Читать книгу Under St Paul's: A Romance - Dowling Richard - Страница 1

'"Roast beef, roast pork, mutton pie, or hash?" Ah, I thought so! When we last met-for we have met three or four times, if I am not mistaken-we were more familiar with those words than good Mrs Barclay's hospitable inquiry. Have you been much around since we sat at that boarding-house mahogany in New York?' The beautiful head was raised, the brilliant face was turned to the speaker, the dark eyes were fixed upon his face, and the girl answered, with good-humoured ease, – 'Yes, I have travelled a good deal since we met at New York last year.' 'Ah, so have I!' said the thin, dark, restless young man opposite her, who had spoken first. The company had been only a few minutes seated at the Sunday dinner of Mrs Barclay's private hotel, situate in Peter's Row, hard by the Cathedral of St Paul's, London. 'I have been,' continued the lank, dark-faced man, speaking with assurance and rapidity, 'all over the States, all over Canada, in Spain and Algiers, since. I am going to India and China; and then I am going-' He paused. She smiled. 'Where?' 'Into a gas retort, to get cremated.' 'How horrible!' cried white-haired Mrs Barclay, from the head of the table. 'How dreadful!' cried the other ladies, four in number. The girl laughed. 'Alive?' she asked. 'Alive, of course! There is no fun in going anywhere when one is dead.' 'Do you speak from experience?' she asked. 'No-observation. Look at all the mutton-headed, numskull, leaden-blooded, dead dolts you find crawling through life everywhere you go, and particularly in England; you don't mean to say they have any fun, do you?' The girl laughed again, a low soft laugh, that fell upon the ear like a message of comfort. 'Pray, sir,' said a solid-looking man at the foot of the table, 'is your knowledge of England so large that you are able to describe the character of the people in such flattering terms?' 'I have been about a good deal in England; altogether a couple of years. But, my dear sir, you are not to judge by time alone; you must take into account the capacity of the observer as well. Now I am very quick at observing.' 'So I perceive,' said the other, at which there was a faint titter. The dark man did not heed the interruption, beyond smiling a good-humoured welcome to the slight repartee, and went on. 'I am a cosmopolite. I belong to the family of man. My native country is the earth; and I have been a good bit over my native country. This is my tenth visit to London. I have been three weeks in London this time.' Looking across the table at the dark-eyed girl, he said, – 'I do think it was a fair specimen of observation that I knew you when you came into the room. You arrived this morning, I believe?' 'I arrived last night.' It seemed she could not speak without smiling. 'Stop. I have a memory for facts as well as for faces. I can recall your name. Taking into account all the people I have met since, I do think it good to be able to recall your name. Your name is Irish-O'Connor.' 'No, Scotch-Gordon.' 'Ah! And your Christian name is Italian-Luigia.' 'No, French-Marie.' There was a general laugh. 'Wonderfully accurate!' said the gentleman at the foot of the table. 'Well,' said the dark man, 'I admit I am not good at names, but I am at facts. Now, I remember that in New York you had a maid.' 'I have her still. She goes everywhere with me. She is Irish. Her name is O'Connor-Judith O'Connor.' 'I knew there was something Irish and O'Connorish about you. She has black hair and dark eyes, and a pert nose and perter manner.' 'Yes; but it would not be prudent for you to say these things about her nose and her manner to herself.' 'I'm not very prudent, but I know that. Let me see if I cannot remember something more of you. You are a kind of specimen woman of humanity.' The broad-chested, good-looking, fair-haired young man sitting beside the speaker involuntarily laid down his spoon in his soup-plate, stole a glance at the traveller by his side, and then a still more quiet glance at the dark-eyed girl opposite. She caught his eyes and turned hers full upon him. He looked down, took up his spoon, and resumed his dinner. 'The more of such specimens the pleasanter the world would be,' said the man at the foot of the table, bending gallantly. 'I did not mean to be complimentary, Miss Gordon. I never do,' protested the traveller. 'In this case, sir, you could not help it.' The fair-haired man looked frankly and freely at the last speaker. When he withdrew his glance, he found the eyes of the girl fixed on him with a smile of protest against the civil speeches of the man at the foot. 'I meant,' said the thin man, 'that you represent many nations. I remember, at least, all about that. Your father was Scotch, your mother a French Canadian; you were born in India, and brought up in Australia. Is not that so?' 'Yes.' 'No fish, thank you. I never eat fish. I was born at sea; and people born at sea never eat fish. I have some reason for remembering these facts connected with you, for I too am a mixum-getherum lot. My father was a pirate, or something of that kind. I am a parishioner of Stepney, a place which has never yet had the honour of seeing me. I have no dread of being moved on to my parish, for I know I shall end my days by being blown from a gun for piratical practices on the high seas. Before that happens, I hope, Miss Gordon, to have the pleasure of meeting you often, for you are as great a cosmopolitan as myself. Do you intend remaining here long?' 'Some months, perhaps.' 'Ah, I had intended clearing out of this hole in a week or so; but what you have told me may alter my mind.' 'That from the gentleman who never pays compliments,' said the solid-looking man at the foot of the table. 'By-the-way,' he continued, 'I can't make out Miss Gordon to be a cosmopolitan. It seems to me she is wonderfully British; one of the United Kingdoms, our two greatest colonies, and our vast dependency seem to me to make up a very good British woman.' The face of the girl grew grave for a moment. She turned fully to the man at the foot, and said, in a quiet, impressive voice, – 'I am glad you think me British. I should be sorry to be thought anything else, for my father lost his life in India under the British flag.' The fair young man put down his knife and fork, and looked across the table at the girl. He cleared his throat, grew red in the face, cleared his throat again, dropped his eyes to his plate, grew still redder, and resumed eating his fish. The last remark of the talkative man killed the conversation, and no more was said during the dinner than a few feeble sentences by the ladies on the merits of the sermons they had heard in the forenoon. When the ladies had retired, the gentlemen drew chairs to the fire to smoke. The cosmopolitan and the fair-haired good-looking Saxon sat as at dinner. The former pulled out a case, and offered a cigar to the Saxon. 'Thank you,' said the latter; 'I do not smoke.' 'Ah, my dear sir, if you had cooled your heels on as many capitals and glaciers and deserts and decks of vessels as I, you would not despise the weed. You are a new arrival here?' 'I came last night.' 'Perhaps you are a friend of the beautiful Miss Gordon?' 'No. I never saw her until to-day.' 'Where did you come from?' 'Stratford-on-Avon.' 'Ah, Shakespeare's town! I've been there. Shakespeare was no end of a poet; but it was a cursedly dull place to be born in. I daresay he ran away from the dulness of it. Do you find it dull?' 'Well, I-I have had very little experience of anywhere else. I have lived in it all my life.' 'Yes; but you've run about now and then? You've paddled through the mud of other places, and had your chance of frost-bite or sunstroke in other latitudes?' The fair young man smiled. 'You have been about a good deal?' said he. 'Yes.' 'And seen many strange sights?' 'Well, yes.' 'The strangest of all is now here. You will scarcely believe me when I say I am eight-and-twenty years of age, and I have never been fifty miles from my native town in all my life until now.' 'God bless my soul!' The traveller sprang to his feet. 'God bless my soul! Sir, let us shake hands. We must be friends. My name is William Nevill. What is yours?' 'Mine is George Osborne.' 'My dear Osborne, this is the happiest moment of my life. Some Roman swell once offered a beautiful bound edition of the poets to anyone who would invent a new pleasure. By living your twenty-eight years within your fifty-mile radius, and then meeting me, you have invented a new pleasure with a vengeance. How do you feel?' 'I feel quite well, thank you.' 'I am astonished at that. How a fellow can feel well who has been all his life tethered with a fifty-mile rope to the family house-tree, I cannot understand. Bless my soul! I am glad to meet you. Sit down, and let us have a chat. Just fancy: I, who have been everywhere, meeting you, who have been nowhere, and meeting you just as you have broken cover for the first time! Well, they say extremes meet. To think a rolling-stone like me, and a stick-in-the-mud like you, should meet, is most wonderful. Never fifty miles from home! How do you feel, man?' 'Quite well, thank you.' 'I don't mean your health. You look all right. But don't you want to jump into a galvanic battery, and get telegraphed all over creation in five minutes? Bless my soul!' 'No; London is more than enough for me just now, little as I have seen of it.' 'Bless me, Osborne, let me shake your hand again. If I could only meet a woman like you, I think I should marry her, and settle down with, say, a thousand or two miles of rope.' 'But I should fancy a man with your enormous experience of travel would prefer a wife who could talk over the many places you had seen, and the customs you had observed.' The blue eyes of the speaker were fixed earnestly on the traveller. 'Well, I don't know. It would be a fascinating novelty to have a wife who had never been beyond the village-green. But the thing might grow monotonous after awhile. There was only one woman who ever made me think of settling down. When I speak of settling down, I mean on a continent or two.' 'And what was she?' 'A great go-about, like myself.' 'Like the lady who sat opposite you at dinner, to-day?' The steadfast blue eyes never moved from the face of the other man. Nevill bent his head forward, and said, in a dropped voice, so that the others could not hear, – 'It was she. I thought seriously of staying in New-York, and trying if I could make any impression on her.' 'And why did you not?' The blue eyes now fell to the ground. 'Well, you see, the States, Canada, Spain, and Algiers were all waiting for me.' 'And so you did not make love to her?' 'Couldn't, my dear boy. Hadn't time.' 'And where do you go to from London?' 'India.' 'When?' 'That will depend upon my luck.' 'Your luck with what?' 'Miss Gordon. I think I shall give myself a holiday, and a chance of settling down this time. Come, let us join the ladies.' They reached the drawing-room. Nevill, leaning on the arm of Osborne, walked to where Miss Gordon sat on a couch. When he came in front of her, he said, – 'Allow me, Miss Gordon, to present to you my old and valued friend, Mr Simeon Stylites. He has, to honour your arrival in London, just stepped down from his pillar on which he was born, and where he has spent all his life.' 'A descendant of the saint?' she asked archly. 'No; a descendant of the pillar. But really, Miss Gordon, Mr Osborne is a most remarkable man, and I recommend him to your best consideration. He is the Captain Cook of our time, and the enlightened savages have a savoury treat in store for them.' 'A great traveller?' she asked, with a look of interest. 'No. But his is the best performance on record at staying at home.' 'Really!' with a soft laugh. She held out her hand frankly to him. 'I am glad to meet someone who is not travel-worn, and tired of half the world.' 'This is the first time Mr Osborne has ever been fifty miles from home, and his home is a small town in the Midlands, Stratford-on-Avon.' 'I am delighted to have met you,' she said, looking him full in the face with those marvellous dark eyes. 'Do you know, Mr Osborne, you were going to say something to me at dinner, and you did not? And I should like to know what it was.' He stood for a moment mute. She curious to know what he had been about to say! It flushed him, and made the blood at his wrists tingle. It confused his head, and took his intellect away. He stammered out, – 'I really cannot remember. Something not worth your thinking of.' His face was now pale. Nevill observed the change. 'My dear Osborne, you look ill. Run to the front door for a moment and the air will put you right. Shall I go with you?' 'No, thank you. It is nothing.' After a few minutes' silence, he said, – 'I think I shall take a stroll.' 'Do,' said Nevill heartily; 'that is what will fix you up. Run off.' When he had gone, Miss Gordon said to Nevill, – 'Your friend must be ill. I am afraid he must suffer much, for he forgot me when leaving.' 'No one who has once seen you could ever forget you, Miss Gordon,' said Nevill, by way of beginning the attack. 'That is a humdrum compliment,' said she. 'You must be more original, or I shall find you dull.' George Osborne walked, he knew not whither. He felt dazed and dull. At last he paused on a bridge. He stood awhile and thought. Then he said to himself, – 'What perfume of romance have I drunk that she should make me mad?'