Part 4 (1/2)
”What was your father saying, Lois?”
”That you were going away, dear, and that the sooner I gave up thinking about you the fatter I should be.”
”How did he know what was going to happen?”
”Ask me another and don't pay the bill. He's been as queer as white rabbits since yesterday--didn't go to work this morning, but sat all day over a letter he's received. I shall be frightened of father just now. I do really believe he's getting a bit balmy on the crumpet.”
”Still talking about the man who stole the furnace?”
”Why, there you've got it. We're going to Buckingham Palace in a donkey cart and pretty quick about it. You'll be ashamed of such fine people, Alb--father says so. So I'm not to speak to you to begin with--not till the dresses come home from Covent Garden and the horses are pawing the ground for her lidys.h.i.+p. That's the chorus all day--lots of fun when the bricks come home and father with a watch-chain as big as Moses. He knew you were going to get the sack and he warned me against it. 'We can't afford to a.s.sociate with those people nowadays'--don't yer know--'so mind what you're a-doing, my child.' And I'm minding it all day--I was just minding it when you came in, Alb. Don't you see her lidys.h.i.+p is taking mutton chops? Couldn't descend to nothink less, my dear--not on such a day as this--blimme.”
Lois' patter, acquired in the streets, invariably approached the purely vulgar when she was either angry or annoyed--for at other times her nationality saved her from many of its penalties. Alban quite understood that something beyond ordinary must have pa.s.sed between father and daughter to-day; but this was neither the time nor the place to discuss it.
”We'll meet outside the Pav to-night and have a good talk, Lois,” he said; ”everybody's listening here. Be there at nine sharp. Who knows, it may be the last time we shall ever meet in London--”
”You're not going away, Alb?”
A look of terror had come into the pretty eyes; the frail figure of the girl trembled as she asked the question.
”Can't say, Lois--how do I know? Suppose I went as a sailor--”
Lois laughed louder than before.
”You--a blueboy! Lord, how you make me laugh. Fancy the aristocrat being ordered about. Oh, my poor funny-bone! Wouldn't you knock the man down that did it--oh, can't I see him.”
The idea amused her immensely and she dwelt upon it even in the street outside. Her Alb as Captain Jack--or should it be the cabin-boy. And, of course, he would bring her a parrot from the Brazils and perhaps a monkey.
”An' I'll keep a light in the winder for fear you should be s.h.i.+pwrecked in High Street, Alb, and won't we go hornpiping together. Oh, you silly boy; oh, you dear old Captain Jack--whatever put a sailorman into your mind?”
”The water,” said Alban, as stolidly--”it leads to somewhere, Lois. This is the road to nowhere--good G.o.d, how tired I am of it.”
”And of those who go with you, Alb.”
”I am ashamed of myself because of them, Lois.”
”You silly boy, Alb--are they ashamed, Alb? Oh, no, no--people who love are never ashamed.”
He did not contest the point with her, nor might she linger. Bells were ringing everywhere, syrens were calling the people to work. It was a new thing for Alban Kennedy to be strolling the streets with his hands in his pockets when the clock struck one. And yet there he was become a loafer in an instant, just one of the many thousand who stare up idly at the sky or gaze upon the windows of the shops they may not patronize, or drift on helpless as though a dark stream of life had caught them and nevermore would set them on dry land again. Alban realized all this, and yet the full measure of his disaster was not wholly understood. It was so recent, the consequences yet unfelt, the future, after all, pregnant with the possibilities of change. He knew not at all what he should do, and yet determined that the shame of which he had spoken should never overtake him.
And so determining, he strolled as far as Aldgate Station--and there he met the stranger.
CHAPTER VI
THE STRANGER
There is a great deal of fine philanthropic work done east of Aldgate Station by numbers of self-sacrificing young men just down from the Universities. So, when a slim parson touched Alban upon the arm and begged for a word with him, he concluded immediately that he had attracted the notice of one of these and become the objective of his charity.
”I beg your pardon,” he said a little stiffly. The idea of stooping to such a.s.sistance had long been revolting to him. He was within an ace of breaking away from the fellow altogether.