Kitabı oku: «Dialstone Lane, Part 4», sayfa 5

Mr. Vickers said that he wouldn't have him, but under compulsion stayed indoors the following evening, while Mr. Russell, by means of coloured diagrams, cheerfully lent by his new friends, tried to show him the inroads made by drink upon the human frame. He sat, as Miss Vickers remarked, like a wooden image, and was only moved to animation by a picture of cirrhosis of the liver, which he described as being very pretty.

At the end of a week Mr. Vickers's principles remained unshaken, and so far Mr. Russell had made not the slightest progress in his designs upon the affections of Selina. That lady, indeed, treated him with but scant courtesy, and on two occasions had left him to visit Mr. Tasker; Mr. Vickers's undisguised amusement at such times being hard to bear.

"Don't give up, Bill," he said, encouragingly, as Mr. Russell sat glum and silent; "read over them beautiful 'Verses to a Tea-pot' agin, and try and read them as if you 'adn't got your mouth full o' fish-bait. You're wasting time."

"I don't want none o' your talk," said his disappointed friend. "If you ain't careful I'll tell Selina about you going up to her papers."

The smile faded from Mr. Vickers's face. "Don't make mischief, Bill," he said, uneasily.

"Well, don't you try and make fun o' me," said Mr. Russell, ferociously. "Taking the pledge is 'ard enough to bear without having remarks from you."

"I didn't mean them to be remarks, Bill," said the other, mildly. "But if you tell about me, you know, Selina'll see through your little game."

"I'm about sick o' the whole thing," said Mr. Russell, desperately. "I ain't 'ad a drink outside o' my own house for pretty near a fortnight. I shall ask Selina to-morrow night, and settle it."

"Ask her?" said the amazed Mr. Vickers. "Ask 'er what?"

"Ask 'er to marry me," said the other, doggedly.

Mr. Vickers, thoroughly alarmed, argued with him in vain, the utmost concession he could wring from the determined Mr. Russell being a promise to give him a hint to get out of the way.

"I'll do that for my own sake," he said, frankly. "I can do it better alone, and if your old woman is in you get her out too. Ask 'er to go for a walk; that'll please Selina. I don't know what the gal does want. I thought turning teetotaler and setting a good example to you would do the trick, if anything would."

Mrs. Vickers's utter astonishment next evening, when her husband asked her to go for a walk, irritated that gentleman almost beyond endurance. Convinced at last that he was not joking, she went upstairs and put on her bonnet, and then stood waiting for the reluctant Mr. Vickers with an air of almost bashful diffidence.

"Joseph is coming in soon," said Selina, as her parents moved to the door. "I'm expecting him every minute."

"I'll stop and see 'im," said Mr. Russell. "There's something I want to speak to him about partikler."

Mr. Vickers gave a warning glance at him as he went out, and trembled as he noted his determined aspect. In a state of considerable agitation he took hold of his wife by the elbow and propelled her along.

It was a cold night, and a strong easterly wind had driven nearly everybody else indoors. Mr. Vickers shivered, and, moving at a good pace, muttered something to his astonished wife about "a good country walk." They quitted the streets and plunged into dark lanes until, in Mr. Vickers's judgment, sufficient time having elapsed for the worst to have happened, they turned and made their way to the town again.

"There's somebody outside our house," said Mrs. Vickers, who had been in a state of amazed discomfort the whole time.

Mr. Vickers approached warily. Two people were on the doorstep in the attitude of listeners, while a third was making strenuous attempts to peep through at the side of the window-blind. From inside came the sound of voices raised in dispute, that of Selina's being easily distinguishable.

"What—what's all this?" demanded Mr. Vickers, in trembling tones, as he followed his wife inside and closed the door.

He glanced from Selina, who was standing in front of Mr. Tasker in the manner of a small hen defending an overgrown chicken, to Mr. Russell, who was towering above them and trying to reach him.

"What's all this?" he repeated, with an attempt at pomposity.

The disputants all spoke at once: Mr. Russell with an air of jocular ferocity, Miss Vickers in a voice that trembled with passion, and Mr. Tasker speaking as a man with a grievance. Despite the confusion, Mr. Vickers soon learned that it was a case of "two's company and three's none," and that Mr. Russell, after turning a deaf ear to hints to retire which had gradually increased in bluntness, had suddenly turned restive and called Mr. Tasker a "mouldy image," a "wall-eyed rabbit," and divers other obscure and contradictory things. Not content with that, he had, without any warning, kissed Miss Vickers, and when Mr. Tasker, obeying that infuriated damsel's commands, tried to show him the door, had facetiously offered to show that gentleman the wall and taken him up, and bumped him against it until they were both tired.

"Anybody would ha' thought I was hurting 'im by the noise he made," said the impenitent Mr. Russell.

"I—I'm surprised at you, Bill," said Mr. Vickers, nervously.

"Put him outside," cried Selina, stamping her foot.

"You'd better get off 'ome, Bill," said Mr. Vickers, with a persuasive wink.

"While you're safe," added his daughter, with a threatening gesture.

"Go and get yourself 'arf a pint o' warm lemonade," chimed in the voice of the daring Joseph.

Mr. Russell stepped towards him, but Mr. Vickers, seizing him by the coat, held him back and implored him to remember where he was.

"I'd bump the lot of you for two pins," said the disappointed Mr. Russell, longingly. "And it'ud do you good; you'd all be the better for it. You'd know 'ow to behave to people when they come in to see you, then. As for Selina, I wouldn't marry her now for all her money."

"Money?" said the irate Selina, scornfully. "What money?"

"The money in the paper," said Mr. Russell, with a diabolical leer in the direction of the unfortunate Mr. Vickers. "The paper what your father found in your box. Didn't he tell you?"

He kicked over a chair which stood in his way and, with a reckless swagger, strode to the door. At the "Horse and Groom," where he spent the remainder of the evening, he was so original in his remarks upon women that two unmarried men offered to fight him, and were only appeased by hearing a full and true account of the circumstances responsible for so much bitterness.

CHAPTER XVII

"TRIED!" said Captain Bowers, indignantly. "I have tried, over and over again, but it's no use."

"Have you tried the right way?" suggested Ed ward Tredgold.

"I've tried every way," replied Captain Bowers, impatiently.

"We must think of another, then," said the imperturbable Edward. "Have some more beef?" The captain passed his plate up. "You should have seen her when I said that I was coming to supper with you this evening," he said, impressively. Mr. Tredgold laid down the carving knife and fork. "What did she say?" he inquired, eagerly. "Grunted," said the captain. "Nonsense," said the other, sharply.

"I tell you she did," retorted the captain. "She didn't say a word; just grunted."

"I know what you mean," said Mr. Tredgold; "only you are not using the right word."

"All right," said the captain, resignedly; "I don't know a grunt when I hear it, then; that's all. She generally does grunt if I happen to mention your name."

Mr. Tredgold resumed his meal and sat eating in silence. The captain, who was waiting for more beef, became restless.

"I hope my plate isn't in your way," he said, at last.

"Not at all," said the other, absently.

"Perhaps you'll pass it back to me, then," said the captain.

Mr. Tredgold, still deep in thought, complied. "I wish I could persuade you to have a little more," he said, in tones of polite regret. "I've often noticed that big men are small eaters. I wonder why it is?"

"Sometimes it is because they can't get it, I expect," said the indignant captain.

Mr. Tredgold said that no doubt that was the case sometimes, and was only recalled to the true position of affairs by the hungry captain marching up to the beef and carving for himself.

"I'm sorry," he said, with a laugh. "I was thinking of something else. I wonder whether you would let me use the crow's-nest for a day or two? There's a place we have got on our hands, a mile or two out, and I want to keep my eye on it."

The captain, his good humour quite restored, preserved his gravity with an effort. "I don't see that she could object to that," he said, slowly. "It's a matter of business, as you might say."

"Of course, I could go straight round to the back without troubling you," resumed Mr. Tredgold. "It's so awkward not to be able to see you when I want to."

Captain Bowers ventured a sympathetic wink. "It's awkward not to be able to see anybody when you want to," he said, softly.

Two days later Miss Drewitt, peeping cautiously from her bedroom window, saw Mr. Tredgold perched up in the crow's-nest with the telescope. It was a cold, frosty day in January, and she smiled agreeably as she hurried downstairs to the fire and tried to imagine the temperature up aloft.

Stern in his attention to duty, Mr. Tredgold climbed day after day to his post of observation and kept a bored but whimsical eye on a deserted cowhouse three miles off. On the fourth day the captain was out, and Miss Drewitt, after a casual peep from the kitchen window, shrugged her shoulders and returned to the sitting-room.

"Mr. Tredgold must be very cold up there, Miss," said Mr. Tasker, respectfully, as he brought in the tea. "He keeps slapping his chest and blowing on his fingers to keep 'imself warm."

Miss Drewitt said "Oh!" and, drawing the little table up to her easy-chair, put down her book and poured herself out a cup of tea. She had just arranged it to her taste-two lumps of sugar and a liberal allowance of cream—when a faint rap sounded on the front door.