Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

[CHAPTER VIII.]

UNCLE AND NEPHEW.

As a cab-driver Burgo was a decided success, earning, as he did, considerably more money for Mr. Hendry than any other driver in the yard. But he was not conceited enough to take the merit thereof in any way to himself, but rightly put it down to the superior attractiveness of the vehicle driven by him. His hours were long, but he was glad of that; less time was left him for brooding over the past and all it had robbed him of. Mr. Hendry and he remained on the best of terms. If the jobmaster's treatment of him differed in many respects from that which he usually accorded his men, it was no more, perhaps, than might be expected under the circumstances; at any rate, it was a state of things on which Burgo never presumed. He knew his place, and he was careful never to cross the line he had laid down for himself when he accepted it. Without associating with his brother cabbies more than was absolutely necessary, he was on pleasantly free-and-easy terms with them. In the way of jokes he could give and take with the best, and when the occasion demanded he could drop into the vernacular, or hold his own in a slanging match, after a fashion which would have considerably astonished his uncle had he happened to overhear him.

When in after days Burgo came to look back on this episode in his career he could recognise that it had not been a wholly unhappy time with him. He was at an age when it is impossible for a man worth calling a man to be actively miserable for any length of time. Fate had smitten him hardly; both Love and Fortune had turned their backs on him; the gilt had been rubbed off his gingerbread with a vengeance; and yet, as time went on, he was surprised to find that he was by no means so wretched as he deemed himself to have a right to be. When the discovery dawned upon him he could not resist a certain sense of disappointment, and was inclined to be savage with himself. But presently it seemed much better to laugh at, rather than be angry with, himself, and to regard the whole affair with philosophical indifferentism as from the standpoint of an outsider. He would be at once both actor and spectator of his own little tragi-comedy.

Summer was on the turn; Goodwood was a thing of the past till another year; wearied legislators were anxiously speculating as to the proximate prorogation of Parliament; and the prospects of the coming grouse season were being eagerly discussed by those interested in such matters, when, on a certain sunny afternoon, Burgo Brabazon, who had just set down a fare, and was making his way back in leisurely fashion to the rank from which he usually plied, was hailed by the porter of the Mastodon Club. As he drew up by the kerb the man said: "Old gent--hot weather--fainting-fit--come round again all right--won't wait for his carriage--wants to be taken home in a keb."

Scarcely had the last words left the man's lips before Burgo beheld coming slowly and feebly down the club steps, and leaning heavily on the arm of another member, none other than his uncle, Sir Everard Clinton.

But what a change there was in him since Burgo had seen him last He looked the mere wreck of his former self. He had been a tall, robust-looking, well-set-up man, as upright in figure as a military martinet, with the fine healthy colour (although he had a way of fancying himself out of sorts when there was nothing more serious the matter with him than a mild attack of dyspepsia) of one who habitually spent much of his time in the open air. Now he had all the appearance of a man who was slowly but surely dying of some incurable disease. His face, which wore the pallor of old ivory, had shrunken till there seemed little left of it besides skin and bone. His eyes had lost all their old-time brightness and clear fixity of regard. His figure was bowed as might be that of a man a century old, and so attenuated and worn away that it seemed hard to believe his clothes had not been made for some one half as big again as himself. Burgo felt a great wave of commingled love, grief, compassion, and rage surge over his heart as he watched his uncle descending the club steps.

His friend, having helped Sir Everard into the cab and taken leave of him, said to Burgo: "No. 22 Great Mornington Street," adding in a lower voice, "Ring and summon some of the servants as soon as you get there and see that he is properly helped out of the cab."

Burgo drove very steadily. Ten minutes brought them to their destination. As soon as he had drawn up he leapt to the ground, ran up the steps of the house, and gave a mighty tug at the bell. Then going back to the cab, he leant forward, and looking Sir Everard straight in the face, said: "Uncle, won't you let me help you to alight?"

The old man started at the sound of his voice; then he began to tremble, and staring hard at him, he said: "Who are you? Surely--surely you can't be my nephew, Burgo Brabazon?"