Part 7 (1/2)
”No thank you,” she replied decidedly.
”I live close here,” he went on--”in the Temple. I wish you would allow me to take you to my rooms--you seem faint--a rest for a little while and a cup of tea will do you good. Now do let me persuade you.” He paused and their eyes met. ”No, you need not be afraid of me,” he said, translating her look.
She was looking at him, earnestly into him, and she read his character.
She saw that she need not fear him--that is so long as she took proper care of herself. There was nothing violent or really wicked in the merry, careless, rather weak face. This was not the old man of the Park.
She could distinguish that there were generous feelings in this young man as well as self-indulgence.
She smiled as she thought how shrewd she was getting at character-reading, what a lot she had learned of the world in one day.
”Why do you laugh?” he asked.
”At my thoughts?”
”Well I am glad that they are merrier than they were just now.”
”I was thinking how well I can read your character. I saw that I need not fear you much. I can trust you.”
This was a very dangerous admission for a young girl to make to a young man; but Mary, clever though she was, could hardly be expected to know exactly how to behave under such novel circ.u.mstances.
”I am delighted to hear you say so,” replied Hudson excitedly. ”Now take my arm and we will go to my rooms. You want somebody to take care of you, my poor little girl.”
There was a tenderness in his last words that cooled Mary's confidential mood; but she took his arm, and she spoke no word while Hudson rang the bell, and they pa.s.sed into the Temple through a gate that was opened by invisible hands, like that of some magic castle in the fairy tales she had read, and then crossed the deserted quadrangle, and ascended two flights of dusty stone stairs, till they came to a solid and ancient oak door with bolts and bars enough to resist the siege of twenty locksmiths for a week, and with Mr. T. Hudson painted over it in white letters.
He opened this with one key, and there was another inner, less formidable door which he opened with another smaller key. It was just like going into a prison, she fancied, and the gloomy deserted pa.s.sages half frightened her. How easily one could be murdered in this lonely place, she thought, and no one hear one's cries.
She followed him into the dark chambers, then the barrister lit a lamp and proceeded to do the honours of his establishment.
”Here we are at last--a curious looking place is it not? Now you must sit down in this armchair and make yourself comfortable, while I go out and get you something to eat. It will do you good--I can see what you want.”
”I really want nothing, sir; indeed I--”
”Now, don't contradict your doctor, Miss--Miss--Miss--what is it you said?”
She smiled at his ruse as she remembered that she had not told him her name as yet, but she replied, ”Mary Grimm.”
”Miss Grimm, you must excuse my leaving you alone here for a few minutes; I won't be long,” and he hurried off to order a nice little supper for his guest from a neighbouring tavern.
Then he thought as he went, ”There is nothing but whisky in the rooms--she doesn't look the sort of girl to drink whisky--shall I get her some beer? No, that won't do--champagne? Can't run to that to-night, besides, it would look like dissipation and frighten her.
Claret?--that's better; I'll get a bottle of Burgundy--that's the stuff to cheer the girl;” so he ordered a bottle of the generous wine, to be sent over to his chambers with the supper.
The adventure was a curious one and pleased him. This was no ordinary girl, he saw that. He felt that her story was true, or nearly so. She puzzled him somewhat, but this presumptuous young man flattered himself that he could understand any woman after an hour's conversation, and he intended to understand his new acquaintance.
When a woman is left by herself in a bachelor's home for the first time, she loves to prowl about it and look into every corner like a cat in a strange house, endeavouring to satisfy her natural curiosity as to the secret life of the unmarried man. Residential chambers in the Temple have an especial charm for the inquisitive daughter of Eve. There is an odour of mystery, a suspicion of wickedness about these dens of celibacy which she cannot resist.
So when the barrister was away, Mary, after she had first taken off her shawl and hung it on a chair, and then looked at herself in the gla.s.s over the mantelpiece, and arranged her hair a little, began to examine her surroundings with considerable interest. She noticed how different everything in this room was to what she was accustomed to see in other sitting-rooms at home and elsewhere, where a woman's influence--though it were even Mrs. Grimm's--made itself felt.
There was a comfortable sternness about the bachelor's sanctum. There were no frivolous cheap china shepherdesses on the mantelpiece, as in the Brixton parlour, but pipes, tobacco-jars, and two bronze busts of heathen deities.
There hung by the side of the mirror four tin s.h.i.+elds with the arms of Hudson's University, College, School, and Inn of Court painted on them.