Уилки Коллинз - The Fallen Leaves

Amelius looked up at him sharply. “You servants always make a fuss about trifles. I am a little out of sorts; and I want a change—that’s all. Perhaps I may go to America. You won’t like that; I shan’t complain if you look out for another situation.”

The tears came into the old man’s eyes. “Never!” he answered fervently. “My last service, sir, if you send me away, shall be my dearly loved service here.”

All that was most tender in the nature of Amelius was touched to the quick. “Forgive me, Toff,” he said; “I am lonely and wretched, and more anxious about Sally than words can tell. There can be no change in my life, until my mind is easy about that poor little girl. But if it does end in my going to America, you shall go with me—I wouldn’t lose you, my good friend, for the world.”

Toff still remained in the room, as if he had something left to say. Entirely ignorant of the marriage engagement between Amelius and Regina, and of the rupture in which it had ended, he vaguely suspected nevertheless that his master might have fallen into an entanglement with some lady unknown. The opportunity of putting the question was now before him. He risked it in a studiously modest form.

“Are you going to America to be married, sir?”

Amelius eyed him with a momentary suspicion. “What has put that in your head?” he asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” Toff answered humbly—“unless it was my own vivid imagination. Would there be anything very wonderful in a gentleman of your age and appearance conducting some charming person to the altar?”

Amelius was conquered once more; he smiled faintly. “Enough of your nonsense, Toff! I shall never be married—understand that.”

Toff’s withered old face brightened slyly. He turned away to withdraw; hesitated; and suddenly went back to his master.

“Have you any occasion for my services, sir, for an hour or two?” he asked.

“No. Be back before I go out, myself—be back at three o’clock.”

“Thank you, sir. My little boy is below, if you want anything in my absence.”

The little boy dutifully attending Toff to the gate, observed with grave surprise that his father snapped his fingers gaily at starting, and hummed the first bars of the Marseillaise. “Something is going to happen,” said Toff’s boy, on his way back to the house.

From the Regent’s Park to Blackacre Buildings is almost a journey from one end of London to the other. Assisted for part of the way by an omnibus, Toff made the journey, and arrived at the residence of Surgeon Pinfold, with the easy confidence of a man who knew thoroughly well where he was going, and what he was about. The sagacity of Rufus had correctly penetrated his intentions; he had privately followed his master, and had introduced himself to the notice of the surgeon—with a mixture of motives, in which pure devotion to the interests of Amelius played the chief part. His experience of the world told him that Sally’s departure was only the beginning of more trouble to come. “What is the use of me to my master,” he had argued, “except to spare him trouble, in spite of himself?”

Surgeon Pinfold was prescribing for a row of sick people, seated before him on a bench. “You’re not ill, are you?” he said sharply to Toff. “Very well, then, go into the parlour and wait.”

The patients being dismissed, Toff attempted to explain the object of his visit. But the old naval surgeon insisted on clearing the ground by means of a plain question first. “Has your master sent you here—or is this another private interview, like the last?”

“It is all that is most private,” Toff answered; “my poor master is wasting away in unrelieved wretchedness and suspense. Something must be done for him. Oh, dear and good sir, help me in this most miserable state of things! Tell me the truth about Miss Sally!”

Old Pinfold put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the parlour wall, looking at the Frenchman with a complicated expression, in which genuine sympathy mingled oddly with a quaint sense of amusement. “You’re a worthy chap,” he said; “and you shall have the truth. I have been obliged to deceive your master about this troublesome young Sally; I have stuck to it that she is too ill to see him, or to answer his letters. Both lies. There’s nothing the matter with her now, but a disease that I can’t cure, the disease of a troubled mind. She’s got it into her head that she has everlastingly degraded herself in his estimation by leaving him and coming here. It’s no use telling her—what, mind you, is perfectly true—that she was all but out of her senses, and not in the least responsible for what she did at the time when she did it. She holds to her own opinion, nevertheless. ‘What can he think of me, but that I have gone back willingly to the disgrace of my old life? I should throw myself out of the window, if he came into the room!’ That’s how she answers me—and, what makes matters worse still, she’s breaking her heart about him all the time. The poor wretch is so eager for any little word of news about his health and his doings, that it’s downright pitiable to see her. I don’t think her fevered little brain will bear it much longer—and hang me if I can tell what to do next to set things right! The two women, her friends, have no sort of influence over her. When I saw her this morning, she was ungrateful enough to say, ‘Why didn’t you let me die?’ How your master got among these unfortunate people is more than I know, and is no business of mine; I only wish he had been a different sort of man. Before I knew him as well as I know him now, I predicted, like a fool, that he would be just the person to help us in managing the girl. I have altered my opinion. He’s such a glorious fellow—so impulsive and so tender-hearted—that he would be certain, in her present excited state, to do her more harm than good. Do you know if he is going to be married?”

Toff, listening thus far in silent distress, suddenly looked up.

“Why do you ask me, sir?”

“It’s an idle question, I dare say,” old Pinfold remarked. “Sally persists in telling us she’s in the way of his prospects in life—and it’s got somehow into her perverse little head that his prospects in life mean his marriage, and she’s in the way of that. —Hullo! are you going already?”

“I want to go to Miss Sally, sir. I believe I can say something to comfort her. Do you think she will see me?”

“Are you the man who has got the nickname of Toff? She sometimes talks about Toff.”

“Yes, sir, yes! I am Theophile Leblond, otherwise Toff. Where can I find her?”

Surgeon Pinfold rang a bell. “My errand-boy is going past the house, to deliver some medicine,” he answered. “It’s a poor place; but you’ll find it neat and nice enough—thanks to your good master. He’s helping the two women to begin life again out of this country; and, while they’re waiting their turn to get a passage, they’ve taken an extra room and hired some decent furniture, by your master’s own wish. Oh, here’s the boy; he’ll show you the way. One word before you go. What do you think of saying to Sally?”

“I shall tell her, for one thing, sir, that my master is miserable for want of her.”

Surgeon Pinfold shook his head. “That won’t take you very far on the way to persuading her. You will make her miserable too—and there’s about all you will get by it.”

Toff lifted his indicative forefinger to the side of his nose. “Suppose I tell her something else, sir? Suppose I tell her my master is not going to be married to anybody?”

“She won’t believe you know anything about it.”

“She will believe, for this reason,” said Toff, gravely; “I put the question to my master before I came here; and I have it from his own lips that there is no young lady in the way, and that he is not—positively not—going to be married. If I tell Miss Sally this, sir, how do you say it will end? Will you bet me a shilling it has no effect on her?”