CHAPTER VIII
[MR. ROSENBAUM'S SIX DAUGHTERS]
In the meantime Mr. Ely was dreaming of his love. It sounds contradictory at first, bearing in mind that he was not a man of sentiment; but the fact was that in his case absence made the heart grow distinctly fonder. By the time he reached Ryde Miss Truscott occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of all else; he never even troubled himself about the purchase of a paper--which was fortunate, for at that hour none had yet arrived from town, and to him the local prints were loathsome. All the way on the boat he dreamed--yes, literally dreamed--of the girl he left behind him. More than once, incredible though it may appear, he sighed.
"She don't care for me a snap, not a single rap, by Jove she don't!"
He sighed when he said this, for, for some occult reason, the idea did not seem to amuse him so much as it had done last night.
"I don't know why she shouldn't, though. Perhaps she thought I didn't want her. More I didn't then, though I don't see why she shouldn't if I did. I know how to make a girl like me as well as any man--look at the Rosenbaums!"
He sighed again. It was "look at the Rosenbaums," indeed! When he thought of those six young women, with their well-developed noses and the fringe of hair upon their upper lips, and of their twice-hammered father, and then of Miss Truscott, that vision of a fair woman, with her noble bearing, her lovely face, and her wondrous eyes, the contrast went deeply home. He felt that he was a lucky--and yet not altogether a lucky--man.
"She's going to be my wife, that's one thing, anyhow."
The Isle of Wight is a great place for honeymoons. It lends itself naturally to couples in a certain phase of their existence. Such a couple were on board the boat with Mr. Ely. Their demeanour was tender towards each other.
"Couple of idiots!" said Mr. Ely to himself as he observed this pair; "it makes a man feel ill to look at them!"
She was a pretty girl, and he was not an ugly man; she hung upon his arm and looked into his eyes. It was plain the honeymoon was not yet done for them. In spite of his disgust, Mr. Ely found himself thinking, almost unconsciously, of another figure and of another pair of eyes--of that other figure hanging upon his arm, and of that other pair of eyes looking into his. He sighed again.
"She doesn't care for me a snap, by Jove!"
Instead of amusing him, it seemed that this reflection began to give him pain. The little man looked quite disconsolate.
"I'll make her, though! I will! If--if it costs me a thousand pounds!"
He had been on the point of stating the cost he was willing to incur at a much higher sum than this. He had been on the very verge of saying that he would make her care for him if it cost him every penny he had. But prudence stepped in, and he limited the amount to be squandered to a thousand pounds, which was not so bad for a man who did not believe in sentiment. But a singular change had come over him between Shanklin and Stokes Bay.
The change was emphasised by a little encounter which he had with a friend in the train. He had taken his seat in the corner of a carriage, when the door was darkened by a big, stout man, who was all hair and whiskers and gorgeous apparel.
"What, Ely! My boy, is it bossible it is you!
"Rosenbaum! What the devil brings you here?"
"Ah! what the teffel is it brings you?"
Mr. Rosenbaum spoke with a decidedly German accent. He settled himself in the seat in front of Mr. Ely, and beamed at him, all jewellery and smiles. It was as though some one had applied a cold douche to the small of Mr. Ely's back. He was dreaming of the sweetest eyes, and his too-friendly six-daughtered friend--the man who had been hammered twice!--appeared upon the scene. It was a shock. But Mr. Rosenbaum seemed beamingly unconscious of anything of the kind. The train started, and he began a conversation--which rather hung fire, by the way.
"It is some time since we have seen you in Queen's Gate."
Queen's Gate was where Mr. Rosenbaum resided. After each "hammering"--mysterious process!--he had moved into a larger house. It had been first Earl's Court, then Cromwell Road, and now Queen's Gate.
"Been so much engaged."
Mr. Rosenbaum was smoking a huge cigar, and kept puffing out great clouds of smoke. Mr. Ely was engaged on a smaller article, which scarcely produced any smoke at all. They had the compartment to themselves; Mr. Ely would rather have seen it full. He knew his friend.
"Miriam has missed you."
Miriam was the eldest of the six: the one whose nose and moustache were most developed; a sprightly maiden of thirty or thirty-one. "So has Leah."
Leah was a year or so younger than her sister, and quite as keen.
Mr. Ely drew in his lips. He had once played cards with Miss Leah Rosenbaum, and detected her in the act of cheating. He admired the woman of business, but regretted his eighteenpence.
"I've no doubt she has."
"That's a fine girl, Leah! A smart girl, too." Mr. Ely had not the slightest doubt of her "smartness," not the least. "She'll be a fortune to any man. She's very fond of you."
Mr. Ely was certainly not fond of her, but he could scarcely say so to her father's face. So he kept still.
"Rachel, she miss you too."
Silence. Mr. Ely saw plainly that he was going to be missed by all the six. Since he could not escape from the train while it was travelling at the rate of forty miles an hour, the only course open was to sit still and say as little as he could. He knew his friend too well to suppose that anything he could say would induce him to turn the conversation into other channels. The fond father went blandly on.
"She say you gave her a little gift, eh? That so?"
"Never gave her anything in my life."
"No! She says you gave her a lock of your hair; it was little to you, it was much to her. Rachel, she treasures up these little things. She show it me one day; she says she keep it here."
Mr. Rosenbaum patted his waistcoat in the region where his heart might anatomically be supposed to be.
"I tell you what it is, Rosenbaum, your girls are like their father, smart."
"We're not fools," admitted Mr. Rosenbaum.
"One night, when I was asleep on the couch in that back room of yours in Cromwell Road--before you failed last time"--it is within the range of possibility that this allusion was meant to sting, but Mr. Rosenbaum smoked blandly on--"that girl of yours cut off some of my hair, and drew blood in doing it, by George!"
"Ah! she says you give it her--from sympathy, my friend. She admire you very much, that girl."
Mr. Ely kept silence. If there was any one of the six he disliked more than the others it was the young lady whom her father said admired him very much--Miss Rachel Rosenbaum. Some fathers, if they had had the names of three of their daughters received in this rather frigid way, would have changed the subject perhaps. But if Mr. Rosenbaum had not been a persevering man, his address would not have been Queen's Gate. Besides, Mrs. Rosenbaum was dead, and he had to act the parts of mother and father too. And there were six.
"Judith, she miss you too."
This was the fourth; there still were two to follow. Mr. Ely resolved to have a little plunge upon his own account.
"Doing anything in Unified?"
Mr. Rosenbaum looked at him, puffed out a cloud of smoke, and smiled. "I say, Judith, she miss you too."
"And I said, 'Doing anything in Unified?'"
Mr. Rosenbaum leaned forward and laid his great, fat, jewelled hand on Mr. Ely's knee. "Now, my friend, there is a girl for you; plump, tender--what an eye!"
"And what a nose! And a moustache!" was on Mr. Ely's lips, but he refrained.
"That girl just twenty-four, and she weigh a hundred and seventy pound--she do credit to any man. And, my goodness, how she is fond of you, my boy!"
A vision passed before Mr. Ely's mental eye of the girl whom he had left behind. And then he thought of the young lady whose chief qualification was that she weighed a hundred and seventy pounds at twenty-four.
"She not a worrying girl, that Judith; that's the sort of wife for a man to have who wants to live an easy life. She let him do just what he please, and never say a word."
Mr. Ely fidgeted in his seat. "I say, Rosenbaum, I wish you'd try some other theme."
Mr. Rosenbaum held up his fat forefinger, with its half a dozen rings, and wagged it in Mr. Ely's face. "But the great point is Sarah, my good friend; there is something between you and she."
"What the dickens do you mean?"
"Oh! you know what I mean. What passed between you on the river that fine day?"
"What fine day?"
"What fine day! So there has been more than one! That I did not know; the one it was enough for me."
"And upon my word, with all due respect to Miss Sarah Rosenbaum, it was enough for me."
"You did not kiss her, eh? You did not kiss her that fine day?"
"I don't know if I kissed her or she kissed me. I say, Rosenbaum, those girls of yours don't seem to keep many secrets from their father."
"That is as good a girl as ever lived; you will do justice to her, eh?"
"I hope I should do justice to every girl."
"So! That is it! You would marry half a dozen, perhaps!"
"By George, I don't believe you'd offer any objection if I wanted to!"
Mr. Rosenbaum sat back in his seat. Apparently this observation did go home. He appeared to reflect, but he showed that he was by no means beaten by suddenly discovering a fresh attack.
"My good friend, you think you are a clever man. I allow you are no fool, but you have met your match in me."
In his secret heart Mr. Ely was quite willing to allow the fact.
"You have played with my six daughters--very good! You have trifled with their hearts. I say not any word, but there is one of them you must marry, and Ruth is she."
Mr. Ely was silent. He kept his eyes cast down. Mr. Rosenbaum, on the other hand, kept his eyes fixed upon his good friend's face.
"Come, I am her father. When is it to be?"
Then Mr. Ely did look up. The two friends' glances met; Mr. Ely certainly did not flinch.
"It won't do; try some other lay."
"What you mean--try some other lay?"
"Mean what I say."
"You never asked her to marry you?"
"I swear I never did."
"You never gave her to understand that you wished her for your wife, eh?"
"I'm not responsible for her understanding."
"So--that is it!--I see! Griffith of Tokenhouse Yard is your solicitor--not so?"
Mr. Rosenbaum took out a note-book and a pencil-case.
"What's it matter to you?"
"My good friend, it matters this. Before we reach Waterloo you tell me the day on which you marry Ruth, or to-morrow a writ issues for breach of promise."
"Issue fifty writs for all I care."
"You have played hanky-panky with my six daughters, but we have you on the last; at least, we'll see."
"I guess we will. Take my advice, Rosenbaum, and don't you be a fool. I never asked your daughter in my life to marry me."
"We'll talk of that a little later on. There is a letter and some other little things which will make a sensation when they are produced in Court. You understand that it is my duty to see that you do not break my daughter's heart."
"Which of them? All six?"
"At present it is with Ruth we are concerned."
"Oh, Ruth be hanged!"
With that observation the conversation closed. The remainder of the journey passed in silence. But when they reached Waterloo Mr. Rosenbaum remarked--
"Well, my friend, what is it to be? Will you name the day?"
"Name your grandmother!" Mr. Ely courteously rejoined. And with that courteous rejoinder he left the train.