Somehow Good by William Frend De Morgan (best short novels TXT) 📕

"Even though my own name _is_ Rosalind," said she to herself.

It was the readiness and completeness with which the man dropped the subject, and recoiled into himself, that gave the girl courage to make an attempt to satisfy her curiosity. When a man harks back, palpably, on some preoccupation, after exchanging a laugh and an impersonal word or two with a girl who does not know him, it is the best confirmation possible of his previous good faith in seeming more fatherlike than manlike. Rosalind could risk it, surely. "Very likely he has a daughter my age," said she to herself. Then she saw an opening--the thumb-ring.

"Do pray excuse me for asking, but do you find it does good? My mother was recommended to try one."

"This ring? It hasn't done _me_ any good. But then, I have hardly anything the matter. I don't know about other people. I'm sorry I bought it, now. It cost four-and-sixpence, I think. I would sooner have the four-and-sixpence.... Yes, decidedly! I would sooner have the four-and-sixpence."

"Can't you sell it?"

"I don't believe I could get sixpence for it."

"Do please excuse me--I mean, excuse the liberty I take--but I should so much like to--to...."

"To buy it for sixpence? Certainly. Why not? Much better than paying four-and-six for a new one. Your mother _may_ find it do her good. I don't care about it, and I really have nothing the matter."

He drew the ring off his thumb, and Rosalind took it from him. She slipped it on her finger, over her glove. Naturally it slipped off--a man's thumb-ring! She passed it up inside the glove-palm, through the little slot above the buttons. Then she got out her purse, and looked in to see what its resources were.

"I have only got half-a-crown," said she. The man flushed slightly. Rosalind fancied he was angry, and had supposed she was offering beyond her bargain, which might have implied liberality, or benevolence, or something equally offensive. But it wasn't that at all.

"I have no change," said he. "Never mind about the sixpence. Send me stamps. I'll give you my card." And then he recollected he had no card, and said so.

"It doesn't matter being very exact," said she.

"I have no money at all. Except twopence."

Rosalind hesitated. This man must be very hard up, only he certainly did not give that impression. Still, "no money at all, except twopence!" Would it be safe to try to get the half-crown into his pocket? That was what she wanted to do, but felt she might easily blunder over it. If she was to achieve it, she must be quick, for the public within hearing was already feeling in its pocket, in order to oblige with change for half-a-crown. She _was_ quick.

"_You_ send it _me_ in stamps," she said, pressing the coin on him. "Take it, and I'll get my card for the address. It will be one-and-eleven exactly, because of the postage. It ought to be a penny for stationery, too.... Oh, well! never mind, then...."

She had got the card, and the man, demurring to the stationery suggestion, and, indeed, hesitating whether to take the coin at all, looked at the card with a little surprise on his face. He read it:

+------------------------------------+
| |
| MRS. NIGHTINGALE. |
| |
| MISS ROSALIND NIGHTINGALE. |
| |
| |
| KRAKATOA, GLENMOIRA ROAD, |
| |
| SHEPHERD'S BUSH, W. |
| |
+------------------------------------+

"I'm not Mrs. Nightingale," said the girl. "That's my mother."

"Oh no!" said he. "It wasn't that. It was only that I knew the name once--years ago."

The link in the dialogue here was that she had thought the surprise was due to his crediting her with matrimony and a visiting-card daughter. She was just thinking could she legitimately inquire into the previous Nightingale, when he said some more of his own accord, and saved her the trouble.

"Rosalind Nightingale was the name," said he. "Do you know any relation----"

"Only my mother," answered the girl, surprised. "She's Rosalind, too, like me. I mean, _I'm_ Rosalind. I am always called Sally, though."

The man was going to answer when, as luck would have it, the card slipped from his fingers and fluttered down. In pursuing it he missed the half-crown, which the young lady released, fancying he was about to take hold of it, and stooped to search for it where it had rolled under the seat.

"How idiotic of me!" said he.

"Next station Uxbridge Road," thus the guard proclaimed; and then, seeing the exploration that was going on after the half-crown, he added: "I should let it go at that, mister, if I was you."

The man asked why?

"There was a party tried that game last week. He's in the horspital now." This was portentous and enigmatical. The guard continued: "If a party gets electrocuted, it's no concern of the employees on the line. It lies between such parties and the Company. I shouldn't myself, if I was you! But it's between you and the Company. I wash _my_ hands."

"If the wires are properly insulated"--this was from an important elderly gentleman, of a species invariable under the circumstances--"_if_ the wires are properly insulated, there is not the slightest cause for apprehension of any sort or kind."

"Very good!" said the guard gloomily. "Then all I say is, insoolate 'em yourselves. Don't try to put it on me! Or else keep your hands well outside of the circuit." But the elderly gentleman was not ready to acquiesce in the conditions pointed at.

"I repeat," said he, "that the protection of the public is, or ought to be, amply secured by the terms of the Company's charter. If any loophole exists for the escape of the electric current, all I can say is, the circumstances call for public inquiry. The safety of the public is the concern of the authorities."

"Then," said the guard pointedly, "if I was the public, I should put my hands in my pocket, and not go fishing about for ambiguous property in corners. There!--what did I tell you? Now you'll say that was me, I suppose?"

The thing that hadn't been the guard was a sudden crackle that leaped out in a blue flame under the seat where the man's hand was exploring for the half-crown. It was either that, or another like it, at the man's heel. Or both together. A little boy was intensely delighted, and wanted more of the same sort. The elderly gentleman turned purple with indignation, and would at once complain to the authorities. They would take the matter up, he doubted not. It was a disgrace, etc., etc., etc.

Rosalind, or Sally, Nightingale showed no alarm. Her merry eyebrows were as merry as ever, and her smile was as unconscious a frame to her pearly teeth as ever, when she turned to the mother of the delighted little boy and spoke.

"There now! It's exactly like that when I comb my hair in very dry weather." And the good woman was able to confirm this from her own experience, narrating (with needless details) the strange phenomena attendant on the head of a young person in quite a good situation at Woollamses, and really almost a lady, stating several times what she had said to the young person, Miss Ada Taylor, and what answer she had received. She treated the matter entirely with reference to the bearings of the electric current on questions of social status.

But the man did not move, remaining always with his arm under the seat. Rosalind, or Sally, thought he had run the half-crown home, but in some fixed corner from which detachment was for a moment difficult. Wondering why the moment should last so long, she spoke.

"Have you got it?" said she.

But the man spoke never a word, and remained quite still.


CHAPTER III


KRAKATOA VILLA, AND HOW THE ELECTROCUTED TRAVELLER WENT THERE IN A CAB. A CURIOUS WELCOME TO A PERFECT STRANGER. THE STRANGER'S LABEL. A CANCELLED MEMORY. BACK LIKE A BAD SHILLING

Krakatoa was a semi-detached villa, a few minutes' walk from Shepherd's Bush Station. It looked like a showily dressed wife of a shabby husband; for the semi-detached other villa next door had been standing to let for years, and its compo front was in a state of decomposition from past frosts, and its paint was parched and thin in the glare of the present June sun, and peeling and dripping spiritlessly from the closed shutters among the dead flies behind the cracked panes of glass that had quite forgotten the meaning of whitening and water, and that wouldn't hack out easy by reason of the putty having gone 'ard. One knew at a glance that if the turncock was to come, see, and overcome the reluctance of the allotted cock-to-be-turned, the water would burst out at every pore of the service-pipes in that house, except the taps; and would know also that the adept who came to soften their hearts and handles would have to go back for his tools, and would be a very long time away.

Krakatoa, on the other hand, was resplendent with stone-colour, and smelt strongly of it. And its door you could see through the glass of into the hall, when its shutters were not thumb-screwed up over the panes, was painted a green that staggered the reason, and smelt even more strongly than the stone-colour. And all the paint was so thick that the beadings on the door were dim memories, and all the execution on the sculptured goblets on pedestals flanking the steps in the front garden was as good as spoiled. And the paint simmered in the sun, and here and there it blistered and altogether suggested that Krakatoa, like St. Nicholas, might have halved its coats with the beggar next door--given him, suppose, one flat and one round coat. Also, that either the job had been 'urried, and not giv' proper time to