ANTHONY TROLLOPE: Christmas At Thompson Hall & Other Holiday Sagas. Anthony Trollope
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But when he had got himself and his wife well seated, with their faces to the engine, with a corner seat for her,— there was Mr. Jones immediately opposite to her. Mr. Jones, as soon as he perceived the inconvenience of his position, made a scramble for another place, but he was too late. In that contiguity the journey as far as Calais had to be made. She, poor woman, never once took up her veil. There he sat, without closing an eye, stiff as a ramrod, sometimes showing by little uneasy gestures that the trouble at his neck was still there, but never speaking a word, and hardly moving a limb.
Crossing from Calais to Dover the lady was, of course, , separated from her victim. The passage was very bad, and she more than once reminded her husband how well it would have been with them now had they pursued their journey as she had intended,—as though they had been detained in Paris by his fault! Mr. Jones, as he laid himself down on his back, gave himself up to wondering whether any man before him had ever been made subject to such absolute injustice. Now and again he put his hand up to his own beard, and began to doubt whether it could have been moved, as it must have been moved, without waking him. What if chloroform had been used? Many such suspicions crossed his mind during the misery of that passage.
They were again together in the same railway carriage from Dover to London. They had now got used to the close neighbourhood, and knew how to endure each the presence of the other. But as yet Mr. Jones had never seen the lady’s face. He longed to know what were the features of the woman who had been so blind —if indeed that story were true. Or if it were not true, of what like was the woman who would dare in the middle of the night to play such a trick as that? But still she kept her veil close over her face.
From Cannon Street the Browns took their departure in a cab for the Liverpool Street Station, whence they would be conveyed by the Eastern Counties Railway to Stratford. Now at any rate their troubles were over They would be in ample time, not only for Christmas Day church, but for Christmas Day breakfast. “ It will be just the same as getting in there last night,” said Mr. Brown, as he walked across the platform to place his wife in the carriage for Stratford. She entered it the first, and as she did so there she saw Mr. Jones seated in the corner! Hitherto she had borne his presence well, but now she could not restrain herself from a little start and a little scream. He bowed his head very slightly, as though acknowledging the compliment, and then down she dropped her veil. When they arrived at Stratford, the journey being over in a quarter of an hour, Jones was out of the carriage even before the Browns.
“There is Uncle John’s carriage,” said Mrs. Brown, thinking that now, at any rate, she would be able to free herself from the presence of this terrible stranger. No doubt he was a handsome man to look at, but on no face so sternly hostile had she ever before fixed her eyes. She did not, perhaps, reflect that the owner of no other face had ever been so deeply injured by herself.
Chapter V.
Mrs. Brown at Thompson Hall
“PLEASE, sir, we were to ask for Mr. Jones,” said the servant, putting his head into the carriage after both Mr. and Mrs. Brown had seated themselves. “ Mr. Jones! “ exclaimed the husband. “Why ask for Mr. Jones? “ demanded the wife. The servant was about to tender some explanation when Mr. Jones stepped up and said that he was Mr. Jones. “We are going to Thompson Hall,” said the lady with great vigour.
“So am I,” said Mr. Jones, with much dignity. It was, however, arranged that he should sit with the coachman, as there was a rumble behind for the other servant. The luggage was put into a cart, and away all went for Thompson Hall.
“What do you think about it, Mary? “ whispered Mr. Brown, after a pause. He was evidently awestruck by the horror of the occasion.
“I cannot make it out at all. What do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. Jones going to Thompson Hall?”
“He’s a very good-looking young man,” said Mrs. Brown.
“Well;—that’s as people think. A stiff, stuck-up fellow, I should say. Up to this moment he has never forgiven you for what you did to him.”
“Would you have forgiven his wife, Charles, if she’d done it to you?”
“He hasn’t got a wife,—yet.”
“How do you know?”
“He is coming home now to be married,” said Mr. Brown. “He expects to meet the young lady this very Christmas Day. He told me so. That was one of the reasons why he was so angry at being stopped by what you did last night.”
“I suppose he knows Uncle John, or he wouldn’t be going to the Hall,” said Mrs. Brown.
“I can’t make it out,” said Mr. Brown, shaking his head.
“He looks quite like a gentleman,” said Mrs. Brown, “ though he has been so stiff. Jones! Barnaby Jones! You’re sure it was Barnaby?”
“That was the name on the card.”
“Not Burnaby? “ asked Mrs. Brown.
“It was Barnaby Jones on the card,—just the same as Barnaby Rudge,’ and as for looking like a gentleman, I’m by no means quite so sure. A gentleman takes an apology when it’s offered.”
“Perhaps, my dear, that depends on the condition of his throat. If you had had a mustard plaster on all night, you might not have liked it. But here we are at Thompson Hall at last.”
Thompson Hall was an old brick mansion, standing within a huge iron gate, with a gravel sweep-before it. It had stood there before Stratford was a town, or even a suburb, and had then been known by the name of Bow Place. But it had been in the hands of the present family for the last thirty years, and was now known far and wide as Thompson Hall,—a comfortable, roomy, old-fashioned place, perhaps a little dark and dull to look at, but much more substantially built than most of our modern villas. Mrs. Brown jumped with alacrity from the carriage, and with a quick step entered the home of her forefathers. Her husband followed her more leisurely, but he, too, felt that he was at home at Thompson Hall. Then Mr. Jones walked in also; —but he looked as thoitgh he were not at all at home. It was still very early, and no one of the family was as yet down. In these circumstances it was almost necessary that something should be said to Mr. Jones.
“Do you know Mr. Thompson?” asked Mr. Brown.
“I never had the pleasure of seeing him,—as yet,” answered Mr. Jones, very stiffly.
“Oh,—I didn’t know;—because you said you were coming here.”
“And I have come here. Are you friends of Mr. Thompson?”
“Oh, dear, yes,” said Mrs. Brown. “I was a Thompson myself before I married.”
“Oh,—indeed! “ said Mr. Jones. “ How very odd, —very odd, indeed.”
During this time the luggage was being brought into the house, and two old family servants were offering them assistance. Would the new corners like to go up to their bedrooms? Then the housekeeper, Mrs. Green, intimated with a wink that Miss Jane would, she was sure, be down quite immediately. The present moment, however, was still very unpleasant. The lady probably had made her guess as to the mystery; but the two gentlemen were still altogether in the dark. Mrs. Brown had no doubt declared her parentage, but Mr. Jones, with such a multitude of strange facts crowding on his mind, had been slow to understand her. Being somewhat suspicious by nature, he was beginning to think whether possibly the mustard had been put by this lady on his throat with some reference to his connexion with Thompson Hall. Could it be that she, for some reason of her own, had wished to prevent his coming, and had contrived this untoward stratagem out of her brain? or had she wished to make him ridiculous to Uhe Thompson family,—to whom, as a family, he was at present unknown? It was becoming more and more improbable to him that the whole thing should have been an accident. When, after the first horrid torments of that morning