“I don’t know when I shall. And it has stopped me on my journey. I was to have been tonight, this very night, this Christmas Eve, with the young lady I am engaged to marry. Of course I couldn’t travel. The extent of the injury done nobody can imagine at present.”
“It has been just as bad to me, sir. We were to have been with our family this Christmas Eve. There were particular reasons,—most particular. We were only hindered from going by hearing of your condition.”
“Why did she come into my room at all? I can’t understand that. A lady always knows her own room at an hotel.”
“353—that’s yours; 333—that’s ours. Don’t you see how easy it was? She had lost her way, and she was a little afraid lest the thing should fall down.”
“I wish it had, with all my heart.”
“That’s how it was. Now I’m sure, Mr. Jones, you’ll take a lady’s apology. It was a most unfortunate mistake,—most unfortunate; but what more can be said?”
Mr. Jones gave himself up to reflection for a few moments before he replied to this. He supposed that he was bound to believe the story as far as it went. At any rate, he did not know how he could say that he did not believe it. It seemed to him to be almost incredible,—especially incredible in regard to that personal mistake, for, except that they both had long beards and brown beards, Mr. Jones thought that there was no point of resemblance between himself and Mr. . Brown. But still, even that, he felt, must be accepted. But then why had he been left, deserted, to undergo. all those torments? “ She found out her mistake at last, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Why didn’t she wake a fellow and take it off again? “ “ Ah!”
“She can’t have cared very much for a man’s comfort when she went away and left him like that.”
“Ah! there was the difficulty, Mr. Jones.”
“Difficulty! Who was it that had done it? To come to me, in my bedroom, in the middle of the night, and put that thing on me, and then leave it there and say nothing about it! It seems to me deuced like a_ practical joke.”
“No, Mr. Jones!”
“That’s the way I look at it,” said Mr. Jones, plucking up his courage.
“There isn’t a woman in all England, or in all France, less likely to do such a thing than my wife._ She’s as steady as a rock, Mr. Jones, and would no more go into another gentleman’s bedroom in joke than— Oh dear no! You’re going to be a married man yourself.”
“‘Unless all this malls a difference,” said Mr. Jones, almost in tears. “I had sworn that I would be with her this Christmas Eve.”
“Oh, Mr. Jones, I cannot believe that will interfere with your happiness. How could you think that your wife, as is to be, would do such a thing as that in joke?”
“She wouldn’t do it at all;—joke or anyway.”
“How can you tell what accident might happen to anyone?”
“She’d have wakened the man then afterwards. I’m sure she would. She would never have left him to suffer in that way. Her heart is too soft. Why didn’t she send you to wake me, and explain it all? That’s what my Jane would have done; and I should have gone and wakened him. But the whole thing is impossible,” he said, shaking his head as he remembered that he and his Jane were not in a condition as yet to undergo any such mutual trouble. At last Mr. Jones was brought to acknowledge that nothing more could be done. The lady had sent her apology, and told her story, and he must bear the trouble and inconvenience to which she had subjected him. He still, however, had his own opinion about her conduct generally, and could not be brought to give any sign of amity. He simply bowed when Mr. Brown was hoping to induce him to shake hands, and sent no word of pardon to the great offender.
The matter, however, was so far concluded that there was no further question of police interference, nor any doubt but that the lady with her husband was to be allowed to leave Paris by the night train. The nature of the accident probably became known to all. Mr. Brown was interrogated by many, and though he professed to declare that he would answer no ques
tion, nevertheless he found it better to tell the clerk something of the truth than to allow the matter to be shrouded in mystery. It is to be feared that Mr. Jones, who did not once show himself through the day, but who employed the hours in endeavouring to assuage the injury done him, still lived in the convic-sion that the lady had played a practical joke on him. But the subject of such a joke never talks about it, and Mr. Jones could not be induced to speak even by the friendly adherence of the night-porter.
Mrs. Brown also clung to the seclusion of her own bedroom, never once stirring from it till the time came in which she was to be taken down to the omnibus. Upstairs she ate her meals, and upstairs she passed her time in packing and unpacking, and in requesting that telegrams might be sent repeatedly to Thompson Hall. In the course of the day two such telegrams were sent, in the latter of which the Thompson family were assured that the Browns would arrive, probably in. time for breakfast on Christmas Day, certainly in time for church. She asked more than once tenderly after Mr. Jones’ welfare, but could obtain no information. “He was very cross, and that’s all I know about it,” said Mr. Brown. Then she made a remark as to the gentleman’s Christian name, which appeared on the card as “ Burnaby.” “ My sister’s husband’s name will be Burnaby,” she said. “ And this man’s Christian name is Burnaby; that’s all the difference,” said her husband, with illtimed jocularity.
We all know how people under a cloud are apt to fail in asserting their personal dignity. On the former day a separate vehicle had been ordered by Mr. Brown to take himself and his wife to the station, but now, after his misfortunes, he contented himself with such provision as the people at the hotel might make for him. At the appointed hour he brought his wife down, thickly veiled., There were many strangers as she passed through the hall, ready to look at the lady who had done that wonderful thing in the dead of night, but none could see a feature of her fhce as she stepped across the hall, and was hurried into the omnibus. And there were many eyes also on Mr. Jones, who followed very quickly, for he also, in spite of his sufferings, was leaving Paris on the evening in order that he might be with his English friends on Christmas Day. He, as he went through the crowd, assumed an. .air of great dignity, to which, perhaps, something was added by his endeavours, as he walked, to save his poor ‘throat from irritation. He, too, got into the same omnibus, stumbling over the feet of his enemy in the dark. At the station they got their tickets, one close after the other, and then were brought into each other’s presence in the waiting-room. I think it must be acknowledged that here Mr. Jones was conscious, not only of her presence, but of her consciousness of his ,presence, and that he assumed an attitude, as though he should have said, “ Now do you think it possible for me to believe that you mistook me for your husband?” She was perfectly quiet, but sat through that quarter of an hour with her face continually veiled. Mr.
Brown made some little overture of conversation to Mr. Jones, but Mr. Jones, though he did mutter some reply, showed plainly enough that he had no desire for further intercourse. Then came the accustomed stampede, the awful rush, the internecine struggle in which seats had to be found. Seats, I fancy, are regularly found, even by the most tardy, but it always appears that every British father and every British husband is actuated at these stormy moments by a conviction that unless he proves himself a very Hercules he and his daughters and his wife will be left desolate in Paris. Mr: Brown was quite Herculean, carrying two bags and a hat-box in his own hands, besides the cloaks, the coats, the rugs, the sticks, and the umbrellas. But when he had got himself and his wife well seated, with their faces to the engine, with a corner seat for her,— there was Mr. Jones immediately opposite to her. Mr. Jones, as soon as he perceived the inconvenience of his position, made a scramble for another place, but he was too late. In that contiguity the journey as far as Calais had to be made. She, poor woman, never once took up her veil. There he sat, without closing an eye, stiff as a ramrod, sometimes showing by little uneasy gestures that the trouble at