The Town Traveller Part 12

"I'll see you part of the way home," he said genially.

"I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Gammon," was Mrs. Clover's reply, "but I can find my own way."

"You'll let me see you into a 'bus, at all events."

"Please don't trouble; I'd much rather you didn't."

"Why?" asked Gammon bluntly.

"Because I had. I'll say good night."

She stood still looking him in the face with cold displeasure; only for a moment though, as her eyes could not bear the honest look in his.

"Right you are," said Gammon with affected carelessness. "Just as you like. I won't force my company on anyone."

Mrs. Clover made the movement which in women of her breeding signifies a formal bow--hopelessly awkward, rigid, and self-conscious--and walked rapidly away. The man, not a little crestfallen, swung round on his heel.

"What's wrong now?" he asked himself. "It can t be about Minnie, for she was all right till after supper. And why it should make her angry because I lugged that cat Polly downstairs is more than I can understand. Well, I shan't die of it."

On re-entering the house he found all quiet. Polly had returned to her chamber, Mrs. Bubb was in the Cheesemans' room. He went down into the kitchen, where the gas was burning, and sat till the landlady came down.

"I don't see as you did much good," was Mrs. Bubb's first remark, in the tone which signifies reaction after excitement. "It weren't worth breaking a door in, it seems to me."

Gammon hung his head.

"Didn't Polly tell her anything?"

"She stuck out she knew where the 'usband was, and that's all."

"How do you know?"

"Polly said so as she went upstairs, and 'oped her awnt 'ud sleep well on it."

"H'm! I suppose that's why I couldn't get a word out of Mrs. Clover.

Have the door mended, Mrs. Bubb, and charge me with it. Got anything to drink handy?"

"That I 'aven't, Mr. Gammon, except water."

Gammon looked at his watch.

"Why, it's only just half-past eleven. Hanged if I didn't think it was past midnight! I must go round and get a drop of something."

When he came back from quenching his thirst the house was in darkness.

He strode the familiar ascent, and by Polly's door (barricaded inside with the chest of drawers) hummed a mirthful strain. As he jumped into bed the events of the evening all at once struck him in such a comical light that he uttered a great guffaw, and for the next ten minutes he lay under the bedclothes shaking with laughter.

CHAPTER XI

THE NOSE OF THE TREFOYLES

At noon next day a cab drove up to Mrs. Bubb's house; from it alighted Miss Sparkes, who, with the help of the cabman, brought downstairs a tin box, a wooden box, two bandboxes, and three newspaper bundles. With no one did she exchange a word of farewell; the Cheesemans' were out, the landlady and Moggie kept below stairs. So Polly turned her back upon Kennington Road, and shook the dust thereof from her feet for ever.

Willingly she had accepted a proposal that she should share the room of her friend Miss Waghorn, who was to be married in a month's time to Mr.

Nibby, and did not mind a little inconvenience. The room was on the third floor of a house at the north end of Shaftesbury Avenue; it measured twelve feet by fourteen. When Polly's bandboxes had been thrust under the bed and her larger luggage built up in a corner, there was nice standing room both for her and Miss Waghorn. The house contained ten rooms in all, and its population (including seven children) amounted to twenty-three. In this warm weather the atmosphere within doors might occasionally be a trifle close, but Shaftesbury Avenue is a fine broad street, and has great advantages of situation.

To Mr. Gammon's casual inquiry, Mrs. Bubb replied that she neither knew nor cared whither Polly had betaken herself. Himself having no great curiosity in the matter, and being much absorbed in his endeavour to obtain an engagement with the house of Quodling, he let Polly slip from his mind for a few days, until one morning came a letter from her.

Positively, and to his vast surprise, a letter addressed to him by Miss Sparkes, with her abode fully indicated in the usual place. True, the style of the epistle was informal. It began:

"You took advantage of me because there wasn't a man in the house to take my part, as I don't call that grinning monkey of a Cheeseman a man at all. If you like to call where I am now, I shall have the pleasure of introducing you to somebody that will give you the good hiding you deserve for being a coward and a brute.

"Miss SPARKES"

Gammon laughed over this for half an hour. He showed it to Mrs. Bubb, who was again on the old terms with him, and Mrs. Bubb wanted to exhibit it to Mrs. Cheeseman.

"No, don't do that," he interposed gently. "We'll keep it between ourselves."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. The girl can't help herself; she was born that way, you know."

"I only hope she won't pay some rough to follow you at night and bash you," said Mrs. Bubb warningly.

"I don't think that. No, no; Polly's bark is worse than her bite any day."

On the evening of that day, about ten o'clock, he chanced to be in Oxford Street, and as he turned southward it occurred to him that he would so far act upon Polly's invitation as to walk down the Avenue and glance at the house where she lived. He did so, and it surprised him to see that she had taken up her abode in so mean-looking a place; he was not aware, of course, that. Miss Waghorn found the quarters good enough for her own more imposing charms and not less brilliant wardrobe.

Walking on, at Cambridge Circus he came face to face with Miss Sparkes herself, accompanied by Miss Waghorn. To his hat salute and amiable smile Polly replied with a fierce averting of the look. Her friend nodded cheerfully, and they pa.s.sed. Two minutes after he found Miss Waghorn beside him.

"Hallo! Left Polly?"

"I want you to come back with me, Mr. Gammon," replied the maiden archly. "I 'ear you've offended Miss Sparkes. I don't know what it is, I'm sure, and I don't ask to be told, 'cause it's none of my business; but I want to make you friends again, and I'm sure you'll apologize to her."

"Eh? Apologize? Why, of course I will; only too delighted."

"That's nice of you. I always said you were a nice man, ask Polly if I didn't."

"The same to you, my dear, and many of 'em! Come along."

As if wholly unaware of what was happening Polly had proceeded homewards, not so fast, however, but that the others overtook her with ease before she reached the house.

"How do you do, Miss Sparkes?" began her enemy, not without diffidence as she turned upon him. "I'm surprised to hear from Miss Waghorn that something I've said or done has riled you, if I may use the expression.

I couldn't have meant it; I'm sure I 'umbly beg pardon."

Strange to say, by this imperfect expression of regret, Miss Sparkes allowed herself to be mollified. Presenting a three-quarter countenance with a forbearing smile, she answered in the formula of her cla.s.s: