CHAPTER XLII.

"CAN YOU BE READY IN TEN MINUTES?"

After leaving Melmotte's house on Sunday morning Paul Montague went

to Roger Carbury's hotel and found his friend just returning from

church. He was bound to go to Islington on that day, but had made up

his mind that he would defer his visit till the evening. He would

dine early and be with Mrs. Hurtle about seven o'clock. But it was

necessary that Roger should hear the news about Ruby Ruggles. "It's

not so bad as you thought," said he, "as she is living with her

aunt."

"I never heard of such an aunt."

"She says her grandfather knows where she is, and that he doesn't

want her back again."

"Does she see Felix Carbury?"

"I think she does," said Paul.

"Then it doesn't matter whether the woman's her aunt or not. I'll go

and see her and try to get her back to Bungay."

"Why not send for John Crumb?"

Roger hesitated for a moment, and then answered, "He'd give Felix

such a thrashing as no man ever had before. My cousin deserves it as

well as any man ever deserved a thrashing; but there are reasons why

I should not like it. And he could not force her back with him. I

don't suppose the girl is all bad,--if she could see the truth."

"I don't think she's bad at all."

"At any rate I'll go and see her," said Roger. "Perhaps I shall see

your widow at the same time." Paul sighed, but said nothing more

about his widow at that moment. "I'll walk up to Welbeck Street now,"

said Roger, taking his hat. "Perhaps I shall see you to-morrow." Paul

felt that he could not go to Welbeck Street with his friend.

He dined in solitude at the Beargarden, and then again made that

journey to Islington in a cab. As he went he thought of the proposal

that had been made to him by Melmotte. If he could do it with a clear

conscience, if he could really make himself believe in the railway,

such an expedition would not be displeasing to him. He had said

already more than he had intended to say to Hetta Carbury; and though

he was by no means disposed to flatter himself, yet he almost thought

that what he had said had been well received. At the moment they had

been disturbed, but she, as she heard the sound of her mother coming,

had at any rate expressed no anger. He had almost been betrayed into

breaking a promise. Were he to start now on this journey, the period

of the promise would have passed by before his return. Of course

he would take care that she should know that he had gone in the

performance of a duty. And then he would escape from Mrs. Hurtle,

and would be able to make those inquiries which had been suggested

to him. It was possible that Mrs. Hurtle should offer to go with

him,--an arrangement which would not at all suit him. That at any

rate must be avoided. But then how could he do this without a belief

in the railway generally? And how was it possible that he should have

such belief? Mr. Ramsbottom did not believe in it, nor did Roger

Carbury. He himself did not in the least believe in Fisker, and

Fisker had originated the railway. Then, would it not be best that he

should take the Chairman's offer as to his own money? If he could get

his £6,000 back and have done with the railway, he would certainly

think himself a lucky man. But he did not know how far he could with

honesty lay aside his responsibility; and then he doubted whether he

could put implicit trust in Melmotte's personal guarantee for the

amount. This at any rate was clear to him,--that Melmotte was very

anxious to secure his absence from the meetings of the Board.

Now he was again at Mrs. Pipkin's door, and again it was opened

by Ruby Ruggles. His heart was in his mouth as he thought of the

things he had to say. "The ladies have come back from Southend, Miss

Ruggles?"

"Oh yes, sir, and Mrs. Hurtle is expecting you all the day." Then she

put in a whisper on her own account. "You didn't tell him as you'd

seen me, Mr. Montague?"

"Indeed I did, Miss Ruggles."

"Then you might as well have left it alone, and not have been

ill-natured,--that's all," said Ruby as she opened the door of Mrs.

Hurtle's room.

Mrs. Hurtle got up to receive him with her sweetest smile,--and her

smile could be very sweet. She was a witch of a woman, and, as like

most witches she could be terrible, so like most witches she could

charm. "Only fancy," she said, "that you should have come the only

day I have been two hundred yards from the house, except that evening

when you took me to the play. I was so sorry."

"Why should you be sorry? It is easy to come again."

"Because I don't like to miss you, even for a day. But I wasn't well,

and I fancied that the house was stuffy, and Mrs. Pipkin took a

bright idea and proposed to carry me off to Southend. She was dying

to go herself. She declared that Southend was Paradise."

"A cockney Paradise."

"Oh, what a place it is! Do your people really go to Southend and

fancy that that is the sea?"

"I believe they do. I never went to Southend myself,--so that you

know more about it than I do."

"How very English it is,--a little yellow river,--and you call it the

sea! Ah;--you never were at Newport!"

"But I've been at San Francisco."

"Yes; you've been at San Francisco, and heard the seals howling.

Well; that's better than Southend."

"I suppose we do have the sea here in England. It's generally

supposed we're an island."

"Of course;--but things are so small. If you choose to go to the west

of Ireland, I suppose you'd find the Atlantic. But nobody ever does

go there for fear of being murdered." Paul thought of the gentleman

in Oregon, but said nothing;--thought, perhaps, of his own condition,

and remembered that a man might be murdered without going either to

Oregon or the west of Ireland. "But we went to Southend, I, and Mrs.

Pipkin and the baby, and upon my word I enjoyed it. She was so afraid

that the baby would annoy me, and I thought the baby was so much the

best of it. And then we ate shrimps, and she was so humble. You must

acknowledge that with us nobody would be so humble. Of course I paid.

She has got all her children, and nothing but what she can make out

of these lodgings. People are just as poor with us;--and other people

who happen to be a little better off, pay for them. But nobody is

humble to another, as you are here. Of course we like to have money

as well as you do, but it doesn't make so much difference."

"He who wants to receive, all the world over, will make himself as

agreeable as he can to him who can give."

"But Mrs. Pipkin was so humble. However we got back all right

yesterday evening, and then I found that you had been here,--at

last."

"You knew that I had to go to Liverpool."

"I'm not going to scold. Did you get your business done at

Liverpool?"

"Yes;--one generally gets something done, but never anything very

satisfactorily. Of course it's about this railway."

"I should have thought that that was satisfactory. Everybody talks

of it as being the greatest thing ever invented. I wish I was a man

that I might be concerned with a really great thing like that. I hate

little peddling things. I should like to manage the greatest bank

in the world, or to be Captain of the biggest fleet, or to make the

largest railway. It would be better even than being President of a

Republic, because one would have more of one's own way. What is it

that you do in it, Paul?"

"They want me now to go out to Mexico about it," said he slowly.

"Shall you go?" said she, throwing herself forward and asking the

question with manifest anxiety.

"I think not."

"Why not? Do go. Oh, Paul, I would go with you. Why should you not

go? It is just the thing for such a one as you to do. The railway

will make Mexico a new country, and then you would be the man who had

done it. Why should you throw away such a chance as that? It will

never come again. Emperors and kings have tried their hands at Mexico

and have been able to do nothing. Emperors and kings never can do

anything. Think what it would be to be the regenerator of Mexico!"

"Think what it would be to find one's self there without the means of

doing anything, and to feel that one had been sent there merely that

one might be out of the way."

"I would make the means of doing something."

"Means are money. How can I make that?"

"There is money going. There must be money where there is all this

buying and selling of shares. Where does your uncle get the money

with which he is living like a prince at San Francisco? Where does

Fisker get the money with which he is speculating in New York? Where

does Melmotte get the money which makes him the richest man in the

world? Why should not you get it as well as the others?"

"If I were anxious to rob on my own account perhaps I might do it."

"Why should it be robbery? I do not want you to live in a palace

and spend millions of dollars on yourself. But I want you to have

ambition. Go to Mexico, and chance it. Take San Francisco in your

way, and get across the country. I will go every yard with you. Make

people there believe that you are in earnest, and there will be no

difficulty about the money."

He felt that he was taking no steps to approach the subject which he

should have to discuss before he left her,--or rather the statement

which he had resolved that he would make. Indeed every word which

he allowed her to say respecting this Mexican project carried him

farther away from it. He was giving reasons why the journey should

not be made; but was tacitly admitting that if it were to be made she

might be one of the travellers. The very offer on her part implied

an understanding that his former abnegation of his engagement had

been withdrawn, and yet he shrunk from the cruelty of telling her,

in a side-way fashion, that he would not submit to her companionship

either for the purpose of such a journey or for any other purpose.

The thing must be said in a solemn manner, and must be introduced on

its own basis. But such preliminary conversation as this made the

introduction of it infinitely more difficult.

"You are not in a hurry?" she said.

"Oh no."

"You're going to spend the evening with me like a good man? Then I'll

ask them to let us have tea." She rang the bell and Ruby came in, and

the tea was ordered. "That young lady tells me that you are an old

friend of hers."

"I've known about her down in the country, and was astonished to find

her here yesterday."

"There's some lover, isn't there;--some would-be husband whom she

does not like?"

"And some won't-be husband, I fear, whom she does like."

"That's quite of course, if the other is true. Miss Ruby isn't

the girl to have come to her time of life without a preference.

The natural liking of a young woman for a man in a station above

her, because he is softer and cleaner and has better parts of

speech,--just as we keep a pretty dog if we keep a dog at all,--is

one of the evils of the inequality of mankind. The girl is content

with the love without having the love justified, because the object

is more desirable. She can only have her love justified with an

object less desirable. If all men wore coats of the same fabric, and

had to share the soil of the work of the world equally between them,

that evil would come to an end. A woman here and there might go wrong

from fantasy and diseased passions, but the ever-existing temptation

to go wrong would be at an end."

"If men were equal to-morrow and all wore the same coats, they would

wear different coats the next day."

"Slightly different. But there would be no more purple and fine

linen, and no more blue woad. It isn't to be done in a day of course,

nor yet in a century,--nor in a decade of centuries; but every human

being who looks into it honestly will see that his efforts should be

made in that direction. I remember; you never take sugar; give me

that."

Neither had he come here to discuss the deeply interesting questions

of women's difficulties and immediate or progressive equality. But

having got on to these rocks,--having, as the reader may perceive,

been taken on to them wilfully by the skill of the woman,--he did not

know how to get his bark out again into clear waters. But having his

own subject before him, with all its dangers, the wild-cat's claws,

and the possible fate of the gentleman in Oregon, he could not talk

freely on the subjects which she introduced, as had been his wont

in former years. "Thanks," he said, changing his cup. "How well you

remember!"

"Do you think I shall ever forget your preferences and dislikings? Do

you recollect telling me about that blue scarf of mine, that I should

never wear blue?"

She stretched herself out towards him, waiting for an answer,

so that he was obliged to speak. "Of course I do. Black is your

colour;--black and grey; or white,--and perhaps yellow when you

choose to be gorgeous; crimson possibly. But not blue or green."

"I never thought much of it before, but I have taken your word for

gospel. It is very good to have an eye for such things,--as you have,

Paul. But I fancy that taste comes with, or at any rate forbodes, an

effete civilisation."

"I am sorry that mine should be effete," he said smiling.

"You know what I mean, Paul. I speak of nations, not individuals.

Civilisation was becoming effete, or at any rate men were, in

the time of the great painters; but Savanarola and Galileo were

individuals. You should throw your lot in with a new people. This

railway to Mexico gives you the chance."

"Are the Mexicans a new people?"

"They who will rule the Mexicans are. All American women I dare say

have bad taste in gowns,--and so the vain ones and rich ones send to

Paris for their finery; but I think our taste in men is generally

good. We like our philosophers; we like our poets; we like our

genuine workmen;--but we love our heroes. I would have you a hero,

Paul." He got up from his chair and walked about the room in an

agony of despair. To be told that he was expected to be a hero

at the very moment in his life in which he felt more devoid of

heroism, more thoroughly given up to cowardice than he had ever been

before, was not to be endured! And yet, with what utmost stretch of

courage,--even though he were willing to devote himself certainly and

instantly to the worst fate that he had pictured to himself,--could

he immediately rush away from these abstract speculations, encumbered

as they were with personal flattery, into his own most unpleasant,

most tragic matter! It was the unfitness that deterred him and

not the possible tragedy. Nevertheless, through it all, he was

sure,--nearly sure,--that she was playing her game, and playing it

in direct antagonism to the game which she knew that he wanted to

play. Would it not be better that he should go away and write another

letter? In a letter he could at any rate say what he had to say;--and

having said it he would then strengthen himself to adhere to it.

"What makes you so uneasy?" she asked; still speaking in her most

winning way, caressing him with the tones of her voice. "Do you not

like me to say that I would have you be a hero?"

"Winifrid," he said, "I came here with a purpose, and I had better

carry it out."

"What purpose?" She still leaned forward, but now supported her face

on her two hands with her elbows resting on her knees, looking at him

intently. But one would have said that there was only love in her

eyes;--love which might be disappointed, but still love. The wild

cat, if there, was all within, still hidden from sight. Paul stood

with his hands on the back of a chair, propping himself up and trying

to find fitting words for the occasion. "Stop, my dear," she said.

"Must the purpose be told to-night?"

"Why not to-night?"

"Paul, I am not well;--I am weak now. I am a coward. You do not know

the delight to me of having a few words of pleasant talk to an old

friend after the desolation of the last weeks. Mrs. Pipkin is not

very charming. Even her baby cannot supply all the social wants of my

life. I had intended that everything should be sweet to-night. Oh,

Paul, if it was your purpose to tell me of your love, to assure me

that you are still my dear, dear friend, to speak with hope of future

days, or with pleasure of those that are past,--then carry out your

purpose. But if it be cruel, or harsh, or painful; if you had come to

speak daggers;--then drop your purpose for to-night. Try and think

what my solitude must have been to me, and let me have one hour of

comfort."

Of course he was conquered for that night, and could only have that

solace which a most injurious reprieve could give him. "I will not

harass you, if you are ill," he said.

"I am ill. It was because I was afraid that I should be really ill

that I went to Southend. The weather is hot, though of course the sun

here is not as we have it. But the air is heavy,--what Mrs. Pipkin

calls muggy. I was thinking if I were to go somewhere for a week, it

would do me good. Where had I better go?" Paul suggested Brighton.

"That is full of people; is it not?--a fashionable place?"

"Not at this time of the year."

"But it is a big place. I want some little place that would be

pretty. You could take me down; could you not? Not very far, you

know;--not that any place can be very far from here." Paul, in his

John Bull displeasure, suggested Penzance, telling her, untruly, that

it would take twenty-four hours. "Not Penzance then, which I know is

your very Ultima Thule;--not Penzance, nor yet Orkney. Is there no

other place,--except Southend?"

"There is Cromer in Norfolk,--perhaps ten hours."

"Is Cromer by the sea?"

"Yes;--what we call the sea."

"I mean really the sea, Paul?"

"If you start from Cromer right away, a hundred miles would perhaps

take you across to Holland. A ditch of that kind wouldn't do

perhaps."

"Ah,--now I see you are laughing at me. Is Cromer pretty?"

"Well, yes;--I think it is. I was there once, but I don't remember

much. There's Ramsgate."

"Mrs. Pipkin told me of Ramsgate. I don't think I should like

Ramsgate."

"There's the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight is very pretty."

"That's the Queen's place. There would not be room for her and me

too."

"Or Lowestoft. Lowestoft is not so far as Cromer, and there is a

railway all the distance."

"And sea?"

"Sea enough for anything. If you can't see across it, and if there

are waves, and wind enough to knock you down, and shipwrecks every

other day, I don't see why a hundred miles isn't as good as a

thousand."

"A hundred miles is just as good as a thousand. But, Paul, at

Southend it isn't a hundred miles across to the other side of the

river. You must admit that. But you will be a better guide than Mrs.

Pipkin. You would not have taken me to Southend when I expressed a

wish for the ocean;--would you? Let it be Lowestoft. Is there an

hotel?"

"A small little place."

"Very small? uncomfortably small? But almost any place would do for

me."

"They make up, I believe, about a hundred beds; but in the States it

would be very small."

"Paul," said she, delighted to have brought him back to this humour,

"if I were to throw the tea things at you, it would serve you right.

This is all because I did not lose myself in awe at the sight of the

Southend ocean. It shall be Lowestoft." Then she rose up and came to

him, and took his arm. "You will take me down, will you not? It is

desolate for a woman to go into such a place all alone. I will not

ask you to stay. And I can return by myself." She had put both hands

on one arm, and turned herself round, and looked into his face. "You

will do that for old acquaintance sake?" For a moment or two he made

no answer, and his face was troubled, and his brow was black. He was

endeavouring to think;--but he was only aware of his danger, and

could see no way through it. "I don't think you will let me ask in

vain for such a favour as that," she said.

"No;" he replied. "I will take you down. When will you go?" He had

cockered himself up with some vain idea that the railway carriage

would be a good place for the declaration of his purpose, or perhaps

the sands at Lowestoft.

"When will I go? when will you take me? You have Boards to attend,

and shares to look to, and Mexico to regenerate. I am a poor woman

with nothing on hand but Mrs. Pipkin's baby. Can you be ready in ten

minutes?--because I could." Paul shook his head and laughed. "I've

named a time and that doesn't suit. Now, sir, you name another, and

I'll promise it shall suit." Paul suggested Saturday, the 29th. He

must attend the next Board, and had promised to see Melmotte before

the Board day. Saturday of course would do for Mrs. Hurtle. Should

she meet him at the railway station? Of course he undertook to come

and fetch her.

Then, as he took his leave, she stood close against him, and put her

cheek up for him to kiss. There are moments in which a man finds it

utterly impossible that he should be prudent,--as to which, when

he thought of them afterwards, he could never forgive himself for

prudence, let the danger have been what it may. Of course he took her

in his arms, and kissed her lips as well as her cheeks.