Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

Among the contents of his portmanteau were a meerschaum pipe and a pound packet of Latakia. He had been a smoker for years, and what such things could do towards solacing his imprisonment, they did. Another treasure was a volume containing some half-dozen of Shakespeare's plays, which he had brought with him as a refuge against ennui in case of bad weather, or when he could not sleep of nights. Under similar circumstances a French novel would have recommended itself to the majority of Mr. Brabazon's friends. But in many ways Burgo was unlike the majority of his friends, and in none more, perhaps, than in his love of reading. It was true that hardly any one ever saw him with a book in his hands, but he was one of those men who can do with very little sleep, and, notwithstanding his multifarious engagements as a man about town, he generally contrived to devote at least a couple of hours out of the twenty-four to good solid reading. It was a fact which would have greatly surprised his club friends had they been told it, which they never were; and yet therein lay the answer to a question which young Hylton propounded one night in the smoking-room after Burgo had just gone: "Can any of you chappies tell me how it is that Brabazon seems to know such a lot about such a lot of things, you know?" But the chappies, one and all, shook their heads. They admitted ungrudgingly that Brabazon did know a lot, but that how he came by his knowledge was a mystery.

That Burgo should have crammed a volume of the Bard into his portmanteau before leaving town vouches something for his taste and quality.

When Mother Sprowle brought him his breakfast on the third morning of his incarceration, she brought with her a Times newspaper two days old, and each morning afterwards she did the same thing. It was a boon for which Burgo felt sufficiently grateful, enabling him, as it did, to while away many an hour--for, barring a few matters as to which he found it impossible to feign the most tepid interest, he read it from beginning to end--which, but for it, would probably have proved tedious in the extreme. He could not but regard it as a proof that there was an unspoken but clearly implied desire on the part of some one to render his captivity as little irksome to him as possible. Was that some one her ladyship, or whom?

But oh--but oh, to be free!

It was the eighth dinner Mother Sprowle had brought him, and Burgo, whose appetite was beginning to fail him for lack of fresh air and exercise, took the dishes from her languidly, like a man who would just as lief have sent them back untasted as not. But when, last of all, the old dame thrust under his nose a tiny envelope addressed "Burgo Brabazon, Esq.," in a feminine hand, there came a flash into his eyes and a look into his face which seemed to make another man of him. Seizing the note, he tore it open, saying to himself in a breathless whisper: "From her ladyship, of course. What can she have to write me about? Not----"

But the note was not from her ladyship, as his first startled glance at it sufficed to tell him.

"Miss Dacia Roylance presents her compliments to Mr. Brabazon," it ran, "and begs to inform him that she purposes calling upon him (unless unforeseen circumstances should intervene) between eight and nine o'clock this evening, as for some time past Miss Roylance has been extremely desirous of making Mr. Brabazon's acquaintance."

Burgo read the note twice over, so dumfounded was he, before he could feel sure that he had taken in the sense aright. Then he held up a finger to the old woman, who was regarding him with one of her equivocal leers, as a signal that she was to remain, after which he stood for a long two minutes with his eyes bent on the floor.

He remembered the name of Dacia Roylance as that of a young lady of whom Tyson had made casual mention as being her ladyship's ward or niece, and as having made her appearance at Garion Keep a few days after the arrival of the family. Since then she had scarcely found a moment's place in his thoughts. She was nothing to him, nor he to her; they had never even met; he had felt neither curiosity about her, nor the wish to meet her. Now, however----

The old woman coughed; a hint, evidently, that he must not keep her waiting much longer.