FRANCES
By Jove, it seemed to me I had been asleep about a minute when I saw the
sunlight splashing through the blinds.
Jenkins stood beside me with something in his hand.
"Didn't hear me, did you, sir?" he was asking. "I said I thought the
address looked like Mr. Billings' handwriting. And he's gone, sir."
"Gone?"
I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I had a befogged notion that
Jenkins looked a little queer.
"Yes, sir. He's not in his room, nor in the apartment anywhere."
"Eh--how--what's that?" For Jenkins' hand extended an envelope.
"Perhaps you would like to read this now, sir."
It was from Billings--I knew his fist in an instant. It was very short
and without heading. In fact, above his name appeared just a half-dozen
penciled words, heavily underscored, and without punctuation:
Damn you send me my clothes
"His clothes?" I looked perplexedly at Jenkins.
He was looking a little pale and held his eyes fixedly to the picture
molding across the room. He coughed gently.
"Yes, sir," he uttered faintly; "they're in his room, but _he_ ain't."
"By Jove!" I remarked helplessly. And just then I remembered something
that brought me wide awake in an instant.
I questioned eagerly:
"I say--that desk lamp in there, Jenkins--did you switch it on in the
night? And the doors I found open--know anything about them?" And
Jenkins' blank expression was the reply.
"By Jove, Jenkins!" I gasped.
Jenkins compressed his lips. "Exactly, sir."
"Er--what were you thinking, Jenkins?" I questioned desperately. And I
think Jenkins' stolidity wavered before my anxious face.
"It ain't for me to be thinking anything, sir--besides, the messenger's
waiting--but--" His hand sought his pocket.
He stepped back, leaving something on the stand by my bed.
"What's that?" I questioned in alarm. "Another note?"
"No, sir--not exactly, sir. But if I may suggest--without offense,
sir--that you fill it out, I will see that it gets to him."
"Him? Who's him--he, I mean?"
"Doctor Splasher, sir, the temperance party I was speaking of. I've
already filled out mine, and I'm going to put one in for Mr. Billings
when I send the clothes." From the doorway he turned a woebegone
countenance toward me. "It's heartrending, sir--if I may be permitted to
say so--to think of a nice gentleman like Mr. Billings wandering over to
the club with nothing on but red pajamas."
But when I telephoned they stated that Mr. Billings had not been at the
club since last evening. Some one who answered the 'phone thought Mr.
Billings was with his friend, Mr. Lightnut, in the Kahoka Apartments.
And, of course, I knew jolly well he was not.
As I turned from the telephone, something in Jenkins' expression
arrested my attention.
"Well?" I said impatiently, for he has so many devilishly clever
inspirations, you know; and, dash it, I like to encourage him.
"Pardon, sir, but don't you think--" Here he looked straight up at the
electrolier and coughed. "About Mr. Billings, sir; I was going to
suggest that though he isn't over at the club, he's _somewhere_, sir."
Why, dash it, I thought _that_ jolly likely, myself! I said so.
"Yes, sir," said Jenkins darkly. "And Mr. Billings usually knows _where_
he is. I guess, sir, he's in this neighborhood--h'm!"
I just sat staring at him a minute, thinking what a devilish wonderful
thing intuition is for the lower classes.
"By Jove, Jenkins!" I said; "then you think--"
"I think Mr. Billings, sir, might prefer to find himself--h'm! Yes,
sir." Jenkins lifted the breakfast tray with deliberation, removed it
from the room, and returned, moving about the furniture and busying
himself with an air of mystery. Dash it, I knew he had up his sleeve
some other devilish clever notion, and so presently I spoke up just to
touch him off.
"By Jove!" I remarked.
"Yes, sir." Jenkins rested the end of the crumb brush on the table and
considered me earnestly. "You know, Mr. Lightnut, last night as Mr.
Billings was retiring, he says to me: 'Jenkins, Mr. Lightnut has
promised to go up home with me to-morrow for the week end. There's a
tenner coming your way if he doesn't forget about it. He's to go
_to-morrow_, now, mind you, Jenkins; and it don't matter _what_ comes
up. _You_ see that he goes up to-morrow.'"
"By Jove!" I said as he paused, and I screwed my monocle tighter and
nodded. "I see."
Of course I didn't see, but I knew the poor fellow was driving at
something, and I wanted to give him a run.
"Exactly, sir." And he stood waiting. "So, shall I pack, sir? You'll
want to take the four-ten express, I suppose?"
By Jove, it was the most amazingly, dashed clever guess I ever knew
Jenkins to get off! Fact! I knew that if there was one thing more than
another in all the world that I wanted to do, it was to take that
four-ten express. To think of seeing Frances again, and _to-day_!
Of course, it was quite clear that Billings must have anticipated the
possibility of something unusual, and that was why he had impressed a
sort of personal responsibility upon Jenkins--kind of tipping him off,
as it were, so he would be sure to see that I got off in case he did not
show up himself. It was very easy to see this, especially as Jenkins saw
it that way, too, but what made it specially so awfully jolly easy to
see was the fact that I _wanted_ to go, you know.
So I let Jenkins shoot a wire up to Billings, stating my train, and I
just had to chuckle as in my mind's eye I saw old brazen face Jack
coming down to the station to meet me, and just ignoring his going off
in the middle of the night in my pajamas. By Jove, perhaps he would
bring _her_ down to the train in his car, so I would be sure not to ask
him any questions!
I left Jenkins to travel by a later train, and a little after four I was
whirling above Spuyten Duyvil and looking about the chair-car to see if
there was any one I knew. But, by Jove, there was hardly a soul in the
car--nobody except just women, you know, and these filled the whole
place. And they were talking about all sorts of dashed silly things.
Most of them were devilish pretty as the word goes, but, of course, not
a patch on _her_. Oh, well, of course, they _couldn't_ be that! Don't
know how they were behind me, you know--too much trouble to turn round
and fix my glass. So I just took the range in front, looking at the tops
of the hats and the chairs and wondering if women would ever become
extinct like that bird--the great what's-its-name, you know.
"By Jove, _she_ could be spared!" I thought, studying a young woman who
stood in the aisle beside me. She was rather heavy set--what you might
call egg-shaped. Her face and her heavy glasses seemed to proclaim a
mission in life, and the dowdyish cut of her rig and the reckless way it
was hurled on made it plain that she was on to the fact that nature had
made a blunder in her sex, and she wanted the world to _know_ she knew.
She was talking to the lady immediately behind me. At least, I
discovered after five minutes that she was talking. By Jove, up to that
time, I thought she was canvassing for a book! The other never got in a
word, don't you know. And I was getting devilish tired of it and wishing
she would move on, when she shifted, preparatory to doing so, and raised
her voice:
"Very well, then, if you don't care to come, I think I will go forward
again and finish the discussion with Doctor Jennie Newman upon the
metamorphoses of the primordial protoplasms. Watch out for Tarrytown
now, Frances."
Tarrytown! Frances! By Jove, my heart skipped a beat!
The other murmured something.
Her voice! Her blessed, sweet voice, of which every syllable, every
shade, was indented in my memory like the record of a what's-its-name!
By Jove, my Frances, and right behind me!
All I could do to sit still a minute longer, but I knew jolly well if I
turned now I would be introduced to the freak and lose I couldn't tell
how many precious moments with my dear one. So I sat low in the chair,
polishing my monocle, you know, and noting with satisfaction that my
part reflected all right in the little strip of mirror. I tried to get a
glimpse of her in it, too, but all I could see was a glorious white
hat--a stunning Neapolitan, flanked with a sheaf of wild ostrich plumes.
And then the freak left. I watched her spraddle down the aisle and out
through the little corridor before I dared risk the accident of a
backward turn of that funny green hat.
Then, when all was safe, I took a deep breath, gripped hard the arms of
the chair, and whirled suddenly around.
"Frances!" I whispered. "My darling!"