THE BROWNES ARRIVE
Contrary to all expectations, the Brownes arrived the next morning. The
Deppinghams and their miserably frightened servants were scarcely out of
bed when Saunders came in with the news that a steamer was standing off
the shallow harbour. Bowles had telephoned up that the American claimant
was on board.
Lady Agnes and her husband had not slept well. They heard noises from
one end of the night to the other, and they were most unusual noises at
that. The maids had flatly refused to sleep in the servants' wing, fully
a block away, so they were given the next best suite of rooms on the
floor, quite cutting off every chance the Brownes may have had for
choice of apartments. Pong howled all night long, but his howls were as
nothing compared to the screams of night birds in the trees close by.
The deepest gloom pervaded the household when Lady Deppingham discovered
that not one of their retinue knew how to make coffee or broil bacon.
Not that she cared for bacon, but that his lordship always asked for it
when they did not have it. The evening before they had philosophically
dined on tinned food. She brewed a delightful tea, and Antoine opened
three or four kinds of wine. Altogether it was not so bad. But in the
morning! Everything looked different in the morning. Everything always
does, one way or another.
Bromley upset the last peg of endurance by hoping that the Americans
were bringing a cook and a housemaid with them.
"The Americans always travel like lords," she concluded, forgetting that
she served a lord, and not in the least intending to be ironical.
"That will do, Bromley," said her mistress sharply. "If they're like
most Americans I've seen they'll have nothing but wet nurses and
chauffeurs. I can't eat this vile stuff." She had already burned her
fingers and dropped a slice of beechnut bacon on her sweet little
morning gown. "Come on, Deppy; let's go up and watch the approach of the
enemy."
Dolefully they passed out of the culinary realm; it is of record that
they never looked into it from that hour forth. On the broad,
vine-covered gallery they sat in dour silence and in silence took turns
with Deppy's binoculars in the trying effort to make out what was going
on in the offing. The company's tug seemed unusually active. It bustled
about the big steamer with an industriousness that seemed almost
frantic. The laziness that had marked its efforts of the day before was
amazingly absent. At last they saw it turn for the shore, racing inward
with a great churning of waves and a vast ado in its smokestack.
From their elevated position, the occupants of the gallery could see the
distant pier. When the tug drew up to its moorings, the same motionless
horde of white-robed natives lined up along the dock building. Trunks,
boxes and huge crated objects were hustled off the boat with astonishing
rapidity. Deppingham stared hard and unbelieving at this evidence of
haste.
Five or six strangers stood upon the pier, very much as their party had
stood the day before. There were four women and--yes, two men. The men
seemed to be haranguing the natives, although no gesticulations were
visible. Suddenly there was a rush for the trunks and boxes and crates,
and, almost before the Lady Agnes could catch the breath she had lost,
the whole troupe was hurrying up the narrow street, luggage and all. The
once-sullen natives seemed to be fighting for the privilege of carrying
something. A half dozen of them dashed hither and thither and returned
with great umbrellas, which they hoisted above the heads of the
newcomers. Lady Agnes sank back, faint with wonder, as the concourse
lost itself among the houses of the agitated town.
Scarcely half an hour passed before the advance guard of the Browne
company came into view at the park gates below. Deppingham recalled the
fact that an hour and a half had been consumed in the accomplishment
yesterday. He was keeping a sharp lookout for the magic red jacket and
the Tommy Atkins lid. Quite secure from observation, he and his wife
watched the forerunners with the hand bags; then came the sweating trunk
bearers and then the crated objects in--what? Yes, by the Lord Harry, in
the very carts that had been their private chariots the day before!
Deppingham's wrath did not really explode until the two were gazing
open-mouthed upon Robert Browne and his wife and his maidservants and
his ass--for that was the name which his lordship subsequently applied,
with no moderation, to the unfortunate gentleman who served as Mr.
Browne's attorney. The Americans were being swiftly, cozily carried to
their new home in litters of oriental comfort and elegance, fanned
vigorously from both sides by eager boys. First came the Brownes,
eager-faced, bright-eyed, alert young people, far better looking than
their new enemies could conscientiously admit under the circumstances;
then the lawyer from the States; then a pert young lady in a pink shirt
waist and a sailor hat; then two giggling, utterly un-English maids--and
all of them lolling in luxurious ease. The red jacket was conspicuously
absent.
It is not to be wondered at that his lordship looked at his wife, gulped
in sympathy, and then said something memorable.
Almost before they could realise what had happened the newcomers were
chattering in the spacious halls below, tramping about the rooms, and
giving orders in high, though apparently efficacious voices. Trunks
rattled about the place, barefooted natives shuffled up and down the
corridors and across the galleries, quick American heels clattered on
the marble stairways; and all this time the English occupants sat in
cold silence, despising the earth and all that therein dwelt.
Mr. and Mrs. Browne evidently believed in the democratic first
principles of their native land: they did not put themselves above their
fellow-man. Close at their heels trooped the servants, all of whom took
part in the discussion incident to fresh discoveries. At last they came
upon the great balcony, pausing just outside the French windows to
exclaim anew in their delight.
"Great!" said the lawyer man, after a full minute. He was not at all
like Mr. Saunders, who looked on from an obscure window in the distant
left. "Finest I've ever seen. Isn't it a picture, Browne?"
"Glorious," said young Mr. Browne, taking a long breath. The
Deppinghams, sitting unobserved, saw that he was a tall, good-looking
fellow. They were unconscionably amused when he suddenly reached out and
took his wife's hand in his big fingers. Her face was flushed with
excitement, her eyes were wide and sparkling. She was very trim and
cool-looking in her white duck; moreover, she was of the type that looks
exceedingly attractive in evening dress--at least, that was Deppingham's
innermost reflection. It was not until after many weeks had passed,
however, that Lady Agnes admitted that Brasilia Browne was a very pretty
young woman.
"Most American women are, after a fashion," she then confessed to
Deppingham, and not grudgingly.
"What does Baedeker say about it, Bobby?" asked Mrs. Browne. Her voice
was very soft and full--the quiet, well-modulated Boston voice and
manner.
"Baedeker?" whispered Deppingham, passing his hand over his brow in
bewilderment. His wife was looking serenely in the opposite direction.
The pert girl in the pink waist opened a small portfolio while the
others gathered around her. She read therefrom. The lawyer, when she had
concluded, drew a compass from his pocket, and, walking over to the
stone balustrade, set it down for observation. Then he pointed vaguely
into what proved to be the southwest.
"We must tell Lady Deppingham not to take the rooms at this end," was
the next thing that the listeners heard from Mrs. Browne's lips. Her
ladyship turned upon her husband with a triumphant sniff and a knowing
smile.
"What did I tell you?" she whispered. "I knew they'd want the best of
everything. Isn't it lucky I pounced upon those rooms? They shan't turn
us out. You won't let 'em, will you, Deppy?"
"The impudence of 'em!" was all that Deppy could sputter.
At that moment, the American party caught sight of the pair in the
corner. For a brief space of time the two parties stared at each other,
very much as the hunter and the hunted look when they come face to face
without previous warning. Then a friendly, half-abashed smile lighted
Browne's face. He came toward the Deppinghams, his straw hat in his
hand. His lordship retained his seat and met the smile with a cold stare
of superiority.
"I beg your pardon," said Browne. "This is Lord Deppingham?"
"Ya-as," drawled Deppy, with a look which was meant to convey the
impression that he did not know who the deuce he was addressing.
"Permit me to introduce myself. I am Robert Browne."
"Oh," said Deppy, as if that did not convey anything to him. Then as an
afterthought: "Glad to know you, I'm sure." Still he did not rise, nor
did he extend his hand. For a moment young Browne waited, a dull red
growing in his temples.
"Don't you intend to present me to Lady Deppingham?" he demanded
bluntly, without taking his eyes from Deppy's face.
"Oh--er--is that necess--"
"Lady Deppingham," interrupted Browne, turning abruptly from the man in
the chair and addressing the lady in azure blue who sat on the
balustrade, "I am Robert Browne, the man you are expected to marry.
Please don't be alarmed. You won't have to marry me. Our grandfathers
did not observe much ceremony in mating us, so I don't see why we should
stand upon it in trying to convince them of their error. We are here for
the same purpose, I suspect. We can't be married to each other. That's
out of the question. But we can live together as if we--"
"Good Lord!" roared Deppy, coming to his feet in a towering rage. Browne
smiled apologetically and lifted his hand.
"--as if we were serving out the prescribed period of courtship set down
in the will. Believe me, I am very happily married, as I hope you are.
The courtship, you will perceive, is neither here nor there. Please bear
with me, Lord Deppingham. It's the silly will that brings us together,
not an affinity. Our every issue is identical, Lady Deppingham. Doesn't
it strike you that we will be very foolish if we stand alone and against
each other?"
[Illustration: "'Don't you intend to present me to Lady Deppingham?'"]
"My solicitor--" began Lady Deppingham, and then stopped. She was
smiling in spite of herself. This frank, breezy way of putting it had
not offended her, after all, much to her surprise.
"Your solicitor and mine can get together and talk it over," said Browne
blandly. "We'll leave it to them. I simply want you to know that I am
not here for the purpose of living at swords' points with you. I am
quite ready to be a friendly ally, not a foe."
"Let me understand you," began Deppingham, cooling off suddenly. "Do you
mean to say that you are not going to fight us in this matter?"
"Not at all, your lordship," said Browne coolly. "I am here to fight
Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme, deceased. I imagine, if you'll have a
talk with your solicitor, that that is precisely what you are here for,
too. As next nearest of kin, I think both of us will run no risk if we
smash the will. If we don't smash it, the islanders will cheerfully take
the legacy off our hands."
"By Jove," muttered Deppy, looking at his wife.
"Thank you, Mr. Browne, for being so frank with us," she said coolly.
"If you don't mind, I _will_ consult my solicitor." She bowed ever so
slightly, indicating that the interview was at an end, and, moreover,
that it had not been of her choosing.
"Any time, your ladyship," said Browne, also bowing. "I think Mrs.
Browne wants to speak to you about the rooms."
"We are quite settled, Mr. Browne, and very well satisfied," she said
pointedly, turning red with a fresh touch of anger.
"I trust you have not taken the rooms at this end."
"We have. We are occupying them." She arose and started away, Deppingham
hesitating between his duty to her and the personal longing to pull
Browne's nose.
"I'm sorry," said Browne. "We were warned not to take them. They are
said to be unbearable when the hot winds come in October."
"What's that?" demanded Deppingham.
"The book of instruction and description which we have secured sets all
that out," said the other. "Mr. Britt, my attorney, had his stenographer
take it all down in Bombay. It's our private Baedeker, you see. We
called on the Bombay agent for the Skaggs-Wyckholme Company. He lived
with them in this house for ten months. No one ever slept in this end of
the building. It's strange that the servants didn't warn you."
"The da--the confounded servants left us yesterday before we came--every
mother's son of 'em. There isn't a servant on the place."
"What? You don't mean it?"
"Are you coming?" called Lady Deppingham from the doorway.
"At once, my dear," replied Deppingham, shuffling uneasily. "By Jove,
we're in a pretty mess, don't you know. No servants, no food, no----"
"Wait a minute, please," interrupted Browne. "I say, Britt, come here a
moment, will you? Lord Deppingham says the servants have struck."
The American lawyer, a chubby, red-faced man of forty, with clear grey
eyes and a stubby mustache, whistled soulfully.
"What's the trouble? Cut their wages?" he asked.
"Wages? My good man, we've never laid eyes on 'em," said Deppingham,
drawing himself up.
"I'll see what I can do, Mr. Browne. Got to have cooks, eh, Lord
Deppingham?" Without waiting for an answer he dashed off. His lordship
observing that his wife had disappeared, followed Browne to the
balustrade, overlooking the upper terrace. The native carriers were
leaving the grounds, when Britt's shrill whistle brought them to a
standstill. No word of the ensuing conversation reached the ears of the
two white men on the balcony, but the pantomime was most entertaining.
Britt's stocky figure advanced to the very heart of the group. It was
quite evident that his opening sentences were listened to impassively.
Then, all at once, the natives began to gesticulate furiously and to
shake their heads. Whereupon Britt pounded the palm of his left hand
with an emphatic right fist, occasionally pointing over his shoulder
with a stubborn thumb. At last, the argument dwindled down to a force of
two--Britt and a tall, sallow Mohammedan. For two minutes they harangued
each other and then the native gave up in despair. The lawyer waved a
triumphant hand to his friends and then climbed into one of the litters,
to be borne off in the direction of the town.
"He'll have the servants back at work before two o'clock," said Browne
calmly. Deppingham was transfixed with astonishment.
"How--how the devil do you--does he bring 'em to time like that?" he
murmured. He afterward said that if he had had Saunders there at that
humiliating moment he would have kicked him.
"They're afraid of the American battleship," said Browne.
"But where is the American battleship?" demanded Deppingham, looking
wildly to sea.
"They understand that there will be one here in a day or two if we need
it," said Browne with a sly grin. "That's the bluff we've worked." He
looked around for his wife, and, finding that she had gone inside,
politely waved his hand to the Englishman and followed.
At three o'clock, Britt returned with the recalcitrant servants--or at
least the "pick" of them, as he termed the score he had chosen from the
hundred or more. He seemed to have an Aladdin-like effect over the
horde. It did not appear to depress him in the least that from among the
personal effects of more than one peeped the ominous blade of a kris, or
the clutch of a great revolver. He waved his hand and snapped his
fingers and they herded into the servants' wing, from which in a
twinkling they emerged ready to take up their old duties. They were not
a liveried lot, but they were swift and capable.
Calmly taking Lord Deppingham and his following into his confidence, he
said, in reply to their indignant remonstrances, later on in the day:
"I know that an American man-o'-war hasn't any right to fire upon
British possessions, but you just keep quiet and let well enough alone.
These fellows believe that the Americans can shoot straighter and with
less pity than any other set of people on earth. If they ever find out
the truth, we won't be able to control 'em a minute. It won't hurt you
to let 'em believe that we can blow the Island off the map in half a
day, and they won't believe you if you tell 'em anything to the
contrary. They just simply _know_ that I can send wireless messages and
that a cruiser would be out there to-morrow if necessary, pegging away
at these green hills with cannon balls so big that there wouldn't be
anything left but the horizon in an hour or two. You let me do the
talking. I've got 'em bluffed and I'll keep 'em that way. Look at that!
See those fellows getting ready to wash the front windows? They don't
need it, I'll confess, but it makes conversation in the servants' hall."
Over in the gorgeous west wing, Lord Deppingham later on tried to
convince his sulky little wife that the Americans were an amazing lot,
after all. Bromley tapped at the door.
"Tea is served in the hanging garden, my lady," she announced. Her
mistress looked up in surprise, red-eyed and a bit dishevelled.
"The--the what?"
"It's a very pretty place just outside the rooms of the American lady
and gentleman, my lady. It's on the shady side and quite under the shelf
of the mountain. There's a very cool breeze all the time, they say, from
the caverns."
Deppingham glanced at the sun-baked window ledges of their own rooms and
swore softly.
"Ask some one to bring the tea things in here, Bromley," she said
sternly, her piquant face as hard and set as it could possibly
be--which, as a matter of fact, was not noticeably adamantine. "Besides,
I want to give some orders. We must have system here, not Americanisms."
"Very well, my lady."
After she had retired Deppingham was so unwise as to run his finger
around the inside of his collar and utter the lamentation:
"By Jove, Aggie, it _is_ hot in these rooms." She transfixed him with a
stare.
"I find it delightfully cool, George." She called him George only when
it was impossible to call him just what she wanted to.
The tea things did not come in; in their stead came pretty Mrs. Browne.
She stood in the doorway, a pleading sincere smile on her face.
"Won't you _please_ join Mr. Browne and me in that dear little garden?
It's so cool up there and it must be dreadfully warm here. Really, you
should move at once into Mr. Wyckholme's old apartments across the court
from ours. They are splendid. But, now _do_ come and have tea with us."
Whether it was the English love of tea or the American girl's method of
making it, I do not know, but I am able to record the fact that Lord and
Lady Deppingham hesitated ever so briefly and--fell.
"Extraordinary, Browne," said Deppingham, half an hour later. "What
wonders you chaps can perform."
"Ho, ho!" laughed Browne. "We only strive to land on our feet, that's
all. Another cigarette, Lady Deppingham?"
"Thank you. They are delicious. Where do you get them, Mr. Browne?"
"From the housekeeper. Your grandfather brought them over from London.
My grandfather stored them away."