CUP DAY.
"I do so want to tell you something!" Chloe whispered distractedly to
Mrs. Verulam as the house-party separated for the night. "Have you read
the _World?_"
"No; but I have something to——Oh, good night, Mr. Rodney; I hope your
rheumatic fever will be better in the morning."
"You are very good to say so," Mr. Rodney said, looking at Chloe as
Othello used to look at Iago on bad days; "but I am thoroughly prepared
for the worst."
And he remained obstinately between them, as if he meant to grow there
for a century or two. Chloe clenched her little fists and longed to box
with him.
"Good night, Mr. Bush," said Mrs. Verulam to the paragon.
"Night," he muttered, with a heavy nod.
She hesitated at the foot of the staircase.
"I must tell you——" she began, and paused.
"Eh?"
"I must tell you what an impression your conduct at dinner made upon
me."
The paragon, whose wits were slightly sharpened by cowardice,
immediately walked to the conclusion that Mrs. Verulam had observed his
ostentatious secrecy with the Duchess. He therefore replied:
"Go along with yer! Rubbish! She's a deal too old!"
Mrs. Verulam, under the impression that her hero was alluding to his
gallant conduct with the cutlet, answered softly:
"Yes, indeed! Had you not acted so promptly, who can tell what the
result might have been? I honour you for it. Good night, Mr. Bush;" and
she pressed his mighty hand with hers.
"I hope you believe me, Duke?" Lady Drake piped anxiously. "I do assure
you that you have been labouring under a totally wrong impression. Mr.
Bush is nothing to me."
The Duke bowed, and shot a terrible glance at the paragon.
"Mr. Bush is the devil in human form," he muttered.
"Oh dear!" cried Lady Drake. "Oh! but then, why did Mrs. Verulam invite
him for the race-week?"
"Hush!" said the Duke, frowning at her like a tragic actor accustomed
to provincial audiences.
She rustled upstairs in great agitation.
Chloe, according to her timid custom, vanished to bed when the women
went to their rooms. She feared smoking-room stories. And so the
paragon, the Duke, Mr. Rodney, and Mr. Ingerstall sat alone in the
amber smoking-room, which adjoined Winter Garden No. 2, in which Mrs.
Lite's favourites soundly slept. Mr. Rodney sat for about two minutes
looking like a habitually nervous man, who is suddenly confronted with
the last day. Then he hastily swallowed about a pint of brandy.
"Hullo, Rodney!" said the Duke. "Turning teetotaler?"
"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Rodney, with a distracted demeanour.
"Giving up the drink, I see," continued the Duke, with a dismal attempt
at his usual jocose air. "Sousing yourself in water from the crystal
spring."
"I beg your pardon, Duke," said Mr. Rodney, looking deeply hurt and
almost on the verge of tears; "the outrage committed upon me this
afternoon is scarcely matter for jest. I—I——" He drank another pint
of brandy, and muttering something about the "necessity for expelling
cold from the system," and the "terrible results following on rheumatic
fever," hurried from the room, affecting the gait of an old hedger
and ditcher, crippled with that roadside complaint to which he had so
feelingly alluded.
The Duke glared at Mr. Bush, and, lighting a cigar, remarked to Mr.
Ingerstall that Rodney would have D.T. on the course to-morrow if he
didn't take care. Then he seized the _Times_, and buried himself in
the advertisement sheets, through which he took stock of the paragon,
making a hole with his finger in "Wanted, a quiet home for a clergyman
afflicted with homicidal mania, who is subject to fits, but is High
Church, studious, and of a happy disposition."
"Damn it, there's no absinthe!" cried Mr. Ingerstall. "In Paris one is
not deprived of necessities as one is in England. Why don't I live in
Paris?"
He struck a bell. Mr. Bliggins appeared.
"Where the devil's the absinthe?" cried the artist in his piercing
voice.
"Beg pardon, sir," replied Bliggins, ostentatiously indicating to the
Duke that he had his eye on Mr. Bush, and was earning his night-duty
money.
"Ra-ta-ta! _Dieu de Dieu_, where is the absinthe, man? Haven't I
told you night after night that I don't drink these Scotch and Irish
abominations?"
"Certainly not, sir," said Bliggins impudently—"certainly not!"
He had nothing to expect from Mr. Ingerstall; and, besides, he found
politeness as difficult an assumption as the pretence of being a
retired major-general, or a Hungarian count out for a holiday. The
astounded caricaturist snatched off his spectacles, wiped them like a
conjuring trick, replaced them with a dab, and examined the detective
with preternatural scrutiny.
"It's a gardener!" he shrieked, after a busy pause.
Mr. Bush shuffled in his elbow chair. Mr. Bliggins looked foolish and
the Duke angry.
"A gardener, Ingerstall!" he said hastily. "What nonsense!"
"It is; I observed him this afternoon. I remember his nose like a
teapot, his eyes like marbles, his retreating chin and protruding
forehead, perfectly. His arms are too long for his body, and
his legs too short for his height. He would make an admirable
picture—admirable! I remember thinking so."
Overwhelmed with this uncompromising eulogy, Mr. Bliggins went off
night-duty at the rate of twelve miles an hour, and forgot to shut the
door behind him.
"You're a beautiful subject," Mr. Ingerstall cried out after
him—"beautiful!"
The Duke began to look vicious.
"You've frightened the fellow," he said. "Why didn't you leave him
alone?"
"Leave a monstrosity alone! Leave a human grotesque in ignorance of his
superb infirmity!" cried the artist. "I'll draw him this moment."
He followed Bliggins as a bullet follows a bird, caught him in a
pantry, caricatured him in seventeen seconds, and was up in the lemon
bedroom enlarging the original to life size before three minutes had
fallen into the lap of the past. Meanwhile the Duke and the paragon
were left alone among the soda-water bottles. At first they did not
speak. The paragon smoked an immense pipe, whose bowl presented a
carved effigy of the features of Peter Jackson, the pugilist. The
Duke observed him doing so through the homicidal clergyman who
wanted a quiet home; but presently his Grace's intent secrecy caused
an accident. Endeavouring slightly to enlarge his peep-hole with a
cautious finger, he tore a gap through which a circus-rider might have
jumped. The paragon gave him a surly glance, which was rewarded with
an elaborate smile, for the Duke was resolved to know more before he
showed his hand or revealed his suspicions. He laid down the paper and
lit a cigar.
"Nice and quiet here," he said conversationally.
Mr. Bush nodded, without removing Peter Jackson from his mouth.
"Nobody about," continued the Duke, with a jocular demeanour.
Mr. Bush shuffled rather uneasily.
"What if there isn't?" he growled.
"I beg your pardon."
"I says, What if there isn't nobody about?"
"Oh, nothing—nothing! I was only thinking what games might be carried
on in a big house like this, half empty, at night, without anybody
being aware of them."
Mr. Bush goggled his large auburn eyes at the Duke in a manner
suggestive of apprehension partially masked by bumpkin impudence.
"Was you?" he replied, in his usual nervous English.
"Midnight revels, eh? What? what? That big hall's the place for them.
Don't you think so?"
The paragon began to sulk, as was his custom when alarmed or bemuddled.
He did not yet grasp the fact that the Duke was hinting at the Lady
Drake episode, but he dimly felt that something was going on which he
did not understand. So he relaxed his body, wrapped his left hand in
his beard, and began to assume the appearance of a potman preparing for
heavy slumber. But the Duke did not intend to be baffled by sleep. So
he dug the paragon very sharply in the ribs with assumed geniality, and
remarked: "You're a dog!"
"Give over! I ain't a dog!" mumbled the paragon slightly reassured.
"Yes you are. I know you! I know all about it!"
Mr. Bush rolled in his seat.
"Lady Drake's a fine woman," continued the Duke in a rollicking
manner—"a damned fine woman!"
He wished to convince himself that the paragon was a rural Don Juan,
to which shrewd suspicion Lady Drake had been giving him the lie. Mr.
Bush, hearing the name of her ladyship, felt relieved. He had fancied
that the Duchess was secretly in question. Now he forced a guffaw and,
under the impression that he was being mighty clever, vociferated:
"Lady Drake, she's all right—go along with yer! She knows a thing or
two! She's as downy as a goat in autumn, she is."
This remarkable comparison convinced the Duke that Lady Drake had
perjured herself when she explained away the episode of the previous
night. His suspicions of Mr. Bush increased tenfold.
"You like 'em downy, eh?" he said. "You like a crafty one? What?"
"Rather!" said the paragon, nodding his heavy head and rejoicing in his
shrewdness. "Rather!"
"Because you're a downy one yourself? I know you!"
And his Grace forced a cackling laugh and trembled with fury. The
paragon was delighted with the apparent success of his subtle ruse, and
resolved to trick his Grace still further. He therefore endeavoured to
look very sly, and rejoined:
"Look after Lady Drake, and she'll look after you."
"And you did look after her in the hall at three o'clock in the
morning, Mr. Bush. Ha! ha! ha!" cried the Duke, with a passionate burst
of angry laughter. "I saw you both! I saw you! I know all about it!"
Under his breath he added bitterly, "I knew she was lying to me! I knew
the fellow was a regular demon!"
The paragon was considerably taken aback at first by this revelation.
He had no notion that the sugar-plum affair was common property.
However, when he at length realised that the Duke must have been on the
watch the previous night, he rejoiced still more. Lady Drake had no
husband to take vengeance on any man, so Mrs. Verulam's hero gave her
away with the most cheerful alacrity. He laid one enormous hand on the
Duke's arm and remarked impressively:
"She's a rascal!"
"Lady Drake?"
The paragon nodded.
"She's a rascal! Set the gardeners on to her! She wants a-watchin'!"
And he sank back into his chair, thoroughly convinced that he had most
adroitly rescued the Duchess and himself from the unjust suspicions of
his Grace.
The Duke took the matter very differently, however. He was now certain
that Mr. Bush was a most consummate and polished scoundrel, up to
every move on the board, but hiding his address beneath a magnificent
impersonation of glum stupidity and heavy lethargy. For instance, how
brilliantly this apparent bumpkin was now endeavouring to concentrate
suspicion on Lady Drake, doubtless in order that his proceedings with
the Duchess might pass unnoticed and unrevenged. But the Duke was
determined to be equal with him. He could play the game, too, against
the devil himself. So he smiled, as if in a harlequinade, and said
genially:
"You're right. The gardeners should direct their attention to her.
Shall I give them a hint to that effect?"
"Aye!" said Mr. Bush. "Aye! set them on to her. She wants a-watchin'!"
And he shook his sides with rumbling chuckles which took him like an
earthquake. The Duke got up, trying not to glare at this consummate and
exquisitely adroit villain, this monument of evil cleverness.
"I'll take your advice," he said. "I'll set them on to her. Night!" And
he was gone, leaving Mr. Bush to his raptures.
In the hall his Grace encountered Bliggins in a condition of apparent
prostration.
"Watch that red-bearded scoundrel!" the Duke ejaculated. "Watch him!
Never let him from under your eyes, and I'll give you half my for—half
a sovereign!"
"But it's the black gent with the specs as is the dangerous one, sir,"
began Bliggins. "He chased me in the pantry as if I was a rat, and——"
"The red-bearded villain—he's the man! He's the fiend, I tell you!
Stalk him! Dog his footsteps! Creep after him! Run him down! You
sha'n't repent it. Hush! not a word."
The Duke retired up the staircase with the steps of a bandit in
old-fashioned grand opera, while Mr. Bush went on gaily chuckling to
himself in the amber smoking-room.
Cup Day, dawning in an ethereal mist, found Mr. Bliggins wrapped in
a pallid slumber in the hall, and Mr. Harrison setting forth to the
fishing-cottage to confer with the Emperor. The groom of the chambers
roused the sleeping detective with a hasty shake.
"Mr. Bliggins, you was hired to watch; oh, indeed!" he said in stern
rebuke.
"I was watching, Mr. Harrison, sir," replied the creature, confusing
Mr. Harrison's orders with the Duke's. "'The red-bearded man—he's the
fiend! Stalk him! Dog his feet! Creep after him!' you says to me. I
was doing of it."
"Mr. Bliggins," replied Mr. Harrison, with scathing dignity, "them
was no words of mine—oh dear no, on no account whatever! My words to
you was, 'Watch the lot;' oh, most certainly! Go, Mr. Bliggins, plant
yourself in the garden, and don't let yourself be knowst, according to
Mr. Lite's strict orders; oh, indeed!"
The weary detective departed to carry out this horticultural command,
and Mr. Harrison proceeded to lay his grim report of the employment
of the sacred instrument, etc., before the agitated Emperor, whose
passions steadily increased with the lapse of time and the prolongation
of exile.
By the post that morning Chloe received a communication from one of the
private enquiry agents whom she had directed to give her information as
to the proceedings of her ex-husband, if that personage were actually
within the British Isles.
"I beg to inform you," it ran, "that a Mr. Huskinson Van Adam did
arrive at Liverpool by the _Arethusa_, but I have not yet been able to
discover where he went upon disembarking. I have no doubt, however,
that I shall be successful in tracing him within a day or two. Awaiting
your further esteemed orders, I am," etc., etc.
Chloe laid this letter down with an unsteady hand. It filled her
with a cataract of mingled emotions, one of which surprised her by
its happy violence and covered her cheeks with blushes. In the midst
of these blushes she caught sight of her trousers, and the vision
helped her to pull herself together. She was no longer a woman;
she was a man—at any rate for a day or two more. After that the
Deluge! After that no more society! No more Duchesses! No more Lady
Pearls! Did this knowledge horrify her? Did she feel in it the end
of pleasure, the coming of doom? or did she hear faintly the glories
of the dream which she had desired, which she had by a wild stroke
of audacity achieved, rustling down and away into the darkness like
the damp golden leaves of autumn—and hear their rustlings with an
abrupt and strange indifference, child of some hidden, furtive, and
scarcely acknowledged emotion? Chloe herself, perhaps, scarcely knew.
In either case she pulled up her trousers, assumed a jaunty air, and
talked hard all through breakfast—chiefly to the Lady Pearl, of whose
presence, however, she was in truth scarcely aware, being so full
of her own situation, which was half-absurd and surely half-tragic.
After breakfast she tried with all her might to speak a word alone
with Daisy. But both the Duchess of Southborough and Mr. Rodney were
on the watch to prevent any such nefarious attempt from succeeding.
Her Grace, despite her own trouble with the Duke, whose disgraceful
suspicions—although they remained unexpressed in words—she was
increasingly conscious of, was determined to fight her hostess to the
death on behalf of the Lady Pearl. Until Mr. Van Adam was actually
ravished away to Paris, the Duchess would not confess herself beaten,
would not lose all hope. Strung up by unmerited misfortune to the
highest pitch of nervous tension and agitated obstinacy, her eyes
prominent with mental strain, her large and respectable face rigid with
anxiety and outrage, she inflexibly kept at Mrs. Verulam's side. And
the more she observed Chloe's obvious manœuvres to be alone with Mrs.
Verulam, the more was the Duchess determined to frustrate them. In all
her exertions she was backed up by the excellent owner of Mitching
Dean.
When a normally peaceful and conventional man is roused, by the
hammering blows of Fate, into acute distress and warfare, he is
apt to become far more terrific, far more unconventional, than any
swashbuckler or man of deeds whatever. So it was with Mr. Rodney.
Circumstance was gradually working him up into a state of mind compared
with which Gehenna is typically joyous and calm. His imaginary
rheumatic fever was, on this lovely morning, nowise abated. His anxiety
as to the procedure of the Countess of Sage moment by moment increased.
His suspicions of Chloe were advancing rapidly, and his enmity against
the man from Bungay had attained almost to fury. Also he had had a
sleepless night, and Harry, his man, had abrased his skin while shaving
him. If his pulse mounted to 102, is it to be wondered at? If he
resolved not to leave Mrs. Verulam's side for one single instant during
the entire day, shall he be blamed? In vain did Mrs. Verulam endeavour
to get rid of him for a second or two. In vain did she try to invent
some pretext, to design some chivalrous duty which must urge his steps
from her. He was too sharp to go. And the more ardently she tried, the
more ardently did he deny her, opposing his rheumatism to her every
suggestion.
"Would you mind fetching my fan, Mr. Rodney? I believe I left it lying
on the table in the magenta boudoir."
"Forgive me if I send Harry for it. I can scarcely walk this morning,
and the fever seems increasing upon me."
"Dear! dear! Then you must not dream of going to the races."
"The fresh air will do me good."
"I fear not. I am sure you ought to be lapped at once in cotton-wool,
and stay in a darkened room with the temperature kept up to at least
80."
"Possibly, but I understand that the supply of cotton-wool which Mr.
Lite keeps in his patent machines has given out. Besides, I consider it
my duty not to spoil your week by—by——" Here his voice shook with
emotion—"giving way to illness, perhaps even to—to death."
"Quite right, Mr. Rodney," exclaimed the Duchess. "In this world duty
comes first."
And she endeavoured to convey information to him by signs, without
being seen by Mrs. Verulam. Mr. Rodney, never having learnt any
dumb alphabet, was unable to comprehend her Grace, and was indeed
considerably startled by her fleeting grimaces and tortured movements
of the hands and fingers. Politeness, however, compelled him to
respond, which he did by alternately nodding and shaking his head in a
miserable and despairing manner, such as could scarcely reassure the
Duchess or give her comfort.
While this game of cross-purposes was proceeding behind her back, Mrs.
Verulam was inventing a new pretext to get rid of Mr. Rodney, in whose
absence she hoped to be able to disentangle herself from the Duchess
and consult with Chloe.
"Mr. Rodney," she said, with apparent bland solicitude, "I have been
thinking that a cooling draught would probably do wonders for you."
"It is most good of you, but I am perfectly cool, I assure you,
already. And I have always understood that nothing is more dangerous to
the rheumatic than a thorough draught."
"It would be fatal," said the Duchess sonorously, beckoning and
frowning at Mr. Rodney with intense animation, "simply fatal. It would
carry him off in the twinkling of an eye."
"I meant a drink, Duchess, not a breeze. Marriner could mix it for you,
Mr. Rodney."
"You are too kind, but I never take medicine. I prefer to put my trust
in Providence and hope for the best."
And he again shook and nodded his head in vague negative and
affirmative to the Duchess. Mrs. Verulam was in despair. She shot a
last bolt feebly.
"I think even the bishops and clergy would say that we Christians
ought to assist the operations of Providence with—with appropriate
medicine," she said.
"I always understood that an operation took the place of physic,"
growled the Duchess, distressed by Mr. Rodney's entire lack of
pantomimic talent and comprehension.
Mrs. Verulam did not say more. She saw that she was in prison, and
recognised that it was futile at present to attempt to break out.
"I must dress for the races now," she said.
"I'll come up with you," said the Duchess, taking Mrs. Verulam's arm
as if in gentle amity, while at the same time she screwed her face at
Mr. Rodney, and endeavoured to force his dull comprehension to grasp
the simple fact that a frown, one corner of the mouth turned down, a
wrinkled nose and a left hand flapping like a seal must obviously mean,
"I'll look after her, but I depend upon you to keep an eye on Mr. Van
Adam."
Evidently he was nowhere near it, for his long face looked blank as a
white sheet of note-paper as prisoner and gaoler left the room.
All through that weary Cup Day Mr. Rodney was for ever in Mrs.
Verulam's pocket, emotionally sticking to her in a manner that
irritated her till she could have burst into tears. His eyes, usually
so indefinite, now blazed with the fires either of rheumatic fever,
jealousy, or protection. His voice, usually mellifluous as the twilight
murmur of a tideless sea, now rose in harsh intonations, and was set
a-trembling by a _vibrato_ that might have belonged to a fourth-rate
Italian tenor. His wonted soothing demeanour and reassuring Mayfair
gait were exchanged for an animation that savoured of delirious
sick-beds, and a strut of suspicion on the _qui vive_ that might
have become a scout compelled to follow his profession on a pavement
composed of red-hot needles. The Royal Pen gaped at him, and heard his
passionate volubility with unutterable amazement. Again, as on the
preceding Tuesday, he was feverishly intent on dodging, and inducing
Mrs. Verulam to dodge, the venerable Countess of Sage, who, crowned
with a gimp helmet, clothed in chain mail of shining bugles, and
bedizened with ornaments of black bog-oak, grown on the family estate
at Ballybrogganbroth, Ireland, pervaded the enclosure on the arm of a
Commander-in-Chief, with a Field-Marshal on her further side. But Fate,
which was leading him in such slippery places, chose to frustrate his
chivalrous purpose. Soon after the second race, while busily engaged
in manœuvring Mrs. Verulam away from the neighbourhood of Chloe, who
was shooting at her despairing glances demanding an interview, Mr.
Rodney ran her and himself into the very arms of Lady Sage, who was
energetically airing her views on the recent Crimean campaign, and
pointing out certain mistakes in tactics committed by those who were
in charge of the British army in the Crimea. They were, in fact,
practically impaled upon her bog-oak brooches and necklets before they
observed her. Lady Sage paused on the words "If I had been Lord Raglan,
I should certainly have——" stared Mrs. Verulam and the owner of
Mitching Dean full in the face for a minute or more, then remarked in a
piercing voice to the Field-Marshal, "What extraordinary people manage
to get into the Enclosure!" and waddled away, rattling her armour in a
most aggressive manner, and tossing the gimp helmet until it positively
scintillated in the sunshine.
Mr. Rodney's knees knocked together, and he shut his eyes. The worst
had happened. The heavens had fallen. The flood had come again upon the
earth, and there was no ark of refuge. His brain was full of buzzings,
and he felt as if he was being pricked all over. When at last he opened
his eyes and looked at Mrs. Verulam, he perceived that she was rather
pale, and that her expression was slightly more set than usual. Yet she
seemed calm and cool, while he was hot as fire. Glancing away from her,
he beheld the expressive faces of a serried mass of his oldest and most
valued friends, whose lips seemed curling with derision, while their
family and ancestral noses were surely tip-tilted with contempt. He
clasped his hands together mechanically, and, with a hunted demeanour,
turned as if to flee. Vague thoughts of leaving the country, of
endeavouring to make a home and get into a fresh set in Buenos Ayres,
or of retiring to a hermitage in Iceland, ran through his collapsing
mind. There is no saying whether he would not have usurped the place of
the Ascot dog, and run yelping down the cleared course to the golden
gates, if Mrs. Verulam had not murmured to him in her _voix d'or_:
"Shall we go for a little stroll in the paddock?"
He assented with a bow that was scarcely worthy of a yokel, and led her
among the parading horses, getting so entangled with the four legs of
the favourite that it seemed as if his one ambition was to become a
centaur before evening. After being rescued by a swearing trainer, who
addressed him in a long and highly ornate speech, he seemed desirous of
immersing Mrs. Verulam in the jockeys' dressing-rooms, or of having her
incontinently weighed, but she resisted, and at last said:
"Mr. Rodney, your fever makes you act very strangely. I think, perhaps,
we had better be going."
"Going—gone!" he muttered, like a second-rate auctioneer.
"Oh, please do try to compose yourself! All the jockeys are looking at
you."
"Let them look!" replied Mr. Rodney distractedly. "Let all the jockeys
in Christendom look! What does it matter now?"
And he stared wildly about, as if searching for sackcloth and ashes.
Mrs. Verulam flushed.
"Mr. Rodney," she said, and her voice, too, began to tremble, "I must
beg you to find the carriage for me at once."
"But it will not be here until half-past four."
"Very well, then, I shall walk home."
"Walk!" he cried, in as much amazement as if she had suggested going
home in a balloon.
"Yes, and you must please accompany me."
"Certainly! anything! anywhere! What can it matter now?"
In after years that walk often rose before the owner of Mitching Dean
in a vision of dust and anguish. As they went, stumbling among the
vulgar crowd, treading on nuts, elbowing donkeys and negro minstrels
aside, it seemed to Mr. Rodney that he and Mrs. Verulam were as a
modern Adam and Eve, being expelled by a Master of the Buckhounds with
a flaming hunting crop from that garden of the social paradise, the
Royal Enclosure. They did not speak as they surged forward in quest of
the far-off palace of the Bun Emperor. What could they say? Criminals
do not chatter merrily as they wend their way towards the hulks. So
Mr. Rodney put it to himself, although he had not the slightest idea
what the hulks were. Only when, after long wandering in dreadful lanes
between hedges totally unknown in society, they reached Ribton Marches,
footsore, travel-stained, and broken in spirit, did he find a tongue,
and, turning towards his wretched companion, make this cheery remark:
"All is over!"
"Please don't talk nonsense, Mr. Rodney," said Mrs. Verulam sharply, as
she sank into a garden-chair.
"I repeat," he answered, with thrilling emphasis and in a voice that
was exceedingly hoarse, "all is over!"
Mrs. Verulam bit her lips, and looked very much as if she wanted to
burst out crying.
"There is no hope," he went on. "There is no light anywhere. All is
darkness."
The sun was pouring down its golden beams, but no matter.
"It is strange," Mr. Rodney pursued, staring very hard at nothing with
glazed eyes. "It is strange to think that two lives, at one time happy,
peaceful, even honoured, can be broken up in an instant, and turned to
dust and ashes in the twinkling of an eye!"
"My life is not turned to dust and ashes in the twinkling of——Oh, do
please say something more cheerful!"
"Cheerful!" cried the owner of Mitching Dean in hollow
tones—"cheerful!"
And he gave vent to several very distressing groans. Mrs. Verulam
leaned back and shut her eyes. Fatigue and excessive heat, combined
with unexpected groans, may well break even the proudest spirit. Had
Mr. Bush been at hand to inspire confidence, and to impersonate the
true, grand life, Mrs. Verulam might possibly have plucked up courage.
As it was, she felt very miserable, and was devoured with a longing to
give the Countess of Sage into the hands of Chinese torturers, whom she
had read of in a book of travels as exquisitely expert in their trade.
After a quarter of an hour's pause, partially filled in by Mr. Rodney's
exclamations of unutterable despair, she made a great effort to compose
herself, and remarked bravely:
"This is what I have wished for."
Mr. Rodney punctuated the sentence with a piteous outcry.
"This," continued Mrs. Verulam, "has been my dream. For this I have
worked and striven, toiled and——" she had nearly said "moiled,"
but at the last minute substituted "prayed," which certainly raised
the speech onto a higher plane of oratory. "I ought, therefore, to
be thankful," she resumed, the corners of her pretty mouth turning
downward, "and I am."
Mr. Rodney looked at her mournfully.
"It is terrible to see the approach of madness," he remarked, gazing
upon her eventually with a weird and flickering curiosity.
"I am not going mad," said Mrs. Verulam.
"I beg your pardon," he rejoined—"I beg your pardon. You may not—in
fact, you evidently do not know it; but, indeed, you are."
"Really, Mr. Rodney, I think I may be allowed to know my own condition."
"They never do. It is one of the regular symptoms. You will find it in
all the medical books."
And once more he observed her with agonised curiosity.
Mrs. Verulam, perhaps not unnaturally, began to grow very angry.
"Medical books," she said, in a heated tone, "are not only disgusting,
but deceptive. I must really request you to believe me."
"I am sorry, I am very sorry, that I cannot. We must all learn to look
madness bravely in the face," he replied, staring perfectly straight at
her.
Mrs. Verulam made a sudden movement as though to slap him, restrained
herself, puckered her face, drummed her little feet violently in
mid-air, and was about to burst into a flood of wrathful tears when the
powdered Frederick was seen approaching across the lawn, bearing a gold
salver which twinkled and glinted in the sun.
"A telegram for you, ma'am," he said.
Mrs. Verulam took it from him hysterically, tore it open, and read:
"Huskinson Van Adam is somewhere in Berkshire just discovered Yillick."
"I hope it is no bad news," said Mr. Rodney, as if he felt certain that
it announced either plague or strangling.
"It is to say that they have discovered Yillick," answered Mrs. Verulam
in an unemotional voice.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I say they have discovered Yillick," she cried irritably.
"Indeed! What is that?"
"I don't know. One can't know everything."
"True, true!"
She glanced again at the telegram, recovering herself enough to begin
to wonder what it really meant, and why they hurried to inform her
of this, the newest discovery of modern times. Happening to see the
envelope, she now perceived that it was addressed to "Van Adam, Esq."
Evidently the wire was for Chloe. But then why did——? At this instant
voices became audible, and the house-party trooped with determination
across the lawn.