THE PROPHET RETURNS FROM THE MOUSE WITH TWO OLD AND VALUED FRIENDS
At these exclamations the Prophet started in some surprise.
“You know this lady?” he asked.
“By repute, sir,” replied Mr. Sagittarius.
“Who does not?” cried Madame. “She built the ‘Prophets’ Rest’ at
Birchington.”
“And the Mediums’ Almshouses at Sunnington.”
“And the ‘Palmists’ Retreat’ at Millaby Bay.”
“And the--”
“I see you know all about her,” interposed the Prophet. “Well, she is
giving a reception to-night at Zoological House and I have sworn to be
there. But I shall get home by eleven. You will understand, however,
that I cannot have the pleasure of entertaining Mr. Sagittarius during
the evening under my own roof. I regret this extremely, but you see it
is unavoidable.”
To the Prophet’s great surprise this lucid explanation was received by
his hearers with a strange silence and a combined meditative, and
even moony, staring which was to him inexplicable. Both Madame and Mr.
Sagittarius seemed suddenly immersed in contemplation. They began, he
thought, to look like Buddhists, or like those devoted persons who,
in the times of the desert monks, remained for long periods posed upon
pillows in sandy wastes musing upon Eternity. At first, as he met their
fixed eyes, he fancied that they were, perhaps, falling into a trance,
but presently the conviction seized him that they must be, on the
contrary, busily thinking out some problem. He hoped fervently that he
did not form part of it. At length the quivering silence was broken by
Mr. Sagittarius.
“I might accompany you to Mrs. Bridgeman’s, sir,” he said to the
Prophet. “Might I not, Sophronia?”
“Oh, but--” began the Prophet, very hastily.
“The lady has frequently pressed me to accept of her hospitality.”
“Indeed!”
“For years she has been writing to me at Jellybrand’s, under my real
name of Malkiel the Second, you understand. She addresses me simply as
the master.’”
“But do the postal authorities--”
“Not upon the envelope, sir, not upon the envelope.”
“I see.”
“Hitherto, true to myself, true to the principles of Malkiel the
First, and to the instincts of Madame, I have declined her personal
acquaintance. But there is no reason why you should not introduce me to
the house as Mr. Sagittarius, no reason at all.”
The Prophet knew only too well that there was not, but before he had
time to go on trying to wriggle out of the complication, Madame struck
in.
“Miss Minerva is to be present at this reception, I believe,” she said
sharply.
“Yes, she is,” answered the Prophet, illumined by a ray of hope.
“Jupiter,” said Madame, “I will accompany you and Mr. Vivian to the
Zoological Gardens to-night. It is my sacred duty.”
The Prophet groaned.
“But, my darling--”
“The reception over, I will assist you and Mr. Vivian at the telescope
in the Berkeley Square. In your presence I can do so without departing
from my principles, _salvo pudoribus_. Do not interrupt me, Jupiter, if
you please. I have thought the matter out. The crisis in our fate is at
hand. Upon the events of the next three nights depends our future. These
mysterious messages of which Mr. Vivian speaks must be examined into by
us upon the spot. This mystery of the dressed Crab must be made clear.
A woman’s intellect is needed. A woman’s intellect shall not be wanting.
Ill as I am, worn down by the occurrences of yesterday and by this
gentleman’s incessant telegrams, I will leave my books”--here she waved
one hand towards the dwarf bookcase--“I will assume an appropriate
_neglige_ and my outdoor boots, a fichu and bonnet, and will accompany
you at once to the Berkeley Square, there to confer and arrange the
programme of the evening. Mrs. Bridgeman would fall down before us in
worship could she know who we really are. As it is, Mr. Vivian will
introduce us modestly as two old and valued friends. The time may be at
hand when we need no longer hide ourselves beneath an _alibi_. Till then
we must possess ourselves, and Mr. Vivian must possess us, in patience.
Ill as I am, I will accompany you. To-night shall see me in the
Zoological Gardens at my husband’s side.”
Before the prospect of this sublime self-sacrifice both Mr. Sagittarius
and the Prophet were as men dumb. They said not a word. They only
gazed--with a sort of strange idiotcy--at Madame as she rose, with an
elaborate and studied feebleness, from the maroon couch and prepared to
go upstairs to assume the appropriate _neglige_. Only when she was at
her full height did the Prophet, rendered desperate by the terrible
results of his own ingenuity, nerve himself to utter one last protest.
“I really do not think it would be quite according to the rules of
etiquette which prevail in the central districts,” he cried, “for a lady
to spend the night in the butler’s pantry of a comparative stranger,
even when accompanied by her husband. It might give rise to talk in the
square, and--”
“The butler’s pantry, sir!” exclaimed Mr. Sagittarius. “Explain
yourself, I beg.”
“The telescope is there, and--”
“I have passed beyond the reach of etiquette,” said Madame, looking
considerably like Joan of Arc and other well-known heroines. “My
duty lies plain before me. Of myself I should not have selected the
Zoological Gardens and the butler’s pantry of a comparative stranger as
places in which to pass the night, even when accompanied by my husband.
But my conscience--_mens conscium recto_--guides me and I will not
resist it. I will assume my _neglige_ and bonnet and will be with you in
a moment.”
So saying she majestically quitted the apartment.
The Prophet fell down upon the maroon sofa like a man smitten with
paralysis. He felt suddenly old, and very weak. He tried to think, to
consider how he could explain Madame Sagittarius to his grandmother--for
she must surely now become aware of the presence of strangers in her
pretty home--how he could arrange matters with Mr. Ferdinand, how he
could apologise to a lady whom he had never yet seen for appearing
at her house with two uninvited guests, how he could get rid of the
Sagittariuses when the horrible night watch should be at an end and the
frigid winter dawn be near. But his mind refused to work. His brain was
a blank, containing nothing except, perhaps, a vague desire for
sudden death. Mr. Sagittarius did not disturb his contemplation of
the inevitable. Indeed, that gentleman also seemed meditative, and the
silence lasted until the reappearance of Madame, in a brown robe--of a
slightly tea-gown type--trimmed with green chiffon and coffee-coloured
lace, a black bonnet adorned with about a score of imitation plums
made in some highly-glazed material, a heavy cloak lined with priceless
rabbit-skins, and the outdoor boots.
If the Prophet had found the journey to the Mouse a painful experience,
what can be said of his feelings during the journey from that noble
stream? Long afterwards he recalled his state of mind during the
tramp across the Common among the broken crockery, the dust-heaps, the
decaying vegetables and the occasional lurking rats, the journey in the
train, the reembarkment upon the purple ‘bus from the gentle eminence
sloping towards the coal-yard, the long pilgrimage towards the central
districts with his very outlying companions. He recalled the peculiar
numbness that strove against the desperation of his thoughts, his feeble
efforts to lay plans frustrated by a perpetual buzzing in his brain, his
flitting visions of that gentle grandmother round whose venerable age
and dignity he was about to group such peculiar personalities, and
beneath whose roof he was about to indulge in such unholy prophetic
practices. Long afterwards--but even then he could not smile as men so
often smile when they look back on lost despairs!
He and his companions spoke but little together as they journeyed.
Occasionally Madame and Mr. Sagittarius conversed in husky whispers,
like brigands the Prophet thought, and the veiled click of Madame’s
contralto struck through the startled air. But mostly a silence
prevailed--a silence alive with fate.
At the corner of Air Street they got out and began to walk down
Piccadilly towards the Berkeley square. It was now evening. The lamps
were lighted and the murmur of strolling crowds filled the gloomy air.
Madame stared feverishly about her, excited by the press, the flashing
hansoms and the gaily-illuminated shops. Once, as she passed Benoist’s,
she murmured “_O festum dies_!” and again, by the Berkeley, when she
was momentarily jostled by a very large and umbrageous tramp who
had apparently been celebrating the joys of beggary--“_Acto profanus
vulgam_!” But generally she was silent, enwrapped, no doubt, in bookish
thought. When, at length, they stood before the door of number one
thousand she breathed a heavy sigh.
“Please,” said the Prophet, in a trembling voice, “please enter quietly.
My grandmother is very unwell.”
“Ankles seems to be a very painful complaint, sir,” said Mr.
Sagittarius. “But Madame and self are not in the habit of creating
uproar by our movements.”
“No, no. Of course not. Still--on tiptoe if you don’t mind.”
“I cannot walk on tiptoe,” said Madame, in a voice that sounded to
the Prophet terrifically powerful. “The attitude is precarious and
undignified. As the great Juvenile--”
“Yes, yes. Ah! that’s it!”
He managed to get his key into the door and very gingerly opened it.
Madame and Mr. Sagittarius stepped into the hall, followed closely
by the Prophet, who was content on conveying them unobserved to the
library.
“This way,” he whispered. “This way. Softly! Softly!”
He began to steal, like a shadow, across the hall, and, impressed by his
surreptitious manner, his old and valued friends instinctively followed
his example. All three of them, then, with long steps and theatrical
pauses, were stagily upon the move, when suddenly the door that led to
the servants’ quarters swung open and Mrs. Fancy Quinglet debouched into
their midst, succeeded by Mr. Ferdinand, who carried in his hand a menu
card in a silver holder. At the moment of their appearance the Prophet,
holding his finger to his lips, was taking a soft and secret stride in
the direction of the library door, his body bent forward and his head
protruded towards the sanctum he longed to gain, and Madame and Mr.
Sagittarius, true to the instinct of imitation that dwells in our monkey
race, were in precisely similar attitudes behind him. The hall being
rather dark, and the gait of the trio it contained thus tragically
surreptitious, it was perhaps not unnatural that Mrs. Fancy should give
vent to a piercing cry of terror, and that Mr. Ferdinand should drop the
menu and crouch back against the wall in a hunched position expressive
of alarm. At any rate, such were their actions, while--for their
part--the Prophet and his two old and valued friends uttered a united
exclamation and struck three attitudes that were pregnant with defensive
amazement.
Having uttered herself, Mrs. Fancy, according to her invariable custom
when completely terrified, displayed all the semblance of clear-sighted
composure and explanatory discrimination. While Mr. Ferdinand remained
by the wall, with his face to it and his large white hands spread
out upon his shut eyes, the lady’s maid advanced upon Madame, and,
addressing herself apparently to some hidden universe in need of
information, remarked in rather a piecing voice,--
“I say again, as I said afore, the house has been broke into and the
robbers are upon us. I can’t speak different nor mean other.”
On hearing these words Madame’s large and rippling countenance became
suffused with indignant scarlet, and a preliminary click rang through
the hall. The Prophet bounded forward.
“Hush, Fancy,” he cried. “What are you saying?”
“What I mean, Master Hennessey. The house has been broke--”
“Hush! Hush! This lady and gentleman are--”
“Two old and valued friends--” boomed Madame.
“Two old and valued friends of mine. Mr. Ferdinand! Mr. Ferdinand, take
your face from the wall, if you please. There is no cause for alarm.
Now, Fancy--now!”
For Mrs. Fancy had, as usual, broken into tears on learning the
reassuring truth, and was now displaying every symptom of distress and
enervation. The Prophet, unable to calm her, was obliged to assist her
upstairs and place her upon the landing, where he hurriedly left her
uttering broken moans and murmurs, and repeating again and again her
statement of affairs and assertion of inability to conceal the revealed
obvious. On his return he found Madame, Mr. Sagittarius and Mr.
Ferdinand grouped statuesquely in the hall as if to represent
“Perturbation.”
“Mr. Ferdinand,” he said rather severely, “I did not expect this conduct
of you, shrinking from guests in this extraordinary manner. A butler who
shows terror at the sight of visitors does not conduce to the popularity
of his employers.”
“I beg pardon, sir. I was not prepared.”
“Please be prepared another time. You will serve dinner for three
to-night, very quietly, in the inner dining-room. I do not wish Mrs.
Merillia to be disturbed in her illness, and--”
“If you please, sir, Mrs. Merillia feels herself so much better that she
is coming down to dinner to-night.”
“Coming down to dinner!” said the Prophet, aghast.
“Yes, sir. And she has asked in Sir Tiglath Butt and the Lady Julia
Postlethwaite to join her. I was about to show Mrs. Merillia the menu,
sir, when--”
“Good Heavens! Merciful Powers!” ejaculated the Prophet.
“Sir?”
“What on earth is to be done?” continued the Prophet, lost for the
moment to all sense of propriety.
Mr. Ferdinand looked at the old and valued friends.
“I can’t say, sir, I’m sure,” he replied, pursing up his lips.
“What is the meaning--” began Mr. Sagittarius.
“I’m not aware that--” started Madame.
The Prophet darted to the library door and opened it.
“Pray, pray come in here,” he hissed. “My grandmother! Softly!”
“But the old la--”
“Hush, please!”
“I must remark, Mr. Viv--”
“Tsh! Tsh! Mr. Ferdinand, wait in the hall. I shall want to speak to you
in a moment.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Prophet closed the door and turned to this indignant visitors.
“This is terrible,” he said. “Terrible!”
“Pray why?” cried Madame.
“Why,” cried the Prophet, “why?”
He sought frantically for some excuse. Suddenly a bright idea occurred
to him.
“Why,” he said, impressively. “Because Sir Tiglath Butt, the gentleman
who is coming to dinner, is the person who for five-and-forty years
has been seeking Mr. Sagittarius with the firm intention of assaulting,
perhaps of killing, him.”
Mr. Sagittarius turned deathly pale, and made a movement as if to get
out of the nearest window.
“This is a trap!” he stammered. “This is a rat-trap. This was planned.”
“Really”--began the Prophet.
But Mr. Sagittarius did not heed the exclamation. Trembling very
violently, he continued,--
“Sophy, my darling, you are in danger. Let us fly!”
And, clutching his wife by the arm, to the Prophet’s unspeakable delight
he endeavoured to lead, or rather to drag her to the door. But Madame
now showed the metal she was made of.
“Jupiter,” she exclaimed, in her deepest note, “if you are a Prophet you
can surely at moments be also a man. Where is your _toga virilibus_?”
“I don’t know, my love, I’m sure. Don’t let us lose a moment. Come, my
angel!”
“I shall not come,” retorted Madame, whose leaping ambition had been
fired by the sound of titled names. “The gentleman believes you to be an
American syndicate.”
“I know, my blessing, I know. But--”
“Very well. If you don’t behave like one he will never suspect you.”
The Prophet saw his chance slipping from him and hastened to interpose.
“He might divine the truth,” he said. “One can never--”
But at this moment he was interrupted by Mr. Ferdinand who abruptly
opened the door and observed,--
“If you please, sir, Mrs. Merillia has sent down orders that the police
are to be fetched at once.”
Mr. Sagittarius, now thoroughly unnerved, turned from white to grey.
“The police!” he vociferated. “Sophy, my angel, let us fly. This is no
place for you!”
“The police!” cried the Prophet. “Why?”
“I believe it’s Mrs. Fancy’s doing, sir. If you would go to Mrs.
Merillia, sir, I think--”
The Prophet rushed from the room and hastened upstairs four steps at a
time. He found his beloved grandmother in a state of grave agitation,
and Mrs. Fancy, in floods of tears, reiterating her statement that there
were robbers in the house.
“Oh, Hennessey!” cried Mrs. Merillia, on his entrance, “thank God
that you are come. There are burglars in the house. Fancy has just
encountered them in the hall. Go for the police, my dearest boy. Don’t
lose a moment.”
“My dear grannie, they’re not burglars.”
“I can’t speak different, Master Hennessey, nor--”
“Then who are they, Hennessey? Fancy declares--”
“They are two--two--well, two old and valued friends of mine.”
“Old and valued friends of ours!”
“Of mine, grannie. Fancy, pray don’t make such a noise!”
“Fancy,” said Mrs. Merillia, “you can go to your room and lie down.”
“Yes, ma’am. I say again, as I said afore, the house has been broke into
and the robbers--”
At this point the Prophet shut the door on the faithful and persistent
creature, who forthwith carried her determination and sobs to an upper
storey.
“Hennessey, what is all this? Who is really here?”
“Grannie, dear, only two friends of mine,” replied the Prophet, trying
to look at ease, and feeling like a criminal.
“Friends of yours? But surely then I know them. I thought I knew all
your friends.”
“So you do, grannie, all except--except just these.”
“And they are old and valued, you say?”
“No, no--that is, I mean yes.”
Mrs. Merillia was too dignified to ask any further questions. She lay
back on her sofa, and looked at her grandson with a shining of mild
reproach in her green eyes.
“Well, my dear,” she said, “go back to your friends, but don’t forget
that Lady Julia and Sir Tiglath are dining here at half-past seven.”
“Grannie,” cried the Prophet, with a desperate feeling that Madame meant
to stay, “you ought not to dine downstairs to-night. Let me send and put
them off.”
“No, Hennessey,” she answered, with gentle decision. “I feel better, and
I want cheering up. My morning was not altogether pleasant.”
The Prophet understood that she was alluding to his questions, and felt
cut to the heart. His home seemed crumbling about him, but he knew not
what to do or what to say. Mrs. Merillia observed his agitation, but she
did not choose to remark upon it, for she considered curiosity the most
vulgar of all the vices.
“Go to your friends, dear,” she said again. “But be in time for dinner.”
“Yes, grannie.”
The Prophet descended the stairs and met Mr. Ferdinand at the bottom.
“Am I to send for the police, sir?”
“No, no. I’ve explained matters.”
“And about dinner, sir?”
“I’ll tell you in a moment, Mr. Ferdinand,” replied the Prophet,
entering the library with the fixed intention of getting Madame and Mr.
Sagittarius out of the house without further delay.
The tableau that met his eyes, however, was not reassuring. He found
Madame, having laid aside her bonnet, and thrown the rabbit-skin cloak
carelessly upon a settee, arranging her hair before a mirror, and
shaking up the coffee-coloured lace fichu in a manner that suggested
a permanent occupation of the house, while her husband, sunk in a deep
armchair in an attitude of complete nervous prostration, was gazing
dejectedly into the fire. When the Prophet entered, the latter bounded
with alarm, while Madame turned round, a couple of hairpins in her mouth
and both hands to the back of her head.
“Ah,” she remarked, through the pins, “_il a vous_! I am happy to say
that I have induced Mr. Sagittarius to assume his _toga virilibus_, and
that we have, therefore, great pleasure in yielding to your thoughtful
pressure--”
“My what?” said the Prophet, blankly.
“You thoughtful pressure, and accepting your urgent invite to dine here
before proceeding to the Zoological Gardens and thence to the butler’s
pantry.”
The Prophet tried not to groan while she emitted a pin and secured with
it a wandering plait of raven hair.
“You’re sure, sir,” said Mr. Sagittarius, in a deplorable voice, “that
the gentleman is convinced that I am really an American syndicate?”
The Prophet rang the bell. He could not trust himself to speak, and,
when he looked at Madame’s large and determined eyes, he knew that to do
so would be useless.
Mr. Ferdinand appeared.
“Mr. Ferdinand,” said the Prophet, “this lady and gentleman will join us
at dinner to-night.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Ferdinand, casting a glance of outraged prudery
upon Mr. Sagittarius, who was attired in his usual morning costume,
including spats.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Ferdinand?” asked the Prophet, following that
functionary’s eyes. “Ha! He’s not dressed!”
“No, sir!”
“Mr. Sagittarius,” cried the Prophet, “you’re not dressed!”
“Sir,” cried that gentleman, “do you dare to accuse me of impropriety in
a frock coat?”
“No, no. But for dinner. You can’t possibly dine like that!”
“I have dined like this, sir, for the last twenty years. The architects
and their wives--”
“I daresay. But unluckily there will be no architects and their wives at
dinner to-night. Please stand up.”
“Sir?”
“Kindly stand up. Mr. Ferdinand!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Place your back against this gentleman’s if you please--touching,
touching! Don’t wriggle away like that. Keep your heels to the ground
while I fetch a sheet of notepaper. Don’t move your heads either of you.
I thought so. You’re pretty much the same height. Mr. Ferdinand, you
will lay out a white shirt and one of your black dress suits in my
dressing-room at once. Madame, I regret that we must leave you for a few
moments. Will you rest here? Allow me to place a cushion for your head.
And here is Juvenal in the original.”
So saying, the Prophet hurried Mr. Sagittarius from the room, driving
Mr. Ferdinand, in a condition of elephantine horror, before him, and
abandoning Madame to an acquaintance with the classics that she had
certainly never achieved in the society of the renowned Dr. Carter.