“Hullo!” said Lord Manton. “Back again. What have you forgotten? It’s
rather rash of you to venture, I think. If it’s only your cigar-case or
something of that sort that you’ve left behind, I should have had it
posted after you as soon as you sent me your address. I can’t keep Miss
Blow here permanently, you know. In dealing with a lady like her you
ought not to take these risks.”
“The others are coming,” said Mr. Goddard breathlessly.
“Oh, indeed! What others?”
“I met them in the deer park. They are coming up here. They had Jimmy
O’Loughlin’s boy with them to show them the way.”
“What others?”
“I turned at once and ran back,” said Mr. Goddard. “I don’t think they
saw me; in fact, I’m sure they didn’t. But what are we to do now?”
“I’d stand a better chance of answering that question,” said Lord
Manton, “if I knew who you were talking about.”
“The other women, Mrs. Dick and----”
“Oh, the wives of the lost Members of Parliament.”
“Yes. What shall we do?”
“Don’t say, what shall _we_ do,” said Lord Manton. “I’m not going to
do anything except sit here and watch the progress of events. I think
that’s as much as can be expected of me. Many men wouldn’t do even
that. I know lots of people who’d object to your way of filling up
their houses with strange women; but I’m giving you every latitude. If
you choose to interview your lady friends in my drawing-room, I make no
objection. But I won’t be dragged into any complications myself. That’s
the reason I don’t like your saying ‘we.’ The question is not what
shall we do, but what will you do.”
“What shall I do, then?” said Mr. Goddard.
“If you’d taken my advice,” said Lord Manton, “and married Miss Blow
half an hour ago, you wouldn’t be in this difficulty now. Your course
would have been perfectly plain. You’d simply have referred the other
ladies to Miss Blow. She would have dealt with them, and not allowed
them to do you any harm. However, I don’t want to rub in your past
mistakes. The only course open to you now is to introduce these three
to Miss Blow and let them talk the matter over quietly together while
you get Mrs. Patsy Devlin to join them.”
Wilkins entered the room while Lord Manton was speaking.
“There are some ladies to see your lordship,” he said.
“To see me? To see Mr. Goddard, you mean.”
“It was your lordship they asked for.”
“There must be some mistake,” said Lord Manton. “Go to them again,
Wilkins, and say that Mr. Goddard is here and will be delighted to see
them.”
“I don’t see what good that will be,” said Mr. Goddard. “Wait a minute.”
But Wilkins was gone. Mr. Goddard made a protest.
“Why did you give me away like that?” he asked. “If you hadn’t told
them I was here, they would never have thought of asking for me.”
“I gave you away to save myself,” said Lord Manton. “I always give
other people away when there’s any kind of unpleasantness going on.
That has been a fixed rule of mine through life, and I’ve always found
it work well.”
“Beg pardon, my lord,” said Wilkins, who returned, “but the ladies say
it’s your lordship they want to see; but they’ll be very glad to meet
Mr. Goddard too.”
“Did you ask their business, Wilkins?”
“I did, my lord. They said they heard that you were a magistrate,
and----”
“That,” said Lord Manton, “sounds about as bad as anything could be.
How many ladies were there, Wilkins?”
“Three, my lord.”
“The whole three,” said Mr. Goddard. “I told you so.”
“Where have you put them, Wilkins?”
“I showed them into the big drawing-room, my lord. The other lady was
in----”
“Well, go and change them out of that into the small drawing-room. Or,
wait a minute. It may be easier to move Miss Blow. Go and put her into
the big drawing-room along with the other three. Then shut the door and
leave them. Do you think you can manage that, Wilkins?”
“I could try, my lord.”
“Very well. Go and try. And if you succeed, don’t go to them again
until they’ve rung the bell at least a dozen times.”
“Certainly not, my lord.”
“It’s rather hard on a man of my age,” said Lord Manton, “to be hunted
out of my own house in this way by a lot of strange women. I’m not
blaming you, Goddard. All the same, if you had been reasonable about
Miss Blow we wouldn’t be in the position we are. Now, of course,
there’s nothing for it but to fly. It’s very undignified for me, being
a peer and that sort of thing. It will also, I’m afraid, be most
uncomfortable. I mind that much more than the humiliation. But there’s
nothing else for it. If I stay here they’ll catch me sooner or later.”
“What will you do?”
“I shall get out a horse and trap if I can without being noticed. I
shall drive down to the station, and lie hid in the ticket office until
the next train is due. Then I shall go to London. You’d better come
with me.”
Lord Manton’s idea was to reach the stable-yard by way of the servants’
quarters, so as to avoid passing the doors of either the big or the
small drawing-room. To do this from the library it was necessary to
go along a corridor and then cross an angle of the central hall off
which both the drawing-rooms opened. The corridor was safe. The passage
across the hall was dangerous. Unless Wilkins actually locked the
ladies in, a door might be opened at any moment.
Lord Manton and Mr. Goddard went on tiptoe along the corridor. A voice
reached them from the hall. It was Wilkins’ voice.
“This way, miss, if you please.”
“One of them has escaped,” said Mr. Goddard.
“No,” whispered Lord Manton; “it’s only Wilkins moving Miss Blow into
the big drawing-room. Wait a minute.”
They heard Wilkins’ voice again. This time it was nearer than it had
been.
“I beg your pardon, miss, but if you’ll allow me to show you the way.
You’re going in quite the wrong direction, miss.”
Mr. Goddard clutched Lord Manton’s arm. “She’s coming down here,” he
said. “We’d better----”
“It’s all right,” whispered Lord Manton. “Wilkins will head her off.”
“I’m going in the direction in which I mean to go.”
This voice was unmistakably Miss Blow’s. It was clear, resonant,
determined, and sounded very near at hand.
“Good heavens!” said Mr. Goddard.
“She’s quite right,” said Lord Manton. “She is going in the direction
in which she means to go. I rather respect her for it.”
Wilkins, walking sideways, and expostulating vehemently, appeared
at the end of the corridor. Behind him, mistress of herself and the
situation, strode Miss Blow. She caught sight of Lord Manton and Mr.
Goddard at once. She pointed to them with a finger and fixed her eyes
upon them with a terrible glare. They stood still, fascinated. The idea
of escape by running and a leap through the library window occurred
to Lord Manton. But with Miss Blow’s eyes on him he was incapable of
the effort. Wilkins, faithful to the last, walked backwards along the
corridor, in front of Miss Blow. He looked as if he meant to sacrifice
himself in order to stand between his master and Amazonian violence. He
was a good servant.
“So there you are,” said Miss Blow. “You----” Her finger, pointed at
Mr. Goddard, trembled with indignant scorn. “And you, my lord.”
There was a fine note of contempt, bitter and furious contempt, in her
voice, as she uttered the words “my lord.” There was something terrible
in the association of a title reckoned honourable by the world with the
baseness which she evidently attributed to Lord Manton.
“Yes,” said Lord Manton; “we’re both here. But why aren’t you in the
big drawing-room with the other ladies? You oughtn’t to come down here,
you know, especially without a chaperone.”
“You call yourselves gentlemen,” said Miss Blow.
“No,” said Lord Manton; “we don’t. I certainly don’t. And I should
be surprised to hear that Mr. Goddard did. The word is quite out of
fashion, I assure you. Nobody uses it nowadays. Don’t bring unjust
charges against us, Miss Blow. There are lots of things we may be
accused of with truth. We’re not the men we ought to be, especially
Mr. Goddard. Charge us with the things we’ve done, and we’ll confess
at once and apologize. But don’t be unjust. We never called ourselves
gentlemen.”
“You ran away from me yesterday,” said Miss Blow, addressing Mr.
Goddard, “after promising faithfully that you’d help me. You ran away
again to-day. You would be running away now if I hadn’t caught you in
the act.”
“He did and he would,” said Lord Manton. “I’ve just been speaking to
him about it. I told him his conduct was disgraceful. I’m glad now that
he’ll hear what you think of it from your own lips. It’ll do him good.”
Mr. Goddard frowned and shuffled uneasily. Even though he had been
fairly warned of the principle on which Lord Manton treated his friends
in emergencies, he did not expect to be sacrificed so completely and
remorselessly.
“You’re as bad yourself,” said Miss Blow.
“No,” said Lord Manton; “I’m not. Try to be just, Miss Blow. I didn’t
run away from you.”
“You’re just as bad as he is,” said Miss Blow.
Her voice was clear and loud. Lord Manton glanced anxiously towards the
hall. It was quite possible that the noise of the denunciation might
reach the drawing-room.
“Wilkins,” he said, “did you shut the door of the big drawing-room?”
“No, my lord; I understood your lordship to say that this lady----”
“Then go and do it at once. I can’t have the other three---- Miss Blow
is speaking to us in a confidential manner and doesn’t want----”
“Who are you shutting up?” said Miss Blow. “Who is your lackey going to
imprison?”
“Some ladies,” said Lord Manton. “There are, I believe, three of them.
But I’m not imprisoning them. I’m only trying to keep them where they
are for a few minutes. I’m doing it entirely on your account. They
wouldn’t be at all cheering company for you. They have, unfortunately,
just lost their husbands under the most mysterious and trying
circumstances. Members of Parliament, you know. Excellent fellows every
one of them. The whole thing is unspeakably sad.”
“Are those the ladies----?” said Miss Blow. “But of course they are.
I heard about that. Do you mean to say that you’re going to sit here
and do nothing, nothing whatever, while men are being murdered in
this wholesale manner every day? Will you make no effort to bring the
criminals to justice and prevent the loss of more human life? You,
sir,” she addressed Mr. Goddard, “you wear his Majesty’s uniform; you
are an officer in what is supposed to be a police force----”
“It is a police force,” said Mr. Goddard feebly. “It really is,
although I am an officer in it.”
“And you,” she went on, turning to Lord Manton, “you are a magistrate
besides being a peer.”
“Miss Blow,” said Lord Manton, “won’t you come into the library and sit
down? We could talk so much more comfortably if we were sitting down.
Besides, this is rather a public place for the discussion of private
affairs.”
He looked past Miss Blow towards the end of the corridor. Something
in his expression made Miss Blow turn her head. She saw, gathered in
a knot in the hall, the cook, the kitchen-maid, the upper and under
house-maid, and Wilkins. All of them, except Wilkins, were grinning.
They had forgotten all decency and the respect due to their master.
They were eagerly listening to every word Miss Blow said. She allowed
herself to be led into the library.
“Now sit down,” said Lord Manton. “You must be thoroughly tired out
after your long walk yesterday and all this excitement to-day. Will you
allow me to offer you a glass of wine and a biscuit? Goddard, ring the
bell, like a good man.”
“No,” said Miss Blow.
“A cup of tea, then? No? Or an egg flip? The cook would have it
ready in a moment. I often have an egg flip myself when I’m feeling
over-done. It’s an excellent thing, I assure you.”
“No,” said Mrs. Blow; “I’ll take nothing--nothing from you. I----”
“Well, just allow me to say one word,” said Lord Manton, “before you
begin again.”
“If you’ve any excuse to make for your behaviour,” said Miss Blow,
“make it. I shall listen to you.”
“I haven’t,” said Lord Manton. “Not a shred. Nor has Mr. Goddard. Don’t
interrupt me, Goddard. You haven’t any real excuse, and you know it.
But you mustn’t be too hard upon us, Miss Blow. Try to put yourself in
our position, in Mr. Goddard’s position, for I really haven’t anything
to do with the business one way or other. It wasn’t his fault about
those Members of Parliament. He’s just as sorry about it as anybody
else. If he’d known that they intended to run away from their wives
he’d have stopped them; but how could he know?”
“Oh!” said Miss Blow. “That is the latest theory, is it? Their husbands
ran away from them? Do you expect to get any one to believe that? I
suppose the husband of that poor woman down in the village ran away
from her. I suppose you mean to try and prove that she ill-treated
him, that she, a half-starved, delicate woman, bullied a great hulking
blacksmith. I suppose you’ll say that Dr. O’Grady ran away from me.
Last time I was here you said he ran away from his creditors. When I
proved that to be a lie, you have the assurance to say that he ran away
from me.”
“I hadn’t mentioned you or Dr. O’Grady,” said Lord Manton. “But come
now, Miss Blow, be reasonable. If he has run away from you, he wouldn’t
be the only man that has. You can’t deny that Mr. Goddard ran away
from you. He did it twice. You said so yourself. In fact, you more than
hinted that he was in the act of a third flight when you caught him.
There’s nothing inherently absurd in supposing that one man would do
what another man has done several times. I needn’t say I wouldn’t do
it myself. But that’s another matter. It’s far better for you to look
facts straight in the face, however unpleasant they are.”
Whether Miss Blow looked at the facts or not, the facts as Lord Manton
represented them, she certainly looked at Mr. Goddard. It seemed for
a moment as if she was about to re-open the question of his flight
to Ballymoy and his subsequent flight back again to Clonmore. He
felt greatly annoyed with Lord Manton for calling fresh attention to
these performances. There ought, he was convinced, to be some limit
to the extent to which a man may give away his friends. But Miss Blow
recognized that these hurried flittings of his and the causes of them
were side issues. She got back, with an evident effort, to the main
point immediately under discussion.
“And why should you suppose that the husbands of the ladies you have
shut up in your drawing-room have run away from them?”
It was of Lord Manton that she asked the question; but Mr. Goddard
answered her. He saw his opportunity and seized it. Having been
sacrificed more than once as a burnt-offering to Miss Blow’s wrath, he
was perfectly ready, now he got the chance, to show up Lord Manton, as
a man who also deserved strong denunciation.
“Lord Manton says,” said Mr. Goddard, “that their husbands couldn’t
bear to live with them any more, because they were ordinary women
and----”
“As well as I recollect,” said Lord Manton, “it was you who used the
word ‘ordinary.’ I hadn’t seen the ladies at the time. For that matter,
I haven’t seen them yet.”
“And,” said Mr. Goddard, speaking slowly and with emphasis, “because
they wear red dressing-gowns and wash their teeth.”
He glanced at Lord Manton with an expression of triumph on his face.
Miss Blow stared first at one of the men before her and then at the
other. She was amazed. In spite of the white heat of her virtuous
indignation she was reduced for the moment to a silence of sheer
astonishment. The nature of the charge brought against the wives of the
Members of Parliament took her aback. It was totally unexpected.
“Those,” said Mr. Goddard, striking home after his victory, “are the
exact expressions Lord Manton used.”
“Of course,” said Lord Manton, in an explanatory and half-apologetic
tone, “I didn’t mean to suggest that those were Patsy Devlin’s reasons
for absconding. I don’t suppose that his wife has a dressing-gown of
any colour, and as for her teeth----”
Miss Blow began to recover a little from her first shock.
“Do you mean to say,” she said, “that you consider a man is justified
in deserting his wife because she wears a red dressing-gown and washes
her teeth?”
“Certainly,” said Lord Manton. “If you consider the matter fairly
and impartially, without bias in favour of either sex, you will see
that there can’t be two opinions about it. The mere act of wearing
a dressing-gown, red or blue, is of course nothing in itself. But
considered as an expression of a certain spirit, of what I may perhaps
call the spirit of persistent, puritanical domesticity; regarded as an
evidence of an oppressive kind of civilized respectability, taken in
conjunction with a whole series of trifling, or apparently trifling,
mental and physical habits,--ordering dinner, for instance, engaging
servants, doing needlework, paying weekly bills, keeping a visiting
list, taking a holiday every year at the seaside--you will, I am sure,
understand the sort of things I mean--taken in conjunction with these
and regarded as an expression of the kind of spirit which takes a
delight in doing these things and doing them continuously year after
year--considered in this way, the wearing of a red dressing-gown does
justify a man, a certain sort of man, in deserting his wife. You catch
my meaning, I am sure, Miss Blow.”
Once more Miss Blow was silent from sheer astonishment. Then, after a
pause, she spoke, and Mr. Goddard, like the governor Felix before the
Apostle Paul, trembled. Lord Manton, although it was to him that her
remark was specially addressed, bore himself more bravely.
“You think it very fine,” she said, “to bully and badger a helpless
girl, and to allow innocent men to be murdered under your very eyes.
But you’ll have to answer for it. You’ll be held responsible, both of
you. It’s--it’s intolerable.”
“My dear Miss Blow,” said Lord Manton.
“Don’t dare to say ‘my dear’ to me.”
“I didn’t mean it,” said Lord Manton, quite truthfully. “Nothing was
further from my mind than any idea of expressing affection, although
of course I have a great regard and esteem for you. But do try to be
reasonable. We’re quite ready, both of us--I’m sure I may speak for Mr.
Goddard as well as myself--to do anything in our power. But what can we
do? What do you suggest our doing? What do you want us to do?”
“Arrest the murderers,” said Miss Blow.
“Certainly,” said Lord Manton. “Goddard, go at once and arrest the
murderers. You’re a policeman. It’s your business to arrest murderers.
Don’t waste time. Do it.”
“Who am I to arrest?” said Mr. Goddard. “I don’t know any murderers. I
don’t so much as know the name of a single murderer. If I did, I’d be
off after him at once.”
“Who is he to arrest, Miss Blow?” said Lord Manton. “You’ll have to
give him the name and address of your murderer. I suppose you know who
he is and where he lives.”
“Yes, I do,” said Miss Blow. “I didn’t at first, but now I do.”
Wilkins entered the room as she spoke. “I beg your pardon, my lord,” he
said.
“Yes, Wilkins, what is it? Be as quick as you can, Wilkins. We are at a
most interesting point of our conversation. Miss Blow is just going to
reveal to us the name of a murderer, and then Mr. Goddard is going out
to arrest him.”
“I beg pardon, my lord, but the ladies in the big drawing-room have
been ringing the bell.”
“Much, Wilkins? I mean to say, have they been ringing it an excessive
number of times, or very hard? There is no harm in their ringing
moderately. I should wish them to ring when they want anything.”
“They’ve been ringing a good deal, my lord.”
“Are they still ringing?”
“Yes, my lord. That’s the reason I mentioned it. I thought there might
be something you would wish me to say to them.”
“Quite right,” said Lord Manton. “I’m very glad you told me. My idea
would be for you to offer them a cup of tea or something of that
sort to keep them quiet. Or what would you say, Miss Blow, if we had
them down here? They might take to smashing up the furniture and the
ornaments if I keep them there much longer. There’s some china in the
room that I’d be sorry to lose. Not very valuable, you know, but still
things that it would be difficult to replace. Don’t tell us the name
of your murderer for a minute or two. Mr. Goddard and I will restrain
our impatience. I’d like the other ladies to be here when you make the
revelation. I’m sure they’d enjoy hearing all about it. Wilkins, will
you kindly go to the big drawing-room and ask the three ladies to be
good enough to come down here?”