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Title: The Girl on the Boat
Author: P. G. Wodehouse
Release Date: March 1, 2007 [eBook #20717]
[Most recently updated: February 17, 2021]
Language: English
Produced by: Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT ***
The Girl on the Boat
BY
P. G. WODEHOUSE
HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
3 YORK STREET LONDON S.W.1
A HERBERT JENKINS BOOK
_Tenth printing, completing 95,781 copies_
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT
It was Sam Marlowe’s fate to fall in love with a girl on the R.M.S.
“Atlantic” (New York to Southampton) who had ideals. She was looking
for a man just like Sir Galahad, and refused to be put off with any
inferior substitute. A lucky accident on the first day of the voyage
placed Sam for the moment in the Galahad class, but he could not stay
the pace.
He follows Billie Bennett “around,” scheming, blundering and hoping, so
does the parrot faced young man Bream Mortimer, Sam’s rival.
There is a somewhat hectic series of events at Windles, a country house
in Hampshire, where Billie’s ideals still block the way and Sam comes
on in spite of everything.
Then comes the moment when Billie.... It is a Wodehouse novel in every
sense of the term.
ONE MOMENT!
Before my friend Mr. Jenkins—wait a minute, Herbert—before my friend
Mr. Jenkins formally throws this book open to the public, I should like
to say a few words. You, sir, and you, and you at the back, if you will
kindly restrain your impatience.... There is no need to jostle. There
will be copies for all. Thank you. I shall not detain you long.
I wish to clear myself of a possible charge of plagiarism. You smile.
Ah! but you don’t know. You don’t realise how careful even a splendid
fellow like myself has to be. You wouldn’t have me go down to posterity
as Pelham the Pincher, would you? No! Very well, then. By the time this
volume is in the hands of the customers, everybody will, of course,
have read Mr. J. Storer Clouston’s “The Lunatic at Large Again.” (Those
who are chumps enough to miss it deserve no consideration.) Well, both
the hero of “The Lunatic” and my “Sam Marlowe” try to get out of a
tight corner by hiding in a suit of armour in the hall of a
country-house. Looks fishy, yes? And yet I call on Heaven to witness
that I am innocent, innocent. And, if the word of Northumberland Avenue
Wodehouse is not sufficient, let me point out that this story and Mr.
Clouston’s appeared simultaneously in serial form in their respective
magazines. This proves, I think, that at these cross-roads, at any
rate, there has been no dirty work. All right, Herb., you can let ’em
in now.
P. G. WODEHOUSE.
Constitutional Club,
Northumberland Avenue.
Contents
WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT
ONE MOMENT!
I. A DISTURBING MORNING
II. GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN
III. SAM PAVES THE WAY
IV. SAM CLICKS
V. PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE
VI. SCENE AT A SHIP’S CONCERT
VII. SUNDERED HEARTS
VIII. SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION
IX. ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE
X. TROUBLE AT WINDLES
XI. MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT
XII. THE LURID PAST OF JOHN PETERS
XIII. SHOCKS ALL ROUND
XIV. STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER
XV. DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE
XVI. WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED
XVII. A CROWDED NIGHT
The Girl on the Boat
CHAPTER I.
A DISTURBING MORNING
Through the curtained windows of the furnished flat which Mrs. Horace
Hignett had rented for her stay in New York, rays of golden sunlight
peeped in like the foremost spies of some advancing army. It was a fine
summer morning. The hands of the Dutch clock in the hall pointed to
thirteen minutes past nine; those of the ormolu clock in the
sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the carriage clock on
the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was
exactly eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her
head on the pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always
woke at eight precisely.
Was this Mrs. Hignett _the_ Mrs. Hignett, the world-famous writer on
Theosophy, the author of “The Spreading Light,” “What of the Morrow,”
and all the rest of that well-known series? I’m glad you asked me. Yes,
she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour.
About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United
States, for nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a
fresh swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets,
scientists, philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct
seemed to affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of those
great race movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely
differing views on religion, art, politics, and almost every other
subject; on this one point the intellectuals of Great Britain were
single-minded, that there was easy money to be picked up on the
lecture-platforms of America, and that they might just as well grab it
as the next person.
Mrs. Hignett had come over with the first batch of immigrants; for,
spiritual as her writings were, there was a solid streak of business
sense in this woman, and she meant to get hers while the getting was
good. She was half way across the Atlantic with a complete itinerary
booked, before ninety per cent. of the poets and philosophers had
finished sorting out their clean collars and getting their photographs
taken for the passport.
She had not left England without a pang, for departure had involved
sacrifices. More than anything else in the world she loved her charming
home, Windles, in the county of Hampshire, for so many years the seat
of the Hignett family. Windles was as the breath of life to her. Its
shady walks, its silver lake, its noble elms, the old grey stone of its
walls—these were bound up with her very being. She felt that she
belonged to Windles, and Windles to her. Unfortunately, as a matter of
cold, legal accuracy, it did not. She did but hold it in trust for her
son, Eustace, until such time as he should marry and take possession of
it himself. There were times when the thought of Eustace marrying and
bringing a strange woman to Windles chilled Mrs. Hignett to her very
marrow. Happily, her firm policy of keeping her son permanently under
her eye at home and never permitting him to have speech with a female
below the age of fifty, had averted the peril up till now.
Eustace had accompanied his mother to America. It was his faint snores
which she could hear in the adjoining room as, having bathed and
dressed, she went down the hall to where breakfast awaited her. She
smiled tolerantly. She had never desired to convert her son to her own
early-rising habits, for, apart from not allowing him to call his soul
his own, she was an indulgent mother. Eustace would get up at half-past
nine, long after she had finished breakfast, read her correspondence,
and started her duties for the day.
Breakfast was on the table in the sitting-room, a modest meal of rolls,
porridge, and imitation coffee. Beside the pot containing this
hell-brew, was a little pile of letters. Mrs. Hignett opened them as
she ate. The majority were from disciples and dealt with matters of
purely theosophical interest. There was an invitation from the
Butterfly Club, asking her to be the guest of honour at their weekly
dinner. There was a letter from her brother Mallaby—Sir Mallaby
Marlowe, the eminent London lawyer—saying that his son Sam, of whom she
had never approved, would be in New York shortly, passing through on
his way back to England, and hoping that she would see something of
him. Altogether a dull mail. Mrs. Hignett skimmed through it without
interest, setting aside one or two of the letters for Eustace, who
acted as her unpaid secretary, to answer later in the day.
She had just risen from the table, when there was a sound of voices in
the hall, and presently the domestic staff, a gaunt Irish lady of
advanced years, entered the room.
“Ma’am, there was a gentleman.”
Mrs. Hignett was annoyed. Her mornings were sacred.
“Didn’t you tell him I was not to be disturbed?”
“I did not. I loosed him into the parlour.” The staff remained for a
moment in melancholy silence, then resumed. “He says he’s your nephew.
His name’s Marlowe.”
Mrs. Hignett experienced no diminution of her annoyance. She had not
seen her nephew Sam for ten years, and would have been willing to
extend the period. She remembered him as an untidy small boy who once
or twice, during his school holidays, had disturbed the cloistral peace
of Windles with his beastly presence. However, blood being thicker than
water, and all that sort of thing, she supposed she would have to give
him five minutes. She went into the sitting-room, and found there a
young man who looked more or less like all other young men, though
perhaps rather fitter than most. He had grown a good deal since she had
last met him, as men so often do between the ages of fifteen and
twenty-five, and was now about six feet in height, about forty inches
round the chest, and in weight about thirteen stone. He had a brown and
amiable face, marred at the moment by an expression of discomfort
somewhat akin to that of a cat in a strange alley.
“Hullo, Aunt Adeline!” he said awkwardly.
“Well, Samuel!” said Mrs. Hignett.
There was a pause. Mrs. Hignett, who was not fond of young men and
disliked having her mornings broken into, was thinking that he had not
improved in the slightest degree since their last meeting; and Sam, who
imagined that he had long since grown to man’s estate and put off
childish things, was embarrassed to discover that his aunt still
affected him as of old. That is to say, she made him feel as if he had
omitted to shave and, in addition to that, had swallowed some drug
which had caused him to swell unpleasantly, particularly about the
hands and feet.
“Jolly morning,” said Sam, perseveringly.
“So I imagine. I have not yet been out.”
“Thought I’d look in and see how you were.”
“That was very kind of you. The morning is my busy time, but ... yes,
that was very kind of you!”
There was another pause.
“How do you like America?” said Sam.
“I dislike it exceedingly.”
“Yes? Well, of course, some people do. Prohibition and all that.
Personally, it doesn’t affect me. I can take it or leave it alone. I
like America myself,” said Sam. “I’ve had a wonderful time. Everybody’s
treated me like a rich uncle. I’ve been in Detroit, you know, and they
practically gave me the city and asked me if I’d like another to take
home in my pocket. Never saw anything like it. I might have been the
missing heir! I think America’s the greatest invention on record.”
“And what brought you to America?” said Mrs. Hignett, unmoved by this
rhapsody.
“Oh, I came over to play golf. In a tournament, you know.”
“Surely at your age,” said Mrs. Hignett, disapprovingly, “you could be
better occupied. Do you spend your whole time playing golf?”
“Oh, no! I play cricket a bit and shoot a bit and I swim a good lot and
I still play football occasionally.”
“I wonder your father does not insist on your doing some useful work.”
“He is beginning to harp on the subject rather. I suppose I shall take
a stab at it sooner or later. Father says I ought to get married, too.”
“He is perfectly right.”
“I suppose old Eustace will be getting hitched up one of these days?”
said Sam.
Mrs. Hignett started violently.
“Why do you say that?”
“Eh?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, well, he’s a romantic sort of fellow. Writes poetry, and all
that.”
“There is no likelihood at all of Eustace marrying. He is of a shy and
retiring temperament, and sees few women. He is almost a recluse.”
Sam was aware of this, and had frequently regretted it. He had always
been fond of his cousin in that half-amused and rather patronising way
in which men of thews and sinews are fond of the weaker brethren who
run more to pallor and intellect; and he had always felt that if
Eustace had not had to retire to Windles to spend his life with a woman
whom from his earliest years he had always considered the Empress of
the Washouts, much might have been made of him. Both at school and at
Oxford, Eustace had been—if not a sport—at least a decidedly cheery old
bean. Sam remembered Eustace at school, breaking gas globes with a
slipper in a positively rollicking manner. He remembered him at Oxford
playing up to him manfully at the piano on the occasion when he had
done that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a hit at the
Trinity smoker. Yes, Eustace had had the makings of a pretty sound egg,
and it was too bad that he had allowed his mother to coop him up down
in the country, miles away from anywhere.
“Eustace is returning to England on Saturday,” said Mrs. Hignett. She
spoke a little wistfully. She had not been parted from her son since he
had come down from Oxford; and she would have liked to keep him with
her till the end of her lecturing tour. That, however, was out of the
question. It was imperative that, while she was away, he should be at
Windles. Nothing would have induced her to leave the place at the mercy
of servants who might trample over the flowerbeds, scratch the polished
floors, and forget to cover up the canary at night. “He sails on the
‘Atlantic.’”
“That’s splendid!” said Sam. “I’m sailing on the ‘Atlantic’ myself.
I’ll go down to the office and see if we can’t have a state-room
together. But where is he going to live when he gets to England?”
“Where is he going to live? Why, at Windles, of course. Where else?”
“But I thought you were letting Windles for the summer?”
Mrs. Hignett stared.
“Letting Windles!” She spoke as one might address a lunatic. “What put
that extraordinary idea into your head?”
“I thought father said something about your letting the place to some
American.”
“Nothing of the kind!”
It seemed to Sam that his aunt spoke somewhat vehemently, even
snappishly, in correcting what was a perfectly natural mistake. He
could not know that the subject of letting Windles for the summer was
one which had long since begun to infuriate Mrs. Hignett. People had
certainly asked her to let Windles. In fact, people had pestered her.
There was a rich, fat man, an American named Bennett, whom she had met
just before sailing at her brother’s house in London. Invited down to
Windles for the day, Mr. Bennett had fallen in love with the place, and
had begged her to name her own price. Not content with this, he had
pursued her with his pleadings by means of the wireless telegraph while
she was on the ocean, and had not given up the struggle even when she
reached New York. She had not been in America two days when there had
arrived a Mr. Mortimer, bosom friend of Mr. Bennett, carrying on the
matter where the other had left off. For a whole week Mr. Mortimer had
tried to induce her to reconsider her decision, and had only stopped
because he had had to leave for England himself, to join his friend.
And even then the thing had gone on. Indeed, this very morning, among
the letters on Mrs. Hignett’s table, the buff envelope of a cable from
Mr. Bennett had peeped out, nearly spoiling her breakfast. No wonder,
then, that Sam’s allusion to the affair had caused the authoress of
“The Spreading Light” momentarily to lose her customary calm.
“Nothing will induce me ever to let Windles,” she said with finality,
and rose significantly. Sam, perceiving that the audience was at an
end—and glad of it—also got up.
“Well, I think I’ll be going down and seeing about that state-room,” he
said.
“Certainly. I am a little busy just now, preparing notes for my next
lecture.”
“Of course, yes. Mustn’t interrupt you. I suppose you’re having a great
time, gassing away—I mean—well, good-bye!”
“Good-bye!”
Mrs. Hignett, frowning, for the interview had ruffled her and disturbed
that equable frame of mind which is so vital to the preparation of
lectures on Theosophy, sat down at the writing-table and began to go
through the notes which she had made overnight. She had hardly
succeeded in concentrating herself when the door opened to admit the
daughter of Erin once more.
“Ma’am, there was a gentleman.”
“This is intolerable!” cried Mrs. Hignett. “Did you tell him that I was
busy?”
“I did not. I loosed him into the dining-room.”
“Is he a reporter from one of the newspapers?”
“He is not. He has spats and a tall-shaped hat. His name is Bream
Mortimer.”
“Bream Mortimer!”
“Yes, ma’am. He handed me a bit of a kyard, but I dropped it, being
slippy from the dishes.”
Mrs. Hignett strode to the door with a forbidding expression. This, as
she had justly remarked, was intolerable. She remembered Bream
Mortimer. He was the son of the Mr. Mortimer who wanted Windles. This
visit could only have to do with the subject of Windles, and she went
into the dining-room in a state of cold fury, determined to squash the
Mortimer family, in the person of their New York representative, once
and for all.
“Good morning, Mr. Mortimer.”
Bream Mortimer was tall and thin. He had small bright eyes and a
sharply curving nose. He looked much more like a parrot than most
parrots do. It gave strangers a momentary shock of surprise when they
saw Bream Mortimer in restaurants, eating roast beef. They had the
feeling that he would have preferred sunflower seeds.
“Morning, Mrs. Hignett.”
“Please sit down.”
Bream Mortimer looked as though he would rather have hopped on to a
perch, but he sat down. He glanced about the room with gleaming,
excited eyes.
“Mrs. Hignett, I must have a word with you alone!”
“You _are_ having a word with me alone.”
“I hardly know how to begin.”
“Then let me help you. It is quite impossible. I will never consent.”
Bream Mortimer started.
“Then you have heard about it?”
“I have heard about nothing else since I met Mr. Bennett in London. Mr.
Bennett talked about nothing else. Your father talked about nothing
else. And now,” cried Mrs. Hignett, fiercely, “you come and try to
re-open the subject. Once and for all, nothing will alter my decision.
No money will induce me to let my house.”
“But I didn’t come about that!”
“You did not come about Windles?”
“Good Lord, no!”
“Then will you kindly tell me why you have come?”
Bream Mortimer seemed embarrassed. He wriggled a little, and moved his
arms as if he were trying to flap them.
“You know,” he said, “I’m not a man who butts into other people’s
affairs....” He stopped.
“No?” said Mrs. Hignett.
Bream began again.
“I’m not a man who gossips with valets....”
“No?”
“I’m not a man who....”
Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman.
“Let us take all your negative qualities for granted,” she said curtly.
“I have no doubt that there are many things which you do not do. Let us
confine ourselves to issues of definite importance. What is it, if you
have no objection to concentrating your attention on that for a moment,
that you wish to see me about?”
“This marriage.”
“What marriage?”
“Your son’s marriage.”
“My son is not married.”
“No, but he’s going to be. At eleven o’clock this morning at the Little
Church Round the Corner!”
Mrs. Hignett stared.
“Are you mad?”
“Well, I’m not any too well pleased, I’m bound to say,” admitted Mr.
Mortimer. “You see, darn it all, I’m in love with the girl myself!”
“Who is this girl?”
“Have been for years. I’m one of those silent, patient fellows who hang
around and look a lot but never tell their love....”
“Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?”
“I’ve always been one of those men who....”
“Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive
qualities, also, for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all.
You come to me with this absurd story....”
“Not absurd. Honest fact. I had it from my valet who had it from her
maid.”
“Will you please tell me who is the girl my misguided son wishes to
marry?”
“I don’t know that I’d call him misguided,” said Mr. Mortimer, as one
desiring to be fair. “I think he’s a right smart picker! She’s such a
corking girl, you know. We were children together, and I’ve loved her
for years. Ten years at least. But you know how it is—somehow one never
seems to get in line for a proposal. I thought I saw an opening in the
summer of nineteen-twelve, but it blew over. I’m not one of these
smooth, dashing chaps, you see, with a great line of talk. I’m not....”
“If you will kindly,” said Mrs. Hignett impatiently, “postpone this
essay in psycho-analysis to some future occasion, I shall be greatly
obliged. I am waiting to hear the name of the girl my son wishes to
marry.”
“Haven’t I told you?” said Mr. Mortimer, surprised. “That’s odd. I
haven’t. It’s funny how one doesn’t do the things one thinks one does.
I’m the sort of man....”
“What is her name?”
“... the sort of man who....”
“What is her name?”
“Bennett.”
“Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The
red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father’s house?”
“That’s it. You’re a great guesser. I think you ought to stop the
thing.”
“I intend to.”
“Fine!”
“The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son
do not vibrate on the same plane.”
“That’s right. I’ve noticed it myself.”
“Their auras are not the same colour.”
“If I’ve thought that once,” said Bream Mortimer, “I’ve thought it a
hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve thought it.
Not the same colour. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.”
“I am much obliged to you for coming and telling me of this. I shall
take immediate steps.”
“That’s good. But what’s the procedure? It’s getting late. She’ll be
waiting at the church at eleven.”
“Eustace will not be there.”
“You think you can fix it?”
“Eustace will not be there,” repeated Mrs. Hignett.
Bream Mortimer hopped down from his chair.
“Well, you’ve taken a weight off my mind.”
“A mind, I should imagine, scarcely constructed to bear great weights.”
“I’ll be going. Haven’t had breakfast yet. Too worried to eat
breakfast. Relieved now. This is where three eggs and a rasher of ham
get cut off in their prime. I feel I can rely on you.”
“You can!”
“Then I’ll say good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
“I mean really good-bye. I’m sailing for England on Saturday on the
‘Atlantic.’”
“Indeed? My son will be your fellow-traveller.”
Bream Mortimer looked somewhat apprehensive.
“You won’t tell him that I was the one who spilled the beans?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You won’t wise him up that I threw a spanner into the machinery?”
“I do not understand you.”
“You won’t tell him that I crabbed his act ... gave the thing away ...
gummed the game?”
“I shall not mention your chivalrous intervention.”
“Chivalrous?” said Bream Mortimer a little doubtfully. “I don’t know
that I’d call it absolutely chivalrous. Of course, all’s fair in love
and war. Well, I’m glad you’re going to keep my share in the business
under your hat. It might have been awkward meeting him on board.”
“You are not likely to meet Eustace on board. He is a very indifferent
sailor and spends most of his time in his cabin.”
“That’s good! Saves a lot of awkwardness. Well, good-bye.”
“Good-bye. When you reach England, remember me to your father.”
“He won’t have forgotten you,” said Bream Mortimer, confidently. He did
not see how it was humanly possible for anyone to forget this woman.
She was like a celebrated chewing-gum. The taste lingered.
Mrs. Hignett was a woman of instant and decisive action. Even while her
late visitor was speaking, schemes had begun to form in her mind like
bubbles rising to the surface of a rushing river. By the time the door
had closed behind Bream Mortimer she had at her disposal no fewer than
seven, all good. It took her but a moment to select the best and
simplest. She tiptoed softly to her son’s room. Rhythmic snores greeted
her listening ears. She opened the door and went noiselessly in.
CHAPTER II.
GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN
§ 1
The White Star liner “Atlantic” lay at her pier with steam up and
gangway down, ready for her trip to Southampton. The hour of departure
was near, and there was a good deal of mixed activity going on. Sailors
fiddled about with ropes. Junior officers flitted to and fro.
White-jacketed stewards wrestled with trunks. Probably the captain,
though not visible, was also employed on some useful work of a nautical
nature and not wasting his time. Men, women, boxes, rugs, dogs,
flowers, and baskets of fruits were flowing on board in a steady
stream.
The usual drove of citizens had come to see the travellers off. There
were men on the passenger-list who were being seen off by fathers, by
mothers, by sisters, by cousins, and by aunts. In the steerage, there
was an elderly Jewish lady who was being seen off by exactly
thirty-seven of her late neighbours in Rivington Street. And two men in
the second cabin were being seen off by detectives, surely the crowning
compliment a great nation can bestow. The cavernous Customs sheds were
congested with friends and relatives, and Sam Marlowe, heading for the
gang-plank, was only able to make progress by employing all the muscle
and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and which during the
greater part of his life he had developed by athletic exercise.
However, after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his
shoulder into the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously
lifting some stout female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling
to within a few yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot
through his right arm, and he spun round with a cry.
It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New
York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite.
He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl.
She was a red-haired girl, with the beautiful ivory skin which goes
with red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat,
and he could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or may be blue, or
possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in
feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the
specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble
about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it
there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft
and round. She was just about the height which every girl ought to be.
Her figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses
of which a man can say no more than that they look pretty well all
right.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and
for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and
garnished, with “Welcome” on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and
fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the
third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and
docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of
how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He
swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its
covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told
himself, he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which
made it all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course
of history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh,
to clasp this girl to him and....
But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit.
That, he felt, constituted an obstacle.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she cried.
Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act.... After all, an
impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the
moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature....
“The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous.”
Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded
from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl’s lower ribs, a
sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over
the confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and
write, of Bills who were instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris
and give him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys,
magazine-boys, American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking
their wares on every side.
“I hope he didn’t hurt you much. You’re the third person he’s bitten
to-day.” She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on
the tip of his black nose. “Not counting waiters at the hotel, of
course,” she added. And then she was swept from him in the crowd, and
he was left thinking of all the things he might have said—all those
graceful, witty, ingratiating things which just make a bit of
difference on these occasions.
He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of
pain, had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition!
Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl
who comes to see friends off and doesn’t sail herself. And what memory
of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she
went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital.
§ 2
Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through
the crowd of passengers, passengers’ friends, stewards, junior
officers, and sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main
companion-way, through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles,
as far as the dining saloon; then turned down the narrow passage
leading to his state-room.
State-rooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on
the chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing
rings round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the
impression that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room
left over to do a bit of entertaining—possibly an informal dance or
something. When you go on board, you find that the place has shrunk to
the dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be
impossible to swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it
suddenly expands again. For one reason or another the necessity for
swinging cats does not arise, and you find yourself quite comfortable.
Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart
in the passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge,
began to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost
wished now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed
in order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be
a tight fit. Eustace’s bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to
take up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort,
and would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if the girl
with the red hair was not a passenger on the boat, he was going to have
need of diverting society.
A footstep sounded in the passage outside. The door opened.
“Hullo, Eustace!” said Sam.
Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag, and emitted a
deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale,
intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He
looked like a man who would write _vers libre_, as indeed he did.
“Hullo!” he said, in a hollow voice.
Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but,
going by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected
something cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on
Eustace to be the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the
bag before him could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of
Russian novelists.
“What on earth’s the matter?” said Sam.
“The matter?” Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, nothing.
Nothing much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart’s broken.” He eyed with
considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head,
a harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who
might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage.
“If you would care to hear the story...?” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“It is quite short.”
“That’s good.”
“Soon after I arrived in America, I met a girl....”
“Talking of girls,” said Sam with enthusiasm, “I’ve just seen the only
one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like this. I
was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when suddenly....”
“Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell yours?”
“Oh, sorry! Go ahead.”
Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall, informing
occupants of the state-room that the name of their steward was J. B.
Midgeley.
“She was an extraordinarily pretty girl....”
“So was mine! I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw
such....”
“Of course, if you prefer that I postponed my narrative?” said Eustace
coldly.
“Oh, sorry! Carry on.”
“She was an extraordinarily pretty girl....”
“What was her name?”
“Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl, and highly
intelligent. I read her all my poems, and she appreciated them
immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest
her. She admired my....”
“I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the story.”
“Don’t bustle me,” said Eustace querulously.
“Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days.”
“I’ve forgotten where I was.”
“You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened?
I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged
to some other johnny?”
“Not at all! I asked her to be my wife and she consented. We both
agreed that a quiet wedding was what we wanted—she thought her father
might stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother
would—so we decided to get married without telling anybody. By now,”
said Eustace, with a morose glance at the porthole, “I ought to have
been on my honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the licence and the
parson’s fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding.”
“And then you quarrelled?”
“Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the
story. I’m telling _you_. What happened was this: somehow—I can’t make
out how—mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over. She
stopped the thing.”
Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his
cousin’s meek subservience to her revolted him.
“Stopped it? I suppose she said ‘Now, Eustace, you mustn’t!’ and you
said ‘Very well, mother!’ and scratched the fixture?”
“She didn’t say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes,
she might never have heard anything about the marriage.”
“Then how do you mean she stopped it?”
“She pinched my trousers!”
“Pinched your trousers!”
Eustace groaned. “All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long
before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out
while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress, I couldn’t
find a single damned pair of bags in the whole place. I looked
everywhere. Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing
letters and asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she
had sent them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in
the mornings—I don’t as a rule—and they would be back at lunch-time. A
fat lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I
told her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and
she wanted to know what it was, and I tried to think of something, but
it sounded pretty feeble, and she said I had better telephone to the
man and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book
and told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn’t meet
him because I hadn’t any trousers! He was pretty peeved, judging from
what he said about my being on the wrong number. And mother, listening
all the time, and I knowing that she knew—something told me that she
knew—and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell you, it was
awful!”
“And the girl?”
“She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from
eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She wouldn’t
see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her
saying that what had happened was all for the best, as she had been
thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a
mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had
thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like
Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed.”
“Did you explain about the trousers?”
“Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a
man anything except being ridiculous.”
“I think you’re well out of it,” said Sam, judicially. “She can’t have
been much of a girl.”
“I feel that now. But it doesn’t alter the fact that my life is ruined.
I have become a woman-hater. It’s an infernal nuisance, because
practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its
way to boost women, and now I’ll have to start all over again and
approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother
behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn’t a law
against them. ‘What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was’t
betrayed the Capitol....’”
“In Washington?” said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But
then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting
page.
“In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome.”
“Oh, as long ago as that?”
“I was quoting from Thomas Otway’s ‘Orphan.’ I wish I could write like
Otway. He knew what he was talking about. ‘Who was’t betrayed the
Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A woman. Who was the
cause of a long ten years’ war and laid at last old Troy in ashes?
Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!’”
“Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I
mean. But the girl I met on the dock....”
“Don’t!” said Eustace Hignett. “If you have anything bitter and
derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if
you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed
girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to
the captain or the ship’s cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that
I am a soul in torment. I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a
future. What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My
work? I haven’t any. I think I shall take to drink.”
“Talking of that,” said Sam, “I suppose they open the bar directly we
pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?”
Eustace shook his head gloomily.
“Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and
feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move, I go to bed and stay
there. As a matter of fact, I think it would be wisest to go to bed
now. Don’t let me keep you if you want to go on deck.”
“It looks to me,” said Sam, “as if I had been mistaken in thinking that
you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage.”
“Ray of sunshine!” said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve
pyjamas out of the kit-bag. “I’m going to be a volcano!”
Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get
on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now, the
sheep would be separating from the goats; the passengers would be on
deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor in the
boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already
taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was
she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He
reached the top of the stairs, and passed out on to the crowded deck.
And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from
the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with
people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water.
Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is
excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always
among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a
blank window on which were inscribed the words, “Watch this space!” In
short, he was one of Nature’s rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and
shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a
moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on—a view which
he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the rail.
There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one
visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time
to time, as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and
adjust this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer.
Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of
the girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away,
leaning out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like
everybody else, she was staring into the water.
As Sam looked at her, the thought crossed his mind that here was a
wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl.
What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety,
dived in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt,
who would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to
shift back to a position of greater safety.
At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been
jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been
crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took
Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man
hung, as it were, between sea and sky: then he shot down over the rail
to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his
hat was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a
few skilful touches of the finger.
§ 3
In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room
chatting with Eustace about the latter’s bruised soul, some rather
curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary, perhaps,
but curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to grip the
reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should march. It
should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps. If there is
one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested in the hero
in chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell you all about
his grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go back a space.
We must return to the moment when, having deposited her Pekinese dog in
her state-room, the girl with the red hair came out again on deck. This
happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett was beginning his
narrative.
The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a
rattle, as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck.
The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face
brightened, and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of
an elderly man with a red face made redder by exertion, who had just
forced his way to the edge of the dock and was peering up at the
passenger-lined rail.
The boat had now begun to move slowly out of its slip, backing into the
river. It was now that the man on the dock sighted the girl. She
gesticulated at him. He gesticulated at her. He produced a
handkerchief, swiftly tied up a bundle of currency bills in it, backed
to give himself room, and then, with all the strength of his arm,
hurled the bills in the direction of the deck. The handkerchief with
its precious contents shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell
short by a good six feet, and dropped into the water, where it unfolded
like a lily, sending twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, five-dollar
bills, and an assortment of ones floating out over the wavelets.
It was at this moment that Mr. Oscar Swenson, one of the thriftiest
souls who ever came out of Sweden, perceived that the chance of a
lifetime had arrived for adding substantially to his little savings. By
profession he was one of those men who eke out a precarious livelihood
by rowing dreamily about the water-front in skiffs. He was doing so
now: and, as he sat meditatively in his skiff, having done his best to
give the liner a good send off by paddling round her in circles, the
pleading face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. Swenson was
not the man to resist the appeal. He uttered a sharp bark of ecstasy,
pressed his bowler hat firmly upon his brow, and dived in. A moment
later he had risen to the surface, and was gathering up money with both
hands.
He was still busy with this congenial task when a tremendous splash at
his side sent him under again: and, rising for a second time, he
observed with not a little chagrin that he had been joined by a young
man in a blue flannel suit with an invisible stripe.
“Svensk!” exclaimed Mr. Swenson, or whatever it is that natives of
Sweden exclaim in moments of justifiable annoyance. He resented the
advent of this newcomer. He had been getting along fine and had had the
situation well in hand. To him Sam Marlowe represented Competition, and
Mr. Swenson desired no competitors in his treasure-seeking enterprise.
He travels, thought Mr. Swenson, the fastest who travels alone.
Sam Marlowe had a touch of the philosopher in him. He had the ability
to adapt himself to circumstances. It had been no part of his plans to
come whizzing down off the rail into this singularly soup-like water
which tasted in equal parts of oil and dead rats; but, now that he was
here he was prepared to make the best of the situation. Swimming, it
happened, was one of the things he did best, and somewhere among his
belongings at home was a tarnished pewter cup which he had won at
school in the “Saving Life” competition. He knew exactly what to do.
You get behind the victim and grab him firmly under his arms, and then
you start swimming on your back. A moment later, the astonished Mr.
Swenson who, being practically amphibious, had not anticipated that
anyone would have the cool impertinence to try to save him from
drowning, found himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away
from a ten-dollar bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The
spiritual agony caused by this assault rendered him mercifully dumb;
though, even had he contrived to utter the rich Swedish oaths which
occurred to him, his remarks could scarcely have been heard, for the
crowd on the dock was cheering as one man. They had often paid good
money to see far less gripping sights in the movies. They roared
applause. The liner, meanwhile, continued to move stodgily out into
mid-river.
The only drawback to these life-saving competitions at school,
considered from the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the
problems of afterlife, is that the object saved on such occasions is a
leather dummy, and of all things in this world a leather dummy is
perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It differs in many respects
from an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and constructed
throughout of steel and india-rubber, who is being lugged away from
cash which he has been regarding in the light of a legacy. Indeed, it
would be hard to find a respect in which it does not differ. So far
from lying inert in Sam’s arms and allowing himself to be saved in a
quiet and orderly manner, Mr. Swenson betrayed all the symptoms of one
who feels that he has fallen among murderers. Mr. Swenson, much as he
disliked competition, was ready to put up with it, provided that it was
fair competition. This pulling your rival away from the loot so that
you could grab it yourself—thus shockingly had the man misinterpreted
Sam’s motives—was another thing altogether, and his stout soul would
have none of it. He began immediately to struggle with all the violence
at his disposal. His large, hairy hands came out of the water and swung
hopefully in the direction where he assumed his assailant’s face to be.
Sam was not unprepared for this display. His researches in the art of
life-saving had taught him that your drowning man frequently struggles
against his best interests. In which case, cruel to be kind, one simply
stunned the blighter. He decided to stun Mr. Swenson, though, if he had
known that gentleman more intimately and had been aware that he had the
reputation of possessing the thickest head on the water-front, he would
have realised the magnitude of the task. Friends of Mr. Swenson, in
convivial moments, had frequently endeavoured to stun him with bottles,
boots and bits of lead piping and had gone away depressed by failure.
Sam, ignorant of this, attempted to do the job with clenched fist,
which he brought down as smartly as possible on the crown of the
other’s bowler hat.
It was the worst thing he could have done. Mr. Swenson thought highly
of his hat and this brutal attack upon it confirmed his gloomiest
apprehensions. Now thoroughly convinced that the only thing to do was
to sell his life dearly, he wrenched himself round, seized his
assailant by the neck, twined his arms about his middle, and
accompanied him below the surface.
By the time he had swallowed his first pint and was beginning his
second, Sam was reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that
this was the end. The thought irritated him unspeakably. This, he felt,
was just the silly, contrary way things always happened. Why should it
be he who was perishing like this? Why not Eustace Hignett? Now there
was a fellow whom this sort of thing would just have suited.
Broken-hearted Eustace Hignett would have looked on all this as a
merciful release.
He paused in his reflections to try to disentangle the more prominent
of Mr. Swenson’s limbs from about him. By this time he was sure that he
had never met anyone he disliked so intensely as Mr. Swenson—not even
his Aunt Adeline. The man was a human octopus. Sam could count seven
distinct legs twined round him and at least as many arms. It seemed to
him that he was being done to death in his prime by a solid platoon of
Swedes. He put his whole soul into one last effort ... something seemed
to give ... he was free. Pausing only to try to kick Mr. Swenson in the
face, Sam shot to the surface. Something hard and sharp prodded him in
the head. Then something caught the collar of his coat; and, finally,
spouting like a whale, he found himself dragged upwards and over the
side of a boat.
The time which Sam had spent with Mr. Swenson below the surface had
been brief, but it had been long enough to enable the whole floating
population of the North River to converge on the scene in scows,
skiffs, launches, tugs, and other vessels. The fact that the water in
that vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of
these navigators, and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race
came the tug “Reuben S. Watson,” the skipper of which, following a
famous precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It
was to this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women often have
a vein of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business
side of a situation; and it was the skipper’s daughter who insisted
that the family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing dollar
bills, should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of
extricating the young man from a watery grave.
The skipper had grumbled a bit at first but had given way—he always
spoiled the girl—with the result that Sam found himself sitting on the
deck of the tug, engaged in the complicated process of restoring his
faculties to the normal. In a sort of dream he perceived Mr. Swenson
rise to the surface some feet away, adjust his bowler hat, and, after
one long look of dislike in his direction, swim off rapidly to
intercept a five which was floating under the stern of a near-by skiff.
Sam sat on the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public
fountain. At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that
he wanted to do something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an
appointment which he must keep; but he was unable to think what it was.
Meanwhile, he conducted tentative experiments with his breath. It was
so long since he had last breathed that he had lost the knack of it.
“Well, aincher wet?” said a voice.
The skipper’s daughter was standing beside him, looking down
commiseratingly. Of the rest of the family all he could see was the
broad blue seats of their trousers as they leaned hopefully over the
side in the quest for wealth.
“Yes, sir! You sure are wet! Gee! I never seen anyone so wet! I seen
wet guys but I never seen anyone so wet as you. Yessir, you’re
certainly _wet!_”
“I _am_ wet,” admitted Sam.
“Yessir, you’re wet! Wet’s the word all right. Good and wet, that’s
what you are!”
“It’s the water,” said Sam. His brain was still clouded; he wished he
could remember what that appointment was. “That’s what has made me
wet.”
“It’s sure made you wet all right,” agreed the girl. She looked at him
interestedly. “Wotcha do it for?” she asked.
“Do it for?”
“Yes, wotcha do it for? Wotcha do a Brodie for off’n that ship? I
didn’t see it myself, but pa says you come walloping down off’n the
deck like a sack of potatoes.”
Sam uttered a sharp cry. He had remembered.
“Where is she?”
“Where’s who?”
“The liner.”
“She’s off down the river, I guess. She was swinging round, the last I
seen of her.”
“She’s not gone!”
“Sure she’s gone. Wotcha expect her to do? She’s gotta get over to the
other side, ain’t she? Cert’nly she’s gone.” She looked at him
interested. “Do you want to be on board her?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then, for the love of Pete, wotcha doin’ walloping off’n her like a
sack of potatoes?”
“I slipped. I was pushed or something.” Sam sprang to his feet and
looked wildly about him. “I must get back. Isn’t there any way of
getting back?”
“Well, you could ketch up with her at quarantine out in the bay. She’ll
stop to let the pilot off.”
“Can you take me to quarantine?”
The girl glanced doubtfully at the seat of the nearest pair of
trousers.
“Well, we _could_,” she said. “But pa’s kind of set in his ways, and
right now he’s fishing for dollar bills with the boat hook. He’s apt to
get sorta mad if he’s interrupted.”
“I’ll give him fifty dollars if he’ll put me on board.”
“Got it on you?” inquired the nymph coyly. She had her share of
sentiment, but she was her father’s daughter and inherited from him the
business sense.
“Here it is.” He pulled out his pocket book. The book was dripping, but
the contents were only fairly moist.
“Pa!” said the girl.
The trouser-seat remained where it was, deaf to its child’s cry.
“Pa! Cummere! Wantcha!”
The trousers did not even quiver. But this girl was a girl of decision.
There was some nautical implement resting in a rack convenient to her
hand. It was long, solid, and constructed of one of the harder forms of
wood. Deftly extracting this from its place, she smote her inattentive
parent on the only visible portion of him. He turned sharply,
exhibiting a red, bearded face.
“Pa, this gen’man wants to be took aboard the boat at quarantine. He’ll
give you fifty berries.”
The wrath died out of the skipper’s face like the slow turning down of
a lamp. The fishing had been poor, and so far he had only managed to
secure a single two-dollar bill. In a crisis like the one which had so
suddenly arisen you cannot do yourself justice with a boat-hook.
“Fifty berries!”
“Fifty seeds!” the girl assured him. “Are you on?”
“Queen,” said the skipper simply, “you said a mouthful!”
Twenty minutes later Sam was climbing up the side of the liner as it
lay towering over the tug like a mountain. His clothes hung about him
clammily. He squelched as he walked.
A kindly-looking old gentleman who was smoking a cigar by the rail
regarded him with open eyes.
“My dear sir, you’re very wet,” he said.
Sam passed him with a cold face and hurried through the door leading to
the companion way.
“Mummie, why is that man wet?” cried the clear voice of a little child.
Sam whizzed by, leaping down the stairs.
“Good Lord, sir! You’re very wet!” said a steward in the doorway of the
dining saloon.
“You _are_ wet,” said a stewardess in the passage.
Sam raced for his state-room. He bolted in and sank on the lounge. In
the lower berth Eustace Hignett was lying with closed eyes. He opened
them languidly, then stared.
“Hullo!” he said. “I say! You’re wet!”
§ 4
Sam removed his clinging garments and hurried into a new suit. He was
in no mood for conversation and Eustace Hignett’s frank curiosity
jarred upon him. Happily, at this point, a sudden shivering of the
floor and a creaking of woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel
was under way again, and his cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on
his side with a hollow moan. Sam finished buttoning his waistcoat and
went out.
He was passing the inquiry bureau on the C-deck, striding along with
bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to
look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For
there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous
young man who looked like a parrot.
“Oh, _how_ are you?” asked the girl breathlessly.
“Splendid, thanks,” said Sam.
“Didn’t you get very wet?”
“I did get a little damp.”
“I thought you would,” said the young man who looked like a parrot.
“Directly I saw you go over the side I said to myself: ‘That fellow’s
going to get wet!’”
There was a pause.
“Oh!” said the girl. “May I—Mr.——?”
“Marlowe.”
“Mr. Marlowe. Mr. Bream Mortimer.”
Sam smirked at the young man. The young man smirked at Sam.
“Nearly got left behind,” said Bream Mortimer.
“Yes, nearly.”
“No joke getting left behind.”
“No.”
“Have to take the next boat. Lose a lot of time,” said Mr. Mortimer,
driving home his point.
The girl had listened to these intellectual exchanges with impatience.
She now spoke again.
“Oh, Bream!”
“Hello?”
“Do be a dear and run down to the saloon and see if it’s all right
about our places for lunch.”
“It is all right. The table steward said so.”
“Yes, but go and make certain.”
“All right.”
He hopped away and the girl turned to Sam with shining eyes.
“Oh, Mr. Marlowe, you oughtn’t to have done it! Really, you oughtn’t!
You might have been drowned! But I never saw anything so wonderful. It
was like the stories of knights who used to jump into lions’ dens after
gloves!”
“Yes?” said Sam a little vaguely. The resemblance had not struck him.
It seemed a silly hobby, and rough on the lions, too.
“It was the sort of thing Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad would have done!
But you shouldn’t have bothered, really! It’s all right, now.”
“Oh, it’s all right now?”
“Yes. I’d quite forgotten that Mr. Mortimer was to be on board. He has
given me all the money I shall need. You see it was this way. I had to
sail on this boat in rather a hurry. Father’s head clerk was to have
gone to the bank and got some money and met me on board and given it to
me, but the silly old man was late and when he got to the dock they had
just pulled in the gang-plank. So he tried to throw the money to me in
a handkerchief and it fell into the water. But you shouldn’t have dived
in after it.”
“Oh, well!” said Sam, straightening his tie, with a quiet, brave smile.
He had never expected to feel grateful to that obese bounder who had
shoved him off the rail, but now he would have liked to seek him out
and shake him by the hand.
“You really are the bravest man I ever met!”
“Oh, no!”
“How modest you are! But I suppose all brave men are modest!”
“I was only too delighted at what looked like a chance of doing you a
service.”
“It was the extraordinary quickness of it that was so wonderful. I do
admire presence of mind. You didn’t hesitate for a second. You just
shot over the side as though propelled by some irresistible force!”
“It was nothing, nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of
keeping one’s head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some
people have it, some haven’t.”
“And just think! As Bream was saying....”
“It _is_ all right,” said Mr. Mortimer, reappearing suddenly. “I saw a
couple of the stewards and they both said it was all right. So it’s all
right.”
“Splendid,” said the girl. “Oh, Bream!”
“Hello?”
“Do be an angel and run along to my state-room and see if Pinky-Boodles
is quite comfortable.”
“Bound to be.”
“Yes. But do go. He may be feeling lonely. Chirrup to him a little.”
“Chirrup?”
“Yes, to cheer him up.”
“Oh, all right.”
“Run along!”
Mr. Mortimer ran along. He had the air of one who feels that he only
needs a peaked cap and a uniform two sizes too small for him to be a
properly equipped messenger boy.
“And, as Bream was saying,” resumed the girl, “you might have been left
behind.”
“That,” said Sam, edging a step closer, “was the thought that tortured
me, the thought that a friendship so delightfully begun....”
“But it hadn’t begun. We have never spoken to each other before now.”
“Have you forgotten? On the dock....”
Sudden enlightenment came into her eyes.
“Oh, you are the man poor Pinky-Boodles bit!”
“The lucky man!”
Her face clouded.
“Poor Pinky is feeling the motion of the boat a little. It’s his first
voyage.”
“I shall always remember that it was Pinky who first brought us
together. Would you care for a stroll on deck?”
“Not just now, thanks. I must be getting back to my room to finish
unpacking. After lunch, perhaps.”
“I will be there. By the way, you know my name, but....”
“Oh, mine?” She smiled brightly. “It’s funny that a person’s name is
the last thing one thinks of asking. Mine is Bennett.”
“Bennett!”
“Wilhelmina Bennett. My friends,” she said softly as she turned away,
“call me Billie!”
CHAPTER III.
SAM PAVES THE WAY
For some moments Sam remained where he was, staring after the girl as
she flitted down the passage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics always
have an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a
little dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to
re-adjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening to
Eustace Hignett’s story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an
unflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her
engagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin had
been short of the necessary wedding garment. He had, indeed, thought a
little smugly how different his goddess of the red hair was from the
object of Eustace Hignett’s affections. And now they had proved to be
one and the same. It was disturbing. It was like suddenly finding the
vampire of a five-reel feature film turn into the heroine.
Some men, on making the discovery of this girl’s identity, might have
felt that Providence had intervened to save them from a disastrous
entanglement. This point of view never occurred to Samuel Marlowe. The
way he looked at it was that he had been all wrong about Wilhelmina
Bennett. Eustace, he felt, had been to blame throughout. If this girl
had maltreated Eustace’s finer feelings, then her reason for doing so
must have been excellent and praiseworthy.
After all ... poor old Eustace ... quite a good fellow, no doubt in
many ways ... but, coming down to brass tacks, what was there about
Eustace that gave him any claim to monopolise the affections of a
wonderful girl? Where, in a word, did Eustace Hignett get off? He made
a tremendous grievance of the fact that she had broken off the
engagement, but what right had he to go about the place expecting her
to be engaged to him? Eustace Hignett, no doubt, looked upon the poor
girl as utterly heartless. Marlowe regarded her behaviour as thoroughly
sensible. She had made a mistake, and, realising this at the eleventh
hour, she had had the force of character to correct it. He was sorry
for poor old Eustace, but he really could not permit the suggestion
that Wilhelmina Bennett—her friends called her Billie—had not behaved
in a perfectly splendid way throughout. It was women like Wilhelmina
Bennett—Billie to her intimates—who made the world worth living in.
Her friends called her Billie. He did not blame them. It was a
delightful name and suited her to perfection. He practised it a few
times. “Billie ... Billie ... Billie....” It certainly ran pleasantly
off the tongue. “Billie Bennett.” Very musical. “Billie Marlowe.” Still
better. “We noticed among those present the charming and popular Mrs.
‘Billie’ Marlowe....”
A consuming desire came over him to talk about the girl to someone.
Obviously indicated as the party of the second part was Eustace
Hignett. If Eustace was still capable of speech—and after all the boat
was hardly rolling at all—he would enjoy a further chat about his
ruined life. Besides, he had another reason for seeking Eustace’s
society. As a man who had been actually engaged to marry this supreme
girl, Eustace Hignett had an attraction for Sam akin to that of some
great public monument. He had become a sort of shrine. He had taken on
a glamour. Sam entered the state-room almost reverentially, with
something of the emotions of a boy going into his first dime museum.
The exhibit was lying on his back, staring at the roof of the berth. By
lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland
scenes and objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in his
complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to
say that he felt debonair. He received Sam with a wan austerity.
“Sit down!” he said. “Don’t stand there swaying like that. I can’t bear
it.”
“Why, we aren’t out of the harbour yet. Surely you aren’t going to be
sea-sick already.”
“I can issue no positive guarantee. Perhaps if I can keep my mind off
it.... I have had good results for the last ten minutes by thinking
steadily of the Sahara. There,” said Eustace Hignett with enthusiasm,
“is a place for you! That is something like a spot. Miles and miles of
sand and not a drop of water anywhere!”
Sam sat down on the lounge.
“You’re quite right. The great thing is to concentrate your mind on
other topics. Why not, for instance, tell me some more about your
unfortunate affair with that girl—Billie Bennett I think you said her
name was.”
“Wilhelmina Bennett. Where on earth did you get the idea that her name
was Billie?”
“I had a notion that girls called Wilhelmina were sometimes Billie to
their friends.”
“I never called her anything but Wilhelmina. But I really cannot talk
about it. The recollection tortures me.”
“That’s just what you want. It’s the counter-irritation principle.
Persevere, and you’ll soon forget that you’re on board ship at all.”
“There’s something in that,” admitted Eustace reflectively. “It’s very
good of you to be so sympathetic and interested.”
“My dear fellow ... anything that I can do ... where did you meet her
first, for instance?”
“At a dinner....” Eustace Hignett broke off abruptly. He had a good
memory and he had just recollected the fish they had served at that
dinner—a flabby and exhausted looking fish half sunk beneath the
surface of a thick white sauce.
“And what struck you most forcibly about her at first? Her lovely hair,
I suppose?”
“How did you know she had lovely hair?”
“My dear chap, I naturally assumed that any girl with whom you fell in
love would have nice hair.”
“Well, you are perfectly right, as it happens. Her hair was remarkably
beautiful. It was red....”
“Like autumn leaves with the sun on them!” said Marlowe ecstatically.
Hignett started.
“What an extraordinary thing! That is an absolutely exact description.
Her eyes were a deep blue....”
“Or, rather, green.”
“Blue.”
“Green. There is a shade of green that looks blue.”
“What the devil do you know about the colour of her eyes?” demanded
Eustace heatedly. “Am I telling you about her, or are you telling me?”
“My dear old man, don’t get excited. Don’t you see I am trying to
construct this girl in my imagination, to visualise her? I don’t
pretend to doubt your special knowledge, but after all green eyes
generally do go with red hair and there are all shades of green. There
is the bright green of meadow grass, the dull green of the uncut
emerald, the faint yellowish green of your face at the present
moment....”
“Don’t talk about the colour of my face! Now you’ve gone and reminded
me just when I was beginning to forget.”
“Awfully sorry. Stupid of me. Get your mind off it again—quick. What
were we saying? Oh, yes, this girl. I always think it helps one to form
a mental picture of people if one knows something about their
tastes—what sort of things they are interested in, their favourite
topics of conversation, and so on. This Miss Bennett now, what did she
like talking about?”
“Oh, all sorts of things.”
“Yes, but what?”
“Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that which
first drew us together.”
“Poetry!” Sam’s heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount of
poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and
sixpence for the last line of a Limerick in a competition in a weekly
paper; but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his
long suit. Still there was a library on board the ship, and no doubt it
would be possible to borrow the works of some standard bard and bone
them up from time to time. “Any special poet?”
“Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence
on Spring, did you?”
“No. What other poets did she like besides you?”
“Tennyson principally,” said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiver
in his voice. “The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls of
the King!”
“The which of what?” inquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket and
shooting out a cuff.
“‘The Idylls of the King.’ My good man, I know you have a soul which
would be considered inadequate by a common earthworm but you have
surely heard of Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’”
“Oh, _those!_ Why, my dear old chap! Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’
Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’
Well, really? I suppose you haven’t a copy with you on board by any
chance?”
“There is a copy in my kit bag. The very one we used to read together.
Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don’t want to see it
again.”
Sam prospected among the shirts, collars, and trousers in the bag and
presently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on
the lounge.
“Little by little, bit by bit,” he said, “I am beginning to form a sort
of picture of this girl, this—what was her name again? Bennett—this
Miss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You make her
seem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn’t keen on
golf, by any chance, I suppose?”
“I believe she did play. The subject came up once and she seemed rather
enthusiastic. Why?”
“Well, I’d much sooner talk to a girl about golf than poetry.”
“You are hardly likely to be in a position to have to talk to
Wilhelmina Bennett about either, I should imagine.”
“No, there’s that, of course. I was thinking of girls in general. Some
girls bar golf, and then it’s rather difficult to know how to start the
conversation. But, tell me, were there any topics which got on this
Miss Bennett’s nerves, if you know what I mean? It seems to me that at
one time or another you may have said something that offended her. I
mean, it seems curious that she should have broken off the engagement
if you had never disagreed or quarrelled about anything.”
“Well, of course, there was always the matter of that dog of hers. She
had a dog, you know, a snappy brute of a Pekinese. If there was ever
any shadow of disagreement between us, it had to do with that dog. I
made rather a point of it that I would not have it about the home after
we were married.”
“I see!” said Sam. He shot his cuff once more and wrote on it:
“Dog—conciliate.” “Yes, of course, that must have wounded her.”
“Not half so much as he wounded me. He pinned me by the ankle the day
before we—Wilhelmina and I, I mean—were to have been married. It is
some satisfaction to me in my broken state to remember that I got home
on the little beast with considerable juiciness and lifted him clean
over the Chesterfield.”
Sam shook his head reprovingly.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. He extended his cuff and added
the words “Vitally Important” to what he had just written. “It was
probably that which decided her.”
“Well, I hate dogs,” said Eustace Hignett querulously. “I remember
Wilhelmina once getting quite annoyed with me because I refused to step
in and separate a couple of the brutes, absolute strangers to me, who
were fighting in the street. I reminded her that we were all fighters
nowadays, that life itself was in a sense a fight; but she wouldn’t be
reasonable about it. She said that Sir Galahad would have done it like
a shot. I thought not. We have no evidence whatsoever that Sir Galahad
was ever called upon to do anything half as dangerous. And, anyway, he
wore armour. Give me a suit of mail, reaching well down over the
ankles, and I will willingly intervene in a hundred dog fights. But in
thin flannel trousers, no!”
Sam rose. His heart was light. He had never, of course, supposed that
the girl was anything but perfect; but it was nice to find his high
opinion of her corroborated by one who had no reason to exhibit her in
a favourable light. He understood her point of view and sympathised
with it. An idealist, how could she trust herself to Eustace Hignett?
How could she be content with a craven who, instead of scouring the
world in the quest for deeds of derring-do, had fallen down so
lamentably on his first assignment? There was a specious attractiveness
about poor old Eustace which might conceivably win a girl’s heart for a
time; he wrote poetry, talked well, and had a nice singing voice; but,
as a partner for life ... well, he simply wouldn’t do. That was all
there was to it. He simply didn’t add up right. The man a girl like
Wilhelmina Bennett required for a husband was somebody entirely
different ... somebody, felt Samuel Marlowe, much more like Samuel
Marlowe.
Swelled almost to bursting point with these reflections, he went on
deck to join the ante-luncheon promenade. He saw Billie almost at once.
She had put on one of those nice sacky sport-coats which so enhance
feminine charms, and was striding along the deck with the breeze
playing in her vivid hair like the female equivalent of a Viking.
Beside her walked young Mr. Bream Mortimer.
Sam had been feeling a good deal of a fellow already, but at the sight
of her welcoming smile his self-esteem almost caused him to explode.
What magic there is in a girl’s smile! It is the raisin which, dropped
in the yeast of male complacency, induces fermentation.
“Oh, there you are, Mr. Marlowe!”
“Oh, _there_ you are,” said Bream Mortimer with a slightly different
inflection.
“I thought I’d like a breath of fresh air before lunch,” said Sam.
“Oh, Bream!” said the girl.
“Hello?”
“Do be a darling and take this great heavy coat of mine down to my
state-room, will you? I had no idea it was so warm.”
“I’ll carry it,” said Bream.
“Nonsense! I wouldn’t dream of burdening you with it. Trot along and
put it on the berth. It doesn’t matter about folding it up.”
“All right,” said Bream moodily.
He trotted along. There are moments when a man feels that all he needs
in order to be a delivery wagon is a horse and a driver. Bream Mortimer
was experiencing such a moment.
“He had better chirrup to the dog while he’s there, don’t you think?”
suggested Sam. He felt that a resolute man with legs as long as Bream’s
might well deposit a cloak on a berth and be back under the
half-minute.
“Oh yes! Bream!”
“Hello?”
“While you’re down there, just chirrup a little more to poor Pinky. He
does appreciate it so!”
Bream disappeared. It is not always easy to interpret emotion from a
glance at a man’s back; but Bream’s back looked like that of a man to
whom the thought has occurred that, given a couple of fiddles and a
piano, he would have made a good hired orchestra.
“How is your dear little dog, by the way?” inquired Sam solicitously,
as he fell into step by her side.
“Much better now, thanks. I’ve made friends with a girl on board—did
you ever hear her name—Jane Hubbard—she’s a rather well-known big-game
hunter, and she fixed up some sort of a mixture for Pinky which did him
a world of good. I don’t know what was in it except Worcester Sauce,
but she said she always gave it to her mules in Africa when they had
the botts ... it’s very nice of you to speak so affectionately of poor
Pinky when he bit you.”
“Animal spirits!” said Sam tolerantly. “Pure animal spirits. I like to
see them. But, of course, I love all dogs.”
“Oh, do you? So do I!”
“I only wish they didn’t fight so much. I’m always stopping
dog-fights.”
“I do admire a man who knows what to do at a dog-fight. I’m afraid I’m
rather helpless myself. There never seems anything to catch hold of.”
She looked down. “Have you been reading? What is the book?”
“The book? Oh, this. It’s a volume of Tennyson.”
“Are you fond of Tennyson?”
“I worship him,” said Sam reverently.
“Those——” he glanced at his cuff—“those ‘Idylls of the King!’ I do not
like to think what an ocean voyage would be if I had not my Tennyson
with me.”
“We must read him together. He is my favourite poet!”
“We will! There is something about Tennyson....”
“Yes, isn’t there! I’ve felt that myself so often.”
“Some poets are whales at epics and all that sort of thing, while
others call it a day when they’ve written something that runs to a
couple of verses, but where Tennyson had the bulge was that his long
game was just as good as his short. He was great off the tee and a
marvel with his chip-shots.”
“That sounds as though you play golf.”
“When I am not reading Tennyson, you can generally find me out on the
links. Do you play?”
“I love it. How extraordinary that we should have so much in common.
You seem to like all the things I like. We really ought to be great
friends.”
He was pausing to select the best of three replies when the lunch bugle
sounded.
“Oh dear!” she cried. “I must rush. But we shall see one another again
up here afterwards?”
“We will,” said Sam.
“We’ll sit and read Tennyson.”
“Fine! Er—you and I and Mortimer?”
“Oh no, Bream is going to sit down below and look after poor Pinky.”
“Does he—does he know he is?”
“Not yet,” said Billie. “I’m going to tell him at lunch.”
CHAPTER IV.
SAM CLICKS
§ 1
It was the fourth morning of the voyage. Of course, when this story is
done in the movies they won’t be satisfied with a bald statement like
that; they will have a Spoken Title or a Cut-Back Sub-Caption or
whatever they call the thing in the low dens where motion-picture
scenario-lizards do their dark work, which will run:—
AND SO, CALM AND GOLDEN, THE DAYS WENT BY, EACH FRAUGHT WITH HOPE AND
YOUTH AND SWEETNESS, LINKING TWO YOUNG HEARTS IN SILKEN FETTERS FORGED
BY THE LAUGHING LOVE-GOD.
and the males in the audience will shift their chewing gum to the other
cheek and take a firmer grip of their companion’s hands and the man at
the piano will play “Everybody wants a key to my cellar,” or something
equally appropriate, very soulfully and slowly, with a wistful eye on
the half-smoked cigarette which he has parked on the lowest octave and
intends finishing as soon as the picture is over. But I prefer the
plain frank statement that it was the fourth day of the voyage. That is
my story and I mean to stick to it.
Samuel Marlowe, muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the state-room from
his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had
a cold bath when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked
out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and
exuberant.
It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was
uplifting this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing
back, he had suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would
propose to Wilhelmina Bennett. Yes, he would put his fortune to the
test, to win or lose it all. True, he had only known her for four days,
but what of that?
Nothing in the way of modern progress is more remarkable than the
manner in which the attitude of your lover has changed concerning
proposals of marriage. When Samuel Marlowe’s grandfather had convinced
himself, after about a year and a half of respectful aloofness, that
the emotion which he felt towards Samuel Marlowe’s grandmother-to-be
was love, the fashion of the period compelled him to approach the
matter in a roundabout way. First, he spent an evening or two singing
sentimental ballads, she accompanying him on the piano and the rest of
the family sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff was
pulled. Having noted that she drooped her eyelashes and turned faintly
pink when he came to the “Thee—only thee!” bit, he felt a mild sense of
encouragement, strong enough to justify him in taking her sister aside
next day and asking if the object of his affections ever happened to
mention his name in the course of conversation. Further _pour-parlers_
having passed with her aunt, two more sisters, and her little brother,
he felt that the moment had arrived when he might send her a volume of
Shelley, with some of the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later,
he interviewed her father and obtained his consent to the paying of his
addresses. And finally, after writing her a letter which began “Madam,
you will not have been insensible to the fact that for some time past
you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than those of ordinary
friendship....” he waylaid her in the rose-garden and brought the thing
off.
How different is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship
can hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir
W. S. Gilbert’s Alphonso.
“Alphonso, who for cool assurance all creation licks,
He up and said to Emily who has cheek enough for six:
‘Miss Emily, I love you. Will you marry? Say the word!’
And Emily said: ‘Certainly, Alphonso, like a bird!’”
Sam Marlowe was a warm supporter of the Alphonso method. He was a
bright young man and did not require a year to make up his mind that
Wilhelmina Bennett had been set apart by Fate from the beginning of
time to be his bride. He had known it from the moment he saw her on the
dock, and all the subsequent strolling, reading, talking,
soup-drinking, tea-drinking, and shuffle-board-playing which they had
done together had merely solidified his original impression. He loved
this girl with all the force of a fiery nature—the fiery nature of the
Marlowes was a by-word in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square—and something
seemed to whisper that she loved him. At any rate she wanted somebody
like Sir Galahad, and, without wishing to hurl bouquets at himself, he
could not see where she could possibly get anyone liker Sir Galahad
than himself. So, wind and weather permitting, Samuel Marlowe intended
to propose to Wilhelmina Bennett this very day.
He let down the trick basin which hung beneath the mirror and,
collecting his shaving materials, began to lather his face.
“I am the Bandolero!” sang Sam blithely through the soap. “I am, I am
the Bandolero! Yes, yes, I am the Bandolero!”
The untidy heap of bedclothes in the lower berth stirred restlessly.
“Oh, God!” said Eustace Hignett thrusting out a tousled head.
Sam regarded his cousin with commiseration. Horrid things had been
happening to Eustace during the last few days, and it was quite a
pleasant surprise each morning to find that he was still alive.
“Feeling bad again, old man?”
“I was feeling all right,” replied Hignett churlishly, “until you began
the farmyard imitations. What sort of a day is it?”
“Glorious! The sea....”
“Don’t talk about the sea!”
“Sorry! The sun is shining brighter than it has ever shone in the
history of the race. Why don’t you get up?”
“Nothing will induce me to get up.”
“Well, go a regular buster and have an egg for breakfast.”
Eustace Hignett shuddered. He eyed Sam sourly. “You seem devilish
pleased with yourself this morning!” he said censoriously.
Sam dried the razor carefully and put it away. He hesitated. Then the
desire to confide in somebody got the better of him.
“The fact is,” he said apologetically, “I’m in love!”
“In love!” Eustace Hignett sat up and bumped his head sharply against
the berth above him. “Has this been going on long?”
“Ever since the voyage started.”
“I think you might have told me,” said Eustace reproachfully. “I told
you my troubles. Why did you not let me know that this awful thing had
come upon you?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, old man, during these last few days I had a
notion that your mind was, so to speak, occupied elsewhere.”
“Who is she?”
“Oh, a girl I met on board.”
“Don’t do it!” said Eustace Hignett solemnly. “As a friend I entreat
you not to do it. Take my advice, as a man who knows women, and don’t
do it!”
“Don’t do what?”
“Propose to her. I can tell by the glitter in your eye that you are
intending to propose to this girl—probably this morning.”
“Not this morning—after lunch. I always think one can do oneself more
justice after lunch.”
“Don’t do it. Women are the devil, whether they marry you or jilt you.
Do you realise that women wear black evening dresses that have to be
hooked up in a hurry when you are late for the theatre, and that, out
of sheer wanton malignity, the hooks and eyes on those dresses are also
made black? Do you realise...?”
“Oh, I’ve thought it all out.”
“And take the matter of children. How would you like to become the
father—and a mere glance around you will show you that the chances are
enormously in favour of such a thing happening—of a boy with spectacles
and protruding front teeth who asks questions all the time? Out of six
small boys whom I saw when I came on board, four wore spectacles and
had teeth like rabbits. The other two were equally revolting in
different styles. How would you like to become the father...?”
“There is no need to be indelicate,” said Sam stiffly. “A man must take
these chances.”
“Give her the miss in baulk,” pleaded Hignett. “Stay down here for the
rest of the voyage. You can easily dodge her when you get to
Southampton. And, if she sends messages, say you’re ill and can’t be
disturbed.”
Sam gazed at him, revolted. More than ever he began to understand how
it was that a girl with ideals had broken off her engagement with this
man. He finished dressing, and, after a satisfying breakfast, went on
deck.
§ 2
It was, as he had said, a glorious morning. The sample which he had had
through the porthole had not prepared him for the magic of it. The ship
swam in a vast bowl of the purest blue on an azure carpet flecked with
silver. It was a morning which impelled a man to great deeds, a morning
which shouted to him to chuck his chest out and be romantic. The sight
of Billie Bennett, trim and gleaming in a pale green sweater and white
skirt had the effect of causing Marlowe to alter the programme which he
had sketched out. Proposing to this girl was not a thing to be put off
till after lunch. It was a thing to be done now and at once. The finest
efforts of the finest cooks in the world could not put him in better
form than he felt at present.
“Good morning, Miss Bennett.”
“Good morning, Mr. Marlowe.”
“Isn’t it a perfect day?”
“Wonderful!”
“It makes all the difference on board ship if the weather is fine.”
“Yes, doesn’t it?”
How strange it is that the great emotional scenes of history, one of
which is coming along almost immediately, always begin in this prosaic
way. Shakespeare tries to conceal the fact, but there can be little
doubt that Romeo and Juliet edged into their balcony scene with a few
remarks on the pleasantness of the morning.
“Shall we walk round?” said Billie.
Sam glanced about him. It was the time of day when the promenade deck
was always full. Passengers in cocoons of rugs lay on chairs, waiting
in a dull trance till the steward should arrive with the eleven o’clock
soup. Others, more energetic, strode up and down. From the point of
view of a man who wished to reveal his most sacred feelings to a
beautiful girl, the place was practically a tube station during the
rush hour.
“It’s so crowded,” he said. “Let’s go on to the upper deck.”
“All right. You can read to me. Go and fetch your Tennyson.”
Sam felt that fortune was playing into his hands. His four-days’
acquaintance with the bard had been sufficient to show him that the man
was there forty ways when it came to writing about love. You could open
his collected works almost anywhere and shut your eyes and dab down
your finger on some red-hot passage. A proposal of marriage is a thing
which it is rather difficult to bring neatly into the ordinary run of
conversation. It wants leading up to. But, if you once start reading
poetry, especially Tennyson’s, almost anything is apt to give you your
cue. He bounded light-heartedly into the state-room, waking Eustace
Hignett from an uneasy dose.
“Now what?” said Eustace.
“Where’s that copy of Tennyson you gave me? I left it—ah, here it is.
Well, see you later!”
“Wait! What are you going to do?”
“Oh, that girl I told you about,” said Sam making for the door. “She
wants me to read Tennyson to her on the upper deck.”
“Tennyson?”
“Yes.”
“On the upper deck?”
“Yes.”
“This is the end,” said Eustace Hignett, turning his face to the wall.
Sam raced up the companion-way as far as it went; then, going out on
deck, climbed a flight of steps and found himself in the only part of
the ship which was ever even comparatively private. The main herd of
passengers preferred the promenade deck, two layers below.
He threaded his way through a maze of boats, ropes, and curious-shaped
steel structures which the architect of the ship seemed to have tacked
on at the last moment in a spirit of sheer exuberance. Above him
towered one of the funnels, before him a long, slender mast. He hurried
on, and presently came upon Billie sitting on a garden seat, backed by
the white roof of the smoke-room; beside this was a small deck which
seemed to have lost its way and strayed up here all by itself. It was
the deck on which one could occasionally see the patients playing an
odd game with long sticks and bits of wood—not shuffleboard but
something even lower in the mental scale. This morning, however, the
devotees of this pastime were apparently under proper restraint, for
the deck was empty.
“This is jolly,” he said sitting down beside the girl and drawing a
deep breath of satisfaction.
“Yes, I love this deck. It’s so peaceful.”
“It’s the only part of the ship where you can be reasonably sure of not
meeting stout men in flannels and nautical caps. An ocean voyage always
makes me wish that I had a private yacht.”
“It would be nice.”
“A private yacht,” repeated Sam, sliding a trifle closer. “We would
sail about, visiting desert islands which lay like jewels in the heart
of tropic seas.”
“We?”
“Most certainly we. It wouldn’t be any fun if you were not there.”
“That’s very complimentary.”
“Well, it wouldn’t. I’m not fond of girls as a rule....”
“Oh, aren’t you?”
“No!” said Sam decidedly. It was a point which he wished to make clear
at the outset. “Not at all fond. My friends have often remarked upon
it. A palmist once told me that I had one of those rare spiritual
natures which cannot be satisfied with substitutes but must seek and
seek till they find their soul-mate. When other men all round me were
frittering away their emotions in idle flirtations which did not touch
their deeper natures, I was ... I was ... well, I wasn’t, if you see
what I mean.”
“Oh, you wasn’t ... weren’t?”
“No. Some day I knew I should meet the only girl I could possibly love,
and then I would pour out upon her the stored-up devotion of a
lifetime, lay an unblemished heart at her feet, fold her in my arms and
say ‘At last!’”
“How jolly for her. Like having a circus all to oneself.”
“Well, yes,” said Sam after a momentary pause.
“When I was a child I always thought that that would be the most
wonderful thing in the world.”
“The most wonderful thing in the world is love, a pure and consuming
love, a love which....”
“Oh, hello!” said a voice.
All through this scene, right from the very beginning of it, Sam had
not been able to rid himself of a feeling that there was something
missing. The time and the place and the girl—they were all present and
correct; nevertheless there was something missing, some familiar object
which seemed to leave a gap. He now perceived that what had caused the
feeling was the complete absence of Bream Mortimer. He was absent no
longer. He was standing in front of them with one leg, his head lowered
as if he were waiting for someone to scratch it. Sam’s primary impulse
was to offer him a nut.
“Oh, hello, Bream!” said Billie.
“Hullo!” said Sam.
“Hello!” said Bream Mortimer. “Here you are!”
There was a pause.
“I thought you might be here,” said Bream.
“Yes, here we are,” said Billie.
“Yes, we’re here,” said Sam.
There was another pause.
“Mind if I join you?” said Bream.
“N—no,” said Billie.
“N—no,” said Sam.
“No,” said Billie again. “No ... that is to say ... oh no, not at all.”
There was a third pause.
“On second thoughts,” said Bream, “I believe I’ll take a stroll on the
promenade deck if you don’t mind.”
They said they did not mind. Bream Mortimer, having bumped his head
twice against overhanging steel ropes, melted away.
“Who is that fellow?” demanded Sam wrathfully.
“He’s the son of father’s best friend.”
Sam started. Somehow this girl had always been so individual to him
that he had never thought of her having a father.
“We have known each other all our lives,” continued Billie. “Father
thinks a tremendous lot of Bream. I suppose it was because Bream was
sailing by her that father insisted on my coming over on this boat. I’m
in disgrace, you know. I was cabled for and had to sail at a few days’
notice. I....”
“Oh, hello!”
“Why, Bream!” said Billie looking at him as he stood on the old spot in
the same familiar attitude with rather less affection than the son of
her father’s best friend might have expected. “I thought you said you
were going down to the promenade deck.
“I did go down to the promenade deck. And I’d hardly got there when a
fellow who’s getting up the ship’s concert to-morrow night nobbled me
to do something for it. I said I could only do conjuring tricks and
juggling and so on, and he said all right, do conjuring tricks and
juggling, then. He wanted to know if I knew anyone else who would help.
I came up to ask you,” he said to Sam, “if you would do something.”
“No,” said Sam. “I won’t.”
“He’s got a man who’s going to lecture on deep-sea fish and a couple of
women who both want to sing ‘The Rosary’ but he’s still a turn or two
short. Sure you won’t rally round?”
“Quite sure.”
“Oh, all right.” Bream Mortimer hovered wistfully above them. “It’s a
great morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Sam.
“Oh, Bream!” said Billie.
“Hello?”
“Do be a pet and go and talk to Jane Hubbard. I’m sure she must be
feeling lonely. I left her all by herself down on the next deck.”
A look of alarm spread itself over Bream’s face.
“Jane Hubbard! Oh, say, have a heart!”
“She’s a very nice girl.”
“She’s so darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe or
something and she would like to take a pot at you with a rifle.”
“Nonsense! Run along. Get her to tell you some of her big-game hunting
experiences. They are most interesting.”
Bream drifted sadly away.
“I don’t blame Miss Hubbard,” said Sam.
“What do you mean?”
“Looking at him as if she wanted to pot at him with a rifle. I should
like to do it myself.”
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about Bream. Read me some Tennyson.”
Sam opened the book very willingly. Infernal Bream Mortimer had
absolutely shot to pieces the spell which had begun to fall on them at
the beginning of their conversation. Only by reading poetry, it seemed
to him, could it be recovered. And when he saw the passage at which the
volume had opened he realised that his luck was in. Good old Tennyson!
He was all right. He had the stuff. You could rely on him every time.
He cleared his throat.
“Oh let the solid ground
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet;
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day.
Let the sweet heavens endure,
Not close and darken above me
Before I am quite quite sure
That there is one to love me....”
This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He
could see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big
and dreamy, gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book and
took her hand.
“There is something,” he began in a low voice, “which I have been
trying to say ever since we met, something which I think you must have
read in my eyes.”
Her head was bent. She did not withdraw her hand.
“Until this voyage began,” he went on, “I did not know what life meant.
And then I saw you! It was like the gate of heaven opening. You’re the
dearest girl I ever met, and you can bet I’ll never forget....” He
stopped. “I’m not trying to make it rhyme,” he said apologetically.
“Billie, don’t think me silly ... I mean ... if you had the merest
notion, dearest ... I don’t know what’s the matter with me ... Billie,
darling, you are the only girl in the world! I have been looking for
you for years and years and I have found you at last, my soul-mate.
Surely this does not come as a surprise to you? That is, I mean, you
must have seen that I’ve been keen.... There’s that damned Walt Mason
stuff again!” His eyes fell on the volume beside him and he uttered an
exclamation of enlightenment. “It’s those poems!” he cried. “I’ve been
boning them up to such an extent that they’ve got me doing it too. What
I’m trying to say is, Will you marry me?”
She was drooping towards him. Her face was very sweet and tender, her
eyes misty. He slid an arm about her waist. She raised her lips to his.
§ 3
Suddenly she drew herself away, a cloud on her face.
“Darling,” she said, “I’ve a confession to make.”
“A confession? You? Nonsense!”
“I can’t get rid of a horrible thought. I was wondering if this will
last.”
“Our love? Don’t be afraid that it will fade ... I mean ... why, it’s
so vast, it’s bound to last ... that is to say, of course it will.”
She traced a pattern on the deck with her shoe.
“I’m afraid of myself. You see, once before—and it was not so very long
ago,—I thought I had met my ideal, but....”
Sam laughed heartily.
“Are you worrying about that absurd business of poor old Eustace
Hignett?”
She started violently.
“You know!”
“Of course! He told me himself.”
“Do you know him? Where did you meet him?”
“I’ve known him all my life. He’s my cousin. As a matter of fact, we
are sharing a state-room on board now.”
“Eustace is on board! Oh, this is awful! What shall I do when I meet
him?”
“Oh, pass it off with a light laugh and a genial quip. Just say: ‘Oh,
here you are!’ or something. You know the sort of thing.”
“It will be terrible.”
“Not a bit of it. Why should you feel embarrassed? He must have
realised by now that you acted in the only possible way. It was absurd
his ever expecting you to marry him. I mean to say, just look at it
dispassionately ... Eustace ... poor old Eustace ... and _you!_ The
Princess and the Swineherd!”
“Does Mr. Hignett keep pigs?” she asked, surprised.
“I mean that poor old Eustace is so far below you, darling, that, with
the most charitable intentions, one can only look on his asking you to
marry him in the light of a record exhibition of pure nerve. A dear,
good fellow, of course, but hopeless where the sterner realities of
life are concerned. A man who can’t even stop a dog-fight! In a world
which is practically one seething mass of fighting dogs, how could you
trust yourself to such a one? Nobody is fonder of Eustace Hignett than
I am, but ... well, I mean to say!”
“I see what you mean. He really wasn’t my ideal.”
“Not by a mile!”
She mused, her chin in her hand.
“Of course, he was quite a dear in a lot of ways.”
“Oh, a splendid chap,” said Sam tolerantly.
“Have you ever heard him sing? I think what first attracted me to him
was his beautiful voice. He really sings extraordinarily well.”
A slight but definite spasm of jealousy afflicted Sam. He had no
objection to praising poor old Eustace within decent limits, but the
conversation seemed to him to be confining itself too exclusively to
one subject.
“Yes?” he said. “Oh yes, I’ve heard him sing. Not lately. He does
drawing-room ballads and all that sort of thing still, I suppose?”
“Have you ever heard him sing ‘My love is like a glowing tulip that in
an old-world garden grows’?”
“I have not had that advantage,” replied Sam stiffly. “But anyone can
sing a drawing-room ballad. Now something funny, something that will
make people laugh, something that really needs putting across ...
that’s a different thing altogether.”
“Do you sing that sort of thing?”
“People have been good enough to say....”
“Then,” said Billie decidedly, “you must certainly do something at the
ship’s concert to-morrow! The idea of your trying to hide your light
under a bushel! I will tell Bream to count on you. He is an excellent
accompanist. He can accompany you.”
“Yes, but ... well, I don’t know,” said Sam doubtfully. He could not
help remembering that the last time he had sung in public had been at a
house-supper at school, seven years before, and that on that occasion
somebody whom it was a lasting grief to him that he had been unable to
identify had thrown a pat of butter at him.
“Of course you must sing,” said Billie. “I’ll tell Bream when I go down
to lunch. What will you sing?”
“Well—er—”
“Well, I’m sure it will be wonderful whatever it is. You are so
wonderful in every way. You remind me of one of the heroes of old!”
Sam’s discomposure vanished. In the first place, this was much more the
sort of conversation which he felt the situation indicated. In the
second place he had remembered that there was no need for him to sing
at all. He could do that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such
a hit at the Trinity smoker. He was on safe ground there. He knew he
was good. He clasped the girl to him and kissed her sixteen times.
§ 4
Billie Bennett stood in front of the mirror in her state-room dreamily
brushing the glorious red hair that fell in a tumbled mass about her
shoulders. On the lounge beside her, swathed in a business-like grey
kimono, Jane Hubbard watched her, smoking a cigarette.
Jane Hubbard was a splendid specimen of bronzed, strapping womanhood.
Her whole appearance spoke of the open air and the great wide spaces
and all that sort of thing. She was a thoroughly wholesome, manly girl,
about the same age as Billie, with a strong chin and an eye that had
looked leopards squarely in the face and caused them to withdraw
abashed into the undergrowth, or wherever it is that leopards withdraw
when abashed. One could not picture Jane Hubbard flirting lightly at
garden parties, but one could picture her very readily arguing with a
mutinous native bearer, or with a firm touch putting sweetness and
light into the soul of a refractory mule. Boadicea in her girlhood must
have been rather like Jane Hubbard.
She smoked contentedly. She had rolled her cigarette herself with one
hand, a feat beyond the powers of all but the very greatest. She was
pleasantly tired after walking eighty-five times round the promenade
deck. Soon she would go to bed and fall asleep the moment her head
touched the pillow. But meanwhile she lingered here, for she felt that
Billie had something to confide in her.
“Jane,” said Billie, “have you ever been in love?”
Jane Hubbard knocked the ash off her cigarette.
“Not since I was eleven,” she said in her deep musical voice. “He was
my music-master. He was forty-seven and completely bald, but there was
an appealing weakness in him which won my heart. He was afraid of cats,
I remember.”
Billie gathered her hair into a molten bundle and let it run through
her fingers.
“Oh, Jane!” she exclaimed. “Surely you don’t like weak men. I like a
man who is strong and brave and wonderful.”
“I can’t stand brave men,” said Jane, “it makes them so independent. I
could only love a man who would depend on me in everything. Sometimes,
when I have been roughing it out in the jungle,” she went on rather
wistfully, “I have had my dreams of some gentle clinging man who would
put his hand in mine and tell me all his poor little troubles and let
me pet and comfort him and bring the smiles back to his face. I’m
beginning to want to settle down. After all there are other things for
a woman to do in this life besides travelling and big-game hunting. I
should like to go into Parliament. And, if I did that, I should
practically have to marry. I mean, I should have to have a man to look
after the social end of life and arrange parties and receptions and so
on, and sit ornamentally at the head of my table. I can’t imagine
anything jollier than marriage under conditions like that. When I came
back a bit done up after a long sitting at the House, he would mix me a
whisky-and-soda and read poetry to me or prattle about all the things
he had been doing during the day.... Why, it would be ideal!”
Jane Hubbard gave a little sigh. Her fine eyes gazed dreamily at a
smoke ring which she had sent floating towards the ceiling.
“Jane,” said Billie. “I believe you’re thinking of somebody definite.
Who is he?”
The big-game huntress blushed. The embarrassment which she exhibited
made her look manlier than ever.
“I don’t know his name.”
“But there is really someone?”
“Yes.”
“How splendid! Tell me about him.”
Jane Hubbard clasped her strong hands and looked down at the floor.
“I met him on the Subway a couple of days before I left New York. You
know how crowded the Subway is at the rush hour. I had a seat, of
course, but this poor little fellow—_so_ good-looking, my dear! he
reminded me of the pictures of Lord Byron—was hanging from a strap and
being jerked about till I thought his poor little arms would be
wrenched out of their sockets. And he looked so unhappy, as though he
had some secret sorrow. I offered him my seat, but he wouldn’t take it.
A couple of stations later, however, the man next to me got out and he
sat down and we got into conversation. There wasn’t time to talk much.
I told him I had been down-town fetching an elephant-gun which I had
left to be mended. He was so prettily interested when I showed him the
mechanism. We got along famously. But—oh, well, it was just another
case of ships that pass in the night—I’m afraid I’ve been boring you.”
“Oh, Jane! You haven’t! You see ... you see, I’m in love myself.”
“I had an idea you were,” said her friend looking at her critically.
“You’ve been refusing your oats the last few days, and that’s a sure
sign. Is he that fellow that’s always around with you and who looks
like a parrot?”
“Bream Mortimer? Good gracious, no!” cried Billie indignantly. “As if I
should fall in love with Bream!”
“When I was out in British East Africa,” said Miss Hubbard, “I had a
bird that was the living image of Bream Mortimer. I taught him to
whistle ‘Annie Laurie’ and to ask for his supper in three native
dialects. Eventually he died of the pip, poor fellow. Well, if it isn’t
Bream Mortimer, who is it?”
“His name is Marlowe. He’s tall and handsome and very strong-looking.
He reminds me of a Greek god.”
“Ugh!” said Miss Hubbard.
“Jane, we’re engaged.”
“No!” said the huntress, interested. “When can I meet him?”
“I’ll introduce you to-morrow I’m so happy.”
“That’s fine!”
“And yet, somehow,” said Billie, plaiting her hair, “do you ever have
presentiments? I can’t get rid of an awful feeling that something’s
going to happen to spoil everything.”
“What could spoil everything?”
“Well, I think him so wonderful, you know. Suppose he were to do
anything to blur the image I have formed of him.”
“Oh, he won’t. You said he was one of those strong men, didn’t you?
They always run true to form. They never do anything except be strong.”
Billie looked meditatively at her reflection in the glass.
“You know I thought I was in love once before, Jane.”
“Yes?”
“We were going to be married and I had actually gone to the church. And
I waited and waited and he didn’t come; and what do you think had
happened?”
“What?”
“His mother had stolen his trousers.”
Jane Hubbard laughed heartily.
“It’s nothing to laugh at,” said Billie seriously “It was a tragedy. I
had always thought him romantic, and when this happened the scales
seemed to fall from my eyes. I saw that I had made a mistake.”
“And you broke off the engagement?”
“Of course!”
“I think you were hard on him. A man can’t help his mother stealing his
trousers.”
“No. But when he finds they’re gone, he can ’phone to the tailor for
some more or borrow the janitor’s or do _something_. But he simply
stayed where he was and didn’t do a thing. Just because he was too much
afraid of his mother to tell her straight out that he meant to be
married that day.”
“Now that,” said Miss Hubbard, “is just the sort of trait in a man
which would appeal to me. I like a nervous, shrinking man.”
“I don’t. Besides, it made him seem so ridiculous, and—I don’t know why
it is—I can’t forgive a man for looking ridiculous. Thank goodness, my
darling Sam couldn’t look ridiculous, even if he tried. He’s wonderful,
Jane. He reminds me of a knight of the Round Table. You ought to see
his eyes flash.”
Miss Hubbard got up and stretched herself with a yawn.
“Well, I’ll be on the promenade deck after breakfast to-morrow. If you
can arrange to have him flash his eyes then—say between nine-thirty and
ten—I shall be delighted to watch them.”
CHAPTER V.
PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE
“Good God!” cried Eustace Hignett.
He stared at the figure which loomed above him in the fading light
which came through the porthole of the state-room. The hour was
seven-thirty, and he had just woken from a troubled doze, full of
strange nightmares, and for the moment he thought that he must still be
dreaming, for the figure before him could have walked straight into any
nightmare and no questions asked. Then suddenly he became aware that it
was his cousin, Samuel Marlowe. As in the historic case of father in
the pigstye, he could tell him by his hat. But why was he looking like
that? Was it simply some trick of the uncertain light, or was his face
really black and had his mouth suddenly grown to six times its normal
size and become a vivid crimson?
Sam turned. He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a
satisfaction which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not
have seemed to justify. Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion.
His cousin’s face was black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab
with a piece of burnt cork and made it blacker.
“Hullo! You awake?” he said, and switched on the light.
Eustace Hignett shied like a startled horse. His friend’s profile, seen
dimly, had been disconcerting enough. Full face, he was a revolting
object. Nothing that Eustace Hignett had encountered in his recent
dreams—and they had included such unusual fauna as elephants in top
hats and running shorts—had affected him so profoundly. Sam’s
appearance smote him like a blow. It seemed to take him straight into a
different and a dreadful world.
“What ... what ... what...?” he gurgled.
Sam squinted at himself in the glass and added a touch of black to his
nose.
“How do I look?”
Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin’s reason must have become
unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like
that, being anxious to be told how he looked.
“Are my lips red enough? It’s for the ship’s concert, you know. It
starts in half-an-hour, though I believe I’m not on till the second
part. Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the
ears, or are they all right?”
Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett’s mind.
“What on earth are you doing performing at the ship’s concert?”
“Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man,
and they wouldn’t take no.” Sam deepened the colour of his ears. “As a
matter of fact,” he said casually, “my fiancée made rather a point of
my doing something.”
A sharp yelp from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the
significance of the remark had not been lost on Eustace.
“Your fiancée?”
“The girl I’m engaged to. Didn’t I tell you about that? Yes, I’m
engaged.”
Eustace sighed heavily.
“I feared the worst. Tell me, who is she?”
“Didn’t I tell you her name?”
“No.”
“Curious! I must have forgotten.” He hummed an airy strain as he
blackened the tip of his nose. “It’s rather a curious coincidence,
really. Her name is Bennett.”
“She may be a relation.”
“That’s true. Of course, girls do have relations.”
“What is her first name?”
“That is another rather remarkable thing. It’s Wilhelmina.”
“Wilhelmina!”
“Of course, there must be hundreds of girls in the world called
Wilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence.”
“What colour is her hair?” demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow voice.
“Her hair! What colour is it?”
“Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well,
you might call it auburn ... or russet ... or you might call it
Titian....”
“Never mind what I might call it. Is it red?”
“Red? Why, yes. That is a very good description of it. Now that you put
it to me like that, it _is_ red.”
“Has she a trick of grabbing at you suddenly, when she gets excited,
like a kitten with a ball of wool?”
“Yes. Yes, she has.”
Eustace Hignett uttered a sharp cry.
“Sam,” he said, “can you bear a shock?”
“I’ll have a dash at it.”
“Brace up!”
“I’m ready.”
“The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marry
_me_.”
“Well, well!” said Sam.
There was a silence.
“Awfully sorry, of course, and all that,” said Sam.
“Don’t apologise to _me!_” said Eustace. “My poor old chap, my only
feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest pity.” He
reached out and pressed Sam’s hand. “I regard you as a toad beneath the
harrow!”
“Well, I suppose that’s one way of offering congratulations and cheery
good wishes.”
“And on top of that,” went on Eustace, deeply moved, “you have got to
sing at the ship’s concert.”
“Why shouldn’t I sing at the ship’s concert?”
“My dear old man, you have many worthy qualities, but you must know
that you can’t sing. You can’t sing for nuts! I don’t want to
discourage you, but, long ago as it is, you can’t have forgotten what
an ass you made of yourself at that house-supper at school. Seeing you
up against it like this, I regret that I threw a lump of butter at you
on that occasion, though at the time it seemed the only course to
pursue.”
Sam started.
“Was it you who threw that bit of butter?”
“It was.”
“I wish I’d known! You silly chump, you ruined my collar.”
“Ah, well, it’s seven years ago. You would have had to send it to the
wash anyhow by this time. But don’t let us brood on the past. Let us
put our heads together and think how we can get you out of this
terrible situation.”
“I don’t want to get out of it. I confidently expect to be the hit of
the evening.”
“The hit of the evening! You! Singing!”
“I’m not going to sing. I’m going to do that imitation of Frank Tinney
which I did at the Trinity smoker. You haven’t forgotten that? You were
at the piano taking the part of the conductor of the orchestra. What a
riot I was—we were! I say, Eustace, old man, I suppose you don’t feel
well enough to come up now and take your old part? You could do it
without a rehearsal. You remember how it went.... ‘Hullo, Ernest!’
‘Hullo, Frank!’ Why not come along?”
“The only piano I will ever sit at will be one firmly fixed on a floor
that does not heave and wobble under me.”
“Nonsense! The boat’s as steady as a rock now. The sea’s like a
mill-pond.”
“Nevertheless, thanking you for your suggestion, no!”
“Oh, well, then I shall have to get on as best I can with that fellow
Mortimer. We’ve been rehearsing all the afternoon, and he seems to have
the hang of the thing. But he won’t be really right. He has no pep, no
vim. Still, if you won’t ... well, I think I’ll be getting along to his
state-room. I told him I would look in for a last rehearsal.”
The door closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back,
gave himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by
his cousin’s sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to
Wilhelmina Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and
dropped with a thud on the rocks.
His reflections were broken by the abrupt opening of the door. Sam
rushed in. Eustace peered anxiously out of his berth. There was too
much burnt cork on his cousin’s face to allow of any real registering
of emotion, but he could tell from his manner that all was not well.
“What’s the matter?”
Sam sank down on the lounge.
“The bounder has quit!”
“The bounder? What bounder?”
“There is only one! Bream Mortimer, curse him! There may be others whom
thoughtless critics rank as bounders, but he is the only man really
deserving of the title. He refuses to appear! He has walked out on the
act! He has left me flat! I went into his state-room just now, as
arranged, and the man was lying on his bunk, groaning.”
“I thought you said the sea was like a mill-pond.”
“It wasn’t that! He’s perfectly fit. But it seems that the silly ass
took it into his head to propose to Billie just before
dinner—apparently he’s loved her for years in a silent, self-effacing
way—and of course she told him that she was engaged to me, and the
thing upset him to such an extent that he says the idea of sitting down
at a piano and helping me give an imitation of Frank Tinney revolts
him. He says he intends to spend the evening in bed, reading
Schopenhauer. I hope it chokes him!”
“But this is splendid! This lets you out.”
“What do you mean? Lets me out?”
“Why, now you won’t be able to appear. Oh, you will be thankful for
this in years to come.”
“Won’t I appear! Won’t I dashed well appear! Do you think I’m going to
disappoint that dear girl when she is relying on me? I would rather
die.”
“But you can’t appear without a pianist.”
“I’ve got a pianist.”
“You have?”
“Yes. A little undersized shrimp of a fellow with a green face and ears
like water-wings.”
“I don’t think I know him.”
“Yes, you do. He’s you!”
“Me!”
“Yes, you. You are going to sit at the piano to-night.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s impossible. I gave you my views
on the subject just now.”
“You’ve altered them.”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, you soon will, and I’ll tell you why. If you don’t get up out of
that damned berth you’ve been roosting in all your life, I’m going to
ring for J. B. Midgeley and I’m going to tell him to bring me a bit of
dinner in here and I’m going to eat it before your eyes.”
“But you’ve had dinner.”
“Well, I’ll have another. I feel just ready for a nice fat pork
chop....”
“Stop! Stop!”
“A nice fat pork chop with potatoes and lots of cabbage,” repeated Sam
firmly. “And I shall eat it here on this very lounge. Now how do we
go?”
“You wouldn’t do that!” said Eustace piteously.
“I would and will.”
“But I shouldn’t be any good at the piano. I’ve forgotten how the thing
used to go.”
“You haven’t done anything of the kind. I come in and say ‘Hullo,
Ernest!’ and you say ‘Hullo, Frank!’ and then you help me tell the
story about the Pullman car. A child could do your part of it.”
“Perhaps there is some child on board....”
“No. I want you. I shall feel safe with you. We’ve done it together
before.”
“But, honestly, I really don’t think ... it isn’t as if....”
Sam rose and extended a finger towards the bell.
“Stop! Stop!” cried Eustace Hignett. “I’ll do it!”
Sam withdrew his finger.
“Good!” he said. “We’ve just got time for a rehearsal while you’re
dressing. ‘Hullo, Ernest!’”
“‘Hullo, Frank,’” said Eustace Hignett brokenly as he searched for his
unfamiliar trousers.
CHAPTER VI.
SCENE AT A SHIP’S CONCERT
Ships’ concerts are given in aid of the Seamen’s Orphans and Widows,
and, after one has been present at a few of them, one seems to feel
that any right-thinking orphan or widow would rather jog along and take
a chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They
open with a long speech from the master of the ceremonies—so long, as a
rule, that it is only the thought of what is going to happen afterwards
that enables the audience to bear it with fortitude. This done, the
amateur talent is unleashed, and the grim work begins.
It was not till after the all too brief intermission for rest and
recuperation that the newly-formed team of Marlowe and Hignett was
scheduled to appear. Previous to this there had been dark deeds done in
the quiet saloon. The lecturer on deep-sea fish had fulfilled his
threat and spoken at great length on a subject which, treated by a
master of oratory, would have palled on the audience after ten or
fifteen minutes; and at the end of fifteen minutes this speaker had
only just got past the haddocks and was feeling his way tentatively
through the shrimps. “The Rosary” had been sung and there was an uneasy
doubt as to whether it was not going to be sung again after the
interval—the latest rumour being that the second of the rival lady
singers had proved adamant to all appeals and intended to fight the
thing out on the lines she had originally chosen if they put her in
irons.
A young man had recited “Gunga Din” and, wilfully misinterpreting the
gratitude of the audience that it was over for a desire for more, had
followed it with “Fuzzy-Wuzzy.” His sister—these things run in
families—had sung “My Little Gray Home in the West”—rather sombrely,
for she had wanted to sing “The Rosary,” and, with the same obtuseness
which characterised her brother, had come back and rendered plantation
songs. The audience was now examining its programmes in the interval of
silence in order to ascertain the duration of the sentence still
remaining unexpired.
It was shocked to read the following:—
7. A Little Imitation......S. Marlowe.
All over the saloon you could see fair women and brave men wilting in
their seats. Imitation...! The word, as Keats would have said, was like
a knell! Many of these people were old travellers and their minds went
back wincingly, as one recalls forgotten wounds, to occasions when
performers at ships’ concerts had imitated whole strings of Dickens’
characters or, with the assistance of a few hats and a little false
hair, had endeavoured to portray Napoleon, Bismarck, Shakespeare, and
other of the famous dead. In this printed line on the programme there
was nothing to indicate the nature or scope of the imitation which this
S. Marlowe proposed to inflict upon them. They could only sit and wait
and hope that it would be short.
There was a sinking of hearts as Eustace Hignett moved down the room
and took his place at the piano. A pianist! This argued more singing.
The more pessimistic began to fear that the imitation was going to be
one of those imitations of well-known opera artistes which, though
rare, do occasionally add to the horrors of ships’ concerts. They
stared at Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to be something ominous
in the man’s very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the face of
one approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They could not
know that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to the slight
tremor which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an ocean liner
produce in the flooring of a dining saloon, and to that faint, yet
well-defined, smell of cooked meats which clings to a room where a
great many people have recently been eating a great many meals. A few
beads of cold perspiration were clinging to Eustace Hignett’s brow. He
looked straight before him with unseeing eyes. He was thinking hard of
the Sahara.
So tense was Eustace’s concentration that he did not see Billie
Bennett, seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a
little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content
with one of the seats at the back. But Jane Hubbard had insisted on the
front row. She always had a front-row seat at witch dances in Africa,
and the thing had become a habit.
In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put
up her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend
was staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of
Eustace. Under her breath she muttered an exclamation of surprise in
one of the lesser-known dialects of Northern Nigeria.
“Billie!” she whispered sharply.
“What _is_ the matter, Jane?”
“Who is that man at the piano? Do you know him?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Billie. “His name is Hignett. Why?”
“It’s the man I met on the Subway!” She breathed a sigh. “Poor little
fellow, how miserable he looks!”
At this moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett,
pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and
struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the
door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the
entire audience started convulsively with the feeling that a worse
thing had befallen them than even they had looked for.
The figure was richly clad in some scarlet material. Its face was a
grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed a horrible gash.
It advanced towards them, smoking a cigar.
“Hullo, Ernest,” it said.
And then it seemed to pause expectantly, as though desiring some reply.
Dead silence reigned in the saloon.
“Hullo, Ernest!”
Those nearest the piano—and nobody more quickly than Jane Hubbard—now
observed that the white face of the man on the stool had grown whiter
still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked
like a man who was seeing some ghastly sight. The audience sympathised
with him. They felt like that, too.
In all human plans there is ever some slight hitch, some little
miscalculation which just makes all the difference. A moment’s thought
should have told Eustace Hignett that a half-smoked cigar was one of
the essential properties to any imitation of the eminent Mr. Tinney;
but he had completely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an
absolute surprise to him and it could not have affected him more
powerfully if it had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it
pallidly, like Macbeth at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively
young cigar, and its curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils.
His jaw fell. His eyes protruded. He looked for a long moment like one
of those deep-sea fishes concerning which the recent lecturer had
spoken so searchingly. Then with the cry of a stricken animal, he
bounded from his seat and fled for the deck.
There was a rustle at Billie’s side as Jane Hubbard rose and followed
him. Jane was deeply stirred. Even as he sat, looking so pale and
piteous, at the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and now, in
his moment of anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface everything
that was best and manliest in her nature. Thrusting aside with one
sweep of her powerful arm a steward who happened to be between her and
the door, she raced in pursuit.
Sam Marlowe had watched his cousin’s dash for the open with a
consternation so complete that his senses seemed to have left him. A
general, deserted by his men on some stricken field, might have felt
something akin to his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the
imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney is the one which can least easily be
carried through single-handed. The man at the piano, the leader of the
orchestra, is essential. He is the life-blood of the entertainment.
Without him, nothing can be done.
For an instant Sam stood there, gaping blankly. Then the open door of
the saloon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it,
passed through it. That concluded his efforts in aid of the Seamen’s
Orphans and Widows.
The spell which had lain on the audience broke. This imitation seemed
to them to possess in an extraordinary measure the one quality which
renders amateur imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had seen
many amateur imitations, but never one as short as this. The saloon
echoed with their applause.
It brought no balm to Samuel Marlowe. He did not hear it. He had fled
for refuge to his state-room and was lying in the lower berth, chewing
the pillow, a soul in torment.
CHAPTER VII.
SUNDERED HEARTS
There was a tap at the door. Sam sat up dizzily. He had lost all count
of time.
“Who’s that?”
“I have a note for you, sir.”
It was the level voice of J. B. Midgeley, the steward. The stewards of
the White Star Line, besides being the civillest and most obliging body
of men in the world, all have soft and pleasant voices. A White Star
steward, waking you up at six-thirty, to tell you that your bath is
ready, when you wanted to sleep on till twelve, is the nearest human
approach to the nightingale.
“A what?”
“A note, sir.”
Sam jumped up and switched on the light. He went to the door and took
the note from J. B. Midgeley, who, his mission accomplished, retired in
an orderly manner down the passage. Sam looked at the letter with a
thrill. He had never seen the handwriting before, but, with the eye of
love, he recognised it. It was just the sort of hand he would have
expected Billie to write, round and smooth and flowing, the writing of
a warm-hearted girl. He tore open the envelope.
“Please come up to the top deck. I want to speak to you.”
Sam could not disguise it from himself that he was a little
disappointed. I don’t know if you see anything wrong with the letter,
but the way Sam looked at it was that, for a first love-letter, it
might have been longer and perhaps a shade warmer. And, without running
any risk of writer’s cramp, she might have signed it.
However, these were small matters. No doubt the dear girl had been in a
hurry and so forth. The important point was that he was going to see
her. When a man’s afraid, sings the bard, a beautiful maid is a
cheering sight to see; and the same truth holds good when a man has
made an exhibition of himself at a ship’s concert. A woman’s gentle
sympathy, that was what Samuel Marlowe wanted more than anything else
at the moment. That, he felt, was what the doctor ordered. He scrubbed
the burnt cork off his face with all possible speed and changed his
clothes and made his way to the upper deck. It was like Billie, he
felt, to have chosen this spot for their meeting. It would be deserted
and it was hallowed for them both by sacred associations.
She was standing at the rail, looking out over the water. The moon was
quite full. Out on the horizon to the south its light shone on the sea,
making it look like the silver beach of some distant fairy island. The
girl appeared to be wrapped in thought and it was not till the sharp
crack of Sam’s head against an overhanging stanchion announced his
approach, that she turned.
“Oh, is that you?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been a long time.”
“It wasn’t an easy job,” explained Sam, “getting all that burnt cork
off. You’ve no notion how the stuff sticks. You have to use butter....”
She shuddered.
“Don’t!”
“But I did. You have to with burnt cork.”
“Don’t tell me these horrible things.” Her voice rose almost
hysterically. “I never want to hear the words burnt cork mentioned
again as long as I live.”
“I feel exactly the same.” Sam moved to her side. “Darling,” he said in
a low voice, “it was like you to ask me to meet you here. I know what
you were thinking. You thought that I should need sympathy. You wanted
to pet me, to smooth my wounded feelings, to hold me in your arms and
tell me that, as we loved each other, what did anything else matter?”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh, you didn’t? I thought you did!” He looked at her wistfully. “I
thought,” he said, “that possibly you might have wished to comfort me.
I have been through a great strain. I have had a shock....”
“And what about me?” she demanded passionately. “Haven’t I had a
shock?”
He melted at once.
“Have you had a shock too? Poor little thing! Sit down and tell me all
about it.”
She looked away from him, her face working.
“Can’t you understand what a shock I have had? I thought you were the
perfect knight.”
“Yes, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t what?”
“I thought you said it was a perfect night.”
“I said I thought _you_ were the perfect knight.”
“Oh, ah!”
A sailor crossed the deck, a dim figure in the shadows, went over to a
sort of raised summerhouse with a brass thingummy in it, fooled about
for a moment, and went away again. Sailors earn their money easily.
“Yes?” said Sam when he had gone.
“I forget what I was saying.”
“Something about my being the perfect knight.”
“Yes. I thought you were.”
“That’s good.”
“But you’re not!”
“No?”
“No!”
“Oh!”
Silence fell. Sam was feeling hurt and bewildered. He could not
understand her mood. He had come up expecting to be soothed and
comforted and she was like a petulant iceberg. Cynically, he recalled
some lines of poetry which he had had to write out a hundred times on
one occasion at school as a punishment for having introduced a white
mouse into chapel.
“Oh, woman, in our hours of ease,
Un-something, something, something, please.
When tiddly-umpty umpty brow,
A something something something thou!”
He had forgotten the exact words, but the gist of it had been that
Woman, however she might treat a man in times of prosperity, could be
relied on to rally round and do the right thing when he was in trouble.
How little the poet had known woman.
“Why not?” he said huffily.
She gave a little sob.
“I put you on a pedestal and I find you have feet of clay. You have
blurred the image which I formed of you. I can never think of you again
without picturing you as you stood in that saloon, stammering and
helpless....”
“Well, what can you do when your pianist runs out on you?”
“You could have done _something!_” The words she had spoken only
yesterday to Jane Hubbard came back to her. “I can’t forgive a man for
looking ridiculous. Oh, what, what,” she cried, “induced you to try to
give an imitation of Bert Williams?”
Sam started, stung to the quick.
“It wasn’t Bert Williams. It was Frank Tinney!”
“Well, how was I to know?”
“I did my best,” said Sam sullenly.
“That is the awful thought.”
“I did it for your sake.”
“I know. It gives me a horrible sense of guilt.” She shuddered again.
Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a
small black golliwog into his hand. “Take it!”
“What’s this?”
“You bought it for me yesterday at the barber’s shop. It is the only
present which you have given me. Take it back.”
“I don’t want it. I shouldn’t know what to do with it.”
“You must take it,” she said in a low voice. “It is a symbol.”
“A what?”
“A symbol of our broken love.”
“I don’t see how you make that out. It’s a golliwog.”
“I can never marry you now.”
“What! Good heavens! Don’t be absurd.”
“I can’t!”
“Oh, go on, have a dash at it,” he said encouragingly, though his heart
was sinking.
She shook her head.
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Oh, hang it all!”
“I couldn’t. I’m a very strange girl....”
“You’re a very silly girl....”
“I don’t see what right you have to say that,” she flared.
“I don’t see what right you have to say you can’t marry me and try to
load me up with golliwogs,” he retorted with equal heat.
“Oh, can’t you understand?”
“No, I’m dashed if I can.”
She looked at him despondently.
“When I said I would marry you, you were a hero to me. You stood to me
for everything that was noble and brave and wonderful. I had only to
shut my eyes to conjure up the picture of you as you dived off the rail
that morning. Now—” her voice trembled “—if I shut my eyes now, I can
only see a man with a hideous black face making himself the laughing
stock of the ship. How could I marry you, haunted by that picture?”
“But, good heavens, you talk as though I made a habit of blacking up!
You talk as though you expected me to come to the altar smothered in
burnt cork.”
“I shall always think of you as I saw you to-night.” She looked at him
sadly. “There’s a bit of black still on your left ear.”
He tried to take her hand. But she drew it away. He fell back as if
struck.
“So this is the end,” he muttered.
“Yes. It’s partly on your ear and partly on your cheek.”
“So this is the end,” he repeated.
“You had better go below and ask your steward to give you some more
butter.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Well, I might have expected it. I might have known what would happen!
Eustace warned me. Eustace was right. He knows women—as I do now.
Women! What mighty ills have not been done by woman? Who was’t betrayed
the what’s-its-name? A woman! Who lost ... lost ... who lost ...
who—er—and so on? A woman.... So all is over! There is nothing to be
said but good-bye?”
“No.”
“Good-bye, then, Miss Bennett!”
“Good-bye,” said Billie sadly. “I—I’m sorry.”
“Don’t mention it!”
“You do understand, don’t you?”
“You have made everything perfectly clear.”
“I hope—I hope you won’t be unhappy.”
“Unhappy!” Sam produced a strangled noise from his larynx like the cry
of a shrimp in pain. “Unhappy! Ha! ha! I’m not unhappy! Whatever gave
you that idea? I’m smiling! I’m laughing! I feel I’ve had a merciful
escape. Oh, ha, ha!”
“It’s very unkind and rude of you to say that.”
“It reminds me of a moving picture I saw in New York. It was called
‘Saved from the Scaffold.’”
“Oh!”
“I’m not unhappy! What have I got to be unhappy about? What on earth
does any man want to get married for? I don’t. Give me my gay bachelor
life! My Uncle Charlie used to say ‘It’s better luck to get married
than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.’ But _he_ was a man who
always looked on the bright side. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And
good-bye—for ever.”
He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven
the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken
bravely; the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he
had made a good exit. But already his heart was aching.
As he drew near to his state-room, he was amazed and disgusted to hear
a high tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed
door.
“I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor,
Though his lance be sharrrp and—er keen;
But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour
Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen:
I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour....”
Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should still
be alive was bad—he had pictured him hurling himself overboard and
bobbing about, a pleasing sight in the wake of the vessel; that he
should be singing was an outrage. Remorse, Sam felt, should have
stricken Eustace Hignett dumb. Instead of which, here he was comporting
himself like a blasted linnet. It was all wrong. The man could have no
conscience whatever.
“Well,” he said sternly, “so there you are!”
Eustace Hignett looked up brightly, even beamingly. In the brief
interval which had elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an
extraordinary transformation had taken place in this young man. His wan
look had disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face wore that beastly
self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertising certain
makes of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had been a full-page
drawing in a magazine with “My dear fellow, I always wear Sigsbee’s
Super-fine Featherweight!” printed underneath him, he could not have
looked more pleased with himself.
“Hullo!” he said. “I was wondering where you had got to.”
“Never mind,” said Sam coldly, “where I had got to! Where did you get
to and why? You poor, miserable worm,” he went on in a burst of
generous indignation, “what have you to say for yourself? What do you
mean by dashing away like that and killing my little entertainment?”
“Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn’t foreseen the cigar. I was bearing up
tolerably well till I began to sniff the smoke. Then everything seemed
to go black—I don’t mean you, of course. You were black already—and I
got the feeling that I simply must get on deck and drown myself.”
“Well, why didn’t you?” demanded Sam with a strong sense of injury. “I
might have forgiven you then. But to come down here and find you
singing....”
A soft light came into Eustace Hignett’s eyes.
“I want to tell you all about that,” he said.
“It’s the most astonishing story. A miracle, you might almost call it.
Makes you believe in Fate and all that kind of thing. A week ago I was
on the Subway in New York....”
He broke off while Sam cursed him, the Subway, and the city of New York
in the order named.
“My dear chap, what is the matter?”
“What is the matter? Ha!”
“Something is the matter,” persisted Eustace Hignett. “I can tell it by
your manner. Something has happened to disturb and upset you. I know
you so well that I can pierce the mask. What is it? Tell me!”
“Ha, ha!”
“You surely can’t still be brooding on that concert business? Why,
that’s all over. I take it that after my departure you made the most
colossal ass of yourself, but why let that worry you? These things
cannot affect one permanently.”
“Can’t they? Let me tell you that, as a result of that concert, my
engagement is broken off.”
Eustace sprang forward with outstretched hand.
“Not really? How splendid! Accept my congratulations! This is the
finest thing that could possibly have happened. These are not idle
words. As one who has been engaged to the girl himself, I speak
feelingly. You are well out of it, Sam.”
Sam thrust aside his hand. Had it been his neck he might have clutched
it eagerly, but he drew the line at shaking hands with Eustace Hignett.
“My heart is broken,” he said with dignity.
“That feeling will pass, giving way to one of devout thankfulness. I
know. I’ve been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what is
she? A rag and a bone and a hank of hair!”
“She is nothing of the kind,” said Sam, revolted.
“Pardon me,” said Eustace firmly, “I speak as an expert. I know her and
I repeat, she is a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!”
“She is the only girl in the world, and, owing to your idiotic
behaviour, I have lost her.”
“You speak of the only girl in the world,” said Eustace blithely. “If
you want to hear about the only girl in the world, I will tell you. A
week ago I was on the Subway in New York....”
“I’m going to bed,” said Sam brusquely.
“All right. I’ll tell you while you’re undressing.”
“I don’t want to listen.”
“A week ago,” said Eustace Hignett, “I will ask you to picture me
seated after some difficulty in a carriage in the New York Subway. I
got into conversation with a girl with an elephant gun.”
Sam revised his private commination service in order to include the
elephant gun.
“She was my soul-mate,” proceeded Eustace with quiet determination. “I
didn’t know it at the time, but she was. She had grave brown eyes, a
wonderful personality, and this elephant gun.”
“Did she shoot you with it?”
“Shoot me? What do you mean? Why, no!”
“The girl must have been a fool!” said Sam bitterly. “The chance of a
lifetime and she missed it. Where are my pyjamas?”
“I haven’t seen your pyjamas. She talked to me about this elephant gun,
and explained its mechanism. She told me the correct part of a
hippopotamus to aim at, how to make a nourishing soup out of mangoes,
and what to do when bitten by a Borneo wire-snake. You can imagine how
she soothed my aching heart. My heart, if you recollect, was aching at
the moment—quite unnecessarily if I had only known—because it was only
a couple of days since my engagement to Wilhelmina Bennett had been
broken off. Well, we parted at Sixty-sixth Street, and, strange as it
may seem, I forgot all about her.”
“Do it again!”
“Tell it again?”
“Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again.”
“Nothing,” said Eustace Hignett gravely, “could make me do that. Our
souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their
deepest depths, saying.... There are your pyjamas, over in the corner
... saying ‘You are mine!’ How could I forget her after that? Well, as
I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this
very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed on the deck....”
“Did you writhe?” asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest.
“I certainly did!”
“That’s good!”
“But not for long.”
“That’s bad!”
“She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel.”
“Switch off the light when you’ve finished.”
“She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There are
some situations which do not need words. She went away and returned
with a mixture of some description in a glass. I don’t know what it
was. It had Worcester Sauce in it. She put it to my lips. She made me
drink it. She said it was what she always used in Africa for
bull-calves with the staggers. Well, believe me or believe me not ...
are you asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Believe me or believe me not, in under two minutes I was not merely
freed from the nausea caused by your cigar. I was smoking myself! I was
walking the deck with her without the slightest qualm. I was even able
to look over the side from time to time and comment on the beauty of
the moon on the water.... I have said some mordant things about women
since I came on board this boat. I withdraw them unreservedly. They
still apply to girls like Wilhelmina Bennett, but I have ceased to
include the whole sex in my remarks. Jane Hubbard has restored my faith
in Woman. Sam! Sam!”
“What?”
“I said that Jane Hubbard had restored my faith in Woman.”
“Oh, all right.”
Eustace Hignett finished undressing and got into bed. With a soft smile
on his face he switched off the light. There was a long silence, broken
only by the distant purring of the engines.
At about twelve-thirty a voice came from the lower berth.
“Sam!”
“What is it now?”
“There is a sweet womanly strength about her, Sam. She was telling me
she once killed a panther with a hat-pin.”
Sam groaned and tossed on his mattress.
Silence fell again.
“At least I think it was a panther,” said Eustace Hignett at a quarter
past one. “Either a panther or a puma.”
CHAPTER VIII.
SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION
§ 1
A week after the liner “Atlantic” had docked at Southampton Sam Marlowe
might have been observed—and was observed by various of the
residents—sitting on a bench on the esplanade of that rising
watering-place, Bingley-on-the-Sea, in Sussex. All watering-places on
the south coast of England are blots on the landscape, but though I am
aware that by saying it I shall offend the civic pride of some of the
others—none are so peculiarly foul as Bingley-on-the-Sea. The asphalte
on the Bingley esplanade is several degrees more depressing than the
asphalte on other esplanades. The Swiss waiters at the Hotel
Magnificent, where Sam was stopping, are in a class of bungling
incompetence by themselves, the envy and despair of all the other Swiss
waiters at all the other Hotels Magnificent along the coast. For
dreariness of aspect Bingley-on-the-Sea stands alone. The very waves
that break on its shingle seem to creep up the beach reluctantly, as if
it revolted them to have to come to such a place.
Why, then, was Sam Marlowe visiting this ozone-swept Gehenna? Why, with
all the rest of England at his disposal, had he chosen to spend a week
at breezy, blighted Bingley?
Simply because he had been disappointed in love.
Nothing is more curious than the myriad ways in which reaction from an
unfortunate love-affair manifests itself in various men. No two males
behave in the same way under the spur of female fickleness.
_Archilochum_, for instance, according to the Roman writer, _proprio
rabies armavit iambo_. It is no good pretending out of politeness that
you know what that means, so I will translate. _Rabies_—his
grouch—_armavit_—armed—_Archilochum_— Archilochus—_iambo_—with the
iambic—_proprio_—his own invention. In other words, when the poet
Archilochus was handed his hat by the lady of his affections, he
consoled himself by going off and writing satirical verse about her in
a new metre which he had thought up immediately after leaving the
house. That was the way the thing affected him.
On the other hand, we read in a recent issue of a London daily paper
that John Simmons (31), a meat-salesman, was accused of assaulting an
officer while in the discharge of his duty, at the same time using
profane language whereby the officer went in fear of his life.
Constable Riggs deposed that on the evening of the eleventh instant
while he was on his beat, prisoner accosted him and, after offering to
fight him for fourpence, drew off his right boot and threw it at his
head. Accused, questioned by the magistrate, admitted the charge and
expressed regret, pleading that he had had words with his young woman,
and it had upset him.
Neither of these courses appealed to Samuel Marlowe. He had sought
relief by slinking off alone to the Hotel Magnificent at
Bingley-on-the-Sea. It was the same spirit which has often moved other
men in similar circumstances to go off to the Rockies to shoot
grizzlies.
To a certain extent the Hotel Magnificent had dulled the pain. At any
rate, the service and cooking there had done much to take his mind off
it. His heart still ached, but he felt equal to going to London and
seeing his father, which of course he ought to have done seven days
before.
He rose from his bench—he had sat down on it directly after
breakfast—and went back to the hotel to inquire about trains. An hour
later he had begun his journey and two hours after that he was at the
door of his father’s office.
The offices of the old-established firm of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott,
Winslow and Appleby are in Ridgeway’s Inn, not far from Fleet Street.
The brass plate, let into the woodwork of the door, is misleading.
Reading it, you get the impression that on the other side quite a covey
of lawyers await your arrival. The name of the firm leads you to
suppose that there will be barely standing-room in the office. You
picture Thorpe jostling you aside as he makes for Prescott to discuss
with him the latest case of demurrer, and Winslow and Appleby treading
on your toes, deep in conversation on replevin. But these legal firms
dwindle. The years go by and take their toll, snatching away here a
Prescott, there an Appleby, till, before you know where you are, you
are down to your last lawyer. The only surviving member of the firm of
Marlowe, Thorpe—what I said before—was, at the time with which this
story deals, Sir Mallaby Marlowe, son of the original founder of the
firm and father of the celebrated black-face comedian, Samuel of that
ilk; and the outer office, where callers were received and parked till
Sir Mallaby could find time for them, was occupied by a single clerk.
When Sam opened the door this clerk, John Peters by name, was seated on
a high stool, holding in one hand a half-eaten sausage, in the other an
extraordinarily large and powerful-looking revolver. At the sight of
Sam he laid down both engines of destruction and beamed. He was not a
particularly successful beamer, being hampered by a cast in one eye
which gave him a truculent and sinister look; but those who knew him
knew that he had a heart of gold and were not intimidated by his
repellent face. Between Sam and himself there had always existed terms
of great cordiality, starting from the time when the former was a small
boy and it had been John Peters’ mission to take him now to the Zoo,
now to the train back to school.
“Why, Mr. Samuel!”
“Hullo, Peters!”
“We were expecting you back a week ago.”
“Oh, I had something to see to before I came to town,” said Sam
carelessly.
“So you got back safe!” said John Peters.
“Safe! Why, of course.”
Peters shook his head.
“I confess that, when there was this delay in your coming here, I
sometimes feared something might have happened to you. I recall
mentioning it to the young lady who recently did me the honour to
promise to become my wife.”
“Ocean liners aren’t often wrecked nowadays.”
“I was thinking more of the brawls on shore. America’s a dangerous
country. But perhaps you were not in touch with the underworld?”
“I don’t think I was.”
“Ah!” said John Peters significantly.
He took up the revolver, gave it a fond and almost paternal look, and
replaced it on the desk.
“What on earth are you doing with that thing?” asked Sam.
Mr. Peters lowered his voice.
“I’m going to America myself in a few days’ time, Mr. Samuel. It’s my
annual holiday, and the guv’nor’s sending me over with papers in
connection with The People _v._ Schultz and Bowen. It’s a big case over
there. A client of ours is mixed up in it, an American gentleman. I am
to take these important papers to his legal representative in New York.
So I thought it best to be prepared.”
The first smile that he had permitted himself for nearly two weeks
flitted across Sam’s face.
“What on earth sort of place do you think New York is?” he asked. “It’s
safer than London.”
“Ah, but what about the Underworld? I’ve seen these American films that
they send over here, Mr. Samuel. Did you ever see ‘Wolves of the
Bowery?’ There was a man in that in just my position, carrying
important papers, and what they didn’t try to do to him! No, I’m taking
no chances, Mr. Samuel!”
“I should have said you were, lugging that thing about with you.”
Mr. Peters seemed wounded.
“Oh, I understand the mechanism perfectly, and I am becoming a very
fair shot. I take my little bite of food in here early and go and
practise at the Rupert Street Rifle Range during my lunch hour. You’d
be surprised how quickly one picks it up. When I get home of a night I
try how quickly I can draw. You have to draw like a flash of lightning,
Mr. Samuel. If you’d ever seen a film called ‘Two-Gun-Thomas,’ you’d
realise that. You haven’t time to wait loitering about.”
Mr. Peters picked up a speaking-tube and blew down it.
“Mr. Samuel to see you, Sir Mallaby. Yes, sir, very good. Will you go
right in, Mr. Samuel?”
Sam proceeded to the inner office, and found his father dictating into
the attentive ear of Miss Milliken, his elderly and respectable
stenographer, replies to his morning mail.
Sir Mallaby Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful
face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London’s best
tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink
carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf
handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace Hignett, considered him
worldly.
“Dear Sirs,—We are in receipt of your favour and in reply beg to state
that nothing will induce us ... will induce us ... where did I put that
letter? Ah!... nothing will induce us ... oh, tell ’em to go to blazes,
Miss Milliken.”
“Very well, Sir Mallaby.”
“That’s that. Ready? Messrs. Brigney, Goole and Butterworth. What
infernal names these people have. Sirs,—On behalf of our client ... oh,
hullo, Sam!”
“Good morning, father.”
“Take a seat. I’m busy, but I’ll be finished in a moment. Where was I,
Miss Milliken?”
“‘On behalf of our client....’”
“Oh, yes. On behalf of our client Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw.... Where
these people get their names I’m hanged if I know. Your poor mother
wanted to call you Hyacinth, Sam. You may not know it, but in the
’nineties when you were born, children were frequently christened
Hyacinth. Well, I saved you from that.”
His attention now diverted to his son, Sir Mallaby seemed to remember
that the latter had just returned from a long journey and that he had
not seen him for many weeks. He inspected him with interest.
“Very glad you’re back, Sam. So you didn’t win?”
“No, I got beaten in the semi-finals.”
“American amateurs are a very hot lot, the best ones. I suppose you
were weak on the greens. I warned you about that. You’ll have to rub up
your putting before next year.”
At the idea that any such mundane pursuit as practising putting could
appeal to his broken spirit now, Sam uttered a bitter laugh. It was as
if Dante had recommended some lost soul in the Inferno to occupy his
mind by knitting jumpers.
“Well, you seem to be in great spirits,” said Sir Mallaby approvingly.
“It’s pleasant to hear your merry laugh again. Isn’t it, Miss
Milliken?”
“Extremely exhilarating,” agreed the stenographer, adjusting her
spectacles and smiling at Sam, for whom there was a soft spot in her
heart.
A sense of the futility of life oppressed Sam. As he gazed in the glass
that morning, he had thought, not without a certain gloomy
satisfaction, how remarkably pale and drawn his face looked. And these
people seemed to imagine that he was in the highest spirits. His
laughter, which had sounded to him like the wailing of a demon, struck
Miss Milliken as exhilarating.
“On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw,” said Sir Mallaby,
swooping back to duty once more, “we beg to state that we are prepared
to accept service ... what time did you dock this morning?”
“I landed nearly a week ago.”
“A week ago! Then what the deuce have you been doing with yourself? Why
haven’t I seen you?”
“I’ve been down at Bingley-on-the-Sea.”
“Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that God-forsaken place?”
“Wrestling with myself,” said Sam with simple dignity.
Sir Mallaby’s agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was
answering.
“We should be glad to meet you.... Wrestling, eh? Well, I like a boy to
be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn’t all athletics. Don’t forget
that. Life is real! Life is ... how does it go, Miss Milliken?”
Miss Milliken folded her hands and shut her eyes, her invariable habit
when called upon to recite.
“Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; dust
thou art to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Art is long and
time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like
muffled drums are beating, Funeral marches to the grave. Lives of great
men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave
behind us footsteps on the sands of Time. Let us then ...” said Miss
Milliken respectfully, ... “be up and doing....”
“All right, all right, all right!” said Sir Mallaby. “I don’t want it
all. Life is real! Life is earnest, Sam. I want to speak to you about
that when I’ve finished answering these letters. Where was I? ‘We
should be glad to meet you at any time, if you will make an
appointment....’ Bingley-on-the-Sea! Good heavens! Why
Bingley-on-the-Sea? Why not Margate while you were about it?”
“Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my
mood. It was grey and dark and it rained all the time, and the sea
slunk about in the distance like some baffled beast....”
He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir
Mallaby’s attention had returned to the letter.
“Oh, what’s the good of answering the dashed thing at all?” said Sir
Mallaby. “Brigney, Goole and Butterworth know perfectly well that
they’ve got us in a cleft stick. Butterworth knows it better than
Goole, and Brigney knows it better than Butterworth. This young fool,
Eggshaw, Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters,
twelve of them in verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to
marry him, and he comes to me and expects me to get him out of it. The
girl is suing him for ten thousand.”
“How like a woman!”
Miss Milliken bridled reproachfully at this slur on her sex. Sir
Mallaby took no notice of it whatever.
“... if you will make an appointment, when we can discuss the matter
without prejudice. Get those typed, Miss Milliken. Have a cigar, Sam.
Miss Milliken, tell Peters as you go out that I am occupied with a
conference and can see nobody for half an hour.”
When Miss Milliken had withdrawn Sir Mallaby occupied ten seconds of
the period which he had set aside for communion with his son in staring
silently at him.
“I’m glad you’re back, Sam,” he said at length. “I want to have a talk
with you. You know, it’s time you were settling down. I’ve been
thinking about you while you were in America and I’ve come to the
conclusion that I’ve been letting you drift along. Very bad for a young
man. You’re getting on. I don’t say you’re senile, but you’re not
twenty-one any longer, and at your age I was working like a beaver.
You’ve got to remember that life is—dash it! I’ve forgotten it again.”
He broke off and puffed vigorously into the speaking tube. “Miss
Milliken, kindly repeat what you were saying just now about life....
Yes, yes, that’s enough!” He put down the instrument. “Yes, life is
real, life is earnest,” he said, gazing at Sam seriously, “and the
grave is not our goal. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our
lives sublime. In fact, it’s time you took your coat off and started
work.”
“I am quite ready, father.”
“You didn’t hear what I said,” exclaimed Sir Mallaby, with a look of
surprise. “I said it was time you began work.”
“And I said I was quite ready.”
“Bless my soul! You’ve changed your views a trifle since I saw you
last.”
“I have changed them altogether.”
Long hours of brooding among the red plush settees in the lounge of the
Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea had brought about this strange,
even morbid, attitude of mind in Samuel Marlowe. Work, he had decided,
was the only medicine for his sick soul. Here, he felt, in this quiet
office, far from the tumult and noise of the world, in a haven of torts
and misdemeanours and Vic. I. cap. 3’s, and all the rest of it, he
might find peace. At any rate, it was worth taking a stab at it.
“Your trip has done you good,” said Sir Mallaby approvingly. “The sea
air has given you some sense. I’m glad of it. It makes it easier for me
to say something else that I’ve had on my mind for a good while. Sam,
it’s time you got married.”
Sam barked bitterly. His father looked at him with concern.
“Swallow some smoke the wrong way?”
“I was laughing,” explained Sam with dignity.
Sir Mallaby shook his head.
“I don’t want to discourage your high spirits, but I must ask you to
approach this matter seriously. Marriage would do you a world of good,
Sam. It would brace you up. You really ought to consider the idea. I
was two years younger than you are when I married your poor mother, and
it was the making of me. A wife might make something of you.”
“Impossible!”
“I don’t see why she shouldn’t. There’s lots of good in you, my boy,
though you may not think so.”
“When I said it was impossible,” said Sam coldly, “I was referring to
the impossibility of the possibility.... I mean, that it was impossible
that I could possibly ... in other words, father, I can never marry. My
heart is dead.”
“Your what?”
“My heart.”
“Don’t be a fool. There’s nothing wrong with your heart. All our family
have had hearts like steam-engines. Probably you have been feeling a
sort of burning. Knock off cigars and that will soon stop.”
“You don’t understand me. I mean that a woman has treated me in a way
that has finished her whole sex as far as I am concerned. For me, women
do not exist.”
“You didn’t tell me about this,” said Sir Mallaby, interested. “When
did this happen? Did she jilt you?”
“Yes.”
“In America, was it?”
“On the boat.”
Sir Mallaby chuckled heartily.
“My dear boy, you don’t mean to tell me that you’re taking a shipboard
flirtation seriously? Why, you’re expected to fall in love with a
different girl every time you go on a voyage. You’ll get over this in a
week. You’d have got over it by now if you hadn’t gone and buried
yourself in a depressing place like Bingley-on-the-Sea.”
The whistle of the speaking-tube blew. Sir Mallaby put the instrument
to his ear.
“All right,” he turned to Sam. “I shall have to send you away now, Sam.
Man waiting to see me. Good-bye. By the way, are you doing anything
to-night?”
“No.”
“Not got a wrestling match on with yourself, or anything like that?
Well, come to dinner at the house. Seven-thirty. Don’t be late.”
Sam went out. As he passed through the outer office, Miss Milliken
intercepted him.
“Oh, Mr. Sam!”
“Yes?”
“Excuse me, but will you be seeing Sir Mallaby again to-day?”
“I’m dining with him to-night.”
“Then would you—I don’t like to disturb him now, when he is busy—would
you mind telling him that I inadvertently omitted a stanza? It runs,”
said Miss Milliken, closing her eyes, “‘Trust no future, howe’er
pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act, in the living
present, Heart within and God o’erhead!’ Thank you so much. Good
afternoon.”
§ 2
Sam, reaching Bruton Street at a quarter past seven, was informed by
the butler who admitted him that his father was dressing and would be
down in a few minutes. The butler, an old retainer of the Marlowe
family, who, if he had not actually dandled Sam on his knees when an
infant, had known him as a small boy, was delighted to see him again.
“Missed you very much, Mr. Samuel, we all have,” he said
affectionately, as he preceded him to the drawing-room.
“Yes?” said Sam absently.
“Very much indeed, sir. I happened to remark only the other day that
the place didn’t seem the same without your happy laugh. It’s good to
see you back once more, looking so well and merry.”
Sam stalked into the drawing-room with the feeling that comes to all of
us from time to time, that it is hopeless to struggle. The whole damned
circle of his acquaintance seemed to have made up their minds that he
had not a care in the world, so what was the use? He lowered himself
into a deep arm-chair and lit a cigarette.
Presently the butler reappeared with a cocktail on a tray. Sam drained
it, and scarcely had the door closed behind the old retainer when an
abrupt change came over the whole outlook. It was as if he had been a
pianola and somebody had inserted a new record. Looking well and happy!
He blew a smoke ring. Well, if it came to that, why not? Why shouldn’t
he look well and happy? What had he got to worry about? He was a young
man, fit and strong, in the springtide of life, just about to plunge
into an absorbing business. Why should he brood over a sentimental
episode which had ended a little unfortunately? He would never see the
girl again. If anything in this world was certain, that was. She would
go her way, and he his. Samuel Marlowe rose from his chair a new man,
to greet his father, who came in at that moment fingering a snowy white
tie.
Sam started at his parent’s splendour in some consternation.
“Great Scot, father! Are you expecting a lot of people? I thought we
were dining alone.”
“That’s all right, my boy. A dinner-jacket is perfectly in order. We
shall be quite a small party. Six in all. You and I, a friend of mine
and his daughter, a friend of my friend’s friend and my friend’s
friend’s son.”
“Surely that’s more than six!”
“No.”
“It sounded more.”
“Six,” said Sir Mallaby firmly. He raised a shapely hand with the
fingers outspread. “Count ’em for yourself.” He twiddled his thumb.
“Number one—Bennett.”
“Who?” cried Sam.
“Bennett. Rufus Bennett. He’s an American over here for the summer.
Haven’t I ever mentioned his name to you? He’s a great fellow. Always
thinking he’s at death’s door, but keeps up a fine appetite. I’ve been
his legal representative in London for years. Then—” Sir Mallaby
twiddled his first finger—“there’s his daughter Wilhelmina, who has
just arrived in England.” A look of enthusiasm came into Sir Mallaby’s
face. “Sam, my boy, I don’t intend to say a word about Miss Wilhelmina
Bennett, because I think there’s nothing more prejudicial than singing
a person’s praises in advance. I merely remark that I fancy you will
appreciate her! I’ve only met her once, and then only for a few
minutes, but what I say is, if there’s a girl living who’s likely to
make you forget whatever fool of a woman you may be fancying yourself
in love with at the moment, that girl is Wilhelmina Bennett! The others
are Bennett’s friend, Henry Mortimer, also an American—a big lawyer, I
believe, on the other side—and his son Bream. I haven’t met either of
them. They ought to be here any moment now.” He looked at his watch.
“Ah! I think that was the front door. Yes, I can hear them on the
stairs.”
CHAPTER IX.
ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE
§ 1
After the first shock of astonishment, Sam Marlowe had listened to his
father’s harangue with a growing indignation which, towards the end of
the speech, had assumed proportions of a cold fury. If there is one
thing the which your high-spirited young man resents, it is being the
toy of Fate. He chafes at the idea that Fate had got it all mapped out
for him. Fate, thought Sam, had constructed a cheap, mushy,
sentimental, five-reel film scenario, and without consulting him had
had the cool cheek to cast him for one of the puppets. He seemed to see
Fate as a thin female with a soppy expression and pince-nez, sniffing a
little as she worked the thing out. He could picture her glutinous
satisfaction as she re-read her scenario and gloated over its sure-fire
qualities. There was not a flaw in the construction. It started off
splendidly with a romantic meeting, had ’em guessing half-way through
when the hero and heroine quarrelled and parted—apparently for ever,
and now the stage was all set for the reconciliation and the slow
fade-out on the embrace. To bring this last scene about, Fate had had
to permit herself a slight coincidence, but she did not jib at that.
What we call coincidences are merely the occasions when Fate gets stuck
in a plot and has to invent the next situation in a hurry.
Sam Marlowe felt sulky and defiant. This girl had treated him
shamefully and he wanted to have nothing more to do with her. If he had
had his wish, he would never have met her again. Fate, in her
interfering way, had forced this meeting on him and was now
complacently looking to him to behave in a suitable manner. Well, he
would show her! In a few seconds now, Billie and he would be meeting.
He would be distant and polite. He would be cold and aloof. He would
chill her to the bone, and rip a hole in the scenario six feet wide.
The door opened, and the room became full of Bennetts and Mortimers.
§ 2
Billie, looking, as Marlowe could not but admit, particularly pretty,
headed the procession. Following her came a large red-faced man whose
buttons seemed to creak beneath the strain of their duties. After him
trotted a small, thin, pale, semi-bald individual who wore glasses and
carried his nose raised and puckered as though some faintly unpleasant
smell were troubling his nostrils. The fourth member of the party was
dear old Bream.
There was a confused noise of mutual greetings and introductions, and
then Bream got a good sight of Sam and napped forward with his right
wing outstretched.
“Why, hello!” said Bream.
“How are you, Mortimer?” said Sam coldly.
“What, do you know my son?” exclaimed Sir Mallaby.
“Came over in the boat together,” said Bream.
“Capital!” said Sir Mallaby. “Old friends, eh? Miss Bennett,” he turned
to Billie, who had been staring wide-eyed at her late fiancé, “let me
present my son, Sam. Sam, this is Miss Bennett.”
“How do you do?” said Sam.
“How do you do?” said Billie.
“Bennett, you’ve never met my son, I think?”
Mr. Bennett peered at Sam with protruding eyes which gave him the
appearance of a rather unusually stout prawn.
“How _are_ you?” he asked, with such intensity that Sam unconsciously
found himself replying to a question which does not as a rule call for
any answer.
“Very well, thanks.”
Mr. Bennett shook his head moodily. “You are lucky to be able to say
so! Very few of us can assert as much. I can truthfully say that in the
last fifteen years I have not known what it is to enjoy sound health
for a single day. Marlowe,” he proceeded, swinging ponderously round on
Sir Mallaby like a liner turning in the river, “I assure you that at
twenty-five minutes past four this afternoon I was very nearly
convinced that I should have to call you up on the ’phone and cancel
this dinner engagement. When I took my temperature at twenty minutes to
six....” At this point the butler appeared at the door announcing that
dinner was served.
Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s dinner table, which, like most of the furniture
in the house had belonged to his deceased father and had been built at
a period when people liked things big and solid, was a good deal too
spacious to be really ideal for a small party. A white sea of linen
separated each diner from the diner opposite and created a forced
intimacy with the person seated next to him. Billie Bennett and Sam
Marlowe, as a consequence, found themselves, if not exactly in a
solitude of their own, at least sufficiently cut off from their kind to
make silence between them impossible. Westward, Mr. Mortimer had
engaged Sir Mallaby in a discussion on the recent case of Ouseley _v._
Ouseley, Figg, Mountjoy, Moseby-Smith and others, which though too
complicated to explain here, presented points of considerable interest
to the legal mind. To the east, Mr. Bennett was relating to Bream the
more striking of his recent symptoms. Billie felt constrained to make
at least an attempt at conversation.
“How strange meeting you here,” she said.
Sam, who had been crumbling bread in an easy and debonair manner,
looked up and met her eye. Its expression was one of cheerful
friendliness. He could not see his own eye, but he imagined and hoped
that it was cold and forbidding, like the surface of some bottomless
mountain tarn.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, how strange meeting you here. I never dreamed Sir Mallaby was
your father.”
“I knew it all along,” said Sam, and there was an interval caused by
the maid insinuating herself between them and collecting his soup
plate. He sipped sherry and felt a sombre self-satisfaction. He had, he
considered, given the conversation the right tone from the start. Cool
and distant. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Billie bite her lip.
He turned to her again. Now that he had definitely established the fact
that he and she were strangers, meeting by chance at a dinner-party, he
was in a position to go on talking.
“And how do you like England, Miss Bennett?”
Billie’s eye had lost its cheerful friendliness. A somewhat feline
expression had taken its place.
“Pretty well,” she replied.
“You don’t like it?”
“Well, the way I look at it is this. It’s no use grumbling. One has got
to realise that in England one is in a savage country, and one should
simply be thankful one isn’t eaten by the natives.”
“What makes you call England a savage country?” demanded Sam, a staunch
patriot, deeply stung.
“What would you call a country where you can’t get ice, central
heating, corn-on-the-cob, or bathrooms? My father and Mr. Mortimer have
just taken a house down on the coast and there’s just one niggly little
bathroom in the place.”
“Is that your only reason for condemning England?”
“Oh no, it has other drawbacks.”
“Such as?”
“Well, Englishmen, for instance. Young Englishmen in particular.
English young men are awful! Idle, rude, conceited, and ridiculous.”
Marlowe refused hock with a bitter intensity which nearly startled the
old retainer, who had just offered it to him, into dropping the
decanter.
“How many English young men have you met?”
Billie met his eye squarely and steadily. “Well, now that I come to
think of it, not many. In fact, very few. As a matter of fact,
only....”
“Only?”
“Well, very few,” said Billie. “Yes,” she said meditatively, “I suppose
I really have been rather unjust. I should not have condemned a class
simply because ... I mean, I suppose there _are_ young Englishmen who
are not rude and ridiculous?”
“I suppose there are American girls who have hearts.”
“Oh, plenty.”
“I’ll believe that when I meet one.”
Sam paused. Cold aloofness was all very well, but this conversation was
developing into a vulgar brawl. The ghosts of dead and gone Marlowes,
all noted for their courtesy to the sex, seemed to stand beside his
chair, eyeing him reprovingly. His work, they seemed to whisper, was
becoming raw. It was time to jerk the interchange of thought back into
the realm of distant civility.
“Are you making a long stay in London, Miss Bennett?”
“No, not long. We are going down to the country almost immediately. I
told you my father and Mr. Mortimer had taken a house there.”
“You will enjoy that.”
“I’m sure I shall. Mr. Mortimer’s son Bream will be there. That will be
nice.”
“Why?” said Sam, backsliding.
There was a pause.
“_He_ isn’t rude and ridiculous, eh?” said Sam gruffly.
“Oh, no. His manners are perfect, and he has such a natural dignity,”
she went on, looking affectionately across the table at the heir of the
Mortimers, who, finding Mr. Bennett’s medical confidences a trifle
fatiguing, was yawning broadly, and absently balancing his wine glass
on a fork.
“Besides,” said Billie in a soft and dreamy voice, “we are engaged to
be married!”
§ 3
Sam didn’t care, of course. We, who have had the privilege of a glimpse
into his iron soul, know that. He was not in the least upset by the
news—just surprised. He happened to be raising his glass at the moment,
and he registered a certain amount of restrained emotion by snapping
the stem in half and shooting the contents over the tablecloth: but
that was all.
“Good heavens, Sam!” ejaculated Sir Mallaby, aghast. His wine glasses
were an old and valued set.
Sam blushed as red as the stain on the cloth.
“Awfully sorry, father! Don’t know how it happened.”
“Something must have given you a shock,” suggested Billie kindly.
The old retainer rallied round with napkins, and Sir Mallaby, who was
just about to dismiss the affair with the polished ease of a good host,
suddenly became aware of the activities of Bream. That young man, on
whose dreamy calm the accident had made no impression whatever, had
successfully established the equilibrium of the glass and the fork, and
was now cautiously inserting beneath the latter a section of a roll,
the whole forming a charming picture in still life.
“If that glass is in your way....” said Sir Mallaby as soon as he had
hitched up his drooping jaw sufficiently to enable him to speak. He was
beginning to feel that he would be lucky if he came out of this
dinner-party with a mere remnant of his precious set.
“Oh, Sir Mallaby,” said Billie, casting an adoring glance at the
juggler, “you needn’t be afraid that Bream will drop it. _He_ isn’t
clumsy! He is wonderful at that sort of thing, simply wonderful! I
think it’s so splendid,” said Billie, “when men can do things like
that. I’m always trying to get Bream to do some of his tricks for
people, but he’s so modest, he won’t.”
“Refreshingly different,” Sir Mallaby considered, “from the average
drawing-room entertainer.”
“Yes,” said Billie emphatically. “I think the most terrible thing in
the world is a man who tries to entertain when he can’t. Did I tell you
about the man on board ship, father, at the ship’s concert? Oh, it was
the most awful thing you ever saw. Everybody was talking about it!” She
beamed round the table, and there was a note of fresh girlish gaiety in
her voice. “This man got up to do an imitation of somebody—nobody knows
to this day who it was meant to be—and he came into the saloon and
directly he saw the audience he got stage fright. He just stood there
gurgling and not saying a word, and then suddenly his nerve failed him
altogether and he turned and tore out of the room like a rabbit. He
absolutely ran! And he hadn’t said a word! It was the most ridiculous
exhibition I’ve ever seen!”
The anecdote went well. Of course there will always be a small minority
in any audience which does not appreciate a funny story, and there was
one in the present case. But the bulk of the company roared with
laughter.
“Do you mean,” cried Sir Mallaby, choking, “the poor idiot just stood
there dumb?”
“Well, he made a sort of yammering noise,” said Billie, “but that only
made him look sillier.”
“Deuced good!” chuckled Sir Mallaby.
“Funniest thing I ever heard in my life!” gurgled Mr. Bennett,
swallowing a digestive capsule.
“May have been half-witted,” suggested Mr. Mortimer.
Sam leaned across the table with a stern set face. He meant to change
the conversation if he had to do it with a crowbar.
“I hear you have taken a house in the country, Mr. Mortimer,” he said.
“Yes,” said Mr. Mortimer. He turned to Sir Mallaby. “We have at last
succeeded in persuading your sister, Mrs. Hignett, to let us rent her
house for the summer.”
Sir Mallaby gasped.
“Windles! You don’t mean to tell me that my sister has let you have
Windles!”
Mr. Mortimer nodded triumphantly.
“Yes. I had completely resigned myself to the prospect of spending the
summer in some other house, when yesterday I happened to run into your
nephew, young Eustace Hignett, on the street, and he said he was just
coming round to see me about that very thing. To cut a long story
short, he said that it would be all right and that we could have the
house.” Mr. Mortimer took a sip of burgundy. “He’s a curious boy, young
Hignett. Very nervous in his manner.”
“Chronic dyspepsia,” said Mr. Bennett authoritatively, “I can tell it
at a glance.”
“Is Windles a very lovely place, Sir Mallaby?” asked Billie.
“Charming. Quite charming. Not large, of course, as country houses go.
Not a castle, I mean, with hundreds of acres of park land. But nice and
compact and comfortable and very picturesque.”
“We do not require a large place,” said Mr. Mortimer. “We shall be
quite a small party. Bennett and myself, Wilhelmina, Bream....”
“Don’t forget,” said Billie, “that you have promised to invite Jane
Hubbard down there.”
“Ah, yes. Wilhelmina’s friend, Miss Hubbard. She is coming. That will
be all, except young Hignett himself.”
“Hignett!” cried Mr. Bennett.
“Mr. Hignett!” exclaimed Billie.
There was an almost imperceptible pause before Mr. Mortimer spoke
again, and for an instant the demon of embarrassment hovered, unseen
but present, above the dinner table. Mr. Bennett looked sternly at
Billie; Billie turned a shade pinker and gazed at the tablecloth; Bream
started nervously. Even Mr. Mortimer seemed robbed for a moment of his
legal calm.
“I forgot to tell you that,” he said. “Yes, one of the stipulations—to
which I personally was perfectly willing to agree—was that Eustace
Hignett was to remain on the premises during our tenancy. Such a clause
in the agreement was, I am quite aware, unusual, and, had the
circumstances been other than they were, I would have had a good deal
to say about it. But we wanted the place, and we couldn’t get it except
by agreeing, so I agreed. I’m sure you will think that I acted rightly,
Bennett, considering the peculiar circumstances.”
“Well,” said Mr. Bennett reluctantly, “I certainly did want that
house....”
“And we couldn’t have had it otherwise,” said Mr. Mortimer, “so that is
all there is to it.”
“Well, it need make no difference to you,” said Sir Mallaby. “I am sure
you will find my nephew Eustace most unobtrusive. He may even be an
entertaining companion. I believe he has a nice singing voice. With
that and the juggling of our friend here and my sister’s late husband’s
orchestrion, you will have no difficulty in amusing yourselves during
the evenings. You remember the orchestrion, Sam?” said Sir Mallaby, on
whom his son’s silence had been weighing rather heavily for some time.
“Yes,” said Sam, and returned to the silence once more.
“The late Mr. Hignett had it put in. He was very fond of music. It’s a
thing you turn on by pressing a button in the wall,” continued Sir
Mallaby. “How you stop it, I don’t know. When I was down there last it
never seemed to stop. You mustn’t miss the orchestrion!”
“I certainly shall,” said Mr. Bennett decidedly. “Music of that
description happens to be the one thing which jars unendurably on my
nerves. My nervous system is thoroughly out of tune.”
“So is the orchestrion,” said Sir Mallaby. “I remember once when I was
down there....”
“I hope you will come down there again, Sir Mallaby,” said Mr.
Mortimer, “during our occupancy of the house. And you, too,” he said,
addressing Sam.
“I am afraid,” said Sam frigidly, “that my time will be very much
occupied for the next few months. Thank you very much,” he added, after
a moment’s pause.
“Sam’s going to work,” said Sir Mallaby.
“Yes,” said Sam with dark determination. “Work is the only thing in
life that matters!”
“Oh, come, Sam!” said Sir Mallaby. “At your age I used to think love
was fairly important, too!”
“Love!” said Sam. He jabbed at his soufflé with a spoon. You could see
by the scornful way he did it that he did not think much of love.
§ 4
Sir Mallaby, the last cigar of the night between his lips, broke a
silence which had lasted a quarter of an hour. The guests had gone, and
he and Sam were alone together.
“Sam,” he said, “do you know what I think?”
“No,” said Sam.
Sir Mallaby removed his cigar and spoke impressively. “I’ve been
turning the whole thing over in my mind, and the conclusion I have come
to is that there is more in this Windles business than meets the eye.
I’ve known your Aunt Adeline all my life, and I tell you it isn’t in
that woman to change her infernal pig-headed mind, especially about
letting her house. She is a monomaniac on that subject. If you want to
know my opinion, I am quite certain that your cousin Eustace has let
the place to these people without her knowledge, and intends to pocket
the cheque and not say a word about it. What do you think?”
“Eh?” said Sam absently.
“I said, what do you think?”
“What do I think about what?”
“About Eustace Hignett and Windles.”
“What about them?”
Sir Mallaby regarded him disapprovingly. “I’m hanged if I know what’s
the matter with you to-night, Sam. You seem to have unhitched your
brain and left it in the umbrella stand. You hadn’t a word to say for
yourself all through dinner. You might have been a Trappist monk. And
with that delightful girl Miss Bennett, there, too. She must have
thought you infernally dull.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s no good being sorry now. The mischief’s done. She has gone away
thinking you an idiot. Do you realise,” said Sir Mallaby warmly, “that
when she told that extremely funny story about the man who made such a
fool of himself on board the ship, you were the only person at the
table who was not amused? She must have thought you had no sense of
humour!”
Sam rose. “I think I’ll be going,” he said. “Good night!”
A man can bear just so much.
CHAPTER X.
TROUBLE AT WINDLES
§ 1
Mr. Rufus Bennett stood at the window of the drawing-room of Windles,
looking out. From where he stood he could see all those natural and
artificial charms which had made the place so desirable to him when he
first beheld them. Immediately below, flower beds, bright with assorted
blooms, pressed against the ivied stone wall of the house. Beyond,
separated from these by a gravel pathway, a smooth lawn, whose green
and silky turf rivalled the lawns of Oxford colleges, stretched to a
picturesque shrubbery, not so dense as to withhold altogether from the
eye of the observer an occasional silvery glimpse of the lake that lay
behind it. To the left, through noble trees, appeared a white
suggestion of old stable yards; while to the right, bordering on the
drive as it swept round to a distant gate, nothing less than a fragment
of a ruined castle reared itself against a background of firs.
It had been this sensational fragment of Old England which had
definitely captured Mr. Bennett on his first visit to the place. He
could not have believed that the time would ever come when he could
gaze on it without any lightening of the spirits.
The explanation of his gloom was simple. In addition to looking at the
flower beds, the lawn, the shrubbery, the stable yard, and the castle,
Mr. Bennett was also looking at the fifth heavy shower that had fallen
since breakfast. This was the third afternoon of his tenancy. The first
day it had rained all the time. The second day it had rained from eight
till twelve-fifteen, from twelve-thirty till four, and from five till
eleven. And on this, the third day, there had been no intermission
longer than ten minutes. It was a trying Summer. Even the writers in
the daily papers seemed mildly surprised, and claimed that England had
seen finer Julys. Mr. Bennett, who had lived his life in a country of
warmth and sunshine, the thing affected in much the same way as the
early days of the Flood must have affected Noah. A first startled
resentment had given place to a despair too militant to be called
resignation. And with the despair had come a strong distaste for his
fellow human beings, notably and in particular his old friend Mr.
Mortimer, who at this moment broke impatiently in on his meditations.
“Come along, Bennett. It’s your deal. It’s no good looking at the rain.
Looking at it won’t stop it.”
Mr. Mortimer’s nerves also had become a little frayed by the weather.
Mr. Bennett returned heavily to the table, where, with Mr. Mortimer as
partner he was playing one more interminable rubber of bridge against
Bream and Billie. He was sick of bridge, but there was nothing else to
do.
Mr. Bennett sat down with a grunt, and started to deal. Half-way
through the operation the sound of rather stertorous breathing began to
proceed from beneath the table. Mr. Bennett glanced agitatedly down,
and curled his legs round his chair.
“I have fourteen cards,” said Mr. Mortimer. “That’s the third time
you’ve mis-dealt.”
“I don’t care how many cards you’ve got!” said Mr. Bennett with heat.
“That dog of yours is sniffing at my ankles!”
He looked malignantly at a fine bulldog which now emerged from its
cover and, sitting down, beamed at the company. He was a sweet-tempered
dog, handicapped by the outward appearance of a canine plug-ugly.
Murder seemed the mildest of the desires that lay behind that rugged
countenance. As a matter of fact, what he wanted was cake. His name was
Smith, and Mr. Mortimer had bought him just before leaving London to
serve the establishment as a watch-dog.
“He won’t hurt you,” said Mr. Mortimer carelessly.
“You keep saying that!” replied Mr. Bennett pettishly. “How do you
know? He’s a dangerous beast, and if I had had any notion that you were
buying him, I would have had something to say about it!”
“Whatever you might have said would have made no difference. I am
within my legal rights in purchasing a dog. You have a dog. At least,
Wilhelmina has.”
“Yes, and Pinky-Boodles gets on splendidly with Smith,” said Billie.
“I’ve seen them playing together.”
Mr. Bennett subsided. He was feeling thoroughly misanthropic. He
disliked everybody, with perhaps the exception of Billie, for whom a
faint paternal fondness still lingered. He disliked Mr. Mortimer. He
disliked Bream, and regretted that Billie had become engaged to him,
though for years such an engagement had been his dearest desire. He
disliked Jane Hubbard, now out walking in the rain with Eustace
Hignett. And he disliked Eustace.
Eustace, he told himself, he disliked rather more than any of the
others. He resented the young man’s presence in the house; and he
resented the fact that, being in the house, he should go about, pale
and haggard, as though he were sickening for something. Mr. Bennett had
the most violent objection to associating with people who looked as
though they were sickening for something.
He got up and went to the window. The rain leaped at the glass like a
frolicking puppy. It seemed to want to get inside and play with Mr.
Bennett.
§ 2
Mr. Bennett slept late on the following morning. He looked at his watch
on the dressing table when he got up, and found that it was past ten.
Taking a second look to assure himself that he had really slumbered to
this unusual hour, he suddenly became aware of something bright and
yellow resting beside the watch, and paused, transfixed, like Robinson
Crusoe staring at the footprint in the sand. If he had not been in
England, he would have said that it was a patch of sunshine.
Mr. Bennett stared at the yellow blob with the wistful mistrust of a
traveller in a desert who has been taken in once or twice by mirages.
It was not till he had pulled up the blind and was looking out on a
garden full of brightness and warmth and singing birds that he
definitely permitted himself to accept the situation.
It was a superb morning. It was as if some giant had uncorked a great
bottle full of the distilled scent of grass, trees, flowers, and hay.
Mr. Bennett rang the bell joyfully, and presently there entered a
grave, thin, intellectual-looking man who looked like a duke, only more
respectable. This was Webster, Mr. Bennett’s valet. He carried in one
hand a small mug of hot water, reverently, as if it were a present of
jewellery.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Morning, Webster,” said Mr. Bennett. “Rather late, eh?”
“It is,” replied Webster precisely, “a little late, sir. I would have
awakened you at the customary hour, but it was Miss Bennett’s opinion
that a rest would do you good.”
Mr. Bennett’s sense of well-being deepened. What more could a man want
in this world than fine weather and a dutiful daughter?
“She did, eh?”
“Yes, sir. She desired me to inform you that, having already
breakfasted, she proposed to drive Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Bream Mortimer
into Southampton in the car. Mr. Mortimer senior wished to buy a panama
hat.”
“A panama hat!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett.
“A panama hat, sir.”
Mr. Bennett’s feeling of satisfaction grew still greater. It was a fine
day; he had a dutiful daughter; and he was going to see Henry Mortimer
in a panama hat. Providence was spoiling him.
The valet withdrew like a duke leaving the Royal Presence, not actually
walking backwards but giving the impression of doing so; and Mr.
Bennett, having decanted the mug of water into the basin, began to
shave himself.
Having finished shaving, he opened the drawer in the bureau where lay
his white flannel trousers. Here at last was a day worthy of them. He
drew them out, and as he did so, something gleamed pinkly up at him
from a corner of the drawer. His salmon-coloured bathing-suit.
Mr. Bennett started. He had not contemplated such a thing, but, after
all, why not? There was the lake, shining through the trees, a mere
fifty yards away. What could be more refreshing? He shed his pyjamas,
and climbed into the bathing-suit. And presently, looking like the sun
on a foggy day, he emerged from the house and picked his way with
gingerly steps across the smooth surface of the lawn.
At this moment, from behind a bush where he had been thriftily burying
a yesterday’s bone, Smith the bulldog waddled out on to the lawn. He
drank in the exhilarating air through an upturned nose which his recent
excavations had rendered somewhat muddy. Then he observed Mr. Bennett,
and moved gladly towards him. He did not recognise Mr. Bennett, for he
remembered his friends principally by their respective bouquets, so he
cantered silently across the turf to take a sniff at him. He was
half-way across the lawn when some of the mud which he had inhaled when
burying the bone tickled his lungs and he paused to cough.
Mr. Bennett whirled round; and then with a sharp exclamation picked up
his pink feet from the velvet turf and began to run. Smith, after a
momentary pause of surprise, lumbered after him, wheezing contentedly.
This man, he felt, was evidently one of the right sort, a merry
playfellow.
Mr. Bennett continued to run; but already he had begun to pant and
falter, when he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that
ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that
occasion, it had made merely an aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he
saw in a flash that its practical merits also were of a sterling order.
He swerved sharply, took the base of the edifice in his stride,
clutched at a jutting stone, flung his foot at another, and, just as
his pursuer arrived and sat panting below, pulled himself on to a
ledge, where he sat with his feet hanging well out of reach. The
bulldog Smith, gazed up at him expectantly. The game was a new one to
Smith, but it seemed to have possibilities. He was a dog who was always
perfectly willing to try anything once.
Mr. Bennett now began to address himself in earnest to the task of
calling for assistance. His physical discomfort was acute. Insects,
some winged, some without wings but—through Nature’s wonderful law of
compensation—equipped with a number of extra pairs of legs, had begun
to fit out exploring expeditions over his body. They roamed about him
as if he were some newly opened recreation ground, strolled in couples
down his neck, and made up jolly family parties on his bare feet. And
then, first dropping like the gentle dew upon the place beneath, then
swishing down in a steady flood, it began to rain again.
It was at this point that Mr. Bennett’s manly spirit broke and time
ceased to exist for him.
Aeons later, a voice spoke from below.
“Hullo!” said the voice.
Mr. Bennett looked down. The stalwart form of Jane Hubbard was standing
beneath him, gazing up from under a tam o’shanter cap. Smith, the
bulldog, gambolled about her shapely feet.
“Whatever are you doing up there?” said Jane. “I say, do you know if
the car has come back?”
“No. It has not.”
“I’ve got to go to the doctor’s. Poor little Mr. Hignett is ill. Oh,
well, I’ll have to walk. Come along, Smith!” She turned towards the
drive, Smith caracoling at her side.
Mr. Bennett, though free now to move, remained where he was,
transfixed. That sinister word “ill” held him like a spell. Eustace
Hignett was ill! He had thought all along that the fellow was sickening
for something, confound him!
“What’s the matter with him?” bellowed Mr. Bennett after Jane Hubbard’s
retreating back.
“Eh?” queried Jane, stopping.
“What’s the matter with Hignett?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it infectious?”
“I expect so.”
“Great Heavens!” cried Mr. Bennett, and, lowering himself cautiously to
the ground, squelched across the dripping grass.
In the hall, Webster the valet, dry and dignified, was tapping the
barometer with the wrist action of an ambassador knocking on the door
of a friendly monarch.
“A sharp downpour, sir,” he remarked.
“Have you been in the house all the time?” demanded Mr. Bennett.
“Yes, sir.”
“Didn’t you hear me shouting?”
“I did fancy I heard something, sir.”
“Then why the devil didn’t you come to me?”
“I supposed it to be the owls, sir, a bird very frequent in this
locality. They make a sort of harsh, hooting howl, sir. I have
sometimes wondered,” said Webster, pursuing a not uninteresting train
of thought, “whether that might be the reason of the name.”
Before Mr. Bennett could join him in the region of speculation into
which he had penetrated, there was a grinding of brakes on the gravel
outside, and the wettest motor car in England drew up at the front
door.
§ 3
From Windles to Southampton is a distance of about twenty miles; and
the rain had started to fall when the car, an open one lacking even the
poor protection of a cape hood, had accomplished half the homeward
journey. For the last ten miles Mr. Mortimer had been nursing a sullen
hatred for all created things; and, when entering the house, he came
upon Mr. Bennett hopping about in the hall, endeavouring to detain him
and tell him some long and uninteresting story, his venom concentrated
itself upon his erstwhile friend.
“Oh, get out of the way!” he snapped, shaking off the other’s hand.
“Can’t you see I’m wet?”
“Wet! Wet!” Mr. Bennett’s voice quivered with self-pity. “So am I wet!”
“Father dear,” said Billie reprovingly, “you really oughtn’t to have
come into the house after bathing without drying yourself. You’ll spoil
the carpet.”
“I’ve _not_ been bathing! I’m trying to tell you....”
“Hullo!” said Bream, with amiable innocence, coming in at the tail-end
of the party. “Been having a jolly bathe?”
Mr. Bennett danced with silent irritation, and, striking a bare toe
against the leg of a chair, seized his left foot and staggered into the
arms of Webster, who had been preparing to drift off to the servants’
hall. Linked together, the two proceeded across the carpet in a
movement which suggested in equal parts the careless vigour of the
cake-walk and the grace of the old-fashioned mazurka.
“What the devil are you doing, you fool?” cried Mr. Bennett.
“Nothing, sir. And I should be glad if you would accept my week’s
notice,” replied Webster calmly.
“What’s that?”
“My notice sir, to take effect at the expiration of the current week. I
cannot acquiesce in being cursed and sworn at.”
“Oh, go to blazes!”
“Very good, sir.” Webster withdrew like a plenipotentiary who has been
handed his papers on the declaration of war, and Mr. Bennett, sprang to
intercept Mr. Mortimer, who had slipped by and was making for the
stairs.
“Mortimer!”
“Oh, what _is_ it?”
“That infernal dog of yours. I insist on your destroying it.”
“What’s it been doing?”
“The savage brute chased me all over the garden and kept me sitting up
on that damned castle the whole of the morning!”
“Father darling,” interposed Billie, pausing on her way up the stairs,
“you mustn’t get excited. You know it’s bad for you. I don’t expect
poor old Smith meant any harm,” she added pacifically, as she
disappeared in the direction of the landing.
“Of course he didn’t,” snapped Mr. Mortimer. “He’s as quiet as a lamb.”
“I tell you he chased me from one end of the garden to the other! I had
to run like a hare!”
The unfortunate Bream, whose sense of the humorous was simple and
childlike, was not proof against the picture thus conjured up.
“C’k!” giggled Bream helplessly. “C’k, c’k, c’k!”
Mr. Bennett turned on him. “Oh, it strikes you as funny, does it? Well,
let me tell you that if you think you can laugh at me with—with—er—with
one hand and—and—marry my daughter with the other, you’re wrong! You
can consider your engagement at an end.”
“Oh, I say!” ejaculated Bream, abruptly sobered.
“Mortimer!” bawled Mr. Bennett, once more arresting the other as he was
about to mount the stairs. “Do you or do you not intend to destroy that
dog?”
“I do not.”
“I insist on your doing so. He is a menace.”
“He is nothing of the kind. On your own showing he didn’t even bite you
once. And every dog is allowed one bite by law. The case of Wilberforce
_v._ Bayliss covers that point thoroughly.”
“I don’t care about the case of Wilberforce and Bayliss....”
“You will find that you have to. It is a legal precedent.”
There is something about a legal precedent which gives pause to the
angriest man. Mr. Bennett felt, as every layman feels when arguing with
a lawyer, as if he were in the coils of a python.
“Say, Mr. Bennett....” began Bream at his elbow.
“Get out!” snarled Mr. Bennett.
“Yes, but, say...!”
The green baize door at the end of the hall opened, and Webster
appeared.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Webster, “but luncheon will be served
within the next few minutes. Possibly you may wish to make some change
of costume.”
“Bring me my lunch on a tray in my room,” said Mr. Bennett. “I am going
to bed.”
“Very good, sir.”
“But, say, Mr. Bennett....” resumed Bream.
“Grrh!” replied his ex-prospective-father-in-law, and bounded up the
stairs like a portion of the sunset which had become detached from the
main body.
§ 4
Even into the blackest days there generally creeps an occasional ray of
sunshine, and there are few crises of human gloom which are not
lightened by a bit of luck. It was so with Mr. Bennett in his hour of
travail. There were lobsters for lunch, and his passion for lobsters
had made him the talk of three New York clubs. He was feeling a little
happier when Billie came in to see how he was getting on.
“Hullo, father. Had a nice lunch?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Bennett, cheering up a little at the recollection.
“There was nothing wrong with the lunch.”
How little we fallible mortals know! Even as he spoke, a tiny fragment
of lobster shell, which had been working its way silently into the tip
of his tongue, was settling down under the skin and getting ready to
cause him the most acute mental distress which he had ever known.
“The lunch,” said Mr. Bennett, “was excellent. Lobsters!” He licked his
lips appreciatively.
“And, talking of lobsters,” he went on, “I suppose that boy Bream has
told you that I have broken off your engagement?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem very upset,” said Mr. Bennett, who was in the mood for
a dramatic scene and felt a little disappointed.
“Oh, I’ve become a fatalist on the subject of my engagements.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Well, I mean, they never seem to come to anything.” Billie gazed
wistfully at the counterpane. “Do you know, father, I’m beginning to
think that I’m rather impulsive. I wish I didn’t do silly things in
such a hurry.”
“I don’t see where the hurry comes in as regards that Mortimer boy. You
took ten years to make up your mind.”
“I was not thinking of Bream. Another man.”
“Great Heavens! Are you still imagining yourself in love with young
Hignett?”
“Oh, no! I can see now that I was never in love with poor Eustace. I
was thinking of a man I got engaged to on the boat!”
Mr. Bennett sat bolt upright in bed, and stared incredulously at his
surprising daughter. His head was beginning to swim.
“Of course I’ve misunderstood you,” he said. “There’s a catch somewhere
and I haven’t seen it. But for a moment you gave me the impression that
you had promised to marry some man on the boat!”
“I did!”
“But...!” Mr. Bennett was doing sums on his fingers. “Do you mean to
tell me,” he demanded, having brought out the answer to his
satisfaction, “do you mean to tell me that you have been engaged to
three men in three weeks?”
“Yes,” said Billie in a small voice.
“Great Godfrey! Er——?”
“No, only three.”
Mr. Bennett sank back on to his pillow with a snort.
“The trouble is,” continued Billie, “one does things and doesn’t know
how one is going to feel about it afterwards. You can do an awful lot
of thinking afterwards, father.”
“I’m doing a lot of thinking now,” said Mr. Bennett with austerity.
“You oughtn’t to be allowed to go around loose!”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I shall never get engaged again. I shall
never love anyone again.”
“Don’t tell me you are still in love with this boat man?”
Billie nodded miserably. “I didn’t realise it till we came down here.
But, as I sat and watched the rain, it suddenly came over me that I had
thrown away my life’s happiness. It was as if I had been offered a
wonderful jewel and had refused it. I seemed to hear a voice
reproaching me and saying, ‘You have had your chance. It will never
come again!’”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” said Mr. Bennett.
Billie stiffened. She had thought she had been talking rather well.
Mr. Bennett was silent for a moment. Then he started up with an
exclamation. The mention of Eustace Hignett had stirred his memory.
“What’s young Hignett got wrong with him?” he asked.
“Mumps.”
“Mumps! Good God! Not mumps!” Mr. Bennett quailed. “I’ve never had
mumps! One of the most infectious ... this is awful!... Oh, heavens!
Why did I ever come to this lazar-house!” cried Mr. Bennett, shaken to
his depths.
“There isn’t the slightest danger, father, dear. Don’t be silly. If I
were you, I should try to get a good sleep. You must be tired after
this morning.”
“Sleep! If I only could!” said Mr. Bennett, and did so five minutes
after the door had closed.
He awoke half an hour later with a confused sense that something was
wrong. He had been dreaming that he was walking down Fifth Avenue at
the head of a military brass band, clad only in a bathing suit. As he
sat up in bed, blinking in the dazed fashion of the half-awakened, the
band seemed to be playing still. There was undeniably music in the air.
The room was full of it. It seemed to be coming up through the floor
and rolling about in chunks all round his bed.
Mr. Bennett blinked the last fragments of sleep out of his system, and
became filled with a restless irritability. There was only one
instrument in the house which could create this infernal din—the
orchestrion in the drawing-room, immediately above which, he recalled,
his room was situated.
He rang the bell for Webster.
“Is Mr. Mortimer playing that—that damned gas-engine in the
drawing-room?”
“Yes, sir. Tosti’s ‘Good-bye.’ A charming air, sir.”
“Go and tell him to stop it!”
“Very good, sir.”
Mr. Bennett lay in bed and fumed. Presently the valet returned. The
music still continued to roll about the room.
“I am sorry to have to inform you, sir,” said Webster, “that Mr.
Mortimer declines to accede to your request.”
“Oh, he said that, did he?”
“That is the gist of his remarks, sir.”
“Very good! Then give me my dressing-gown!”
Webster swathed his employer in the garment indicated, and returned to
the kitchen, where he informed the cook that, in his opinion, the
guv’nor was not a force, and that, if he were a betting man, he would
put his money in the forthcoming struggle on Consul, the
Almost-Human—by which affectionate nickname Mr. Mortimer senior was
generally alluded to in the servants’ hall.
Mr. Bennett, meanwhile, had reached the drawing-room, and found his
former friend lying at full length on a sofa, smoking a cigar, a full
dozen feet away from the orchestrion, which continued to thunder out
its dirge on the passing of Summer.
“Will you turn that infernal thing off!” said Mr. Bennett.
“No!” said Mr. Mortimer.
“Now, now, now!” said a voice.
Jane Hubbard was standing in the doorway with a look of calm reproof on
her face.
“We can’t have this, you know!” said Jane Hubbard. “You’re disturbing
my patient.”
She strode without hesitation to the instrument, explored its ribs with
a firm finger, pushed something, and the orchestrion broke off in the
middle of a bar. Then, walking serenely to the door, she passed out and
closed it behind her.
The baser side of his nature urged Mr. Bennett to triumph over the
vanquished.
“Now, what about it!” he said, ungenerously.
“Interfering girl!” mumbled Mr. Mortimer, chafing beneath defeat. “I’ve
a good mind to start it again.”
“I dare you!” whooped Mr. Bennett, reverting to the phraseology of his
vanished childhood. “Go on! I dare you!”
“I’ve a perfect legal right.... Oh well,” he said, “there are lots of
other things I can do!”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, alarmed.
“Never mind!” said Mr. Mortimer, taking up a book.
Mr. Bennett went back to bed in an uneasy frame of mind.
He brooded for half an hour, and, at the expiration of that period,
rang for Webster and requested that Billie should be sent to him.
“I want you to go to London,” he said, when she appeared. “I must have
legal advice. I want you to go and see Sir Mallaby Marlowe. Tell him
that Henry Mortimer is annoying me in every possible way and sheltering
himself behind his knowledge of the law, so that I can’t get at him.
Ask Sir Mallaby to come down here. And, if he can’t come himself, tell
him to send someone who can advise me. His son would do, if he knows
anything about the business.”
“Oh, I’m sure he does!”
“Eh? How do you know?”
“Well, I mean, he looks as if he does!” said Billie hastily. “He looks
so clever!”
“I didn’t notice it myself. Well, he’ll do, if Sir Mallaby’s too busy
to come himself. I want you to go up to-night, so that you can see him
first thing to-morrow morning. You can stop the night at the Savoy.
I’ve sent Webster to look out a train.”
“There’s a splendid train in about an hour. I’ll take that.”
“It’s giving you a lot of trouble,” said Mr. Bennett, with belated
consideration.
“Oh, _no!_” said Billie. “I’m only too glad to be able to do this for
you, father dear!”
CHAPTER XI.
MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT
The fragment of a lobster-shell which had entered Mr. Bennett’s tongue
at twenty minutes to two in the afternoon was still in occupation at
half-past eleven that night, when that persecuted gentleman blew out
his candle and endeavoured to compose himself for a night’s slumber.
Its unconscious host had not yet been made aware of its presence. He
had a vague feeling that the tip of his tongue felt a little sore, but
his mind was too engrossed with the task of keeping a look-out for the
preliminary symptoms of mumps to have leisure to bestow much attention
on this phenomenon. The discomfort it caused was not sufficient to keep
him awake, and presently he turned on his side and began to fill the
room with a rhythmical snoring.
How pleasant if one could leave him so—the good man taking his rest.
Facts, however, are facts; and, having crept softly from Mr. Bennett’s
side with the feeling that at last everything is all right with him, we
are compelled to return three hours later to discover that everything
is all wrong. It is so dark in the room that our eyes can at first
discern nothing; then, as we grow accustomed to the blackness, we
perceive him sitting bolt upright in bed, staring glassily before him,
while with the first finger of his right hand he touches apprehensively
the tip of his protruding tongue.
At this point Mr. Bennett lights his candle—one of the charms of
Windles was the old-world simplicity of its lighting system—and we are
enabled to get a better view of him.
Mr. Bennett sat in the candlelight with his tongue out and the first
beads of a chilly perspiration bedewing his forehead. It was impossible
for a man of his complexion to turn pale, but he had turned as pale as
he could. Panic gripped him. A man whose favourite reading was medical
encyclopædias, he needed no doctor to tell him that this was the end.
Fate had dealt him a knockout blow; his number was up; and in a very
short while now people would be speaking of him in the past tense and
saying what a pity it all was.
A man in Mr. Bennett’s position experiences strange emotions, and many
of them. In fact, there are scores of writers, who, reckless of the
cost of white paper, would devote two chapters at this point to an
analysis of the unfortunate man’s reflections and be glad of the
chance. It is sufficient, however, merely to set on record that there
was no stint. Whatever are the emotions of a man in such a position,
Mr. Bennett had them. He had them all, one after another, some of them
twice. He went right through the list from soup to nuts, until finally
he reached remorse. And, having reached remorse, he allowed that to
monopolise him.
In his early days, when he was building up his fortune, Mr. Bennett had
frequently done things to his competitors in Wall Street which would
not have been tolerated in the purer atmosphere of a lumber-camp, and,
if he was going to be remorseful about anything, he might well have
started by being remorseful about that. But it was on his most
immediate past that his wistful mind lingered. He had quarrelled with
his lifelong friend, Henry Mortimer. He had broken off his daughter’s
engagement with a deserving young man. He had spoken harsh words to his
faithful valet. The more Mr. Bennett examined his conduct, the deeper
the iron entered into his soul.
Fortunately, none of his acts were irreparable. He could undo them. He
could make amends. The small hours of the morning are not perhaps the
most suitable time for making amends, but Mr. Bennett was too
remorseful to think of that. Do It Now had ever been his motto, so he
started by ringing the bell for Webster.
The same writers who would have screamed with joy at the chance of
dilating on Mr. Bennett’s emotions would find a congenial task in
describing the valet’s thought-processes when the bell roused him from
a refreshing sleep at a few minutes after three a.m. However, by the
time he entered his employer’s room he was his own calm self again.
“Good morning, sir,” he remarked equably. “I fear that it will be the
matter of a few minutes to prepare your shaving water. I was not
aware,” said Webster in manly apology for having been found wanting,
“that you intended rising so early.”
“Webster,” said Mr. Bennett, “I’m a dying man!”
“Indeed, sir?”
“A dying man!” repeated Mr. Bennett.
“Very good, sir. Which of your suits would you wish me to lay out?”
Mr. Bennett had the feeling that something was going wrong with the
scene.
“Webster,” he said, “this morning we had an unfortunate
misunderstanding. I’m sorry.”
“Pray don’t mention it, sir.”
“I was to blame. Webster, you have been a faithful servant! You have
stuck to me, Webster, through thick and thin!” said Mr. Bennett, who
had half persuaded himself by this time that the other had been in the
family for years instead of having been engaged at a registry-office a
little less than a month ago. “Through thick and thin!” repeated Mr.
Bennett.
“I have endeavoured to give satisfaction, sir.”
“I want to reward you, Webster.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
“Take my trousers!”
Webster raised a deprecating hand.
“No, no, sir, thanking you exceedingly, I couldn’t really! You will
need them, sir, and I assure you I have an ample supply.”
“Take my trousers,” repeated Mr. Bennett, “and feel in the right-hand
pocket. There is some money there.”
“I’m sure I’m very much obliged, sir,” said Webster, beginning for the
first time to feel that there was a bright side. He embarked upon the
treasure-hunt. “The sum is sixteen pounds eleven shillings and
threepence, sir.”
“Keep it!”
“Thank you very much, sir. Would there be anything further, sir?”
“Why, no,” said Mr. Bennett, feeling dissatisfied nevertheless. There
had been a lack of the deepest kind of emotion in the interview, and
his yearning soul resented it. “Why, no.”
“Good-night, sir.”
“Stop a moment. Which is Mr. Mortimer’s room?”
“Mr. Mortimer, senior, sir? It is at the further end of this passage,
on the left facing the main staircase. Good-night, sir. I am extremely
obliged. I will bring you your shaving-water when you ring.”
Mr. Bennett, left alone, mused for awhile, then, rising from his bed,
put on his dressing-gown, took his candle, and went down the passage.
In a less softened mood, the first thing Mr. Bennett would have done on
crossing the threshold of the door facing the staircase would have been
to notice resentfully that Mr. Mortimer, with his usual astuteness, had
collared the best bedroom in the house. The soft carpet gave out no
sound as Mr. Bennett approached the wide and luxurious bed. The light
of the candle fell on the back of a semi-bald head. Mr. Mortimer was
sleeping with his face buried in the pillow. It cannot have been good
for him, but that was what he was doing. From the portion of the pillow
in which his face was buried strange gurgles proceeded, like the
distant rumble of an approaching train on the Underground.
“Mortimer,” said Mr. Bennett.
The train stopped at a station to pick up passengers, and rumbled on
again.
“Henry!” said Mr. Bennett, and nudged his sleeping friend in the small
of the back.
“Leave it on the mat,” mumbled Mr. Mortimer, stirring slightly and
uncovering one corner of his mouth.
Mr. Bennett began to forget his remorse in a sense of injury. He felt
like a man with a good story to tell who can get nobody to listen to
him. He nudged the other again, more vehemently this time. Mr. Mortimer
made a noise like a gramophone when the needle slips, moved restlessly
for a moment, then sat up, staring at the candle.
“Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!” said Mr. Mortimer, and sank back again. He
had begun to rumble before he touched the pillow.
“What do you mean, rabbits?” said Mr. Bennett sharply.
The not unreasonable query fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mortimer was already
entering a tunnel.
“Much too pink!” he murmured as the pillow engulfed him.
What steps Mr. Bennett would have taken at this juncture, one cannot
say. Probably he would have given the thing up in despair and retired,
for it is weary work forgiving a sleeping man. But, as he bent above
his slumbering friend, a drop of warm grease detached itself from the
candle and fell into Mr. Mortimer’s exposed ear. The sleeper wakened.
“What? What? What?” he exclaimed, bounding up. “Who’s that?”
“It’s me—Rufus,” said Mr. Bennett. “Henry, I’m dying!”
“Drying?”
“Dying!”
Mr. Mortimer yawned cavernously. The mists of sleep were engulfing him
again.
“Eight rabbits sitting on the lawn,” he muttered. “But too pink! Much
too pink!”
And, as if considering he had borne his full share in the conversation
and that no more could be expected of him, he snuggled down into the
pillow again.
Mr. Bennett’s sense of injury became more acute. For a moment he was
strongly tempted to try the restorative effects of candle-grease once
more, but, just as he was on the point of succumbing, a shooting pain,
as if somebody had run a red-hot needle into his tongue, reminded him
of his situation. A dying man cannot pass his last hours dropping
candle-grease into people’s ears. After all, it was perhaps a little
late, and there would be plenty of time to become reconciled to Mr.
Mortimer to-morrow. His task now was to seek out Bream and bring him
the glad news of his renewed engagement.
He closed the door quietly, and proceeded upstairs. Bream’s bedroom, he
knew, was the one just off the next landing. He turned the handle
quietly, and went in. Having done this, he coughed.
“Drop that pistol!” said the voice of Jane Hubbard immediately, with
quiet severity. “I’ve got you covered!”
Mr. Bennett had no pistol, but he dropped the candle. It would have
been a nice point to say whether he was more perturbed by the discovery
that he had got into the wrong room, and that room a lady’s, or by the
fact that the lady whose wrong room it was had pointed what appeared to
be a small cannon at him over the foot of the bed. It was not, as a
matter of fact, a cannon but the elephant gun, which Miss Hubbard
carried with her everywhere—a girl’s best friend.
“My dear young lady!” he gasped.
On the five occasions during recent years on which men had entered her
tent with the object of murdering her, Jane Hubbard had shot without
making inquiries. What strange feminine weakness it was that had caused
her to utter a challenge on this occasion, she could not have said.
Probably it was due to the enervating effects of civilisation. She was
glad now that she had done so, for, being awake and in full possession
of her faculties, she perceived that the intruder, whoever he was, had
no evil intentions.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know how to apologise!”
“That’s all right! Let’s have a light.” A match flared in the darkness.
Miss Hubbard lit her candle, and gazed at Mr. Bennett with quiet
curiosity. “Walking in your sleep?” she inquired.
“No, no!”
“Not so loud! You’ll wake Mr. Hignett. He’s next door. That’s why I
took this room, in case he was restless in the night.”
“I want to see Bream Mortimer,” said Mr. Bennett.
“He’s in my old room, two doors along the passage. What do you want to
see him about?”
“I wish to inform him that he may still consider himself engaged to my
daughter.”
“Oh, well, I don’t suppose he’ll mind being woken up to hear that. But
what’s the idea?”
“It’s a long story.”
“That’s all right. Let’s make a night of it.”
“I am a dying man. I awoke an hour ago with a feeling of acute
pain....”
Miss Hubbard listened to the story of his symptoms with interest but
without excitement.
“What nonsense!” she said at the conclusion.
“I assure you....”
“I’d like to bet it’s nothing serious at all.”
“My dear young lady,” said Mr. Bennett, piqued. “I have devoted a
considerable part of my life to medical study....”
“I know. That’s the trouble. People oughtn’t to be allowed to read
medical books.”
“Well, we need not discuss it,” said Mr. Bennett stiffly. He resented
being dragged out of the valley of the shadow of death by the scruff of
his neck like this. A dying man has his dignity to think of. “I will
leave you now, and go and see young Mortimer.” He clung to a hope that
Bream Mortimer at least would receive him fittingly. “Good-night!”
“But wait a moment!”
Mr. Bennett left the room, unheeding. He was glad to go. Jane Hubbard
irritated him.
His expectation of getting more satisfactory results from Bream was
fulfilled. It took some time to rouse that young man from a slumber
almost as deep as his father’s; but, once roused, he showed a
gratifying appreciation of the gravity of affairs. Joy at one half of
his visitor’s news competed with consternation and sympathy at the
other half. He thanked Mr. Bennett profusely, showed a fitting concern
on learning of his terrible situation, and evinced a practical desire
to help by offering him a bottle of liniment which he had found useful
for gnat-stings. Declining this, though not ungratefully, Mr. Bennett
withdrew and made his way down the passage again with something
approaching a glow in his heart. The glow lasted till he had almost
reached the landing, when it was dissipated by a soft but compelling
voice from the doorway of Miss Hubbard’s room.
“Come here!” said Miss Hubbard. She had put on a blue bath-robe, and
looked like a pugilist about to enter the ring.
“Well?” said Mr. Bennett coldly, coming nevertheless.
“I’m going to have a look at that tongue of yours,” said Jane firmly.
“It’s my opinion that you’re making a lot of fuss over nothing.”
Mr. Bennett drew himself up as haughtily as a fat man in a
dressing-gown can, but the effect was wasted on his companion, who had
turned and gone into her room.
“Come in here,” she said.
Tougher men than Mr. Bennett had found it impossible to resist the note
of calm command in that voice, but for all that he reproached himself
for his weakness in obeying.
“Sit down!” said Jane Hubbard.
She indicated a low stool beside the dressing-table.
“Put your tongue out!” she said, as Mr. Bennett, still under her
strange influence, lowered himself on to the stool. “Further out!
That’s right. Keep it like that!”
“Ouch!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, bounding up.
“Don’t make such a noise! You’ll wake Mr. Hignett. Sit down again!”
“I....”
“Sit down!”
Mr. Bennett sat down. Miss Hubbard extended once more the hand holding
the needle which had caused his outcry. He winced away from it
desperately.
“Baby!” said Miss Hubbard reprovingly. “Why, I once sewed eighteen
stitches in a native bearer’s head, and he didn’t make half the fuss
you’re making. Now, keep quite still.”
Mr. Bennett did—for perhaps the space of two seconds. Then he leaped
from his seat once more. It was a tribute to the forceful personality
of the fair surgeon, if one were needed, that the squeal he uttered was
a subdued one. He was just about to speak—he had framed the opening
words of a strong protest—when suddenly he became aware of something in
his mouth, something small and hard. He removed it and examined it as
it lay on his finger. It was a minute fragment of lobster-shell. And at
the same time he became conscious of a marked improvement in the state
of his tongue. The swelling had gone.
“I told you so!” said Jane Hubbard placidly. “What is it?”
“It—it appears to be a piece of....”
“Lobster-shell. And we had lobster for lunch. Good-night.”
Half-way down the stairs, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Bennett that he
wanted to sing. He wanted to sing very loud, and for quite some time.
He restrained the impulse, and returned to bed. But relief such as his
was too strong to keep bottled up. He wanted to tell someone all about
it. He needed a confidant.
Webster, the valet, awakened once again by the ringing of his bell,
sighed resignedly and made his way downstairs.
“Did you ring, sir?”
“Webster,” cried Mr. Bennett, “it’s all right! I’m not dying after all!
I’m not dying after all, Webster!”
“Very good, sir,” said Webster. “Will there be anything further?”
CHAPTER XII.
THE LURID PAST OF JNO. PETERS
“That’s right!” said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. “Work while you’re young,
Sam, work while you’re young.” He regarded his son’s bent head with
affectionate approval. “What’s the book to-day?”
“Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence,” said Sam, without looking up.
“Capital!” said Sir Mallaby. “Highly improving and as interesting as a
novel—some novels. There’s a splendid bit on, I think, page two hundred
and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and
Customary Estates. It’s a wonderfully powerful situation. It
appears—but I won’t spoil it for you. Mind you don’t skip to see how it
all comes out in the end!” Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he
addressed an imaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of
his golf-bag. For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath
for his weekly foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad
in tweed of a violent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. “Sam!”
“Well?”
“Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of
overlapping the little finger of the right hand.... Oh, by the way,
Sam.”
“Yes?”
“I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients
will be coming in and asking for advice, and you’ll find yourself in
difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You’d
better lock the outer door.”
“All right,” said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading.
He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which—as of course you
know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding in socage.
Sir Mallaby looked at his watch.
“Well, I’ll have to be going. See you later, Sam.”
“Good-bye.”
Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and
twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of consternation
to his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was
an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam’s mind,
numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal
phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment later
his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted off and
began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett.
Since they had last met, at Sir Mallaby’s dinner-table, Sam had told
himself perhaps a hundred times that he cared nothing about Billie,
that she had gone out of his life and was dead to him; but
unfortunately he did not believe it. A man takes a deal of convincing
on a point like this, and Sam had never succeeded in convincing himself
for more than two minutes at a time. It was useless to pretend that he
did not still love Billie more than ever, because he knew he did; and
now, as the truth swept over him for the hundred and first time, he
groaned hollowly and gave himself up to the grey despair which is the
almost inseparable companion of young men in his position.
So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light
footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a
tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the
fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his
father’s advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some
frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something, and
Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to assist him.
Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the
blighter might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he opened
the door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He
dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk.
Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing.
There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened.
Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to
him that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with
success. He felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a
similar crisis. And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only
Napoleon would have seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches
of trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who
entered.
“Good morning,” said a voice.
Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was
the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking
hours.
“Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?” asked Billie, addressing the boots.
Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise.
“Dropped my pen,” he mumbled, as he rose to the surface.
He pulled himself together with an effort that was like a physical
exercise. He stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he
invited her to sit down, and seated himself at the desk.
“Dropped my pen!” he gurgled again.
“Yes?” said Billie.
“Fountain-pen,” babbled Sam, “with a broad nib.”
“Yes?”
“A broad _gold_ nib,” went on Sam, with the painful exactitude which
comes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication.
“Really?” said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that
this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly
occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result of his
struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and felt a trifle
more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes now began to
assert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to appear as
little of a fool as possible in this girl’s eyes. And what eyes they
were! Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in....
However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat
and became cold and business-like,—the dry young lawyer.
“Er—how do you do, Miss Bennett?” he said with a question in his voice,
raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this
performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he
had some snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth.
“Miss Bennett, I believe?”
The effect of the question upon Billie was disastrous. She had come to
this office with beating heart, prepared to end all misunderstandings,
to sob on her soul-mate’s shoulder and generally make everything up;
but at this inane exhibition the fighting spirit of the Bennetts—which
was fully as militant as that of the Marlowes—became roused. She told
herself that she had been mistaken in supposing that she still loved
this man. She was a proud girl and refused to admit herself capable of
loving any man who looked at her as if she was something that the cat
had brought in. She drew herself up stiffly.
“Yes,” she replied. “How clever of you to remember me.”
“I have a good memory.”
“How nice! So have I!”
There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel
casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring
furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought
condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen
were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that
red hair peeping out beneath her hat and.... However!
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked in the sort of voice
Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man
with bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file.
“Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby.”
“My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath.
Cannot I act as his substitute?”
“Do you know anything about the law?”
“Do I know anything about the law!” echoed Sam, amazed. “Do I know——!
Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in.”
“Oh, were you?” said Billie, interested. “Do you always read on the
floor?”
“I told you I dropped my pen,” said Sam coldly.
“And of course you couldn’t read without that! Well, as a matter of
fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi—what you said.”
“I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know the
law in all its branches.”
“Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrion
when you wanted to get to sleep?”
“The orchestrion?”
“Yes.”
“The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H’m!” said Sam.
“You still haven’t made it quite clear,” said Billie.
“I was thinking.”
“Oh, if you want to _think!_”
“Tell me the facts,” said Sam.
“Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in the
country....”
“I knew that.”
“_What_ a memory you have!” said Billie kindly. “Well, for some reason
or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr. Mortimer is doing everything
he can to make father uncomfortable. Yesterday afternoon father wanted
to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer started this orchestrion just to annoy him.”
“I think—I’m not quite sure—I think that’s a tort,” said Sam.
“A what?”
“Either a tort or a malfeasance.”
“Why, you do know something about it after all!” cried Billie, startled
into a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words and
the sight of her quick smile Sam’s professional composure reeled on its
foundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up and
babbling of the passion that consumed him, when the chill reflection
came to him that this girl had once said that she considered him
ridiculous. If he let himself go, would she not continue to think him
ridiculous? He sagged back into his seat; and at that moment there came
another tap on the door which, opening, revealed the sinister face of
the holiday-making Peters.
“Good morning, Mr. Samuel,” said Jno. Peters. “Good morning, Miss
Milliken. Oh!”
He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he
had taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that
the junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behind
him a momentary silence.
“What a horrible-looking man!” said Billie, breaking it with a little
gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first
sight.
“I beg your pardon?” said Sam absently.
“What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!”
For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of
his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend,
Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his
trip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was, it
suggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute
he sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often had
brain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy.
“Who is he?” asked Billie. “He seemed to know you? And who,” she
demanded after a slight pause, “is Miss Milliken?”
Sam drew a deep breath.
“It’s rather a sad story,” he said. “His name is John Peters. He used
to be clerk here.”
“But he isn’t any longer?”
“No.” Sam shook his head. “We had to get rid of him.”
“I don’t wonder. A man looking like that....”
“It wasn’t that so much,” said Sam. “The thing that annoyed father was
that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken.”
Billie uttered a cry of horror.
“He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!”
“He _did_ shoot her—the third time,” said Sam, warming to his work.
“Only in the arm, fortunately,” he added. “But my father is rather a
stern disciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we couldn’t keep him
after that.”
“Good gracious!”
“She used to be my father’s stenographer, and she was thrown a good
deal with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love with
her. She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair.
Peters is a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given
him to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day
that she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his
onion—I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he
concealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his
condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as
I say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk.
Still, it wouldn’t do. It wasn’t only that he tried to shoot Miss
Milliken. The thing became an obsession with him, and we found that he
had a fixed idea that every red-haired woman who came into the office
was the girl who had deceived him. You can see how awkward that made
it. Red hair is so fashionable now-a-days.”
“My hair is red!” whispered Billie pallidly.
“Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade as
Miss Milliken’s. It’s rather fortunate that I happened to be here with
you when he came.”
“But he may be lurking out there still!”
“I expect he is,” said Sam carelessly. “Yes, I suppose he is. Would you
like me to go and send him away? All right.”
“But—but is it safe?”
Sam uttered a light laugh.
“I don’t mind taking a risk or two for your sake,” he said, and
sauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followed
him with worshipping eyes.
Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself
for the more comfortable perusal of the copy of _Home Whispers_ which
he had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm
being too busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested
in the series of chats with Young Mothers.
“Hullo, Peters,” said Sam. “Want anything?”
“Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Samuel. I just looked in to say
good-bye. I sail on Saturday, and my time will be pretty fully taken up
all the week. I have to go down to the country to get some final
instructions from the client whose important papers I am taking over.
I’m sorry to have missed your father, Mr. Samuel.”
“Yes, this is his golf day. I’ll tell him you looked in.”
“Is there anything I can do before I go?”
“Do?”
“Well—”—Jno. Peters coughed tactfully—“I see that you are engaged with
a client, Mr. Samuel, and I was wondering if any little point of law
had arisen with which you did not feel yourself quite capable of
coping, in which case I might perhaps be of assistance.”
“Oh, that lady,” said Sam. “That was Miss Milliken’s sister.”
“Indeed? I didn’t know Miss Milliken had a sister.”
“No?” said Sam.
“She is not very like her in appearance.”
“No. This one is the beauty of the family, I believe. A very bright,
intelligent girl. I was telling her about your revolver just before you
came in, and she was most interested. It’s a pity you haven’t got it
with you now, to show to her.”
“Oh, but I have it! I have, Mr. Samuel!” said Peters, opening a small
handbag and taking out a hymn-book, half a pound of mixed chocolates, a
tongue sandwich, and the pistol, in the order named. “I was on my way
to the Rupert Street range for a little practice. I should be glad to
show it to her.”
“Well, wait here a minute or two,” said Sam. “I’ll have finished
talking business in a moment.”
He returned to the inner office.
“Well?” cried Billie.
“Eh? Oh, he’s gone,” said Sam. “I persuaded him to go away. He was a
little excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we were
talking about. You say....” He broke off with an exclamation, and
glanced at his watch. “Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. I
promised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the next
court. He wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen with
one of his clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can you
spare me for a short while? I shan’t be more than ten minutes.”
“Certainly.”
“Here is something you may care to look at while I’m gone. I don’t know
if you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most interesting.”
He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from his _Home Whispers_.
“You can go in now,” said Sam.
“Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly.”
Sam took up the copy of _Home Whispers_ and sat down with his feet on
the desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read the synopsis.
In the inner room Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshment
offered by Widgery and was engaged on making a tour of the office,
looking at the portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to be
the Thorpes, Prescotts, Winslows, and Applebys mentioned on the
contents-bill outside, was surprised to hear the door open at her back.
She had not expected Sam to return so instantaneously.
Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man of
repellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one
of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling a
cruel, cunning smile—at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters himself
was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a benevolent
simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seen outside a
motion-picture studio.
“How do you do, Miss Milliken?” he said.
CHAPTER XIII.
SHOCKS ALL ROUND
Billie had been standing near the wall, inspecting a portrait of the
late Mr. Josiah Appleby, of which the kindest thing one can say is that
one hopes it did not do him justice. She now shrank back against this
wall, as if she were trying to get through it. The edge of the
portrait’s frame tilted her hat out of the straight, but in this
supreme moment she did not even notice it.
“Er—how do you do?” she said.
If she had not been an exceedingly pretty girl, one would have said
that she spoke squeakily. The fighting spirit of the Bennetts, though
it was considerable fighting spirit, had not risen to this emergency.
It had ebbed out of her, leaving in its place a cold panic. She had
seen this sort of thing in the movies—there was one series of pictures,
“The Dangers of Diana,” where something of the kind had happened to the
heroine in every reel—but she had not anticipated that it would ever
happen to her; and consequently she had not thought out any plan for
coping with such a situation. A grave error. In this world one should
be prepared for everything, or where is one?
“I’ve brought the revolver,” said Mr. Peters.
“So—so I see!” said Billie.
Mr. Peters nursed the weapon affectionately in his hand. He was rather
a shy man with women as a rule, but what Sam had told him about her
being interested in his revolver had made his heart warm to this girl.
“I was just on my way to have a little practice at the range,” he said.
“Then I thought I might as well look in here.”
“I suppose—I suppose you’re a good shot?” quavered Billie.
“I seldom miss,” said Jno. Peters.
Billie shuddered. Then, reflecting that the longer she engaged this
maniac in conversation, the more hope there was of Sam coming back in
time to save her, she essayed further small-talk.
“It’s—it’s very ugly!”
“Oh, no!” said Mr. Peters, hurt.
Billie perceived that she had said the wrong thing.
“Very deadly-looking, I meant,” she corrected herself hastily.
“It may have deadly work to do, Miss Milliken,” said Mr. Peters.
Conversation languished again. Billie had no further remarks to make of
immediate interest, and Mr. Peters was struggling with a return of the
deplorable shyness which so handicapped him in his dealings with the
other sex. After a few moments, he pulled himself together again, and,
as his first act was to replace the pistol in the pocket of his coat,
Billie became conscious of a faint stirring of relief.
“The great thing,” said Jno. Peters, “is to learn to draw quickly. Like
this!” he added producing the revolver with something of the smoothness
and rapidity with which Billie, in happier moments, had seen Bream
Mortimer take a bowl of gold fish out of a tall hat. “Everything
depends on getting the first shot! The first shot, Miss Milliken, is
vital.”
Suddenly Billie had an inspiration. It was hopeless, she knew, to try
to convince this poor demented creature, obsessed with his _idée fixe_,
that she was not Miss Milliken. Denial would be a waste of time, and
might even infuriate him into precipitating the tragedy. It was
imperative that she should humour him. And, while she was humouring
him, it suddenly occurred to her, why not do it thoroughly?
“Mr. Peters,” she cried, “you are quite mistaken!”
“I beg your pardon,” said Jno. Peters, with not a little asperity.
“Nothing of the kind!”
“You are!”
“I assure you I am not. Quickness in the draw is essential....”
“You have been misinformed.”
“Well, I had it direct from the man at the Rupert Street range,” said
Mr. Peters stiffly. “And if you have ever seen a picture called
‘Two-Gun Thomas’....”
“Mr. Peters,” cried Billie desperately. He was making her head swim
with his meaningless ravings. “Mr. Peters, hear me! I am not married to
a man at Ealing West!”
Mr. Peters betrayed no excitement at the information. This girl seemed
for some reason to consider her situation an extraordinary one, but
many women, he was aware, were in a similar position. In fact, he could
not at the moment think of any of his feminine acquaintances who _were_
married to men at Ealing West.
“Indeed?” he said politely.
“Won’t you believe me?” exclaimed Billie wildly.
“Why, certainly, certainly,” said Jno. Peters.
“Thank God!” said Billie. “I’m not even engaged! It’s all been a
terrible mistake!”
When two people in a small room are speaking on two distinct and
different subjects and neither knows what on earth the other is driving
at, there is bound to be a certain amount of mental confusion; but at
this point Jno. Peters, though still not wholly equal to the
intellectual pressure of the conversation, began to see a faint shimmer
of light behind the clouds. In a nebulous kind of way he began to
understand that the girl had come to consult the firm about a
breach-of-promise action. Some unknown man at Ealing West had been
trifling with her heart—hardened lawyer’s clerk as he was, that
poignant cry “I’m not even engaged!” had touched Mr. Peters—and she
wished to start proceedings. Mr. Peters felt almost in his depth again.
He put the revolver in his pocket, and drew out a note-book.
“I should be glad to hear the facts,” he said with professional
courtesy. “In the absence of the guv’nor....”
“I have told you the facts!”
“This man at Ealing West,” said Mr. Peters, moistening the point of his
pencil, “he wrote you letters proposing marriage?”
“No, no, no!”
“At any rate,” said Mr. Peters, disappointed but hopeful, “he made love
to you before witnesses?”
“Never! Never! There is no man at Ealing West! There never was a man at
Ealing West!”
It was at this point that Jno. Peters began for the first time to
entertain serious doubts of the girl’s mental balance. The most
elementary acquaintance with the latest census told him that there were
any number of men at Ealing West. The place was full of them. Would a
sane woman have made an assertion to the contrary? He thought not, and
he was glad that he had the revolver with him. She had done nothing as
yet actively violent, but it was nice to feel prepared. He took it out
and laid it nonchalantly in his lap.
The sight of the weapon acted on Billie electrically. She flung out her
hands, in a gesture of passionate appeal, and played her last card.
“I love _you!_” she cried. She wished she could have remembered his
first name. It would have rounded off the sentence neatly. In such a
moment she could hardly call him “Mr. Peters.” “You are the only man I
love.”
“My gracious goodness!” ejaculated Mr. Peters, and nearly fell over
backwards. To a naturally shy man this sudden and wholly unexpected
declaration was disconcerting; and the clerk was, moreover, engaged. He
blushed violently. And yet, even in that moment of consternation, he
could not check a certain thrill. No man thinks he is as plain as he
really is, but Jno. Peters had always come fairly near to a correct
estimate of his charms, and it had always seemed to him, that, in
inducing his fiancée to accept him, he had gone some. He now began to
wonder if he were not really rather a devil of a chap after all. There
must be precious few men going about capable of inspiring devotion like
this on the strength of about six and a half minutes casual
conversation.
Calmer thoughts succeeded this little flicker of complacency. The girl
was mad. That was the fact of the matter. He got up and began to edge
towards the door. Mr. Samuel would be returning shortly, and he ought
to be warned.
“So that’s all right, isn’t it!” said Billie.
“Oh, quite, quite!” said Mr. Peters. “Er—Thank you very much!”
“I thought you would be pleased,” said Billie, relieved but puzzled.
For a man of volcanic passions, as Sam Marlowe had described him, he
seemed to be taking the thing very calmly. She had anticipated a
strenuous scene.
“Oh, it’s a great compliment!” Mr. Peters assured her.
At this point Sam came in, interrupting the conversation at a moment
when it had reached a somewhat difficult stage. He had finished the
instalment of the serial story in _Home Whispers_, and, looking at his
watch, he fancied that he had allowed sufficient time to elapse for
events to have matured along the lines which his imagination had
indicated.
The atmosphere of the room seemed to him, as he entered, a little
strained. Billie looked pale and agitated. Mr. Peters looked rather
agitated, too. Sam caught Billie’s eye. It had an unspoken appeal in
it. He gave an imperceptible nod, a reassuring nod, the nod of a man
who understood all and was prepared to handle the situation.
“Come, Peters,” he said in a deep, firm, quiet voice, laying a hand on
the clerk’s arm. “It’s time that you went.”
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Samuel! Yes, yes, indeed!”
“I’ll see you out,” said Sam soothingly, and led him through the outer
office and on to the landing outside. “Well, good luck, Peters,” he
said, as they stood at the head of the stairs. “I hope you have a
pleasant trip. Why, what’s the matter? You seem upset.”
“That girl, Mr. Samuel! I really think—really, she cannot be quite
right in her head.”
“Nonsense, nonsense!” said Sam firmly. “She’s all right! Well,
good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Samuel.”
“When did you say you were sailing?”
“Next Saturday, Mr. Samuel. But I fear I shall have no opportunity of
seeing you again before then. I have packing to do and I have to see
this gentleman down in the country....”
“All right. Then we’ll say good-bye now. Good-bye, Peters. Mind you
have a good time in America. I’ll tell my father you called.”
Sam watched him out of sight down the stairs, then turned and made his
way back to the inner office. Billie was sitting limply on the chair
which Jno. Peters had occupied. She sprang to her feet.
“Has he really gone?”
“Yes. He’s gone this time.”
“Was he—was he violent?”
“A little,” said Sam. “A little. But I calmed him down.” He looked at
her gravely. “Thank God I was in time!”
“Oh, you are the bravest man in the world!” cried Billie, and, burying
her face in her hands, burst into tears.
“There, there!” said Sam. “There, there! Come, come! It’s all right
now! There, there, there!”
He knelt down beside her. He slipped one arm round her waist. He patted
her hands.
“There, there, there!” he said.
I have tried to draw Samuel Marlowe so that he will live on the printed
page. I have endeavoured to delineate his character so that it will be
as an open book. And, if I have succeeded in my task, the reader will
by now have become aware that he was a young man with the gall of an
Army mule. His conscience, if he had ever had one, had become atrophied
through long disuse. He had given this sensitive girl the worst fright
she had had since a mouse had got into her bedroom at school. He had
caused Jno. Peters to totter off to the Rupert Street range making low,
bleating noises. And did he care? No! All he cared about was the fact
that he had erased for ever from Billie’s mind that undignified picture
of himself as he had appeared on the boat, and substituted another
which showed him brave, resourceful, gallant. All he cared about was
the fact that Billie, so cold ten minutes before, had just allowed him
to kiss her for the forty-second time. If you had asked him, he would
have said that he had acted for the best, and that out of evil cometh
good, or some sickening thing like that. That was the sort of man
Samuel Marlowe was.
His face was very close to Billie’s, who had cheered up wonderfully by
this time, and he was whispering his degraded words of endearment into
her ear, when there was a sort of explosion in the doorway.
“Great Godfrey!” exclaimed Mr. Rufus Bennett, gazing on the scene from
this point of vantage and mopping with a large handkerchief a scarlet
face, which, as the result of climbing three flights of stairs, had
become slightly soluble. “Great Heavens above! Number four!”
CHAPTER XIV.
STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER
Mr. Bennett advanced shakily into the room, and supported himself with
one hand on the desk, while with the other he still plied the
handkerchief on his over-heated face. Much had occurred to disturb him
this morning. On top of a broken night he had had an affecting
reconciliation scene with Mr. Mortimer, at the conclusion of which he
had decided to take the first train to London in the hope of
intercepting Billie before she reached Sir Mallaby’s office on her
mission of war. The local train-service kept such indecently early
hours that he had been compelled to bolt his breakfast, and, in the
absence of Billie, the only member of the household who knew how to
drive the car, to walk to the station, a distance of nearly two miles,
the last hundred yards of which he had covered at a rapid gallop, under
the erroneous impression that an express whose smoke he had seen in the
distance was the train he had come to catch. Arrived on the platform,
he had had a trying wait, followed by a slow journey to Waterloo. The
cab which he had taken at Waterloo had kept him in a lively state of
apprehension all the way to the Savoy, owing to an apparent desire to
climb over motor-omnibuses when it could not get round them. At the
Savoy he found that Billie had already left, which had involved another
voyage through the London traffic under the auspices of a driver who
appeared to be either blind or desirous of committing suicide. He had
three flights of stairs to negotiate. And, finally, arriving at the
office, he had found his daughter in the circumstances already
described.
“Why, father!” said Billie. “I didn’t expect you.”
As an explanation of her behaviour this might, no doubt, have been
considered sufficient, but as an excuse for it Mr. Bennett thought it
inadequate and would have said so, had he had enough breath. This
physical limitation caused him to remain speechless and to do the best
he could in the way of stern fatherly reproof by puffing like a seal
after a long dive in search of fish.
Having done this, he became aware that Sam Marlowe was moving towards
him with outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was
the calmest person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech.
He did not in so many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of
luck which had befallen him, but he tried to make him understand by his
manner that he was distinctly to be envied as the prospective
father-in-law of such a one as himself.
“I am delighted to see you, Mr. Bennett,” said Sam. “You could not have
come at a more fortunate moment. You see for yourself how things are.
There is no need for a long explanation. You came to find a daughter,
Mr. Bennett, and you have found a son!”
And he would like to see the man, thought Sam, who could have put it
more cleverly and pleasantly and tactfully than that.
“What are you talking about?” said Mr. Bennett, recovering breath. “I
haven’t got a son.”
“I will be a son to you! I will be the prop of your declining
years....”
“What the devil do you mean, my declining years?” demanded Mr. Bennett
with asperity.
“He means when they do decline, father dear,” said Billie.
“Of course, of course,” said Sam. “When they do decline. Not till then,
of course. I wouldn’t dream of it. But, once they do decline, count on
me! And I should like to say for my part,” he went on handsomely, “what
an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a man like Mr.
Bennett. Bennett of New York!” he added spaciously, not so much because
he knew what he meant, for he would have been the first to admit that
he did not, but because it sounded well.
“Oh!” said Mr. Bennett. “You do, do you?”
Mr. Bennett sat down. He put away his handkerchief, which had certainly
earned a rest. Then he fastened a baleful stare upon his
newly-discovered son. It was not the sort of look a proud and happy
father-in-law-to-be ought to have directed at a prospective relative.
It was not, as a matter of fact, the sort of look which anyone ought to
have directed at anybody, except possibly an exceptionally prudish
judge at a criminal in the dock, convicted of a more than usually
atrocious murder. Billie, not being in the actual line of fire, only
caught the tail end of it, but it was enough to create a misgiving.
“Oh, father! You aren’t angry!”
“Angry!”
“You _can’t_ be angry!”
“Why can’t I be angry?” declared Mr. Bennett, with that sense of injury
which comes to self-willed men when their whims are thwarted. “Why the
devil shouldn’t I be angry? I _am_ angry! I come here and find you
like—like this, and you seem to expect me to throw my hat in the air
and give three rousing cheers! Of course I’m angry! You are engaged to
be married to an excellent young man of the highest character, one of
the finest young men I have ever known....”
“Oh, well!” said Sam, straightening his tie modestly. “It’s awfully
good of you....”
“But that’s all over, father.”
“What’s all over?”
“You told me yourself that you had broken off my engagement to Bream.”
“Well—er—yes, I did,” said Mr. Bennett, a little taken aback. “That
is—to a certain extent—so. But,” he added, with restored firmness,
“it’s on again!”
“But I don’t want to marry Bream!”
“Naturally!” said Sam. “Naturally! Quite out of the question. In a few
days we’ll all be roaring with laughter at the very idea.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want! A girl who gets engaged to a dozen
men in three weeks....”
“It wasn’t a dozen!”
“Well, four—five—six—you can’t expect me not to lose count.... I say a
girl who does that does not know what she wants, and older and more
prudent heads must decide for her. You are going to marry Bream
Mortimer!”
“All wrong! All wrong!” said Sam, with a reproving shake of the head.
“All wrong! She’s going to marry me.”
Mr. Bennett scorched him with a look compared with which his earlier
effort had been a loving glance.
“Wilhelmina,” he said, “go into the outer office.”
“But, father, Sam saved my life!”
“Go into the outer office and wait for me there.”
“There was a lunatic in here....”
“There will be another if you don’t go.”
“He had a pistol.”
“Go into the outer office!”
“I shall always love you, Sam!” said Billie, pausing mutinously at the
door.
“I shall always love _you!_” said Sam cordially.
“Nobody can keep us apart!”
“They’re wasting their time, trying.”
“You’re the most wonderful man in the world!”
“There never was another girl like you!”
“Get _out!_” bellowed Mr. Bennett, on whose equanimity this love-scene,
which I think beautiful, was jarring profoundly. “Now, sir!” he said to
Sam, as the door closed.
“Yes, let’s talk it over calmly,” said Sam.
“I will not talk it over calmly!”
“Oh, come! You can do it if you try. In the first place, whatever put
this silly idea into your head about that sweet girl marrying Bream
Mortimer?”
“Bream Mortimer is the son of Henry Mortimer.”
“I know,” said Sam. “And, while it is no doubt unfair to hold that
against him, it’s a point you can’t afford to ignore. Henry Mortimer!
You and I have Henry Mortimer’s number. We know what Henry Mortimer is
like! A man who spends his time thinking up ways of annoying you. You
can’t seriously want to have the Mortimer family linked to you by
marriage.”
“Henry Mortimer is my oldest friend.”
“That makes it all the worse. Fancy a man who calls himself your friend
treating you like that!”
“The misunderstanding to which you allude has been completely smoothed
over. My relations with Mr. Mortimer are thoroughly cordial.”
“Well, have it your own way. Personally, I wouldn’t trust a man like
that. And, as for letting my daughter marry his son...!”
“I have decided once and for all....”
“If you’ll take my advice, you will break the thing off.”
“I will not take your advice.”
“I wouldn’t expect to charge you for it,” explained Sam reassuringly.
“I give it you as a friend, not as a lawyer. Six-and-eightpence to
others, free to you.”
“Will you understand that my daughter is going to marry Bream Mortimer?
What are you giggling about?”
“It sounds so silly. The idea of anyone marrying Bream Mortimer, I
mean.”
“Let me tell you he is a thoroughly estimable young man.”
“And there you put the whole thing in a nutshell. Your daughter is a
girl of spirit. She would hate to be tied for life to an estimable
young man.”
“She will do as I tell her.”
Sam regarded him sternly.
“Have you no regard for her happiness?”
“I am the best judge of what is best for her.”
“If you ask me,” said Sam candidly, “I think you’re a rotten judge.”
“I did not come here to be insulted!”
“I like that! You have been insulting me ever since you arrived. What
right have you to say that I’m not fit to marry your daughter?”
“I did not say that.”
“You’ve implied it. And you’ve been looking at me as if I were a leper
or something the Pure Food Committee had condemned. Why? That’s what I
ask you,” said Sam, warming up. This he fancied, was the way Widgery
would have tackled a troublesome client. “Why? Answer me that!”
“I....”
Sam rapped sharply on the desk.
“Be careful, sir. Be very careful!” He knew that this was what lawyers
always said. Of course, there is a difference in position between a
miscreant whom you suspect of an attempt at perjury and the father of
the girl you love, whose consent to the match you wish to obtain, but
Sam was in no mood for these nice distinctions. He only knew that
lawyers told people to be very careful, so he told Mr. Bennett to be
very careful.
“What do you mean, be very careful?” said Mr. Bennett.
“I’m dashed if I know,” said Sam frankly. The question struck him as a
mean attack. He wondered how Widgery would have met it. Probably by
smiling quietly and polishing his spectacles. Sam had no spectacles. He
endeavoured, however, to smile quietly.
“Don’t laugh at me!” roared Mr. Bennett.
“I’m not laughing at you.”
“You are!”
“I’m not! I’m smiling quietly.”
“Well, don’t then!” said Mr. Bennett. He glowered at his young
companion. “I don’t know why I’m wasting my time, talking to you. The
position is clear to the meanest intelligence. I have no objection to
you personally....”
“Come, this is better!” said Sam.
“I don’t know you well enough to have any objection to you or any
opinion of you at all. This is only the second time I have ever met you
in my life.”
“Mark you,” said Sam, “I think I am one of those fellows who grow on
people....”
“As far as I am concerned, you simply do not exist. You may be the
noblest character in London or you may be wanted by the police. I don’t
know. And I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me. You mean nothing in my
life. I don’t know you.”
“You must persevere,” said Sam. “You must buckle to and get to know me.
Don’t give the thing up in this half-hearted way. Everything has to
have a beginning. Stick to it, and in a week or two you will find
yourself knowing me quite well.”
“I don’t want to know you!”
“You say that now, but wait!”
“And thank goodness I have not got to!” exploded Mr. Bennett, ceasing
to be calm and reasonable with a suddenness which affected Sam much as
though half a pound of gunpowder had been touched off under his chair.
“For the little I have seen of you has been quite enough! Kindly
understand that my daughter is engaged to be married to another man,
and that I do not wish to see or hear anything of you again! I shall
try to forget your very existence, and I shall see to it that
Wilhelmina does the same! You’re an impudent scoundrel, sir! An
impudent scoundrel! I don’t like you! I don’t wish to see you again! If
you were the last man in the world I wouldn’t allow my daughter to
marry you! If that is quite clear, I will wish you good morning!”
Mr. Bennett thundered out of the room, and Sam, temporarily stunned by
the outburst, remained where he was, gaping. A few minutes later life
began to return to his palsied limbs. It occurred to him that Mr.
Bennett had forgotten to kiss him good-bye, and he went into the outer
office to tell him so. But the outer office was empty. Sam stood for a
moment in thought, then he returned to the inner office, and, picking
up a time-table, began to look out trains to the village of Windlehurst
in Hampshire, the nearest station to his aunt Adeline’s charming
old-world house, Windles.
CHAPTER XV.
DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE
As I read over the last few chapters of this narrative, I see that I
have been giving the reader rather too jumpy a time. To almost a
painful degree I have excited his pity and terror; and, though that is
what Aristotle says one ought to do, I feel that a little respite would
not be out of order. The reader can stand having his emotions tortured
up to a certain point; after that he wants to take it easy for a bit.
It is with pleasure, therefore, that I turn now to depict a quiet,
peaceful scene in domestic life. It won’t last long—three minutes,
perhaps, by a good stop-watch—but that is not my fault. My task is to
record facts as they happened.
The morning sunlight fell pleasantly on the garden of Windles, turning
it into the green and amber Paradise which Nature had intended it to
be. A number of the local birds sang melodiously in the undergrowth at
the end of the lawn, while others, more energetic, hopped about the
grass in quest of worms. Bees, mercifully ignorant that, after they had
worked themselves to the bone gathering honey, the proceeds of their
labour would be collared and consumed by idle humans, buzzed
industriously to and fro and dived head foremost into flowers. Winged
insects danced sarabands in the sunshine. In a deck-chair under the
cedar-tree Billie Bennett, with a sketching-block on her knee, was
engaged in drawing a picture of the ruined castle. Beside her, curled
up in a ball, lay her Pekinese dog, Pinky-Boodles. Beside Pinky-Boodles
slept Smith, the bulldog. In the distant stable-yard, unseen but
audible, a boy in shirt-sleeves was washing the car and singing as much
as a treacherous memory would permit of a popular sentimental ballad.
You may think that was all. You may suppose that nothing could be added
to deepen the atmosphere of peace and content. Not so. At this moment,
Mr. Bennett emerged from the French windows of the drawing-room, clad
in white flannels and buckskin shoes, supplying just the finishing
touch that was needed.
Mr. Bennett crossed the lawn, and sat down beside his daughter. Smith,
the bulldog, raising a sleepy head, breathed heavily; but Mr. Bennett
did not quail. Since their last unfortunate meeting, relations of
distant, but solid, friendship had come to exist between pursuer and
pursued. Sceptical at first, Mr. Bennett had at length allowed himself
to be persuaded of the mildness of the animal’s nature and the
essential purity of his motives; and now it was only when they
encountered each other unexpectedly round sharp corners that he ever
betrayed the slightest alarm. So now, while Smith slept on the grass,
Mr. Bennett reclined in the chair. It was the nearest thing modern
civilisation has seen to the lion lying down with the lamb.
“Sketching?” said Mr. Bennett.
“Yes,” said Billie, for there were no secrets between this girl and her
father. At least, not many. She occasionally omitted to tell him some
such trifle as that she had met Samuel Marlowe on the previous morning
in a leafy lane, and intended to meet him again this afternoon, but
apart from that her mind was an open book.
“It’s a great morning,” said Mr. Bennett.
“So peaceful,” said Billie.
“The eggs you get in the country in England,” said Mr. Bennett,
suddenly striking a lyrical note, “are extraordinary. I had three for
breakfast this morning which defied competition, simply defied
competition. They were large and brown, and as fresh as new-mown hay!”
He mused for a while in a sort of ecstasy.
“And the hams!” he went on. “The ham I had for breakfast was what I
call ham! I don’t know when I’ve had ham like that. I suppose it’s
something they feed the pigs on!” he concluded, in soft meditation. And
he gave a little sigh. Life was very beautiful.
Silence fell, broken only by the snoring of Smith. Billie was thinking
of Sam, and of what Sam had said to her in the lane yesterday; of his
clean-cut face, and the look in his eyes—so vastly superior to any look
that ever came into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling herself
that her relations with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and
romantic, she enjoyed this freshet of surreptitious meetings which had
come to enliven the stream of her life. It was pleasant to go warily
into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast a swift
side-glance at her father—the unconscious ogre in her fairy-story. What
would he say if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and consequently
continued to meditate peacefully on ham.
They had sat like this for perhaps a minute—two happy mortals lulled by
the gentle beauty of the day—when from the window of the drawing-room
there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at
once—and have done with it—that this is the point where the quiet,
peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and
terror resume work at the old stand.
The maid—her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged
to be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second
assistant at Green’s Grocery Stores in Windlehurst—approached Mr.
Bennett.
“Please, sir, a gentleman to see you.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices edged
with bread-crumbed fat.
“A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are
expecting him.”
“Of course, yes. To be sure.”
Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French
windows he could see an indistinct form in a grey suit, and remembered
that this was the morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s clerk—who was
taking those Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America—had written
that he would call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was sailing
from Southampton to-morrow.
He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno.
Peters with an expression on his ill-favoured face, which looked like
one of consternation, of uneasiness, even of alarm.
“Morning, Mr. Peters,” said Mr. Bennett. “Very good of you to run down.
Take a seat, and I’ll just go through the few notes I have made about
the matter.”
“Mr. Bennett,” exclaimed Jno. Peters. “May—may I speak?”
“What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?”
Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at
the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a
duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since,
gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming
scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie,
seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had
realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett
ignorant of what he was up against.
One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some
kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it
seemed to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been
feeling notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and
the subsequent walk from the station. The splendour of the morning had
soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea
spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of
pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable
pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink,
without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and
seen Billie.
“Mr. Bennett,” he said, “I don’t want to do anybody any harm, and, if
you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it
is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in
her head. I don’t say she’s dangerous, but she isn’t compos. She
decidedly is _not_ compos, Mr. Bennett!”
Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought
crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the
kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters’ sanity went down
to zero.
“What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?”
It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other’s wealth and business
connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He
particularised.
“I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were
dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee.”
“What! What!” Mr. Bennett spluttered. “Do you know who that is?” he
exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, indeed!” said Jno. Peters. “I have only met her once, when
she came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and
appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am
not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened
when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a
dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when—”—here Jno. Peters, modest to the core,
turned vividly pink—“when she told me—she told me that I was the only
man she loved!”
Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry.
“Sweet spirits of nitre! What!”
“Those were her exact words.”
“Five!” ejaculated Mr. Bennett, in a strangled voice. “By the great
horn spoon, number five!”
Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred
from seeking light by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding from
his seat with a vivacity of which one would not have believed him
capable, charged to the French window and emitted a bellow.
“Wilhelmina!”
Billie looked up from her sketching-block with a start. It seemed to
her that there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her
father could have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she
did not know; but she dropped her block and hurried to his assistance.
“What is it, father?”
Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in
after him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There
before her, looking more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters;
and there was an ominous bulge in his right coat-pocket which to her
excited senses betrayed the presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters
was, as a matter of fact, carrying in his right coat-pocket was a bag
of mixed chocolates which he had purchased in Windlehurst. But Billie’s
eyes, though bright, had no X-ray quality. Her simple creed was that,
if Jno. Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must be caused by a
pistol. She screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole
acquaintance with Jno Peters had been one constant backing against
walls.
“Don’t shoot!” she cried, as Mr. Peters absent-mindedly dipped his hand
into the pocket of his coat. “Oh, please don’t shoot!”
“What the deuce do you mean?” said Mr. Bennett irritably. “Wilhelmina,
this man says that you told him you loved him.”
“Yes, I did, and I do. Really, really, Mr. Peters, I do!”
“Suffering cats!”
Mr. Bennett clutched at the back of his chair.
“But you’ve only met him once,” he added almost pleadingly.
“You don’t understand, father dear,” said Billie desperately. “I’ll
explain the whole thing later, when....”
“Father!” ejaculated Jno. Peters feebly. “Did you say ‘father?’”
“Of course I said ‘father!’”
“This is my daughter, Mr. Peters.”
“My daughter! I mean, your daughter! Are—are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Do you think I don’t know my own daughter?”
“But she called me Mr. Peters!”
“Well, it’s your name, isn’t it?”
“But, if she—if this young lady is your daughter, how did she know my
name?”
The point seemed to strike Mr. Bennett. He turned to Billie.
“That’s true. Tell me, Wilhelmina, when did you and Mr. Peters meet?”
“Why, in—in Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s office, the morning you came there
and found me when I was talking to Sam.”
Mr. Peters uttered a subdued gargling sound. He was finding this scene
oppressive to a not very robust intellect.
“He—Mr. Samuel—told me your name was Miss Milliken,” he said dully.
Billie stared at him.
“Mr. Marlowe told you my name was Miss Milliken!” she repeated.
“He told me that you were the sister of the Miss Milliken who acts as
stenographer for the guv’—for Sir Mallaby, and sent me in to show you
my revolver, because he said you were interested and wanted to see it.”
Billie uttered an exclamation. So did Mr. Bennett, who hated mysteries.
“What revolver? Which revolver? What’s all this about a revolver? Have
you a revolver?”
“Why, yes, Mr. Bennett. It is packed now in my trunk, but usually I
carry it about with me everywhere in order to take a little practice at
the Rupert Street range. I bought it when Sir Mallaby told me he was
sending me to America, because I thought I ought to be prepared—because
of the Underworld, you know.”
A cold gleam had come into Billie’s eyes. Her face was pale and hard.
If Sam Marlowe—at that moment carolling blithely in his bedroom at the
Blue Boar in Windlehurst, washing his hands preparatory to descending
to the coffee-room for a bit of cold lunch—could have seen her, the
song would have frozen on his lips. Which, one might mention, as
showing that there is always a bright side, would have been much
appreciated by the travelling gentleman in the adjoining room, who had
had a wild night with some other travelling gentlemen, and was then
nursing a rather severe headache, separated from Sam’s penetrating
baritone only by the thickness of a wooden wall.
Billie knew all. And, terrible though the fact is as an indictment of
the male sex, when a woman knows all, there is invariably trouble ahead
for some man. There was trouble ahead for Samuel Marlowe. Billie, now
in possession of the facts, had examined them and come to the
conclusion that Sam had played a practical joke on her, and she was a
girl who strongly disapproved of practical humour at her expense.
“That morning I met you at Sir Mallaby’s office, Mr. Peters,” she said
in a frosty voice, “Mr. Marlowe had just finished telling me a long and
convincing story to the effect that you were madly in love with a Miss
Milliken, who had jilted you, and that this had driven you off your
head, and that you spent your time going about with a pistol, trying to
shoot every red-haired woman you saw, because you thought they were
Miss Milliken. Naturally, when you came in and called me Miss Milliken,
and brandished a revolver, I was very frightened. I thought it would be
useless to tell you that I wasn’t Miss Milliken, so I tried to persuade
you that I was and hadn’t jilted you after all.”
“Good gracious!” said Mr. Peters, vastly relieved; and yet—for always
there is bitter mixed with the sweet—a shade disappointed. “Then—er—you
don’t love me after all?”
“No!” said Billie. “I am engaged to Bream Mortimer, and I love him and
nobody else in the world!”
The last portion of her observation was intended for the consumption of
Mr. Bennett, rather than that of Mr. Peters, and he consumed it
joyfully. He folded Billie in his ample embrace.
“I always thought you had a grain of sense hidden away somewhere,” he
said, paying her a striking tribute. “I hope now that we’ve heard the
last of all this foolishness about that young hound Marlowe.”
“You certainly have! I don’t want ever to see him again! I hate him!”
“You couldn’t do better, my dear,” said Mr. Bennett, approvingly. “And
now run away. Mr. Peters and I have some business to discuss.”
A quarter of an hour later, Webster, the valet, sunning himself in the
stable-yard, was aware of the daughter of his employer approaching him.
“Webster,” said Billie. She was still pale. Her face was still hard,
and her eyes still gleamed coldly.
“Miss?” said Webster politely, throwing away the cigarette with which
he had been refreshing himself.
“Will you do something for me?”
“I should be more than delighted, miss.”
Billie whisked into view an envelope which had been concealed in the
recesses of her dress.
“Do you know the country about here well, Webster?”
“Within a certain radius, not unintimately, miss. I have been for
several enjoyable rambles since the fine weather set in.”
“Do you know the place where there is a road leading to Havant, and
another to Cosham? It’s about a mile down....”
“I know the spot well, miss.”
“Well, straight in front of you when you get to the sign-post there is
a little lane....”
“I know it, miss,” said Webster, with a faint smile. Twice had he
escorted Miss Trimblett, Billie’s maid, thither. “A delightfully
romantic spot. What with the overhanging trees, the wealth of
blackberry bushes, the varied wild-flowers....”
“Yes, never mind about the wild-flowers now. I want you after lunch, to
take this note to a gentleman you will find sitting on the gate at the
bottom of the lane....”
“Sitting on the gate, miss. Yes, miss.”
“Or leaning against it. You can’t mistake him. He is rather tall and
... oh, well, there isn’t likely to be anybody else there, so you can’t
make a mistake. Give him this, will you?”
“Certainly, miss. Er—any message?”
“Any what?”
“Any verbal message, miss?”
“No, certainly not! You won’t forget, will you, Webster?”
“On no account whatever, miss. Shall I wait for an answer?”
“There won’t be any answer,” said Billie, setting her teeth for an
instant. “Oh, Webster!”
“Miss?”
“I can rely on you to say nothing to anybody?”
“Most undoubtedly, miss. Most undoubtedly.”
“Does anybody know anything about a feller named S. Marlowe?” inquired
Webster, entering the kitchen. “Don’t all speak at once! S. Marlowe.
Ever heard of him?”
He paused for a reply, but nobody had any information to impart.
“Because there’s something jolly well up! Our Miss B. is sending me
with notes for him to the bottom of lanes.”
“And her engaged to young Mr. Mortimer!” said the scullery-maid,
shocked. “The way they go on. Chronic!” said the scullery-maid.
“Don’t you go getting alarmed! And don’t you,” added Webster, “go
shoving your oar in when your social superiors are talking! I’ve had to
speak to you about that before. My remarks were addressed to Mrs.
Withers here.”
He indicated the cook with a respectful gesture.
“Yes, here’s the note, Mrs. Withers. Of course, if you had a steamy
kettle handy, in about half a moment we could ... but no, perhaps it’s
wiser not to risk it. And, come to that, I don’t need to unstick the
envelope to know what’s inside here. It’s the raspberry, ma’am, or I’ve
lost all my power to read the human female countenance. Very cold and
proud-looking she was! I don’t know who this S. Marlowe is, but I do
know one thing; in this hand I hold the instrument that’s going to give
it him in the neck, proper! Right in the neck, or my name isn’t Montagu
Webster!”
“Well!” said Mrs. Withers, comfortably, pausing for a moment from her
labours. “Think of that!”
“The way I look at it,” said Webster, “is that there’s been some sort
of understanding between our Miss B. and this S. Marlowe, and she’s
thought better of it and decided to stick to the man of her parent’s
choice. She’s chosen wealth and made up her mind to hand the humble
suitor the mitten. There was a rather similar situation in ‘Cupid or
Mammon,’ that Nosegay Novelette I was reading in the train coming down
here, only that ended different. For my part I’d be better pleased if
our Miss B. would let the cash go, and obey the dictates of her own
heart; but these modern girls are all alike! All out for the stuff,
they are! Oh, well, it’s none of my affair,” said Webster, stifling a
not unmanly sigh. For beneath that immaculate shirt-front there beat a
warm heart. Montagu Webster was a sentimentalist.
CHAPTER XVI.
WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED
At half-past two that afternoon, full of optimism and cold beef, gaily
unconscious that Webster with measured strides was approaching ever
nearer with the note that was to give it him in the neck, proper,
Samuel Marlowe dangled his feet from the top bar of the gate at the end
of the lane, and smoked contentedly as he waited for Billie to make her
appearance. He had had an excellent lunch; his pipe was drawing well,
and all Nature smiled. The breeze from the sea across the meadows
tickled pleasantly the back of his head, and sang a soothing song in
the long grass and ragged-robins at his feet. He was looking forward
with a roseate glow of anticipation to the moment when the white
flutter of Billie’s dress would break the green of the foreground. How
eagerly he would jump from the gate! How lovingly he would....
The elegant figure of Webster interrupted his reverie. Sam had never
seen Webster before, and it was with no pleasure that he saw him now.
He had come to regard this lane as his own private property, and he
resented trespassers. He tucked his legs under him, and scowled at
Webster under the brim of his hat.
The valet advanced towards him with the air of an affable executioner
stepping daintily to the block.
“Mr. Marlowe, sir?” he inquired politely.
Sam was startled. He could making nothing of this.
“Eh? What?”
“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. S. Marlowe?”
“Yes, that’s my name.”
“Mine is Webster, sir. I am Mr. Bennett’s personal gentleman’s
gentleman. Miss Bennett entrusted me with this note to deliver to you,
sir.”
Sam began to grasp the position. For some reason or other, the dear
girl had been prevented from coming this afternoon, and she had written
to explain and relieve his anxiety. It was like her. It was just the
sweet, thoughtful thing he would have expected her to do. His
contentment with the existing scheme of things returned. The sun shone
out again, and he found himself amiably disposed towards the messenger.
“Fine day,” he said, as he took the note.
“Extremely, sir,” said Webster, outwardly unemotional, inwardly full of
a grave pity.
It was plain to him that there had been no previous little rift to
prepare the young man for the cervical operation which awaited him, and
he edged a little nearer, in order to be handy to catch Sam if the
shock knocked him off the gate.
As it happened, it did not. Having read the opening words of the note,
Sam rocked violently; but his feet were twined about the lower bars and
this saved him from overbalancing. Webster stepped back, relieved.
The note fluttered to the ground. Webster, picking it up and handing it
back, was enabled to get a glimpse of the first two sentences. They
confirmed his suspicions. The note was hot stuff. Assuming that it
continued as it began, it was about the warmest thing of its kind that
pen had ever written. Webster had received one or two heated epistles
from the sex in his time—your man of gallantry can hardly hope to
escape these unpleasantnesses—but none had got off the mark quite so
swiftly, and with quite so much frigid violence as this.
“Thanks,” said Sam mechanically.
“Not at all, sir. You are very welcome.”
Sam resumed his reading. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead.
His toes curled, and something seemed to be crawling down the small of
his back. His heart had moved from its proper place and was now beating
in his throat. He swallowed once or twice to remove the obstruction,
but without success. A kind of pall had descended on the landscape,
blotting out the sun.
Of all the rotten sensations in this world, the worst is the
realisation that a thousand-to-one chance has come off, and caused our
wrong-doing to be detected. There had seemed no possibility of that
little ruse of his being discovered, and yet here was Billie in full
possession of the facts. It almost made the thing worse that she did
not say how she had come into possession of them. This gave Sam that
feeling of self-pity, that sense of having been ill-used by Fate, which
makes the bringing home of crime so particularly poignant.
“Fine day!” he muttered. He had a sort of subconscious feeling that it
was imperative to keep engaging Webster in light conversation.
“Yes, sir. Weather still keeps up,” agreed the valet suavely.
Sam frowned over the note. He felt injured. Sending a fellow notes
didn’t give him a chance. If she had come in person and denounced him
it would not have been an agreeable experience, but at least it would
have been possible then to have pleaded and cajoled and—and all that
sort of thing. But what could he do now? It seemed to him that his only
possible course was to write a note in reply, begging her to see him.
He explored his pockets and found a pencil and a scrap of paper. For
some moments he scribbled desperately. Then he folded the note.
“Will you take this to Miss Bennett?” he said, holding it out.
Webster took the missive, because he wanted to read it later at his
leisure; but he shook his head.
“Useless, I fear, sir,” he said gravely.
“What do you mean?”
“I am afraid it would effect little or nothing, sir, sending our Miss
B. notes. She is not in the proper frame of mind to appreciate them. I
saw her face when she handed me the letter you have just read, and I
assure you, sir, she is not in a malleable mood.”
“You seem to know a lot about it!”
“I have studied the sex, sir,” said Webster modestly.
“I mean, about my business, confound it! You seem to know all about
it!”
“Why, yes, sir, I think I may say that I have grasped the position of
affairs. And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my
respectful sympathy.”
Dignity is a sensitive plant which nourishes only under the fairest
conditions. Sam’s had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie’s note.
In other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a
stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one
of dull but distinct gratitude. The four winds of Heaven blew chilly
upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a
mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that
mantle. If Webster felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate, to comfort
him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam would have accepted
condolences from a coal-heaver.
“I was reading a story—one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know if
you are familiar with the series, sir?—in which much the same situation
occurred. It was entitled ‘Cupid or Mammon.’ The heroine, Lady Blanche
Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor, despatches a
note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be. I believe it
often happens like that, sir.”
“You’re all wrong,” said Sam. “It’s not that at all.”
“Indeed, sir? I supposed it was.”
“Nothing like it! I—I——.”
Sam’s dignity, on its death-bed, made a last effort to assert itself.
“I don’t know what it’s got to do with you!”
“Precisely, sir!” said Webster, with dignity. “Just as you say! Good
afternoon, sir!”
He swayed gracefully, conveying a suggestion of departure without
moving his feet. The action was enough for Sam. Dignity gave an
expiring gurgle, and passed away, regretted by all.
“Don’t go!” he cried.
The idea of being left alone in this infernal lane, without human
support, overpowered him. Moreover, Webster had personality. He exuded
it. Already Sam had begun to cling to him in spirit, and rely on his
support.
“Don’t go!”
“Certainly not, if you do not wish it, sir.”
Webster coughed gently, to show his appreciation of the delicate nature
of the conversation. He was consumed with curiosity, and his threatened
departure had been but a pretence. A team of horses could not have
moved Webster at that moment.
“Might I ask, then, what...?”
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” said Sam. “At least, there was, but
now there isn’t, if you see what I mean.”
“I fear I have not quite grasped your meaning, sir.”
“Well, I—I—played a sort of—you might almost call it a sort of trick on
Miss Bennett. With the best motives, of course!”
“Of course, sir!”
“And she’s found out! I don’t know how she’s found out, but she has! So
there you are!”
“Of what nature would the trick be, sir? A species of ruse, sir,—some
kind of innocent deception?”
“Well, it was like this.”
It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting
emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman
intelligence of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient
points. Indeed, he said that it reminded him of something of much the
same kind in the Nosegay Novelette, “All for Her,” where the hero,
anxious to win the esteem of the lady of his heart, had bribed a tramp
to simulate an attack upon her in a lonely road.
“The principle’s the same,” said Webster.
“Well, what did he do when she found out?”
“She did not find out, sir. All ended happily, and never had the
wedding-bells in the old village church rung out a blither peal than
they did at the subsequent union.”
Sam was thoughtful.
“Bribed a tramp to attack her, did he?”
“Yes, sir. She had never thought much of him till that moment, sir.
Very cold and haughty she had been, his social status being
considerably inferior to her own. But, when she cried for help, and he
dashed out from behind a hedge, well, it made all the difference.”
“I wonder where I could get a good tramp,” said Sam, meditatively.
Webster shook his head.
“I really would hardly recommend such a procedure, sir.”
“No, it would be difficult to make a tramp understand what you wanted.”
Sam brightened.
“I’ve got it! _You_ pretend to attack her, and I’ll....”
“I couldn’t, sir! I couldn’t, really! I should jeopardise my
situation.”
“Oh, come. Be a man!”
“No, sir, I fear not. There’s a difference between handing in your
resignation—I was compelled to do that only recently, owing to a few
words I had with the guv’nor, though subsequently prevailed upon to
withdraw it—I say there’s a difference between handing in your
resignation and being given the sack, and that’s what would
happen—without a character, what’s more, and lucky if it didn’t mean a
prison cell! No, sir, I could not contemplate such a thing.”
“Then I don’t see that there’s anything to be done,” said Sam,
morosely.
“Oh, I shouldn’t say that, sir,” said Webster encouragingly. “It’s
simply a matter of finding the way. The problem confronting us—you, I
should say....”
“Us,” said Sam. “Most decidedly us.”
“Thank you very much, sir. I would not have presumed, but if you say
so.... The problem confronting us, as I envisage it, resolves itself
into this. You have offended our Miss B. and she has expressed a
disinclination ever to see you again. How, then, is it possible, in
spite of her attitude, to recapture her esteem?”
“Exactly,” said Sam.
“There are several methods which occur to one....”
“They don’t occur to _me!_”
“Well, for example, you might rescue her from a burning building, as in
‘True As Steel’....”
“Set fire to the house, eh?” said Sam reflectively. “Yes, there might
be something in that.”
“I would hardly advise such a thing,” said Webster, a little
hastily—flattered at the readiness with which his disciple was taking
his advice, yet acutely alive to the fact that he slept at the top of
the house himself. “A little drastic, if I may say so. It might be
better to save her from drowning, as in ‘The Earl’s Secret.’”
“Ah, but where could she drown?”
“Well, there is a lake in the grounds....”
“Excellent!” said Sam. “Terrific! I knew I could rely on you. Say no
more! The whole thing’s settled. You take her out rowing on the lake,
and upset the boat. I plunge in.... I suppose you can swim?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh? Well, never mind. You’ll manage somehow, I expect. Cling to the
upturned boat or something, I shouldn’t wonder. There’s always a way.
Yes, that’s the plan. When is the earliest you could arrange this?”
“I fear such a course must be considered out of the question, sir. It
really wouldn’t do.”
“I can’t see a flaw in it.”
“Well, in the first place, it would certainly jeopardise my
situation....”
“Oh, hang your situation! You talk as if you were Prime Minister or
something. You can easily get another situation. A valuable man like
you,” said Sam ingratiatingly.
“No, sir,” said Webster firmly. “From boyhood up I’ve always had a
regular horror of the water. I can’t so much as go paddling without an
uneasy feeling.”
The image of Webster paddling was arresting enough to occupy Sam’s
thoughts for a moment. It was an inspiring picture, and for an instant
uplifted his spirits. Then they fell again.
“Well, I don’t see what there _is_ to be done,” he said, gloomily.
“It’s no good my making suggestions, if you have some frivolous
objection to all of them.”
“My idea,” said Webster, “would be something which did not involve my
own personal and active co-operation, sir. If it is all the same to
you, I should prefer to limit my assistance to advice and sympathy. I
am anxious to help, but I am a man of regular habits, which I do not
wish to disturb. Did you ever read ‘Footpaths of Fate,’ in the Nosegay
series, sir? I’ve only just remembered it, and it contains the most
helpful suggestion of the lot. There had been a misunderstanding
between the heroine and the hero—their names have slipped my mind,
though I fancy his was Cyril—and she had told him to hop it....”
“To what?”
“To leave her for ever, sir. And what do you think he did?”
“How the deuce do I know?”
“He kidnapped her little brother, sir, to whom she was devoted, kept
him hidden for a bit, and then returned him, and in her gratitude all
was forgotten and forgiven, and never....”
“I know. Never had the bells of the old village church....”
“Rung out a blither peal. Exactly, sir. Well, there, if you will allow
me to say so, you are, sir! You need seek no further for a plan of
action.”
“Miss Bennett hasn’t got a little brother.”
“No, sir. But she has a dog, and is greatly attached to it.”
Sam stared. From the expression on his face it was evident that Webster
imagined himself to have made a suggestion of exceptional intelligence.
It struck Sam as the silliest he had ever heard.
“You mean I ought to steal her dog?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“But, good heavens! Have you seen that dog?”
“The one to which I allude is a small brown animal with a fluffy tail.”
“Yes, and a bark like a steam-siren, and, in addition to that, about
eighty-five teeth, all sharper than razors. I couldn’t get within ten
feet of that dog without its lifting the roof off, and, if I did, it
would chew me into small pieces.”
“I had anticipated that difficulty, sir. In ‘Footpaths of Fate’ there
was a nurse who assisted the hero by drugging the child.”
“By Jove!” said Sam, impressed.
“He rewarded her,” said Webster, allowing his gaze to stray
nonchalantly over the countryside, “liberally, very liberally.”
“If you mean that you expect me to reward you if you drug the dog,”
said Sam, “don’t worry. Let me bring this thing off, and you can have
all I’ve got, and my cuff-links as well. Come now, this is really
beginning to look like something. Speak to me more of this matter.
Where do we go from here?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“I mean, what’s the next step in the scheme? Oh, Lord!” Sam’s face
fell. The light of hope died out of his eyes. “It’s all off! It can’t
be done! How could I possibly get into the house? I take it that the
little brute sleeps in the house?”
“That need constitute no obstacle, sir, no obstacle at all. The animal
sleeps in a basket in the hall.... Perhaps you are familiar with the
interior of the house, sir?”
“I haven’t been inside it since I was at school. I’m Mr. Hignett’s
cousin, you know.”
“Indeed, sir? I wasn’t aware. Mr. Hignett has the mumps, poor
gentleman.”
“Has he?” said Sam, not particularly interested. “I used to stay with
him,” he went on, “during the holidays sometimes, but I’ve practically
forgotten what the place is like inside. I remember the hall vaguely.
Fireplace at one side, one or two suits of armour standing about, a
sort of window-ledge near the front door....”
“Precisely, sir. It is close beside that window-ledge that the animal’s
basket is situated. If I administer a slight soporific....”
“Yes, but you haven’t explained yet how I am to get into the house in
the first place.”
“Quite easily, sir. I can admit you through the drawing-room windows
while dinner is in progress.”
“Fine!”
“You can then secrete yourself in the cupboard in the drawing-room.
Perhaps you recollect the cupboard to which I refer, sir?”
“No, I don’t remember any cupboard. As a matter of fact, when I used to
stay at the house the drawing-room was barred. Mrs. Hignett wouldn’t
let us inside it for fear we should smash her china. Is there a
cupboard?”
“Immediately behind the piano, sir. A nice, roomy cupboard. I was
glancing into it myself in a spirit of idle curiosity only the other
day. It contains nothing except a few knick-knacks on an upper shelf.
You could lock yourself in from the interior, and be quite comfortably
seated on the floor till the household retired to bed.”
“When would that be?”
“They retire quite early, sir, as a rule. By half-past ten the coast is
generally clear. At that time I would suggest that I came down and
knocked on the cupboard door to notify you that all was well.”
Sam was glowing with frank approval.
“You know, you’re a master-mind!” he said, enthusiastically.
“You’re very kind, sir!”
“One of the lads, by Jove!” said Sam. “And not the worst of them! I
don’t want to flatter you, but there’s a future for you in crime, if
you cared to go in for it.”
“I am glad that you appreciate my poor efforts, sir. Then we will
regard the scheme as passed and approved?”
“I should say we would! It’s a bird!”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’ll be round at about a quarter to eight. Will that be right?”
“Admirable, sir.”
“And, I say, about that soporific.... Don’t overdo it. Don’t go killing
the little beast.”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Well,” said Sam, “you can’t say it’s not a temptation. And you know
what you Napoleons of the Underworld are!”
CHAPTER XVII.
A CROWDED NIGHT
§ 1
If there is one thing more than another which weighs upon the mind of a
story-teller as he chronicles the events which he has set out to
describe, it is the thought that the reader may be growing impatient
with him for straying from the main channel of his tale and devoting
himself to what are, after all, minor developments. This story, for
instance, opened with Mrs. Horace Hignett, the world-famous writer on
Theosophy, going over to America to begin a lecturing-tour; and no one
realises more keenly than I do that I have left Mrs. Hignett flat. I
have thrust that great thinker into the background and concentrated my
attention on the affairs of one who is both her mental and her moral
inferior, Samuel Marlowe. I seem at this point to see the reader—a
great brute of a fellow with beetling eyebrows and a jaw like the ram
of a battleship, the sort of fellow who is full of determination and
will stand no nonsense—rising to remark that he doesn’t care what
happened to Samuel Marlowe and that what he wants to know is, how Mrs.
Hignett made out on her lecturing-tour. Did she go big in Buffalo? Did
she have ’em tearing up the seats in Schenectady? Was she a riot in
Chicago and a cyclone in St. Louis? Those are the points on which he
desires information, or give him his money back.
I cannot supply the information. And, before you condemn me, let me
hastily add that the fault is not mine but that of Mrs. Hignett
herself. The fact is, she never went to Buffalo. Schenectady saw
nothing of her. She did not get within a thousand miles of Chicago, nor
did she penetrate to St. Louis. For the very morning after her son
Eustace sailed for England in the liner “Atlantic,” she happened to
read in the paper one of those abridged passenger-lists which the
journals of New York are in the habit of printing, and got a nasty
shock when she saw that, among those whose society Eustace would enjoy
during the voyage, was “Miss Wilhelmina Bennett, daughter of J. Rufus
Bennett of Bennett, Mandelbaum and Co.”. And within five minutes of
digesting this information, she was at her desk writing out telegrams
cancelling all her engagements. Iron-souled as this woman was, her
fingers trembled as she wrote. She had a vision of Eustace and the
daughter of J. Rufus Bennett strolling together on moonlit decks,
leaning over rails damp with sea-spray and, in short, generally
starting the whole trouble all over again.
In the height of the tourist season it is not always possible for one
who wishes to leave America to spring on to the next boat. A long
morning’s telephoning to the offices of the Cunard and the White Star
brought Mrs. Hignett the depressing information that it would be a full
week before she could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable
Eustace would have over two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing,
and Mrs. Hignett’s heart sank, till suddenly she remembered that so
poor a sailor as her son was not likely to have had leisure for any
strolling on the deck during the voyage on the “Atlantic.”
Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations
for departure with an easier mind. The danger was still great, but
there was a good chance that she might be in time to intervene. She
wound up her affairs in New York, and on the following Wednesday,
boarded the “Nuronia” bound for Southampton.
The “Nuronia” is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats. It was built
at a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an ocean
liner broke the record by getting across in nine days. It rolled over
to Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours, then
sauntered across the Channel and strolled into Southampton Water in the
evening of the day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane plotting
with Webster, the valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam, sidling
through the windows of the drawing-room, slid into the cupboard behind
the piano, Mrs. Hignett was standing at the Customs barrier telling the
officials that she had nothing to declare.
Mrs. Hignett was a general who believed in forced marches. A lesser
woman might have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to
Windles at her ease on the following afternoon. Mrs. Hignett was made
of sterner stuff. Having fortified herself with a late dinner, she
hired a car and set out on the cross-country journey. It was only when
the car, a genuine antique, had broken down three times in the first
ten miles, that she directed the driver to take her instead to the
“Blue Boar” in Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired but thankful to
have reached it at all, at about eleven o’clock.
At this point many, indeed most, women would have gone to bed; but the
familiar Hampshire air and the knowledge that half an hour’s walking
would take her to her beloved home acted on Mrs. Hignett like a
restorative. One glimpse of Windles she felt that she must have before
she retired for the night, if only to assure herself that it was still
there. She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich brought to her by the
night-porter whom she had roused from sleep, for bedtime is early in
Windlehurst, and then informed him that she was going for a short walk
and would ring when she returned.
Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her
home and felt the well-remembered gravel crunching under her feet. The
silhouette of the ruined castle against the summer sky gave her the
feeling which all returning wanderers know. And, when she stepped on to
the lawn and looked at the black bulk of the house, indistinct and
shadowy with its backing of trees, tears came into her eyes. She
experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite faint, and
which lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat
more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the
drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order
to facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance
be rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from
noticing the fact.
All the proprietor in Mrs. Hignett was roused. This, she felt
indignantly, was the sort of thing she had been afraid would happen the
moment her back was turned. Evidently laxity—one might almost say
anarchy—had set in directly she had removed the eye of authority. She
marched to the window and pushed it open. She had now completely
abandoned her kindly scheme of refraining from rousing the sleeping
house and spending the night at the inn. She stepped into the
drawing-room with the single-minded purpose of routing Eustace out of
his sleep and giving him a good talking-to for having failed to
maintain her own standard of efficiency among the domestic staff. If
there was one thing on which Mrs. Horace Hignett had always insisted it
was that every window in the house must be closed at lights-out.
She pushed the curtains apart with a rattle and, at the same moment,
from the direction of the door there came a low but distinct gasp which
made her resolute heart jump and flutter. It was too dark to see
anything distinctly, but, in the instant before it turned and fled, she
caught sight of a shadowy male figure, and knew that her worst fears
had been realised. The figure was too tall to be Eustace, and Eustace,
she knew, was the only man in the house. Male figures, therefore, that
went flitting about Windles, must be the figures of burglars.
Mrs. Hignett, bold woman though she was, stood for an instant
spell-bound, and for one moment of not unpardonable panic tried to tell
herself that she had been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there
came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though
something soft had been kicked, followed by a low gurgle and the noise
of staggering feet. Unless he were dancing a _pas seul_ out of sheer
lightness of heart, the nocturnal visitor must have tripped over
something.
The latter theory was the correct one. Montagu Webster was a man who,
at many a subscription ball, had shaken a gifted dancing-pump, and
nothing in the proper circumstances pleased him better than to exercise
the skill which had become his as the result of twelve private lessons
at half-a-crown a visit; but he recognised the truth of the scriptural
adage that there is a time for dancing, and that this was not it. His
only desire when, stealing into the drawing-room he had been confronted
through the curtains by a female figure, was to get back to his bedroom
undetected. He supposed that one of the feminine members of the
house-party must have been taking a stroll in the grounds, and he did
not wish to stay and be compelled to make laborious explanations of his
presence there in the dark. He decided to postpone the knocking on the
cupboard door, which had been the signal arranged between himself and
Sam, until a more suitable occasion. In the meantime he bounded
silently out into the hall, and instantaneously tripped over the portly
form of Smith, the bulldog, who, roused from a light sleep to the
knowledge that something was going on, and being a dog who always liked
to be in the centre of the maelstrom of events, had waddled out to
investigate.
By the time Mrs. Hignett had pulled herself together sufficiently to
feel brave enough to venture into the hall, Webster’s presence of mind
and Smith’s gregariousness had combined to restore that part of the
house to its normal nocturnal condition of emptiness. Webster’s stagger
had carried him almost up to the green baize door leading to the
servants’ staircase, and he proceeded to pass through it without
checking his momentum, closely followed by Smith who, now convinced
that interesting events were in progress which might possibly culminate
in cake, had abandoned the idea of sleep, and meant to see the thing
through. He gambolled in Webster’s wake up the stairs and along the
passage leading to the latter’s room, and only paused when the door was
brusquely shut in his face. Upon which he sat down to think the thing
over. He was in no hurry. The night was before him, promising, as far
as he could judge from the way it had opened, excellent entertainment.
Mrs. Hignett had listened fearfully to the uncouth noises from the
hall. The burglars—she had now discovered that there were at least two
of them—appeared to be actually romping. The situation had grown beyond
her handling. If this troupe of terpsichorean marauders was to be
dislodged she must have assistance. It was man’s work. She made a brave
dash through the hall mercifully unmolested; found the stairs; raced up
them; and fell through the doorway of her son Eustace’s bedroom like a
spent Marathon runner staggering past the winning-post.
§ 2
At about the moment when Mrs. Hignett was crunching the gravel of the
drive, Eustace was lying in bed, listening to Jane Hubbard as she told
the story of how an alligator had once got into her tent while she was
camping on the banks of the Issawassi River in Central Africa. Ever
since he had become ill, it had been the large-hearted girl’s kindly
practice to soothe him to rest with some such narrative from her
energetic past.
“And what happened then?” asked Eustace, breathlessly.
He had raised himself on one elbow in his bed. His eyes shone excitedly
from a face which was almost the exact shape of an Association
football; for he had reached the stage of mumps when the patient begins
to swell as though somebody were inflating him with a bicycle-pump.
“Oh, I jabbed him in the eye with a pair of nail-scissors, and he went
away!” said Jane Hubbard.
“You know, you’re wonderful!” cried Eustace. “Simply wonderful!”
Jane Hubbard flushed a little beneath her tan. She loved his pretty
enthusiasm. He was so genuinely stirred by what were to her the merest
commonplaces of life.
“Why, if an alligator got into _my_ tent,” said Eustace, “I simply
wouldn’t know what to do! I should be nonplussed.”
“Oh, it’s just a knack,” said Jane, carelessly. “You soon pick it up.”
“Nail-scissors!”
“It ruined them, unfortunately. They were never any use again. For the
rest of the trip I had to manicure myself with a hunting-spear.”
“You’re a marvel!”
Eustace lay back in bed and gave himself up to meditation. He had
admired Jane Hubbard before, but the intimacy of the sick-room and the
stories which she had told him to relieve the tedium of his invalid
state had set the seal on his devotion. It has always been like this
since Othello wooed Desdemona. For three days Jane Hubbard had been
weaving her spell about Eustace Hignett, and now she monopolised his
entire horizon. She had spoken, like Othello, of antres vast and
deserts idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touched
heaven, and of the cannibals that each other eat, the Anthropophagi,
and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear would
Eustace Hignett seriously incline, and swore, in faith, ’twas strange,
’twas passing strange, ’twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful. He loved
her for the dangers she had passed, and she loved him that he did pity
them. In fact, one would have said that it was all over except buying
the licence, had it not been for the fact that his very admiration
served to keep Eustace from pouring out his heart. It seemed incredible
to him that the queen of her sex, a girl who had chatted in terms of
equality with African head-hunters and who swatted alligators as though
they were flies, could ever lower herself to care for a man who looked
like the “after-taking” advertisement of a patent food.
But even those whom Nature has destined to be mates may misunderstand
each other, and Jane, who was as modest as she was brave, had come
recently to place a different interpretation on his silence. In the
last few days of the voyage she had quite made up her mind that Eustace
Hignett loved her and would shortly intimate as much in the usual
manner; but, since coming to Windles, she had begun to have doubts. She
was not blind to the fact that Billie Bennett was distinctly prettier
than herself and far more the type to which the ordinary man is
attracted. And, much as she loathed the weakness and despised herself
for yielding to it, she had become distinctly jealous of her. True,
Billie was officially engaged to Bream Mortimer, but she had had
experience of the brittleness of Miss Bennett’s engagements, and she
could by no means regard Eustace as immune.
“Do you suppose they will be happy?” she asked.
“Eh? Who?” said Eustace, excusably puzzled, for they had only just
finished talking about alligators. But there had been a pause since his
last remark, and Jane’s thoughts had flitted back to the subject that
usually occupied them.
“Billie and Bream Mortimer.”
“Oh!” said Eustace. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“She’s a delightful girl.”
“Yes,” said Eustace without much animation.
“And, of course, it’s nice their fathers being so keen on the match. It
doesn’t often happen that way.”
“No. People’s people generally want people to marry people people don’t
want to marry,” said Eustace, clothing in words a profound truth which
from the earliest days of civilisation has deeply affected the youth of
every country.
“I suppose your mother has got somebody picked out for you to marry?”
said Jane casually.
“Mother doesn’t want me to marry anybody,” said Eustace with gloom. It
was another obstacle to his romance.
“What, never?”
“No.”
“Why ever not?”
“As far as I can make out, if I marry, I get this house and mother has
to clear out. Silly business!”
“Well, you wouldn’t let your mother stand in the way if you ever really
fell in love?” said Jane.
“It isn’t so much a question of _letting_ her stand in the way. The
tough job would be preventing her. You’ve never met my mother!”
“No, I’m looking forward to it!”
“You’re looking forward...!” Eustace eyed her with honest amazement.
“But what could your mother do? I mean, supposing you had made up your
mind to marry somebody.”
“What could she do? Why, there isn’t anything she wouldn’t do. Why,
once....” Eustace broke off. The anecdote which he had been about to
tell contained information which, on reflection, he did not wish to
reveal.
“Once—...?” said Jane.
“Oh, well, I was just going to show you what mother is like. I—I was
going out to lunch with a man, and—and—” Eustace was not a ready
improvisator—“and she didn’t want me to go, so she stole all my
trousers!”
Jane Hubbard started, as if, wandering through one of her favourite
jungles, she had perceived a snake in her path. She was thinking hard.
That story which Billie had told her on the boat about the man to whom
she had been engaged, whose mother had stolen his trousers on the
wedding morning ... it all came back to her with a topical significance
which it had never had before. It had lingered in her memory, as
stories will, but it had been a detached episode, having no personal
meaning for her. But now.... “She did that just to stop you going out
to lunch with a man?” she said slowly.
“Yes, rotten thing to do, wasn’t it?”
Jane Hubbard moved to the foot of the bed, and her forceful gaze,
shooting across the intervening counterpane, pinned Eustace to the
pillow. She was in the mood which had caused spines in Somaliland to
curl like withered leaves.
“Were you ever engaged to Billie Bennett?” she demanded.
Eustace Hignett licked dry lips. His face looked like a hunted melon.
The flannel bandage, draped around it by loving hands, hardly supported
his sagging jaw.
“Why—er—”
“_Were_ you?” cried Jane, stamping an imperious foot. There was that in
her eye before which warriors of the lower Congo had become as chewed
blotting-paper. Eustace Hignett shrivelled in the blaze. He was filled
with an unendurable sense of guilt.
“Well—er—yes,” he mumbled weakly.
Jane Hubbard buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. She
might know what to do when alligators started exploring her tent, but
she was a woman.
This sudden solution of steely strength into liquid weakness had on
Eustace Hignett the stunning effects which the absence of the last
stair has on the returning reveller creeping up to bed in the dark. It
was as though his spiritual foot had come down hard on empty space and
caused him to bite his tongue. Jane Hubbard had always been to him a
rock of support. And now the rock had melted away and left him
wallowing in a deep pool.
He wallowed gratefully. It had only needed this to brace him to the
point of declaring his love. His awe of this girl had momentarily
vanished. He felt strong and dashing. He scrambled down the bed and
peered over the foot of it at her huddled form.
“Have some barley-water,” he urged. “Try a little barley-water.”
It was all he had to offer her except the medicine which, by the
doctor’s instructions, he took three times a day in a quarter of a
glass of water.
“Go away!” sobbed Jane Hubbard.
The unreasonableness of this struck Eustace.
“But I can’t. I’m in bed. Where could I go?”
“I hate you!”
“Oh, don’t say that!”
“You’re still in love with her!”
“Nonsense! I never was in love with her.”
“Then why were you going to marry her?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It seemed a good idea at the time.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!”
Eustace bent a little further over the end of the bed and patted her
hair.
“Do have some barley-water,” he said. “Just a sip!”
“You _are_ in love with her!” sobbed Jane.
“I’m _not!_ I love _you!_”
“You don’t!”
“Pardon _me!_” said Eustace firmly. “I’ve loved you ever since you gave
me that extraordinary drink with Worcester sauce in it on the boat.”
“They why didn’t you say so before?”
“I hadn’t the nerve. You always seemed so—I don’t know how to put it—I
always seemed such a worm. I was just trying to get the courage to
propose when I caught the mumps, and that seemed to me to finish it. No
girl could love a man with three times the proper amount of face.”
“As if that could make any difference! What does your outside matter? I
have seen your inside!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean....”
Eustace fondled her back hair.
“Jane! Queen of my soul! Do you really love me?”
“I’ve loved you ever since we met on the Subway.” She raised a
tear-stained face. “If only I could be sure that you really loved me!”
“I can prove it!” said Eustace proudly. “You know how scared I am of my
mother. Well, for your sake I overcame my fear, and did something
which, if she ever found out about it, would make her sorer than a
sunburned neck! This house. She absolutely refused to let it to old
Bennett and old Mortimer. They kept after her about it, but she
wouldn’t hear of it. Well, you told me on the boat that Wilhelmina
Bennett had invited you to spend the summer with her, and I knew that,
if they didn’t come to Windles, they would take some other place, and
that meant I wouldn’t see you. So I hunted up old Mortimer, and let it
to him on the quiet, without telling my mother anything about it!”
“Why, you darling angel child,” cried Jane Hubbard joyfully. “Did you
really do that for my sake? Now I know you love me!”
“Of course, if mother ever got to hear of it...!”
Jane Hubbard pushed him gently into the nest of bedclothes, and tucked
him in with strong, calm hands. She was a very different person from
the girl who so short a while before had sobbed on the carpet. Love is
a wonderful thing.
“You mustn’t excite yourself,” she said. “You’ll be getting a
temperature. Lie down and try to get to sleep.” She kissed his bulbous
face. “You have made me so happy, Eustace darling.”
“That’s good,” said Eustace cordially. “But it’s going to be an awful
jar for mother!”
“Don’t you worry about that. I’ll break the news to your mother. I’m
sure she will be quite reasonable about it.”
Eustace opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“Lie back quite comfortably, and don’t worry,” said Jane Hubbard. “I’m
going to my room to get a book to read you to sleep. I shan’t be five
minutes. And forget about your mother. I’ll look after her.”
Eustace closed his eyes. After all, this girl had fought lions, tigers,
pumas, cannibals, and alligators in her time with a good deal of
success. There might be a sporting chance of victory for her when she
moved a step up in the animal kingdom and tackled his mother. He was
not unduly optimistic, for he thought she was going out of her class;
but he felt faintly hopeful. He allowed himself to drift into pleasant
meditation.
There was a scrambling sound outside the door. The handle turned.
“Hullo! Back already?” said Eustace, opening his eyes.
The next moment he opened them wider. His mouth gaped slowly like a
hole in a sliding cliff. Mrs. Horace Hignett was standing at his
bedside.
§ 3
In the moment which elapsed before either of the two could calm their
agitated brains to speech, Eustace became aware, as never before, of
the truth of that well-known line—“Peace, perfect peace, with loved
ones far away.” There was certainly little hope of peace with loved
ones in his bedroom. Dully, he realised that in a few minutes Jane
Hubbard would be returning with her book, but his imagination refused
to envisage the scene which would then occur.
“Eustace!”
Mrs. Hignett gasped, hand on heart.
“Eustace!” For the first time Mrs. Hignett seemed to become aware that
it was a changed face that confronted hers. “Good gracious! How stout
you’ve grown!”
“It’s mumps.”
“Mumps!”
“Yes, I’ve got mumps.”
Mrs. Hignett’s mind was too fully occupied with other matters to allow
her to dwell on this subject.
“Eustace, there are men in the house!”
This fact was just what Eustace had been wondering how to break to her.
“I know,” he said uneasily.
“You know!” Mrs. Hignett stared. “Did you hear them?”
“Hear them?” said Eustace, puzzled.
“The drawing-room window was left open, and there are two burglars in
the hall!”
“Oh, I say, no! That’s rather rotten!” said Eustace.
“I saw them and heard them! I—oh!” Mrs. Hignett’s sentence trailed off
into a suppressed shriek, as the door opened and Jane Hubbard came in.
Jane Hubbard was a girl who by nature and training was well adapted to
bear shocks. Her guiding motto in life was that helpful line of
Horace—_Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem_. (For the
benefit of those who have not, like myself, enjoyed an expensive
classical education,—memento—Take my tip—servare—preserve—aequam—an
unruffled—mentem—mind—rebus in arduis—in every crisis). She had only
been out of the room a few minutes, and in that brief period a
middle-aged lady of commanding aspect had apparently come up through a
trap. It would have been enough to upset most girls, but Jane Hubbard
bore it calmly. All through her vivid life her bedroom had been a sort
of cosy corner for murderers, alligators, tarantulas, scorpions, and
every variety of snake, so she accepted the middle-aged lady without
comment.
“Good evening,” she said placidly.
Mrs. Hignett, having rallied from her moment of weakness, glared at the
new arrival dumbly. She could not place Jane. From the airy way in
which she had strolled into the room, she appeared to be some sort of a
nurse; but she wore no nurse’s uniform.
“Who are you?” she asked stiffly.
“Who are _you?_” asked Jane.
“I,” said Mrs. Hignett portentously, “am the owner of this house, and I
should be glad to know what you are doing in it. I am Mrs. Horace
Hignett.”
A charming smile spread itself over Jane’s finely-cut face.
“I’m so glad to meet you,” she said. “I have heard so much about you.”
“Indeed?” said Mrs. Hignett coldly. “And now I should like to hear a
little about you.”
“I’ve read all your books,” said Jane. “I think they’re wonderful.”
In spite of herself, in spite of a feeling that this young woman was
straying from the point, Mrs. Hignett could not check a slight influx
of amiability. She was an authoress who received a good deal of incense
from admirers, but she could always do with a bit more. Besides, most
of the incense came by post. Living a quiet and retired life in the
country, it was rarely that she got it handed to her face to face. She
melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to look like a basilisk,
but she began to look like a basilisk who has had a good lunch.
“My favourite,” said Jane, who for a week had been sitting daily in a
chair in the drawing-room adjoining the table on which the authoress’s
complete works were assembled, “is ‘The Spreading Light.’ I _do_ like
‘The Spreading Light!’”
“It was written some years ago,” said Mrs. Hignett with something
approaching cordiality, “and I have since revised some of the views I
state in it, but I still consider it quite a good text-book.”
“Of course, I can see that ‘What of the Morrow?’ is more profound,”
said Jane. “But I read ‘The Spreading Light’ first, and of course that
makes a difference.”
“I can quite see that it would,” agreed Mrs. Hignett. “One’s first step
across the threshold of a new mind, one’s first glimpse....”
“Yes, it makes you feel....”
“Like some watcher of the skies,” said Mrs. Hignett, “when a new planet
swims into his ken, or like....”
“Yes, doesn’t it!” said Jane.
Eustace, who had been listening to the conversation with every muscle
tense, in much the same mental attitude as that of a peaceful citizen
in a Wild West Saloon who holds himself in readiness to dive under a
table directly the shooting begins, began to relax. What he had
shrinkingly anticipated would be the biggest thing since the
Dempsey-Carpentier fight seemed to be turning into a pleasant social
and literary evening not unlike what he imagined a meeting of old
Girton students must be. For the first time since his mother had come
into the room he indulged in the luxury of a deep breath.
“But what are you doing here?” asked Mrs. Hignett, returning almost
reluctantly to the main issue.
Eustace perceived that he had breathed too soon. In an unobtrusive way
he subsided into the bed and softly pulled the sheets over his head,
following the excellent tactics of the great Duke of Wellington in his
Peninsular campaign. “When in doubt,” the Duke used to say, “retire and
dig yourself in.”
“I’m nursing dear Eustace,” said Jane.
Mrs. Hignett quivered, and cast an eye on the hump in the bedclothes
which represented dear Eustace. A cold fear had come upon her.
“‘Dear Eustace!’” she repeated mechanically.
“We’re engaged,” said Jane.
“Engaged! Eustace, is this true?”
“Yes,” said a muffled voice from the interior of the bed.
“And poor Eustace is so worried,” continued Jane, “about the house.”
She went on quickly. “He doesn’t want to deprive you of it, because he
knows what it means to you. So he is hoping—we are both hoping—that you
will accept it as a present when we are married. We really shan’t want
it, you know. We are going to live in London. So you will take it,
won’t you—to please us?”
We all of us, even the greatest of us, have our moments of weakness.
Only a short while back, in this very room, we have seen Jane Hubbard,
that indomitable girl, sobbing brokenly on the carpet. Let us then not
express any surprise at the sudden collapse of one of the world’s
greatest female thinkers. As the meaning of this speech smote on Mrs.
Horace Hignett’s understanding, she sank weeping into a chair. The
ever-present fear that had haunted her had been exorcised. Windles was
hers in perpetuity. The relief was too great. She sat in her chair and
gulped; and Eustace, greatly encouraged, emerged slowly from the
bedclothes like a worm after a thunderstorm.
How long this poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a
pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it.
But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst
upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually
dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody appeared to have
touched off the orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing
instrument had begun again in the middle of a bar at the point where
Jane Hubbard had switched it off four afternoons ago. Its wailing
lament for the passing of Summer filled the whole house.
“That’s too bad!” said Jane, a little annoyed. “At this time of night!”
“It’s the burglars!” quavered Mrs. Hignett. In the stress of recent
events she had completely forgotten the existence of those enemies of
Society. “They were dancing in the hall when I arrived, and now they’re
playing the orchestrion!”
“Light-hearted chaps!” said Eustace, admiring the sang-froid of the
criminal world. “Full of spirits!”
“This won’t do,” said Jane Hubbard, shaking her head. “We can’t have
this sort of thing. I’ll go and fetch my gun.”
“They’ll murder you, dear!” panted Mrs. Hignett, clinging to her arm.
Jane Hubbard laughed.
“Murder _me!_” she said amusedly. “I’d like to catch them at it!”
Mrs. Hignett stood staring at the door as Jane closed it softly behind
her.
“Eustace,” she said solemnly, “that is a wonderful girl!”
“Yes! She once killed a panther—or a puma, I forget which—with a
hat-pin!” said Eustace with enthusiasm.
“I could wish you no better wife!” said Mrs. Hignett.
She broke off with a sharp wail. Out in the passage something like a
battery of artillery had roared.
The door opened and Jane Hubbard appeared, slipping a fresh cartridge
into the elephant-gun.
“One of them was popping about outside here,” she announced. “I took a
shot at him, but I’m afraid I missed. The visibility was bad. At any
rate he went away.”
In this last statement she was perfectly accurate. Bream Mortimer, who
had been aroused by the orchestrion and who had come out to see what
was the matter, had gone away at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He
had been creeping down the passage when he found himself suddenly
confronted by a dim figure which, without a word, had attempted to slay
him with an enormous gun. The shot had whistled past his ears and gone
singing down the corridor. This was enough for Bream. He had returned
to his room in three strides, and was now under the bed. The burglars
might take everything in the house and welcome, so that they did not
molest his privacy. That was the way Bream looked at it. And very
sensible of him, too, I consider.
“We’d better go downstairs,” said Jane. “Bring the candle. Not you,
Eustace darling. You stay where you are or you may catch a chill. Don’t
stir out of bed!”
“I won’t,” said Eustace obediently.
§ 4
Of all the leisured pursuits, there are few less attractive to the
thinking man than sitting in a dark cupboard waiting for a house-party
to go to bed; and Sam, who had established himself in the one behind
the piano at a quarter to eight, soon began to feel as if he had been
there for an eternity. He could dimly remember a previous existence in
which he had not been sitting in his present position, but it seemed so
long ago that it was shadowy and unreal to him. The ordeal of spending
the evening in this retreat had not appeared formidable when he had
contemplated it that afternoon in the lane; but, now that he was
actually undergoing it, it was extraordinary how many disadvantages it
had.
Cupboards, as a class, are badly ventilated, and this one seemed to
contain no air at all; and the warmth of the night, combined with the
cupboard’s natural stuffiness, had soon begun to reduce Sam to a
condition of pulp. He seemed to himself to be sagging like an ice-cream
in front of a fire. The darkness, too, weighed upon him. He was
abominably thirsty. Also he wanted to smoke. In addition to this, the
small of his back tickled, and he more than suspected the cupboard of
harbouring mice. Not once or twice but many hundred times he wished
that the ingenious Webster had thought of something simpler.
His was a position which would just have suited one of those Indian
mystics who sit perfectly still for twenty years, contemplating the
Infinite, but it reduced Sam to an almost imbecile state of boredom. He
tried counting sheep. He tried going over his past life in his mind
from the earliest moment he could recollect, and thought he had never
encountered a duller series of episodes. He found a temporary solace by
playing a succession of mental golf-games over all the courses he could
remember, and he was just teeing up for the sixteenth at Muirfield,
after playing Hoylake, St. Andrew’s, Westward Ho, Hanger Hill,
Mid-Surrey, Walton Heath, and Sandwich, when the light ceased to shine
through the crack under the door, and he awoke with a sense of dull
incredulity to the realisation that the occupants of the drawing-room
had called it a day and that his vigil was over.
But was it? Once more alert, Sam became cautious. True, the light
seemed to be off, but did that mean anything in a country-house, where
people had the habit of going and strolling about the garden to all
hours? Probably they were still popping about all over the place. At
any rate, it was not worth risking coming out of his lair. He
remembered that Webster had promised to come and knock an all-clear
signal on the door. It would be safer to wait for that.
But the moments went by, and there was no knock. Sam began to grow
impatient. The last few minutes of waiting in a cupboard are always the
hardest. Time seemed to stretch out again interminably. Once he thought
he heard footsteps but they led to nothing. Eventually, having strained
his ears and finding everything still, he decided to take a chance. He
fished in his pocket for the key, cautiously unlocked the door, opened
it by slow inches, and peered out.
The room was in blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the
feeling of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to
crawl stiffly forward; and it was just then that the first of the
disturbing events occurred which were to make this night memorable to
him. Something like a rattlesnake suddenly went off with a whirr, and
his head, jerking up, collided with the piano. It was only the
cuckoo-clock, which now, having cleared its throat as was its custom
before striking, proceeded to cuck eleven times in rapid succession
before subsiding with another rattle; but to Sam it sounded like the
end of the world.
He sat in the darkness, massaging his bruised skull. His hours of
imprisonment in the cupboard had had a bad effect on his nervous
system, and he vacillated between tears of weakness and a militant
desire to get at the cuckoo-clock with a hatchet. He felt that it had
done it on purpose and was now chuckling to itself in fancied security.
For quite a minute he raged silently, and any cuckoo-clock which had
strayed within his reach would have had a bad time of it. Then his
attention was diverted.
So concentrated was Sam on his private vendetta with the clock that no
ordinary happening would have had the power to distract him. What
occurred now was by no means ordinary, and it distracted him like an
electric shock. As he sat on the floor, passing a tender hand over the
egg-shaped bump which had already begun to manifest itself beneath his
hair, something cold and wet touched his face, and paralysed him so
completely both physically and mentally that he did not move a muscle
but just congealed where he sat into a solid block of ice. He felt
vaguely that this was the end. His heart had stopped beating and he
simply could not imagine it ever starting again, and, if your heart
refuses to beat, what hope is there for you?
At this moment something heavy and solid struck him squarely in the
chest, rolling him over. Something gurgled asthmatically in the
darkness. Something began to lick his eyes, ears, and chin in a sort of
ecstasy; and, clutching out, he found his arms full of totally
unexpected bulldog.
“Get out!” whispered Sam tensely, recovering his faculties with a jerk.
“Go away!”
Smith took the opportunity of Sam’s lips having opened to lick the roof
of his mouth. Smith’s attitude in the matter was that Providence in its
all-seeing wisdom had sent him a human being at a moment when he had
reluctantly been compelled to reconcile himself to a total absence of
such indispensable adjuncts to a good time. He had just trotted
downstairs in rather a disconsolate frame of mind after waiting with no
result in front of Webster’s bedroom door, and it was a real treat to
him to meet a man, especially one seated in such a jolly and sociable
manner on the floor. He welcomed Sam like a long-lost friend.
Between Smith and the humans who provided him with dog-biscuits and
occasionally with sweet cakes there had always existed a state of
misunderstanding which no words could remove. The position of the
humans was quite clear; they had elected Smith to his present position
on a straight watch-dog ticket. They expected him to be one of those
dogs who rouse the house and save the spoons. They looked to him to pin
burglars by the leg and hold on till the police arrived. Smith simply
could not grasp such an attitude of mind. He regarded Windles not as a
private house but as a social club, and was utterly unable to see any
difference between the human beings he knew and the strangers who
dropped in for a late chat after the place was locked up. He had no
intention of biting Sam. The idea never entered his head. At the
present moment what he felt about Sam was that he was one of the best
fellows he had ever met and that he loved him like a brother.
Sam, in his unnerved state, could not bring himself to share these
amiable sentiments. He was thinking bitterly that Webster might have
had the intelligence to warn him of bulldogs on the premises. It was
just the sort of woollen-headed thing fellows did, forgetting facts
like that. He scrambled stiffly to his feet and tried to pierce the
darkness that hemmed him in. He ignored Smith, who snuffled sportively
about his ankles, and made for the slightly less black oblong which he
took to be the door leading into the hall. He moved warily, but not
warily enough to prevent his cannoning into and almost upsetting a
small table with a vase on it. The table rocked and the vase jumped,
and the first bit of luck that had come to Sam that night was when he
reached out at a venture and caught it just as it was about to bound on
to the carpet.
He stood there, shaking. The narrowness of the escape turned him cold.
If he had been an instant later, there would have been a crash loud
enough to wake a dozen sleeping houses. This sort of thing could not go
on. He must have light. It might be a risk; there might be a chance of
somebody upstairs seeing it and coming down to investigate; but it was
a risk that must be taken. He declined to go on stumbling about in this
darkness any longer. He groped his way with infinite care to the door,
on the wall adjoining which, he presumed, the electric-light switch
would be. It was nearly ten years since he had last been inside
Windles, and it never occurred to him that in this progressive age even
a woman like his Aunt Adeline, of whom he could believe almost
anything, would still be using candles and oil-lamps as a means of
illumination. His only doubt was whether the switch was where it was in
most houses, near the door.
It is odd to reflect that, as his searching fingers touched the knob, a
delicious feeling of relief came to Samuel Marlowe. This misguided
young man actually felt at that moment that his troubles were over. He
positively smiled as he placed a thumb on the knob and shoved.
He shoved strongly and sharply, and instantaneously there leaped at him
out of the darkness a blare of music which appeared to his disordered
mind quite solid. It seemed to wrap itself round him. It was all over
the place. In a single instant the world had become one vast bellow of
Tosti’s “Good-bye.”
How long he stood there, frozen, he did not know; nor can one say how
long he would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his
notice elsewhere. But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert,
there came from somewhere upstairs the roar of a gun; and, when he
heard that, Sam’s rigid limbs relaxed and a violent activity descended
upon him. He bounded out into the hall, looking to right and to left
for a hiding-place. One of the suits of armour which had been familiar
to him in his boyhood loomed up in front of him, and with the sight
came the recollection of how, when a mere child on his first visit to
Windles, playing hide and seek with his cousin Eustace, he had
concealed himself inside this very suit, and had not only baffled
Eustace through a long summer evening but had wound up by almost
scaring him into a decline by booing at him through the vizor of the
helmet. Happy days, happy days! He leaped at the suit of armour. Having
grown since he was last inside it, he found the helmet a tight fit, but
he managed to get his head into it at last, and the body of the thing
was quite roomy.
“Thank heaven!” said Sam.
He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need.
Smith the bulldog, well satisfied with the way the entertainment had
opened, sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments.
§ 5
He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up
nicely. There was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in
blue pyjamas and a dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume,
Jane Hubbard with her elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith
welcomed them all impartially.
Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob.
“Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!”
“Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?”
Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly.
“What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!”
“But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did.”
“Eustace let you Windles for the summer!” said Mrs. Hignett
incredulously.
Jane Hubbard returned from the drawing-room, where she had been
switching off the orchestrion.
“Let us talk all that over cosily to-morrow,” she said. “The point now
is that there are burglars in the house.”
“Burglars!” cried Mr. Bennett aghast. “I thought it was you playing
that infernal instrument, Mortimer.”
“What on earth should I play it for at this time of night?” said Mr.
Mortimer irritably.
“It woke me up,” said Mr. Bennett complainingly. “And I had had great
difficulty in dropping off to sleep. I was in considerable pain. I
believe I’ve caught the mumps from young Hignett.”
“Nonsense! You’re always imagining yourself ill,” snapped Mr. Mortimer.
“My face hurts,” persisted Mr. Bennett.
“You can’t expect a face like that not to hurt,” said Mr. Mortimer.
It appeared only too evident that the two old friends were again on the
verge of one of their distressing fallings-out; but Jane Hubbard
intervened once more. This practical-minded girl disliked the
introducing of side-issues into the conversation. She was there to talk
about burglars, and she intended to do so.
“For goodness sake stop it!” she said, almost petulantly for one
usually so superior to emotion. “There’ll be lots of time for
quarrelling to-morrow. Just now we’ve got to catch these....”
“I’m not quarrelling,” said Mr. Bennett.
“Yes, you are,” said Mr. Mortimer.
“I’m not!”
“You are!”
“Don’t argue!”
“I’m not arguing!”
“You are!”
“I’m not!”
Jane Hubbard had practically every noble quality which a woman can
possess with the exception of patience. A patient woman would have
stood by, shrinking from interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard’s
robuster course was to raise the elephant-gun, point it at the front
door, and pull the trigger.
“I thought that would stop you,” she said complacently, as the echoes
died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She
inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. “Now, the question is....”
“You made me bite my tongue!” said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved.
“Serve you right!” said Jane placidly. “Now, the question is, have the
fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think
they’re still in the house.”
“The police!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated tongue
and his other grievances. “We must summon the police!”
“Obviously!” said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze from
the ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had
been mentally assessing. “We must send for the police at once.”
“We don’t really need them, you know,” said Jane. “If you’ll all go to
bed and just leave me to potter round with my gun....”
“And blow the whole house to pieces!” said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She had
begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was
sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her
esteem.
“Shall I go for the police?” said Billie. “I could bring them back in
ten minutes in the car.”
“Certainly not!” said Mr. Bennett. “My daughter gadding about all over
the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!”
“If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream.”
“Where _is_ Bream?” said Mr. Mortimer.
The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented
itself to the company.
“Where can he be?” said Billie.
Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is
broad-minded enough to see the humour of the situation even when the
joke is at her expense.
“What a silly girl I am!” she said. “I do believe that was Bream I shot
at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!”
“You shot my only son!” cried Mr. Mortimer.
“I shot _at_ him,” said Jane. “My belief is that I missed him. Though
how I came to do it beats me. I don’t suppose I’ve missed a sitter like
that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course,” she proceeded,
looking on the reasonable side, “the visibility wasn’t good, but it’s
no use saying I oughtn’t at least to have winged him, because I ought.”
She shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. “I shall get chaffed
about this if it comes out,” she said regretfully.
“The poor boy must be in his room,” said Mr. Mortimer.
“Under the bed, if you ask me,” said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her
gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. “_He’s_ all right!
Leave him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the morning.”
“Oh, he can’t be!” cried Billie, revolted.
A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was
engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that
moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong,
mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people
whose simple annals I am relating—my position is merely that of a
reporter—; but personally I think highly of Bream’s sturdy
common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant-gun at me in a dark
corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it up after me. Still,
rightly or wrongly, that was how Billie felt; and it flashed across her
mind that Samuel Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not have
behaved like this. And for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself
to the varied emotions then engaging her mind.
“I’ll go and look, if you like,” said Jane agreeably. “You amuse
yourselves somehow till I come back.”
She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to
Mr. Bennett.
“It’s all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn’t go, but, if she
doesn’t, how can we get the police? The house isn’t on the ’phone, and
nobody else can drive the car.”
“That’s true,” said Mr. Bennett, wavering.
“Of course, we could drop them a post-card first thing to-morrow
morning,” said Mr. Mortimer in his nasty sarcastic way.
“I’m going,” said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has
occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis.
The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the
removal of the rudder has on a boat. “It’s the only thing to do. I
shall be back in no time.”
She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her
motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding
before her a pale and glassy-eyed Bream.
“Right under the bed,” she announced cheerfully, “making a noise like a
piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars.”
Billie cast a scornful look at her fiancé. Absolutely unjustified, in
my opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all.
Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer’s perceptions. His was what the
doctors call a penumbral mental condition.
“Bream,” said Billie, “I want you to come in the car with me to fetch
the police.”
“All right,” said Bream.
“Get your coat.”
“All right,” said Bream.
“And cap.”
“All right,” said Bream.
He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and
they made their way to the garage at the back of the house, both
silent. The only difference between their respective silences was that
Billie’s was thoughtful, while Bream’s was just the silence of a man
who has unhitched his brain and is getting along as well as he can
without it.
In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of
affairs.
“Well, that’s something done,” she said, scratching Smith’s broad back
with the muzzle of her weapon. “Something accomplished, something done,
has earned a night’s repose. Not that we’re going to get it yet. I
think those fellows are hiding somewhere, and we ought to search the
house and rout them out. It’s a pity Smith isn’t a bloodhound. He’s a
good cake-hound, but as a watch-dog he doesn’t finish in the first
ten.”
The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like
a young elephant.
“The first thing to do,” continued Jane, “is to go through the
ground-floor rooms....” She paused to strike a match against the suit
of armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of
protest from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. “I’ll go first, as I’ve
got a gun....” She blew a cloud of smoke. “I shall want somebody with
me to carry a light, and....”
“Tchoo!”
“What?” said Jane.
“I didn’t speak,” said Mr. Mortimer. “Who am I to speak?” he went on
bitterly. “Who am I that it should be supposed that I have anything
sensible to suggest?”
“Somebody spoke,” said Jane. “I....”
“Achoo!”
“Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?” cried Jane sharply, wheeling
round on him.
“There _is_ a draught,” began Mr. Bennett.
“Well, finish sneezing and I’ll go on.”
“I didn’t sneeze!”
“Somebody sneezed.”
“It seemed to come from just behind you,” said Mrs. Hignett nervously.
“It couldn’t have come from just behind me,” said Jane, “because there
isn’t anything behind me from which it could have....” She stopped
suddenly, in her eyes the light of understanding, on her face the set
expression which was wont to come to it on the eve of action. “Oh!” she
said in a different voice, a voice which was cold and tense and
sinister. “Oh, I see!” She raised her gun, and placed a muscular
forefinger on the trigger. “Come out of that!” she said. “Come out of
that suit of armour and let’s have a look at you!”
“I can explain everything,” said a muffled voice through the vizor of
the helmet. “I can—_achoo!_” The smoke of the cigarette tickled Sam’s
nostrils again, and he suspended his remarks.
“I shall count three,” said Jane Hubbard, “One—two—”
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” said Sam petulantly.
“You’d better!” said Jane.
“I can’t get this dashed helmet off!”
“If you don’t come quick, I’ll blow it off.”
Sam stepped out into the hall, a picturesque figure which combined the
costumes of two widely separated centuries. Modern as far as the neck,
he slipped back at that point to the Middle Ages.
“Hands up!” commanded Jane Hubbard.
“My hands _are_ up!” retorted Sam querulously, as he wrenched at his
unbecoming head-wear.
“Never mind trying to raise your hat,” said Jane. “If you’ve lost the
combination, we’ll dispense with the formalities. What we’re anxious to
hear is what you’re doing in the house at this time of night, and who
your pals are. Come along, my lad, make a clean breast of it and
perhaps you’ll get off easier. Are you a gang?”
“Do I look like a gang?”
“If you ask me what you look like....”
“My name is Marlowe ... Samuel Marlowe....”
“Alias what?”
“Alias nothing! I say my name is Samuel Marlowe....”
An explosive roar burst from Mr. Bennett.
“The scoundrel! I know him! I forbade him the house, and....”
“And by what right did you forbid people my house, Mr. Bennett?” said
Mrs. Hignett with acerbity.
“I’ve rented the house, Mortimer and I rented it from your son....”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Jane Hubbard. “Never mind about that. So you know
this fellow, do you?”
“I don’t know him!”
“You said you did.”
“I refuse to know him!” went on Mr. Bennett. “I won’t know him! I
decline to have anything to do with him!”
“But you identify him?”
“If he says he’s Samuel Marlowe,” assented Mr. Bennett grudgingly, “I
suppose he is. I can’t imagine anybody saying he was Samuel Marlowe if
he didn’t know it could be proved against him.”
“_Are_ you my nephew Samuel?” said Mrs. Hignett.
“Yes,” said Sam.
“Well, what are you doing in my house?”
“It’s _my_ house,” said Mr. Bennett, “for the summer, Henry Mortimer’s
and mine. Isn’t that right, Henry?”
“Dead right,” said Mr. Mortimer.
“There!” said Mr. Bennett. “You hear? And when Henry Mortimer says a
thing, it’s so. There’s nobody’s word I’d take before Henry
Mortimer’s.”
“When Rufus Bennett makes an assertion,” said Mr. Mortimer, highly
flattered by these kind words, “you can bank on it. Rufus Bennett’s
word is his bond. Rufus Bennett is a white man!”
The two old friends, reconciled once more, clasped hands with a good
deal of feeling.
“I am not disputing Mr. Bennett’s claim to belong to the Caucasian
race,” said Mrs. Hignett testily. “I merely maintain that this house is
m....”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” interrupted Jane. “You can thresh all that out
some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I don’t
see what we can do. We’ll have to let him go.”
“I came to this house,” said Sam, raising his vizor to facilitate
speech, “to make a social call....”
“At this hour of the night!” snapped Mrs. Hignett. “You always were an
inconsiderate boy, Samuel.”
“I came to inquire after poor Eustace’s mumps. I’ve only just heard
that the poor chap was ill.”
“He’s getting along quite well,” said Jane, melting. “If I had known
you were so fond of Eustace....”
“All right, is he?” said Sam.
“Well, not quite all right, but he’s going on very nicely.”
“Fine!”
“Eustace and I are engaged, you know!”
“No, really? Splendid! I can’t see you very distinctly—how those
Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things
like this on their heads beats me—but you sound a good sort. I hope
you’ll be very happy.”
“Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I’m sure we shall.”
“Eustace is one of the best.”
“How nice of you to say so.”
“All this,” interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chaffing auditor
of this interchange of courtesies, “is beside the point. Why did you
dance in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, “waking people up.”
“Scaring us all to death!” complained Mr. Mortimer.
“I remember you as a boy, Samuel,” said Mrs. Hignett, “lamentably
lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on your
selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little.”
“Don’t ballyrag the poor man,” said Jane Hubbard. “Be human! Lend him a
sardine opener!”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Hignett. “I never liked him
and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through his
own wrong-headedness.”
“It’s not his fault his head’s the wrong size,” said Jane.
“He must get himself out as best he can,” said Mrs. Hignett.
“Very well,” said Sam with bitter dignity. “Then I will not trespass
further on your hospitality, Aunt Adeline. I have no doubt the local
blacksmith will be able to get this damned thing off me. I shall go to
him now. I will let you have the helmet back by parcel-post at the
earliest opportunity. Good-night!” He walked coldly to the front door.
“And there are people,” he remarked sardonically, “who say that blood
is thicker than water! I’ll bet they never had any aunts!”
He tripped over the mat and withdrew.
§ 6
Billie meanwhile, with Bream trotting docilely at her heels, had
reached the garage and started the car. Like all cars which have been
spending a considerable time in secluded inaction, it did not start
readily. At each application of Billie’s foot on the self-starter, it
emitted a tinny and reproachful sound and then seemed to go to sleep
again. Eventually, however, the engines began to revolve and the
machine moved reluctantly out into the drive.
“The battery must be run down,” said Billie.
“All right,” said Bream.
Billie cast a glance of contempt at him out of the corner of her eyes.
She hardly knew why she had spoken to him except that, as all motorists
are aware, the impulse to say rude things about their battery is almost
irresistible. To a motorist the art of conversation consists in rapping
out scathing remarks either about the battery or the oiling-system.
Billie switched on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark
drive. She was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had
received a painful shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in
Bream. To call it a yellow streak was to understate the facts. It was a
great belt of saffron encircling his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina
Bennett, who had gone through the world seeking a Galahad, should
finish her career as the wife of a man who hid under beds simply
because people shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to her.
Why, Samuel Marlowe would have perished rather than do such a thing.
You might say what you liked about Samuel Marlowe—and, of course, his
habit of playing practical jokes put him beyond the pale—but nobody
could question his courage. Look at the way he had dived overboard that
time in the harbour at New York! Billie found herself thinking
wistfully about Samuel Marlowe.
There are only a few makes of car in which you can think about anything
except the actual driving without stalling the engines, and Mr.
Bennett’s Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it had
been waiting for the signal.... The noise of the engine died away. The
wheels ceased to revolve. The car did everything except lie down. It
was a particularly pig-headed car and right from the start it had been
unable to see the sense in this midnight expedition. It seemed now to
have the idea that if it just lay low and did nothing, presently it
would be taken back to its cosy garage.
Billie trod on the self-starter. Nothing happened.
“You’ll have to get down and crank her,” she said curtly.
“All right,” said Bream.
“Well, go on,” said Billie impatiently.
“Eh?”
“Get out and crank her.”
Bream emerged for an instant from his trance.
“All right,” he said.
The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of
our greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job
towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help
not at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to
accomplish a task which the fellow at the garage does with one quiet
flick of the wrist without even bothering to remove his chewing gum.
This being so, it was not only unkind but foolish of Billie to grow
impatient as Bream’s repeated efforts failed of their object. It was
wrong of her to click her tongue, and certainly she ought not to have
told Bream that he was not fit to churn butter. But women are an
emotional sex and must be forgiven much in moments of mental stress.
“Give it a good sharp twist,” she said.
“All right,” said Bream.
“Here, let me do it,” cried Billie.
She jumped down and snatched the thingummy from his hand. With bent
brows and set teeth she wrenched it round. The engine gave a faint
protesting mutter, like a dog that has been disturbed in its sleep, and
was still once more.
“May I help?”
It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice—a sepulchral voice, the
sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe’s
cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking
from the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected
Bream painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which,
if he had been a Russian dancer would undoubtedly have caused the
management to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up
under sudden sepulchral voices.
Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just
beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided
Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her.
“Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone
wrong.”
Into the glare of the headlights there stepped a strange figure,
strange, that is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages
he would have excited no comment at all. Passers-by would simply have
said to themselves, “Ah, another of those knights off after the
dragons!” and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But
in the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted
head pop up in front of your motor car. At any rate, it startled Bream.
I will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had had
shocks already that night, but none to be compared with this. Or
perhaps it was that this shock, coming on top of those shocks, affected
him more disastrously than it would have done if it had been the first
of the series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by
saying that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam’s unconventional
appearance put the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to
make comments or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which
took years off the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the
neighbouring trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his
room, locked the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, two
chairs, the towel stand, and three pairs of boots against it.
Out on the drive Billie was staring at the man in armour who had now,
with a masterful wrench which informed the car right away that he would
stand no nonsense, set the engine going again.
“Why—why,” she stammered, “why are you wearing that thing on your
head?”
“Because I can’t get it off.”
Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it.
“S—Mr. Marlowe!” she exclaimed.
“Get in,” said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. “Where
can I take you?”
“Go away!” said Billie.
“Get in!”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I want to talk to _you!_ Get in!”
“I won’t.”
Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted
her like a kitten, and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then
throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever-increasing speed down the
drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came
and went in the golden glow of the head-lights.
§ 7
“Put me down,” said Billie.
“You’d get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Drive about till you promise to marry me.”
“You’ll have to drive a long time.”
“Right ho!” said Sam.
The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand
and grabbed at the steering wheel.
“Of course, if you _want_ to smash up in a ditch!” said Sam, righting
the car with a wrench.
“You’re a brute!” said Billie.
“Caveman stuff,” explained Sam, “I ought to have tried it before.”
“I don’t know what you expect to gain by this.”
“That’s all right,” said Sam, “I know what I’m about.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I thought you would be.”
“I’m not going to talk to you.”
“All right. Lean back and doze off. We’ve the whole night before us.”
“What do you mean?” cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk.
“Have you ever been to Scotland?”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought we might push up there. We’ve got to go somewhere and, oddly
enough, I’ve never been to Scotland.”
Billie regarded him blankly.
“Are you crazy?”
“I’m crazy about you. If you knew what I’ve gone through to-night for
your sake you’d be more sympathetic. I love you,” said Sam, swerving to
avoid a rabbit. “And what’s more, you know it.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will!” said Sam confidently. “How about North Wales? I’ve heard
people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North Wales?”
“I’m engaged to Bream Mortimer.”
“Oh no, that’s all off,” Sam assured her.
“It’s not!”
“Right off!” said Sam firmly. “You could never bring yourself to marry
a man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need.
Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran
away! No, no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won’t
do!”
This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not
bring herself to dispute it.
“Anyway, I hate _you!_” she said, giving the conversation another turn.
“Why? In the name of goodness, why?”
“How dared you make a fool of me in your father’s office that morning?”
“It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think
well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a
lunatic with a pistol. It wasn’t my fault that you found out.”
“I shall never forgive you!”
“Why not Cornwall?” said Sam. “The Riviera of England! Let’s go to
Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?”
“I said I should never forgive you and I won’t.”
“Well, I hope you’re fond of motoring,” said Sam, “because we’re going
on till you do.”
“Very well! Go on, then!”
“I intend to. Of course, it’s all right now while it’s dark. But have
you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall
have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when
they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan’t notice them myself
because it’s a little difficult to notice anything from inside this
thing, but I’m afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you.... I know
what we’ll do. We’ll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly!
That will be fun!”
There was a long silence.
“Is my helmet on straight?” said Sam.
Billie made no reply. She was looking before her down the
hedge-bordered road. Always a girl of sudden impulses, she had just
made a curious discovery, to wit that she was enjoying herself. There
was something so novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that
imperceptibly her dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found
herself struggling with a desire to laugh.
“Lochinvar!” said Sam suddenly. “That’s the name of the chap I’ve been
trying to think of! Did you ever read about Lochinvar? ‘Young
Lochinvar’ the poet calls him rather familiarly. He did just what I’m
doing now, and everybody thought very highly of him. I suppose in those
days a helmet was just an ordinary part of what the well-dressed man
should wear. Odd how fashions change!”
Till now dignity and wrath combined had kept Billie from making any
inquiries into a matter which had excited in her a quite painful
curiosity. In her new mood she resisted the impulse no longer.
“_Why_ are you wearing that thing?”
“I told you. Purely and simply because I can’t get it off. You don’t
suppose I’m trying to set a new style in gents’ head-wear, do you?”
“But why did you ever put it on?”
“Well, it was this way. After I came out of the cupboard in the
drawing-room....”
“What!”
“Didn’t I tell you about that? Oh yes, I was sitting in the cupboard in
the drawing-room from dinner-time onwards. After that I came out and
started cannoning about among Aunt Adeline’s china, so I thought I’d
better switch the light on. Unfortunately I switched on some sort of
musical instrument instead. And then somebody started shooting. So,
what with one thing and another, I thought it would be best to hide
somewhere. I hid in one of the suits of armour in the hall.”
“Were you inside there all the time we were...?”
“Yes. I say, that was funny about Bream, wasn’t it? Getting under the
bed, I mean.”
“Don’t let’s talk about Bream.”
“That’s the right spirit! I like to see it! All right, we won’t. Let’s
get back to the main issue. Will you marry me?”
“But why did you come to the house at all?”
“To see you.”
“To see me! At that time of night?”
“Well, perhaps not actually to see you.” Sam was a little perplexed for
a moment. Something told him that it would be injudicious to reveal his
true motive and thereby risk disturbing the harmony which he felt had
begun to exist between them. “To be near you! To be in the same house
with you!” he went on vehemently feeling that he had struck the right
note. “You don’t know the anguish I went through after I read that
letter of yours. I was mad! I was ... well, to return to the point,
will you marry me?”
Billie sat looking straight before her. The car, now on the main road,
moved smoothly on.
“Will you marry me?”
Billie rested her hand on her chin and searched the darkness with
thoughtful eyes.
“Will you marry me?”
The car raced on.
“Will you marry me?” said Sam. “Will you marry me? Will you marry me?”
“Oh, don’t talk like a parrot,” cried Billie. “It reminds me of Bream.”
“But will you?”
“Yes,” said Billie.
Sam brought the car to a standstill with a jerk, probably very bad for
the tyres.
“Did you say ‘yes’?”
“Yes!”
“Darling!” said Sam, leaning towards her. “Oh, curse this helmet!”
“Why?”
“Well, I rather wanted to kiss you and it hampers me.”
“Let me try and get it off. Bend down!”
“Ouch!” said Sam.
“It’s coming. There! How helpless men are!”
“We need a woman’s tender care,” said Sam depositing the helmet on the
floor of the car and rubbing his smarting ears. “Billie!”
“Sam!”
“You angel!”
“You’re rather a darling after all,” said Billie. “But you want keeping
in order,” she added severely.
“You will do that when we’re married. When we’re married!” he repeated
luxuriously. “How splendid it sounds!”
“The only trouble is,” said Billie, “father won’t hear of it.”
“No, he won’t. Not till it is all over,” said Sam.
He started the car again.
“What are you going to do?” said Billie. “Where are you going?”
“To London,” said Sam. “It may be news to you but the old lawyer like
myself knows that, by going to Doctors’ Commons or the Court of Arches
or somewhere or by routing the Archbishop of Canterbury out of bed or
something, you can get a special licence and be married almost before
you know where you are. My scheme—roughly—is to dig this special
licence out of whoever keeps such things, have a bit of breakfast, and
then get married at our leisure before lunch at a registrar’s.”
“Oh, not a registrar’s!” said Billie.
“No?”
“I should hate a registrar’s.”
“Very well, angel. Just as you say. We’ll go to a church. There are
millions of churches in London. I’ve seen them all over the place.” He
mused for a moment. “Yes, you’re quite right,” he said. “A church is
the thing. It’ll please Webster.”
“Webster?”
“Yes, he’s rather keen on the church bells never having rung out so
blithe a peal before. And we must consider Webster’s feelings. After
all, he brought us together.”
“Webster? How?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you all about that some other time,” said Sam. “Just for
the moment I want to sit quite still and think. Are you comfortable?
Fine! Then off we go.”
The birds in the trees fringing the road stirred and twittered grumpily
as the noise of the engine disturbed their slumbers. But, if they had
only known it, they were in luck. At any rate, the worst had not
befallen them, for Sam was too happy to sing.
THE END
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