Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

Epistolary composition was not much in Burgo's line, and the missive to his uncle was written and altered and rewritten at least a dozen times before the final fair copy was made and despatched, and even then he was far from satisfied with it.

But after all it proved to be so much labour in vain. By the first post next morning his letter came back to him enclosed in an envelope addressed in a feminine hand, but without an added word of any kind inside. It had been opened, and that might be taken as proof positive that it had been read--but by whom? Had it ever reached his uncle? In view of her husband's invalid condition might not Lady Clinton have taken upon herself to open and attend to his correspondence? Nothing seemed more likely. In any case, whether Sir Everard had read the letter or whether he had not, he, Burgo, was powerless to do more than he had done in the way of bringing himself and his uncle together again. He had been baulked at every turn. A resolute and unscrupulous woman had come between them, and against her poisoned arrows he was helpless. As he stood up and tore his letter across and across before flinging it into the fire he cursed Lady Clinton in his heart.

A few days later, as he was taking one of those long solitary rambles after nightfall into the habit of which he had fallen of late, finding himself; without any intention on his part, close by Great Mornington Street, he turned into it and strolled slowly along till he came opposite his uncle's house. Unlike several neighbouring houses, it was almost in darkness. There was a light in the entrance hall, but beyond that only one window in the whole frontage of the house was illumined from within, and that Burgo knew to be the window of a cosy little sitting-room known as "the study," and in bygone days sacred to his uncle's own use. Of course it was quite possible, and indeed most probable, that the back drawing-room and other rooms which faced the opposite way were lighted up, but regarded from the street, No. 22 looked distinctly dismal and forbidding. Still, there was nothing funereal about it, as his first glance at it told him, and the same moment his heart gave a great throb of relief. There had been a certain vague dread upon him as he came slowly--almost reluctantly down the street. What if when he got opposite the house, he should find it staring out at the night with sightless eyes, its every blind drawn down, telling of the presence within of that dread visitant who comes to each of us in turn! Why that dread should have haunted him to-night more than at another time, he did not know.

"Fact is, I'm hipped--off colour," he said to himself, "and am getting all sorts of ridiculous notions into my head. It's high time for me to buckle to work of some kind. Nothing like work, I've been told, for curing the blues. Well, I suppose I shall have every chance of testing the remedy as soon as I've succeeded in finding work of some kind to do."

He had been standing staring at the house for some two or three minutes, and he now turned to go back up the street. A dozen yards brought him to a lamp, and he was full in the light reflected from it when an exclamation from a man who had been on the point of passing him arrested his attention. The man came to a dead halt and involuntarily Burgo did the same.

"Sakes alive! if it ain't Mr. Brabazon!" exclaimed the other. "I thought I couldn't be mistaken," and the same instant Burgo recognised the speaker.

It was Benny Hines, who, many years before, had been Sir Everard's coachman, till a fall which broke his right wrist had disabled him for driving. From that date he had been permanently pensioned by the baronet, the only duty exacted in return being that he and his wife should act as caretakers of the mansion in Great Mornington Street whenever Sir Everard was abroad, or after those families to whom it was occasionally let for the London season had, with the coming of autumn, winged their flight elsewhere.

It was Benny who had taught Burgo to "handle the ribbons" when the latter was a lad, and his memory was stored with reminiscences of many pleasant hours spent in the old man's company.

"Why, Benny, old friend, and how are you after all this long time?" said Burgo, as he gave the ex-coachman's hand a cordial grip. "It must be quite four years since you and I parted last."

"Four years and eight months, Mr. Burgo."