TO MEET THE SHAH-DA-SHAH.
Mr. West returned home early in the season, and inaugurated his arrival
with new horses, new liveries, new footmen, and gave a series of most
_recherché_ dinners. He would have bidden Mr. Wynne to one of these
banquets, for the old gentleman had a tenacious memory (especially
for things that his daughter expressly wished he would forget), but
she quietly turned the subject; and did not encourage the idea of
entertaining her husband under her unsuspicious parent’s roof.
“But he belongs to my club, The Foolscap. I see him there now and
then, and he seems a popular chap, and to know every one. I heard
Fotherham--Lord Fotherham--pressing him to spend a couple of days with
them up the river, and they say his articles and writings are quite
popular.”
“Oh, I don’t think literary people are very interesting; you have
always to get up all their works, and be able to stand a stiff
examination in them, if you want to invite them here. Did you see the
failure of a great bank in Australia--it was among the telegrams in the
_Echo_ this evening?” she added artfully.
“No. Bless my soul! what bank? Where is the paper?” in great
excitement. And Mr. West’s mind was hurried away into another channel,
and Mr. Wynne’s invitation-card was not despatched.
Madeline found time to pay many stealthy visits to Harry, who was
really a beautiful child, of whom even the most indifferent mother
might well feel proud. He could talk and walk so nicely, and was such a
pretty, endearing little fellow, that her visits, from being spasmodic
and irregular, became of weekly occurrence.
Impunity had emboldened her, and every Saturday morning, when her
father imagined her to be shopping, or in the Park--found her in
Mrs. Holt’s old-fashioned garden, walking and playing between high
hollyhocks, sunflowers, and lavender bushes, with a fair-haired little
boy. What would Mr. West have said had he seen his lovely daughter
running round and round, and up and down the gravel path, driven by two
knotted reins, and a small fierce driver, wielding a long whip with a
whistle at the end of it?
Mr. and Mrs. Wynne never met, for her days, as we have seen, were
Saturdays, and his were invariably Sundays.
Low fever was prevalent that sultry month of June, also typhoid and
diphtheria. The latter fastened its grim clutch on little Harry. It
was a case which developed rapidly. The child had been hot and heavy,
and not his usual bright talkative self, when his mother saw him on
Saturday. Mrs. Holt attributed this entirely to the oppressive weather,
and to thunder in the air. On Sunday his father, justly alarmed,
summoned the local doctor, who at once pronounced that the little
patient was a victim to diphtheria.
On Monday Madeline was sent for. The child was a shade better, though
still very ill. He lay in his cot and gazed at her with large distended
eyes--and gasped out “Mummy--mummy,” as he held out his little hot
hands.
She remained all day, for it so happened that her father was out of
town; but, under any circumstances, she assured herself, she would
have stayed all the same; and when she finally departed, late in the
evening, the patient was sleeping, and the doctor’s opinion more
encouraging. He assured her that she need not alarm herself, as he
walked down with her to where the fly stood waiting in the lane.
“You really need not be uneasy, my dear madam,” he said impressively,
“unless things take a most unexpected turn, and then, of course, we
will let you know. He is a fine healthy child, and admirably nursed by
yonder good woman,” nodding towards the house.
“She is indeed a good woman!” returned Madeline fervently, as her
thoughts recalled Mrs. Holt’s unwearying care and night and day
attendance on her nursling. She even seemed to grudge her permission to
feed him, or to moisten his lips.
“I’m afraid I can’t come to-morrow, unless I am really needed,” said
Madeline plaintively. “You say there is no danger now--you are _sure_?
I may rely on you to tell me?”
“Yes; there is none whatever at present.”
“Because if there were, I should remain all night.”
“There is no occasion, especially if you are urgently needed
elsewhere,” rejoined the doctor, who nevertheless thought it rather
strange that this pretty, tearful, agitated young lady should not find
it the most natural thing to remain with her sick child--her only
child.
Promising that she should have early news the next morning by
telegraph, he handed her into the fly, and bowed her off the scene,
just as another inquiring relative--equally near and equally
anxious--came hurrying up to him--in fact, the child’s father, who had
taken the short cut from the station by the path across the fields.
“Most peculiar state of affairs,” thought the doctor to himself;
“there must be a screw loose somewhere. The child’s parents apparently
well-off, fashionable people, living apart and visiting the farm
separately, and never alluding to one another. What did it mean?”
Mrs. Holt promptly set the matter before him in three words. It meant
that “they had quarrelled.” Mr. Wynne remained at the farmhouse all
night, sharing Mrs. Holt’s vigil, and watching every turn, every
movement, every breath of the little sleeper as anxiously as she
did herself. In the morning there was no positive change one way or
another. The pendulum of little Harry’s existence seemed to have paused
for a time before it made that one vital movement in the direction of
either life or death.
A message was despatched to Miss West in these laconic words--“Slept
pretty well; much the same.” And Madeline, relieved in her mind,
entered on the work of a long and toilsome day. In short, she continued
the grand preparations for a ball that they were giving that evening.
It was to be the ball of the season.
Invitations had been out for four weeks. A native Indian prince,
and some of the lesser Royalties had signified their intention of
being present. Mr. West looked upon the festivity as the supreme
occasion of his life, the summit of his ambition--fully and flawlessly
attained--and he was happy. Only, of course, there is a thorn in
every rose; in this rose there were two thorns. One--and a very sharp
one--the disquieting rumours of financial affairs in Australia, where
a great part of his huge income was invested; and the other and
lesser thorn--the announcement of Lord Tony’s engagement to an old
acquaintance and partner, Miss Pamela Pace.
And so his dream of calling Lord Tony by his Christian name, as his
son-in-law, was at an end. However, he was resolved to make the most
of the delightful present, and to give an entertainment, the fame
of which should ring from one end of London to the other. He fully
carried out his motto, “money no object.” The floral decorations alone
for hall, staircase, ballrooms, and supper-table came to the pretty
penny of two thousand pounds. The favourite band of the season was, of
course, in attendance. As to the supper, it was to be a banquet, the
menu of which would make an epicure green with envy; and Madeline’s
dress was to come direct from Doucet, and had been specially designed
for the occasion by Mr. West’s commands.
With all these splendid preparations in view, it will be easily
understood that it was with some trepidation that Madeline asked her
father to postpone the ball.
She made her request very timidly, with failing heart and faltering
lips--indeed, the end of her sentence died away in the air when she
beheld the terrible expression on her parent’s face.
“Put off the ball!” he roared; “are you mad? You must have a shingle
short. Put off the swells, after all the work I’ve had to get them! Put
off”--he actually choked over the words--“the Shah-da-shah, when you
_know_ there’s not another day in the season! Every night is taken.
Why, what do you mean? What’s your reason?” he almost screamed.
“I--I thought the intense heat--I fancied Ascot--races happening
to-morrow, and I’m not feeling very--well,” she faltered lamely.
“Oh, bosh! You look as fit as possible. Your reasons are no reasons.
I suppose you are cut up about Tony--though why you should be is more
than I can say--seeing that you refused him twice.”
“On the contrary, I’m delighted at his engagement. Pamela Pace is,
as you know, a friend of mine. He promised to bring her to the dance
without fail.”
“And the dance comes off on Wednesday without fail.”
The suggestion of its postponement had been made on Monday--after her
return from the farm.
“And remember, Madeline, that I shall expect you to stir yourself--look
after the decorations, have an eye to the supper-tables, and see that
the men do the floors properly, and that there are no old waltzes in
the programme. You will have your work cut out, and I mine. It will
be the busiest day in your life--one to talk of and look back on
when you are a grandmother. It’s not a common event to entertain the
Shah-da-shah!” As he said this he jumped up and began to pace the
room, rubbing his hands, in an ecstasy of anticipation.
On the morning of the ball Mr. West was early about, arranging,
ordering, superintending, and sending telegrams.
“Here’s a pile,” he suddenly exclaimed at breakfast-time, indicating
a heap of letters. “I got these all yesterday from people asking for
invitations--invitations for themselves, cousins, aunts, and so on,
from folk who wouldn’t know us last season; but it’s my turn now! I’ll
have none of them. Whatever else the ball will be, it shall be select,”
waving his arm with a gesture that was ludicrous in its pomposity.
“By the way, that fellow Wynne--he belongs to my club, you know--and
besides that, Bagge and Keepe have given him a brief in a case I’m much
concerned in. You remember him, eh?”
“Yes, I remember Mr. Wynne,” she answered rather stiffly.
“Well, I met him in the street yesterday morning, and asked him for
to-morrow. He’s a presentable-looking sort of chap,” nodding rather
apologetically at his daughter; “but, would you believe it, he would
not come; though I told him it would be something out of the common.
And fancy his reason”--pausing dramatically--the little man was still
pacing the room--“you will never guess; you will be as astounded as I
was. He said his child was ill.”
Madeline never raised her eyes, but sat with them fixed upon a certain
pattern on the carpet, not looking particularly interested, merely
indifferent, white and rigid.
“He appeared quite in a fright,” proceeded Mr. West, volubly, “and
very much worried and put out. He had a case on in court, and wanted
to get away. I had no idea that he was a married man; had you?”
Before Mr. Wynne’s wife’s dry lips could frame an appropriate answer
to this awkward question, a footman entered with another bundle of
notes on a salver, and thus Mr. West’s attention was diverted from his
unhappy daughter.