Celia lay awake half the night, and was up and dressed early in the
morning, waiting for the cry of "Pipers! Daily Pipers!" and when the
newsboy came bounding up the steps she almost sprang out on him in her
eagerness and anxiety.
"Give me--which of the papers has the best police news?" she asked,
trying to speak casually.
"Oh, the _Wire_, o' course," replied the boy, promptly; "they don't let
nothing escape them, you bet, miss!"
She bought the halfpenny paper and eagerly scanned its columns,
forgetting that there could be no report of the case until the
appearance before the magistrate; but the absence of any mention of an
arrest, following the message which the old gentleman had given her,
confirmed her relief and encouraged her. Notwithstanding, she found it
almost impossible to eat; but she drank a cup of tea, gathered her
papers together, and went down to the Museum. For the first time she
found her work difficult; for she could not dismiss the young man and
his tragic fate from her mind. Staring at the blank paper, she went over
all the details of the strange scene, and, standing out from them all,
was the expression in his face, in his eyes, as he had paused at the
bend of the stairs and looked at her.
Something in that expression haunted her as she had never been haunted
by anything in her life before, and she was weighed down by the sense of
a burden, the burden of a man's life, destiny; she could not forget that
she had sent him away, that if she had waited and he had remained, he
would have learned that he had no longer reason to fear, that "it was
all right."
She was disturbed in her reverie by the arrival of a young man, who
seated himself in the next chair at her desk; she turned to her book and
papers and began to work; but now a fresh difficulty arose in the
conduct of the young man beside her; the attendant had brought him a
pile of books, and the young fellow was turning them over, in a restless
way, thrusting his hands through his hair, fidgeting with his feet and
muttering impatiently and despairingly.
Celia glanced at him involuntarily. She saw that he was young and
boyish-looking; there was a look of perplexity and worry in his blue
eyes, and muttering a word of apology he rose and went quickly to the
inner circle, the rotunda, where the patient and long-suffering
superintendent stands to be badgered by questions from the readers
needing the assistance of his wonderfully-stored brain. In a minute or
two the young man came back, accompanied by an attendant bearing another
pile of books.
"I don't know whether you'll find what you want," he said; "but it's all
I know of it." He looked at Celia as he spoke, and added, "Oh, perhaps
this young lady can help you; she does antiquarian work."
The young man coloured and raised his eyes appealingly to Celia.
"Oh, I couldn't trouble you," he said, humbly.
"What is it?" she asked. "I shall be glad to help you, if I can."
He took up some slips of paper on which were "pulled" impressions of
blocks, and Celia saw that they were pictures of ruined castles, abbeys,
and similar buildings.
"This is the trouble," said the young man. "The man I work for--he's the
proprietor of the _Youth's Only Companion_--is a rum sort of chap, and
fancies he has ideas. One of them was to buy up a lot of old blocks in
Germany; these are they, and he's given me the job of writing them up,
fitting them with descriptive letterpress--history, anecdote, that kind
of thing, you know."
"That should not be very difficult," Celia remarked.
"Oh, no!" he assented; "but"--he grinned, and his whole face lit up with
boyish humour--"the beastly things have no names to them! See? I've
tried to hunt them up in all the old county histories, and books of that
kind; but I've succeeded in getting only two or three, and there's a
couple of dozen of the wretched things. I've driven the superintendent
pretty nearly mad, and--But look here, I don't want to drive you mad,
too. You mustn't let me bother you about it; you've got your own work to
do."
"That's all right," said Celia, bending over the slips with the literary
frown on her young face. "Oh, I can recognize some of them; that's
Pevensey Castle; and that's Knowle House, before it was rebuilt; and,
surely, this one is meant for Battle Abbey."
"I say, how clever you are!" he exclaimed, gazing at her with
admiration.
"Oh, no, I'm not," said Celia, with a smile; "I just happen to remember
them because I've come across them in the course of my own work. Let us
go over the others."
She turned to his pile of books and, still with knit brows, tried to
find the counterpart of the other pulls; and the young fellow watched
her, his eyes growing thoughtful and something more, as they dwelt upon
her face.
"You mustn't worry any more," he begged her, presently. "You're losing
all your own time; I feel ashamed; I'm most awfully grateful to you."
"Not at all," said Celia. "I'm afraid I've been of very little help to
you; and I don't see that I can do any more----"
"No, no," he said, quickly; "don't take any more trouble. It wouldn't
matter so much if I had plenty of time; but I haven't. You see"--he
coloured--"one doesn't get too well paid for this kind of work, and
can't afford----"
He coloured still more deeply, and his voice dropped below the
regulation whisper in which one is permitted to speak in the Reading
Room. Celia glanced at him, and saw that he was poorly dressed, that his
shirt-cuffs were frayed, and that he had the peculiar look which is
stamped on the countenances of so many of the frequenters of the Reading
Room.
"Just tell me what you would do if you were in my fix," he said.
Celia hesitated for a moment, then a smile broke over her face which
transfigured it and made it seem to the young fellow absolutely lovely.
"I should invent histories for them," she said. "It would be so much
easier--and, perhaps, ever so much more interesting."
"Oh, that's stunning!" he exclaimed, in a whisper. "Of course, that's
the way. I say, what a brick you are! Would you mind telling me your
name?"
"Grant--Celia Grant," she told him, without hesitation.
"Mine's Rex--Reggie Rex," he said. "I've often noticed you and wondered
what kind of work you did--But I beg your pardon; I mustn't disturb you
any longer."
They both fell to work, and Celia heard his fountain-pen racing over the
paper; once or twice he chuckled, as if he were enjoying a joke; but
very soon Celia forgot him; and when, at last, she looked up from her
work, she found his place empty; but on going out for her lunch she saw
him standing by one of the pillars of the portico. He blushed at sight
of her, moved forward, hesitated, then approached her.
"You're going to an A.B.C. for your lunch?" he said, with a mixture of a
man's timidity and a boy's audacity. "May I--will you let me come with
you? I feel as if I hadn't thanked you enough; I couldn't do it in that
stuffy old hole, where you can't speak above your breath."
He took Celia's silence for consent, and they went together to the big
shop in Oxford Street, and seated themselves at a table. They both
ordered a cup of tea and a roll and butter; Celia would have liked to
have added the omnipotent bun, but refrained; for, somehow, she knew
that he could not afford one.
"Do you like the life, in there?" he asked, jerking his head in the
direction of the Museum. "Dreadful grind, isn't it? But, somehow, it
gets hold of you; there's a kind of fascination in literature." He spoke
the magic word with the air of quite an old, old man of letters. "I
ought to have been a grocer. My father's got a shop in Middleswick; he
calls it The Emporium. I think that's why I couldn't stick it. Pity,
isn't it? for it's a rattling good business. Another thing; I couldn't
stand the apron. Guv'nor insisted on the apron; 'begin from the
beginning' sort of thing, you know. And then I felt the call of
literature. Fond of reading, and all that. You know?"
Celia nodded. That tender heart of hers was quite ready with its
comprehension and sympathy.
"I hope you will succeed; but if you don't--Ah, well; you can go back,"
she said, half-enviously.
"No; one doesn't go back," he said, with a gravity that sat curiously on
his boyish face. "Once you've got the fever, you've got it for life.
Tiger tasting blood, you know. I'd rather be a literary man than--than
the German Emperor. Of course, I'm hoping to do better things; but even
the stuff I do makes me--oh, well, kind of happy. Every time I get a
proof something runs through me, something grateful and comforting--like
the cocoa. I mean to get on to fiction presently." He blushed like a
girl, and looked at her timidly, with the appealing look of a dog in his
eyes. "I've tried my hand already at a short story or two." He paused.
"I say"--hesitatingly, his eyes still more dog-like--"you are so awfully
kind, I wonder whether you'd mind looking at one of my things. Oh, of
course, it's too much to ask! You're busy--you work hard, I know; I've
watched you."
"Why, I shall be very pleased to read something you have written," said
Celia, smiling encouragement.
"You will! Oh, that's stunning of you! I'll send you a short story
to-night, if you'll give me your address. But perhaps you'd rather not,"
he added, quickly.
"Why not?" said Celia. She gave it to him.
"I'll send it," he whispered; but as he spoke, his hand went towards his
breast-pocket.
Celia tried not to smile; for she saw what was coming.
"To tell you the truth," he said, with a burst of candour, "I've got one
with me. I'll give it to you now. But for Heaven's sake don't look at it
here! I should see by your face what you thought of it, and you're
likely to think precious little of it; you'll think it tommy-rot;
though, of course, you won't say so. Look here!" he went on, as he drew
out the precious manuscript slowly, "don't tell me that it 'shows
promise'; I can bear anything but that. That's fatal; it's what all the
beastly editors say when they don't mean to have anything to do with
you."
"Very well," said Celia. "I will tell you exactly what I think of it."
"Honest Injun?" he queried, his blue eyes twinkling.
"Honest Injun," repeated Celia. "And I think I shall be able to say
something very nice; for I am sure you are clever."
He blushed, and his eyes danced.
"You've said something very nice already," he said, gratefully; "and
when you say it like that--well, upon my word, it makes me feel that I
am clever. And that's half the battle, Miss Grant. A man is just what he
feels himself to be; that's why nothing succeeds like success; to feel
that other people know you can do your job. Oh, well!"
Celia nodded. "I must go back," she said. "I was not able to begin my
work so early as usual this morning."
"Not feeling well?" he said, anxiously, and with a glance at her face
which, he had noticed, was paler than usual. "I suppose you've got the
Reading-Room headache. Everybody gets it; it's the general stuffiness of
the place. They can't help it--the officials, I mean; they've tried all
sorts of dodges for ventilation; it's better than it used to be; but
it's still crammed full of headache."
"No; I've been worried this morning," said Celia, more to herself than
to him.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" he said, in a voice full of a boy's ready sympathy.
"Look here! Is it anything I can help you with? I mean----" He grew red,
and stammered. "Oh, of course, you'll laugh; and it's like my cheek,
but--you helped me, you know--and we're brothers and sisters in
misfortune, working on the same treadmill--I'd do anything for you--it
would be a pleasure----"
Celia sighed as she smiled, and wondered idly how he would respond if
she said, "Well, find a man for me, a man whose name I don't know, to
whose whereabouts I have not the slightest clue." She shook her head.
"It is very good of you," she said; "but you could not help me; no one
could."
"I am sorry," he murmured. "I should have loved to have done something
for you; perhaps I may some day--lion and the mouse, you know. It's a
rum world. You'll find my address on the manuscript," he added, shyly,
as she rose.
He did not follow her; but later in the afternoon Celia caught sight of
him seated at the farther end of the Reading Room. He was looking in her
direction, but, as his eyes met hers, he dropped them and bent over his
work. It was evident that he had changed his place lest she should think
he was intruding on her.
As she entered the courtyard of Brown's Buildings, Celia bought an
evening paper. If she had mistaken the significance of the old
gentleman's message and the man who haunted her thoughts had been
arrested, the case might be reported. She scanned the police news
anxiously; but there was no report, and she was laying the paper down
when her eye caught a familiar name in a paragraph. She read the few
lines in a kind of stupor, with a sense of unreality; and when she had
finished reading she stood with the paper gripped in her hand, and
staring stupidly before her.
The paragraph ran thus:--
"We regret to announce the death of Mr. William Bishop, the
well-known antiquarian, which occurred suddenly at his country
residence early this morning."
Slowly through her stupor broke the realization that she had been thrust
back into the ranks of the unemployed, that only a few shillings stood
between her and utter destitution.