'You are quite welcome to use my footwarmer,' she said.
'Thank you, my feet are not cold,' was the ungracious reply.
'I have had it changed twice since I left town,' she pursued, 'so that
it is quite hot. The porters have been remarkably civil, and the guard
looks in occasionally to see that I am comfortable.'
'In expectation of a tip,' thought the gentleman, but he said nothing.
'The French are believed to be the politest people in the world,'
continued the lady, not yet discouraged, 'but I must say that the
English railway porter is far in advance of the French one. On a
foreign line you are treated as a vagabond, on the English as a guest.'
Still he said nothing. The lady cast an almost appealing glance at him.
She had travelled a long way for a great many hours, and was weary of
her own company. She longed for a little conversation.
'I cannot read in the train,' she said plaintively, 'it makes me giddy,
and--I started yesterday from home.'
'In-deed,' said he in dislocated syllables. He quite understood that a
hint had been conveyed to him, but he was an armadillo against hints.
The pretty young lady had not opened the conversation, if that can be
called conversation which is one-sided, without having observed the
young man's face, and satisfied herself that there was no more
impropriety in her talking to one of so staid an air than if he had been
a clergyman.
'What a bear this man is!' she thought.
He on his side said to himself, 'A forward missie! I wish I were in a
smoking-carriage, though I detest the smell of tobacco.'
Pretty--uncommonly pretty the little lady was, with perfectly made
clothes. The fit of the gown and the style of the bonnet proclaimed
French make. She had lovely golden-red hair, large brown eyes, and a
face of transparent clearness, with two somewhat hectic fire-spots in
her cheeks. Her charming little mouth was now quivering with pitiful
vexation.
A quarter of an hour elapsed without another word being spoken, and the
gentleman was satisfied that his companion had accepted the rebuff he
had administered, when she broke forth again with a remark.
'Oh, sir! excuse my seeming rudeness, but--you have been reading the
newspaper, and I am on pins and needles to hear the news from France.
It is true that I have just crossed the Channel from that dear and
suffering--but heroic country; I am, however, very ignorant of the news.
Unfortunately our journals are not implicitly to be relied on. The
French are such a patriotic people that they cannot bring themselves to
write and print a word that tells of humiliation and loss to their
country. It is very natural, very noble--but inconvenient. That superb
Faidherbe--I do trust he has succeeded in crushing the enemy.'
'He has been utterly routed.'
'Oh dear! Oh dear!' the little lady was plunged into real distress.
'This news was kept from me. That was why I was hurried away. I wanted
to bring my nieces with me, the Demoiselles Labarte, but they clung to
their mother and would not leave her. It was magnificent.' Then, after
a sigh, 'Now, surely England will intervene.'
The gentleman shook his head.
'It is cruel. Surely one sister should fly to the assistance of the
other.'
'The English nation is sister to the German.'
'Oh, how can you say so? William the Conqueror came from France.'
'From Normandy, which was not at the time and for long after considered
a part of France.'
Then the gentleman, feeling he had been inveigled into saying more than
he intended, looked out of the window.
Presently he heard a sob. The girl was crying. He took no notice of her
trouble. He had made up his mind that she was a coquette, and he was
steeled against her various tricks to attract attention and enlist
sympathy. He would neither smile when she laughed, nor drop his mouth
when she wept. His lips closed somewhat tighter, and his brows
contracted slightly. He had noticed throughout the journey the petty
attempts made by this girl to draw notice to herself--the shifting of
her shawls, the opening and shutting of her valise, the plaintive sighs,
the tapping of the impatient feet on the footwarmer. Though he had
studiously kept his eyes turned from her, nothing she had done had
escaped him, and all went to confirm the prejudice with which he was
inclined to regard her from the moment of his entering the carriage. He
rose from his place and moved to the further end of the compartment.
'I beg your pardon,' said the young lady, 'I trust I have not disturbed
you. You must excuse me, I am unhappy.'
'Quite so, and I would not for the world trespass on your grief.'
'I have a husband fighting under the Tricouleur, and I am very anxious
about him.'
The gentleman made a slight acknowledgment with his head, which said
unmistakably that he invited no further confidences.
This she accepted, and turned her face to look out of the opposite
window.
At that moment the brake was put on, and sent a thrill through the
carriage. Presently the train stopped. The face of the guard appeared
at the window, and the little lady at once lowered the glass.
'How are you getting on, miss?'
'Very well, I thank you; but you must not call me miss; I am a married
woman. I have left my husband in France fighting like a lion, and I am
sent away because the Prussians are robbing and burning and murdering
wherever they go. I know a lady near Nogent from whose chateau they
carried off an ormulu clock.' How unnecessary it was for her to enter
into these details to the guard, thought the gentleman. He could not
understand how a poor little heart full of trouble would long to pour
itself out; how that certain natures can no more exist without sympathy
than can plants without water.
'Don't you think, guard, that the English Government ought to
interfere?'
'Well, ma'am, that depends on how it would affect traffic--on the
Midland. Where are you going to, if I may ask?'
'Mergatroyd.'
'There has been a flood, and the embankment of the railway has been
washed away. For a day there has not been any passing over the lines,
and now we are ordered to go along uncommon leisurely.'
'But oh! guard, there is, I trust, no danger.'
'No, ma'am, none in the least; I'll take care that you come by no hurt.
The worst that can happen is that we shall be delayed, and perhaps not
be able to proceed the whole way in the same train. But rely on me,
ma'am, I'll see to you.'
'Oh, guard, would you--would you mind? I have here a little bottle of
nice Saint Julien, and I have not been able to touch it myself. Would
you mind taking it? Also, here--here, under the bottle.'
She slipped some money into his hand.
The guard's red face beamed broad and benignant. He slipped the money
into his waistcoat pocket, the bottle he stowed away elsewhere; then
thrusting his head inside he said confidentially, 'Never fear. I'll
make it all right for you, ma'am.'
When the lady, who was none other than Janet, the twin sister of Salome,
mentioned Mergatroyd as her destination, the eyebrows of her
fellow-passenger were slightly lifted. He was looking out of the
opposite window to that at which she conversed with the guard. Now he
knew that he would not be rid of his companion for the rest of the
journey, for he also was on his way to Mergatroyd. There was but a
single subject of comfort to him, that the distance to Mergatroyd was no
longer great, and the time taken over it, in spite of the hint of the
guard, which he discounted, could not be great either.
The short November day had closed in; and the remainder of the journey
would be taken in the dark. The lamps had not yet been lighted in the
carriage. To the west he could see through the window the brown light
of the set day, the last rays of a wintry sun arrested by factory smoke.
The gentleman was uneasy. If the dromedary will not voluntarily enter
the cage of the vulture, he will not remain in it in darkness with her
without tremors.
'When do you think, sir, that I shall reach Mergatroyd?' asked the young
lady.
'That is a question impossible for me to answer,' replied the gentleman;
'as you heard from your friend,'--he emphasized this word and threw
sarcasm into his expression--'the guard, there are conditions, about
which I know nothing, which will interfere with the punctuality of the
train.'
Then he fumbled in his pocket, drew forth an orange-coloured envelope,
from this took a scrap of pink paper, and by the expiring evening light
read the telegraphic message in large pencil-marks.
'Your uncle lost. Come at once. Salome.'
Salome!--who was Salome?
He replaced the paper in the envelope, which was addressed Philip
Pennycomequick, care of Messrs. Pinch and Squeeze, Solicitors,
Nottingham.
The message was a brief one--too brief to be intelligible.
Lost--how was Mr. Jeremiah Pennycomequick lost?
When the train drew up at a small station, the young man returned to the
down side, by the lady, let down the glass and called the guard.
'Here! what did you say about the flood? I have seen it mentioned in
the paper, but I did not understand that it had been at Mergatroyd.'
'It has been in the Keld Valley.'
'And Mergatroyd is in that valley?'
'Where else would you have it, sir?'
'But--according to my paper the great damage was done at Holme Bridge.'
'Well, so it was; and Holme Bridge is above Mergatroyd.'
Philip Pennycomequick drew up the glass again. Now he understood. He
had never been to Mergatroyd in his life, and knew nothing about its
situation. He had skimmed the account of the flood in his paper, but had
given most of his attention to the narrative of the war in France. It
had not occurred to him to connect the 'loss' of his uncle with the
inundation. He had supposed the word 'loss' was an euphemism for 'going
off his head.' Elderly gentlemen do not get lost in England, least of
all in one of its most densely populated districts, as if they were in
the backwoods or prairies of America.
But who sent him the telegram? He had no relative of the name of
Salome. His aunt, Mrs. Sidebottom, who was now resident, as he knew, at
Mergatroyd, was named Louisa, and she was the person who, he supposed,
would have wired to him if anything serious had occurred requiring his
presence.
His companion was going to Mergatroyd, and probably knew people there.
If he asked her whether she was aware of a person of the peculiar
Christian name of Salome at that place, it was possible she might inform
him. But he was too reserved and proud to ask. He would not afford
this flighty piece of goods an excuse for opening conversation with him.
In half an hour he would be at his destination, and would then have his
perplexity cleared.
The train proceeded leisurely. Philip's feet were now very cold, and he
would have been grateful for the warmer, but could not now ask for
permission to use what he had formerly rejected.
As the train proceeded the engine whistled.
There were men working on the line; at intervals coal fires were blazing
and smoking in braziers. The train further slackened speed. Philip
Pennycomequick could see that there was much water covering the country.
The train had now entered the Valley of the Keld, and was ascending it.
What a nuisance it would be were he stopped and obliged to tarry for
some hours till the road was repaired, tarry in cold and darkness,
without a lamp in his carriage, caged in with that pretty, coquettish,
dangerous minx, and with no third party present to serve as his
protector.
The train came to a standstill. The young lady was uneasy. She lowered
the glass and leaned out; and looked along the line at the flaming
fires, the half-illumined navvies, the steam trailing away and mingling
with the smoke, the fog that gathered over the inundated fields. A raw
wind blew in at the open window.
Then up came the guard, sharply turned the handle and threw open the
door. 'Everyone get out. The train can go no further.'
All the passengers were obliged to descend, dragging with them their
rugs and bags, their cloaks, umbrellas, novels, buns and oranges--all
the piles of _impedimenta_ with which travellers encumber themselves on
a journey, trusting to the prompt assistance of mercenary porters.
But on this night, away from any station, there were no porters. The
descent from the carriage was difficult and dangerous. It was like
clambering down a ladder of which some of the rungs were broken. It was
rendered doubly difficult by the darkness in which it had to be
effected, and the difficulty was quadrupled by the passengers having to
scramble down burdened with their effects. It was not accordingly
performed in silence, but with screams from women who lost their
footing, and curses and abuses launched against the Midland from the
men.
Mr. Philip was obliged by common humanity to assist the young lady out
of the carriage, and to collect and help to carry her manifold goods;
for the civil guard was too deeply engaged to attend to her. He had
received his fee, and was, therefore, naturally lavishing his attention
on others, in an expectant mood.
Mr. Philip Pennycomequick somewhat ungraciously advised the companion
forced on his protection to follow him. He engaged to see her across
the dangerous piece of road and return for those of her wraps and
parcels which he and she were together unable to transport to the train
awaiting them beyond the faulty portion of the line.
The walk was most uncomfortable. It was properly not a walk but a
continuous stumble. To step in the dark from sleeper to sleeper was not
easy, and the flicker of the coal fires dazzled and confused rather than
assisted the sight. The wind, moreover, carried the dense smoke in
volumes across the line, suddenly enveloping and half stifling, but
wholly blinding for the moment, the unhappy, bewildered flounderers who
passed through it. In front glared the two red lights of an engine that
waited with carriages to receive the dislodged passengers.
'You must take my arm,' said Mr. Philip to his companion. 'This is
really dreadful. One old lady has, I believe, dislocated her ankle. I
hope she will make a claim on the company.'
'Oh, dear! And Salome!--what will she say?'
'Salome?'
'Yes--my sister, my twin-sister.'
When Philip Pennycomequick did finally reach his destination, it was
with a mind that prejudged Salome, and was prejudiced against her.
*CHAPTER IX.*
*ARRIVAL.*
'What--no cabs? No cabs?' asked Philip Pennycomequick, on reaching the
Mergatroyd Station. 'What a place this must be to call itself a town and
have no convenience for those who arrive at it, to transport them to
their destinations. Can one hire a wheelbarrow?' Philip was, as may be
seen, testy. The train had not deposited him at the station till past
seven, instead of four-eighteen, when due. He had been thrown into
involuntary association with a young lady, whom he had set down to
belong to a category of females that are to be kept at a distance--that
is, those who, as he contemptuously described them, run after a
hearth-brush because it wears whiskers. He misjudged Janet Baynes, as
men of a suspicious temper are liable to misjudge simple and frank
natures. There are men who, the more forward a woman is, so much the
more do they recoil into their shells, to glower out of them at those
who approach them, like a mastiff from its kennel, with a growl and a
display of teeth.
Who this woman was with whom he had been thrown, Philip only knew from
what she had told him and the guard. He was aware that she was the
sister of his correspondent Salome, but he was ignorant as before who
Salome was, less only the fact that she must be young, because the
twin-sister of his fellow-passenger. If like her--and twins are usually
alike--she must be pretty, and as mental characteristics follow the
features, like her coquettish, and ready to make love--as Philip put
it--to the hearth-brush because of its whiskers.
At the station he had reckoned on finding a cab and driving to his
destination, whilst his companion went off in another. But to his
vexation he found that there were no cabs. He must engage a porter to
carry his traps on a truck. He resolved to go first of all to his
uncle's house and inquire whether he was lost in the flood and if he had
been heard of since the telegram was despatched. Then he would put up
for the night at the inn, and his future movements would be regulated by
the information he received.
'By the way,' said he to the porter, 'I suppose you have a decent hotel
in the place, though it is deficient in cabs.'
'There are three inns,' answered the man, 'but all full as an excursion
train on Good Friday. The poor folks that ha' been turned o't haase by
t' water ha' been ta'en into 'em. Where art 'a going, sir?'
'To the house of Mr. Pennycomequick,' answered Philip.
'Right you are,' said the porter, 'Mrs. Baynes is also boun' to t'same,
and I can take t'whole bag-o'-tricks on one barrow.'
Philip turned to Janet Baynes with an impatient gesture, which with all
his self-control he was unable to repress, and said:
'You are going to Mr. Pennycomequick's, I understand, madam.'
There was no avoiding it. The tiresome association could not be
dissolved at once, it threatened to continue.
'Yes,' answered Janet, 'I spent all my life there till I married, and my
mother and sister are there now.'
'Not relations of Mr. Pennycomequick?'
'Oh dear no. He has been like a father to us, because our own father
was killed by an accident in his service. That was a long time ago, I
cannot remember the circumstance. Ever since then we have lived in the
house. We always call Mr. Pennycomequick our uncle, but he is no real
relative.'
Philip strode forward, ahead of the porter; from the station the road
ascended at a steep gradient, and the man came on slowly with the united
luggage. Janet quickened her pace, and came up beside Philip.
It was like being beset by a fly in summer.
'Are you going to Mr. Pennycomequick's?' asked Janet, panting. She was
a little out of breath with walking to keep up with her companion.
'Yes.'
'I am not strong. My breath goes if I hurry, especially in going
up-hill.'
'Then, madam, let me entreat you to spare your lungs and relax your
pace.'
'But then--we shall be separated, and we are going to the same house.
Would you mind going just a wee bit slower?'
Philip complied without a word.
He questioned for a moment whether he should inform his fellow-passenger
of the news that the uncle was lost. But he reflected that he knew
nothing for certain. The message he had received could hardly have been
couched in vaguer terms. It was quite possible that his explanation of
it was false; it was also not at all improbable that the alarm given was
premature. If Salome were like the young scatter-brain walking at his
side, she would be precisely the person to cry 'Wolf!' at the first
alarm. He might have inquired of the porter whether Mr. Pennycomequick
had met with an accident, or whether anything had occurred at his house;
but he preferred to wait, partly because he was too proud to inquire of
a porter, and partly because he was given no opportunity to questioning
him out of hearing of his companion.
'Are you going to stay at uncle's?' asked Janet.
'I really am unable to answer that question.'
'But, as you have heard, all the inns are full. Have you any friends in
Mergatroyd?'
'Relations--not friends.'
'What a delightful thing it must be to have plenty of relations! Salome
and I have none. We were quite alone in the world, except for mother.
Now I have, of course, all my husband's kindred, but Salome has no one.'
There was no shaking this girl off. She stuck to him as a burr. In all
probability he would be housed at his uncle's that night, and so he
would be brought into further contact with this person. She herself was
eminently distasteful to him--but a sister unmarried!--Philip resolved
to redouble his testy manner towards her. He would return to Nottingham
on the morrow, unless absolutely compelled by circumstances to remain.
There was--there always had been--a vein of suspicion, breeding reserve
of manner, in the Pennycomequick family. It was found chiefly in the
men--in the women, that is, in Mrs. Sidebottom, it took a different
form. As forces are co-related, so are tempers. It chilled their
manner, it made them inapt to form friendships, and uncongenial in
society.
Uncle Jeremiah had it, and that strongly. Towards his own kin he had
never relaxed. The conduct of neither sister nor brother had been such
as to inspire confidence. To the last he was hard, icy and suspicious
towards them. But the warm breath of the little children had melted the
frost in his domestic relations, and their conspicuous guilelessness had
disarmed his suspicions. To them he had been a very different man to
what he had appeared to others. Philip's father had behaved foolishly,
withdrawn his money from the firm, and in a fit of credulity had allowed
himself to be swindled out of it by a smooth-tongued impostor,
Schofield. That loss had reduced him to poverty, and had soured him.
Thenceforth, the Pennycomequick characteristics which had been in
abeyance in Nicholas ripened rapidly. Philip had learned from his
father to regard the bulk of mankind as in league against the few, as
characterized by self-seeking, and as unreliable in all that affected
their own interests. Philip was aged thirty-four, but looked older than
his years. The experiences he had passed through had prematurely fixed
the direction of his tendencies, and had warped his views of life. In
photography, impressions made on the sensitive plate rapidly fade unless
dipped in a solution which gives them permanency. So is it with the
incidents of life; pictures are formed in our brains and pass unnoticed,
unregistered, till something occurs to fix them. The great misfortune
which had befallen his father had acted as such a bath to Philip's mind,
leaving on it the indelible impression of universal rascality. He could
remember the comfort in which his childhood had been passed, and the
grinding penury afterwards. Obliged to work for his livelihood, he had
chosen the law, a profession ill calculated to counteract the tendency
in him, inherent, and already declared, to regard all men as knaves or
fools.
Nicholas's last years had been spent in useless repinings over his loss,
in grumbling at his brother and sister for not coming to his aid, and in
hatred of the man who had ruined him.
He had been too proud to appeal to his half-brother, and was angry with
Jeremiah for not coming forward unsolicited to relieve him. Had he gone
to his brother, even written to him to express regret for his
injudicious conduct, it is probable, nay, certain, that Jeremiah would
have forgiven him; but the false pride of Nicholas prevented him taking
this step, and Jeremiah would not move to his assistance without it.
Thus a mutual misunderstanding kept the half-brothers apart, and
embittered their minds against each other.
Mrs. Sidebottom had been of as little help to her brother as had
Jeremiah. Mr. Sidebottom had, indeed, taken Philip into his office as a
clerk, but no Sidebottom contributions came to relieve the necessities
of Nicholas. His sister was profuse in regrets and apologies for not
doing anything for him, always weighting these apologies with a lecture
on his wrong-doing in withdrawing his money from the firm; but she gave
him nothing save empty words. Nicholas entertained but little love for
his sister; and Philip grew up with small respect for his aunt.
By the time that Philip had reached the Pennycomequick door he was in as
unamiable a temper as he had ever been during the thirty-four years of
his life. He was damp, hungry, cold. He more than half believed that
he had been brought to Mergatroyd on a fool's errand; he did not know
where he was to sleep that night, and what he would get to eat. The
inns, as he had heard, were full; no more trains would leave the station
that night, owing to the condition of the line; there was not a cab in
Mergatroyd, so that he could escape from the place only on foot, and
that without his baggage.