One evening Phil sat in the sorting-room of the General Post-Office with his hand to his head—for the eight o’clock mail was starting; his head, eyes, and hands had been unusually active during the past two hours, and when the last bundle of letters dropped from his fingers into the mail-bags, head, eyes, and hands were aching.
A row of scarlet vans was standing under a platform, into which mail-bags, apparently innumerable, were being shot. As each of these vans received its quota it rattled off to its particular railway station, at the rate which used, in the olden time, to be deemed the extreme limit of “haste, haste, post haste.” The yard began to empty when eight o’clock struck. A few seconds later the last of the scarlet vans drove off; and about forty tons of letters, etcetera, were flying from the great centre to the circumference of the kingdom.
Phil still sat pressing the aching fingers to the aching head and eyes, when he was roused by a touch on the shoulder. It was Peter Pax, who had also, by that time, worked his way upwards in the service.
“Tired, Phil?” asked Pax.
“A little, but it soon passes off,” said Phil lightly, as he rose. “There’s no breathing-time, you see, towards the close, and it’s the pace that kills in everything.”
“Are you going to Pegaway Hall to-night?” asked Pax, “because, if so, I’ll go with you, bein’, so to speak, in a stoodious humour myself.”
“No, I’m not going to study to-night,—don’t feel up to it. Besides, I want to visit Mr Blurt. The book he lent me on Astronomy ought to be returned, and I want to borrow another.—Come, you’ll go with me.”
After exchanging some books at the library in the basement, which the man in grey had styled a “magnificent institootion,” the two friends left the Post-Office together.
“Old Mr Blurt is fond of you, Pax.”
“That shows him to be a man of good taste,” said Pax, “and his lending you and me as many books as we want proves him a man of good sense. Do you know, Phil, it has sometimes struck me that, what between our Post-Office library and the liberality of Mr Blurt and a few other friends, you and I are rather lucky dogs in the way of literature.”
“We are,” assented Phil.
“And ought, somehow, to rise to somethin’, some time or other,” said Pax.
“We ought—and will,” replied the other, with a laugh.
“But do you know,” continued Pax, with a sigh, “I’ve at last given up all intention of aiming at the Postmaster-Generalship.”
“Indeed, Pax!”
“Yes. It wouldn’t suit me at all. You see I was born and bred in the country, and can’t stand a city life. No; my soul—small though it be—is too large for London. The metropolis can’t hold me, Phil. If I were condemned to live in London all my life, my spirit would infallibly bu’st its shell an’ blow the bricks and mortar around me to atoms.”
“That’s strange now; it seems to me, Pax, that London is country and town in one. Just look at the Parks.”
“Pooh! flat as a pancake. No ups and downs, no streams, no thickets, no wild-flowers worth mentioning—nothin’ wild whatever ’cept the child’n,” returned Pax, contemptuously.
“But look at the Serpentine, and the Thames, and—”
“Bah!” interrupted Pax, “would you compare the Thames with the clear, flowing, limpid—”
“Come now, Pax, don’t become poetical, it isn’t your forte; but listen while I talk of matters more important. You’ve sometimes heard me mention my mother, haven’t you?”
“I have—with feelings of poetical reverence,” answered Pax.
“Well, my mother has been writing of late in rather low spirits about her lonely condition in that wild place on the west coast of Ireland. Now, Mr Blurt has been groaning much lately as to his having no female relative to whom he could trust his brother Fred. You know he is obliged to look after the shop, and to go out a good deal on business, during which times Mr Fred is either left alone, or under the care of Mrs Murridge, who, though faithful, is old and deaf and stupid. Miss Lillycrop would have been available once, but ever since the fire she has been appropriated—along with Tottie Bones—by that female Trojan Miss Stivergill, and dare not hint at leaving her. It’s a good thing for her, no doubt, but it’s unfortunate for Mr Fred. Now, do you see anything in the mists of that statement?”
“Ah—yes—just so,” said Pax; “Mr Blurt wants help; mother wants cheerful society. A sick-room ain’t the perfection of gaiety, no doubt, but it’s better than the west coast of Ireland—at least as depicted by you. Yes, somethin’ might come o’ that.”
“More may come of it than you think, Pax. You see I want to provide some sort of home for George Aspel to come to when we save him—for we’re sure to save him at last. I feel certain of that,” said Phil, with something in his tone that did not quite correspond to his words—“quite certain of that,” he repeated, “God helping us. I mean to talk it over with May.”
They turned, as he spoke, into the passage which led to Mr Flint’s abode.
May was at home, and she talked the matter over with Phil in the boudoir with the small window, and the near prospect of brick wall, and the photographs of the Maylands, and the embroidered text that was its occupant’s sheet-anchor.
She at once fell in with his idea about getting their mother over to London, but when he mentioned his views about her furnishing a house so as to offer a home to his friend Aspel, she was apparently distressed, and yet seemed unable to explain her meaning, or to state her objections clearly.
“Oh! Phil, dear,” she said at last, “don’t plan and arrange too much. Let us try to walk so that we may be led by God, and not run in advance of him.”
Phil was perplexed and disappointed, for May not only appeared to throw cold water on his efforts, but seemed unwilling to give her personal aid in the rescue of her old playmate. He was wrong in this. In the circumstances, poor May could not with propriety bring personal influence to bear on Aspel, but she could and did pray for him with all the ardour of a young and believing heart.
“It’s a very strange thing,” continued Phil, “that George won’t take assistance from any one. I know that he is in want—that he has not money enough to buy respectable clothes so as to be able to appear among his old friends, yet he will not take a sixpence from me—not even as a loan.”
May did not answer. With her face hid in her hands she sat on the edge of her bed, weeping at the thought of her lover’s fallen condition. Poor May! People said that telegraphic work was too hard for her, because her cheeks were losing the fresh bloom that she had brought from the west of Ireland, and the fingers with which she manipulated the keys so deftly were growing very thin. But sorrow had more to do with the change than the telegraph had.
“It must be pride,” said her brother.
“Oh! Phil,” she said, looking up, “don’t you think that shame has more to do with it than pride?”
Phil stooped and kissed her.
“Sure it’s that, no doubt, and I’m a beast entirely for suggesting pride.”
“Supper! Hallo in there,” shouted Mr Flint, thundering at the door; “don’t keep the old ’ooman waiting!”
Phil and May came forth at once, but the former would not remain to supper. He had to visit Mr Blurt, he said, and might perhaps sup with him. Pax would go with him.
“Well, my lads, please yourselves,” said Mr Flint,—wheeling the old woman to the table, on which smoked a plentiful supply of her favourite sausages.
“Let me take the cat off your lap, grannie,” said May.
“Let the cat be, lassie; it’s daein’ nae ill. Are the callants gaein’ oot?”
“Yes, grannie,” said Phil, “we have business to attend to.”
“Bizness!” exclaimed Mrs Flint. “Weel, weel, they lay heavy burdens on ’ee at that Post-Office. Night an’ day—night an’ day. They’ve maist killed my Solomon. They’ve muckle to answer for.”
In her indignation she clenched her fist and brought it down on her knee. Unfortunately the cat came between the fist and the knee. With its usual remonstrative mew it fled and found a place of rest and refuge in the coal-box.
“But it’s not to the Post-Office we’re goin’, grannie,” said Phil, laying his hand kindly on the old woman’s shoulder.
“What o’ that? what o’ that?” she exclaimed somewhat testily at being corrected, “has that onything to dae wi’ the argiment? If ye git yer feet wat, bairns, mind to chynge them—an’ whatever ye dae—”
She stopped suddenly. One glance at her placid old countenance sufficed to show that she had retired to the previous century, from which nothing now could recall her except sausages. The youths therefore went out.
Meanwhile Mr Enoch Blurt sat in his brother’s back shop entertaining a visitor. The shop itself had, for a considerable time past, been put under the care of an overgrown boy, who might—by courtesy and a powerful stretch of truth—have been styled a young man.
Jiggs—he appeared to have no other name—was simply what men style a born idiot: not sufficiently so to be eligible for an asylum, but far enough gone to be next to useless. Mr Blurt had picked him up somewhere, in a philanthropic way—no one ever knew how or where—during one of his many searches after George Aspel. Poor Mr Blurt was not happy in his selection of men or boys. Four of the latter whom he had engaged to attend the shop and learn the business had been dismissed for rough play with the specimens, or making free with the till when a few coppers chanced to be in it. They had failed, also, to learn the business; chiefly because there was no business to learn, and Mr Enoch Blurt did not know how to teach it. When he came in contact with Jiggs, Mr Blurt believed he had at last secured a prize, and confided that belief to Mrs Murridge. So he had, as regards honesty. Jiggs was honest to the core; but as to other matters he was defective—to say the least. He could, however, put up and take down the shutters, call Mr Blurt down-stairs if wanted—which he never was; and tell customers, when he was out, to call again—which he never did, as customers never darkened the door. Jiggs, however, formed a sufficient scarecrow to street boys and thieves.
The visitor in the back shop—to whom we now return—was no less a personage than Miss Gentle, whose acquaintance Mr Blurt had made on board the ill-fated mail steamer Trident. That lady had chanced, some weeks before, to pass the ornithological shop, and, looking in, was struck dumb by the sight of the never-forgotten fellow-passenger who had made her a confidant. Recovering speech, she entered the shop and introduced herself. The introduction was needless. Mr Blurt recognised her at once, dropped his paper, extended both hands, gave her a welcome that brought even Jiggs back to the verge of sanity, and had her into the back shop, whence he expelled Mrs Murridge to some other and little-known region of the interior.
The interview was so agreeable that Mr Blurt begged it might be repeated. It was repeated four times. The fifth time it was repeated by special arrangement in the evening, for the purpose of talking over a business matter.
“I fear, Miss Gentle,” began Mr Blurt, when his visitor was seated in the back shop, and Mrs Murridge had been expelled to the rear as usual, and Jiggs had been left on guard in the front—“I fear that you may think it rude in me to make such a proposal, but I am driven to it by necessity, and—the fact is, I want you to become a nurse.”
“A nurse, Mr Blurt!”
“There, now, don’t take offence. It’s below your position, I dare say, but I have gathered from you that your circumstances are not—are not—not exactly luxurious, and,—in short, my poor brother Fred is a hopeless invalid. The doctors say he will never be able to leave his bed. Ah! if those diamonds I once spoke to you about had only been mine still, instead of adorning the caves of crabs and fishes, Miss Gentle, I would have had half-a-dozen of the best nurses in London for dear Fred. But the diamonds are gone! I am a poor man, a very poor man, Miss Gentle, and I cannot afford a good nurse. At the same time, I cannot bear to think of Fred being, even for a brief period, at the mercy of cheap nurses, who, like other wares, are bad when cheap—although, of course, there may be a few good ones even among the cheap. What I cannot buy, therefore, I must beg; and I have come to you, as one with a gentle and pitiful spirit, who may, perhaps, take an interest in my poor brother’s case, and agree to help us.”
Having said all this very fast, and with an expression of eager anxiety, Mr Blurt blew his nose, wiped his bald forehead, and, laying both hands on his knees, looked earnestly into his visitor’s face.
“You are wrong, Mr Blurt, in saying that the office of nurse is below my position. It is below the position of no one in the land. I may not be very competent to fill the office, but I am quite willing to try.”
“My dear madam,” exclaimed the delighted Mr Blurt, “your goodness is—but I expected as much. I knew you would. Of course,” he said, interrupting himself, “all the menial work will be done by Mrs Murridge. You will be only required to fill, as it were, the part of a daughter—or—or a sister—to my poor Fred. As to salary: it will be small, very small, I fear; but there are a couple of nice rooms in the house, which will be entirely at your—”
“I quite understand,” interrupted Miss Gentle, with a smile. “We won’t talk of these details, please, until you have had a trial of me, and see whether I am worthy of a salary at all!”
“Miss Gentle,” returned Mr Blurt, with sudden gravity, “your extreme kindness emboldens me to put before you another matter of business, which I trust you will take into consideration in a purely business light.—I am getting old, madam.”
Miss Gentle acknowledged the truth with a slight bow.
“And you are—excuse me—not young, Miss Gentle.”
The lady acknowledged this truth with a slighter bow.
“You would not object to regard me in the light of a brother, would you?”
Mr Blurt took one of her hands in his, and looked at her earnestly.
Miss Gentle looked at Mr Blurt quite as earnestly, and replied that she had no objection whatever to that.
“Still further, Miss Gentle: if I were to presume to ask you to regard me in the light of a husband, would you object to that?”
Miss Gentle looked down and said nothing, from which Mr Blurt concluded that she did not object. She withdrew her hand suddenly, however, and blushed. There was a slight noise at the door. It was Jiggs, who, with an idiotical stare, asked if it was not time to put up the shutters!
The plan thus vexatiously interrupted was, however, ultimately carried into effect. Miss Gentle, regardless of poverty, the absence of prospects, and the certainty of domestic anxiety, agreed to wed Mr Enoch Blurt and nurse his brother. In consideration of the paucity of funds, and the pressing nature of the case, she also agreed to dispense with a regular honeymoon, and to content herself with, as it were, a honey-star at home.
Of course, the event knocked poor Phil’s little plans on the head for the time being, though it did not prevent his resolving to do his utmost to bring his mother to London.
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