Part 78 (1/2)
At this extraordinary and, if I may be allowed the expression, Alfredian speech, the men first stared, and then laughed; the women smiled, and then were nearer crying than laughing.
And so it was, that justice handcuffed, straitjacketed, blistered, and impartial, sent from its bed of torture a beam through Cooper's tough hide to his inner heart. He hung his head and stepped towards Alfred: ”You're what I call a man,” he said. ”I don't care a curse whether I stay or go, after what she has said to me. But, come what may, you're a gentleman, and one as can put hisself in a poor man's place. Why, sir, I wasn't always so rough; but I have been twenty years at it; and mad folk they'd wear the patience out of Jove, and the milk of human kindness out of saints and opossums. However, if I was to stay here all my life, instead of going to-morrow, I'd never lift hand to trouble you again, for you taking my part again yourself like that.”
”I'll put that to the test,” said Mrs. Archbold sharply. ”Stay--on your probation. Hannah!”
And Baby-face biceps at a look took off his handcuffs; which she had been prominent in putting on.
This extraordinary scene ended in the men being dismissed, and the women remaining and going to work after their kind.
”The bed is too short for one thing,” said Hannah. ”Look at his poor feet sticking out and cold as a stone: just feel of them, Jane.”
”No, no; murder!” cried Alfred; ”that tickles.”
Hannah ran for a chair, Jane for another pillow. Mrs. Archbold took off his handcuffs, and, pa.s.sing her hand softly and caressingly over his head, lamented the loss of his poor hair. Amongst them they relieved him of his straitjacket, set up his head, covered his feet, and he slept like a top for want of drastics and opiates, and in spite of some brilliant charges by the Lilliputian cavalry.
After this the attendants never molested Alfred again; nor did the doctor; for Mrs. Archbold got his boluses, and sent them up to a famous a.n.a.lysing chemist in London, and told him she had; and said, ”I'll thank you not to prescribe at random for _that_ patient any more.” He took the lady's prescription, coming as it did in a voice quietly grim, and with a momentary but wicked glance shot from under her black brows.
Alfred was all the more miserable at his confinement: his melancholy deepened now there was no fighting to excite him. A handsome bright young face clouded with sadness is very pitiable, and I need not say that both the women who had fallen in love with him had their eyes, or at least the tails of their eyes, for ever on his face. The result varied with the characters of the watchers. That young face, ever sad, made Mrs. Archbold sigh, and long to make him happy under her wing. How it wrought on the purer and more womanly Hannah will be revealed by the incident I have to relate. Alfred was sitting on a bench in the corridor bowed down by grief, and the Archbold lurking in a room hard by, feasting her eyes on him through an aperture in the door caused by the inspection plate being under repair--when an erotic maniac was driven past. She had obtained access--with marvellous cunning--to the men's side; but was now coming back with a flea in her ear, and faster than she went; being handcuffed and propelled by Baby-face biceps. On pa.s.sing the disconsolate Alfred the latter eyed him coyly, gave her stray sheep a coa.r.s.e push--as one pushes a _thing_--and laid a timid hand, gentle as falling down, upon the rougher s.e.x. Contrast sudden and funny.
”Don't be so sad, sir,” she murmured, cooing like the gentlest of doves.
”I can't bear to see you look like that.”
Alfred looked up, and met her full with his mournful honest eyes. ”Ah, Hannah, how can I be anything but sad, imprisoned here, sane amongst the mad?”
”Well, and so am I, sir; so is Mrs. Archbold herself.”
”Ay, but you have not been entrapped, imprisoned on your wedding-day. I cannot even get a word sent to my Julia, my wife that ought to be. Only think of the affront they have made me put on her I love better, ten times better, than myself. Why, she must have been waiting for me; humiliated perhaps by my absence. What will she think of me? The rogues will tell her a thousand lies: she is very high spirited, Hannah, impetuous like myself, only so gentle and so good. Oh, my angel, my angel; I shall lose you for ever.”
Hannah clasped her hands, with tears in her eyes: ”No, no,” she cried; ”it is a burning shame to part true lovers like you and her. Hus.h.!.+ speak low. Brown told me you are as well as he is.”
”G.o.d bless him for it, then.”
”You have got money, they say; try it on with Brown.”
”I will. Oh you darling. What is the matter?”
For Baby-face was beginning to whimper.
”Oh, nothing, sir; only you are so glad to go; and we shall be sorry to part with you: but you won't care for that--oh! oh! oh!”
”What, do you think I shall forget you and your kindness? Never: I'll square accounts with friends and foes; not one shall be forgotten.”
”Don't offer me any of your money,” sobbed Hannah, ”for I wouldn't touch it. Good-bye,” said she: ”I shan't have as much as a kiss for it I'll be bound: good-bye,” said she again, and never moved.
”Oh, won't you, though,” cried Alfred gaily. ”What is that? and that?
and that? Now, what on earth are you crying about? Dry your tears, you dear good-hearted girl: no, I'll dry them for you.”
He took out a white handkerchief and dried her cheeks gently for her, and gave her a parting kiss. But the Archbold's patience was exhausted: a door opened nearly opposite, and there she stood yellow with jealousy and sombre as night with her ebon brows. At sight of this lowering figure Hannah uttered a squawk, and fled with cheeks red as fire.
Alfred, not aware of Mrs. Archbold's smouldering pa.s.sion, and little dreaming that jealous anguish and rage stood incarnate before him, burst out laughing like a mischievous boy! On this she swept upon him, and took him by both shoulders, and awed him with her lowering brows close to his. ”You ungrateful wretch,” she said violently, and panted.