Part 30 (1/2)
”Panorama's among the black men, them's his oysters as we're eatin' now.
Try one, Mr. Kennedy. You look as if a drop of summat would do you good, so help me you do. Take a sup o' stout and rest yourself awhile. It is a surprise to see you, I must say.”
”A very pleasant surprise, indeed,” added the Archbishop, emphatically.
”There has been no event in my life for many months which has given me so much satisfaction. We have not so many friends that we can spare even one of them to those higher spheres, which, I must say, he has adorned with such conspicuous l.u.s.tre.”
”Oh, spare me, reverence, don't talk nonsense to-night. I am tired as you see, tired and hungry. And I'm going to beg food and drink from old friends who have loved me. Now, Sarah, what's it to be?”
He drew the sofa nearer to the bare table and began to eat with them.
Sarah's motherly protestations induced him to take off his coat and hang it up in the watchman's office to dry. The same tender care served out to him the most delicate morsels, from a generous if uncouth table, and insisted upon their acceptance. If his old friends were hot with curiosity to know whence he came and what he had been doing, they, as the poor alone can do successfully, asked no questions nor even hinted at their desire. Not until the supper was over and the Archbishop had produced a little packet of cigars, did any general conversation interrupt that serious business of eating and drinking, so rarely indulged in, so sacred when opportunity offered.
This amiable truce to curiosity, dictated by nature, was first broken by the Archbishop, who did not possess my Lady Sarah's robust powers of self-command. Pa.s.sing Alban a cigar, he asked him a question which had been upon his lips from the beginning.
”You are just returned from Poland, Kennedy?”
”I have been in England two months, reverence.”
”But not at Hampstead, my dear boy, not at Hampstead, surely?”
”As you say, not at Hampstead, at least not at ”Five Gables.” Mr.
Gessner is away yachting; I read it in the newspapers.”
”You read it in the newspapers. G.o.d bless me! do you mean to say that he did not tell you himself?”
”He told me nothing. How could he? He hasn't got my address.”
They all stared, open-eyed in wonder. Even the Lady Sarah had a question to ask now.
”You're not back in Whitechapel again.”
”True as gold. I am living in Union Street, and going to be married.”
”To be married; who's the lidy?”
”That's what I want to know; perhaps it would be little red-haired Chris Denholm. I can't exactly tell you, Sarah.”
”Here none of that--you're pullin'--”
Sarah caught the Archbishop's frown, and corrected herself adroitly.
”It ain't true, Mr. Kennedy, is it now?”
”G.o.d knows, Sarah, I don't. I'm earning two pounds a week in a motor shop and living in the old ken by Union Street. Mr. Gessner has left the country and his daughter is married to w.i.l.l.y Forrest. I hope she'll like him. They'll make a pretty pair in a crow's nest. Pa.s.s the stout and let's drink to 'em. I must be off directly; if I don't walk home, it'll be pneumonia or something equally pleasant. But I'm glad to see you all, you know it, and I wish you luck from the bottom of my heart.”
He took a long drink from a newly opened bottle and claiming his coat pa.s.sed out as mysteriously as he had come. The watchman said that a man waited for him upon the pavement, but his information seemed vague. The others continued to discuss him until weariness overtook them and they slept where they lay. His going had taken a friend away from them, and their friends were few enough, G.o.d knows!
CHAPTER x.x.xI