The Joss: a Reversion
Copyright© 2024 by Richard Marsh
Chapter 9: Max Lander.
(THE FACTS OF THE CASE ACCORDING TO EMILY PURVIS.)
Talk about romance! I never could have believed that after wishing for a thing your whole life long you could have had enough of it in so short a space of time. In the morning Pollie Blyth heard, for the very first time, that a fortune and a house had been left to her, and, before the night of that same day was over, she wished that it had not. And here had I been looking, ever since I was a teeny-weeny little thing, for a touch of romance to give existence a real live flavour, and then, when I got it, the best I could do was to wonder how I had been so silly as ever to have wanted it.
Poor Pollie! That first night in Camford Street she would go out. She said she must go and see her Tom. That he would be waiting, wondering what had become of her, and that nothing should keep her from him. Nothing did. I could not. And when I suggested that it might be as well for her to be a little careful what she did that very first night, she actually proposed that I should stop in that awful house by myself, and wait in it alone till she returned.
I would not have done such a thing for worlds, and she knew it. As a matter of fact I could not have said if I was more unwilling to leave the place, or to stay in it, even with her. The extraordinary conditions of her dreadful old uncle’s horrible will weighed on me much more than they seemed to do on her. I felt sure that something frightful would happen if they were not strictly observed. Nothing could be clearer than his repeated injunction not to be out after nine, and her appointment with Mr. Cooper was for half-past eight.
Cardew and Slaughter are supposed to close at eight, but she knew as well as I did what that really meant. It was a wonder if one of the assistants got out before nine. Mr. Cooper was in the heavy, and the gentlemen in that department were always last. If he appeared till after nine I should be surprised, and, if we were at the other end of London at that hour, with the uncle’s will staring us in the face, what would become of us? Being locked out of Cardew and Slaughter’s was nothing to what that would mean.
But Pollie would not listen to a word. She is as obstinate as obstinate when she likes, though she may not think it.
“My dear,” she said, “I must see Tom. Mustn’t I see Tom? If you were in my place, and he was your Tom, wouldn’t you feel that you must see him?”
There was something in that I acknowledged. It was frightful that you should be cut off from intercourse with the man you loved simply because your hours would not fit his. But then there was so much to be said upon the other side.
“I’m sure he’ll be punctual to-night, he’ll be so anxious. And you know sometimes he can get off a little earlier if he makes an effort. You see if he isn’t there at half-past eight. I’ll just speak to him, then start off back at once. He’ll come with us, we shall be back here before nine, and then he’ll leave us at the door.”
That was how it was to turn out, according to her. I had my doubts. When you are with the man to whom you are engaged to be married half an hour is nothing. It’s gone before you know it’s begun.
It was eight o’clock when we left the house. I thought we should never have left it at all. We could not open the door. It had no regular handle; no regular anything. While we were trying to get it open the house was filled with the most extraordinary noises. If it was all rats, as Pollie declared, then rats have got more ways of expressing their feelings than I had imagined. It seemed to me as if the place was haunted by mysterious voices which were warning us to be careful of what we did.
“Of course if we’re prisoners it’s just as well that we should know it now as later on. How do you open this door?”
Just as she spoke the door opened.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She seemed surprised. “I was just pushing at the thing when—it came open. There’s a trick about it I expect; we’ll find out what it is to-morrow, there’s no time now. At present it’s enough that it’s open; out you go!”
When we were out in the street, and she pulled it to, it shut behind us with an ominous clang, like the iron gates used to do in the barons’ castle which we read about in the days of old. We took the tram in the Westminster Bridge Road, then walked the rest of the way. It was half-past eight when we arrived. As I expected, of course Mr. Cooper wasn’t there.
“Pollie, we ought not to stop. We ought to be in before nine this first night, at any rate. We don’t know what will happen if we’re not.”
“You can go back if you like, but I must and will see Tom.”
Nine o’clock came and still no Mr. Cooper. I was in such a state I was ready to drop. It was nearly a quarter-past before he turned up. Then they both began talking together at such a rate that it was impossible to get a word in edgeways. When I did succeed in bringing Pollie to some consciousness of the position we were in, and she asked Mr. Cooper to start back with us at once, he would not go. He said that he had had such a narrow escape the night before, and had had such difficulty in getting in—so far as I could make out he had had to climb up a pipe, or something, and had scraped a hole in both knees of his trousers against the wall—that he had determined that it should be some time before he ran such a risk again, and had therefore made up his mind that he would be in extra early as a sort of set-off. It was no good Pollie talking. For some cause or other he did not seem to be in the best of tempers. And then, when she found that, after all our waiting, he would not see us home, she got excited. They began saying things to each other which they never meant. So they quarrelled.
Finally Mr. Cooper marched off in a rage, declaring that now she had come into a fortune she looked upon him as a servant, and that though she had inherited £488 9s. 6d. a year, and a house, he would not be treated like a lackey. She was in such a fury that she was almost crying. She assured me that she would never speak to him again until she was compelled, and that they would both be grey before that time came. All I wanted to do was to keep outside the quarrel, because they had behaved like a couple of stupids, and to find myself in safe quarters for the night.
“I don’t know, my dear Pollie, if you’re aware that it’s past half-past ten. Do you propose to return to Camford Street?”
“Past half-past ten!” She started. Her thoughts flew off to Mr. Cooper. “Then he’ll be late again! Whatever will he do?”
“It’s not of what he’ll do I’m thinking, but of what we’re going to do. After what your uncle said, do you propose to return to Camford Street at this hour of the night?”
“We shall have to. There’s nowhere else to go. I wish I’d never come to see him now; it hasn’t been a very pleasant interview, I’m sure.” I cordially agreed with her—I wished she had not. But it was too late to shut the stable-door after the steed was stolen. “Let’s hurry. There’s one thing, I’ve got the back-door key in my pocket, if the worst does come to the worst.”
What she meant I do not think she quite knew herself. She was in a state of mind in which she was inclined to talk at random.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.