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Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
THE REJUVENATION OF MISS SEMAPHORE
A Farcical Novel
by
HAL GODFREY
(C. O’Conor Eccles)
[Illustration: SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE
L &. N 30TH THOUSAND]
London
Jarrold & Sons, 10 & 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
[All Rights Reserved]
1900
* * * * * *
_COOMBS’_
EUREKA SELF-RAISING
_FLOUR_
Admitted Antidote
for Indigestion.
16 GOLD MEDALS
and Prix d’Honneur at
the Imperial
Institute, 1899.
Is the Best and
ABSOLUTELY PURE.
Sold in 3d., 6d., 1/-, &
2/6 Bags.
* * * * *
_COOMBS’_
_MALTED FOOD_
3 GOLD MEDALS
and Prix d’Honneur at
the Imperial Institute,
1899.
FOR INFANTS AND
INVALIDS,
IS A PERFECT AND
INVALUABLE ARTICLE OF
DIET.
Sold in 6d., 1/-, 2/6 &
5/- Tins.
ALSO
Custard, Blanc Mange,
Light Pastry, and Egg
Powders
Sold in 1d., 2d., 3d.,
6d., and 1/- Boxes.
TOTAL AWARDS 61 MEDALS.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
Dr. MACKENZIE’S
CATARRH CURE
_Smelling Bottle_.
Cures Cold in the Head,
cures Nervous Headache,
instantly relieves Hay
Fever and Neuralgia in
the Head, is the best
remedy for Faintness and
Dizziness.
_Sold by all Chemists
and Stores._
PRICE ONE SHILLING.
REFUSE WORTHLESS
IMITATIONS.
Post Free, 15 Stamps,
from
MACKENZIE’S CURE DEPOT,
READING.
* * * * * *
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WHICH INTRODUCES MISS SEMAPHORE 7
II. A BOARDING-HOUSE EVENING 20
III. MISS SEMAPHORE RECEIVES AN ANSWER 35
IV. CASTLES IN THE AIR 45
V. THE WATER OF YOUTH 54
VI. AN ACCIDENT 61
VII. PRUDENCE RECEIVES A SHOCK 70
VIII. A CAREER OF DECEPTION 81
IX. A PROMISING ADVERTISEMENT 91
X. IN WHICH MISS PRUDENCE EXPLAINS MATTERS 100
XI. THE MEDICAL LADY INTERVENES 106
XII. “GOOD MRS. BROWN” 116
XIII. THE MEDICAL LADY BAFFLED 129
XIV. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 139
XV. PRUDENCE CALLS AT PLUMMER’S COTTAGES 150
XVI. MRS. DUMARESQ IN AN UNDIPLOMATIC CIRCLE 163
XVII. A SENSATION IN “THE STAR” 173
XVIII. A DETECTIVE ON THE TRACK 177
XIX. A COUNCIL OF WAR 190
XX. NOTICE TO QUIT 204
XXI. AT THE ARROW STREET POLICE COURT 213
XXII. A SCENE IN COURT 222
XXIII. CONCLUSION 236
The Rejuvenation
OF
MISS SEMAPHORE.
CHAPTER I.
WHICH INTRODUCES MISS SEMAPHORE.
Seven o’clock had struck.
The gong at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, South Kensington, thundered under
the vigorous strokes of the bow-legged German waiter. By one, by two, by
three, the boarders trooped down to dinner, the more sensitive to noise
stopping their ears as they descended.
The very deafest could not ignore that gong. Müller always attacked it
suddenly, as if running amuck or possessed by a demon. It reverberated
far and near, and echoed faintly to Gloucester Road Station. Boarders,
arriving late, were seen to run when their ears caught the familiar
sound.
At the head of the central table in the fine dining-room, its three
windows looking on the Gardens, sat the proprietress, Mrs. Wilcox. She
was a bright-eyed, stout, florid woman of forty-five, dressed in black
silk and a lace fichu secured by a cameo brooch. As she waited for her
guests, she meditatively sharpened a carving knife.
By the sideboard stood her husband, Captain Wilcox, slender, dried-up,
younger than his wife, and dominated by her. Where they met, and why
they married, was a never-failing source of speculation in the house. It
was asserted that Miss Tompkins took him in payment of a debt. Be that
as it might, the mild, subdued little Captain was evidently a gentleman.
He had been in a Lancer regiment, got into difficulties, and now at
eight-and-thirty was a person of much less importance in his wife’s
boarding-house than her imposing cook.
Though never supposed to act as master, the name and authority of
Captain Wilcox were frequently evoked by Mrs. Wilcox when any unpleasant
duty had to be done. He it was, for instance, who sternly insisted that
no credit should be given. He stood out for the weekly settlement of
accounts. He was responsible for certain persons receiving notice to
quit. He made the unpopular rule that the drawing-room lights should be
extinguished precisely at eleven. In a word, he was the Jorkins of the
firm. For the rest, he held some small post in the City secured for him
by his wife’s brother, helped daily with the carving, and paid for his
own keep.
Besides the central table, there were round the room several smaller
ones, accommodating from four to eight persons. To one of these, some
men and women concerned in our story were making their way. First came
Miss Augusta Semaphore, a tall, thin, and rather acid-looking woman of
fifty-three. Close behind followed her sister, Miss Prudence, who was
ten years younger, and accustomed to be treated as a baby. Prudence wore
a fringe that hung over her eyes in separate snaky curls, and in damp
weather degenerated into wisps; she was plump and fair, had a somewhat
foolish smile, and, as befitted her part of giddy, little thing, any
number of coquettish airs and graces.
Their neighbours were, a stately couple named Mr. and Mrs. Dumaresq, Mr.
Lorimer, a clownish youth, of good family and aggressive patriotism,
Major Jones, Mrs. Whitley, a small, mincing lady of recent and painful
refinement, and finally a large and commanding woman with a terrible
eye, who was vaguely believed to have taken out a medical degree.
“For what we are about to receive,” said Mrs. Wilcox, “the Lord make us
truly thankful.”
With a creak and a rustle, some five-and-thirty boarders drew in their
chairs. The covers were removed, and a ripple of prosy talk began.
As usual, it started with polite enquiries as to each other’s health. In
boarding-houses it generally does. No one cares a button for you or your
ailments, but they ask after them all the same with exasperating
regularity and take no interest in the answer.
“How is your cold, Major Jones?”
“Better, thank you, Mrs. Dumaresq—and your neuralgia?”
“Much worse; I never closed my eyes last night.”
“But you are taking something for it?”—and so on, and so on, and so on.
New comers at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, occasionally tried to be
conversational. For a time they were lively, animated, full of good
stories and repartee. People listened to them in silence, and generally
took offence. Conversation as a fine art was not encouraged. It was sad
to notice how in a week or a fortnight the talkers talked themselves
out, and subsided into the brief commonplaces of their neighbours.
The boarders, all respectable people who read the _Daily Telegraph_ and
voted Tory when they had votes, shared the profound belief of the
middle-class Briton that silence shows solidity, sound judgment, and a
well-balanced mind. Profound and continued silence they considered an
attainment in itself. They scarcely realised, not being introspective,
that two-thirds of the people who don’t speak are silent from lack of
ideas.
As a matter of fact, in such a _milieu_, subjects for conversation of
general interest were almost impossible to find. By tacit consent,
politics and religion were tabooed, since the discussion of either
invariably ended in a quarrel. Though the boarders read novels, they did
not talk about them, and they took no great interest in literature or
art. A man who was supposed to have written a book was rather
cold-shouldered, for the Englishman—and in this case, as the preacher
put it, man embraces woman—whatever his respect for literature in the
abstract, thinks but meanly of those who produce it, if they do not
happen to be celebrities. To be sure they are generally poor.
“Vill you beef, muddon, schiken, or feal?” whispered Müller, making his
round when soup and fish had been removed.
“Veal, please,” said Miss Semaphore.
“Feal, blease,” said Müller under his breath, to impress the order on
his mind.
“Vill you beef, muddon, schiken, or feal, Madame?”
“A portion—a tiny portion of the—a—chest of the fowl,” said Mrs.
Whitley.
“Roast beef,” growled Mr. Lorimer, and Müller echoed “beef,” adding
“blease” on his own account.
“I saw you to-day, Major Jones, but you did not see me,” said the
younger Miss Semaphore archly, when the interest of choosing had
subsided.
“You what?” asked Major Jones mildly. He was rather deaf.
“I said that I saw you to-day—down in the City, you know. Fancy! I went
all that distance by myself in an omnibus! There is such a sweet shop
for bargains in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and you passed me just as I
turned in.”
“You should not go into the City unescorted,” said Miss Augusta
Semaphore severely; “I have told you that over and over again, but you
are so heedless. It is not _comme il faut_.”
“What do you think would happen to her?” asked Mr. Lorimer gruffly. He
was a young man of combative instincts and no manners, with whom Miss
Semaphore waged a deadly but, on her side, perfectly civil warfare.
“My dear father,” went on Miss Semaphore, without taking any notice,
“who was a distinguished military officer, strongly objected to girls
going about alone.”
“That was all very well thirty years ago,” objected Mr. Lorimer, “but
nowadays, if people conduct themselves properly, there is no earthly
reason why they should not go about alone at fit and proper hours, once
they have come to years of discretion.”
“I can assure you,” said Mrs. Dumaresq, assuming a grand air, and
slightly raising her voice, as she always did when she meant to impress
her hearers, “I can assure you that in diplomatic circles, a lady
shopping without an escort, or at any rate without a maid, is unheard
of.”
In every boarding-house throughout the British Islands there is to be
found a person who is the intimate friend of the Prince of Wales. At 37,
Beaconsfield Gardens, Mrs. Dumaresq was that person.
“Yes, all very well amongst a lot of horrid foreigners,” said Mr.
Lorimer obstinately; “no wonder ladies are afraid to go about alone
where there’s a set of ugly, unwashed rascals that would run a dagger
into them as soon as look at them, but grown-up Englishwomen in their
own country may do what they please.”
“I do not approve of ladies going anywhere alone. It may do for
middle-class persons,” said Mrs. Dumaresq haughtily, “but I can assure
you, from personal knowledge, that it is not done in diplomatic circles.
When we lived at Belgrade, there was a Mrs. Twickenham who used to act
in the most unconventional way, and one day the Princess—a dear old
friend of ours—the Princess Hatzoff—you must have heard of her, first
cousin to the Czar, a delightful woman and so attached to me—said,
‘Dearest Mimi’—she always called me Mimi—‘are English ladies in their
own country, ladies of position such as you and I, allowed this liberty,
not to say license, of action?’ and I replied, ‘No, Helène, certainly
not.’”
The Misses Semaphore, Mrs. Whitley, and the lady doctor listened
attentively to these reminiscences, but Mr. Lorimer was not impressed.
“I maintain,” he said, “that this is a free country, and that those
ideas are old-fashioned.”
“I assure you that is not the opinion of the Princess Hatzoff, a woman
who mixed in the very best society; nor was it the opinion of my dear
friend, the ex-Empress of the French, Mr. Lorimer,” replied Mrs.
Dumaresq with a lofty air. “However, we will discuss the matter no
further. In diplomacy one learns to avoid subjects on which one’s
experiences are different from those of other people, and so not likely
to agree.”
There was a subdued acidity in Mrs. Dumaresq’s tone, there was a
battle-breathing obstinacy in Mr. Lorimer’s accent that led peaceful
Miss Prudence to change the conversation.
“The poor dear Empress,” she said, “how I pity her!”
“Ah, you should have seen her in her splendour. Were you in Paris before
the war?”
“You can scarcely expect my sister to remember Paris before the war, my
dear Mrs. Dumaresq,” interposed Miss Semaphore frigidly. “It is years
ago. Prudence was a mere child.”
Mrs. Dumaresq smiled slightly, and said, “Ah!” In diplomatic circles no
one openly expresses disbelief in a statement.
“The dear Empress was such a friend of mine in the old days when we
lived there. One day, I remember so well, we had been away for nearly a
year. The Empress was standing at a window of the Palace with an
_aide-de-camp_ beside her, Comte de la Tour—you remember Comte de la
Tour, Angelo?” This to her silent husband, who nodded assent. “The
Empress suddenly said to the Comte, ‘_Mon cher_, who is that
charmingly-dressed lady who has just driven past?’ The Comte, dear man,
answered, ‘Oh, your Majesty, do you not know? that is Madame Dumaresq!’
The same evening we met at a ball at the Spanish Ambassador’s, and the
Empress graciously came up to me. ‘Fancy,’ said she; ‘fancy, my dear
Madame Dumaresq, I did not recognise you this morning. It is such an age
since you were here; and oh! do permit me to congratulate you on the
exquisite costume you wore.’”
The story made a distinct impression. The medical woman at the end of
the table, who had an American’s interest in high life, stopped short in
a thrilling narrative of an amputation, and listened with all her ears.
“The Empress was a very lovely woman, but I believe she was not very
young when she married,” said the elder Miss Semaphore reflectively.
“Oh, dear no! Eight or nine-and-twenty at least. Some people said
two-and-thirty.”
“What matter does that make?” interposed the polite Mr. Dumaresq. “A
handsome woman is only the age she looks.”
Miss Semaphore sighed. She had carefully examined her face before dinner
and discovered a new wrinkle. It was borne in on her that she scarcely
looked as young as she felt, but she made an effort to seem as if
eight-and-twenty, or, at most, two-and-thirty, was still before her.
“It must be dreadful to grow old,” said Mrs. Whitley affectedly.
“There are so many aids to beauty nowadays,” said Mr. Dumaresq, “that no
lady need look a day older than she likes.”
“But the use of cosmetics is odious,” cried Miss Semaphore. “For my part
I never could understand how any one could use paints and powders.”
Good breeding was not Mr. Lorimer’s strong point, and, in
boarding-houses, people say things to each other that elsewhere are the
privilege of relatives.
“Dyes,” he said, looking fixedly at Miss Semaphore’s hair, “dyes are
most injurious—worst of all, in fact. Horrible case in the paper the
other day. A woman dyed her hair black one morning, died herself next!
Instantaneous softening of the brain, they said. The stuff soaked in.”
The obvious application lent point to the sally. The medical lady, who
prided herself on being a fine woman, needing no aid from art, smiled
broadly. She could not, however, resist saying there was no such disease
as instantaneous softening of the brain.
Mrs. Dumaresq, mindful of her diplomatic training, looked so grave that
a child would have suspected something wrong. Miss Semaphore murmured
“How dreadful!” She alone saw no personal allusion, for it never struck
her that anyone could think she tinted her tresses. Miss Prudence looked
as angrily at the speaker as her kind face permitted. Major Jones had
just said, “Eh! what’s that?” when Mrs. Wilcox rose, and at her signal
the ladies swept upstairs, leaving the men to cigars and scandal.