Christmas at Thompson Hall (5 page)

“This has been a very disagreeable accident, Mr. Jones,” said the husband of the lady.

“Accident! I don't know how it could have been an accident. It has been a most — most — most — a most monstrous, — er, — er, — I must say, interference with a gentleman's privacy, and personal comfort.”

“Quite so, Mr. Jones, but, — on the part of the lady, who is my wife —— ”

“So I understand. I myself am about to become a married man, and I can understand what your feelings must be. I wish to say as little as possible to harrow them.” Here Mr. Brown bowed. “But, — there's the fact. She did do it.”

“She thought it was — me!”

“What!”

“I give you my word as a gentleman, Mr. Jones. When she was putting that mess upon you she thought it was me! She did, indeed.”

Mr. Jones looked at his new acquaintance and shook his head. He did not think it possible that any woman would make such a mistake as that.

“I had a very bad sore throat,” continued Mr. Brown, “and indeed you may perceive it still,” — in saying this, he perhaps aggravated a little sign of his distemper, “and I asked Mrs. Brown to go down and get one, — just what she put on you.”

“I wish you'd had it,” said Mr. Jones, putting his hand up to his neck.

“I wish I had, — for your sake as well as mine, — and for hers, poor woman. I don't know when she will get over the shock.”

“I don't know when I shall. And it has stopped me on my journey. I was to have been to-night, this very night, this Christmas Eve, with the young lady I am engaged to marry. Of course I couldn't travel. The extent of the injury done nobody can imagine at present.”

“It has been just as bad to me, sir. We were to have been with our family this Christmas Eve. There were particular reasons, — most particular. We were only hindered from going by hearing of your condition.”

“Why did she come into my room at all? I can't understand that. A lady always knows her own room at an hotel.”

“353 — that's yours; 333 — that's ours. Don't you see how easy it was? She had lost her way, and she was a little afraid lest the thing should fall down.”

“I wish it had, with all my heart.”

“That's how it was. Now I'm sure, Mr. Jones, you'll take a lady's apology. It was a most unfortunate mistake, — most unfortunate; but what more can be said?”

Mr. Jones gave himself up to reflection for a few moments before he replied to this. He supposed that he was bound to believe the story as far as it went. At any rate, he did not know how he could say that he did not believe it. It seemed to him to be almost incredible, — especially incredible in regard to that personal mistake, for, except that they both had long beards and brown beards, Mr. Jones thought that there was no point of resemblance between himself and Mr. Brown. But still, even that, he felt, must be accepted. But then why had he been left, deserted, to undergo all those torments? “She found out her mistake at last, I suppose?” he said.

“Oh, yes.”

“Why didn't she wake a fellow and take it off again?”

“Ah!”

“She can't have cared very much for a man's comfort when she went away and left him like that.”

“Ah! there was the difficulty, Mr. Jones.”

“Difficulty! Who was it that had done it? To come to me, in my bedroom, in the middle of the night and put that thing on me, and then leave it there and say nothing about it! It seems to me deuced like a practical joke.”

“No, Mr. Jones!”

“That's the way I look at it,” said Mr. Jones, plucking up his courage.

“There isn't a woman in all England, or in all France, less likely to do such a thing than my wife. She's as steady as a rock, Mr. Jones, and would no more go into another gentleman's bedroom in joke than —— Oh dear no! You're going to be a married man yourself.”

“Unless all this makes a difference,” said Mr. Jones, almost in tears. “I had sworn that I would be with her this Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, Mr. Jones, I cannot believe that will interfere with your happiness. How could you think that your wife, as is to be, would do such a thing as that in joke?”

“She wouldn't do it at all; — joke or anyway.”

“How can you tell what accident might happen to any one?”

“She'd have wakened the man then afterwards. I'm sure she would. She would never have left him to suffer in that way. Her heart is too soft. Why didn't she send you to wake me, and explain it all. That's what my Jane would have done; and I should have gone and wakened him. But the whole thing is impossible,” he said, shaking his head as he remembered that he and his Jane were not in a condition as yet to undergo any such mutual trouble. At last Mr. Jones was brought to acknowledge that nothing more could be done. The lady sent her apology, and told her story, and he must bear the trouble and inconvenience to which she had subjected him. He still, however, had his own opinion about her conduct generally, and could not be brought to give any sign of amity. He simply bowed when Mr. Brown was hoping to induce him to shake hands, and sent no word of pardon to the great offender.

The matter, however, was so far concluded that there was no further question of police interference, nor any doubt but that the lady with her husband was to be allowed to leave Paris by the night train. The nature of the accident probably became known to all. Mr. Brown was interrogated by many, and though he professed to declare that he would answer no question, nevertheless he found it better to tell the clerk something of the truth than to allow the matter to be shrouded in mystery. It is to be feared that Mr. Jones, who did not once show himself through the day, but who employed the hours in endeavouring to assuage the injury done him, still lived in the conviction that the lady had played a practical joke on him. But the subject of such a joke never talks about it, and Mr. Jones could not be induced to speak even by friendly adherence of the night-porter.

Mrs. Brown also clung to the seclusion of her own bedroom, never once stirring from it till the time came in which she was to be taken down to the omnibus. Upstairs she ate her meals, and upstairs she passed her time in packing and unpacking, and in requesting that telegrams might be sent repeatedly to Thompson Hall. In the course of the day two such telegrams were sent, in the latter of which the Thompson family were assured that the Browns would arrive, probably in time for breakfast on Christmas Day, certainly in time for church. She asked more than once tenderly after Mr. Jones' welfare, but could obtain no information. “He was very cross, and that's all I know about it,” said Mr. Brown. Then she made a remark as to the gentleman's Christian name, which appeared on the card as “Barnaby.” “My sister's husband's name will be Burnaby,” she said. “And this man's Christian name is Barnaby; that's all the difference,” said her husband, with ill-timed jocularity.

We all know how people under a cloud are apt to fail in asserting their personal dignity. On the former day a separate vehicle had been ordered by Mr. Brown to take himself and his wife to the station, but now, after his misfortunes, he contented himself with such provision as the people at the hotel might make for him. At the appointed hour he brought his wife down, thickly veiled. There were many strangers as she passed through the hall, ready to look at the lady who had done that wonderful thing in the dead of night, but none could see a feature of her face as she stepped across the hall, and was hurried into the omnibus. And there were many eyes also on Mr. Jones, who followed her very quickly, for he also, in spite of his sufferings, was leaving Paris on the evening in order that he might be with his English friends on Christmas Day. He, as he went through the crowd, assumed an air of great dignity, to which, perhaps, something was added by his endeavours, as he walked, to save his poor throat from irritation. He, too, got into the same omnibus, stumbling over the feet of his enemy in the dark. At the station they got their tickets, one close after the other, and then were brought into each other's presence in the waiting-room. I think it must be acknowledged that here Mr. Jones was conscious not only of her presence, but of her consciousness of his presence, and that he assumed an attitude, as though he should have said, “Now do you think it possible for me to believe that you mistook me for your husband?” She was perfectly quiet, but sat through that quarter of an hour with her face continually veiled. Mr. Brown made some little overture of conversation to Mr. Jones, but Mr. Jones, though he did mutter some reply, showed plainly enough that he had no desire for further intercourse. Then came the accustomed stampede, the awful rush, the internecine struggle in which seats had to be found. Seats, I fancy, are regularly found, even by the most tardy, but it always appears that every British father and every British husband is actuated at these stormy moments by a conviction that unless he prove himself a very Hercules he and his daughters and his wife will be left desolate in Paris. Mr. Brown was quite Herculean, carrying two bags and a hat-box in his own hands, besides the cloaks, the coats, the rugs, the sticks, and the umbrellas. But when he had got himself and his wife well seated, with their faces to the engine, with a corner seat for her, — there was Mr. Jones immediately opposite to her. Mr. Jones, as soon as he perceived the inconvenience of his position, made a scramble for another place, but he was too late. In that contiguity the journey as far as Dover had to be made. She, poor woman, never once took up her veil. There he sat, without closing an eye, stiff as a ramrod, sometimes showing by little uneasy gestures that the trouble at his neck was still there, but never speaking a word, and hardly moving a limb.

Crossing from Calais to Dover the lady was, of course, separated from her victim. The passage was very bad, and she more than once reminded her husband how well it would have been with them now had they pursued their journey as she had intended, — as though they had been detained in Paris by his fault! Mr. Jones, as he laid himself down on his back, gave himself up to wondering whether any man before him had ever been made subject to such absolute injustice. Now and again he put his hand up to his own beard, and began to doubt whether it could have been moved, as it must have been moved, without waking him. What if chloroform had been used? Many such suspicions crossed his mind during the misery of that passage.

They were again together in the same railway carriage from Dover to London. They had now got used to the close neighbourhood, and knew how to endure each the presence of the other. But as yet Mr. Jones had never seen the lady's face. He longed to know what were the features of the woman who had been so blind — if indeed that story were true. Or if it were not true, of what like was the woman who would dare in the middle of the night to play such a trick as that. But still she kept her veil close over her face.

From Cannon Street the Browns took their departure in a cab for the Liverpool Street Station, whence they would be conveyed by the Eastern Counties Railway to Stratford. Now at any rate their troubles were over. They would be in ample time, not only for Christmas Day church, but for Christmas Day breakfast. “It will be just the same as getting in there last night,” said Mr. Brown, as he walked across the platform to place his wife in the carriage for Stratford. She entered it first, and as she did so there she saw Mr. Jones seated in the corner! Hitherto she had borne his presence well, but now she could not restrain herself from a little start and a little scream. He bowed his head very slightly, as though acknowledging the compliment, and then down she dropped her veil. When they arrived at Stratford, the journey being over in a quarter of an hour, Jones was out of the carriage even before the Browns.

“There is Uncle John's carriage,” said Mrs. Brown, thinking that now, at any rate, she would be able to free herself from the presence of this terrible stranger. No doubt he was a handsome man to look at, but on no face so sternly hostile had she ever before fixed her eyes. She did not, perhaps, reflect that the owner of no other face had ever been so deeply injured by herself.

MRS. BROWN AT THOMPSON HALL

“Please, sir, we were to ask for Mr. Jones,” said the servant, putting his head into the carriage after both Mr. and Mrs. Brown had seated themselves.

“Mr. Jones!” exclaimed the husband.

“Why ask for Mr. Jones?” demanded the wife. The servant was about to tender some explanation when Mr. Jones stepped up and said that he was Mr. Jones. “We are going to Thompson Hall,” said the lady with great vigour.

“So am I,” said Mr. Jones, with much dignity. It was, however, arranged that he should sit with the coachman, as there was a rumble behind for the other servant. The luggage was put into a cart, and away all went for Thompson Hall.

“What do you think about it, Mary,” whispered Mr. Brown, after a pause. He was evidently awe-struck by the horror of the occasion.

“I cannot make it out at all. What do you think?”

“I don't know what to think. Jones going to Thompson Hall!”

“He's a very good-looking young man,” said Mrs. Brown.

“Well; — that's as people think. A stiff, stuck-up fellow, I should say. Up to this moment he has never forgiven you for what you did to him.”

“Would you have forgiven his wife, Charles, if she'd done it to you?”

“He hasn't got a wife, — yet.”

“How do you know?”

“He is coming home now to be married,” said Mr. Brown. “He expects to meet the young lady this very Christmas Day. He told me so. That was one of the reasons why he was so angry at being stopped by what you did last night.”

“I suppose he knows Uncle John, or he wouldn't be going to the Hall,” said Mrs. Brown.

“I can't make it out,” said Mr. Brown, shaking his head.

“He looks quite like a gentleman,” said Mrs. Brown, “though he has been so stiff. Jones! Barnaby Jones! You're sure it was Barnaby?”