of Miss Twissing’s finishing as Number Four. Dear fellow, since you are
so good as to insist, I _will_ put that cushion behind the small of my
back. Lumbago, in damp weather, is my particular bane. Thankee!”
Hambridge drew forth a spotlessly white handkerchief, flourished it, and
trumpeted.
“Now we come to the crux, dear fellows. The Admirable Twissing, as many
call her, not content with bein’ an acknowledged expert in salmon
fishin’ and a darin’ rider to hounds, set her heart on Rustleton’s being
practically the same. With a light trout-rod and a tin of worms he _has_
occasionally amoosed himself on locally-preserved waters; mounted on an
easy-goin’ cob, he is, so to put it, fairly at home. Scotch and
Norwegian rivers now, shall I say, claimed him as their sacrifice;
highly-mettled hunters—the Hopsacks stables are famous—took five-barred
gates and quickset hedges with him; occasionally even bolted with him,
regardless of his personal predilections. In the same spirit his
betrothed bride compelled him to fence with her; instructed him, at
severe physical expense to himself, in the rules of jiu-jitsu. The final
straw was laid upon the camel’s back when she insisted on his putting on
the gloves with her, and standing up for half an hour every morning to
be scientifically pummeled.”
The listeners’ mouths screwed themselves into the shape of
long-expressive whistles. Glances of profound meaning were exchanged.
One man said, with a gulp of sympathy, “_Poor_ beggar!”
“And so the worm turned,” said Hambridge Ost, running his forefinger
round inside the edge of his collar. “Smarting from upper-cuts
administered by the woman who was destined ere long to become the wife
of his bosom, flushed from having his head in Chancery, gravely
embarrassed by body-blows, dazzled by stars and stripes seen as the
result of merciless punches received upon the nose, Rustleton summoned
all his courage to the effort, and declined to take any more lessons.
Miss Twissing, to do her justice, was thunderstruck.
“‘Oh!’ she said, her lips quivering—like a hurt child’s, according to
Rustleton—‘and you were coming on so _capitally_—we were getting on so
well. You are really gaining a knowledge of good boxing principles, you
were actually benefiting by our light little friendly spars.’ Rustleton
felt his nose, which was painfully swollen. ‘Of course, you could never,
never become a first-rater. Your poor little muscles are too rigid. You
haven’t the strength to hit a print of your knuckles into a pound of
butter, but you might come to show form enough to funk a big duffer,
supposing he went for you under the impression that you were as soft as
you look. But, of course, if you mean what you say’—she pulled her
gloves off and threw them into a corner of the gymnasium at Hopsacks
specially fitted up for her by a noted firm—‘there they go. I’ll read
the Greek Anthologists with you instead, or’—her eyes brightened—‘have
you ever tried polo?’ she asked. ‘We have some trained ponies in the
stable, and the largest croquet-lawn could be utilized for a ground, and
I’ll wire to the County Players for clubs and a couple of members to
teach us the rules of the game. You’ll like that?’
“‘I’m dashed if I shall!’ were the actual words that burst, so to put
it, from Rustleton. Celine drew herself up and looked him over, from the
feet upwards, as though she had never, so he says, seen him before. Five
feet five—his actual height—gave her an advantage of five inches and a
bit over. He begged her to be seated, and, standing before her in as
dignified an attitude as it is possible to assume in a light suit of
gymnasium flannels, with sawdust in your hair and a painfully swollen
nose, he broke the ice and demanded his release from their engagement,
saying that he felt it incumbent on him to live his own life in his own
way, that Celine crushed, humiliated, and oppressed him by the mere
vigor of her intellect and the exuberance of her physical
personality—with considerably more to the same effect.
“She looked up when Rustleton, almost breathless, reached a full stop.
‘You give me your word of honor that there is no other woman in the
case,’ she murmured; ‘I _can_ stand your not loving me, I _can’t_ your
loving somebody else better.’ As Rustleton gave the required
denial—scouted the bare idea—a tear ran down her cheek and dropped on
her large powerful arms, which were folded upon her bust—really amazing,
dear fellow, and one of her strong points. ‘That settles it,’ she
uttered. ‘It’s understood, all’s off between us; you are free. And there
is a through express to London at 3:25. But I’m afraid I must detain you
a moment longer.’ She rang the bell, and told a servant to tell
Professor Pudsey she was wanted in the gym. ‘Tell her to come in
sparring kit, and be quick about it,’ were her actual words.
“Until the Professor appeared, Miss Twissing chatted quite pleasantly
with Rustleton. The Professor was a large, flat-faced woman, of
remarkable muscular development, with her hair coiled in a tight knob at
the back of her head, her massive form attired in a thin jersey, short
serge skirt, long stockings, and light gymnasium shoes. ‘Let me
introduce my friend and resident instructress in boxing, fencing, and
athletics,’ says Celine, ‘and one of the best, so to put it, that ever
put a novice through his paces. Celebrated as the wife and trainer of
the late Ponto Pudsey, Heavy-weight Champion of England, and holder of
the Hyam’s Competition Belt three seasons running until beat by Bat
Collins at the International Club Grounds in ’92. Pudsey dear’—she
turned to the Professor—‘you know my little way when I’ve had a
set-back. Instead of playing _le diable à quatre_ and being disagreeable
and cantankerous all round, I simply send for you and say, as I say now,
“Put up your hands, and do your best; I warn you I’m going in for a
regular slugging match under the rules of the Amateur Boxing
Association. Three rounds—the first and second of three minutes’ length,
the third of four minutes’. This gentleman will act as time-keeper, and
pick up whichever of us gets knocked out. He has plenty of time before
he catches the express to town—and the lesson will be good for him.”’
She and the Professor shook hands, and, with heads erect, mouths firmly
closed, eyes fixed, left toes straight, bodies evenly balanced, left
arms workin’ loosely, rights well across mark, and so forth, started
business in the most thorough-goin’ way. Such a bout of
fisticuffs—accordin’ to Rustleton—you couldn’t behold outside the
American prize-ring.”
“By—Jingo!” ejaculated one of the listeners.
“They led off in a perfectly scientific manner at the head, guarded and
returned, retreated and advanced, ducked, feinted, countered, and
cross-countered,” said Hambridge Ost, “until Rustleton grew giddy.
Terrific hits were given and taken before he could command himself
sufficiently to call ‘Time,’ the Professor with a black eye, Celine with
a cut lip, both of ’em smilin’ and self-possessed to an astonishin’
degree; went in again at the end of the brief breathin’ space, and
fairly outdid the previous round. When a smashin’ knock-out on the point
of the jaw finally floored the Professor and she failed to come up to
time, leavin’ Miss Twissing mistress of the gory field, Celine nodded
significantly to Rustleton, and said, as she rolled down her sleeves,
‘That would have been for _you_, Russie, old boy, if there had been
another woman in the case. As there isn’t—goodbye, and good luck go with
you! I’m going to put dear old Pudsey to bed, and plaster this cut lip
of mine.’”
“I like that girl!” declared the man who had said “By Jingo!” “A
rattling good sort, I call her. But a punch-bag would have done as well
as the Professor, I should have thought.” He tugged at his mustache and
wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully. “A damaged lip is so fearfully
disfiguring. Has it quite healed?”
“I know nothing of Miss Twissing,” said Hambridge, settling his necktie,
“and desire to know nothing of that very unfeminine young person, who, I
feel sure, would have been as good as her word and pounded Rustleton
into a human jelly, had she been aware that there actually existed, if I
may so put it, an adequate feminine reason for the dear fellow’s—shall I
say, change of mind?”
“Of course,” said the man who had been anxious about Miss Twissing’s
lip, “the little bounder—beg pardon! Of course, Rustleton was telling a
colossal howler. As all the world knows, or will know when the
newspapers come out to-morrow, there was another woman in the case.”
“Petsie Le Poyntz,” put in another voice, “of the West End Theater.
Petsie of the lissom—ahem!—limbs, of the patent mechanical
smile—mistress of the wink that convulses the gallery, and inventor of
the kick that enraptures the stalls. Petsie, who has won her way into
what Slump, of the _Morning Gush_, calls the ‘peculiar favor of the
British playgoer,’ by her exquisite and spontaneous rendering of the
ballad, ‘Buzzy, Buzzy, Busy Bee,’ sung nightly and at two _matinées_ per
week in _The Charity Girl_. Petsie, once the promised bride of a
thriving young greengrocer, now——”
“Now, Viscountess Rustleton,” said Hambridge Ost. “Don’t forget that,
dear fellow, pray. I can conceive, even while I condemn my cousin’s
ill-considered action in taking to his—shall I say bosom? yesterday
morning at the Registrar’s—a young lady of obvious gifts and obscure
parentage without letting his family into the secret—that he found her a
soothing change from Miss Twissing. No Greek, no athletics, no
strenuousness of any kind. An appearance distinctly pleasing, even off
the boards, a certain command of repartee of the ‘You’re another’ sort,
an agreeable friskiness varied by an inclination to lounge languidly—and
there you have Petsie, dear fellow. The weddin’ breakfast took place at
the Grill Room of the Savoy Hotel, the extra-sized table, number three,
at the east upper end against the glass partition havin’ been specially
engaged by the management of the West End Theater. That, not bein’ an
invited guest, I ascertained from the waiter who usually looks after me
when I lunch there. The _menu_ was distinctly a good ’un. _Hors
d’œuvres_ ... a bisque, follered by _turban de turbot_.... Birds with
bread-cream sauce, chipped potatoes, tomatoes stuffed, and a corn salad.
Chocolate _omelette soufflée_—ices in the shape of those corrugated musk
melons with pink insides, figs, and nectarines. Of course, a claret
figured—Château-Nitouche; but, bein’ a theatrical entertainment, the Boy
washed the whole thing down. The name of the liqueur I did not get hold
of.”
“_Parfait Amour_, perhaps?” said a feeble voice, with a faint chuckle.
“As I have said, I failed to ascertain,” returned Hambridge Ost, with a
dry little cough. “But as Lord Pomphrey, justly indignant with his heir
for throwing over Miss Twissing, with whose hand goes a colossal
fortune, has practically reduced his income to a mere”—he elevated his
eyebrows and blew a speck of cigar-ash from his coat-sleeve—“_that_—the
stirrup-cup that sped my cousin and his bride upon their wedding journey
was certainly not, shall I say, _Aqua d’Oro?_”
There was a faint chorus of applause. Hambridge, repressing all sign of
triumph, smoothed his preternaturally sleek head and uncrossed his
little legs preparatory to getting out of his chair. The circle of
listeners melted away; the man who had said “By Jingo!” straightened his
hat carefully, staring at the reflection of a distinctly good-looking
face in the mantel-glass.
“If she had known—if that girl Celine Twissing had known—the game that
bilious little rotter meant to play, he’d have had his liqueur before
his soup, and it would have been punch—not Milk Punch or Turtle Punch,
but the real thing, with trimmings.” He arranged a very neat mustache
with care. “Sorry she got her lip split,” he murmured; “hope it’s healed
all right.... Waiter, get me a dozen Sobranie cigarettes. It’s a pity, a
confounded pity, that the only man who is really able to appreciate that
grand girl Celine Twissing happens to be a younger son. But, anyhow, I
can have a shot at her, and I will.”
A DYSPEPTIC’S TRAGEDY
“He is a constant visitor,” observed Lady Millebrook.
“And a constant friend,” said Mrs. Tollebranch. A delicate flush mantled
on her otherwise ivory cheek, her great gray eyes, famed for their
far-away, saintly expression, shone through a gleaming veil of tears.
With the lithe, undulating movement so characteristic of her, she
crossed the velvety carpets to the window, and, lifting a corner of her
silken blind, peeped out over her window-boxes of jonquils as the
hall-door closed, and a well-dressed man with a slight stoop and a worn,
dyspeptic countenance went slowly down the doorsteps and got into his
cab. As though some subtle magnetic thrill had conveyed to him the
knowledge that fair eyes looked on his departure, he glanced up and
bowed, for one moment becoming a younger man, as a temporary glow
suffused his pallid features. Then the cab drove off, and Mrs.
Tollebranch, slipping her hand within the arm of Lady Millebrook, drew
her back to her cosy seat within the radius of the fire-glow, and rang
for tea.
“I did not have it up while poor Cadminster was here,” she explained.
“The sight of Sally Lunn is horrible to him, and he is positively
forbidden tea.”
“They say,” said Lady Millebrook, nibbling the Sally Lunn, “that he
lives upon gluten biscuits, lean boiled mutton, and white fish, washed
down by weak Medoc, mixed with hot water.”
“It is true,” returned her friend.
“And yet he dines out. I meet him comparatively often at other people’s
tables,” said Lady Millebrook. “And here—invariably.” Her eyebrows wore
the crumple of interrogation.
“The servants have orders to pass him over,” explained Mrs. Tollebranch,
sipping her tea. “If Jerks or Wilbraham were to offer him a made dish,
one, if not both of them, would be instantly dismissed.”
“My dear Clarice! Friendship is friendship.... But Jerks and
Wilbraham.... Such invaluable servants! You cannot mean what you say!”
“I do mean it,” nodded Mrs. Tollebranch. “Oh, Bettine!” she murmured,
clasping Lady Millebrook’s hand, “don’t look so surprised. If you only
knew how much that man has sacrificed for me!”
“If there is anything upon which I pride myself,” observed Lady
Millebrook, “it is my absolute lack of curiosity. And yet people are
always telling me their secrets—the most intimate, the most important!
‘Bettine,’ they say, ‘you are a Grave!’ ... So I am; it is quite true. A
thing once repeated in my hearing is buried for ever! We have not known
each other very long, it is true, but you must have discovered that I am
absolutely reliable! Talking of sacrifices, there are so many sorts. Now
perhaps in your gratitude for this service rendered you by Lord
Cadminster, you overrate. Perhaps it is really not so great as you
imagine! Perhaps...! But I am not curious in the least!”
“Would it surprise you to hear,” queried Mrs. Tollebranch, “that
Cadminster, two years ago, was _perfectly healthy!_ Not the cadaverous
dyspeptic he is now; not the semi-invalid, but a robust, healthy,
fresh-colored man of the out-of-doors, hardy English type?”
Lady Millebrook elevated her eyebrows. “Dear me,” she observed. “How
very odd! And now—you know his horrid _soubriquet_—‘The Boiled Owl.’ He
has earned it _since_, of course.”
“He had a splendid appetite once,” continued Mrs. Tollebranch, “an iron
constitution—a perfect digestion. He gave them all three to save a
woman’s honor. Oh! Bettine, can you guess who the woman was?”
“I never hazard guesses about my friends,” said the inexorable Lady
Millebrook. “But I feel, somehow, that she may have been you?”
“I was weak,” admitted Mrs. Tollebranch, clasping her friend’s hand with
agitated jeweled fingers. “But not wicked, Bettine. Promise me to
believe that!”
“I never promise,” said Bettine, “but no one could look at you and doubt
that ... whatever you might do, would be the outcome of irresistible
impulse, _not_ the result of deliberate—ahem! My dearest, you interest
me indescribably,” she cried, “and if I were the _least bit_ inclined to
curiosity, I am sure I should implore you to go on.”
“You shall hear the story of Cadminster’s Great Sacrifice, Bettine,”
said Mrs. Tollebranch, “and when you have heard, you will regard him——”
“As Bayard and all the other heroes of chivalry rolled into one, and
dressed by a Bond Street tailor,” interrupted Lady Millebrook, with a
glow of impatience in her fine dark eyes. “I think you mentioned two
years ago?” she added, settling a little stray lock of her friend’s
silken blonde hair, and sinking back among her cushions.
“Two years ago,” murmured Mrs. Tollebranch, “Willibrand became bitten
with the Golf Spider. He is as wild about the game to-day,” she added,
“as ever.”
“There is a proverb, ‘Once a golfer, always a golfer,’” put in Lady
Millebrook. “I believe that to play the game successfully requires a
vast amount of thought and judgment, which insensibly diverts a man’s
mind from less harmless topics, and that it entails an invigorating and
healthy action of the arms and legs, soothing to the nervous system, and
improving in its effect upon the temper. Were I asked by any married
woman of my acquaintance whether she should encourage her husband in his
devotion to golf, or dissuade him from it, I should advise her to
encourage the fad. The game, unlike others, can be played all the year
round, in sunshine, rain, or snow.”
“Willibrand used to play it in the snow,” put in Mrs. Tollebranch, “with
red balls. It was when we were spending March at Tobermuirie two years
ago, that——”
“That Lord Cadminster performed the chivalrous action which resulted for
him in the permanent loss of his digestion? Well?”
“Tobermuirie is the bleakest spot in North Britain,” began Mrs.
Tollebranch, returning the teacups to the tray, and touching the
electric bell in a manner which conveyed the intimation that she would
not be at home to any caller for the next quarter of an hour. “The
castle is one of the oldest inhabited residences in Europe, and, I
verily believe, the coldest. If you would like to find out for yourself
how easily a northern gale can penetrate walls ten feet thick in the
thinnest places, come to us in July.”
“I shall make a point of it!” said Lady Millebrook, cuddling down into
her warm, scented lair of cushions.
“Of course, the male division of the house-party was made up of golfing
enthusiasts,” went on Mrs. Tollebranch. “Major Wharfling, Sir Roger
Balcombe, Cadminster, who was as keen as Willibrand in those days, three
Guardsmen, and D’Arsy Pontoise.”
“By the way, what has become of Pontoise?” queried Lady Millebrook. “One
never meets him now as one used.”
“He scarcely ever leaves Paris, I believe,” returned Mrs. Tollebranch,
rather constrainedly. “Since his reconciliation with the Duc, his
great-uncle, and his marriage with Mademoiselle De Carapoix, who I have
heard is a very strict Catholic and humpbacked——”
“Besides being a great heiress.... Of course, he is kept well within
bounds. But what a fascinating creature Pontoise used to be. Bubbling
with life, effervescing with spirits. Sadly naughty, too, I fear, for
the names of at least half a dozen pretty married women used to be mixed
up with his in all sorts of scan.... My dearest, I beg your pardon!”
“I, at least, was not wicked—only weak!” said Clarice, with icy dignity.
“And as to there being five others——”
“My sweet, it was the vaguest hearsay. Nothing certain, except that
Pontoise spoke perfect English and was a veritable Apollo! I can imagine
the rigors of imprisonment in a Border castle in March to have been
ameliorated by the fact of his being a guest under its aged roof. Did he
play golf?”
Mrs. Tollebranch rose and took a dainty screen of crimson feathers from
the high mantelshelf.
“He tried to learn,” she explained, holding the screen so as to shield
her delicate complexion from the glowing heat of the log fire. “But the
game baffled him. To play it properly, I believe, the mind must be dead
to all other interests——”
“And Pontoise’s mind was unusually alive at that particular moment to
things outside the sphere of golf,” mused Lady Millebrook. “Golf is a
game for husbands, not for——” Her red lips closed on the unuttered word.
“Don’t say, ‘lovers’!” implored Clarice. “From beginning to end,
Bettine, it was nothing but a flirtation. I will own that I
was—attracted, almost fascinated. I had never met a human being whose
nature was of so many colors ... whose soul....” She broke off.
“I have been informed on good authority,” observed Lady Millebrook,
“that whenever Pontoise meant mischief he invariably talked about his
soul. But do go on!
“Of course, you played golf also; and as one of the great advantages
connected with the game is that you can choose your own partner, I may
presume that Pontoise made acquaintance with it under your auspices, and
that when he landed himself in the jaws of some terrific sand-bunker,
you were at hand to help him out.”
“As his hostess, it was rather incumbent upon me,” explained Mrs.
Tollebranch, “to make myself of use. Willibrand and Sir Roger Balcombe
termed him a duffer; Major Wharfling is nothing but a professional,
Cadminster and the Guardsmen were hard drivers all. And as Bluefern had
made me a golfing costume which was a perfect dream——”
“You completed the conquest of Pontoise. I quite understand!” said
Bettine. “In that frock, armed with a long spoon. I quite grasp it.”
“The golf course is very open at Tobermuirie,” went on Clarice, playing
with the feather fan.
“But there are hillocks, and bumps and boulders, and things behind which
Pontoise managed to get in a good many references to his soul. I grasp
_that_ also,” observed Lady Millebrook.
“He did mention his soul,” admitted Mrs. Tollebranch. “He said that it
had always been lonely, thirsting for the sympathy of a sister-spirit
until——”
“Until he met you!”
“He did say as much. And he explained how, in sheer desperation of ever
meeting the affinity, the flame for whom the spark of his being had been
originally kindled, a man may drift into all kinds of follies, even gain
the name of a libertine and a _roué_.”
“Quite true.”
“He has such wonderful eyes, like moss agates, and his profile is like
the Hermes of Praxiteles, or would be but for the waxed mustache and
crisp, golden beard. And there is a vibrating _timbre_ in his voice that
goes to the very heart. One could not but be sorry for him.”
“I am sure you were very sorry indeed. But Pontoise, as one knows of
him, would not long be content with that. Your heartfelt pity, and the
tip of your little finger to kiss....” Lady Millebrook’s sleepily dark
eyes smiled cynical amusement. “Those things are the _hors d’œuvres_ of
flirtation. Soup, fish, made-dishes, roast, and sweets invariably
succeed, with black coffee and a subsequent indigestion.”
Clarice avoided the glance of this feminine philosopher.
“Pontoise was always respectful,” she said, with a little note of
defiance in her voice. “He never forgot what was due to me save once,
when——”
“When it was borne in upon him too strongly what he owed to himself. And
then he kissed you, and you were furiously angry.”
“Furious!” nodded Clarice, brushing her round chin with the edge of the
crimson screen. “I vowed I would never speak to him again.”
“And how long did you keep that oath?” asked Bettine.
“We met at dinner in the evening, and of course one has to be civil. And
when I went to bed, and he handed me my candlestick,” said Mrs.
Tollebranch—“for gas is only laid as high as the first floor of the
castle, and the electric light has never been heard of—he slipped a note
into my hand. It implored my pardon, and declared that unless I would
meet him in the golf-house on the links next day before lunch, and
receive his profound apologies, he would terminate an existence which my
well-deserved scorn had rendered insupportable. He spoke of the—the——”
Clarice hesitated.
“The kiss,” put in Lady Millebrook, “and——”
“Said he had dared, in a moment of insanity, to desecrate the cheek of
the purest woman breathing with lips that ought to be branded for their
criminal presumption. He could never atone, he ended, but he could never
forget.”