The Complete Short Stories of Charles Dickens: 190+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Чарльз Диккенс
the tall gaunt cliffs, with just enough noise to lull the old fish to sleep, without disturbing the young ones, when two figures were discernible—or would have been, if anybody had looked for them—seated on one of the wooden benches which are stationed near the verge of the western cliff. The moon had climbed higher into the heavens, by two hours’ journeying, since those figures first sat down—and yet they had moved not. The crowd of loungers had thinned and dispersed; the noise of itinerant musicians had died away; light after light had appeared in the windows of the different houses in the distance; blockade-man after blockade-man had passed the spot, wending his way towards his solitary post; and yet those figures had remained stationary. Some portions of the two forms were in deep shadow, but the light of the moon fell strongly on a puce-coloured boot and a glazed stock. Mr. Cymon Tuggs and Mrs. Captain Waters were seated on that bench. They spoke not, but were silently gazing on the sea.
‘Walter will return to-morrow,’ said Mrs. Captain Waters, mournfully breaking silence.
Mr. Cymon Tuggs sighed like a gust of wind through a forest of gooseberry bushes, as he replied, ‘Alas! he will.’
‘Oh, Cymon!’ resumed Belinda, ‘the chaste delight, the calm happiness, of this one week of Platonic love, is too much for me!’ Cymon was about to suggest that it was too little for him, but he stopped himself, and murmured unintelligibly.
‘And to think that even this gleam of happiness, innocent as it is,’ exclaimed Belinda, ‘is now to be lost for ever!’
‘Oh, do not say for ever, Belinda,’ exclaimed the excitable Cymon, as two strongly-defined tears chased each other down his pale face—it was so long that there was plenty of room for a chase. ‘Do not say for ever!’
‘I must,’ replied Belinda.
‘Why?’ urged Cymon, ‘oh why? Such Platonic acquaintance as ours is so harmless, that even your husband can never object to it.’
‘My husband!’ exclaimed Belinda. ‘You little know him. Jealous and revengeful; ferocious in his revenge—a maniac in his jealousy! Would you be assassinated before my eyes?’ Mr. Cymon Tuggs, in a voice broken by emotion, expressed his disinclination to undergo the process of assassination before the eyes of anybody.
‘Then leave me,’ said Mrs. Captain Waters. ‘Leave me, this night, for ever. It is late: let us return.’
Mr. Cymon Tuggs sadly offered the lady his arm, and escorted her to her lodgings. He paused at the door—he felt a Platonic pressure of his hand. ‘Good night,’ he said, hesitating.
‘Good night,’ sobbed the lady. Mr. Cymon Tuggs paused again.
‘Won’t you walk in, sir?’ said the servant. Mr. Tuggs hesitated. Oh, that hesitation! He did walk in.
‘Good night!’ said Mr. Cymon Tuggs again, when he reached the drawing-room.
‘Good night!’ replied Belinda; ‘and, if at any period of my life, I—Hush!’ The lady paused and stared with a steady gaze of horror, on the ashy countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs. There was a double knock at the street-door.
‘It is my husband!’ said Belinda, as the captain’s voice was heard below.
‘And my family!’ added Cymon Tuggs, as the voices of his relatives floated up the staircase.
‘The curtain! The curtain!’ gasped Mrs. Captain Waters, pointing to the window, before which some chintz hangings were closely drawn.
‘But I have done nothing wrong,’ said the hesitating Cymon.
‘The curtain!’ reiterated the frantic lady: ‘you will be murdered.’ This last appeal to his feelings was irresistible. The dismayed Cymon concealed himself behind the curtain with pantomimic suddenness.
Enter the captain, Joseph Tuggs, Mrs. Tuggs, and Charlotta.
‘My dear,’ said the captain, ‘Lieutenant, Slaughter.’ Two iron-shod boots and one gruff voice were heard by Mr. Cymon to advance, and acknowledge the honour of the introduction. The sabre of the lieutenant rattled heavily upon the floor, as he seated himself at the table. Mr. Cymon’s fears almost overcame his reason.
‘The brandy, my dear!’ said the captain. Here was a situation! They were going to make a night of it! And Mr. Cymon Tuggs was pent up behind the curtain and afraid to breathe!
‘Slaughter,’ said the captain, ‘a cigar?’
Now, Mr. Cymon Tuggs never could smoke without feeling it indispensably necessary to retire, immediately, and never could smell smoke without a strong disposition to cough. The cigars were introduced; the captain was a professed smoker; so was the lieutenant; so was Joseph Tuggs. The apartment was small, the door was closed, the smoke powerful: it hung in heavy wreaths over the room, and at length found its way behind the curtain. Cymon Tuggs held his nose, his mouth, his breath. It was all of no use—out came the cough.
‘Bless my soul!’ said the captain, ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Tuggs. You dislike smoking?’
‘Oh, no; I don’t indeed,’ said Charlotta.
‘It makes you cough.’
‘Oh dear no.’
‘You coughed just now.’
‘Me, Captain Waters! Lor! how can you say so?’
‘Somebody coughed,’ said the captain.
‘I certainly thought so,’ said Slaughter. No; everybody denied it.
‘Fancy,’ said the captain.
‘Must be,’ echoed Slaughter.
Cigars resumed—more smoke—another cough—smothered, but violent.
‘Damned odd!’ said the captain, staring about him.
‘Sing’ler!’ ejaculated the unconscious Mr. Joseph Tuggs.
Lieutenant Slaughter looked first at one person mysteriously, then at another: then, laid down his cigar, then approached the window on tiptoe, and pointed with his right thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the curtain.
‘Slaughter!’ ejaculated the captain, rising from table, ‘what do you mean?’
The lieutenant, in reply, drew back the curtain and discovered Mr. Cymon Tuggs behind it: pallid with apprehension, and blue with wanting to cough.
‘Aha!’ exclaimed the captain, furiously. ‘What do I see? Slaughter, your sabre!’
‘Cymon!’ screamed the Tuggses.
‘Mercy!’ said Belinda.
‘Platonic!’ gasped Cymon.
‘Your sabre!’ roared the captain: ‘Slaughter—unhand me—the villain’s life!’
‘Murder!’ screamed the Tuggses.
‘Hold him fast, sir!’ faintly articulated Cymon.
‘Water!’ exclaimed Joseph Tuggs—and Mr. Cymon Tuggs and all the ladies forthwith fainted away, and formed a tableau.
Most willingly would we conceal the disastrous termination of the six weeks’ acquaintance. A troublesome form, and an arbitrary custom, however, prescribe that a story should have a conclusion, in addition to a commencement; we have therefore no alternative. Lieutenant Slaughter brought a message—the captain brought an action. Mr. Joseph Tuggs interposed—the lieutenant negotiated. When Mr. Cymon Tuggs recovered from the nervous disorder into which misplaced affection, and exciting circumstances, had plunged him, he found that his family had lost their pleasant acquaintance; that his father was minus fifteen hundred pounds; and the captain plus the precise sum. The money was paid to hush the matter up, but it got abroad notwithstanding; and there are not wanting some who affirm that three designing impostors never found more easy dupes, than did Captain Waters, Mrs. Waters, and Lieutenant Slaughter, in the Tuggses at Ramsgate.