Toppleton's Client; Or, A Spirit in Exile, John Kendrick Bangs [best romantic books to read .txt] 📗

"I should say," volunteered Hopkins, with a shake of his head, "that that was about the most unpleasant situation he had got you into yet; and yet he was not entirely to blame. He requested candour from you, and you declined to be candid. You should have told him of your engagement to Miss Hicksworthy-Johnstone. That would at least have prevented his kicking her father out of your office and rolling downstairs with him."

"It is easy enough to say now what ought to have been done," sobbed the exile. "I do not think you would have done very differently if you had been in my position. I was jealous of the fiend, I suppose, and I didn't know but what he would insist upon doing some of the courting—which would have been intolerable."

"Better that than to be set down by your[150] fiancée as a heartless trifler," returned Hopkins. "But what happened next? Was the old gentleman hurt?"

"Not he," replied the exile. "When he and I, as he supposed me to be, reached the bottom of the stairs he landed on top, and was the first to get on his feet again. And then, Hopkins, I was glad not to be in my normal condition; for as the fiend attempted to rise my Arabella's father, who still retained his grip upon that oak stick, gave me the worst licking I ever had in my life, and I—well, I really enjoyed the spectacle, because I knew that I deserved it. The fiend, hampered somewhat by the corse to which he was not yet entirely accustomed was at a tremendous disadvantage, and I know Mr. Hicksworthy-Johnstone's blows caused him considerable pain. The only possible escape for him was to leave the body, which he did just as the attacking party landed a resounding thwack upon the back of my neck. Of course, the minute the fiend evacuated the premises, I appeared to Mr. Hicksworthy-Johnstone to have been killed, because there was in reality no slightest bit of animation left in my body. It was the horror of this discovery that covered the retreat of the fiend, who, more horribly green than ever—the green that comes from rage—mounted the steps he had so summarily[151] descended a moment before, and hurried into my room, dragging me by sheer force of will, which I was unable to resist, after him. You see, Hopkins, we were now nothing more than two consciousnesses; two minds, one mortal, the other immortal; one infinitely strong, the other finite in its limitations, and I was of course as powerless in the presence of the fiend as a babe in the arms of its nurse. Mr. Hicksworthy-Johnstone, thinking that he had killed me, after a vain endeavour to restore my stricken body to consciousness—in which he would have succeeded had the fiend permitted me to take possession again, for I did not wish Arabella's father to suppose for one instant that he was a murderer—sneaked on tip-toes from the building, and, mumbling to himself in an insane fashion, disappeared in the crowd of pedestrians on the street.

"'This is a pretty mess you've got us into,' said the fiend. 'I should like to know what excuse you can have for such infernal duplicity as you have been guilty of?'

"'I cannot discuss this matter with you,' I answered. 'The duplicity is not mine, but yours. You have endeavoured to exercise rights which were clearly not yours to exercise. I informed you that in matters of love—'

"'Matters of love!' he ejaculated. 'Do you[152] call this a matter of love? Do you think it's a matter of love for an entire stranger to throw a two-pound crystal inkstand loaded with ink at the very core of my waistcoat? Is it a matter of love for a grey-haired villain like that to drag me or you, whichever way you choose to put it, down a flight of stairs and then knock the life out of us? It seems to me, you have a strange idea of love.'

"'Don't you understand!' I cried. 'That man was only doing his duty. He is Arabella's father!'

"'Again, I must ask,' said the fiend, in a manner that aggravated me as it had aggravated the old gentleman, 'who, in all creation, is Arabella?'

"'My fiancée!' I yelled. 'My fiancée, you poor blind omniscient! Whom did you suppose?'

"As I uttered these words, Hopkins, the fiend's whole manner changed. He was no longer flustered and angry merely; he was a determined and very angry being. He rose from his chair, and fixing his eye upon the point where he thought I was—and he had a faculty of establishing that point accurately at all times—and pointing that horrible finger of his at me, fairly hissed with rage.

"'That settles it, sir,' he cried. 'You and[153] I part for ever. You, by your foolish perversity, by your inexplicable lack of candour, by your sinful refusal to trust your welfare to my hands, who have done so much for you, have nearly overthrown the whole structure of the greatness I have builded up. Your idiotic behaviour has decided me to do that which from the very beginning I have most feared. I have been haunted by the fear that you would want to marry some woman simply for the empty, mortal reason that you loved her, utterly ignoring the fact that by a judicious matrimonial step you could attain to heights that otherwise could never be yours. Having your interests entirely in view, I had arranged a match which would strengthen into permanence your, at present, rather uncertain hold upon society. Lady Ariadne Maude Fackleton, to whom you are at present engaged, as the daughter of the Earl of Pupley, can give you the entrée to the best circles in London or out of it; while this Arabella of yours can serve only to assist you in spending your income and keeping your parlour free from dust. Now, what earthly use was there in your philandering—'

"'I fancy I have a right to select my own wife,' I said.

"'You always were strong on fancies,' he[154] retorted. 'You might have known that with the career opening up before you a plain Arabella would never do. Do you suppose you could take her to a ball at the Earl of Mawlberry's? Do you suppose that any woman, in fact, who would consent to marry you as your weak inefficient self could go anywhere and do me justice? I guess not; and your behaviour has settled our partnership for ever. We part for good.'

"'Well, I'm glad of it,' I retorted, goaded to anger by his words. 'Get out. I don't want to see you again. You've ruined me by putting me in false positions from the time we met until now, and I am sick of it. You can't leave too soon to suit me.'

"When I had spoken these words he darted one final venomous glance at me, and walked whistling from the room. As long as his whistle was perceptible I remained quiet—quiet as my agitation would permit; and then, when the last flute-like note died away in the distance, I floated from the room and down the stairs to get my poor bruised body and put it in shape to call on Arabella.

"Hopkins, when I reached the foot of the stairs my body had disappeared! I was frantic with fear. I did not know whether it had been found by the janitor and conveyed to[155] the morgue, whether Arabella's father had returned to conceal it, and so conceal his fancied crime, or whether the fiend had finally crowned his infamous work by stealing it. I sought for it in vain. Forgetful of my invisibility, I asked the janitor if he had seen it, and he fled shrieking with fear from the building, and declined ever thereafter to enter it again. Every nook and corner in the Temple I searched and found it not, and then I floated dejectedly to Arabella's home, where I found her embracing her father in a last fond farewell. The old gentleman was about leaving the country to escape the consequences of his crime.

"'Arabella!' I cried, as I entered the room.

"The girl turned a deadly white, and her father fell cringing upon his knees, and then I realized that, recognizing my voice, they feared my ghost had come to haunt them, and with this realization came to my consciousness the overwhelming thought that both would go insane were I to persist in speaking while invisible.

"The situation, Hopkins, was absolutely terrible, and if I had had my teeth I should have gnashed them for the very helplessness of my condition."

"Did the old gentleman persist in his[156] determination to leave the country?" asked Hopkins.

"He did. He sailed for the United States on a small freight schooner that night, and reached New York in time to hear in that far-off clime of the marriage of his supposed victim; but I must not anticipate," said the exile.

"For three weeks after that horrible day I never caught sight of my missing person, nor did I discover the slightest clue as to its whereabouts. It never turned up at my quarters that I could learn, but that it was not dead or buried I had good reason to believe; for one morning, while I was away from my rooms floating along Rotten Row, hoping to catch sight of myself if perchance I still lived, four truckmen arrived at the Temple here and moved all my clothes and furniture, whither I never discovered, in consequence of which act, upon my return here, I found the room cold and bare as a barn."

"That was rank robbery," said Toppleton.

"We should have trouble in establishing that fact in court," returned the exile. "I could not deny on oath that my hand had penned the order for the removal of the goods, and as for the clothes and other things, most of them[157] had been bought by the money I had earned through the fiend's instrumentality."

"That is so," said Toppleton, hastily acquiescing in the exile's words, lest