Hard Times, Charles Dickens [little red riding hood ebook txt] 📗

as he could. That was not particularly well; for he remained in the greatest perplexity, and, as the hours went on, and no kind of explanation offered itself, his perplexity augmented at compound interest.

However, he took affairs as coolly as it was in human nature to do, and entertained himself with the facetious idea of the training more than once. “It wouldn’t be bad,” he yawned at one time, “to give the waiter five shillings, and throw him.” At another time it occurred to him, “Or a fellow of about thirteen or fourteen stone might be hired by the hour.” But these jests did not tell materially on the afternoon, or his suspense; and, sooth to say, they both lagged fearfully.

It was impossible, even before dinner, to avoid often walking about in the pattern of the carpet, looking out of the window, listening at the door for footsteps, and occasionally becoming rather hot when any steps approached that room. But, after dinner, when the day turned to twilight, and the twilight turned to night, and still no communication was made to him, it began to be as he expressed it, “like the Holy Office and slow torture.” However, still true to his conviction that indifference was the genuine high-breeding (the only conviction he had), he seized this crisis as the opportunity for ordering candles and a newspaper.

He had been trying in vain, for half an hour, to read this newspaper, when the waiter appeared and said, at once mysteriously and apologetically:

“Beg your pardon, sir. You’re wanted, sir, if you please.”

A general recollection that this was the kind of thing the police said to the swell mob, caused Mr. Harthouse to ask the waiter in return, with bristling indignation, what the Devil he meant by “wanted”?

“Beg your pardon, sir. Young lady outside, sir, wishes to see you.”

“Outside? Where?”

“Outside this door, sir.”

Giving the waiter to the personage before mentioned, as a blockhead duly qualified for that consignment, Mr. Harthouse hurried into the gallery. A young woman whom he had never seen stood there. Plainly dressed, very quiet, very pretty. As he conducted her into the room and placed a chair for her, he observed, by the light of the candles, that she was even prettier than he had at first believed. Her face was innocent and youthful, and its expression remarkably pleasant. She was not afraid of him, or in any way disconcerted; she seemed to have her mind entirely preoccupied with the occasion of her visit, and to have substituted that consideration for herself.

“I speak to Mr. Harthouse?” she said, when they were alone.

“To Mr. Harthouse.” He added in his mind, “And you speak to him with the most confiding eyes I ever saw, and the most earnest voice (though so quiet) I ever heard.”

“If I do not understand⁠—and I do not, sir”⁠—said Sissy, “what your honour as a gentleman binds you to, in other matters:” the blood really rose in his face as she began in these words: “I am sure I may rely upon it to keep my visit secret, and to keep secret what I am going to say. I will rely upon it, if you will tell me I may so far trust⁠—”

“You may, I assure you.”

“I am young, as you see; I am alone, as you see. In coming to you, sir, I have no advice or encouragement beyond my own hope.” He thought, “But that is very strong,” as he followed the momentary upward glance of her eyes. He thought besides, “This is a very odd beginning. I don’t see where we are going.”

“I think,” said Sissy, “you have already guessed whom I left just now!”

“I have been in the greatest concern and uneasiness during the last four-and-twenty hours (which have appeared as many years),” he returned, “on a lady’s account. The hopes I have been encouraged to form that you come from that lady, do not deceive me, I trust.”

“I left her within an hour.”

“At⁠—!”

“At her father’s.”

Mr. Harthouse’s face lengthened in spite of his coolness, and his perplexity increased. “Then I certainly,” he thought, “do not see where we are going.”

“She hurried there last night. She arrived there in great agitation, and was insensible all through the night. I live at her father’s, and was with her. You may be sure, sir, you will never see her again as long as you live.”

Mr. Harthouse drew a long breath; and, if ever man found himself in the position of not knowing what to say, made the discovery beyond all question that he was so circumstanced. The childlike ingenuousness with which his visitor spoke, her modest fearlessness, her truthfulness which put all artifice aside, her entire forgetfulness of herself in her earnest quiet holding to the object with which she had come; all this, together with her reliance on his easily given promise⁠—which in itself shamed him⁠—presented something in which he was so inexperienced, and against which he knew any of his usual weapons would fall so powerless; that not a word could he rally to his relief.

At last he said:

“So startling an announcement, so confidently made, and by such lips, is really disconcerting in the last degree. May I be permitted to inquire, if you are charged to convey that information to me in those hopeless words, by the lady of whom we speak?”

“I have no charge from her.”

“The drowning man catches at the straw. With no disrespect for your judgment, and with no doubt of your sincerity, excuse my saying that I cling to the belief that there is yet hope that I am not condemned to perpetual exile from that lady’s presence.”

“There is not the least hope. The first object of my coming here, sir, is to assure you that you must believe that there is no more hope of your ever speaking with her again, than there would be if she had died when she came home last night.”

“Must believe? But if I can’t⁠—or if I should, by infirmity of nature, be obstinate⁠—and won’t⁠—”

“It is still true. There