“No,” Eleanor answered: “I shall write to the only friends I have. I don’t want to see any one; I don’t want any one to know where I am going. I left my portmanteau at an hotel in Norfolk Street, and I shall be glad if you will let me call for it.”
Mrs. Lennard gave the necessary order; the cabman drove to the hotel where Eleanor had left her portmanteau, and thence to the Great Northern, where Mrs. Lennard conducted her new companion to a very handsome apartment on the ground-floor, opening into a palatial bed-chamber, whose splendour was a good deal impaired by the circumstances that the stately Arabian bed, the massive easy-chairs, the sofa, the dressing-table, and even the washhand-stand were loaded with divers articles of male and female attire, which seemed to have been flung here and there by some harmless maniac disporting himself about the room.
In the very centre of all this disorder, upon a great black leather military travelling-case, sat a big broad-chested man of about forty, with a good-natured, sunburnt face, a very fierce auburn moustache, and a thick stubble of crisp, wavy, auburn hair, cut close to his head, in the development of which a disciple of Mr. George Coombe would have scarcely discovered the organs that make a man either a general or a philosopher. This sunburnt, good-humoured looking gentleman had taken off his coat for the better accomplishment of his herculean labours; and, with his arms folded and his legs crossed, with an embroidered slipper balanced upon the extremity of his toes, and a meerschaum pipe in his mouth, he sat resting himself, after taking the initiatory step of dragging everything out of the drawers and wardrobe.
“Oh, you lazy Freddy!” cried Mrs. Lennard, looking in at her lord and master with a reproachful countenance, “is that all you’ve done?”
“Where’s the blue barège with the flounces to go?” roared the major, in the voice of an amiable Stentor. “I couldn’t do anything till I knew that, and I’ve been waiting for you to come home. Have you got a companion?”
“Hush! yes! she’s in the nest room; such a dear, and awfully pretty. If you stare at her much I shall be jealous, Freddy, for you know you are a starer, though you never will confess it. I’ve seen you, in Regent Street, when you’ve thought I’ve been looking at the bonnets,” added the lady, reproachfully.
Upon this the major got up, and, lifting his wife in his arms, gave her such a hug as a well-disposed bear might have bestowed upon the partner of his den. Major Lennard was about six feet one and a half in the embroidered slippers, and was as strong as a gladiator in good training.
“Come and be introduced to her,” exclaimed Mrs. Lennard; and she led her husband, in his shirt-sleeves, nothing abashed, into the adjoining sitting-room.
The major’s conversational powers were not very startling. He made a few remarks about the weather, which were more courteous than original. He asked Eleanor if she was hungry, if she would have luncheon, or wait for a six o’clock dinner, and if she was a good sailor. Then, suddenly coming to a standstill, he demanded soda water and brandy.
It was the habit of this amiable man to require this beverage on every possible occasion. He was by no means a drunkard, though he was one of those good-natured noisy creatures who can never be convivial without getting tipsy; but his existence was one perpetual absorption of soda water and brandy. Why he drank this mixture, which the uninitiated are apt to consider insipid, was a mystery only to be explained by himself. He could not have been perpetually thirsty; and I am inclined to think that this soda water and brandy was the desperate resource of a feeble intellect craving some employment, rather than a physical want.