River and Ring

By ANTHONY HOPE.

T was a dark and gusty night; rain now drizzled and now whistled down; the wet pavement gleamed under the lamps, and the policeman's water-proof cape flashed back as it were an answering signal. The few people about scurried hard for home or some makeshift shelter—no need to bid them "move on"! The policeman had his beat, and his thoughts, pretty well to himself. His beat lay along the Embankment at the Westminster end; his thoughts were wholly set on wondering how long the hands on the clock in the tower up there would take to cover what was professedly only half an hour; the boom of ten o'clock from Big Ben would set him free.

Indulging in an unveiled yawn, he strolled along with the ponderous passivity that characterises the policeman unemployed. Yet the next moment his eye—his human eye, not his professional—brightened somewhat at the sight of a graceful figure leaning against the parapet just under a lamp. A married man, he was yet accustomed to beguile his hours of duty by a discreet, though critical, appraisement of the beauty he encountered; no harm, surely, in that? He strolled more slowly, aiming at noiselessness, for he did not wish to disturb the girl; she was obviously engrossed in thought, gazing across to the wharves on the Surrey side, her hands clasped and her elbows resting on the parapet. She was draped from neck to feet in a long cloak; to the pelt of the rain—it was coming down smartly now—she seemed quite indifferent.

When the policeman was some ten paces from her, he stopped suddenly; she had unclasped her hands, and by that action revealed a small object which had lain hidden between them. It was a little case; the next moment the policeman—her preoccupation allowed him to steal gradually up to her—saw her open it; with one hand she took out a ring; with the other she flung the case into the river. Then she put the ring on the third finger of her left hand and seemed to study the effect it made so placed.

In an instant the policeman became professional. He was by her side. "Seeing how it looks on you?" he asked; his voice was free from cockney taint, but rough with a northern burr.

She turned to him with a start, showing a small, delicately featured face, pale in tint, and with large eyes.

"Didn't want to keep the case, didn't you?" he asked.

"I didn't want to keep the case—and, yes, I am seeing how it looks on me," she answered in a composed voice. "And when I have seen how it looks on me, I'm going to throw it into the river, after the case."

"That's a rum start!" There was more than the connoisseur's study of beauty in his regard of her now. "Throwing pearl rings into the Thames is a funny way of spending your time, ain't it?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, turning and facing him squarely.

"The case—well, that's not so funny; cases tell tales. But I was thinking that you might only have thought of throwing the ring after it quite lately—since you've seen me, in point of fact. Anything in that?"

She looked at him a moment longer, and then smiled tentatively. "Oh!" she said slowly, in the tone of one who makes a discovery. "You're thinking?" Her smile broadened a little, developing a dimple in her left cheek. "I suppose it must look curious!"

"Well, it does a bit, miss." Her air and the quality of her voice extorted the "miss" from him, in spite of his suspicions.

"Of course I thought nobody would see me."

The policeman's face remained gravely irresponsive to the hint of appeal in her words. An alarm—yet rather humorous than serious—showed in her eyes.

"You really mustn't take me up," she said. "That would be most awkward. I—I suppose I should have to explain—everything?"

"Couldn't you begin by explaining a bit now, miss? Just a bit to go on with, so to speak."

"Oh, why not?" she murmured, as though to herself. She turned away from him towards the river again, fingering the pearl ring. "It must have looked funny," she acknowledged again. "But I hadn't worn it for nearly three years. So I thought I'd put it on just once more and see how it—how it used to look. And just then you came up!"

"It looks worth money."

"Not very much. The friend who gave it to me wasn't rich—when he gave it to me."

"My missus would call it pretty fine! Folks down our street wouldn't think she'd come honestly by it."

"And you don't think I have?" She smiled again.

"I've got my duty to do, miss." A touch of apology softened his sturdiness.

"I came honestly by it, but I can't keep it honestly. So"—she drew the ring off her finger—"it's best at the bottom of the river."

"Wait a bit, miss!" he said sharply, as he laid his hand on hers.

She faced him again. "Well, then, I suppose I must tell you about it—though that seems to me just as funny as throwing the ring into the river. Funnier, in fact! You needn't hold me. I won't throw it in until you give me leave. There, let it lie on the parapet between us. No, the wind may blow it away; you hold it." She gave it to him, and clasped her hands again.

The policeman looked at the ring—a single pearl of no great size, plainly set in gold.

"Maybe a—a token, miss?" he hazarded.

"Yes, a token. An engagement ring."

"I gave my girl a brooch—rare pleased she was with it!"

"I was rare pleased with that, but now it's best at the bottom of the river." She paused a moment, then glanced round with a smile. "We can't stay here talking all night, can we, either of us? I must clear my character, and then go home! Well, a man I was engaged to gave me that ring. I needn't tell you what he said when he gave it to me, need I?"

"That will not be necessary, miss."

"I'm glad. Just three months later—you don't want his name, do you?"

"Not at present, at all events, miss."

"Just three months later I got a letter from him—from the South of France, where he was. I can't produce the letter."

"Never mind that, miss."

"He told me that he loved me best still, but that he couldn't stand the pressure put on him by his family. They had found a great match for him—a girl very much richer and greater than I am. He did say too that she was very pretty, but as I knew her by sight, I didn't—well, never mind that. Then he went on to ask me to forgive him and not think too badly of him. He said he knew he was a coward"

"He was right there, miss."

"But if I understood how he was placed, I shouldn't think him quite such a cur as he looked, and he asked me, if I had ever cared for him at all, not to make it too hard for him, and to keep his ring for the sake of old times. He said that, if I sent it back, he'd think I meant that he was the worst kind of cur."

"I'd have sent it back," observed the policeman.

"I kept it as the one thing in the world I had left."

"Women are different, sometimes."

"But I can't keep it any more now."

"Got over your feelings? That's right, miss. There's as good fish"

"I've got another ring, anyhow."

"I see, miss," said the policeman, with a comprehending nod. "I remember," he went on meditatively, "a drunk as I once ran in"

"A drunk what?"

"I beg your pardon, miss. A gentleman in a state of intoxication, I should have said. Well, he was a scholar, and he told me—while we was waiting for his bail, you know, miss—a lot of stories of old days—(His head was all right, only his legs had given out hopeless)—one about some great man who took and threw his favourite ring into the sea, just because things were going too lucky with him, and there must be a change soon; he kind o' tried to have a bit of bad luck and get it over. No good! Next time he had fish for dinner—he had it every day, too, I expect—there was the ring in the fish's—inside the fish, miss. He couldn't get fair rid of that ring, and lots of trouble it brought him. The gentleman was going on to tell me all about it, only the bail came. You meet a lot of interesting men in my profession, miss."

"I don't think my ring will come back to me—for good or evil. Shall we throw it in now?"

"Well, considering all things, it is better there, ain't it, miss?"

"Your wife wouldn't like it?"

"Not that chap's ring on her finger, miss!"

"Let me put it on mine once again!"

"You wouldn't, miss?"

"And then—the river!"

"As you please, miss."

"Am I to keep it, and steal looks at it, and get unhappy again?"

"You're right. It's better in the river, miss."

"Give it to me, please."

She took it and put it on the third finger of her left hand again. After a deliberately defiant look at the policeman she kissed it. Then she drew it off and flung it after its case, as far out into the river as she could. The clock in the tower boomed ten; the last thirty minutes had not seemed so long to the policeman, after all. "I don't suppose we shall ever speak to one another again," she said, "but you've been kind to me. I'm grateful."

"I didn't mean to intrude, miss. It was only my duty."

"I know. I never thought how odd it might look."

"Seeing as we're not likely to meet again, may I make bold to wish you all happiness, miss? There's as good fish!"

"Thank you. I shall think of you as a friend. Good night." She gave him her left hand—the little hand whereon the ring had once rested in loved possession: his mighty fist swallowed it for a moment, almost as the broad river had the ring. He watched her as she sped swiftly across the road and past the big buildings. There were cabs at the foot of Northumberland Avenue, and she got into one.

"Lucky she didn't want to chuck herself in too!" reflected the policeman. "Some of 'em do!"

Next day the round of his varied and, as he had justly hinted, often interesting duties called him to the task of regulating the "setting-down" and "taking-up" of carriages at the entrance to St. Margaret's Church. The occasion was one of interest, nay, even of some popular excitement. The church itself was crowded; the many outside were agog to catch a sight of the eminent and sumptuous few who were privileged to enter; carriages and cars were there in a swarm, and the policeman was kept busy in the exercise of his discreet omnipotence. So he missed the ingoing of the bride, all veiled, on her father's arm, and had to take it on trust, from a junior comrade, that she was a "spicy piece of goods!" He smiled rather scornfully, telling his young friend that he had seen a mint of such. Yet he liked the occasion. It was a soldier's wedding. He was an old soldier, and grew warm at heart when he saw the uniforms passing in to ornament the scene. Moreover he was always pleased to have a wedding to tell his wife about at supper. That amused her, whereas he had decided that the story of the girl on the Embankment and her ring would not. Sentimental tales about other women were apt to breed sarcasm; such was the policeman's personal experience. But even his tale of the wedding would be held a lame one if he could not so much as see the bride.

Fate was kind to him and his domestic reputation. He had marshalled his carriages and cars in the neatest order before the service in the church was over; the carriage that was to receive the newly married pair headed the line, and he stood by it, hot but satisfied. Music pealed muffled from within; bride and bridegroom came out, and passed between the rows of his comrades who held back the spectators. He was furthest from the door on his side and nearest the carriage. But he saw her directly she came out; her veil thrown back suffered him to see the fine delicately cut features which had been turned to him under the Embankment lamp the night before. This "fashionable function" became much more to him; and he, in some odd way, seemed to become much more of it—to be translated in a moment into the inside, the intimate side, of it. It was very possible that he knew something about it which nobody else in church or square knew, save only the girl who walked there in bridal white. Something of a thrill possessed him; there were interesting people and interesting things to be met with in his profession!

Would she see him? He had a queer longing that she should. But her eyes were orthodoxly downcast. He was grateful to a man in the crowd who raised a cheer. It met with a kindly response; the bridegroom was a well-known and popular man. The cheer made her look up, and smile, and glance from side to side.

"Surely she must see me!" thought the policeman, as he stood burly, motionless, rooted to the place which discipline assigned him. Suddenly her lips parted, as though in eagerness; then came the smile again—last night's smile, born of humour, not of happiness—and the faintest tinge of colour in her cheeks. Her eyes rested on him for a moment, and he heard her voice—yes, the policeman heard it quite plainly, though nobody else did. "You see now why it's better at the bottom of the river!" she said. As she passed into the carriage, his hand flew to the salute.

"She did speak to me again, after all!" he was crying behind his stolid mask.