CUP NIGHT.
Mrs. Verulam immediately held out the telegram to Chloe.
"They have discovered Yillick," she murmured abstractedly.
"What?" said the Duchess, who was very red in the face. "Yillick, do
you say?"
Chloe took the telegram eagerly, and turned exceedingly pale.
"Is a Yillick an animal?" said the Lady Pearl softly to her.
"No, no; only a—a friend; at least, a sort of acquaintance of mine,"
Chloe stammered.
As a matter of fact, Yillick was the surname of the Private Enquiry
Agent who was looking out for Huskinson.
"You left very early, Mrs. Verulam," said the Duchess sternly.
"I was tired. The heat was so great."
"I did not think so. And I am very susceptible to heat. How did you get
home?"
"I walked."
"Good gracious! What made you do that?"
"I like exercise."
"When you are tired? When you feel the heat so much? How very strange!"
And her Grace, who knew all about the Martha Sage affair, which had
been much cackled of in the Enclosure, glowered heavily at her hostess,
whom she, too, intended to cut at the end of the week, when the fate of
the Lady Pearl had been finally decided for good or evil.
"Did you meet Lady Sage?" she pursued mercilessly, while Mr. Rodney
endeavoured to look at ease, and succeeded in looking like a
constitutionally timid person being led out to the stake.
"Oh yes," answered Mrs. Verulam, with an effort after indifference.
"Well?" remarked the Duchess, after a short and solemn pause.
"Well!" retorted Mrs. Verulam.
"Did you like her gown?" said the Duchess, getting a little confused,
and becoming inept.
"I daresay it was all right, but personally I am not particularly fond
of gimp and bugles, nor do I care specially for oak ornaments in the
day-time," returned Mrs. Verulam, with veiled, but bitter, sarcasm.
"Oh! Still, in these hard times, it is a great saving of expense to
be able to grow one's jewellery on one's own land," said the Duchess,
turning away, and feeling that she was beginning to get the worst of
it. She met the stare of her husband and blenched, suddenly remembering
that she, too, though always so firmly innocent, had her troubles and
was born to suffering. But she little knew what a terrible course
those troubles were about to take, into what a maelstrom of unmerited
misfortune she was about to plunge.
"Daisy, I simply must speak to——Oh, certainly, Lady Pearl, I shall
be delighted to show you the orchid house," cried the distracted Chloe
after tea.
It seemed that she was never to be allowed to unburden her overcharged
heart to her friend, who was now clawed by her Grace and the despairing
Mr. Rodney, while Chloe was obliged to escort the languishing
gout-patient through endless avenues of plants.
Night fell, and with it the weather changed. A small, fine rain
began to rustle among the shrubs around the palace, the moon was
obscured by ragged and slowly floating clouds, and an uncomfortable
and under-sized wind, indefinite of purpose, sluggishly moved about
the garden, fingering the trees and flowers as if uncertain whether
to be violent or go away altogether. Of course, curtains were drawn
within the palace, the electric moons gleamed, the parrots were
softly illuminated, and nobody was supposed to know what the night
was about. Nevertheless, the subtle influence of weather was apparent
among the house-party. Everybody seemed to be superlatively glum. Miss
Bindler had lost forty pounds over Bound to Win, and was considering
whether she would have to put down her bike at the end of the week.
Mr. Ingerstall, having taken her tip, was also a loser, and was
consequently speechless and black with irritated despair. Chloe was in
a strange condition of mingled apprehension and excitement, and as she
could find no opportunity of unburdening herself to Mrs. Verulam, and
could not fix her mind on ordinary matters, she did not talk at all,
and made no response to the murmurings of the Lady Pearl. The Lady
Pearl, therefore, plunged into abysses of despair, and the Duchess,
observant of her daughter's header, and greatly exercised about the
Duke and the detectives—who were again waiting at table—became
plethoric and mum.
Mr. Rodney was in a state of absolute collapse. He ate nothing, said
nothing, and looked like a man who might do anything, from throwing
himself out of a window to murdering all those within his reach. The
Sage affair had totally disorganised him. He was no longer himself; he
was no longer a really responsible being.
The Duke divided his time between glowering at the Duchess and the
paragon and carrying on a secret pantomime with Mr. Bliggins, who
returned affirmative gestures to every face that was made at him,
nodding "Yes" with a lobster salad, implying that the red-bearded
scoundrel was under his observation with a dozen of oysters, or hinting
at an increase of his night-duty salary with a rum-omelette.
Lady Drake ate enormously, and looked grievous.
As to Mr. Bush—although he was reassured about the Duke, who had
doubtless been fed into calm by receiving Lady Drake's reputation to
gnaw—he was sulky, not from any special reason, but because he nearly
always was.
There remained Mrs. Verulam. What of her? She should have been happy,
for her plot had been successful. Chloe's transformation from woman
to man had opened the cage-door to the squirrel. Society, which had
for so long defied the lovely widow's attempts to get out of it,
would now doubtless follow the lead of Lady Sage and bid her go.
She was compromised, and yet retained completely her own secret
self-respect—her knowledge that she had done no wrong. Why, then,
should she feel guilty? Why should she tingle with something that
was surely shame? Why should she grow red under the angry eye of the
Duchess? Probably because she was more sensitive than she had imagined;
because she had that trying sort of soul which inevitably feels ashamed
if it is believed to be shameful. All through dinner Mrs. Verulam sat
deep in distressed thought, immersed in consideration of the present
and solicitude for the future. If only she could have a good talk with
Chloe, she felt that her burden would be lightened. They must meet
somehow; they must draw up some plan of campaign. Mrs. Verulam had not
yet seen the _World_, and Mr. Rodney, buffeted and afflicted sore by
Providence, had forgotten to tell her of the Van Adam paragraph. She
did not know of the real Huskinson's probable presence in Berkshire
at this very moment, for she had not grasped the meaning of the
Yillick communication. But she had heard Lord Bernard Roche's news,
and supposed the orange-grower to be on his way. Chloe would have to
disappear; her work was done; she had been successful, it seemed, in
ruining Mrs. Verulam's reputation. Thinking this, Mrs. Verulam strove
to rejoice, and wanted to cry. To nerve herself, she gazed upon the
paragon's enormous bulk and calm and gluttonous lethargy. She lost
herself in his streaming auburn mane, seeking comfort and sustaining
power. The cage-door was open; the squirrel could leave its prison.
Where should it go? Surely to Bungay Marshes, Lisborough. There must
be other cottages there besides the Farm—other abodes of peace round
which the bees hummed and the sheep bleated in tender tunefulness.
Thither must she go, like some white dove seeking an ark of refuge.
Thither must she flee, and be at rest. But she and Chloe must first
hold a long consultation, concert proper measures for the eternal
concealment from society of the audacious manner in which it had
been tricked and imposed upon. How to do that? How to get rid of the
Duchess and the now frantic and unconventional owner of Mitching Dean?
Marriner—that faithful wretch! She must convey a missive to Chloe; a
meeting must be arranged in the dead of night, when all the house-party
slept. In the darkness the finale of this history must be devised.
It must be settled when Chloe should disappear, how and where. Mrs.
Verulam's future must be discussed. To-night—Marriner—Chloe—Fate.
Dinner was over. As in a dream, Mrs. Verulam accompanied the ladies to
the purple drawing-room. All things seemed to her vague and unreal,
except the hideous vision of the Countess of Sage, stiff with gimp
and fury, insulting the pet of the gay world, ringing the knell of
her butterfly life of pleasure. She sat down on a sofa, and began
vehemently to think of the pale perfection of a Bungay existence
superintended by her idea of Agag.
The Duchess watched her from a distance. Being in a condition of acute
suspicion, her Grace gravely distrusted the concentrated abstraction of
her hostess. No doubt Mrs. Verulam was laying some fresh and horrible
plot against the happiness of the Lady Pearl. It must be frustrated,
whatever it was.
"Mother," said the Lady Pearl at this moment.
"My darling! my only child!" replied the Duchess in her deepest bass.
"I think Mr. Van Adam has something on his mind."
The Duchess started, and surveyed her daughter with protruding eyes.
"What makes you think so, my beautiful Pearl?" she queried.
"He never spoke to me all through dinner, and he kept on looking
towards Mrs. Verulam. I think the world is full of misery."
"Gout, my beloved one, gout! Carlsbad would make you think very
differently," replied the Duchess according to her rule. But she spoke
without conviction; and the Lady Pearl did not think it necessary to
protest, as usual, that her mental condition was governed by the soul
rather than by the body.
Heavily the rainy evening wore on. The statement of the Lady Pearl had
added to the Duchess's conviction that some deep-laid plot was brewing
between Mrs. Verulam and Chloe. Her Grace's knowledge of the world
taught her that Mrs. Verulam must in all probability be a desperate
woman to-night. For had she not been whipped by the Countess of Sage
in the eyes of the whole world? And let a woman be reckless and wicked
as Messalina, her first public scourging does not leave her unmoved;
but, on the other hand, it probably does leave her defiant, careless
of consequences, ready for any fierce and wild adventure. Was not,
perhaps, some fierce and wild adventure afoot to-night? The Duchess
felt like a regiment of sentries as she sat brooding by the silent
orchestrion, her eyes fixed so furiously on Mrs. Verulam that that
wicked little baggage seemed set in mist—seemed blurred as the shining
disc is blurred to the subject being hypnotised.
Only when the men came in from the dining-room, and she met again the
furtive eyes of her husband, did the Duchess feel painfully that over
the watch-dog paradoxically a watch was set.
That night the women went to their rooms early. As good nights were
being exchanged, Chloe and Mrs. Verulam made one last agonised attempt
to take part in a quiet whisper. But the Duchess pounced on Mrs.
Verulam, Mr. Rodney leapt to Chloe's side, and the whisper died almost
ere it was born. Mrs. Verulam ascended the staircase in a somewhat
despairing manner, throwing an occasional glance down into the hall, in
which Mr. Bliggins and other detectives were arranging various silver
spirit-bottles, gold cigar-boxes, malachite ash-trays, and other male
paraphernalia. For Mr. Rodney, now in a nervous fever which rendered
him entirely reckless of conventionalities and consequences, had
suddenly informed Mr. Harrison that the baronial hall must accommodate
the smokers that night, his object being to occupy a post of vantage
in the very centre of the palace, so that he might be on the spot to
prevent any surreptitious conduct on Mrs. Verulam's part. He regarded
her now very strangely as a socially ruined lunatic, whom yet he
adored in a frenzied and unutterable manner, and he was becoming
madly, feverishly jealous. Mrs. Verulam's apparent indifference to
the appalling incident which had taken place that afternoon in the
Enclosure convinced him that she was off her head, but his throbbing
heart forced him to the terrible conclusion that it was a crazy passion
for the supposed orange-grower which had made her so. For his sake
she defied the world; for love of him she lay down in public at a
race-meeting and let the old Countess of Sage go trampling over her.
Van Adam had bewitched her; but he should not escape his surveillance
to-night. On that Mr. Rodney was passionately determined. When,
therefore, Chloe endeavoured as usual to slip away in the wake of the
ladies, Mr. Rodney bounded up with the activity of a panther and placed
himself before her in a jungle attitude.
"You are not going already, Van Adam!" he cried—"so early! Why, it is
only about nine o'clock."
It was really a quarter to eleven.
Chloe yawned.
"I'm dead-beat," she began.
"Then a smoke will do you good. You must have a cigar—you must——"
And he laid hold of her arm with a pretended cordiality, which his
twisted and wrinkled face belied. Chloe stood still and looked at
him. She wanted terribly to get away and, by some stratagem, obtain
an interview with Mrs. Verulam; at the same time, she did not wish
to rouse any suspicion of her desire. She perceived that the owner
of Mitching Dean was painfully excited: the veins stood out on his
narrow forehead, his thin hands fluttered like a bird's wings, his
moustache seemed to bristle with suspicion, and he stared at her like
all Scotland Yard at a malefactor. This convulsed effigy made such
an impression upon her that she took her foot from the staircase
reluctantly and came back with him to the spirit-bottles, where the
Duke was mixing himself a drink, while Mr. Ingerstall fumed in an
armchair over a cigarette sent from a Parisian tobacconist, and Mr.
Bush poured volumes of smoke out of Peter Jackson.
"A drink, my dear Van Adam," cried Mr. Rodney in a very theatrical
manner—"a long drink, a strong drink, and a drink all together."
He was trying to be hilarious, without knowing the way to do it. The
Duke turned round.
"Hullo!" he said. "Van Adam sitting up! Bravo! Have a weed?"
He extended a mighty cigar-case. Chloe meekly rifled it, wondering what
would happen next.
"Have a light?" said his Grace, striking one on his trousers like
Chirgwin, the White-eyed Kaffir.
"Thanks," said Chloe.
"Not that end, my son."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking!"
"You haven't pinched the end off. That's better. What? Won't it draw?"
"No; I don't think it will. I'll—I think I'll have a cigarette,
thanks."
"That's a damned good cigar."
"Splendid! Still, I think after all I will have a cigarette."
"A pipe's the thing," rumbled the paragon—"a pipe and a fistful of
Bristol Bird's-eye."
"Oh no, thanks; not a pipe!" cried Chloe, hastily seizing a cigarette,
which she understood the management of. "That's all right."
"Come and sit here," said the Duke, beckoning her to a divan.
He intended to use her as a stalking-horse, and to lull to sleep any
suspicions which the paragon might have that he was being watched.
Chloe came to the divan puffing at her cigarette. Mr. Rodney
frantically followed, and placed himself erect on a very small upright
cane-chair. He was smoking an unlighted cigar, which he occasionally
removed from his white lips, in order that he might blow rings of
imaginary smoke into the air. The Duke strove to seem larky and at ease.
"Now the women are gone we can say what we like, eh?" he began.
"Yes," faltered Chloe; "we can say what we like now."
"A very good cigar this," cried Mr. Rodney with a jaunty air, that sat
as naturally upon him as a matinée hat on the head of a major-general.
"I daresay it is—when it's lighted," said the Duke, with a prolonged
snigger.
Mr. Rodney got violently red, and lit eight or ten matches all at the
same time.
"Well done, Rodney! Set the place on fire!" cried the Duke. "What the
deuce is that?"
It was merely the noise made by Mr. Harrison as he raced to the
telephone to acquaint the Bun Emperor that Mr. Rodney was at present
engaged in igniting the palace. Concealed among the pedals of the
organ, the groom of the chambers had been doing detective duty.
"It sounded like athletic sports on an oil-cloth," continued the Duke,
while Mr. Rodney held his cigar in the match flames till it glowed like
a furnace. "Well, as I was saying, now we can say what we like. Tell us
a good story, Rodney—one of your rorty ones."
Mr. Rodney shrivelled.
"I fear," he murmured—"I fear I am scarcely in the—the—er—rorty
vein to-night. To-morrow—the next day—perhaps——"
"Well, then, you tip us one, Van Adam. Give us some of your Florida
experiences among the orange-girls. What? Go ahead!"
Thus adjured, Chloe said:
"Some of the girls in Florida do such lovely needlework, you have no
idea."
The Duke raised one eyebrow to a level with his side parting.
"Lovely needlework! That's a funny beginning for a Pink un. Well?"
"Yes; but they do indeed. They sit all day in the sun and——"
"Damned silly girls! Spoil their complexions! They should go into the
shade, eh! What—what?"
"I knew a grisette once who lived on a fourth floor in the Rue des
Martyres," began Mr. Ingerstall in the distance; but nobody heeded him,
and he relapsed passionately into his former moody silence.
"They sit in the sun and work hard for their living," continued Chloe,
trying to look rakish without losing self-respect.
"Deuced tiresome to keep on working hard for one's living in the sun,
eh, Rodney?" cried his Grace.
"I confess I should prefer to be under the trees, Duke—I confess that
frankly," said the owner of Mitching Dean with unnecessary earnestness.
"Well, go on, Van Adam," said the Duke, expectant of some spicy
development in this apparently unpromising plot—"they work for their
living in the sun. Well?"
"Well—er—well, that's all," said Chloe, rather crestfallen.
The Duke's jaw fell several inches.
"All! Oh, come, I say, hang it, you're pulling all our legs!"
"Pulling all your—oh, indeed, I'm not! Why should I do such a thing? I
do assure you, Duke——"
"But, hang it, your story'd do for a school treat or a grandmothers'
meeting. That's not the sort of thing Rodney cares for—eh, Rodney?"
and his Grace was good enough to dig the owner of Mitching Dean in his
eminently respectable ribs. Mr. Rodney started, and broke the frail
back of the small chair on which he was sitting. "Smashing up the
furniture now, after trying to set the whole place on fire," cried the
Duke, just as Mr. Harrison was in course of stealing back cautiously to
his lair among the organ-pedals.
The groom of the chambers heard the sentence with bristling horror,
and immediately made off once more to the telephone, through which he
proceeded to deliver the following remarks to the fishing-cottage:
"After setting fire to the 'ouse—oh, most decidedly, sir!—Mr. Rodney
is now smashing up of Mrs. Lite's own particular chairs—oh, indeed!
And the Duke, ma'am, is splitting his sides with laughture while he
done it. I am keeping an eye on him according to your instructions,
sir, and to my latest breath will do so, though what will become of us
all, ma'am, is more than anyone can say—oh, indeed, I do assure you on
every account whatever!"
On hearing this peaceful catalogue of facts, the Emperor and Empress
engaged Mr. Harrison in animated conversation for the space of perhaps
an hour and a half, during which time events were moving forward in the
palace with some rapidity. In answer to the Duke, Mr. Rodney forced a
ghastly smile, and answered hoarsely:
"An accident! merely an unlucky accident, Duke! I shall make it good to
Mr. Lite."
"If you don't he'll probably skin you," said his Grace. "He's so
tetchy."
"Oh, really," rejoined Mr. Rodney, looking much upset—"really, I
should not submit for a moment to any indignity of that nature."
"Well, I daresay even a moment of being flayed would inconvenience a
chap. But come, give us a Limerick. Cheer us up now! Give us a good
Limerick. You must know thousands."
"I assure you I do not. I have never been in Ireland."
The Duke burst out into a mirthless laugh.
"Well, upon my—what's Ireland got to do with it?"
"Everything, I should suppose," returned Mr. Rodney, trembling with
nervous exhaustion, but trying to look dignified. "Where are you going,
Van Adam?"
"Bed," said Chloe, endeavouring to vanish.
"Bed be damned!" remarked the Duke. "I never saw such fellows for a
carouse. Bed at ten!"
"It is past eleven," said Chloe uncomfortably, while Mr. Rodney looked
eaten up with suspicion.
"Well, what if it is?" exclaimed the Duke. "Does America go to bed at
seven?"
"Oh, I don't say that——"
"I should imagine not. Anyone would think we were a lot of damned old
women. Here, pour some whisky down your throat and look jolly."
Chloe obeyed the first command but not the second. Mr. Ingerstall, at
this point in the carouse, bounced up from his chair, muttered some
French oaths, and suddenly tore upstairs.
"There's another cheery soul!" said the Duke after him. "We might all
as well be Sunday-school teachers at a Methodist funeral at once."
He was proceeding to various other comparisons of a like innocent and
respectable nature, when the air was rent by an exceeding loud uproar.
Mr. Rodney caught hold of the sides of his chair and cried, "What's
that?"
The Duke looked hastily at the organ and Chloe apprehensively at the
ceiling. The uproar was repeated, and then they became aware that it
came from the nose of the paragon, and signified that he was resting.
"Oh, it's only Mr.—it's only Bush asleep," said Chloe.
"Asleep!" said the Duke, with a bitter sneer.
He felt convinced that the paragon's snores were merely a blind to
deceive a doting husband. The demon in human form was doubtless wide
awake, perhaps conceiving some diabolical plot beneath this theatrical
travesty of the gentle music of slumber.
"He sleeps very loud," said Mr. Rodney—"for decent society."
"He does sleep very loud," said the Duke. Then, lowering his voice, he
hummed into Mr. Rodney's ear: "Does anything occur to you, Rodney?"
"I beg your pardon, Duke?" said Mr. Rodney.
"I say, does anything occur to you with regard to it?"
"With regard to what?"
"This damned uproarious sleep?"
"No," said Mr. Rodney. "Nothing at all. Why, what should occur to me?"
"Oh, Lord! I don't know," said the Duke, with keen irritation and
contempt. "I don't know."
He released the owner of Mitching Dean, and, looking round, exclaimed:
"Why, where the deuce is Van Adam?"
Mr. Rodney gazed wildly in every conceivable direction.
"He's gone!" he cried on a piercing note. "He's——"
In his turn he bent down to the Duke and whispered excitedly, "Does
anything occur to _you_, Duke?"
"Eh?"
"I say, does anything occur to you?"
And Mr. Rodney crouched over him, looking far more surreptitious and
knowing than Guy Fawkes.
"What about?"
"About Van Adam's sudden going to bed in this strange manner?"
whispered Mr. Rodney.
"No, except that he's like some damned old woman. What should occur?"
"Oh dear, nothing, nothing at all!" cried Mr. Rodney petulantly.
"I—I——Good night!"
And he suddenly hastened upstairs four steps at a time, displaying the
activity of a wild-cat and the excitement of a van-load of monkeys.
"Well, of all the snivelling, psalm-singing, nonconformist, Salvation
Army sets of fellows that ever I met in my life," said the Duke
irrelevantly, "this one takes the——"
He paused, and sat for a moment listening to the wild symphony of the
paragon, who was sunk deep in his armchair with his huge head plunged
upon his chest.
"That fellow's as broad awake as I am," muttered the Duke to himself,
"and broader! But I'll be even with him, crafty as he is!"
He got up softly, went to the swing-door that led to the detectives'
quarters, put his head through it and hissed, "Bliggins!"
Bliggins appeared, wiping curry, trifle and champagne from his startled
features. The Duke beckoned to him and jerked his chin upwards.
Bliggins approached, assuming his hungry look.
"D'you hear that?" the Duke whispered.
"Which, sir?"
"Which! I told you to be dumb, not deaf! Which! That!"
The paragon snored.
"Yes, sir. Which of 'em is playing the organ, sir?"
"The organ, you fool! It's the red-bearded villain pretending to be
asleep."
"He pretends awful noisy, sir!"
"Yes; he over-does it. He's no artist, deep as he is. Now listen to me.
Go and turn out the lights. Then come back here and watch. If he stops
snoring, crawl up the backstairs to the chocolate room, and let me know
immediately. You understand?"
"I do, sir."
"Very well, not a word."
The Duke retreated up the main staircase on tiptoe, while Mr. Bliggins
proceeded to turn out the lights and leave the paragon in total
darkness.
Although night is the time for sleep, and is usually, in country
places, dedicated to that delightful occupation, circumstances induced
a good many people to sit up in the palace during the hours of
darkness, to listen with a strained attention for any nocturnal sound.
Mr. Harrison, as we know, was busy at the telephone, explaining to his
Emperor that the palace was being set on fire and the furniture reduced
to matchwood by the owner of Mitching Dean. Mr. Bliggins crouched like
a tiger behind the swing-door, solacing himself with a parcel of curry
which he had hastily ravished from the detectives' supper-table and
wrapped in a sheet of brown paper convenient for the pocket. The Duke
sat with his ear to the keyhole of the chocolate bedroom. The Duchess,
who was located in the grey bedroom, was on the alert in a majestic
early Victorian dressing-gown with her hair in curl-papers, to which
she still faithfully adhered, despite the changing fashions of an age
of tongs and pins. Her Grace was determined Mrs. Verulam should make
no expedition, hold no colloquy with the orange-grower unobserved,
uninterrupted. Mrs. Verulam was frantically writing a note to Chloe,
while the faithful Marriner stood by ready to convey it with all speed
and caution to that deception's apartment. As to Mr. Rodney, he had
turned out all the lights in his room, set the door ajar and removed
his pumps, and now sat in his slippered feet and dense darkness waiting
for he knew not what. Only he was confident that something was up, that
Mrs. Verulam and Chloe were desirous of communicating with each other,
and that they would probably endeavour to do so under cover of night.
Upon the cupolas of the palace meanwhile the rain dripped steadily, and
in the mighty hall below the paragon snored on, as the Duke supposed,
in violently pretended slumber. Soon after Chloe had gained her room,
Mr. Rodney heard a gentle rustle near his door.
"Who's there?" he called, in a trembling voice.
He was answered by a slight soprano scream and a sudden violent
scrambling, as the faithful Marriner on terror-stricken feet gained
Chloe's room, into which she cast a note before fleeing in a frenzied
manner to her virgin chamber in an upper storey. The note hit Chloe,
who was at the writing-table, in the eye. She uttered an ejaculation of
surprise, then controlled herself, and tore it open.
"We must meet to-night," it ran. "Wait till all is quiet, then steal
down in the dark to the hall, and meet me there. Do not light a
candle, as I think the Duchess is probably on the look-out, full of
horrible suspicions. I have extraordinary news to communicate.
"Daisy."
"When all is quiet," murmured Chloe to herself. "And I, too, have
extraordinary news to communicate."
She sat waiting in a smoking-coat and a pair of Moorish slippers till
the psychological moment should arrive. The minutes wore on in their
usual weary manner on such occasions. The wind sighed against the
casement, announcing the fact that it was an inclement night. Several
times the Duke had crawled to the balustrade of the staircase, and
heard that the paragon was still pretending to be asleep. Several times
Mr. Rodney had said, "Who's there?" without result. Several times
had the Duchess torn her curl-papers in a fury of anger against Mrs.
Verulam, and folded the early Victorian dressing-gown more firmly round
her ample form, anticipating the time of action. But nothing happened.
Both Mrs. Verulam and Chloe, overwhelmed with prudence, prolonged their
vigil, dreading to come forth before the inmates of the palace were
duly plunged in sleep. At length the Duke dropped into a nap with his
ear to the keyhole. Mr. Rodney's slippered feet grew cold, and he lay
down for an instant between the blankets just to get them warm and keep
his rheumatic fever a little quiet. Mr. Bliggins, having finished the
whole of his parcel of curry, retired for a second from his post to put
some trifle up in paper and lay hold of a magnum of champagne. And the
Duchess nodded her head at nothing, and endeavoured to contend with the
trooping dreams that thronged about her weary brain. Then Mrs. Verulam
stole forth upon the landing, holding in one hand an unlighted bedroom
candle, and keeping her draperies quiet with the other. Feeling her
way, and suffering many things from walls and balusters, she softly
descended the staircase to the hall in which Mr. Bush still sat,
although, attacked by a nightmare that paralysed all his faculties,
he had for the moment ceased to snore. Reaching the hall, she paused
and listened. She heard no noise except a patter of the rain on some
distant cupola. But suddenly a cold hand grasped her.
"Oh!" she cried.
"Be quiet, Daisy!" said Chloe's voice. "It's only me. They're all
asleep. Don't wake them."
"I thought it was a ghost!" gasped Mrs. Verulam convulsively. "Oh dear,
I should like to cry!"
"There isn't time. I've got dreadful things to whisper. Can't we sit
down?"
She felt cautiously for a seat.
"Here's a—no, it's an umbrella-stand, we can't sit on that."
"There's something comfortable here," whispered Mrs. Verulam, and she
sank down gently on a large cactus in a porcelain tub.
Her resurrection was instant, and was accompanied by a strangled wail
that reached the ears of the nodding Duchess. Her Grace started,
grasped the curl-papers in a frenzied manner, and tried to recall who
she was and what she was doing. This took time, and meanwhile Mrs.
Verulam and Chloe had at last found a large armchair, in which they
both gingerly ensconced themselves.
"Now," whispered Mrs. Verulam, "I must tell you——"
"And I you, that——"
"Mr. Rodney has heard from Lord Bernard Roche. Don't pinch me. Oh! oh!"
"Lord Bernard! What does he say? Tell me, tell me quickly!"
"That Husk—that your husband is on his way to England to——"
"I know; only he's not on his way—he's here."
"Here! what do you mean?"
"What I say. Yillick wired it. You saw the telegram. He came by the
_Arethusa_, and he's here."
"Not at Ribton Marches? Mercy! Let us go back to our rooms! Oh, why——"
"No, no, but in Berkshire. He may come to Ascot at any moment. What
must I do?"
"Do you want to marry him again?"
"Marry! Daisy! What _do_ you mean?"
"Well, you know, he wants to marry you. That's why he has come. If you
pinch me, I must and will shriek out!"
And she struggled vehemently between Chloe's suddenly clutching hands.
"What do you mean? You shall tell me! I will tear it out of you!"
"Help! help!"
"Be quiet! You'll wake the whole house!"
"I don't care if I do! I won't be murdered without a——"
"There, then! Now be quiet. Marry me again! Huskinson marry me again!"
"Lord Bernard said in his letter to Mr. Rodney that he sailed for
England on purpose to do it. He's discovered that you never—Bream, you
know. The Crackers have acknowledged they perjured themselves. What are
you doing, Chloe? What——"
She listened to a curious little emotional sound that stirred the
blackness in Chloe's direction. It was of a gurgling nature, not
exactly laughter, not precisely weeping, yet partaking of the nature
of both; intense excitement, it seemed, expressing itself in an
inarticulate, but irresistible, music. It went on for about two
minutes, and then Chloe pinched Mrs. Verulam again with all her might
and main in silence. Mrs. Verulam's whispered reply to this fresh
assault was: "I always thought so, Chloe. You could not deceive me."
"Nonsense! It isn't true!"
"But you can't re-marry him in trousers!"
"Oh, don't—don't! I shall take them off! Of course—of course I shall
take them off!"
"Yes. But if you do that, what is to happen to me?"
"You!"
"Yes. Remember I exist."
A kiss from Chloe was the ecstatic reply to this protest—a kiss
vehement, genuine, and rather loud. It was heard by an early Victorian
dressing-gown, which spent the next few minutes in trying to locate it.
"Dear! I'm so glad—for you. But—but it's all very complicated, Chloe."
"Well, but I've done my work. I've saved you from society. Lady Sage
has cut you publicly, and all your friends will follow suit. So you're
all right now, dear."
"Yes, I'm all right now," said Mrs. Verulam in a most dreary and
doleful whisper; "I'm all right now."
"Then I must disappear—to some place where I can change my trousers
quietly, some place remote, deserted. Oh, Daisy, how I shall always
love that place!"
"And give up society?"
"I don't care now. I feel as you do."
"As I do?"
"Yes, that it is hollow, meretricious, morbid, vulgar, empty, futile,
lying, slanderous, loveless, greedy, vain, hid——"
"Oh, stop! It sounds like 'How the water comes down at Lodore.' I never
said all that."
"You said most of it, and you were right. I would rather take off
these trousers and—and—well, you know—Huskinson, than consort with
archduchesses for the rest of my natural life."
"Oh, archduchesses—yes," said Mrs. Verulam, rather doubtfully.
"Viennese society is so very stiff and conventional."
"Love is the only thing," continued Chloe, once more passionately
pinching her friend. "You are right."
"Did I say so?"
"Daisy! Why, about Bungay and Mr. Bush! Why, when you first saw him in
his meat-safe, you——"
"Yes, yes, I remember. But I daresay it wasn't really a meat-safe,
though it was very like one." She started, as if struck by a sudden
idea. "Bungay!" she cried, in an excited whisper. "Bungay! your
trousers. The very place!"
"Bungay, my trousers! What do you mean? Surely it would spoil them!"
"Listen! You want to change them, don't you?"
"Yes, yes, as soon as possible."
"In a quiet, sweet place, full of roses, the hum of bees, the——"
"I don't know that the hum of bees is actually necessary. I might
manage without that."
"And I—I am weary of it all. I am sick of being cut and
cold-shouldered."
"Already? I thought you enjoyed it."
"Yes, just at first. But now I want to get out of it all. I can't go to
the races to-morrow."
"Nor can I. Huskinson may be there. And if he saw me in—well, I should
just expire!"
"And the Duchess is going to cut me, too, as soon as the week is over.
I have no social duty towards her now. I have no social duty to anyone.
Chloe, let us go! Let us creep away!"
"Creep! Where to?"
"To Bungay. There must be cots there; we will take one."
"A cot? What's that?"
"A thing that is smaller than a cottage. We will bury ourselves——"
"Creep away and bury ourselves—it sounds rather earthy."
"You shall change your trousers. I will dream, work, learn the true
life; _he_ shall teach me."
"James Bush?"
"Yes. Let us go."
"When?"
"Now."
"Is there a train at one o'clock in the morning?"
"It is not far, I think; only some miles."
"Some—yes; but how many? Two or twenty?"
"It is in this county somewhere. We will find it."
"I hope so."
"I shall leave a note, saying—er——"
"What lie?"
"That I am called to the sick-bed of a dear mother."
"But Lady Sophia's quite well."
"Of a dying sis—no; I haven't got one—a dying relative. Everybody has
a dying relative, so that will do. Oh, to be away in the free air!"
"The free air's very cold on a wet night."
"Are you a coward, Chloe?"
"I! No!" cried Chloe in a violent whisper. "I'll go now—this instant.
A coward—never!"
"Then away—away!"
"Yes—yes; away!"
At the third "away" Mr. Bush emerged from his nightmare and renewed his
vociferous snoring. Mrs. Verulam and Chloe started and trembled.
"What's that?" said Mrs. Verulam. "Oh! is it a ghost?"
"It sounds like something horrible! Oh, and there's a light flickering!
Daisy—Daisy, let us run!"
And they ran, just as the Duchess, with bristling curl-papers and a
night-light shrouded in a fragment of the Times newspaper, appeared
cautiously at the head of the stairs, the early Victorian dressing-gown
streaming out behind her in a majestic and terror-striking manner.
Her Grace had heard the impact of Chloe's kiss, followed by the sound
of excited whisperings, which she had finally located as emanating
from the baronial hall. Listening with a strained attention, and eyes
becoming far more prominent than those of the average lobster, she had
presently arrived at the awful certainty that the whispering voices
belonged to her hostess and the orange-grower. She therefore fell into
a paroxysm of respectable fury, and, catching up the night-light,
proceeded forth to confront wickedness in its very lair, and force it
to acknowledge itself and to receive a terrible castigation. Unluckily,
the premature snores of the paragon had served as a warning of her
approach by distracting the attention of Mrs. Verulam and Chloe from
their own engrossing concerns; and consequently, before the Duchess had
time to miss her footing, and, stumbling in the labyrinth of the early
Victorian dressing-gown, to fall, and, bounding from step to step of
the Emperor's expensive staircase, to roll, night-light in hand, into
the baronial hall, they were well away among the winter gardens, out of
hearing and almost beyond the reach of pursuit.
The noise of her Grace's close intercourse with the Emperor's oak and
Parian marble not only disturbed the rest of the paragon—which was
perfectly genuine, despite the suspicions of the Duke—but attracted
the painful attention of the owner of Mitching Dean in the green,
and of his Grace in the chocolate, bedroom. Mr. Rodney trembled in a
nervous paroxysm, and the perspiration, as was its custom, stood in
beads upon his narrow brow. The Duke, who had been napping, sprang
up, lit a candle after about eight-and-twenty attempts, seized the
nearest weapon at hand—a cat's-eye breast-pin, with diamond strawberry
leaves, and the Southborough crest, a sheep's head rouge in the cup
of a tulip noir—and made forth upon the landing like one distraught,
exactly as his Duchess rolled to the very feet of the paragon, covered
with bruises and abrasions, the night-light extinguished in her fist.
Feeling in agony for something to stay her barrel-like progress,
her Grace grasped Mr. Bush in the dark, and he, suddenly waked from
sleep, and perhaps under some such impression as that he was beset by
stranglers or attended by phantoms, grappled her in return, greatly
to her terror. She screamed; he grappled all the more. And the Duke,
staring wildly over the balustrade, beheld a picture that might well
shake the faith of the most trusting husband in Christendom—at any
rate, it shook his to its foundations. He protruded the candle over the
balustrade, and roared in a voice of thunder:
"I've caught you at last, have I?"
The question rang through the hall. The paragon heard it, and perceived
the fierce and frenzied countenance of his Grace, then, gazing
downwards, beheld the Duchess in a dressing-gown kneeling at his feet.
This was enough. Under the notion that he must have made an impression
on her Grace, and that the Duke was about to take vengeance on the
guiltless as well as on the guilty party, he cast the Duchess off and
fled he knew not whither.
"You shall not escape me!" shrieked the Duke. "Your blood—I'll have
it!"
And leaping down the remaining stairs, he jumped the Duchess cleverly,
and tore after the paragon with the fixed intention of taking it there
and then. The Duchess fled in an opposite direction just as Miss
Bindler, who had been waked by all this noise and movement, opened
her bedroom door and, suspecting cracksmen, emptied six chambers of
her pocket-revolver over the landing into the hall, at the same time
remarking:
"This sort of thing won't do; it's time someone taught these fellows a
lesson."
Although the Bun Emperor's palace was exceedingly large, it now
contained so many people in full flight that there was some slight
danger of their knocking up against one another. Mrs. Verulam and
Chloe, Mr. James Bush, the Duke and the Duchess, were all stretching
away at full speed in various directions, and to their number were
shortly added Mr. Harrison, Mr. Bliggins, and the owner of Mitching
Dean. The groom of the chambers was disturbed in his operations at the
telephone by being knocked down just as he was saying to the Emperor:
"Oh, most certainly, sir; you may rely on me, and Mrs. Lite, to my
latest breath—oh, indeed! I know I am, sir—I know I am responsible;
and if so much as the house is set afire, or the furniture is broke to
pieces, I shall——"
At this point in his discourse the paragon ran against him like a
charging elephant, and laid him low; and while he was engaged in
endeavouring to get up, the Duke fell over him, and the noise of Miss
Bindler's six shots rang through the palace. Mr. Harrison sat up, and
the Duke began to strangle him, while Mr. Rodney, terrified by Miss
Bindler's behaviour, tore out of the green bedroom, and rushed to the
detectives' quarters, crying in a piercing voice:
"Save yourselves! All is over! Save yourselves!"
Four of the detectives were so fast asleep that they took no manner of
notice of this kindly warning; but Mr. Bliggins, dropping his paper
of trifle and tipsy-cake, and letting his magnum fall with a crash,
took to his heels, and, after making the entire circuit of the palace
about eighty-five times at the top of his speed, plunged head-foremost
through a plate-glass window, emerged into the domain, and never
stopped till he reached London, where he at once took up another
profession.
Mr. Harrison was not of a temper to be strangled, even by a Duke,
without making some show of opposition; and on this occasion he exerted
himself to such good purpose that, after about ten minutes of acute
struggling, during which the fortunes of war sometimes inclined to one
side and sometimes to the other, he succeeded in extricating his throat
from his Grace's claws, when, wailing at the top of his voice, he
flapped off into the darkness, and was no more seen. This misadventure
had given the paragon such a start that he gained his bedroom in
safety, turned the key eight or nine times in the lock, and then began
tying the bed-sheets together with a view to instantly escaping to
Bungay by the window. The sheets were, however, too short, and he was
forced to desist from this attempt. Meanwhile the Duke, believing that
he had very nearly killed Mr. Bush, who had probably only escaped
for the moment to die a lingering death in some distant corner of
the palace, got up and hurried away to Mr. Rodney's room, which he
reached just as the owner of Mitching Dean darted back into it, and was
preparing to shut the door on imaginary murderers.
"Don't dare to enter!" cried Mr. Rodney, struggling to bang the door on
the Duke. "I shall certainly kill the first man who enters!"
He meant that the first man who entered would certainly kill him, but
that was his way of putting it.
"Rodney! Rodney!" cried his Grace. "Let me in, Rodney—let me in!"
"If I sell my life, I'll sell it dearly!" replied Mr. Rodney. "I will
not be slain without a struggle."
And he elongated himself against the swaying door, while Miss Bindler,
with rapid precision, reloaded her revolver in the adjoining bedroom,
and the Duchess tore through Winter Garden No. 3.
"Rodney, don't be a fool! Don't be an ass, Rodney!"
"I will! Nothing shall prevent me—nothing on earth! I will! I will!"
replied the owner of Mitching Dean, with an attempt at manly decision
of manner.
But the Duke was desperate, and was also very much stronger physically
than Mr. Rodney. He therefore burst in the door, and added:
"Rodney, you must act for me in this affair—I insist upon it; I
require it of you. Rodney, you must act for me in this affair."
The owner of Mitching Dean, who was busily engaged in trying to get
under the bed before his visitor had time to slay him, made no reply to
this demand, unless the putting of his head and nearly half his trunk
into hiding could be called so. But the Duke had laid aside all sense
of his great position, and now pointed his remarks, and endeavoured
to convey a sense of their real urgency, by seizing fast hold of Mr.
Rodney's left leg, and trying with might and main to eject him from the
position which he had taken up.
"I will die here! I will not be killed in the open! I will die here!"
cried Mr. Rodney in a suffocated voice, passionately endeavouring to
force some more of his person beneath the tester.
"You'll die where I choose!" retorted his Grace, losing his temper and
commencing to handle the unfortunate gentleman rather roughly. "Come
out of it!"
"No, no; I will not come out! I will die here!" shrieked Mr. Rodney,
while Miss Bindler emerged once more upon the landing, and again
started firing about the palace.
"Come out you shall!" shouted the Duke, and he acted with such vigour
that in something less than ten minutes he had forced Mr. Rodney from
his cover and dragged him, smothered with dust and pale with terror,
into the open.
"Do it mercifully! For Heaven's sake, kill me without hurting me!"
began the owner of Mitching Dean, looking at his Grace with eyes that
had retreated far into his head. "What—you, Duke! I thought you were
one of my oldest and most valued—you to fly at me like——"
"Rodney, you're an ass! You're a fool, Rodney! But, all the same, you
must act for me in this affair."
Mr. Rodney, beginning to gather that his slaughter was not so imminent
as he had previously supposed, now endeavoured to assume an air of
dignity.
"Duke, this is strange language," he began stiffly.
"Damned strange! and so's it strange your getting under the bed
directly I try to speak to you. Sit down."
And the Duke thrust the owner of Mitching Dean into a sitting posture
upon the bed, closed the door, turned the key in the lock, returned
to Mr. Rodney—who had meanwhile again gone very pale, suspecting
treachery—and remarked:
"Rodney, I've just been trying to strangle that fellow Bush!"
This was scarcely reassuring, but Mr. Rodney forced a tortured smile,
and stammered, with white lips:
"Did you—did you succeed—in doing so, Duke?"
"Only partially, Rodney—only partially, I fear," returned his Grace.
"He managed to get away from me."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, just as I was on the point of choking the life out of him."
"What—what a pity!" gasped Mr. Rodney in a humouring tone.
The Duke grasped his trembling hand.
"You're a good fellow, Rodney!" he exclaimed. "I knew I could rely on
you."
"Oh, certainly, Duke, certainly. Rely on me, pray!"
"I will. Then you will act for me in this affair?"
"Yes, yes, with the greatest pleasure!" cried Mr. Rodney, feebly
temporising.
"Thank you! You're a man, after all! We'll kill him yet, between us!"
Mr. Rodney gasped. Still, he preferred the _rôle_ of murderer to the
_rôle_ of dead body, on the whole. He therefore thought it best to
reply:
"I hope so—I sincerely hope so."
"My belief is this," continued the Duke, knitting his brows
ferociously, "that the fellow is already more than half dead."
"Dear me!"
"Although he had sufficient strength left to crawl away and hide
himself—Heaven knows where."
"Oh!"
"Either he'll die in some attic or basement, under a pump, or in a sink
or somewhere, like the rat he is, or he'll break out of the place and
make a bee-line for Bungay. In that event, we shall follow him directly
it's dawn."
"Quite so, Duke—quite so!"
"Force a duel on him then and there, and shoot him like a dog in his
own damned cabbage-garden!"
"An excellent plan—excellent!" cried Mr. Rodney, trembling in the
absolute conviction that the Duke was raving mad. "How—how clever of
you to think of it!"
"This sort of business makes a man think," said the Duke moodily.
"It does—it does, indeed!" murmured Mr. Rodney, who had, perhaps,
thought more during the last fifteen minutes than in the whole course
of his previous life.
"Very well, then," said the Duke; "then that's settled?"
"Quite—absolutely!"
"Don't you play me false!"
"Oh, Duke! Could you suppose such a thing possible?" cried Mr. Rodney,
assuming an injured air.
"I shall search for the fellow first. If I find him still here, I'll
finish killing him now. If not, you and I start for Bungay as soon as
it's dawn. That's the bargain?"
"That is the bargain."
"Wait here, then, till I come back."
And his Grace left the room, carrying the door-key with him in an
absent-minded manner. Mr. Rodney remained sitting on the bed in a
convulsed attitude, staring at nothing. He had, of course, intended
to lock and double-lock the door after the Duke's exit. Precluded
from taking this simple measure of precaution, he was reduced to a
jelly, and, as such, was naturally incapable of movement. He therefore
remained where he was, and when his Grace, after a considerable
interval, returned to the room, he found the gentleman who was to act
for him in this affair still crouched in a heap upon the mattress, and
looking far more dead than most ordinary living people can manage.
"Rodney," said the Duke, "he's gone! He's got away!"
Mr. Rodney nodded. He was incapable of speech.
"We shall follow him as soon as it's dawn. Get your coat and hat."
"I—I beg your pardon?"
"Get your coat and hat."
Mr. Rodney began to look for those articles in the tooth-brush dish.
Not finding them there, he again collapsed, perhaps from surprise. The
Duke, seeing his condition, rummaged in the wardrobe, produced his
Ascot silk hat and a travelling ulster, handed them to him, and then
remarked:
"Now follow me. We shall spend the rest of the night in my room
considering the best course to take—pistols or swords—and directly
it's light we'll break into the stables, saddle a couple of horses with
our own hands, and ride across country to Bungay. I've got a map of the
district. We shall go as the crow flies."
"As the crow flies!" murmured Mr. Rodney, imbecile in the presence
of this delightful programme: a few hours with a maniac, succeeded
by horse-stealing, and continuing with twenty or thirty miles across
a difficult country in a top-hat, the whole to conclude with a
cold-blooded murder in a marsh. However, he followed the Duke with
tottering steps, and a tongue which clave to the roof of his mouth.
Meanwhile the paragon had indeed escaped from the palace. After finding
that it was impossible to swarm down the sheets, Mr. Bush took counsel
with himself and resolved to dare all in the effort to reach a place
of safety beyond the vengeance of the Duke. He therefore, choosing a
moment when Miss Bindler was engaged in reloading her burglar-destroyer
for the third time, stole forth from his bedroom and gained the
baronial hall unobserved. Once there, he, with cautious hand, proceeded
to unbar the mighty front door, and found himself presently facing a
wild night. The wind was getting up. The rain was coming down. The
darkness was intense. He hesitated. But death was behind him, and he
resolved to go. Only for one instant did he stay to catch up from the
hall-table a bottle of whisky and a box of cigars, provender for the
journey. In justice to him, it must here be stated that he had no time
to notice that the whisky bottle was of silver, engraved with the
Emperor's crest, a bun couchant on a plate d'or, and that the cigar-box
happened by some oversight to be made of gold set with turquoises, and
surrounded by a legend setting forth that it was presented to Mr. Lite
by the Bun-makers' Company as a mark of their "affection and regard."
Laden thus, the paragon disappeared into the darkness, made his way to
the stables, by a fortunate chance ran across a shed in which the head
coachman—a venerable and a very heavy man—stabled his own private
tricycle, and by the time the Duke was searching for him in the sink,
was tricycling at a good round pace along the highroad that led to
Bungay. He flattered himself that his exit had been unnoticed. It had,
however, been observed by two people, the Duchess, who was at that
moment fleeing through an adjoining boudoir, and Mr. Harrison, who
was running away in a contiguous winter garden. Now, the groom of the
chambers had a stern sense of duty, which did not entirely desert him
even when he was trying to escape from being strangled. He therefore
stayed his flight to inform the Emperor that the paragon had just made
off, loaded with gold and silver, presentation caskets, and other
costly treasure, and then continued running away until his strength was
totally exhausted.