He got himself smuggled off in a cab, without being forced to go again upon the platform—his luggage being brought to him by two assiduous porters. But in all this there was very little balm for his hurt pride. As he ordered the cabman to drive to Mount Street, he felt that he had ruined himself by that step in life which he had taken at Courcy Castle. Whichever way he looked he had no comfort. "D–––– the fellow!" he said, almost out loud in the cab; but though he did with his outward voice allude to Eames, the curse in his inner thoughts was uttered against himself.
Johnny was allowed to make his way down to the platform, and there find his own carpet-bag. One young porter, however, came up and fraternised with him.
"You guve it him tidy just at that last moment, sir. But, laws, sir, you should have let out at him at fust. What's the use of clawing a man's neck-collar?"
It was then a quarter past eleven, but, nevertheless, Eames appeared at his office precisely at twelve.
XXXV. Væ Victis
Crosbie had two engagements for that day; one being his natural engagement to do his work at his office, and the other an engagement, which was now very often becoming as natural, to dine at St. John's Wood with Lady Amelia Gazebee. It was manifest to him when he looked at himself in the glass hat he could keep neither of these engagements. "Oh, laws, Mr Crosbie," the woman of the house exclaimed when she saw him.
"Yes, I know," said he. "I've had an accident and got a black eye. What's a good thing for it?"
"Oh! an accident!" said the woman, who knew well that that mark had been made by another man's fist. "They do say that a bit of raw beef is about the best thing. But then it must be held on constant all the morning."
Anything would be better than leeches, which tell long-enduring tales, and therefore Crosbie sat through the greater part of the morning holding the raw beef to his eye. But it was necessary that he should write two notes as he held it, one to Mr Butterwell at his office, and the other to his future sister-in-law. He felt that it would hardly be wise to attempt any entire concealment of the nature of his catastrophe, as some of the circumstances would assuredly become known. If he said that he had fallen over the coal-scuttle, or on to the fender, thereby cutting his face, people would learn that he had fibbed, and would learn also that he had had some reason for fibbing. Therefore he constructed his notes with a phraseology that bound him to no details. To Butterwell he said that he had had an accident,—or rather a row,—and that he had come out of it with considerable damage to his frontispiece. He intended to be at the office on the next day, whether able to appear decently there or not. But for the sake of decency he thought it well to give himself that one half-day's chance. Then to the Lady Amelia he also said that he had had an accident, and had been a little hurt. "It is nothing at all serious, and affects only my appearance, so that I had better remain in for a day. I shall certainly be with you on Sunday. Don't let Gazebee trouble himself to come to me, as I shan't be at home after to-day." Gazebee did trouble himself to come to Mount Street so often, and South Audley Street, in which was Mr Gazebee's office, was so disagreeably near to Mount Street, that Crosbie inserted this in order to protect himself if possible. Then he gave special orders that he was to be at home to no one, fearing that Gazebee would call for him after the hours of business—to make him safe and carry him off bodily to St. John's Wood.
The beefsteak and the dose of physic and the cold-water application which was kept upon it all night was not efficacious in dispelling that horrid, black-blue colour by ten o'clock on the following morning.
"It certainly have gone down, Mr Crosbie; it certainly have," said the mistress of the lodgings, touching the part affected with her finger. "But the black won't go out of them all in a minute; it won't indeed. Couldn't you just stay in one more day?"
"But will one day do it, Mrs Phillips?"
Mrs Phillips couldn't take upon herself to say that it would. "They mostly come with little red streaks across the black before they goes away," said Mrs Phillips, who would seem to have been the wife of a prize-fighter, so well was she acquainted with black eyes.
"And that won't be till to-morrow," said Crosbie, affecting to be mirthful in his agony.
"Not till the third day;—and then they wears themselves out, gradual. I never knew leeches do any good."
He stayed at home the second day, and then resolved that he would go to his office, black eye and all. In that morning's newspaper he saw an account of the whole transaction, saying how Mr C–––– of the office of General Committees, who was soon about to lead to the hymeneal altar the beautiful daughter of the Earl de C––––, had been made the subject of a brutal personal attack on the platform of the Great Western Railway Station, and how he was confined to his room from the injuries which he had received. The paragraph went on to state that the delinquent had, as it was believed, dared to raise his eyes to the same lady, and that his audacity had been treated with scorn by every member of the noble family in question. "It was, however, satisfactory to know," so said the newspaper, "that Mr C–––– had amply avenged himself, and had so flogged the young man in question, that he had been unable to stir from his bed since the occurrence."
On reading this Crosbie felt that it would be better that he should show himself at once, and tell as much of the truth as the world would be likely to ascertain at last without his telling. So on that third morning he put on his hat and gloves, and had himself taken to his office, though the red-streaky period of his misfortune had hardly even yet come upon him. The task of walking along the office passage, through the messengers' lobby, and into his room, was very disagreeable. Of course everybody looked at him, and, of course, he failed in his attempt to appear as though he did not mind it. "Boggs," he said to one of the men as he passed by, "just see if Mr Butterwell is in his room," and then, as he expected, Mr Butterwell came to him after the expiration of a few minutes.
"Upon my word, that is serious," said Mr Butterwell, looking into the secretary's damaged face. "I don't think I would have come out if I had been you."
"Of course it's disagreeable," said Crosbie; "but it's better to put up with it. Fellows do tell such horrid lies if a man isn't seen for a day or two. I believe it's best to put a good face upon it."
"That's more than you can do just at present, eh, Crosbie?" And then Mr Butterwell tittered. "But how on earth did it happen? The paper says that you pretty well killed the fellow who did it."
"The paper lies, as papers always do. I didn't touch him at all."
"Didn't you, though? I should like to have had a poke at him after getting such a tap in the face as that."
"The policemen came, and all that sort of thing. One isn't allowed to fight it out in a row of that kind as one would have to do on Salisbury heath. Not that I mean to say that I could lick the fellow. How's a man to know whether he can or not?"
"How, indeed, unless he gets a licking,—or gives it? But who was he, and what's this about his having been scorned by the noble family?"
"Trash and lies, of course. He had never seen any of the de Courcy people."
"I suppose the truth is, it was about that other—eh, Crosbie? I knew you'd find yourself in some trouble before you'd done."
"I don't know what it was about, or why he should have made such a brute of himself. You have heard about those people at Allington?"
"Oh, yes; I have heard about them."
"God knows, I didn't mean to say anything against them. They knew nothing about it."