I PLAY CARMEN.
St. George joined tact to his chivalry. When we pulled up at the
station, he handed us both out, unloaded our iron steeds, raised his hat
with an amicable smile, and then, before we had time to thank him,
cracked a merry whip, and drove away hurriedly. My bandaged condition
forbade me even to grasp his hand; he vanished into the past, and was
once more a phantom. I never saw him again. Yet I have always been
grateful to that brief vision of a knight who saved me for one moment
from a passing dragon. If peradventure he happen to read these words,
will he accept my thanks for it?
On the platform, as Chancellor of my own Exchequer, I had time to bring
in my private budget. It showed an obvious deficit. Had I been Leader of
the Opposition, I could have risen with scorn from the front bench, and
subjected it to a scathing—nay, a crushing criticism. In plain words, I
saw that I had not money enough to pay my way back to London, to take a
dog-ticket for the Commissioner, and also to carry my bicycle with me
(zone 50, one shilling.) This collision had proved even more disastrous
to my finances than to my hands. Two courses were now open to me. I must
cloak-room my machine—with little chance of redeeming it—or else
resolve to spend the residue of my days at Holmwood.
The latter alternative being the more original of the two, naturally I
made up my mind to adopt it. I felt so poor and desolate that I looked
for the police to step in and disperse me.
“I won’t go up to town,” I said curtly to Michaela. “I will spend the
night here.” I said “the night” only, instead of “my life,” lest she
should suspect me of exaggeration.
To my vast surprise, this resolution, which I fancied of no importance
to anyone save myself, threw my companion into a tremor of anxiety.
“Then I can’t go either,” she cried, wetting her lips with fear. “If
_you_ stop, _I_ must stop with you, and telegraph up for my father.”
I stared at her in astonishment. “Why so?” I asked at last.
“Why, because—because of this _dreadful_ murder!”
“What murder?” I inquired, reverting instinctively to Léon and his lips.
She stared in turn. “You _must_ have heard of it,” she exclaimed. “It
has been in all the papers.”
I remembered that at Pinfold we had been too much absorbed by the future
of Europe and the affair of the new glass-house ever to trouble our
minds about what chanced to be happening in the mere provincial world of
London. So I assured her I knew naught of it.
She went on to explain to me that a woman had been found killed in a
first-class carriage—stabbed to the heart, and stuffed under the
seat—only three days before.
“I _dare_ not travel alone,” she said, clasping her hands and opening
her blue eyes wide. “Do _please_ come with me.”
This forced me to explain my financial position. My new friend declared
that that did not matter. Might she lend me a sovereign? A sovereign! I
gasped at the idea of such wealth. But I had further to make it clear
that my chance of repaying it was a vanishing quantity.
She listened to my explanation with open-mouthed astonishment. I think
she had never heard of such poverty before—in one of her own
sort—though to me it was commonplace. “But you _must_ let me lend it to
you,” she said, drawing out the daintiest little lizard-skin purse I
have ever seen; “or, rather, you must let me pay you for the harm I have
done to your bicycle, and the difficulty I have brought upon you. That
is only fair. I ought to settle for your ticket up to town, and for the
mending.”
I was compelled to confess. My duplicity had failed. “It was more my
fault than yours,” I faltered out. “I was reckless in my pace. You were
mounting a slight rise, with the wind against you: I was descending, and
had it in my favour. If anybody is to blame, it is I. Pray, pray,
forgive me.”
She insisted in spite of me. “I shall take two first-class tickets.”
My democratic gorge rose. “Never!” I cried firmly. “St. Nicholas
forfend! Not in my palmiest and most unregenerate days did I travel
first-class. If you consent to take two thirds, I will owe you for the
amount. You can give me your address; and whenever I am rich enough I
will repay you all. I have sufficient of my own to buy a ticket for my
dog and bicycle.” It went against the grain with me to receive this
favour from a stranger unseen till to-day; but I recognised that there
was no help for it.
She took the tickets under protest. “Such _dreadful_ people travel
third—drunken soldiers and sailors!”
“Brave defenders of our country!” I answered, remembering my father’s
profession. “It’s _Thank you, Mr. Atkins_, when the band begins to
play.”
The liquid blue eyes stared at me in blank amazement. Rudyard Kipling,
one could see, was a sealed book to her. I think she had doubts of my
perfect sanity. Perhaps you share them.
We arranged for our maimed mounts. I hold it one of the best points of a
bicycle, as compared with the noble animal, that it considerately
refrains from wringing your heart in the matter of sympathy. It has no
nerves. The train panted into the station. We explored an empty
carriage, free from the contamination of soldiers and sailors, drunk or
sober, and started off comfortably.
Michaela took the precaution to peer under the seats beforehand. I am
not sure which of the two she expected to find—a corpse or a murderer.
“This is nice,” she said at last, smiling, and recovering her spirits
for the first time since the collision. “We shall have the carriage to
ourselves all the way to Victoria. I gave the guard half-a-crown. I
_couldn’t_ travel with a man. I should be quite too frightened.”
Some devil entered into me. I am subject to devils. My new acquaintance
was so insipidly fair, so mediævally shrinking, while I am dark and
modern, that I had an irresistible impulse to play Carmen to her
Michaela. “Have you reflected,” I said drily, “that a _woman_ may have
committed that murder?”
It was heartless of me, I admit. My little companion was so timid and
shrinking. But the bolt fell flat. She clasped her hands and looked at
me. “I never thought of that!” she said. “How _dreadfully_ clever you
must be to discover it. Dreadful as well as clever! But I am _sure_ you
are not a murderess.” (She had a trick of emphasising one word in each
sentence.) “You are a _great_ deal too nice. You behaved so sweetly
about the ticket, you know, and the accident! Anyone else in your place
would have pretended it was my fault, and made me pay for the damages.”
“That was only common honesty,” I objected. “Murderers need not be
deficient in common honesty.”
“Oh, but they must be awful people!”
“Murderers are not a class,” said I. “They are you and me, acting under
pressure of powerful impulses.”
She glanced at me, more amazed than frightened. “I _know_ you would not
murder me,” she replied, less alarmed than I might have expected. “You
are so kind, though you are so queer. I feel quite safe in your hands.
With those honest eyes I am certain you would not hurt me.”
I could have crept under the seat, I felt such a brute. I took her two
small hands in my bandaged palms. “You dear little thing!” I exclaimed,
“nobody could ever hurt you!” Then seven other devils entered into me
again, worse than the first ones, and I could not help adding, “Though
if I _wanted_ to murder, this is a unique opportunity. My bleeding
hands, and the evidence about the bicycle accident would suffice to
account for any number of blood-stains. Still, to stuff you under the
seat would be bad taste and vulgar.”
She caught my eye, and laughed. “What a funny girl it is!” she cried.
“You _are_ so comical! But it isn’t the least use your trying to
frighten me. I can see the twinkle in your big black eyes; and I like
you in spite of your trying to be horrid. Do you know, I liked you from
the first moment I saw you.”
’Twas impossible not to be taken by such charming childishness. She
cooed so prettily one was forced to love her. Before we reached Victoria
we were fast friends. Michaela thought me the queerest person she had
ever met, but, oh, so nice! Her tongue was loosed. She told me a great
deal about what a dear fellow she was engaged to. She spoke of him as
Toto. She also wanted to lend me a pound. But I sternly refused. I must
work out my own salvation in fear and trembling. (This Biblical trick
descends to me, no doubt, from the Pilgrim Fathers.)
Michaela gave me her card at Clapham Junction—“Miss Allardyce” it
said—and begged me to call upon her. I was driven to explain that in
the rank of life to which I now belonged people did not call upon one
another; more particularly that the Jews of Onslow Gardens (I am
dropping into it again) had no dealings with the Soho Samaritans.
Michaela dissented from this finding: her position was that “a lady was
a lady.” I granted the truth of that identical proposition, but flatly
disallowed that all ladies had time for calling. I also pointed out that
my first consideration was bread, which brought tears again into her
tender blue eyes. We parted the best of friends. We even kissed one
another, though I am an infrequent kisser. She thanked me mightily for
my company, which made me feel small again. For I had upset her nerves,
broken her machine, and borrowed some shillings, which I scarcely dared
to hope I might have the luck to repay her.
However, I took her address, and added one small square to the mosaic
design with which I am paving my possible future residence.