"Eh--eh? Delicate business, you say? My dear fellow, no entanglement, I hope? You always _were_, you know. . . . But I"ve said it a thousand times--you ought to get married; and Maria agrees with me . . . a man of your presence, carrying his years as you do.
Eh? You"re blushing, man. Then maybe "tis the real thing, and you"ve come up to talk over settlements?"
"Tut-tut!" interposed the Major, who indeed had coloured up, and apparently not with annoyance. "There"s no woman at all in the case I"m referring to." But here he checked himself. "Nay, I forgot; I"m wrong there," he admitted; "and if she hadn"t had twins, I don"t believe "twould have happened."
"Curious circ.u.mstance to forget," murmured Mr. Basket; but, perceiving that the Major was indisposed to be communicative, pressed him no further.
At dinner Mrs. Basket, whose welcome had at first been qualified by the prospect of having to give to the unexpected guest her seat at _Love Between Decks_ (on which, good soul, she had set her heart), showed herself in her most amiable light. She was full of apologies for deserting him. "If he had only given them warning. Not but that she was delighted; and even now, if the Major would make use of her ticket . . . And to leave him alone in the house--for the "maid"
lived two streets away, and slept at home--it sounded so inhospitable, did it not? But she hoped the Major would find his room comfortable; there was a table for writing; and supper would be laid in the parlour, if he should feel tired after his journey and wish to retire to bed before their return. Would he be good enough to forbear standing upon ceremony, and remember the case-bottles in the cellaret on the right-hand of the sideboard? Also, by the way, he must take temporary possession of the duplicate latchkey; and then," added Mrs. Basket, "we shall feel you are quite one of _us_."
The Major, on his part, could only trust that his unexpected visit would not be allowed to mar for one moment Mrs. Basket"s enjoyment of _Love Between Decks_. On that condition only could he feel that he had not unwarrantably intruded; on those terms only that he was being treated in sincerity as an old friend. "I am an old campaigner, madam. Permit me, using an old friend"s liberty, to congratulate you on the flavour of this boiled mutton."
In short, the Major showed himself the most complaisant of guests.
At dessert, observing that Mr. Basket"s eye began to wander towards the clock on the mantelpiece, he leapt up, protesting that he should never forgive himself if, through him, his friends missed a single line of _Love Between Decks_.
Mr. Basket rose to his feet, with a half-regretful glance at the undepleted decanter.
"To-morrow night," said he, "we will treat old friendship more piously. Believe me, Hymen, if it weren"t for the seats being reserved--"
"My dear fellow," the Major a.s.sured him, with a challenging smile for Mrs. Basket, "if you don"t come back and tell me you"ve forgotten for three hours my very existence, I shall pack my valise and tramp off to an inn."
Having dismissed the worthy couple to the theatre--but a couple of streets distant--the Major retired with gla.s.s and decanter to his room, drank his quantum, smoked two pipes of tobacco very leisurably, and then, with a long sigh, drew up his chair to the table (which Mrs. Basket had set out with writing materials) and penned, with many pauses for consideration, the following letter; which, when the reader has perused it, will sufficiently explain why our hero had blushed a while ago under Mr. Basket"s interrogatory.
"My dear Martha,--"Sweet," says our premier poet, "are the uses of adversity." The indignity (I will call it no less) to which my fellow-townsmen by their folly, and Sir Felix by his perfidy, have recently subjected me, is not without its compensations.
On the one hand it has disillusioned me; on the other it has removed the scales from my eyes. It has, indeed, inspired me with a disgust of public life; it has taught me to think more meanly of mankind as a whole. But while weaning my ambitions-- perhaps too abruptly--from a wider sphere, it has directed me upon a happiness which has--dare I say it?--awaited me all the while beside the hearth.
"Let me avow, dear cousin, that when first this happy inspiration seized me, I had much ado--you know my prompt.i.tude of old--to refrain from seeking you at once and pressing my suit with that ardour which the warmth of my purpose dictated. On second thoughts, however, I decided to spare your emotions that sudden a.s.sault, and to make my demand in writing--in military phrase, to summon the garrison in form.
"Your tender consideration of my comfort over a period of years induces me to believe that a stronger claim on that consideration for the future may not be a matter of indifference to you. In short, I have the honour to offer you my hand, with every a.s.surance of a lifelong fidelity and esteem. The station I ask you to adorn will be a private one. I am here to consult a lawyer how best I may release from the consequences of their folly the unfortunate men who betrayed me. This done, I lay down my chain of office and resign my commission. I will not deny that there are wounds; I look to domestic felicity to provide a balm for them. Hansombody, no doubt, will succeed me; and on the whole I am satisfied that he will pa.s.sably fill an office which, between ourselves, he has for some time expected.
I hope to return the day after to-morrow, and to receive the blushing answer on which I have set my heart.--Believe me, dear Coz, your affectionate
"Sol. Hymen."
Cynics tell us that one-half of the proposals of marriage made by men are the direct result of pique. How closely this proposal of the Major"s coincided with the recoil of his public humiliation I do not pretend to determine. Certain it is that he had no sooner written and sealed his letter than the shadow of a doubt began to creep over his hot fit.
He started up, lit his long pipe, and fell to pacing the room with agitated strides. Was he doing wisely? Matrimony, he had sometimes told his friends, is like a dip in the sea; the wise man takes it at a plunge, head first. Yes, yes; but had he given it quite sufficient reflection? Could he promise himself he would never regret? He was not doubting that Miss Marty would make him an excellent wife.
Admirable creature, she bore every test he could apply. She was gentle, companionable, intelligent in converse, yet never forward in giving an opinion; too studious, rather, to efface herself; in household management economical without being penurious; a notable cook and needlewoman; in person by no means uncomely, and in mind as well as person so scrupulously neat that her un.o.btrusive presence, her noiseless circ.u.mspect flittings from room to room, exhaled an atmosphere of daintiness in which it was good to dwell. No, he had no anxiety about Miss Marty. But could he be sure of himself?
Had he really and truly and for ever put the ambitions of public life behind him? Might they not some day re-awaken as this present wound healed and ceased to smart?
If he sent this letter, he had burnt his boats. He halted before the table and stood for a while considering; stood there so long that his pipe went out unheeded. Ought he not to re-write his proposal and word it so as to leave himself a loophole? As he conned the name on the address, by some trick of memory he found himself repeating Miss Marty"s own protest against the Millennium: "Why couldn"t we be let alone, to go on comfortably?"
Confound the Millennium! Was it at the bottom of this too?
The plaguy thing had a knack of intruding itself, just now, into all he undertook, and always mischievously. It was unsettling--Miss Marty"s word again--infernally unsettling. He had begun to lose confidence in himself.
The room was hot. He stepped to the window, flung it open, and drank in the cool air of the summer night. Below him lay the garden, wherein Mr. Basket"s statuary showed here and there a glimmer in the velvet darkness. The Major turned back to the room and began to undress slowly; removing his wig, his coat, his waistcoat, and laying them on a chair. Next he turned out his breeches pockets and tossed his purse, with a handful of loose silver, upon the bed. With it there jingled the spare latchkey with which Mrs. Basket had entrusted him.
He picked it up. . . . Yes, why should he not take a turn in the garden to compose his mind? In his present agitation he was not likely to woo slumber with success. . . . He slipped on his coat again and descended the stairs, latchkey in hand. A lamp burned in the hall, and by the light of it he read the hour on the dial of a grandfather"s clock that stood sentry beside the dining-room door-- five-and-twenty minutes past ten. The Baskets would not be returning for another hour at least. He unlatched the front door, stepped out, and closed it softly behind him.
Now mark how simply--how, with a short laugh--by the crook of a little finger, as it were--the envious G.o.ds topple down the tallest human pride.
The Major descended the front steps, halted for a moment to peer at a statuette of Hercules resting on his club, and pa.s.sed on down the central path of the garden with a smile for his worthy friend"s foible. A dozen paces, and his toe encountered the rim of Mr.
Basket"s fish-pond. . . .
The Major went into Mr. Basket"s fish-pond souse!--on all fours, precipitately, with hands wildly clawing the water amid the astonished goldfish.
The echo of the splash had hardly lost itself in the dark garden-alleys before he scrambled up, coughing and sputtering, and struggling to sh.o.r.e rubbed the water from his eyes. Now the basin had not been cleaned out for some months, and beneath the water, which did not exceed a foot and a half in depth, there lay a good two inches of slime and weed, some portion of which his knuckles were effectively transferring to his face. He had lost a shoe.
Worse than this, as he stood up, shook the water out of his breeches and turned to escape back to the house, it dawned on him that he had lost the latchkey!
He had been carrying it in his hand at the moment of the catastrophe.
. . . He sat down on the pebbled path beside the basin, flung himself upon his stomach and, leaning over the brink as far as he dared, began to grope in the mud. After some minutes he recovered his shoe, but by and by was forced to abandon the search for the key as hopeless. He had no lantern. . . .
He cast an appealing glance up at the light in his bedroom window.
His gaze travelled down to the fanlight over the front door. And with that the dreadful truth broke on him. Without the latchkey he could not possibly re-enter the house.
He unlaced and drew on his sodden shoe, and sat for a while considering. Should he wait here in this dreadful plight until his hosts returned? Or might he not run down to the theatre (which lay but two short streets away), explain the accident to a doorkeeper, and get a message conveyed to Mr. Basket? Yes, this was clearly the wiser course. The streets--thank Heaven!--were dark.
He crept to the front gate and peered forth. The roadway was deserted. Taking his courage in both hands, he stepped out upon the pavement and walked briskly downhill to the theatre. The distance was a matter of five or six hundred yards only, and he met n.o.body.
Coming in sight of the brightly-lit portico, he made a dash for it and up the steps, where he blundered full tilt into the arms of a tall doorkeeper at the gallery entrance.
"Hallo!" exclaimed the man, falling back. "Get out of this!"
"One moment, my friend--"
"Damme!" The doorkeeper, blocking the entrance, surveyed him and whistled. "Hi, Charley!" he called; "come and take a look at this!"
A scrag-necked youth thrust his face forward from the aperture of the ticket-office.
"Well, I"m jiggered," was his comment. "Drunk, eh? Throw him out!"
"If you"ll listen for a moment," pleaded the Major, with dignity, and began to search in the pockets of his sodden breeches. "I wish a message taken . . . but dear me, now I remember, I left my money upstairs!"
"_On_ the gilded dressing-table beside the diamond tiyara," suggested the doorkeeper. "Or maybe you cast it down, careless, on the moonlit sh.o.r.e afore taking your dip!"
"My good man, I a.s.sure you that I am the victim of an accident.
It so happens that, by a singular chain of mischance, I have not at this moment a penny about me. But if you will go to the reserved row of the pit and fetch out my friend Mr. Basket--"
At this point the Major felt a hand clapped on his shoulder, and turning, was aware of two sailors, belted and wearing cutla.s.ses, who, having lurched up the steps arm-in-arm, stood to gaze, surveying him with a frank interest.
"What"s wrong, eh?" demanded the one who had saluted him, and turned to his comrade, a sallow-faced man with a Newgate fringe of a beard.
"Good Lord, Bill, what is it like?"
"It _looks_ like a wreck ash.o.r.e," answered the sallow-faced sailor after a slow inspection.
"Talk about bein" fond of the theayter! He must have _swum_ for it,"
said the other, and stared at the Major round-eyed. "You"ll excuse me; Ben Jope, my name is, bos"n of the _Vesuvius_ bomb; and this here"s my friend Bill Adams, bos"n"s mate. _As_ I was sayin", you"ll excuse me, but you must be fond of it--a man of your age--by the little you make of appearances."
"I was just explaining," stammered the Major, "that although, most unfortunately, I have left my purse at home--"
But here he paused as Mr. Jope looked at Mr. Adams, and Mr. Adams answered with a slow and thoughtful wink.