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Charles Reade The Box Tunnel

THE BOX TUNNEL

CHARLES READE

The 10:15 train glided from Paddington May 7, 1847. In the left

compartment of a certain first-class carriage were four passengers;

of these two were worth description. The lady had a smooth, white,

delicate brow, strongly marked eyebrows, long lashes, eyes that

seemed to change colour, and a good-sized, delicious mouth, with

teeth as white as milk. A man could not see her nose for her eyes

and mouth; her own sex could, and would have told us some nonsense

about it. She wore an unpretending grayish dress, buttoned to

the throat with lozenge-shaped buttons, and a Scottish shawl that

agreeably evaded colour. She was like a duck, so tight her plain

feathers fitted her, and there she sat, smooth, snug, and delicious,

with a book in her hand and a soupcon of her wrist just visible as

she held it. Her opposite neighbour was what I call a good style

of man, the more to his credit since he belonged to a corporation

that frequently turns out the worst imaginable style of young men.

He was a cavalry officer, aged twenty-five. He had a moustache,

but not a very repulsive one--not one of those subnasal pigtails on

which soup is suspended like dew on a shrub; it was short, thick,

and black as a coal. His teeth had not yet been turned by tobacco

smoke to the colour of juice; his clothes did not stick to nor

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Charles Reade The Box Tunnel

hang to him; he had an engaging smile, and, what I liked the dog

for, his vanity, which was inordinate, was in its proper place, his

heart, not in his face, jostling mine and other people's who have

none; in a word, he was what one oftener hears of than meets--a

young gentleman. He was conversing in an animated whisper with

a companion, a fellow-officer; they were talking about what it is

far better not to--women. Our friend clearly did not wish to be

overheard; for he cast ever and anon a furtive glance at his fair

vis-a-vis and lowered his voice. She seemed completely absorbed

in her book, and that reassured him. At last the two soldiers came

down to a whisper (the truth must be told); the one who got down

at Slough, and was lost to posterity, bet ten pounds to three that

he who was going down with us to Bath and immortality would not

kiss either of the ladies opposite upon the road. "Done, done!" Now

I am sorry a man I have hitherto praised should have lent himself,

even in a whisper, to such a speculation; "but nobody is wise at

all hours," not even when the clock is striking five and twenty,

and you are to consider his profession, his good looks, and the

temptation--ten to three.

After Slough the party was reduced to three. At Twylford one lady

dropped her handkerchief; Captain Dolignan fell on it like a lamb;

two or three words were interchanged on this occasion. At Reading

the Marlborough of our tale made one of the safe investments of that

day; he bought a "Times" and "Punch"--the latter full of steel-pen

thrusts and woodcuts. Valour and beauty deigned to laugh at some

inflamed humbug or other punctured by "Punch." Now laughing together

thaws our human ice; long before Swindon it was a talking-match;

at Swindon who so devoted as Captain Dolignan? He handed them out,

he souped them, he tough-chickened them, he brandied and cochinealed

one, and he brandied and burnt-sugared the other; on their return

to the carriage one lady passed into the inner compartment to

inspect a certain gentleman's seat on that side of the line.

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Charles Reade The Box Tunnel

Reader, had it been you or I, the beauty would have been the

deserter, the average one would have stayed with us till all was

blue, ourselves included; not more surely does our slice of bread

and butter, when it escapes from our hand, revolve it ever so often,

alight face downward on the carpet. But this was a bit of a fop,

Adonis, dragoon, --so Venus remained in tete-a-tete with him. You

have seen a dog meet an unknown female of his species; how handsome,

how _empresse_, how expressive he becomes: such was Dolignan

after Swindon, and, to do the dog justice, he got handsome and

handsomer. And you have seen a cat conscious of approaching cream:

such was Miss Haythorn; she became demurer and demurer. Presently

our captain looked out of the window and laughed; this elicited an

inquiring look from Miss Haythorn.

"We are only a mile from the Box Tunnel."

"Do you always laugh a mile from the Box Tunnel?" said the lady.

"Invariably."

"What for?"

"Why, hem! it is a gentleman's joke."

Captain Dolignan then recounted to Miss Haythorn the following:

"A lady and her husband sat together going through the Box Tunnel;

there was one gentleman opposite; it was pitch-dark. After the

tunnel the lady said, 'George, how absurd of you to salute me going

through the tunnel!' 'I did no such thing.' 'You didn't?' 'No;

why?' 'Because somehow I thought you did!'"

Here Captain Dolignan laughed and endeavoured to lead his companion

to laugh, but it was not to be done. The train entered the tunnel.

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Charles Reade The Box Tunnel

_Miss Haythorn._ Ah!

_Dolignan._ What is the matter?

_Miss Haythorn._ I am frightened.

_Dolignan_ (moving to her side). Pray do not be alarmed; I am

near you.

_Miss Haythorn._ You are near me--very near me indeed, Captain

Dolignan.

_Dolignan._ You know my name?

_Miss Haythorn._ I heard you mention it. I wish we were out

of this dark place.

_Dolignan._ I could be content to spend hours here reassuring

you, my dear lady.

_Miss Haythorn._ Nonsense!

_Dolignan._ Pweep! (Grave reader, do not put our lips to the

next pretty creature you meet, or will understand what this means.)

_Miss Haythorn._ Ee! Ee!

_Friend._ What is the matter?

_Miss Haythorn._ Open the door! Open the door!

There was a sound of hurried whispers; the door was shut and the

blind pulled down with hostile sharpness.

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Charles Reade The Box Tunnel

If any critic falls on me for putting inarticulate sounds in a

dialogue as above, I answer, with all the insolence I can command

at present, "Hit boys as big as yourself"--bigger, perhaps, such

as Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; they began it, and I

learned it of them sore against my will.

Miss Haythorn's scream lost most of its effect because the engine

whistled forty thousand murders at the same moment, and fictitious

grief makes itself heard when real cannot.

Between the tunnel and Bath our young friend had time to ask himself

whether his conduct had been marked by that delicate reserve which

is supposed to distinguish the perfect gentleman.

With a long face, real or feigned, he held open the door; his late

friends attempted to escape on the other side; impossible! they must

pass him. She whom he had insulted (Latin for kissed) deposited

somewhere at his feet a look of gentle, blushing reproach; the

other, whom he had not insulted, darted red-hot daggers at him from

her eyes; and so they parted.

It was perhaps fortunate for Dolignan that he had the grace to be

a friend to Major Hoskyns of his regiment, a veteran laughed at

by the youngsters, for the major was too apt to look coldly upon

billiard-balls and cigars; he had seen cannon-balls and linstocks. He

had also, to tell the truth, swallowed a good bit of the mess-room

poker, which made it as impossible for Major Hoskyns to descend

to an ungentlemanlike word or action as to brush his own trousers

below the knee.

Captain Dolignan told this gentleman his story in gleeful accents;

but Major Hoskyns heard him coldly, and as coldly answered that he

had known a man to lose his life for the same thing.

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