He found the bandbox where it had been described, arranged his toilette with care, and left the house. The sun shone brightly; the distance he had to travel was considerable, and he remembered with dismay that the General’s sudden irruption had prevented Lady Vandeleur from giving him money for a cab. On this sultry day there was every chance that his complexion would suffer severely; and to walk through so much of London with a bandbox on his arm was a humiliation almost insupportable to a youth of his character. He paused, and took counsel with himself. The Vandeleurs lived in Eaton Place; his destination was near Notting Hill; plainly, he might cross the Park by keeping well in the open and avoiding populous alleys; and he thanked his stars when he reflected that it was still comparatively early in the day.
Anxious to be rid of his incubus, he walked somewhat faster than his ordinary, and he was already some way through KensingtonGardens when, in a solitary spot among trees, he found himself confronted by the General.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas,” observed Harry, politely falling on one side; for the other stood directly in his path.
“Where are you going, sir?” asked the General.
“I am taking a little walk among the trees,” replied the lad.
The General struck the bandbox with his cane.
“With that thing?” he cried; “you lie, sir, and you know you lie!”
“Indeed, Sir Thomas,” returned Harry, “I am not accustomed to be questioned in so high a key.”
“You do not understand your position,” said the General. “You are my servant, and a servant of whom I have conceived the most serious suspicions. How do I know but that your box is full of teaspoons?”
“It contains a silk hat belonging to a friend,” said Harry.
“Very well,” replied General Vandeleur. “Then I want to see your friend’s silk hat. I have,” he added grimly, “a singular curiosity for hats; and I believe you know me to be somewhat positive.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas, I am exceedingly grieved,” Harry apologised; “but indeed this is a private affair.”
The General caught him roughly by the shoulder with one hand, while he raised his cane in the most menacing manner with the other. Harry gave himself up for lost; but at the same moment Heaven vouchsafed him an unexpected defender in the person of Charlie Pendragon, who now strode forward from behind the trees.
“Come, come, General, hold your hand,” said he, “this is neither courteous nor manly.”
“Aha!” cried the General, wheeling round upon his new antagonist, “Mr. Pendragon! And do you suppose, Mr. Pendragon, that because I have had the misfortune to marry your sister, I shall suffer myself to be dogged and thwarted by a discredited and bankrupt libertine like you? My acquaintance with Lady Vandeleur, sir, has taken away all my appetite for the other members of her family.”
“And do you fancy, General Vandeleur,” retorted Charlie, “that because my sister has had the misfortune to marry you, she there and then forfeited her rights and privileges as a lady? I own, sir, that by that action she did as much as anybody could to derogate from her position; but to me she is still a Pendragon. I make it my business to protect her from ungentlemanly outrage, and if you were ten times her husband I would not permit her liberty to be restrained, nor her private messengers to be violently arrested.”
“How is that, Mr. Hartley?” interrogated the General. “Mr.
Pendragon is of my opinion, it appears. He too suspects that Lady
Vandeleur has something to do with your friend’s silk hat.”
Charlie saw that he had committed an unpardonable blunder, which he hastened to repair.
“How, sir?” he cried; “I suspect, do you say? I suspect nothing. Only where I find strength abused and a man brutalising his inferiors, I take the liberty to interfere.”
As he said these words he made a sign to Harry, which the latter was too dull or too much troubled to understand.
“In what way am I to construe your attitude, sir?” demanded
Vandeleur.
“Why, sir, as you please,” returned Pendragon.
The General once more raised his cane, and made a cut for Charlie’s head; but the latter, lame foot and all, evaded the blow with his umbrella, ran in, and immediately closed with his formidable adversary.
“Run, Harry, run!” he cried; “run, you dolt! Harry stood petrified for a moment, watching the two men sway together in this fierce embrace; then he turned and took to his heels. When he cast a glance over his shoulder he saw the General prostrate under Charlie’s knee, but still making desperate efforts to reverse the situation; and the Gardens seemed to have filled with people, who were running from all directions towards the scene of fight. This spectacle lent the secretary wings; and he did not relax his pace until he had gained the Bayswater road, and plunged at random into an unfrequented by-street.
To see two gentlemen of his acquaintance thus brutally mauling each other was deeply shocking to Harry. He desired to forget the sight; he desired, above all, to put as great a distance as possible between himself and General Vandeleur; and in his eagerness for this he forgot everything about his destination, and hurried before him headlong and trembling. When he remembered that Lady Vandeleur was the wife of one and the sister of the other of these gladiators, his heart was touched with sympathy for a woman so distressingly misplaced in life. Even his own situation in the General’s household looked hardly so pleasing as usual in the light of these violent transactions.
He had walked some little distance, busied with these meditations, before a slight collision with another passenger reminded him of the bandbox on his arm.
“Heavens!” cried he, “where was my head? and whither have I wandered?”
Thereupon he consulted the envelope which Lady Vandeleur had given him. The address was there, but without a name. Harry was simply directed to ask for “the gentleman who expected a parcel from Lady Vandeleur,” and if he were not at home to await his return. The gentleman, added the note, should present a receipt in the handwriting of the lady herself. All this seemed mightily mysterious, and Harry was above all astonished at the omission of the name and the formality of the receipt. He had thought little of this last when he heard it dropped in conversation; but reading it in cold blood, and taking it in connection with the other strange particulars, he became convinced that he was engaged in perilous affairs. For half a moment he had a doubt of Lady Vandeleur herself; for he found these obscure proceedings somewhat unworthy of so high a lady, and became more critical when her secrets were preserved against himself. But her empire over his spirit was too complete, he dismissed his suspicions, and blamed himself roundly for having so much as entertained them.
In one thing, however, his duty and interest, his generosity and his terrors, coincided - to get rid of the bandbox with the greatest possible despatch.
He accosted the first policeman and courteously inquired his way. It turned out that he was already not far from his destination, and a walk of a few minutes brought him to a small house in a lane, freshly painted, and kept with the most scrupulous attention. The knocker and bell-pull were highly polished; flowering pot-herbs garnished the sills of the different windows; and curtains of some rich material concealed the interior from the eyes of curious passengers. The place had an air of repose and secrecy; and Harry was so far caught with this spirit that he knocked with more than usual discretion, and was more than usually careful to remove all impurity from his boots.
A servant-maid of some personal attractions immediately opened the door, and seemed to regard the secretary with no unkind eyes.
“This is the parcel from Lady Vandeleur,” said Harry.
“I know,” replied the maid, with a nod. “But the gentleman is from home. Will you leave it with me?”
“I cannot,” answered Harry. “I am directed not to part with it but upon a certain condition, and I must ask you, I am afraid, to let me wait.”
“Well,” said she, “I sup
pose I may let you wait. I am lonely enough, I can tell you, and you do not look as though you would eat a girl. But be sure and do not ask the gentleman’s name, for that I am not to tell you.”
“Do you say so?” cried Harry. “Why, how strange! But indeed for some time back I walk among surprises. One question I think I may surely ask without indiscretion: Is he the master of this house?”
“He is a lodger, and not eight days old at that,” returned the maid. “And now a question for a question: Do you know lady Vandeleur?”
“I am her private secretary,” replied Harry with a glow of modest pride.
“She is pretty, is she not?” pursued the servant.
“Oh, beautiful!” cried Harry; “wonderfully lovely, and not less good and kind!”
“You look kind enough yourself,” she retorted; “and I wager you are worth a dozen Lady Vandeleurs.”
Harry was properly scandalised.
“I!” he cried. “I am only a secretary!”
“Do you mean that for me?” said the girl. “Because I am only a housemaid, if you please.” And then, relenting at the sight of Harry’s obvious confusion, “I know you mean nothing of the sort,” she added; “and I like your looks; but I think nothing of your Lady Vandeleur. Oh, these mistresses!” she cried. “To send out a real gentleman like you - with a bandbox - in broad day!”
During this talk they had remained in their original positions - she on the doorstep, he on the side-walk, bareheaded for the sake of coolness, and with the bandbox on his arm. But upon this last speech Harry, who was unable to support such point-blank compliments to his appearance, nor the encouraging look with which they were accompanied, began to change his attitude, and glance from left to right in perturbation. In so doing he turned his face towards the lower end of the lane, and there, to his indescribable dismay, his eyes encountered those of General Vandeleur. The General, in a prodigious fluster of heat, hurry, and indignation, had been scouring the streets in chase of his brother-in-law; but so soon as he caught a glimpse of the delinquent secretary, his purpose changed, his anger flowed into a new channel, and he turned on his heel and came tearing up the lane with truculent gestures and vociferations.
Harry made but one bolt of it into the house, driving the maid before him; and the door was slammed in his pursuer’s countenance.
“Is there a bar? Will it lock?” asked Harry, while a salvo on the knocker made the house echo from wall to wall.
“Why, what is wrong with you?” asked the maid. “Is it this old gentleman?”
“If he gets hold of me,” whispered Harry, “I am as good as dead.
He has been pursuing me all day, carries a sword-stick, and is an
Indian military officer.”
“These are fine manners,” cried the maid. “And what, if you please, may be his name?”
“It is the General, my master,” answered Harry. “He is after this bandbox.”
“Did not I tell you?” cried the maid in triumph. “I told you I thought worse than nothing of your Lady Vandeleur; and if you had an eye in your head you might see what she is for yourself. An ungrateful minx, I will be bound for that!”
The General renewed his attack upon the knocker, and his passion growing with delay, began to kick and beat upon the panels of the door.
“It is lucky,” observed the girl, “that I am alone in the house; your General may hammer until he is weary, and there is none to open for him. Follow me!”
So saying she led Harry into the kitchen, where she made him sit down, and stood by him herself in an affectionate attitude, with a hand upon his shoulder. The din at the door, so far from abating, continued to increase in volume, and at each blow the unhappy secretary was shaken to the heart.
“What is your name?” asked the girl.
“Harry Hartley,” he replied.
“Mine,” she went on, “is Prudence. Do you like it?”
“Very much,” said Harry. “But hear for a moment how the General beats upon the door. He will certainly break it in, and then, in heaven’s name, what have I to look for but death?”
“You put yourself very much about with no occasion,” answered Prudence. “Let your General knock, he will do no more than blister his hands. Do you think I would keep you here if I were not sure to save you? Oh, no, I am a good friend to those that please me! and we have a back door upon another lane. But,” she added, checking him, for he had got upon his feet immediately on this welcome news, “but I will not show where it is unless you kiss me. Will you, Harry?”
“That I will,” he cried, remembering his gallantry, “not for your back door, but because you are good and pretty.”
And he administered two or three cordial salutes, which were returned to him in kind.
Then Prudence led him to the back gate, and put her hand upon the key.
“Will you come and see me?” she asked.
“I will indeed,” said Harry. “Do not I owe you my life?”
“And now,” she added, opening the door, “run as hard as you can, for I shall let in the General.”
Harry scarcely required this advice; fear had him by the forelock; and he addressed himself diligently to flight. A few steps, and he believed he would escape from his trials, and return to Lady Vandeleur in honour and safety. But these few steps had not been taken before he heard a man’s voice hailing him by name with many execrations, and, looking over his shoulder, he beheld Charlie Pendragon waving him with both arms to return. The shock of this new incident was so sudden and profound, and Harry was already worked into so high a state of nervous tension, that he could think of nothing better than to accelerate his pace, and continue running. He should certainly have remembered the scene in KensingtonGardens; he should certainly have concluded that, where the General was his enemy, Charlie Pendragon could be no other than a friend. But such was the fever and perturbation of his mind that he was struck by none of these considerations, and only continued to run the faster up the lane.
Charlie, by the sound of his voice and the vile terms that he hurled after the secretary, was obviously beside himself with rage. He, too, ran his very best; but, try as he might, the physical advantages were not upon his side, and his outcries and the fall of his lame foot on the macadam began to fall farther and farther into the wake.
Harry’s hopes began once more to arise. The lane was both steep and narrow, but it was exceedingly solitary, bordered on either hand by garden walls, overhung with foliage; and, for as far as the fugitive could see in front of him, there was neither a creature moving nor an open door. Providence, weary of persecution, was now offering him an open field for his escape.
Alas! as he came abreast of a garden door under a tuft of chestnuts, it was suddenly drawn back, and he could see inside, upon a garden path, the figure of a butcher’s boy with his tray upon his arm. He had hardly recognised the fact before he was some steps beyond upon the other side. But the fellow had had time to observe him; he was evidently much surprised to see a gentleman go by at so unusual a pace; and he came out into the lane and began to call after Harry with shouts of ironical encouragement.
His appearance gave a new idea to Charlie Pendragon, who, although he was now sadly out of breath, once more upraised his voice.
“Stop, thief!” he cried.
And immediately the butcher’s boy had taken up the cry and joined in the pursuit.
This was a bitter moment for the hunted secretary. It is true that his terror enabled him once more to improve his pace, and gain with every step on his pursuers; but he was well aware that he was near the end of his resources, and should he meet any one coming the other way, his predicament in the narrow lane would be desperate indeed.
“I must find a place of concealment,” he thought, “and that within the next few seconds, or all is over with me in this world.”
Scarcely had the thought crossed his mind than the lane took a sudden turning; and he found himself hidden from his enemies. There are circumstances in
which even the least energetic of mankind learn to behave with vigour and decision; and the most cautious forget their prudence and embrace foolhardy resolutions. This was one of those occasions for Harry Hartley; and those who knew him best would have been the most astonished at the lad’s audacity. He stopped dead, flung the bandbox over a garden wall, and leaping upward with incredible agility and seizing the copestone with his hands, he tumbled headlong after it into the garden.
He came to himself a moment afterwards, seated in a border of small rosebushes. His hands and knees were cut and bleeding, for the wall had been protected against such an escalade by a liberal provision of old bottles; and he was conscious of a general dislocation and a painful swimming in the head. Facing him across the garden, which was in admirable order, and set with flowers of the most delicious perfume, he beheld the back of a house. It was of considerable extent, and plainly habitable; but, in odd contrast to the grounds, it was crazy, ill-kept, and of a mean appearance. On all other sides the circuit of the garden wall appeared unbroken.
He took in these features of the scene with mechanical glances, but his mind was still unable to piece together or draw a rational conclusion from what he saw. And when he heard footsteps advancing on the gravel, although he turned his eyes in that direction, it was with no thought either for defence or flight.
Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) Page 280