Mord Em'ly/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
The sergeant's wife declared herself sorry, but her mother was coming the next day, and the spare room had to be at once prepared for that lady's reception. The sergeant's wife wished Mord Em'ly could have stayed on, and the infant Highlander was also full of regret, but it could not be helped.
"It never rains with me," said Mord Em'ly to herself, "but what it comes down a good old soaker!
Mord Em'ly went off in the evening to Miss Gilliken, and that young lady, after listening at the doorway of the local shelter to Mord Em'ly's account of her difficulties, showed a good deal of surprise on finding that Mord Em'ly had any doubts as to the course of action to be selected. Miss Gilliken, busily engaged in sorting out the applicants for a night's rest, was able to appreciate the facts laid before her.
"Simply take no further notice of him," said Miss Gilliken definitely. That's my—No, Mary Sullivan, it's no use. You kicked up a pretty disturbance the other night, and we don't want any more of your game)—that's my advice. By-the-by, I saw your father—"
"But take no further notice of who?" demanded the amazed Mord Em'ly.
"Of this Wetherell."
"But after I've as good as promised, I must see him and explain to him—"
"You ought not to have as good as promised. It was very wrong of you. I can't imagine what you could 'ave been thinking of All you've got to do now, Mord Emly, is to arrange about the berth, and then sail off and be happy on the other side of the world. Henry Barden's a good chap, and this one, I should rather fancy, isn't."
"But I couldn't," argued Mord Em'ly, "without giving him some explanation. I can't go and behave like that. Why, I should be ashamed to know meself if I did."
"Of course, if you're gone on the chap," said Miss Gilliken, "I can do nothing. (Mrs. Wallen, why on earth don't you hold your baby upright? It can't possibly amuse him to be carried upside down.) If that's the state of the case, Mord Em'ly, I'm afraid that nothing I can say—"
"But I ain't!" declared Mord Em'ly. "I tell you I don't like him. Sometimes I can't stand his conversation one bit. But I've give my word to him, and I could no more slip off without seeing him and giving him an explanation, and letting him understand how I was situated, than I could fly."
"You're a queer girl, Mord Em'ly."
"Queer or unqueer," she said doggedly, "I'm going to behave proper."
"I hope you will," said Gilliken rather pointedly. "(Polly Bell, you've been 'aving jest one 'alf-pint too many, to-night. Don't tell me you can't keep count.) You're young, Mord Em'ly, and you've come now, it seems to me, to an important kind of crossway in your life, and if you take the wrong turning you'll lose yourself. (If you 'aven't got the pence, Polly Bell, you can't go in. You know that as well as I do. And you needn't trouble to cry, because it won't make any difference to me. I know you only too well.) If you like, dear, I'll go with you, and see the man; but you must make up your mind what to do in spite of anything he may say. (Another black eye, Sarah Waters? Lucky for you you've only got two.)"
The next morning, Mord Em'ly and Lieutenant Gilliken, after breakfast in the barracks, went by tram, and called on Mr. Wetherell. Mr. Wetherell lived in a street off London Road, Greenwich, and his landlady, who was rather a dusty-looking old lady, in a very tired crape bonnet, said ambiguously that Wetherell was in and he wasn't in. Translated, this, it appeared, meant that he was in bed. The two young women waited for Mr. Wetherell to arise, and in the passage the three presently held council in an undertone. Mr. Wetherell, who, in the morning, seemed not so much oiled as to hair, and certainly not oiled as to temper, said at once that if Mord Em'ly declined to keep her promise, he would break every bone in her body, and offered rather handsomely to per form a like service for Miss Gilliken as some little recognition of her interference in the matter. The dusty old landlady peered out now and again from the kitchen at the back, and this served to warn Mr. Wetherell, when (forgetting himself) he raised his voice, and caused him to return quickly to moderate tones. He said that he had half-guessed there might be some hanky-panky of this sort, and he had therefore taken such steps as would prevent him from being left out in the cold. He proposed to deal with this affair as he dealt with matters of politics or of organisation, in that he should use plain language, and speak out his mind like a man. If a man or a woman behaved straight to him, he behaved straight to them; if they behaved crooked, he behaved crooked. That was him, all the world over. Mr. Wetherell added that if he were then and there to undertake to write his own epitaph, he would simply take a pen, dip it in the ink, seat himself at the table and write these words: "He was as open as the day." Unfortunately, it appeared that there were people about who did not appreciate all this. The dusty old landlady came forward at this point, and asked whether Mr. Wetherell would like to finish that haddock, or whether he intended to partake of something fresh for breakfast; and he replied, with a good deal of strenuousness, that if the landlady thought that she was going to be allowed to finish the haddock, she was jolly well mistaken.
"Nothing more nor less than thieves, that's what you landladies are," said Mr. Wetherell menacingly. "But you've got a 'ard nut to crack in me, mind you. Get off back to your kitchen when you see me 'olding conversation with two lady friends, can't ye?"
He kept silence until the kitchen door closed, and then he called out:
"None of your listenin' through the key'ole," he shouted suspiciously, "you inquisitive old baggage, you."
"There's an impression abroad," he went on, leaning one large hand against the wall of the passage, and speaking low, "that Ernest Wetherell is a fool. I'm going to take dam good care that wrong impression is, if I may use the term, rectified. I'm going to begin to look after Number One, an occupation I 'ave pre'aps 'itherto neglected."
"But can't you see," argued Miss Gilliken, "That you're flying in the face of all—"
"I'll most cert'nly fly in your face," whispered Mr. Wetherell, "if you can't look after your own affairs. You go Salvation Armying somewhere else; don't you come Salvation Armying 'ere, because I won't 'ave it. 'Ear?"
"I only want to see right done."
"You'll excuse me if I don't exactly see where your locus-standy—to use a foreign expression—comes in. This young woman and me are the only two that are concerned in this little show, and when we want your advice we'll ask for it. Not before!"
"I did ask her for it," interposed Mord Em'ly.
"More fool you, then."
"I think it's not only a great sin," said Miss Gilliken, "but I also think that if you were a man of honour—"
"If!" repeated Mr. Wetherell explosively. "You be careful what you're sayin' of I can stand a lot, but I won't let even a Salvationer cast imputations on my honour. Take care I don't 'ave you up in the lor courts, my gel! If I wasn't a good-tempered chap, I should simply up with me fist and—"
"Stop that!" commanded Mord Em'ly.
"I'm only speaking theoretically," he explained
"Mord Em'ly's got a chance now," said Miss Gilliken, "that may never occur again, and if you dare to stand in her way I shall consider that you're no man."
"My word!" said Mr. Wetherell threateningly "If you wasn't a woman I'd spoil your face for you. I'm a chap of wonderful even temper, and jest because of that some of you think you can say what you like to me. A worm will turn, mind that."
"You ought to know," said Miss Gilliken sharply.
"You're very quick in your back answers," said Wetherell caustically. "I dessay, if the truth was known, you're about as big a 'umbug as the rest of the Salvationers. Nice goings on there are with your set, I lay. And then you 'ave the cool cheek to come 'ere and preach to me, and to lie and to slander, and—"
"It's quite true what Gilliken says," remarked Mord Em'ly, trembling; "and I won't 'ave her spoke to like that. She's my friend!"
"And ain't I your friend?" demanded Mr. Wetherell, in a fierce undertone. "Ain't I flung money the last few days about like so much water jest because I'm your friend? Ain't I given meself 'eadaches trying to think of something fresh for the new 'ome to make you 'appy? Ain't I been busy occupied in worshippin' the very ground you walk on? Very well, then!"
"If you was all you set yourself out to be," interrupted Miss Gilliken, "you'd at the very least have offered to 'ave the banns published, whereas—"
"’Pon me word," said Wetherell, shaking his head at Miss Gilliken, "I'd like to write my name with my blooming fist across your blooming face."
"You dare to talk like that again," said Mord Em'ly fiercely, "and we'll go at once. I like 'Enry Barden a jolly sight more than I like you, and we've only come 'ere to talk it over just so as you shouldn't say I'd behaved unfair."
"Don't try any sloping off to Australia, my gel," said Mr. Wetherell, in tones of earnest advice. "You can't go for nearly a fortnight, as I daresay you know, and if you so much as attempt it you'll be sorry you ever was born."
"I begin to be that now," said Mord Em'ly.
"You'll be sorrier," said Mr. Wetherell meaningly, "if you don't meet me down near the 'Ship' this evening at eight-thirty p.m. And please don't run off from 'ere with the idea that you're dealing with a juggins. For your sake," said Mr. Wetherell pleadingly, "I ask you not to do that."
"Come along, Mord Em'ly," said Miss Gilliken. "We've told him all we wanted to. I shall lose me temper if I stay 'ere much longer."
"Better be 'alf lose your face," advised Mr. Wetherell. "Mord Em'ly, eight-thirty to-night, and don't you forget it. Miss Tambourine, or whatever your name is, we may meet again under 'appier circs."
"Not if I can 'elp it," said Miss Gilliken, shivering.
"I don't promise to be there this evening," said Mord Em'ly nervously.
"As you please," he said, with affectation of great courtesy. "As you please, my gel. Only, if you ain't there, look out for yourself." He came close to her ear, and burst into a scream. "Look out!"
The two young women walked along London Road hand in hand, much as they had at one time walked about the streets of Walworth. Half-unconsciously, they swung each other's arms, and the action intensified the remembrance of old days.
"All your troubles seem to come when you're grown up," said Mord Em'ly. "When I was a youngster, I was as 'appy as 'appy."
"Sure you ain't fond of him?"
"Sure."
"And I hope you're not afraid of him?"
"Well," said Mord Em'ly, with hesitation, "I am rather afraid of him."
"Oh!" remarked the wise Miss Gilliken, "that comes to pretty near the same. By-the-by, I didn't finish telling you about that father of yours."
Mord Em'ly laughed in a hysterical way.
"Go on," she said recklessly. "Let's 'ave it. I'm getting used to worry. I shall begin to enjoy it once I've managed to get the taste for it."
Why, your father," said Gilliken impressively, "was on the penitent form night before last, and if I ain't misjudged him, he's found glory."
"It's a bit late," said Mord Em'ly, "but it can't do him any partic'lar 'arm."