He not only saw me into a cab, but he saw me home in it. And in the cab he kissed me. I fancy I was a little out of sorts that night. My nervous system was, perhaps, demoralised. Because, when he kissed me, I did a thing which I never do,-I have my own standard of behaviour, and that sort of thing is quite outside of it; I behaved like a sentimental chit. I cried. And it took him all the way to my father"s door to comfort me.
I can only hope that, perceiving the singularity of the occasion, he consented to excuse me.
CHAPTER XXIV
A WOMAN"S VIEW
Sydney Atherton has asked me to be his wife. It is not only annoying; worse, it is absurd.
This is the result of Paul"s wish that our engagement should not be announced. He is afraid of papa;-not really, but for the moment. The atmosphere of the House is charged with electricity. Party feeling runs high. They are at each other, hammer and tongs, about this Agricultural Amendment Act. The strain on Paul is tremendous. I am beginning to feel positively concerned. Little things which I have noticed about him lately convince me that he is being overwrought. I suspect him of having sleepless nights. The amount of work which he has been getting through lately has been too much for any single human being, I care not who he is. He himself admits that he shall be glad when the session is at an end. So shall I.
In the meantime, it is his desire that nothing shall be said about our engagement until the House rises. It is reasonable enough. Papa is sure to be violent,-lately, the barest allusion to Paul"s name has been enough to make him explode. When the discovery does come, he will be unmanageable,-I foresee it clearly. From little incidents which have happened recently I predict the worst. He will be capable of making a scene within the precincts of the House. And, as Paul says, there is some truth in the saying that the last straw breaks the camel"s back. He will be better able to face papa"s wild wrath when the House has risen.
So the news is to bide a wee. Of course Paul is right. And what he wishes I wish too. Still, it is not all such plain sailing for me as he perhaps thinks. The domestic atmosphere is almost as electrical as that in the House. Papa is like the terrier who scents a rat,-he is always sniffing the air. He has not actually forbidden me to speak to Paul,-his courage is not quite at the sticking point; but he is constantly making uncomfortable allusions to persons who number among their acquaintance "political adventurers," "grasping carpet-baggers," "Radical riff- raff," and that kind of thing. Sometimes I venture to call my soul my own; but such a tempest invariably follows that I become discreet again as soon as I possibly can. So, as a rule, I suffer in silence.
Still, I would with all my heart that the concealment were at an end. No one need imagine that I am ashamed of being about to marry Paul,-papa least of all. On the contrary, I am as proud of it as a woman can be. Sometimes, when he has said or done something unusually wonderful, I fear that my pride will out,-I do feel it so strong within me. I should be delighted to have a trial of strength with papa; anywhere, at any time,-I should not be so rude to him as he would be to me. At the bottom of his heart papa knows that I am the more sensible of the two; after a pitched battle or so he would understand it better still. I know papa! I have not been his daughter for all these years in vain. I feel like hot-blooded soldiers must feel, who, burning to attack the enemy in the open field, are ordered to skulk behind hedges, and be shot at.
One result is that Sydney has actually made a proposal of marriage,-he of all people! It is too comical. The best of it was that he took himself quite seriously. I do not know how many times he has confided to me the sufferings which he has endured for love of other women-some of them, I am sorry to say, decent married women too; but this is the first occasion on which the theme has been a personal one. He was so frantic, as he is wont to be, that, to calm him, I told him about Paul,-which, under the circ.u.mstances, to him I felt myself at liberty to do. In return, he was melodramatic; hinting darkly at I know not what, I was almost cross with him.
He is a curious person, Sydney Atherton. I suppose it is because I have known him all my life, and have always looked upon him, in cases of necessity, as a capital subst.i.tute for a brother, that I criticise him with so much frankness. In some respects, he is a genius; in others-I will not write fool, for that he never is, though he has often done some extremely foolish things. The fame of his inventions is in the mouths of all men; though the half of them has never been told. He is the most extraordinary mixture. The things which most people would like to have proclaimed in the street, he keeps tightly locked in his own bosom; while those which the same persons would be only too glad to conceal, he shouts from the roofs. A very famous man once told me that if Mr Atherton chose to become a specialist, to take up one branch of inquiry, and devote his life to it, his fame, before he died, would bridge the spheres. But sticking to one thing is not in Sydney"s line at all. He prefers, like the bee, to roam from flower to flower.
As for his being in love with me; it is ridiculous. He is as much in love with the moon. I cannot think what has put the idea into his head. Some girl must have been ill-using him, or he imagines that she has. The girl whom he ought to marry, and whom he ultimately will marry, is Dora Grayling. She is young, charming, immensely rich, and over head and ears in love with him;-if she were not, then he would be over head and ears in love with her. I believe he is very near it as it is,-sometimes he is so very rude to her. It is a characteristic of Sydney"s, that he is apt to be rude to a girl whom he really likes. As for Dora, I suspect she dreams of him. He is tall, straight, very handsome, with a big moustache, and the most extraordinary eyes;-I fancy that those eyes of his have as much to do with Dora"s state as anything. I have heard it said that he possesses the hypnotic power to an unusual degree, and that, if he chose to exercise it, he might become a danger to society. I believe he has hypnotised Dora.
He makes an excellent brother. I have gone to him, many and many a time, for help,-and some excellent advice I have received. I daresay I shall consult him still. There are matters of which one would hardly dare to talk to Paul. In all things he is the great man. He could hardly condescend to chiffons. Now Sydney can and does. When he is in the mood, on the vital subject of tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs a woman could not appeal to a sounder authority. I tell him, if he had been a dressmaker, he would have been magnificent. I am sure he would.
CHAPTER XXV
THE MAN IN THE STREET
This morning I had an adventure.
I was in the breakfast-room. Papa, as usual, was late for breakfast, and I was wondering whether I should begin without him, when, chancing to look round, something caught my eye in the street. I went to the window to see what it was. A small crowd of people was in the middle of the road, and they were all staring at something which, apparently, was lying on the ground. What it was I could not see.
The butler happened to be in the room. I spoke to him.
"Peter, what is the matter in the street? Go and see."
He went and saw; and, presently, he returned. Peter is an excellent servant; but the fashion of his speech, even when conveying the most trivial information, is slightly sesquipedalian. He would have made a capital cabinet minister at question time,-he wraps up the smallest pet.i.tions of meaning in the largest possible words.
"An unfortunate individual appears to have been the victim of a catastrophe. I am informed that he is dead. The constable a.s.serts that he is drunk."
"Drunk?-dead? Do you mean that he is dead drunk?-at this hour!"
"He is either one or the other. I did not behold the individual myself. I derived my information from a bystander."
That was not sufficiently explicit for me. I gave way to a, seemingly, quite causeless impulse of curiosity, I went out into the street, just as I was, to see for myself. It was, perhaps, not the most sensible thing I could have done, and papa would have been shocked; but I am always shocking papa. It had been raining in the night, and the shoes which I had on were not so well suited as they might have been for an encounter with the mud.
I made my way to the point of interest.
"What"s the matter?" I asked.
A workman, with a bag of tools over his shoulder, answered me.
"There"s something wrong with someone. Policeman says he"s drunk, but he looks to me as if he was something worse."
"Will you let me pa.s.s, please?"
When they saw I was a woman, they permitted me to reach the centre of the crowd.
A man was lying on his back, in the grease and dirt of the road. He was so plastered with mud, that it was difficult, at first, to be sure that he really was a man. His head and feet were bare. His body was partially covered by a long ragged cloak. It was obvious that that one wretched, dirt-stained, sopping wet rag was all the clothing he had on. A huge constable was holding his shoulders in his hands, and was regarding him as if he could not make him out at all. He seemed uncertain as to whether it was or was not a case of shamming.
He spoke to him as if he had been some refractory child.
"Come, my lad, this won"t do!-Wake up!-What"s the matter?"
But he neither woke up, nor explained what was the matter. I took hold of his hand. It was icy cold. Apparently the wrist was pulseless. Clearly this was no ordinary case of drunkenness.
"There is something seriously wrong, officer. Medical a.s.sistance ought to be had at once."
"Do you think he"s in a fit, miss?"
"That a doctor should be able to tell you better than I can. There seems to be no pulse. I should not be surprised to find that he was-"
The word "dead" was actually on my lips, when the stranger saved me from making a glaring exposure of my ignorance by s.n.a.t.c.hing his wrist away from me, and sitting up in the mud. He held out his hands in front of him, opened his eyes, and exclaimed, in a loud, but painfully raucous tone of voice, as if he was suffering from a very bad cold,
"Paul Lessingham!"
I was so surprised that I all but sat down in the mud. To hear Paul-my Paul!-apostrophised by an individual of his appearance, in that fashion, was something which I had not expected. Directly the words were uttered, he closed his eyes again, sank backward, and seemingly relapsed into unconsciousness,-the constable gripping him by the shoulder just in time to prevent him banging the back of his head against the road.
The officer shook him,-scarcely gently.
"Now, my lad, it"s plain that you"re not dead!-What"s the meaning of this?-Move yourself!"
Looking round I found that Peter was close behind. Apparently he had been struck by the singularity of his mistress" behaviour, and had followed to see that it did not meet with the reward which it deserved. I spoke to him.
"Peter, let someone go at once for Dr Cotes!"
Dr Cotes lives just round the corner, and since it was evident that the man"s lapse into consciousness had made the policeman sceptical as to his case being so serious as it seemed, I thought it might be advisable that a competent opinion should be obtained without delay.
Peter was starting, when again the stranger returned to consciousness,-that is, if it really was consciousness, as to which I was more than a little in doubt. He repeated his previous pantomime; sat up in the mud, stretched out his arms, opened his eyes unnaturally wide,-and yet they appeared unseeing!-a sort of convulsion went all over him, and he shrieked-it really amounted to shrieking-as a man might shriek who was in mortal terror.