THE DUCHESS IN ASPIC.
When ten people, eight of whom are labouring under delusions or
suffering from engrossing mental complications, dine in company, and
the banquet is supervised by a gentleman who is almost off his head,
complete calm and the perfection of easy gaiety are not certain to
ensue. There was, in fact, a good deal of constraint prevalent that
night at Ribton Marches, constraint, however, varied by strange
outbursts that kept things going, but scarcely kept them going in
the average way of ordinary society. Only Miss Bindler and Mr.
Ingerstall were fairly fancy-free that Wednesday night. Mrs. Verulam
was abstracted because she wanted terribly to speak in private to
Chloe, and inform her of Lord Bernard's letter to Mr. Rodney and of
its strange contents. Chloe was abstracted because of the paragraph
in the _World_, and the probable presence of the fatal Huskinson in
England. The Duchess of Southborough was glowering with respectable
fury against her hostess, and solicitude over the supposed wrongs of
her gouty girl. The Lady Pearl was in a condition of highly-wrought
sensibility to the fascinations of Chloe. Lady Drake was petrified
by the knowledge that the Duke thought her what she wasn't, and that
Mr. Bush had beheld her in an Indian shawl at half-past three in the
morning. The Duke could think of nothing with any comfort except the
five self-conscious gardeners now engaged, as he supposed, in ruining
the Emperor's domain. Mr. Rodney, who believed himself to be in the
incipient stage of rheumatic fever, looked like a corpse whose mind
was seriously affected, and spoke like a voice reverberating from a
sepulchre. And Mr. James Bush, who was seated next to the Duchess, was
rent asunder by two contending passions, a desire to hint delicately to
her Grace that she was supposed to be in love with him, and a desire to
flee at once from the machinations of policemen to the marshy solitudes
of peaceful Bungay. Pride and cowardice in fact contended in the
paragon's mighty bosom, and almost succeeded in rendering him slightly
volcanic. To crown the tragic humours of the feast, Mr. Harrison, very
near to madness, stood during its progress with his feet turned out in
the first position in the neighbourhood of an enormous sideboard, his
face contorted into an expression of hysterical vigilance, his hands
straying hither and thither among the glittering knives and forks which
the Bun Emperor always had displayed as dining-room ornaments, even if
Mrs. Lite were only eating a piece of thin bread and butter alone in
the cedar-wood parlour.
The conversation round the dinner-table languished at first, then rose
in fitful and confusing gusts. Only Mr. Ingerstall chatted continuously
to Miss Bindler about Art and Paris, and she talked incessantly to him
about bets and racing stables.
"I hope you are none the worse for your immersion at tea this
afternoon?" said Mrs. Verulam to Mr. Rodney, with her eyes fixed
steadily on Chloe.
"I fear I cannot hope to escape rheumatic fever," he answered. "To do
so would indeed be foolish optimism."
"Quite so," she answered; "you are perfectly right."
"It is not every man who can say, with truth, that he has been followed
by detectives almost continuously for five-and-forty years," said the
Duke with unusual dignity to Lady Drake.
Unable to meet his eyes, she piped in return: "It is not every man who
can say anything at all with truth."
"Do you doubt my word?" he asked her, pursuing his train of thought.
She suddenly thought she perceived an opening into which she might
insert an explanation of the preceding night's affair.
"I'll believe yours if you'll believe mine!" she cried.
"What!" said the Duke, "then you're followed by detectives, too!"
At this appalling corollary her ladyship collapsed. Evidently nothing
on earth would ever convince his Grace that she was sinned against and
not a sinner, if he thought her conduct so outrageous that she was
habitually shadowed by the police! Although almost starving, she could
not eat another morsel.
"Do you think it right to be happy, Mr. Van Adam?" asked the Lady
Pearl, in her cooing, thunderous voice, inherited from her mother. "Do
you think we are meant to have any joy here? Oh, tell me, tell me!"
"Oh dear no!" Chloe replied, thinking of her hour of triumph—so soon
to be over.
She shook her head mournfully.
"No, no! When we think all is going well we are sure to see the
gardeners. The gardeners are certain to come upon us."
"Gardeners!" said the Lady Pearl, mystified. "Do you think that the
misery of the world is caused by gardeners?"
"I do, indeed," answered Chloe, intent on her fate, and speaking with
poignant conviction; "I am perfectly certain of it now."
"How strange! I wonder why it should be so; but perhaps we are not
meant to know here."
"I do know; I know very well," said Chloe.
"Then why is it?" asked the Lady Pearl.
"Because"—Chloe suddenly recollected herself and paused—"because we
are all gardeners," she said, assuming the portentous air of one who
deals in allegories. "Do we not garden in each other's souls?"
"How exquisitely thoughtful you are!" said the Lady Pearl with ecstasy;
"so different from a Guardsman!"
"Well, Mr. Bush," the Duchess said heavily, while she ate a cutlet,
"how do you like the great world?"
Her Grace had heard Mrs. Verulam say that this was the paragon's first
experience of that remarkable collection of absurdities.
"Eh?" said Mr. Bush, thrusting a cautious glance at the Duke—"eh?"
"Do you find it very different from your marshes?" continued the
Duchess. "I suppose there are only frogs there?"
"When I catch a frog about," replied Mr. Bush, "I go for it."
"Indeed!" said her Grace, trying to seem amiably interested in these
rustic pursuits. "And where does the frog go?"
"Not far," rejoined the paragon—"not far!" And he laughed like
Fee-faw-fum.
"Dear me!" said the Duchess, "I am afraid you're quite a bloodthirsty
person, like most men. But you're all the same; you must kill
something. One man stalks a deer, another a—a frog. You shoot, I
suppose?"
"No, I don't," said Mr. Bush. "Frog-shootin' wouldn't pay; they go too
slow."
At this point in his dissertation on English sport, her Grace suddenly
started, caught hold of the table with both hands, and passionately
struggled for breath.
"Got the staggers?" enquired Miss Bindler, who was sitting just
opposite. "Keep your head up."
Mr. Rodney hastily began to pour cold water into a champagne glass,
with a view to using it medicinally.
"Take it away!" gasped the Duchess. "Oh, take it away!" And she moved
as a serpent moves when it thinks of casting its skin.
"Take what?" said Mr. Rodney. "What is it?"
"The aspic on my left shoulder—oh, take it away!"
"The asp on your left shoulder!" he cried, preparing for flight.
"No, no! The cutlet in aspic. Oh!"
A rapid search enabled Mr. Rodney to discover a jellied cutlet lodged
upon her Grace's person. He endeavoured hastily to remove it with a
fork, and in doing so nearly inflicted a severe wound.
"Use your hands, man!" said Miss Bindler, "always use your hands in
such cases."
She spoke with authority, having attended many veterinary classes. Mr.
Rodney hesitated; he had never handled a cutlet in his life, and he
feared to begin a new career in middle age.
"Oh, take it away!" reiterated the Duchess; "it has been in ice! Oh,
take it from me!"
"I—really——" stammered poor Mr. Rodney, while the Duchess leaned far
forward, bending down her head and shutting her eyes in anticipation of
the operation. "Duke, I think it would be better if you——"
But the Duke was busily engaged in having fits of laughter, so Mr.
Rodney, flushing a brick red, hovered his long white hands above the
unwelcome intruder.
"Oh, be quick!" cried the Duchess. "For Heaven's sake be quick; it
feels like leeches."
"Here, clear out!" bellowed Mr. Bush to Mr. Rodney, who still shrank
from clasping an edible, and seizing her Grace with his huge hands, he
tore the cutlet from her with manly resolution. The Duchess breathed
again, while Mrs. Verulam's eyes became dewy with happy tears that
sprang unbidden at this fresh instance of her hero's valour. How
different from Mr. Rodney's pusillanimity! Mr. Bush threw the cutlet
to a manservant and burst out a-guffawing. It seemed he really had a
delicate sense of humour. The Duchess turned to him.
"Thank you!" she said with genuine emotion. "It would have killed me in
another moment. Thank you—thank you, Mr. Bush!"
Mr. Bush still roared with all the grand simplicity of a homely nature.
"But how did it happen?" said Mrs. Verulam.
"One of the servants did it," said the Duchess, sending her eye among
the menials in search of the culprit.
"T't! t't!" said Mr. Rodney, with all the testiness of a man who has
failed in the moment of danger; "it is as bad as the gardener. Mr. Lite
really should get proper characters with his servants."
The conversation here became general, and so when the Duchess suddenly
exclaimed to Mr. Bush, her sonorous outcry was only heard by him.
"Heavens!" she said, "it was a gardener! The gardeners are all waiting
at table."
Mr. Bush bounced; he rolled his eyes upon the servants in much
confusion.
"They are," continued her Grace; "that creature with the sauce-boat was
managing the roller, and that——"
"Hush!" said the paragon in a heavy whisper; "give over!"
"Why? They——"
"Give over, I tell yer!" Mr. Bush repeated, with an assumption of
portentous mystery.
Dominated by his manhood, her Grace gave over, and whispered:
"What is it?"
The paragon, with gestures of secrecy such as might well have attracted
the attention of a universe, impended over her, and mumbled into her
ear:
"They ain't gardeners."
"What! They are really footmen? Then why do they dig, and——"
"They ain't footmen."
"Not footmen! Then what sort of servants are they?"
"They ain't servants. Give over! Don't talk so loud," said Mr. Bush,
talking very loud himself.
Her Grace was now growing alarmed, but she endeavoured to force her
bass voice to become tenor as she whispered:
"Not servants? Then what are they here for?"
"They're here for us," he rumbled.
"For us?"
"You and me—me and you!"
"Me and you!" said the Duchess, with the accent of petrification.
"Aye, it's a go, ain't it?" And he shook his head at her heavily.
"But what on earth are they? Not—not——" She searched for a possible
profession, and could only think of dentists.
"They're coppers!" he puffed in her ear. "Don't holler!"
She nearly did, never having been waited upon by anything of the kind
before.
"Coppers?" she gasped.
"Policemen!"
"Policemen?"
"A-watching of you and me—detectives! Give over now; here's one
a-comin'."
At this moment, indeed, a detective handed her Grace ice-pudding. She
took it as if it was handcuffs, and trembled.
"But who put them to watch us?" she whispered in a hoarse voice.
"It's his doin'," rejoined the paragon, shovelling his head at the Duke.
"The Duke!"
Mr. Bush leant right over her as he uttered the fearful answer:
"He thinks you and me is a-goin' on together."
At this point the Duchess uttered a note such as proceeds from a
thirty-foot organ-pipe, and burst into a heavy swoon.
Now, the Duke had been observing the extraordinary secrecy of the
colloquy that preceded the Duchess's seizure, the heavy pantomime of
the paragon, and his elaborate efforts to remain unheard. All this,
succeeded as it was by her Grace's shout and collapse, and added to
the Duke's belief that Mr. Bush was a wicked dog and up to any amount
of secret rascality—witness the Lady Drake affair—worked together
in the ducal mind, and gave rise to a large number of sudden and
terrible suspicions, such as had never marred the Southboroughs'
married life until this moment. In short, the Duke believed that Mr.
Bush had been whispering soft words into his wife's ear, and that she,
overwhelmed with emotion, had uttered her soul in one tremendous and
unpremeditated note, and fainted away. He therefore sat considering
whether he should at once seize the nearest carving-knife and acquaint
Mr. Bush of his surmises, or whether he would be more ingenious if
he governed himself for awhile and allowed these disgraceful vipers
to take their course. While he was working out this problem, the
five detectives, Mr. Harrison, and the house-party were taking all
possible measures to recover the Duchess from her swoon, which was
of the most determined character. Her Grace, never accustomed to do
things by halves, for a long time resisted every blandishment that Miss
Bindler's wide knowledge of veterinary surgery, Mr. Bush's intimate
acquaintance with the sudden illnesses of cattle, and Mr. Ingerstall's
violent appreciation of French methods of recovering the drowned could
suggest. Indeed, it was only when the groom of the chambers made an
application of cold iron, in the form of the Ribton Marches cellar-key,
to her person that she struggled feebly, heaved some dozen sighs,
and, after requiring to be told where she was in the orthodox manner,
sat up and opened her eyes. They fell on the five detectives, and she
nearly shrieked again. Indeed, had not Mr. Bush given her a secret but
exceedingly powerful shove, there is no saying what course hysteria
might not have led her to take. The Duke observed that secret shove,
and his veins swelled with the decent fury of the outraged husband.
But he controlled himself until the Duchess had been supported to the
purple drawing-room, accompanied by the other ladies. Then, unable
to remain any longer inactive under the insult which he supposed
was being offered to his ancient name and honour, he rather curtly
released himself from Mr. Ingerstall, who was just saying, "It is a
most extraordinary thing to me that anybody can be found to go to the
Royal Academy when the Art Nouveau is within a few hours' journey of
London," and proceeded to carry out a little plan which he had formed
in his head. This plan led him to call a footman, which he did in the
baronial hall, at present deserted. A very thin man, with a grey face
and small eyes like marbles, responded to his summons. The Duke assumed
an affable air:
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Bliggins, sir," was the rather unexpected reply.
The Duke found it decidedly curious. The man gave his surname and did
not say "Grace." However, these were petty details in this stress of
terrible circumstance.
"Very well, Bliggins," said the Duke. "Can you keep a quiet tongue in
your head?"
He chanced to show the gleam of a sovereign under the electric
light—Bliggins may have noticed it. At any rate, he suddenly looked
very hungry, and replied:
"I can be dumb, sir, when necessary."
"How nice to command infirmities at will!" said the Duke. "You don't go
blind when you go dumb, eh?"
"I can prevent it, sir, if I try hard," responded Bliggins.
"Do you know which of the gentlemen here is Mr. James Bush?" said the
Duke, lowering his voice to a whisper.
"Ain't he the thin gent as Smithers set to and soaked this afternoon,
sir?" murmured Bliggins.
The Duke jumped, and casting a searching glance upon Bliggins, was
suddenly aware that he was the self-conscious gardener who had been
behaving with levity among the sunflowers in the afternoon. His Grace
bit his moustache and pulled his pantaloon's beard. This fact certainly
complicated the situation.
"H'm!" he muttered.
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"Can you serve two masters, Mr. Bliggins?" asked the Duke.
"I can, sir," replied Bliggins, again looking very hungry—"if I'm paid
in a proper manner for so doing, as you might say."
The Duke suddenly made up his mind.
"Very well," he said. "First let me say I know you; you're a detective,
and you've been put here to watch me. Be quiet, man! I ought to know a
third-rate detective by this time, considering that for five-and-forty
years——But that is no matter. Lord Arthur Kempton's your employer,
no doubt, or Sir John Milton. Hold your tongue; I've no time to hear
your lies! Watch me as much as you like, but"—here his Grace let Mr.
Bliggins feel the sovereign—"keep an eye on the gentleman with the red
beard and——"
"Him as pulled the cutlet off the lady as Wilker dropped on her?"
"The very man—watch him!"
"I will, sir."
"Day and night."
"The charge for night duty——"
The Duke allowed the self-conscious gardener to feel a second sovereign.
"I will, sir, day and night."
"Now go away and get dumb," said his Grace, returning softly to the
cedar-wood parlour.
As things did not seem very lively that evening in the purple
drawing-room, Mrs. Verulam sent for the powdered Frederick, and told
him to set the orchestrion going. This order quickly produced Mr.
Harrison, in a state of mania.
"The employment of the instrument, ma'am, is against Mrs. Lite's
orders, oh, most certainly!" he exclaimed in great excitement.
Mrs. Verulam turned to Mr. Rodney.
"Will you please send him away?" she murmured. "I cannot bear this sort
of thing to-night."
Mr. Rodney, whose nervous system was in tatters owing to the
combination of misfortunes through which he had recently passed, faced
round on Mr. Harrison like a hyena.
"Be off with you!" he cried in a piercing manner. "If you dare to argue
with me, I'll—I'll——"
He seized a small wooden paper-knife, and the groom of the chambers
made an exit that called forth the critical approval of Miss Bindler.
"For an old man, he's in good training," she remarked. "I believe he
could still do a mile in under the ten minutes!"
The orchestrion began to deal vigorously with "Cavalleria Rusticana,"
and under cover of the music the company made various attempts to bring
off what Miss Bindler would have called "events." Lady Drake, for
instance, sidled up to the Duke, determined to lead up to her continued
respectability, and Chloe was on the look-out for the chance of a quiet
moment with Mrs. Verulam. But this moment she could not secure, on
account of the tiresome behaviour of the Duchess, who was now in the
irritable stage of incipient convalescence, and was throned on a purple
armchair at Mrs. Verulam's side. Her Grace's horror at the revelation
of James Bush, her amazement that her husband should suspect her of
unchristian flirtation with a man bred up among bees, drove her into
a fit of temper which she proceeded to vent against her hostess. The
suspected respectable woman determined to take it out of the woman
whom she believed to be what Martha Sage affirmed "a baggage, my dear,
an arrant little baggage!" She began by making several ostentatious
double chins at Mrs. Verulam, who received the attention with calmness.
Then, growing exhausted with this physical exercise, for which she was
a little out of training, she resolved to put her vexed and suspected
soul into language.
"I have known you for a long time, Mrs. Verulam," she began; "I
remember you as a toddler."
"Thank you!"
"Not everyone can say as much."
"I daresay not. No."
"Those were innocent days," continued the Duchess, with an attempt at
pathos that resembled the efforts of a partially imaginative elephant
to become a fairy.
"Yes, toddlers are generally innocent, I suppose."
"Innocent and open-hearted."
"Yes. They wear their hearts on their frills, don't they?"
"In after-life it is different."
"What a pity!"
"The respectability of childhood becomes impaired."
"Does it?"
"Does it not?"
And here the Duchess stared hard, first at Mrs. Verulam, then at Chloe,
and then again at Mrs. Verulam who sweetly smiled.
"I don't know."
"I should have thought you did," said the Duchess beginning to bring up
her heavy artillery.
"Why?"
The orchestrion was preparing for the "Intermezzo." The Duchess was
preparing for conflict, rendered reckless by the self-conscious
gardeners, the cutlet and the swoon. If she was to be wrongly suspected
of levity, she would at least take it out of this wicked little person
whom she had known as a toddler.
"Let me give you a piece of advice," she began, with sonorous subtlety.
"With pleasure."
"Get rid of Mr. Van Adam. I speak as a true friend."
And her Grace, purple with true friendship as the furniture on which
she sat, made a really successful double chin, and paused for a reply.
"Why should I get rid of him?" asked Mrs. Verulam, making an angel's
face at the double chin.
"There are many reasons," said the Duchess, with growing fury.
"I know of none. Poor boy! He needs me in his loneliness." And she shot
a tender glance at Chloe.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the Duchess. "Gracious heavens!"
"We ought to be kind to those whom the world has treated cruelly,"
Mrs. Verulam continued, with high morality and a rather episcopal
demeanour. "Poor dear Mr. Van Adam! Poor dear fellow!" And she breathed
an effective, though quite gentle sigh.
To say that this sigh extracted a snort from the Duchess would be
ridiculous. She expressed her feeling in a blast, suddenly heaved
herself out of her chair, announced like a thunder-clap afflicted with
the _vibrato_: "I'm very ill! I'm much upset!" and marched out of the
purple drawing-room with all the gestures appropriate to an enormous
soul in the accesses of acute affliction.
"Shock to the system," observed Miss Bindler. "I had an Arab once, from
the Crabbet Park stud; it was like the Duchess—behaved just like that
in sudden cold. Give her mustard." And she returned to the "_Pink Un_."
"An application of aspic on the left shoulder must be trying," piped
Lady Drake.
The Duke said nothing; but as he looked towards Mr. Bush he appeared to
be stripped of the tinsel. The pantaloon was merged in the husband. His
expression was like the third act of a melodrama.