‘Then, by Jove, I’ll make your fortune, my boy!’ cried the adventurer, striking the table with his hand in his excitement. ‘I’m going out to America next week to make a railway. Didn’t you know I was an engineer? That before everything;—in a secondary way, traveller, sheep-farmer, colonial agent, litterateur,—anything you please, but engineer first of all. And I’ve got a railway in America to make, and I want a man to help me. Ben, don’t say another word. If you like you shall be the man.’
Then there was a pause, and Hillyard plunged into the midst of his papers, from which he drew an unintelligible drawing, diversified with dabs of colour and dotted lines. Ben said not a word while the search was going on. A strange sensation, half fear, half hope, seemed to go through his veins. It was the first offer of work that had ever been made to him,—from Hillyard, of all men, who had taken him to Guildford Street and actually made Millicent known to him,—whom he had kept clear of since as a vulgar adventurer, not able to estimate such a heavenly creature but in his own coarse way. And now it was he who offered him the first round, perhaps, of the ladder by which he should reach her! With this there mingled a doubt of the reality of Hillyard’s good fortune. An adventurer himself, what solid help could he have to offer to others? All these mingled thoughts rushed through Ben’s mind while his companion was finding the plan. When he had spread it out on the table, Ben gave an unsteady, nervous laugh, glancing at it without an idea what it could mean.
‘I know nothing of railways,’ he said, ‘except travelling on them. I don’t know even the meaning of the words on the margin there. How could I be of any use to you,—unless as a navvy?’ he added, holding out his arm; ‘and it would be easy to find a finer development of muscle than mine.’
‘Pshaw!’ said Hillyard, ‘it is no joke. I mean what I say. You may trust to me to find you what you can do. The only question is, Will you do it? Do you want work? or is it only a makebelief about Renton and all that? How can I tell? You bury yourself out of the world, and never throw yourself in the way of anything, so far as one can see. You may be contenting yourself with what you have. You may be above taking a share of one’s good fortune. I say again, how can I tell?’
‘I am ready to work at anything. It is the height of my wishes,’ said Ben, with a huskiness in his voice. Further explanation he could make none; but his heart smote him all the same. What right had he to a share of any one’s good fortune,—and of this man’s above all, for whom he had never done anything? He had not even the gratification of thinking that he had been kind to him in his wealthier days.
‘Then look here,’ said Hillyard, plunging into his work.
The two sat with their heads together over the inarticulate drawing till long past midnight. By degrees it became intelligible to the novice. Shortly it opened up before him into a possibility,—a thing practicable, a new hope. When he went back to Guildford Street in the early morning,—the morning which was still night,—his head was full of the new idea. He was no longer an aimless, half-desperate man, detached from everything but the one absorbing madness which had taken possession of his empty life; he had linked himself on again to fact and nature, recovered his identity, his independence, himself. The change that lay before him,—palpable, visible, unmistakable change from one hemisphere to another, from doing nothing to hard, open-air, undisguisable work,—had dispersed already the mists which made a mystery and vision of all former changes. He stretched out his hands to the past, even as he lifted them to the future. It was but this unwholesome, unreal interval which had made life itself look as a dream and a thing untrue.
CHAPTER XII.
MILLICENT’S NEW START.
While Ben was thus, unconsciously to himself, being drawn back across the threshold of wholesome life, the morning was passing in a very different way at No. 10, Guildford Street. The packing was not yet finished, which of itself was a troublesome matter, and, to tell the truth, Mrs. Tracy’s feeling was that she would be glad to get Millicent safely away, and that she did not know what had come over the girl. Notwithstanding her displeasure with her, and fears as to her state of mind, Mrs. Tracy took care to provide a nice little supper for Millicent, on that last night,—such as her soul loved. The two ladies were rather fond of nice little suppers. They dined very hurriedly and quietly in the middle of the day, eschewing hot and dainty dishes and everything that had a good odour, lest anybody should call; and accordingly, in the evening, when they were free, and could indulge themselves without any scruples about gentility, they made up for their self-denial by having something they liked, which was generally of a savoury kind. They supped comfortably after the labour of packing, and refreshed themselves ere they went to bed. It was at a late hour, and they had the prospect of but a short night’s rest, for they were to start very early in the morning; and naturally this, their last night upon English soil, had a certain pensiveness about it, notwithstanding the savoury fragrance and comfort of their favourite meal.