by E. Nesbit
XI
THE GUILDHALL
"WHERE is Charles?" she asked next day.
Edward had called for her early, had paid the Midlothian's bill andtipped the Midlothian's servants, and now they were in a taxi on theirway to Paddington. She had definitely put her finger on the map thatmorning, and its tip had covered the K's of Kenilworth and Warwick. Shewas still almost breathless with the hurry with which she had been sweptaway from the safe anchorage of the hotel, "and couldn't we have thehood down?" she added.
"Charles," said Edward, "is at present boarded out at a mews downPortland Road way, and I think we'd better keep the hood up. Look here!I never thought of the newspapers. This is worse than ever."
He handed her the _Telegraph_. Yesterday's advertisement was repeated init--with this addition:
May be in company with tall, fair young man. Blue eyes, military appearance. Possesses large, white bull-terrier.
"Oh dear! They'll track us down," she said, and laughed. "Whatsleuth-hounds they are! But they can't do anything to me, can they? Theycan't take me back, I mean. I'm twenty-one, you know. Can't you do asyou like when you're twenty-one?"
She looked at the paper again, and now her face suddenly became cloudedand her eyes filled with tears. "I never thought of that." She hesitateda moment and handed him the paper, pointing to the place with the fingerthat had found Warwick and Kenilworth. Below the advertisement touchingthe young man and the bull-terrier, he read:
SILVER LOCKS--Come back. I am ill and very anxious.
AUNT ALICE.
"That means. . . ?"
"It means me. I'm Silver Locks--it's her pet name for me. I called myaunts the three bears once, when I was little, in fun, you know. And theothers were angry--but _she_ laughed and called me Silver Locks. Andshe's called it me ever since. I never thought about her worrying. Whatam I to do? I must go back. I thought it was too good to last,yesterday," she added, bitterly.
He put the admission away in a safe place, whence later he could take itout and caress it, and said, "Of course you must go back if you wantto. But don't do it without thinking. We meant to talk over our plansyesterday, but somehow we didn't. Let's do it to-day."
"But I can't go to Warwick. I must go back to her--I must."
"If you do," he said, "you won't go back to just her--you'll go back tothe whole miserable muddle you've got away from. You'll go back to yourother aunts and to your father. Besides, how do you know who put thatadvertisement in? Think carefully. Is the advertisement like her?"
"It's like her to be anxious and kind," said she.
"I mean, is she the sort of woman to advertise that she's ill? Toadvertise your pet name--and her own name--so that every one who knowsyou both and sees the advertisement will know that you are beingadvertised for? Is that like her?" He ended, astonished at his ownpenetration.
"No," she said, slowly, "it isn't. And it isn't like her to say she'sill. She never complains."
"She wouldn't use her illness as a lever to move events to her liking?"
"Never!" she said, almost indignantly.
"Then I think that this advertisement is some one else's. Where does shelive."
"Hyde Park Square."
"Let us telegraph her, and not go to Warwick."
They stopped the taxi and composed a message. He despatched it.
Did you put advertisement in paper to-day? And are you ill? I am quite well and will write at once. Wire reply to Silver Locks, General Post-Office.
Then they told the man to drive around Regent's Park, to pass the timetill there should be an answer.
In the park the trees were already brown, and on the pale, trampledgrass long heaps of rags, like black grave-mounds, showed where wearymen who had tramped London all night, moved on by Law and Order,inexorable in blue and silver, now at last had their sleep out, in broadsunshine, under the eyes of the richest city in the world. Littlechildren, dirty and poor--their childhood triumphant over dirt andpoverty--played happily in the grass that was less grass than dust.
"What a horrible place London is!" she said. "Think of yesterday."
That, too, he put away to be taken out and loved later.
"We won't stay in London," he said, "if the answer is what I think itwill be. We'll go out into the green country and decide what we're goingto do."
"But if she _did_ put the advertisement in, it means that she's _very_ill. And then I must go to her."
"But if she didn't--and I more and more think she didn't--they may sendsome one to the General Post-Office post-haste--so it won't do for youto go for the telegram. Do you know the Guildhall Library?"
"No."
"It's a beautiful place--very quiet, very calm. And the officials arethe best chaps I've ever found in any library anywhere. We'll go there.You must want to look up something. Let's see--the dates of thepublication of Bacon's works. Write your name in the book--any name youlike, so long as it isn't your own; then ask one of the officials tohelp you, and go and sit at one of the side tables--they're like sidechapels in a cathedral--and stay there till I come. You'll be as safeand as secret as if you were in the Bastille. And I'll baffle pursuitand come to you as soon as I can."
"Yes," she said, meekly.
"And don't worry," he urged. "The more I think of it, the more certain Iam that it was not the aunt you like who wrote that advertisement--"
He was right. The telegram with which, an hour later, he presentedhimself at the Guildhall Library ran thus:
I did not write advertisement and I am not specially ill, but I am very anxious. Write at once. Aunt Loo and Aunt Enid are both here. I think they must have inserted the advertisement. A.
"Your Aunt Alice is a sportsman," he said, "to warn you like that."
"I told you she was a darling," she answered--and her whole face hadlighted up with relief--"and you are the cleverest person in the world!I should never have thought about its not being her doing, never in athousand years. You deserve a medal and a statue and a pension."
"I don't deserve more than I've got," said he, "nor half so much. Thesun shines again."
She flashed a brilliant smile at him, and pushed a brown book along thetable.
"I suppose we ought to look studious," she said, "or they'll turn usout. I am so glad Aunt Alice isn't really worse. You don't know how I'vefelt while you've been away. It seemed so horribly selfish--to have beenso happy and all while she was ill and worried. But, of course, you doknow."
"Let us go out," he said, putting the books together.
"Yes," she said, "I know all about Bacon. Not that I'll ever want toknow."
"I'm not so sure," said he. "Did it ever occur to you that perhaps theBaconians are right, and he was an intellectual giant, almost like Platoand Aristotle rolled into one? We'll go to Stratford some day, and lookat Shakespeare's bust and see if we think he could have written 'TheTempest.'"
"You shouldn't judge people by their faces," she said. "Handsome is ashandsome does."
"Oh, but you should," said he. "It's handsome does as handsome is. Ialways go by appearances. Don't you? But of course, I know you do--"
She opened one of the books and began to turn the pages. "Look what Ifound," she said, and all the time their voices had been lowered to thekey of that studious place. "Look, isn't it pretty? And do you see?--thee's are like the Greek [Greek: th]. Can you read it?"
He read:
"Fair Lucrece, kind Catherine, gentle Jane, But Maria is the dearest name. Robert Swinford, 1863."
"Yes, that's what I make it. It doesn't rhyme, but I expect Maria wasvery pleased. Do you think they were studying with a stern tutor, and hewrote that and pushed it over to her when no one was looking? It's anodd thing to have written in a Natural History book. There's somethingmore on another page--but it doesn't make sense:
"I am true rew Hebrew--CXIX--101."
"I expec
t he was just trying a pen. Come, the librarian has hisscholarly eye on you."
"I should like to look through all the old books and find out all thenames people have written and make stories about them," she said, and hereceived the curious impression that she was talking against time; therewas about her a sort of hanging back from the needful movement ofdeparture. He picked the books up and carried them to the counter, shefollowing, and they walked in silence down the gallery hung withWouvermans and his everlasting gray horse.
"Let's go into the Hall," he said. So they turned under the arch andwent into the beautiful great vaulted Guildhall, where the giants Gogand Magog occupy the gallery, and little human people can sit below onstone benches against the wall, and gaze on the monuments of the elderand the younger Pitt, and talk at long leisure, undisturbed andundisturbing, which is not the case in the Library, as Edward pointedout.
"Now, then," he began.
"Yes," she said, hurriedly. "Something will have to be done about AuntAlice."
"Yes. But what?"
"I don't know." She turned and leaned one hand on the stone seat so thatshe faced him. "You do believe that I don't regret coming away? I thinkit would have been splendid to have gone on--like yesterday--but you seeit's impossible."
"No, I don't," he said, stoutly.
She made a movement of impatience. "Oh yes, it is--quite," she said."However rich you are, you can't go on forever being blackmailed. Everyone would know us, or else you'd have to give up Charles, and even thenI expect you'd be obliged to pay twenty pounds every three-quarters ofan hour. It can't be done. And, besides, we should never know a moment'speace. Wherever we went we should imagine a blackmailer behind everybush, and every one we spoke to might be a detective. It's no use. Imust go back. Do say you know I must."
"I don't."
"Well, say you know I don't want to."
"I can't say that . . . because, if you don't want to . . . there'salways the old alternative, you know." He was looking straight beforehim at the majestic form of the Earl of Chatham.
"What alternative?"
"Marrying me," he said, humbly. "Do. I don't believe that you'd regretit."
"When I marry," she said, strongly, "it won't be just because I want toget myself out of a scrape."
"I hoped there might be other considerations," he said, still gazing atthe marble. "You were happy yesterday. You said so."
"You talk as though marrying were just nothing--like choosing a partnerfor a dance. It's like--like choosing what patterns you'd be tattooedwith, if you were a savage. It's for life."
"And you can't like me well enough to choose me?"
"I do like you," she answered, with swift and most dishearteningeagerness, "I do like you awfully; better than any man I've everknown--oh, miles better--not that that's saying much. But I don't knowyou well enough to marry you."
"You don't think it would turn out well?"
She faltered a little. "It--it mightn't."
"We could go on being friends just as we are now," he urged.
"It wouldn't be the same," she said, "because there'd be no way out. Ifwe found we didn't like each other, to-morrow, or next month, or onTuesday week, we could just say good-by and there'd be no harm done.But if we were married--no--no--no!"
"Do you feel as though you would dislike me by Tuesday week?"
"You know I don't," she said, impatiently, "but I might. Or you might.One never knows. It isn't safe. It isn't wise. I may be silly, but I'mnot silly enough to marry for any reason but one."
"And that?"
"That I couldn't bear to part with him, I suppose."
"And you can bear to part with me. There hasn't been much, has there?Just these three days, and all our talks, and. . . ." He stopped. A tearhad fallen on her lap. "I won't worry any more," he said, in an alteredvoice. "You shall do just what you like. Shall I get a taxi and take youstraight to your aunt's? I will if you like. Come."
"There's no such hurry as all that," she said, "and it's no use beingangry with me because I won't jump over a wall without knowing what's onthe other side. No, why I should jump, either," she added, on theimpulse of a sudden thought. "You haven't told me that yet. What goodwould my getting married do to Aunt Alice? I don't mean that I would,because you know I couldn't--even for her--but what good would it do ifI did?"
"If we were married," he said, with a careful absence of emotion, "wecould send your aunt a copy of our marriage certificate and a referenceto my solicitor. She would then know that you had married a respectableperson with an assured income, instead of which you now appear to berunning about the country stealing ducks with Heaven knows who."
"Yes," she said, "I see that. Oh, I have a glorious idea! It will suityou and me and Aunt Alice and make everybody happy!--like in books.Let's have a mock marriage, and forge the certificate."
"Have you ever seen a marriage certificate?"
"No, of course not."
"Well, it would be as difficult to forge as a bank-note."
"Why--have you ever seen one?" she asked, and he hoped it was anxiety heread in her tone.
"Yes; I know a chap who's a registrar. I've witnessed a marriage beforenow."
"Then there's no need to forge," she said, light-heartedly. "Your friendwould give you one of the certificates, of course, if you asked him, andwe could fill it in and make Aunt Alice happy."
He laughed, and the sound, echoing in the gray emptiness of the Hall,drew on him the sour glance of a barrister, wigged and gowned, hasteningto the mayor's court.
"He's wondering what you've got to laugh at," she said, "and I don'twonder. _I_ don't know. Why shouldn't we pretend to be married? I'm sureyour friend would help us to. Oh, do!" she said, clasping her hands withan exaggerated gesture that could not quite hide the genuine appealbehind it. "Then we sha'n't have to part. I mean I sha'n't have to goback to the aunts and all the worry that I thought I'd got away from."
"You're not really serious."
"But I am. You will--oh, do say you will."
"No," he said, "it's impossible--Princess, don't ask if I can't."
"Then it's all over?"
"I suppose so, if you insist on going back."
"I don't insist. But I must do something about Aunt Alice. She's alwaysbeen a darling to me. I can't go away and be happy and not care whethershe's miserable or not. You'd hate me if I could. I'll go back to-morrowor to-night. You said we should go into the country and think thingsout. At least we can do that--we can have one more day. Shall we?"
Her sweet eyes tempted and implored.
"What sort of day would it be," he said, "with the end of everything atthe end of it? How could we be happy as we were yesterday?--for you werehappy, you owned it. How could we be happy together when we knew we'dgot to part in six hours--five hours--two hours--half an hour? Besides,why should I give you the chance to grow any dearer? So as to make ithurt more when you took yourself away from me? No--"
"I didn't know I was dear," she said, in a very small voice.
Perhaps he did not hear it, for he went on: "If the splendid adventureis to end like this, let it end here--now. I've had the two days; youcan't take those from me."
"I don't want to take anything from you, but--"
"Let's make an end of it, then," he said, ruthlessly, "since that's whatyou choose. Good-by, Princess. Let's shake hands and part friends." Herose. "Let's part friends," he repeated, and paused, remembering thatyou cannot go away and leave a lady planted in the Guildhall. Yet hecould not say, "Let us part friends, and now I will call a cab."
She was more expert. "At least," she put it, "we needn't part here inthe dark among the images of dead people. Come out into the sunshine andlook at the pretty pigeons."
He was grateful to her. In the Guildhall yard the cab would happen, ifit happened at all, naturally and without any effect of bathos.
They stood watching the sleek birds strutting on little red feet, andfluttering gray wings in the sunshine. She thought of the wood-pi
geon inthe wood by the river, and the calm brightness of yesterday held outbeckoning hands to her.
"I didn't think it was going to end like this," she said.
"Nor I," he answered, inexorably.
"Are you quite sure it's impossible? The mock marriage, I mean? In booksit's always so frightfully easy, even when the girl isn't helping?"
"I'm afraid it's impossible," said he. "I wish it wasn't. Look at thatblue chap," he added, indicating a fat pigeon for the benefit of apassing boy. "You must go back to your aunts. And I must go back to. . . oh, well, there's nothing much for me to go back to."
They were walking along King Street now. "It does seem rather as thougha sponge were going to pass over the slate . . . and there wouldn't bemuch left," she said.
He glanced at her, suddenly alert. If she felt that . . . why,then. . . .
He wished that the scene had not been in one of the most frequentedstreets of the City of London. If it had been in a drawing-room, forinstance--her drawing-room--it would have been possible to say the wordsof parting with something of dignity and finality. But here, with--inthe background and not to be evaded--that snorting taxicab over whoseclosed door their farewells must be made. . . . But need it be acrossa taxicab door?
"Let us," he said, "take a cab. I will go with you as far as Hyde ParkSquare."
"Shall we have the hood down?" she asked, with intention. "It doesn'tmatter now if any one does see us." But he pretended not to hear, andthe hood remained as it was.
They were silent all the crowded way along Cheapside, where there wereblocks, as usual, and the drivers of lorries and wagons were cheerfullyprofane. Silent, too, along Newgate Street and New Oxford Street. Thedriver, being a wise man, turned up Bloomsbury Street to escape from theblocks in Oxford Street; they passed the British Museum and, presently,the Midlothian Hotel. And as they passed it, each thought of thebreakfast there only that morning, when she had poured the coffee of onefrom whom she had then had no mind to part.
"Oh, why are we doing it?" She spoke suddenly, and her speech had theeffect of a cry. "We didn't mean to say good-by, and now we're goingto. Don't let's."
"But your aunt," he said, feeling as foolish as any young man need wish."If you don't go back to her now you'll want to to-morrow--and Ican't. . . . I told you why I want to part now, if we are to part. Now,before it gets any worse."
"We shall be at Hyde Park Square in a minute," she said, desperately.
"Yes," he said, "it's nearly over. What number is it? I must tell theman."
"Tell him to turn around and go somewhere else--into the country; wesaid we would, you know. I'm not going back to Hyde Park Square. Tellhim. . . ."
"Princess," he said, "I can't bear it. Let him go on."
"But I'm not asking you to bear anything. Don't you understand?"
"Not. . . ?"
"Yes, I will; if you'll ask me."
"You'll marry me?"
"Yes," she said, "rather than have everything end in absolute silliness,like this."
He looked at her, at her clasped hands and the frown of her greatresolve. He perceived that he was worth something to her--that she wasprepared to pay a price--the price he set--rather than lose himaltogether. Her eyes met his with a mingling of courage and desperation,as of one who has chosen a difficult and dangerous path, one who makes agreat sacrifice, leads a forlorn hope. And his eyes dwelt for a momenton hers, appreciatively, thoughtfully. And in that moment his resolvewas taken.
"No," he said, "you didn't want to jump the wall without knowing what itwould be like on the other side. I won't have an unwilling wife. On theother hand, I won't lose you now, Princess, for a thousand fathers andten thousand aunts. Make up your mind to the mock marriage, and thatshall be the way out."
"But I thought you said it was impossible."
"So it was. But it isn't now. I've been thinking."
She leaned back, turned toward him from the corner, and faced him withfearless eyes.
"What a nightmare of a day it's been," she said. "Aren't you glad we'reawake again? When can I send the certificate?" she asked, eager andalert.
"At the earliest possible moment," said he. "I must see my friend aboutit at once. Would you mind waiting for me--say in St. Paul's? And thenwe'll end our day in the country, after all."
"You are good," she said, and laid her hand for a fleeting instant onhis arm. "I do think it's good of you to give way about the mockmarriage. You know I had really set my heart on it. Now everything willbe plain sailing, won't it? And we'll go to Warwick the minute we'remock-married, because my putting my finger on it and Kenilworth ought tocount, oughtn't it?"
"It shall," he said, gravely.