A TROUBLED SPIRIT.
With mingled feelings of disinclination and repulsion, also an undefined
sense of dread and reluctance, poor C. Babbington-Cole left the _City of
Chicago_ and, again on _terra firma_, made his way up from the seaboard
to London, where at Morley's Hotel he and his father had arranged to
meet. "Hang it," he thought moodily, "I feel like an infernal frog out of
Acheron, covered with the ooze and mud of melancholy. Jove, if I could
only chance upon the Will Smyths or Mrs. Gower, what a tonic they would
be; how they would enjoy this madding crowd with all the world abroad,
with no blue blood in the beef they eat either; judging from red cheeks
and stout ankles. What women! cotton batting would not be a safe
investment here; I hope the governor is waiting for me at Morley's, but
he must be, as he took the _Circassian_ from Quebec on the 16th. I'll
persuade him not to go out to Bayswater at all, but to abandon this debt
of honor, as in his sensitive nature he dubs his promise to a dead
woman, for I have no hankering after a martyr's crown. If I am coerced
(for I am made of very limp stuff) into this union and she is not a girl
I can care to spoon over, and must 'write me down as an ass' for selling
my liberty to, then adieu to wedded bliss--I shall again content myself
in a den by myself, and my craze for mechanism shall be my wife and my
few real friends my mistress. Jove! though, I must strain my eyes and
endeavor to see a glimmer of light in the black clouds; if she be a girl
after my own heart she will sympathize after a more practical manner
than did the 'twenty with Bunthorn,' in giving me the dollar to develop,
and obtain a patent for one or other of my inventions. Yes, I'll be a
soldier. I am nearing the battle-field; with the smell of powder in my
nostrils, I will gain strength. Cabby is reining in his steed, so this,
I suppose, is my hotel."
"Morley's, sir; and 'ere be a porter for your baggage, sir."
"All right," and springing from the four-wheeler he is interviewing the
clerk.
"Has Mr. Babbington-Cole, from Ottawa, Canada, arrived?"
"No, sir; are you Mr. C. Babbington-Cole?"
"Yes."
"Then here is a cablegram for you, sir."
It was from his father, and ran thus:
"ST. LAWRENCE HALL,
"MONTREAL, Sept. 20th.
"To C. BABBINGTON-COLE, Esq.,
"Morley's Hotel, London, England.
"Your father has been very ill--typhoid fever; called me in; is
improving; asks me to cablegram you to return by way of
Montreal. Longs to see you and your wife, which will be a
panacea for him.
"JOHN PEAKE, M.D."
"My father ill! Oh that I could have foreseen all this," exclaimed Cole,
flinging himself into a chair in the privacy of the bedroom assigned
him. "To have to face my fate alone," he thought, "and yet I have been
aware for some time that this was hanging over me; but the truth is, I
thought the girl would never claim me, that they would arbitrate,
divide, have a grab game among themselves, anything other than rope me
in. Had I been gifted with Scotch second-sight, or even caution, I
should not be in this fix now; but I have been made of wax, and so
absorbed in my loved inventions, filling in an emotional half hour with
an occasional flirtation, with my nose to the grindstone the rest of my
time, that this possible 'game of barter,' in which some one says 'the
devil always has the best of it,' rarely occurred to me; but this will
never do in action, only shall I now find repose. I _must_ go out to
Bayswater, and I _must_ wed this girl, unless Heaven works a
miracle--no, unless I act the coward's part, cut and run, I am in for
it. If I could only moralize on the pantheon of ugly horrors half of our
marriages are, and that one might imagine most of them were perpetrated
in the dark, or on sight, as mine, then I might console myself by
thinking that I have as good a chance of happiness as most. My brain is
on fire; if I only had one friend in this vanity fair, wherein to me is
no merriment, the babel of sounds seeming to me the guns of the enemy
warning me to retreat; talk of _delirium tremens_, I have all the blue
devils rolled in one; a stimulant is what I want, to be able to face the
music."
And making his way to the bar, in a short time his spirits, with the aid
of John Barleycorn, arise; though he knows in the reaction they will be
below zero.
"And now for Bayswater and my shrinking young bride," he thought. "I
declare," he said, half aloud, with a forced laugh, "I can sympathize,
for the first time, with the fly who had a bid from the spider to walk
into his parlor. Is there a roaring farce on anywhere?" he asked the
bar-tender.
"Yes, sir; a reg'lar side-splitter at the Haymarket. You will 'ave time
to take in the matinee and dinner at Broadlawns, Bayswater, too, sir."
"How the deuce did you know I was due there?"
"Mr. Stone and Miss Villiers have called three times to look you up,
sir."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, sir; Mr. Stone, he came in, and Miss Villiers, she waited outside
in the trap."
The mere mention of the people from Broadlawns having come to hunt him
up, had such a depressing effect, that he abandoned all idea of
distraction at the play.
"There is not a particle of use of my trying to sit through the farce
with this thumping headache; have a hansom here for me in a couple of
hours, to convey me to Broadlawns; I shall walk out and get a glimpse of
the city."
"All right, thank you, sir."
"Some one hath it," he thought, entering Trafalgar Square, "that the
grand panacea, the matchless sanative which is an infallible cure for
the blues, is exercise, exercise, _exercise!_ so now for a trial; here
goes for five miles an hour."
On, and ever onwards, with, and yet apart from, the stream of busy life,
alone and lonely amidst the throngs not once staying his steps; winging
his flight in the vain effort to flee from self, drifting on the waves
of unrest, they engulfing him, his face white and worn as a ghost, his
blue eyes weary and with a hunted look, a neuralgic headache driving him
to the brink of madness; the panorama of wonderful sights on which,
under other circumstances, he would have feasted his eyes. Peers of the
realm, having gained notoriety in one way or another, passed unnoticed,
with lovely women, from professional beauties reclining in their own
carriages, whose toys were men's hearts, with the world as a stage, to
the avowed actress, whose bright eyes looked from a hired equipage, who
played for men's gold on the stage of the theatre; far-famed Regent
Street was traversed with less interest than he would have accorded to
Lombard Street, Toronto; for man loves freedom as a bird--there he was
free, now he feels his fetters.
"Take care, sir," said a policeman, kindly.
"Blockhead! it would serve him right to come to his senses under the
feet of my horse," said the only occupant of a low carriage, in the
voice of a shrew, as she drove on.
At this juncture Cole shook himself to rights, as it were.
"She was ugly enough to give a fellow a scare, after our pretty Canadian
women," he said to the policeman.
"Oh, she isn't no type of what we can show you, sir; she's but small,
but enough o' her sort, say I."
"Ditto; and now be good enough to hail a cab for me."
"Yes, sir; here you are, and thank you, sir."
"To Morley's hotel."
"All right, sir."
On reaching his destination he learned that Mr. Stone had driven in to
ascertain whether he had arrived, when, on hearing that he had, but was
out, had waited; when a lady, calling for him, had gone, leaving a note
for him, which on opening read thus:
"DEAR BABBINGTON-COLE,--Am very pleased to hear of your safe
arrival; have important business, so cannot wait; in fact
arrangements for the immediate marriage of my niece to
yourself; kindly come out at once, on your return.
"Yours sincerely,
"TIMOTHY STONE."
"The net is well laid," thought poor Cole; "they are bound to rope me
in; how strange it all seems; even my name sounds unfamiliar, having at
home, in dear old Toronto, dropped the Babbington; but I must adorn
myself for the altar." And once more he seeks retirement in his own
chamber. "Hang that evolution of a woman's corsets and curling tongs,
viz., the modern dude! such a choking and tightening a fellow's throat
and legs undergo; I wonder if my shrinking bride will expect me to kneel
to her. Ah! there goes for a rip; under the knee, though, as luck would
have it; not being quite educated up to a chamois pad and face powder,
my modest Pearl will have to be satisfied with candle and throat moulds.
I wonder if she will compliment me on my handsome black moustache, as my
women friends at home do; and now to fortify myself with dinner, or at
least oysters and a glass of stout. Hang it, how faint and dizzy I
feel."