We left Mrs Tipps in the last chapter putting on her bonnet and shawl,
on philanthropic missions intent. She had just opened the door, when a
handsome, gentlemanly youth, apparently about one or two and twenty,
with a very slight swagger in his gait stepped up to it and, lifting his
hat said--
"Mrs Tipps, I presume? I bring you a letter from Clatterby station.
Another messenger should have brought it, but I undertook the duty
partly for the purpose of introducing myself as your son's friend. I--
my name is Gurwood."
"What!--Edwin Gurwood, about whom Joseph speaks so frequently, and for
whom he has been trying to obtain a situation on the railway through our
friend Captain Lee?" exclaimed Mrs Tipps.
"Yes," replied the youth, somewhat confused by the earnestness of the
old lady's gaze, "but pray read the letter--the telegram--I fear--"
He stopped, for Mrs Tipps had torn open the envelope, and stood gazing
at it with terrible anxiety depicted on her face.
"There is no cause for immediate fear, I believe," began Edwin, but Mrs
Tipps interrupted him by slowly reading the telegram.
"From Joseph Tipps, Langrye station, to Mrs Tipps, Eden Villa,
Clatterby. Dear Mother, Netta is not very well--nothing serious, I
hope--don't be alarmed--but you'd better come and nurse her. She is
comfortably put up in my lodgings."
Mrs Tipps grew deadly pale. Young Gurwood, knowing what the message
was, having seen it taken down while lounging at the station, had
judiciously placed himself pretty close to the widow. Observing her
shudder, he placed his strong arm behind her, and adroitly sinking down
on one knee received her on the other, very much after the manner in
which, while at school, he had been wont to act the part of second to
pugilistic companions.
Mrs Tipps recovered almost immediately, sprang up, and hurried into the
house, followed by Gurwood.
"You'll have time to catch the 6.30 train," he said, as Mrs Tipps
fluttered to a cupboard and brought out a black bottle.
"Thank you. Yes, I'll go by that. You shall escort me to it. Please
ring the bell."
The stout elderly female--Netta's nurse--answered.
"Come here, Durby," said the widow quickly; "I want you to take this
bottle of wine to a poor sick woman. I had intended to have gone
myself, but am called away suddenly and shan't be back to-night. You
shall hear from me to-morrow. Lock up the house and stay with the woman
to look after her, if need be--and now, Mr Gurwood."
They were gone beyond recall before Mrs Durby could recover herself.
"I never did see nothink like my poor missus," she muttered, "there
_must_ be somethink wrong in the 'ead. But she's a good soul."
With this comforting reflection Mrs Durby proceeded to obey her
"missus's" commands.
On reaching the station Mrs Tipps found that she had five minutes to
wait, so she thanked Gurwood for escorting her, bade him good-bye, and
was about to step into a third-class carriage when she observed Captain
Lee close beside her, with his daughter Emma, who, we may remark in
passing, was a tall, dark, beautiful girl, and the bosom friend of Netta
Tipps.
"Oh, there is Captain Lee. How fortunate," exclaimed Mrs Tipps, "he
will take care of me. Come, Mr Gurwood, I will introduce you to him
and his daughter."
She turned to Gurwood, but that youth did not hear her remark, having
been forced from her side by a noiseless luggage truck on India-rubber
wheels. Turning, then, towards the captain she found that he and his
daughter had hastily run to recapture a small valise which was being
borne off to the luggage van instead of going into the carriage along
with them. At the same moment the guard intervened, and the captain and
his daughter were lost in the crowd.
But Edwin Gurwood, although he did not hear who they were, had obtained
a glance of the couple before they disappeared, and that glance, brief
though it was, had taken deadly effect! He had been shot straight to
the heart. Love at first sight and at railway speed, is but a feeble
way of expressing what had occurred. Poor Edwin Gurwood, up to this
momentous day woman-proof, felt, on beholding Emma, as if the combined
powers of locomotive force and electric telegraphy had smitten him to
the heart's core, and for one moment he stood rooted to the earth, or--
to speak more appropriately--nailed to the platform. Recovering in a
moment he made a dash into the crowd and spent the three remaining
minutes in a wild search for the lost one!
It was a market-day, and the platform of Clatterby station was densely
crowded. Sam Natly the porter and his colleagues in office were
besieged by all sorts of persons with all sorts of questions, and it
said much for the tempers of these harassed men, that, in the midst of
their laborious duties, they consented to be stopped with heavy weights
on their shoulders, and, while perspiration streamed down their faces,
answered with perfect civility questions of the most ridiculous and
unanswerable description.
"Where's my wife?" frantically cried an elderly gentleman, seizing Sam
by the jacket.
"I don't know, sir," replied Sam with a benignant smile.
"There she is," shouted the elderly gentleman, rushing past and nearly
overturning Sam.
"What a bo-ar it must be to the poatas to b' wearied so by stoopid
people," observed a tall, stout, superlative fop with sleepy eyes and
long whiskers to another fop in large-check trousers.
"Ya-as," assented the checked trousers.
"Take your seats, gentlemen," said a magnificent guard, over six feet
high, with a bushy beard.
"O-ah!" said the dandies, getting into their compartment.
Meanwhile, Edwin Gurwood had discovered Emma. He saw her enter a
first-class carriage. He saw her smile ineffably to her father. He
heard the guard cry, "Take your seats; take your seats," and knew that
she was about to be torn from him perhaps for ever. He felt that it was
a last look, because, how could he hope in a populous city to meet with
her again? Perhaps she did not even belong to that part of the country
at all, and was only passing through. He did not even know her name!
What _was_ he to do? He resolved to travel with her, but it instantly
occurred to him that he had no ticket. He made a stride or two in the
direction of the ticket office, but paused, remembering that he knew not
her destination, and that therefore he could not demand a ticket for any
place in particular.
Doors began to slam, and John Marrot's iron horse let off a little
impatient steam. Just then the "late passenger" arrived. There is
always a late passenger at every train. On this occasion the late
passenger was a short-sighted elderly gentleman in a brown top-coat and
spectacles. He was accompanied by a friend, who assisted him to push
through the crowd of people who had come to see their friends away, or
were loitering about for pastime. The late passenger carried a bundle
of wraps; the boots of his hotel followed with his portmanteau.
"All right sir; plenty of time," observed Sam Natly, coming up and
receiving the portmanteau from boots. "Which class, sir?"
"Eh--oh--third; no, stay, second," cried the short-sighted gentleman,
endeavouring vainly to open his purse to pay boots. "Here, hold my
wraps, Fred."
His friend Fred chanced at that moment to have been thrust aside by a
fat female in frantic haste and Edwin Gurwood, occupying the exact spot
he had vacated, had the bundle thrust into his hand. He retained it
mechanically, in utter abstraction of mind. The bell rang, and the
magnificent guard, whose very whiskers curled with an air of calm
serenity, said, "Now then, take your seats; make haste." Edwin grew
desperate. Emma smiled bewitchingly to a doting female friend who had
nodded and smiled bewitchingly to Emma for the last five minutes, under
the impression that the train was just going to start, and who earnestly
wished that it _would_ start, and save her from the necessity of nodding
or smiling any longer.
"Am I to lose sight of her for ever?" muttered Gurwood between his
teeth.
The magnificent guard sounded his whistle and held up his hand. Edwin
sprang forward, pulled open the carriage door, leaped in and sat down
opposite Emma Lee! The iron horse gave two sharp responsive whistles,
and sent forth one mighty puff. The train moved, but not with a jerk;
it is only clumsy drivers who jerk trains; sometimes pulling them up too
soon, and having to make a needless plunge forward again, or overrunning
their stopping points and having to check abruptly, so as to cause in
timorous minds the impression that an accident has happened. In fact
much more of one's comfort than is generally known depends upon one's
driver being a good one. John Marrot was known to the regular
travellers on the line as a first-rate driver, and some of them even
took an interest in ascertaining that he was on the engine when they
were about to go on a journey. It may be truly said of John that he
never "started" his engine at all. He merely as it were insinuated the
idea of motion to his iron steed, and so glided softly away.
Just as the train moved, the late passenger thrust head and shoulders
out of the window, waved his arms, glared abroad, and shouted, or rather
spluttered--
"My b-b-bundle!--wraps!--rug!--lost!"
A smart burly man, with acute features, stepped on the footboard of the
carriage, and, moving with the train, asked what sort of rug it was.
"Eh! a b-b-blue one, wi-wi--"
"With," interrupted the man, "black outside and noo straps?"
"Ye-ye-yes--yes!"
"All right, sir, you shall have it at the next station," said the
acute-faced man, stepping on the platform and allowing the train to
pass. As the guard's van came up he leaped after the magnificent guard
into his private apartment and shut the door.
"Hallo! Davy Blunt, somethin' up?" asked the guard.
"Yes, Joe Turner, there _is_ somethin' up," replied the acute man,
leaning against the brake-wheel. "You saw that tall good-lookin' feller
wi' the eyeglass and light whiskers?"
"I did. Seemed to me as if his wits had gone on wi' the last train, an'
he didn't know how to overtake 'em."
"I don't know about his wits," said Blunt, "but it seems to me that he's
gone on in _this_ train with somebody else's luggage."
The guard whistled--not professionally, but orally.
"You don't say so?"
The acute man nodded, and, leaning his elbows on the window-sill, gazed
at the prospect contemplatively.
In a few minutes the 6:30 p.m. train was flying across country at the
rate of thirty-five or forty miles an hour.