IN WHICH THE CONSUL LOSES A RELATIVE AND GAINS A WIFE
When Robert Allingford entered the smoking-room of his club, one
afternoon early in October, he was genuinely glad to find that it had
but one occupant, and that he was Harold Scarsdale. The two men had met
each other for the first time at a house-party some eighteen months
before, and their acquaintance had ripened into true friendship.
"Hello!" he cried, accosting that gentleman. "You're enjoying to the
full your last hours of bachelor bliss, I see."
"Speak for yourself," replied Scarsdale, who looked extremely bored.
"You're also on the dizzy brink."
"It's a fact," admitted the Consul; "we are both to be married
to-morrow. But that is all the more reason why we should make the most
of our remaining freedom. You look as glum as if you'd lost your last
friend. Come, cheer up, and have something to drink."
"They say," remarked the Englishman as he acquiesced in the Consul's
suggestion, "that a man only needs to be married to find out of how
little importance he really is; but I've been anticipating my fate. Miss
Vernon's rooms are a wilderness of the vanities of life, and here I am,
banished to the club as a stern reality."
"Quite so," replied the American. "I'm in the same box. The dressmakers
have driven me clean out of Belgrave Square. But you, you really have my
sympathy, for you are to marry one of my countrywomen, and they are apt
to prove rather exacting mistresses at times like these."
"Oh, I'm fairly well treated," said Scarsdale; "much better than I
deserve, I dare say. How is it with you?"
"Oh," laughed Allingford, "I feel as if I were playing a game of blind
man's buff with English conventionalities: at least I seem to run foul
of them most of the time. I used to imagine that getting married was a
comparatively simple matter; but what with a highly complicated ceremony
and an irresponsible best man, my cup of misery is well-nigh
overflowing."
"I suppose you have been doing your required fifteen days of residence
in the parish? London is slow work, now every one is out of town,"
remarked Scarsdale.
"My second-best hand-bag has been residing for the past fortnight in an
adjacent attic, in fulfilment of the law," returned the American; "but
affairs at the consulate have kept me on post more than I could have
wished."
"I should not think you would have much business at this season of the
year."
"On the contrary, it is just the time when the migratory American, who
has spent the summer in doing Europe, returns to England dead broke, and
expects, nay, demands, to be helped home."
"Do you have many cases of that sort?"
"Lots. In fact, one especially importunate fellow nearly caused me to
lose my train for London yesterday. I gave him what he asked to get rid
of him."
"I suppose that sort of thing is a good deal like throwing money into
the sea," said Scarsdale. "It never comes back."
"Not often, I regret to say; but in this case my distressed countryman
put up collateral."
"Indeed. I trust you can realise on it if need be."
"I don't think I want to," said the Consul, "seeing it's an elephant."
"What!" cried Scarsdale.
"An elephant, or rather, to be exact, an order for one to be delivered
by the Nubian and Red Sea Line of freighters in two or three days at
Southampton Docks. My friend promises to redeem it before arrival,
expects advices from the States, &c., but meanwhile is terribly hard
up."
"I hope he will be true to his promises, otherwise I wish you joy of
your elephant. You might give it to Lady Steele," suggested Scarsdale.
"Yes. I think I can see it tethered to the railings in Belgrave Square,"
remarked the Consul; "but I am not losing sleep on that account, for,
though I've informed the steamship people that I am, temporarily, the
owner of the beast, I more than suspect that the order and the elephant
are both myths. But I have been telling you of my affairs long enough;
how go yours?"
"Swimmingly," replied the Englishman. "Miss Vernon has only one relative
in England, thank Heaven! but my family have settled down on me in
swarms."
"Is Lady Diana Melton in town for the occasion?" asked Allingford.
Scarsdale flushed, and for the moment did not reply.
"I beg your pardon," said the American, "if I have asked an unfortunate
question."
"Not at all," replied his friend. "My great-aunt, who, as you know, is a
somewhat determined old person, has the bad taste to dislike Americans.
So she has confined herself to a frigid refusal of our wedding
invitation, and sent an impossible spoon to the bride."
"So you are not to have her country place for your honeymoon," said
Allingford. "From what I have heard of Melton Court, it would be quite
an ideal spot under the circumstances."
"No, we are not going there. The fact is, I don't know where we are
going," added Scarsdale.
"Really!"
"Yes. As you were saying just now, your countrywomen are apt to prove
exacting, and the future Mrs. Scarsdale has taken it into her head that
I am much too prosaic to plan a wedding trip--that I would do the usual
round, in fact, and that she would be bored in consequence; so she has
taken the arrangements upon herself, and the whole thing is to be a
surprise for me. I don't even know the station from which we start."
"I'm afraid I can't commiserate you," returned Allingford, laughing,
"for I'm guilty of doing the very same thing myself, and my bride elect
has no idea of our destination. She spends most of her spare time in
trying to guess it."
At this moment a card was handed to Allingford, who said: "Why, here is
my best man, Jack Carrington. You know him, don't you? I wonder what can
have started him on my trail," and he requested the page to show him up.
A moment later Carrington entered the room. He was one of the
best-dressed, most perfect-mannered young men in London, the friend of
every one who knew him, a thoroughly delightful and irresponsible
creature. To-day, however, there was a seriousness about his face that
proclaimed his mission to be of no very pleasant character.
After greeting his friends, he asked for a few words in private with his
principal, and as a result of this colloquy Allingford excused himself
to Scardsdale, saying that he must return to his lodgings at once, as
Carrington had brought him news that his brother Dick had arrived
unexpectedly from America, and was awaiting him there.
"What a delightful surprise for you!" exclaimed Scarsdale.
"Yes, very--of course," returned Allingford drily; and after a mutual
interchange of congratulations on the events of the morrow, and regrets
that neither could be at the wedding of the other, the Consul and his
best man left the club.
"He did not seem over-enthusiastic at Carrington's news," mused
Scarsdale, and then his mind turned to his own affairs.
It was not astonishing that Robert Allingford received the news of his
brother's arrival without any show of rejoicing. A family skeleton is
never an enjoyable possession, but when it is not even decently
interred, but very much alive, and in the shape of a brother who has
attained notoriety as a black sheep of an unusually intense dye, it may
be looked upon as little less than a curse.
Yet there were redeeming qualities about Dick Allingford. In spite of
his thoroughly bad name, he was one of the most kind-hearted and
engaging of men, while the way in which he had managed his own and his
brother's property left nothing to be desired. Moreover, he was quite in
his element among his miners. Indeed his qualities, good and bad, were
of a kind that endeared him to them. He loved the good things of this
life, however, in a wholly uncontrollable manner, and, as his income
afforded almost unlimited scope for these desires, his achievements
would have put most yellow-covered novels to the blush. Dick's redeeming
virtue was a blind devotion to his elder brother, from whom he demanded
unlimited advice and assistance in extricating him from a
thousand-and-one scrapes, and inexhaustible patience and forgiveness for
those peccadilloes. When Robert had taken a public office in England it
was on the distinct understanding that Richard should confine his
attentions to America, and so far he had not violated the contract. The
Consul had taken care that his brother should not be informed of the
day of his marriage until it was too late for him to attend in person,
for he shuddered to think of the rig that Richard would run in staid and
conventional English society. Accordingly he hastened to his lodgings,
full of anxious fore-bodings. On arrival his worst fears were fulfilled.
Dick received him with open arms, very affectionate, very penitent, and
very drunk. From that gentleman's somewhat disconnected description the
Consul obtained a lurid inkling of what seemed to have been a triumphal
progress of unrestrained dissipation from Southampton to London, of
which indignant barmaids and a wrecked four-in-hand formed the most
redeeming features.
"Now explain yourself!" cried Robert in wrath, at the conclusion of his
brother's recital. "What do you mean by this disgraceful conduct, and
why are you in England at all?"
"Saw 'proaching marriage--newspaper," hiccoughed Dick--"took first
steamer."
"What did you come for?" demanded Allingford sternly.
"Come? Congratulate you--see the bride."
"Not on your life!" exclaimed the Consul. "You are beastly drunk and not
fit for decent society."
"Fault--railroad company--bad whisky," explained the unregenerate one.
"I'll take your word for it," replied his brother. "You ought to be a
judge of whisky. But you won't go to my wedding unless you are sober."
And he rang for his valet.
"This is my brother, Parsons," he remarked to that individual when he
entered. "You may put him to bed at once. Use my room for the purpose,
and engage another for me for to-night."
"Yes, sir," replied his valet, who was too well trained to betray any
emotion.
"When you have got him settled," continued the Consul, "lock him in, and
let him stay till morning." With which he straightway departed, leaving
his stupefied brother to the tender mercies of the shocked and sedate
Parsons.
Allingford stood a good deal in awe of his valet, and dreaded to see the
reproachful look of outraged dignity which he knew would greet him on
his return. So he again sought the club, intending to find Scarsdale and
continue their conversation; but that gentleman had departed, and the
Consul was forced to console himself with a brandy and soda, and settle
down to a quiet hour of reflection.
He had been engaged upwards of three months, and, it is needless to say,
had learned much in that space of time. An engagement is a liberal
education to any man, for it presents a series of entirely new problems
to be solved. He ceases to think of and for himself alone, and the
accuracy with which he can adjust himself to these novel conditions
determines the success or failure of his married life. Robert
Allingford, however, was engaged to a woman of another nation; of his
own race, indeed, and speaking his own tongue, but educated under widely
differing standards and ideals, and on a plane of comparative simplicity
when viewed in the light of her complex American sister. The little
English girl was an endless mystery to him, and it was only in later
life that he discovered that he was constantly endowing her with a
complicated nature which she did not possess. He could not understand a
woman who generally--I do not say invariably, for Marion Steele was
human after all, but who generally meant what she said, whose pleasures
were healthy and direct, and who was really simple and genuinely
ignorant of most things pertaining to the world worldly. He knew that
world well enough--ten years of mining had taught him that--and he had
been left to its tender mercies when still a boy, with no relatives
except his younger brother, who, as may well be imagined, was rather a
burden than a help.
But if Robert Allingford had seen the rough side of life, it had taught
him to understand human nature, and, as he had been blessed with a large
heart and a considerable measure of adaptability, he managed to get on
very well on both sides of the Atlantic. True, he seldom appreciated
what the British mind held to contain worth; but he was tolerant, and
his tolerance begat, unconsciously, sympathy. On the other hand, the
Consul was as much of a mystery to his fiancée as she had ever been to
him. In her eyes he was always doing the unexpected. For one thing, she
never knew when to take him seriously, and was afraid of what he might
do or say; but she soon learned to trust him implicitly, and to estimate
him at his true sterling worth.
In short, both had partially adjusted themselves to each other, and were
likely to live very happily, with enough of the unknown in their
characters to keep them from becoming bored. Allingford had never spoken
definitely to his fiancée concerning his younger brother, and she knew
instinctively that it was a subject to be avoided. To her father she had
said something, but Sir Peter had little interest in his children's
affairs beyond seeing that they were suitably married; and since he was
satisfied with the settlements and the man, was content to leave well
enough alone.
The Consul, therefore, thought himself justified in saying nothing
about the unexpected arrival of his brother, especially as the chances
of that gentleman's being in a fit state to appear at the wedding seemed
highly problematical.
Next morning there were no signs of repentance or of Dick; for if a
deserted bed, an open window, and the smashed glass of a neighbouring
skylight signified anything, it was that Mr. Richard Allingford was
still unregenerate and at large.
The bridal day dawned bright and clear, and Carrington lunched with the
Consul just before the ceremony, which, thanks to English law, took
place at that most impossible hour of the day, 2.30 P.M.
The bridegroom floundered through the intricacies of the service, signed
his name in the vestry, and achieved his carriage in a kind of dream;
but woke up sufficiently to the realities of life at the reception, to
endure with fortitude the indiscriminate kissing of scores of new
relations. Then he drank his own health and the healths of other
people, and at last escaped upstairs to prepare for the journey and
have a quiet fifteen minutes with his best man.
"Now remember," he said to that irresponsible individual, "you are the
only one who knows our destination this evening, and if you breathe it
to a soul I'll come back and murder you."
"My dear fellow," replied Carrington, "you don't suppose, after I've
endured weeks of cross-questioning and inquisitorial advances from the
bride and her family, that I am going to strike my colours and give the
whole thing away at the eleventh hour."
"You have been a trump, Jack," rejoined the Consul, "and I only wish you
may be as happy some time as I am to-day."
"It is your day; don't worry about my affairs," returned Carrington,
with a forced laugh which gave colour to the popular report that the
only vulnerable point in his armour of good nature lay in his
impecunious condition and the consequent impossibility of his marrying
on his own account.
It was only a passing cloud, however, and he hastened to change the
subject, saying: "Come, you are late already, and a bride must not be
kept waiting."
Allingford was thereupon hustled downstairs, and wept upon from all
quarters, and his life was threatened with rice and old shoes; but he
reached the street somehow with Mrs. Robert in tow, and, barring the
circumstance that in his agitation he had embraced the butler instead of
Sir Peter, he acquitted himself very well under the trying ordeal.
As they drove to the station his wife was strangely quiet, and he
rallied her on the fact.
"Why," he said, "you haven't spoken since we started."
Her face grew troubled. "I was wondering----" she began.
"If you would be happy?" he asked. "I'll do my best."
"No, no, I'm sure of that, only--do tell me where we are going."
The Consul laughed. "You women are just the same all the world over,"
he replied, but otherwise did not commit himself; but his wife noticed
that he looked worried and anxious, and that he breathed a sigh of
unmistakable relief as their train drew out of Waterloo Station. She did
not know that the one cloud which he had feared might darken his wedding
day had now been dispelled: he had seen nothing of his brother.