The Goldsmith Comes to Town the Second Time.
Tresco stood in the yellow light of
the paraffin lamp, and gazed in wonderment at Gentle
Annie. He was a tattered and mournful object;
his boots worn out, his trousers a marvel of patchwork,
his coat a thing discoloured and torn, his hair and
beard unshorn, himself a being unrecognisable by his
former friends.
Gentle Annie’s attitude betokened
the greatest surprise. With her hands on her
bosom, her lips parted, her cheeks pale, her eyes frightened,
she stood, and timidly returned the gaze of the strange
man before her.
“What do you want?” she
asked, so soon as she could find her voice. “Why
do you come here?”
“Don’t be alarmed,”
said Benjamin reassuringly. “First, let
me tell you that I’m your friend and protector.
Do you forget Tresco the goldsmith?”
Gentle Annie gave vent to a little cry of astonishment.
“I am an outlaw,” he
spoke as if he were defending himself before his peers “an
outcast, a hunted dog. My own house is unsafe,
so I came here for protection and a little comfort.”
He dropped suddenly into quite a sentimental tone
of voice. “I haven’t spoken to a soul,
save my lad, for over six weeks. I’m a
bit lonesome and miserable; and I badly need a well-cooked
meal.”
“But if you stop here” Gentle
Annie’s ample bust rose and fell with agitation “the
police will catch you.”
“They’d think of looking
for me in the moon before they came here, my dear;
besides I have no intention of stopping. I only
want rest and food.”
“I’ll do what I can for
you, but you must go almost directly.”
“Why, certainly.”
Tresco sat down, and drew a deep breath. “It’s
good to look at a wholesome woman again it
seems years since I saw one.”
A smile passed over Gentle Annie’s
face, and her eyes twinkled with merriment. “I
see you’re not cured of your old weakness,”
she said.
“No, my dear; and I hope I never
shall be.” Benjamin had rallied from his
depression. “On the contrary, it increases.”
They were a strange couple the
wild-looking man on one side of the table, and the
fine figure of a woman who emitted a faint odour of
patchouli, on the other.
“I suppose you know I’m my own mistress
now.”
“It looks like it. I understood something
of the kind from Jake.”
“I objected to be pulled about
indiscriminately, so I left The Lucky Digger.
A rough brute cut my arm with a broken glass.”
She rolled up her sleeve, and showed the scar of the
newly-healed wound.
Benjamin took the soft, white arm
in his hand, and gave it just the suspicion of a squeeze.
“I wish I’d bin there,
my dear: I’d ha’ chucked him through
the window.”
“Mr. Scarlett who
has been so lucky on the diggings kicked
him out of the house on to the pavement.”
“Ah! but did he do the thing properly, scientifically?”
“I think so. And when he
found the boss blaming me for the row, he turned on
him like a tiger. But afterwards old Townson gave
me the office, so I’ve retired into private
life. Do you like my rooms?”
“A trifle small, don’t you think?”
said Benjamin.
“Cozy.”
“My dear, where you are it can’t help
being cozy.”
“After that I’ll get you
something to eat. What do you say to grilled
steak and onions?”
“Delicious! Couldn’t be better.”
Gentle Annie bustled out to the safe,
at the back of the house, and returned with a dish
of red and juicy meat.
“And to follow, you shall have stewed plums
and cream.”
“Better than ever,” said
Benjamin; his mouth watering behind his ragged beard.
“I believe I understand mankind,”
said Gentle Annie, going to a cupboard, whence she
took a big bottle, which she placed on the table.
“If all the women in the world
understood men as you do, my dear, we should have
Arcadia here, instead of Gehennum.”
“Instead of what?”
“Gehennum, my dear; a place
where they drive men into the wilderness and cut them
off from supplies, and they rot in damp caves, destitute
of bread, beer, and even tobacco.”
“No; I really can’t supply
that last. If I let you smoke, some old cat would
come sniffing round to-morrow morning, and say, ’Phew!
a man has been here.’ Good food
and drink you shall have, but no tobacco.”
“But you’ll let me wash?”
“Certainly. Cleanliness
is next to godliness. If you can’t have
the one, I wouldn’t bar you from the other.”
She led him to the door of her bedroom, and said,
“Walk in.”
The room was a dainty affair of muslin
blinds and bed-hangings. To Benjamin it was a
holy of holies dedicated to the sweet, the lovely,
the inscrutable. All the feminine gear lying around,
the little pots of powder and ointment, the strange
medicaments for the hair, the mirrors, the row of
little shoes, the bits of jewellery lying on fat pincushions,
the skirts and wrappers and feminine finery hanging
behind the door, these and fifty other things appealed
to the softest spot in his susceptible nature.
He took up the ewer, and poured water into the basin;
but he was ashamed to place his dirty coat on a thing
so clean as was the solitary dimity-covered chair,
so he put the ragged garment on the floor. Then
he took up a pink cake of soap, and commenced his
ablutions.
A strong and agreeable odour tickled
his olfactory nerves the cooking had begun.
Though his ears were full of lather, he could hear
the meat frying in the pan, and the spluttering of
the fat.
“What punishment do they give
to people who harbour malefactors?” Gentle Annie
called from over her cooking.
“Who’s a malefactor?”
called Tresco from the middle of a towel with which
he was drying his roseate face.
“What are you then?”
“I’m a gentleman at large,
my dear. No one has charged me with anything
yet, let alone convicted me.”
“But there’s a warrant out against you,
old gentleman.”
“Maybe. I haven’t seen it.”
“But what’s my position?”
“You’re accessory after the fact, if there
is a fact.”
“What am I liable for?”
“That depends on the judge,
my dear. It might be two, three, or more kisses.
If I was on the bench, the sentence would be as heavy
as possible, and I’d insist on executing it
myself.”
A laugh came from over the frying-pan.
“If you’re not careful,
old party, you’ll have some of this hot fat on
your head.”
Benjamin had finished his toilette, and walked into
the other room.
The small, square table was spread
with a white cloth, and a place was set for one.
“But, my dear, won’t you
partake?” said Benjamin, eyeing the arrangement
of the table.
“I’m not hungry,”
the girl replied. “I’ll watch the
lion feed.”
The little room was filled with the
smell of cooked viands, and Tresco seated himself
in readiness to eat.
The smoking steak, garnished with
fried onions and potatoes, was placed before him.
“For what I am about to receive,
my dear, I thank you.” Gently squeezing
the ex-bar-maid’s hand, he kissed it.
“Now, that’ll do.
You’re getting giddy in your old age it
must be the effect of the steak. Cupboard love,
cupboard love!”
Tresco drew the cork of the big bottle,
which he handed to Gentle Annie.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“You pour it out, my dear. It’ll
make it taste so much sweeter.”
“You gay old deceiver: you’re like
the rest of them.”
“No, my dear: they’re imitation;
I’m the genuine article.”
Gentle Annie filled his tall glass
deftly, so that the froth stood in a dome over the
liquor. She was about to replace the bottle on
the table, when Tresco took a tumbler from the dresser,
and filled it for her.
“Keep me company,” he said. “It
looks more comfortable.”
“But stout’s so fattening.”
“My dear, a lean woman is a reproach to her
sex.”
“Then, what’s a fat one?”
“A credit, like I am to mine,
or used to be before I got thin through semi-starvation.
Here’s to your very good health; may your beauty
never grow less.” Benjamin raised his glass
to his lips.
“More flattery.”
Gentle Annie’s comfortable laugh shook her whole
body. “I’m sorry I can’t return
the compliment.”
“You do better: you supply
the inner man steak, done to a turn; stout;
sweet stuffs. You couldn’t have treated
me better, if I’d been a bishop.”
“Why a bishop?”
“I’ve looked round, and
taken stock of my fellows; and I think a bishop has
a rousing good time, don’t you?”
“I can’t say; I don’t often entertain
bishops.”
“Bishops and licensed victuallers; I think they
get the cream of life.”
“But what about lords and dukes?”
“They have to pay through the
nose for all they get, but bishops and landlords get
all their good things chucked in gratuitous. Of
course a bishop’s more toney, but a publican
sees more of life honours, meaning good
tucker and liquor, divided.”
Tresco attacked the juicy steak:
his satisfaction finding expression in murmurs of
approval. He finished the stout with as much relish
as if it had been the richest wine; and then Gentle
Annie took from the cupboard two glass dishes, the
one half-filled with luscious red plums swimming in
their own juice, the other containing junket.
Tresco had almost forgotten the taste
of such food. While he was eating it Gentle Annie
made some tea.
“Is this the way you treat the
toffs, when they come to see you?”
“Toffs? You’re the
greatest toff that has come to see me, so far.”
“I shall come again.”
“Do you know there’s a reward offered
for you?”
“How much?”
“Twenty pounds.”
“Is that all? I’ll give it you, my
dear.”
From his dirty rags he pulled out
a small linen bag, from which he emptied upon a clean
plate a little pile of nuggets.
Gentle Annie was lost in wonderment.
Her eyes glistened, and she turned the pieces of gold
over with her finger covetously.
“These should go close on L4
to the ounce,” remarked the goldsmith, as he
separated with the blade of a table-knife a portion
of the gold equal to what he guessed to be five ounces,
and the remainder he replaced in the bag.
“That’s for you,” he said, pushing
the plate towards her.
Gentle Annie gleefully took the gold in her hands.
“You generous old party!” she exclaimed.
“I know when I am well off.”
They now drank tea out of dainty cups,
and Benjamin took a pipe and tobacco from his pocket.
“I really must have a smoke to settle my dinner,”
he said.
“Of course,” said she;
“it was only my fun. I smoke myself.”
Taking a packet from the mantelpiece, she lighted
a cigarette, which she handed to Tresco, when a low
knock was heard at the door.
In a moment she had blown out the
light, and led the erring goldsmith to her inner room,
where he stood, apprehensive but alert. From his
belt he drew a knife, and then he furtively examined
the fastenings of the muslin-draped window.
He heard his hostess open the door
and speak to her visitor, who replied in a deep voice,
at some length. But, presently, the door closed,
the steps of the visitor were heard departing, and
Gentle Annie softly entered the room.
“You’re quite safe,” she said.
“Who was it?”
“Only a friend of mine. He’s gone.
He won’t call again to-night.”