Kitabı oku: «A Change of Air», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XVIII.
Delilah Johnstone

When it became known to Mr. Delane that the ode of welcome would be forthcoming, – a fact which, without being definitely announced, presently made its way into general knowledge, – he felt that he owed Dale Bannister a good turn. The young man was obviously annoyed and hurt at the aspect of Alderman Johnstone's window, and the Squire could not, moreover, conceal from himself that the parade of the Alderman's sandwich-men on the day of the royal visit would detract from the unanimity of loyalty and contentment with Queen and Constitution which he felt Denborough ought to display. Finally, his wife and his daughter were so strongly of opinion that something must be done that he had no alternative but to try to do something. Intimidation had failed; the Alderman intrenched himself behind his lease; and Colonel Smith's open triumph was hardly needed to show the Squire that in this matter he had been caught napping. Bribery of a direct and pecuniary sort was apparently also of no avail, and the Squire was driven to play his last card at the cost of great violence to his own feelings. A week before the great day he sent for the Mayor and was closeted with him for half an hour. The Mayor came out from the conference with an important air, and, on his way home, stopped at Alderman Johnstone's door. The poems, placards, and posters were still prominently displayed, and over the way James Roberts, in his well-worn coat, paced up and down on his unwearying patrol. He would wait days rather than miss Dale, in case the poet might chance to pass that way. He had nothing to do, for no one sent for him now; he had no money, and could earn none; therefore his time was his own, and he chose to spend it thus, forgetting his wife and his child, forgetting even to ask how it happened that there was still food and fuel in his house, or to suspect what made him so often see Philip Hume walk past with an inquiring gaze, indifferently concealed, and so often meet Dale's servant, Wilson, carrying baskets up and down the street on his way to and from Littlehill.

The Mayor went in and fell into conversation with Johnstone. He spoke of the glories of the coming day, of his own new gown, and of Mrs. Hedger's; and as he raised his voice in enthusiastic description Mrs. Johnstone stole in from the back parlor and stood within the door. The Alderman affected scorn of the whole affair, and chuckled maliciously when the Mayor referred to Dale Bannister.

"Then," said the Mayor, "after the Institoot's opened, there's a grand luncheon at the Grange, with the Duke, and his Lordship, and the Squire, and all."

He paused: the Alderman whistled indifferently, and his wife drew a step nearer. The Mayor proceeded, bringing his finest rhetoric into play.

"The Crown," he said, "the County, and the Town will be represented."

"What, are you going, Hedger?" asked the Alderman, with an incredulous laugh.

"The Squire and Mrs. Delane are so good as to make a point of me and Mrs. Hedger attendin' – in state, Johnstone."

"My!" said Mrs. Johnstone, moving a step within the door. "That'll be a day for Susan."

"His Lordship gives Susan his arm," said the Mayor.

"Aint there any more going from the town?" asked Mrs. Johnstone, while the Alderman ostentatiously occupied himself with one of his posters.

"The Squire," replied the Mayor, "did want another, – there's no room but for two, – but he thinks there's no one of sufficient standin' – not as would go."

"Well, I'm sure!" said Mrs. Johnstone.

"You see, ma'am," pursued the Mayor, "we must consider the lady. The lady must be asked. Now would you ask Mrs. Maggs, or Mrs. Jenks, or Mrs. Capper, or any o' that lot, ma'am?"

"Sakes, no!" said Mrs. Johnstone scornfully.

"'There is a lady,' I says to the Squire, 'as would do honor to the town, but there – the man's wrong there!'"

Mrs. Johnstone came nearer still, glancing at her husband.

"When I mentioned the party I was thinkin' of," the Mayor went on, "the Squire slapped his thigh, and, says he, 'The very man we want, Hedger,' he says; 'all parties ought to be represented. He's a Liberal – a prominent Liberal; so much the better. Now, won't he come?' 'Well,' says I, 'he's an obstinate man;' and Mrs. Delane says, 'You must try, Mr. Mayor. Say what pleasure it 'ud give me to see him and Mrs. Johnstone – ' There, I've let it out!"

A pause followed. The Mayor drew a card from his pocket. It was headed, "To have the honor of meeting H. R. H. the Duke of Mercia." The Mayor laid it on the counter.

"There!" he said. "You must do as you think right, Johnstone. Of course, if you like to go on like this, worryin' the Squire's friends, why, it isn't for you to put your legs under the Squire's ma'ogany. So the Squire says. He says, 'Let him drop that nonsense, and come and be friendly – he may think what he likes.'"

There was another pause.

"There'll have been nothin' like it in my day," said the Mayor. "And only me and Susan from the town!"

"There'll be plenty ready to go," said Johnstone.

"Aye, that they will, but they won't have the askin'. Mrs. Delane says there aint a soul she'll have, except me and Susan, and you and Mrs. Johnstone. You see, ma'am, it isn't everyone who can sit down with the county."

The heart of Mrs. Johnstone was alight with pride and exultation and longing. She looked at her husband and she looked at the Mayor.

"You and me and the Recorder 'ud drive up in the coach," said the Mayor, with the air of one who regretfully pictures an impossible ideal; "and the ladies – Mrs. Hedger and you, ma'am – was to follow in a carriage and pair with a postilion – his Lordship 'ud send one for ye."

"I'd wear my ruby velvet," murmured Mrs. Johnstone in the voice of soliloquy, "and my gold earrings."

"Well, I must be goin'," said the Mayor. "It's a cryin' shame you won't come, Johnstone. What's that mad feller Roberts to you?"

"A dirty villain as starves his wife!" ejaculated Mrs. Johnstone, with sudden violence.

The Alderman looked up with a start.

"Take a day to think it over," said the Mayor. "Take a day, ma'am;" and he disappeared with a smile on his shrewd, good-tempered face.

There was silence for a moment after he went. The Alderman sat in his chair, glancing at his wife out of the corner of his eye. Mrs. Johnstone gazed fixedly at the shop-window. The Alderman looked at her again: she was, he thought (with much justice), a fine woman; she would look well in the ruby velvet and the gold earrings, and the swells would wonder where old Johnstone picked up that strapping young woman – for she was his junior by twenty years. The Alderman sighed, and looked down again at his poster.

Presently Mrs. Johnstone stole quietly toward the window, the Alderman covertly watching her. When she reached it, she threw a coquettish glance over her shoulder at her elderly husband: did she not know, as well as he, that she was a fine young woman?

Then she began to take Dale Bannister's books out of their place, piling them behind the counter, and to tear down the bills and placards. The Alderman sat and watched her, till she had finished her task. Then he rose and thundered:

"Put them things back, Sally! Do you 'ear me? I aint going to be made a fool of."

Probably Mrs. Johnstone was not so sure. She burst into tears and flung her arms round the Alderman's neck.

"There! what's there to cry about?" said he, drawing her on to his knee.

While the Mayor was still in the shop, James Roberts had gone home to his midday meal. He ate it with good appetite, not knowing who had paid for it, and not noticing his wife's terror lest he should ask her. After the meal he went to his study and read some of Dale's poetry, declaiming it loudly and with fury, while Ethel listened with the horror that had begun to gain on her increasing and increasing as she listened. She was afraid of him now – afraid most for him, but also for the child and herself; and she thanked Heaven every time he went out peacefully, and again when he came back unhurt.

It was about four when the Doctor took his hat and walked down the street to resume his patrol. To his amazement, the window was bare, the books gone, the placards and posters all torn down. With an oath he rushed into the shop, and found the Alderman sitting behind a pile of volumes, on the top of which lay an envelope addressed to himself.

"What's the meaning of this?" gasped the Doctor, and as he spoke the glass door which led to the parlor opened a little way.

"It means, Doctor, that I've had enough of it."

"Enough of it?"

"Yes. Mr. Bannister aint done me any 'arm, and I'm not going to fret him any more."

"You scoundrel!" shrieked the maddened man; "you thief! you took my money – you – "

"There's your books, and there in the envelope you'll find your 'undred pound. Take 'em and get out."

"So Bannister has been at you?" sneered Roberts.

"I aint seen 'im."

"Ah!"

He was quiet now, the cold fit was on him. He took no notice of the books, but put the envelope in his pocket and turned to go, saying:

"You think you can stop my revenge, you pitiful fool; you'll see."

Johnstone gave himself a shake.

"I'm well out of that," he said. "I b'lieve he's crazy. Sally, where are you?"

Sally came, and no doubt the Alderman gained the reward of the righteous, in whose house there is peace.

When the Squire received an acceptance of his invitation from Alderman and Mrs. Johnstone, he became more than ever convinced that every Radical was at heart a snob. Perhaps it would have been fair to remember that most of them are husbands. Be that as it may, his scheme had worked. The posters, the books, and the sandwich-men were gone. There was nothing now to remind Denborough that it harbored a revolutionist. What was more important still, there was nothing to remind Dale Bannister of the indiscretions of his past. He might now read his ode, unblushing, in High Street, and no placard would scream in ill-omened reminder: "No more Kings!"

CHAPTER XIX.
A Well-Paid Poem

Among the quieter satisfactions of life must be ranked in a high place the peace of a man who has made up his mind. He is no longer weighing perplexing possibilities, but, having chosen his path, feels that he has done all that can be done, and that this conviction will enable him to bear with patience the outcome of his determination, whatever it may be. Of course he is wrong, and if misfortune comes, his philosophy will go to the wall, but for the moment it seems as if fate cannot harm him, because he has set his course and bidden defiance to it.

Dale had made up his mind to disregard cavilers, not to write the Radical ditty, to write the ode of welcome, and, lastly, to follow whither his inclination led. And, on the top of these comforting resolutions, came the removal of his thorn in the flesh – Johnstone's be-placarded shop window – and the glow of well-rewarded benevolence with which he had witnessed Nellie Fane's ill-concealed delight in her return to Littlehill and Arthur Angell's openly declared pleasure in greeting her. Dale began to think that he had too easily allowed himself to be put out, and had been false to his poetic temperament by taking trifles hardly. He was jocund as he walked, and nature responded to his mood: the sun shone bright and warm on him, and the spring air was laden with pleasant hints of coming summer. He wondered how and why, a few weeks ago, he had nearly bidden a disgusted farewell to Market Denborough.

Now, when a man sets out in such a mood, being a young man, and a man, as they used to say, of sensibility, next to anything may happen. From his contented meditations on the happy arrangement he had made for his friends, Dale's thoughts traveled on to his own affairs. He was going to the Grange – he was always going to the Grange now, and he seemed always welcome there. Mrs. Delane was kind, the Squire was effusive, and Janet – Here his thoughts became impossible to record in lowly prose. The goddess had become flesh for him; still stately and almost severe in her maiden reserve to all others, as she had once been to him, now for him she smiled and blushed, and would look, and look away, and look again, and vainly summon her tamed pride to hide what her delight proclaimed. It was sudden. Oh, yes; anything worth having was sudden, thought lucky Dale. Fame had been sudden, wealth had been sudden. Should not love be sudden too?

"If I get a chance – " said Dale to himself, and he smiled and struck at the weeds with his stick, and hummed a tune. Anything might happen.

The Prince was due in three days, and already flags and triumphal arches were beginning to appear. It is to be hoped that the demand for drugs was small, for Mr. Hedger was to be found everywhere but behind his own counter, and Alderman Johnstone, having once taken the plunge, was hardly less active in superintending the preparations. The men who had carried those obnoxious boards were now more worthily earning their bread by driving in posts and nailing up banners, and Dale saw that Denborough was in earnest, and meant to make the reception a notable testimony to its loyalty. He loitered to watch the stir for a little while, for it was early afternoon, and he must not arrive at the Grange too soon. Not even the ode itself, which he carried in his pocket, could excuse an intrusion on the Squire's midday repose. As he stood looking on he was accosted by Dr. Spink.

"I have just been to see Roberts," he said.

"Is he ill?"

"Yes. His wife sent for me. As you may suppose, she would not have done so for nothing."

"What's the matter?"

"I don't like his state at all. He took no notice of me, but lay on his bed, muttering to himself. I think he's a little touched here;" and the doctor put a finger just under the brim of his well-brushed hat.

"Poor chap!" said Dale. "I should like to go and see him."

Spink discouraged any such idea.

"You're the very last person he ought to see. I want him to go away."

"Has he got any money?"

"Yes, I think so. His wife told me he had now."

"And won't he go?"

"He says he must stay till after the 15th" – the 15th was the great day – "and then he will go. That's the only word I could get out of him. I told his wife to let me know at once if there was any change for the worse."

"It's hard on her, poor little woman," said Dale, passing on his way.

He found Tora Smith and Sir Harry at the Grange. Rather to his surprise, Tora greeted him with friendly cordiality, accepting his congratulations very pleasantly. He had expected her to show some resentment at his refusal to write a song for her, but in Tora's mind songs and poets, Liberal meetings, and even royal visits, had been, for the time at least, relegated to a distant background of entire unimportance. Captain Ripley was there also, with the ill-used air that he could not conceal, although he was conscious that it only aggravated his bad fortune. He took his leave a very few minutes after Dale arrived; for what pleasure was there in looking on while everybody purred over Dale, and told him his ode was the most magnificent tribute ever paid to a youthful Prince? Dale, in his heart, thought the same, – so does a man love what he creates, – but he bore his compliments with a graceful outward modesty.

The afternoon was so unseasonably fine – such was the reason given – that Janet and he found themselves walking in the garden, she talking merrily of their preparations, he watching her fine, clear-cut profile, and, as she turned to him in talk, the gay dancing of her eyes.

"Your doing it," she said, "just makes the whole thing perfect. How can we thank you enough, Mr. Bannister?"

"The Captain did not seem to care about my verses," Dale remarked, with a smile.

Janet blushed a little, and gave him a sudden glance – a glance that was a whole book of confidences, telling what she never could have told in words, what she never would have told at all, did not the eyes sometimes outrun their mandate and speak unbidden of the brain.

Dale smiled again – this time in triumph.

"You like them?" he asked softly, caressing the little words with his musical, lingering tones.

"Oh, yes, yes," she said, looking at him once more for a moment, and then hastily away.

"I'll write you a volume twice as good, if – I may."

"Twice as good?" she echoed, with a laugh. "Now, honestly, don't you think these perfect yourself?"

"They are good – better than any I wrote before" – he paused to watch her face, and went on in a lower voice: "I knew you; but I shall do better the more I know you and the better."

Janet had no light answer ready now. Her heart was beating, and she had much ado not to bid him end her sweet, unbearable excitement.

They had reached the end of the terrace and passed into the wood that skirted it to the west. Suddenly she made a movement as if to turn and go back.

"No, no," he whispered in her ear; and, as she wavered, he caught her by the arm, and, without words of asking or of doubt, drew her to him and kissed her.

"My beauty, my queen, my love!" he whispered. "You love me, you love me!"

She drew back her head, straightening the white column of her neck, while her hands held his shoulders. "Ah, I would die for you!" she said.

Mrs. Delane was a woman of penetration. Though Janet told her nothing of what had occurred, – for she and Dale agreed to let the matter remain a secret till the impending festivities were over, – yet Mrs. Delane saw something in her daughter's air which made her, that same evening, express to the Squire her doleful conviction that the worst had happened.

"I shall say nothing to Janet," she said, "till she speaks to me. I can trust her absolutely. But I am afraid of it, George. Poor Gerard Ripley!"

"My dear, I'm not going to break my heart about Gerard Ripley. I think more of Jan."

"Well, of course, so do I. And I don't at all like it. He's not – well, not our sort, as the young people say."

"Mary, you're talking slang. What's the matter with him? The match will make Jan famous."

"Well, well, I don't like it, but you must have your way."

"It's not my way. It's Jan's way. Is she fond of him?"

"Terribly, I'm afraid, poor child!"

The Squire became a little irritated at this persistently sorrowful point of view.

"Really, my dear, why shouldn't she be fond of him? It's not a bad thing when people are going to marry."

"I wish I'd seen it in time to stop it."

"On the whole, Mary, I'm rather glad you didn't. I like the young fellow."

In this state of things – with the lady eagerly consenting, and a father all but ready to urge her on – well might Captain Ripley ride recklessly home from Dirkham Grange, cursing the ways of women and the folly of men, and promising himself to go to India and there be killed, to the end that his tragic fate might bring a pang to Janet's heart in future days. Well might he discover a sudden recall, and return to his regiment, escaping the Denborough celebrations, and risking offense in exalted quarters. So he went; and nobody at Denborough thought any more about him – not even Janet, for joy swallows up pity, and the best of humanity are allowed, without reproach, to be selfish once or twice in life.

That same night, at dinner at Littlehill, Nellie Fane thought Dale had never been so bright, so brilliant, or so merry. Under his leadership, the fun and mirth waxed fast and furious, till it carried away her doubts and fears, and Angell's sore wonderings why she looked always at Dale and never at him, and Philip's troubled forebodings of sorrows no friendly hand could avert. Dale's high spirits bore no check and suffered no resistance, and there was a tumult in Littlehill, such as had not been heard since its early indecorous days.

Suddenly, into this scene, followed hastily by Wilson, there broke, hatless and cloakless, Ethel Roberts, her face pale and her eyes wide with fear. Running to Philip Hume, she cried:

"My husband! He has gone, he has gone! We cannot find him. He has gone, and taken the pistol with him. What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?"