CHAPTER XXI.
THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.
To have fallen out of an express train going at full speed! I have hadsome strange experiences, for a mere woman. But this, I think, beatsall.
And to owe it to Thomas Tennant! I will be even with him yet.
I went down to Brighton to spend the Sunday with Lettice Enderby--shewas acting at the theatre there. I found her not feeling very well. Wespent the day alone together. After dinner I had to make a rush for thetrain. Who should I find myself shut in with as soon as the train hadstarted, but Tommy Tennant.
It was years and years since we had seen each other. And all the worldhad happened since we had. But, so far as personal appearance wasconcerned, he had not changed a bit. He was still the same jack-puddingsort of little man, with round eyes and rosy cheeks. I knew him atsight. What was queerer, he knew me. I take that as a compliment. Iflatter myself that I have not changed, except for the better, sincethose days of long ago. Tommy's prompt recognition was the besttestimony to the truth of this fact I could possibly have had.
Although more than seas divided us, and never was a past more dead thanhis and mine, at the sight of Tommy all my old grudge against him cameback again. Perhaps the glass or two of wine I had had with Letticemight have had something to do with it, but directly I saw him I flewinto a rage. Tommy Tennant always has been the ideal man I hate. Giveme them good or give me them bad, but do give me them one or the other.The irresolute, backboneless, jelly-like sort of man is beyondendurance.
If Thomas Tennant ever had a backbone he lost it in his cradle!
He always used to be afraid of me. In that respect, as in the others, Ifound he had not changed. He was frightened half out of his lifedirectly he saw who it was. When I began talking to him he startedshivering--literally shivering--in a way which made me wild. I do likea man who can hold his own. Talk about conscience making cowards of usall; I like the man of whom nothing can make a coward. He got into sucha state of mortal terror that he actually tried to steal out of thecarriage and escape from me while the train was going, for all I know,perhaps fifty miles an hour.
That was how the trouble all began. It would have spoiled the sport tohave let him go, so I tried to stop him. He had opened the carriagedoor, and in endeavouring to prevent his going out, I went out instead.
That is the simple truth.
There never was a more astonished woman. I doubt if there ever was onewith so much reason for astonishment. How it happened, or exactly whathappened, I do not know. There was not time enough to clearlyunderstand. I discovered that I was standing upon nothing, and thenthat I was flying backwards through the air. After that I suppose Ilost my seven senses.
I could not, however, have lost them for long. Perhaps for not morethan a minute or so. When I came to I opened my eyes, and looking upsaw that the moon was shining in the sky overhead, and that it wasalmost as light as day. I wondered where I was, and whether the end ofthe world had come. I found that I was lying among a group of bushes onwhat seemed a sloping bank, and that something very like a miracle hadtaken place. Falling out of the train while it was rushing along thetop of an embankment, I must have gone, backwards, into a bush, whichwhile it had let me through, had sufficed to break my fall. I must haverolled down the bank, until I was stopped by the clump of bushes amidstwhich I found myself.
The miracle was that I was unhurt. I was a trifle shaken and a trifledazed. But not a bone was broken, and I felt that, so far as materialdamage was concerned, I could get up when I chose and walk off,practically as if nothing had occurred.
But I was a trifle dazed, and it was some moments before my sensesquite returned to me. What hastened their return was the fact of myhearing footsteps. I listened. Somebody was walking, and not very faroff either. The person, whoever it was, seemed to be quite close athand. I did not know whereabouts I might be lying. I was only awarethat I was somewhere between Brighton and London. I had no notion howfar I might be from a station or a town. It struck me that it would bejust as well that I should discover who the pedestrian might chance tobe.
As I was about to rise, with the intention of prospecting, somethingheavy falling among the bushes almost on top of me startled me half outof my wits. I sprang to my feet. At the bottom of the bank on the otherside of a fence which formed a boundary between the railway and thecountry beyond, a man stood, staring at me in the moonlight. He wastall, and he wore a long black overcoat and a billycock hat; even then,and in that light, I could see he was a gentleman. But it was the lookwhich was on his face which took me aback. I never saw such a look on aman's face before. He stared at me as if he was staring at a ghost. Andjust as I was about to accost him, and to request his assistance, atleast to the extent of informing me as to my whereabouts, leaping rightround, he began to tear across the moonlit field as if Satan was at hisheels.
I was going to call and beg him not to leave me, a stranger in theland, alone in the lurch like that, when I was reminded of thesomething which had fallen among the bushes, and which had first mademe conscious of his presence, by kicking against something which feltsoft and yielding, and which was lying on the ground.
I stooped down to see what it was.
"Sakes alive! It's a woman!"
It was; a young woman--and she was dead. No wonder he had stared at meas if he had been staring at a ghost. No wonder, as he saw me lookingat him from among the bushes, that he had thought that the victim ofhis handiwork had risen from the dead to look again upon his face. Nowonder he had torn for his life across the grass, feeling that she wasat his heels.
I seemed to be in for a pretty thing. I have looked upon dead folk manya time; yes, and upon not a few who have come to their death by"accident." I have lived in parts of the world in which life is notheld so sacred as it is in England; where not such a fuss is made everytime the doctor is forestalled--where the doctor is not the onlyindividual who is licensed to kill; where men shoot now and then atsight, and, when they are pushed to it, women too. I know a girl--andliked her--who shot a man who had insulted her in New Orleans, and lefthim on the sidewalk. Nobody said a word. She is married now to a richman, and to a good man, as good men go, and she has a family, and sheis highly esteemed. In England that seems odd, but I suppose the factis that when one is in Rome one does as the Romans do, and that is allabout it.
And at that moment I happened to be in England, and I made up my mindthere and then that, if I could help it, I would have no finger in thepie. I had no desire to go into the witness-box--I would almost as soonhave gone into the dock. Cross-examining counsel have a knack of makingmincemeat of a witness. Things come out--the things which one wouldmuch rather did not come out. I had not returned to England, a widow,with my big pile, with the intention of coming such a cropper at theoutset. Rather than be mixed up in such a mess, I would almost soonertake my passage in the first steamer back to the States, and count theties out West again.
Please the fates, I had done with scandals--fresh ones, anyhow--for therest of my days. The woman was dead. She was beyond my help. Letwhoever found her hang the man who laid her there. The house in which Ilived was too transparent for me to indulge in the luxury of throwingstones.
I gathered myself together. The most miraculous part of the businesswas that my clothing seemed to have escaped uninjured; fallingbackwards had been my salvation. I peeped at my face in my handglass. Iseemed to be all right--right enough, at any rate, to pass muster atnight and in a crowd. I went up the bank to the line. From thataltitude I had a good view of the surrounding country. Straight alongthe line to the left, not so very far away, lights were glimmering. Imade up my mind to chance it, to keep along the line and to make forthem.
They proved to be the lights of a station. The station was ThreeBridges Junction. I managed to enter it to the best of my knowledge andbelief, entirely unobserved. I thanked my stars when I felt theplatform beneath my feet.
From the mirror in the waiti
ng-room I learned that my handglass had notdeceived me. I could pass muster. A woman in the room addressed me--sheand I had it to ourselves.
"Excuse me, miss, but do you know your back's all covered with weeds?"
As she brushed them off I thanked her, murmuring something about myhaving been sitting on the grass.
Going out on to the platform I all but came into collision with the manwho had stood staring at me from the other side of the railing. Thesight of him fairly took my breath away. He was going from me or hecould scarcely have failed to notice the singularity of my demeanour.It was he--there could be no mistake about that. But, lest I might bein error, I resolved to have another glimpse at him. Before I could putmy resolution into force he had vanished, into what I discovered to be,as I strolled slowly past it, a refreshment-room.
I should not wonder if he did stand in need of refreshment!
There did not appear to be a seat in the place. English people talkabout the discomfort of the American depots but my experience is that,from the discomfort point of view, the average English station runs theAmerican depot hard. I sat on one of those square trollies which theporters use for baggage. There I watched and waited for my gentleman toemerge, refreshed. The trolley was close to the refreshment-room. Icould see him at the bar. He was not content with one drink. Hedisposed of two.
Probably he needed them!
Presently he came out. He had had his back towards me while he had beendrinking. As he came out of the buffet, turning, he walked in thedirection of the trolley on which I was sitting. He moved right past,so close to me that by putting out my foot, I could have tripped himup.
It was he. My first impression had not been wrong. That he had gotcured of his fright was plain--certainly he showed no signs of it. Heseemed quite at his ease. His hands were in the pockets of hisovercoat, an umbrella was under his arm, a cigarette was between histeeth. There might not have been such a thing as a ghost--or the shadowof the shade of a ghost--in all the world.
Back he came. He sailed up to a porter. I heard him asking him whenthere was a train to town. As the man, having given the information,was making off, I cut in. I put to my gentleman the question which hehad put to the porter.
"Can you tell me when the next train starts for London?"
He told me what I asked, adding a word or two on his own account, as Ihad expected and desired. I responded. He seemed disposed forsociability. Why should I object? We began to talk. The end of it wasthat we travelled in the same compartment up to town.
It was so funny!
He was that most remarkable product--an English gentleman. Given thereal article--and there is no mistaking it when once encountered--thereis nothing in the world which can be compared to it. I speak who know.He was tall. He was perfectly dressed. He was handsome--I never saw amore handsome man. And he had that air of infinite, yet unconscious,condescension which the English gentleman, alone of all the creaturesof the world, is born with, and which, willy-nilly, he carries with himfrom the cradle to the grave.
They tell you in the different countries of the world that theEnglishman is awkward, shy, ungraceful, seldom at his ease. May be; butnot the English gentleman. He is the only man I have known who isalways at his ease in every possible situation. But he is not to befound on every bush. Even in his own country he is the rarest of rarebirds. Being born a peer, even though he can trace his tree to Noah,does not make a man a gentleman--you bet that it does not. I believethat an English gentleman is a caprice, an accident. He is not to beaccounted for by natural laws. And though, for all I know, he may betrusted by his fellows, he is not to be trusted by a woman. He has onecode of honour for his own sex and another for ours.
That is so, though it may not be according to the copybooks.
My friend the gentleman was a real smart man. As he lolled back in hisseat, enjoying his tobacco, it did you good to see him smile. His voicewas typical of his kind, it fell like music on your ears. As you lookedat him and listened, you could have sworn that he had not a care uponhis mind. He was at peace with himself, and all the world. And it wasall so natural; he was to the manner born.
I found him quite delightful. I could see what he was doing--he wasreckoning me up. And he was puzzled where to place me. I took him intomy real confidence, for reasons of my own, and that puzzled him stillmore. I told him nothing but the truth. How I had gone out to America,and met poor dear Daniel, and married him. And how he had died and leftme a widow, and his pile to comfort me. And how I had come back toEngland childless and forlorn and all alone. I laid stress upon myloneliness. I think that touched him. When a woman tells a man that sheis lonely he takes it that she means that there is not a man anywherein sight, and that the coast is clear for him, and that does touchhim. His manner became quite sympathetic. He was as nice as couldbe--allusive, as a real smart man can be, with a delicate, intangibledirectness almost equal to a woman's.
We were almost like old friends by the time that we reached town. Heput me into a hansom at Victoria station. I asked him to come and seeme, to have consideration for my loneliness. He promised that he would.All the way home, as the cab bore me through the streets, I keptthinking of Mr. Reginald Townsend--that was the name which he had givenme--and of the woman he had left, lying by the line, amidst that clumpof bushes.
I believe I have written that I like a man to be thorough. It seemedprobable that Mr. Townsend was that.