The Sailor Part 72

Many things were coming home to the heart of Mary Pridmore in the awful silence of that room. She was no more to blame for the long line of her fathers whose governing abilities were commemorated in the England of the sixties than was their victim, Henry Harper, in whose bruised body and tormented soul had been commemorated his mother's murder. She was numb and dazed now she had heard his story, but she had nothing to give him.

The truth had come to him already. "Now, Enery, you must be a man and bear it," said the voice of Auntie, wheezing in the upper air. Well ... if his flesh and blood would only let him he must be a gentleman as long as he had the honor to converse with a real Hyde Park lady who believed in G.o.d ... that was all he knew at the moment. If there was a spark of manhood in him he must hold on to that.

"Miss Pridmore." ... He was able to pull himself together in a way that astonished even himself.... "I see it's all over with me and you.

I'll never be able to get through without your help. I'm fair done in.

But I don't blame you. An' I just want you to say you don't blame me, an' then I'll quit."

She couldn't speak. Aunt Caroline in a hoop and elastic-sided boots was simply imploring her to behave with dignity.

"Say you don't blame me, Miss Pridmore, an' then I'll quit. It's not reelly my fault about my father." He laughed a little, but she didn't hear him. "I'm sorry, though, about the Mariner. If we could have brought _him_ into port, you and me, Miss Pridmore, there'd been nothing like him outside the Russians. However ... say I'm not to blame ... and then I'll quit."

She was unable to hear what he was saying.

"Won't you, Miss Pridmore? I can't bear you should think I've played it low down. If I could ha' told you afore I'd ha' done it ... you can lay to that."

It was not a voice that she knew, and she could not answer it.

"Well, I'm sorry."

Suddenly he took her hand, and its coldness startled him.

"I'll say good-by," he said with a sort of laugh.

Aunt Charlotte primly informed her niece that Mr. Harper was taking leave.

"Oh," she said. "Good-by."

Without venturing again to touch the hand she offered, he stumbled headlong out of the room and down the stairs. He took his hat from a table in the hall and let himself out of the front door before the butler could get there. He closed the door after him with a sharp bang--it was a door with a patent catch and could only be closed in that way--and as he did this and the sound re-echoed along Queen Street, the lamp in the right-hand corner of his brain suddenly went out.

By the time he came to the end of the street it had grown very dark.

And as he turned a corner and found himself in a street whose name he didn't know he was unable to see anything. And then all at once he realized that Aladdin's lamp was broken in a thousand pieces, and he gave a little wild shriek of dismay. The savage hunted eyes of Mr.

Thompson were gazing at him from under the helmet of a pa.s.sing constable.

The trolls had got him.

Nothing could help him now. It had grown so dark that he couldn't see anything, although it was hardly seven at present of an evening in June. He almost shrieked again as he heard the sn.i.g.g.e.ring voice of Auntie ascend above the gathering noises of the town: "Now, Enery, you must be a man and bear it."

He didn't know where he was now amid the maze of the little-frequented streets of Mayfair. He had lost his way and he couldn't see. He was blind already with an ever growing darkness. He was losing all sense of time and place. But the voice of Auntie was ever in his ears, exhorting him, with that shrill and peculiar sn.i.g.g.e.r of which she never seemed to grow weary, to be a man and bear it, as he stumbled on and on into the night.

II

One afternoon about a week later, Edward Ambrose rang up No. 50, Queen Street, on the telephone to ask if Mary was at home. In reply he was told by Silvia that Mary had gone for a few days to Greylands to the Ellises, but her mother would be very glad if Edward would come and see her as she wished particularly to have a little talk with him. Edward certainly did not wish particularly to have a little talk with Lady Pridmore at that moment, but there was no way out of it. Thus in no very amiable frame of mind he drove to Queen Street.

Lady Pridmore was alone in the drawing-room. She received Edward with the grave cordiality that she reserved for favorites.

"It is very nice of you to come, Edward. Ring for some tea."

That was like her, when she knew quite well he never took tea.

"We are dreadfully worried about Mary."

That was like her again. She was always dreadfully worried about something, although nothing in wide earth or high heaven had the power really to upset her. But Edward for some reason was not feeling very sympathetic towards the Lady Pridmores of the world just now.

"And we blame you."

"Me?"

"Yes, we blame you. It was you who first brought that young man, Mr.

Harper, to the house."

This was not quite in accordance with the facts. Still, there would be no point in saying so. Ambrose, therefore, contented himself with asking, "Well, what of him?" with as much politeness as he could muster in order to cover a growing impatience.

"It is not well, Edward, it is very far from well," said Lady Pridmore aggrievedly. "As I say, we are all dreadfully worried. Mr. Harper turned up here again one day last week, the first time for a year. And he saw Mary alone. Silvia and I were out--at--dear me!--but it doesn't matter----"

"Quite so," murmured the courteous Edward.

"Otto met him coming in as he went out."

"Well?"

"Well, as I say, Mary and Mr. Harper were together a long time and somehow--I'm sorry to tell you this--she has seemed quite ill ever since."

Edward expressed regret.

"And Dr. Claughton strongly advised a change."

"I am very sorry," he said gravely.

"She is so overstrung that she has had to have sleeping drafts. It is by Dr. Claughton's advice she has gone down to Woking."

"But what reason have you to connect all this with Mr. Harper?"

"The evening he saw her she didn't come down to dinner. Now I would like you to tell me a little more about--about Mr. Harper. You brought him here, you know. Otto says he is not altogether ... Do you think that?"

"Had I thought for a moment that he was not a desirable acquaintance I should not have brought him here." This was a shameless begging of the question; it was not he who had brought the young man there.

"I'm glad to hear you say that," said Lady Pridmore with feeling.

"That is exactly what I said to Otto. I wish you would tell me all you know about this Mr. Harper."

"I am afraid I can only tell you one thing about him."

"Yes," said Lady Pridmore encouragingly!

"At the present moment he is very dangerously ill. The doctors take a very grave view of his case."