The Second Cheque.
_Furnishing._--_A Cosy Corner._--_"Sitting Out."_--_Fresh
Discoveries._--_Twice a Hero._--_Bewilderment and Bathos._
The knowledge that one has a remedy within reach is often as
effectual as the remedy itself, if not more so; which may account
for the fact that, although a considerable number of weeks had
elapsed since Peter Tourmalin had drawn his second cheque on the
Anglo-Australian Joint Stock Time Bank Limited, that cheque still
remained unpresented.
The day fixed for his wedding with Sophia was drawing near; the
flat in the Marylebone Road, which was to be the scene of their
joint felicity, had to be furnished, and this occupied most of
his time. Sophia took the entire business upon herself, for she
had scientific theories on the subject of decoration and colour
harmonies which Peter could only accept with admiring awe; but,
nevertheless, she required him to be constantly at hand, so that
she could consult him after her own mind had been irrevocably made
up.
One February afternoon he was wandering rather disconsolately
about the labyrinthine passages of one of the monster upholstery
establishments in the Tottenham Court Road, his chief object
being to evade the courtesies of the numerous assistants as they
anxiously inquired what they might have the pleasure of showing
him. He and Sophia had been there since mid-day; and she had sat
in judgment upon carpets which were brought out, plunging like
unbroken colts, by panting foremen, and unrolled before her in a
blinding riot of colour. Peter had only to express the mildest
commendation of any carpet to seal that carpet's doom instantly; so
that he soon abstained from personal interference.
Now Sophia was in the ironmongery department, choosing kitchen
utensils, and his opinion being naturally of no value on such
matters, he was free to roam wherever he pleased within the limits
of the building. He felt tired and rather faint, for he had had no
lunch; and presently he came to a series of show-rooms fitted up as
rooms in various styles: there was one inviting-looking interior,
with an elaborate chimneypiece which had cosy cushioned nooks on
either side of the fireplace, and into one of these corners he sank
with heartfelt gratitude; for it was a comfortable seat, and he had
not sat down for hours. But as his weariness wore away, he felt the
want of something to occupy his mind, and searched in his pockets
to see if he had any letters there--even notes of congratulation
upon his approaching marriage would be better than nothing in his
present reduced condition. But he had left all his correspondence
at his chambers. The only document he came upon was the identical
time cheque he had drawn long ago: it was creased and rumpled; but
none the less negotiable, if he could find a clock. And on the
built-up chimneypiece there was a clock, a small _faience_ affair
surmounted by a Japanese monster in peacock-blue. Moreover, by some
chance, this clock was actually going--he could hear it ticking as
he sat there. Should he present his cheque or not? He was feeling a
little aggrieved at Sophia's treatment of him, she had snubbed him
so unmercifully over the carpets; it was pleasant to think that,
if he chose, he could transport himself that very instant to the
society of a sweet and appreciative companion from whom snubbing
was the last thing to be apprehended.
Yes; Sophia's treatment quite justified him in making an exception
to the rule he had laid down for himself--he _would_ present that
cheque. And he rose softly from his seat and pushed the cheque
under the little timepiece....
As before, his draft was honoured immediately: he found himself
on a steamer-chair in a sheltered passage between two of the
deck-cabins. It was night, and he could not clearly distinguish any
objects around him for some little time, owing to the darkness;
but from a glimmer of white drapery that was faintly visible close
by, he easily inferred that there was another chair adjoining his,
which could only be occupied by Miss Tyrrell. He could just hear
the ship's band playing a waltz at the further end of the ship; it
was one of the evenings when there had been dancing, and he and
Miss Tyrrell were sitting out together.
All this he realised instantly, and not without a thrill of
interest and expectation, which, however, the first words she
uttered were sufficient to reduce to the most prosaic perplexity.
"What have I said?" she was moaning, in a voice hardly recognisable
from emotion and the fleecy wrap in which her face was
muffled,--"oh! what _have_ I said?"
Peter was naturally powerless to afford her any information on this
point, even if she really required it; he made a rapid mental note
to the effect that their intimacy had evidently made great progress
since their last interview.
"I'm afraid," he said, deciding that candour was his only course,
"I can't exactly tell you what you did say; for, as a matter of
fact, I didn't quite catch it."
"Ah! you say that to spare me," she murmured: "you _must_ have
heard; but, promise me you will forget it?"
"Willingly," said Peter, with the greatest readiness to oblige; "I
will consider it forgotten."
"If I could but hope that!" she said. "And yet," she added,
recklessly, "why should I care what I say?"
"To be sure," agreed Tourmalin at random, "why _should_ you, you
know?"
"You must have seen from the first that I was very far from being
happy?"
"I must confess," said Peter, with the air of a man whom nothing
escaped, "that I _did_ observe that."
"And you were right! Was it unnatural that I should be nothing but
grateful to the chance which first brought us together?"
"Not at all," said Peter, delighted to feel himself on solid ground
again; "indeed, if I may speak for myself, I have even greater
reason to feel grateful to that monkey."
"To _what_ monkey?" she exclaimed.
"Why, naturally, my dear Miss Tyrrell, to the animal which was the
unconscious instrument in making us acquainted. You surely cannot
have forgotten already that it _was_ a monkey?"
She half rose with an impetuous movement, the mantilla fell from
her face, and, even in the faint starlight, he could perceive that,
beautiful as that face undoubtedly was, it was as certainly not the
face of Miss Tyrrell!
"_You_ seem to have forgotten a great deal," she retorted, with
a suppressed sob in her voice, "or you would at least remember
that my name is Davenport. Why you should choose to call me Miss
Tyrrell, whom I don't even know by sight, I can't conceive!"
Here was a discovery, and a startling one! It appeared that he
had not merely one, but two dear friends on board this P. and O.
steamer; and the second seemed, if possible, even dearer than the
first! He must have made the very most of those extra hours!
There was one comfort, however, Miss Davenport did not, contrary
to his impression, know Miss Tyrrell; so that they need not
necessarily clash--still, it was undeniably awkward. He had to get
out of his mistake as well as he could, which was but lamely.
"Why, of _course_," he protested, "I know _you_ are Miss Davenport.
Most stupid of me to address you as Miss Tyrrell! The--the only
explanation I can offer is, that before I had the pleasure of
speaking to you, I was under the impression that your proper name
was _Tyrrell_, and so it slipped out again just then from habit."
This--though the literal, if not the moral, truth--did not seem to
satisfy her entirely.
"That may be so," she said, curtly; "still, it does not explain why
you should address me as _Miss_ Anybody, after asking and receiving
permission, only last night, to call me by my Christian name!"
Obviously, their relations were even closer than he had imagined.
He had no idea they had got as far as Christian names already, any
more than he had of what hers might happen to be.
There was a painful want of method in the manner this Time Bank
conducted its business, as he could not help remarking to himself;
however, Peter, perhaps from the very timidity in his character,
developed unexpected adroitness in a situation of some difficulty.
"So you did!" he said. "You allowed me to call you by
your--er--Christian name; but I value such a privilege too highly
to use it--er--indiscriminately."
"You are very strange to-night!" she said, with a plaintive and
almost childish quiver of the lip. "First you call me 'Miss
Tyrrell' and then 'Miss Davenport,' and then you will have it that
we were introduced by a monkey! As if I should ever allow a monkey
to introduce _anybody_ to me! Is saving a girl's life such an
ordinary event with you, that you forget all about such a trifle?"
This last sentence compensated Peter for all that had gone before.
Here was a person whose life he really _had_ saved; and his heart
warmed to her from that moment. Rescuing a girl from imminent
bodily peril was a more heroic achievement than capturing the most
mischievous of monkeys; and, besides, he felt it was far more in
his style. So it was in his best manner he replied to her question:
"It would be strange, indeed," he said, reproachfully, "if I
could ever forget that I was the humble means of preserving you
from--from a watery grave"--(he risked the epithet, concluding that
on a voyage it could hardly be any other description of grave; and
she did not challenge it, so he continued)--"a watery grave; but
I _had_ hoped you would appreciate the motive which restrained me
from--er--seeming to dwell upon such a circumstance."
This appeal, unprincipled as it was, subdued her instantly.
"Oh, forgive me!" she said, putting out her hand with the prettiest
penitence. "I might have known you better than that. I didn't mean
it. Please say you forgive me, and--and call me Maud again!"
Relief at being supplied with a missing clue made Peter reckless;
indeed, it is to be feared that demoralisation had already set in;
he took the hand she gave him, and it did not occur to him to let
it go immediately.
"Maud, then," he said obediently; "I forgive you, Maud."
It was a prettier name to pronounce than Sophia.
"How curious it is," she was saying, dreamily, as she nestled
comfortably in her chair beside him, "that, up to the very moment
when you rushed forward that day, I scarcely gave your existence a
thought! And now--how little we ever know what is going to happen
to us, do we?"
["Or what _has_ happened, for that matter!" he thought.] This time
he would not commit himself to details until he could learn more
about the precise nature of his dauntless act, which he at once
proceeded to do.
"I should very much like to know," he suggested, "what your
sensations were at that critical moment."
"My sensations? I hardly know," she said. "I remember leaning
over the--bulwarks, is it?" (Peter said it _was_ bulwarks)--"the
bulwarks, watching a sailor in a little balcony below, who was
doing something with a long line----"
"Heaving the lead," said Peter; "so he was--go on!"
He was intensely excited; it was all plain enough: she had lost
her balance and fallen overboard; he had plunged in, and gallantly
kept her above water till help arrived. He had always known he was
capable of this sort of thing; now he had proved it!
"--When all at once," she continued, "I felt myself roughly
dragged back by somebody--that was you! I was rather angry for the
moment, for it _did_ seem quite a liberty for a total stranger to
take,--when, that very instant, I saw the line with a great heavy
lump of lead at the end of it whirled round exactly where my head
had been, and then I knew that I owed my life to your presence of
mind!"
Peter was more than disappointed--he was positively disgusted at
this exceedingly tame conclusion; it _did_ seem hard that, even
under conditions when any act of daring might have been possible to
him, he could do nothing more brilliant than this. It was really
worse than the monkey business!
"I'm afraid you make too much of the very little I did," he said.
"Do I? Perhaps that is because if you had not done it, we should
never have come to know one another as we do!" (So far, it was a
very one-sided sort of knowledge, Peter thought.) "And yet," she
added, with a long-drawn sigh, "I sometimes think that we should
both be happier if we never _had_ known one another; if you had
stood aside, and the lead had struck me, and I had died!"
"No, no!" said Peter, unfeignedly alarmed at this morbid
reflection, "you mustn't take such a gloomy view of it as all that,
you know!"
"Why not?" she said, in a sombre tone. "It _is_ gloomy--_how_
gloomy I know better than you!" ("She might well do that," thought
Tourmalin.) "Why did I not see that I was slowly, imperceptibly
drifting--drifting?"
"Well," said Peter, with a levity he was far from feeling, "if the
drifting was imperceptible, you naturally _wouldn't_ see it, you
know!"
"You might have spared a joke at such a time as this!" she cried,
indignantly.
"I--I wasn't aware there was a close time for jokes," he said,
humbly; "not that it was much of a joke!"
"Indeed it was not," she replied. "But oh, Peter, _how_ we have
both drifted!"
"Have we?" he exclaimed, blankly. "I--I mean--_haven't_ we?"
"I was so blind--so wilfully, foolishly blind! I told myself we
were friends!"
"Surely we are?" he said, retaking possession of her hand; he
had entirely forgotten Sophia in the ironmongery department, at
Tottenham Court Road. "I--I understood we were on that footing?"
"No," she said; "let us have no subterfuges any more--we must look
facts in the face. After what we have both said to-night, we can
no longer deceive ourselves by words.... Peter," she broke off
suddenly, "I am going to ask you a question, and on your answer my
fate--and yours too, perhaps--will depend! Tell me truthfully...."
Her voice failed her for the moment, as she bent over towards him,
and clutched his arm tightly in her excitement; her eyes shone with
a wild, intense eagerness for his reply.... "Would you----" she
repeated....
"Would you have the bottle-jack all brass, or japanned? The brass
ones are a shilling more."
Peter gave a violent start, for the voice in which this most
incongruous and irrelevant question was put was that of Sophia!
Miss Davenport with her hysterical appeal, the steamer-chairs,
and the starlight, all had fled, and he stood, supporting himself
limply by the arm of the chimney-nook in the upholsterer's
showroom, staring at Sophia, who stood there, sedate and
practical, inviting his attention to a couple of bottle-jacks
which an assistant was displaying with an obsequious smile: the
transition was rather an abrupt one.
"Oh, I think the brass one is very nice," he stammered, feebly
enough.
"Then that settles it," remarked Sophia; "we'll take the _japanned_
one, please," she said to the assistant.
"Aren't you feeling well, Peter dear?" she asked presently, in an
undertone. "You look so odd!"
"Quite well," he said; "I--ah!--was thinking of something else for
the moment, and you startled me, that's all."
"You had such a far-away expression in your eyes," said Sophia,
"and you did jump so when I spoke to you; you should really try to
conquer that tendency to let yourself wander, Peter."
"I will, my love," he said; and he meant it, for he had let himself
wander farther than he quite intended.