CHLOE WAITS FOR HER TROUSERS.
"Kindly tell Mr. Van Adam that I have come to take him to St Paul's
Cathedral to see the mosaics," cried Mr. Ingerstall, at three o'clock
on the following afternoon, to the smiling Francis.
"Mr. Van Adam is ill in bed, sir."
"Ill in bed!" shrieked Mr. Ingerstall. "What with?"
"I couldn't say, sir."
And the smile of Francis widened till it nearly touched the ears on
either side of his head. Mr. Ingerstall looked very angry indeed. When
he had arranged to show a man an atrocity at a certain fixed hour, he
considered that man ought to be well enough to see it.
"I don't understand this at all," he snapped. "When did Mr. Van Adam go
to bed?"
"Yesterday afternoon, sir. Very soon after you left, sir."
"He looked quite well."
"That was an accident, sir."
"An accident! What d'you mean?"
"His looking well when he was ill, sir."
Mr. Ingerstall glared up at Francis through his enormous spectacles,
as if he would read the footman's soul. Having read it, he could make
nothing of it. So he darted one fat hand into his pocket, snatched
out a card-case, extracted a card with lightning dexterity, gave it
to Francis, exclaimed, "I shall call to show Mr. Van Adam the mosaics
to-morrow at three precisely!" and marched away with immense rapidity,
throwing sharp glances around him at all the passers-by, and rolling
his broad little body as if accommodating himself to the turbulent
waters of the Bay of Biscay. Francis went on smiling upon the doorstep
for the space of a moment, and was just about to retreat into the hall
and close the front door, when a private cab, painted very dark green
and black, drove up, and the long face of Mr. Rodney peered forth over
the apron.
"Is Mrs. Verulam at home?" he asked plaintively.
Francis stepped out to the pavement.
"She is not at home, sir, but I can ask if she will see you, sir."
"Please do so," said Mr. Rodney. "I have some important news for her."
Francis retired, and came back in a moment to say that Mrs. Verulam
would receive Mr. Rodney. The latter released himself from his hansom,
bearing a quantity of carnations from Mitching Dean, and ascended the
stairs, wearing on his countenance a carefully prepared expression of
almost defiant resignation. He found Mrs. Verulam, in a delightful robe
of palest primrose silk, sitting at her writing-table, and holding in
her hand a pen which had that moment traced the magic words, "My dear
Mr. Bush." She smiled at him in her most cordial manner as she accepted
his flowers.
"Carnations!" she said.
"From Mitching Dean."
"They are lovely. Thank you so much!"
"Not at all. May I venture to hope that—that they are worthy of a
place in your own room?"
"I will have them put in water there at once."
She rang the bell and gave the bouquet to Francis, with orders that the
faithful Marriner was at once to dispose the flowers about her boudoir.
Mr. Rodney's face expressed a gentle relief. He almost permitted
himself the luxury of a cheerful smile as he sat down and prepared to
unfold his last new mission.
"I was just writing the invitations for my Ascot party," Mrs. Verulam
said lightly.
"Ah, it was about that I ventured to call," said Mr. Rodney, with a
thin animation. "Last night I succeeded in my endeavour. I put the
corner-stone to my temple of negotiations. I clinched the bargain with
Mr. Lite."
"How good of you! What was the dinner like?"
Mr. Rodney went a little pale, and hurried on:
"But there are one or two conditions. I wanted to speak with you about
them."
"Oh," said Mrs. Verulam, going to a drawer and taking out an envelope.
"Here is mamma's signature to the praise of the buns. There was nothing
else, was there?"
"Thank you very much," said Mr. Rodney, taking it carefully. "It
will be all right. But I must tell you"—he lowered his voice
impressively—"that Mr. Lite is a man of singularly tenacious
affections."
"Indeed!"
"I scarcely knew how tenacious until—well, until we were wandering
among the steel-knife exhibits last night after dinner."
Mrs. Verulam involuntarily shuddered.
"For it was only then that he was moved fully to unbosom himself to me,
fully to reveal the depths of a peculiar—I may say a very peculiar
character."
Mr. Rodney paused, as if to choose his words, and then resumed:
"I gathered then that the soul of Mr. Lite is the—the residence of two
masterful passions, the one a keen desire to obtain the very best names
in England as signatures in praise of his—er—his wares, the other an
affection amounting—yes, really, I may say amounting almost to fury,
for what he calls 'the home.' Now, as you may suppose, on an occasion
such as that of last evening, these two extraordinary passions found
themselves in opposition—in acute opposition."
"How terrible!"
"It really was. There were moments, I must confess, in which I should
have been relieved if the present exhibition at the Crystal Palace had
been of a somewhat different nature. However, nothing of that kind
happened, I am thankful to say."
Mrs. Verulam assented, and he continued softly:
"And, indeed, Lady Sophia's name won the day. That I may tell you at
once. But having indulged the former of his two passions, Mr. Lite
became suddenly the slave—to some extent, only to some extent—of the
latter. And this is what I wish to consult you about."
"Yes."
"He will, with his devoted wife—'the wife,' as he somewhat exclusively
calls her; he has no family—turn out of 'the home' for the space of
six clear days, Monday to Saturday inclusive; but he cannot bring
himself to leave the neighbourhood or to allow a strange staff of
servants to intrude into Ribton Marches. Therefore he makes, or
wishes to make, these conditions: that you retain his servants—there
are plenty of them, I may tell you—to wait upon your party, and
that you permit him and 'the wife' to lodge for the week in a small
fishing-cottage that stands at the edge of a piece of artificial water
beyond the small pine-wood at the outskirts of the grounds."
"Oh, Mr. Rodney, but——"
"He promises that they will regard the grounds as yours, and that under
no circumstances whatever will they emerge from the seclusion of the
fishing-cottage."
Mrs. Verulam brightened up.
"Oh, under those conditions I have no objection. But it would be very
unpleasant to have a man of violent temper prowling about and spying
upon what my guests were doing in his garden or conservatories."
"Intolerable! intolerable! But the Bun Emperor is a man of his word, I
feel sure; and, indeed, he offers to accept these conditions in black
and white, and to sign his name to them if you wish it."
"Oh dear, no!" Mrs. Verulam said hastily, with all a woman's usual
dislike to anything business-like.
"Then that's comfortably arranged," Mr. Rodney said.
He looked at his boots for a couple of minutes, then glanced away and
added:
"I hope your guest, Huskinson Van Adam, is well?"
Mrs. Verulam concealed a smile by looking very miserable suddenly.
"Indeed, I am sorry to say he is not at all well."
"Dear, dear!"
"In fact, he is in bed. He is not able to be up."
"I am grieved. What is the matter?"
"Nervous prostration."
"Following upon the shock of his wife's dreadful conduct, I suppose?"
"Possibly."
Mrs. Verulam stole a glance at Mr. Rodney, and continued with gentle
artfulness:
"I think he must love her still."
At these words Mr. Rodney brightened up wonderfully.
"Poor fellow!" he said; "poor fellow! I must get him up some melons
from Mitching Dean. Americans like them. And the Mitching Dean melons
are marvellously nourishing."
"It will be like your usual kind self."
Mr. Rodney bloomed into absolute vivacity under these gentle breezes of
good-nature.
"And now," he said, "about the party. Ribton Marches will, as the
Duchess says, hold a regiment. There are dozens of bedrooms, and the
reception-rooms are very large."
"Oh," Mrs. Verulam said, "I only mean to have quite a little
party—eight in all, including myself—four women and four men."
"Yes?"
"The Duchess, Lady Pearl, myself, the Duke, you, dear Mr. Rodney"—Mr.
Rodney bowed happily—"Mr. Ingerstall, to worry the Duchess—you know
how overwhelming she is if there is nobody about to worry her—Mr.
James Bush, and Mr. Van Adam."
Mr. Rodney calculated gravely.
"But that is three ladies and five men," he said.
"No, indeed!" Mrs. Verulam grew red under the swift knowledge of
her absurd mistake, and cried: "Oh yes, of course. How stupid of
me! That won't do, will it? Never mind; I'll ask Miss Bindler, Lord
Kingsbridge's sister—you know how fond she is of racing—and someone
else."
She was obviously confused for a moment. Mr. Rodney attributed her
condition to a wrong cause, prompted by the jealousy that almost
habitually preyed upon him in regard to Mrs. Verulam. His mind
instantly fastened upon the only name in the list that was totally
unfamiliar to him.
"Mr. James Bush?" he murmured enquiringly.
Mrs. Verulam recovered herself promptly, but a curious shining look
came into her grey eyes as she answered:
"Of the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough."
"Of the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough?"
"You have not heard of him?"
"I don't think so. Which are his clubs?"
"His clubs? Oh, he doesn't belong to any."
Mr. Rodney looked almost prostrated. A man who didn't belong to any
clubs joining Mrs. Verulam's select little Ascot party at Ribton
Marches!
"James Bush does not care for anything of that kind," Mrs. Verulam went
on, with a thrill of something very like enthusiasm.
"Indeed!" said Mr. Rodney, with a frosty intonation of wonder.
"Oh no; he never comes to London. Did I never mention him to you?"
"Never."
"I met him some time ago in the country, quite by chance," Mrs. Verulam
said airily.
"Really?"
"Yes. We fraternised."
"Oh!"
"I found him a most interesting, intelligent man; full of enthusiasm."
"Enthusiasm! How very odd!" Mr. Rodney said, as if to be full of
enthusiasm were to be full of some extraordinary disease.
"For his work."
"He is a workman?"
"He is a gardener—that is to say, he has a garden and a small farm,
as he tells me. And he attends to them himself, with the help of an
elderly labourer, Jacob Minnidick."
If it were possible for Mr. Rodney's long and sallow face to
become more astounded than it had been during the progress of this
conversation, it became so at the mention of this name.
"Jacob Minnidick!" he repeated in tones of flagrant amazement. "Jacob
Minnidick!"
The name really laid him low, like a blow from the shoulder. He had
never heard one like it before, and it seemed to take him straight into
a different and dreadful world.
"Yes. Isn't it a pretty name? I am very much interested in Mr. Bush. It
is he who has made me wish to give up society."
In her excitement Mrs. Verulam had spoken incautiously. She had hardly
meant to go so far so soon. Mr. Rodney's veins suddenly swelled. His
mouth opened, and he looked as if he were going to have some dreadful
fit. He clenched his hands, and seemed to struggle for air. Mrs.
Verulam was really terrified.
"Oh, Mr. Rodney, Mr. Rodney! what is it? what is it?" she exclaimed.
Mr. Rodney put up one long hand to his high collar, intruded a couple
of fingers within its circle, and pulled it outwards, at the same time
screwing his head rapidly from side to side. Mrs. Verulam was about to
rush to the bell in terror when, with a convulsive effort, he collected
himself.
"Please don't," he said.
Mrs. Verulam didn't, but she was still very much alarmed.
"What is it? what is it?" she repeated. "Oh, please do tell me."
Mr. Rodney got up, walked to the window, and back again, and then stood
still.
"Made you wish to give up society!" he said in a sepulchral voice. "Do
you really mean that?"
"But surely that was not the reason of your seizure?"
"Indeed it was. Nothing else could have so affected me."
He spoke with the deepest feeling. Mrs. Verulam was almost touched.
"I am so sorry. But I thought it was physical."
He sat down again.
"An access occasioned by horror of mind," he said. "That you—that
anyone, but most especially that you—should wish to give up society!
What an appalling notion!" He put his hand up again to his collar, but
withdrew it. "Horrible! Unnatural!" he murmured.
"I cannot agree with you," Mrs. Verulam said, recovering her composure.
He looked at her almost with fear.
"What—what is the meaning of this possession?" he said. "Who is this
man, this person—Bush?"
Mrs. Verulam flushed angrily.
"Please don't speak of my friends like that," she said.
"I beg your pardon. I will go. I had better go. I must have air—I must
have air."
And he rose and tottered out, leaving Mrs. Verulam in a state of
mingled indignation and alarm. She went to the window, and saw Francis
assisting him into the black-and-green cab. His upward movements to
reach the step were like those of one decrepit with age. When the cab
had driven slowly away in the direction of Piccadilly, she sat down at
the writing-table and went on with her interrupted note.
"My dear Mr. Bush,
"I remember very well, when we met at Basildene on that unforgettable
day when you were helping my friend Mrs. Ringden to swarm her
bees—is that the right expression?—you told me of your righteous
hatred against the doings of society, and expressed your unalterable
determination never to enter what is, ridiculously enough perhaps,
called the gay world. Nevertheless, I want to persuade you to take
a little holiday from your noble labour of working in your garden,
and seeing after your farm at Bungay, and to join me at Ascot in
June for the race week. I see a 'No' rising to your lips. But wait
a moment before uttering it. Let me tell you first that, moved by
weariness of my empty life in town, and stirred by your example and
your maxims—'There's nought like pea-podding,' etc.—I intend to
retire from society at the end of June, and to emulate your beautiful
intimacy with Mother Nature. This Ascot party is practically my
farewell, and my beginning of better things. Confidently, therefore,
I summon you to be present at Ribton Marches, Sunninghill, Berks,
from Monday to Saturday, June the — to the —, to support me in my
determination, and assist me with your advice as to my future and more
useful and fruitful life. Do not refuse. Mr. Minnidick will, I am
certain, look after everything carefully in your absence, and I shall
be really hurt if you say no. With kindest regards,
"Believe me,
"Yours very truly,
"Daisy Verulam.
"P.S.—How is the garden looking, and how are the sheep? No more ewes
coughing, I hope? But that marvellous preparation of yours—'Not
Elliman,' I always call it—has prevented all that, I know."
Mrs. Verulam put this note into an envelope with an eager hand,
addressed it to "The Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough," sent it to the
post, and then hastened, with glowing cheeks and bright eyes, to Chloe
Van Adam's bedroom.
Chloe was in bed, attended by the faithful Marriner, who had attained
to that useful and beautiful age which permits a female to administer
to a (supposed) suffering youth without the tongue of detraction being
set instantly a-wagging. Nor could Mrs. Verulam's household, who
laboured under the delusion that Chloe was her orange-growing husband,
find much food for injurious gossip in the short and occasional
visits—always chaperoned by Marriner—that the pretty hostess made to
the chamber of her invalid guest. Having entered the room and carefully
shut the door, Mrs. Verulam sat down by Chloe's bedside.
"Will those trousers never come?" cried the latter with energy. "Oh,
Daisy, it is dreadful to feel that I might be calling on a Duchess and
that I am under a coverlet! This bed is like a grave. Do send Francis
to tell that tailor to hurry up."
"Patience, dear. I am sure you will be able to go out to-morrow. I
expect Mr. Ingerstall was in a fearful state of fury at your being too
ill to see the mosaics to-day. He is afraid that you will grow to like
London if you are snatched away from his influence."
"Horrid little creature! Oh, do tell me some news. It is so dreadful
lying here. Has anything happened?"
"Marriner," said Mrs. Verulam, "you may go on reading 'Studies in
Pessimism,' if you like."
"I thank you, ma'am," said the faithful Marriner, eagerly opening her
pocket Schopenhauer.
"Well, Chloe," pursued Mrs. Verulam; "in the first place, Mr. Rodney
has just been having a sort of fit downstairs."
"Gracious! Is he epileptic?"
"No, only conventional."
"Does conventionality make people foam at the mouth?"
"Not exactly. But he really had a sort of convulsion when I told him
that I intended to give up society. I was quite alarmed."
"You told him that?"
"Yes. I was carried away. You see, we had been speaking"—Mrs. Verulam
lowered her voice—"of James Bush."
Chloe plunged on her pillows so as to get a clearer view of her
friend's face, on which she fixed her sparkling, boyish eyes with a
merciless scrutiny.
"Ah!" she said. "Now tell me all about him. Who is he? What is he?
Where is he?"
Mrs. Verulam clasped Chloe's hand on the quilt softly.
"Chloe," she said, "he is a man!"
"I gathered that. Very few women are called James."
"That's not enough. It is not a christening that makes a man, it is
life."
The faithful Marriner looked up from her pocket Schopenhauer with
respectful appreciation of this reasoned truth.
"Well, then, what life does he lead?" cried Chloe.
"A life of wholesome labour, of silent communion with the earth—a life
devoid of frivolity and devoted to meditation and sheep and bees and
things of that kind."
The conclusion was a little vague, but the intention to praise was
obvious, and Chloe was deeply interested.
"Meditation, sheep, bees," she repeated—"isn't all that what is called
small culture?"
"Oh, indeed, there is nothing small about James Bush!" exclaimed Mrs.
Verulam. "Oh no! He is immense, powerful, calm! He is my idea of Agag!"
The faithful Marriner again glanced up. The word "Anak" trembled upon
her well-informed lips, but respect for her mistress held her mum. Only
a slight rustle betrayed the thrill of deep learning that ran through
her.
"Really!" said Chloe. "Go on, dear."
"I met James Bush in the country at a time when I was just beginning
fully to feel the emptiness of society."
"Emptiness! Oh, how can you!"
"I remember our first meeting so well," Mrs. Verulam continued with a
soft rapture of romance. "He came towards me with his head in a sort
of meat-safe, holding in his strong hands the lid of a saucepan, upon
which he beat with a wooden spoon with all his might and main."
Chloe sat up in bed and gasped.
"But why—why was he dressed so?" she asked.
"To protect him in his duties."
"What duties—among the sheep?"
"No, oh no! He was swarming bees. Ah, how beautifully he swarms! If
only these London creatures who call themselves men could see him!"
"I didn't know one person could swarm alone before. Go on, dear. Did he
raise his meat-safe to you?"
"No. He took no notice of me at all, except to tell me to get out of
the way. That struck me directly. It was so different from what a
London man would do!"
"I should say so. Gracious!"
"It was only afterwards that we talked, and that I learned what a man's
life can and should be."
She glowed tenderly, and Chloe's suspicions were confirmed. She
shuffled on the sheet towards her friend, and whispered in her right
ear:
"Daisy, you're in love with Mr. Bush!"
The faithful Marriner hastily fluttered the pages of Schopenhauer's
monumental work, endeavouring not to hear, and failing in the
endeavour. Mrs. Verulam replied, after a short pause:
"I'm not sure."
"I am!"
"Hush! I shall know at Ascot."
"Is he coming to Ribwick——? What is the palace called?"
"Ribton Marches. Yes."
"How exciting! Oh, to think that you——"
She stopped and sighed, and, with woman's marvellous intuition, Mrs.
Verulam knew that her mind was Huskinson-bound for the moment; that
she saw once again the sands, the oranges, the crackers, and the
razor-backs of far-off Florida; that she heard again the rattlesnakes
of her sweet native land singing their serenades to the peaceful
alligator; that she played once more upon the wide veranda with the
errant Boswell, and watched the sunset behind the curly pines with the
baleful Bream. Yes, Mrs. Verulam divined all this, and, clasping her
friend's hand, was silent, thinking of the many mysteries by which we
are all surrounded, whether our lot be cast in Margate or in Maryland.
When she spoke again, she said in a very low voice:
"I will confess to you that James Bush is a hero in my eyes. Whether he
can ever be anything more to me I cannot tell. To me, Chloe, he is the
embodiment of the life I mean to lead, the life of simplicity, in which
everything has its value; the—the passing of—of a butterfly, the
agony of a grasshopper, the swarming of a bee, the—the murmur of even
the—the meanest owl that lives——"
"Are owls mean?"
"Yes. James Bush is the embodiment of the earth, from which we come, to
which we go; the earth that we ought all to till and love, to delve in
and to delight in. The earth! Dear Mother Earth!"
The faithful Marriner coughed discreetly, and Mrs. Verulam shut up, but
not before Chloe had cried:
"I don't think I like a man to be too earthy!"
Mrs. Verulam rose to go to her room and put some eau-de-cologne upon
her forehead.
"Wait," she whispered as she went. "Wait till you see him!"
"Marriner," said Chloe, "would you mind going to Francis, and asking
him when I may expect my pants?"