Part 28 (1/2)
”Oh, Madge, Madge,” thought I, ”if you could see what your folly has led to!”
CHAPTER XVI.
_Follows the Fortunes of Madge and Ned._
But Madge could know nothing yet of that night's occurrence. She was then many miles out to sea, her thoughts perhaps still lingering behind with her old life, but bound soon to overtake her, and to pa.s.s far ahead to the world she was sailing for, the world of her long-cherished desires.
I shall briefly relate a part of what she afterward recounted to me.
The voyage from New York to Bristol lasted six weeks. She suffered much from her cramped quarters, from the cold weather, from seasickness; but she bore up against her present afflictions, in the hope of future compensations. She put away from her, with the facility of an ambitious beauty, alike her regrets for the past, and her misgivings of the future.
Not to risk any increase of those misgivings, she refrained from questioning Ned as to his resources, nor did she require of him a minute exposition of his plans. She preferred to leave all to him and to circ.u.mstance, considering that, once launched upon the sea of London, and perfectly unrestricted as to her proceedings, she could make s.h.i.+ft to keep afloat. She had an earnest of the power of her beauty, in its effect upon the s.h.i.+p's captain, who, in the absence of pa.s.sengers, was the only person aboard whose admiration was worth playing for. She had the place of honour at his table, and in her presence he was nothing but eyes and dumb confusion, while the extraordinary measures he took for her comfort proclaimed him her willing slave.
She listened without objection or comment when Ned, in confidential moods, forced his purposes upon her attention.
”We'll make 'em stare, my dear,” said he. ”We'll make 'em open their eyes a bit; just you wait! We'll find lodgings somewhere in the thick of the town, and I'll take you to the theatres, and to walk in St.
James Park, and to the public a.s.semblies, and wherever you're sure to be seen. I wish 'twere Summer; then there'd be Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and all that. 'Tis a bad time of year in London now; but we'll do our best. There'll be young sparks of quality enough, to ask each other who that G.o.ddess is, and that Venus, and that angel, and all that kind of thing; and they'll be mad to make your acquaintance. They'll take note of me, and when they see me at the coffee-houses and faro-tables, they'll fall over one another in the rush to know me, and to be my friends. And I'll pick out the best, and honour 'em with invitations to call at our lodgings, and there'll be my pretty sister to mix a punch for us, or pour out tea for us; and once we let 'em see we're as good quality as any of 'em, and won't stand any d.a.m.n' nonsense,' why, you leave it to brother Ned to land a fat fish, that's all!”
She had a fear that his operations might at length become offensive to her taste, might stray from the line of her own ambitions; but she saw good reason to await developments in silence; and to postpone deviating from Ned's wishes, until they should cease to forward hers.
Upon her landing at Bristol, and looking around with interest at the s.h.i.+pping which reminded her of New York but to emphasise her feeling of exile therefrom, her thrilling sense of being at last in the Old World, abated her heaviness at leaving the s.h.i.+p which seemed the one remaining tie with her former life. If ever a woman felt herself to be entering upon life anew, and realised a necessity of blotting the past from memory, it was she; and well it was that the novelty of her surroundings, the sense of treading the soil whereon she had so long pined to set foot, aided her resolution to banish from her mind all that lay behind her.
The time-worn, weather-beaten aspect of the town, its old streets thronged with people of whom she was not known to a soul, would have made her disconsolate, had she not forced herself to contemplate with interest the omnipresent antiquity, to her American eyes so new. And so, as she had heroically endured seasickness, she now fought bravely against homesickness; and, in the end, as nearly conquered it as one ever does.
'Twas a cold ride by stage-coach to London, at that season; there were few travellers in the coach, and those few were ill-natured with discomfort, staring fiercely at the two strangers--whose strangeness they instantly detected by some unconscious process--as if the pair were responsible for the severe February weather, or guilty of some unknown crime. At the inns where they stopped, for meals and overnight, they were subjected to a protracted gazing on the part of all who saw them--an inspection seemingly resentful or disapproving, but indeed only curious. It irritated Madge, who asked Ned what the cause might be.
”Tut! Don't mind it,” said he. ”'Tis the way of the English, everywhere but in London. They stare at strangers as if they was in danger of being insulted by 'em, or having their pockets picked by 'em, or at best as if they was looking at some remarkable animal; but they mean no harm by it.”
”How can they see we are strangers?” she queried. ”We're dressed like them.”
”G.o.d knows! Perhaps because we look more cheerful than they do, and have a brisker way, and laugh easier,” conjectured Ned. ”But you'll feel more at home in London.”
By the time she arrived in London, having slept in a different bed each night after landing, and eaten at so many different inns each day, Madge felt as if she had been a long while in England.[8] She came to the town thus as to a haven of rest; and though she was still gazed at for her beauty, it was not in that ceaseless and mistrustful way in which she had been scrutinised from top to toe in the country; moreover, the names of many of the streets and localities were familiar to her, and in her thoughts she had already visited them: for these reasons, which were more than Ned had taken account of, she did indeed feel somewhat at home in London, as he had predicted.
The night of their arrival was pa.s.sed at the inn, in the Strand, where the coach had set them down. The next morning Ned chose lodgings in Craven Street: three rooms, const.i.tuting the entire first floor; which Madge, though she thought the house had a dingy look, found comfortable enough in their faded way; and wherein the two were installed by noon. They spent the afternoon walking about the most famous streets, returning to their lodgings for dinner.
”I think,” said Ned, while they were eating, ”'twon't do any harm to get on one of your best gowns, and your furbelows, and we'll go to the play, and begin the campaign this very night.”
”Bless me, no! I'm tired to death with sightseeing,” replied Madge. ”I could fall asleep this moment. Besides, who's here to dress my hair? I couldn't go without a commode.”
”Oh, well, just as you like. Only be pleased to remember, ma'am, my purse isn't a widow's mite--widow's cruse of oil, I mean, that runs for ever. I've been at a great expense to bring you here, and pounds and s.h.i.+llings don't rain from heaven like--like that stuff the Jews lived on for forty years in the wilderness. The sooner we land our fish, the sooner we'll know where the money's coming from. I sha'n't be able to pay for lodgings and meals very long.”
”Why, 'tis a pretty pa.s.s if you've no more money--”
”Well, it _is_ a pretty pa.s.s, and that's just what it is. I didn't count the cost when I made the generous offer to bring you. Oh, we can last a week or so yet, but the sooner something is done, the sooner we shall be easy in our minds. On second thoughts, though, you'd better go to bed and rest. It mightn't be well to flash on the town to-night, looking f.a.gged, and without your hair dressed, and all that. So you go to bed and I'll go around and--call upon a few friends I made when I was here before.”
Ned had so improved his attire, by acquisitions in New York, Bristol, and London, that his appearance was now presentable in the haunts of gentlemen. So he went out, leaving her alone. She could no longer postpone meditating upon what was before her.
Now that she viewed it for the first time in definite particulars, its true aspect struck her with a sudden dismay. She was expected to do nothing less than exhibit herself for sale, put herself up at auction for the highest bidder, set out her charms as a bait. And when the bait drew, and the bidders offered, and the buyer awaited--what then?