ANOTHER COSY CHAT, WITH AN INTERRUPTION
I
_The victim_, continued Connie presently, _is now upon the sofa, wedged
in between the Chief Ogress and the Assistant Tormentor. She is scared
out of her wits, poor thing, but has stood up to the pair of them
splendidly so far_.
"It was good of you to come down to this poky little corner of the
country, Miss Welwyn," Lady Adela was saying, handing Tilly a second cup
of tea. "It is so nice when one's friends take one as they find one, is
it not?"
Tilly, wide-eyed and quaking, was understood to assent to this
proposition.
"You live in town, I understand?" continued Lady Adela cautiously.
Tilly took a deep breath, and began:--
"Yes--in Russell Square. The house," she continued rapidly, "is very
old-fashioned. It belonged to my grandfather. My father inherited from
him, and we have lived there ever since we left Cambridge. We have
often talked of leaving, but Dad says he can't bear transplanting at his
time of life. So," concluded Tilly, with an hysterical little
gasp--Lady Adela and Sylvia were listening with the dispassionate
immobility of a pair of well-nourished sphinxes--"we just stay on."
_She has confessed that she lives in Bloomsbury_, wrote Mrs. Carmyle.
_The Inquisition are one up_.
"Russell Square!" cooed Lady Adela. "How charming and old-fashioned!
So handy for the British Museum, too!"
"And Euston Road!" added Sylvia enthusiastically.
_Cats! Cats!! Cats!!!_ recorded Connie furiously.
Lady Adela offered Tilly a bun, and resumed her long-distance fire.
"You are quite a small family, I imagine?"
"Well," began Tilly readily--they had reached a topic that lay very near
her heart--"there are Father and Mother, of course, and my brother
Percy, and my sister, and two quite tiny ones. My grandmother--"
"How nice," murmured Lady Adela indulgently, closing her eyes as if to
mitigate the strain of this enumeration. "And what is your little
sister's name?"
"Amelia."
"Amelia? Delightful! Perfect! It suits Russell Square exactly."
"One feels," corroborated Sylvia, "as if the Sedleys and the Osbornes
and the Rawdon Crawleys all lived next door."
_Why don't they smack people like Sylvia more in their youth?_ enquired
Mrs. Carmyle's letter plaintively.
"I don't think we have met any of _them_," said Miss Welwyn doubtfully.
"The Mossops live on one side of us and the Rosenbaums on the other. We
don't call on them, of course," she added apprehensively. "And oh, Lady
Adela, I have an invitation for you from my mother, to come and have tea
with us."
"That is very kind of your mother," said Lady Adela graciously. "You
shall give me the invitation when you have unpacked your boxes."
"It's--it's not a written invitation," said Tilly. "Mother just asked
me to ask you, any day you happen to be coming into town. Then you
would meet my father and the others."
"That will be charming," replied Lady Adela. "I think we have no
engagement on Monday." (_Lady A. is simply bursting with curiosity
about the girl's family_, observed Connie at this point.) "I will write
a little note to your mother, and you shall take it back with you on
Monday morning. Are you the eldest of the family?"
"No. Perce--Percy is the eldest. He is twenty-two."
"Is he at the University?"
Miss Welwyn shook her head.
"Not now," she said. She spoke with more freedom. The restraint of her
surroundings was wearing off, and her courage, which was considerable,
was beginning to assert itself. "He is in the City. He dislikes it
very much, poor boy. He is so fond of open-air sports, and he finds an
office very trying. My father was a great sportsman, too. He used to
go racing a good deal at one time, but he has given it up now. He says
he is on the shelf."
"And he was a Fellow of his College, I think you said?" remarked Lady
Adela, a little bored with this prattle.
"Yes--Fellow and Tutor."
"But he is no longer in residence, you say?"
"No," said Tilly briefly.
_There is something shady about the poor child's father_, wrote Mrs.
Carmyle, _but Lady A. has got no change out of her so far_.
"I am looking forward greatly to making your father's acquaintance, Miss
Welwyn," said Lady Adela, with absolute sincerity. "Now, I wonder if I
know any of your mother's people. I don't think you have mentioned her
maiden name."
"She was a Banks," replied Miss Welwyn readily.
_Bill, dear, this little girl is splendid!_ recorded Connie
enthusiastically.
"I beg your pardon?" said Lady Adela.
"A Banks," repeated Tilly politely.
Lady Adela nodded her head intelligently.
"Ah, to be sure!" she said. "Let me see. Are they a Warwickshire
family, now?"
"Or is it a Cornish name?" queried Sylvia, with an encouraging smile.
"No," said Tilly. "Mother came from Bedfordshire--or else
Cambridgeshire," she added rather breathlessly, for the four eyes of the
sphinxes were upon her once more.
"But, dear Miss Welwyn--" began Sylvia.
_I can stand this no longer!_ scribbled Connie, and threw down her pen.
"Thank goodness, that's over!" she exclaimed, rising and coming over to
the fire. "What a nuisance affectionate husbands are! Talking of
husbands, Sylvia, I hear you are going to marry a plumber."
Lady Adela and Sylvia, taken in flank, both turned and eyed the
frivolous interloper severely. Had they not done so, they would have
noted that Miss Welwyn's teacup had almost leaped from its saucer.
"Dear Connie, you are priceless," commented Sylvia patronisingly. "I
wonder where you got your quaint sense of humour."
"Lady Adela was my informant," said Connie, quite unruffled. She had
drawn the enemy's fire upon herself, which was precisely what she had
intended to do. "Jolly sensible of you, too! A plumber is a useful
little thing to have about a house. My Bill is practically one, you
know, although he calls himself something grander. Now, what about a
four-handed game of billiards before dinner? Do you feel inclined to
play, Miss Welwyn?"
"I am rather out of practice," said Tilly dubiously.
"Never mind!" said Connie. "You can play with Dicky against Mr.
Mainwaring and me."
She walked to the foot of the staircase, and called up: "Mr. Richard,
forward!"
"In one moment, Miss!" replied a voice far up the height. "I'm just
attending to a lady at the ribbon counter. I'll step down directly."
Then a stentorian bawl: "Sign, please!"
During this characteristic exchange of inanities an electric bell purred
faintly in the distance, with the usual result that the dining-room door
opened, to emit the jinnee-like presence of Mr. Milroy.
"What is it, Milroy?" enquired Lady Adela.
"Front door bell, my lady," replied Milroy, and disappeared like a
corpulent wraith through the curtains.
"Heavens, not _another_ caller!" exclaimed the overwrought mistress of
the household.
"Probably Mr. Rylands come back for his goloshes," said Sylvia. At the
same moment Dicky and his father appeared, descending the staircase
together.
"_And_ the next article, madam?" continued Dick lustily, addressing Mrs.
Carmyle, who stood below.
He was answered, not by the lady to whom his query was addressed, but by
Milroy, who appeared holding back one of the curtains which covered the
entrance to the vestibule, to announce, in the resigned tones of a man
for whom life holds no further surprises:--
"Mr. Percy Welwyn!"
II
Mr. Percy Welwyn entered. He was a slender young man with an
insufficient chin and a small moustache. He looked like a shop
assistant; and Dicky's last remark, still ringing through the hall,
emphasised rather than suggested the comparison. His hair was brushed
low down upon his forehead, with an elaborate curl over his right
eyebrow. His eyes were bulgy. He wore a tight-fitting cycling suit,
splashed with mud, and carried in his hand a small tweed cap bearing a
metal badge. Altogether an impartial observer might have been excused
for not feeling greatly surprised that Dicky and Tilly had mislaid him.
Mr. Welwyn advanced to the fire, with the easy grace of one who is
habitually a success in whatever grade of society he finds himself, and
remarked: "Good-evenin', all!"
For a moment there was a frozen silence. Then Dicky hurried forward.
"My dear Percy," he exclaimed, wringing the newcomer by the hand, "here
you are, after all! Dear old soul! Let me present the rest of my
family."
He linked his arm in that of the travel-stained cyclist, and led him
towards the petrified Lady Adela.
"Mother," he announced, "this is my friend Percy Welwyn."
"Mr. Percy Welwyn," said a gentle voice in his ear.
"Sorry, old man!" said Dicky hastily.
"No offence taken," Mr. Welwyn assured him, "where none intended. This,
I presume,"--he waved his dripping tweed cap in the face of the
speechless matron before him,--"is your hostess."
"Yes," said Dicky. "My mother, Lady Adela Mainwaring."
Mr. Welwyn shook hands affably.
"How de do, your ladyship?" he said. "Very pleased to make your
ladyship's acquaintance, I'm sure."
"And this," continued Dicky, swiftly wheeling his guest out of the
danger zone, "is my old Dad."
"How do you do, Mr. Welwyn?" said Mr. Mainwaring, with a courteous
little bow. "We make you welcome."
"How de do, your lordship?" replied Mr. Welwyn, repeating his
hand-shaking performance. "Very pleased to make your lordship's
acquaintance."
"That's an error on your part, Percy," said Dicky smoothly. "Dad's only
a commoner. But we'll work it out afterwards. This is my little sister
Sylvia."
Mr. Welwyn greeted the statuesque Miss Mainwaring as he had greeted her
parents, throwing in an ingratiating ogle which plainly intimated that
he intended to make an impression in this quarter.
"Very pleased to make _your_ acquaintance, Miss," he said. "We shall be
calling each other Perce and Sylvie in no time, I can see. And now," he
continued, turning his back upon the quivering figure of his future
playmate, "I should like to address a few observations to the happy
couple. You're a nice pair of turtle-doves to come and play gooseberry
to, I don't suppose! Here I give up a whole Saturday afternoon to come
and chaperon our Tilly and her young gentleman down to his ancestral
home; and the first thing I know is the pair of them give me the slip at
Waterloo! Chronic, I call it!"
"What else did you expect, Mr. Welwyn?" interposed Connie, coming
characteristically to the rescue, the majority of the Mainwaring family
being in no condition to cope with Percy. "Have n't you ever been
engaged yourself?"
Her unsolicited intrusion into the conversation was plainly a shock to
Percy's sense of decorum. He coughed reprovingly behind his hand, and
turning to Dicky, remarked:--
"Introdooce me!"
Dicky, humble and apologetic, complied. Mr. Welwyn went through his
usual performance, and continued:--
"Engaged, Mrs. Carmyle? Not me! Not that I might n't have bin, mark
you, if I had n't been born careful. Be born careful, and you need n't
be born lucky. The Proverbs of Perce--Number one!" he added, in a
humorous aside. "Well, to resume. Luckily I had the old push-bike with
me, and I managed to find my way down here in a matter of an hour and a
half or so. And then what happens? Just as I am doing a final spin up
your kerridge-drive, your ladyship--_bing! bang!_ and I get bowled over
in the dark by a charging rhinoceros!"
Mr. Welwyn concluded this dramatic narrative with a few appropriate
gestures, and paused to note its effect upon his auditors.
"That was Maximilian, I fancy," explained Dicky cheerfully. "The little
fellow must have got loose. Did you notice which way he was going?"
"I did," replied Percy with feeling. "He was going the opposite way to
me."
"In that case," replied Dicky reflectively, "he must be halfway back to
mother by this time. Well, perhaps it is just as well. Did you happen
to observe whether he had the rain-gauge with him?"
"All I remarked," replied Mr. Welwyn bitterly, "was about half a
mudguard. But that," he continued, with a winning smile to the ladies,
"is neither here nor there, is it? Seeing as you are safe, Tilly, old
girl, I think I may now resign the post of chaperon into her ladyship's
hands. And perhaps," he added with a graceful bow, "I may be permitted
to remark that in my humble opinion a more capable pair of hands could
not be found for the job."
Lady Adela had suffered severely that day, and her spirit for the time
being was almost broken. She merely smiled weakly.
Mr. Welwyn, now at the very top of his form, struck an attitude.
"My trusty iron steed," he declaimed, "waits without the
battlements--all but a few spokes, that is, accounted for by the
aforesaid rhinoceros--and I must hence, to ketch the seven-fifteen back
to Londinium."
"Does that mean he is going?" murmured Lady Adela to her daughter, with
a flutter of hope upon her drawn features.
Sylvia was nodding reassuringly, when the tactless Dicky broke in:--
"Percy, old son, you really must stay for dinner, if not for the night."
"We can't send you away empty in weather like this, Mr. Welwyn," added
Mr. Mainwaring hospitably. "My dear--"
He turned to his wife, but the words froze upon his lips, for Lady Adela
presented an appearance that can only be described as terrible. But the
impervious Percy noticed nothing.
"By my halidom," he exclaimed, highly gratified, "that was well spoken!
Yet it cannot be. I thank you, ladies and gentles all, for your courtly
hospitality; but, as the bard observes: 'I _must_ get home to-night!'"
(Here he broke into song, and indulged in what are known in theatrical
circles as "a few steps.") "The club has an important run billed for
to-morrow, and if little Percy is missing, there will be enquiries.
Still, rather than disoblige, I'll split the difference. I will drain a
stirrup-cup of foaming Bass with ye ere I depart. Then, forward across
the drawbridge! Yoicks! Likewise Tally Ho! Which way, fair sir,"
concluded this high-spirited youth, turning to his host, "to the Saloon
Bar?"
"Percy," remarked Dicky hurriedly, "you are immense! You ought to go on
the Halls. Come along! This way!"
"I have bin approached, mind you," began the comedian, taking Dicky's
arm, "but!"
"Are you coming too, Tilly?" asked Dicky, looking back.
Tilly, who had been apprehensively regarding the flinty countenances of
her future relatives-in-law, assented hurriedly and gratefully.
"Yes, please," she said. "I will come and see Percy off."
She took Dicky's free arm.
"'T is meet and fitting," observed the ebullient Percy. "We will drain
a tankard jointly. Right away! Pip, pip! Good-morrow, knights and
ladies all!"
The trio disappeared into the dining-room, leaving a most uncanny
silence behind them!
Mr. Mainwaring hastily picked up the evening paper and enshrouded
himself in its folds. Lady Adela feebly signalled to Sylvia for the
smelling-salts.
"A perfectly _appalling_ young man!" she announced.
"And a perfectly sweet little girl!" quoth loyal Connie.