“No; I miss you every minute I am not with y’u.”
“Sh-h. People will hear y’u.”
“It is all in camera.”
“You mustn’t talk, Mr. Jones.”
The “Mr. Jones” was disconcerting. But he would not be repulsed.
“I want to talk to you,” he said.
“Later on,” she answered, and would not pursue the conversation.
Hymn followed hymn, and the good things so freely provided by Miss Proudleigh (who had received an advance for that purpose from Susan) were duly handed round. The guests enjoyed them, eating and drinking to their hearts’ content; and Mr. Proudleigh, reflecting that it might be long before he should assist at another Ninth Night, worthily led them on in this satisfactory effort. Then, when it was nearly twelve o’clock, he thought he saw his opportunity, and, forestalling his sister, he rose and intimated that it was his intention to make a few remarks.
“It is shortly toward midnight, dear friends,” he began, “an’ before we finish an’ terminate this firs’ part of our gathering, we must call to mind certain things. Every meeting have an end, an’ every end has a termini.” (He paused to allow this term to have its full effect upon the audience. It was one he had learnt from Jones.) “But before we proceed to bid Mackenzie good-bye,” he went on, “an’ the younger folkses begin to enjie themself, which is natural, for I remember that in de old days, which I always tell my fambily, for none of them know what I know, an’ so to speak a man like me is expected to ’ave experience, an’ as I was saying——” But the difficulty was that he could not for the life of him remember what he had been saying. His sister had given him no opportunity of speaking earlier that night, and in the meantime sundry glasses of rum and water had inflamed his ambition without strengthening his mind. There was now, therefore, a struggle between the orator and the liquor, and his refusal to own himself vanquished as he strove to recall what he had intended to say would have been magnificent had it not appeared to the audience supremely ludicrous. Mr. Proudleigh wanted to pronounce a eulogy upon Mackenzie. He had an idea that Mackenzie’s spirit was hovering near, and he would have liked it to hear his speech. He felt that Mackenzie deserved special posthumous praise for having left Susan so comfortably off. He bravely began once more.
“Mackenzie was me son-in-law. He was a very kind young man. An’ when he write me for Miss Susan” (here Susan stared) “I wouldn’t refuse him. I say to him . . . I say . . .” Once again Mr. Proudleigh halted, and in the midst of the momentary silence the little clock on the shelf just above his head struck the midnight hour. A hush fell on the company as Miss Proudleigh sank upon her knees. That lady afterwards declared that as the last stroke of the clock died away she had felt something like a cold wind rushing by her, as though an invisible presence were leaving this mundane sphere for ever; and after hearing of her experience Mr. Proudleigh also asserted that he too had been touched by Mackenzie’s departing spirit that night. His sister, recollecting his condition, secretly doubted his story; but as moral support is always of value when proof is not forthcoming, she never contradicted him.