The dinner we had at the inn was not a success. The waiters evidently
settled that we were a wedding-party, and charged accordingly. Mary
tried hard to keep Revitts from taking any more to drink; but he said it
was necessary on a day like that, and ordered wine accordingly.
He drank slowly, and never once showed the slightest trace of
intoxication; but the wine also produced a strange irritability, which
made him angry, even to being fierce at times; and over and over again I
saw the tears in poor Mary's eyes.
Ever and again that bigamy case--real or imaginary--of which he had
heard as we came down kept cropping up, and the more Mary tried to turn
the conversation, the more eager he became to discuss it. The
wedding-day, his wife, my remarks, all were forgotten or set aside, so
that he might explain to us, with a vast amount of minutiae, how he
would have got up such a case, beginning with the preliminary inquiries
and ending with the culprit's sentence.
We had it over the dinner, with the waiters in the room; we had it in
_culs-de-sac_ in the maze; and we had it over again in Bushy Park, as we
sat under the shade of a great chestnut; after which Revitts lay down,
seeming to drop asleep, and Mary said to me, piteously:
"I do believe, dear, as he's took it into his head that I've committed
big-a-mee?"
The words were uttered in a whisper, but they seemed to galvanise
Revitts, who started up into a sitting posture, and exclaimed sharply:
"I don't know as you ain't. I never cross-examined you before we was
married. But look here, Mary Revitts, it's my dooty to tell you as what
you say now will be took down, and may be used as evidence against you."
After which oracular delivery he lay down and went off fast asleep,
leaving Mary to weep in silence, and wish we had never come away from
home.
I could not help joining her in the wish, though I did not say so, but
did all I could to comfort her, as Mr Peter Rowle's moral aphorisms
about drink kept coming to my mind. Not that poor Revitts had, in the
slightest degree, exceeded; and we joined in saying that it was all due
to over-excitement consequent upon his illness.
"If I could only get him home again, poor boy, I wouldn't, care," said
Mary; and we then comforted ourselves with the hope that he would be
better when he awoke, and that then we would go to one of the many
places offering, have a quiet cup of tea, which would be sure to do him
good, and then go back home, quietly, inside the omnibus.
Revitts woke in about an hour, evidently much refreshed and better, but
still he seemed strange. The tea, however, appeared to do him good, and
in due time we mounted to our seats outside the omnibus, for he
stubbornly refused to go within.
He did not say much on the return journey, but the bigamy case was
evidently running in his head, from what he said; and once, in a
whisper, poor Mary, who was half broken-hearted, confided to me now,
sitting on her other side, that she felt sure poor William was
regretting that they had been married.
"And I did so want to wait," she said: "but he wouldn't any longer."
"Are you two whispering about that there case?" he cried sharply.
"No, William dear," said Mary. "Do you feel better?"
"Better?" he said irritably. "There isn't anything the matter with me."
He turned away from her, and sat watching the side of the road,
muttering every now and then to himself in a half-angry way, while poor
Mary, in place of going into a tantrum, got hold of my hand between both
hers, and held it very hard pressed against the front of her dress,
where she was protected by a rigid piece of bone or steel. Every now
and then, poor woman, she gave the hand a convulsive pressure, and a
great sob in the act of escaping would feel like a throb against my arm.
So silent and self-contained did Revitts grow at last, that poor Mary
began to pour forth in a whisper the burden of her trouble, while I sat
wondering, and thinking what a curious thing this love must be, that
could so completely transform people, and yet give them so much pain.
"It wasn't my doing, Master Antony dear," whispered Mary; "for I said it
would be so much better for me to go back to service for a few years,
and I always thought as hasty marriages meant misery. But William was
so masterful, he said it was no use his getting on and improving his
spelling, and getting his promotion, if he was always to live a weary,
dreary bachelor--them was his very words, Master Antony; and now, above
all times, was the one for us to get married."
"He's tired, Mary," I said; "that's all."
"That's all? Ah, my dear! it's a very great all. He's tired of me,
that's what he is; and I shall never forgive my self for being so rash."
"But you have been engaged several years, haven't you, Mary?"
"Yes, my dear; but years ain't long when you're busy and always hard at
work. I dessay they're a long time to gentlefolks as has to wait, but
it never seemed long to me, and I've done a very rash thing; but I
didn't think the punishment was coming quite so soon."
"Oh, nonsense, Mary; Bill will be all right again soon," I said, as I
could see, by the light of a gas-lamp we passed, that the poor
disappointed woman had been crying till she had soaked and spoiled her
showy bonnet-strings.
"No, my dear, I don't think so; I feel as if it was all a punishment
upon me, and that I ought to have waited till he was quite well and
strong."
It was of no avail to try and comfort, so I contented myself with
sitting still and pressing poor Mary's rough honest hand, while the
horses rattled merrily along, and we gradually neared the great city.
I was obliged to own that if this was a specimen of a wedding-day, it
was anything but a joyous and festive time; and it seemed to me that the
day that had begun so unsatisfactorily was to be kept in character to
the end.
For, before reaching Hammersmith, one of the horses shied and fell, and
those at the pole went right upon it before the omnibus could be
stopped, with the consequence that the vehicle was nearly upset, and a
general shriek arose.
No harm, however, was done, and in a quarter of an hour we were once
more under weigh, but Mary said, with a sigh and a rub of the back of my
hand against the buttons of her dress, that it was a warning of worse
things to come; and though very sorry for her, I could not help longing
for our journey's end.
"Just you come over here, Ant'ny," said Revitts suddenly; and I had to
change places and sit between him and his wife, of whom he seemed not to
take the slightest notice.
"Are you better, Bill?" I said.
"Better?" he said sharply; "what do you mean by better? I'm all right."
"That's well," I said.
"Of course it is. Now look here, Ant'ny, I've been thinking a good deal
about that there big-a-mee as we come along, and I'll just tell you what
I should have done."
I heard Mary give a gulp; but I thought it better not to try and thwart
him, so prepared to listen.
"You see, Ant'ny," he said, in a very didactic manner, "when a fellow is
in the force, and is always taking up people and getting up cases, and
attending at the police-courts, and Old Bailey sessions and coroners'
inquests, he picks up a deal of valuable information."
"Of course, Bill."
"He do; it stands to reason that he do. Well, then, I ought to know
just two or three things."
"Say two or three thousand, Bill."
"Well," he said, giving his head an official roll, as if settling it in
his great stock, "we won't say that. Let's put it at 'undreds--two or
three 'undreds. Now, if I'd had such a case as that big-a-mee in hand,
I should have begun at the beginning.--Where are we now?" he said, after
a pause, during which he had taken off his hat, and rubbed his head in a
puzzled way.
"You were talking about the case," I said, "and beginning at the
beginning."
"Don't you try to be funny, young fellow," he said severely. "I said,
where are we now?"
"Just passing Hyde Park Corner, Bill."
"Yes, of course," he said. "Well, look here, my lad, there's no doubt
about one thing: women, take 'em all together, are--no, I won't say a
bad lot, but they're weak--awful weak. I've seen a deal on 'em at the
police-courts."
"I suppose so," I said, as I heard Mary give a low sigh.
"They're not what they should be, Ant'ny, by a long chalk, and the way
they'll tell lies and deceive and cheat 's about awful, that it is."
"Some women are bad, I daresay," I said, in a qualifying tone.
"Some?" he said, with a short, dry laugh; "it's some as is good. Most
women's bad."
"That's a nice wholesale sort of a charge," said a passenger behind him,
in rather a huffy tone.
"You mind your own business," said Revitts sharply. "I wasn't talking
to you;" and he spoke in such a fierce way that the man coloured, while
Mary leaned forward, and looked imploringly at me, as much as to say,
"Pray, pray, don't let him quarrel."
"I say it, and I ought to know," said Revitts dictatorially, "that
women's a bad lot, and after hearing of that case this morning, I say as
every woman afore she gets married ought to go through a reg'lar
cross-examination, and produce sittifikits of character, and witnesses
to show where she's been, and what she's been a-doing of for say the
last seven years. If that was made law, we shouldn't have poor fellows
taken in and delooded, and then find out afterwards as it's a case of
big-a-mee, like we heerd of this morning. Why, as I was a-saying,
Ant'ny, if I'd had that case in hand--eh? Oh, ah, yes, so it is. I'll
get down first. I didn't think we was so near."
For poor Bill's plans about the bigamy case were brought to an end by
the stopping of the omnibus in Piccadilly, and I gave a sigh of relief
as we drew up in the bright, busy thoroughfare, after a look at the dark
sea of shining lights that lay spread to the right over the Green Park
and Westminster.
Carriages were passing, the pavement was thronged, and it being a fine
night, all looked very bright and cheery after what had been rather a
dull ride. Revitts got down, and I was about to follow, offering my
hand to poor, sad Mary, when just as my back was turned, Revitts called
out to me:
"Ant'ny, Ant'ny, look after my wife!" and as I turned sharply, I just
caught sight of him turning the corner of the street, and he was gone.