It transpired that Miss Maria Potts had not been asleep, save possibly
for a few weary winks. Howard’s inability to reach her ear was due not
to her slumbers but to the fact that half a dozen other Roseborough
citizens were demanding to be connected with Mrs. Mearely’s residence.
For the first hour of the doctor’s absence, Mrs. Wells, muffled in an
eider-down wrapper, and topped with a frilled nightcap, had sat at the
telephone and called everyone whose number she could remember. There
were several whom she did not call, because Peter had mislaid the book.
The book in Mrs. Witherby’s home, however, was not mislaid; and, as
she made Mabel and Corinne do all the packing of her small trunk and
her several bandboxes, she herself had time to spend in notifying the
persons Mrs. Wells omitted that Mrs. Mearely had been “taken ill and
_of course_ sent at once for _me_ to come and oversee things.”
So it was that Mr. Howard had less than five minutes in which to bend
his stern, menacing, contemptuous gaze on the interloper, who was not
only a poacher in the emotional realm, but, judging by his eccentric
attire, was also something of the sort by field and stream. The
instrument behind him tinkled. For the next hour, indeed, it tinkled
incessantly. Howard ran back and forth telling soothing fictions to
first one and then another; sometimes pausing to upbraid the somnolent
constable because he had not caught the gaol-bird and put leg-irons
on him before ever he entered Villa Rose. Constable Marks, sleeping
and waking by jerks, mumbled protests. Mrs. Mearely and her guest,
discreetly seated at opposite sides of the room, were unable to
exchange more than a whispered word or two. His amused cheerfulness
stabbed her to the heart; because he did not know his danger. Straining
her ears nervously, at times she believed she could hear groans
outside--the rumblings of Woodseweedsetisky’s secret service, Teodor
Carl Peter Lassanavatiewicz, shot in the leg by Roseborough’s human
watchdog, Constable Alfred Marks.
Another tinkle drew Howard from his chaperoning station, just within
the doorway. He always left the door open when the bell called him upon
these excursions. The guilty pair could see the back of his head--and
be reminded that he had two ears, and that only one of them was
required for the receiver.
The prince leaned as far out of his chair as he could, without falling
out, and whispered across the room:
“Where does _he_ come in? And why doesn’t he like me?”
“Ssh--!” She held on to the arm of her chair and stretched out her neck
and alarmed countenance, for all the world as though she expected to
be guillotined. “He’s a relative--of Mr. Mearely’s, and--and--” she
stopped, and gestured for silence, thinking that what he overheard of
Howard’s conversation might enlighten him.
“No, thank you.” Howard was repeating what had become a formula; his
tones were still unfailingly polite, but weary and suggestive of nerves
straining thin under the surface. “Mrs. Mearely is not ill. Just a
fright. Mrs. Witherby is _most_ kind and considerate, but it was really
unnecessary to call you up about it. No. Thank you.” He came to the
door and addressed Mrs. Mearely, coldly, “That was Mrs. Field. She says
she has been trying for half an hour to get this line. Between them, I
don’t think Mrs. Wells and Mrs. Witherby have overlooked anybody.”
Ting-a-ling-a-_ling_! With a barely suppressed sigh Mr. Howard went
back to the instrument; absent-mindedly, he closed the door. This time
it was Central herself who desired speech with him.
“Land to goodness! Mr. Howard, I’m tuckered out!” she complained,
bitterly. “What in creation’s happened up to Villa Rose, anyhow? Never,
in all my days in this office, have I heard subscribers ramp round
like they been doin’ this night. I ain’t had a wink of sleep; and maw’s
jest come and stuck a Dollop’s stickem headache plaster on to the
back of my neck. I declare I’m weak as a plucked chicken. I give all
Roseborough fair warning, right now, that I ain’t a-goin’ to stand much
more of it. Here, hold on. Don’t ring off. There’s your party.” Anon,
Howard was answering the same questions in the same wearily courteous
manner.
Seeing that the door was closed Rosamond glanced at Marks and knew, by
his rhythmic snores, that he was resting peacefully. She whispered:
“There is just one chance....”
“I wish you’d tell me what has _happened_. Why are all these people
here? Why are you so distressed?”
“Mrs. Wells telephoned everybody that I had been taken ill. Then when
Mr. Howard came--and found you--and the constable--goodness knows what
they think. They want to have you arrested as a housebreaker.”
“How charming! This _is_ an adventure.” He looked at her, keenly. “Are
they gossiping? Ah--I see. Then the best thing, I suppose, is to give
up this fun, and tell them who I am.”
Forgetting caution in the thrill of his words, she exclaimed aloud:
“Oh Prince! You would make that sacrifice for _me_!” His eyes twinkled
with amusement.
“Yes, dear Madam Make-Believe. ’Tis no sacrifice. Their tongues can’t
hurt _me_.”
She shook her head. Not at any price would she sell his dear liberty.
“You can’t. It is too dangerous. If you were to confess who you
are--now--here--with that awful man in the garden....”
He looked as crestfallen as a boy whose long-planned trick deceives no
one.
“You know who I am then? You only pretended you didn’t?”
“I didn’t know, at first. I thought you were just the--the tramp--the
vagabond you said you were, till that awful man in the garden came and
told me your real name.”
“An awful man in the garden told you my real name?” he asked, puzzled.
He, too, forgot caution and the whisper. He rose and crossed the room
to her, unaware that his moving shadow had flickered upon the screen of
Constable Marks’s dream.
“Yes; a foreign, guttural, blackish man. He speaks all sorts of
languages. He says his name is Lass--Lass--ass--an--a--wiz.”
“Lassanavatiewicz?” he exclaimed, in great astonishment.
“Yes. He has come for you.”
“Oh! but that’s ridiculous!” he asserted, indignantly. “I’ve committed
no crime. He has no right to follow me here. Of all...!”
She interrupted him, thinking altogether of the gravity of his
situation and the need of haste.
“You must get away secretly, if you can, before the
light comes--without his seeing you. I can give some
explanation--temporarily. And when the truth comes out, you will be
safely out of that man’s reach, and everything will be all right for
me. Then they will all look foolish, and it will serve them right.”
She led him, both tiptoeing, in front of Constable Marks toward the
music room.
“You will find a little alcove window at the end of the music room.
Raise it very softly and....”
“I have no faith in either your doors or your windows as a means of
escape. But I will make the third and last attempt.” He whispered this
in her ear, with a return of his natural and whimsical manner. They
reached the door and opened it with a faint click, since their hands
met on the handle. They did not see the Law unveiling its eyes.
“Will it make it better for you if I get away now?” he asked.
“Yes, yes! do it for my sake!”
“Then I’ll go.” He bent toward her.
“Good-bye, Prince Run-Away.” she said, and added wistfully, “Oh, will
you ever come again?”
He kissed her.
“This afternoon,” he answered; and slipped into the music room quickly,
lest she should rebuke him.
“’Alt! ’alt!” Mr. Alfred Marks, it appeared could move suddenly when
duty called. He went after the vagabond at a heavy jog-trot, waving his
weapon in circles that threatened not only his prisoner, but the lady
of the villa and the antiques as well, not to mention portions of Mr.
Marks’s own anatomy.
“Anything to oblige,” the prince said, politely.
“W’ere’s the lights in ’ere? If they ain’t on in a jiff, Hi _shoots_,
and there’s no tellin’ _wot_ Hi’ll _’it_--_maybe nuthin’_!”
Rosamond ran to the switch and turned it. Her vagabond was sitting on
the window-sill, laughing.
“I suppose there was a pass-word once, to get out of this house?”
“Oh! how can you joke?” She burst into tears.
“That’s wot _Hi_ say,” the constable concurred. “Wot’s frisky habout
it? A blamed botheration is wot _you_ are; and Hi’ve ’arf a mind to
_tell_ you so; ’arf a mind and mebbe a bit more! Come horf o’ that
there winder-sill and sit hon the piany-stool. Come horf, now. Hi’ll
sit right ’ere. Hit’ll be heasier to hoversee yer ’ere. Ma’am, shut
the door. Not honly for syfety’s syke--’im bein’ such a slipp’ry
customer--but the hearly mornin’ hair is bad for a sensitive man like
wot Hi am hin a draught.”
“Rosamond!” She heard Howard’s voice, with a sharpness of authority
in it that made her wince. As she returned to the living room, she was
mutely imploring that some means might be put into her hands for the
adequate and sufficient punishment of this man. She sank down upon the
settee and turned her profile to him.
“I grieve to see you in distress,” he began very formally. The
telephone tinkled. “Ringing off--can’t be another connection so soon,”
he muttered. “For your own sake you must corroborate the story I shall
tell.” The bell rang again, a longer tinkle. He frowned, but continued.
“I have been thinking that it may be best”--the bell was ringing loudly
now, Miss Potts losing her patience at the delay--“it may be best to
tell Mrs. Witherby....” He surrendered and went to answer the call.
Rosamond heard wheels coming up the gravel road but she did not move.
All hope of the prince’s escape was lost now, and with it all fear for
herself. She sat still and limp, humped upon the settee, a symbolic
figure of Dejection. Howard, having disposed of the last kind inquirer
with less polite circumlocution than usual, re-entered.
“I want to make you understand, my dear Cousin....” (Miss Maria Potts
inserted the plug again. He scowled, glanced toward the telephone
then endeavoured to continue, regardless of the thin but insistent
tinkle), “er--that you can rely on me, to any extent. I am in no haste
personally to put the worst construction on this event.”
“Oh, really? No?” she hissed at him.
He hesitated, slightly flustered by her accents of scorn and the angry
flashing of her eyes. He had thought of her as submissive and ashamed,
and prepared to show a proper gratitude to those who were rescuing
her from the consequence of her folly. The bell no longer tinkled. It
_pealed_--in long and short rhythm, loudly, without punctuation or
pause. Howard dashed at the telephone and began a counter ringing to
get Central’s ear.
“Central. This is Villa Rose. Mr. Howard speaking. This incessant
ringing is becoming a nuisance. I must request you not to ring this
number again to-night, no matter who asks for it.”
“Oh is that so?” Miss Potts snapped back at him. “I guess I’m to sit
here forever wrapped round in gran’maw’s crazy quilt off my bed, which
was the first thing handy when I had to grab somethin’ to run in here
when that ringing first started to get the doctor. My! land! Nobody
into our rooms has had a wink of sleep--maw, nor Susannah nor the dawg
neither--he’s been growling somethin’ fierce. I’m going to switch every
last one of them crazy subscribers on to your line, when they asks for
it. If you think Maria Potts is the only person that’s going to be
rung up and pestered you’re badly mistook. ’Twas Villa Rose’s line
that started the ructions that’s got all Roseborough on the jig, and I
figger on keepin’ you jest as busy as subscribers keeps me. At that,
you’re fixed a lot more comfortable than I be. I’ll bet you’ve got more
on to you than a crazy quilt.”
“Very well, Central,” harshly. “In that case, I shall leave the
receiver off the hook.”
“_You’re no gent’man!_” she screamed at him.
Howard fulfilled his threat, notwithstanding, and returned to the
downcast but disdainful lady on the settee.
“I was about to say that we must offer Mrs. Witherby a _convincing_
explanation--thoroughly convincing. Therefore, I say, rely on me wholly
and corroborate what I say.”
She gave him a long, cool glance and asked contemptuously:
“What of another woman’s reputation--which it is _you_ who have
injured? Why not protect _her_?”
This unexpected counter-stroke took him aback completely.
“I--er--I fail to apprehend your meaning,” he stammered.
“Oh, people are always ready to sneer at a girl, when a man’s
attentions don’t come to marriage.”
He felt the red deepening in his face and said--the more awkwardly
because he was trying to appear serene and dominant:
“You said nothing of this to me before.”
“No,” she answered, reflectively. “_Then_ I could have sneered with the
rest. I was getting to be like them.”
Feeling more at ease immediately, because she had abandoned the subject
of Miss Crewe to speak of herself, he attempted a return to his former
manner.
“The events of this evening have unstrung you.”
She leaped to her feet as if she were about to attack him.
“Unstrung!” she cried. “They’ve opened my eyes, and the thing I see
most clearly is that _I_ am nothing. Yes, nothing. A few hours ago I
was a much-flattered hostess, the courted mistress of this house, the
woman whose word was law in the fashions and entertainments of this
community....”
“Dear Rosamond, that _is_ your position in Roseborough.”
“Not any longer....”
Whatever she intended to say was forgotten for the moment in the
emotions that surged upon her at the spectacle of Thomas Hogworthy,
Mrs. Witherby’s man-of-all-jobs, with his employer’s trunk on his
shoulders. It was a small yellow-panelled, tin-plated trunk, with a
rounded lid, and well corded with Hannah Ann’s clothesline. He waited
on the threshold.
“Good-evening, Thomas. Er--let me see....” Howard debated whether to
send the trunk immediately to one of the guest rooms, then he thought
it would please Mrs. Witherby better to select her own chamber. “You
had better put the trunk in the dining room just now. That way.”
Thomas, a silent man, merely nodded and, setting the trunk on the
floor, dragged and bumped it over polished wood and rare rugs and into
the dining room. Then, with a curt nod, he silently departed.
Rosamond’s cheeks flamed again with indignation.
“You see! This is no longer my house. _I_ am not mistress here. _You_
have taken authority over my life. Against my orders, you command the
arrest of a man you believe I love; Mrs. Witherby sends her trunk into
my house, without asking my leave, and comes here herself to stay as
long as it pleases her--and _you_ tell her old Thomas where the trunk
is to go!” Her anger grew with the enumeration of her wrongs. “And why
are you so anxious to save me--all of you? For _my_ sake? Oh no! Not
at all. Because of all this--the money and the position. If it were
Mabel Crewe who had given food to a man during the hours and under the
conditions which society deems improper, would some Mrs. Busybody’s
trunk be dragged across _her_ floors--or would you be offering all
your fine talents of invention for _her_ protection?”
She had made him wince again, and he was angry; but, by an effort, he
controlled himself.
“I have not denied that your position makes it more imperative....”
Her rage rose hysterically.
“Yes! The position! The woman is nothing. The woman is just a human
being, and doesn’t count. I’m the--the--axle in Roseborough’s wheel.
So you’ll keep me in my position for your own benefit. The moment I
do something which is outside your rules, you seize on my house and
my life and--and--force me to save my good name--for you--for _you_!”
pointing an accusing forefinger at him. “But you’ll regret it! Send
him to prison and see what comes of it! It’s wicked--wicked. He was so
happy and free. And--and....” Hot tears, the result of strained nerves
and gusts of fury, gushed from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She
sobbed, “You’ll look per--perfect f-fools!”
Mrs. Witherby now came into view. She was scarcely discernible among
leaning towers of band-boxes, and carried a black handbag of the size
and shape of a young gondola. Leaning over the verandah railing she
admonished the silent Mr. Hogworthy.
“Drive home quickly, Thomas. Miss Corinne and Miss Mabel are alone.
And do not forget a single one of my instructions.”
“Mrs. Witherby,” Howard warned.
Mrs. Mearely was past caution.
“She is _your_ guest, not mine!” She tossed her head, and started for
the music room. Alarmed and now thoroughly angry also, at what he
considered her stupid and wilful disregard of a delicate situation, he
strode forward to intercept her.
“Control yourself,” he ordered her, severely. “Control yourself. You
can’t afford to ignore Mrs. Witherby. I certainly would not advise you
to go in there for a _tête-à-tête_ at this stage of the proceedings.”
This latest caution was the last straw.
“I don’t care!” she cried, with rising shrillness. “You--you--have
wicked thoughts. You’re horrid, _horrid people_!” She rushed out, and
slammed the door so vigorously that the antiquities of a thousand years
rattled.
“Well!” Mrs. Witherby said, when she could get her breath. “Well! and
what have you to say to _that_, Mr. Howard?”
“Er--my cousin is not quite herself--hysterical--er....” He lapsed into
silence. No one ever maintained an argument against Mrs. Witherby’s
sniffs.
“You may call it hysteria. I call it ingratitude--and bad manners.
But, really! why should one expect Rosamond Cort, of Poplars Vale, to
have _innate_ manners? (She emphasized “innate” with an inflection
all her own.) Where was she to learn them? From her mother--at the
butter-tubs?”
“Oh no, Mrs. Witherby, I assure you Rosamond is most grateful--in fact,
I might say, almost too grateful. You mistake.”
She put an end to his tremulous mumblings, sharply.
“Instead of contradicting me, I’d be obliged if you’d relieve me of my
bundles. I’ve carried them all the way up the hill. No one came to meet
me or assist me in any way.”
Bowing nervously, Howard seized, from her collection, one bandbox--the
largest--and the handbag.
“I apologize a thousand times. My cousin was giving me a description
of--er--the events that occurred here to-night. And....”
“Kindly be careful with that bandbox,” she snapped.
He bowed again, smiling foolishly.
“I beg your pardon. I believe you will find that I have not injured
it.” He handed it back to her.
“_I_ don’t want it! The string has cut my fingers. I carried it all the
way up the hill. Set it down.”
“I beg your--set it down, I believe you said?” He put the bandbox on
the floor, directly between them, in the middle of the room. “As I was
about to relate, my cousin has....”
“Not there--to be stepped on! Set it under the table.”
“Oh, to be sure! Yes. How odd I didn’t think of the table! My
cousin....”
“Give me my bag again. I need it.”
“To be sure!” He bowed and handed her the desired object. She pulled it
open, took out a handkerchief, dabbed at her nose, put the handkerchief
back and handed the bag again to Howard, who was receiving and
surrendering her property mechanically now.
“My cousin has revealed....”
She saw his embarrassment and his anxiety to conciliate her and she
scorned them.
“Well, I hope she has invented some sort of a story that people can
believe. That’s all I ask of her. As the mother of Corinne, I think I
have the right to ask that.”
He dropped her bag on the bandbox and began eagerly.
“Indeed you _have_, my dear, kind lady. And you’ll be glad to hear that
the true story removes all the--the--doubtful appearances.”
“Don’t put my bag there! Put it _on_ the table.”
He obeyed hastily.
“I beg your pardon. As I was saying, the _true_ story, removes....”
She interrupted him impatiently.
“I heard you! Of course I knew your intelligence would be equal to the
occasion. I suppose you’ve got the man out of the way?”
She had removed her wrap and bonnet, and was moving about the room
fussily, with little touches at this and little dabs at that,
indicating unmistakably that at last a mistress of quality and
authority had come to Villa Rose. She turned the Buddha about from
one position to another, and finally transferred him to the stand by
the settee; she pulled a piece of Sweet William out of the vase of
old-fashioned garden flowers, standing there, and draped it over the
image’s shoulder. She carried an antique copper vase from the mantel to
the bookcase, and was obliged to make room for it there by scattering a
group of small objects. She managed to crowd them all about the vase,
with the exception of a foxhound in green bronze. She finally deposited
this animal at the feet of the Buddha.
“I’ll have a smart talk with those two lazy maids to-morrow, and find
out why they both left the same day as the coachman. I’m more than ever
convinced now, that there’s something queer about _that_. Of course it
would be a dreadful shame to wake Mrs. Lee, yet, if she had a telephone
I really would have called her. She should know about this. Oh, I knew
all along that that gaudy frock had not been put on for _my_ benefit!”
She turned abruptly. “Why don’t you tell me what you’ve done with _the
man_?”
Howard, who had several times attempted to speak, and had also been
following her spasmodic dashes about the room as best he could, caught
up with her now and, making much of the chance to create a sensation,
said, with slow impressiveness.
“The man is under arrest.”
“_Under arrest!_” An ivory warrior, of the Dynasty of Bing, jumped out
of her slackening hand and rolled under the bookcase unheeded. “Under
arrest! Good gracious. You must tell me all about it at once. Come into
the dining room. I must make myself a pot of tea or I shall be faint.
Come at once and tell me.”
“Certainly. You must be in possession of all the facts,” he said,
soothingly.
Dawn was sending opalescent flushes across the horizon and the bird
life in the gardens of Roseborough was waking with musical murmurs.
Rosamond entered the living room and walked about, dejectedly, turning
off the lights. A white mist lay over the river. The air was damp and
sweet.