“Thank you; I expect I can walk as far as you,” said Hyacinth.
“Well, I admire your spirit, and I dare say I shall like your company.”
There was something in his face, taken in connection with the idea that he was concerned in a little movement, which made Hyacinth feel the desire to go with him till he dropped; and in a moment they started away together and took the direction Muniment had mentioned. They discoursed as they went, and exchanged a great many opinions and anecdotes; but they reached the south-westerly court in which the young chemist lived with his infirm sister before he had told Hyacinth anything definite about his little movement, or Hyacinth, on his side, had related to him the circumstances connected with his being, according to M. Poupin, one of the disinherited. Hyacinth didn’t wish to press him; he would not for the world have appeared to him indiscreet; and, moreover, though he had taken so great a fancy to Muniment, he was not quite prepared, as yet, to be pressed. Therefore it did not become very clear to him how his companion had made Poupin’s acquaintance and how long he had enjoyed it. Paul Muniment nevertheless was to a certain extent communicative about himself, and forewarned Hyacinth that he lived in a very poor little corner. He had his sister to keep—she could do nothing for herself; and he paid a low rent because she had to have doctors, and doses, and all sorts of little comforts. He spent a shilling a week for her on flowers. It was better, too, when you got upstairs, and from the back windows you could see the dome of St Paul’s. Audley Court, with its pretty name, which reminded Hyacinth of Tennyson, proved to be a still dingier nook than Lomax Place; and it had the further drawback that you had to pass through a narrow alley, a passage between high, black walls, to enter it. At the door of one of the houses the young men paused, lingering a little, and then Muniment said, “I say, why shouldn’t you come up? I like you well enough for that, and you can see my sister; her name is Rosy.” He spoke as if this would be a great privilege, and added, humorously, that Rosy enjoyed a call from a gentleman, of all things. Hyacinth needed no urging, and he groped his way, at his companion’s heels, up a dark staircase, which appeared to him—for they stopped only when they could go no further—the longest and steepest he had ever ascended. At the top Paul Muniment pushed open a door, but exclaimed, “Hullo, have you gone to roost?” on perceiving that the room on the threshold of which they stood was unlighted.
“Oh, dear, no; we are sitting in the dark,” a small, bright voice instantly replied. “Lady Aurora is so kind; she’s here still.”
The voice came out of a corner so pervaded by gloom that the speaker was indistinguishable. “Dear me, that’s beautiful!” Paul Muniment rejoined. “You’ll have a party, then, for I have brought some one else. We are poor, you know, but I dare say we can manage a candle.”
At this, in the dim firelight, Hyacinth saw a tall figure erect itself—a figure angular and slim, crowned with a large, vague hat, surmounted, apparently, with a flowing veil. This unknown person gave a singular laugh, and said, “Oh, I brought some candles; we could have had a light if we had wished it.” Both the tone and the purport of the words announced to Hyacinth that they proceeded from the lips of Lady Aurora.
VIII
Paul Muniment took a match out of his pocket and lighted it on the sole of his shoe; after which he applied it to a tallow candle which stood in a tin receptacle on the low mantel-shelf. This enabled Hyacinth to perceive a narrow bed in a corner, and a small figure stretched upon it—a figure revealed to him mainly by the bright fixedness of a pair of large eyes, of which the whites were sharply contrasted with the dark pupil, and which gazed at him across a counterpane of gaudy patchwork. The brown room seemed crowded with heterogeneous objects, and had, moreover, for Hyacinth, thanks to a multitude of small prints, both plain and coloured, fastened all over the walls, a highly-decorated appearance. The little person in the corner had the air of having gone to bed in a picture-gallery, and as soon as Hyacinth became aware of this his impression deepened that Paul Muniment and his sister were very remarkable people. Lady Aurora hovered before him with a kind of drooping erectness, laughing a good deal, vaguely and shyly, as if there were something rather awkward in her being found still on the premises. “Rosy, girl, I’ve brought you a visitor,” Paul Muniment said. “This young man has walked all the way from Lisson Grove to make your acquaintance.” Rosy continued to look at Hyacinth from over her counterpane, and he felt slightly embarrassed, for he had never yet been presented to a young lady in her position. “You mustn’t mind her being in bed—she’s always in bed,” her brother went on. “She’s in bed just the same as a little trout is in the water.”
“Dear me, if I didn’t receive company because I was in bed, there wouldn’t be much use, would there, Lady Aurora?”
Rosy made this inquiry in a light, gay tone, darting her brilliant eyes at her companion, who replied instantly, with still greater hilarity, and in a voice which struck Hyacinth as strange and affected, “Oh, dear, no, it seems quite the natural place!” Then she added, “And it’s such a pretty bed, such a comfortable bed!”