I
The remarkable thing is that the Buntings really carried out the
programme Mrs. Bunting laid down. For a time at least they positively
succeeded in converting the Sea Lady into a credible human invalid, in
spite of the galaxy of witnesses to the lady's landing and in spite of
the severe internal dissensions that presently broke out. In spite,
moreover, of the fact that one of the maids--they found out which only
long after--told the whole story under vows to her very superior young
man who told it next Sunday to a rising journalist who was sitting about
on the Leas maturing a descriptive article. The rising journalist was
incredulous. But he went about enquiring. In the end he thought it good
enough to go upon. He found in several quarters a vague but sufficient
rumour of a something; for the maid's young man was a conversationalist
when he had anything to say.
Finally the rising journalist went and sounded the people on the two
chief Folkestone papers and found the thing had just got to them. They
were inclined to pretend they hadn't heard of it, after the fashion of
local papers when confronted by the abnormal, but the atmosphere of
enterprise that surrounded the rising journalist woke them up. He
perceived he had done so and that he had no time to lose. So while they
engaged in inventing representatives to enquire, he went off and
telephoned to the _Daily Gunfire_ and the _New Paper_. When they
answered he was positive and earnest. He staked his reputation--the
reputation of a rising journalist!
"I swear there's something up," he said. "Get in first--that's all."
He had some reputation, I say--and he had staked it. The _Daily Gunfire_
was sceptical but precise, and the _New Paper_ sprang a headline "A
Mermaid at last!"
You might well have thought the thing was out after that, but it wasn't.
There are things one doesn't believe even if they are printed in a
halfpenny paper. To find the reporters hammering at their doors, so to
speak, and fended off only for a time by a proposal that they should
call again; to see their incredible secret glaringly in print, did
indeed for a moment seem a hopeless exposure to both the Buntings and
the Sea Lady. Already they could see the story spreading, could imagine
the imminent rush of intimate enquiries, the tripod strides of a
multitude of cameras, the crowds watching the windows, the horrors of a
great publicity. All the Buntings and Mabel were aghast, simply aghast.
Adeline was not so much aghast as excessively annoyed at this imminent
and, so far as she was concerned, absolutely irrelevant publicity. "They
will never dare--" she said, and "Consider how it affects Harry!" and at
the earliest opportunity she retired to her own room. The others, with a
certain disregard of her offence, sat around the Sea Lady's couch--she
had scarcely touched her breakfast--and canvassed the coming terror.
"They will put our photographs in the papers," said the elder Miss
Bunting.
"Well, they won't put mine in," said her sister. "It's horrid. I shall
go right off now and have it taken again."
"They'll interview the Ded!"
"No, no," said Mr. Bunting terrified. "Your mother----"
"It's your place, my dear," said Mrs. Bunting.
"But the Ded--" said Fred.
"I couldn't," said Mr. Bunting.
"Well, some one'll have to tell 'em anyhow," said Mrs. Bunting. "You
know, they will----"
"But it isn't at all what I wanted," wailed the Sea Lady, with the
_Daily Gunfire_ in her hand. "Can't it be stopped?"
"You don't know our journalists," said Fred.
The tact of my cousin Melville saved the situation. He had dabbled in
journalism and talked with literary fellows like myself. And literary
fellows like myself are apt at times to be very free and outspoken about
the press. He heard of the Buntings' shrinking terror of publicity as
soon as he arrived, a perfect clamour--an almost exultant clamour
indeed, of shrinking terror, and he caught the Sea Lady's eye and took
his line there and then.
"It's not an occasion for sticking at trifles, Mrs. Bunting," he said.
"But I think we can save the situation all the same. You're too
hopeless. We must put our foot down at once; that's all. Let _me_ see
these reporter fellows and write to the London dailies. I think I can
take a line that will settle them."
"Eh?" said Fred.
"I can take a line that will stop it, trust me."
"What, altogether?"
"Altogether."
"How?" said Fred and Mrs. Bunting. "You're not going to bribe them!"
"Bribe!" said Mr. Bunting. "We're not in France. You can't bribe a
British paper."
(A sort of subdued cheer went around from the assembled Buntings.)
"You leave it to me," said Melville, in his element.
And with earnestly expressed but not very confident wishes for his
success, they did.
He managed the thing admirably.
"What's this about a mermaid?" he demanded of the local journalists when
they returned. They travelled together for company, being, so to speak,
emergency journalists, compositors in their milder moments, and
unaccustomed to these higher aspects of journalism. "What's this about a
mermaid?" repeated my cousin, while they waived precedence dumbly one to
another.
"I believe some one's been letting you in," said my cousin Melville.
"Just imagine!--a mermaid!"
"That's what we thought," said the younger of the two emergency
journalists. "We knew it was some sort of hoax, you know. Only the _New
Paper_ giving it a headline----"
"I'm amazed even Banghurst--" said my cousin Melville.
"It's in the _Daily Gunfire_ as well," said the older of the two
emergency journalists.
"What's one more or less of these ha'penny fever rags?" cried my cousin
with a ringing scorn. "Surely you're not going to take your Folkestone
news from mere London papers."
"But how did the story come about?" began the older emergency
journalist.
"That's not my affair."
The younger emergency journalist had an inspiration. He produced a note
book from his breast pocket. "Perhaps, sir, you wouldn't mind suggesting
to us something we might say----"
My cousin Melville complied.