been!
"Here, give it me and I"ll find it.... Yes--that"s right--a big lump and a little lump. I"m to take less sugar because of gout. Very good!
Oh ... yes ... here we are. "Heroic Rescue at St. Sennans" ... just under "Startling Elopement at Clapham Rise".... Got it?"
Laet.i.tia supplied the cup of tea, poured one for herself, and took the paper from her father without the slightest suspicion of what was coming. "It will have to wait a minute till I"ve had some tea," she said. "I"m as thirsty as I can be. I"ve been to see my mother-in-law and Constance"--this was Julius"s sister--"off to Southend. And just fancy, papa; Pag and I played from nine till a quarter-to-one last night, and he never felt it, nor had any headache nor anything." The topic is so interesting that the unread paragraph has to wait.
The Professor cannot think of any form of perversion better than "Very discreditable to him. I hope you blew him well up?"
"Now, papa, don"t be nonsensical! Do you know, I"m really beginning to believe Pag"s right, and it _was_ the little galvanic battery.
Shouldn"t you say so, though, seriously?"
"Why, yes. If there wasn"t a big galvanic battery, it must have been the little one. It stands to reason. But _what_ does my musical son-in-law think was the little galvanic battery?"
"Oh dear, papa, how ridiculous you are! Why, of course, his nerves going away--as they really _have_ done, you know; and I can"t see any good pretending they haven"t. Yesterday was the fourth evening he hasn"t felt them...."
"Stop a bit! There is a lack of scientific precision in the structure of your sentences. A young married woman ought really to be more accurate. Now let"s look it over, and do a little considering.
I gather, in the first place, that my son-in-law"s nerves going away was, or were, a little galvanic battery...."
"Dear papa, don"t paradox and catch me out. Just this once, be reasonable! Think what a glorious thing it would be for us if his nerves _had_ gone for good. Another cup? Was the last one right?"
"My position is peculiar. (Yes, the tea was all right.) I find myself requested to be reasonable, and to embark on a career of reasonableness by considering the substantial advantages to my daughter and her husband of the disappearance of his nervous system...."
"Oh, I wish you wouldn"t! _Do_ be serious...." The Professor looked at her reflectively as he drank the cup of tea, and it seemed to dawn on him slowly that his daughter _was_ serious. The fact is, Tishy was very serious indeed, and was longing for sympathy over a matter for great elation. She and Julius had been purposely playing continuously for long hours to test the apparent suspension or cessation of his nervous affection, and had not so far seen a sign of a return; but they were dreadfully afraid of counting their chickens in advance.
"I noticed the other evening"--the Professor has surrendered, and become serious--"that Julius wasn"t any the worse, and he had played a long time. What should you do?" Tishy looked inquiringly. "Well, I mean what steps could be taken if it were...?"
"If we could trust to it? Oh, no difficulty at all! Any number of engagements directly."
"It would please your mother." Tishy cannot help a pa.s.sing thought on the oddity of her parents" relations to one another. Even though he spoke of the Dragon as a connexion of his daughter he was but little concerned with, the first thought that crossed his mind was a sort of satisfaction under protest that she would have something to be pleased about. Tishy wondered whether she and Julius would end up like that. Of course they wouldn"t! What pity people"s parents were so unreasonable!
"Yes; mamma wouldn"t be at all sorry. Fiddlers are not Baronets, but anything is better than haberdashing. _I"m_ not ashamed of it, you know." She had subjected herself gratuitously to her own suspicion that she might be, and resented it.
Her father looked at her with an amused face; looked down at these social fads of poor humanity from the height of his Olympus. If he knew anything about the Unionist Home Ruler"s aspirations for Laet.i.tia, he said nothing. Then he asked a natural question--what _was_ the little galvanic battery? Tishy gave her account of it, but before she had done the Professor was thinking about Sabines or Lucanians. The fact is that Tishy was never at her best with her father. She was always so anxious to please him that she tumbled over her own anxiety, and in this present case didn"t tell her story as well as she might have done. He began considering how he could get back to the shreds of Bopsius, if any were left, and looked at his watch.
"Well, that was very funny--very funny!" said he absently. "Now, don"t forget the heroic rescue before you go."
Tishy perceived the delicate hint, and picked up the paper with "I declare I was forgetting all about it!" But she had scarcely cast her eyes on it when she gave a cry. "Oh, papa, papa; it"s _Sally_! Oh dear!" And then: "Oh dear, oh dear! I can hardly see to make it out.
But I"m sure she"s all right! They say so." And kept on trying to read. Her father did what was, under the circ.u.mstances, the best thing to do--took the paper from her, and as she sank back with a beating heart and flushed face on the chair she had just risen from read the paragraph to her as follows:
"HEROIC RESCUE FROM DROWNING AT ST. SENNANS-ON-SEA.--Early this morning, as Mr. Algernon Fenwick, of Shepherd"s Bush, at present on a visit at the old town, was walking on the pier-end, at the point where there is no rail or rope for the security of the public, his foot slipped, and he was precipitated into the sea, a height of at least ten feet. Not being a swimmer, his life was for some minutes in the greatest danger; but fortunately for him his stepdaughter, Miss Rosalind Nightingale, whose daring and brilliant feats in swimming have been for some weeks past the admiration and envy of all the visitors to the bathing quarter of this most attractive of south-coast watering-places, was close at hand, and without a moment"s hesitation plunged in to his rescue. Enc.u.mbered as she was by clothing, she was nevertheless able to keep Mr. Fenwick above water, and ultimately to reach a life-buoy that was thrown from the pier. Unfortunately, having established Mr. Fenwick in a position of safety, she thought her best course would be to return to the pier. She was unable in the end to reach it, and her strength giving way, she was picked up, after an immersion of more than twenty minutes, by the boats that put off from the sh.o.r.e. It will readily be imagined that a scene of great excitement ensued, and that a period of most painful anxiety followed, for it was not till nearly four hours afterwards that, thanks to the skill and a.s.siduity of Dr. Fergus Maccoll, of 22A, Albion Crescent, a.s.sisted by Dr. Vereker, of London, the young lady showed signs of life. We are happy to say that the latest bulletins appear to point to a speedy and complete recovery, with no worse consequences than a bad fright. We understand that the expediency of placing a proper railing at all dangerous points on the pier is being made the subject of a numerously signed pet.i.tion to the Town Council."
"That seems all right," said the Professor. And he said nothing further, but remained rubbing his shaved surface in a sort of compromising way--a way that invited or permitted exception to be taken to his remark.
"All right? Yes, but--oh, papa, do think what might have happened!
They might both have been drowned."
"But they weren"t!"
"Of course they weren"t! But they _might_ have been."
"Well, it would have proved that people are best away from the seaside.
Not that any further proof is necessary. Now, good-bye, my dear; I must get back to my work."
That afternoon Julius Bradshaw went on a business mission to Cornhill, and was detained in the city till past five o"clock. It was then too late to return to the office, as six was the closing hour; so he decided on the Twopenny Tube to Lancaster Gate, the nearest point to home. There was a great shouting of evening papers round the opening into the bowels of the earth at the corner of the Bank, and Julius"s attention was caught by an unearthly boy with a strange accent.
""Mail and Echo," third edition, all the latest news for a "apeny.
Fullest partic"lars in my copies. Alderman froze to death on the Halps. Shocking neglect of twins. "Oxton man biles his third wife alive. Cricket this day--Surrey going strong. More about heroic rescue from drowning at St. Senna"s. Full and ack"rate partic"lars in my copies only. Catch hold!..." Julius caught hold, and thought the boy amusing. Conversation followed, during cash settlements.
"Who"s been heroically rescued?"
"Friend of mine--young lady--fished her governor out--got drownded over it herself, and was brought to. "Mail" a "apeny; torkin" a penny extra! Another "apeny." Julius acquiesced, but felt ent.i.tled to more talking.
"Where was it?"
"St. Senna"s, where they make the lectury--black stuff.... Yes, it _was_ a friend o" mine, mister, so I tell you, and no lies! Miss Rosalind Nightingale. I see her in the fog round Piccadilly way....
No, no lies at all! Told me her name of her own accord, and went indoors." Julius would have tried to get to the bottom of this if he had not been so taken aback by it, even at the cost of more pence for conversation; but by the time he had found that his informant had certainly read the paragraph, or at least mastered Sally"s name right, the boy had vanished. Of course, he was the boy with the gap in his teeth that she had seen in the fog when Colonel Lund was dying. We can only hope that his shrewdness and prudence in worldly matters have since brought him the success they deserve, as his disappearance was final.
Even the Twopenny Tube was too slow for Julius Bradshaw, so mad was he with impatience to get to Georgiana Terrace. When he got there, and went upstairs two steps at a time, and "I say, Tishy dearest, look at _this_!" on his lips, he was met half-way by his young wife, also extending a newspaper, and "Paggy, just _fancy_ what"s happened! Look at _this_!"
They were so wild with excitement that they refused food--at least, when it took the form of second helpings--and when the banquet was over Laet.i.tia could do nothing but walk continually about the room with gleaming eyes and a flushed face waiting furiously for the post; for she was sure it would bring her a letter from Sally or her mother.
And she was right, for the rush to the street door that followed the postman"s knock resulted firstly in denunciations of an intransitive letter-box n.o.body but a fool would ever have tried to stuff all those into, and secondly in a pounce by Laet.i.tia on Sally"s own handwriting.
"You may just as well read it upstairs comfortably, Tish," says Julius, meanly affecting stoicism now that it is perfectly clear--for the arrival of the letter practically shows it--that n.o.body is incapacitated by the accident. "Come along up!"
"All right!" says his wife. "Why, mine"s written in pencil! Who"s yours from?"
"I haven"t opened it yet. Come along. Don"t be a goose!" This was a little cheap stoicism, worth deferring satisfaction of curiosity three minutes for.
"Whose handwriting is it?" She goes on devouring, intensely absorbed, though she speaks.
"It looks like the doctor"s."
"Of course! You"ll see directly.... All right, I"m coming!"
Take your last look at the Julius Bradshaws, as they settle down with animated faces to serious perusal of their letters. They may just as well drink their coffee, though, and Julius will presently light his cigar for anything we know to the contrary; but we shall not see it, for when we have transcribed the two letters they are reading we shall lay down our pen, and then, if you want to know any more about the people in this story, you must inquire of the originals, all of whom are still living except Dr. Vereker"s mother, who died last year, we believe. Here are the letters:
"MY DEAREST TISHY,