Читать книгу The Northing Tramp - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

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Mrs. Elmer made several visits to the bedroom. She had endeavoured throughout the day to arouse October to a sense of her responsibilities, but unsuccessfully.

“You’d break the heart of a stone,” said Mrs. Elmer bitterly.

She was a terribly thin woman, with a face that was all angles, and her manner was normally and permanently acidulated.

“How can I pack, October? I don’t know what you want to take with you.”

October put down her book and regarded the thin lady thoughtfully.

“Anything. What does a bride wear, anyway?”

It was the first spark of interest she had shown.

“Your blue, the satiny one. Mr. Elmer thought that as the wedding was to be quiet it was waste of money to buy fal-de-rals. ...”

“Oh, Lord!” groaned October. “Who wants fal-de-rals? Anything you like, Mrs. Elmer. Not too much; I don’t want the bother of unpacking.”

“Can’t you do anything?” demanded the exasperated woman. “Do you expect me to break my back over your trunks?”

“Don’t pack ’em,” said October, and returned her mind to the book.

She had her supper in her room alone. She was reading by the light of a kerosene lamp, her head on one hand, when Mrs. Elmer in rustling black came twittering in to her.

“The Reverend Stevens has come,” she whispered, as though the information were too intimate to be spoken aloud.

October put down her book, carefully marked the place, and stood up, brushing back her hair with a quick gesture.

“What does he want?” she asked astoundingly.

Mrs. Elmer did not swoon.

“You’re goin’ to be married, ain’t you?” she demanded violently.

“Oh, that!”

The long parlour at Four Beeches was at its worst a gaunt and cheerless room. All that flowers, garden-grown, could do to its embellishment had been done. The flowers gave the room a beauty and a dignity which October had not noticed before. Mr. Elmer in his Sunday best black and the Reverend Stevens in funereal black were solemn figures. So were Johnny Woodgers, the hired man, and his wife, and Art Fingle, the clerk from the Farmers’ Bank, and Martha Dimmock, the widow woman who was accounted Mrs. Elmer’s closest and most confidential friend. October looked in vain for Sam.

“You didn’t wear The Blue after all,” whispered Mrs. Elmers. “That dress looks too gay——”

“I feel gay,” said October clearly.

The Reverend Stevens held a whispered conversation with Andrew Elmer, and Mr. Elmer went out. It was Mr. Stevens’s opportunity. He tiptoed across the room. He had the manner of one in the presence of the newly deceased.

“You are about to embark upon a new life and a new career,” he said; “a career which calls for the exercise of all the virtues——”

“Where is this Sam person?” demanded October. “I’d like to take one really good look at him before I decide.”

“He will be here presently.”

Mr. Stevens was annoyed. October had that effect on him. He, too, had need to exercise all his Christian virtues when he was brought into contact with her. To say that he disliked her intensely is to put the situation truthfully. He was looking forward to the day when she would be removed to the fold which sheltered the Lutheran Wassers.

“You are about to embark upon a new——”

The sound of voices came faintly from the road outside: they must have been very loud voices to reach so far. Somebody was laughing stupidly.

“—a new career, as I say. There can only be one sure guide even in the most paltry affairs——”

The voices were so loud now that he stopped. The door was flung open; Mr. Elmer came in backwards, waving his hands frantically. After him, facing first one way and then the other, Mr. Wasser in a tail coat, very flushed and talking at the top of his voice.

The little crowd that followed exploded into the room. Sam Wasser was very noticeable. He had a flag attached to a walking-cane and he waved it furiously. Hatless and bearing marks of strife, he did not differ in this respect from his elated friends.

“Here he ish! Whoop! Rush that weddin’. Yi-yap! Gerraway!” This to his frantic father.

Then, in a sing-song chorus which was lustily sung by his supporters:

“Calling your bluff, November Jones, December Jones, callin’ your bluff, November Jones, September Jones—wow!”

Then it was that October saw the tramp. He was pushed forward by friendly hands and stood swaying unsteadily on his feet. His eye was glassy, his air a little wild. Somebody had ripped his coat so that only one sleeve remained.

“Sorry,” he said thickly.

Sorry? She looked at him keenly. One word, and it determined her course. Until that moment her mind was all fury and contempt.

Mr. Elmer became articulate.

“What in hell’s the meaning of this?” he screeched. “Hey? What’s the idea ... get out, you bunch of boozers ... get out!”

“Idea?” Sam strode forward truculently. “She’d sooner marry tramp, she said—call her bluff. Tha’s what. Here’s tramp. Marry him ... tha’s what!”

Into the face of October Jones came a look that defied the description of those who witnessed the scene.

“I’ll marry him!”

Robin the tramp stared at her owlishly.

“He’s drunk!” said a voice in the background, and there was a laugh. “Wouldn’t drink, so we sat on him and poured it down.”

“We poured it down, we poured it down!” roared the chorus, stamping time with their feet. “He wouldn’t drink, so we poured it down! Poured it down ...”

The voices straggled; one dropped out and then another. Sam was left in the position of soloist, and presently he stopped.

October was searching the face of the dazed tramp, eagerly, tensely. The thing of rags and tatters shook his head in helpless protest. His gaze wandered from the girl to the shaded lamp: it was smoking blackly. The lamp interested him. He raised a solemn finger as though in reproof. And then his eyes came back to the girl.

“Fearfully sorry!” he muttered. “Curse that intaglio!”

It was as though he, of all the gaping company, had some dim understanding of her humiliation. He waggled his head, frowned terribly. She saw the struggle between the will of him and the drug that deadened his senses. He was trying to throw off the black cloth that blinded him ... and failed. As to this strange talk of intaglios—she had no room in her mind for that.

“I will marry him!”

Elmer’s lip was working terribly fast. Mr. Wasser was weeping weakly.

“You can’t ... you marry Sam——”

“That weakling!”

Sam sniggered at this, made to stride up to her, tripped over the carpet and floundered on his hands and knees, tried to rise and fell again.

“You’ll have to marry me off to-night—I’ll take the tramp!”

Mrs. Elmer wrung her hands.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she squeaked. “You can’t do it, October!”

“Can’t I?” The girl’s eyes were on the Reverend Stevens. “One man is like another in the eyes of God, isn’t he?”

She turned to Robin: he was regarding her with wide eyes.

“Such things cannot be,” he said solemnly.

“What is your name?”

“Robin—Robin Leslie.”

“Robin Leslie—that will do.”

She took his grimy hand in hers. She was at that moment a being exalted; her eyes were blazing.

The Reverend Stevens fiddled with his prayer-book, looked over his glasses at Mr. Elmer. Andrew was biting his nails, one eye on the clock, one on the limp figure that sprawled on the floor. Sam had gone to sleep.

“You do as you like,” his voice quavered. “You’re mad, October—plumb starin’ mad——”

She still held the paw in hers.

“My name is October Jones—his is Robin Leslie—marry us.”

The Reverend Stevens opened the book and stumbled through the words. From the carpet came the drum-beat of Sam’s snores.

“Ring?”

She stooped and searched the waistcoat pocket of the slumbering youth.

“Here it is.”

So in the sight of God and His congregation she was made Mrs. Robin Leslie.

Mrs. Elmer, hand at mouth, watched her, like a woman in a trance. Andrew talked furiously, but no sound came. As for Robin the tramp ...

“Sorry!” he said once.

The crowd at the end of the room gaped as they came towards the door.

“Where you goin’?” asked Wasser hoarsely.

“With my husband.”

They disappeared into the black night, and for a long time nobody spoke or moved. Then with a scream Mrs. Elmer flew to the door.

“October! October!”

There was no answer but the uneasy rustling of the leaves and the deep growl of distant thunder.