Lotta Schmidt, and Other Stories

by Anthony Trollope

“I wonder whether he will be at the station?” she said, when the three hours of the journey had nearly passed. Forrest could perceive that her voice trembled as she spoke, and that she was becoming nervous.

“If he has already reached Panama, he will be there. As far as I could learn the arrival up from Peru had not been telegraphed.”

“Then I have another day,—perhaps two. We cannot say how many. I wish he were there. Nothing is so intolerable as suspense.”

“And the box must be opened again.”

When they reached the station at Panama they found that the vessel from the South American coast was in the roads, but that the passengers were not yet on shore. Forrest, therefore, took Miss Viner down to the hotel, and there remained with her, sitting next to her in the common drawing-room of the house, when she had come back from her own bed-room. It would be necessary that they should remain there four or five days, and Forrest had been quick in securing a room for her. He had assisted in taking up her luggage, had helped her in placing her big box, and had thus been recognised by the crowd in the hotel as her friend. Then came the tidings that the passengers were landing, and he became nervous as she was. “I will go down and meet him,” said he, “and tell him that you are here. I shall soon find him by his name.” And so he went out.

Everybody knows the scrambling manner in which passengers arrive at an hotel out of a big ship. First came two or three energetic, heated men, who, by dint of screeching and bullying, have gotten themselves first disposed. They always get the worst rooms at the inns, the housekeepers having a notion that the richest people, those with the most luggage, must be more tardy in their movements. Four or five of this nature passed by Forrest in the hall, but he was not tempted to ask questions of them. One, from his age, might have been Mr. Gorloch, but he instantly declared himself to be Count Sapparello. Then came an elderly man alone, with a small bag in his hand. He was one of those who pride themselves on going from pole to pole without encumbrance, and who will be behoved to no one for the carriage of their luggage. To him, as he was alone in the street, Forrest addressed himself. “Gorloch,” said he. “Gorloch: are you a friend of his?”

“A friend of mine is so,” said Forrest.

“Ah, indeed; yes,” said the other. And then he hesitated. “Sir,” he then said, “Mr. Gorloch died at Callao, just seven days before the ship sailed. You had better see Mr. Cox.” And then the elderly man passed in with his little bag.

Mr. Gorloch was dead. “Dead!” said Forrest, to himself, as he leaned back against the wall of the hotel still standing on the street pavement. “She has come out here; and now he is gone!” And then a thousand thoughts crowded on him. Who should tell her? And how would she bear it? Would it in truth be a relief to her to find that that liberty for which she had sighed had come to her? Or now that the testing of her feelings had come to her, would she regret the loss of home and wealth, and such position as life in Peru would give her? And above all would this sudden death of one who was to have been so near to her, strike her to the heart?

But what was he to do? How was he now to show his friendship? He was returning slowly in at the hotel door, where crowds of men and women were now thronging, when he was addressed by a middle-aged, good-looking gentleman, who asked him whether his name was Forrest. “I am told,” said the gentleman, when Forrest had answered him, “that you are a friend of Miss Viner’s. Have you heard the sad tidings from Callao?” It then appeared that this gentleman had been a stranger to Mr. Gorloch, but had undertaken to bring a letter up to Miss Viner. This letter was handed to Mr. Forrest, and he found himself burdened with the task of breaking the news to his poor friend. Whatever he did do, he must do at once, for all those who had come up by the Pacific steamer knew the story, and it was incumbent on him that Miss Viner should not hear the tidings in a sudden manner and from a stranger’s mouth.