MICE AND MEN
"Sylvia, is your father in from his walk?"
Miss Sylvia Mainwaring, attired in a sage-green robe and distressingly
rational boots, turned and surveyed her male parent's recumbent form
upon the sofa.
"Yes, mother mine," she replied. (Sylvia was rather addicted to little
preciosities of this kind.)
"Is he awake?"
"He is reading 'The Spectator,' Mother," was the somewhat Delphic
response.
"Then ring for tea, dear."
It was a bleak Saturday afternoon in late February. Darkness was
closing in, and the great fire in the hall at The Towers flickered
lovingly upon our leading weekly review, which, temporarily diverted
from its original purpose in order to serve as a supplementary waistcoat
for Mr. Mainwaring, rose and fell with gentle regularity in the warm
glow.
Mr. Mainwaring's daughter rang a bell and switched on the electric light
with remorseless severity; his wife came rustling down the broad oak
staircase; and Mr. Mainwaring himself, realising that a further folding
of the hands to sleep was out of the question, peeled off "The
Spectator" and sat up.
"Abel," observed Lady Adela--her husband's baptismal name was a
perpetual thorn in her ample flesh, but she made a point of employing it
on all occasions, as a sort of reducing exercise to her family
pride--"tea will be here in a moment."
Mr. Mainwaring rose to his feet. He was an apologetic little gentleman,
verging on sixty, with a few wisps of grey hair brushed carefully across
his bald head. At present these were hanging down upon the wrong side,
giving their owner a mildly leonine appearance. A kindly, shy,
impulsive man, Abel Mainwaring was invariably mute and ill at ease
beneath the eye of his wife and daughter. Their patrician calm
oppressed him; and his genial expansive nature only blossomed in the
presence of his erratic but affectionate son.
"Tea?" he exclaimed with mild alacrity--"Who said tea?"
"Abel," announced Lady Adela in tones which definitely vetoed any
further conversational openings originating in tea, "I think it only
right to tell you that a visitor may arrive at any moment; and your
present appearance, to put it mildly, is hardly that of the master of a
large household."
"My dear, I fly!" said Mr. Mainwaring hurriedly, and disappeared. At
the same moment there was a tinkle in the back premises.
"There goes the front-door bell," said Sylvia. "I never heard the
carriage. Can it be Connie already?"
"A caller, probably," sighed her mother. "How tiresome people are. See
who it is, Milroy, and then bring tea."
The butler, who had entered from the dining-room, crossed the hall to
the curtained alcove which screened the front door.
"Hardly a caller on an afternoon like this," said Sylvia, shivering
delicately. "It is raining in sheets."
"My experience," replied Lady Adela peevishly, "has always been that
when one's neighbours have made up their minds to be thoroughly
annoying, no weather will stop them."
Simultaneously with this truthful but gloomy reflection Lady Adela
composed her fine features into an hospitable smile of welcome and rose
to her feet.
"Misterilands!" announced Milroy, drawing back the curtain of the outer
hall.
Lady Adela, still smiling, rolled an enquiring eye in the direction of
her daughter.
"New curate!" hissed Sylvia.
Through the curtained archway advanced a short, sturdy, spectacled young
man, dumbly resisting Mr. Milroy's gracious efforts to relieve him of
his hat and stick.
Lady Adela extended her hand.
"How do you do, Mr. Highlands?" she enquired, as the ruffled Milroy,
shaken off like an importunate limpet, disappeared into the dining-room.
"My name," replied the visitor apologetically, "is Rylands--not
Highlands."
"How stupid of me!" said Lady Adela condescendingly. "But my butler is
a most inarticulate person, and in any case we give him the benefit of
the doubt where H's are concerned."
"It's of no consequence," Mr. Rylands assured her. "Oh, I beg your
pardon!"
He picked up his walking-stick, which had fallen upon the polished floor
with a shattering crash, and continued breathlessly:--
"The fact is, Lady Adela, the Archdeacon asked me to come round this
afternoon and warn Mr.--Mr.--" he was uncertain of Mr. Mainwaring's
exact status and title, so decided to hedge--"your husband, about the
First Lesson in to-morrow morning's service. The Arch-deacon--"
"Be seated, Mr. Rylands," said Lady Adela, in the voice which she
reserved for golfers, politicians, and other people who attempted to
talk shop in her presence. "My husband will be downstairs presently.
This is my--"
"The Archdeacon," continued the conscientious Rylands, "thinks it would
be better to substitute an alternative Lesson--"
At this point his walking-stick, which he had after several efforts
succeeded in leaning against the corner of the mantelpiece, fell a
second time upon the floor, and a further hail of apology followed.
"--An alternative Lesson to-morrow morning," he resumed pertinaciously,
"in view of the fact that certain passages--"
"This is my daughter Sylvia," said Lady Adela coldly.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed the curate to Sylvia, starting up and
dropping his hat. "I did n't see you. My glasses are rather dimmed by
the rain. I have come here," he recommenced rapidly, evidently hoping
for a more receptive auditor this time, "at the request of the
Arch-deacon, to see Mr.--your father--about an alteration in the First
Lesson to-morrow--"
"I don't think you need trouble, Mr. Rylands," replied the dutiful
Sylvia. "My father will probably read the wrong Lesson in any case."
"Who is taking my name in vain?" enquired the playful voice of Mr.
Mainwaring, as its owner, newly kempt, descended the stairs.
"This is Mr. Rylands, Abel, who has recently come among us," said Lady
Adela. "To assist the Archdeacon," she added, with feeling.
Mr. Mainwaring shook hands with characteristic friendliness.
"Welcome to Shotley Beauchamp, Mr. Rylands!" he said warmly.
"Thank you, sir, very much," replied the curate, flushing with pleasure.
"I have called," he continued with unabated enthusiasm--evidently he saw
port ahead at last--"at the request of the Archdeacon, with reference to
the First Lesson at Matins to-morrow. One of those rather
characteristic Old Testament passages--"
"Mr. Rylands," interposed Lady Adela, with the air of one who cannot
stand this sort of thing much longer, "how many lumps of sugar do you
take?"
"Four, please," replied Mr. Rylands absently, with his finger in Mr.
Mainwaring's buttonhole.
Lady Adela's eyebrows rose an eighth of an inch.
"Four, did you say?"
The curate came suddenly to himself.
"I beg your pardon," he said cringingly, "I meant none."
"Then why did you specify four, Mr. Rylands?" enquired Sylvia, who
disliked what she called "vague" people.
"Well, the fact is," explained the curate, in a burst of shy
confidence--"I always take four when I am alone in my lodgings. But
when I go out to tea anywhere, four always seems such a fearful lot to
ask for, that--oh, I beg your pardon!"
He had stepped heavily back into a cake-stand, and _patisserie_ strewed
the hearthrug.
But both crime and apology passed unnoticed, for at this moment Milroy,
who had crossed the hall a minute previously, reappeared at the
curtained entrance, and announced, in tones of intense personal
satisfaction:--
"Mrs. Carmyle!"
Even the female Mainwarings had no eyes for any one else when Connie
Carmyle entered a room.
During the melee of greetings and embraces which ensued, Mr. Rylands,
blessing the small deity who had descended to his aid, found time to
right a capsized plum-cake and restore four highly-speckled cylinders of
bread and butter to the plate on the bottom storey of the cake-stand.
He even succeeded in grinding a hopelessly leaky chocolate _eclair_ into
the woolly hearthrug with his heel. By the time that the Mainwarings
had removed their visitor's furs and escorted her to the fireplace, no
trace of the outrage remained. The undetected criminal sat nervously
upon the edge of an _art nouveau_ milking-stool in the chimney-corner,
waiting to be introduced.
"This is Mr. Rylands, Connie," announced Lady Adela. "Mrs. Carmyle."
"How do you do, Mr. Rylands?" said Connie, holding out her hand with a
friendly smile.
Mr. Rylands, with an overfull teacup in one hand and a tiny plate
entirely obscured by an enormous bun in the other, rose cautiously to
his feet, and bestowing a sickly smile upon Mrs. Carmyle, entered at
once upon a series of perilous feats of legerdemain with a view to
getting a hand free.
"Let me hold your cup for you," suggested Connie kindly. "That's
better!"
The curate, gratefully adopting this expedient, ultimately succeeded in
wringing his benefactress by the hand.
"What has the Archdeacon been up to lately?" enquired Connie, gently
massaging her fingers.
The curate's face brightened.
"It is curious that you should mention the Archdeacon's name," he said.
"The fact is, I have just come _from_ the Arch--"
"Constance dear," enquired Lady Adela in trumpet tones, "did you see
anything of Dick on your way down?"
"No, Lady Adela," said Connie, extending a slim foot towards the blazing
logs. ("Mr. Rylands, would you mind bringing me one of those little
cakes? No, not those--the indigestible-looking ones. Thank you so
much!) Are you expecting him for the week-end?"
"Yes, but I am afraid there is a little disappointment in store for him.
I invited Norah Puncheon down--a sweet girl, Constance!--but at the last
moment she has had to go to bed with one of her throats."
"Poor thing!" murmured Mrs. Carmyle absently. The reason for her own
invitation--by telegraph--had just been made apparent to her.
"So perhaps you would not mind keeping Dick amused," concluded Lady
Adela. "You and he used to be such particular friends," she added
archly.
"Bow-_wow_!" observed Mrs. Carmyle dreamily into Mr. Rylands's left ear.
The curate choked, then glowed with gentle gratification. He realised
that he had come face to face at last with one of the Smart Set, of
which one heard so much nowadays.
"The naughty boy," concluded the fond mother, "must have missed his
train."
"The naughty boy," replied Mrs. Carmyle, "is probably coming down by the
four-fifteen. It is a much better train. Mr. Rylands, will you please
choose me a nice heavy crumpet?"
"In that case," said Lady Adela, "he will probably be here in about half
an hour. Sylvia dear, will you go upstairs and see if Constance's room
is ready? I forgot to give orders about a fire."
Sylvia obediently disappeared, and Lady Adela crossed the hall to a
chair under a lamp, where her husband was furtively perusing the evening
paper. Mr. Mainwaring was now favoured with a brief but masterly
display of the fast dying art of pantomime, from which he gathered
without any difficulty whatever that he was to remove himself and Mr.
Rylands to another part of the house, and that right speedily.
Mr. Mainwaring coughed submissively, and rose.
"Mr. Rylands, will you come and smoke a cigarette with me?" he said.
"Second Chronicles?" remarked Connie's clear voice. "I shall look it up
during the sermon to-morrow." The Archdeacon's emissary had unburdened
his soul at last.
Lady Adela extended a stately hand. "Good-bye, Mr. Rylands," she said.
"My husband insists on carrying you off to the smoking-room."
Mr. Rylands, by this time hopelessly enmeshed in Connie Carmyle's net,
sprang guiltily to his feet.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed. "Good-bye! Good-bye, Mrs.
Carmyle!"
He shook hands, gathered together his impedimenta, and hurried blindly
up the staircase.
"Remember I am coming to hear you preach to-morrow," Connie called after
him, with a dazzling smile. "Morning or evening?"
The godly but mesmerised youth halted, and broke out afresh. "I am
preaching at Evensong," he began, "but--"
"This way, Mr. Rylands," said Lady Adela patiently, indicating her
husband, who was standing by a swing door at the opposite side of the
hall.
Mr. Rylands, utterly confounded, pattered headlong downstairs again, and
disappeared with Mr. Mainwaring, still apologising.
Lady Adela tapped Connie playfully but heavily upon the cheek. ("_Like
being tickled by a mastodon_" wrote that lady to her husband a short
time later.)
"Constance dear," she said, with a reproving smile, "you are
incorrigible. Now let us sit down and have a cosy chat."
The incorrigible one sat submissively down upon the sofa and waited.
She knew that her hostess had not rendered the hall a solitude for
nothing.
Presently the cosy chat began. Not too suddenly, though. Lady Adela
first enquired after the health of Mr. Carmyle, and expressed regret
that he had been prevented from accompanying his wife to The Towers.
"He was sent for about his wretched canal," explained Connie. "But he
saw me off at Waterloo, and promised to come down on Monday if he could
get away."
"Is it the first time you have been parted?" asked Lady Adela.
"Yes," said Connie, in quite a small voice.
Her hostess, suddenly human, patted her hand.
"The time will soon pass, dear," she said. "You will find this house
quiet but soothing. I like it much better than town myself. Mr.
Mainwaring is no trouble, and things are so cheap. The only drawback is
Sylvia. She dislikes the people about here."
"By the way," enquired Connie, recovering her spirits, "what is Sylvia's
exact _line_ just at present? Last year it was slumming; the year
before it was poker-work, and the year before that it was Christian
Science. What does that sage-green gown mean? Don't tell me she has
become a Futurist, or a Post-Impressionist, or anything!"
"I never attempt," replied Lady Adela, closing her eyes resignedly, "to
cope with Sylvia's hobbies. At present she is a Socialist of some kind.
She is evolving a scheme, I believe, under which the masses and classes
are to intermarry for the next twenty years. By that time, she
considers, social distinctions will have ceased to exist, and
consequently the social problem will have solved itself."
Mrs. Carmyle nodded her head comprehendingly.
"I see," she said, "it sounds a good idea. I shall start looking out in
the 'Morning Post' for the announcement of Sylvia's engagement to a
plumber. Just half a cup more, please."
Lady Adela now decided to begin the cosy chat. She accordingly
discharged what is known on rifle-ranges as a sighting shot.
"By the way, dear Constance, have you and your husband seen much of Dick
lately?"
"Oh, we meet him about occasionally," replied Connie, casting about for
cover--"at parties, and so on."
"I fear," continued Lady Adela, with what the police call "intent,"
"that the poor boy is lonely."
"The last time I saw him," replied Connie, "he was entertaining five
people to luncheon at the Trocadero. He did n't _look_ lonely."
"There is a loneliness of spirit, dear," replied Lady Adela gently, "of
which some of us know nothing. I think it shows that Dick _must_ be
feeling lonely if he requires no less than five people to cheer him up."
"I am sure you are right," said the obliging Mrs. Carmyle.
"Was Norah Puncheon of the party, by any chance?" enquired Lady Adela
carelessly.
"No. I did n't know any of the people. Is Norah a friend of Dicky's?"
"They have seen a good deal of one another of late, I believe," replied
the diplomatic Lady Adela, much as a motorist with his radiator full of
feathers might admit having recently noticed a hen somewhere.
"Constance dear," she continued, coming in her maternal solicitude quite
prematurely to the point, "you are always so discreet. It is high time
Dick was married, and this time I really do think--no, I _feel_ it
instinctively--that Norah Puncheon is the right woman for him."
"The right woman!" replied the late First Reserve pensively. "How awful
that always sounds! The wrong one is always so much nicer!"
"My dear," exclaimed the horrified Lady Adela, "whoever put such a
notion into your head?"
"Dicky. He told me so himself."
"Has Norah Puncheon much influence over him, do you know?" continued
Lady Adela, falling back on to safer ground.
"Yes, lots," replied Connie, stifling the tiniest of yawns. "There goes
your telephone."
"Milroy will attend to it, dear. Let me see," pursued Lady Adela, with
studious vagueness--"what were we talking about?"
"Norah Puncheon's influence over Dicky," replied Connie, popping a lump
of sugar into her mouth and crunching it with all the satisfaction of a
child of six.
"You have noticed it yourself, then?"
Connie, quite speechless, nodded.
Lady Adela beamed. The scent was growing stronger.
"In what way, dear?" she asked, with unfeigned interest.
"Well," said Connie, after an interval of profound reflection, "Dicky
wanted to back Prince Caramel for the St. Leger, and Norah would n't let
him. He was so grateful to her afterwards!"
Lady Adela summoned up a lopsided smile--the smile of a tarpon-fisher
who has pulled up a red herring.
"I think her influence goes deeper than that, dearest," she rejoined in
patient reproof. "You, who only knew my son as a rather careless and
light-hearted boy, would hardly credit--"
"A telephone message, my lady!" announced Milroy, appearing at the
dining-room door.
Lady Adela, tripped up on her way to a striking passage, sighed with an
air of pathetic endurance, and enquired:--
"From whom, Milroy?"
"From Mr. Richard, my lady."
"Mr. Richard? Where is he?"
"He has telephoned from Shotley Post-Office, my lady," replied Milroy,
keenly appreciating the mild sensation he was about to create; "to say
that he has arrived by the four-fifteen and is walking up."
"_Walking_--on a night like this?" cried Lady Adela, all the mother in
her awake at once. "Tell him to wait, and I will send the motor."
"Mr. Richard said he preferred walking, my lady," rejoined Milroy,
growing more wooden as he approached the _clou_ of his narrative. "He
said he would explain when he arrived. But the luggage-cart was to go
down."
"For one portmanteau?"
"For the young lady's trunks, my lady."
"Young lady?" Lady Adela turned a puzzled countenance to her companion.
"Constance, dear, was not your luggage sent up with you?"
"Yes," replied Connie, scenting fun; "it was. I fancy this must be some
other lady."
Light broke in on Lady Adela.
"Norah Puncheon, after all!" she exclaimed joyfully. "Her throat must
be better, and that headstrong son of mine has compelled her to come
down by the four-fifteen."
"And walk up in the rain," supplemented Connie.
"The thoughtless boy!" wailed Lady Adela insincerely. "He will give her
pneumonia."
"Perhaps it is n't Miss Puncheon," suggested Connie soothingly.
"But, my dear," said Lady Adela, refraining with great forbearance from
slapping the small but discouraging counsellor by her side, "who else
can it be?" She turned to Milroy.
"Did Mr. Richard mention if he was bringing the young lady up with him?"
she asked.
"Yes, my lady," replied Milroy with unction--"he did."
"Did he mention her name, Milroy?" enquired Connie.
"No, Miss. He just said 'the young lady.' Will there be anything
further, my lady?"
"No," snapped Lady Adela; and her aged retainer, as feverishly anxious
beneath his perfectly schooled exterior to solve the mystery of his
beloved Master Dick's latest escapade as his mistress, departed to lay
another place for dinner.
In the hall there was a long silence. The wind roared round the house,
and the rain drummed softly upon the diamond panes of the big oriel
window.
"It might be some old friend of the family," said Lady Adela
hopefully--"some one whom Dick has encountered unexpectedly and invited
down. You know his impulsive, hospitable way! Aunt Fanny, perhaps."
"A _young_ lady, I think Milroy said," replied the Job's comforter
beside her.
"Perhaps," pursued Lady Adela, still endeavouring to keep her courage
up, "it is only one of the foolish boy's practical jokes."
These speculations were cut short by the prolonged buzz of an electric
bell, followed by the sound of a spirited tattoo executed upon the
panels of the front door, apparently by a walking-stick. The Freak (and
party) had arrived.
Lady Adela sat bolt upright, almost pale.
"Mercy! here they are!" she said.
Milroy, who had appeared from his lair with uncanny celerity, was
already in the outer hall. There was the sound of a heavy door being
opened; the curtains bulged out with the draught; and a voice was heard
uplifted in cheery greeting.
Then the door banged, and Dicky Mainwaring appeared through the
curtains.
He was alone, and very wet.
"What ho, Mum!" he observed, after the fashion of the present
generation.
"My son!" exclaimed Lady Adela, advancing with outstretched arms.
Dicky, enduring a somewhat lengthy embrace, suddenly caught sight of a
small alert figure on the sofa. Curtailing the maternal caress as
gently as possible, he darted forward.
"Connie!" he cried enthusiastically. "What tremendous luck meeting
you!" He shook his ancient ally by both hands.
"I want you more at this moment," he continued earnestly, "than at any
other period of my life."
Connie Carmyle pointed an accusing finger at him.
"Dicky Mainwaring," she enquired sternly, "where is your lady friend?"
"I was just going to introduce her," replied Dicky, with a rapturous
smile. "I wonder where she has got to, by the way. Found a mirror, I
expect."
Then he raised his voice and cried:--
"Tilly!"
"Hallo!" replied an extremely small voice; and a shrinking figure
appeared in the opening of the curtains.