Three days later came the satisfying answer to my cable message:
_“Damn! Sailing Wednesday_.--BRINSTEAD.”
Glad I was he had used the cable. In a letter there would doubtless
have been still other words improper to a peer of England.
Belknap-Jackson thereafter bore himself with a dignity quite
tremendous even for him. Graciously aloof, he was as one carrying an
inner light. “We hold them in the hollow of our hand,” said he, and
both his wife and himself took pains on our own thoroughfare to cut
the Honourable George dead, though I dare say the poor chap never at
all noticed it. They spoke of him as “a remittance man”--the black
sheep of a noble family. They mentioned sympathetically the trouble
his vicious ways had been to his brother, the Earl. Indeed, so
mysteriously important were they in allusions of this sort that I was
obliged to caution them, lest they let out the truth. As it was, there
ran through the town an undercurrent of puzzled suspicion. It was
intimated that we had something in our sleeves.
Whether this tension was felt by the Honourable George, I had no means
of knowing. I dare say not, as he is self-centred, being seldom aware
of anything beyond his own immediate sensations. But I had reason to
believe that the Klondike woman had divined some menace in our
attitude of marked indifference. Her own manner, when it could be
observed, grew increasingly defiant, if that were possible. The
alliance of the Honourable George with the Bohemian set had become, of
course, a public scandal after the day of his appearance in her trap
and after his betrayal of the Belknap-Jacksons had been gossiped to
rags. He no longer troubled himself to pretend any esteem whatever for
the North Side set. Scarce a day passed but he appeared in public as
the woman’s escort. He flagrantly performed her commissions, and at
their questionable Bohemian gatherings, with their beer and sausages
and that sort of thing, he was the gayest of that gay, mad set.
Indeed, of his old associates, Cousin Egbert quite almost alone seemed
to find him any longer desirable, and him I had no heart to caution,
knowing that I should only wound without enlightening him, he being
entirely impervious to even these cruder aspects of class distinction.
I dare say he would have considered the marriage of the Honourable
George as no more than the marriage of one of his cattle-person
companions. I mean to say, he is a dear old sort and I should never
fail to defend him in the most disheartening of his vagaries, but he
is undeniably insensitive to what one does and does not do.
The conviction ran, let me repeat, that we had another pot of broth on
the fire. I gleaned as much from the Mixer, she being one of the few
others besides Cousin Egbert in whose liking the Honourable George had
not terrifically descended. She made it a point to address me on the
subject over a dish of tea at the Grill one afternoon, choosing a
table sufficiently remote from my other feminine guests, who
doubtless, at their own tables, discussed the same complication. I was
indeed glad that we were remote from other occupied tables, because in
the course of her remarks she quite forcefully uttered an oath, which
I thought it as well not to have known that I cared to tolerate in my
lady patrons.
“As to what Jackson feels about the way it was handed out to him that
Sunday,” she bluntly declared, “I don’t care a----” The oath quite
dazed me for a moment, although I had been warned that she would use
language on occasion. “What I do care about,” she went on briskly, “is
that I won’t have this girl pestered by Jackson or by you or by any
man that wears hair! Why, Jackson talks so silly about her sometimes
you’d think she was a bad woman--and he keeps hinting about something
he’s going to put over till I can hardly keep my hands off him. I just
know some day he’ll make me forget I’m a lady. Now, take it from me,
Bill, if you’re setting in with him, don’t start anything you can’t
finish.”
Really she was quite fierce about it. I mean to say, the glitter in
her eyes made me recall what Cousin Egbert had said of Mrs. Effie, her
being quite entirely willing to take on a rattlesnake and give it the
advantage of the first two assaults. Somewhat flustered I was, yet I
hastened to assure her that, whatever steps I might feel obliged to
take for the protection of the Honourable George, they would involve
nothing at all unfair to the lady in question.
“Well, they better hadn’t!” she resumed threateningly. “That girl had
a hard time all right, but listen here--she’s as right as a church.
She couldn’t fool me a minute if she wasn’t. Don’t you suppose I been
around and around quite some? Just because she likes to have a good
time and outdresses these dames here--is that any reason they should
get out their hammers? Ain’t she earned some right to a good time,
tell me, after being married when she was a silly kid to Two-spot
Kenner, the swine--and God bless the trigger finger of the man that
bumped him off! As for the poor old Judge, don’t worry. I like the old
boy, but Kate Kenner won’t do anything more than make a monkey of him
just to spite Jackson and his band of lady knockers. Marry him? Say,
get me right, Bill--I’ll put it as delicate as I can--the Judge is too
darned far from being a mental giant for that.”
I dare say she would have slanged me for another half-hour but for the
constant strain of keeping her voice down. As it was, she boomed up
now and again in a way that reduced to listening silence the ladies at
several distant tables.
As to the various points she had raised, I was somewhat confused.
About the Honourable George, for example: He was, to be sure, no
mental giant. But one occupying his position is not required to be.
Indeed, in the class to which he was born one well knows that a mental
giant would be quite as distressingly bizarre as any other freak. I
regretted not having retorted this to her, for it now occurred to me
that she had gone it rather strong with her “poor old Judge.” I mean
to say, it was almost quite a little bit raw for a native American to
adopt this patronizing tone toward one of us.
And yet I found that my esteem for the Mixer had increased rather than
diminished by reason of her plucky defence of the Klondike woman. I
had no reason to suppose that the designing creature was worth a
defence, but I could only admire the valour that made it. Also I found
food for profound meditation in the Mixer’s assertion that the woman’s
sole aim was to “make a monkey” of the Honourable George. If she were
right, a mésalliance need not be feared, at which thought I felt a
great relief. That she should achieve the lesser and perhaps equally
easy feat with the poor chap was a calamity that would be, I fancied,
endured by his lordship with a serene fortitude.
Curiously enough, as I went over the Mixer’s tirade point by point, I
found in myself an inexplicable loss of animus toward the Klondike
woman. I will not say I was moved to sympathy for her, but doubtless
that strange ferment of equality stirred me toward her with something
less than the indignation I had formerly felt. Perhaps she was an
entirely worthy creature. In that case, I merely wished her to be
taught that one must not look too far above one’s station, even in
America, in so serious an affair as matrimony. With all my heart I
should wish her a worthy mate of her own class, and I was glad indeed
to reflect upon the truth of my assertion to the Mixer, that no unfair
advantage would be taken of her. His lordship would remove the
Honourable George from her toils, a made monkey, perhaps, but no
husband.
Again that day did I listen to a defence of this woman, and from a
source whence I could little have expected it. Meditating upon the
matter, I found myself staring at Mrs. Judson as she polished some
glassware in the pantry. As always, the worthy woman made a pleasing
picture in her neat print gown. From staring at her rather absently I
caught myself reflecting that she was one of the few women whose hair
is always perfectly coiffed. I mean to say, no matter what the press
of her occupation, it never goes here and there.
From the hair, my meditative eye, still rather absently, I believe,
descended her quite good figure to her boots. Thereupon, my gaze
ceased to be absent. They were not boots. They were bronzed slippers
with high heels and metal buckles and of a character so distinctive
that I instantly knew they had once before been impressed upon my
vision. Swiftly my mind identified them: they had been worn by the
Klondike woman on the occasion of a dinner at the Grill, in
conjunction with a gown to match and a bluish scarf--all combining to
achieve an immense effect.
My assistant hummed at her task, unconscious of my scrutiny. I recall
that I coughed slightly before disclosing to her that my attention had
been attracted to her slippers. She took the reference lightly,
affecting, as the sex will, to belittle any prized possession in the
face of masculine praise.
“I have seen them before,” I ventured.
“She gives me all of hers. I haven’t had to buy shoes since baby was
born. She gives me--lots of things--stockings and things. She likes me
to have them.”
“I didn’t know you knew her.”
“Years! I’m there once a week to give the house a good going over.
That Jap of hers is the limit. Dust till you can’t rest. And when I
clean he just grins.”
I mused upon this. The woman was already giving half her time to
superintending two assistants in the preparation of the International
Relish.
“Her work is too much in addition to your own,” I suggested.
“Me? Work too hard? Not in a thousand years. I do all right for you,
don’t I?”
It was true; she was anything but a slacker. I more nearly approached
my real objection.
“A woman in your position,” I began, “can’t be too careful as to the
associations she forms----” I had meant to go on, but found it quite
absurdly impossible. My assistant set down the glass she had and quite
venomously brandished her towel at me.
“So that’s it?” she began, and almost could get no farther for mere
sputtering. I mean to say, I had long recognized that she possessed
character, but never had I suspected that she would have so inadequate
a control of her temper.
“So that’s it?” she sputtered again, “And I thought you were too
decent to join in that talk about a woman just because she’s young and
wears pretty clothes and likes to go out. I’m astonished at you, I
really am. I thought you were more of a man!” She broke off, scowling
at me most furiously.
Feeling all at once rather a fool, I sought to conciliate her. “I have
joined in no talk,” I said. “I merely suggested----” But she shut me
off sharply.
“And let me tell you one thing: I can pick out my associates in this
town without any outside help. The idea! That girl is just as nice a
person as ever walked the earth, and nobody ever said she wasn’t
except those frumpy old cats that hate her good looks because the men
all like her.”
“Old cats!” I echoed, wishing to rebuke this violence of epithet, but
she would have none of me.
“Nasty old spite-cats,” she insisted with even more violence, and went
on to an almost quite blasphemous absurdity. “A prince in his palace
wouldn’t be any too good for her!”
“Tut, tut!” I said, greatly shocked.
“Tut nothing!” she retorted fiercely. “A regular prince in his palace,
that’s what she deserves. There isn’t a single man in this one-horse
town that’s good enough to pick up her glove. And she knows it, too.
She’s carrying on with your silly Englishman now, but it’s just to pay
those old cats back in their own coin. She’ll carry on with him--yes!
But marry? Good heavens and earth! Marriage is serious!” With this
novel conclusion she seized another glass and began to wipe it
viciously. She glared at me, seeming to believe that she had closed
the interview. But I couldn’t stop. In some curious way she had
stirred me rather out of myself--but not about the Klondike woman nor
about the Honourable George. I began most illogically, I admit, to
rage inwardly about another matter.
“You have other associates,” I exclaimed quite violently, “those
cattle-persons--I know quite all about it. That Hank and Buck--they
come here on the chance of seeing you; they bring you boxes of candy,
they bring you little presents. Twice they’ve escorted you home at
night when you quite well knew I was only too glad to do it----” I
felt my temper most curiously running away with me, ranting about
things I hadn’t meant to at all. I looked for another outburst from
her, but to my amazement she flashed me a smile with a most enigmatic
look back of it. She tossed her head, but resumed her wiping of the
glass with a certain demureness. She spoke almost meekly:
“They’re very old friends, and I’m sure they always act right. I don’t
see anything wrong in it, even if Buck Edwards has shown me a good
deal of attention.”
But this very meekness of hers seemed to arouse all the violence in my
nature.
“I won’t have it!” I said. “You have no right to receive presents from
men. I tell you I won’t have it! You’ve no right!”
“Haven’t I?” she suddenly said in the most curious, cool little voice,
her eyes falling before mine. “Haven’t I? I didn’t know.”
It was quite chilling, her tone and manner. I was cool in an instant.
Things seemed to mean so much more than I had supposed they did. I
mean to say, it was a fair crumpler. She paused in her wiping of the
glass but did not regard me. I was horribly moved to go to her, but
coolly remembered that that sort of thing would never do.
“I trust I have said enough,” I remarked with entirely recovered
dignity.
“You have,” she said.
“I mean I won’t have such things,” I said.
“I hear you,” she said, and fell again to her work. I thereupon
investigated an ice-box and found enough matter for complaint against
the Hobbs boy to enable me to manage a dignified withdrawal to the
rear. The remarkable creature was humming again as I left.
I stood in the back door of the Grill giving upon the alley, where I
mused rather excitedly. Here I was presently interrupted by the dog,
Mr. Barker. For weeks now I had been relieved of his odious
attentions, by the very curious circumstance that he had transferred
them to the Honourable George. Not all my kicks and cuffs and beatings
had sufficed one whit to repulse him. He had kept after me, fawned
upon me, in spite of them. And then on a day he had suddenly, with
glad cries, become enamoured of the Honourable George, waiting for him
at doors, following him, hanging upon his every look. And the
Honourable George had rather fancied the beast and made much of him.
And yet this animal is reputed by poets and that sort of thing to be
man’s best friend, faithfully sharing his good fortune and his bad,
staying by his side to the bitter end, even refusing to leave his body
when he has perished--starving there with a dauntless fidelity. How
chagrined the weavers of these tributes would have been to observe the
fickle nature of the beast in question! For weeks he had hardly
deigned me a glance. It had been a relief, to be sure, but what a
sickening disclosure of the cur’s trifling inconstancy. Even now,
though he sniffed hungrily at the open door, he paid me not the least
attention--me whom he had once idolized!
I slipped back to the ice-box and procured some slices of beef that
were far too good for him. He fell to them with only a perfunctory
acknowledgment of my agency in procuring them.
“Why, I thought you hated him!” suddenly said the voice of his owner.
She had tiptoed to my side.
“I do,” I said quite savagely, “but the unspeakable beast can’t be
left to starve, can he?”
I felt her eyes upon me, but would not turn. Suddenly she put her hand
upon my shoulder, patting it rather curiously, as she might have
soothed her child. When I did turn she was back at her task. She was
humming again, nor did she glance my way. Quite certainly she was no
longer conscious that I stood about. She had quite forgotten me. I
could tell as much from her manner. “Such,” I reflected, with an
unaccustomed cynicism, “is the light inconsequence of women and dogs.”
Yet I still experienced a curiously thrilling determination to protect
her from her own good nature in the matter of her associates.
At a later and cooler moment of the day I reflected upon her defence
of the Klondike woman. A “prince in his palace” not too good for her!
No doubt she had meant me to take these remarkable words quite
seriously. It was amazing, I thought, with what seriousness the lower
classes of the country took their dogma of equality, and with what
naïve confidence they relied upon us to accept it. Equality in North
America was indeed praiseworthy; I had already given it the full
weight of my approval and meant to live by it. But at home, of course,
that sort of thing would never do. The crude moral worth of the
Klondike woman might be all that her two defenders had alleged, and
indeed I felt again that strange little thrill of almost sympathy for
her as one who had been unjustly aspersed. But I could only resolve
that I would be no party to any unfair plan of opposing her. The
Honourable George must be saved from her trifling as well as from her
serious designs, if such she might have; but so far as I could
influence the process it should cause as little chagrin as possible to
the offender. This much the Mixer and my charwoman had achieved with
me. Indeed, quite hopeful I was that when the creature had been set
right as to what was due one of our oldest and proudest families she
would find life entirely pleasant among those of her own station. She
seemed to have a good heart.
As the day of his lordship’s arrival drew near, Belknap-Jackson became
increasingly concerned about the precise manner of his reception and
the details of his entertainment, despite my best assurances that no
especially profound thought need be given to either, his lordship
being quite that sort, fussy enough in his own way but hardly formal
or pretentious.
His prospective host, after many consultations with me, at length
allowed himself to be dissuaded from meeting his lordship in correct
afternoon garb of frock-coat and top-hat, consenting, at my urgent
suggestion, to a mere lounge-suit of tweeds with a soft-rolled hat and
a suitable rough day stick. Again in the matter of the menu for his
lordship’s initial dinner which we had determined might well be
tendered him at my establishment. Both husband and wife were rather
keen for an elaborate repast of many courses, feeling that anything
less would be doing insufficient honour to their illustrious guest,
but I at length convinced them that I quite knew what his lordship
would prefer: a vegetable soup, an abundance of boiled mutton with
potatoes, a thick pudding, a bit of scientifically correct cheese, and
a jug of beer. Rather trying they were at my first mention of this--a
dinner quite without finesse, to be sure, but eminently nutritive--and
only their certainty that I knew his lordship’s ways made them give
in.
The affair was to be confined to the family, his lordship the only
guest, this being thought discreet for the night of his arrival in
view of the peculiar nature of his mission. Belknap-Jackson had hoped
against hope that the Mixer might not be present, and even so late as
the day of his lordship’s arrival he was cheered by word that she
might be compelled to keep her bed with a neuralgia.
To the afternoon train I accompanied him in his new motor-car, finding
him not a little distressed because the chauffeur, a native of the
town, had stoutly--and with some not nice words, I gathered--refused
to wear the smart uniform which his employer had provided.
“I would have shopped the fellow in an instant,” he confided to me,
“had it been at any other time. He was most impertinent. But as usual,
here I am at the mercy of circumstances. We couldn’t well subject
Brinstead to those loathsome public conveyances.”
We waited in the usual throng of the leisured lower-classes who are so
naïvely pleased at the passage of a train. I found myself picturing
their childish wonder had they guessed the identity of him we were
there to meet. Even as the train appeared Belknap-Jackson made a last
moan of complaint.
“Mrs. Pettengill,” he observed dejectedly, “is about the house again
and I fear will be quite well enough to be with us this evening.” For
a moment I almost quite disapproved of the fellow. I mean to say, he
was vogue and all that, and no doubt had been wretchedly mistreated,
but after all the Mixer was not one to be wished ill to.
A moment later I was contrasting the quiet arrival of his lordship
with the clamour and confusion that had marked the advent among us of
the Honourable George. He carried but one bag and attracted no
attention whatever from the station loungers. While I have never known
him be entirely vogue in his appointments, his lordship carries off a
lounge-suit and his gray-cloth hat with a certain manner which the
Honourable George was never known to achieve even in the days when I
groomed him. The grayish rather aggressive looking side-whiskers first
caught my eye, and a moment later I had taken his hand.
Belknap-Jackson at the same time took his bag, and with a trepidation
so obvious that his lordship may perhaps have been excusable for a
momentary misapprehension. I mean to say, he instantly and crisply
directed Belknap-Jackson to go forward to the luggage van and recover
his box.
A bit awkward it was, to be sure, but I speedily took the situation in
hand by formally presenting the two men, covering the palpable
embarrassment of the host by explaining to his lordship the astounding
ingenuity of the American luggage system. By the time I had deprived
him of his check and convinced him that his box would be admirably
recovered by a person delegated to that service, Belknap-Jackson,
again in form, was apologizing to him for the squalid character of the
station and for the hardships he must be prepared to endure in a crude
Western village. Here again the host was annoyed by having to call
repeatedly to his mechanician in order to detach him from a gossiping
group of loungers. He came smoking a quite fearfully bad cigar and
took his place at the wheel entirely without any suitable deference to
his employer.
His lordship during the ride rather pointedly surveyed me, being
impressed, I dare say, by something in my appearance and manner quite
new to him. Doubtless I had been feeling equal for so long that the
thing was to be noticed in my manner. He made no comment upon me,
however. Indeed almost the only time he spoke during our passage was
to voice his astonishment at not having been able to procure the
London _Times_ at the press-stalls along the way. His host made
clucking noises of sympathy at this. He had, he said, already warned
his lordship that America was still crude.
“Crude? Of course, what, what!” exclaimed his lordship. “But naturally
they’d have the _Times_! I dare say the beggars were too lazy to
look it out. Laziness, what, what!”
“We’ve a job teaching them to know their places,” ventured
Belknap-Jackson, moodily regarding the back of his chauffeur which
somehow contrived to be eloquent with disrespect for him.
“My word, what rot!” rejoined his lordship. I saw that he had arrived
in one of his peppery moods. I fancy he could not have recited a
multiplication table without becoming fanatically assertive about it.
That was his way. I doubt if he had ever condescended to have an
opinion. What might have been opinions came out on him like a rash in
form of the most violent convictions.
“What rot not to know their places, when they must know them!” he
snappishly added.
“Quite so, quite so!” his host hastened to assure him.
“A--dashed--fine big country you have,” was his only other
observation.
“Indeed, indeed,” murmured his host mildly. I had rather dreaded the
oath which his lordship is prone to use lightly.
Reaching the Belknap-Jackson house, his lordship was shown to the
apartment prepared for him.
“Tea will be served in half an hour, your--er--Brinstead,” announced
his host cordially, although seemingly at a loss how to address him.
“Quite so, what, what! Tea, of course, of course! Why wouldn’t it be?
Meantime, if you don’t mind, I’ll have a word with Ruggles. At once.”
Belknap-Jackson softly and politely withdrew at once.
Alone with his lordship, I thought it best to acquaint him instantly
with the change in my circumstances, touching lightly upon the matter
of my now being an equal with rather most of the North Americans. He
listened with exemplary patience to my brief recital and was good
enough to felicitate me.
“Assure you, glad to hear it--glad no end. Worthy fellow; always knew
it. And equal, of course, of course! Take up their equality by all
means if you take ‘em up themselves. Curious lot of nose-talking
beggars, and putting r’s every place one shouldn’t, but don’t blame
you. Do it myself if I could--England gone to pot. Quite!”
“Gone to pot, sir?” I gasped.
“Don’t argue. Course it has. Women! Slasher fiends and firebrands!
Pictures, churches, golf-greens, cabinet members--nothing safe.
Pouring their beastly filth into pillar boxes. Women one knows.
Hussies, though! Want the vote--rot! Awful rot! Don’t blame you for
America. Wish I might, too. Good thing, my word! No backbone in
Downing Street. Let the fiends out again directly they’re hungry. No
system! No firmness! No dash! Starve ‘em proper, I would.”
He was working himself into no end of a state. I sought to divert him.
“About the Honourable George, sir----” I ventured.
“What’s the silly ass up to now? Dancing girl got him--yes? How he
does it, I can’t think. No looks, no manner, no way with women. Can’t
stand him myself. How ever can they? Frightful bore, old George is.
Well, well, man, I’m waiting. Tell me, tell me, tell me!”
Briefly I disclosed to him that his brother had entangled himself with
a young person who had indeed been a dancing girl or a bit like that
in the province of Alaska. That at the time of my cable there was
strong reason to believe she would stop at nothing--even marriage, but
that I had since come to suspect that she might be bent only on making
a fool of her victim, she being, although an honest enough character,
rather inclined to levity and without proper respect for established
families.
I hinted briefly at the social warfare of which she had been a storm
centre. I said again, remembering the warm words of the Mixer and of
my charwoman, that to the best of my knowledge her character was
without blemish. All at once I was feeling preposterously sorry for
the creature.
His lordship listened, though with a cross-fire of interruptions.
“Alaska dancing girl. Silly! Nothing but snow and mines in Alaska.”
Or, again, “Make a fool of old George? What silly piffle! Already done
it himself, what, what! Waste her time!” And if she wasn’t keen to
marry him, had I called him across the ocean to intervene in a vulgar
village squabble about social precedence? “Social precedence silly
rot!”
I insisted that his brother should be seen to. One couldn’t tell what
the woman might do. Her audacity was tremendous, even for an American.
To this he listened more patiently.
“Dare say you’re right. You don’t go off your head easily. I’ll rag
him proper, now I’m here. Always knew the ass would make a silly
marriage if he could. Yes, yes, I’ll break it up quick enough. I say
I’ll break it up proper. Dancers and that sort. Dangerous. But I know
their tricks.”
A summons to tea below interrupted him.
“Hungry, my word! Hardly dared eat in that dining-coach. Tinned stuff
all about one. Appendicitis! American journal--some Colonel chap found
it out. Hunting sort. Looked a fool beside his silly horse, but seemed
to know. Took no chances. Said the tin-opener slays its thousands.
Rot, no doubt. Perhaps not.”
I led him below, hardly daring at the moment to confess my own
responsibility for his fears. Another time, I thought, we might chat
of it.
Belknap-Jackson with his wife and the Mixer awaited us. His lordship
was presented, and I excused myself.
“Mrs. Pettengill, his lordship the Earl of Brinstead,” had been the
host’s speech of presentation to the Mixer.
“How do do, Earl; I’m right glad to meet you,” had been the Mixer’s
acknowledgment, together with a hearty grasp of the hand. I saw his
lordship’s face brighten.
“What ho!” he cried with the first cheerfulness he had exhibited, and
the Mixer, still vigorously pumping his hand, had replied, “Same
here!” with a vast smile of good nature. It occurred to me that they,
at least, were quite going to “get” each other, as Americans say.
“Come right in and set down in the parlour,” she was saying at the
last. “I don’t eat between meals like you English folks are always
doing, but I’ll take a shot of hooch with you.”
The Belknap-Jacksons stood back not a little distressed. They seemed
to publish that their guest was being torn from them.
“A shot of hooch!” observed his lordship “I dare say your shooting
over here is absolutely top-hole--keener sport than our popping at
driven birds. What, what!”