MY FRIEND THE DUMPLING.
Romantic, Miss Clara may or may not have been; superstitious she
certainly was not. For some reason of her own she had formed a not
unflattering opinion of my intelligence--an opinion which, I fear, my
reference to these dream-tableaux did not a little to shake. And when
Miss Clara thought poorly of a person or of a thing, she said so with a
directness which was somewhat disconcerting. Her comment on the words
with which I closed my last chapter was:
"Mr. Rissler, don't be a fool!"
"I try not," I said lamely. "What's the particular folly of mine you
have in mind at the present moment?"
"Why, this dream-tableau business, of course," she answered. "You're no
fool--quite the contrary--in most respects; but I've no patience with
this nonsense about dream men kneeling on your chest in a dream garden.
If you've got anything on your chest, you should look after your
digestion--not talk about your dreams. And that reminds me. I generally
take a glass of hot milk and a biscuit before going to bed. If you are
going to sit up out of doors all night in the garden, as you propose,
you'll want something more substantial. Oblige me by ringing that bell.
I suppose you smoke," she said, when I had made a substantial supper.
"If so, you may. My brother's a great smoker, so you need have no
scruples.
"What I like about you," she continued, when I had lit up in accordance
with her permission, "is that you're a young man who can make up his
mind. To tell me, within the first half-hour you'd ever seen me, that
you wanted to marry my niece when you'd only seen her once before, was
about as brazen a piece of impudence as I've ever heard of. But I'd
rather a man should be that sort than one of your 'Oh, I'm sure I don't
mind which' and 'I haven't any choice in the matter' kind of person."
"I count myself fortunate in the possession of your good opinion, Miss
Carleton," I said with a bow.
"None of your blarney!" she answered gruffly. "Not that I mind a person
being pleasant-spoken and pleasant-mannered," she added, "although
Heaven knows I'm rough enough in ways and in speech myself. There's
something waiting on the tip of your tongue to say. What is it?"
"There is, but your penetration alarms me," I said. "It was merely to
wonder whether I might venture to inquire where your niece has been all
this while, and during all these disturbing events?"
"You may. She's in her own room. I told her to stay there till I called
her down. I sent up word to her not to be alarmed, before I rang
the burglar bell. That's why it didn't go off before you got to the
conservatory door. If I'd rung when you left the room as I should have
done except for alarming Clara, you would not have got further than the
corridor door."
"That was very dear and considerate and thoughtful of you," I replied.
"I'm going to be very fond of you, if you'll let me, before I've done,
Miss Carleton."
"Done what?" she asked grimly, but not ill-pleased.
"This cigar," I replied promptly. "I suppose you thought I was going
to say before I'm your nephew-in-law; but, hasten that happy day
as I would--and it cannot come too soon for me--it would seem an
interminable long time to wait, if I had to put off being fond of you
till then. I suppose I shan't be seeing Miss Kate again to-night."
"You'll not!" she answered bluntly. "And if you call her Kate instead
of Clara, you'll not be seeing her at all, if I have anything to do
with it, for call people out of their right names, no one shall, while
I can help it."
The logic of a lady who, in spite of the fact that she persistently
called her own niece out of the name which had been given the girl at
her christening, the name by which everyone else, from her own father
downwards, habitually called her, yet could thus lay down the law, was
too fearful a thing for a mere male to contemplate, so I smiled weakly,
and said, "I beg your pardon! 'Miss Clara,' I meant, of course. How
silly of me!"
Incidentally I made a note in my memory to the effect that the best way
out of the dilemma would be, when speaking of my Lady of the Lake, to
refer to her as "your niece," or as "Miss Carleton."
"No," said Miss Clara, philosophically, and with the air of one who,
not expecting too much from fallen human nature, is always ready to be
tolerant, and to make allowance; "no, I don't say, and I don't see,
that it is silly of you. That is too severe a word, and the mistake is
not unnatural on your part, when you remember that her own father made
it twenty years ago, and has gone on doing it ever since."
As she spoke the clock struck eleven.
"Is it so late?" I said. "I had no idea. Now, with your permission,
Miss Carleton, I'll be off to the garden. I shall never forget your
goodness to me to-night--taking me on trust, as you have, when
everything was against me, and making me feel, now that I am about to
say good-night, as if I were saying it, not to one who an hour or so
ago was a complete stranger to me, but to a dear and kind and generous
friend. How shall I ever thank you?"
"Don't try," she said laconically, rising. "Good-night."
I sprang to open the door for her, stooping low to raise to my lips the
surprisingly small and white and well-formed hand which she extended to
me.
"And now," I said to myself, when she had gone, "now for my vigil
in the garden. In my dream picture only a night ago, I saw myself
lying on my back, the man I am seeking kneeling over me, knife in
hand. The place where this happened I could not see. But to-night,
in another dream picture, I saw the same man crouched low to steal
by dead of night through a garden. I wonder whether that garden and
the place of my first dream are one and the same? I wonder whether
it was good fortune or an evil fate which guided my feet to the
opium den yesterday, and brought me and that same man to this house
to-night? I wonder whether he or I have met and striven in this or in
some pre-existent world? I wonder why it is that only when looking in
his eyes do I see these pictures which come and go so strangely in
my brain? But most of all, I wonder whether I might venture to ring
the bell, and ask the gentle Metcalfe to bring me a drink. All this
'wondering' and this 'whethering' makes me feel not only uncommonly
dry, but also more like the hero who never was on sea or land except in
the pages of a shilling shocker, or in a melodramatic play, than like
an ordinary, everyday young man who fancies that a pipeful of tobacco
taken in conjunction with liquid refreshment in the shape of a stiff
'whisky,' would suit his complaint down to the ground. Anyhow, I'll
try. Then for the garden, for my dream picture, and possibly for our
friend and enemy, the Dumpling!"