In Belgrave Square Mrs. Eustace Greyne was beginning to get slightly
uneasy. Several things combined to make her so. In the first place,
Mademoiselle Verbena had never returned from her mother’s Parisian
bedside, and had not even written a line to say how the dear parent was,
and when the daughter’s nursing occupation was likely to be over. In the
second place, Adolphus, in consequence of the Levantine’s absence, had
totally lost his grasp, always uncertain, upon the irregular verbs.
In the third place, Darrell, the valet, had returned to London the day
after his departure from it, minus not only his master’s dressing-case,
but minus everything he possessed. His story was that, while waiting at
the station in Paris for his master’s appearance, he had entered into
conversation with an agreeable stranger, and been beguiled into the
acceptance of an absinthe at a café just outside. After swallowing
the absinthe he remembered nothing more till he came to himself in a
deserted waiting-room at the Gare du Nord, back to which he had been
mysteriously conveyed. In his pocket was no money, no watch, only
the return half of a second-class ticket from London to Paris. He,
therefore, wandered about the streets till morning broke, and then came
back to London a crestfallen and miserable man, bemoaning his untoward
fate, and cursing “them blasted Frenchies” from the bottom of his
British heart.
Mrs. Greyne’s anxiety on her husband’s behalf, now that he was thrown
absolutely unattended upon the inhospitable shores of Africa, was not
lessened by a fourth circumstance, which, indeed, worried her far
more than all the others put together. This was Mr. Greyne’s prolonged
absence from her side. Precisely one calendar month had now elapsed
since he had buried his face in her prune bonnet strings at Victoria
Station, and there seemed no prospect of his return. He wrote to her,
indeed, frequently, and his letters were full of wistful regret and
longing to be once more safe in the old homestead in Belgrave Square,
drinking barley water, and pasting Romeike & Curtice notices into the
new album which lay, gaping for him, upon the table of his sanctum. But
he did not come; nay, more, he wrote plainly that there was no prospect
of his coming for the present. It seemed that the wickedness of Africa
was very difficult to come at. It did not lie upon the surface, but was
hidden far down in depths to which the ordinary tourist found it almost
impossible to penetrate. In his numerous letters Mr. Greyne described
his heroic and unremitting exertions to fill the Merrin’s note-books
with matter that would be suitable for the purging of humanity. He set
out in full his interview with Alphonso at the office of Rook, and
his definite rejection by that cosmopolitan official. According to
the letters, after this event he had spent no less than a fortnight
searching in vain for any sign of wickedness in the Algerian capital. He
had frequented the cafés, the public bars, the theatres, the churches.
He had been to the Velodrome. He had sat by the hour in the Jardin
d’Essai. At night he had strolled in the fairs and hung about the
circus. Yet nowhere had he been able to perceive anything but the
most innocent pleasure, the simple merriment of a gay and guileless
population to whom the idea of crime seemed as foreign as the idea of
singing the English national anthem.
During the third week it was true that matters--always according to Mr.
Greyne’s letters home--slightly improved. While walking near the quay,
in active search for nautical outrage, he saw an Arab dock labourer,
who had been over-smoking kief, run amuck, and knock down a couple of
respectable snake-charmers who were on the point of embarkation for
Tunis with their reptiles. This incident had filed up a half-score of
pages in exercise-book number one, and had flooded Mr. Greyne with hope
and aspiration. But it was followed by a stagnant lull which had lasted
for days and had only been disturbed by the trifling incident of
a gentleman in the Jewish quarter of the town setting fire to a
neighbour’s bazaar, in the very natural endeavour to find a French
half-penny which he had chanced to drop among a bale of carpets while
looking in to drive a soft bargain. As Mrs. Greyne wired to Algiers,
such incidents were of no value to “Catherine.”
A very active interchange of views had gone on between the husband and
wife as time went by, and the book was at a standstill. At first Mrs.
Greyne contented herself with daily letters, but latterly she had
resorted to wires, explanatory, condemnatory, hortatory, and even
comminatory. She began bitterly to regret her husband’s well-proven
innocence, and wished she had despatched an uncle of hers by marriage,
an ex-captain in the Royal Navy, who, she began to feel certain, would
have been able to find far more frailty in Algiers than poor Eustace, in
his simplicity, would ever come at. She even began to wish that she had
crossed the sea in person, and herself boldly set about the ingathering
of the material for which she was so impatiently waiting.
Her uneasiness was brought to a head by a letter from a house agent,
stating that the corner mansion in Park Lane next to the Duke of
Ebury’s was being nibbled at by a Venezuelan millionaire. She wired this
terrible fact at once to Africa, adding, at an enormous expenditure of
cash:
This will never do. You are too innocent, and cannot see
what lies before you. Obtain assistance. Go to the British
consul.
Mr. Greyne at once cabled back:
Am following your advice. Will wire result. Regret my
innocence, but am distressed that you should so utterly
condemn it.
Upon receiving this telegram at night, before a lonely dinner, Mrs.
Eustace Greyne was deeply moved. She felt she had been hasty. She knew
that to very few women was it given to have a husband so free from
all masculine infirmities as Mr. Greyne. At the same time there was
“Catherine,” there was the mansion in Park Lane, there was the Venezuelan
millionaire. She began to feel distracted, and, for the first time in
her life, refused to partake of sweetbreads fried in mushroom ketchup,
a dish which she had greatly affected from the time when she wrote her
first short story. While she was in the very act of waving away this
delicacy a footman came in with a foreign telegram. She opened it
quickly, and read as follows:--
British consul horrified; was ignominiously expelled from
consulate; great scandal; am much upset, but will never give
in, for your sake. Eustace.
As the dread meaning of these words penetrated at length to Mrs.
Greyne’s voluminous brain a deep flush overspread her noble features.
She rose from the table with a determination that struck awe to the
hearts of the powdered underlings, and, drawing herself up to her full
height, exclaimed:
“Send Mrs. Forbes at once to my study, if you please--at once, do you
understand?”
In a moment Mrs. Forbes, who was the great novelist’s maid, appeared on
the threshold of the oracle’s lair. She was a sober-looking, black-silk
personage, who always wore a pork-pie cap in the house, and a Mother
Hubbard bonnet out of it. Having been in service with Mrs. Greyne ever
since the latter penned her last minor poetry--Mrs. Greyne had been a
minor poet for three years soon after she put her hair up--Mrs. Forbes
had acquired a certain literary expression of countenance and a manner
that was decidedly prosy. She read a good deal after her supper of an
evening, and was wont to be the arbiter when any literary matter was
discussed in the servants’ hall.
“Madam?” she said, respectfully entering the room, and bending the
pork-pie cap forward in an attentive attitude.
Mrs. Greyne was silent for a moment. She appeared to be thinking deeply.
Mrs. Forbes gently closed the door, and sighed. It was nearly her
supper-time, and she felt pensive.
“Madam?” she said again.
Mrs. Greyne looked up. A strange fire burned in her large eyes.
“Mrs. Forbes,” she said at length, with weighty deliberation, “the
mission of woman in the world is a great one.”
“Very true, madam. My own words to Butler Phillips no longer ago than
dinner this midday.”
“It is the protecting of man--neither more nor less.”
“My own statement, madam, to Second Footman Archibald this self-same day
at the tea-board.”
“Man needs guidance, and looks for it to us--or rather to me.”
At the last word Mrs. Forbes pinched her lips together, and appeared
older than her years and sourer than her normal temper.
“At this moment, Mrs. Forbes,” continued Mrs. Greyne, with rising
fervour, “he looks for it to me from Africa. From that dark continent
he stretches forth his hands to me in humble supplication.”
“Mr. Greyne has not been taken with another of his bilious attacks, I
hope, madam?” said Mrs. Forbes.
Mrs. Greyne smiled. The ignorance of the humbly born entertained her. It
was so simple, so transparent.
“You fail to understand me,” she answered. “But never mind; others have
done the same.”
She thought of her reviewers. Mrs. Forbes smiled. She also could be
entertained.
“Madam?” she inquired once more after a pause.
“I shall leave for Africa to-morrow morning,” said Mrs. Greyne. “You
will accompany me.”
There was a dead silence.
“You will accompany me. Do you understand? Obtain assistance from
the housemaids in the packing. Select my quietest gowns, my least
conspicuous bonnets. I have my reasons for wishing, while journeying to
Africa and remaining there, to pass, if possible, unnoticed.”
Again there was a pause. Mrs. Greyne looked up at Mrs. Forbes, and
observed a dogged expression upon her countenance.
“What is the matter?” she asked the maid.
“Do we go by Paris, madam?” said Mrs. Forbes.
“Certainly.”
“Then, madam, I’m very sorry, but I couldn’t risk it, not if it was ever
so----”
“Why not? Why this fear of Lutetia?”
“Madam, I’m not afraid of any Lutetia as ever wore apron, but to go
to Paris to be drugged with absint, and put away in a third-class
waiting-room like a package--I couldn’t madam, not even if I have to
leave your service.”
Mrs. Greyne recognised that the episode of the valet had struck home to
the lady’s maid.
“But you will not leave my side.”
“They will absint you, madam.”
“But you will travel first in a sleeping-car.”
Mrs. Forbes put up her hand to her pork-pie cap, as if considering.
“Very well, madam, to oblige you I will undergo it,” she said at length.
“But I would not do the like for another living lady.”
“I will raise your wages. You are a faithful creature.”
“Does master expect us, madam?” asked Mrs. Forbes as she prepared to
retire.
A bright and tender look stole into Mrs. Greyne’s intellectual face.
“No,” she replied.
She turned her large and beaming eyes full upon the maid.
“Mrs. Forbes,” she said, with an amount of emotion that was very rare in
her, “I am going to tell you a great truth.”
“Madam?” said Mrs. Forbes respectfully.
“The sweetest moments of life, those which lift man nearest heaven, and
make him thankful for the great gift of existence, are sometimes those
which are unforeseen.”
She was thinking of Mr. Greyne’s ecstasy when, upon the inhospitable
African shore where he was now enduring such tragic misfortunes, he
perceived the majestic form of his loved one--his loved one whom he
believed to be in Belgrave Square--coming towards him to soothe, to
comfort, to direct. She brushed away a tear.
“Go, Mrs. Forbes,” she said.
And Mrs. Forbes retired, smiling.
An epic might well be written on the great novelist’s journey to Africa,
upon her departure from Charing Cross, shrouded in a black gauze veil,
her silent thought as the good ship _Empress_ rode cork-like upon the
Channel waves, her ascetic lunch--a captain’s biscuit and a glass of
water--at the buffet at Calais, her arrival in Paris when the shades
of night had fallen. An epic might well be written. Perhaps some day it
will be, by herself.
In Paris she suffered a good deal on account of Mrs. Forbes, who, in her
fear of “ab-sint,” became hysterical, and caused not a little annoyance
by accusing various inoffensive French travellers of nefarious designs
upon her property and person. In the Gulf of Lyons she suffered even
more, and as, unluckily, the wind was contrary and the sea prodigious
during the whole of the passage across the Mediterranean, both she and
Mrs. Forbes arrived at Algiers four hours late, in a condition which may
be more easily imagined than properly described.
Genius in thrall to the body, and absolutely dependent upon green
chartreuse for its flickering existence, is no subject for even a
sympathetic pen. Sufficient to say that, when the ship came in under the
lights of Algiers, the crowd of shouting Arabs was struck to silence by
the spectacle of Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes endeavouring to disembark,
in bonnets that were placed seaward upon the head instead of landward,
unbuttoned boots, and gowns soaked with the attentions of the waves.
After being gently and permanently relieved of their light hand-baggage,
the mistress and maid, who seemed greatly overwhelmed by the sight
of Africa, and who moved--or rather were carried--as in a dream, were
placed reverently in the nearest omnibus, and conveyed to the farthest
hotel, which was situated upon a lofty hill above the town. Here a
slightly painful scene took place.
Having been assisted by the staff into a Moorish hall, Mrs. Greyne
inquired in a reticent voice for her husband, and was politely informed
that there was no person of the name of Greyne in the hotel. For a
moment she seemed threatened with dissolution, but with a supreme effort
calling upon her mighty brain she surmised that her husband was possibly
passing under a pseudonym in order to throw America off the scent. She,
therefore, demanded to have the guests then present in the hotel at once
paraded before her. As there was some difficulty about this--the guests
being then at dinner--she whispered for the visitors’ book, thinking
that, perchance, Mr. Greyne had inscribed his name there, and that the
staff, being foreign, did not recognise it as murmured by herself. The
book was brought, upon its cover in golden letters the words: “Hôtel
Loubet et Majestic.” Then explanations of a somewhat disagreeable nature
occurred, and Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes, after a heavy payment had
been exacted for their conveyance to a place they had desired not to
go to, were carried forth, and consigned to another vehicle, which at
length brought them, on the stroke of nine, to the Grand Hotel.
Having been placed reverently in the brilliantly-lighted hall, they were
surrounded by the proprietor, the _maître d’hôtel_ and his assistants,
the porters, and the chasseurs, with all of whom Mr. Greyne was
now familiar. Brandy and water having been supplied, together with
smelling-salts and burnt feathers, Mrs. Greyne roused herself from an
acute attack of lethargy, and asked for Mr. Greyne. A joyous smile ran
round the circle.
“Monsieur Greyne,” said the proprietor, “who is living here for the
winter?” 4
“Mr. Eustace Greyne,” murmured the great novelist, grasping her bonnet
with both hands.
The _maître d’hôtel_ drew nearer.
“Madame wishes to see Monsieur Greyne?” he asked.
“I do--at once.”
A blessed consciousness of Mother Earth was gradually beginning to steal
over her. She even strove feebly to sit up on her chair, a German-Swiss
porter of enormous size assisting her.
“But Monsieur Greyne is out.”
“Out?”
“Yes, madame. Monsieur Greyne is always out at night.”
The eyes of the little chasseur who knew no better began to twinkle.
Mrs. Forbes gave a slight cough. Tears filled the novelist’s eyes.
“God bless my Eustace!” she murmured, deeply touched by this evidence of
his devotion to her interests.
“Madame says----” asked the proprietor.
“Where does Mr. Greyne go?” inquired the novelist.
“To the Kasbah, madame.”
“I knew it!” cried Mrs. Greyne, with returning animation. “I knew it
would be so!”
“Madame is acquainted with Monsieur Greyne?” said the _maître d’hôtel_,
while the little crowd gathered more closely about the wave-worn group.
“I am Mrs. Eustace Greyne,” returned the great novelist recklessly. “I
am the wife of Mr. Eustace Greyne.”
There was a moment of supreme silence. Then a loud, an even piercing
“_Oh, là, là,_ broke upon the air, succeeded instantaneously by a burst
of laughter that seemed to thrill with all the wild blessedness of
boyhood. It came, of course, from the little chasseur; it came, and
stayed. Nothing could stop it, and eventually the happy child had to be
carried forth upon the sea-front to enjoy his innocent mirth at leisure
and in solitude beneath the African stars. Mrs. Greyne did not notice
his disappearance. She was intent upon important matters.
“At what time does Mr. Greyne usually set forth?” she asked of the
proprietor, whose face now bore a strangely twisted appearance, as if
afflicted by a toothache.
“Immediately after dinner, madame, if not before. Of late it has
generally been before.”
“And he stays out late?”
“Very late, madame.”
The twisted appearance began to seem infectious. It was visible upon the
faces of most of those surrounding Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes. Indeed,
even the latter showed some signs of it, although the large shadow cast
over her features by the hind side of her Mother Hubbard bonnet to some
extent disguised them from the public view.
“Till what hour?” pursued Mrs. Greyne in a voice of almost yearning
tenderness and pity.
“Well, madame”--the proprietor displayed some slight confusion--“I
really can hardly say. The _maître d’hôtel_ can perhaps inform you.”
Mrs. Greyne turned her ox-like eyes upon the enlarged edition of
Napoleon the First.
“Monsieur Greyne seldom returns before seven or eight o’clock in the
morning, madame. He then retires to bed, and comes down to breakfast at
about four o’clock in the afternoon.”
Mrs. Greyne was touched to the very quick. Her husband was sacrificing
his rest, his health--nay, perhaps even his very life--in her service.
It was well she had come, well that a period was to be put to these
terrible researches. They should be stopped at once, even this very
night. Better a thousand literary failures than that her husband’s
existence should be placed in jeopardy. She rose suddenly from her
chair, tottered, gasped, recovered herself, and spoke.
“Prepare dinner for me at once,” she said, “and order a carriage and a
competent guide to be before the door in half-an-hour.”
“Madame is going out? But madame is ill, tired!”
“It matters not.”
“Where does madame wish to go?”
“I am going to the Kasbah to find my husband.”
“I will escort madame.”
The proprietor, the _maître d’hôtel_, the waiters, the porters, the
chasseurs, Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes, all turned about to face the
determined speaker.
And there before them, his dark eyes gleaming, his long moustaches
bristling fiercely--here stood Abdallah Jack.