The Beetle, Richard Marsh [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

should be sorry that anyone should hold you responsible for anything I either said or did.”

“Very well!⁠—Your blood be on your own head!”

“My blood?”

“Yes⁠—your blood. I shouldn’t be surprised if it comes to blood before we’re through.⁠—Perhaps you’ll oblige me with the loan of one of that arsenal of revolvers of which you spoke.”

I let him have his old revolver⁠—or, rather, I let him have one of papa’s new ones. He put it in the hip pocket in his trousers. And the expedition started⁠—in a four-wheeled car.

XXIX The House on the Road from the Workhouse

Mr. Holt looked as if he was in somebody else’s garments. He was so thin, and worn, and wasted, that the suit of clothes which one of the men had lent him hung upon him as on a scarecrow. I was almost ashamed of myself for having incurred a share of the responsibility of taking him out of bed. He seemed so weak and bloodless that I should not have been surprised if he had fainted on the road. I had taken care that he should eat as much as he could eat before we started⁠—the suggestion of starvation which he had conveyed to one’s mind was dreadful!⁠—and I had brought a flask of brandy in case of accidents, but, in spite of everything, I could not conceal from myself that he would be more at home in a sickbed than in a jolting cab.

It was not a cheerful drive. There was in Sydney’s manner towards me an air of protection which I instinctively resented⁠—he appeared to be regarding me as a careful, and anxious, nurse might regard a wrongheaded and disobedient child. Conversation distinctly languished. Since Sydney seemed disposed to patronise me, I was bent on snubbing him. The result was, that the majority of the remarks which were uttered were addressed to Mr. Holt.

The cab stopped⁠—after what had appeared to me to be an interminable journey. I was rejoiced at the prospect of its being at an end. Sydney put his head out of the window. A short parley with the driver ensued.

“This is ’Ammersmith Workhouse, it’s a large place, sir⁠—which part of it might you be wanting?”

Sydney appealed to Mr. Holt. He put his head out of the window in his turn⁠—he did not seem to recognise our surroundings at all.

“We have come a different way⁠—this is not the way I went; I went through Hammersmith⁠—and to the casual ward; I don’t see that here.”

Sydney spoke to the cabman.

“Driver, where’s the casual ward?”

“That’s the other end, sir.”

“Then take us there.”

He took us there. Then Sydney appealed again to Mr. Holt.

“Shall I dismiss the cabman⁠—or don’t you feel equal to walking?”

“Thank you, I feel quite equal to walking⁠—I think the exercise will do me good.”

So the cabman was dismissed⁠—a step which we⁠—and I, in particular⁠—had subsequent cause to regret. Mr. Holt took his bearings. He pointed to a door which was just in front of us.

“That’s the entrance to the casual ward, and that, over it, is the window through which the other man threw a stone. I went to the right⁠—back the way I had come.” We went to the right. “I reached this corner.” We had reached a corner. Mr. Holt looked about him, endeavouring to recall the way he had gone. A good many roads appeared to converge at that point, so that he might have wandered in either of several directions.

Presently he arrived at something like a decision.

“I think this is the way I went⁠—I am nearly sure it is.”

He led the way, with something of an air of dubitation, and we followed. The road he had chosen seemed to lead to nothing and nowhere. We had not gone many yards from the workhouse gates before we were confronted by something like chaos. In front and on either side of us were large spaces of waste land. At some more or less remote period attempts appeared to have been made at brick-making⁠—there were untidy stacks of bilious-looking bricks in evidence. Here and there enormous weather-stained boards announced that “This Desirable Land was to be Let for Building Purposes.” The road itself was unfinished. There was no pavement, and we had the bare uneven ground for sidewalk. It seemed, so far as I could judge, to lose itself in space, and to be swallowed up by the wilderness of “Desirable Land” which lay beyond. In the near distance there were houses enough, and to spare⁠—of a kind. But they were in other roads. In the one in which we actually were, on the right, at the end, there was a row of unfurnished carcases, but only two buildings which were in anything like a fit state for occupation. One stood on either side, not facing each other⁠—there was a distance between them of perhaps fifty yards. The sight of them had a more exciting effect on Mr. Holt than it had on me. He moved rapidly forward⁠—coming to a standstill in front of the one upon our left, which was the nearer of the pair.

“This is the house!” he exclaimed.

He seemed almost exhilarated⁠—I confess that I was depressed. A more dismal-looking habitation one could hardly imagine. It was one of those dreadful jerry-built houses which, while they are still new, look old. It had quite possibly only been built a year or two, and yet, owing to neglect, or to poverty of construction, or to a combination of the two, it was already threatening to tumble down. It was a small place, a couple of storeys high, and would have been dear⁠—I should think!⁠—at thirty pounds a year. The windows had surely never been washed since the house was built⁠—those on the upper floor seemed all either cracked or broken. The only sign of occupancy consisted in the fact that a blind was down behind the window of the room on the ground floor. Curtains there were none. A low wall ran in front, which had apparently at one time been surmounted by something