The Sailor Part 43

The hostess made a polite and conventional objection, but both ladies kissed her effusively and hustled her out into the pa.s.sage.

"Dobby," Miss Press whispered excitedly, as soon as they had reached that dark and smelly draught distributor, "we've fairly put the half Nelson on him. Now go in and fix him up."

Miss Bonser and Miss Press tripped down the many unswept stone stairs of King John's Mansions, and Miss Dobbs closed the front door of No.

106. She then returned to Mr. Harper in the "boo-door."

"Well, Harry," she said, "why didn't you come last Sunday?"

Had the Sailor been true to his strongest instinct he would have fled.

But he stayed where he was for several reasons, and of these the most cogent was quite a simple one. There was a will stronger than his own in the room just then.

Miss Bonser and Miss Press, as became a long experience of the chase, had done their work with efficiency. The Sailor had not guessed that this friendly and amusing and very agreeable lady--in spite of the "d.a.m.n you"--was so very much in love with him. It was a wholly unexpected issue, for which the young man was inclined to blame himself bitterly.

"Well, Harry," said Miss Dobbs, breaking suddenly upon a whirl of rather terrifying thoughts, "why didn't you come last Sunday?"

He was in a state of mental chaos, therefore to attempt to answer the question was useless.

"Why didn't oo, Harry?" Miss Dobbs suddenly felt that it was a case for _force majeure_. Very unexpectedly she flung her arms round his neck. Risking the rickety cane chair she sat heavily upon his knee, yet not so heavily as she might have done, and with a she-leopard's tenderness drew his head to her ample bosom.

A thrill of repugnance pa.s.sed through Henry Harper, yet he was so fully engaged with a very pressing problem as hardly to know that it had.

"Kiss your Cora, Harry."

But his Cora kissed Harry instead. And as she did so, the unfailing instinct given to woman told her that that kiss was a mistake.

In the next instant, the fat arms had disengaged themselves from the young man's neck, and Miss Dobbs had slipped from his knee and was standing looking at him.

Her gesture was striking and picturesque; also she had the air of a tragedy queen.

"Harry," she said, with a catch in her voice, "you are breaking my heart."

The Sailor had already been informed of that. He had tried not to believe it, but facts were growing too strong for him. A superb tear was in the eyes of Miss Dobbs. The sight of it thrilled and startled him.

Twice before in his life had he seen tears in the eyes of a woman, and with his abnormal power of memory he vividly recalled each occasion now. The first time was in the eyes of Mother, the true woman he would always reverence, when she took off his clothes after his first flight from Blackhampton, and put him into a bath; the second time was in the eyes of Miss Foldal, and she also was a true woman whose memory he would always honor, when she said good-bye on the night of the second departure from the city of his birth. But the tears in the eyes of Mother and Miss Foldal were not as the superb and terrible tear in the eye of Miss Cora Dobbs.

"Don't think I blame you, Harry," said that lady with a Jocasta-like note, trying to keep the bitterness out of her tone. "I'm only a lonely and unprotected girl who will soon be on the shelf, but that's no fault of yours. Yet, somehow, I thought you were different.

Somehow, I thought you was a gentleman."

Miss Dobbs had no illusions on that point, but she well knew where the shoe was going to pinch.

"I'll be a mark and a laughing stock," said the tragic Cora, "as poor p.u.s.s.y was before Caradoc made up his mind to marry her. While he was plain Bill Jackson nothing was good enough for p.u.s.s.y. Used to take her to the Coliseum and on the river in the summer, and used to come to her flat a bit lower down the Avenue to take tea with her and her friends every Sunday of his life. And then suddenly Bill came into the t.i.tle, and poor p.u.s.s.y got a miss from my lord. We all thought at first she would go out of her mind. She wors.h.i.+ped the ground that Bill walked upon. Besides, she couldn't bear to be made a mark of by her friends; and being nothing but a straight girl there was always her reputation to consider. Poor p.u.s.s.y had to take a sleeping draught every night for months. But Caradoc played cricket in the end as he was bound to do, being a gentleman by birth, and p.u.s.s.y is now a countess with two children, a boy and a girl, and only last summer she invited me to go and spend a fortnight with her at her place in Ireland, but, of course, I couldn't, because I hadn't the clothes. Still, I'm glad for p.u.s.s.y's sake. She was always one of the best, was p.u.s.s.y. All's well that ends well, isn't it?" And Miss Jocasta Dobbs very abruptly broke down.

It was a breakdown of the most nerve-shattering kind. The tears streamed down her face. She struggled almost hysterically not to give way, yet the more she struggled, the more she did give way.

"Miss Dobbs," he gasped, huskily--he had known her a long and crowded year, but he had never ventured on Cora--"Miss Cora"--he had done it now! "I didn't mean nothing."

Better had he held his peace.

"You didn't mean anything!" There was a change in the voice of Jocasta. "You didn't mean anything, Mr. Harper? No, I suppose not."

The young man drew in his breath sharply. The tone of Miss Dobbs was edged like a knife.

"It was only a poor and unprotected girl with whom you might play the fool until you had made good. It was only a girl who valued her fair name, a girl who would have died rather than be made a mark of by her friends. I suppose now you are a big man and earning big money, you will take up with somebody else. Well, I'm not the one to grudge any girl her luck."

The sudden fall in the voice of Miss Dobbs and the half veiled look in her eyes somehow took Henry Harper back to the Auntie of his childhood.

And it almost seemed that she also had in her hand a weapon which she knew well how to use.

"I thought I had a gentleman to deal with," said Miss Dobbs, brus.h.i.+ng aside a tear, "but it was my mistake. However, it's never too late to learn." Her laugh seemed to strike him.

"I didn't mean to mislead you," mumbled the young man, who felt like a trapped and desperate animal. Yet when all was said, the emotion uppermost was not for himself. This woman was hurting him horribly, but it was the fact, as he thought, that he was hurting her still more without any intention of evil towards her, which now took possession of his mind. He would do anything to soften the pain he was unwittingly causing. It was not in his nature to hurt a living thing.

"I beg pardon, Miss Cora," he said, faintly, "I didn't mean nothing like that."

She turned upon him, a tigress, and rent him. Nor did he shrink from the wounds she dealt. It was no more than he deserved. He should have learned a little more about ladies and their fine feelings and their social outlook, before daring to go to tea at their private flats and to meet their friends; before daring to be seen with them at a public place like the Coliseum or in a boat on the river. He was receiving a much needed lesson. It was one he would never forget.

XIV

Henry Harper did not go to tea at King John's Mansions on the next Sunday afternoon. And on the following Sunday he stayed away too.

Moreover, during the whole of that fortnight Miss Cora Dobbs did not call once at No. 249, Charing Cross Road.

This was a relief to the young man. He would not have known how to meet her had she come to the shop as usual. He was so shattered by the bolt from the blue that he didn't know in the least what to do.

Happily there was his work to distract him. Mr. Ambrose had suggested that he should write another tale for _Brown's Magazine_. He was to take his own time over the new story, bearing ever in mind the advice given him formerly, which he had turned to very good account; and in the meantime, his fancy could expand in the happy knowledge that the "Adventures of d.i.c.k Smith" were attracting attention in the magazine.

Mr. Ambrose had already arranged for the story to appear as a book when its course had run in _Brown's_, and he was convinced--if prophecy was ever safe in literary matters--that real success awaited it.

Could Henry Harper have put Miss Cora Dobbs out of his thoughts, he might have been almost completely happy in planning and writing the "Further Adventures of d.i.c.k Smith." Aladdin's wonderful lamp was making his life a fairy tale. An incredible vista of fame and fortune was spreading before his eyes. Even Mr. Rudge had been stricken with awe by the check for three hundred pounds.

Yet, at the back of everything just now was a terrible feeling of indecision. There could be no doubt that the great world of which he knew so little, clearly looked to him "to act the gentleman." The phrase was that of the elegant and refined Miss Bonser and the das.h.i.+ng Miss Press, who mixed habitually with gentlemen, and therefore were in a position to speak with authority on such a delicate matter. And so plain was his duty that it had even percolated to Mrs. Greaves, who, in ways subtle and mysterious, seemed to be continually unbosoming herself to a similar tenor.

In the course of the third week of crisis, Mr. Harper's perplexities were greatly increased by a brief but emotional note, written on elegantly art-shaded notepaper, which had the name "Cora" with a ring round it engraved in the left-hand corner. It said:

DEAR HARRY,

Why haven't you been or written? I am feeling so low and miserable that unless you come to see me Sunday, the doctor says I shall have a bad breakdown.

Yours, CORA.

Somehow, this letter, couched in such grimly pathetic terms, seemed to leave the young man with no alternative. Therefore, on the following Sunday afternoon, at the usual hour, he was just able to screw up courage to knock at the door of No. 106, King John's Mansions.

He was rather surprised to find Cora in good health; certainly the tone of her letter had implied that such was not the case. She had no appearance of suffering. In tone and manner she was a little chastened, but that was all.

Miss Bonser and Miss Press were also there when Mr. Harper arrived.

But their reception of him was so much more formal than was usual that a feeling of tension was at once created. It was as if these experienced ladies understood that some high issue was pending.