Under One Flag
by Richard Marsh · English · Gutenberg #40451 · 496,622 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Under One Flag
Author: Richard Marsh
Release date: August 8, 2012 [eBook #40451]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
Under One Flag
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
CURIOS
ADA VERNHAM, ACTRESS
MRS MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND
MISS ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE
THE MAGNETIC GIRL
CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG LADY
THE GARDEN OF MYSTERY
JOHN LONG, Publisher, London
Under One Flag
By
Richard Marsh
Author of "The Beetle," etc.
London
John Long
13 and 14 Norris Street, Haymarket
[_All Rights Reserved_]
_First Published in 1906_
CONTENTS
A Pet Of The Ballet.
A Christmas Miracle.
Our Musical Comedy.
Staggers.
My Wedding Day.
Two of a Trade.
Rewarded.
On the River.
A Member of the Anti-Tobacco League.
That Foursome.
An Episcopal Scandal.
Mr Bloxam and the British Constitution.
For Debt.
The Thirteen Club.
Under One Flag
A PET OF THE BALLET
I
She was regarding, ruefully, the condition of her white satin shoes.
They were articles which the ladies of the ballet had to provide for
themselves. Twice she had sewn on fresh uppers, and now both uppers and
soles had gone. Clearly it was a case in which a new pair would have to
be bought. And yet, this week, money seemed shorter than ever. She
wondered if skilful patching would not make them do till treasury. And,
while she wondered, there was a knock at the door.
"Come in."
Polly Steele was the only visitor who ever came her way. She took it
for granted that it was Polly now--though why Miss Steele should be so
ceremonious as to knock she did not stop to think. She was continuing
to consider the question of the possibility of repairing the shoes when
a voice behind her caused her to spring to her feet with a start.
"Pardon--Miss Lizzie Emmett?"
Standing in the doorway was an individual who was dressed in a fashion
in which gentlemen in the immediate neighbourhood of Hercules Buildings
were not accustomed to dress. His clothes were beautiful, he wore
patent leather shoes, his tie was a marvel, he carried a glossy silk
hat in a well-gloved hand. He became his costume--so tall and so
slender; with a little beard cut to a point; a charming moustache, the
ends of which curled gracefully upwards. The vision was such an
unexpected one that Lizzie, forgetful, for the moment, of her manners,
stared at the stranger with bewildered surprise. "I'm Liz Emmett." The
stranger bowed and smiled.
"In that case, Miss Emmett, I believe that I have the honour of being
the bearer of a little parcel for you. I trust that the contents may
have the pleasure to meet with your approbation--also the source from
which it comes."
He advanced into the room--the poor, scantily-furnished, untidy, tawdry
little room!--holding out to her a small, neatly-fastened package. She
took it with what was almost an air of sullen indifference, evincing
neither curiosity nor satisfaction. "I don't know you." Again a bow and
a smile.
"That is my misfortune, which I hope is on the high road towards
amendment. My name is Philippe Rossignol. It may be that the day is not
far distant when mademoiselle will come to look upon me as a friend--as
a very good friend indeed--eh?"
There was something in the fellow's obsequious bearing which savoured
of impertinence--something which it seemed as if the girl resented.
"I shouldn't think that you'd ever be a friend of mine. You don't look
as if you was my sort."
The smile became more pronounced, and also more insulting.
"Not your sort? I pray that I have not so much ill fortune."
He paused, as if for her to speak. She spoke.
"I don't care for foreigners. Can't abide 'em. Never could."
The man drew himself up as if she had struck him. The smile lingered
about his lips, though something very different was in his eyes. He was
silent, as if considering what to say. His words, when they came,
ignored her unflattering remark.
"The abode of mademoiselle is a little difficult to discover, unless
one happens to know just exactly where it is."
"No one asked you to discover it, as I know of, so I don't see what
odds that makes to you."
The girl's insistent rudeness seemed to occasion the stranger not only
surprise, but something else as well, something approaching to
curiosity. He observed her with more attention, as if she suggested a
problem to his mind which was of the nature of a puzzle. She was young,
strongly built, healthy. Beyond that, so far as he could see, she was
nothing. She had neither face nor figure. Her movements were ungainly,
her features were, emphatically, plain. Her dress was not only
poor--worse, it was in execrable taste. She seemed to have decked herself
in as many colours as she conveniently could, none of them being in
sympathy with her complexion. Her manners were those of a woman of the
people, her voice was a female Cockney's. Metaphorically, M. Rossignol
shrugged his shoulders; to himself he said,--
"What there is attractive in her is for him to decide; for my part, I
would rather that it were for him than for me. It is a folly even for a
fool, even such a fool as that!"
Aloud he bade the lady farewell. "I have the pleasure of wishing
mademoiselle a very good day."
As he backed towards the door he favoured her with a bow which could
scarcely have been lower had she been an empress. She let him go
without a word or sign of greeting. It was only when he had vanished,
and the sound of his footsteps had ceased upon the stairs, that she
found her tongue.
"Greasy foreigner, nasty, sneering beast! Coming shoving his nose in
here as if he was somebody and me the dirt under his feet. I'll show
him! If he'd stayed much longer, a-trying it on with me, I'd have give
him one for himself, and helped him to the door. What's this, I'd like
to know." She glanced down at the package she was holding, as if
suddenly remembering it was there. She read the address which was on
it. "'Miss Lizzie Emmett, 14 Hercules Buildings, Westminster.' He's got
my address all right, though how he's got it is more than I can say.
What's inside? Feels as if it was something hard." She made as if to
open it. Then in a fit of sudden petulance she threw it from her, so
that it landed on the bed which was at her back. "I'm not going to
trouble myself about his rubbish. I never set eyes on him in all my
life before--who's he, I'd like to know. If ever he shows himself
inside my place again, I'll start him travelling." She resumed her
consideration of the vexed question of the shoes. "I can't get no more
till Saturday, so they'll have to do, and that's all about it. I'll
fake 'em up with cardboard, same as I did once before, and if anybody
notices it, why, they'll have to."
Seating herself on the only chair the room contained she began to cut,
with a pair of scissors, pieces out of the lid of a cardboard box,
which was yellow on one side and white on the other. She was not deft
with her fingers, nor quick. The job promised to be a long one, and not
remarkable for neatness when done. As with hunched shoulders she
pursued her task of cobbling, for a second time there came a knock at
the door.
"Now who's that? If it's that bloke back again, he'll get what for."
This, _sotto voce_; then, aloud, "Is that you, Polly?"
It was not Polly, as the voice which answered showed.
"Does anyone live here named Emmett?"
The visitor this time was a woman. Lizzie eyed her with as much
surprise as she had eyed the man; certainly she was every whit as much
out of place in Hercules Buildings as he had been. Like him, she was
tall and slender, and beautifully dressed. Lizzie's feminine gaze,
taking in the details of her costume, dimly realised its costliness.
"May I come in?"
"If you like you can."
Apparently the stranger did like. She closed the door behind her,
standing, for a moment, to regard Miss Emmett. Then her look wandered
about the room. She wore a big hat, to which was attached a veil which
was so thick as almost to entirely obscure her features. But one
realised, from something in her attitude, that what she saw filled her
with amazement.
"I think that I may have made a mistake."
"I shouldn't be surprised but what you had."
"Is it a Miss Lizzie Emmett who lives here?"
"Yes--Liz Emmett--that's me."
"You!" The astonishment in the speaker's voice was unequivocal, and not
complimentary. One understood that she was studying Lizzie from behind
her veil as if she could scarcely believe her eyes. Her speech
faltered. "Excuse me, but are you in the profession?"
A hint of defiance came into Lizzie's tone. She was beginning to
suspect that her visitor might be something in the district-visiting
line.
"I'm in the ballet at the Cerulean Theatre--that's what I am!"
The stranger seemed to shiver as she heard; as if the answer removed
from her mind the last traces of doubt, leaving her, instead, with a
feeling of uncomfortable certainty. Turning towards the tiny fireplace,
she began to trifle with the odds and ends which were on the
mantelshelf. Then, once more confronting Lizzie, with a deliberate
movement she raised her veil.
"Do you know me?"
"I can't say as how I do."
"I am Agnes Graham."
Lizzie was moved to genuine emotion. She rose from her chair in a
flutter of excitement. She became more awkward than ever.
"Think of me not knowing you! I ought to, seeing how often I've seen
your picture. I beg your pardon, Miss Graham, I'm sure, but won't you
take a chair?"
"Thank you, for the present I'll stand." She eyed the other
steadfastly; it seemed as if the more she gazed the more her wonder
grew. "I'm afraid that I have come to you on a foolish errand, and that
you will laugh at me before I've done, if you don't do worse."
"Laugh at you, Miss Graham. That I'm sure I won't."
"May I ask, Miss Emmett, if you know anything of my private history?"
"Me!" The inquiry might have conveyed a reproach, Lizzie's denial was
uttered with so much earnestness. "I don't know nothing at all about
you, miss, except what's in the papers."
"Except what's in the papers!" Miss Graham smiled, not sunnily. "In
that case you know more about me than I do about myself. Still, I am
disposed to inflict on you a fragment of personal history. You might
not think it, but, in spite of what is in the papers, I'm a dreamer."
"Indeed, miss? I'm a dreamer too."
The words were spoken so simply that it seemed difficult to suspect the
speaker of a second intention. Miss Graham, however, shot at her a
sudden doubting glance. Her tone became harder.
"I trust, for both our sakes, that our dreams do not run on the same
lines. I have always dreamed of a home; of a harbour at last; of peace
at the end; of a time when I shall be able to take my seat among the
best, with a mind at ease. It may sound odd, but I have always looked
forward to making a good marriage."
"I should think, miss, that you might have done that over and over
again."
"I might, but I haven't. But lately I have thought that I might. I am
sick of the stage, sick to death!"
She gave a little passionate gesture. In her voice there was a ring of
sincerity.
"I shouldn't have thought, miss, that you would ever have been sick of
the stage."
"You wouldn't have thought! What do you know of it? You!" She cast a
look at Lizzie which was as scornful as her words. Then glanced at the
empty rust-worn grate. Then again met Lizzie face to face. "I will be
as frank with you as I would ask you to be frank with me. I have
dreamed--I use the word advisedly!--I say that I have dreamed of being
Countess of Bermondsey."
"Countess of Bermondsey! I'd like to lay, miss, that you could be
anything you please!"
Miss Graham's lips were drawn close together.
"Are you laughing at me?"
"Laughing at you! Me, miss! I shouldn't think of doing such a thing."
"Then may I ask you to be as candid as myself? Before this my dream
might have been something more solid than a dream, if it had not been
for you."
"For me!"
Lizzie was open-eyed and open-mouthed.
"Pray don't let us play the actress off the boards. Don't you think we
might confine that sort of thing to our hours of business?"
"But I don't understand you, miss. Do you mean that you might have been
the Countess of Bermondsey if it had not been for me?"
Miss Graham's eyes were as keen and cold as the other's were hot and
eager.
"I see that a denial is trembling on your lips. Pray don't trouble
yourself to utter it. Is that the sort of person you are? I assure you
that, in this case, at least, you make a mistake; for unfortunately I
speak from knowledge." She stopped, then resumed with a strain of
passion in her voice which, almost with every word, became more
strenuous. "The Earl of Bermondsey, as, doubtless, you are aware,
although for reasons of your own you may feign ignorance, has, for some
time, been a friend of mine. I had reason to believe that he might
become more, until, recently, the outward tokens of his friendship
waned. I looked for the reason. I found it. He has, lately, become an
assiduous patron of the Cerulean Theatre. This morning I taxed him with
it. He offered no denial. I asked him for the lady's name. He
floundered--as you may be aware his lordship is an adept at
floundering--and, as he floundered, a piece of paper fell from his
pocket on to the floor. I picked it up. On it was a lady's name and her
address. I asked if she was the attraction at the Cerulean. He owned
that she was. He said things of her," the speaker's voice quivered,
"which I do not care to recount at second hand to you. 'Lizzie Emmett,
14 Hercules Buildings, Westminster,' was on the paper, and it was of
you those things were said."
"Me!"
The actress moved slightly away from the fireplace, speaking with a
strength of feeling and an eloquence of gesture which, had she been
capable of such efforts on the stage, would have gained her
immortality.
"It may be sport to you--I daresay it is, there was a time when I used
to think that sort of thing was sport--but it is death to me. Death! He
has as good as promised that I shall be his wife. I have staked
everything upon the fulfilment of his promise. Nothing can compensate
me for his breaking it. I won't try to make you understand why--you
mightn't understand me if I tried! But if he does, I'll go
under--under! If you only knew what I've endured since he's begun to
tire, you'd pity me. I'm here to ask you to pity me now. We're both
women--be generous--I'll be sworn it's not of much consequence to
you--be good to me. If you'll only send him back to me, help me to be
his wife, there's nothing I won't do for you, in reason or out of
reason. I swear it. I'll put it down in black and white in any form you
like!" With trembling hands she caught hold of Lizzie's shabby sleeve.
"But don't be cruel to me--don't be cruel!"
Lizzie shrunk away from her.
"You're making a mistake, Miss Graham, a big mistake!"
"Don't say that, for pity's sake, don't say that! Show mercy to me, as
one day you may want some other woman to show mercy to you."
Lizzie withdrew herself still farther from the other's eager pleading.
"You've got it all wrong, I'm not the girl you're taking me for. I
don't know no Earl of Bermondsey, nor yet no Earl of anything, and I
don't want to."
"Why should you deny it?"
"Because it's the truth. I'm straight, I am, and I always have been,
and I always mean to be, and if any of your toffs came playing it off
on to me he'd get a bit more than he quite wanted."
The girl's tone and manner carried conviction even to her hearer.
"Is it possible that he is known to you under some different name? Tell
me, what friends have you?"
The singularity of the request did not seem to occur to Lizzie. The
reply came as promptly as if the question had been a commonplace.
"Friends? Do you mean fellows? The only fellow that ever was a friend
to me, and he's only a sort of a one, is Joe Mason, what's carpenter up
at the theatre; he's no earl. Ask yourself the question--do I look the
sort of girl an earl would take up with?"
Miss Graham felt that she did not--had felt so all along; not although
the earl was possessed of such peculiar tastes as was the one in
question.
"You might look different on the stage--one can make oneself look like
anything there."
"I might and I mightn't. As far as I know no one ever took me for a
beauty even on the stage, not even Joe Mason."
The girl's eyes twinkled with laughter, as if the bare possibility of
such a thing struck her as comical. Her visitor returned to the
fireplace. She made a little troubled movement with her hands.
"I wish you would be frank with me. You must know something of him,
even if you don't know him, else how came your name and address to be
in his pocket, and why should he claim your acquaintance?"
"It beats me fair, it does. I never gave it him, that's certain.
There's a muddle somewhere."
"Is there anyone else of your name at the theatre?"
"If there is I never heard of it, and I've been there now getting on
for two years. There's no one else of that name in the ballet, that I
do know."
"Have you ever acted for him as a go-between? Just think! I'll tell you
what he looks like. He's quite young, only twenty-two; short, rather
stout, light hair parted on the side, no moustache, red face, blue
eyes; and when he's at all excited he speaks as if he had a plum in his
mouth."
Lizzie shook her head.
"If he's like what you say he's not a beauty, but, so far as I know, I
never set eyes on him; and as for being a go-between, either for him or
for anybody else, I'd scorn to do it."
Agnes Graham's glance returned to the empty grate. She seemed to be
reflecting.
"I believe you. You sound honest, and you look it. But that there's a
mystery somewhere I'm persuaded. I'm in a desperate strait, and I want
you to do something for me. I'll pay you for it well."
"I don't want your pay."
The other went on unheeding.
"I want you to use your eyes, and to find out who it is at the Cerulean
he is after. That there is someone I have the best of reasons for
knowing. When you have found out I want you to tell me. And if you
won't do it for pay, do it out of kindness."
Lizzie hesitated.
"I'm not fond of spying, and I'm not fond of them as is, but as he
don't seem to be using you well, if I do find out who he's playing it
off with--though, mind you, I don't see how I'm going to--still, as I
say, if I should happen to find out, why, I'll tell you, straight!"
"Thank you."
Agnes Graham held out her hand, in order that, by grasping it, the girl
might ratify the bargain. And she did.
When she was again alone, Liz Emmett was lost in wonder. As she had
said, she also was a dreamer and, as became a dreamer, had her heroes
and her heroines. Theatrical heroines hers, for the most part, were;
not, that is, the creations of the dramatist's fancy, but their
flesh-and-blood enactors. The popular actress was the ideal creature of
her waking visions. Who, on the contemporary stage, was more popular,
in her own line, than Agnes Graham? There was a time when Lizzie had
been more than half inclined to bate her voice when uttering her name.
Even to this hour she had regarded her with a kind of reverence. Now
this idol, whom the public voice had set upon such a lofty pedestal,
had actually been to visit her; had come unceremoniously into her room
and filled it with her presence, with, for purpose, such an errand.
The errand was not the least strange part of this strange happening.
Agnes Graham, famous as she was beautiful, in the theatrical firmament
a bright particular star, had supposed that she, Lizzie Emmett, was her
rival for the heart, and possibly the hand, of an earl; a belted earl,
as she remembered to have seen it printed somewhere. The thing was most
confounding. How could such a notion have got into the air?
Lizzie, taking down the oblong shilling mirror from the nail on which
it hung, surveyed her face in it relentlessly. She was conscious of her
imperfections, and indifferent to them. She had supple limbs, was
fairly quick upon her feet, sufficiently smart at rehearsals, equal to
the average _figurante_. She was aware that, when so much was said,
about all was said. She had neither good looks nor cleverness, was no
scholar, nor wished to be, had a rough tongue, a quick temper, and a
clumsy, if a willing, hand. And Agnes Graham had imagined that she had
out-distanced her in the affections of a belted earl! Was ever idea
more ludicrous? As the ridiculous side struck Lizzie she began to
laugh; she continued laughing till her merriment threatened to become
hysterical.
As it approached a climax she caught sight of the package which she had
thrown upon the bed. She checked herself.
"Then there was that foreign bloke. I wonder what rubbish is in that
paper of his."
Putting down the looking-glass, she took up the parcel. She cut it open
with her scissors with a contemptuous air. Inside was a leather case.
She paused to examine it. She had seen others like it in the windows of
jewellers' shops. Pressing a spring, the top flew open. As it did so
she gave a sort of gasp. On a bed of satin reposed a necklace of
shimmering crystals. They gleamed and glistened like drops of dew. The
pupils of her eyes dilated. She spoke in a whisper.
"Diamonds? They can't be diamonds?" She had seen diamonds in shop
windows and on other women. "They can't be real."
Suddenly she gave utterance to an exclamation which the squeamish would
have called an oath and a vulgarity. Presently she joined to it a
snatch from the slang of the streets.
"This cops the biscuit."
She was staring, with wide-open eyes, at a strip of pasteboard which
was in the centre of the necklace, so that it was surrounded by a
stream of light. It was a gentleman's visiting-card. On it was engraved
"Earl of Bermondsey." She glared at it, as if she fancied that her
seeing sense must be playing her tricks. Her voice, when she spoke, was
vibrant; in it there was a curious ringing.
"Well, if this don't take the blooming barrowful, straight it does.
'Earl of Bermondsey'! If that ain't the bloke she was a-talking of. If
this ain't a case of Queer Street, I'm a daisy!"
She picked the card up between her finger and thumb gingerly, as if she
was afraid it might burn her. She turned it over; on the reverse
something was scribbled in pencil. Not being skilled in reading
illegible handwriting, it was with difficulty she deciphered it: "With
Mr Jack Smith's compliments."
"And who may Mr Jack Smith be, I'd like to know, when he's at home.
Anyhow, one thing's certain sure, this little lot ain't meant for me. I
don't know nothing about no Jack Smith, nor yet about no Earl of
Bermondsey neither, and I don't want to; and as for oily foreigners, I
can't abide 'em. I'll just take the entire boiling to Miss Graham.
Perhaps she'll be able to twig the bloke's little lay; it's more than I
can."
II
Lizzie Emmett had already departed some time when fresh visitors made
an unceremonious entry into her empty room. The door was opened and,
without giving any premonitory notice of her intention, a girl came in.
"Lizzie!" she cried. Then perceived that there was no one there. "Well,
if Lizzie isn't out!" She slightly raised her voice. "Tom, Lizzie's
out, but she's not gone far, because she hasn't locked the door. You
can come in--I'll give you leave. We'll wait for her."
There entered the room, with something of a shuffle, a man with a
rough, untrimmed brown beard. He was big and broad, also, it seemed, a
little shy; attired, obviously, in his best clothes. He seemed ill at
ease in them, as if, somehow, they deprived his limbs of their wonted
freedom. He gripped the brim of his brown billycock with both his large
red hands. There was on his good-natured face a mixture of amusement
with confusion, as though he was in possession of some happiness of
which he was, at one and the same time, proud yet ashamed.
The girl looked him up and down, as if searching for something wrong in
his costume or his bearing.
"Now you've got to behave yourself."
He shuffled from one foot to the other. And he grinned.
"Don't I always behave myself?"
"You've got to behave yourself extra special well, you're in a lady's
room." He looked about him, his grin continually expanding. The girl,
propping up the mirror which Lizzie had left upon the table against a
box, began, by its aid, to fidget with her hat, talking as she did so.
"Tom Duffield, you're on your good behaviour; as I might say, you're on
appro. If I'm going to be your wife you've got to do something to show
that you deserve it, so don't you seem to forget it." The man laughed,
for so big a fellow, with curious softness. "It's all very well for you
to laugh, but perhaps it is not all so cut and dried as you quite
think. You're going to take two ladies out for a holiday to Kew
Gardens, Mr Duffield, by the boat, so just you behave to them in a way
that'll show you'll do credit to me as a husband." He laughed again.
She faced him. "Well, and what might you be laughing at?"
He shuffled with his feet.
"Nothing--at you."
"That's a nice thing to say, upon my word. If you think I'm nothing, or
that I'm going to be treated as nothing, you'll soon find that you're
mistaken, and so I tell you. Don't stand fidgeting there like a great
gawk; go and get some sweets--chocolates--good ones, none of your cheap
truck, mind, and some fruit--grapes; Lizzie'll be ready by the time
you're back."
The man put on his hat. He went, without a word, to do her bidding,
with the obedience and the silence of a well-trained dog. Indeed, on
his face, in his eyes, even in his bearing, there was something which
was dog-like. The girl stared for a moment at the door through which he
had gone.
"He's useful if he's not ornamental."
She returned to the mirror. Not impossibly it suggested to her that
exactly the contrary might have been said of herself--she was
ornamental if she was not useful. Even stronger than the man's
resemblance to a dog was hers to a humming-bird. Like it, she was
small; like it, too, she was exquisitely, daintily fashioned, almost
too fragile for human nature's daily food. She seemed singularly out of
place in that poor, tawdry chamber. Fitted, rather, for a gilded cage,
or at least for some shrine of elegance and glitter. Everything about
her was in proportion, tiny, and, if she was a little overdressed--if,
for instance, in the details of her costume there was too much colour,
the accentuation became her peculiarly exotic beauty. Her attitudes,
her gestures, her little tricks of movement, all were bird-like; one
felt, so free from grossness was her frame, that she scarcely was a
thing of earth at all.
She preened herself before the poor apology for a looking-glass as if
there was nothing in the world which could be better worth her doing.
In it her pretty black eyes flashed back their enjoyment of the
situation; they loved to see themselves imaged in a mirror; nor were
they ashamed to confess their pleasure. If, on her cheeks, there was
the suspicion of a bloom which was not Nature's, it was not there
because either youth or health was failing; when one earns one's living
behind the floats one's roses fade. The blood-red line of her lips was
real enough, as also was the rose-pink of her delicate nostrils.
She had scarcely been alone a minute, and with so small a
looking-glass had had no time to examine all that there was of herself
that would repay examining, when she heard the sound of footsteps
coming up the stairs. She listened.
"Who's that?" Her small white teeth gleamed between her scarlet lips.
"It's that silly Tom come back again. Now, what's he forgotten? Perhaps
he's met Liz, so they've both come back together." The steps were but a
single pair, hardly a woman's. There was an audible uncertainty in the
way in which they negotiated each separate tread which suggested that
the road was unfamiliar. "It's that Tom! Now, what's he want, I
wonder?" Someone tapped at the door. "That doesn't sound like Tom.
Someone, I expect, for Lizzie. Bother!" Then aloud, "Come in."
The abuse which had been on the tip of the girl's tongue, ready to be
hurled at the offending Tom, gave place to something very different
indeed. She appeared, for the moment, to be overcome by something which
was akin to consternation, to have lost her presence of mind, her
readiness of speech. Nor, possibly, was her confusion lessened by the
fact that the newcomer seemed to be, every whit, as embarrassed as she
was. He was a young man, except, perhaps, in a legal sense, nothing but
a boy. Not a very intellectual nor healthy-looking boy either. For a
person of his age he was unpleasantly stout; so stout as almost to
merit the epithet of bloated. His cheeks were puffy, so also was his
body. That the redness of his face was not the ruddiness of physical
vigour was demonstrated by the obvious fact that the mere exertion of
climbing the staircase had made him short of breath. Although his dress
was that of a man of fashion he scarcely seemed a gentleman. Not only
was he _gauche_ and clumsy, there was about him an atmosphere of
coarseness which was redolent rather of the tap-room than the
drawing-room. One perceived, instinctively, that the society in which
he would be most at home would be that of the _convives_ of the bar.
That the girl knew him was evident--as evident as that he knew her. He
looked at her with something in his eyes which was not spiritual; she
at him as if she would infinitely have preferred his room to his
company.
She was the first to speak.
"Well, you've got a cheek! Upon my word! What do you mean by coming
here?"
There was a curious quality in his voice as he replied, which almost
amounted to an impediment in his speech.
"When you gave me your address last night, Miss Emmett, I told you I'd
look you up. You didn't suppose I gave you a fiver for it unless I
meant to use it."
The girl continued to look at him for still another second. Then a
burning flush set all her face in flames. She turned away trembling, as
if she were positively frightened. She murmured to herself,--
"Here's a pretty kettle of fish! The brute! If I hadn't clean forgotten
all about it! Whatever shall I say?"
He came farther into the room.
"I hope you've received my little present, Miss Emmett, and that you
like it."
She angrily confronted him.
"My name's not Emmett, so don't you think it."
"Not Emmett!" He winked. "Of course not. Still, as it's been good
enough for me to find you with, it's near enough, for me. If it comes
to that, my name's not Smith."
"I don't care what your name is, and the sooner you get out of this the
better it'll be for you."
"Don't be cross, my dear. I only want you and I to understand each
other."
"I don't want any of your understandings. I don't want to have anything
to say to you. My friend's just stepped out; if he comes back and finds
you here he'll throw you down the stairs quicker than you came up
them."
"Your friend?" An ugly look came into the young man's eyes. "So you've
got a friend."
As she met his glance the girl's face hardened.
"What do you mean? You think yourself too clever. I'm not the sort you
take me for. When I say my friend I mean the young man to whom I'm
engaged to be married, so don't you make any error."
"On my honour, I believe that you look prettier by day than you do by
night."
"Don't try any of your nonsense on with me. Are you going to get out of
this?"
"You might at least thank me for the pretty present which I sent you!"
"Don't talk stuff to me about your presents, you've sent me none of
them."
A look of inquiry came into the young man's face, and of annoyance.
"Hasn't Rossignol been yet? Do you mean to say you haven't had it?"
"Had what? Oh, stow this, do! Do you think I don't know what kind of
chap you are? You're a barber's clerk, that's what you are. You've got
a pound or two in your pocket, and you go gassing about and pretending
you're a don, and talk about sending presents as if you'd got the Bank
of England at your back, when, I lay odds, it breaks you to pay for
your clothes. We girls come across lots of your sort, so we come to
know your trade mark, don't you see."
"I do assure you that in my case you're wrong, Miss Emmett."
"Don't I tell you that my name's not Emmett? When you said last night
that you'd give me five pounds for my name and address I saw that you
were fool enough for anything, so I gave you the first that came, and
that happened to be a friend of mine's, and I'm in her place now,
waiting for her to come back with my young man, so that's how you've
chanced to find me here."
Her companion eyed her as if he were endeavouring to ascertain from her
countenance whether or not she was speaking the truth.
"If what you say is true, then I shouldn't be surprised if your friend
has got the present I sent to you."
"Oh, has she? Then she's welcome. I daresay fifteen pence would pay for
it." With an exclamation as of alarm she ran to the door. "There's my
young man. If you don't go, I'll call out to him. If there's anything
you want to say to me you can say it to-night at the theatre. Now, are
you going?"
"Honour bright, if I come to the theatre will you let me speak to you?"
"Of course I will. Haven't I always done. Hark! there's my young man
coming along the pavement, I know his step. Go, there's a good chap,
you don't want to get me into trouble."
"Will you give me a kiss if I go?"
"What, here, now? What do you take me for? Do you want me to get my
head knocked off my shoulders? If my young man caught me at any of
those games he'd do it as soon as look at me, and yours too. We'll talk
about that sort of thing to-night, at the theatre. Can't you go when I
ask you?"
It appeared that he could, because he did. She shut the door behind him
the instant he was through it, keeping fast hold of the handle with her
hand. She listened to his descending footsteps with an expression of
satisfaction not unmingled with anxiety. As they died away she
sighed--a sigh of unequivocal relief.
"That was a near thing, it ought to be a lesson to me, it's given me
quite a turn." In spite of its artificial bloom, her pretty, dainty
face had assumed a sudden pallor, a fact of which her candid friend,
the mirror, at once informed her. "I declare that I look quite white;
that sort of thing's enough to make anyone look white." She repaired
her loss of complexion with the aid of something which she took from
her pocket. "It's a mercy Tom wasn't here, or even Lizzie. She's a
queer sort, is Lizzie, and she might have wanted a lot of explanation
before she could have been got to see the joke of my giving him her
name and address instead of mine. Of course I only did it for a lark.
If I'd thought he meant to do anything with it I wouldn't have given it
him for a good many fivers, though the coin was useful." There came
from between her lips a little ripple of laughter almost like the burst
of music which proceeds from a song-bird's throat. "What fools fellows
are! He's no toff, anyone can see it with half an eye, he's only a
clerk or something got hold of 'a little bit of splosh' and trying to
do the swagger. He's said his last words to me, anyhow; Saturday, the
theatre'll see my back for good and all. And until then I'll take care
that Tom comes and does the dutiful." She stood in an attitude of
listening. "That is Lizzie. It's lucky that Mr Jack Smith was off the
premises before she came."
Lizzie came boisterously in, her cheeks red with the haste she had
made, her eyes glistening with excitement.
"Polly Steele!" she exclaimed. "You here!"
The other girl bestowed on her one mischievous glance, then returned to
the mirror.
"It looks like it, doesn't it? You don't happen to have seen Tom, I
suppose?"
"Tom? Tom Duffield?"
"That's the gentleman. I've got a bit of news for you, my dear. Tom and
I have made it up."
"Made it up?" She looked at the speaker inquisitorially, then read her
meaning. "Oh, Polly, I'm so glad!"
"I thought you would be. He doesn't seem sorry."
"When was it? Last night at the theatre I didn't seem as if I could get
a word with you."
"No? I wonder how that was." Polly eyed her friend, her face alive with
mischief. "It was this morning, my dear. He came round while I was at
breakfast, and he went on so, and he seemed so set on it, that I
couldn't find it in my heart to keep on saying no. So the banns are to
be put up on Sunday, and we're to be married a month to-day."
"Oh, Polly!"
"And Saturday'll be my last appearance on any stage. Tom's going to
allow me forty shillings a week until we're married; and of course I
shall have my meat for nothing--he won't hear of my keeping on at the
theatre. He's making money hand over fist at that shop of his; sold ten
beasts last week and I don't know how many sheep. You should hear him
talking! I shall be riding in my carriage before you know where you
are."
Lizzie was leaning against the mantelshelf as Agnes Graham had leaned,
and, as the famous actress had done, was looking down at the empty
grate.
"I'm glad you're leaving the theatre. I was beginning to get worried
about you."
"Worried about me! Whatever for?"
Again Miss Polly's countenance was instinct with impish roguery.
"Oh, you know very well what I mean, my lady, so no pretending. You're
too pretty for the theatre, and that's the truth."
"Why, I thought a theatre was just the place where pretty girls are
wanted."
"Maybe. But pretty girls don't want a theatre, leastways, not if they
can help it, they don't." Lizzie spoke with sudden animation. "But talk
about your news! What do you think's come my way?"
"A set of diamonds?"
There was mockery in Polly's tone, and in her eyes.
"You may laugh, but that's just what it was--leastways, a diamond
necklace."
"Lizzie!"
"Yes, as fine a one as ever you saw--better than Maggie Sinclair's, and
they say hers is worth a thousand."
"It wasn't meant for you."
"Wasn't it? There it was upon the parcel as plain as print, 'Miss
Lizzie Emmett, 14 Hercules Buildings, Westminster,' and inside there
was the fellow's card--'With Mr Jack Smith's compliments.'"
"What? Lizzie! Where is it?"
"It's where it ought to be--with her as Mr Jack Smith ought to marry."
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Why, Polly, it's like a story, just like it is in the books. Who do
you think's been here this morning? In this very room?"
Polly drew back, as with a sudden accession of timidity.
"Not Jack Smith?"
"Jack Smith! I'd have Jack Smithed him if he'd shown his nose inside my
place. Someone as is worth a good few Jack Smiths--Agnes Graham!"
"Agnes Graham!"
"Yes, you may stare, but it's truth, she came into this very room. And
I've just come from her place. And what do you think she done as I was
coming away? Kissed me--yes! straight. It seems as this here Jack Smith
he's as good as promised to marry her, and she's been driving herself
half silly because he's been carrying on with a girl at our show--yes!
And this morning, as they was having a few words, something fell out of
his pocket. She picked it up. On it was my name and my address. She
asks him if that was the girl. He says it was--like his blamed
impudence! So she comes round to me and asks me not to sneak away her
bloke."
"Asks you?"
"Yes, queer start, ain't it? I'm the sort to sneak away anybody's
bloke! I'd give a bit to know how he got hold of my name and address."
"It does seem odd!"
"Odd ain't the word for it. There's something what's a little more than
odd about it, as it seems to me. And who do you think Jack Smith is?"
"Some barber's clerk or other, I suppose."
"Barber's clerk! Why, he's the Earl of Bermondsey!"
"Who? Lizzie! You don't mean that!"
"I do, it's gospel truth! His name was printed on the card; 'With Mr
Jack Smith's compliments' was wrote on the back. Miss Graham told me it
was him, she knew his writing directly she set eyes on it. He's been
passing himself off as Jack Smith to some girl or other up at our
place, and going on no end."
Miss Steele, her face turned away from Lizzie, was drumming on the
table with the fingers of her left hand.
"Did you say that he was going to marry Miss Graham?"
"It seems that he as good as promised that he would, but now she's
afraid that he'll take up with this other girl what he's been carrying
on with."
"What makes her think so?"
"Don't I tell you that he about equal to up and told her so."
Miss Steele was silent.
"Does she think"--there was a tremulous break in her voice--"that he
would marry the other girl?"
"That's what she's afraid of, though, if I was her, I'd let him. If I
was Miss Graham I wouldn't marry him, not if he was a hundred times the
Earl of Bermondsey. Don't you remember what we was reading about him
only the other day--how he'd just come into his money, and what a lot
of it there was? And houses, and parks, and forests, and I don't know
what? My truth! He's only a kid, and a pretty sort of kid he seems to
be; one of them fools what's worse than the clever ones, just because
they're fools. I shouldn't be surprised if this girl what he's been
carrying on with--I'll find out who she is before this night is gone,
and if she gave him my address I'll mark her!"
"Perhaps she only did it for a joke!"
"A nice sort of joke! What do you think? I'll spoil her beauty, the
nasty cat! I shouldn't be surprised, if she played her cards cleverly,
but what she got him to take her to church."
"I wonder!"
"The Countess of Bermondsey! That's a mouthful, ain't it?"
"The Countess of Bermondsey!"
As Miss Polly Steele echoed her companion's words she was still
standing against the table, her little slender figure drawn as upright
as a dart. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were sparkling, her lips
were parted; one could see how her bosom rose and fell as her breath
came in quick, eager respirations. Something had filled her with a
strange excitement which each moment was mastering her more completely.
It was Lizzie who first heard the ascending footsteps.
"Hullo!" she cried. "Here's Mr Duffield."
A sudden peculiar change had taken place in the expression on Polly's
countenance; it had become hard, even angry, her gleaming teeth had
closed upon her lower lip. Lizzie admitted the returning lover.
"Morning, Mr Duffield." She looked at him with what was intended to be
archness. "Polly has been telling me all about it. I wish you joy."
He laughed, as though she had perpetrated a capital joke.
"Thank you, Miss Emmett. We mean to have a bit if we can get it, don't
we, Polly?" He was laden with paper parcels. He advanced with them
towards the little silent figure which was standing at the table, his
good-humoured face one mighty smile. "I've brought the whole shop full.
Here you are, old girl. You'll want a cart to carry them."
She struck out at him with her clenched hands, dashing the parcels he
was holding out to her in confusion on to the floor. She was in a flame
of passion.
"I don't want your rubbish! And how dare you call me old girl? Who do
you think you are, and what do you think I am? Keeping me waiting here,
dancing attendance on your pleasure, and then insulting me; if you ever
try to speak to me again I'll slap your face."
She pushed past him towards the door.
"Polly!" cried Lizzie, staring at her in a maze of wonder.
Miss Steele shook her fist so close to Lizzie's face it grazed her
skin. Rage transfigured her. Her voice was shrill with fury.
"You great, ugly, stupid idiot! You've done more harm this morning than
you'll ever do good in all your life! Let me pass!"
At the door she turned to shake her fist at Mr Duffield.
"Don't you dare to follow me!"
She vanished, flying down the stairs three or four steps at a time, in
a whirlwind of haste, leaving her lover and her friend in speechless
amazement, as if the heavens had fallen.
A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
"Bank holidays are admittedly common nuisances; they are neither
Sundays nor week-days; they disorganise everything, both public and
private life; and what is Christmas Day but a bank holiday, I should
like to know! Here am I actually having to make my own bed and prepare
my own breakfast; goodness only knows what I shall do about my lunch
and dinner. And this in the twentieth century."
It was a monstrous fact. Granted that to a certain extent I had
to thank my own weakness, still, Christmas Day was to blame. When,
about a month before, Mr and Mrs Baines had begun to drop hints
that they would like to spend Christmas Day with relatives at some
out-of-the-way hole in Kent--it was three years since they had spent
Christmas Day together, Mrs Baines told me with her own lips--I was
gradually brought to consent. Of course I could not remain alone with
Eliza--who is a remarkably pretty girl, mind you, though she is a
housemaid--so I let her spend Christmas Day with her mother. They all
three went off the day before--Eliza's home is in Devonshire--so that
there was I left without a soul to look after me.
I allow that to some small extent the fault was mine. My bag was
packed--Baines had packed it with his own hands, assisted by his wife
and Eliza, and to my certain knowledge each had inserted a Christmas
present, which it was intended should burst upon me with the force of a
surprise. I had meant to spend Christmas with Popham. It seemed to me
that since I had to spend it under somebody else's roof it might as
well be under his. But on the morning of the twenty-fourth--Tuesday--I
had had a letter--a most cheerful letter--in which Popham informed me
that since one of his children had the measles, and another the mumps,
and his wife was not well, and his own constitution was slightly
unbalanced owing to a little trouble he had had with his motor--he had
nearly broken his neck, from what I could gather--it had occurred to
him that Christmas under his roof might not be such a festive season as
he had hoped, and so he gave me warning. Obviously I did not want to
force myself into a hospital, so I wired to Popham that I thought, on
the whole, that I preferred my own fireside.
But I said nothing about my change of plans to Mr and Mrs Baines or
Eliza, for it seemed to me that since they had made their arrangements
they might as well carry them out, and I had intended to go to one of
those innumerable establishments where, nowadays, homeless and
friendless creatures are guaranteed--for a consideration--a "social
season."
Eliza started after breakfast, Mr and Mrs Baines after lunch. I told
them that I was going by the four o'clock and could get my bag taken to
the cab without their assistance. When the time came I could not make
up my mind to go anywhere. So I dined at the club and had a dullish
evening. And on Christmas Day I had to make my own bed and light my own
fire.
A really disreputable state of affairs!
I never had such a time in my life. I was bitterly cold when I first
got up--it had been freezing all night--but I was hot enough long
before I had a fire. The thing would not burn. There was a gas
stove in the kitchen, I could manage that all right, to a certain
extent--though it made an abominable smell, which I had not noticed
when Mrs Baines had been on the premises--but I could not spend all
Christmas Day crouching over half a dozen gas jets. Not to speak of the
danger of asphyxiation, which, judging from the horrible odour,
appeared to me to be a pretty real one. I wanted coal fires in my own
rooms, or, at least, in one of them. But the thing would not behave in
a reasonable manner. I grew hot with rage, but the grate remained as
cold as charity.
I live in a flat--Badminton Mansions--endless staircases, I don't know
how many floors, and not a Christian within miles. I had a dim notion,
I don't know how I got it, but I had a dim notion that a person of the
charwoman species ascended each morning to a flat somewhere overhead to
do--I had not the faintest idea what, but the sort of things charwomen
do do. Driven to the verge of desperation--consider the state I was in,
no fire, no breakfast, no nothing, except that wretched gas stove,
which I was convinced that I should shortly have to put out if I did
not wish to be suffocated--it occurred to me, more or less vaguely,
that if I could only intercept that female I might induce her, by the
offer of a substantial sum, to put my establishment into something like
order. So, with a view of ascertaining if she was anywhere about, I
went out on to the landing to look for her.
"Now," I told myself, "I suppose I shall have to stand in this
condition"--I had as nearly as possible blacked myself all over--"for a
couple of hours outside my own door and then she won't come."
No sooner had I shown my unwashed face outside than I became conscious
that a child--a girl--was standing at the open door of the flat on the
opposite side of the landing. I was not going to retreat from a mere
infant; I declined even to notice her presence, though I became
instantly aware that she was taking the liveliest interest in mine. I
looked up and down, saw there were no signs of any charwoman, and
feeling that it would be more dignified to return anon--when that child
had vanished--was about to retire within my own precincts,
when--the child addressed me.
"I wish you a merry Christmas."
I was really startled. The child was a perfect stranger to me. I just
glanced across at her, wishing that I was certain if what I felt upon
my nose actually was soot, and replied--with sufficient frigidity,--
"Thank you. Your wish is obliging. But there is not the slightest
chance of my having a merry Christmas, I give you my word of honour."
My intention was to--metaphorically--crush the child, but she was not
to be crushed. I already had my back to her, when she observed,--
"I am so sorry. Are you in any trouble?"
I turned to her again.
"I don't know what you call trouble, but on a morning like this I am
without a fire and it seems extremely probable that I shall have to
remain without one."
"No fire!" Even from across the landing I was conscious that that
child's eyes were opened wider. "Why, it's freezing. Haven't you any
coals or wood?"
"Oh, yes, I've plenty of coals and wood, but what's the good of them if
they won't burn?"
"Won't burn? Why ever won't they burn?"
"I don't know why they won't burn--you'd better ask 'em."
I am altogether without a clear impression of how it happened. I can
only say that that child came across the landing, and, as I returned
into my own quarters, she came after me--quite uninvited. We moved to
the dining-room, the scene of my futile efforts. She regarded the
recalcitrant grate with thoughtful gaze. It began to be borne in on me
that she was rather a nice-looking child, with brown hair, and a great
deal of it, and big brown eyes. Presently she said,--
"I have seen people make a fire."
Which was an absurd remark. I snubbed her.
"I don't know that there's anything remarkable in that. I also have
seen people make a fire."
"One would never think it to look at that grate."
"What's the matter with the grate?"
"It's too full of everything. To make a fire you begin with paper."
"Haven't I begun with paper? There are at least six newspapers at the
bottom of that grate; it's stuffed full of paper."
"That's just it; I believe it's stuffed too full. And I feel sure that
you don't want to start with a whole forest full of wood. And it looks
to me as if you had emptied a whole scuttle full of coals on the top of
all the rest."
"I have."
"Then how ridiculous of you. How can you expect it to burn? I think I
can show you how it ought to be."
She showed me. I ought not to have let her; I do not need to be told
that, but I did. I held the scuttle while she put back into it nearly
all the coal; then she removed about five-sixths of the wood and
nine-tenths of the paper, and started to lay that fire all over again.
And she kept talking all the time.
"Have you had your breakfast?"
"I emphatically haven't."
"I haven't had any either."
It struck me that there was a suggestiveness about her tone.
"I'm afraid I can't ask you to share mine."
"Why? Haven't you any food?"
"Oh, I daresay there's food, but--it wants cooking.
"Well, let's cook it! Oh, do let's cook it! I should so love to cook my
own breakfast; I never have; it would be just like a picnic."
"I don't know that I care for picnics; I'm too old."
"I've seen people older than you are." I felt flattered; I am not so
very old after all. "What have you got? Have you any eggs?"
"I shouldn't be surprised if I have some eggs."
"Then, to begin with, we'll say eggs. How shall we cook them?"
"Boil them."
"Couldn't we fry them? I'm rather fond of fried eggs."
"So far as I'm concerned I'm sure we couldn't fry them."
"I'm afraid I might make rather a mess of it. Then we'll say boiled
eggs. What else--bacon?"
"I imagine that there may be bacon."
"Then we'll say eggs and bacon; that'll be lovely. Don't you like
bacon?"
"I don't object to it--occasionally--if it's properly cooked."
"How do you like it cooked?"
"I haven't a notion. I've never even seen anyone cook bacon."
"I don't think I have either. But we'll see what we can do. And cocoa?"
"No cocoa. I doubt if there's any in the place. And we won't say
coffee. I don't believe there are more than half a dozen people in the
world who can make good coffee. And I feel convinced that I'm not one
of them."
"I don't care for coffee. We'll say tea--and toast."
"I think I could make some toast, if pressed."
"I'm glad you can do something. You see; now the fire's going to burn.
Where's the pantry? Let's go and look what's in it."
The fire certainly did show signs of an intention to behave as a fire
ought to. I don't know how she had done it, it seemed simple enough,
but there it was. Feeling more and more conscious that my conduct was
altogether improper, not to say ridiculous, I led that child from the
dining-room, across the kitchen, to the receptacle where Mrs Baines
keeps her store of provisions. She looked round and round and I knew
she was not impressed.
"There doesn't seem to be very much to eat, does there?"
The same thing had struck me. The shelves seemed full of emptiness, and
there was nothing hanging from the hooks. Still, as coming from an
entire stranger, the remark was not in the best of taste.
"You see," I explained, feebly enough, "it's Christmas."
That child's eyes opened wider than ever; I was on the point of warning
her that if she went on like that they would occupy the larger part of
her face.
"Of course it's Christmas. Do you suppose that I don't know it's
Christmas? That's just the reason why you should have more to eat than
ever. Some people eat more at Christmas than they do during all the
rest of the year put together."
This was such a truly astonishing statement to make that, unless I
wished to enter into a preposterous argument, I had nothing to say. I
also realised that it did not become me to enter at any length, to a
mere child--and she an utter stranger!--into the reasons why, at
Christmas, it had come to pass that my larder did not happen to be so
well filled as it might have been. I merely endeavoured to pin her to
the subject in hand.
"There are eggs and bacon and bread, and I believe there's tea--all the
materials for the morning meal. I don't know what else you require."
"That's true--that's quite true. There are eggs in three different
baskets; I expect one basket's for cooking eggs, one for breakfast eggs
and one for new-laid. We'll have new-laid. How many shall we have?
Could you eat two?"
"I have been known to eat two; especially when, on occasions like the
present, breakfast has been about two hours late."
"Then we'll have two each. Then there's the bacon; fortunately it's
already cut into rashers, but--how shall we cook it? I know!" She
clapped her hands. "I'll fetch Marjorie!"
"Marjorie!" As she uttered the name I was conscious of a curious
fluttering sensation, which was undoubtedly the result of the irregular
proceedings. I had known a person of that name myself once, but it was
absurd to suppose that the fluttering had anything to do with that.
"Who's Marjorie?"
"Marjorie's my sister, of course." I did not see any of course about
it, but I had too much self-respect to say so. "She's ever so fond of
cooking; she's a splendid cook. I'll go and get her to cook that
bacon."
Before I could stop her she was off; the child moved like lightning.
What I ought to have done would have been to slam my front door and
refuse to open it again. Who was Marjorie? Extraordinary how at the
mere mental repetition of the name that fluttering returned. Her
sister? She might be a young woman of two or three-and-twenty. I could
not allow strange persons of that description to cook my bacon, with me
in my dressing-gown and soot upon my nose.
I am practically persuaded that I was nearly on the point of closing
the front door, with a view--so to speak--of not opening it again
during the whole of the day, when that child returned, with another
child a little taller than herself. This child had black hair, dark
blue eyes, and was as self-possessed a young person as I ever yet
encountered; grave as a judge--graver! She looked me straight in the
face, with her head inclined just a little forward.
"I beg your pardon. It seems curious that I should call on you without
even knowing your name, but my sister Kathleen told me that you were in
rather a trouble about your breakfast, so I thought I would come and
see if I could help you."
"That's--that's very good of you. Will--will you both of you breakfast
with me?"
I wasn't one quarter so self-possessed as she was; indeed, I was all of
a quiver.
"Kathleen tells me that she has already consented to do so, and I
should be very pleased to join her. Now, Kathleen, where is that bacon
you spoke about?"
They went into the pantry and took matters into their own hands as if
the place belonged to them and as if they had been cooking my
breakfasts for years. I positively felt in the way, and hinted as
much--with an inclination to stammer.
"Perhaps--perhaps you'll be able to do without my assistance."
The young woman was quite clear upon that subject, and did not hesitate
to say so.
"Thank you; I would much rather be without your assistance. I don't
care to have men meddle in domestic matters."
She spoke as if she had been fifty instead of perhaps twelve. I
wondered if she had her sentiments from her mother; I could have sworn
she had them from someone.
"Then in that case I might--I might have a wash and--and put myself
into another coat."
She looked me up and down with something in her air which was not
suggestive of approval.
"I'm sure you might. You don't look at all tidy; not in the least like
Christmas Day. Only please be ready in five minutes."
I was, so was the bacon; everything was ready in that five minutes. I
do not know how they did it, those two children, but they did. There
was the table laid, places for three, and we three sat down to an
excellent meal. Marjorie served the bacon. I have tasted a good deal
worse, mind you, and the plates were hot! Kathleen poured out the tea,
and I ate and drank and looked on, and wondered how it all had
happened. Presently Marjorie asked a question.
"Have you had any Christmas presents yet?"
"No, I can't say that I have, not just yet, but--my goodness!" An idea
occurred to me. "A most extraordinary thing; do you know, I was
positively forgetting to give you two people your Christmas presents."
Both looked at me, their faces notes of exclamation. Marjorie spoke.
"You can't really have presents for us--not really. I daresay half an
hour ago you didn't know we were in the world."
"Can't I? Such an observation simply shows the limitations of your
knowledge."
I rose from the table; I left the room. When I returned I had a parcel
in either arm.
"Now if those two parcels don't contain the very Christmas presents you
want, then all I can say is, I have misjudged your wants entirely and
beg to apologise."
You should have seen their countenances! their looks of wonder when
inside each parcel was discovered a doll, the very finest and largest
article of the kind that could be procured, although I say it. Of
course they had been meant for Popham's girls, but more dolls could be
bought for them and sent on afterwards. In the meantime those two young
women were in a state of almost dangerous agitation.
"Why," cried Marjorie, "mine has black hair and blue eyes!"
"And mine has brown hair and brown eyes!"
"You dear!"
They said this both together. Then they precipitated themselves at me,
and they kissed me--absolute strangers! Then the dolls had breakfast
with us. Each sat on a chair beside its proprietor, and I, as it were,
sat in the centre of the four. I have seldom assisted at a livelier
meal. We laughed and we talked, and we ate and we drank, and we fed the
dolls--those dolls had both a large and an indigestible repast. I felt
convinced they would suffer for it afterwards. And in the midst of it
all I heard a strange voice; at least it was strange to me.
"I beg ten thousand pardons, but I couldn't think what had become of
those children--I thought I heard their voices. What are they doing
here?"
I looked up and there, standing in the open doorway, was a lady; a
young lady, a charming, and, indeed, a pretty young lady. Those two
young women flung themselves at her as they had flung themselves at me;
only, if anything, more so.
"Mamma! mamma! just look at our dolls! Aren't they beautiful? And when
you lay them down they shut their eyes and say good-night."
The lady was their mamma; exactly the right sort of mamma for them to
have. I explained, and she explained, and it was all explained. By a
most amazing coincidence she was in almost the same plight as I was.
She was a Mrs Heathcote; had recently come with her two girls from
India; had taken the flat opposite mine in the expectation of her
husband joining her by Christmas Day, instead of which his ship had
been delayed in the Suez Canal, or somewhere, somehow, and he could not
possibly reach her for at any rate a day or two. And on the previous
day, Christmas Eve, her cook had behaved in the most abominable manner,
and had had to be sent packing, and her sympathetic friend, the
housemaid, had gone with her, so that on Christmas Day Mrs Heathcote
was positively left without a soul to do a thing for her; precisely my
condition. She had gone out to see if temporary help could be procured,
and during her absence those two daughters of hers had slipped across
to me. She had found no help, so that she had to deal with precisely
the same problem which confronted me. She had breakfast with us--and
the dolls!--Marjorie explaining that it was she who had cooked the
bacon, and in an amazingly short space of time we were all of us on
terms of the most delightful sociability.
I insisted that they must all go out with me to lunch at a restaurant.
It might not seem to promise much entertainment to have to go for a
meal to a place of the kind on Christmas Day, but the girls were
delighted. It is my experience that most children like feeding in
public, I don't know why, and when pressed their mother was willing, so
I was charmed.
"Now," I observed, "that it is settled we are to go somewhere, the
question is--where?"
"May I choose?" asked Mrs Heathcote.
"My dear madam, if you only would, you would confer on me a really
great favour. On the subject of the choice of a restaurant I consider a
lady's opinion to be of the very first importance."
That was not, perhaps, the whole truth, but on such matters, at such
moments, one need not be a stickler. She smiled--she had an uncommonly
pleasant smile; it reminded me of someone, somewhere, though I could
not think who. She rested her elbows on the table, placing her hands
palm to palm.
"Then I say Ordino's."
When she said that I had a shock. I stared.
"Excuse me--what--what did you say?"
She smiled again.
"I suppose you'll think I'm silly, and I daresay you've never heard of
the place, and I myself don't know where it is, and anyhow it mayn't be
at all nice--mind I'm not giving it any sort of character. But if the
place is still in existence, since it is Christmas Day and we
are to lunch at a restaurant, if the choice is left to me, I say
again--Ordino's."
"May I ask if you've any special reason for--for choosing this
particular place?"
There was an interval of silence before she answered. Although I had
purposely turned my back to her I had a sort of feeling that there was
an odd look upon her face.
"Yes, I have a special reason, in a sort of a way. When we've lunched
perhaps I'll tell it you. If the lunch has been a very bad one then
you'll say--quite rightly--that you'll never again rely upon a woman's
reason where a restaurant's concerned."
It was--I had to hark back into my forgotten mental lumber to think how
many years it was since I had entered Ordino's door. I had told myself
that I would never enter it again. And yet here was this stranger
suddenly proposing that I should visit it once more, on Christmas
Day of all days in the year. Why, the last time I fed there--the very
last time--it was a Christmas Day.
I should write myself down a fool were I to attempt to describe the
feelings with which I set about that Christmas morning's entertainment.
We lunched at Ordino's. It was within half a mile of where I lived, and
yet I had never seen or passed it since. The street in which it was had
been to me as if it were shut at both ends. If a cabman had wanted to
take me down that way I had stopped him, even though it meant another
sixpence.
It had scarcely changed, either within or without. As the four of us
trooped inside--six with the dolls, for the dolls went out to lunch
with us--I had an eerie sort of sensation that it was only yesterday
that I was there. The same window with the muslin curtain drawn across;
the same small room with the eight or ten marble tables; the same high
desk, and if it was not the same woman who was seated at it then she
was a very decent imitation.
"What a queer little place it seems."
Mrs Heathcote said this as we stood looking about for a table.
"Yes, it does seem queer."
It did--for a reason I was not disposed to explain. I chose the same
table--that is, the table next to the desk in which the woman sat. As
might have been expected, we had the place to ourselves, and the whole
services of the one waiter. I fancy that the establishment provided us
with a tolerable meal; the cooking always had been decent at Ordino's.
Judging from the way in which the others despatched the fare which was
set before us, the tradition still survived. So far as I was personally
concerned I was scarcely qualified to criticise. Each mouthful "gave me
furiously to think;" I thought between the mouthfuls; never before had
I had a meal so full of thinking. My guests were merry enough; those
two young women were laughing all the time.
At last we came to the dessert. "Madam," I began, "have you been badly
treated or well?"
"Excellently treated, thank you. I think it has all been capital, only
I'm afraid you haven't had your proper share."
"Oh, yes, I have had my proper portion and to spare. Is it allowable to
ask you to gratify my curiosity by telling me for what special reason
you chose Ordino's?"
She toyed with a pear which she was peeling.
"You will laugh at me."
"There will be no malice in my laughter if I do."
"Then the story is not mine."
"Whose then?"
"It's about my sister--Marjorie."
I gripped the edge of the table, but she did not notice, she was
peeling her pear. Her daughters were occupied with their dolls. They
were teaching them the only proper way in which to consume a banana.
Judging from his contortions the one waiter seemed to find the
proceedings as good as a play.
"You have a sister whose name is Marjorie?"
"Oh, yes, she is all the relations I have."
"Marjorie what?"
"Marjorie Fleming." Then I knew that a miracle had happened. "My eldest
girl is named after her." I might have guessed it; I believe I did.
"She's the dearest creature in the world, but she hasn't had the very
best of times."
I said nothing, having nothing to say. I waited for her to go on, which
presently she did do, dreamily, as she peeled her pear.
"Do you know that it was in this place--I suppose in this very
room--perhaps at this very table, that her life was spoilt one
Christmas Day."
"How--how spoilt?"
It seemed as if my tongue had shrivelled in my mouth.
"What is it that spoils a woman's life?"
"How should I know?"
"I thought that everyone knew what spoils a woman's life--even you
cynical bachelors." Cynical bachelors! I was beginning to shiver as if
each word she uttered was a piece of ice slipped down my back.
"Different people write it different ways, but it's all summed up in
the same word in the end--a lover."
"I thought that it was a lover who is supposed to make a woman's life
the perfect thing it ought to be."
"He either makes or mars it. In my sister's case he--marred it."
"A woman's life is not so easily spoilt."
"Hers was. All in a moment. It was years and years ago, but it's with
her still--that moment. I know, I know! Poor Marjorie! The whole of her
life worth living is in the land of ghosts."
My heart stopped beating. The sap in my veins was dried. It seemed as
if the world was slipping from me. All Marjorie's life worth living was
in the land of ghosts? Why, then, we were in the land of ghosts
together!
"She told me the story once, and only once, but I've never forgotten
it--never; a woman never does forget that kind of story, and I'm sure
Marjorie never will. I know it's just as present to her now as if it
had only happened yesterday. Dear Marjorie! You don't know what a dear
sister my sister is. Although, in those days, she was only a young
girl, she lived alone in London. Our father and mother died when we
were children. She was full of dreams of becoming a great artist; they
are gone now, with the other dreams. She had a lover, who was jealous
of her artist friends. They had lovers' tiffs. They used often to come
to this place. They came here together one Christmas Day, of all days
in the year. And it is because of what happened on that Christmas Day
that Ordino's Restaurant has been to me a sort of legend, a shrine
which had to be visited when occasion offered. They quarrelled.
Marjorie told me that she never could remember just how the quarrel
began, and I believe her. Quarrels, especially between a man and a
woman, spring out of nothing often and often. They grew furiously hot.
Suddenly, in his heat, he said something which no man ever ought to say
to any woman, above all to the woman whom he loves. Marjorie stood up.
She laid on the table the locket he had just given her--a Christmas
gift--with, in it, his portrait and hers. And she said, 'I return you
your locket. Presently, when I get home, I will return all that you
have given me. I never wish to see you, or to hear from you, again.'
And she went towards the entrance, he doing nothing to stop her. As she
opened the door she saw him stand up and give the locket, her locket,
to the woman who sat at the desk, as that woman is sitting now, and he
said, in tones which he evidently intended that she should hear,
'Madam, permit me to beg your acceptance of this locket. Since it is
associated with someone whom I wish I had never met, you will do me a
great favour by relieving me of its custody.' Marjorie waited to hear
no more. She went out, alone, into the street, that Christmas Day, and
she has never seen him since or heard if he is alive or dead."
I was speechless. I could only sit and stare at the ghosts who stared
at me.
All at once "the woman who sat at the desk," as Mrs Heathcote had put
it, came down from her place and stood beside us.
"Madam," she exclaimed, in what struck me, even then, as tones of
singular agitation, "it is a miracle, a true miracle. You must forgive
me, I could not help but listen; my parents have told me the story many
and many a time. It all happened as you have said. It was to my mother
the locket was given. She wished very much not to take it, but the
young gentleman, he was very excited, and at last, to avoid a scene, my
father said to her, 'At least in your keeping it will be safe; worse
might befall it than to be left in your hands. These foolish young
people will make it up again. Presently they will return; you will be
able to give back the locket to its proper owner.' But they did not
return, neither the one nor the other, never, not once! At last my
mother died; the locket came to me. She wished that when I was in the
desk I should always carry it as she had done, for she believed that,
at last, there would arrive a day when one or the other would return
and the locket would be restored. Madam, here is the locket. I entreat
you to permit me to beg you to return it to your sister, to whom it
properly belongs."
The speaker held out something which I vaguely recognised as the locket
of that eventful Christmas Day, which I had purchased with such loving
thought and tender carefulness, and of which I had rid myself in such a
storm of rage. Mrs Heathcote stared alternately at it and at the woman
who for so long had held it, as a sacred charge, in such safe keeping,
as if its sudden appearance had robbed her of her power of speech. I
was conscious that someone had come into the place. Instantly those two
young persons--who were still instructing their dolls in the proper
manner of eating a banana--tore off towards the door, crying, at the
top of their voices,--
"Father! father! Oh, mother, here's father!"
And all at once Mrs Heathcote went pushing past me, then I knew
that she was in the arms of a man with a beard--I believe she was
crying!--and exclaiming,--
"Robert, have you dropped from the skies?"
"No," he responded, reasonably enough, "I've merely dropped in from the
overland route. I made up my mind I'd get at you somehow by Christmas
Day, and I have. But before I was allowed to go to you, where I
supposed you to be, I was made to come here. For some mysterious reason
of her own that sister of yours, before she went anywhere else,
insisted on visiting Ordino's Restaurant; for an explanation, if you
want one, I can only refer you to Marjorie."
Marjorie! Behind him was a woman whose face, whose form, whose
everything I knew. It seemed that "the woman who sat at the desk"
recognised her also. She held out the locket.
"Madam, allow me to have the happiness to return to you your locket.
That it is yours I am sure because of your portrait which is in it. You
have scarcely altered at all since the day it was taken."
I snatched it from her.
"Give it to me!" I stormed. "Since, through all these years, it has
been held in such safe keeping, Marjorie, won't you take your locket
back again?"
She had never moved her eyes from off my face, just as I had kept mine
on hers. She moved a little forward. And--then I had her in my arms and
her cheek was next to mine, and the locket was in her hand,
and--we both of us were crying--I admit it.... Oh, yes, it was a
miracle of grace and healing, since by the grace of God the open wound
was healed. For us--for Marjorie and me--the life worth living is no
longer in the land of ghosts. We are living it now, together; dear
wife! together.
And it is universally admitted that we are the best customers Ordino's
Restaurant has. Those two young persons have been there again and again
since then, with their dolls, whom they are still instructing in the
proper manner of eating a banana. I should be afraid to estimate how
many bananas they have themselves consumed in the process of instruction.
And to think that that Christmas miracle all came about because that
child intruded herself into my apartments--actually!--with a view of
showing me how to make a fire!
In itself, was that not a miracle too?
OUR MUSICAL COMEDY
"I forbid you to do it!"
Of course when George said that, with such an air, and in such a tone,
I should have been perfectly justified in making an end of everything.
The idea of his actually ordering me, when we had been engaged scarcely
any time at all, was really too much. But I remembered what was due to
myself and--I think!--behaved beautifully. I was merely crushing.
"You will remember, if you please, that, at present, I am not your
wife. And may I ask if you propose to speak to me like that when I am?"
"I trust that whenever I see you contemplating a false step I shall
always use my influence to endeavour to persuade you not to take it."
"Persuasion is one thing--ordering is quite another."
It all began with the private theatricals in aid of the parochial
charities. Almost for the first time since I had been in the place
people seemed to have found out my existence. It was the rector's
son--Frank Spencer--who was the actual discoverer. I really believe it
was that fact which George did not like. Mr Spencer came and said that
they were going to have theatricals and would I take part in them? I
told him that I had never acted in my life. He declared that they could
not do without me. I explained that I did not see how that could be,
since I had not had the least experience, and, indeed, doubted if I
should not make a complete spectacle of myself and spoil everything. He
replied that it was ridiculous to talk like that--which I thought was
rather rude of him, since he was sure that I should make a
first-rate actress--though I could not even guess what made him sure;
and everybody was certain that the whole thing would be an utter
failure without me--then look how the parochial charities would suffer!
I confess that I did not understand why everybody should take that
view; though, on the other hand, I did not want the charities to
languish on my account, and--well, I may as well own it--I rather liked
the idea. I thought it was not half a bad one. Because I never had
acted was no reason why I never should; at any rate, it occurred to me
that it would be capital fun to try.
So when I informed Mr Spencer that I would consider the matter, I fancy
that I rather conveyed the impression that my consideration might have
a favourable issue.
Then the trouble began. George objected. When I wrote and told him that
I was thinking of taking part in an amateur dramatic performance in aid
of some most deserving charities, which were much in need of help, he
sent me back a letter which rather surprised me. In the course of it he
observed that there was a great deal too much of that sort of thing
about--if that were so then certainly hitherto none of it had come my
way; that not seldom amateur theatricals were but a cloak for something
about which the less said the better--what he meant I had not the least
idea; that they were generally exhibitions of incompetent vanity--which
was not exactly a pleasant remark to make; that he could not understand
how any sane person could wish to be connected with proceedings which,
as a rule, were merely the outcome of a desire for vulgar notoriety. He
concluded by remarking that while he had not the slightest desire to
bias my judgment, of which, as I was aware, he had the highest opinion,
at the same time he hoped that I would consider very carefully what he
had said before arriving at a final decision.
Two days afterwards I met Mr Spencer, and he overpersuaded me. It is
not to be denied that he had a most persuasive manner, and was,
decidedly, not bad-looking; though, of course, that had nothing to do
with it. It was the moving fashion in which he depicted the lamentable
condition of the Coal Club, and the Clothing Club, and the Soup
Kitchen, and that kind of thing, which induced me to promise to do all
that I could for the Good Cause.
Still, when later Mr Spencer informed me that it was suggested that _A
Pair of Knickerbockers_ should be one of the pieces, and I had read it,
and understood that it was proposed I should play Mrs Melrose to his Mr
Melrose, I admit that I was taken aback. It was at this point that
George came on the scene. When he heard, there was quite a storm.
"Do you actually propose to appear upon the public stage attired in a
pair of knickerbockers?"
"Do you call the Assembly Room at the 'Lion' the public stage?" I
asked.
"I do, since anyone will be admitted who chooses to pay at the door."
"I'm sure there's nothing wrong in the piece or the rector wouldn't
allow it to be played."
"The rector! You're not engaged to the rector, you're engaged to me,
and I forbid you to do it."
It was then I made that crushing retort about not being his wife yet.
Still, at the bottom of my heart I felt that there was reason in what
he said. I doubt if any girl ever has looked well--really well!--in
knickerbockers, and I was sure that they would not suit me. I had not
the faintest intention of appearing either in public or private in any
garment of any kind whatever which I knew would make me look a fright.
So I made a great show of my willingness to meet George's wishes on
every possible occasion, and promised that I would not act in _A Pair
of Knickerbockers_. He was delighted, and--well, we had rather a nice
time.
When I told Mr Spencer of my decision I quite expected that he would
not like it. On the contrary, he did not seem to mind in the least;
indeed, he seemed to be almost relieved.
"That decides it!" he exclaimed. "Your refusal is the last straw; it
brings me to the sticking point; now I have made up my mind."
Then he made of me a confidant.
It appeared that he was a dramatist; he had written a play. It was most
interesting. He had sent it to the manager of every theatre in London,
and to a good many out of London too, and not one of them would bring
it out. Which showed that there was something in it.
"Because," as he explained, "it's notorious that a man who's an
outsider, and by that I mean one who wasn't born on the stage, or
doesn't own a newspaper, or fifty thousand a year, or a handle to his
name, has no more chance of getting a decent play accepted than he has
of flying to the moon. If this play of mine was piffle, or the usual
kind of stodge, then it might have a chance of being produced. The mere
fact that it has not been produced, and probably never will be, proves
that it is out of the common ruck."
He looked so handsome as he said this, and so full of scorn for the
people who were incapable of seeing merit when it stared them in the
face, that I felt a wave of sympathy sweep over me.
"Not that it matters," he continued. "In this world nothing matters."
It seemed rather a sweeping assertion. But I understood the bitterness
which called it forth. So, with one fleeting glance out of the corner
of my eye to let him know that there was one who comprehended, I
suffered him to go on. And he went on.
"However, where there's a will there's a way, and when a man's set on
gaining his end it's hard to stop him--if he is a man! There's more
roads lead to Rome than one. My play shall see the light in the same
fashion that many a work of genius has done before. Who knows how and
where Shakespeare's first play was produced? We'll act it at the
'Lion.'"
"How splendid!" I exclaimed.
"Mind you," he added with a modesty which did him credit, "I don't say
that my play's a work of genius."
"But I'm sure it is."
He shook his head.
"Frankly, it's not. In fact, it's a musical comedy in one act."
"But a musical comedy may be a work of genius."
He regarded me with what I felt almost amounted to an air of mystery.
"Did you ever know a musical comedy that was?"
"Yours may be an exception to the rule."
He suddenly seemed to make up his mind to adopt an air of perfect
frankness.
"I know whereabouts my piece is as well as anyone living, and
I give you my word it's not a work of genius. It's a kind of a
go-as-you-please sort of thing; you'll see what I mean when you've read
it."
I did see; or, rather, it would be more correct to say that I did not
see. I told him so when we met again.
"I found it so difficult to make out what it's all about; it seems so
vague. Nothing that anybody does seems to have any connection with
anything that anybody else does."
The way in which he received my criticism was charming; he did not show
the slightest sign of being hurt.
"You think that's a fault?" he said.
"It does appear to be rather a disadvantage. You know when people go to
the theatre they like to have some idea of what they're looking at."
"I suppose they do. The fact is, that that's where the trouble was--I
got stuck. When anyone had been doing anything I couldn't think what
they ought to do next, so I started someone else doing something else
instead. That's why I said it was a kind of a go-as-you-please. You
observe I call it _A Lover's Quarrel_. Don't you think it's rather a
good title?"
"It's not a bad title. But I don't understand which the lovers are
supposed to be, or where the quarrel comes in."
"Perhaps not. You see the title was used in a sort of general sense." A
bright idea seemed all at once to strike him. I was beginning to
suspect that that was a kind of thing which did not strike him very
often. "I tell you what--you've got the dramatic instinct--couldn't you
give me a hint or two? What I want is a collaborator."
I felt convinced that he wanted something.
"Of course, I'm quite without experience. I think you're rash in
crediting me with a dramatic instinct. I'm not sure that I even know
what you mean. But I'll look through it again and see if I can be of
any use."
"Do! and, mind you, do with it as you like; turn it inside out; cut it
to pieces; anything! I know you'll make a first-rate thing of it. And I
tell you what, we'll announce ourselves as joint authors."
In a weak moment--he certainly had very seductive eyes!--I yielded what
amounted to a tacit consent. I read his play again, and came to the
conclusion that while, as it stood, it was absolute rubbish, it yet
contained that of which something might be made. I re-wrote the thing
from beginning to end. What a time I had while I was in the throes of
composition! and what a time everyone else had who came within a mile
of me! I was scarcely on speaking terms with a single creature, and
when anyone tried to speak to me I felt like biting them.
When it was finished Mr Spencer was in ecstasies.
"It's splendid! magnificent! there's nothing like it on the London
stage!" I admit that I thought that that was possible. "There's no
mistake about it, not the slightest shred of a scintilla of doubt,
we've written a masterpiece!"
The "we" was good, and as for the "masterpiece," it was becoming
plainer and plainer that Mr Frank Spencer was one of those persons who
are easily pleased; which, as that sort is exceedingly rare, was, after
all, a fault on the right side.
"Everybody," he went on, "will be enraptured with it; they won't be
able to help it; they're absolutely bound to be."
I wished I felt as certain of that as he did. Indeed I doubted so much
if rapture would represent the state of mind of a certain gentleman
that, in the daily letter which I always wrote to him, I never even
hinted that I was engaged on a work of collaboration; though, for a
time, that work filled my mind to the extinction of everything else.
"Now," continued my co-author, "the thing is to cast it, and, mind you,
this will want casting, this will; no round pegs in square holes. We
don't want to have a fine play spoilt by anyone incapable; everyone
will have to be as good as we can get."
Although he spoke as if it would be a task of the most delicate
kind--and, for my part, I did not see how, in the neighbourhood of West
Marden, we were going to cast it at all; yet, in actual practice he
seemed to me to make nothing of the matter. When he came with what he
called the "proposed cast" I was really amazed.
"Do you seriously mean, Mr Spencer, that these are the people whom you
suggest should act in our play?"
"Certainly. I've thought this thing out right to the bed-rock, and I
assure you that we couldn't do better. Of course, you must remember
that I shall do a good bit myself. I fancy you'll be surprised when you
see me act. I haven't much voice, but it isn't voice, you know, that's
wanted in this sort of thing; and though I can't say that I'm a regular
dancer I can throw my feet about in a way that'll tickle 'em. And then
there's you--you'll be our winning card; the star of the evening.
You'll carry off the thing on your own shoulders, with me to help you.
The others, they'll just fill in the picture, as it were."
"I do hope, Mr Spencer, that you won't rely on me too much. I've told
you, again and again, that I've never acted in my life, and have not
the faintest notion if I can or can't."
Putting his hands into his trouser pockets he tried to patronise me as
if he were a wiseacre of two hundred instead of a mere child of twenty.
"My dear Miss Wilson, I know an actress when I see one."
"You have an odd way of expressing yourself. I hope that you don't mean
that when you see me you see an actress; because I assure you that I
trust that you do nothing of the kind."
I wondered what George would think and say if he heard that
hare-brained young simpleton accusing me of looking like an actress.
"You give my words a wrong construction. I only meant to express my
profound conviction that in your hands everything will be perfectly
safe."
"I can only say, Mr Spencer, that I hope you're right, because when I
think of some of the people whose names you have put upon this piece of
paper I have my doubts. I see you have Mrs Lascelles to act Dora
Egerton, who is supposed to be a young girl, and who has to both sing
and dance. I should imagine that Mrs Lascelles never sang a note; her
speaking voice is as hoarse as a crow's. And as for dancing, why, she
must weigh I don't know what, and is well past forty."
"There's nothing else Mrs Lascelles could act."
"Nothing else she could act! Act! I'm perfectly convinced that she
can't act anything."
Mr Spencer winked, which was a reprehensible habit--one of several
which I was meaning to tell him I objected to.
"She'll take two rows of reserved seats."
"Indeed, is that her qualification? Then am I to take it that the
qualifications of all the rest of the people whom you have down on your
piece of paper are of a similar kind?"
His manner immediately became confidential; he was very fond of
becoming confidential. It was a fondness which I was commencing to
perceive that it might become advisable to check before it went too
far. There were moments when I never knew what he was going to say. I
felt that he might say anything.
"You see, between ourselves, on the strict QT, it's like this; if we
want to make the show the howling success it ought to be, what we've
got to do is to see that everyone in the cast represents money."
"I don't understand."
I did not.
"Oh, yes, you do; only--I know!" He winked again; there was positively
an impertinent twinkle in his eye. "You can see as far through a brick
wall as anybody, when you like, only sometimes you don't like. What
we've got to do is to fill the Assembly Rooms with money, and with more
money, mind you, than the room holds. And the way to do that is to get
the people to act whose names I have got down on that piece of paper."
"I still don't follow you. However, since you are managing the affair I
suppose it's no business of mine. You are responsible for its success,
not I."
"Exactly; you've hit it! I am responsible, and you may take it from me
that in a little matter of this sort I know my way about. It's going to
be a success--a bumper."
In spite of his confidence, when we came to actual business, things did
not begin auspiciously.
By way of a commencement, he read the piece to the people who were
going to act it. He said that dramatists always did do so, and that it
was necessary to do everything in regular order. The reading took place
at Mrs Lascelles's house, The Grange. I had not been in the house
before, and from the manner in which she received me I inclined to the
opinion that she would just as soon I had not come into it then. As I
looked round the room I could not but feel that, for the performance of
a musical comedy, Mr Spencer had gathered together a truly curious
company. I began to wish that I had had no hand in the collaboration.
Before he had finished the reading that wish took a very much more
definite form.
He was not a good reader; that fact forced itself upon one's attention
before he had got through three lines. But had he been the finest
reader in the world it would not have made a great deal of difference.
A more dreadful set of people to read a musical comedy to one could not
by any possibility imagine. The jokes--especially as he read them!--did
not strike even me as being very good ones, and sometimes they were a
little frivolous. What does one expect in a musical comedy? Had they
been the finest jokes conceivable it would not have mattered. I do not
believe there was a person present who could have seen a joke at all,
even with the aid of a surgical operation. Each time there was a touch
of frivolity the faces of the audience grew graver. And as for the
songs! Everybody knows the kind of songs one does hear in musical
comedies. The words are not suggestive of either Shakespeare or the
musical glasses. I had planned mine on the same lines. There was one
chorus which struck me as rather catchy.
"It tickled me so I had to smile;
I told the girl she was full of guile.
She said, 'What ho!'
I replied, 'Oh, no!
To put salt on my tail you must walk a mile!'"
I do not pretend that that's poetry, or anything but nonsense. You
expect nonsense in a musical comedy. But when Mr Spencer had read two
verses, Mrs Parker, who is the wife of the chairman of our local bench,
rose from her chair with an expression of countenance calculated to
sour all the milk for miles around, and observed--in such a tone of
voice!--
"Excuse me, Mr Spencer. I must go. When I received your invitation I
did not expect this kind of thing."
"What kind of thing?"
Mr Spencer looked up with a start. It was rapidly becoming more and
more obvious to me that he was one of those young men who are incapable
of seeing even as far as the tips of their own noses. He had been
stammering and stumbling on in apparently sublime unconsciousness of
the sort of reception which our masterpiece was receiving. The
singularity of Mrs Parker's bearing seemed to take him entirely by
surprise.
"May I ask, Mr Spencer, what you call the--stuff you have been
reading?"
"Stuff? You mean the piece? It's a musical comedy."
"Indeed. I haven't noticed any music yet, and as for comedy--there is
none. It appears to me to be a mere tissue of meaningless vulgarity.
Where did you get it from?"
"Miss Wilson and I wrote it together--that is, she did the greater part
of it. In fact, Miss Wilson practically wrote it all."
Which was true enough, but he need not have put it quite so
emphatically just at that moment.
"Miss Wilson?" Mrs Parker put up her glasses and she looked at me. How
she looked! "I have not the pleasure of Miss Wilson's acquaintance, but
I cannot help thinking that she might have been better employed."
Then she went. Fancy my sensations!
Mr Spencer must have been pachydermatous. He seemed unable to feel
either on his own account or on mine. Candid criticism of that
ultra-candid sort was to him like water on a duck's back. Directly Mrs
Parker was out of the room he turned to Mrs Lascelles.
"I don't think it's so bad, do you?--considering!"
"Considering." She said this with an accent for which I could have
thrown something at her. That wretched boy only smiled. It seemed to be
his _role_ in life--to smile. Mrs Lascelles was good enough to add a
sort of saving clause. "I daresay it will be better on the stage than
it is off."
Mr Spencer jumped at the opening.
"Of course! On the stage it will be simply ripping! It's meant to be
acted, not read; no good play ever reads well. The better it is the
worse it reads."
"This one doesn't read well, does it? In any case I think you made a
mistake in asking Mrs Parker to take part in a piece of the kind."
"It was a mistake, wasn't it?"
That young man beamed as if he were congratulating himself on having
done something exceedingly clever. In return, Mrs Lascelles observed
him with an air which was not exactly beaming.
"Frankly, Mr Spencer, I don't see much of a part in the piece for me."
As a matter of fact there was no part; there was just a song and a
dance and nothing else. But I, personally, was convinced that that was
too much. That extraordinary young man, however, put the matter in a
way which staggered me.
"You see, Mrs Lascelles, it's like this: your part at present is simply
outlined--the outline has to be filled in. That's the advantage of a
piece like this, you can do that so easily. What I want is your idea of
what you'd like the part to be, and then I'll write it up. See what I
mean?"
I did not see what he meant. Under the circumstances I think I was to
be congratulated on having been able to hold my peace--till later.
The reading limped to a finish. Then came the chorus. So far as I was
able to gather, not a creature thought anything of the play, and they
thought still less of the parts which had been allotted them. Mr
Spencer scattered promises like leaves in autumn. It made my ears burn
to listen to him. I was not so pliable. For instance, Major Hardy came
up to me to make some truly sensible remarks.
"Candidly, Miss Wilson"--everybody was candid, it was in the air--"my
idea was that we should represent _Hamlet_. I don't know if you are
aware that I am by way of being a Shakespearian scholar. I have formed
my own notion of the Prince of Denmark. I fancy that I might give shape
and substance to that notion if I were allowed to read the part. I
should have to read it. Between ourselves, my memory is so imperfect
that I could never hope to get anything off by heart. You will
therefore see that it is something of a jump to the--eh--kind of thing
we have just been listening to. So far as I understand it is proposed
that I should play a negro minstrel. Now Mrs Hardy would never permit
me to black my face--never! She'd be afraid that it wouldn't come off
again. On some points she is extremely nervous. Could the part not be
transformed into that of a Highland piper? I have the kilts, and I have
the pipes, and I can do some remarkable things with the bagpipes when I
am once fairly started. Sometimes it takes me a little time to get into
my stride, apt to make two or three false starts, don't you know; wind
goes wrong or something, but really, people seem to find that the most
amusing part of it."
I informed him that the character could not be "transformed" into a
Highland piper; that as for bagpipes, they were out of the question. I
had heard of his "pipes." He was fond of playing on them in remote
portions of his grounds; people had mistaken them for foghorns. In
fact, I tried to convey the impression that I was not to be trifled
with. From the look which came on his face I fancy that, to a great
extent, I succeeded.
What does anyone suppose was the first remark which Mr Spencer
addressed to me when at last we were alone together?--with all the
assurance in the world!
"Went off magnificently, didn't it? I told you it would; with a regular
bang!"
My attitude, when confronted by this amazing observation, was one of
polar frigidity.
"I noticed the bang; it was one of those bangs which accompany a final
explosion. Of course, I need scarcely observe that, so far as I am
concerned, the whole affair is at an end."
"Miss Wilson! you're joking! You're not going to let them see that
you're afraid of them?"
"Afraid! Mr Spencer, you use the most extraordinary language. Why
should I be afraid? I beg to inform you that I am afraid of nothing,
and of no one."
"I'm sure of it! All you have to do is to show a bold front and you'll
do as you like with the lot of them."
"So far I've not observed much of the bold front about you. You kowtow
to everyone as if you liked nothing so much as being trampled on."
"That's diplomacy; bound to be diplomatic. This sort of thing always
begins like this."
"Does it? Then I wish you'd told me so at the beginning. I hate
diplomacy."
"Miss Wilson, you have the dramatic instinct--"
"Mr Spencer, I wish you wouldn't talk nonsense. I believe you say that
to everyone. I heard you tell Mrs Lascelles that when she appears on
the stage she'll hold the audience in the hollow of her hand."
"So she will. She's going to appear in short skirts. When they catch
sight of her they'll kill themselves with laughing."
When he said that a dreadful suspicion flashed across my mind that he
was making fun of us all, including me; having a joke at our expense. I
had little doubt, after what I had seen and heard that afternoon, that
he was perfectly capable of such disgraceful conduct. I did not
hesitate to let him know at once what I suspected.
"Mr Spencer, is it your intention that we shall all of us make
laughing-stocks of ourselves for your amusement? Because, if so, I beg
to state that I, for one, decline. I heard what you said to Mrs
Lascelles; I heard you tell her that she would make the hit of the
piece."
"So she will; a hit's made in all kinds of ways."
"Do you dare to tell me that all the while you were intentionally
leading her on to making a complete idiot of herself?"
No eel that ever lived could compare with that young man for
slipperiness. He always had an explanation handy--the more impossible
the position the readier the explanation was.
"It's like this. If people are bent on making fools of themselves, and
will only bite your nose off if you try to stop them, what are you to
do? I tell you that the burden of the piece will be on your shoulders
and mine before the night comes round, and we'll carry it off. But it's
no good telling people that now, it has to be managed. Let's wait till
they've got themselves into a fine old hole, and all the tickets are
sold. All the country-side will crowd to see them make fools of
themselves. Then, when they've muddled themselves into a state of
semi-idiocy, they'll come and beg us--as a favour--to do what they
wouldn't let us do at any price if we were to propose it now. You leave
it to me. I've perhaps got a funny way of my own of doing things, but
I've a knack of getting where I want at the end. You keep your eyes
wide open and you'll see some sport."
He closed one of his eyes that very moment and winked at me again. It
was clear enough that he was a reprehensible young rascal, and all the
while there was a doubt at the back of my head as to whether he would
not wind up by landing me in a disagreeable situation. But, as I think
I have already said, he had such a way about him, and such a plausible
air, and he really was so good-looking, that he actually succeeded in
persuading me--after all that had already happened--to continue my
connection with that miserable play.
We had the first rehearsal. Oh, dear, it was dreadful! Not only were we
all at sixes and sevens--no one knew anything of his or her part, or
had the faintest notion what to do--but not a creature seemed to have
an idea of how to put matters even a little into shape. As for that
Spencer boy, he was worse than useless. It seemed to me that he took
either an imbecile or a malicious pleasure in making confusion worse
confounded. As for order! Everybody was talking together, and as no one
could get anyone to pay the least attention to what he or she was
saying, by degrees some of them began to sulk.
"You ought," I yelled to Mr Spencer when, for a moment, I succeeded in
catching him by the coat sleeve, "for the first rehearsal to have
called the principal performers only; we shall never get on like this."
Although the piece was only in one act there was a long cast, and a
tremendous chorus, besides no end of people who were just supposed to
dress up and walk on and off. "Get half the parish on the stage, and
the other half is bound to come and laugh at them"--that was Mr
Spencer's idea. The consequence was that that ridiculous little
platform at the "Lion," which was going to be the stage, was so crammed
with people that there was scarcely room to move, so that the
proceedings almost resembled a scrimmage in a game of Rugby football.
Miss Odger, who was standing by, heard what I said, although Mr Spencer
apparently continued oblivious of my presence. Quite uninvited she
answered for him.
"And pray, Miss Wilson, who would you describe as the principal
performers? I suppose you, of course, are one."
She certainly was not another, she was only in the chorus.
"Anyhow, Miss Odger, one would hardly speak of the members of the
chorus as principals, would one?"
"Is that so? I had no idea. In my ignorance I thought we were all
supposed to be equal. Since we are all doing our best I did not know
that some of us were to be treated as inferiors. May, did you?"
She turned to Miss Taylor, who, I was aware, hated the sight of me, as
her answer showed.
"Didn't you know, my dear, that Miss Wilson not only wrote most of the
piece, but proposes to act most of it too? I daresay she will let Mr
Spencer do a little, but the rest of us, I imagine, are only to form a
kind of background."
"If that is the case the sooner it becomes generally known the better.
Miss Wilson will find that she will be at liberty to do it all by
herself, though she may have to do it without the background."
It was no use my attempting to match myself against them at saying
disagreeable things there, even had my dignity permitted it, which it
did not. I simply walked away.
That rehearsal, which really never was a rehearsal at all, ended in
something like a general squabble. Everybody went away on pretty bad
terms with everybody else. I doubt if one single creature left that
room in a good temper, except Frank Spencer. He seemed absolutely
radiant. I should not have been a scrap surprised to learn that,
directly the last of us was out of sight, he had to hold his hands to
his sides to keep himself from bursting with laughter.
The next day, as regards my share in the proposed entertainment, there
came the final straw in the shape of a visit from his mother. Such a
visit! Mrs Spencer was an individual to whom I never had felt drawn. A
little, fussy woman, with a fidgety manner, who was always tangling
herself up in her own sentences. When she was announced, what she
wanted with me I could not guess. It was with indescribable sensations
that I gradually learnt.
"Miss Wilson," she began, "you are an orphan." I admitted it. From the
way in which she was regarding me she might have been expecting me to
deny it. "Therefore, much should be excused you. Providence does not
wish us to press hardly on the motherless." I did not know what she
meant, or why she was nodding her head as if it were hung on springs.
"My dear young lady, I would ask you to excuse me if, on this occasion,
I speak in a manner calculated to show you that I appreciate your
situation, if I ask you to regard me as if I were your mother." I
stared. I could not at all fancy Mrs Spencer as my mother. But that was
only the beginning. What she proceeded to say next took my breath away.
"I know my boy. I know his faults. I know his virtues. He has many fine
qualities." Had he? I could only say I had not noticed them. "But it
has not been always altogether fortunate for him that he is such a
universal favourite--especially with young women." She looked at me in
a style which made me go both hot and cold. "He has generous instincts;
noble impulses; a natural inclination to do only what is right and
proper. But--alas!--he is of a pliant disposition, as clay in the hands
of the modeller; easily led astray."
"Is that so? I am bound to admit that your son has not struck me as
being a very vertebrate creature, but I don't see what his
peculiarities have to do with me."
"Miss Wilson, I don't like to hear you talk like that. I don't like
it."
"Mrs Spencer!"
"It shows a callous disposition, especially in one who is, apparently,
so young."
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean perfectly well. Your own conscience is telling
you, as you sit there, that you have taken advantage of his simplicity
to induce my boy to do what he never would have done if he had been
left alone."
"Mrs Spencer! This is monstrous!"
"It is no use your jumping up from your chair in that excitable manner
and raising your voice. I am here to do my duty as a mother, and as the
wife of the rector of this parish. Already your machinations have
created a scandal, and you have set the whole place by the ears. Can
you deny that you have entangled my son in a dreadful business, the end
and aim of which is to perform in public a stage play for which you are
responsible?"
"I presume that you are aware that you are alluding to Mr Frank
Spencer's own musical comedy."
"It is not straightforward of you to attempt to take up such an
attitude, Miss Wilson. Is it not a fact that for the play--which Mrs
Parker informs me is of an absolutely impossible kind--"
"Oh, Mrs Parker was your informant, was she?"
"Certainly. She was never more shocked in her life. To think that she
should have been invited--actually invited!--to listen to such dreadful
stuff!"
"It was your son who invited her; it was he who read the dreadful
stuff, of which he is part author."
"Miss Wilson, it is unworthy of you to try to put the blame upon my
boy, who is a mere lad."
"He's older than I am."
"In years, but we do not count by years only. I insist upon your
telling me if for that dreadful play you are not principally, and
practically, solely responsible?"
"I certainly have tried to make sense of your son's nonsense."
"And you really propose to perform it in public?"
"For the benefit of the parochial charities."
"For the benefit of the parochial charities!" You should have seen the
expression which was on her funny little face as she repeated my words.
"Miss Wilson, you dare to say such a thing! When you are perfectly well
aware that neither the rector nor I would ever permit a farthing of any
money obtained by such means to be devoted to such a purpose!"
"This is the most extraordinary thing I ever heard. Don't you know that
the inception of the whole affair is your son's? He came and begged me
to take part in an entertainment in aid of the parochial charities; he
forced me to read his wretched play--"
"Oh, Miss Wilson! Miss Wilson! How can you talk to me in such a
manner!" She actually wrung her hands, or seemed to. "Your painful
behaviour compels me to ask if it is a fact that you are engaged to be
married?"
"I am, though I do not see what that has to do with the matter under
discussion."
"Then, under such circumstances, do you think it right and proper to
encourage my poor boy?"
"Encourage your poor boy! I!"
I thought when she said that, that I should have had a fit.
"He is always with you; it is common talk. He is continually at your
house--"
"Do you imagine that I invite him?"
I believe that I screamed at her.
"He has a photograph of yours in his cigarette-case; another in his
pocket-book; another in his desk; a fourth on his bedroom mantelpiece."
"That's where my photographs have vanished to! Now I understand! Let me
inform you, Mrs Spencer, that if, as you say, your son has my
photographs, he has stolen them. Yes, stolen them--without asking my
permission, and without my knowledge--like any common thief."
I do not deny that I lost my temper, but who, under the circumstances,
would not have done? We had a brisk discussion. When we parted it was
with a mutually-expressed hope that it was to meet no more.
Soon afterwards I went out to get some stamps. Old Bunting, who keeps
the general shop and the post-office, received me with what he perhaps
meant for an ingratiating simper.
"I hear, miss, that we're to have lively doings up at the Assembly
Rooms; real old-fashioned ballet dancing and all sorts of things."
"I don't know what you mean, Mr Bunting."
I did not.
"Regular music-hall performances, so I'm told; short skirts and no end.
It seems a bit unusual for ladies and gentlemen to go in for that kind
of thing, but you'll have the place crammed to the doors, I promise you
so much."
When I left Bunting's almost the first person I encountered was Mr
Frank Spencer. I had it out with him then and there.
"Mr Spencer, will you at once return those four photographs of mine
which you have stolen, or will it be necessary to communicate with the
police?" He had the assurance to pretend to look surprised, but then he
had assurance enough to pretend anything. "Your mother informs me that
the whole idea of a performance in aid of the parochial charities is an
invention of your own; on your father's behalf she repudiates it
altogether. How dare you attempt to drag me into such a thing? As for
that miserable musical comedy of yours--"
"Of ours."
If I could believe my senses there was still a twinkle in his eye.
"Of yours; you will give me your word of honour that you will destroy
it at once, or I promise you that you shall hear from my solicitors."
"Really, Miss Wilson, I think it's rather hard of you to assail a
fellow tooth and nail like this."
"You think I'm hard on you, do you? Here comes someone who, I fancy,
you will find is of a different opinion." For who should come sailing
into sight but George. Although I had not the faintest notion where he
had sprung from, on the whole the sight of him was not unwelcome.
"George," I began, "Mr Spencer has stolen four of my photographs. I
want him to return them to me at once."
"So this is Mr Spencer." George looked him up and down in a style which
was not exactly flattering. "I am sure, Mr Spencer, that it is
unnecessary for me to emphasise Miss Wilson's request."
"Quite. Here are two of the photographs in question." He took one from
a cigarette-case, and a second from a pocket-book, as his mother had
said. That boy's audacity! "I will see that the other two are forwarded
directly I reach home."
I still addressed myself to George.
"Mr Spencer appears desirous of associating me with a scrawl which he
calls a musical comedy. Will you request him to see that the manuscript
of the thing is entirely destroyed?"
"You hear, Mr Spencer?"
"Perfectly. I will do better than Miss Wilson asks. I will send the
'scrawl' in question with the two photographs. She will then be able to
do with it what she pleases. While apologising for any inconvenience
which Miss Wilson may have been occasioned, I would beg to be allowed
to add that I think that Miss Wilson is disposed to regard me with
almost undue severity. She forgets how hard up for amusement a fellow
may be in a place like this. My idea was to get her to join me in
playing off a joke on the aboriginals which wouldn't be forgotten for
years. I can only express my regret that she should have taken up the
point of view she has."
The impertinent young rascal walked off with his head in the air, and a
look on his face which nearly suggested that he was the injured party.
And, of course, George proceeded to lecture me.
"So this is your idea of taking part in amateur theatricals on behalf
of the parochial charities!"
"It's not my idea at all," I retorted. "You know very well it isn't."
But he refused to admit that he knew anything of the kind. He would
keep on making the most uncalled-for observations, instead of showing
me the sympathy of which I stood so much in need. We almost quarrelled.
Mr Spencer sent back the photographs and the musical comedy. I tore
that into shreds and burnt them every one. But I did not hear the last
of it for ages. It created quite a schism in the place. All sorts of
people were offended; I have not the faintest notion why. Although some
of them even went so far as to attempt to lay the blame on me. I have
been the victim of a good deal of injustice in my life, but that really
was the most unjustifiable injustice of all.
STAGGERS
A grey, watery sky, through which there are occasional glimpses of the
sun. A sloping and a muddy field. A large crowd. I suppose it is
attributable to the proximity of the village; but I had no idea that
there would be such a gathering. A long line of vehicles in the
adjoining lane--principally dogcarts. Most of them seem to be as full
as they can hold, occasionally fuller. Philipson informs me that the
occupants of these vehicles intend to follow the hunt by road; he adds
that they will probably see more of it than we shall. His observation
occasions me surprise. If it be possible to hunt in a comfortable
dog-cart, along decent roads, in a civilised manner, why should he have
induced me to spend a guinea on the hire of an animal which, I am
convinced, is of uncertain temper?
I was aware that meets were popular functions, but I had no notion they
were so popular as this. It may be owing to the fact that we are only
about twenty miles from town, but the place is inundated by what can
only be described as an actual rabble. Men and boys, and even women and
girls, line the hedges, many of them without hats, or, in the case of
the latter, bonnets. The inhabitants seemed to have turned out _en
masse_. They escorted us from the station much in the fashion in which
a crowd escorts a regimental band through the streets of London, only
they got in our way much more than the crowd is ever allowed to get in
the way of the band. There was no footpath in the lane, and I am sure
that sometimes as many as half a dozen people were under my horse's
feet at once. A strong feeling of sociability seems to reign among the
spectators; and, as several of them are shouting to each other right
across the field, the noise is considerable. Some of the remarks which
fall upon my ears can scarcely be regarded as flattering by the
enthusiastic sportsmen present who are members of the hunt. Among all
these people the horsemen seem to be in an insignificant minority. Yet
there are quite a number of them, too.
In a cleared space in the centre of the field is a cart. It looks very
much like the carts which are used to convey bulls through
thoroughfares in town. Only, unlike those, this is roofed over. It is
also more elegantly fashioned. The wheels, which are tolerably clean,
are painted bright scarlet, while the cart itself is chastely decorated
in two shades of green. Some little distance behind it, in the charge
of the huntsman and two whippers-in, are the hounds. I am bound to say
that those sagacious animals appear to me to be taking less interest in
the proceedings than one might reasonably expect.
Presently an elderly gentleman, who weighs, perhaps, seventeen or
eighteen stone, and who is attired in magnificent apparel, as befits
the Master of the Hunt, gets out of the carriage in which he has driven
to the ground, and scrambles on to the back of a horse which promises
weight-carrying power rather than speed. "Ready, Jenkins!" he cries. A
respectable-looking individual, in a long green coat, which he wears
ostentatiously unbuttoned in front, goes to the rear of the deer-cart,
and, presumably, unfastens the door. A hush, as of expectation,
follows. Nothing, however, happens. The man in the green coat seems to
be having an argument with something inside the cart.
"Twist his tail!" shouts a voice in the crowd--decidedly a boy's.
"The brute won't uncart," says Philipson.
I immediately have visions. I think of the tales I have read of the
cruelties which always attend stag-hunts; of the poor, frenzied,
frightened creature tearing madly, blindly, beside itself with terror,
to escape the merciless pursuit of the ferocious, eager hounds. Only a
short time ago I had read somewhere a piteous account of a stag which,
in its agony, had broken its heart and died. And they called it sport!
I had half a mind to express myself on the subject, there and then,
strongly; to declare that I, for one, would not take part in such an
orgy of senseless cruelty. I had my hand upon the rein, and was about
to turn my horse's head stationwards, resolute to forfeit the guinea
which I had paid for its hire rather than continue to be a constituent
fraction of such a ruthless throng, when the deer uncarted. I fancy
that the man in the green coat punched it in the ribs, or adopted some
similar means of persuasion. But the animal certainly did get out of
the cart.
In appearance it was not all my imagination had pictured it. It was
undoubtedly a deer, but of what kind I have no notion. I am no sort of
an authority on the subject, but I apprehend that this one was of a
breed which does not run to size. When one thinks of a stag one thinks
of antlers; if that stag had antlers, then they were in what may be
described as an apologetic state. I protest that I saw nothing of them.
What struck me most was the animal's demeanour. Whether it
was paralysed by fear, or by forebodings of the horrible fate that
was in store for it, is more than I can say. When it got out of the
cart, it walked about a dozen feet, then stopped to crop the grass.
"Hi-hi-hi-i-i!" shouted the crowd, unnecessarily, it seemed to me. Even
the hounds showed signs of interest. Some of them began to bark quite
noisily. Everyone was excited--except the deer. It looked up, as if
actuated by a certain indifferent curiosity, went on about another
dozen feet, then stopped to crop the grass again. The excitement was
increasing. At this rate of progression the creature would be out of
the field by the time "the shades of night were falling." The man in
the green coat, coming to the front of the deer-cart, took down the
whip which was beside the driver's seat. With the whip in his hand he
walked after the deer. When he had got within a foot or so of it, he
cracked the whip in the air with the report of a pistol-shot. The deer
looked up, as if surprised and even pained at such conduct. The man
cracked the whip a second time. The deer seemed annoyed. Kicking up its
heels like a skittish colt, it ambled down the slope and over the
hedge.
Immediately the whole place was in a turmoil. The vehicles in the lane
began to move. A large proportion of the crowd streamed across the
field with the apparent intention of seizing the deer by the heels
before it had a chance of getting away. The hounds barked; men shouted;
boys whistled. It was a scene of pleasing confusion. In a few seconds,
I take it, the word to start was given, the huntsman blew his horn, and
the hounds, barking as if with the intent to split their throats, went
rushing after the people, who already were rushing after the deer. The
hunt was off. I, also, was nearly off, because, in the muddle, which
was the most marked feature of the moment, a man in pink cannoned
against me, and almost succeeded in laying my steed and its rider low.
"Look out where you're coming to!" he exclaimed, as he went pushing
past me--which struck me, then, as being the most unreasonable remark I
had ever had addressed to me.
When I had had time to regain my own and my horse's equilibrium, I
perceived that Philipson, some little distance off, was being borne
away in the seething crowd of riders. Looking back towards me he waved
his whip. "Come on!" he cried. I came on. It was about time I did.
Everyone, with one accord, was making for the gate which was in the
corner of the field, and as I, unwittingly, was in the direct road to
it, perfect strangers were addressing me with that absence of restraint
which we look for only in the case of our lifelong friends. The process
of getting through the gate reminded me not a little of the crowd which
one sees outside the pit door of a popular theatre. Everyone seemed
anxious to get through first, and everyone seemed to be under the
impression that everybody else was doing his best to hinder him. I
daresay it took me five minutes to reach the other side of it. When I
did, I quite expected that Philipson would have been with the hounds, a
mile away. However, somewhat to my surprise, I found him awaiting me,
like a true friend, but a little wanting on the point of temper.
"You've been a nice time!" he observed.
"It hasn't been my idea of a nice time," I ventured to observe.
It hadn't.
"We may as well go home," he went on further to remark, "for all the
chances we have of seeing any sport to-day."
If that indeed were so, we, at least, had not the galley to ourselves.
We all scampered across the field, scattering as we went. Through
another gate, across one or two more fields, until at a sudden dip in
the ground we found ourselves confronted by a wire fence. We had not
seen a sign of the hunt. Obviously the fence was unsurmountable. We
moved along in search of a gate. When found, it proved to be locked,
and of diabolically ingenious construction. To open it was beyond our
powers. One man proposed pulling up a yard or two of the fencing, but
as he made no attempt to put his own proposal into execution, we let it
pass. The language employed was unprintable. We separated, Philipson
and I going off in search of a hedge--or of what, I believe, is called
upon the stage a "practicable" gate; Philipson, on the way, being more
voluminous on the subject of wire fencing than I ever thought he could
have been.
We discovered ourselves, at last, to be in a lane, though we had not
the faintest notion of where we were, or of where the hunt was either.
However, we trotted on, as if we still entertained hopes of being in at
whatever it may be which, in "stagging," takes the place of death.
Suddenly we reached a point at which another lane turned into ours. As
we did so, three men in pink came tearing along it as if they were
riding for their lives. At sight of us they almost pulled their horses
back upon their haunches.
"Where are they?" demanded the man in front.
Philipson was able to supply him with but scanty information.
"Haven't seen them since they started," he remarked.
"Confound it!" cried the man.
Off rode the trio, as if the hounds were at their heels. We followed at
a milder pace. We had not gone far before we heard the sound of wheels
approaching from behind us. Looking back, we perceived that three
dog-carts were advancing in Indian file. Judging from the rate at which
they were coming, one might have been excused for supposing that, being
without the fear of pains and penalties for furious driving, they were
matched against time. They slowed when they reached us.
"Where are they?" inquired the driver of the leading vehicle--if he was
not a publican, then I am prepared to assert that he was a butcher.
"Haven't the faintest notion," replied Philipson.
The driver of the second cart struck in. There could not be the shadow
of a doubt as to what he was--"Vet" was written large all over him.
"It's all right, push along, Jim! He's making for the cinder-heaps, I
tell you; I know he is. When the wind's like this, he always makes for
there."
Two girls were in the hindmost cart--probably relations of one or other
of the gentlemen in front. The one who was acting as Jehu waved her
whip impatiently.
"Yes, do let's hurry on! What's the good of hanging about?--we're only
wasting time!"
The procession re-started. I do not remember to have ever seen vehicles
careering along what, I presume, was a public highway, at such a rate
before. You could hardly see the wheels go round. From a purely
spectacular point of view it was exhilarating--really!
"Do you call this stag-hunting?" inquired Philipson, his eyes fixed on
the rapidly retreating dog-carts.
"No," I said, "I don't."
I was unable to tell what prompted his inquiry. It seemed an
uncalled-for one just then. But I could but answer it.
We jogged on for, perhaps, another mile without, it seemed, getting
nearer to anything, or to anywhere, when an astonishing thing took
place. We were still in the lane, and, judging from appearances, we
bade fair to continue in the lane during the remainder of the day. All
at once, without giving us the slightest warning of its approach,
something, springing over the hedge upon our right, alighted on the
road only three or four yards in front of us. It stared at us, and we
at it. Not impossibly, we were the more surprised of the two. Certainly
it was the first to recover its presence of mind. Swerving to one side,
it cleared the hedge upon our left with a degree of agility which did
it credit. It was only after it was over that we realised what it was.
"It's the deer!" cried Philipson.
"It's the deer!" I echoed.
We watched it moving across the field at a pace which, though it
appeared leisurely, a little observation showed us was much faster than
it seemed. While we hesitated, wondering what, under the circumstances,
would be the proper thing for us to do, the whole pack of hounds came
through the hedge over which the deer had first appeared. Without
condescending to notice us, dashing helter-skelter through the hedge in
front of them, they continued the chase.
"Come on!" shouted Philipson.
And I came!
Forcing our horses through a gap in the hedge, we found ourselves in a
position which, from a sportsman's point of view, was as pleasant as it
was unexpected. A glance over my shoulder showed me that we were not
alone. Three or four horsemen, who seemed to be racing, were close
behind us, while a not inconsiderable field tailed off in the distance.
For what seemed three-quarters of an hour but what, probably, was more
like three minutes, we enjoyed something like a burst. Our horses were
comparatively fresh; the going was easy; the quarry, at the start, at
any rate, was well in view. We passed over field after field--they were
divided from each other by apologies for hedges; although, so far as I
am aware, my steed did not pretend to be much of a jumper, the animal
took them in its stride. It seemed as if the blood was growing warmer
in my veins. I felt that this sort of thing really was worth paying a
guinea for; that, if this was "stagging," you might give me as much of
it as you chose. On we went, with such determination that I did not even
slacken rein when a row of hurdles rose right in front of me. I went
at them with the _sang-froid_ of a steeplechaser. My horse negotiated
the obstacle in gallant fashion, clearing it with his forelegs and
bringing it down with his hind. Philipson, who was somewhat in the
rear, with a want of spirit of which I had scarcely thought him capable,
steered for the gap which I had made. Taking full advantage of the
opening I had given him, he crept up to my side.
"This is something like!" he gasped.
"Magnificent!" I answered.
I but voiced the feelings of my heart--it was magnificent. The ground,
which was open pasture, descended in a gentle slope for fully half a
mile. Far away, and getting farther and farther, was the deer. Although
it still seemed to be travelling at its leisure, plainly enough it kept
away from the hounds with ease. A hundred yards behind they followed it
like a single dog. You could not have covered them with the proverbial
pocket-handkerchief, because they were scattered pretty widely, both to
the right and to the left, and behind and in front; but evidently they
were animated by a common purpose, to get on even terms with their
quarry.
"This is too hot to last!" gasped Philipson.
I was becoming conscious of that fact myself. Horses jobbed out at a
guinea a day are not supposed to be Derby fliers; nor are they
guaranteed to keep on at top speed for an indefinite distance. Away we
raced--it was, literally, racing; but, the further we went, the more
clearly I realised that something was going wrong with my animal's
works. I should have to ease up soon or stop entirely. The stag, and
the hounds, and the country together, settled the question for me in a
fashion of their own.
We had come down a reasonably graduated incline, I know not how far,
and I know not how long, when I suddenly perceived that the graduation
of the incline was ceasing to be reasonable. From a mere slope it was
becoming transformed into a positive declivity. Instead of falling,
say, one in a hundred, it was beginning to fall one in ten, and, so far
as I could perceive, bade fair, ere long, to fall one in something less
than two. Indeed, not more than a couple of hundred feet in front of
us, unless appearances were deceptive, the ground dropped away into
what looked uncommonly like a sheer precipice. At any rate, the deer
and hounds, passing over it in their wild career, had disappeared from
view as if by magic. Philipson and I reined up our horses as short as
we could. I do not fancy that either of the brutes objected. As we did
so, several other men came up one after another from behind; the
legitimate hunt they were, who had followed from the first, and whom we
had all but robbed of their laurels. They reined up almost in a line
with us.
"Pretty steep bit here," said a man upon my left.
A man upon his left replied to him.
"Beastly! That's an old quarry ahead; you can get down it, but it isn't
easy. There's the railway in front; there's a devil of a fence, and a
devil of a hedge to tackle before you reach it. Then ditto, ditto on
the other side, then a brook, then a plantation of young trees which
want thinning, and which is not so well adapted to horse exercise as
the maze at Hampton Court."
The speaker's knowledge of the country proved to be correct--at least,
as far as Philipson and I investigated it, which was as far as the old
quarry. It might have been possible to get down it--indeed, the speaker
proved that it was by going down it himself, and inducing three other
idiots to go down with him; but precipice-climbing on horseback had not
been the sort of experience we had been in search of when we went
"stagging." Philipson and I refrained. We remained up above with
several other sensible persons, and watched those enthusiastic
"staggers" tearing--with no slight expenditure of labour--bars out of
the strongly and carefully-constructed fence, the property of the
railway company. Then, with their pocket-knives, they commenced to cut
a gap in the thickest six-foot hedge, an appurtenance of the same
corporation. When we had seen so much, Philipson and I had seen enough.
We induced our horses to retrace their steps uphill.
The descent had been delightful, the ascent was not so pleasant. If it
was half a mile down, it was, certainly, three miles up. Nor was the
sum total of our satisfaction heightened when, after sundry
divagations, we found ourselves in what bore a singular resemblance to
that unending lane which we had originally--and so gladly!--quitted.
"It strikes me," remarked Philipson, as he looked to the right and to
the left of him, "that I've been here before. I seem to know this
lane."
I seemed to know it, too. But it was no use making the worst of things.
I endeavoured to put a fair front upon the matter.
"I dare say if we keep on we shall get somewhere soon."
"I hope we shall," said Philipson, in what struck me as being a tone of
almost needless gloom.
We did keep on--that I do earnestly protest. Not very fast, it is
true--our horses, for reasons of their own, seemed to object to hurry.
I said nothing, and as Philipson, if possible, said still less,
conversation languished. We had pursued the devious twistings of that
eternal lane for what seemed to be ten miles, and which, possibly, were
nearly two, when an exclamation from Philipson roused me to a
consideration of the surroundings.
"Hallo!--I say!--what's that?"
"What's what?"
I followed, with my eyes, the direction in which he was pointing with
his outstretched hand. He had stayed his horse, and was raising himself
in his stirrups with what seemed to be positive excitement. His
interest seemed centred in a flock of sheep which browsed unconcernedly
in the meadow on our left. At the first glance I thought that they were
sheep, "and nothing more." A moment's inspection, however, disclosed
the fact that among them was a creature of another species, a little
larger than themselves, but not much, and of a different shape and
colour. Like them, it grazed, "the world forgetting," if not "by the
world forgot," and seemed to be so very much at its ease, and so
entirely at peace with all the world, that some seconds elapsed before
ocular demonstration succeeded in convincing me that it might be a
relation to the noble animal which a large number of enthusiastic
sportsmen were ardently pursuing.
"It is a deer?"
The words came from me in the form of a query. For some reason the
inquiry seemed to nettle Philipson. He seemed to think that there could
be no possible room for doubt.
"Of course it's a deer. What's more, it's the deer."
"No!"
That did seem to me to be almost inconceivable. How came the creature
there? Why did it not betray more symptoms of anxiety? Did it suppose
that it was out for a holiday, the programme of which included
refreshments by the way? Was it possible that it could already have
forgotten its wild flight from the red-hot ardour of the heated chase?
What had become of the hounds, and the hunt, and the array of
dog-carts, and the excited pedestrian throng? Were we two all that was
left of them?
While such questions passed through my brain, for which I in vain
sought answers, we sat on our horses on one side of the hedge, while on
the other the proud monarch of the woodland cropped the sweet grasses
with the humble sheep, for all the world as if he were one of them.
Plainly, we were more interested in him than he in us; the close
proximity of men caused him no annoyance.
Philipson volunteered an observation.
"I fancy we'd better stop here till the cart comes along. Someone ought
to keep an eye on him. The last time I was out the deer was lost. I
believe it was over two months before he was found again."
It occurred to me that Philipson was proposing that we should act
towards this denizen of the forest glades very much as if we were a
couple of policemen--we were to guard, not to hunt it. The
responsibility which Philipson was desirous that we should assume was
not, however, forced upon us. Before I could say "Yes" or "No" to what
struck me as being his somewhat singular proposition, who should come
trotting along the lane but the Master of the Hunt himself. He was
alone. One perceived that he had not unduly spurred his willing beast.
Philipson nodded. He jerked his thumb over the hedge.
"There's the deer."
"Eh?" The Master pulled up. He looked where Philipson pointed. He saw
that the thing was so. "What the dickens is it doing there?" That is
what I wanted to know. He was a portly man. The peculiar behaviour of
the deer seemed to fill his soul with indignation. His face put on an
extra tinge of ruddiness. "Where're the hounds?"
"I expect the stag threw them off in the forest; we quitted when we
crossed the line and made for it--didn't think it was good enough."
I thought that Philipson's words were neatly chosen; they conveyed the
impression that we had been in the hunt from the beginning, all the
way, to the point alluded to.
"Where's the cart?"
"Haven't a notion. My friend and I thought that we would keep an eye
upon the stag till we had news of it."
Although he did not say so, the Master appeared to think that it might
be advisable that he also should keep an eye upon the stag. His
interest in the creature's safety was certainly likely to be of a more
personal kind than either Philipson's or mine. I take it that stags are
animals of intrinsic value, not to be regarded as things to be lightly
trifled with, deserving of as much care and consideration as, say, the
domestic cow. So we sat, all three in a row; pretty silent, on the
whole; staring over the hedge at the monarch of the woodland, as he
enjoyed an adventitious meal.
Presently a boy came into the field through a gate at the side. I
imagine he was a shepherd boy--I have no positive proof to adduce of
the fact, but such is my impression. I noticed that he cast at the
flock what I felt was an interested glance, and, as he did so, observed
the stranger in their midst. It was enough for him that there was a
stranger; he did not stop to inquire who he was or what had brought him
there, but on the instant he obeyed what I suspect to be the natural
instinct of the natural boy. I believe that I was the only one of the
trio who had noticed his approach--as yet he had not noticed us at all.
Had I foreseen his fell design, I should, undoubtedly, have given
tongue; but by the time I had so much as an inkling of his intention it
already was too late, the deed was done. It is possible that he was
under the impression that the intruder was, uninvited, taking a
gratuitous meal, and that he resented both his impertinence and his
dishonesty. Anyhow, stooping down, he picked up a stone and hurled it
at the deer with that force and that directness of aim with which boys
can throw stones. The missile struck the animal a resounding blow, I
should judge, in the neighbourhood of the ribs, at a moment when it was
not expecting anything of the kind. It leaped high in the air in the
first flush of its surprise; then, without staying to make inquiries,
it bolted across the field and over the hedge at a pace which was very
much in excess of anything which I had seen it display in the presence
of the hounds.
I conceive that the Master was to the full as amazed as the deer had
been, and also, when he understood what had happened, as indignant. He
looked after the vanished animal as if totally at a loss to comprehend
the cause of its curious conduct--no doubt he had known that deer
before--then he brought his head round slowly, scouring the landscape
as he did so, till the boy came within his line of vision. Having
sighted him, he glared as at some monstrosity, his cheeks purpling, and
the blood-vessels becoming more and more distinct. Philipson explained.
"The young beggar threw a brick at him--nice young rascal!"
The Master shook his clenched fist at the boy across the hedge. I never
before saw an elderly gentleman in such a passion.
"You somethinged somethinged something, what do you mean by throwing
your somethinged somethinged bricks at my blankety blankety deer?" Even
the casual reader must have read something about the remarkable
language which occasionally exudes from the lips of gentlemen, in
moments of excitement, on the hunting-field. The Master flavoured the
atmosphere with examples of that sort of language then. "If I get hold
of you, I'll twist your somethinged somethinged head off your blankety
blankety shoulders!"
If there had been a handy gate, it is probable that the Master would
have used it to pursue that boy, and, regardless of consequences, when
caught, have given him something for himself. But there was no gate
just there. The hedge was well established and closely grown. The
Master's horse was not the kind of quadruped to force its way through
such an obstacle, or to surmount it by a jump, especially with its
owner on its back.
The Master's stentorian tones were the first intimation the boy had
received that there had been spectators of his action. When he heard
that strident voice, and was saluted by that flow of language, and
recognised the Master's "pink," no doubt he realised the full enormity
of his offence. As he did so, like the deer, "he stood not on the order
of his going, but went at once," rushing pell-mell through the gate by
which he had entered, and passing from our sight.
"I'd give five pounds," declared the Master, "for a chance of breaking
every bone in the scoundrel's body!"
As I was hoping that he did not mean exactly what he said, Philipson,
who kept his eyes open, diverted our interest into a new channel.
"Hallo! There's the hounds!" he cried.
Turning round, as Philipson had done, sure enough, in the field behind
us, there were the hounds. At least, there were some of them. Each
individual member of the pack was wandering about in a desultory
fashion, doing nothing in particular, apparently not a little bored,
and wondering what it was that had brought it there.
"What are those dogs doing there by themselves? Where's the hunt?"
inquired the Master.
That was the question. So far as could be seen, not a person was in
sight. Since the deer had come in one direction, and now a portion of
the hounds had come in another, perhaps, shortly, the hunt might appear
in a third. One never knew. There seemed to be little or no connection
between the various parties. That this was so seemed to occur to the
Master. The reflection excited him. It moved him to action. There was a
gate into that field, a decrepit gate, which hung loosely on its
hinges. Pushing it open, the Master bustled into the meadow, holloaing
and shouting with much zeal, but to little purpose. The hounds did not
seem to understand him in the least, or to know him either. But when he
rode right into their midst, and commenced to strike out at them
indiscriminately with the lash of his hunting-whip, they began to bark
at the top of their voices, and, as the poet has it, to make "the
welkin ring." If clamour was what he was aiming at, then he succeeded
to perfection--the "music of the pack" was deafening. But if, as I
rather fancy, he entertained some dim idea of whipping the dogs on to
the trail of the stag, then the result was ignominious failure. They
barked and jumped about, and jumped about and barked, and he lashed
them and shouted, but, beyond that, nothing and nobody got any
"forwarder."
The performance might have continued until one side or the other had
had enough of it--the probability being that the Master would have been
the first to tire--had not the deer, finding that the hounds did not
come to it, saved them trouble by coming to them. That sagacious
animal--I was beginning to suspect that it was a sagacious brute, and
at least as well acquainted as anyone else with the rules of the
game--put in a fresh, and, as usual, wholly unexpected appearance on
the scene. Philipson, as his habit seemed to be, had his eyes the
widest open.
"By Jove! There's the deer!"
There was the deer, in the very next field to the one in which the
Master, with ideas of his own, was whipping the hounds. And, what was
more, there were some of the hunt as well. Nor were they entirely
unprovided with dogs; they were being shown the way by, so to speak,
their share of the pack--some six or eight hounds. On they came in
gallant style. The stag, leaping the hedge, found himself confronted by
the major portion of the pack. When he saw the dogs, the dogs saw him.
Then there was music! In an instant the Master and his antics were
forgotten--they went for their quarry with a tumultuous welcome. With
perfect ease he doubled on his tracks, and, leaping back over the
hedge, returned at an acute angle to the course he had come. The Master
went spluttering after him. Philipson and I did our best to get a share
of the fun.
The scene was changed like a transformation scene in a theatre. A
moment or two before, the place had been deserted, and not a soul had
been in sight. Now people came hurrying from every quarter, as if they
had been concealed behind unseen wings and waiting for the signal to
appear. Half a dozen horsemen and a line of dog-carts came scurrying
along the lane. You would have thought they had been flying for life,
the dog-carts in particular. Horsemen and horsewomen seemed to spring
up out of the ground on every side. On a sudden, the entire hunt
appeared to be gathered together almost as it had been at first.
Everyone went pounding away across the turf, crashing through the
hedges--preferentially selecting the gates, however, when they could
find them--as if, whatever they might have been doing hitherto, they
meant business at last.
Certainly, there is something contagious in such surroundings. I found
that there was, and my horse did, too. Just now the animal had appeared
dead tired, and I should have said also a little lame. But when the
flurry began, and eager riders, on all sides, went pressing hastily
forward, moved by a common mastering excitement, my wearied
guinea's-worth, forgetting its fatigue, became as lively as the best of
them. The revival of the interest had also freshened me. Away we went,
my steed and I, as light-heartedly, apparently, as if it had been the
first move we had made that day.
We had another burst--though I am bound to admit that in a singularly
short space of time both the deer and the hounds were out of sight.
They had gone before, not improbably, so far as I was concerned, for
good. But as a large number of people, who were undoubtedly as much out
of the hunt as I was, went pounding eagerly on, I went pounding too.
Philipson was on my left. It was more than doubtful if he would catch a
glimpse of the stag again that day--it would be entirely owing to the
benevolence of that intelligent creature if he did. Yet on his face was
mirrored a stern, concentrated purpose, which might have suggested to a
stranger that he had at last made up his mind to hunt the quarry,
single-handed, to its final doom.
That burst did not continue long--fortunately. I was becoming conscious
that a good many people seemed to be getting in front, and that my
horse was exhibiting no marked anxiety to occupy a post of honour,
when, having edged my way through still another gate, I found myself on
the high road. Soon the road began to bear a striking resemblance to a
street. Shortly I found myself, in company with a number of other
individuals, clattering down what was obviously the leading
thoroughfare of a country town.
Among the inhabitants our advent created the liveliest interest. We
might have been royalty, from the way in which they stared at us.
Someone looked out of every door and window. Numbers of persons lined
the pavements. As I passed one house I heard a woman shrieking up the
stairs,--
"Bill, 'ere's the 'unters; come and 'ave a look at 'em."
I suppose Bill came. Encouraging remarks were addressed to us by
miscellaneous spectators, principally boys.
"You're all right, mister, 'e's gone down there; if you 'urries up,
you'll get a sight of 'im."
I do not know if the observation was directed to me; if it was, I could
have assured the speaker that neither my horse nor myself had the
slightest intention of "hurrying up" to catch a sight of anyone.
About a hundred yards farther down we found ourselves in the midst of
what looked very like an actual riot. Although the street was very wide
just there, it was rendered almost impassable by a motley concourse of
vehicles, horsemen and pedestrians. On one side of the street was a
butcher's shop. Towards this butcher's shop all faces were turned. From
it there proceeded an amazing din--there were sounds of dogs barking,
of men's voices, and of one voice in particular.
I turned to Philipson in search of an explanation. The explanation
which he proffered, although succinct and to the point, took me
somewhat by surprise.
"Stag's taken shelter in the butcher's shop."
It seemed to me to be a curious shelter for a stag to choose--a
butcher's shop! And so, judging from his words, which, in an interval
of comparative silence, were distinctly audible, the butcher seemed
himself to think.
"Don't let any of your dogs come into my place, or I'll cut their
somethinged throats for them. Your deer--if it is your deer--has done
me ten-pounds'-worth of damage. You pay me that ten pounds, and then
I'll talk to you; but not till then. You know who I am; there's my name
and my address!"--the speaker pointed with his cleaver to the name over
his shop-front--"and if you want anything from me, you know how to get
it. There's the law for me as well as for you! But don't let any of you
chaps--I don't care who he is--try to set foot in my premises, or he'll
be sorry, and so I tell you."
The butcher seemed to be very angry indeed, which, if the deer really
had done him ten-pounds'-worth of damage, was not to be wondered at.
Philipson and I did not wait to see the discussion ended. We adjourned
to an inn and there refreshed. A roaring trade that inn was doing. The
stag's behaviour did someone good. And very sociable were the
customers. I gleaned from them several interesting scraps of
information. It appeared that that was not the first time a stag had
sought refuge in that particular butcher's shop; and since the
enterprising tradesman invariably demanded compensation for damages
which he alleged the creature had done him, dark suspicions were
entertained as to the means which he adopted to get him there.
As I journeyed homewards, on the whole I was disposed to conclude that
chasing a carted stag, under certain given conditions, might be made a
not unamusing pastime--with about it a flavour of something Gallic,
perhaps. They have some odd notions of sport on the other side of the
Channel.
The stag-hunter's pleasure depends, it seems to me, entirely on the
intelligence of the particular stag whose services happen to be
retained for the day. If, being ill-tempered, or obstinate, or stupid,
the moment it is uncarted it runs straight on, and keeps straight on,
then, I should say, the probability is exceedingly strong that no
single member of the hunt will ever catch sight of it again till the
hunt is over. If, on the other hand, the creature is generous, not to
say charitable--as our stag was!--and wanders about looking for
disconsolate "staggers"--as our stag did!--then, I take it, the affair
may be managed--by the stag!--in such a manner that everyone concerned
may be justified in thinking that he has done something worth his
talking about.
MY WEDDING DAY
The night before my wedding day I could scarcely sleep a wink--that is,
to speak of. I suppose it was partly the excitement; because, of
course, I could not help thinking--and there were so many things to
think of. "Now, Maud," said mamma, when she was bidding me good-night,
"don't you girls stop up talking. You get between the sheets as soon as
you're upstairs, and go to sleep at once." But she might as well have
talked to the moon. Of course, Eveleen came in to have what she called
a "few last words"; from the way she said it there might have been
going to be a funeral instead of a wedding. I had not previously
suspected her of being sentimental; but that night she was positively
depressing. And so horridly hopeful. She hoped that George would make a
good husband, and that we should be happy, and that I should never
regret what I was doing, and that it would all turn out for the best,
and that marriage would suit me, and that I should not go into a rapid
decline, like Aunt Louisa did, and that George would not quarrel with
mamma, and that he would not estrange me from all my relations and
friends, and that whatever happened I should always remember she was
the only sister I had; she kept on hoping that sort of thing till I had
to bundle her off.
To crown all, when at last I was between the sheets, who should come
creeping into the room like a ghost but mamma herself, though it must
have been frightfully late; and her manner was positively sepulchral.
"When you were a small child," she began, "I always used to come and
kiss you before you went to sleep; have you forgotten?" Of course I had
not forgotten. "So I have come again to kiss you, for the last time."
"Dear mother, I'm not dying to-morrow; at least, I hope not."
"That depends on what you mean by dying"--which was a cheerful thing to
say! "I trust, my dear daughter, that events will prove you have chosen
wisely, and that you will have every happiness; my own married life has
not been without its trials. Only, in the midst of your own happiness,
do not forget that you have a mother, and that you are still my child.
God bless you!"
As she stooped over to kiss me I felt her tears fall on my cheeks. That
finished me. After she had gone I had a good cry--the first I had had
for years and years. I was more than half disposed to jump out of bed
and run after her and promise that I would never leave her--never!
never! never!--but--I managed not to. Still I was anything but
comfortable, lying all alone in the dark there. Because I could not
shut my eyes to the fact that mamma had said things to George, and that
George had said things to mamma, and that papa had said things to both
of them; and everybody knows how that sort of thing grows, till a
breach is made which may never be bridged over. Then there was my
dress. Three times I had had to have it altered; till, finally, in
desperation, I had made up my mind to have an entirely new bodice made.
I could not go to the altar screwed up so tight as to be in continual
terror of my seams bursting, or else being suffocated. George would be
furious if anything did happen. The new bodice was something of a fit.
But it had not yet come home, though Mme. Sylvia had promised--pledged
what she called her professional reputation--that it should come before
ten o'clock to-morrow morning. Still, I could not help owning to myself
that I had scarcely any faith in the woman; and suppose it did not come?
My wedding dress!
The horror of such a prospect was too much for me. I believe it
frightened me to sleep, if you could call it sleep. Because then I
dreamt--such dreams! They were really dreadful nightmares. I know that
in one of them George was throwing mamma out of the window and I had on
scarcely a rag, and papa, laughing like a maniac, was cutting my
wedding dress into tiny shreds and Eveleen was shrieking; when, in the
very midst of it, I woke with a start--a frightful start--to find that
someone was gripping my shoulder with a clutch of steel, and that a
voice was saying to me in the pitchy darkness,--
"Maud, wake up!--wake up! There are burglars in the house; they are in
the drawing-room stealing your presents!"
Roused out of sleep by a thunder-clap like that, it was not surprising
if I were disposed to wonder where I was and what had happened.
"Who is it?" I inquired. "And what's the matter?"
"It's Eveleen! And as for what's the matter, they're not my presents,
so it's not of the slightest consequence to me what becomes of them,
though I should not be in the least surprised if they're all of them
gone by now. Do wake up!"
Before I really knew it I was not only wide awake, but I was stealing
along the pitch dark passage in my night-gown, with Eveleen's hand in
mine. Sure enough, as we leaned over the baluster, we could see,
through the open door, that there was a light in the drawing-room,
where all my wedding-presents were laid out for inspection.
"What are you doing in there?" I cried. "Who are you?"
Looking back they seemed rather foolish questions to have asked. It
was, perhaps, because she felt this strongly that, without the
slightest warning, Eveleen burst into the most appalling shrieks and
yells.
"Help! help!--murder!--thieves!--burglars!--help-p!"
I had never suspected her of having such powerful lungs. It was partly
owing to the surprise occasioned by the discovery, and partly to the
thrill which the noise she made sent right through me, that I was
induced to do the most daring--and also the rashest--thing I ever did
do. Without giving Eveleen the least hint of my intention, I flew down
the stairs and dashed into the drawing-room in my night-gown, just as I
was. What would have happened if the burglar had stayed and attacked me
is too terrible for thought. Fortunately, he did nothing of the kind.
Just as I tore through the door the light in the room went out; I heard
a scrambling noise, as if somebody was stumbling against furniture and
knocking over chairs. Then I saw a blind lifted and a figure leaped
through the open window. I believe I should have leaped after him if
Eveleen had not stopped me. I had already lifted the corner of the
blind when she shouted,--
"Maud! What are you going to do?"
"I can see him running across the lawn, and I believe he's taken all my
presents!"
"If he has, whatever good do you suppose you'll be able to do by
jumping through the window after him?"
"There he is! He's going through the gate! He'll escape!"
Eveleen, coming rushing across the room, flung her arms around me and
held me tight.
"Come back!" she cried; which were hardly the correct words to use,
since, as a matter of fact, I had not actually gone.
Then papa and mamma and the servants came hurrying in, and there
was a fine to-do. That burglar had apparently supposed that those
wedding-presents had been laid out for his inspection. Anyhow, he had
gone carefully over them and selected the very best. As Eveleen rather
coarsely--and also ungratefully--put it, the things he had left behind
were hardly worth having. He had taken Aunt Jane's turquoise bracelet,
and Uncle Henry's pearl necklace, and Mrs Mackenzie's diamond brooch,
and, indeed, nearly every scrap of jewellery, and the silver
tea-service, and the dressing-case--George's own present to me--and
five cheques, and all sorts of things; though, of course, in the
excitement of the moment, we could hardly be certain what he had taken;
but I may say at once that it turned out to be worse even than we
feared. When, at last, a policeman did appear upon the scene, he was
anything but sympathetic. From his manner we might have left my
presents lying about on purpose, and the window open too. He was the
most disagreeable policeman I ever did encounter.
Anyone would easily imagine that after such an interruption there was
no more sleep for me that night. But mamma insisted upon my going back
to bed. Extraordinary though it may seem, I believe I was no sooner
between the sheets than I was fast asleep. And that time I had no
dreams. I was visited by no premonitions of what was to happen to me on
what I had meant should be the happiest day of my life. My existence
had been uneventful up to then. Scarcely anything worth speaking of had
occurred, except my meeting George. It appeared that Fate had resolved
to crowd into a few hours the misfortunes which might very well have
been spread over the nineteen years I had been in the world. Everything
went wrong; some evil spirit had been let loose that day to play on me
as many cruel pranks as it possibly could--I feel sure of it. Stealing
my wedding-presents was only the beginning. I had worked and schemed,
planned and contrived, so that everything should go smoothly and be as
nice as it could be. Instead of which anything more tragic could hardly
be conceived.
To begin with, Eveleen, who seemed destined on that occasion to act as
a bird of ill-omen, awoke me, for the second time, out of sleep with a
piece of information which was really almost worse than her first had
been. Indeed, for a moment or two, when I realised all that it meant,
it seemed to me to be an absolutely crushing blow. She waited till she
was sure that I had my eyes wide open; then she let fall her bombshell.
"Maud, I have another pleasant piece of news for you. Bertha has the
measles."
"Eveleen," I exclaimed, starting up in bed, "what do you mean?"
"Exactly what I say. And as Constance slept with her last night she
will probably have them also, so that you will, at any rate, be two
bridesmaids short. Read that."
She handed me a letter which she had been holding in her hand. Seating
herself on the side of my bed, she watched me with an air of calm
resignation while I read it. It was easy enough for her to be calm; it
was different for me. I had arranged for four bridesmaids. Bertha Ellis
was to be one; her cousin, Constance Farrer, was to be another. Bertha
had had for some days what we had thought was a cold; during the night
it had turned into measles--at her time of life, because she was as old
as I was. And Constance had actually slept in the same bed with her.
So, as Mrs Ellis had written to point out, it was altogether out of the
question that either of them should be present at my wedding.
"Now," I demanded, "perhaps you will be so good as to tell me what I am
to do."
"I suppose it would be too late to get anyone to take their places?"
"At the eleventh hour--practically at the church door? And who is to
get into their dresses? They are both of them so ridiculously small."
"You would have them like that in order to make you look tall. It seems
as if it were a judgment."
"How can you say such awful things? Why don't you suggest something?"
"The only thing I am able to suggest is that you should do without them
and put up with Ellen and me.
"You know very well that I only asked Ellen Mackenzie because I knew
that her mother was going to give me a diamond brooch--and now it's
stolen. It's not alone that she's hideous, but she won't harmonise with
me in the very least; and, anyhow, having only two bridesmaids will
spoil everything."
"Then there's nothing for you to do except postpone the wedding, unless
you know of some establishment where they hire out bridesmaids of all
shapes and sizes on the shortest notice."
"If it were your wedding day I wouldn't talk to you so heartlessly. How
can you be so unkind?"
"Pray, Maud, don't start crying. Red eyes and a red nose won't improve
either your appearance or anything else. You are perfectly aware how
your nose does go red on the slightest provocation."
Talk about the affection of an only sister! Mamma came in just as I
felt like shaking Eveleen.
"Oh, mamma," I burst out, "Bertha Ellis has the measles, and Constance
Farrer is almost sure to have them, so I shall be two bridesmaids
short, and I had set my heart on having four."
Mamma was, if anything, less demonstrative in the way of sympathy even
than Eveleen.
"Be so good, Maud, as not to excite yourself unnecessarily. You will
have need of all your self-control before the day is over. Anything
more unreasonable than your father's conduct I cannot imagine. He
insists on going to the City."
At that both Eveleen and I jumped up.
"But, mamma, he's to give me away at half-past twelve!"
"That makes not the smallest difference to your father. It seems that
there's some absurd foreign news which he says will turn that
ridiculous City upside down, and he simply insists on going."
I was beginning to put some clothes on anyhow.
"Then he sha'n't!--I won't let him! Mamma, you mustn't let him!"
"It's all very well for you to say that, and goodness knows I have done
my best; but you might as well talk to a wooden figure-head as to your
father when he is in one of his moods. He's gone already."
"Gone! Mamma!"
"He said that if he was not back at twelve he would meet you at the
church door at half-past; but you know how he may be relied upon to
keep an appointment of that kind; especially as he went out of his way
to inform me--not for the first time--that the whole business is a pack
of rubbish."
There are fathers, no doubt, who take the tenderest interest in
everything which concerns their children; especially when they have
only two, and both of them are daughters. But if my father has any
tenderness in him he manages to conceal the fact from the knowledge of
his family. And as for interest, I doubt if he takes any real interest
in either of us. When George was coming to the house about seven times
a week mamma dropped a hint to papa to sound George as to what was the
object of his dropping in so often. But papa could not be induced to
take it.
"Don't you try to induce me to ask the man if he intends to make a fool
of himself, because I won't do it." That was all that papa could be
induced to say.
When, after all, without any prompting from anyone, George put to me
the question on which hinged so much of my life's happiness, it was
ever so long before anyone said a word about it to papa. As to
referring George to him, as some daughters, more fortunately situated,
might have done, I knew better. At last, one evening, when I was alone
with him in the drawing-room after dinner, I managed to find courage
enough to tell him.
"Papa, I think you ought to know that I am engaged to be married."
He looked up from the book which he was reading.
"What's that? Rubbish!"
He looked down again. It was a promising beginning.
"It may be rubbish, but it is a simple fact. I am engaged to be
married."
"How old are you?"
"I should have thought you would have known my age. I was eighteen last
birthday."
"In another ten years it will be time enough to think of nonsense of
that sort."
"Ten years! I am going to be married in six weeks from to-day."
"Be so good as not to interrupt me when I'm reading with nonsensical
observations of that kind."
That was the form my father's congratulations took. It may easily be
imagined what trouble we had with him. He could not be brought to
regard things seriously. It was not merely because he thought I was too
young; if I had been fifty it would have been exactly the same. It was
simply because he hated being bothered. And yet when, after repeated
trials, it was driven home to his understanding that I was going to be
married, and that George was a respectable person, he surprised me by
the generosity which he all at once displayed. One morning, as he was
leaving the breakfast-table to start for the City, he slipped a piece
of paper into my hand.
"That's to buy clothes."
When I had looked at it, and saw it was a cheque, and the figures which
were on it, I jumped up and ran after him into the hall, and kissed
him.
"What's that for?" he demanded. I explained. Putting his hand on my
shoulder he turned me towards the light and looked me up and down. Then
he remarked, "Perhaps, after all, that young man's not such a fool as I
thought him." It was the nearest approach to a compliment he had ever
paid me.
What we had to endure from him on the great question of the wedding!
His ideas on the subject were barbarian.
"Let us all go in a four-wheeler--we can put the young man on the
box--and drive round the corner to the nearest registrar. It will all
be done in a business-like manner inside ten minutes."
That was his notion of what a wedding ought to be. I need scarcely say
that mine was entirely different. I had made up my mind to have a
really pretty wedding. May Harvey had been married the year before.
Hers was a pretty wedding; I had resolved that mine should be prettier
still. Mamma, Eveleen and I arranged everything. By degrees we
persuaded him, if not exactly to agree, then at least to wink at what
was going to happen. On one point I was firm--that he should give me
away. He promised that he would. But when he began to realise what a
pretty wedding really meant he became restless and more and more
trying, and he said the most horrid things. And now on the very day
itself he had gone off to the City! If I could have relied on his
returning at twelve, or even on his meeting me at the church at
half-past, I should not have minded. But I was perfectly aware that if
business was at all pressing he would think nothing of sending one of
his clerks to take his place; on some absolutely essential matters I
knew to my cost that he had not the slightest sense of propriety. As,
however, all I could do was to hope for the best, there was nothing
left but to appear resigned.
"I presume if my own father doesn't care enough about me to trouble
himself to be present at my marriage it's not of the slightest
consequence."
Just as I was about to sigh Eliza, the housemaid, appeared in the
doorway, addressing mamma.
"If you please, ma'am, cook's going."
Mamma turned round to her with a start.
"Cook's going--where?"
"She's leaving the situation."
"Eliza! What do you mean?"
"If you please, ma'am, Mary and she have been having words about who it
was left the drawing-room window open last night; and then Mary she
said she believed as how it was cook's young man who broke in and stole
Miss Maud's presents; and then cook, she said that after that she
wouldn't stay with her in the same house not another minute; so she's
gone upstairs to put her things together."
Off went mamma to interview cook. I turned to Eveleen, who was still
sitting on the side of my bed with an air of complete unconcern, as if
nothing whatever mattered. I always did say that she was almost too
much like papa.
"It seems as if everything was going wrong--everything! Eveleen, what
is the time?"
"Just past ten."
"Past ten! Has my dress come?" She shook her head with an air of the
utmost nonchalance. If it had been her dress! "But Mme. Sylvia promised
that I should have it before ten! And I've had no breakfast!"
"There is breakfast waiting for you downstairs."
"As if I wanted any breakfast! As if I could eat, feeling as I do! You
know that I had arranged to commence dressing at ten! Eveleen, what am
I to do?"
"You mean about the dress? It's only just past ten; it may come still."
"May come! Eveleen, do you want me to--to hit you? Eliza or someone
must go at once and fetch it, finished or not."
"I daresay Eliza can go, if you think it necessary. If you take my
advice you won't excite yourself."
"Won't excite myself! If it were your wedding and your dress you'd talk
in a different strain."
"I should have made different arrangements."
"You would have made--" I bit my lip till it nearly bled; I had to do
something to stop myself. "I know how nice you can be if you like; but
I don't mean to quarrel with you, to-day of all days, if I can help
it." As I was speaking Eliza reappeared in the doorway. "Eliza, I want
you to get a hansom and to tell the man to drive you to Mme. Sylvia's
as fast as he can. I'll give you a note to her. You're to bring my
dress back with you. I'll write the note while you're putting on your
hat. Do be as quick as you can."
"If you please, miss, Miss Mackenzie's downstairs."
A voice exclaimed behind Eliza,--
"Oh, no, she's not; she's here." There stood Ellen, in her bridesmaid's
dress, all smiles. She came bustling into the room--in that bustling
way she always has. "Well, my children, how are you? And how's the
sweet young bride? You told me to be here by ten--ready dressed--and
here I am. What do you think of it?" She turned and twisted herself
about so as to show off her dress. "It's a bit tight under the arms and
a shade loose in the back, but it's not so bad. Am I the first? Where
are Bertha and Constance?"
I waved my hand towards Eveleen.
"Tell her--I can't!"
Eveleen told her everything, and I will say this for her, she made out
things to be as bad as they very well could be. Ellen Mackenzie's face
was a study. She is one of the plainest girls I know--her dress did not
suit her at all; I knew it wouldn't; nothing ever does; and she seemed
to grow plainer and plainer as she listened. But she was more
sympathetic than any of my relations had been. She threw her arms round
me, quite indifferent as to what might happen to her dress.
"You poor darling! To have had your presents stolen--and two
bridesmaids down with the measles--and your father gone to that horrid
City--and the servants quarrelling--and now no wedding-dress! As to
that Mme. Sylvia, if I were in your place I should feel like wringing
her neck."
"I shouldn't be surprised if I did wring it if my dress isn't ready by
the time that Eliza gets there. Eliza, haven't you got your hat on?"
She had actually stood there looking on and listening, with her eyes
and mouth wide open. But she was ready almost as soon as the note
was--it was a note! And just as we had started her off, with strict
injunctions to come back at once and bring the dress back with her, if
she had to snatch it out of the dressmaker's hands, a person arrived
who stated that he was a detective and had come to inquire into the
burglary, and who insisted on seeing me. So we saw him all three of us
together, and a most unpleasant interview it was. He asked me the most
disagreeable questions, wanting to know what I valued the missing
presents at, and how much they had cost, and if the jewellery was real,
and unpleasant things of that sort. While we were in the very midst of
it mamma came in in a state of painful excitement.
"Are you a policeman?" she demanded. "Because if you are I should like
you to tell my cook and my parlourmaid that if they leave my house this
day without giving me due and proper notice they will do so at their
peril, and that I shall prosecute them both as sure as they are
living." The detective stroked his chin and seemed disinclined to do as
mamma desired. She went on, "My parlourmaid has been making the most
unwarrantable accusations against my cook, in consequence of which she
declares that she won't stay in the house another minute; and when I
told my parlourmaid what I thought of her behaviour she announced that
she should also go at once. They are both perfectly well aware that it
is my daughter's wedding day, and that if they do go everything will be
in a state of confusion; so I want you to speak to them and bring them
to a proper sense of their duty."
The detective still seemed dubious.
"I am afraid, madam, that that sort of thing hardly comes within my
jurisdiction. But if they are going I should like to ask them a few
questions about this burglary before they leave the house."
Cook with her hat on, and Mary with hers in her hand, had been standing
in the doorway all the while. Cook now came forward--battle in her eye;
we always had had trouble with her temper.
"I'm quite ready to answer any questions that's put to me; but if
anyone says a word against Mr Parsons, who's as honest and respectable
a man as ever walked this earth, then I say they're liars."
Then came Mary, who, as we had all of us noticed, always had a way of
hinting more than she actually said.
"What I say is true, and I'm not going to be frightened from speaking
the truth by anyone. I say that Mr Parsons was hanging about this house
last night till after twelve o'clock; and so he was."
There was a frightful scene. I believe, if the detective had not been
present, that those two women would have attacked each other. When
Eveleen and Ellen got me back into my own room my nerves were in such a
state that I was trembling all over. It was past eleven. There were
still no signs of Eliza or my dress. The carriage was to come to take
me to the church at twelve; the wedding was to be at half-past; as we
wanted to catch the afternoon train for Paris we had arranged to have
it early. I was feeling both miserable and desperate, altogether
different from what I had intended to feel.
"I shall go and fetch the dress myself," I said.
"Rather than you shall do that," exclaimed Eveleen, "I'll go myself."
And she went, giving me a few words of advice before she departed. "Do
control yourself, Maud, and don't give way. Everything will be all
right if you keep calm. I promise to bring you your dress in twenty
minutes, if I don't meet Eliza with it on the way."
It was all very well for her to talk about keeping calm, but I had
reached a stage when something had to be done. So I threw myself on the
bed and had a cry. Although Ellen did try to comfort me it was not the
slightest use. Then, when she saw the state I was in, she started
crying too. And while we were both of us at it in came mamma. She was
almost in a worse condition than we were. Cook and Mary had both left,
and the detective had gone without having done the slightest good, and
everything was topsy-turvy. The refreshments for the reception which
was to take place after the wedding were to come in from outside, and
the waiters also; still, it was dreadful to be practically servantless.
Mamma was in such a state of painful agitation that she almost drove me
to hysterics. Then Jane, the kitchenmaid, came rushing in. Since Eliza
had not yet returned, she was the only maid we had in the house.
"If you please, ma'am, the carriages have come."
"Carriages! What carriages?"
"To take Miss Maud and her bridesmaids to the wedding, ma'am."
"Wedding!" Mamma laughed; it was an awful sound. "Since it does not
seem likely that there will be any wedding, it will hardly be worth
their while to wait."
"Shall I tell them to go, ma'am?"
When the idiotic Jane asked that question I leapt right off the bed on
to the floor.
"Mamma! Jane! How can you be so absurd?"
I was just going to give both of them a piece of my mind--because
mamma's conduct really was ridiculous--when someone else came tearing
up the staircase. It was Eveleen, followed by a smartly-dressed young
woman carrying a large box--which I made a dash at--with Eliza in the
rear.
"Here's your dress!" cried Eveleen.
The young woman began to explain.
"Mme. Sylvia sends her apologies, and hopes you will excuse her for
having kept you waiting; but there has been an unavoidable delay owing
to an unfortunate misunderstanding--"
Eveleen cut her short.
"We'll have the apologies and all that sort of thing afterwards. What
you have to do, Maud, is to put on that dress in the shortest time on
record, and let's hope it fits. You've been crying--so have you,
mamma--and Ellen! You're three nice people. As for you, Ellen, nothing
will get those marks off your face except clean water, and you'll have
to wash."
Ellen's complexion takes a tremendous time; she uses all sorts of
things for it, so that that was a bad blow for her. We all began to
bustle. The young woman began to unpack the box, and I got quite ready
to slip into the dress when it was unpacked. Suddenly there was an
exclamation from Mme. Sylvia's assistant.
"My goodness! what is this?" She was holding up what looked as if it
were some weird sort of a blouse made of all the colours of the
rainbow; it was certainly not part of my wedding-dress. She stared and
we stared. Then she dropped on to a chair with a groan. "There's been a
mistake," she gasped. "In the hurry I've brought a dress which we have
been making for Mrs Markham for a fancy-dress ball, and I'm afraid your
dress has gone to her."
There are moments in life when, the worst having come to the worst,
obviously the only thing left to do is to look it boldly in the face. I
realised that one of those moments had come to me then. All hope was
gone; nothing remained but to calmly face despair. I gave myself
a sort of mental pinch, and walked quietly up to that young woman,
feeling--and no doubt looking--almost dangerously cool. I picked up
the parti-coloured garment, which was all that had been brought to me
after all that strain and stress.
"This looks as if it might be some sort of fancy dress. Am I to
understand that it is a fancy dress?"
I believe that that assistant was overawed by my manner.
"Yes; it's for one of our customers--a Mrs Markham--for a fancy-dress
ball."
"And, pray, where is my wedding-dress?"
"I expect it has been sent to Mrs Markham in mistake for hers."
"And when may I rely on receiving it back from Mrs Markham?"
"Not before to-morrow, at the earliest; it has been put on a train at
Euston--she lives in the North."
"Since I am to be married to-day, it will not be of much use to me
to-morrow, will it? Put this article back in your box. Return it to
Mme. Sylvia, and inform her, with my compliments, that she will hear
from my solicitors. I should imagine that she will probably hear from
Mrs Markham's solicitors also. Take Mrs Markham's fancy costume--and
yourself--away as fast as you possibly can. Eveleen, I will be married
in my going-away dress."
I have little doubt that they were all impressed by what, under the
circumstances, seemed my almost preternatural calmness. Scarcely a word
was spoken by anyone. Even mamma merely remarked that the assistants in
Mme. Sylvia's establishment seemed to be as utter idiots as their
principal; and that, for mamma, was nothing. I bundled her off to
dress, and I made Eveleen and Ellen go too. I attired myself for my
wedding, which was far from what I had intended to do. It had been
arranged that I should be costumed by a sort of committee consisting of
my four bridesmaids, with mamma acting as my supervisor. But since that
arrangement had been made everything had been altered; and as now
nothing remained but my going-away dress, I needed no assistance in
putting on that. With a travelling costume a bridal veil seemed almost
painfully out of place, so I resolved to do without that also. I wore a
hat.
Just as I was putting the finishing touches to my hat there came a
tapping at my bedroom door. When I cried, "Come in!" to my amazement
who should enter but George's best man, Jack Bowles.
"Maud!" he exclaimed. "Whatever's up? Do you know it's nearly two, and
George is almost off his head, and the parson's going to a funeral?"
I turned to him with what he has since assured me was the air of a
tragedy queen.
"I am ready now. We will start at once."
He stared, as well he might.
"Like that?" he cried.
"Like this. You and I will drive to the church together, and I will
explain everything to you as we go." I hurried with him down the
staircase, calling to the others as I went; unseen, unnoticed, a quiver
passed all over me as I recalled how, in the days gone by, with a
prophetic eye, I had seen myself, a vision of snowy white, descend that
staircase "with measured step and slow," surrounded by my bridesmaids.
"Mamma, I'm going to drive to the church with Mr Bowles. You and
Eveleen and Ellen had better follow in another carriage."
"My dear!" mamma's voice came back. "What do you mean? I'm not nearly
ready yet."
"Maud!" Eveleen distinctly shouted.
But I waited for nothing; for no one. Hastening to a carriage with Mr
Bowles, off we started. It was rather an invidious position; there had
been passages with Mr Bowles which made my situation one of some
delicacy. When George told me that he had asked him to be his best man,
I felt that he was hardly the person I should have chosen for the part.
However, I had not quite seen my way to acquaint him with the manner in
which Mr Bowles had behaved at Mrs Miller's dance; to speak of nothing
else. So there we were alone together perhaps for the last time in our
lives. Possibly what had passed between us made him all the quicker to
feel for me in the plight in which--as I explained to him--I found
myself. He showed the most perfect sympathy. Even George could not have
been nicer.
But, for me, disasters were not ended. I was to be the victim of
another before the church was reached. It seems to me that motor
cars are always doing something. As we were passing along the
busiest part of the High Street one of them did something then. It
skidded--or something--and took off one of our back wheels. Down
dropped a corner of the brougham with a crash which sent me flying into
Mr Bowles's arms. Presently, when, apparently uninjured, we found
ourselves standing in the road, the centre of an interested and
rapidly-increasing crowd, we realised that it might have been worse.
"The stars," I murmured, with a presence of mind which, now that I look
back upon it, seems to have been really phenomenal, "are fighting
against me in their courses."
"Poor old George," said Mr Bowles, who was always rather inclined to
slang, "will be fairly off his nut."
All at once I espied papa coming along in a hansom cab. I called out to
him. Stopping the cab he sprang out to us.
"What are you two doing here?" he demanded, in not unreasonable
astonishment. Then he went on to offer exactly the kind of explanation
I had expected. "Do you know, I've been so occupied that I quite
overlooked the fact that I was due with you at half-past twelve. I hope
it made no difference. Where's George?"
"He's at the church."
"At the church? What's he doing there?"
"He's waiting for me to come and be married."
"Waiting? How's that? Aren't you married already?"
"No; and--it--doesn't look--as if--I--ever--shall be."
"Jump into my hansom--you and Bowles--we'll soon see about that."
We jumped in, Mr Bowles and I, and we drove off to the church--to my
wedding!--three in a hansom cab! If ever anyone had foretold that such
a thing would--or could--have happened to me I should have expired on
the spot.
When we reached the church--we did reach it!--we found that such of the
people as remained were standing on the steps or in the doorway.
George, who was nearly distracted, came rushing forward at the
sight of me; the people actually cheered. It appeared that the
clergyman--our vicar--who had been specially retained, had gone to a
funeral; but a curate, of some sort, had been routed out from
somewhere, and he performed the service. Just as it was begun in came
mamma and Eveleen and Ellen. The instant it was over George and I tore
off home, got my trunks--George himself helped to carry them--and
rushed to Charing Cross just in time to catch the boat-train.
When it had started, and he and I were in a compartment alone together,
I put my head on his shoulder and I cried--with joy. Everything had
gone as wrong as it very well could have done; but we were married!
TWO OF A TRADE
"Fares, please!"
The omnibus conductor stood in front of a lady, young, and not
ill-looking, and waited. As he waited he flicked his packet of tickets
with the forefinger of his right hand. The lady addressed seemed to
experience some difficulty in finding the sum required. She felt in a
bag which was hanging at her waist. She dived into the recesses of a
pocket which was apparently placed in an even more inaccessible
position than a lady's pocket is wont to be. Without result. Her
proceedings attracted the attention of all her fellow-passengers; and
the 'bus was full;--indeed, her man[oe]uvres were the cause of some
inconvenience to her immediate neighbours. At last she delivered
herself of a piece of information.
"I've lost my purse!"
The conducter eyed her stolidly. He was not so young as he had been.
Possibly a long experience of 'bus conducting had brought him into
intimate relations with ladies who did lose things; so that his
sympathies were dulled.
"Lost your purse?"
He echoed her words as if the matter was not of the slightest interest
to him.
"Yes;--that is, I had it when I came into the 'bus;--I'm afraid it has
been stolen."
"Stolen?" echoed the conductor;--still with an air of complete
indifference.
"Yes," said an old man, who was on the seat opposite, at the end
farthest from the door; "and that man sitting by you is the man as took
it."
Since Bruce Palliser was the only man sitting by her the allusion could
only be to him. He turned on the speaker in surprise.
"Are you suggesting, sir, that I have stolen the lady's purse?"
"That's it; that's what I'm suggesting. Only it's more than a
suggestion. I see you fumbling with the lady's skirt. I wondered what
you was up to. Now I know."
A woman sitting on the other side of the purseless lady interposed.
"Here's a penny, if that's any good;--or, for the matter of that,
here's twopence. It's not nice for any of us to be crowded in the same
'bus with parties who say they've had their purses stolen."
"I'm afraid it isn't," admitted the sufferer. "I'm very sorry,
but--all my money was in my purse. If you would let me have a penny I
should be very much obliged."
The penny was forthcoming.
"Do you make any charge?" inquired the conductor, as he handed over the
ticket in exchange.
"No," rejoined the lady. "I do not."
"He's got it on him now," asserted the old gentleman in the corner. "If
you'll hand him over to a policeman you'll find he has."
"I trust," exclaimed Mr Palliser, "that you'll afford me an opportunity
to prove that what this person says is absolutely false."
The young lady stood up.
"Please stop the 'bus. I'm going to get out."
"You call a policeman," persisted the old gentleman. "You'll soon find
where your purse is."
"But, madam!" cried Mr Palliser. The 'bus stopped. The young lady began
to move towards the door. Bruce Palliser following, appealing to her as
he did so. "Madam!--if you will give me your attention for a single
instant!"
The young lady alighted. Mr Palliser alighted also. The 'bus went on.
"I see him take it," announced the old gentleman in the corner. "Put it
in his pocket, I believe he did."
Bruce Palliser, standing in the roadway, tried to induce the young lady
to give him a chance to establish his innocence.
"If you will permit me to explain who I am, I will make it quite clear
to you--"
She cut him short.
"Have the kindness not to address me."
She climbed into a passing hansom. He had to spring to one side to
avoid being cut down by a furniture van. By the time the van had gone
the cab had gone also.
Later in the day he rushed into the station with just time enough to
enable him to catch the train which was to take him home. He had
already entered a compartment before he realised that a seat near the
door was occupied by the young lady of the omnibus. The recognition was
obviously mutual. Something in her attitude made him conscious of a
ridiculous sense of discomfort. He felt that if he did not leave the
carriage she would--although the train was about to start. Scrambling
back on to the platform he was hustled into another compartment by an
expostulating guard. When the train stopped at Market Hinton, and he
got out, he observed that the young lady of the omnibus was emerging
from the compartment from which he had retreated with so small a show
of dignity. Apparently she also had reached her journey's end. He
thought he knew most of the people who lived thereabouts, at least by
sight. He had certainly never seen her before. Who could she be?
Stupidly enough he hung about the station, allowing himself to be
buttonholed by an old countryman who was full of his sufferings from
rheumatism--one of that large tribe with which every doctor is
familiar, the members of which never lose a chance of obtaining medical
advice for nothing. He was not in the best of tempers by the time that
he reached home. Nor was his temper improved by the greeting which he
received from Jack Griffiths, who had acted as his _locum_ during his
enforced absence in London.
"You're not looking any better for your change," declared Jack, who had
an unfortunate--and exasperating--knack of seeing the pessimistic side
of things. "You're looking all mops and brooms."
"I'm not feeling all mops and brooms--whatever state of feeling that
may be. On the contrary, I'm feeling as fit as I ever felt in the whole
of my life."
"Then you're not looking it; which is a pity. Because it's my opinion
that you'll want all the stock of health you can lay your hands on if
you're to continue to hold your own in Market Hinton."
"What might you happen to mean?--you old croaker!"
"It's easy to call me a croaker, sir, but facts are facts; and I tell
you that that new doctor's making things hum--cutting the grass from
under your very feet."
"What new doctor?"
"The new doctor. I wasn't aware that there was more than one. If there
is then you're in greater luck even than I thought you were."
"Are you alluding to that female creature?"
"I am. I am alluding to Dr Constance Hughes, M.D. (London). Mrs Vickers
is of opinion that she's a first-rate doctor."
"Mrs Vickers!--Why, she's one of my oldest patients."
"Precisely; which is perhaps one reason why she feels disposed to try a
change. Anyhow she called Dr Constance Hughes in one day, when that
medical lady happened to be passing; and I'm inclined to think that, if
she could only see her way, she'd like to call her in again."
"Pretty unprofessional conduct! What does the woman mean by it?"
"Which woman? Dr Constance Hughes? She's nothing to do with it. She had
to go in when they stopped her on the high road; but, from what I
understand, when she learnt that Mrs Vickers was your patient she
declined to call again. Than her conduct nothing could have been more
professional. But it isn't only Mrs Vickers. I hear golden opinions of
her on every side. And she drives some of the finest horses I ever
saw."
"So I've been told. Thank goodness, so far I've seen neither the woman
nor her horses; but if half they say is true, she knows more of horse
flesh than of medicine."
"Then, in that case, she must be a dabster. Heaps of money, I'm
informed; taken up the profession simply for the sake of something to
do, and because she loves it. Bruce, Dr Constance Hughes is going to be
a dangerous rival!"
Such, ere long, was to be Bruce Palliser's own opinion.
When, the following afternoon, he returned from his rounds, he learned
that an urgent summons had come for him, earlier in the day, from Mrs
Daubeny, one of his most influential patients. He hurried round to her.
On his arrival at the house the maid who opened the door informed him
that the other doctor was upstairs. As he had not come, and Mrs Daubeny
was in such pain, they had sent for other assistance. While she was
speaking, the maid conducted him upstairs. Opening a door, she ushered
him in, announcing his appearance.
"Dr Palliser."
He found himself in a bedroom, with someone lying in the bed, and two
women standing on either side of it. One of the women he recognised as
Foster, Mrs Daubeny's housekeeper; and the other--as the lady of the
omnibus. He stared at her in blank amazement. Although she had her hat
on, her sleeves were turned up, and she was holding in her hand what
he perceived to be a clinical thermometer. Foster went--awkwardly
enough--through a form of introduction.
"Oh, Dr Palliser, I'm so glad you've come! This is Miss Hughes--I mean
Dr Hughes. Mrs Daubeny has been so bad that if she hadn't come I don't
know what we should have done."
Mr Palliser bowed; so stiffly that the inclination of his head only
just amounted to a movement. The lady was as stiff. Although she looked
him full in the face there was that in the quality of her glance which
almost hinted that she did not notice he was there. She explained the
position, in a tone of voice which could hardly have been more frigid.
"Mrs Daubeny has had an attack of acute laryngitis, rather a severe
one. Fortunately, however, the worst is over;
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