THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S
It was quite forty-eight hours before the Deppinghams surrendered to the
Brownes. They were obliged to humbly admit, in the seclusion of their
own councils, that it was to the obnoxious but energetic Britt that they
owed their present and ever-growing comfort.
It is said that Mr. Saunders learned more law of a useful and purposeful
character during his first week of consultation with Britt than he could
have dreamed that the statutes of England contained. Britt's brain was a
whirlpool of suggestions, tricks, subterfuges and--yes, witticisms--that
Saunders never even pretended to appreciate, although he was obliging
enough to laugh at the right time quite as often as at the wrong. "He
talks about what Dan Webster said, how Dan Voorhees could handle a jury,
why Abe Lincoln and Andy Jackson were so--" Saunders would begin in a
dazzled sort of way.
"Mr. Saunders, will you be good enough to ask Bromley to take Pong out
for a walk?" her ladyship would interrupt languidly, and Saunders would
descend to the requirements of his position.
Late in the afternoon of the day following the advent of the Brownes,
Lord and Lady Deppingham were laboriously fanning themselves in the
midst of their stifling Marie Antoinette elegance.
"By Jove, Aggie, it's too beastly hot here for words," growled he for
the hundredth time. "I think we'd better move into your grandfather's
rooms."
"Now, Deppy, don't let the Brownes talk you into everything they
suggest," she complained, determined to be stubborn to the end. "They
know entirely too much about the place already; please don't let them
know you as intimately."
"That's all very good, my dear, but you know quite as well as I that we
made a frightful mistake in choosing these rooms. It _is_ cooler on that
side of the house. I'm not too proud to be comfortable, don't you know.
Have you had a look at your grandfather's rooms?"
She was silent for a long time, pondering. "No, I haven't, Deppy, but I
don't mind going over there now with you--just for a look. We can do it
without letting them see us, you know."
Just as they were ready to depart stealthily for the distant wing, a
servant came up to their rooms with a note from Mrs. Browne. It was an
invitation to join the Americans at dinner that evening in the grand
banquet hall. Across the bottom of Mrs. Browne's formal little note, her
husband had jauntily scrawled: "_Just to see how small we'll feel in a
ninety by seventy dining-room_" Lady Deppingham flushed and her eyes
glittered as she handed the note to her husband.
"Rubbish!" she exclaimed. Paying no heed to the wistful look in his eyes
or to the appealing shuffle of his foot, she sent back a dignified
little reply to the effect that "A previous engagement would prevent,
etc." The polite lie made it necessary for them to venture forth at
dinner time to eat their solitary meal of sardines and wafers in the
grove below. The menu was limited to almost nothing because Deppy
refused to fill his pockets with "tinned things and biscuit."
The next day they moved into the west wing, and that evening they had
the Brownes to dine with them in the banquet hall. Deppingham awoke in
the middle of the night with violent cramps in his stomach. He suffered
in silence for a long time, but, the pain growing steadily worse, his
stoicism gave way to alarm. A sudden thought broke in upon him, and with
a shout that was almost a shriek he called for Antoine. The valet found
him groaning and in a cold perspiration.
"Don't say a word to Lady Deppingham," he grunted, sitting up in bed and
gazing wildly at the ceiling, "but I've been poisoned. The demmed
servants--ouch!--don't you know! Might have known. Silly ass! See what I
mean? Get something for me--quick!"
For two hours Antoine applied hot water bags and soothing syrups, and
his master, far from dying as he continually prophesied, dropped off
into a peaceful sleep.
The next morning Deppingham, fully convinced that the native servants
had tried to poison _him_, inquired of his wife if _she_ had felt the
alarming symptoms. She confessed to a violent headache, but laid it to
the champagne. Later on, the rather haggard victim approached Browne
with subtle inquiries. Browne also had a headache, but said he wasn't
surprised. Fifteen minutes later, Deppingham, taking the bit in his
quivering mouth, unconditionally discharged the entire force of native
servants. He was still in a cold perspiration when he sent Saunders to
tell his wife what he had done and what a narrow escape all of them had
had from the treacherous Moslems.
Of course, there was a great upheaval. Lady Agnes came tearing down to
the servants' hall, followed directly by the Brownes and Mr. Britt. The
natives were ready to depart, considerably nonplussed, but not a little
relieved.
"Stop!" she cried. "Deppy, what are you doing? Discharging them after
we've had such a time getting them? Are you crazy?"
"They're a pack of snakes--I mean sneaks. They're assassins. They tried
to poison every one of us last--"
"Nonsense! You ate too much. Besides, what's the odds between being
poisoned and being starved to death? Where is Mr. Britt?" She gave a
sharp cry of relief as Britt came dashing down the corridor. "We must
engage them all over again," she lamented, after explaining the
situation. "Stand in the door, Deppy, and don't let them out until Mr.
Britt has talked with them," she called to the disgraced nobleman.
"They won't stop for me," he muttered, looking at the half-dozen krises
that were visible.
Britt smoothed the troubled waters with astonishing ease; the servants
returned to their duties, but not without grumbling and no end of savage
glances, all of which were levelled at the luckless Deppingham.
"By Jove, you'll see, sooner or later," he protested, like the
schoolboy, almost ready to hope that the servants would bear him out by
doling out ample quantities of strychnine that very night.
"Why poison?" demanded Britt. "They've got knives and guns, haven't
they?"
"My dear man, that would put them to no end of trouble, cleaning up
after us," said Deppingham, loftily.
The next day the horses were brought in from the valley, and the traps
were put to immediate use. A half-dozen excursions were planned by the
now friendly beneficiaries; life on the island, aside from certain legal
restraints, began to take on the colour of a real holiday.
Two lawyers, each clever in his own way, were watching every move with
the faithfulness of brooding hens. Both realised, of course, that the
great fight would take place in England; they were simply active as
outposts in the battle of wits. They posed amiably as common allies in
the fight to keep the islanders from securing a single point of vantage
during the year.
"If they hadn't been in such a hurry to get married," Britt would
lament.
"Do you know, I don't believe a man should marry before he's thirty, a
woman twenty-six," Saunders would observe in return.
"You're right, Saunders. I agree with you. I was married twice before I
was thirty," reflected Britt on one occasion.
"Ah," sympathised Saunders. "You left a wife at home, then?"
"Two of 'em," said Britt, puffing dreamily. "But they are other men's
wives now." Saunders was half an hour grasping the fact that Britt had
been twice divorced.
Meanwhile, it may be well to depict the situation from the enemy's point
of view--the enemy being the islanders as a unit. They were prepared to
abide by the terms of the will so long as it remained clear to them that
fair treatment came from the opposing interests. Rasula, the Aratat
lawyer, in mass meeting, had discussed the document. They understood its
requirements and its restrictions; they knew, by this time, that there
was small chance of the original beneficiaries coming into the property
under the provisions. Moreover, they knew that a bitter effort would be
made to break this remarkable instrument in the English courts. Their
attitude, in consequence, toward the grandchildren of their former lords
was inimical, to say the least.
"We can afford to wait a year," Rasula had said in another mass meeting
after the two months of suspense which preceded the discovery that
grandchildren really existed. "There is the bare possibility that they
may never marry each other," he added sententiously. Later came the news
that marriage between the heirs was out of the question. Then the
islanders laughed as they toiled. But they were not to be caught
napping. Jacob von Blitz, the superintendent, stolid German that he was,
saw far into the future. It was he who set the native lawyer
unceremoniously aside and urged competent representation in London. The
great law firm headed by Sir John Brodney was chosen; a wide-awake
representative of the distinguished solicitors was now on his way to the
island with the swarthy committee which had created so much interest in
the metropolis during its brief stay.
Jacob von Blitz came to the island when he was twenty years old. That
was twenty years before the death of Taswell Skaggs. He had worked in
the South African diamond fields and had no difficulty in securing
employment with Skaggs and Wyckholme. Those were the days when the two
Englishmen slaved night and day in the mines; they needed white men to
stand beside them, for they looked ahead and saw what the growing
discontent among the islanders was sure to mean in the end.
Von Blitz gradually lifted labour and responsibility from their
shoulders; he became a valued man, not alone because of his ability as
an overseer, but on account of the influence he had gained over the
natives. It was he who acted as intermediary at the time of the revolt,
many years before the opening of this tale. Through him the two issues
were pooled; the present co-operative plan was the result. For this he
was promptly accepted by both sides as deserving of a share
corresponding to that of each native. From that day, he cast his lot
with the islanders; it was to him that they turned in every hour of
difficulty.
Von Blitz was shrewd enough to see that the grandchildren were not
coming to the island for the mere pleasure of sojourning there; their
motive was plain. It was he who advised--even commanded--the horde of
servants to desert the château. If they had been able to follow his
advice, the new residents would have been without "help" to the end of
their stay. The end of their stay, he figured, would not be many weeks
from its beginning if they were compelled to dwell there without the
luxury of servants. Bowles often related the story of Von Blitz's rage
when he found that the recalcitrants had been persuaded to resume work
by the American lawyer.
He lived, with his three wives, in the hills just above and south of the
town itself. The Englishmen who worked in the bank, and the three Boer
foremen also, had houses up there where it was cooler, but Von Blitz was
the only one who practised polygamy. His wives were Persian women and
handsome after the Persian fashion.
There were many Persian, Turkish and Arabian women on the island, wives
of the more potential men. It was no secret that they had been purchased
from avaricious masters on the mainland, in Bagdad and Damascus and the
Persian gulf ports--sapphires passing in exchange. Marriages were
performed by the local priests. There were no divorces. Perhaps there
may have been a few more wife murders than necessary, but, if one
assumes to call wife murder a crime, he must be reminded that the
natives of Japat were fatalists. In contradiction to this belief,
however, it is related that one night a wife took it upon herself to
reverse the lever of destiny: she slew her husband. That, of course, was
a phase of fatalism that was not to be tolerated. The populace burned
her at a stake before morning.
One hot, dry afternoon about a week after the reopening of the château,
the siesta of a swarthy population was disturbed by the shouts of those
who kept impatient watch of the sea. Five minutes later the whole town
of Aratat knew that the smoke of a steamer lay low on the horizon. No
one doubted that it came from the stack of the boat that was bringing
Rasula and the English solicitor. Joy turned to exultation when the word
came down from Von Blitz that it was the long-looked-for steamship, the
_Sir Joshua_.
Just before dusk the steamer, flying the British colours, hove to off
the town of Aratat and signalled for the company's tug. There was no one
in Aratat too old, too young or too ill to stay away from the pier and
its vicinity. Bowles telephoned the news to the château, and the
occupants, in no little excitement, had their tea served on the grand
colonnade overlooking the town.
Von Blitz stood at the landing place to welcome Rasula and his comrades,
and to be the first to clasp the hand of the man from London. For the
first time in his life his stolidity gave way to something resembling
exhilaration. He cast more than one meaning glance at the château, and
those near by him heard him chuckle from time to time. The horde of
natives seethed back and forth as the tug came running in; every eye was
strained to catch the first glimpse of--Rasula? No! Of the man from
Brodney's!
At last his figure could be made out on the forward deck. His straw hat
was at least a head higher than the turban of Rasula, who was indicating
to him the interesting spots in the hills.
"He's big," commented Von Blitz, comfortably, more to himself than to
his neighbour. "And young," he added a few minutes later. Bowles,
standing at his side, offered the single comment:
"Good-looking."
As the tall stranger stepped from the boat to the pier, Von Blitz
suddenly started back, a look of wonder in his soggy eyes. Then, a
thrill of satisfaction shot through his brain. He turned a look of
triumph upon Britt, who had elbowed through the crowd a moment before
and was standing close by.
The newcomer was an American!