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The Survivor, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 3. The Man Who Was In A Hurry |
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_ CHAPTER III. THE MAN WHO WAS IN A HURRY He lay back in a corner seat of the carriage, panting, white-faced, exhausted. His clumsy boots, studded with nails, were wet, and his frayed black trousers were splashed with mud. In his eyes was the light of vivid fear, his delicate mouth was twitching still with excitement. In his ears there rang yet the angry cry of the guard, the shouting of porters, the excitement of that leap through the hastily-opened carriage door tingled yet in his veins. Before his eyes there was a mist. He was conscious indeed that the carriage which he had marked out as being empty was tenanted by a single person, but he had not even glanced across towards the occupied seat. What mattered it so long as they were off? Already the fields seemed flying past the window, and the telegraph posts had commenced their frantic race. Ten, twenty, forty miles an hour at least-off on that wonderful run, the pride of the directors and the despair of rival companies. Nothing could stop them now. All slower traffic stood aside to let them pass, the express with her two great engines vomiting fire and smoke, crawling across the map, flying across bridges and through tunnels from the heart of the country to the great city. Gradually, and with the exhilaration of their ever increasing speed, the courage of the man revived, and the blood flowed once more warmly through his veins. He lifted his head and looked around him. Shock the first came when he realised that he was in a first-class carriage; shock the second, when he saw that his solitary companion was a lady. He took in the details of her appearance and surroundings--wonderful enough to him who had been brought up in a cottage, and to whom the ways and resources of luxury were all unknown. Every seat save the one which he occupied was covered with her belongings. On one was a half-opened dressing-case filled with gold-topped bottles and emitting a faint, delicate perfume. On another was a pile of books and magazines, opposite to him a sable-lined coat, by his side a luncheon basket and long hunting flask. Then his eyes were caught by an oblong strip of paper pasted across the carriage window--he read it backwards--"Engaged." What an intrusion! He looked towards the woman with stammering words of apology upon his lips--but the words died away. He was tongue-tied. He had met the languid gaze of her dark, full eyes, a little supercilious, a little amused, faintly curious, and his own fell at once before their calm insolence. She was handsomely dressed. The delicate, white hand which held her novel was ablaze with many and wonderful rings. She was evidently tall, without doubt stately. Her black hair, parted in the middle, drooped a little to the side by her ears, her complexion, delightfully clear, was of a curious ivory pallor unassociated with ill-health. She regarded him through a pair of ivory-handled lorgnettes, which she carelessly closed as he looked towards her. "Will you tell me," she asked quietly, "why you have entered my carriage which is engaged--and in such an extraordinary manner?" He drew a little breath. He had never heard a voice like it before--soft, musical, and with the slightest suggestion of a foreign accent. Then he remembered that she was waiting for an answer. He began his apology. "I am sorry--indeed I am very sorry. I had no time to look inside, and I thought it was an empty carriage--a third-class one, too. It was very stupid." "You appeared to be" she remarked, "in a hurry." The faint note of humour in her tone passed undetected by him. "I wanted to get away," he said. "I had walked fourteen miles, and there was no other train. I am very sorry to intrude upon you. The train was moving when I reached the platform, and I jumped." She shrugged her shoulders slightly and raised her book once more. But from over its top she found herself watching very soon this strange travelling companion of hers. The trousers above his clumsy boots were frayed and muddy, his black clothes were shiny and antiquated in cut--these, and his oddly-arranged white tie, somehow suggested the cleric. But when she reached his face her eyes lingered there. It puzzled and in a sense attracted her. His features were cleanly cut and prominent, his complexion was naturally pale, but wind and sun had combined to stain his cheeks with a slight healthy tan. His eyes were deep-set, keen and bright, the eyes of a visionary perhaps, but afire now with the instant excitement of living. A strange face for a man of his apparently humble origin. Whence had he come, and where was he going? The vision of his face as he had leaped into the carriage floated again before her eyes. Surely behind him were evil things, before him--what? She took up her novel again, but laid it down almost immediately. "You are going" she asked, "to London?" "To London," he repeated dreamily. "Yes." "But your luggage--was that left behind?" He smiled. "I have no luggage," he said. "You are going up for the day only?" she hazarded. He shook his head. There was a note of triumph almost in his tone. "I am going for good," he said. "If wishes count for anything I shall never set foot within this county again." There was a story, she felt sure, connected with this strange fellow-passenger of hers. She watched him thoughtfully. A human document such as this was worth many novels. It was not the first time that he had excited her interest. "London" she said, "is a wonderful place for young men." He turned a rapt face towards her. The fire seemed leaping out of his eyes. "Others have found it so," he said. "I go to prove their words." "You are a stranger there, then?" "I have never been further south than this in my life," he replied. "I know only the London of De Quincey and Lamb-London with the halo of romance around it." She sighed gently. "You will find it all so different," she said. "You will be bitterly disappointed." He set his lips firmly together. "I have no fear," he said. "I shall find it possible to live there, at any rate. If I stayed where I was, I must have gone mad." "You are going to friends?" she asked. He laughed softly. "I have not a friend in the world," he said. "In London I do not know a soul. What matter? There is life to be lived there, prizes to be won. There is room for every one." She half closed her eyes, watching him keenly all the time with an interest which was certainly not diminished. "London is a wonderful city," she said, "but she is not always kind to the stranger. You have spoken of De Quincey who wove fairy fancies about her, and Lamb, who was an affectionate stay-at-home, a born dweller in cities. They were dreamers both, these men. What about Chatterton?" "An unhappy exception," he said. "If only he had lived a few months longer his sorrows would have been over." "To-day," she said, "there are many Chattertons who must die before the world will listen to them. Are you going to take your place amongst them?" He smiled confidently. "Not I," he answered. "I shall work with my hands if men will have none of my brains. Indeed," he continued, turning towards her with a swift, transfiguring smile, "I am not a village prodigy going to London with a pocketful of manuscripts. Don't think that of me. I am going to London because I have been stifled and choked--I want room to breathe, to see men and women who live. Oh, you don't know the sort of place I have come from--the brain poison of it, the hideous sameness and narrowness of it all." "Tell me a little," she said, "and why at last you made up your mind to leave. It is not so long, you know, since I saw you in somewhat different guise." A quick shiver seemed to pass through him; underneath his tanned skin he was paler, and the blood in his veins was cold. His eyes, fixed upon the flying landscape, were set in a fixed, unseeing stare--surely the fields were peopled with evil memories, and faces in the trees were mocking him. So he remained for several moments as though in the grip of a nightmare, and the lady watched him. There was a little tragedy, then, behind. "There was a man once," he said, "who drew a line through his life, and said to himself that everything behind it concerned some other person--not him. So with me. Such memories as I have, I shall strangle. To-day I commence a new life." She sighed. "One's past" she said, "is not always so easily to be disposed of. There are ghosts which will haunt us, and sometimes the ghosts are living figures." "Let them come to me," he murmured, "and my fingers shall be upon their throats. I want no such legacies." She shook her head slowly. "Ghosts" she said, with a faint smile, "are sometimes very difficult people to deal with." _ |
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