Chapter 274: Hut Night Talk (k2)

Chapter 273 – Hut Night Talk (5k2)
Thunderstorms poured outside the window, the trees in Hyde Park were whipped around by the howling winds of the London evening, and raindrops the size of small thumbs slapped against the window panes with a thumping sound, like bullets.

Arthur and the others sat around the fireplace, the reddish glow of the fire reflecting on everyone’s faces, which only brought a hint of warmth to the chilly surroundings.

Dickens took a small sip of his hot tea and savored it, he twisted his head to look at the closed windows of the house and opened his mouth to ask, “Every time I come here, the windows are closed, don’t you guys need to ventilate?”

Arthur opened his mouth while flipping through the book in his hand, “Isn’t it enough to have a vent in the house? It’s so cool in London at night, you’ll freeze and catch cold if you keep the window open.”

Hearing this, Disraeli raised a finger for emphasis, “Arthur, haven’t you seen all those studies published by Dr. Arnott of the Royal Society in the major newspapers? If you hang a canary from the top of your bed tent, then when you get up in the morning you will find it dead.

Dr. Arnott said that living in a poorly ventilated room accumulates a lot of carbon dioxide, which in turn combines with water in the air to form carbonic acid. Can you imagine your house full of carbonic acid? Wow, that’s just horrible, that would eventually poison you!”

Hearing this, Arthur just chuckled softly and skimmed his lips, “I can’t see it, Benjamin, so you’re even getting into the field of chemistry.”

“That’s for sure, a good man just has to know a little bit of everything.”

Disraeli pulled his collar proudly, and at the end he didn’t forget to give Arthur some health advice, “If you are really afraid of the cold and don’t want to open the window, then put a few bowls of lime water in your room, it will keep absorbing the carbonic acid in the room. By the time you get up tomorrow morning, you’ll be able to notice some extra cloudy sediment in the bowl, and that’s the culprit that’s jeopardizing your life.

Arthur, even though you’re a researcher in the field of electromagnetism, I’d still recommend that you turn to the Science of Home Living for more information about chemistry and home health.”

Arthur couldn’t help but shrug his shoulders when he heard this, “Thanks for the recommendation, but I think I still prefer reading the Weekly Police Gazette founded by radical scribes to Home Life Science. It seems to me that without knowing the former I’d at best sleep uneasily, but without the latter the number of assaults on the police, which has managed to drop lately, might just as well increase dramatically again.”

Hearing this, Disraeli spoke up and persuaded, “Hey Arthur, I know how you feel. You just despise housework, in fact I was like you before, I despised the magazine at first, thinking that all that was written in there was for ladies at home to pass the time. But when Mrs. Henrietta Sykes took me to read it with her at the last party, I saw how valuable it was. That knowledge is not only of great help to the ladies, but to the men as well.”

“Oooh ……” Dumas, who was reviewing the manuscript, heard this and immediately got excited, “See what I hear? Mrs. Sykes! Benjamin, I remember you are twenty-six years old, so Mrs. Sykes would be around thirty-four to thirty-eight?”

Disraeli glared and emphasized, “Alexander, Mrs. Sykes is a very lovely and sensual lady! And she’s also a loyal reader of our Britannica, she used to write to our editorial office a long time ago. It was only through Mrs. Sykes’ introduction to the Earl of Lyndhurst that I was able to enter the Tory circle so successfully. I will not allow you to make French jokes about her.”

Seeing Disraeli in this state, Dumas just shook his head at Arthur and said, “It’s really finished, it seems that apart from Charles, another little fool has fallen in love today. We’ve lost two of the main writers of The Englishman in one fell swoop, what a loss!”

Arthur just calmly sipped his tea at his words, “Alexander, you have to hurry up too. Benjamin has been putting up a marriage advertisement in The Times for me for a month now, if you’re in a hurry, why don’t you take it up next month instead?”

Dumas sniffed and pondered, “By the way, how effective was that false advertisement you ran in the Times? Was there a reaction?”

Disraeli nodded slightly and said, “There’s certainly been a reaction, more than that, it’s been quite a big one. This month, I’ve received a big box full of love letters alone.”

“The effect is so good?” Alexander was surprised, “I thought the ladies of London were all very reserved, but now it seems that the reserve is just on the surface. As long as it meets their criteria for choosing a spouse, they can be as passionate as a French girl no different.”

Hearing this, Arthur coldly and suddenly interjected, “The ladies are not the only ones who are passionate, so are the gentlemen.”

“Gentlemen?” Dumas suddenly startled when he heard this, “It’s hard to believe that there are …… more in those love letters.”

Without waiting for Dumas to finish, Arthur interrupted with a voice: “It’s none of my business, anyway, I’ve forwarded all the love letters to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as they were. I hope the Post Office will see to it that the sending department is Scotland Yard, and will be able to get the letters there before the Beagle finishes her Brazilian expedition.”

Dumas nodded his head in agreement when he heard this, “That’s not a bad idea, and Elder can digest it anyway, no matter how many, men, women, or children it is. After all, it would be really rude if you didn’t answer a single letter when someone writes you a love letter.”

Dickens stayed by the fire quietly roasting with his cup of tea in hand, and he couldn’t help but think of that holy white lotus in his heart, Miss Maria, when he heard of love letters.

Dickens looked at the fire and sighed ruefully, always feeling that he could not gather courage in front of Miss Maria in his own capacity.

When Dumas saw him like this, he couldn’t help but be angry: “Charles, I don’t mean to discourage you. But if you want to pick up a girl, you should at least show some manly courage. Isn’t it just a banker’s daughter? I thought you were looking at a princess from some country!”

Arthur also voiced his encouragement, “That’s right, look at Benjamin, the seven thousand pounds that he used to run a newspaper loan hasn’t even been repaid until now. Yet it is such a brat with a load of debt that dares to go after Sir Francis Sykes’ wife.”

Hearing this, Disraeli hastened to dispel the rumor, “Arthur, don’t be ridiculous. I do have a crush on Mrs. Sykes, and if she was still single, maybe we would have followed up, but right now ……”

Hearing this, Arthur just shook his head and said, “Benjamin, if you think like this, Mrs. Sykes may get angry. Her marriage with Sir Sykes is still justifiable, but that doesn’t stop them from playing their own games.

I heard Mrs. Sykes in private last month when I went to a meeting of the ladies of the Blue Stockings. Why do you think the Earl of Lyndhurst readily accepted you when Mrs. Sykes made the introduction for you? Benjamin, that proud head of yours had better try to be as good as it can be on this; you ought to be able to figure it out; it’s all in the matter.”

Dumas also nodded his head in agreement, “That’s right, in French politics, climbing up to a powerful lady will always save you a bunch of detours, and when it comes to pulling strings and spreading the word, ladies always have an advantage over gentlemen. Of course, it would be nice if you and she were truly in love.

Then again, isn’t Talleyrand the old cripple who, through nepotism, transformed himself from an uninherited and unappreciated son into an important figure in the destiny of France? Although the political ecology of Britain is slightly different from that of France, I think the principle should still be the same.”

“This ……”

Hearing this, Disraeli suddenly blushed and coughed twice, “This I certainly know, and Mrs. Sykes’ excellence is also unquestionable. Whether it’s in terms of repaying her for her introduction, or in terms of repaying her for her love of my Young Duke, I’m willing to do something for her.

But I don’t think it would be enough to make her proud of me just as a novelist. If it had been a few weeks ago, people might have boasted that Mrs. Sykes had an eye for a promising young MP for the Tories, but now I’m losing all the limelight to that woodcutter from Gladstone.”

Arthur asked, “I can understand your dislike of Mr. Gladstone, but why do you keep calling him a woodcutter?”

“Why else? That’s because he really is a woodcutter, of course!”

Disraeli hated, “Can you guys imagine? A young man in his early twenties, a graduate of Oxford, who actually doesn’t gamble, doesn’t whore, doesn’t drink, doesn’t have a violent streak spawned by his rotten, unhealthy college life, and whose only hobby is actually splitting dozens of pounds of firewood in his downtime.

Damn! Why on earth would there be people like Gladstone in this world? Wouldn’t it have been better for him to be a priest? With this do-gooding and acting style of his, he can definitely become the Archbishop of Canterbury in the future, so why bother coming to the Tory party to grab a track with me?”

Dumas yawned and said, “Then why don’t you switch to the Whigs? Isn’t the Tory Party not working now?”

Disraeli didn’t even think about it and vetoed it outright, “Yes, the Tory party is on its last legs, but I must not stoop to joining the Whig party. Only a pure aristocratic party like the Tory Party fits my temperament, while the Whigs look like aristocrats, but they’re still laced with too much of the toxic fumes from the factories and the smell of banknote ink from the financial city!” Dumas shook his head as he listened, “Young people are really casual when it comes to choosing their political leanings.”

Arthur sipped his tea, “Aren’t you the same?”

Just after the words were said, Arthur didn’t give Dumas the chance to open his mouth to fight back, and immediately rushed at Disraeli again and asked, “So the reason why you strongly demanded to go to Scotland Yard to do moral persuasion as Gladstone did was to fight with him, as a way to prove that Mrs. Sykes hadn’t looked at the wrong person?”

“That’s certainly important.”

Disraeli returned in a serious manner, “I am not so illustrious a personage as the Earl of Lyndhurst, that the mere hanging of a connection would add to Mrs. Sykes’s face. My advantage is that I am young, and being young means that there are more possibilities in my body. I’m going to prove to Mrs. Sykes that I, Benjamin Disraeli, deserve to have her ALL IN.”

Speaking of this, Disraeli did not forget to encourage Dickens, “Charles, the same goes for you. The ladies care about nothing more than those points, and if we can’t score points in terms of wealth and status, then think of ways to utilize your intelligence and wisdom.

You can write such an outstanding work as ‘Pickwick Gaiden’, so your talent is at least on the same level as mine. Could a banker’s daughter be more difficult to handle than Mrs. Sikes?

That’s why you have to succeed this time. For if you are thwarted in your affections, it is not only you who will be insulted, but also several of the remaining hotshot authors of The Englishman and The Economist, including, but not limited to, Benjamin Disraeli, Alexander Dumas, Arthur Hastings, Charles Darwin, Louis Bonaparte, John Mill, and, of course, Mr. Elder Carter.”

Dumas also nodded with a hearty laugh and said, “That’s right, and really, why don’t you go back and tell Miss Maria and ask her if she knows what happens when you offend Mr. Carter?”

As soon as Dumas’ words fell, a flash of lightning and thunder suddenly flashed outside the window.

Only a rumble was heard, the flame in the fireplace was shaken by the gusts of wind pouring in from the chimney, the startling thunder crossed the window, and after a brief moment of brightness, the house was plunged back into a dark, dead silence.

Dumas covered his pounding heart and took a deep breath, “Scared me, I thought flirting with Elder had resulted in inviting something unclean.”

Dickens was also frightened, he wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead and spoke, “The gale force winds and roaring lightning always reminds me of the piece of Frankenstein that Arthur asked me to adapt not too long ago.”

“Frankenstein?” Dumas immediately remembered after a moment’s recollection, “Oooh, that Mrs. Shelley one, right? I remember Arthur mentioning to me earlier that he was going to adapt it for the Cockney, and incidentally cast it in a small London theater to ease Mrs. Shelley’s financial difficulties a little. It really isn’t an easy life for her to publish and organize so much of Shelley’s posthumous work, and to pull her children along.”

“Well ……,” Dickens spoke up, “Alexander, by the way, have you seen Frankenstein? A Frankenstein who wanted to create life stitched together various collected body parts into an eight-foot-tall monster, and then one stormy night, lightning struck and boomed, and the stitched-together monster actually did open its eyes!”

Arthur took a bite of his cookie over his black tea, “Control lightning? This Frankenstein sounds just like Mr. Faraday. Perhaps in the future, when this play is moved to the theater, Frankenstein’s costume of Frankenstein can refer to Mr. Faraday as a prototype.”

Arthur’s playful words just finished, who knows no one in the room did not laugh, the glow of the fireplace printed on the faces of the people, but can not shine half a bit of blood, Dumas, Disraeli and Dickens, one by one, the face of the white, and even even the lips are slightly trembling.

Arthur frowned and asked: ”Just one of you is weak and frail in appearance, and still want me to open the window to ventilate the room on a stormy day? If you’re not feeling well, then go upstairs and lie down for a while, and I’ll go up and call you when the meal is ready. But I’ll say this up front, I’m not as good a cook as Alexander.”

The Red Devil, who wore spectacles, slung cotton slippers, and leaned back on the sofa to read by the fire, raised his head slightly to look out of the window, and he pushed up his spectacles and cried out, “Arthur, I don’t think they’re not unwell, but they’re frightened by that thing outside the window.”

“Frightened?”

Arthur put down his white porcelain teacup and stood up to look out of the window in the distance, only to see a hunched, tall figure vaguely visible on the dark streets, behind the shadows of the night’s trees.

His back looked like it had a pustule the size of a mound, and he had a sharp, slender saber sticking out of his arm, and as he took heavy steps, chunks and chunks of broken flesh seemed to be falling off his body.

Dumas took a deep breath as the fat Frenchman stared at the shadow with a death glare while picking his way around the table, “My God! I didn’t realize that the first time I fired my new gun was actually for something like this!”

Dickens was also stunned, “Is it hard to believe that the book written by Mrs. Snow …… Leigh is all true? Or did Mr. Faraday build this monster?”

Disraeli also shouted in shock, “Can’t the Royal Society learn something good! Like study more about exchanging air and keeping breathing, what do they have nothing to do with making this!”

Several big men hugged each other, too scared to let out a single breath. Although they were all ready to fight, before the actual fight, they still pinned their hopes on the monster to know what to do and retreat, and the guys stayed well out of the water.

Seeing this situation, Arthur just stretched his back, picked up his teacup and drank the rest of the tea in one go, and turned around to head for the door.

Dickens exclaimed, “Arthur, what are you doing?”

Disraeli hurriedly grabbed the musket in Dumas’ hand and threw it over, “Even if you’re going, you have to bring a piece of defense!”

Dumas, on the other hand, directly threw the half-drunk bottle of red wine in his hand and said, “What’s the use of drinking tea, this is the only way to get energized!”

Arthur just frowned and shook his head at the three of them, he gently twisted open the door handle, the howling cold wind poured into the house, and blew his neatly combed hair into the wind.

Dumas and the others held their breath, and as they watched, they only saw a pair of large, moist, sticky hands sticking out of the door, which had two letters tucked into their fingers.

“Sir, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do this to your letters. But as you can see, it’s a hell of a day, and when I was crossing Hyde Park I made a mistake and fell straight into a little mud puddle by the side of the road, and I’m covered in mud, and my mailbag is soaked through.

I’m sorry to say this, but would you mind checking the sender and address on the envelope now? If there’s no mistake, I’d also like you to sign for it.”

Arthur looked at the simple mailman, who was soaking wet and his pants and backpack behind him were covered in mud, and just smiled and spoke, “That’s okay, sir. Unfortunate things do happen occasionally in this weather.”

Dumas breathed a long sigh of relief as the fat Frenchman sat paralyzed on the carpet beside the table, “Scared the hell out of me, I thought it was the ghost of Elder manifesting.”

Arthur scanned down the envelope and spoke with a raised eyebrow, “No, Alexander, you’re not really wrong. Elder’s ghost did manifest, and this letter is from him, and of course, there’s a diary of the researcher’s observations attached to it.”

(End of chapter)