MR. MUDGE COMES TO THE RESCUE
Lionel Callon's visit to Millie Stretton bore, however, consequences
which had not at all entered into his calculations. He was unaware of
the watchers at Lady Millingham's window; he had no knowledge of
Pamela's promise to Tony Stretton; no suspicion, therefore, that she
was now passionately resolved to keep it in the spirit and the letter.
He was even without a thought that his advances towards Millie had at
all been remarked upon or their motive discovered. Ignorance lulled
him into security. But within a short while a counter-plot was set in
train.
The occasion was the first summer meeting on Newmarket Heath. Pamela
Mardale seldom missed a race meeting at Newmarket dining the spring
and summer. There were the horses, in the first place; she met her
friends besides; the heath itself, with its broad expanse and its
downs, had for her eyes a beauty of its own; and in addition the
private enclosure was separated by the width of the course from the
crowd and clamour of the ring. She attended this particular meeting,
and after the second race was over she happened to be standing amidst
a group of friends within the grove of trees at the back of the
paddock. Outside, upon the heath, the air was clear and bright; a
light wind blew pleasantly. Here the trees were in bud, and the
sunlight, split by the boughs, dappled with light and shadow the
glossy coats of the horses as they were led in and out amongst the
boles. A mare was led past Pamela, and one of her friends said--
"Semiramis. I think she will win this race."
Pamela looked towards the mare, and saw, just beyond her, Mr. Mudge.
He was alone, as he usually was; and though he stopped in his walk,
now here, now there, to exchange a word with some acquaintance, he
moved on again, invariably alone. Gradually he drew nearer to the
group in which Pamela was standing, and his face brightened. He
quickened his step; Pamela, on her side, advanced rather quickly
towards him.
"You are here?" she said, with a smile. "I am glad, though I did not
think to meet you."
Mr. Mudge, to tell the truth, though he carried a race-card in his
hand, and glasses slung across his shoulder, had the disconsolate air
of a man conscious that he was out of place. He answered Pamela,
indeed, almost apologetically.
"It is better after all to be here than in London on a day of summer,"
he said, and he added, with a shrewd glance at her, "You have
something to say to me--a question to ask."
Pamela looked up at him in surprise.
"Yes, I have. Let us go out."
They walked into the paddock, and thence through the gate into the
enclosure. The enclosure was at this moment rather empty. Pamela led
the way to the rails alongside the course, and chose a place where
they were out of the hearing of any bystander.
"You remember the evening at Frances Millingham's?" she asked. She had
not seen Mr. Mudge since that date.
Mr. Mudge replied immediately.
"Yes; Sir Anthony Stretton"--and the name struck so oddly upon
Pamela's ears that, serious as at this moment she was, she laughed.
"Sir Anthony Stretton turned away from the steps of his house. You
were distressed, Miss Mardale: I, on the contrary, said that nothing
better could have happened. You wish to ask me why I said that?"
"Yes," said Pamela; "I am very anxious to know. Millie is my friend. I
am, in a sort of way, too, responsible for her;" and as Mr. Mudge
looked surprised, she repeated the word--"Yes, responsible. And I am
rather troubled." She spoke with a little hesitation. There was a
frown upon her forehead, a look of perplexity in her dark eyes. She
was reluctant to admit that her friend was in any danger or needed any
protection from her own weakness. The freemasonry of her sex impelled
her to silence. On the other hand, she was at her wits' end what to
do. And she had confidence in her companion's discretion; she
determined to speak frankly.
"It is not only your remark which troubles me," she said, "but I
called on Millie the next afternoon."
"Oh, you did?" exclaimed Mr. Mudge.
"Yes; I asked after Tony. Millie had not seen him, and did not expect
him. She showed me letters from his solicitors empowering her to do
what she liked with the house and income, and a short letter from Tony
himself, written on the _Perseverance_, to the same effect."
She did not explain to Mr. Mudge what the _Perseverance_ was, and he
asked no questions.
"I told Millie," she continued, "that Tony had returned, but she
refused to believe it. I told her when and where I had seen him."
"You did that?" said Mr. Mudge. "Wait a moment." He saw and understood
Pamela's reluctance to speak. He determined to help her out. "Let me
describe to you what followed. She stared blankly at you and asked you
to repeat what you had said?"
"Yes," replied Pamela, in surprise; "that is just what she did."
"And when you had repeated it, she turned a little pale, perhaps was
disconcerted, perhaps a little--afraid."
"Yes, it is that which troubles me," Pamela cried, in a low voice.
"She was afraid. I would have given much to have doubted it. I could
not; her eyes betrayed it, her face, her whole attitude. She was
afraid."
Mr. Mudge nodded his head, and went quietly on--
"And when she had recovered a little from her fear she questioned you
closely as to the time when you first saw Stretton outside the house,
and the time when he went away."
He spoke with so much certitude that he might have been present at the
interview.
"I told her that it was some little time after eleven when he came,
and that he only stayed a few minutes," answered Pamela.
"And at that," rejoined Mr. Mudge, "Lady Stretton's anxiety
diminished."
"Yes, that is true, too," Pamela admitted; and she turned her face to
him with its troubled appeal. "Why was she afraid? For, since you have
guessed that she was, you must know the reason which she had for fear.
Why was it so fortunate that Tony Stretton did not mount the steps of
the house and ring the bell?"
Mr. Mudge answered her immediately, and very quietly.
"Because Lionel Callon was inside the house."
A great sympathy made his voice gentle--sympathy for Pamela. None the
less the words hurt her cruelly. She turned away from him so that he
might not see her face, and stood gazing down the course through a
mist. Bitter disappointment was hers at that moment. She was by nature
a partisan. The thing which she did crept closer to her heart by the
mere act of doing it. She knew it, and it was just her knowledge which
had so long kept her to inaction. Now her thoughts were passionately
set on saving Millie, and here came news to her which brought her to
the brink of despair. She blamed Tony. "Why did he ever go away?" she
cried. "Why, when he had come back, did he not stay?" And at once she
saw the futility of her outcry. Tony, Millie, Lionel Callon--what was
the use of blaming them? They acted as their characters impelled them.
She had to do her best to remedy the evil which the clash of these
three characters had produced. "What can be done?" she asked of
herself. There was one course open certainly. She could summon
Warrisden again, send him out a second time in search of Tony
Stretton, and make him the bearer, not of an excuse, but of the whole
truth. Only she dreaded the outcome; she shrank from telling Tony the
truth, fearing that he would exaggerate it. "Can nothing be done?" she
asked, again in despair, and this time she asked the question aloud,
and turned to Mr. Mudge.
Mudge had been quietly waiting for it.
"Yes," he answered, "something can be done. I should not have told
you, Miss Mardale, what I knew unless I had already hit upon a means
to avert the peril; for I am aware how much my news must grieve you."
Pamela looked at Mr. Mudge in surprise. It had not occurred to her at
all that he could have solved the problem.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"You can leave the whole trouble in my hands for a few days."
Pamela was silent for a little while; then she answered doubtfully--
"It is most kind of you to offer me your help."
Mr. Mudge shook his head at Pamela with a certain sadness.
"There's no kindness in it at all," he said; "but I quite understand
your hesitation, Miss Mardale. You were surprised that I should offer
you help, just as you were surprised to see me here. Although I move
in your world I am not of it. Its traditions, its instincts, even its
methods of thought--to all of these I am a stranger. I am just a
passing visitor who, for the time of his stay, is made an honorary
member of your club. He meets with every civility, every kindness; but
he is not inside, so that when he suddenly comes forward and offers
you help in a matter where other members of your club are concerned,
you naturally pause."
Pamela made a gesture of dissent; but Mr. Mudge gently insisted--
"Let me finish. I want you to understand equally well why I offer you
help which may very likely seem to you an impertinence."
"No, indeed," said Pamela; "on the contrary, I am very grateful."
Others were approaching the spot where they stood. They turned and
walked slowly over the grass away from the paddock.
"There is no need that you should be," Mudge continued; "you will
see that, if you listen." And in a few words he told her at last
something of his own career. "I sprang from a Deptford gutter, with
one thought--to get on, and get on, and get on. I moved from Deptford
to Peckham. There I married. I moved from Peckham to a residential
suburb in the south-west. There my wife died. Looking back now, I am
afraid that in my haste to get on I rather neglected my wife's
happiness. You see I am frank with you. From the residential suburb I
moved into the Cromwell Road, from the Cromwell Road to Grosvenor
Square. I do not think that I was just a snob; but I wanted to have
the very best of what was going. There is a difference. A few years
ago I found myself at the point which I had aimed to reach, and, as I
have told you, it is a position of many acquaintances and much
loneliness. You might say that I could give it up and retire into the
country. But I have too many undertakings on my hands; besides, I am
too tired to start again, so I remain. But I think you will understand
that it will be a real pleasure to me to help you. I have not so many
friends that I can afford to lose the opportunity of doing one of them
a service."
Pamela heard him to the end without any interruption; but when he had
finished she said, with a smile--
"You are quite wrong about the reason for my hesitation. I asked a
friend of mine a few weeks ago to help me, and he gave me the best of
help at once. Even the best of help fails at times, and my friend did.
I was wondering merely whether it would not be a little disloyal to
him if I now accepted yours, for I know he would be grieved if I went
to any one but him."
"I see," said Mr. Mudge; "but I think that I can give you help which
no one else can."
It was clear from his quiet persistence that he had a definite plan.
Pamela stopped and faced him.
"Very well," she said. "I leave the whole matter for a little while in
your hands."
"Thank you," said Mr. Mudge; and he looked up towards the course.
"There are the horses going down."
A sudden thought occurred to Pamela. She opened the purse she carried
on her wrist, and took out a couple of pounds.
"Put this on Semiramis for me, please," she said, with a laugh. "Be
quick, if you will, and come back."
Though she laughed she was still most urgent he should go. Mr. Mudge
hurried across the course, made the bet, and returned. Pamela watched
the race with an eagerness which astonished Mr. Mudge, so completely
did she seem to have forgotten all that had troubled her a minute ago.
But he did not understand Pamela. She was, after her custom, seeking
for a sign, and when Semiramis galloped in a winner by a neck, she
turned with a hopeful smile to her companion--
"We shall win too."
"I think so," Mudge replied, and he laughed. "Do you know what I think
of Lionel Callon, Miss Mardale? The words are not mine, but the
sentiment is unexceptionable. A little may be a good thing, but too
much is enough."