Eva’s comment was not lost on Lord Ottercove. When next morning they
drove to the Beau-Site in Cannes, Lord Ottercove wore a more becoming
pair of horn-rimmed spectacles.
“Just gone and settled their affairs,” he said, coming out on to the
sunny terrace, where Eva’s relatives awaited him against the background
of an ornamental garden and tennis courts on which rich Americans and
English exercised their limbs all day.
“Very charming and touching,” said Mrs. Kerr. “But you should not have
put yourself out, Lord Ottercove. Raymond would have settled my bill, I
am sure. He is his mother’s boy.”
“Mummy, you are too silly for words!” Zita flared up. “Where does
Raymond get his money?”
“From Eleonor of course.”
“And Eleonor?”
“From her uncle.”
“Well?”
“But I give it all to Chris.”
“Mummy is so stupid. She always draws wrong conclusions from everything.
There she goes about with that ‘Please trample on me’ look, smoking
cigarettes all day, agreeing with everybody. She takes Italian lessons
at five shillings an hour, and in order to make up for it gives golfing
lessons at five shillings an hour, and then takes her pupils out to tea,
and spends ten shillings; or has her portrait done in the café; always
invites everybody, stands drinks and cigarettes all round, pays for
everybody; speaks to everybody in the restaurants--Italians, Germans,
Scandinavians.”
“She is a white woman,” muttered Lord Ottercove.
“You know what I’ll tell you, Lord Ottercove! I am disappointed in
Fyodor Ferdinandovitch. I knew nothing--nothing about it, till I read it
in _Pale Primroses_. Naturally I asked the girls, and it all came out.”
“I know.”
“But both! _Both!_”
“He didn’t wish to leave either out, for fear of offending the other, I
guess.”
“Mrs. Kerr,” said Frank, “I appeal to your idealism and good sense. In
the severity of your indignation, you did not sufficiently allow for
the circumstances in which, if I may put it thus, the drama was played.
Picture the scene. All around us, an epic panorama, and I alone with two
girls ... lovely girls ... the mountain spring ... certain death--and
Shakespeare’s immortal lines--
“‘_O Proserpina!_
_For the flowers now that frighted thou let’st fall_
_From Dis’s waggon! daffodils,_
_That come before the swallow dares, and take_
_The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,_
_But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes_
_Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses_
_That die unmarried, ere they can behold_
_Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady_
_Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and_
_The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,_
_The flower-de-luce being one! Oh! these I lack_
_To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,_
_To strew him o’er, and o’er._’
“These loyal girls!” He placed a hand on either sister’s shoulder, and
drew them to him. “These splendid girls!”
“Whom you have dishonoured!”
“Tut-tut, Mummy!” said Zita. “You mustn’t blurt these things out! Morty
will murder Frank if he knows.”
“Well,” said Lord Ottercove, “I have made an honest woman of one of
them at any rate--sorry, can’t do it to both.”
“I do not understand you, Lord Ottercove.”
“I have made an honest woman of Eva.”
“Explain it to me, please. I don’t understand.”
“I have married her.”
There was a pause. Mrs. Kerr looked round at them all, and satisfied
herself that the statement was a bona-fide one.
“Well--I am very pleased. I must say that you have chosen well and
wisely. She will make a good wife to you. I congratulate you both.”
“I hope, Mrs. Kerr,” Frank said, “that your grudge against me is over. I
trust that you will rejoice in your daughter’s happiness, and will ever
remember that the assignation of unworthy motives never helps but
weakens an argument.”
“Dickin talks rot, but always with conviction. He would make a good
lawyer,” said Ottercove.
“Yes, or a great priest,” said Frank, obviously pleased with himself. “I
like to practise my oratorical gift.”
“Now let’s make a night of it!” proposed Mrs. Kerr.
Lord Ottercove did not reply. Lord Ottercove hated to act on other
people’s suggestions and as a rule “advised them against it,” and if
pressed for his reasons, produced arguments so cynically free from
plausibility that he seemed himself amused by their bewildering effect
on his opponent. If he approved of a suggestion, he said nothing; then,
a few moments later, made it himself.
“I am taking you out to-night, all of you,” he said.
Pilling took Frank by the arm and marched him ahead, while the others
followed behind at a distance.
“Glad you done it,” he said. “I thought it was me. My conscience sort of
worried me. It’s a dirty thing to do. Glad you done it.”
“Damn it all, Pilling! It was a hill. Spring! Sunshine! You know those
lines from Shakespeare?
“‘_O Proserpina,_
_For the flowers now that frighted--_’”
“Shut up, Dickin!”
“You don’t realise the situation. We thought it was the end for us.”
“I realise. _Force majeure._ That white-washes it a bit. Otherwise, you
know, I doubt whether you would be eligible for the best clubs.”
“Still, I am disappointed in Ferdinand Fyodorovitch,” said Mrs. Kerr,
coming up from behind.
“I appeal to your idealism,” said Frank automatically. “As I said, the
sun, the mountain spring--and those immortal lines--‘_O
Proserpina!..._’”
They would not let him go on. Strange: the moment he began to quote
those lovely lines, they would look sullen and angry, and ask him to
“shut up.” It seemed as if they regarded his appeals to Shakespeare as
in bad taste; till he would lose his temper. “It would really seem that
my great crime consisted in getting saved!”
Eleonor, after some consultation with Raymond, came up to her uncle and
took him aside. “It’s all very well,” she said, “Chris having adopted
Raymond. But suppose Chris marries again and has a child of his own?”
“Then we must get him married at once.”
“Married! That is just what we are anxious to prevent, for fear it might
result in a male child.”
“Married, of course, to somebody who is beyond hope of begetting
children,” said Ottercove.
“But who?”
“To his old love, of course--Mrs. Kerr.”
“But how do you know she can’t have a child?”
“Her doctor told me in confidence.”
“But he will refuse!”
“We must bring pressure to bear on him.”
“How?”
“Chris is ruined, and he’s used to spending money. He knows I won’t give
him a penny, and, in fact, he won’t have it from me. He likes to feel
independent towards me. But of course, it’s only natural that Raymond,
married to my niece who draws on my account to an unlimited extent,
can’t help, good and loving son that he is, helping his mother. And
Chris, married to her, will be all right.”
“Raymond and I want to marry next week in Paris,” said Eleonor.
Lord Ottercove’s lips moved almost silently. “Why not marry here? I know
a chap--a parson--most obliging. Pulled him out of bed the other night
to marry us. Read the marriage ceremony unruffled.”
“Yes, most obliging,” Eva concurred.
“And you, Chris? And you, Mrs. Kerr?”
“What’s that?”
“Why don’t you get married?”
“I don’t know that it’s very safe to attach me to her with the tape of a
spent passion.”
“Look here, I’ve got hold of a fellow--a pastor of some obscure
denomination. Very accommodating. He will remarry you all. What d’you
think of it?”
“I am very glad, Chris, to be of use. You are a genius--”
“Of the untried,” said Ottercove.
“A real genius in science. And I want to help you in your discoveries.
Yes, I do. Take the case of the Curies.”
“You mean Monsieur and Madame Curie?”
“Yes, I do. You will instruct me in your science and we will make new
discoveries together, you and I, Christopher!”
“Help us!” Turning to Frank, he whispered: “They think they have got the
better of me there. But the boot is on the other foot! What do I care
whether I am blown up--single or married?”
“So in the end, all are satisfied,” said Ottercove.
“Except my poor ancestors,” murmured de Jones.
“Who are dead.”
“Who are dead.”
Pilling seemed pleased and impressed. “Lord Ottercove,” he remarked, as
if out of the baron’s hearing, but loud enough for the baron to hear,
“is a man of wide sympathies.”
“He is a live wire,” from de Jones.
That night, dashing off to Monte Carlo, where Lord Ottercove was
entertaining them, Pilling was seen to step into the baron’s car, who
not only did not seem to resent this intrusion, but actually welcomed
him with a smile. “I have, as you say, wide sympathies. When I see a man
struggling to get out of the water, I can’t resist helping him. It is my
nature,” he was heard to say, stepping out of the car.
And, stepping again into the car with Pilling close on his heels, on the
way back to Nice, he was heard to say: “I have an interest in a number
of hotels which brings me in--er--about--er--three hundred thousand
pounds a year, and I’ll finance you in your undertaking,” and slam the
door behind him.
Next day, Mrs. Kerr, who always liked to show off herself and hers,
called her new husband into the bathroom while John was shaving. “Look,
look!” she said. “What a big sponge John has!” But Christopher looked
as though he wished the sponge had been smaller, and the dowry larger.
The same day Frank picked up, in the lounge of the hotel, a newspaper,
which informed him:
“Among the new arrivals at the Hotel Mauresco are Lord and Lady
Ottercove, Viscount and Viscountess de Jones, Mr. Frank Dickin, the
novelist, and the Honourable and Mrs. Raymond Mosquito.”