BORROWED PLUMAGE
The word _phew_ may have a somewhat indefinite position in the English
language, but there was no mistaking the tone in which Mr. Edward Povey
said it as he sank wearily into the depths of one of the handsome green
leather chairs that stood on either side of the fireplace in the
dining-room at Adderbury Cottage, Bushey Heath. The tone of the
ejaculation plainly indicated escape, or at any rate temporary relief
from a severe nerve-racking strain.
At the further side of the table beneath the great crimson shaded lamp
sat Charlotte, her fingers drumming a nervous tattoo upon the polished
black oak beneath them. She, too, like her husband showed signs of
severe nervous prostration. She raised her head as though about to
answer Edward's ejaculation but sighed instead and fell again to her
incessant tapping.
"Do stop that infernal row, Charlotte; you sit there and tap, tap, tap,
as though--as though--well, give it a rest, it's getting nervy," then
after a pause, "where have you put them?"
"Them?"
"Yes,--our honoured guests--making themselves at home, aren't they?
Have you noticed, Charlotte, that there's been no mention of how long
they're going to stay?"
"I've put them in the room above this. I expect it's old Kyser's room
when he's at home here, all chintz and Sheraton."
Edward Povey sat silent for a few moments, gazing stolidly into the
fire that was burning brightly in the old-fashioned fire-place. Then
he got up and with hands thrust deep in his pockets strode up and down
the room, his steps making no sound on the rich turkey carpet.
"It's going to be rather a harder job than I thought, Charlotte," he
said at length, pausing in his walk and staring gloomily down at his
wife, "so many things have turned out differently to what we thought.
Why couldn't the old fool have said he was bringing Aunt Eliza? she's
never come before when he's paid us a visit. I thought I should have
fainted dead off just now when the old fellow asked me to show him
which was the bath-room--he takes a cold tub every morning. Fancy not
knowing where the bath-room is in one's own house. I had to open every
door I came to and call out 'puss'--said I was looking for a kitten
we'd lost--until I came to the right one, the fifth door I opened I
think it was."
Edward passed his handkerchief over his forehead, then resumed.
"I blame you, Charlotte, for the unfortunate affair of the photo album.
You should have put the book out of sight like you did the framed
photos. I can't understand old Kyser keeping such a book full of
crocks anyway, I'd be frightened to death of blackmail. You ought to
have known that albums are Aunt Eliza's special weakness. She got hold
of it at once and made me go through all the lot and tell her who they
were and all about them." Edward grew hot at the remembrance. "It
isn't easy to invent names and plausible histories for an assorted lot
like that at a moment's notice--ugly lot of devils, too."
"The whole idea is yours remember, Edward."
"I know that, woman. Do you think it makes it any easier for me?--you
shouldn't have let me--you----"
"You forget, Edward, you said that you were to be master in your own
house."
"This _isn't_ my own house, is it? But look here, Charlotte, it's not
the least bit of good our arguing how we came to be here. We are here,
and here we've got to stay and make the best of a bad job. All we need
is a little bit of coaching in some of the minor details. Come over
here."
Edward took up a richly chased candelabra and led the way to the
fire-place. He removed the little paper shades and let the light fall
full upon the portrait of an aged and benevolent-looking gentleman in a
splendid old English gilt frame.
"See him, Charlotte; I thought all dinner time your uncle was going to
ask who he was. He's sure to ask to-morrow, inquisitive old idiot, and
we've got to be prepared. Listen. This old chap here is a Mr. Tobias
Kenwick--that doesn't sound faked, does it?--not like Brown or Smith.
If uncle asks what he was, say he was an engineer and that he's now
retired and living in Peru. This old lady over the sideboard," went on
Edward, crossing the room, "can be a friend of my mother's; say she's
been dead some years now and that you forget her name but think it was
Jane something. Any other portraits he asks about say we picked them
up at a sale. By the bye, I must congratulate you on your excuse for
the absence of the servant--the dying sister in the North of Scotland
was an inspiration. I'd trot off to bed now, Charlotte my dear, if I
were you. I'll be up presently. I've got a bit of hard thinking to
get through here before _I_ think of sleep."
Left to himself Edward ruminated deeply on the situation in which he
had placed himself. Things had not turned out at all as he had
expected and dilemmas had crowded thickly and fast upon him. The
advent of Aunt Eliza had entirely unnerved him, and the amount of
luggage which he had helped to take up to the bedroom seemed to him to
be quite unnecessary for a short visit such as he had anticipated.
Hitherto the visits of Uncle Jasper had been always the same, a night
or two at the most and the days spent in business in London. His
luggage had been invariably one suit case and a hatbox. But the
present visit pointed more to a prolonged holiday than to a business
trip. Edward tried to tell himself that there was nothing to fear,
that Kyser would not return for a month, and that the secluded position
of Adderbury Cottage was all in favour of the scheme; detection from
the outside was a very remote chance.
Edward Povey, however, had not reckoned upon keeping the deception up
for more than a few days at the most, neither had he reckoned upon the
nerve strain. Tradesmen would be calling for orders--visitors, too,
might reasonably be expected. A host of new possibilities arose before
the perplexed vision of Edward Povey.
He could, of course, tell all comers that Mr. Kyser had lent him the
house furnished. It was merely a small place used at intervals only by
its wealthy owner. What more reasonable than that he should place it
at the disposal of a friend? If he were alone, the guarding of the
secret would be a simple matter, but there was Charlotte to complicate
matters--Charlotte, who would innocently enough, by a chance word,
upset his most carefully constructed fabrications.
From the hall came, the rich muffled chimes of a steel-faced Sheraton
clock. It was midnight, and Edward rose, and crossing to the massive
sideboard poured himself out a liberal allowance of brandy, splashing
into the glass a little soda-water from a wired seltzogene. Then he
proceeded to lock up.
Before barring the front door, he passed out on to the verandah-like
porch and running his fingers through his thinning hair let the cool
winds of the autumn night play upon the furnace of his forehead. It
was very dark and the scene was desolate in the extreme. A solitary
light twinkled out here and there from some window in the little
village that lay beneath him in the valley, and farther off the pale
radiance in the sky denoted the position of the town of Watford. There
was a thick shrubbery encircling the house, and the masses of foliage
took weird shapes in the darkness, and from a clump of gaunt fir-trees
came the dismal note of an owl.
Edward Povey shivered a little, and, quietly closing the door, crept to
his bed.