Read Ebook: Toppleton's Client; Or A Spirit in Exile by Bangs John Kendrick

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Ebook has 461 lines and 30667 words, and 10 pages

"'But it's all for your good,' he replied. 'You seem to forget that I am actuated entirely by the best of motives.'

"'No doubt,' I said, 'but I think it's rather hard on me to be excluded from the most attractive quarter of London.'

"'You are not excluded. You can walk there if you choose at night or very early in the morning, or when Society is out of town, or, better still, you can float there in your invisible state at anytime. In fact,' added the fiend, 'it would be very enjoyable for you, I should think, to do that last. You can poise yourself over a tree for instance, and watch yourself hobnobbing with the illustrious. You can sit in your invisibility in any one of the carriages that roll to and fro, and, as long as you do not obtrude yourself on the occupants, there is not an equipage in London, high or low, in which you cannot ride. You are better off than I am in that respect. While I have no particular shape I am visible like a bit of sea-fog, but you being invisible can go anywhere without making trouble. The theatres are open to you free of charge. The best seats are at your disposal. If you choose to do it you could even sit on the throne of England, and nobody would be the wiser.'

"'That's all very well,' I said; 'but I don't care to travel about in that impersonal fashion. I prefer the incarnate manner of doing things, and if you will kindly permit me to assume bodily form once more, I'll be very much obliged.'

"'Certainly!' he replied, and with that we changed places.

"The sensation of getting back to my accustomed figure once more was delightful, and there was no denying the fact that I was better off for the outing I had so unceremoniously taken. My step was elastic, my head felt clear as a bell, and, altogether, I had never before enjoyed the consciousness of so great a physical strength as now was mine.

"This feeling gave me courage to do many things which I had hitherto put off, and among them was the making of a proposal of marriage to the admired Miss Hicksworthy-Johnstone. It was seven o'clock when the fiend had left me to the personal enjoyment of my complete self, and at eight o'clock I was in a hansom cab speeding out to the dwelling-place of the woman I loved. At eight thirty I was on my knees before her, and by eleven o'clock I was her accepted suitor. Such happiness as was mine, Hopkins, no man ever knew. The only trouble known to my soul at the moment was the consciousness that Arabella, as I was now permitted to call Miss Hicksworthy-Johnstone, was in the dark as to the methods by which my greatness had been achieved. I could not confess my dreadful secret to her, for that would have put an end entirely to our relations, and I loved her so that I could not bring myself to give her up. She asked me numberless questions of a most embarrassing sort, as if she suspected there was something wrong, but I managed in some way, I know not how, to give a plausible answer to every one of them."

"Possibly the fiend left a little of his brain in your head when he got out," suggested Toppleton.

"Perhaps so," returned the exile. "However it was, I managed to make out a satisfactory case for myself, and at the close of a cross-examination such as no man ever went through before, lasting two and a half hours, Arabella threw herself into my arms and called me by my first name. She was mine, and all the world seemed bright.

"I walked home," continued the spirit, "and in a condition of ecstasy that almost compensates for all I have suffered since. My feet seemed hardly to touch the ground, and I whistled from the time I left Arabella until I entered my room here,--a reprehensible habit, perhaps, but one which had always been my method of expressing satisfaction with the world. As I entered this room I was brought down from my ecstatic heights to an appreciation of my actual state, for the first thing to greet my eyes was the fiend, greener than ever, sitting by the fire ruminating apparently, for it was at least five minutes before he took note of my presence, although I addressed him politely as soon as I saw him.

"'Hallo,' he said finally. 'Where have you been?'

"The question was as unexpected as it was natural, and I was unprepared for it, so I made no reply, covering my silence by taking off my shoes and preparing for bed.

"'Where have you been?' he asked again, this time in a tone so peremptory that I decided in an instant not to tell him.

"'Out,' I answered. 'Where have you?'

"At this he laughed.

"'Don't be impudent,' he said. 'I do not wish to pry into your affairs. I only wanted to know where you had been because I am interested in you, and I want to help you to avoid pitfalls.'

"'That's all right,' I responded graciously. 'I appreciate your kindness, but you need not be interested in where I have been to-night, because I have been engaged in a little matter that concerns you not at all.'

"'That suits me,' I said, happy enough to acquiesce in anything. 'Only I'll want to get back here to-morrow evening. I have an engagement.'

"The fiend eyed me narrowly for a moment, and I winced beneath his gaze.

"Finally the dreadful morning came. It was Saturday, and the fiend and I were sitting together in my quarters. We had just changed places. I was in my present disembodied state, and the fiend had taken possession for the day, when there was heard in the corridor a quick nervous step which stopped as he who directed it came to my door, and a voice, which to my consternation I recognized at once as that of Arabella's father following close upon a resounding knock, cried out,--

"'This is the place. This is the kennel in which the hound lives. Open the door!'

"There was not time for the fiend and me to change places. Indeed, I had hardly recognized the old gentleman's voice, when the fiend in answer to his demand opened the door.

"A madder man than my prospective father-in-law appeared to be I never saw, Hopkins," said the spirit, his voice trembling with emotion. "He was livid, and when the door opened, and he saw the man he supposed to be me standing before him showing absolutely no signs of recognition, he fairly foamed at the mouth.

"'How do you do, sir?' said the fiend, polite as Chesterfield.

"'Don't speak to me, you puppy,' roared the old gentleman. 'Don't you dare to address me until I address you.'

"'This is most extraordinary,' said the fiend, seemingly nonplussed at Mr. Hicksworthy-Johnstone's inexplicable wrath; for he could understand it no better than I, and to me it was absolutely incomprehensible, for I was not aware of anything that I had done that could possibly give rise to so violent an ebullition of rage. 'I am at a loss, sir, to understand why you enter the office of a gentleman in a fashion so unbecoming to one of your years; you must have made some mistake.'

"'I see you,' replied the fiend calmly, 'and I wish I didn't.'

"'I'll go bond you wish you didn't,' howled the enraged visitor. 'And when I get through with you you'll wish I hadn't brought this oak stick along with me. Now I want to know what explanation you have to make of that paragraph in the paper.'

"'I cannot explain what I have not read,' returned the fiend. 'Nor shall I attempt to read what you wish to have explained until I know who you are, and what possible right you can have to demand an explanation of anything from me. What are you, anyhow, a retired maniac or simply an active imbecile?'

"As the fiend spoke these words," said the spirit, "I tried to arrest him; but he was so angry that he either could not or would not hear my whispered injunction that he be silent. As for the old gentleman, he sat gasping in his chair, glaring at my poor self, a perfect picture of apoplectic delirium. The fiend returned the glare unflinchingly.

"'Well!' gasped Mr. Hicksworthy-Johnstone after a minute's steady glance, 'if you aren't the coolest hand in Christendom. Who am I, eh? What am I here for, eh? What's my name, eh? What claim have I on you, eh? Young man, you are the most consummate Lothario on the footstool. You are a Don Juan with the hide of a rhinoceros and the calmness of a snow-clad Alp, but I can just tell you one thing. You can't trifle with Arabella!'

"And then, Hopkins, that infernal fiend looked my father-in law elect square in the eye and asked,--

"'Who the devil is Arabella?'

"As the words fell from my lips, the old gentleman with an oath started from his chair, and grasping the inkstand from the table, hurled it with all his force at my waistcoat, which received it with breathless surprise; and then, Toppleton, it breaks my heart to say it, but my foot--the foot of him who loved Arabella to distraction,--was lifted against her father, and the man to whom he had promised his daughter's hand, appeared to kick him forcibly, despite his grey hairs, out into and along the corridor to the head of the stairs. Then, as I watched, the two men grappled and went crashing down the stairs, head over heels together.

THE SPIRIT'S STORY IS CONCLUDED.

"I SHOULD say," volunteered Hopkins, with a shake of his head, "that that was about the most unpleasant situation he had got you into yet; and yet he was not entirely to blame. He requested candour from you, and you declined to be candid. You should have told him of your engagement to Miss Hicksworthy-Johnstone. That would at least have prevented his kicking her father out of your office and rolling downstairs with him."

"It is easy enough to say now what ought to have been done," sobbed the exile. "I do not think you would have done very differently if you had been in my position. I was jealous of the fiend, I suppose, and I didn't know but what he would insist upon doing some of the courting--which would have been intolerable."

"Not he," replied the exile. "When he and I, as he supposed me to be, reached the bottom of the stairs he landed on top, and was the first to get on his feet again. And then, Hopkins, I was glad not to be in my normal condition; for as the fiend attempted to rise my Arabella's father, who still retained his grip upon that oak stick, gave me the worst licking I ever had in my life, and I--well, I really enjoyed the spectacle, because I knew that I deserved it. The fiend, hampered somewhat by the corse to which he was not yet entirely accustomed was at a tremendous disadvantage, and I know Mr. Hicksworthy-Johnstone's blows caused him considerable pain. The only possible escape for him was to leave the body, which he did just as the attacking party landed a resounding thwack upon the back of my neck. Of course, the minute the fiend evacuated the premises, I appeared to Mr. Hicksworthy-Johnstone to have been killed, because there was in reality no slightest bit of animation left in my body. It was the horror of this discovery that covered the retreat of the fiend, who, more horribly green than ever--the green that comes from rage--mounted the steps he had so summarily descended a moment before, and hurried into my room, dragging me by sheer force of will, which I was unable to resist, after him. You see, Hopkins, we were now nothing more than two consciousnesses; two minds, one mortal, the other immortal; one infinitely strong, the other finite in its limitations, and I was of course as powerless in the presence of the fiend as a babe in the arms of its nurse. Mr. Hicksworthy-Johnstone, thinking that he had killed me, after a vain endeavour to restore my stricken body to consciousness--in which he would have succeeded had the fiend permitted me to take possession again, for I did not wish Arabella's father to suppose for one instant that he was a murderer--sneaked on tip-toes from the building, and, mumbling to himself in an insane fashion, disappeared in the crowd of pedestrians on the street.

"'This is a pretty mess you've got us into,' said the fiend. 'I should like to know what excuse you can have for such infernal duplicity as you have been guilty of?'

"'I cannot discuss this matter with you,' I answered. 'The duplicity is not mine, but yours. You have endeavoured to exercise rights which were clearly not yours to exercise. I informed you that in matters of love--'

"'Matters of love!' he ejaculated. 'Do you call this a matter of love? Do you think it's a matter of love for an entire stranger to throw a two-pound crystal inkstand loaded with ink at the very core of my waistcoat? Is it a matter of love for a grey-haired villain like that to drag me or you, whichever way you choose to put it, down a flight of stairs and then knock the life out of us? It seems to me, you have a strange idea of love.'

"'Don't you understand!' I cried. 'That man was only doing his duty. He is Arabella's father!'

"'Again, I must ask,' said the fiend, in a manner that aggravated me as it had aggravated the old gentleman, 'who, in all creation, is Arabella?'

"As I uttered these words, Hopkins, the fiend's whole manner changed. He was no longer flustered and angry merely; he was a determined and very angry being. He rose from his chair, and fixing his eye upon the point where he thought I was--and he had a faculty of establishing that point accurately at all times--and pointing that horrible finger of his at me, fairly hissed with rage.

"'I fancy I have a right to select my own wife,' I said.

"'You always were strong on fancies,' he retorted. 'You might have known that with the career opening up before you a plain Arabella would never do. Do you suppose you could take her to a ball at the Earl of Mawlberry's? Do you suppose that any woman, in fact, who would consent to marry you as your weak inefficient self could go anywhere and do me justice? I guess not; and your behaviour has settled our partnership for ever. We part for good.'

"'Well, I'm glad of it,' I retorted, goaded to anger by his words. 'Get out. I don't want to see you again. You've ruined me by putting me in false positions from the time we met until now, and I am sick of it. You can't leave too soon to suit me.'

"When I had spoken these words he darted one final venomous glance at me, and walked whistling from the room. As long as his whistle was perceptible I remained quiet--quiet as my agitation would permit; and then, when the last flute-like note died away in the distance, I floated from the room and down the stairs to get my poor bruised body and put it in shape to call on Arabella.

"Hopkins, when I reached the foot of the stairs my body had disappeared! I was frantic with fear. I did not know whether it had been found by the janitor and conveyed to the morgue, whether Arabella's father had returned to conceal it, and so conceal his fancied crime, or whether the fiend had finally crowned his infamous work by stealing it. I sought for it in vain. Forgetful of my invisibility, I asked the janitor if he had seen it, and he fled shrieking with fear from the building, and declined ever thereafter to enter it again. Every nook and corner in the Temple I searched and found it not, and then I floated dejectedly to Arabella's home, where I found her embracing her father in a last fond farewell. The old gentleman was about leaving the country to escape the consequences of his crime.

"'Arabella!' I cried, as I entered the room.

"The girl turned a deadly white, and her father fell cringing upon his knees, and then I realized that, recognizing my voice, they feared my ghost had come to haunt them, and with this realization came to my consciousness the overwhelming thought that both would go insane were I to persist in speaking while invisible.

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