CHAPTER IX.
["ONLY A WOMAN."]
John Hanbury turned away and began retracing his steps slowly. When he reached Chetwynd Street he looked up and down it anxiously. He saw no appearance of anything unusual, no undue crowd, no hurrying of people; he heard no loud talk, no excited exclamations.
He had now completely recovered from the effect of the weakness which had seized him a few minutes ago. He stood at the corner, and drew himself up to his full height, with his chin well in, his head back, and a contemptuous look on his face.
He was dark-eyed, dark-skinned, dark-bearded, close upon six feet, good-looking, but not handsome, and yet his face was more attractive than most faces regularly ordered. The whole mask was extremely mobile, and always changing when he spoke, or when the current of his thoughts altered; a flashing and flitting light seemed to come, not from his eyes only, but from all his face. The eyes were large and restless, or perhaps it would be more correct to say unresting, and when animated they flamed and burned with passion and earnestness. His figure was thick-set for his years, but his height carried off the bulk. He was lithe, active, hardy, and the last man anyone would expect to faint or show physical weakness. Some men who became illustrious surgeons have had to overcome this revulsion from blood, and horror at the sight of it.
He turned to the right and began walking rapidly. A few small groups of people were gathered around the mouth of Welbeck Place, discussing the event of that afternoon. Hanbury looked around. If that man had come back with a cab he must have dismissed it, for no cab was in sight.
For a moment he paused in doubt. He approached one of the little knots of people. "Could you tell me, if you please, where I should be likely to see a low-sized gentleman who carries a heavy stick? I think he belongs to this neighbourhood," said Hanbury to a man standing at the corner, a very low-looking type of man, in a shabby jacket.
"You mean little Mr. Leigh?" said the man.
"I don't know his name. He is a small man, and there is something wrong with his back."
"It's Mr. Leigh you want," said the man. "That's him; 'e's a humpback."
"Yes," said Hanbury, who had waited in vain for an answer to his question. The man in the jacket had forgotten his question. He was in sore want of sixpence, and was wondering how he could come by the money. On principle he had no objection to using honest means, provided they were not laborious. He was not a good specimen of the natives of this part of London.
"Do you know where I should be likely to find him?"
"Where you'd be likely to find 'im? No I don't. If 'e was about 'ere you couldn't see 'im very heasy, 'e's that small, and 'e isn't about hany where, as you can see if you look." The speaker had observed Leigh go into the Hanover five minutes before, and knew he was even now in the private bar. But then he wanted sixpence badly, and saw a chance of making it out of this stranger and his knowledge of Leigh's person, ways and locality.
Hanbury looked around as if about seeking information elsewhere. The man felt the money slipping through his fingers, and hastened to add, "I'm hout of work, I ham, gov'nor, an' I'd be glad of hany job. You'd never be hable to find 'im 'ere, but I think I could, if you want me to."
"Very good. If you find out for me where he is I'll give you half-a-crown," said Hanbury, putting his hand in his trouser's pocket.
This was a serious and perplexing matter for the man in the jacket. It would be only right to show a pretence of earning the money, and it would be unsafe to leave the offerer of the reward alone, for he might fall into the hands of sharks, and so the half-crown might get into the pocket of some one not half so deserving as he. "I'm not sure, sir, where 'e is, but if you come with me I'll show you where I think 'e is." He led the way to the door of the Hanover, and pointing to the entrance marked "Private" said: "If you try in there, and if you don't find 'im I'll go round with you, sir, to all the places 'e's likely to be in, for I'm 'ard set for what you was so kind has to promise me." This was a very excellent way out of his difficulty. It secured the reward in the present, and saved appearances at the expense of a promise which he knew need not be fulfilled.
Hanbury looked in, and seeing Leigh, paid the man in the jacket the money and entered the private bar. The dwarf was there alone. This apartment had few visitors until evening, and all the idle people had been drawn off in the wake of the Negro's litter. Even Williams the landlord had been induced by curiosity to make one of the crowd.
"Hah," said Leigh, when he saw Hanbury come in and shut the door. "You thought better of waiting for that cab. I wasn't very long. I am glad you came back. I hope you are again quite well? Eh?" His words and accent were polite--too polite the young man thought. There was a scornful glitter in the hunchback's eyes. A huge volume bound in red cloth lay on the polished metal counter beside him. When Hanbury saw the volume his face flushed vividly. The book was the Post Office Directory.
"I am quite well again, thank you. I came back on purpose to see you." He drew a high stool towards him and sat down, trying to cover his confusion by the act.
"Greatly honoured, I'm sure," said the other man, with all the outward seeming of sincerity, but with that nasty glitter in the bright deep-sunken eyes.
"No, no," said Hanbury, with emphatic gestures of his arms. "My going off so suddenly must have seemed strange----"
"Oh dear no! Hah! I have often heard of men going off in a dead faint in the same way. I was just trying to make up my mind which of the Hanburys in the Directory you were. Let me see," opening the huge book.
"I don't mean my--my illness. That's not what I meant when I said 'going off.' I meant that you must have been surprised at my going away before you came back with the cab. But I was anxious to get away, and quite confused at the moment, and it was not until the lady with me reminded me of your kindness that I resolved to come back. I am sure I don't know how to thank you sufficiently. Only for you I cannot think how I should have got on. The lady----"
"'Miss Ashton,' she told me her name was," said Leigh, with a peculiar smile that made the young man flush again. The implication he took of the smile being that she was able to speak when he was senseless.
"Yes," he said with constraint; he could not bring himself to utter her name in such a low place, a common pot-house!
"May I ask you if you are Mr. John Hanbury?"
"That is my name," said he, looking around apprehensively.
"Hah! I thought so. I had the honour of hearing you speak----"
Hanbury again looked round as though in fear of hearing his own name, and interposed: "Please do not. You will add to the great favour you have already done me if you say nothing of that kind. I am most anxious to have a little conversation--private conversation with you--this is no place," again he cast his eyes around him apprehensively. There was no one but the potman, Tom Binns, in the bar, and in the "public department," only the man who had got the half-crown.
"It is the best, the only good place, hereabouts, unless you would condescend to cross my humble threshold and accept the poor hospitality I can offer you." It is difficult to say where the politeness was overdone in the manner, but the overdoing was as conspicuous in the manner as in the words; but again allowance is always made for people of exceptional physical formation. Hanbury could not tell why he disliked this man and shrank from him, but he looked on him as if he were a dangerous wild beast playing at being tame. He did want five minutes' talk with him. It could do no harm to accept his invitation.
He got briskly off the stool, saying: "I shall be delighted to go to your place with you, I am sure."
Leigh led the way in ceremonious silence, and opened the private door in Chetwynd Street, and bowed his guest in, saying: "I shall have to trouble you to climb two pair of stairs. The poor of earth, we are told, will be rich hereafter. In this life, anyway, they live always nearest to Heaven."
Preceded by Hanbury he mounted to his flat, and ushered his companion into the sitting-room.
"I am only an humble clockmaker, and in my business it is as well to keep an eye on the sun. One cannot guard too carefully against imposture. Pray take a chair. You were pleased to say you wished to speak to me in private. We are alone on this floor. No one can hear us."
Hanbury felt greatly relieved. This was the only man who knew his name. There had not yet been time for him to tell it to any one likely to publish it in the newspapers. He began:
"In the first place I have again to thank you most sincerely for your great services to me a while ago. Believe me, I am very grateful and shall always hold myself your debtor."
"You are too kind. It is a pleasure to do a little service for a gentleman like Mr. Hanbury, the great orator. If only Chetwynd Street knew it had so distinguished a visitor it would be very proud, although the cause in which I heard you speak in Bloomsbury is not very popular in the slums of Westminster. However, you may rest assured the public shall not be allowed to remain in ignorance of the distinction conferred upon our district, this obscure and poor and unworthy corner of Westminster. When you saw me in the Hanover, I was preparing a little paragraph for the papers." The dwarf smiled ambiguously.
Hanbury started and coloured and moved his feet impatiently, uneasily. He could not determine whether the clockmaker was sincere or not in what he had said in the earlier portions of this speech; he was startled by what he said at the end. "Mr. Leigh, you have done me a favour already, a great favour, a great service. They say one is always disposed to help one he has helped before. Do me another service and you will double, you will quadruple, my gratitude. Say nothing to any one of seeing me here, above all let nothing get into the papers about it."
"Hah," said Leigh, throwing himself back on his chair, thrusting his hands down to the bottom of his trousers' pockets and looking out of the window. "Hah! I see! I understand. A woman in the case," in a tone of conviction and severity. He did not remove his eyes from the window.
The colour on Hanbury's face deepened. His eyes flashed. It was intolerable that this low, ill-shapen creature should refer to Dora, to Dora to whom he was engaged, who was to be his wife, as "a woman in the case." Something disgraceful generally attaches to the phrase. Anyway, there was nothing for it but to try to muzzle Leigh. He forced himself to say calmly. "Oh, dear no. Not in the unpleasant sense. The lady who was with me is----"
"Miss Ashton."
"Yes. She told me she gave you her name and mine. Well, Mr. Leigh, you are good enough to say you remember me as a speaker in Bloomsbury. I am seriously thinking of adopting a public career. I could not, for a time at all events, appear on any platform of disputed principles if this unfortunate fainting of mine got into the papers. Some opponent would be certain to throw it in my face. Will you do me the very great favour of keeping the matter to yourself?"
Hanbury was extremely earnest; he leaned forward on his chair and gesticulated energetically. Leigh swiftly turned his face from the window and said: "It can't be done, Mr. Leigh. I suppose you will allow that I, even humble I, may have principles as well as you?"
"Most assuredly, and it would be bad for the community if all public men agreed. Politics would then corrupt from stagnation."
"Well," said the clockmaker, shaking himself into an attitude of resoluteness. "You are a Tory, I am a Radical. Fate has delivered you into my hands, why should I spare you, why should I not spoil you?"
Hanbury winced and wriggled. This was very unlooked-for and very unpleasant. "I may have spoken on a Tory platform but I have never adopted fully the Tory programme----"
"Tory programme, bah! There never was and never can be such a thing, except it be a programme to cry. 'Hold on.'"
"Well, let me substitute Tory platform for Tory programme; anyway, whatever side I may take the publication of this affair would cast such ridicule upon me that I should be compelled to keep off any kind of platform for a time."
"You are an extremely able speaker for so young a man. Mr. Hanbury, I am afraid it is my duty to send a paragraph to the papers. A paragraph of that kind always tells. Anything unkind and true invariably amuses our own side and injures the other side and sticks like wax."
Hanbury writhed. "The hideous beast," he thought. He would have liked to throw the little monster through the window. He rose and began walking up and down the room hastily. "Mr. Leigh, if you will not, as a party man, let this unfortunate thing lie still, will you oblige me personally and say nothing about it? If you do I will consider myself under a deep obligation to you." He had an enormously exaggerated idea of the importance of the affair, but so have most men and particularly young men when the affair threatens to cover them with scorn or ridicule.
"A personal favour from me to you. On what grounds do you put the request?"
"On any honourable grounds you please. You said you were not rich----"
"I did not say I was corrupt." His manner was quick, abrupt, final. His face darkened. His eyes glittered. "Mr. Hanbury you are a rich man----"
"Not rich, surely."
"You are rich compared with any man in this street. You are a rich man. You got your money without work or risk. You are young and clever and tall and straight and healthy and good-looking and eloquent and dear to the most beautiful lady I ever laid eyes on----"
"Curse him!" thought Hanbury, but he held his peace, remained without movement of limb or feature.
"Rich, good-looking, sound, beloved, eloquent, young. Look at me with the eyes of your mind, and the eyes of your body. Poor, ill-favoured, marred and maimed, loathed, ungifted in speech, middle-aged. Do not stop me. I have no chance if I allow you, a gentleman of your eloquence, to speak against me. Think of it all, and then work out a little calculation for me, and tell me the result. Will you do so candidly, fairly, honestly?"
"Yes, indeed, I will."
"Very well. You who are gifted as I have said, come to me who am afflicted as I have said, and ask me to do you a favour, ask me to sell you a favour. Suppose the favour you ask me to do you cost me ten, at how much do you estimate its value to you?"
"A hundred. Anything you like."
"I am not thinking of money."
"Nor am I. Anything ten-fold returned to you I will freely give."
"Wait a moment. Let me think a while."
Hanbury ceased to walk up and down, and stood in the window leaning against the old-fashioned folding shutters painted the old-fashioned dirty drab.
Leigh sat with his chin sunken deeply on his chest, and his eyes fixed on the floor. Then he spoke in a low tone, a tone half of reverie:
"Nature deals in wonders, and I am one of them. And I in turn deal in wonders, and there are many of them. If I chose I could show you the most wonderful clock in all the world, and I could show you the most wonderful gold in all the world, more wonderful a thousand times than mystery gold. But I will not show you these things now. I will show you a more wonderful thing still. Will you come with me a little way?"
"Yes, but you have not set me that question in arithmetic yet."
"I cannot do so until you have come a little way with me. I want to show you the most wonderful thing you ever saw."
"May I ask what it is?"
"You need not be afraid."
"Why need not I be afraid?"
"Because you are not hump-backed and chicken-breasted and lop-sided and dwarfed and hideous."
"But what are you taking me to see?"
"Something more wonderful and more precious than any mystery gold, than my own miracle gold or my clock, and yet of a kind common enough."
"What?"
"A woman."
"But why should I go?"
"Come, and if you ask me that when you have seen, I will ask nothing for my silence."
"Only a woman?"
"Only a woman."
They descended the stairs.