Love Eternal, H. Rider Haggard [amazing books to read txt] 📗

she extracted from the tea-tin a five-pound note, four sovereigns and a pound's worth of silver and copper.

"There," she said, "that will do to begin with, for too much money in the pocket is a temptation in a wicked place like London, where there's always someone waiting to share it. If it's wanted there's more where that came from, and you've only to write and say so. And now you have got the address and you've got the cash, and if you want to catch that last train it's time you were off. If I took the same to-morrow night, why, it wouldn't surprise me, especially as I want to hear all you've been a-doing in those foreign parts, tumbling over precipices and the rest. So good-bye, my dear, and God bless you. Lord! it seems only the other day that I was giving you your bottle."

Then they kissed each other and, having retrieved his alpenstock from the stick-house, Godfrey trudged back to the station, where he picked up his luggage and departed for London. Arriving at Liverpool Street rather late, he went to the Great Eastern Hotel, and after a good meal, which he needed, slept like a top. His reception in England had been bitter, but the young soon shake off their troubles, from which, indeed, the loving kindness of his dear old nurse already had extracted the sting.

On the following morning, while breakfasting at a little table by one of the pillars of the big dining-room, he began to wonder what he should do next. In his pocket he had a notebook, in which, at the suggestion of the Pasteur, he had set down the address of the lawyers who had written to him about his legacy. It was in a place called the Poultry, which, on inquiry from the hall-porter, he discovered was quite close by the Mansion House.

So a while later, for the porter told him that it was no use to go to see lawyers too early, he sallied forth, and after much search discovered the queer spot called the Poultry, also the offices of Messrs. Ranson, Richards and Son. Here he gave his name to a clerk, who thrust a very oily head out of a kind of mahogany box, and was told that Mr. Ranson was engaged, but that, if he cared to wait, perhaps he would see him later on. He said he would wait, and was shown into a stuffy little room, furnished with ancient deed-boxes and a very large, old leather-covered sofa that took up half the place. Here he sat for a while, staring at a square of dirty glass which gave what light was available, and reflecting upon things in general.

While he was thus engaged he heard a kind of tumult outside, in which he recognised the treble of the oily-headed clerk coming in a bad second to a deep, bass voice. Then the door opened and a big, burly man, with a red face and a jovial, rolling eye, appeared with startling suddenness and ejaculated:

"Damn Ranson, damn Richards, or damn them both, with the Son thrown in! I ask you, young man"--here he addressed Godfrey seated on the corner of the sofa--"what is the use of a firm of lawyers whom you can never see? You pay the brutes, but three times out of four they are not visible, or, as I suspect, pretend not to be, in order to enhance their own importance. And I sent them a telegram, too, having a train to catch. What do you think?"

"I don't know, Sir," Godfrey answered. "I never came to a lawyer's office before, and I hope I shan't again if this is the kind of room they put one into."

"Room!" ejaculated the irate gentleman, "call it a dog kennel, call it a cesspool, for, by heaven, it smells like one, but in the interests of truth, young man, don't call it a room."

"Now that you mention it, there is a queer odour. Perhaps a dead rat under the floor," suggested Godfrey.

"Twenty dead rats, probably, since I imagine that this hole has not been cleaned since the time of George II. We are martyrs in this world, Sir. I come here to attend to the affairs of some whippersnapper whom I never saw and never want to see, just because Helen Ogilvy, who was my first cousin, chooses to make me a trustee of her confounded will, in which she leaves money to the confounded whippersnapper, God knows why. This whippersnapper has a father, a parson, who can write the most offensive letters imaginable. I received one of them this morning, accusing the whippersnapper of all sorts of vague things, and me and my fellow trustee, who is at present enjoying himself travelling, of abetting him. I repeat, damn Ranson, Richards and Son; damn the parson, damn Helen--no, I won't say that, for she is dead--and especially damn the whippersnapper. Don't you agree with me?"

"Not quite, Sir," said Godfrey. "I don't mind about Ranson, Richards and Son, or anybody else, but I don't quite see why you should damn me, who, I am sure, never wished to give you any trouble."

"You! And who the Hades may you be?"

"I am Godfrey Knight, and I suppose that you are my trustee, or one of them."

"Godfrey Knight, the young man whose father gives us so much trouble, all at our own expense, I may remark. Well, after hearing so much of you on paper, I'm deuced glad to meet you in the flesh. Come into the light, if you can call it light, and let me have a look at you."

Godfrey stepped beneath the dirty pane and was contemplated through an eyeglass by this breezy old gentleman, who exclaimed presently:

"You're all right, I think; a fine figure of a young man, not bad looking, either, but you want drilling. Why the devil don't you go into the army?"

"I don't know," answered Godfrey, "never thought of it. Are you in the army, Sir?"

"No, not now, though I was. Commanded my regiment for five years, and then kicked out with the courtesy title of Major-General. Cubitte is my name, spelt with two 't's' and an 'e,' please, and don't you forget that, since that 'e' has been a point of honour with our family for a hundred years, the Lord knows why. Well, there we are. Do you smoke?"

"Only a pipe," said Godfrey.

"That's right; I hate those accursed cigarettes, still they are better than nothing. Now sit down and tell me all about yourself."

Godfrey obeyed, and somehow feeling at ease with this choleric old General, in the course of the next twenty minutes explained many things to him, including the cause of his appearance in that office.

"So you don't want to be a parson," said the General, "and with your father's example before your eyes, I am sure I don't wonder. However, you are independent of him more or less, and had better cut out a line for yourself. We will back you. What do you say to the army?"

"I think I should rather like that," answered Godfrey. "Only, only, I want to get out of England as soon as possible."

"And quite right, too--accursed hole, full of fog and politicians. But that's not difficult with India waiting for you. I'm an Indian cavalry officer myself, and could put you up to the ropes and give you a hand afterwards, perhaps, if you show yourself of the right stuff, as I think you will. But, of course, you will have to go to Sandhurst, pass an entrance examination, and so forth. Can you manage that?"

"Yes, Sir, I think so, with a little preparation. I know a good deal of one sort or another, including French."

"All right, three months' cramming at Scoones' or Wren's, will do the trick. And now I suppose you want some money?"

Godfrey explained that he did, having only £10 which he had borrowed from his old nurse.

Just then the oily-headed clerk announced that Mr. Ranson was at liberty. So they both went in to see him, and the rest may be imagined. The trustees undertook to pay his expenses, even if they had to stretch a point to do so, and gave him £20 to go on with, also a letter of introduction to Scoones, whom he was instructed to see and arrange to join their classes. Then General Cubitte hustled off, telling him to come to dine at an address in Kensington two nights later and "report himself."

So within less than an hour Godfrey's future career was settled. He came out of the office feeling rather dazed but happier than when he went in, and inquired his way to Garrick Street, where he was informed that Mr. Scoones had his establishment. He found the place and, by good luck, found Mr. Scoones also, a kindly, keen, white-haired man, who read the letter, made a few inquiries and put him through a brief examination.

"Your information is varied and peculiar," he said, "and not of the sort that generally appeals to Her Majesty's examiners. Still, I see that you have intelligence and, of course, the French is an asset; also the literature to some extent, and the Latin, though these would have counted more had you been going up for the Indian Civil. I think we can get you through in three months if you will work; it all depends on that. You will find a lot of young men here of whom quite seventy per cent. do nothing, except see life. Very nice fellows in their way, but if you want to get into Sandhurst, keep clear of them. Now, my term opens next Monday. I will write to General Cubitte and tell him what I think of you, also that the fees are payable in advance. Good-bye, glad you happened to catch me, which you would not have done half an hour later, as I am going out of town. At ten o'clock next Monday, please."

After this, not knowing what to do, Godfrey returned to the Great Eastern Hotel and wrote a letter to his father, in which, baldly enough, he explained what had happened.

Having posted it in the box in the hall, he bethought him that he must find some place to live in, as the hotel was too expensive for a permanence, and was making inquiries of the porter as to how he should set about the matter when a telegram was handed to him. It ran: "All up as I expected. Meet me Liverpool Street 4.30.--Nurse."

So Godfrey postponed his search for lodgings, and at the appointed hour kept the assignation on the platform. The train arrived, and out of it, looking much more like her old self than she had on the previous day, emerged Mrs. Parsons with the most extraordinary collection of bundles, he counted nine of them, to say nothing of a jackdaw in a cage. She embraced him with enthusiasm, dropping the heaviest of the parcels, which seemed to contain bricks, upon his toe, and in a flood of language told him of the peculiar awfulness of the row between his father and herself which had ensued upon his departure.

"Yes," she ended, "he flung my money at my head and I flung it back at his, though afterwards I picked it up again, for it is no use wasting good gold and silver. And so here I am, beginning life again, like you, and feeling thirty years younger for it. Now, tell me what you are going to do?"

Then they went and had tea in the refreshment room, leaving the jackdaw and the other impediments in charge of a porter, and he told her.

"That's first-rate," she said. "I always hated the idea of seeing you with a black coat on your back. The Queen's uniform looks much better, and I want you to be a man. Now you help me into a cab and by dinner time to-morrow I'll be ready for you