THE TOSSING
"You said you'd seen it into the van," pouted Helen--she who never
pouted!
"Nay, lass," he corrected her, "I said I'd seen 'em bringing all th'
luggage over."
The inevitable moment of reckoning had arrived. They stood together on
the platform of St. Enoch's, Glasgow. The last pieces of luggage were
being removed from the guard's van under the direction of passengers,
and there was no sign whatever of Helen's trunks. This absence of
Helen's trunks did not in the least surprise James Ollerenshaw; he was
perfectly aware that Helen's trunks reposed, at that self-same instant,
in the lost luggage office at Crewe; but, of course, he had to act
surprise. In case of necessity he could act very well. It was more
difficult for him to act sorrow than to act surprise; but he did both to
his own satisfaction. He climbed into the van and scanned its
corners--in vain. Then, side by side, they visited the other van at the
head of the train, with an equal result.
The two guards, being Scotch, responded to inquiries with extreme
caution. All that they would answer for was that the trunks were not in
the train. Then the train was drawn out of the station by a toy-engine,
and the express engine followed it with grave dignity, and Helen and
Jimmy were left staring at the empty rails.
"Something must be done," said Helen, crossly.
"Ay!" Jimmy agreed. "It's long past my tea-time. We must find out if
there's anything to eat i' Scotland."
But Helen insisted on visiting the stationmaster. Now, the stationmaster
at St. Enoch's is one of the most important personages north of the
Tweed, and not easily to be seen. However, Helen saw him. He pointed out
that the train came from London in two portions, which were divided in
Scotland, one going to Edinburgh, and his suggestion was that
conceivably the luggage had been put into the Edinburgh van in mistake
for the Glasgow van. Such errors did occur sometimes, he said, implying
that the North Western was an English railway, and that surprising
things happened in England. He said, also, that Helen might telephone to
Edinburgh and inquire.
She endeavoured to act on this counsel, but came out of the telephone
cabin saying that she could not get into communication with Edinburgh.
"Better go over to Edinburgh and see for yourself," said Jimmy,
tranquilly.
"Yes, and what about my steamer?" Helen turned on him.
"Scotland canna' be so big as all that," said Jimmy. "Not according to
th' maps. Us could run over to Edinburgh to-night, and get back to
Glasgow early to-morrow."
She consented.
Just as he was taking two second returns to Edinburgh (they had snatched
railway eggs and railway tea while waiting for a fast train) he stopped
and said:
"Unless ye prefer to sail without your trunks, and I could send 'em on
by th' next steamer?"
"Uncle," she protested, "I do wish you wouldn't be so silly. The idea of
me sailing without my trunks! Why don't you ask me to sail without my
head?"
"All right--all right!" he responded. "But don't snap mine off. Two
second returns to Edinburgh, young man, and I'll thank ye to look slippy
over it."
In the Edinburgh train he could scarcely refrain from laughing. And
Helen, too, seemed more in a humour to accept the disappearance of five
invaluable trunks, full of preciosities, as a facetious sally on the
part of destiny.
He drew out a note-book which he always carried, and did mathematical
calculations.
"That makes twenty-seven pounds eighteen and ninepence as ye owe me," he
remarked.
"What? For railway tickets?"
"Railway tickets, tips, and that twenty-five pounds I lent ye. I'm
making ye a present o' _my_ fares, and dinner, and tea and so forth."
"Twenty-five pounds that you lent me!" she murmured.
"Yes," he said. "Tuesday morning, while I was at my cashbox."
"Oh, _that_!" she ejaculated. "I thought you were giving me that. I
never thought you'd ask me for it again, uncle. I'd completely forgotten
all about it."
She seemed quite sincere in this amazing assertion.
His acquaintance with the ways of women was thus enlarged, suddenly, and
at the merely nominal expense of twenty-five pounds. It was a wondrous
proof of his high spirits and his general contentedness with himself
that he should have submitted to the robbery without a groan.
"What's twenty-five pun'?" he reflected. "There'll be no luggage for her
at Edinburgh; that steamer'll go without her; and then I shall give in.
I shall talk to her about the ways o' Providence, and tell her it's
borne in upon me as she must have Wilbraham Hall if she's in a mind to
stay. I shall save my face, anyhow."
And he further decided that, in case of necessity, in case of Helen at a
later stage pushing her inquiries as to the luggage inconveniently far
he would have to bribe the porter at Shawport to admit to her that he,
the porter, had made a mistake in the labelling.
When they had satisfied themselves that Edinburgh did not contain
Helen's trunks--no mean labour, for the lost luggage office was closed,
and they had to move mountains in order to get it opened on the plea of
extremest urgency--Jimmy Ollerenshaw turned to Susan's daughter, saying
to himself that she must be soothed regardless of cost. Miracles would
not enable her to catch the steamer now, and the hour was fast
approaching when he would benevolently offer her the gift of Wilbraham
Hall.
"Well, lass," he began, "I'm right sorry. What's to be done?"
"There's nothing at all to be done," she replied, smiling sadly. She
might have upbraided him for carelessness in the matter of the luggage.
She might have burst into tears and declared passionately that it was
all _his_ fault. But she did not. "Except, of course, that I must cable
to mother. She's coming to Quebec to meet me."
"That'll do to-morrow," he said. "What's to be done to-night? In th' way
o' supper, as ye might say?"
"We must go to an hotel. I believe the station hotel is the best." She
pointed to a sign and a directing black hand which said: "To the hotel."
In a minute James Ollerenshaw found himself in the largest and most
gorgeous hotel in Scotland.
"Look here, wench," he said. "I don't know as this is much in my line.
Summat a thought less gaudy'll do for my old bones."
"I won't move a step farther this night!" Helen declared. "I'm ready to
drop."
He remembered that she must be soothed.
"Well," he said, "here goes!"
And he strode across the tessellated pavement under the cold,
scrutinizing eye of menials to a large window marked in gold letters:
"Bureau."
"Have ye gotten a couple of bedrooms like?" he asked the clerk.
"Yes, sir," said the clerk (who was a perfect lady). "What do you want?"
"Don't I tell ye as we want a couple o' bedrooms, miss?"
After negotiations she pushed across the counter to him--two discs of
cardboard numbered 324 and 326, each marked 6s. 6d. He regarded the
price as fantastic, but no cheaper rooms were to be had, and Helen's
glance was dangerous.
"Why," he muttered, "I've got a four-roomed cottage empty at Turnhill as
I'd let for a month for thirteen shillings, _and_ paper it!"
"Where is your luggage, sir?" asked a muscular demon with shiny sleeves.
"That's just what we want to know, young feller," said Jimmy. "For the
present, that's all as we can lay our hands on." And he indicated
Helen's satchel.
His experiences in the lift were exciting, and he suggested the laying
of a tramway along the corridor of the fourth floor. The beautiful
starched creature who brought in his hot water (without being asked)
found him in the dark struggling with the electric light, which he had
extinguished from curiosity and had not been able to rekindle, having
lost the location of the switch.
At 10.30 the travellers were seated at a table in the immense
dining-room, which was populated by fifteen waiters of various European
nationalities, and six belated guests including themselves. The one item
on the menu which did not exceed his comprehension was Welsh rarebit,
and he ordered it.
It was while they were waiting in anticipation of this dish that he
decided to commence operations upon Helen. The fact was, he was becoming
very anxious to put affairs on a definite footing. "Well, my girl," he
said, "cheer up. If ye tak' my advice ye'll make up yer mind to stop i'
owd England with yer owd uncle."
"Of course I will," she answered, softly; and added: "If you'll do as I
want."
"Buy that barracks?"
She nodded.
He was on the very point of yielding; he was on the very point of
saying, with grandfatherly, god-like tone of utter beneficence: "Lass,
ye shall have it. I wouldn't ha' given it ye, but it's like as if what
must be--this luggage being lost. It's like as if Providence was in it."
He was on the very point of this decisive pronouncement, when a novel
and dazzling idea flashed into his head.
"Listen here," he said, bending across the table towards her, "I'll toss
thee."
"Toss me?" she exclaimed, startled.
"Ay! I'll toss thee, if thou'lt stay. Heads I buy the barracks; tails I
don't, and you live with me in a _house_."
"Very well," she agreed, lightly.
He had not really expected her to agree to such a scheme. But, then,
young women named Helen can be trusted absolutely to falsify
expectation.
He took a sixpence from his pocket.
"Heads I win, eh?" he said.
She acquiesced, and up went the sixpence.
It rolled off the table on to the Turkey carpet (Jimmy was not so adroit
as he had been in his tossing days), and seven Austrians, Germans, and
Swiss sprang towards it with a simultaneous impulse to restore it to its
owner.
Jimmy jumped to his feet.
"Don't touch it!" he cried, and bent over it.
"Nay, nay!" he muttered, "I've lost. Th' old man's lost, after all!"
And he returned to the table, having made a sensation in the room.
Helen was in paradise. "I'm surprised you were ready to toss, uncle,"
said she. "However, it's all right; we can get the luggage to-morrow.
It's at Crewe."
"How dost know it's at Crewe?" he demanded.
"Because I had it labelled for Crewe. You _were_ silly to imagine that I
was going to leave you. But I thought I'd just leave nothing undone to
make you give way. I made sure I was beaten. I made sure I should have
to knuckle under. And now you are goose enough to toss, and you've lost,
you've lost! Hurrah!" She clapped her hands softly.
"Do ye mean to tell me," Jimmy thundered, "as ye've been playing a game
wi' me all this time?"
"Of course." She had no shame.
"And bought th' steamer-ticket without meaning to go?"
"Well," she said, "it's no good half-playing when you're playing for
high stakes. Besides, what's fifteen pounds?"
He did not let her into the secret that he also had ordered the luggage
to be labelled for Crewe. They returned to the Five Towns the following
morning. And by mutual tacit agreement they never spoke of that
excursion to Scotland.
In such manner came Helen Rathbone to be the mistress of Wilbraham Hall.