Читать книгу The Lucky Number - Major General John Hay Beith - Страница 9

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So the Curate went away, but not to London. He was sent instead to a great manufacturing town in the North, where the work was equally hard, and where Anglican and Roman and Salvationist fought grimly side by side against the powers of drink and disease and crime. During these days, which ultimately rolled into years, the Curate lost his boyish freshness and his unfortunate tendency to put on flesh. He grew thin and lathy; and although his smile was as ready and as magnetic as ever, he seldom laughed.

But he never failed to write a cheerful letter to Eileen every Monday morning. He was getting two hundred pounds a year now, so his chances of becoming a millionaire had been doubled, he said.

Meanwhile his two confederates, Excalibur and Eileen, continued to reside at Much Moreham. Eileen was still the recognised beauty of the district, but she spread her net less promiscuously than of yore. Girl friends she always had in plenty, but it was noticed that she avoided intimacy with all eligible males of over twenty and under forty-five years of age. No one knew the reason of this, except Excalibur. Eileen used to read Gerald’s letters aloud to him every Tuesday morning: sometimes the letter contained a friendly message to Excalibur himself. In acknowledgment of this courtesy Excalibur always sent his love to the Curate—Eileen wrote every Friday—and he and Eileen walked together, rain or shine, on Friday afternoons to post the letter in the next village. Much Moreham post office was too small to remain oblivious to such a regular correspondence.

But the Curate was seen no more in his old parish. Railway journeys are costly things, and curates’ holidays rare. Besides, he had no overt excuse for coming. And so life went on for five years. The Curate and Eileen may have met during that period, for Eileen sometimes went away visiting; and as Excalibur was not privileged to accompany her upon these occasions he had no means of checking her movements. But the chances are that she never saw the Curate, or I think she would have told Excalibur about it. We simply have to tell some one.

Then, quite suddenly, came a tremendous change in Excalibur’s life. Eileen’s brother-in-law—he was Excalibur’s master no longer, for Excalibur had been transferred to Eileen by deed of gift, at her own request, on her first birthday after the Curate’s departure—fell ill. There was an operation, and a crisis, and a deal of unhappiness at Much Moreham: then came convalescence, followed by directions for a sea voyage for six months. It was arranged that the house should be shut up, and the children sent to their grandmother at Bath.

“That settles everything and everybody,” said the gaunt man on the sofa, “except you, Eileen. What about you?”

“What about Scally?” inquired Eileen.

Her brother-in-law apologetically admitted that he had forgotten Scally.

“Not quite myself at present,” he mentioned in extenuation.

“I am going to Aunt Phœbe,” announced Eileen.

“You are never going to introduce Scally into Aunt Phœbe’s establishment!” cried Eileen’s sister.

“No,” said Eileen, “I am not.” She rubbed Excalibur’s matted head affectionately. “But I have arranged for the dear man’s future. He is going to visit friends in the North. Aren’t you, darling?”

Excalibur, to whom this arrangement had been privately communicated some days before, wagged his tail and endeavoured to look as intelligent and knowing as possible. He was not going to put his beloved mistress to shame by admitting to her relatives that he had not the faintest idea what she was talking about.

However, he was soon to understand. Next day Eileen took him up to London by train. This in itself was a tremendous adventure, though alarming at first. He travelled in the guard’s van, it having been found quite impossible to get him into an ordinary compartment—or rather, to get anyone else into the compartment after he had lain down upon the floor. So he travelled with the guard, chained to the vacuum brake, and shared that kindly official’s dinner.

When they reached the terminus there was much bustle and confusion. The door of the van was thrown open, and porters dragged out the luggage and submitted samples thereof to overheated passengers, who invariably failed to recognise their own property and claimed someone else’s. Finally, when the luggage was all cleared out, the guard took off Excalibur’s chain and facetiously invited him to alight here for London town. Excalibur, lumbering delicately across the ribbed floor of the van, arrived at the open doorway. Outside upon the platform he espied Eileen. Beside her stood a tall figure in black.

With one tremendous roar of rapturous recognition, Excalibur leaped straight out of the van and launched himself fairly and squarely at the Curate’s chest. Luckily the Curate saw him coming.

“He knows you all right,” said Eileen with satisfaction.

“He appears to,” replied the Curate. “Afraid I don’t dance the tango, Scally, old man. But thanks for the invitation, all the same!”

Excalibur spent the rest of the day in London, where it must be admitted that he caused a genuine sensation—no mean feat in such a blasé place. In Bond Street the traffic had to be held up both ways by benevolent policemen, because Excalibur, feeling pleasantly tired, lay down to rest across the narrowest part.

When evening came they all dined together in a cheap little restaurant in Soho, and were very gay—with the gaiety of people who are whistling to keep their courage up. After dinner Eileen said good-bye, first to Excalibur and then to the Curate. She was much more demonstrative towards the former than the latter, which is the way of women. Then the Curate put Eileen into a taxi, and having, with the aid of the commissionaire, extracted Excalibur from underneath—he had gone there under some confused impression that it was the guard’s van again—said good-bye for the last time; and Eileen, smiling bravely, was whirled away out of sight.

As the taxi turned a distant corner and disappeared from view, it suddenly occurred to Excalibur that he had been left behind. Accordingly he set off in pursuit....

The Curate finally ran him to earth in Buckingham Palace Road, which is a long chase from Soho, sitting upon the pavement, to the grave inconvenience of the inhabitants of Pimlico, and refusing to be comforted. It took his new master the best part of an hour to get him to the Euston Road, where it was discovered that they had missed the night mail to the North. Accordingly they walked to a rival station and took another train.

In all this Excalibur was the instrument of Destiny, as you shall hear.