"It would be rather nice if you would put Clovis up for another six
days while I go up north to the MacGregors'," said Mrs. Sangrail
sleepily across the breakfast-table. It was her invariable plan to
speak in a sleepy, comfortable voice whenever she was unusually keen
about anything; it put people off their guard, and they frequently fell
in with her wishes before they had realized that she was really asking
for anything. Lady Bastable, however, was not so easily taken
unawares; possibly she knew that voice and what it betokened--at any
rate, she knew Clovis.
She frowned at a piece of toast and ate it very slowly, as though she
wished to convey the impression that the process hurt her more than it
hurt the toast; but no extension of hospitality on Clovis's behalf rose
to her lips.
"It would be a great convenience to me," pursued Mrs. Sangrail,
abandoning the careless tone. "I particularly don't want to take him
to the MacGregors', and it will only be for six days."
"It will seem longer," said Lady Bastable dismally. "The last time he
stayed here for a week--"
"I know," interrupted the other hastily, "but that was nearly two years
ago. He was younger then."
"But he hasn't improved," said her hostess; "it's no use growing older
if you only learn new ways of misbehaving yourself."
Mrs. Sangrail was unable to argue the point; since Clovis had reached
the age of seventeen she had never ceased to bewail his irrepressible
waywardness to all her circle of acquaintances, and a polite scepticism
would have greeted the slightest hint at a prospective reformation.
She discarded the fruitless effort at cajolery and resorted to
undisguised bribery.
"If you'll have him here for these six days I'll cancel that
outstanding bridge account."
It was only for forty-nine shillings, but Lady Bastable loved shillings
with a great, strong love. To lose money at bridge and not to have to
pay it was one of those rare experiences which gave the card-table a
glamour in her eyes which it could never otherwise have possessed.
Mrs. Sangrail was almost equally devoted to her card winnings, but the
prospect of conveniently warehousing her offspring for six days, and
incidentally saving his railway fare to the north, reconciled her to
the sacrifice; when Clovis made a belated appearance at the
breakfast-table the bargain had been struck.
"Just think," said Mrs. Sangrail sleepily; "Lady Bastable has very
kindly asked you to stay on here while I go to the MacGregors'."
Clovis said suitable things in a highly unsuitable manner, and
proceeded to make punitive expeditions among the breakfast dishes with
a scowl on his face that would have driven the purr out of a peace
conference. The arrangement that had been concluded behind his back
was doubly distasteful to him. In the first place, he particularly
wanted to teach the MacGregor boys, who could well afford the
knowledge, how to play poker-patience; secondly, the Bastable catering
was of the kind that is classified as a rude plenty, which Clovis
translated as a plenty that gives rise to rude remarks. Watching him
from behind ostentatiously sleepy lids, his mother realized, in the
light of long experience, that any rejoicing over the success of her
manoeuvre would be distinctly premature. It was one thing to fit
Clovis into a convenient niche of the domestic jig-saw puzzle; it was
quite another matter to get him to stay there.
Lady Bastable was wont to retire in state to the morning-room
immediately after breakfast and spend a quiet hour in skimming through
the papers; they were there, so she might as well get their money's
worth out of them. Politics did not greatly interest her, but she was
obsessed with a favourite foreboding that one of these days there would
be a great social upheaval, in which everybody would be killed by
everybody else. "It will come sooner than we think," she would observe
darkly; a mathematical expert of exceptionally high powers would have
been puzzled to work out the approximate date from the slender and
confusing groundwork which this assertion afforded.
On this particular morning the sight of Lady Bastable enthroned among
her papers gave Clovis the hint towards which his mind had been groping
all breakfast time. His mother had gone upstairs to supervise packing
operations, and he was alone on the ground-floor with his hostess--and
the servants. The latter were the key to the situation. Bursting
wildly into the kitchen quarters, Clovis screamed a frantic though
strictly non-committal summons: "Poor Lady Bastable! In the
morning-room! Oh, quick!" The next moment the butler, cook, page-boy,
two or three maids, and a gardener who had happened to be in one of the
outer kitchens were following in a hot scurry after Clovis as he headed
back for the morning-room. Lady Bastable was roused from the world of
newspaper lore by hearing a Japanese screen in the hall go down with a
crash. Then the door leading from the hall flew open and her young
guest tore madly through the room, shrieked at her in passing, "The
jacquerie! They're on us!" and dashed like an escaping hawk out
through the French window. The scared mob of servants burst in on his
heels, the gardener still clutching the sickle with which he had been
trimming hedges, and the impetus of their headlong haste carried them,
slipping and sliding, over the smooth parquet flooring towards the
chair where their mistress sat in panic-stricken amazement. If she had
had a moment granted her for reflection she would have behaved, as she
afterwards explained, with considerable dignity. It was probably the
sickle which decided her, but anyway she followed the lead that Clovis
had given her through the French window, and ran well and far across
the lawn before the eyes of her astonished retainers.
* * * * *
Lost dignity is not a possession which can be restored at a moment's
notice, and both Lady Bastable and the butler found the process of
returning to normal conditions almost as painful as a slow recovery
from drowning. A jacquerie, even if carried out with the most
respectful of intentions, cannot fail to leave some traces of
embarrassment behind it. By lunch-time, however, decorum had
reasserted itself with enhanced rigour as a natural rebound from its
recent overthrow, and the meal was served in a frigid stateliness that
might have been framed on a Byzantine model. Halfway through its
duration Mrs. Sangrail was solemnly presented with an envelope lying on
a silver salver. It contained a cheque for forty-nine shillings.
The MacGregor boys learned how to play poker-patience; after all, they
could afford to.