_His Grace Still Hesitates_
I do not believe that Mrs. Radigan will marry again. Time was very
recently when she had a fond eye on J. Madison Mudison, for he was
undoubtedly the smartest bachelor in town, while she had risen no
higher than to stand in the line of patronesses at subscription dances.
Now with the new house, the costume-ball, and the completion of a
traffic agreement between the Radigan and the Williegilt railroads, she
has set herself on such a dizzy height that a match with Mr. Mudison
would be a tumble, for Radigan to-day belongs to just as many clubs,
and, besides, has millions that keep adding unto themselves. She just
sighs when Mudison is mentioned, and perhaps she will blush a little
and say there was really never anything in the reports that were
abroad. So we regard the affair as history, and Mrs. Radigan never
troubles about the past. Her concern is with the future, and to-day
the future lies over the sea, among the beer-pots of England, among
the leaky palaces of the great Duke of Nocastle, and in the court of
his Majesty the King. I grow sad when she reveals her ambition, for to
me it means the loss of Pearl Veal; for though at times there comes to
me through the cloud of cigarette smoke that hovers around that lovely
girl, comes with her smile and her monosyllabic utterances a gleam of
hope, it seems really madness to think that when the crucial question
is popped by his Grace's solicitor she will refuse. Mrs. Radigan says
that her sister is not mad. Mrs. Radigan interprets the inscrutable
smile as favorable. Mrs. Radigan goes on laying her plans for a great
wedding, and has already hired a press agent.
"We can let him have an office in the little reception-room
downstairs," she said to me over her teacup the other day. "He can
have his type-writers and telephone there, and I am sure that the noise
will not disturb us away off here."
"But my dear Mrs. Radigan," said I, "you must remember that I am still
engaged to your sister, and that Ethel Bumpschus is in the field
pitting her ten millions against Pearl's paltry four."
"Your engagement is a minor matter," replied Mrs. Radigan pleasantly;
"you must remember that while it may seem important to you, it is
Pearl's third or fourth, for before Plumstone Smith she had several
devoted admirers in Kansas City. As for Ethel, I have plainly intimated
to his Highness that if worst comes to worst, Radigan and I will
make up a purse between us to quite bring Pearl's dot to Bumpschus
proportions."
Truly, when Mrs. Radigan sets her mind on accomplishing anything, one
might as well get out of her way. But I die hard myself.
"Has the Duke proposed?" I asked.
"Pearl tells me not," was the quiet reply. "But you know his Highness
is waiting for his solicitor, and when Sir Charles Wigge arrives from
London, we can look for doings, real doings. I tell you, any girl might
well be proud of having a 'Sir' come to her to lay the hand of a duke
at her feet."
"A ghastly ceremony," said I, thinking of one thing.
"You are not qualified to judge," said she smiling, and evidently
misinterpreting my remark.
But how clever she is! Most women conducting such a campaign would
seek to separate the Duke from the Bumpschuses and bring him entirely
within their own sphere of influence. But Mrs. Radigan regards Ethel
Bumpschus as her chief ally, though an unwitting one, and when she gets
possession of his Grace she likes to have the great heiress around. She
says Pearl shows so well against a plain background. The poor Duke is
almost distracted. What with Pearl's beauty and my insidious remarks
to him about the enormous wealth of the house of Bumpschus and the
speculative character of the Radigan fortunes, he flutters about as
aimlessly as a wounded butterfly and has about as much to say. When the
dog-fancier is particularly pressing for a payment on the bull pups his
Grace will concentrate his attentions on one heiress or the other for a
day at a time, then he will go all to pieces again and aimlessly wander
up and down the Park Mall or stand on the Battery wall watching the
steamships come in.
Mrs. Radigan told him the other day that she could see by his face
that he was working too hard, and insisted that the bracing air of
Hempstead Plain could alone save him to his country. So we all went
down to the Westbury place for a week-end, even Miss Bumpschus, with
Constance Wherry and Williegilt Mint, a youngish chap, who is studying
at Harvard, and so has not much to do except go about. Pearl took
some of us down in her car in the afternoon, while the rest went by
train, arriving in time for dinner. The Duke was in our party, but I
doubt if ever again he will trust himself to the mercy of our fair
chauffeuse, for Pearl is an expert with her car and can run as close
to a hub without scraping it as can the Frenchman who looks after the
Radigan machine-shop. We put the Duke and Miss Bumpschus behind, with
Gascan as chaperone, and we should never have known they were there
as we ran down the avenue to Thirty-fourth Street had not the Duke
once remarked that it was "jolly." Then I gave Pearl a gentle nudge
and she made a figure S around two rapidly approaching trolley cars. I
expected a scream, but there was an ominous silence. Covertly I turned
my head, first to look into the expressionless face of Gascan, his eye
set along the track, then into the pale eyes of the great Englishman.
He was terror-stricken, but to do him justice, I think he was not so
much frightened by the smartness with which Pearl ran across the fender
of the trolley car, as by Miss Bumpschus, who lay gasping in one of
his arms. I could not help smiling, and in smiling I aroused him to
action. With the bull-dog perseverance that is the characteristic of
the Anglo-Saxon, he propped Ethel up in her corner.
"That was a jolly close call," he said, speaking, we supposed, of the
delightful way Pearl handled the car.
"Another like that and you lose the Duke," I whispered. I could see
just a bit of pink cheek turn pinker, just the full mouth curling at
the corners, for all the rest was hidden from me by fur and goggles.
We shot between a vegetable truck and an elevated post, at top speed,
and came to a standstill within an inch of the ferry-gate; and when
on the other side of the river, we whirled away again at the legal
speed, going like the wind. The keen air put the mischief in Pearl's
veins, and she ran with a recklessness that at times even disturbed
my equanimity, though, of course, I did not dare show it, for I have
noticed that these silent women set more store by nerve than by
brains. We turned corners on one tire; we ran up to trolley cars at a
forty-mile clip, then circled around them with a wild scream of the
horn; over crossings we bowled with a succession of shocks that were
likely to hurl his Grace off into the sky, but he clung to the hem
of the silent Gascan's cow-skin coat. Just once the noble Englishman
spoke. The mud, gentle harbinger of spring, was rising around us in
clouds, and the engine, called on for double exertion, was roaring
demoniacally.
"Jolly!" he cried. "Je-je-je-olly!"
Miss Bumpschus said nothing. I fear that the cynical expression of
Gascan, the chauffeur, had for the time blighted her hope that in their
mutual peril she and the Duke would find a tie to bind them. But such
peril had to have its end; such a journey could not long continue, for
in all the world there were not enough thousands of miles for speed
like that to cover. We chipped the paint off the iron gate of the
Westbury place as Jamaica lay hallowed in the gold of the setting sun,
and the groans of the resting engine brought the whole house to the
veranda. Gascan handed down the frozen Duke and Ethel Bumpschus, and
in the warm smile of Sally Radigan they were thawed out.
"Of course my little sister brought your Highness down quietly," said
Mrs. Radigan, when she had fixed him before the library fire and
despatched a man for hot Scotch.
"It was jolly," replied the great Englishman. "I'm used to fast
going--jolly fast going."
But I think that had the Duke the power at that moment he would have
fled home to his leaky castles, leaving behind wealth and loveliness,
broken hearts and full purses. Pearl had shown a phase of her character
that made him fear for his ducal rights, and as for Miss Bumpschus, his
man told my man that--but these are kitchen secrets.
Night came, bringing with it Constance Wherry, large and good-natured
as ever, with Williegilt Mint and Radigan. Dinner came, bringing the
Duke down in a coat that fitted over his shoulders as on a wire hanger;
bringing Pearl Veal in simple black that set off her rounded shoulders
to perfection, and Ethel Bumpschus in a spangly pink creation, with
eye-glasses, and a black patch on her chin; bringing Constance Wherry
with her neck squeezed into one of the finest pearl collarettes I
have ever seen, though it was not tight enough to prevent her talking
as volubly as ever. Mrs. Radigan was in splendid tune with her
surroundings. As one of the men pushed the Duke into his place at her
side, I heard her remark: "We are all so glad your Highness has come.
You will enjoy it here, I am sure. To-night we have bridge. To-morrow
there are a lot of things to see: the Cathedral at Garden City, and
the beautiful view of the plains from the hill behind the stables. I'm
sure it's as fine as anything you have in Europe. It reminds me of
Bar-beyzun, the place Mil-let painted, you know."
His Grace said it would be jolly.
Then she said that Sir Charles Wigge must see it when he came. She
would insist on the Duke bringing him down for a few days. When Sir
Charles did come, all would be over with me, I thought. There was
plenty of time to ponder on the situation, for Constance Wherry was
giving me in detail the plot of a play she had seen the night before,
and by leaning interestedly toward her I was able to get an occasional
glance around the monstrous jardinière, and see Pearl, as she covered
his Grace with smiles. The Duke quite warmed up and smiled, too, and
made several remarks, after he had had some champagne. There was little
consolation for me there, except the meagre possibility in Pearl's
promise to take Sir Charles out in her car--the roads would be better
then, she said, and they would be able to go.
"It would be jolly," Nocastle stammered, twirling his glass.
After dinner we had bridge, but it was rather tame at our table, his
Grace declining to play for more than a ha'penny a point, as he had
to carry Miss Bumpschus, who never gambles. It was rather a bore, but
I found some pleasure in the polite row we had at the end, over the
question as to whether we were playing on the American or English
coinage basis. His Grace said English, of course, as he never could
understand our American money. It was folly to be wise, indeed, as
he had won three rubbers; but as the amount involved was only $5, I
settled in English and let it go at that, but Miss Wherry stuck to
cents, paid, and went to bed in a towering rage. She lacks humor. Now,
when I told Pearl about it she blew a smoke ring and said simply, "He's
a jolly duke."