Mr. William Wyvern In Meath Street.
I.
George spent the night--such of it as remained after his bitter moanings
outside his Mary's lodging--with the Mr. Franklyn who had accompanied
him on that little “stroll up west” that had terminated in the cab
adventure nearly three months before. Of all his student friends who
would give him a bed, Mr. Franklyn, because in a way associated with
his Mary, had come most prominently into his mind. That same association
gave him a lead from which to pour out his reply to Mr. Franklyn's
rallying, as they sat at supper, upon his gloom.
“You remember that day after the July exam, when we went up west
together?” he began.
Mr. Franklyn remembered; in some gloom shook his head over the
recollection. “That waitress you left me with in the shop,” said Mr.
Franklyn sadly, “she--”
“Oh, hang the waitress! Listen, Franklyn, After I left you I turned
up past the Marble Arch--” He proceeded with some account of the love
between him and his Mary; skipped all details relating to the cat; came
to the impending marriage; sought advice upon the prospects of a man
marrying on a locum's earnings.
Mr. Franklyn listened with great sympathy. “It's a rum thing you should
be placed like that, George,” he said. “I'm in just the same position.”
George exclaimed eagerly--in love, youth warms to a companion--“You
are!”
“Well, not exactly,” Mr. Franklyn admitted. “Very nearly. I've got
myself into a brute of a fix over a girl in the lager-beer garden at
Earl's Court. She--”
George bounced from the table, seized his hat. “Who cares a damn about
your lager-beer girls?” he shouted; slammed from the house.
It was then, while Mr. Franklyn laboriously indited a letter in reply to
one received from the lager-beer girl's mother, that George paced Meath
Street.
II.
At breakfast with Mr. Franklyn upon the following morning, he was in
brighter trim--apologised for his over-night abruptness; apologised for
the hasty meal he was making; announced that he was off to see his Mary.
As he lit his pipe, “I'll see you at hospital this morning some time,
old chap,” he said. “I shall dash in to fix up with the Dean about
taking Bingham's place in that practice up in Yorkshire.”
Mr. Franklyn prodded for another slice of bacon. “You can't, old chap,”
he remarked. “That's filled.”
George shouted: “Filled! What do you mean?”
“Why, taken--gone. Simpson's got it--ten days ago.”
An icy chill smote my poor George. After the dreadful loss of
Runnygate everything had depended upon this appointment with its salary
considerably above the average.
“Simpson! Simmy got it!” he shouted. “What the blazes does Simmy mean by
taking it? He knew I was after it.”
“My good lad, you never came near the place after you'd qualified. If
Simmy hadn't taken it someone else would. Bingham was in a hurry.”
Blankly George stared before him. At length, “I suppose there are
several other jobs going?” he asked.
“None on the Dean's list,” said Mr. Franklyn. “I was looking at it last
night.”
Beneath this new distress George postponed the burning desire to clasp
his Mary in his arms and beg forgiveness. He hurried to hospital; made
for the Dean's office. Here disaster was confirmed. Simpson had already
taken the Yorkshire place; the Dean had no other posts on his lists.
“Only this Runnygate practice,” he said. “I haven't seen you since you
qualified. Can you raise the price?”
George, rising and making for the door, could only shake his head. There
was something at his throat that forbade speech. Runnygate and all that
Runnygate meant--the dear little home, the tight little practice, the
tremendous future--was a bitter picture now that it was so utterly lost;
now that even this place in Yorkshire was also gone.
He shook his head.
“Great pity!” the Dean told him. “I've kept it for you. Lawrence, the
man who's leaving it, is coming to see me at five this evening. I shall
have to help him find another purchaser.”
III.
The infernal something in George's throat gripped the harder as he took
his way to his Mary. He cursed himself for that hideous cat enterprise.
Had he never undertaken it, had he continued instead to entreat and
implore, there was always the chance that his uncle would have relented
and advanced the money sufficient for Runnygate.
As things were, he stood for ever damned in his uncle's eyes; further,
by his folly he had encompassed his darling Mary's ejection from a home
where she might comfortably have stayed till he was in position to marry
her; further, he had just missed the assistantship which, to his present
frame of mind, seemed the sole post in the world that would give him
sufficient upon which to call his Mary wife.
The desperate thoughts augmented his fearful remorse at his treatment
of her overnight. Arrived at Meath Street, admitted by Mrs. Pinking, he
bounded up the stairs, tremendous in his agony of love.
His Mary had her pretty nose pressed flat against the window. With dim
eyes she had been gazing for her George in the opposite direction from
that he had approached.
He closed the door behind him.
“Mary!” he called, arms outstretched.
Into them she flung herself.
They locked in a hug so desperate as only love itself could have borne.
He poured out his remorse; beside him on the sofa she patted those brown
hands. He told his gloomy tale; she patted the more lovingly--assured
him that, if the Yorkshire place had failed, something equally good
would turn up.
But he was in desperate despondency. “It's all that infernal cat, Mary,”
he groaned; she kissed that knotted forehead.
He asked her: “By the way, where's that other brute?--the beast we
brought here with us?”
She peered low. “I've just fed the poor thing.”
Attracted by her movement, that orange cat which had wrought the fearful
disaster came forth from beneath the table.
“G-r-r-r!” George growled; stamped his foot.
The orange cat again took shelter.
“Ah, don't frighten it, dear,” Mary told him. “It's done no harm.”
George rose. He was too tremendously moved to contain himself while
seated. “Done no harm!” he cried. He took a step to the window. “Done
no--” He stopped short. “Oh, Lord! I say, Mary! Oh, Lord! here's Bill!”
Mary fluttered to his side; saw Bill Wyvern disappear beneath the porch
of the door.
A knock; shuffling in the passage; footsteps up the stairs.
“By Gad! I'd forgotten all about old Bill,” George said.
Then Bill entered.