The postponement of a concert is a very serious matter. There are
pretty certain to be amongst the audience, those who could come on
Tuesday but find Wednesday impossible, or Wednesday agreeable and
Thursday obnoxious. Similarly with artistes, some of whom cannot fix in
the altered date, and some, the more amateurish, who have screwed their
courage up for Tuesday's ordeal and find it a physical and mental
impossibility to sustain the tension for another twenty-four hours. In
this latter case we find Mr. Roderick Nape, who, with the added mental
burden of his tremendous discovery, found no pleasure in the fictitious
trials of the hero of "The Murder at Fairleigh Grange."
It was written in the book of fate that he should be relieved of one
half of his care. On the day eventually fixed for the concert the duke
was "at home."
I pass over the propriety of a bachelor being "at home." There was no
precedent for the function, but then there was no precedent for a duke
living in Kymott Crescent. What the response would have been in
ordinary circumstances, need not be discussed. As it happened, the
grave man-servant was kept busy the whole of the afternoon announcing
new arrivals, and the two waiters, hired for the day from Whiteley's,
distributed tea, thin bread and butter, and ladylike sandwiches from 4
till 6.30.
The neighbourhood accepted the invitation because it gave the
neighbourhood an opportunity of meeting and abusing the vicar for
postponing the soiree--and then of course there was the Duke.
"Come?" said Hank answering that gentleman's doubts, "of course they'll
come: you're a two headed donkey, an ancient ruin, a _cause celebre_ and
the scene of a tragedy."
"I take you, sir," said the Duke gratefully; "in other words----"
"They will come out of morbid curiosity," said Hank. "They'll come to
the concert to-night, but that's different. You'll be removed from most
of 'em. Here they can get near you, prod you and guess what your weight
is, look at your teeth an' tell your age; they'll come all right!"
Amongst those present, as the junior reporter hath it, was Mr. Roderick
Nape in his private clothes, in other words without disguise. Yet in a
sense he was there on business. He wanted to see how these men behaved
in public.
He pushed his way through the crowded little room, little knowing that
he stalked to his professional doom.
"How do you do?" asked the Duke in his most engaging manner, then he
gave a dramatic start and stepped back.
He looked at Hank, then again at Mr. Nape.
"Why, Mr. Nape," stammered the Duke, "you quite startled me."
All eyes were riveted on Mr. Nape, and he enjoyed it.
"What have you been doing to your face!" asked the Duke. It was a rude
question, but Mr. Nape saw nothing more significant in the query than a
hint of smut, and searched for his handkerchief.
"What have you done with your moustache," asked the Duke reprovingly.
Mr. Nape looked his astonishment.
"I have never had a moustache," he said haughtily, for he had heard a
little titter.
"Strange," mused the Duke, "and yet I could have sworn that the last
time we met--forgive me, I must have been mistaken."
"By the way, Mr. Nape," drawled the tired voice of Hank, "that electric
battery you repaired don't work worth a cent."
The great and appalling truth came to Mr. Nape slowly. In a dazed way
he managed to reached the outskirts of the throng about his host and
sank into a chair.
His moustache! the electric battery! he groaned in spirit.
"Say, Mr. Nape,"--Hank was by his side--"you'll keep the matter
dark--you know. What you heard this morning--we'll split the tiara or
I'll toss you for the diamond necklace."
Roderick rose with dignity.
"Mr. Hankey, you are an American and you cannot understand my feelings,
but I consider I have been treated most----"
"Mrs. and Miss Terrill," announced the grave man-servant, and Hank lost
all interest in Mr. Roderick Nape.
He gave a quick glance at the Duke and grinned, for the scarlet-faced
young man for the first and last time in his life lost his head and grew
incoherent.
"Oh, yes, America is a lovely country--close to New York you know,
beautiful sunsets every night at 10. I mean fireworks in Madison Square
Gardens. Yes, I knew President Lincoln intimately. How do you do, Miss
Terrill? this is very pluc--kind of you."
Mrs. Terrill has been treated with scant courtesy in these pages, but
the part she played in this story is analogous to the part she played in
life. She was one of those women who live in the everlasting
background--none the worse for that, but no better. The Duke had looked
forward to the meeting with a vague dread. When he saw her he
experienced a great relief, when she spoke he was grateful. He found an
opportunity to speak with her alone.
"My daughter has told me," she said simply. "I'm afraid I ought to be
more prejudiced against you than I am, and I'm sure you were not looking
forward with any eagerness to meet me."
His smiling denial she waved aside. She was a pretty woman of fifty.
She looked no less, yet she was pretty. For beauty is not of any age,
any more than it is of any colour. The Duke with his quick sympathies
saw behind the laughter in her eyes the shadow of suffering. He had
lived too near to sorrow to mistake its evidence. Secretly, he wondered
why this woman with her ready wit and her unquestionable charm had
played no greater part in life--for unerringly and instinctively he had
estimated her place in the world.
She had an embarrassing way of reading one's thoughts.
"You are wondering why I am the Shadowy Lady," she asked with a glint of
amusement in her eyes, "yet you must remember a time--did I not overhear
you claiming acquaintance with Lincoln?--when it was woman's prerogative
to retire: when her virtues were concomitant with her obscurity. Some
women rebelled and reached fame by way of the law courts, some women
rebelled and died, some acquiesced, waiting for the fashion to change. I
was one of those, and when the fashion changed I was satisfied with the
old order and remained behind the curtain, peaceably."
He looked at her and nodded.
"I understand," he said, for there was sufficient of the woman in his
heart to understand sacrifice. She walked away and sent him Alicia.
They were exchanging banalities for the benefit of the surrounding
audience when Hank came looking preternaturally solemn. "That custard,
Duke."
His friend stared.
"What about it?"
"She's gone."
The Duke waited.
"That custard," said Hank impressively, "we made her, boiled her, stuck
eggs all over her, and put her outside on the window-ledge to cool off."
The Duke said nothing, but his lips quivered.
"That custard was surely great," Hank went on, growing melancholy, "we
copied her out of an evenin' paper, and whisked her and frisked her till
she sizzled--and she's gone."
There was a solemn pause; the spectators held their breath, out of
respect for Hank's grief.
"Whilst there was a sound of revelry downstairs, there came a thief,"
said Hank oracularly, "she clomb up the rare-old-ivy-green and started
in to sample that custard."
The Duke leant forward.
"Not Tibs?" he asked breathlessly.
"Oh, not Tibs?" pleaded the girl.
"Tibs, it was surely," said Hank bitterly, "I saw that kinky tail of
hers goin' over the wall."
X
The Duke had secured a few minutes alone with the girl. The remainder
of the guests had departed, and Hank was keeping Mrs. Terrill mildly
amused with an exposition of his philosophy.
It was a memorable day in the Duke's life, for amongst other unique
experiences, he felt a diffidence amounting to shyness.
Remarkably enough it was the girl who was cool and self-possessed. He
tried to carry off the matter with a high hand, but, as Hank so
expressively put it, "he wilted some."
"Alicia," he began huskily--his throat-clearing cough was a confession
of weakness.
"Did you like mother?" she asked. He could see she had no fear of the
verdict. As he spoke of her he gained courage and took her hand,
inanely enough, and she laughed a low, happy, amused laugh.
He laughed too, but sheepishly.
"Courage, mon enfant," she said boldly.
"Alicia," he said earnestly, "don't you wonder at me--and aren't you
sorry for me struck dumb by your nearness? There was a man in Texas
City once, who told me my bumps; and he said my two principal
characteristics were modesty and courage, and said that I suffered from
having too poor an opinion of myself. I have tried to get over that
latter fault," he said bravely. "People pointed out the difficulty of
reducing the modesty bump owing to the mystery of its location. Hank
said, he guessed it was like one of those disappearing islands, that bob
up and down in the Western Pacific, and every time I hit Modesty Hill,
he made a careful survey and found I'd struck into Mount Nerve or Vanity
Point. In the end he guessed the phrenologist was pulling my leg, and
that one of the fellows had put him up to it. But I rather thought he
was genuine, and the modesty bump he had located, was one I got through
being thrown from a bronco when showing off before some girls in Texas.
Now my respect for the phrenologist has gone up points. I feel--I feel
like a little tame cat."
She let him find his way out, as best he could.
"This is the first time you and I have been alone," he said desperately,
"and--and----"
"Go on," she said calmly.
It was a terrible experience for the Duke. He felt his grasp upon the
situation slipping: he summoned his courage. They were in the deserted
conservatory, which was twelve feet by eight feet and open to the gaze
of the world on three sides.
"Have you seen my Japanese ferns?" he asked recklessly.
Now here is a curious problem that I present to the reader, whose
greater knowledge of worldly affairs may help him to a solution. As the
Duke spoke he indicated the screened side of the conservatory, which was
as innocent of Japanese ferns as indeed of any forms of growth vegetable
or horticultural as the dome of St. Paul's. Unless she imagined that
the ferns might be discoverable in a microscopic crack in the wall it is
difficult to understand why she replied, "I should like to see them,"
and walked innocently towards the screened corner. Then suddenly the
Duke's arms were about her and his lips laid on hers.
She freed herself gently and raised her shining eyes to his.
"I didn't know you were going to do that," she said, but she made no
inquiries about the Japanese ferns.