Part 5 (1/2)
”P.S.--Before we leave the s.h.i.+p you must let me know your address in London.”
With such a letter under my pillow, can it be doubted that my dreams were good? Little I guessed the acc.u.mulation of troubles to which this little unpleasantness with Mr. Wetherell was destined to be the prelude!
CHAPTER II
LONDON
Now that I come to think the matter out, I don't know that I could give you any definite idea of what my first impressions of London were. One thing at least is certain, I had never had experience of anything approaching such a city before, and, between ourselves, I can't say that I ever want to again. The constant rush and roar of traffic, the crowds of people jostling each other on the pavements, the happiness and the misery, the riches and the poverty, all mixed up together in one jumble, like good and bad fruit in a basket, fairly took my breath away; and when I went down, that first afternoon, and saw the Park in all its summer glory, my amazement may be better imagined than described.
I could have watched the carriages, hors.e.m.e.n, and promenaders for hours on end without any sense of weariness. And when a bystander, seeing that I was a stranger, took compa.s.sion upon my ignorance and condescended to point out to me the various celebrities present, my pleasure was complete. There certainly is no place like London for show and glitter, I'll grant you that; but all the same I'd no more think of taking up my permanent abode in it than I'd try to cross the Atlantic in a Chinese sampan.
Having before I left Sydney been recommended to a quiet hotel in a neighbourhood near the Strand, convenient both for sight-seeing and business, I had my luggage conveyed thither, and prepared to make myself comfortable for a time. Every day I waited eagerly for a letter from my sweetheart, the more impatiently because its non-arrival convinced me that they had not yet arrived in London. As it turned out, they had delayed their departure from Naples for two days, and had spent another three in Florence, two in Rome, and a day and a half in Paris.
One morning, however, my faithful watch over the letter rack, which was already becoming a standing joke in the hotel, was rewarded. An envelope bearing an English stamp and postmark, and addressed in a handwriting as familiar to me as my own, stared me in the face. To take it out and break the seal was the work of a moment. It was only a matter of a few lines, but it brought me news that raised me to the seventh heaven of delight.
Mr. and Miss Wetherell had arrived in London the previous afternoon, they were staying at the _Hotel Metropole_, would leave town for the country at the end of the week, but in the meantime, if I wished to see her, my sweetheart would be in the entrance hall of the British Museum the following morning at eleven o'clock.
How I conducted myself in the interval between my receipt of the letter and the time of the appointment, I have not the least remembrance; I know, however, that half-past ten, on the following morning, found me pacing up and down the street before that venerable pile, scanning with eager eyes every conveyance that approached me. The minutes dragged by with intolerable slowness, but at length the time arrived.
A kindly church clock in the neighbourhood struck the hour, and others all round it immediately took up the tale. Before the last stroke had died away a hansom turned towards the gates from Bury Street, and in it, looking the picture of health and beauty, sat the girl who, I had good reason to know, was more than all the world to me. To attract her attention and signal to the driver to pull up was the work of a second, and a minute later I had helped her to alight, and we were strolling together across the square towards the building.
”Ah, d.i.c.k,” she said, with a roguish smile, ”you don't know what trouble I had to get away this morning. Papa had a dozen places he wished me to go to with him. But when I told him that I had some very important business of my own to attend to before I could go calling, he was kind enough to let me off.”
”I'll be bound he thought you meant business with a dressmaker,” I laughingly replied, determined to show her that I was not unversed in the ways of women.
”I'm afraid he did,” she answered, blus.h.i.+ng, ”and I feel horribly guilty. But my heart told me I must see you at once, whatever happened.”
Could any man desire a prettier speech than that? If so, I was not that man. We were inside the building by this time, ascending the great staircase.
As we entered the room at the top of the stairs, I thought it a good opportunity to ask the question I had been longing to put to her.
”Phyllis, my sweetheart,” I said, with a tremor in my voice, ”it is a fortnight now since I spoke to you. You have had plenty of time to consider our position. Have you regretted giving me your love?”
We came to a standstill, and leant over a case together, but what it contained I'm sure I haven't the very vaguest idea.
She looked up into my face with a sweet smile.
”Not for one single instant, d.i.c.k! Having once given you my love, is it likely I should want it back again?”
”I don't know. Somehow I can't discover sufficient reason for your giving it to me at all.”
”Well, be sure I'm not going to tell you. You might grow conceited.
Isn't it sufficient that I _do_ love you, and that I am not going to give you up, whatever happens?”
”More than sufficient,” I answered solemnly. ”But, Phyllis, don't you think I can induce your father to relent? Surely as a good parent he must be anxious to promote your happiness at any cost to himself?”
”I can't understand it at all. He has been so devoted to me all my life that his conduct now is quite inexplicable. Never once has he denied me anything I really set my heart upon, and he always promised me that I should be allowed to marry whomsoever I pleased, provided he was a good and honourable man, and one of whom he could in any way approve. And you are all that, d.i.c.k, or I shouldn't have loved you, I know.”