Henry Dunbar (Mystery Classics Series). Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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      Chapter 3

       The Meeting at the Railway Station.

       Table of Contents

      When the hands of the little clock in Margaret’s sitting-room pointed to five minutes before three, James Wentworth rose from his lounging attitude in the easy-chair, and took his hat from a side-table.

      “Are you going out, father?” the girl asked.

      “Yes, Madge; I’m going up to London. It don’t do for me to sit still too long. Bad thoughts come fast enough at any time; but they come fastest when a fellow sits twirling his thumbs. Don’t look so frightened, Madge; I’m not going to do any harm. I’m only going to look about me. I may fall in with a bit of luck, perhaps; no matter what, if it puts a few shillings into my pocket.”

      “I’d rather you stayed at home, father dear,” Margaret said, gently.

      “I dare say you would, child. But I tell you, I can’t. I can’t sit quiet this afternoon. I’ve been talking of things that always seem to set my brain on fire. No harm shall come of my going away, girl; I promise you that. The worst I shall do is to sit in a tavern parlour, drink a glass of gin-and-water, and read the papers. There’s no crime in that, is there, Madge?”

      His daughter smiled as she tried to arrange the shabby velvet collar of his threadbare coat.

      “No, father dear,” she said; “and I’m sure I always wish you to enjoy yourself. But you’ll come home soon, won’t you?”

      “What do you call ‘soon,’ my lass?”

      “Before ten o’clock. My day’s work will be all over long before that, and I’ll try and get something nice for your supper.”

      “Very well, then, I’ll be back by ten o’clock to-night. There’s my hand upon it.”

      He gave Margaret his hand, kissed her smooth cheeks, took his cane from a corner of the room, and then went out.

      His daughter watched him from the open window as he walked up the narrow lane, amongst the groups of children gathered every here and there upon the dusty pathway.

      “Heaven have pity upon him, and keep him from sin!” murmured Margaret Wentworth, clasping her hands, and with her eyes still following the retreating figure.

      James Wentworth jingled the money in his waistcoat-pocket as he walked towards the railway station. He had very little; a couple of sixpences and a few halfpence. Just about enough to pay for a second-class return ticket, and for his glass of gin-and-water at a London tavern.

      He reached the station three minutes before the train was due, and took his ticket.

      At half-past three he was in London.

      But as he was an idle, purposeless man, without friends to visit or money to spend, he was in no hurry to leave the railway station.

      He hated solitude or quiet; and here in this crowded terminus there was life and bustle and variety enough in all conscience; and all to be seen for nothing: so he strolled backwards and forwards upon the platform, watching the busy porters, the eager passengers rushing to and fro, and meditating as to where he should spend the rest of his afternoon.

      By-and-by he stood against a wooden pillar in a doorway, looking at the cabs, as, one after another, they tore up to the station, and disgorged their loads.

      He had witnessed the arrival of a great many different travellers, when his attention was suddenly arrested by a little old man, wan and wizen and near-sighted, feeble-looking, but active, who alighted from a cab, and gave his small black-leather portmanteau into the hands of a porter.

      This man was Sampson Wilmot, the old confidential clerk in the house of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby.

      James Wentworth followed the old man and the porter.

      “I wonder if it is he,” he muttered to himself; “there’s a likeness — there’s certainly a likeness. But it’s so many years ago — so many years — I don’t suppose I should know him. And yet this man recalls him to me somehow. I’ll keep my eye upon the old fellow, at any rate.”

      Sampson Wilmot had arrived at the station about ten minutes before the starting of the train. He asked some questions of the porter, and left his portmanteau in the man’s care while he went to get his ticket.

      James Wentworth lingered behind, and contrived to look at the portmanteau.

      There was a label pasted on the lid, with an address, written in a business-like hand —

      “MR. SAMPSON WILMOT,

       PASSENGER TO SOUTHAMPTON.”

      James Wentworth gave a long whistle.

      “I thought as much,” he muttered; “I thought I couldn’t be mistaken!”

      He went into the ticket-office, where the clerk was standing amongst the crowd, waiting to take his ticket.

      James Wentworth went up close to him, and touched him lightly on the shoulder.

      Sampson Wilmot turned and looked him full in the face. He looked, but there was no ray of recognition in that look.

      “Do you want me, sir?” he asked, with rather a suspicious glance at the reprobate’s shabby dress.

      “Yes, Mr. Wilmot, I want to speak to you. You can come into the waiting-room with me, after you’ve taken your ticket.”

      The clerk stared aghast. The tone of this shabby-looking stranger was almost one of command.

      “I don’t know you, my good sir,” stammered Sampson; “I never set eyes upon you before; and unless you are a messenger sent after me from the office, you must be under a mistake. You are a stranger to me!”

      “I am no stranger, and I am no messenger!” answered the other. “You’ve got your ticket? That’s all right! Now you can come with me.”

      He walked into a waiting-room, the half-glass doors of which opened out of the office. The room was empty, for it only wanted five minutes to the starting of the train, and the passengers had hurried off to take their seats.

      James Wentworth took off his hat, and brushed his rumpled grey hair from his forehead.

      “Put on your spectacles, Sampson Wilmot,” he said, “and look hard at me, and then tell me if I am a stranger to you.”

      The old clerk obeyed, nervously, fearfully. His tremulous hands could scarcely adjust his spectacles.

      He looked at the reprobate’s face for some moments and said nothing. But his breath came quicker and his face grew very pale.

      “Ay,” said James Wentworth, “look your hardest, and deny me if you can. It will be only wise to deny me; I’m no credit to any one — least of all to a steady СКАЧАТЬ