Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

"True for you, Mr. Hendry, but I've no inclination to add one more to their number. No, sir, what I've decided upon doing is to try to earn my living as a hansom-cab driver, and I have come to you, Mr. Hendry, as a man whom I've known for a number of years, to ask you to give me a start; in other words, as our friend Joey would say, to 'put me on the job.'"

Hendry stared at him open-mouthed for a second or two. Then he said: "You don't seriously mean what you say, Mr. Brabazon?"

"Most seriously I do. I was never more in earnest in my life."

"Well, sir, you're not the first broken-down swell--if you'll excuse the term--that I've known take to driving a hansom for a living, but they have mostly been of a different quality from you. Still, needs must when a certain person drives. I don't suppose starving's any pleasanter to a man that's had a college education, than to one who can neither read nor write. If you like to look me up at eleven to-morrow forenoon, Mr. Brabazon, I may have something to say to you."

Burgo did not fail to keep the appointment, and the result was that on the following Monday morning, having in the interim taken out a license in due form at Scotland Yard, he started in his new career. It appeared that Mr. Hendry had just become the owner of a hansom which had been the property of a medical man. It was what the jobmaster himself termed "a real elegant turn-out," and he was only too pleased to have secured such a man as Mr. Brabazon to drive it. Into its shafts he put a half-blood mare, which he had bought a bargain, because she had once come down on her knees when her former owner, a very nervous old gentleman, was taking his constitutional in the Park. By this time Burgo had vacated his rooms off New Bond Street for a much more unpretentious domicile no great distance from Mr. Hendry's yard. He had written Mr. Garden a half-cynical, half-humorous note, telling him what he had decided upon doing, and advising him of his changed address. He had also looked up Benny Hines, partly for the same purpose, and partly to ascertain whether the old man had anything fresh to communicate with reference to Sir Everard. But it appeared that affairs in Great Mornington Street were going on much as they had for the last two months. If it could not be averred that the baronet was any worse in health, there seemed to be no visible signs of improvement. Dr. Hoskins continued to call three or four times a week, and his patient still went for a drive on most fine afternoons. But with a man of the baronet's years such a state of things could not go on much longer. If there was no improvement, it seemed inevitable that he must gradually, although it might be almost imperceptibly, become weaker. That they saw no company at No. 22, and went nowhere, was sufficiently accounted for by the state of Sir Everard's health.

And now for Burgo began a new life indeed, one which, as he presently found, tended to expand his ideas in directions never thought of before, and to alter his views of many things in a quite remarkable way. The "passing show," as seen from the perch of a hansom, wore for him an aspect very different from that which it had assumed when looked at from the box-seat of Lord Ockbrook's drag. It seemed to have undergone a quite kaleidoscopic transformation between whiles. But, as he told himself, what he saw now was the real thing--was the great throbbing pulse of London, with some at least of its complex workings and amazing contrasts laid bare for his inspection; while here and there he obtained glimpses of its multifarious undercurrents of joy, hope, fear, misery, and despair, and of a poverty so extreme that it grinds the life out of some of its victims, while transforming others into the semblance of brute beasts. To live for six months the life of a London "cabby" is, for a man with eyes to see and a mind susceptible of receiving and retaining impressions, an education of itself--but what an education!

Various reports were current in those clubs of which Mr. Brabazon had been a member, as to the cause of his sudden disappearance, for, so far as was known, he had gone without saying a word to anybody. Although somewhat reserved and stand-offish except with a chosen few, he had been by no means unpopular; but none, even among his most intimate friends, was in a position to furnish any authentic tidings of his whereabouts, or to account definitely for his continued absence. Some had it (for with your club gossip fact and invention very often go hand in hand) that he had gone on an exploring expedition among the wilds either of Africa or Asia, they were not sure which. Others averred that he had got so deeply into debt, by no means for the first time, as to have offended his uncle beyond forgiveness, and that, as a consequence, he had been expatriated, with the understanding that his allowance would cease the moment he should set foot on English soil without leave being given him to do so. Nor were these the only fables promulgated which found a more or less ready credence in this or the other smoking-room. But when, on different occasions, two men came forward and averred that they had seen Burgo Brabazon driving a swell hansom for hire in the West End, their statements were received either with polite incredulity or unconcealed derision. Of course the explanation was simple enough. It was merely one case the more of mistaken identity.

The only change in his appearance made by Burgo, except that he had taken into regular wear his very oldest suit of tweeds, was that he had shaved off his moustache, and had begun to cultivate an inch of side whisker. But this, to an ordinary club acquaintance, or any one who had not been on intimate terms with him, was enough to alter his aspect almost beyond casual recognition. Then, his face had sunken somewhat of late, thereby bringing his cheek bones into greater prominence; and because his features were thinner, they looked longer and older. That several of his whilom acquaintances should see him without recognising him was scarcely to be wondered at. Indeed, more than one of them had engaged his cab, and been driven by him to wherever they had wanted to go, and had paid him at the end of the journey, without having the slightest suspicion as to the driver's personality. But on such occasions Burgo always spoke in a feigned voice, and had a trick, which he had picked up when a boy, of treating his fare to a very pronounced squint of his left eye.

But, as a rule, he saw old acquaintances without seeing them. He neither turned away his face, nor let his eyes rest on them. To him they were as the most absolute strangers--people on whom he had never set eyes before, and, for anything he knew or cared, might never do so again.

There came an afternoon when, in a temporary jam of vehicles, just outside the Marble Arch, Burgo, perched aloft on his cab, found himself close to Mrs. Mordaunt's barouche. For a couple of minutes or more there was no possibility of turning a wheel. Seated with her back to the horses, and facing her aunt and another lady, was Clara Leslie. Her eyes and Burgo's met. She gave a little start, bit her lip, and then bent forward as if to assure herself that it was really he. A second look convinced her. He sat as if carved out of stone, his features as devoid of expression as those of some old Egyptian deity. But however changed he might be in other ways, she knew him by his eyes. For her there were no such eyes in the world. Her own seemed to dilate as she looked, while every trace of colour fled her face. Busy discussing the latest morsel of scandal, neither Mrs. Mordaunt nor her friend saw anything. Then the crowd parted as if by magic--the magic brought to bear by the police on duty--and Burgo's mare, obedient to its driver's signal, dashed forward. The same instant there was a little cry from Mrs. Mordaunt. Miss Leslie had fainted.