MRS. BROWN AT THOMPSON HALL.

“Please, sir, we were to ask for Mr. Jones,” said the servant, putting his head into the carriage after both Mr. and Mrs. Brown had seated themselves.

“Mr. Jones!” exclaimed the husband.

“Why ask for Mr. Jones?” demanded the wife. The servant was about to tender some explanation when Mr. Jones stepped up and said that he was Mr. Jones. “We are going to Thompson Hall,” said the lady with great vigour.{250}

“So am I,” said Mr. Jones, with much dignity. It was, however, arranged that he should sit with the coachman, as there was a rumble behind for the other servant. The luggage was put into a cart, and away all went for Thompson Hall.

“What do you think about it, Mary?” whispered Mr. Brown, after a pause. He was evidently awe-struck by the horror of the occasion.

“I cannot make it out at all. What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think. Jones going to Thompson Hall?”

“He’s a very good-looking young man,” said Mrs. Brown.

“Well;—that’s as people think. A stiff, stuck-up fellow, I should say. Up to this moment he has never forgiven you for what you did to him.”

“Would you have forgiven his wife, Charles, if she’d done it to you?”

“He hasn’t got a wife,—yet.”

“How do you know?”

“He is coming home now to be married,” said Mr. Brown. “He expects to meet the young lady this very Christmas Day. He told me so. That was one of the reasons why he was so angry at being stopped by what you did last night.”

“I suppose he knows Uncle John, or he wouldn’t be going to the Hall,” said Mrs. Brown.

“I can’t make it out,” said Mr. Brown, shaking his head.

“He looks quite like a gentleman,” said Mrs. Brown,{251} “though he has been so stiff. Jones! Barnaby Jones! You’re sure it was Barnaby?”

“That was the name on the card.”

“Not Burnaby?” asked Mrs. Brown.

“It was Barnaby Jones on the card,—just the same as ‘Barnaby Rudge,’ and as for looking like a gentleman, I’m by no means quite so sure. A gentleman takes an apology when it’s offered.”

“Perhaps, my dear, that depends on the condition of his throat. If you had had a mustard plaster on all night, you might not have liked it. But here we are at Thompson Hall at last.”

Thompson Hall was an old brick mansion, standing within a huge iron gate, with a gravel sweep before it. It had stood there before Stratford was a town, or even a suburb, and had then been known by the name of Bow Place. But it had been in the hands of the present family for the last thirty years, and was now known far and wide as Thompson Hall,—a comfortable, roomy, old-fashioned place, perhaps a little dark and dull to look at, but much more substantially built than most of our modern villas. Mrs. Brown jumped with alacrity from the carriage, and with a quick step entered the home of her forefathers. Her husband followed her more leisurely, but he, too, felt that he was at home at Thompson Hall. Then Mr. Jones walked in also;—but he looked as though he were not at all at home. It was still very early, and no one of the family was as yet down. In these circumstances it was almost necessary that something should be said to Mr. Jones.{252}

“Do you know Mr. Thompson?” asked Mr. Brown.

“I never had the pleasure of seeing him,—as yet,” answered Mr. Jones, very stiffly.

“Oh,—I didn’t know;—because you said you were coming here.”

“And I have come here. Are you friends of Mr. Thompson?”

“Oh, dear, yes,” said Mrs. Brown. “I was a Thompson myself before I married.”

“Oh,—indeed!” said Mr. Jones. “How very odd,—very odd, indeed.”

During this time the luggage was being brought into the house, and two old family servants were offering them assistance. Would the new comers like to go up to their bedrooms? Then the housekeeper, Mrs. Green, intimated with a wink that Miss Jane would, she was sure, be down quite immediately. The present moment, however, was still very unpleasant. The lady probably had made her guess as to the mystery; but the two gentlemen were still altogether in the dark. Mrs. Brown had no doubt declared her parentage, but Mr. Jones, with such a multitude of strange facts crowding on his mind, had been slow to understand her. Being somewhat suspicious by nature, he was beginning to think whether possibly the mustard had been put by this lady on his throat with some reference to his connexion with Thompson Hall. Could it be that she, for some reason of her own, had wished to prevent his coming, and had contrived this untoward stratagem out of her brain? or had she wished to make him ridiculous to{253} the Thompson family,—to whom, as a family, he was at present unknown? It was becoming more and more improbable to him that the whole thing should have been an accident. When, after the first horrid torments of that morning in which he had in his agony invoked the assistance of the night-porter, he had begun to reflect on his situation, he had determined that it would be better that nothing further should be said about it. What would life be worth to him if he were to be known wherever he went as the man who had been mustard-plastered in the middle of the night by a strange lady? The worst of a practical joke is that the remembrance of the absurd condition sticks so long to the sufferer! At the hotel that night-porter, who had possessed himself of the handkerchief and had read the name, and had connected that name with the occupant of 333 whom he had found wandering about the house with some strange purpose, had not permitted the thing to sleep. The porter had pressed the matter home against the Browns, and had produced the interview which has been recorded. But during the whole of that day Mr. Jones had been resolving that he would never again either think of the Browns or speak of them. A great injury had been done to him,—a most outrageous injustice;—but it was a thing which had to be endured. A horrid woman had come across him like a nightmare. All he could do was to endeavour to forget the terrible visitation. Such had been his resolve,—in making which he had passed that long day in Paris. And{254} now the Browns had stuck to him from the moment of his leaving his room! he had been forced to travel with them, but had travelled with them as a stranger. He had tried to comfort himself with the reflection that at every fresh stage he would shake them off. In one railway after another the vicinity had been bad,—but still they were strangers. Now he found himself in the same house with them,—where of course the story would be told. Had not the thing been done on purpose that the story might be told there at Thompson Hall?

Mrs. Brown had acceded to the proposition of the housekeeper, and was about to be taken to her room when there was heard a sound of footsteps along the passage above and on the stairs, and a young lady came bounding on to the scene. “You have all of you come a quarter of an hour earlier than we thought possible,” said the young lady. “I did so mean to be up to receive you!” With that she passed her sister on the stairs,—for the young lady was Miss Jane Thompson, sister to our Mrs. Brown,—and hurried down into the hall. Here Mr. Brown, who had ever been on affectionate terms with his sister-in-law, put himself forward to receive her embraces; but she, apparently not noticing him in her ardour, rushed on and threw herself on to the breast of the other gentleman. “This is my Charles,” she said. “Oh, Charles, I thought you never would be here.”

Mr. Charles Burnaby Jones, for such was his name since he had inherited the Jones property in Pembrokeshire,{255} received into his arms the ardent girl of his heart with all that love and devotion to which she was entitled, but could not do so without some external shrinking from her embrace. “Oh, Charles, what is it?” she said.

“Nothing, dearest—only—only—.” Then he looked piteously up into Mrs. Brown’s face, as though imploring her not to tell the story.

“Perhaps, Jane, you had better introduce us,” said Mrs. Brown.

“Introduce you! I thought you had been travelling togeth............