AUNT ROB THINKS FLORENCE OUGHT TO MARRY A MARQUIS OR A PRINCE.
Dick Remington waited patiently to hear the full sum of the reproaches
which Aunt Rob brought against him. He, too, saw with his mind's eye
the image of the young girl for whom he would have laid down his life,
and if his thoughts of her brought a pang to his heart they were at
the same time charged with exceeding tenderness.
Inspector Robson shook himself free from dreams, and returned to his
subject.
"That is what Aunt Rob says. 'Here is Dick a grown man, and here is
Florence almost a grown woman. When Dick comes down in the morning he
kisses Florence and she kisses him; and when he bids her good night he
kisses her again. And,' says Aunt Rob, 'I don't know that this is a
thing that ought to be allowed to go on.' I dare say it's puzzled
other people as well as us when kissing ought to be left off. So long
as you were little it was as natural as natural could be. You were
playmates and chums, and you rolled on the floor together and played
coach and horses and London Bridge is Falling Down, and you'd carry
her on your shoulder and lift her as high as the ceiling, and throw
her up and catch her, she screaming with delight and crying, 'Again,
Dick, again!' You grew up, Dick, and when you were eighteen Florence
was only twelve, and the kissing went on, and there was nothing to
object to. But you got to be twenty and Florence fourteen, and the
kissing went on. Then her frocks were lengthened, and the pair of you
continued to grow up till she was nineteen and you twenty-five--and
all this time the kissing went on. Now, Dick, there _must_ come a
time when, even between cousins, kissing must stop. Sometimes it's
done gradual, sometimes all of a sudden, which makes things a bit
awkward--but one way or the other it's got to be done. You must see
that yourself, Dick."
"Yes, I suppose so, uncle."
"And Aunt Rob has got an eye to the future. Pretty girls like Florence
don't grow on every gooseberry bush. Show me the girl that can compare
with her. Do _you_ know of one, Dick?"
"Not one in all the wide world," replied the young man. "God bless
her, and make her happy!"
"She's been brought up sensible," said Inspector Robson. "She can make
a beef steak pudding and play the piano; there's nothing she can't
turn her hand to, and the man that gets her will be a lucky chap. Aunt
Rob thinks a gentleman born would not be too good for her. 'Why not
say a marquis, or a prince?' says I to her, speaking sarcastic like.
And she bridles up and answers, 'Why not? He might do worse; he
couldn't do better.'"
"No gentleman in the land," said Dick, with a tremor in his voice,
"could be too good for Florence. She's equal to the best, and could
hold her own among the best, even if they were born in a palace."
"That's what Aunt Rob thinks," said Inspector Robson, his eyes glowing
with loving pride, "and that's what we all think, and who that knows
Florence could think differently? But let's come back to you, Dick,
for that's the main point. Why don't you stick to one thing, my lad?"
"Perhaps because it won't stick to me," Dick replied.
"Nonsense, nonsense, lad, it's the other way about. Do you recollect
the morning you went to your first situation, and how we all stood at
the street door to see you off? There was Florence and Aunt Rob waving
their handkerchiefs and kissing their hands to you till you were out
of sight. You kept that situation seven months, and then you threw it
up. You didn't like the place, you said. All right. You got another
situation, as traveller on commission in the sewing machine line. You
commenced well, and was earning your fifteen shillings a week. What
was our surprise when you came home one night and told us you'd left
because it wouldn't suit you? The next thing you took to was the
stage, and you gave us tickets to come and see you act. We rehearsed
at home, and Florence gave you the cues. As for your make-up as you
call it, you did it so cleverly that we didn't know you when you come
on the stage. 'That's what he's cut out for,' I said. 'One of these
days he'll have a theatre of his own.' But Aunt Rob shook her head.
You wrote a little piece in one act, and got it played--actually got
it played. We thought it beautiful, and the way Florence laughed and
cried over it--well! But it wasn't a success for all that. Still, you
know, Dick, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. You didn't
try again. You gave up the stage----"
Dick interposed with, "Or it gave up me."
"Anyway you left it. Your next move was clerk to Mr. Samuel Boyd of
Catchpole Square."
"Ah!" said Dick, and there was a look of inquiry in his eyes as he
fixed them upon the Inspector.
"You may well say 'Ah,' for from what's known of him he's not the kind
of man one would be proud to serve. What made you go to him?"
"I was hard up, and had been trying for a couple of months to get in
somewhere. I was curious about him, too: thought he would do for a
character that I could make up like if I ever went on the stage, or
could use if ever I wrote another play." He spoke with apparent
carelessness, but with a covert observance of the Inspector while he
gave this explanation.
"It didn't surprise me that you remained with him only three months.
When you left him you took to writing for the papers, and we read your
paragraphs and articles with wonder at your cleverness. You don't do
much in that way now, Dick?"
"Not much," said Dick, with a smile, "but I haven't given it up
entirely. There is always the future."
"Ah, Dick, Dick," said Inspector Robson, very seriously, "we don't
live in the future, we live in the present. When we're hungry a future
dinner won't satisfy our stomachs. Aunt Rob sums it up in three or
four words. 'Dick's got no stability,' she says, and, against my will,
I've come round to her way of thinking. I suppose, Dick, all this time
you haven't saved a penny--eh?" The young man made no reply, and
Inspector Robson cried, half angrily, half admiringly, "What business
had you to be making us presents and bringing things home for Aunt Rob
and me and Florence when you ought to have been looking after
yourself? What did you do it for? 'Here's Dick brought home an immense
turkey,' says Aunt Rob to me at Christmas; and at other times, 'Here's
that stupid Dick brought home a couple of chickens, or a veal and ham
pie,' and I don't know what all. 'I wish,' says Aunt Rob, 'that you'd
tell him to stop it, and put his money into the savings bank.' But not
you! At the least mention of such a thing you fired up and wanted to
know what we meant by it."
"I could not have acted differently," said Dick. "I was living upon
you--yes, I was. You wouldn't take anything for my board and lodging,
and I had to try and make it up in some way. It was little enough I
did, but if I hadn't done that little I should have been ashamed to
look you in the face. Besides, how many times have you said to me,
'Dick, you must be in want of a bit of pocket money,' and forced a
half sovereign upon me, and sometimes more?"
"Welcome you were to it," said Inspector Robson, in his heartiest
tone, "though it's my firm belief if you had a thousand a year you'd
never have a shilling in your purse, you're that free with your money.
A sailor come ashore after a two year's cruise is a fool to you." He
paused a moment. "Dick, my lad, I've been too hard on you, in what
I've said: I'm downright ashamed of myself."
"It isn't in you, and it isn't in Aunt Rob, to do anything of which
you need be ashamed. I have been thoughtless and inconsiderate----"
"No, no, Dick!"
"Yes, yes, uncle. I've been too much wrapped up in myself, and given
no thought to the best friends a young ne'er-do-well ever had. If I
could only make it up to you!" He turned his face to the wall, so that
the Inspector should not see the tears that rushed into his eyes.
"Dick, my lad," said Inspector Robson, "have you got yourself into any
money difficulty? Say the word, and I'll see what we can do to get you
out of it."
"What a trump you are!" exclaimed Dick. "No, uncle. I owe no one a
shilling except you and Aunt Rob."
"Don't keep on harping on that string or you'll get my temper up. If
it isn't money, is it a woman?"
"If you mean whether I've entangled myself with a woman, or done
anything wrong that way, I can answer honestly, no."
"I knew it, my lad, I knew it," said Inspector Robson, triumphantly.
"Whatever your faults may be I was sure there wasn't a bit of vice in
you. And now I tell you what it is; you shall come home with me
to-night, your room's ready for you, and I'll make it all right with
Aunt Rob. Make it all right! It _is_ all right. 'The place isn't the
same, father,' she says to me, 'with Dick out of it.' If you knew how
we've missed you, my lad, you'd grow an inch taller."
"Who is it that has kept my room ready for me?"
"Aunt Rob and Florence, to be sure."
"And Florence," whispered Dick to himself, a wave of exceeding
tenderness flowing over him.
"Florence it was who said to Aunt Rob, 'Mother, we mustn't let Dick
think when he comes back that we've been neglectful of him.' 'Of
course not,' said Aunt Rob, and up they go to see that everything is
sweet and clean. You know the pride that Aunt Rob takes in the house.
You might eat off the floor. And there's Florence of a morning
sweeping out your room, and looking in every corner for a speck of
dust. There's the canary and the cage you gave her, _and_ the
goldfish--why, if they were her own little babies she couldn't look
after them better. So home we go together, and we'll let bygones be
bygones and commence afresh."
"No, uncle, I can't come home with you," said Dick, shaking his head.
"I thank you from my heart, but it can't be."
"Not come home with me!" exclaimed Inspector Robson, in great
astonishment. "Why, what's the matter with the lad? You don't mean it,
Dick, sure_ly!_"
"I do mean it, uncle."
"Dick, Dick, Dick," said Inspector Robson, shaking a warning
forefinger at the young man, "pride's a proper thing in the right
place, but a deuced ugly thing when it makes us take crooked views. I
say you _shall_ come home with me. Do you know what kind of a night it
is, lad? I wouldn't turn a dog out in such weather, unless it was a
blind dog, and then it wouldn't matter much. Come, come, Dick, think
better of it."
"Nothing can alter my resolution, uncle--nothing. I did not come here
to-night to annoy you; I wanted a shelter, and I hoped the fog would
clear; but it seems to have grown thicker. However, it can't last for
ever. In three or four hours it will be morning, and then----"
"Go on. And then?"
"The night will be gone, and it will be day," said Dick, gaily.
"And to-morrow night?"
"It will be night again."
"And you'll sleep in Buckingham Palace, for it stands to reason a man
must sleep somewhere, and they don't charge for beds there that I'm
aware of. How's the treasury, lad?" Dick laughed. "It's no laughing
matter. Here's a sovereign; it'll see through the week at all events."
"I'm not going to rob you, uncle," said Dick in a shaking voice.
Inspector Robson caught Dick's hand, forced it open, forced a
sovereign into it, and closed the young man's fingers over it, holding
the hand tight in his to prevent the money being returned. In the
execution of a ruthless action the Inspector's muscles were of iron.
"If you drop it, or try to give it me back," he said, "I'll lock you
up and charge you with loitering for an unlawful purpose. What will
Florence think when she sees your name in the papers and my name
charging you? Be sensible for once, Dick, if you've any feeling for
her."
The blood rushed up into Dick's face, and he staggered as if he had
been struck; but he recovered himself quickly, and was the same
indolent, easy-mannered being as before.
"Thank you, uncle; I'll keep the sovereign. Before the week's out I
daresay I shall get something to do. The mischief of it is, there's
nothing stirring; stagnation's the order of the day. If I could hit
upon something startling and be first in the field, I should get well
paid for it. Would you object to my dashing on the colour in an
article headed, 'A Night in an Inspector's Office.'? I think I could
make it lurid."
Before the laughing Inspector could reply a constable entered, holding
by the arm a poorly dressed woman of woebegone appearance. Her
gestures, her sobs, the wild looks she cast around, were those of a
woman driven to distraction. Clinging to her skirts was a little girl
as woebegone and white-faced as her mother.
Inspector Robson instantly straightened himself; he was no longer a
private individual, but an officer of the law prepared for duty in
whatever complicated shape it presented itself.
"She's been here half-a-dozen times to-night, sir," said the
constable, "and last night as well, and the night before. She's lost
her husband, she says."
"My husband--my husband!" moaned the woman. "Find him for me--find him
for me! He's gone, gone, gone! Merciful God! What has become of him?"
Inspector Robson saw at a glance that here before him was no woman
maddened by drink, but a woman suffering from terrible distress; and
by a motion of his hand he conveyed an order to the constable, who
instantly took his hand from the woman's arm.
"What is your husband's name?" asked the Inspector in a gentle tone.
"Abel Death, sir. Oh, for God's sake find him for me--find him for
me--find him for me!"
Tears rolled down her face and choked her voice. Every nerve in her
body was quivering with anguish.
"How long has he been gone?" asked the Inspector.
"Five days, sir, five long, long days."
"Was he in employment?"
"Yes, sir, yes. Oh, what can have become of him?"
"What is the name of his employer?"
The agony the woman had endured overcame her, and she could not
immediately reply.
"Mr. Samuel Boyd, sir, of Catchpole Square," said the child.