TOBY TO THE RESCUE
Half an hour later Toby was on his way to Stanborough, where he was to
meet a friend at the club-house, and play a round of golf with him. As
soon as that was over, he proposed to make a call at the Links Hotel and
demand an interview with Ted Comber. Lily, in this as in all else above
the common level of womankind, made no suggestion that she should come
round with them. In fact, she voluntarily repudiated such a possibility.
"No proper man wants a girl hanging about when he is playing a game,"
she had said. "So if you ask me to come with you--if, in fact, you don't
forbid me to--you'll be no proper man. Now, shall I come with you? I
want to, awfully."
"Yes--I mean, no," said Toby, wavering, but deciding right.
Toby was playing with a friend after his own heart, who had just left
Oxford, more to the regret of undergraduates than of tutors, and so
presumably his departure was really regrettable. He was a hater of
cities and five-o'clock teas, capable of riding whatever on this unruly
earth had been foaled, but perfectly incapable of what he called
"simpering and finesse," meaning thereby the pretty little social gifts.
Furthermore, he was possessed of so much common-sense that at times he
might have been unjustly suspected of being clever. Him, as they
played, Toby determined to consult under secrecy as to what must be done
with the ineffable Comber, and "If Buck and I," thought he, "aren't a
match for that scented man, I'll brush my teeth with my niblick. Lord,
what a lark!"
Toby, it must be confessed, rather enjoyed the mission with which his
mother had entrusted him. He was not naturally of a punitive or
revengeful disposition, and, indeed, Lord Comber, had never done
anything to him, except exist, which called for vengeance. But the
thought of his discomfiture was sweet in his mouth, and, though he had
not yet formed the vaguest idea as to how it was to be accomplished, he
felt a serene confidence that he and Buck would be able to hatch
something immensely unpleasant between them.
Here was no case, he thought gleefully to himself, that called for tact
or diplomacy, or any lady-like little weapons, which Comber probably
possessed. Brutal means must be used, and he should use them. He
regretted intensely that both he and Comber were past the age when their
difference could be settled with the straightforward simplicity which
says, "Will you go of your own accord, or do you prefer to be kicked?"
Dearly would he have liked that, for, indeed, his fists itched after the
man.
Anyhow, the cause was good. Comber was to be sat upon, and Kit saved
from making an egregious fool of herself. Married women of her age and
appearance, reasoned Toby, do not stay alone with people like Comber at
watering-places like Stanborough, and Kit's brother-in-law did not
intend that she should do risky things of this description if he could
prevent it. Toby's laudable determination on this point was not due, it
must be confessed, to moral scruples. He did not know, and he did not
care to know, whether Kit's flirtation with this man was serious or not.
But people, he was aware, talked about them, and certainly, if she and
he stayed in a Stanborough hotel for a week in August together, people
would have an excellent reason for talking. Still less had he any fancy,
supposing the worst came to the worst, for seeing, as his mother said,
Conybeare linen, marked very plain, in the public wash-tub.
Also he hated Comber with all the fine intensity with which a healthy,
normal young man hates, and is right to hate, those smiling, wobbly,
curled and scented of his sex, who powder themselves and take pills, and
read ladies' papers, and are at their best (or worst) in a
boudoir--lap-dogs of London. Some women, and perhaps their Creator knows
why, appeared, so Toby thought, to like them. Kit liked Comber--here was
an instance of it that thrust sore at him. Now, Jack was no saint (here
again Toby was not judging on moral grounds), but he was a man. He would
shoot straight or ride straight all day, and in the evening he would
make himself, it might be, quite scandalously agreeable to other
people's wives. It was not right, and Toby did not defend him, but,
anyhow, he behaved like a male. That was where the difference lay.
He remembered how they had all howled at Kit when one evening she had
announced that she was going to Stanborough for a week in August to get
braced. No, she was not going to take any of her friends with her, and
very likely she would not even take a maid. She proposed to live in some
stark hotel swept by all the winds that blow, in a bedroom with only a
small square of carpet, one damp sandy towel, and windows looking due
north, and kept always wide open. She intended to bathe daily before
breakfast in the cold, salt, terrible German Ocean, to sit and walk on
the sands all day, and go to bed directly after an eggy high tea, about
seven. She would have eggs with her tea, and eggs with her breakfast,
and cold roast beef for lunch, and possibly beer. She would not go to
stay with Jack's mother, which was the obvious thing to do, because the
house was so comfortable, and she knew she would only sit indoors, and
get up late and go to bed late if she did. She wanted to be cold and
uncomfortable and early-birdish, and come back braced with a bronzed
complexion like a sailor, and blowzy hair. It would be immensely healthy
and exceedingly unpleasant.
Toby recollected these amazing plans of Kit's very precisely. Ted
Comber, he also remembered, had been there when she had enunciated them,
and when he asked if he might come too, had received an unqualified
negative. Thus, whether Kit had or had not made this subsequent
arrangement with him mattered not at all. If she had, the Perseus-Toby
was coming hot-foot over the downs to deliver her from her self-forged
fetters; and if Comber had come without being asked, still more
peremptory should be his dismissal. What was to be done was clear to
demonstration; how it must be done was a matter for council.
Toby found several friends at the club-house--it was of common
occurrence that he found friends in casual and unlikely places--and got
generally chaffed and slapped and offered various mixed and stimulating
drinks warranted to improve his putting and shut the jaws of the
bunkers. But in the course of time they got clear, and drove up the
steep hill leading to the first hole. Once started, Toby gave the
outlines of the problem to Buck, who was highly and justifiably
indignant with him.
"It's a shabby trick, Toby," he said, "to bring me up on to this fine
turf under the pretence of playing golf, if you want to talk morals.
Good God! fancy talking moral problems on a golf links! If this was a
lawn-tennis court, and you were a parson, I could understand it."
"Oh, don't be a fool, Buck!" said Toby; "the whole thing is stated--I
have told you all--in ten words, and you needn't allude to it again till
we get in. Then you shall say what you advise me to do. But it must be
settled to-day; my sister-in-law comes to-morrow. Just let it simmer."
Buck grunted, waggled, frowned heavily at his ball, and laid the iron
shot dead.
"There, it's all rot saying that to think of something puts you off,"
said Toby. "Blast it all!" and his scudding half-topped ball ran very
swiftly into the bunker.
"Of course, talking is one worse," said Buck, a little soothed.
Fifty yards separated the first green from the second tee, and Toby
recapitulated the salient points of the problem. The man of few words
answered nothing, and immediately afterwards drove a screamer.
These great sea-blown downs, over which the wind scours as shrill and
salt as in a ship's rigging, are admirably predisposing towards lucidity
of thought. The northern airs cleanse and vivify the brain; they set the
blood trotting equably through the arteries, they tone down overstrung
nerves, and raise the slack to the harmonious mean, and in a naturally
sane mind lodged in an extremely sane body they produce extraordinarily
well-balanced results. And golf above all human pursuits gives full play
to what is known as the subliminal self, a fine phrase, denoting that
occult and ruling factor in man's brain--unconscious thought. The body
is fully and harmoniously occupied; so, too, the conscious mind. The eye
measures a distance; the hand and muscles take its order, and direct the
swinging of the club. Meantime that mysterious twin of entity, the inner
brain, goes scenting along its private trails, without let or hindrance
from the occupied conscious self. Each goes his own way, on roads,
maybe, as diverse as those of Jekyll and Hyde, unharassed by the other.
Once only in the round did Buck laugh in a loud and appreciative manner
for no clear cause. His inner brain had caught a hare, and sent the
message to the golfer.
It was still only a little after five when they returned to the
club-house, and Toby ordered tea in a sequestered corner.
"Of course you'll go and call on this worm now," remarked Buck.
"Yes, that is what I meant to do. Got anything for me to say?"
"Toby, can you lie?"
"Like the devil, in a good cause."
"Well, tell the Comber man that you are coming to stay at the Links
Hotel with your sister-in-law by her invitation. Do the thing properly,
and be prodigal of details. It's a pity you have such a despicable
imagination. Say that she wrote to you in despair because she would be
bored to death with no one there to speak to, but that Conybeare
insisted on her going. Nasty for the worm that? Eh?"
Toby pondered a moment.
"That's not up to much, Buck," he said. "It wouldn't drive the man away
unless he went simply from pique. And supposing he tells me Kit didn't
write to me? Perhaps he has had a letter from her saying what fun
they'll have."
"Oh, of course, if he says you lie," said Buck suggestively.
"Do you know the man?" asked Toby with rapture. "He is quite beautiful,
with curly hair, rings, and scent, and I expect, if we knew all, stays."
Buck, it is idle to blink the fact, spat on the ground.
"Yes, I know him," he said. "Hell is full of such. By the way, I haven't
seen you since you were engaged to be married. What an idiotic thing to
do!"
"That happens to be your opinion, does it?" asked Toby mildly.
"Yes. I'm delighted, really. Congratulations. But the plan doesn't seem
to suit you."
"No; it's rotten," said Toby. "I want something certain. This easily
might not come off."
"He's a real worm, is he?" asked Buck. "I only know him by sight."
"Genuine, hall-marked," said Toby.
"Well, then give him a chance. Oh, not a chance of getting off. I mean,
give him a chance of lying to you. Tell him as news that Lady Conybeare
is coming here to-morrow, and perhaps he may appear surprised to hear
it. That will give you an opportunity. You can say things to him then."
"Yes, there's more sense in that," said Toby. "Oh! come and dine
to-night."
"All right. Is the She there?"
"Yes; you'll like her."
Buck looked at him enviously.
"What infernal good luck you have, Toby!" he said.
"Oh, I know I have," said Toby. "Lily----"
"Don't know her yet. But about the worm. Probably there will be a row.
You've got to frighten him away, remember that. Worms are always
nervous."
"There'll be a row afterwards with Kit, I'm afraid," said Toby.
"Oh, certainly. But it's all for her good. Introduce me when she comes,
and I'll say I have been her guardian angel."
Toby looked at Buck's strong brown face for a moment in silence.
"You'd look nice with wings and a night-shirt," he remarked. "Pity
Raphael or one of those Johnnies isn't alive."
"If by Johnnies you refer to the Italian school of painters," said Buck,
"it isn't worth while saying so."
"I know; that's why I didn't say so. Good-bye; I'm off to the Links
Hotel. Dinner at eight."
Lord Comber was in, and would Toby come up to his sitting-room? He met
him at the top of the stairs, like a perfect hostess, and took him down
the broad passage, stopping once opposite a big glass to smooth his
carefully-crimped hair. Then he took Toby's arm, and Toby bristled, for
he did not thrust his hand inside the curve of his elbow and let it lie
there, but inserted it very daintily and gently, as if he was threading
a needle, with a slight pressure of his long fingers.
"It's quite too delightful to see you, Toby," he said; "and how
splendid you are looking! I wish I could get as brown as that. You must
let me do a sketch of you. Yes, I'm here all alone, and I've been
terribly bored. I wonder if your mother would allow me to come and see
her. Is Miss Murchison there, too?"
"Yes; she came a couple of days ago."
"How nice! I do want to see more of her. Everyone is frightfully jealous
of you. And I hear your mother's house is quite beautiful. Round to the
right."
Ted Comber firmly held the creed that if you flatter people and make
yourself pleasant you can do anything with them. There is quite an
astonishing amount of truth in it, but, like many other creeds, it does
not contain the whole truth. It does not allow for the possible instance
of two personalities being so antagonistic that every effort, even to be
pleasant, on the part of the one merely renders it more obnoxious to the
other. This is a very disconcerting sort of exception, and the fact that
it may prove the rule is a very slight compensation, practically
considered.
"You have some wonderful Burne-Jones drawings, someone told me," went on
Ted, innocently driving the exception up to the hilt, so to speak, in
his own blood. "Your father must have had such taste! It is so clever of
people to see twenty years before what is going to be valuable. I wish I
had known him. Here's my den."
Toby looked round the den in scarcely veiled horror. Daniel's den with
all its lions, he thought, would be preferable to this. There was a
French writing-table, and on it signed photographs of two or three women
in silver frames, an empty inkstand, a gold-topped scent-bottle (not
empty), and a small daintily-bound volume of French verse. Against the
wall stood a sofa, smothered in cushions, and on it a mandolin with a
blue ribbon. A very big low armchair stood near the sofa, on the arm of
which was cast a piece of silk embroidery, the needle still sticking in
it, a damning proof of the worker thereof. There was a large
looking-glass over the fireplace, and on the chimney-piece stood two or
three Saxe figures. A copy of the Gentlewoman and the Queen lay on the
floor.
"I can't get on without a few of my own things about me," said Lord
Comber, fussing gently about the room. "I always take some of my things
with me if I am going to stay in a hotel. This place is quite nice; they
are very civil, and the cooking isn't bad. But it makes such a
difference to have some of one's things about; it makes your rooms so
much more homey."
And he drew the curtain a shade more over the window to keep the sun
out.
"How long are you going to stop here?" asked Toby.
"Oh, another week, I expect," said Comber, removing the embroidery, and
indicating the armchair to Toby. "Of course, it is rather lonely, and I
don't know a soul here; but I'm out a good deal on these delicious
sands, and another week alone will be quite bearable."
"I wonder you didn't arrange to come with somebody," said Toby quietly.
Lord Comber took up the gold-topped scent-bottle and refreshed his
forehead. This was a little awkward, but Kit had told him to tell none
of the cottage-party that she would be there. He remembered vaguely
that Kit had, one evening in July, announced her intention of coming to
Stanborough, but he could not recollect whether Toby was there, and,
besides, at the time she had not really meant to do anything of the
kind. It was only afterwards that they had made their definite
arrangements. The worst of it was, that there was a letter from Kit
lying on the table, and Toby might or might not have seen it.
"Everyone is engaged now," he said. "It is hopeless trying to get people
in August. Oh, I heard from Kit this morning," he added, by rather an
ingenious afterthought. "She asked me to come down to Goring in
September."
"Was that all she said?" asked Toby.
"Oh, you know what Kit's letters are like," said he. "A delicious sort
of hash of all that has happened to everybody."
Toby paused a moment. God was good.
"She didn't happen to say by what train she was going to arrive
to-morrow?" he asked.
Lord Comber made a little impatient gesture, admirably spontaneous. He
had often used it before.
"Oh, how angry Kit will be!" he said. "She told me particularly not to
tell anybody. How did you know, Toby?"
"She wrote to my mother some days ago declining her invitation to come
to the cottage," he said. "Also the thing was discussed at length in my
presence. There was no question of concealment. I remember you asked if
you might come too, and she said no."
Lord Comber laughed, quite as if he was not annoyed.
"Yes, I remember," he said. "What fun Kit was that night! It was at the
Haslemeres', wasn't it? I never saw her in such form."
Toby sat as stiff as a poker in the armchair.
"I can't quite reconcile your statement that you were going to be all
alone with the fact that you knew Kit was coming to-morrow," he said.
"Not off-hand, at least."
Ted Comber began to be aware that the position was a sultry one. Kit had
distinctly told him not to tell any of the people at the cottage that
she was coming, and he had said that this was the wrong sort of
precaution to take. They would be sure to know, and a failure in secrecy
is a ghastly failure, and so difficult to explain afterwards, for people
always think that if you keep a thing secret there is something to be
kept secret. No doubt she had come round to his way of thinking, and had
told them herself, forgetting the prohibition she had laid on him.
Altogether it was an annoying business. However, this scene with the
barbarous brother-in-law had to be gone through with at once. He
shrugged his shoulders.
"Kit told me not to mention it," he said. "We were going to have a
rustic little time in all our worst clothes and no maid. That is all."
"You have lied to me--that is all," said Toby, with incredible rudeness.
"That is not the way for one man to speak to another, Toby," said Lord
Comber, feeling suddenly cold and damp. "I followed Kit's directions."
"Of course, it is the fashion to say that it is the woman's fault,"
observed Toby fiendishly.
Lord Comber was quite at a loss how to deal with such outrageous
behaviour. People did not do such things.
"Did you come here in order to quarrel with me?" he asked.
"No, I don't want to quarrel," said Toby, "but I intend that you shall
go away."
"That is so thoughtful of you," said Comber.
He was getting a little agitated, and had recourse to the scent-bottle
again. He did not like fencing with the buttons off.
Toby did not answer at once; he was thinking of the suggestion he had
made to his mother. He determined to use it as a threat, at any rate.
"Look here," he said; "Kit may choose her own friends as much as she
pleases, but she cannot go staying alone with you at a place like this.
Either you go or I telegraph to Jack."
Lord Comber laughed.
"Do you really suppose Jack would really mind?" he said.
"And do you know that you are speaking of my brother?" asked Toby.
"I'm sure that is not Jack's fault," remarked Comber.
"No. Then, as you say, if Jack won't mind, I'll telegraph to him at
once. Have you a form here? Oh, it doesn't matter; I can get one in the
office."
"The fact that you telegraph to Jack implies that there is something to
telegraph about," said Comber. "There is nothing."
Toby did not choose to acknowledge that there could be any truth in
this.
"I don't care a damn," he observed. "Either you go or I telegraph. Take
your time, but please settle as soon as you can. I don't want to make
things unpleasant, and if you say that your only aunt is very ill, and
that you have been sent for, I won't contradict it--in fact, I'll bear
you out if Kit makes a fuss."
"That is extraordinarily kind of you," said Lord Comber. "And since when
have you become your sister-in-law's keeper in this astounding manner?"
Toby got quickly out of his chair, and stood very stiff and hot and
uncompromising.
"Now, look here," he said: "my name is Massingbird, and so is Jack's,
and I don't wish that it should be in everybody's mouth in connection
with yours. People will talk; you know it as well as I do, and there is
going to be no Comber-Conybeare scandal, thank you very much."
"You seem to be doing your level best to make one," said Lord Comber.
"Oh, I don't mind a Ted-Toby scandal," said Toby serenely. "I can take
care of myself."
"And of Kit, it seems."
"And of Kit--at least, it seems so, as you say."
There was a long silence, and Toby drew a vile briar pipe out of his
pocket. He noticed that Lord Comber, even in his growing agitation, cast
an agonized glance towards it, and, putting it back in his pocket, he
lit a cigarette.
"You don't like pipes, I think?" he said. "I forgot for the moment."
Toby sat down again in the big chair and smoked placidly. He intended to
get an answer, and if it was unsatisfactory (if the worm turned and
refused to go), he would have to consider whether he should or should
not telegraph to Jack. He felt that this would be an extreme step, and
hoped he should not have to take it.
Lord Comber's reflections were not enviable. To begin with, Toby had a
most uncomfortable, angular mind and an attitude towards life which
will not consent to be fitted into round holes nor adapt itself to nice
easy compromises and tactful smoothings over of difficult places. He was
all elbows, mentally considered--elbows and unbending joints. If he
intended to carry his point, he would not meet one half-way; he held
horrible threats over one's head, which, if defied, he might easily
carry out. His own argument he considered excellent. To telegraph to
Jack implied that there was something to telegraph about, but this
square, freckled brute could not or would not see it. It really was too
exasperating. He himself conducted his own life so largely by the
employment of tact, finesse, diplomacy (Toby would have called these
lies), that it was most disconcerting to find himself in conflict with
someone who not only did not employ them, but refused to recognise them
as legitimate weapons. Indeed, he was in a dilemma. It was impossible to
contemplate a telegram being sent to Jack: it was equally impossible to
contemplate what would happen if Kit came and found him gone. And the
annoyance of going, of missing this week with her, was immense. It gave
him a sort of _cachet_ to be seen staying with Kit alone at a
watering-place. She was more indisputably than ever on a sort of
pinnacle in his world this year, and everyone would think it so very
daring. That was the sort of fame he really coveted--to be in the
world's eye doing rather risky things with an extremely smart woman.
Moreover, in his selfish, superficial way, he was very fond of her. She
was always amusing, and always ready to be amused; they laughed and
chattered continually when they were alone, and a week with her was sure
to be an excessively entertaining week. She had proposed that they
should do this herself, and written a charming note, which he kept. "We
shall be quite alone, and we won't speak to a soul," she had said. And
that from Kit, who, as a rule, demanded a hundred thousand people around
and about, was an immense compliment.
But because all his thoughts as he debated these things, while Toby sat
smoking, were quite contemptible, the struggle was no less difficult. A
despicable man in a dilemma, though the motives and considerations which
compose that dilemma are tawdry and ignoble, does not suffer less than a
fine spirit, but, if anything, more, for he has no sustaining sense of
duty to guide and reward him. Ted Comber's happiness and pleasure in
life, of which he had a great deal, was chiefly composed of trivial and
unedifying ingredients, and to be intimate, not only privately, but also
publicly, with Kit was one of them. And her unutterable brother-in-law
sat smoking in his best armchair, after presenting his ultimatum. If a
word from him would have sent Toby to Siberia, he would have gone. It
would be a good deed to rid society of such an outrage.
Again, yielding with a bad grace had its disadvantages, for though he
had no personal liking for Toby, a great many people, with whom he
desired to be on the best of terms, had. There were certain houses to
which he liked to go where Toby was eminently at home, and though he had
enemies in plenty, and thought little about them, Toby would be a most
undesirable addition to them. He was perfectly capable of turning his
back on one, assigning reasons, and of behaving with a brusqueness which
ought, so Lord Comber thought, to be sufficient to ensure anybody's
being turned neck and crop out of those well-cushioned society chariots
in which he lounged. But he knew very well, and cursed the unfairness of
fate, that Toby's social position was far firmer than his own, while,
whereas he cared very much for it, Toby did not care at all. Ted made
himself welcome because he took great pains to be pleasant and to amuse
people, and had always a quantity of naughty little stories, which had
to be whispered very quietly, and then laughed over very loud, but the
whole affair was an effort, though its reward was worthy. Men, he knew,
for the most part disliked him, and men are so terribly unreasonable.
Once last year only, his name had been cut out of a house-party by his
hostess's absurd husband, and it was not well to multiply occasions for
such untoward possibilities.
He took up his gold-topped scent-bottle for the third time, and by an
effort almost heroic, though there was so little heroic in its cause,
resumed a frank and unresentful manner.
"I disagree with you utterly, Toby," he said, "but I will do as you
suggest. You don't mind my speaking straight out what I think? No? Well,
you seem to me to have interfered in a most unwarrantable manner; but as
you have done so, I dare say, from excellent motives, though I don't
care a straw about your motives, I must make the best of it. I will go
to-morrow morning, and I will telegraph now to Kit, to say I can't stop
here. Now, you said you didn't wish to quarrel with me. That I hold you
to. Let us remain friends, Toby, for if anyone has a grievance it is I.
What I shall say to Kit, God knows; she will be furious, and if the
thing comes out I shall tell her the whole truth, and lay the whole
blame on you."
Toby rose.
"That is only fair," he said. "Good-bye."
Lord Comber smoothed his hair before the glass, when suddenly an idea
struck him, so brilliant and so simple that he could hardly help
smiling. He opened the door.
"I shall just walk with you to the top of the stairs," he said, again
taking Toby's arm. "Really I am quite sorry to leave; I have got quite
attached to my dear little room, and don't you think it's rather pretty?
So sorry I shan't be able to come and see your mother at the cottage,
and it's all your fault. Good-bye, Toby."
Toby went downstairs, and Lord Comber hurried back to his room. He had
no longer the smallest resentment against Toby, and a smile of amused
satisfaction testified to his changed sentiments. He rang for his man,
and sat down to write a telegram. It was addressed to Kit, and ran as
follows:
"Impossible to remain here. Excellent reasons. Do come to Aldeburgh
instead. I arrive there to-morrow afternoon, and go to hotel."
He read it over.
"Poor Toby," he thought to himself. "What a lesson not to interfere!"