ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
I
THE flight of time had affected Beaconsfield Villas surprisingly
little. Laxton itself had deferred to Anno Domini in many subtle
ways; it had its electric trams and motor-buses, and the suburb had
doubled in size, but no epoch-making changes were visible in the front
sitting-room of Number Five. In that homely interior the cosmic march
and profluence was simply revealed by a gramophone, the gift of Mary,
on the top of the sewing machine in the corner, and by the accession to
the walls of lithograph portraits of the son and grandson of the august
lady who still held pride of place over the chimney-piece.
The afternoon was stifling even for South London in the middle of
June. And Joseph Kelly, who had attained the rank of sergeant in the
Metropolitan Police Force, not having to go on duty until six o’clock
that evening, was seated coatless and solemn, spectacles on nose,
smoking a well-colored clay and reading the _Daily Mail_. At the level
of his eyes, in portentous type was, “Laxton Bye-Election. A Sharp
Contest. New Home Secretary’s Chances.” Joe was a shade stouter than
of yore, his face was even redder, a thinning thatch had turned gray,
but in all essentials the man himself was still the genial cockney of
one-and-twenty years ago.
The outer door of the sitting-room, which was next the street, was wide
open to invite the air. But ever and again there rose such a fierce
medley of noises from a mysterious cause a little distance off, that
at last Joe got up from his chair, and waddling across the room in a
pair of worn list slippers, banged the door against the sounds from the
street which had the power to annoy him considerably.
Hardly had Joe shuffled back to his chair and his newspaper when the
door was flung open again and an excited urchin thrust a tousled head
into the room.
“‘Vote for Maclean an’ a free breakfast-table’!”
The law in the person of Sergeant Kelly rose from its chair
majestically.
“If you ain’t off--my word!”
Headlong flight of the urchin. Joe closed the door with violence and
sat down again. But the incident had unsettled him. He seemed unable
to fix his mind on the newspaper. And the noises in the street waxed
ever louder. Now they took the form of cheers and counter cheers, now
of hoots, cat-calls and shouts of derision. At last the tumult rose to
such a pitch that it drew Eliza from an inner room.
The years had changed her rather more than her husband. But she was
still the active, capable, bustling housewife, with a keen eye for the
world and all that was passing in it.
“They are making noise enough to wake the dead.” Eliza looked eagerly
through the window.
“I wish that durned Scotchman hadn’t set his committee-room plumb
oppersite Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas,” was Joe’s sour comment.
At that moment the all-embracing eye of a relentless housewife swooped
down upon a card lying innocently on the linoleum. It had been flung
there by the recent visitor. Eliza picked it up and read:
___________________________
| |
| Vote for Maclean, thus: |
| |
| MACLEAN X |
| WHITLEY. |
|___________________________|
On the back of the card was a portrait of Sir Dugald Maclean, M.P.
Eliza gazed at it in astonishment mingled with awe.
“I am bound to say he is a better-favored jockey than when he came
a-courting our Harriet. Look, Joe!”
With scornful vehemence, Joe declined the invitation.
Eliza was sternly advised to tear up the card, but instead she chose to
set it on the chimney-piece. The rash act was too much for her lord.
Once more he rose from his chair, tore the card into little pieces and
flung them into a grate artistically decorated with colored paper.
“You are jealous!” said Eliza, laughing.
“Of the likes of him! Holy smoke! But if you think we are going to have
such trash in the same room as the Marquis, you make an error.”
The words had hardly been uttered when shouts yet more piercing came
from the street. Eliza made a hasty return to the window.
“Come and look, Joe!” she cried breathlessly. “Here he is with his top
hat and eyeglass. He’s that dossy you wouldn’t know him. He’s dressed
up like a tailor’s dummy.”
But Joe declined to budge.
“It fairly makes me sick to think of the feller,” he said.
A little later, when the tumult in the street had died down a bit, Joe
settled himself in his chair for an afternoon nap. Eliza, duly noting
the symptoms, retired on tiptoe to another room, closing the door after
her gently. But today, alas, the skyey influences were adverse. Joe had
barely entered oblivion when a smart tap at the street door shattered
this precarious peace. With a grudge against society he rose once more,
shambled across the room and flung open the door, half expecting to
find that the urchin had returned to torment him. A dramatic surprise
was in store. On the threshold was a creature so stylishly trim that
even the blasé eye of the Metropolitan Force was sensibly thrilled in
beholding her. “A bit of class” without a doubt, although adorned by
the colors of the People’s Candidate, and surprisingly cool in sheer
defiance of the thermometer.
“Good afternoon!” The tone of half-confidential intimacy was quite
irresistible. “May I have a little talk with you?”
“Certainly, miss.” The unconscious gallantry of an impressionable
policeman was more than equal to the occasion. “Step inside and make
yourself at home.”
When Joe came to review the incident afterwards, it seemed very
surprising that he should have yielded so easily to the impact of
this elegant miss. For instinctively he knew her business. Moreover,
the last thing he desired at that moment was to be troubled by her
or by it. But he had been taken by surprise, and in all circumstances
he would have needed ample notice to deny a lady. He had a great but
impersonal regard for a lady, as some people have for a Rembrandt or
a Corot or a Jan van Steen. And although the fact was not important,
perhaps his sense of humor was a little touched by such a young woman
taking the trouble to come and talk to such a man as himself.
“I am here,” said the voice of the dove, as soon as its owner had
subsided gracefully upon a chair covered with horsehair, “to ask your
vote and interest for Sir Dugald Maclean, the People’s Candidate.”
The prophetic soul of Joe had told him that already. But again the
sense of humor, the fatal gift, may have intervened. Had the elegant
miss had any _nous_, she would have known that a sergeant of the X
Division has not a vote to bestow. In justice to the fair democrat, Joe
might have reflected that in the absence of his tunic there was nothing
to show his status. However, he didn’t trouble to do that. It was
enough for him that she was on a fool’s errand. But Joe was a man of
the world as well as a connoisseur of the human female. A picturesque
personality intrigued him. Moreover, it was working for a cause that
Joe despised from the depths of his soul. So much was she “the real
thing” that she had even turned on a melodious lisp for his benefit;
yet he had no particular wish, even under these flattering auspices, to
discuss the people and their champion. He had quite made up his mind
about both. But, the Machiavellian thought occurred to him, here was a
dangerous implement in the hands of the foe, therefore it would be the
part of wisdom to waste a little of her time.
“‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people,’” lisped the
siren, “that, of course, as you may know, is what Sir Dugald stands
for.”
“Does he!” reflected Joe. With a roguish smile he looked the speaker
over from her expensive top to her equally expensive toe.
“You _do_ believe in the people?” said the siren with a rather dubious
air.
“Since you ask the question, miss,” said Joe, “I am bound to say I
don’t, and never have done.”
“Not believe in the _people!_” It didn’t seem possible.
“If you’d seen as much of the people as I have, miss,” said Joe grimly,
“I’m thinking you’d not be quite so set up with ’em.”
The tone of conviction disconcerted the fair canvasser. Somehow she
had not expected it. In the course of her present ministrations it was
the first time she had met that point of view. Laxton’s working-class,
which for several days had been honored by her delicate flatteries,
had shown such a robust faith in itself and had purred so responsively
to her blandishments that she now took for granted that in all
circumstances it would fully share her own enthusiasm for it. But this
rubicund, coatless Briton, with eyes of half truculent humor, was a
little beyond her. Gloves were needed to handle him; otherwise fingers
of such flowerlike delicacy stood a chance of being bruised.
“May one ask what you have against them?” lisped the people’s champion,
opening large round eyes.
“Nothing particular, miss,” said Joe urbanely. “But you ask me whether
I believe in ’em and I say I don’t. Mind you, the people are all right
in their place. I’ve not a word to say against ’em personally. Of a
Monday morning at Vine Street, when the Court has been swep’ an’ dusted
and his Worship has returned from his Sunday in the country, we always
try to make ’em welcome. ‘Let ’em all come,’ that’s the motto of the
Metropolitan Force. But as for _believing_ in ’em, that’s another
story.”
This was rather baffling for the people’s champion. She was at a loss.
But her faith was sublime. This odd, crass, heavy-witted plebeian who
denied his kind was a sore problem even for the bringer of the light.
Still, she stuck to her guns gallantly.
“‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people.’” Lisping
the battle cry of Demos she returned stoutly to the charge. Sacred
formulas flowed from her lips in a stream of charming pellucidity.
“Ah, you don’t know ’em, miss,” ejaculated Joe, at intervals.
It was a pretty joust; vicarious enthusiasm on the one side, first-hand
experience on the other. But Joe was a rock. The fair canvasser took
forth every weapon of an elegantly-furnished armory, yet without avail.
“I don’t hold with the people, miss, not in no shape nor form.”
The tone was so final that at last a sense of defeat came upon this
Amazon. She was still seated, however, without having quite made up her
mind to the inevitable, on her grand chair in the front sitting-room
of Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas, when Fate intervened in quite a
remarkable way.
All of a sudden, there appeared on the threshold of the open door a
figure tall, fine and unheralded. It was that of Harriet Sanderson.
“Anybody at home?” she inquired gayly.
The unexpected visitor was looking very handsome and distinguished in a
well-cut black coat and skirt, and a large hat too plain for fashion,
but very far from _démodé_. She came into the room with that almost
proprietary air she was never without in her intercourse with her own
people. But it was about to suffer an eclipse.
Harriet just had time to greet her brother-in-law with a happy mingling
of the _bon camarade_ and the woman of the world, her fixed attitude
towards such an Original, whom somehow she could not help liking and
respecting, when her eyes met suddenly those of the fair canvasser.
For a moment an intense surprise forbade either to speak. But the
people’s champion was the first to overcome the shock.
“Mrs. Sanderson!” she exclaimed.
The change in Harriet was immediate and dramatic.
“Lady Muriel!” A slight flush of a fine face accompanied the tone of
awe.
The visitor rose. And in the act of so doing an accession of
great ladyhood, almost entirely absent a few minutes ago, seemed
automatically to enter her manner.
“What a small world it is!” she laughed. “Fancy meeting you here!”
By now the iron will of the secretly annoyed and oddly discomposed
Harriet was able to reassert itself.
“It is a small world, my lady.” The tone was a very delicate mingling
of aloofness and respect.
Brief explanations followed. These quickly culminated in the
presentation of Joe, who then became the most embarrassed of the three.
Unawares and in his shirt sleeves, he had been entertaining an angel.
And to one of Conservative views, with a profound reverence for law,
order and all established things, this seemed to verge upon indecency.
A mere “one of Scotchie’s lady canvassers” had been magically
transformed, in the twinkling of an eye, into Lady Muriel Dinneford,
the third daughter of one whom Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas, always
alluded to as “his Grace.”
II
It was the work of a few tactful minutes for Lady Muriel to effect a
discreet retirement from the scene. Yet so deeply had she been engaged
by Joe’s contumacy, and at the back of a mind which was making the most
heroic efforts to be “broad” was such a sense of amusement, that she
declared her intention of returning anon with the People’s Candidate,
if he could possibly spare a few minutes from his multifarious duties,
in order that the _coup de grâce_ might be given to Mr. Kelly’s
dangerous heresies.
The withdrawal of the distinguished visitor across the street to the
Candidate’s committee room left a void which for a few tense moments
only wonder could fill.
It was Joe who broke the silence which, like a pall, had suddenly
descended upon the front parlor of Number Five.
“If that don’t beat Banagher,” he said. “Fancy one of the Fam’ly taking
the trouble to come a canvassin’ for Scotchie!”
Keen humor and acute annoyance contended now in the eloquent face of
Harriet.
“Pray, why shouldn’t she canvass for Sir Dugald Maclean”--the level
voice was pitched in a very quiet key--“if she really believes in his
principles?”
“How can she believe in ’em, gal?”
“Why not?”
“How can a blue blood believe in that sort of a feller?”
“Sir Dugald is a remarkably clever man. One of the cleverest men in
England, some people think.”
“That’s nothing to do with the matter. It’s character that counts.”
“There’s nothing against his character, I believe. At any rate, Lady
Muriel is going to marry him.”
The state of Joe’s feelings forbade an immediate reply. And when reply
he did, it was in a tone of scorn. Said he: “‘Government of the people,
by the people, for the people!’ Harriet, for a dead beat fool give me a
blue blood aristocrat.”
“Joe,” came the answer, with a gleam of humor and malice, “I really
think you should learn to speak of our governing class a little more
respectfully.”
This was rather hard. She ought to have realized that it was because
Joe respected them so much that he now desired to chasten them.
“Scotchie of all people!” he muttered.
“There’s no accounting for taste, you know.” There was a sudden flash
of a very handsome pair of eyes.
“O’ course there ain’t,” said Joe, sorrowfully malicious. “You may have
forgot there was a time when Scotchie came a-courtin’ you.”
“Do you suppose I am ever likely to forget it!” said Harriet, with a
cool cynicism which took the simple Joseph completely out of his depth.
“Well, it’s a queer world, I must say.”
“It is,” his sister-in-law agreed.
At that moment, Eliza came into the room. The visit of Harriet was
so unexpected as to take her by surprise. But the cause of it was
soon disclosed. Harriet was troubled about Mary. Ever since the girl,
against the wishes and advice of her friends, had taken what they
felt to be a fatal step, there had been a gradual drifting apart.
Harriet had kept in touch with her as well as she could, but she had
not been able to stifle her own private fears. The peril of such a
career, even when crowned by success, was in her opinion, difficult to
exaggerate. She disapproved of the friendship with the Wrens, and had
strongly opposed Mary’s living with them. But as the girl rose in her
profession, Harriet’s hold upon her grew still less. And now at second
and third hand had come news which had greatly upset her.
With the tact for which she was famous, Harriet did not speak of
this in the presence of Joe. She accompanied Eliza to the privacy of
the best bedroom, ostensibly to “take off her things,” but really to
discuss a matter which for the past week had filled her with misgiving.
In the meantime, Joe in the parlor set himself doggedly to compass the
nap that so far had been denied him. In spite of the noises in the
street and romantic appearance of a real live member of the Family in
his humble abode, he had just begun to doze when the ban of Fate fell
once more upon him.
From the strange welter in the amazing world outside there now emerged
a large open motor. And royally it drew up before the magic door of
Number Five. Two persons were seated in the car. One was no less than
Princess Bedalia. The other was the humblest and yet the boldest of her
adorers.
III
The idea itself had been Mary’s that they should use a fine afternoon
in motoring into Laxton, in order to see her parents. Behind this
simple plan was fell design. A week had passed since that conversation
under the trees in the Park in which she had sought in vain for her
release. But so shallow had her reasoning appeared that Jack declined
to take it seriously. He had her promise, and he felt he had every
right to hold her to it. Unless she could show a real cause for
revoking it, he was fully determined not to give her up.
In desperation, therefore, she had hit on the expedient, a poor and
vain one, no doubt, of taking him to see those humble people whom she
called father and mother. In the course of her twenty odd years up and
down the world she had had intimations from various side winds and
divers little birds that she was an adopted child. Her real parentage
and the circumstances of her birth were an impenetrable mystery and
must always be so, no doubt, but her feeling for the Kellys was one of
true affection and perfect loyalty. Not by word or deed had she hinted
at the possession of knowledge which had come to her from other sources.
In the circumstances of the case she now allowed herself to imagine
that a visit to her home people in their native habit as they dwelt
might help to cure Jack of his infatuation. An insight into things and
men told her that Beaconsfield Villas must be whole worlds away from
any sphere in which he had moved hitherto. Nor would he be likely to
suspect, as she was shrewdly aware, that a creature so sophisticated
as herself had risen from such humble beginnings. She had a ferocious
pride of her own, but it was not of the kind that meanly denies its
origin.
“Father,” was her gay greeting to the astonished and still coatless
Joe, “I’ve brought somebody to see you.”
Jack, wearing a dustcoat and other appurtenances of the chauffeur’s
craft, had followed upon the heels of Princess Bedalia into the front
parlor of Number Five. In response to the young man’s bow, Kelly
offered a rather dubious hand. As became a symbol of law and order
and a member of the straitest sect of the Pharisees, he didn’t feel
inclined to encourage Mary in gallivanting up and down the land. Nor
did he feel inclined to give countenance to any promiscuous young man
she might bring to the house.
“Mr. Dinneford--my father, Police-Sergeant Kelly.” It was a
delightfully formal introduction, but rather wickedly contrived.
Jack was so taken aback that he felt as if a feather might have downed
him. But even to the lynx eyes of Mary, which were covertly upon him,
not a trace of his feelings was visible. He merely bowed a second time,
perhaps a little more gravely than the first.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Sergeant Kelly, in a voice which
showed pretty clearly that he was overstating the truth.
Mary could not repress the rogue’s laugh that sprang to her lips.
“Where’s my old mumsie?” she gayly demanded, partly in the hope of
concealing her wicked merriment.
“Upstairs with your Aunty Harriet.”
“Aunt Harriet here!” The tone was full of surprise. And then the
charming voice took a turn affectionately non-committal. “What luck! It
seems an age since I saw her.”
In spite of himself, Joe could not help being a little in awe of the
girl. She was so remarkably striking that every time he saw her it
became harder to keep up the pretense of blood relationship. She had
developed into the finest young woman he had ever met. Her official
father was very proud of her, the affection she inspired in him was
true and real, but at the moment he was more than a little embarrassed
by the impact of an immensely distinguished personality.
However, in spite of such beauty and charm, he was determined to do his
duty by her; as became a father and a man he felt bound to admonish her.
“Since you took up with those people, none of us have been seeing much
of you,” he forced himself to say, in his most magisterial manner.
“Old story!”
“It’s true and you know it.” Joe declined on principle to be softened
by her blandishments.
“Wicked old story!” She took him by the shoulders and shook him; and
then she sighed as a mother might have done, and gazed into his solemn
face. “Father,” she said, “you are an old and great dear.”
“Get along with you!” said Joe sternly, but in spite of himself he
couldn’t help laughing.
“I’ll leave you and Mr. Dinneford to have a little crack while I take
this to my mumsie.” Brandishing an important-looking milliner’s box,
she left the room in a laughing search of Eliza.
As soon as Jack found himself alone with Mary’s father a period of
constraint ensued. It would have been wrong to deny that his reception
had been the reverse of cordial. The sensitiveness of a lover, in duty
bound to walk delicately, made no secret of that. Moreover, he was
still so astonished at Mary’s paternity that he felt quite at a loss.
Nature had played an amazing trick. Somehow this serio-comic London
copper in half-mufti, was going to make it very difficult to exercise
the deference due to a prospective father-in-law.
An acute silence was terminated by Joe’s “Won’t you sit down, sir?”
Jack sat down; and then Mary’s father, torn between stern disapproval
and the humane feelings of a host, invited the young man solemnly to a
glass of beer.
“Thank you very much,” said Jack, with admirable gravity.
Murmuring “excuse me a minute,” Joe went to draw the beer. Left alone
the young man tried to arrange his thoughts; also he took further
stock of his surroundings. He had yet to overcome a powerful feeling
of surprise. It was hard to believe that Princess Bedalia, in the view
of her _fiancé_, the very last word in modern young women, should have
sprung from such a _milieu_ as Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas. It was
a facer. Yet somehow the chasm between Mary and her male parent seemed
almost to enhance her value. She was so superb an original that she
defied the laws of nature.
The young man was engulfed in an odd train of speculation when Mary’s
father returned with the beer. He poured out two glasses, gave one to
the visitor, took one himself, and after a solemn “Good health, sir!”
solemnly drank it.
Jack returned the “Good health!” and followed the rest of the ritual.
And then feeling rather more his own man, he made an effort to come to
business. But it was only possible to do that by means of a directness
verging upon the indelicate.
“Sergeant Kelly,” he said, “have you any objection to my marrying Mary?”
No doubt the form of the question was a little unwise. At least it
exposed the young man to the prompt rejoinder:
“I know nothing whatever about you, sir.”
“My name is Dinneford”--he could not refrain from laughing a little at
the portentous gravity of a prospective father-in-law. “And I think I
can claim that I have always passed as respectable.”
“Glad to hear it, sir,” said Joe, the light of a respectful humor
breaking upon him. And then measuring the young man with the eye of
professional experience. “May I ask your occupation?”
“No occupation.”
“I don’t like the sound o’ that.” Sergeant Kelly sagely shook his head.
“Perhaps it isn’t quite so bad as it sounds,” said the young man. “At
present, you see, I am a kind of understudy to a sort of uncle I have.
I am in training as you might say, so that one day I may follow in his
footsteps.”
“An actor,” said the dubious Joe. He didn’t mind actors personally, but
impersonally he didn’t quite hold with the stage.
“Not exactly,” said the young man coolly, but with a smile. “And yet he
is in his way. In fact, you might call him a prince of comedians.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Sergeant Kelly measured each word carefully. “But I’m
afraid that’s only a very little in his favor.”
“I’m sorry, too,” said Jack. “My uncle is a duke, and the deuce of it
is, I have to succeed him.”
“A duke!” Sergeant Kelly’s tone of rather pained surprise made it
clear that such a romantic circumstance greatly altered the aspect of
the case. It also implied that he was far from approving an ill-timed
jest on a sacred subject. His brow knitted to a heavy frown. “Well,
sir, I can only say that if such is the case you have no right to come
a-courting our Mary.”
“For why not, Sergeant Kelly?”
“You know why not, sir, as well as I do. She’s a fine gal, although
I say it who ought not, but that will not put her right with your
friends. They will expect you to take a wife of your own sort.”
“But that’s rather my look-out, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” said Joe, with the air of a warrior, “but as you
have asked me, there’s my opinion. The aristocracy’s the aristocracy,
the middle-class is the middle-class, and the lower orders are the
lower orders--there they are and you can’t alter ’em. At least, that’s
my view of the matter.”
Jack forced a wry smile. Mary was a chip of the old block. Such an
uncompromising statement seemed at any rate to explain the force of her
conviction upon this vexed subject.
“Excuse the freedom, sir,” said the solemn Joe, “but you young nobs
who keep on marrying out of your class are undermining the British
Constitution. What’s to become of law and order if you go on mixing
things up in the way you are doing?”
The young man proceeded to do battle with the Philistine. But the
weapons in his armory were none of the brightest with which to meet the
crushing onset of the foe.
“It’s no use, sir. As I say, the aristocracy’s the aristocracy, the
middle-class is the middle-class, and the lower orders are the lower
orders--there they are and you can’t alter ’em. You don’t suppose I’ve
reggerlated the traffic at Hyde Park Corner all these years not to know
_that_.”
In the presence of such a conviction, the best of Jack’s arguments
seemed vain, futile and shallow. Fate had charged Joseph Kelly with the
solemn duty of maintaining the fabric of society, and in his purview,
no argument however cunning, could set that fact aside.
IV
While these two were still at grips, each meeting the arguments of the
other with a sense of growing impatience, the cause of the trouble
intervened. Mary came into the room, leading her mother by the hand.
With the face of a sphinx followed Harriet.
The blushing Eliza was adorned with a fine coat which had come in the
milliner’s box. Mary had laughingly insisted on her mother appearing in
it, in spite of Eliza’s firm conviction that “it was much too grand.”
“My word, mother!” roared Joe, at the sight of her splendor. “I’m
thinking I’ll have to keep an eye on _you_.”
The visitor was promptly introduced, first to the wearer of the coat,
who offered a shy and embarrassed hand, and then to Aunt Harriet, who
stood mute and pale in the background.
“Why--why, Mrs. Sanderson,” said the young man, “fancy meeting you
here!”
“You have met before?” said Mary, innocently.
“We meet very often.”
“Really?”
“Why, yes. Mrs. Sanderson is Uncle Albert’s right hand at Bridport
House.”
A pin might have been heard to fall in the silence that followed. The
blood fled from Mary’s cheeks; they grew as pale as those of her aunt.
Even the knowledge that had recently come to her had not connected Jack
with Bridport House. No attempt had been made to realize exactly who
and what he was. It had been enough that he belonged to a world beyond
her own. And now as this new and astonishing fact presented itself she
saw the strongest possible justification for the attitude she had taken
up.
As for Harriet, stern and unbending in the background, she was like an
Antigone who abides the decree. Her fears were realized. The worst had
happened. Fate had played such a subtle and unworthy trick that the
instinct uppermost was to resent it bitterly.
The feelings of the girl were very similar. But her strength of
character and the independence of her position enabled her to
take charge of a situation delicate and embarrassing. In a rather
high-pitched voice, she began to talk generalities in order to
bridge if possible the arid pauses which were always threatening to
submerge the conversation. But at the back of her mind was a growing
sense that secret forces are always at work in this strange world we
inhabit--forces which have a peculiar malice of their own.
And yet, hopeless as the position had suddenly become for these five
people, the fates had one more barb in their quiver. And it was of so
odd a kind that it was as if the stars in their courses were bent upon
seeing what mischief they could contrive in this particular matter. A
sudden sharp rap from the knocker of the front door fell into the midst
of the growing embarrassment. Joe, welcoming this diversion as relief
to a tension that was almost intolerable, went at once to attend the
cause of it.
“As I’m a living man,” came a lusty voice from the threshold, “if it
isn’t old Joe Kelly.”
The People’s Candidate, rosetted, dauntless and triumphant, accompanied
by the lady of his choice, stepped heroically into the small room.
Twenty-three years had wrought a very remarkable change in a very
remarkable man. In that time Dugald Maclean had bent all the powers of
his genius to a task that Miss Harriet Sanderson had discreetly imposed
upon the author of “Urban Love, a Trilogy.” And now he came in, every
inch a victor, he had not looked to find his monitress. But there she
was, pale, grim, yet somehow oddly distinguished in the background of a
room curiously familiar. It was to her that his eyes leapt.
“Why, Miss Sanderson!” he said, with a conqueror’s laugh, in which
there was no trace of the tongue-tied youth of three and twenty years
ago. Offering a conqueror’s hand, he went forward to greet her.
Harriet yielded hers with a vivid blush. And as she did so, she was
suddenly aware of two swordlike orbs piercing her right through.
“I didn’t know Mrs. Sanderson was a friend of yours,” said the honeyed
voice of Lady Muriel.
“A very old friend,” said Sir Dugald gayly.
At that moment, however, it was necessary for Lady Muriel to curb her
curiosity. Since her exit from that room half-an-hour ago other people
had gathered in it. She had hardly spoken when her astonished eyes
fell upon Cousin Jack. Their recognition of each other was mutually
incredulous. Yet there was really no reason why it should have been. It
was known to the young man that Muriel had been refused permission to
marry a politician already on the high road to place and power, and it
was known to her that Jack had been going about with an actress.
“A family party,” said Jack, as their eyes met. “Let me introduce Miss
Lawrence--Lady Muriel Dinneford.”
An exchange of aloof bows followed. And then, although very careful to
seem to do nothing of the kind, each measured the other with an eye
as hard and bright as a diamond. To neither was the result of this
scrutiny exactly pleasant. It came upon Cousin Muriel with a little
shock of surprise that “the Chorus Girl” should look just as she did,
and that she knew how to bear herself in a way that did not yield an
inch to the enemy, yet at the same time scrupulously refrained from
offering battle. Here was beauty of a very compelling kind, and in
the hostile view of its present beholder something more valuable. The
distinguished air, the look of breeding, went some way to excuse a
deplorable infatuation. But as far as “the Chorus Girl” herself was
concerned, a little over-sensitive as circumstances may have made her
on the score of her own dignity, it was far from pleasant to detect
in this authentic member of the family that power of conveying subtle
insult, without speech or look, which belonged to the two others,
presumably her sisters, whom she had met in the Park.
Somehow the girl felt a keen rage within. It may have been the world
of unconscious arrogance behind that aloof nod, it may have been the
implicit challenge in the lidded glance down the long straight nose.
But whatever the cause, Mary suddenly felt a surge of resentment in her
very bones.
In the meantime, the People’s Candidate was playing his part to
perfection. The flight of time had wrought wonders in this champion of
Demos. He was no longer tongue-tied and awkward; even the roll of his
“r’s” was so diminished that Ardnaleuchan would hardly have known its
child. Everything was in perfect harmony. After a few brief passages
with Harriet, audaciously humorous, in which homage was paid to old
times, he turned with a sportsman’s eye to exchange a ready quip with
Joe and Eliza.
Joe, in his heart, was scandalized. A Tory to the bone, in his view
the social hierarchy was part of the cosmic order. It was unchanging,
immutable. “Scotchie” was a charlatan, tongue in cheek; a mountebank
of a fellow whom it was amazing that honest men, let alone high-born
women, could not see through. Joe was determined to have no truck
with him, but the People’s Candidate with a bonhomie which the former
colleague of the X Division was inclined to regard as mere brazenness,
seemed quite determined not to take rebuffs from an old friend.
“You haven’t a vote, Joe, I know,” said Maclean, “but you are a man of
influence here and I want you to speak for me with your pals.”
Joe shook a solemn head.
“I don’t believe in your principles,” said he.
The voice, a growl of indignation, struck the ear of Lady Muriel a
veritable blow. In spite of “the breadth” she was trying so hard to
cultivate, the laws of her being demanded that these humble people
should grovel. They were of another caste, another clay; somehow Joe’s
blunt skepticism gave her a sense of personal affront.
“You have not a vote, Mr. Kelly,” she interposed, in a sharp tone.
“Pray, why didn’t you tell me? A canvasser’s time is valuable.”
“Your ladyship never asked the question.”
“But you knew, surely, my object in coming?”
“I did,” said Joe coolly, with a slightly humorous air. “And I thought
your ladyship so dangerous that the best thing I could do was to get
you barking up the wrong tree.”
The answer delighted Maclean. He threw up his head and laughed like
a school boy. But in the midst of a mirth that his fiancée was quite
incapable of sharing with him, Jack and Mary rose to go. They had been
waiting to seize the first chance which offered in order to escape from
a decidedly irksome family party.
V
As Mary and Jack took leave, the penetrating eye of the new Home
Secretary regarded them. The two men had not met before, but they
were known to each other by hearsay. Jack had heard little good of
Maclean--Sir Dugald had heard even less good of Jack. A light of
amused malice sprang to their eyes in the moment of recognition. But
from those of the Scotsman it quickly passed. For almost at once his
attention was caught by the affectionate intimacy of the good-bys
bestowed upon Joe, Eliza, and Harriet by a girl of quite remarkable
interest.
Was it possible? The live thought flashed through Sir Dugald’s mind.
In an instant it had leapt to the November evening of the year 1890.
Immense quantities of water had flowed under the bridge since that far
distant hour. And if this vivid, unforgettable girl was the creature he
now suspected that she must be, here was one example the more of the
romance of time, nature and circumstance.
As soon as Mary and Jack were away on what they called a joy-ride to
Richmond, all Sir Dugald’s doubts in the matter were laid at rest.
At once there followed a few brief, but pitiless and bitter passages
between Harriet Sanderson and Lady Muriel.
“Tell me, Mrs. Sanderson,” said the younger woman in a tone of ice, “is
Miss Lawrence a connection of yours?”
“My niece, my lady,” said Harriet, an odd tremor in her voice.
“A daughter, I presume, of your sister and her husband?”
“That is so, my lady.” Harriet’s tone was slowly deepening to that of
her questioner.
“Of course, the matter will have to be mentioned at once to my father.
And I’m afraid the consequences cannot fail to be serious. You must
feel that it is very wrong to have connived at such a state of things.”
Harriet’s reply, brief but considered, made with a sudden flush of
color and a lighted eye, was a cold denial. It was a short but painful
scene, and its three witnesses would gladly have been spared it. Lady
Muriel had lost a little of her poise. In spite of her “breadth” she
was simply horrified by her discovery. She could not believe that
Harriet spoke the truth. And the cunning, the duplicity, the chicane of
a retainer who had held a privileged position for so many years filled
her with an inward fury that was almost beyond control.
“One could not have believed it to be possible,” she said, in a voice
that trembled ominously. And having discharged that Parthian bolt, she
withdrew with the People’s Candidate in order to canvass the next house
in the street.
VI
Such a departure left consternation in its train. After a moment of
complete silence, Eliza burst into a sudden flood of tears, Joe put on
his tunic with the air of a tragedian, but Harriet remained immovable
as a statue.
“This comes of the stage,” wailed poor Eliza.
Joe felt the times themselves were to blame, at any rate they were
sadly out of joint.
“I don’t know what things are coming to,” he said, flinging his
slippers into a corner and putting on his boots. “Things are all upside
down these days and no mistake.”
Harriet blamed no one. She merely stood white and shaken, a picture of
tragic unhappiness.
“Gal,” said Joe, turning to her a Job’s comforter, “one thing is sure.
You are going to lose your place.”
Harriet bit her lip, coldly disdaining a reply.
“As sure as eggs that’ll be the upshot,” proceeded Joe. “I’m sorry I
let that jockey go without giving him a bit of my mind.”
“He is not to blame,” said Harriet tensely.
“Who is, then?”
“You and me, Joe,” sobbed Eliza, “for letting her go on the stage.”
“There was no stopping her--you know that well enough. As soon as she
took up her dancing we lost all control of her. But we’ve got to be
pretty sensible now. A nice tangle things are in, and they’ll take a
bit of straightening out.”
Harriet shook a mournful head.
“What can people like ourselves possibly do?” she asked.
“I’ve a great mind,” said Joe, “to step as far as Bridport House and
have a few words with his Grace.”
“That’s merely preposterous,” said Harriet decisively.
“The matter must be brought to his notice at once, any way,” said Joe
doggedly.
“You can count upon that,” said Harriet grimly.
“But it’ll be one side only. And there’s the other, my gal.”
“What other?” Harriet asked with a drawn smile.
“Her side. She is not going to be made a fool of by anyone if I can
help it.”
Said Harriet very gravely: “Joe, I sincerely hope you will not meddle
in this. I am quite sure that any interference of ours will be most
unwise.”
But Joe shook the head of a warrior.
“There you’re wrong. This is our affair and we’ve got to see it
through.”
“Far better let the matter alone.”
“When we adopted that girl,” said Joe, “we took a great responsibility
on ourselves, and we’ve got to live up to it. In my opinion that young
man means no good.”
“You have no right to say that,” said Harriet quickly.
“I’ve a right to say what I think. And you know as well as I do that
the likes o’ him don’t condescend to the likes o’ her with any good
intention.”
Harriet flushed darkly.
“I am quite sure that Mr. Dinneford would always behave like a
gentleman,” she said sternly.
“That is more than you know.”
“You seem to forget that he is one of the Family.”
Joe laughed rather sardonically. “I don’t blame you for being so set up
with your precious Family,” he said. “It is only right that you should
be--but I know what I know. Human nature’s human nature.”
Harriet shook her head. Not for a moment could she accept this point of
view. Moreover, she strongly urged that there must not be interference
of any kind with Bridport House.
“That’s as may be,” said Joe stoutly. “But you can take your oath that
I mean to see justice done in the matter.”
“You talk as if she was your own daughter,” said Harriet, who was
growing deeply annoyed.
“Ever since I gave her my name and my roof, I have looked on her as a
gal of my own.”
“Yes, that we have,” chimed Eliza tearfully. “And I am sure that Joe is
right to take the matter up.”
Again Harriet dissented. In her view, and she did not hesitate to
express it forcibly, it would be sheer folly for people like themselves
to meddle in such a delicate affair.
“It seems to me,” said Eliza bitterly, “that rather than go against
Bridport House, you would ruin the girl.”
The words struck home. Eliza had long looked up to her younger sister.
The position she held was one of honor, but Harriet’s exaggerated
concern for an imposing machine of which she was no more than a very
humble cog, somehow aroused Eliza’s deepest feelings.
“It is a very wicked thing to say.” And in the eyes of Harriet was an
odd look.
“You set these grandees above everything in the world,” Eliza taunted.
“Like the Dad, you simply worship them.”
A deadly pallor overspread Harriet’s face. Her eyes grew grim with pain
and anger. But a powerful nature, schooled to self-discipline, fought
for control and was able to gain it.
“It’s a futile discussion,” she said suddenly, in a changed tone. And
then she added with an earnestness strangely touching. “Joe, I implore
you not to take any step in the matter without first consulting me.”
The solemn words seemed to gain finality from the fact that Harriet
Sanderson then walked abruptly out of the house.