the price of some long-coveted green tourmaline pendants, Féo was
reclining on the sofa, like the gentleman who sat down "unbeknownst"
on the box of fusees, face downwards, and sobbing her very heart out.
A torn blue envelope, inscribed in the familiar hand of our hired
Sherlock, which lay upon the floor, told me instantly that the
dreadful Contango had once again been weighed in the balances and
found several hundredweight against the purchaser; but with the
"Festina lente" of the Onslows ever before me, I contented myself by
inquiring the interesting nature of the poor wretch's vapours--and
that in the most frigidly cucumberish fashion.
It appeared that on a not very remote evening she was being driven
across Piccadilly Circus towards the Strand, when a block in the
traffic caused the carriage to pull up almost directly in front of
the Criterion Bar. At first Féo scarcely noticed the stoppage, the
pleasant tide of her thoughts running on the recent, self-instituted
moral reformation of Mr Contango, he having begun, according to his
own account, to make "great gobs of the wherewith" by following
financial journalism in the City. Than this nothing in the world
could be likelier, since he really has a most persuasive literary
style and, indeed, once wrote a letter of condolence to the widow of
a bookmaker (killed in a sort of paper-chase by a blow from a bottle)
which was so convincing that no sooner had the anguished relict read
it than she put off her mourning, took a couple of phenacetin
tabloids, and went out to a music-hall. Mr Contango's further
assurances that he had absolutely renounced the use of hot and
rebellious liquors, Féo more readily believed, she told me, since she
had only that very morning poured him out seven tumblers of cold
water before rising. As the period of her detention in the middle of
the Circus by the rozzer in the rubber overalls became unreasonably
prolonged, however, she lowered the carriage window and--did so just
in time to behold a most sickening spectacle. The glazed doors of
the American Bar were suddenly thrown open by an unseen force, and Mr
Contango was projected violently into the road! So vigorous was the
propelling power behind him, said Féo, that he cleared the pavement
as if he had been dynamited horizontally, and he would have bitten
the dust but that his nose seemed to be in the way. As he arose with
bleeding proboscis and hurled at his projector a string of sunset
adjectives, which it was quite impossible for her to hear in the
presence of servants, Féo saw clearly that Mr Contango had vineleaves
in his hair, so, sinking back upon the cushions of the carriage, she
was borne to her destination in the collapsed condition so
graphically described by Dr Harris Ruddock as "the engine with the
fly-wheel gone."
Not until the following afternoon did Mr Contango return to Eaton
Square, when (although Féo has since ascertained that he ate a
soothing, if vulgar, supper of tripe and onions in a kitchen in
Pimlico) the explanation he gave of his damaged family feature was
that he had been trying a bicycle in the street and got a flat
wheel--fortunately just outside the hospital into which the
bystanders carried him. With unusual wisdom Féo expressed no
comment, but instituted the inquiries to which the torn blue envelope
had brought the sequel. Crystallised, it was as follows:
There is, so say Féo's sleuth-hounds, no art known to moderns (save
that of the subdolous Somerset Street _passé_ face-fakirs who remove
crow's feet, beetling eyebrows, and double chins, and restore and
preserve youthfulness in ten successive ninety-minute "treatments" at
one-guinea-and-a-half per) which is netting more money for its
artificers than the art of "telling the tale," and in a branch of
this industry which he has made peculiarly his own, has Mr Contango
been reaping the golden results erroneously attributed by Féo to
honest literary labour. In the buffet-bars, the music-halls, and
"other places where they sing" in the wide world of cheap flutter, Mr
Contango (in whose family, Féo now remembers having been told by a
palmist, poverty has predominated over honesty from pre-historic
times) has been in the habit of encountering the young gentlemen best
adapted to his purpose. Féo's inquiry-agents describe these
individuals as "the juvenile jays of convivial commercialdom," but I
prefer to preserve an impartial lukewarmth in the matter. In their
proper sphere they are, I feel convinced, quite genuine persons
though of the unfortunate kind that cannot get away in the afternoon,
and are therefore the more likely to be entrapped when dolled up and
out for the evening. It is a lamentable but incontrovertible
solecism, I am told, that many young men who are highly moral--almost
German-Reed--at heart, are inwardly never happier than when suspected
of disreputable tendencies.
Entering any bar or public place where one of these odd creatures,
attired in an evening suit of eccentric cut and showing a scarlet
silk handkerchief protruding from the waistcoat, chances to be
lounging, deeply cogitating whether the obviously interested
onlookers take him for the latest turf plunger or the French Embassy,
Mr Contango immediately gives an elaborate exhibition of surprise and
delight.
"Why, my dear old lad!" cries he, rushing up and taking the poseur by
both fists, "this is indeed red and yellow wine for me! To think
that I haven't set eyes on you since Lincoln, and last week was the
Two Thousand! And you, above all others, who never by any chance
missed a Newmarket? Too bad, too bad; we were a melancholy crowd
without you; no little menus, no cards; to bed with the chickens, and
the Rooms at midnight as soundless as a Libyan desert! Now what
prevented you: something fresh in petticoats, I'll wager?"
Flattered and confused by all this, the simpleton hesitates. His
sense of rectitude prompts some such reply as "You have the advantage
of me," or, alternatively, "I think you are mistaken"--(see Mixitt's
"Art of Polite Conversation." One Shilling. At all
book-stalls)--but his vanity forbids it. To be mistaken for anybody
rather than plain Tom Cobley is, in fact, the very keynote to the
assumption of the funny evening kit, the ludicrous red hanky; that
the conversation happens to be so much above his head is very
regrettable, but still no fault of his--indeed he has not as yet
uttered one single word. And if, after all, he sufficiently
resembles this racing celebrity, this young blood so gifted and
accomplished that his mere absence from a "First Spring" causes the
whole of Newmarket to be plunged in melancholy, why should _he_,
plain Tom Cobley, be under the obligation of making, in front of a
score of strangers--for an audience soon gathers--the humiliating
admission that, far from being "dear old lad," he is not a turfite at
all but a--well, private individual from the hindquarters of Oxford
Street? So, seeing no great harm in winging a little, he replies,
with absolute truth:
"No, it was nothing in petticoats"--(quite probably he is in the
"Ribbon and Lace," and not the "Underclothing" at all)--"but
something quite different that detained me. But I must be going now."
"Lucky dog! lucky dog!" then cries Mr Contango. "For ever hammering
on the anvil of passion, and drinking only, as did your illustrious
forebears, out of the satin shoes of their mistresses. But--er--I
really _must_ have _one_ word with you before you go: you can guess
what about, eh?"
"Indeed, I can't."
"Aye, there comes your patrician breeding again, lad! A noble
nature, inherited from a long line of exalted sires, confers on you
the privilege of forgetting your benefices to your friends! Mean to
say you have forgotten the fiver which you generously pressed upon me
as we came off the course at Lincoln?"
"Absolutely," replies the youth, utterly out of his depth, but
discerning no danger.
"Then let me try and recall the circumstances to your mind. I had
had a dash on Merry Andrew for the last race--with what result you
know: Ariosto chopped him at the start and was never headed. I was
absolutely stranded for ready cash--positively without my railway
fare on to Liverpool--when you--may heav'n bless you for your
generous act--leapt into the breach. I have fortunately a blank
cheque here----"
At this he would draw from a quilted-satin note case a green cheque
form, and continue: "--and, for once, I may discharge my debt, though
never my obligation. Meantime, old college-companion, pray
condescend to take one parting drink with me--nay, be pleased to let
me pay: 't may seem like Lazarus entertaining Dives, but no matter.
Barkeeper, two special liqueurs of the Imperial O.V.H., a large
'polly divided, and--the pen and the inkhorn, quick!"
By now, Cobley's entanglement is greater than his brain can compass.
He has allowed his ineptitude to sink him to the level of a common
swindler; yet the hard-shelled fact that the position is none of his
seeking is being shouted through an unseen megaphone into his ear by
an invisible Adversary of Souls. Were it not for the accursed,
gaping mob, he would chance making a clean breast of it; but the
truth will not bear all lights. At worst he must accept the draft
and contrive to return it privately, later on.
"Here we are, dear lad," cries Mr Contango, finishing the writing
(and poor Cobley's reflections) and flourishing the cheque, "I have
made it for a tenner because I find that I have just run out of
silver, but if you will let me have a couple or three sovereigns just
to carry me home, you can send your man round to Coutts's in the
morning and slip me the remainder to-morrow night, or to-morrow
twelvemonth, or--well, whenever I ask you for it. Aha! I'm about as
fond of asking a fellow for money as you are, dear boy!"
It is then that Mr Cobley falls slap into the net and sinks just as
deeply as he has cash available--for I presume that even you, dear,
are not so innocent in this "sordid and merciless age of
industrialism" as to suppose that the cheque is of any more service
to anybody than a stomach-ache. It is a very real lesson in the art
of banking that Mr Cobley receives as the bank cashier returns him
the stumer with the additional inscription of "N.E."--"No Earthly"
upon it. He sees at a glance precisely how much smaller his
expenditure for the year will be since his little envelope for the
month of May has been put through the wringer. And what if he
subsequently lies in wait for Mr Contango with a view to
readjustments, I think I hear you ask? Why, frankly, that would
afford him about as much real joy as secretly pinching the cork leg
of a lady stranger in a crowded omnibus. Mr Contango would instantly
fetch him a crack across the mazzard with a bar towel, or some
similarly offensive weapon, and accuse him aloud of every sin both in
and out of the decalogue, not omitting the mysterious and only
unforgivable one which is barely outlined in the Book of Revelations;
he would, in short, do every objectionable thing within human
knowledge--short of personally summoning the police. Estimating
(Féo's scouts conclude) the number of convivial commercialists put
through the hoop at three per night, and averaging the sum
contributed by each at fifty-seven-and-sixpence, Mr Contango has been
drawing an income of close upon three thousand a year from a source
previously exploited only by cheap tobacconists and abandoned
barmaids!
Is not it appalling? But perhaps you do not know that the first
stone of the quite considerable pile left by the late Mr Sam Lewis
was laid by youthful ignorance of banking methods--not Samuel's
ignorance, dear; _he_ knew all about banks, from his youth up, and
quite frequently he took one. He was originally, you must know, a
travelling jeweller, though upon a certain Monday morning when,
instead of continuing to travel, he sent word to his firm that his
liver was not acting--for all the world as though he expected that
indispensable organ to go on at the Gaiety in tights and trunks, and
a flaxen wig!--also that he was detained by an urgent matter of a
lucrative character, likewise he was bidden to the funeral ceremonies
of a very dear friend, not to mention his doctor's imperative orders
about staying in the house with so serious a suppressed cold; many a
conjecturing ear took a more forward inclination in the vain hope of
learning something a little more definite. In reality, Samuel was
occupied in raising twenty thousand spangles for a young gentleman
who, after interviewing his pass-book, had come to the sickening
conclusion that he had overdrawn his banking account to about that
tune. The poor boy had, in a lucid interval between drinks, sent for
the little parchment wallet and compared its totals in order to see
how much more money, if any, he had got to spend before he died, and
from even the most careless analysis of the figures there existed
between the right-hand columns and the left-hand columns a
discrepancy of £19,776, 11s. 7d. The very natural conclusion to
which these figures, as well as a colossal ache in the back of his
head (By Christmas! how it did throb, throb, throb!) resigned him,
was that he must have had an even better time than it had seemed--a
distinct chunk of consolation in a way, but one that dug no subway
for the man who had got to find "a hundred" somehow for a real little
topweight, quite the very best that the dear old "Guv'nor" had ever
put on any stage.
It was, however, when dear old Sam (as those who paid up as well as
those who only renewed, alike addressed him) called in with the cash
and spread the bonnie crisp notes of the Bank of England all over the
blessed table that the sun took on new brightness. For a single
glance at the inside of the pass-book disclosed to the genial Hebrew
the fact that, far from being overdrawn, the high-mettled lad, whose
magnificent ignorance of ledger-accounts only increased his nobility,
simply didn't know which side of the book was the other, and actually
had at that moment £19,776, 11s. 7d. standing to his credit.
"Anyhow," he remarked apologetically, after telling his man to fly
down to the bank and get four more cheque-books immediately, "there
must be thunder in the air, or something, for I'll take my oath I had
less to drink last night than I did all the rest of last week put
together."
Fancy you, dear kid, not knowing that, unlike the big drapery houses
of London, which think nothing of lending an overstrung divinity of
the footlights who may be expecting a bed-and-breakfast visit from an
old Girton chum, a silk nightie; of sending it home to the
_recherché_ little flat at the top of the two-hundred-and-sixty-two
stone steps, and of taking it back next morning after all the creases
and crow's feet, bar its warehouse ones, have been pressed out by the
great weight of some large literary work--Bunyan is about the
heaviest in our language--and its pink ribbons have made their first
rapid pass under a warm flat iron; the proprietors of les Grands
Magasins do not cordially endorse the system of sending out their
stock "on appro." Ample facilities for "appro rapide" are afforded
on the premises to princesses of the blood and other noble damsels,
who do not object to discrown themselves and slip into some lawn or
batiste article of the _intime_ toilette at 9 f. 50 in the shadow of
a festoon of organdi muslins, or a bunch of shop-soiled ostrich
stoles, but the girl who cannot make up her unsettled mind until she
has got into the things in her own bedroom and, with her biggest
picture hat on and a chrysanthemum in her hair, has marched up and
down in front of her cheval glass singing "Won't you come home now,
Bill Bailey?" is invariably discouraged. The hierophants of the
Louvre, who in their pudacity request even married men who are not
accompanied by their own wives to be good enough to conceal their
identity as far as possible, claim that the "appro Anglais" system
demoralises both the goods and the customers, but especially the
goods.
And, somehow, this vagrant mention of married men and their wives
reminds me to tell you that the impossible Invernairnes have quite
recently made it up and sworn eternal friendship again. It came
about all unrehearsed and unexpectedly--at least so she told some two
or three hundred women at her club, in strict confidence and on the
distinct understanding that it went no further. They have lately
been vegetating--in separate beds--in a sweetly rural spot called
Hampstead, where the liver-pad and the footpad derive mutual benefit
on Bank Holidays, and where all that one need do when one is hungry
is to pull up a carrot and milk the cow. From a luxurious
sleeping-saloon on the first floor, Lady Invernairne could gaze
across miles and miles of the western heath; though the eastern view
from the palleted box-room on a higher floor, where his lordship lay
like a case of suspended animation, was less imposing, and, indeed,
consisted principally of whitewashed walls punctuated by a green door
with a small ace-of-diamonds window and a latch string in it.
One night a brilliant thunderstorm swept o'er the Heath, the thunder
rolling noisily down the very roofs of rainwashed slate, the heavens
parting to take flashlight pictures of the fertile valleys of North
Middlesex. A forked blue flame played in the sky above the
crematorium at Golder's Hill, a ball of living fire dropped into the
lake at Hendon, and--the craven Lady Invernairne crept from her bed
to stand by her window and shake with terror, her eyes half closed
and her firm, fair bosom--in adaged phrase they used to "lay the
table" on her--turned temporarily to gooseflesh. It is at such
times, when Nature scolds, that woman needs someone to comfort her
and hold her hand till daylight happens or the storm abates. Never
dreaming of consequences, Lady Invernairne weakly called down from
the box-room the case of "suspended animation," and manlike, he
presumed----
But Féo, still a bunch of nerves, has just burst in to say that if a
fiver is sufficient recompense for two hours in the Turkish and three
plain dishes for dinner, I can be on.
It is.
Toujours a toi,
VIOLA.
THE END