Violet Forster's Lover Part 7

Now, you've had a good night's rest, a bath, and other luxuries; you've had good food and drink; you are rigged out in decent clothes from head to foot; you've not done badly; but here's something else, as a sort of t.i.t-bit."

She held out the note. He not only paid no heed to it, but seemingly he had no idea of what it was, or of what she was talking. This time she did seem to be amused; she laughed right out, as if his grotesque helplessness tickled her.

"Here, you're a pretty sort; I'll put it in your waistcoat pocket for you. Mind you, it's a ten-pound note--do you hear, it's a ten-pound note--for goodness sake do look as if you were trying to understand--and it's in your waistcoat pocket; I've put it there; take care, and don't you lose it; you'll want it before you're very much older."

She slipped the note into his waistcoat pocket without his showing the slightest sign of interest in what she was doing; he seemed to be mumbling something, for his lips were moving, but it was impossible to make out what he said.

"Now then, my funny friend, you'd better pull yourself together; we're going to part--try to look as if you were sober, if you aren't."

She tapped at the window; the carriage stopped; she opened the door and descended.

"This way, please." Taking him by the arm she drew him towards her, he yielding with the old, uncomfortable docility. Somehow he joined her on the pavement. "You've left your hat behind you, you can't go about London without a hat." Picking it up from the floor of the carriage, she placed it on his head. "That's not straight; there, that's better.

What a helpless child it is! Sorry I can't stop, but I've another engagement; pleased to have met you; glad to have been able to do you a good turn."

She was re-entering the carriage with a smile again upon her face, when the man who had acted as Beaton's valet came round from the back and stood beside her; at sight of him her smile vanished. He raised his hat to Beaton.

"I also am pleased to have met you." He turned to the woman. "I think, if you don't mind, or even if you do, that we'll keep that engagement together. After you into the carriage."

Evidently she found the sight of him by no means gratifying.

"What's the meaning of this? What are you doing here? I thought it was agreed that you should wait for me till I came back."

"I had a sort of idea that I might keep on waiting; it even struck me as just possible that you might never come back at all. After you into the carriage."

She hesitated; looked as if she would like to refuse; then, with a laugh, which was hardly a happy one, she did as he suggested. He followed her; the door was shut; the carriage drove off. Sydney Beaton was left standing on the pavement; oblivious of what was taking place, of where he was; as incapable, just then, of taking care of himself as any inmate of an asylum. He remained standing where they had left him, swaying to and fro. The fog had thickened; a drizzling rain had begun to fall. It was not easy to make out where he was, but he was at the corner of a street, in what seemed to be an old-world square, which in that moment was as deserted as if all the houses round about it had been empty and it was miles away from anywhere.

But presently his solitude was broken; two men came round the corner, doubtful-looking men, shabby-genteel looking men, in some queer way the sort of men one would expect to find prowling about in such a place at such a time. At sight of Beaton they paused; they exchanged glances; one nudged the other. Then one spoke to him, with what he possibly meant to be an ingratiating smile.

"Nasty day, captain; looks as if we were going to have a real London particular." When Sydney seemed to be unconscious even of his presence his tone became a little insolent. "Waiting for anybody, guv'nor--or are you just a-taking of the air?"

The other spoke, with a glance at his companion which had in it something which was evil:

"Can't you see that the gentleman's taking of the air? What he wants is someone to take it with him; what do you say to our offering the gentleman our society?"

Sydney remained speechless, motionless, save that he continued swaying to and fro. They again exchanged glances. The first man said, with ostentatious impudence:

"I say, old c.o.c.k, can you tell us how many beans make five?" Sydney was still silent. The first man went on. "Here, Gus, you take one of the gentleman's arms and I'll take the other: what he wants is a little bright, cheerful society, and he'll get it if we take him along with us."

Each of this most unpromising-looking pair took one of Sydney's arms; and without his attempting to remonstrate, or to offer the faintest show of resistence, they led him away.

CHAPTER VIII

The Sandwich-man

A bitingly cold afternoon towards the end of January. Six sandwich-men trudged along the Strand, urged by the cutting wind to more rapid movement than is general with their cla.s.s. On the board of the last man which was slung over his back were the words, "Look at the man in front." On the board which was at the back of the man in front, to which your attention was directed, was "for Warmth And Suns.h.i.+ne Try c.o.x's Bitters." The legend was repeated all along the six. It almost seemed as if it must be a joke, of a grim order, to compel such unfortunate wretches to stare for hour after hour at such advice, on such a day. One had only to glance at them to see how much they stood in need of both warmth and suns.h.i.+ne; yet the chance seemed extremely slight that they would have an opportunity of trying c.o.x's bitters.

Some of the pa.s.sers-by, who were in better plight than the six in the gutter, seemed to be struck by the fact that a jest might be intended, and where there were two of them together, they commented on it to each other.

"Poor beggars!" said one of the pa.s.sers-by to the acquaintance at his side. "It's pretty rough on them to make them carry about a thing like that, when they're pretty nearly at death's door for want of the very things which, according to their own showing, are so easy to get."

The words were heard by someone who happened at that moment to be pa.s.sing them--a woman. Possibly, as is easy in London, the sight is such a common one, she had been unconscious that the sandwich-men were there. When she heard the words she glanced at them to see to what they might apply. As she did so she started and stopped, as if she had seen something which had amazed her. The sandwich-men pa.s.sed on, none of them had noticed her; they were probably too far gone in misery to notice anything, each kept his unseeing eyes fixed on his fellow's back.

The woman stood still, seemed to hesitate, went on, then turned and looked after the retreating sandwich-men. She seemed to be asking herself if it would be possible to catch them up, they were already at a distance from her of perhaps fifty yards. Then, as if arriving at a sudden determination, she moved quickly after them. Yet, although she walked so quickly, it was some little time before she caught them up, so that she had an opportunity to consider whatever it was that was pa.s.sing through her mind. At last she was abreast of them again; was pa.s.sing them; she scanned the last man, the fifth, the fourth, and, with much particularity, the third. Behind the others was probably all of life that was worth having, if it had been worth having to them; it seemed scarcely likely that the scanty, broken fragments of what remained of it could be worth anything to them. Theirs would probably be a continual tramp through the gutter, or its equivalent, to the grave.

But with the third man in the line it was different. He was young. In spite of the grotesqueness of his attire--he was clad in ill-a.s.sorted, ragged and tattered oddments of somebody else's clothing--there was something in his bearing which suggested that he was still a man. These others were but torsos. And although the hair beneath his greasy cap stood in crying need of both a barber and a brush, and there was an untrimmed, unsightly growth upon his cheeks and chin, a shrewd observer might have ventured on a small wager that if his hair had been cut and trimmed and he had been shaved and washed, he would not be altogether ugly.

One thing was noticeable, that though the woman stared at him he took no heed at all of her--he did not take his eyes off the man in front of him; and that although the woman kept step beside him in a manner which the others began to mark. All at once, as if moved by an overmastering impulse, she stretched out her umbrella and touched him on the shoulder.

"Hullo!"

That was all she said, but it was enough; he turned his head. At the sight of the eyes which glanced at her out of that dreadful face she started again, not without excuse. This was the face of one of those men of whom society has good reason to go in terror. Desperation was in every line of it; something like madness was in the eyes. This was the face of a man who had suffered much, and who, if opportunity offered, would stick at nothing to get even with those who had made him suffer.

He looked at the woman with, at first, no sign of recognition in his glance. Then, a muscle moved; something came into his eyes which had not been there before; all at once the fas.h.i.+on of his countenance was changed. He stopped, bringing those behind him to sudden confusion. He turned, the better to look at her; beyond doubt this was a woman of nerve, or she would have shrunk from that which was on his face. One felt that if, in that first wild moment, he had not been impeded by the boards which bound him, he would have laid violent hands upon her, and she would have fared ill.

But the boards did bind him. With them there he could do nothing but stand and stare. She met his gaze unflinchingly. Not only did she show no sign of concern at the threat which was in it, something in the expression of her own face suggested that it occasioned her positive pleasure. Certainly she could not have been more completely at her ease.

"Take those things off and come with me."

The man glared at her as if he wondered if his senses were playing him a trick.

"Come with you?"

It was an interrogation conveying, it would seem, a world of meaning.

She smiled; at sight of the smile the gleam in his eyes grew more p.r.o.nounced, his face more threatening. But she was in no way troubled.

"You heard what I said; you're not in the state in which you were when I saw you last; but in case you didn't quite hear I'll repeat it. I said, 'Take those things off and come with me.' And be quick about it, please, if you don't want to have a crowd collect and mob us; you see they're gathering already."

There was a momentary, very obvious, hesitation, then he did what she requested--he took the things off, meaning the boards which were suspended from his shoulders. When he had them off he put a question:

"What shall I do with them--shall I bring them with me?"

From the purse she took out of her handbag she chose a coin, speaking to the man behind him:

"There are five of you, there's half a sovereign; that's two s.h.i.+llings apiece. Take these articles back to their owner, and explain that the gentleman who was in charge of them has been called away."

She hailed a taxicab; at her suggestion he got in first, she followed, and the cab drove off towards a destination the driver alone had heard.

The five remaining sandwich-men followed it with a chorus of thanks; one of them exclaimed, "Good luck, old pal! I wish I was in your place." He was a very old man, quite probably in the seventies, small in stature, nearly bent double as if shrivelled by the cold. For some cause his words, uttered in shrill, quavering tones, seemed to amuse the bystanders. A crowd had gathered, a heterogeneous crowd which so quickly does gather in a London thoroughfare; the five remaining sandwich-men were explaining to the people, as best they could, what had happened. In the taxicab nothing was said; the pa.s.sengers were a queerly a.s.sorted pair, offering even a more striking contrast than when, on that first occasion, they had been alone together in the motor in the park. Then it was she who looked at him; now it was he who looked at her.

She sat in her own corner of the cab, her glance kept straight in front of her, so that she never looked his way. He, on the other hand, never took his eyes off her; it was perhaps as well she did not see them, they were unfriendly. His grimy hands were clenched in front of him; to judge from his expression they might, in fancy, have been clenched about her throat; no one watching him could have doubted that he was capable of such an action; this was rather a savage animal than a civilised man.

The cab crossed Brompton Road into a street on the other side, and after one or two turnings drew up in front of a small house which formed one of a terrace of old-fas.h.i.+oned villas. The woman paid the cab, opened the door with a latch-key, ushered the man into a room of fair size, comfortably furnished, a bright fire made it seem a veritable haven of refuge after the inclemency of the weather without.

For the first time she spoke.

"Come to the fire and warm yourself; I should think you must be cold."