“Mrs. Kenner, Mr. Floud, his lordship--say, listen here, is your right
name Brinstead, or Basingwell, like your brother’s?”
The Klondike person acknowledged the thing with a faintly gracious
nod. It carried an air, despite the slightness of it. Cousin Egbert
was more cordial.
“Pleased to meet you, Lord!” said he, and grasped the newcomer’s hand.
“Come on, set in with us and have some coffee and a cigar. Here, Jeff,
bring the lord a good cigar. We was just talking about you that
minute. How do you like our town? Say, this here Kulanche Valley----” I
lost the rest. His lordship had seated himself. At his own table
Belknap-Jackson writhed acutely. He was lighting a second
cigarette--the first not yet a quarter consumed!
At once the four began to be thick as thieves, though it was apparent
his lordship had eyes only for the woman. Coffee was brought. His
lordship lighted his cigar. And now the word had so run from Mrs.
Belknap-Jackson that all eyes were drawn to this table. She had
created her sensation and it had become all at once more of one than
she had thought. From Mrs. Judge Ballard’s table I caught her glare at
her unconscious mother. It was not the way one’s daughter should
regard one in public.
Presently contriving to pass the table again, I noted that Cousin
Egbert had changed his form of address.
“Have some brandy with your coffee, Earl. Here, Jeff, bring Earl and
all of us some lee-cures.” I divined the monstrous truth that he
supposed himself to be calling his lordship by his first name, and he
in turn must have understood my shocked glance of rebuke, for a bit
later, with glad relief in his tones, he was addressing his lordship
as “Cap!” And myself he had given the rank of colonel!
The Klondike person in the beginning finely maintained her reserve.
Only at the last did she descend to vivacity or the use of her eyes.
This later laxness made me wonder if, after all, she would feel bound
to pay his lordship the respect he was wont to command from her class.
“You and poor George are rather alike,” I overheard, “except that he
uses the single ‘what’ and you use the double. Hasn’t he any right to
use the double ‘what’ yet, and what does it mean, anyway? Tell us.”
“What, what!” demanded his lordship, a bit puzzled.
“But that’s it! What do you say ‘What, what’ for? It can’t do you any
good.”
“What, what! But I mean to say, you’re having me on. My word you
are--spoofing, I mean to say. What, what! To be sure. Chaffing lot,
you are!” He laughed. He was behaving almost with levity.
“But poor old George is so much younger than you--you must make
allowances,” I again caught her saying; and his lordship replied:
“Not at all; not at all! Matter of a half-score years. Barely a
half-score; nine and a few months. Younger? What rot! Chaffing again.”
Really it was a bit thick, the creature saying “poor old George” quite
as if he were something in an institution, having to be wheeled about
in a bath-chair with rugs and water-bottles!
Glad I was when the trio gave signs of departure. It was woman’s craft
dictating it, I dare say. She had made her effect and knew when to go.
“Of course we shall have to talk over my dreadful designs on your poor
old George,” said the amazing woman, intently regarding his lordship
at parting.
“Leave it to me,” said he, with a scarcely veiled significance.
“Well, see you again, Cap,” said Cousin Egbert warmly. “I’ll take you
around to meet some of the boys. We’ll see you have a good time.”
“What ho!” his lordship replied cordially. The Klondike person flashed
him one enigmatic look, then turned to precede her companions. Again
down the thronged room she swept, with that chin-lifted,
drooping-eyed, faintly offended half consciousness of some staring
rabble at hand that concerned her not at all. Her alert feminine foes,
I am certain, read no slightest trace of amusement in her unwavering
lowered glance. So easily she could have been crude here!
Belknap-Jackson, enduring his ignominious solitude to the limit of his
powers, had joined his wife at the lower end of the room. They had
taken the unfortunate development with what grace they could. His
lordship had dropped in upon them quite informally--charming man that
he was. Of course he would quickly break up the disgraceful affair.
Beginning at once. They would doubtless entertain for him in a quiet
way----
At the deserted table his lordship now relieved a certain sickening
apprehension that had beset me.
“What, what! Quite right to call me out here. Shan’t forget it.
Dangerous creature, that. Badly needed, I was. Can’t think why you
waited so long! Anything might have happened to old George. Break it
up proper, though. Never do at all. Impossible person for him. Quite!”
I saw they had indeed taken no pains to hide the woman’s identity from
him nor their knowledge of his reason for coming out to the States,
though with wretchedly low taste they had done this chaffingly. Yet it
was only too plain that his lordship now realized what had been the
profound gravity of the situation, and I was glad to see that he meant
to end it without any nonsense.
“Silly ass, old George, though,” he added as the Belknap-Jacksons
approached. “How a creature like that could ever have fancied him!
What, what!”
His hosts were profuse in their apologies for having so thoughtlessly
run away from his lordship--they carried it off rather well. They were
keen for sitting at the table once more, as the other observant diners
were lingering on, but his lordship would have none of this.
“Stuffy place!” said he. “Best be getting on.” And so, reluctantly,
they led him down the gauntlet of widened eyes. Even so, the tenth
Earl of Brinstead had dined publicly with them. More than repaid they
were for the slight the Honourable George had put upon them in the
affair of the pianoforte artist.
An hour later Belknap-Jackson had me on by telephone. His voice was
not a little worried.
“I say, is his lordship, the Earl, subject to spells of any sort? We
were in the library where I was showing him some photographic views of
dear old Boston, and right over a superb print of our public library
he seemed to lose consciousness. Might it be a stroke? Or do you think
it’s just a healthy sleep? And shall I venture to shake him? How would
he take that? Or should I merely cover him with a travelling rug? It
would be so dreadful if anything happened when he’s been with us such
a little time.”
I knew his lordship. He has the gift of sleeping quite informally when
his attention is not too closely engaged. I suggested that the host
set his musical phonograph in motion on some one of the more audible
selections. As I heard no more from him that night I dare say my plan
worked.
Our town, as may be imagined, buzzed with transcendent gossip on the
morrow. The _Recorder_ disclosed at last that the Belknap-Jacksons
of Boston and Red Gap were quietly entertaining his lordship, the
Earl of Brinstead, though since the evening before this had been news
to hardly any one. Nor need it be said that a viciously fermenting
element in the gossip concerned the apparently cordial meeting of his
lordship with the Klondike person, an encounter that had been watched
with jealous eyes by more than one matron of the North Side set. It
was even intimated that if his lordship had come to put the creature
in her place he had chosen a curious way to set about it.
Also there were hard words uttered of the Belknap-Jacksons by Mrs.
Effie, and severe blame put upon myself because his lordship had not
come out to the Flouds’.
“But the Brinsteads have always stopped with us before,” she went
about saying, as if there had been a quite long succession of them. I
mean to say, only the Honourable George had stopped on with them,
unless, indeed, the woman actually counted me as one. Between herself
and Mrs. Belknap-Jackson, I understood, there ensued early that
morning by telephone a passage of virulent acidity, Mrs. Effie being
heard by Cousin Egbert to say bluntly that she would get even.
Undoubtedly she did not share the annoyance of the Belknap-Jacksons at
certain eccentricities now developed by his lordship which made him at
times a trying house guest. That first morning he arose at five sharp,
a custom of his which I deeply regretted not having warned his host
about. Discovering quite no one about, he had ventured abroad in
search of breakfast, finding it at length in the eating establishment
known as “Bert’s Place,” in company with engine-drivers, plate-layers,
milk persons, and others of a common sort.
Thereafter he had tramped furiously about the town and its environs
for some hours, at last encountering Cousin Egbert who escorted him to
the Floud home for his first interview with the Honourable George. The
latter received his lordship in bed, so Cousin Egbert later informed
me. He had left the two together, whereupon for an hour there were
heard quite all over the house words of the most explosive character.
Cousin Egbert, much alarmed at the passionate beginning of the
interview, suspected they might do each other a mischief, and for some
moments hovered about with the aim, if need be, of preserving human
life. But as the uproar continued evenly, he at length concluded they
would do no more than talk, the outcome proving the accuracy of his
surmise.
Mrs. Effie, meantime, saw her opportunity and seized it with a cool
readiness which I have often remarked in her. Belknap-Jackson,
distressed beyond measure at the strange absence of his guest, had
communicated with me by telephone several times without result. Not
until near noon was I able to give him any light. Mrs. Effie had then
called me to know what his lordship preferred for luncheon. Replying
that cold beef, pickles, and beer were his usual mid-day fancy, I
hastened to allay the fears of the Belknap-Jacksons, only to find that
Mrs. Effie had been before me.
“She says,” came the annoyed voice of the host, “that the dear Earl
dropped in for a chat with his brother and has most delightfully
begged her to give him luncheon. She says he will doubtless wish to
drive with them this afternoon, but I had already planned to drive him
myself--to the country club and about. The woman is high-handed, I
must say. For God’s sake, can’t you do something?”
I was obliged to tell him straight that the thing was beyond me,
though I promised to recover his guest promptly, should any
opportunity occur. The latter did not, however, drive with the Flouds
that afternoon. He was observed walking abroad with Cousin Egbert, and
it was later reported by persons of unimpeachable veracity that they
had been seen to enter the Klondike person’s establishment.
Evening drew on without further news. But then certain elated members
of the Bohemian set made it loosely known that they were that evening
to dine informally at their leader’s house to meet his lordship. It
seemed a bit extraordinary to me, yet I could not but rejoice that he
should thus adopt the peaceful methods of diplomacy for the
extrication of his brother.
Belknap-Jackson now telephoning to know if I had heard this
report--“canard” he styled it--I confirmed it and remarked that his
lordship was undoubtedly by way of bringing strong pressure to bear on
the woman.
“But I had expected him to meet a few people here this evening,” cried
the host pathetically. I was then obliged to tell him that the
Brinsteads for centuries had been bluntly averse to meeting a few
people. It seemed to run in the blood.
The Bohemian dinner, although quite informal, was said to have been
highly enjoyed by all, including the Honourable George, who was among
those present, as well as Cousin Egbert. The latter gossiped briefly
of the affair the following day.
“Sure, the Cap had a good time all right,” he said. “Of course he
ain’t the mixer the Judge is, but he livens up quite some, now and
then. Talks like a bunch of firecrackers going off all to once, don’t
he? Funny guy. I walked with him to the Jacksons’ about twelve or one.
He’s going back to Mis’ Kenner’s house today. He says it’ll take a lot
of talking back and forth to get this thing settled right, and it’s
got to be right, he says. He seen that right off.” He paused as if to
meditate profoundly.
“If you was to ask me, though, I’d say she had him--just like that!”
He held an open hand toward me, then tightly clenched it.
Suspecting he might spread absurd gossip of this sort, I explained
carefully to him that his lordship had indeed at once perceived her to
be a dangerous woman; and that he was now taking his own cunning way
to break off the distressing affair between her and his brother. He
listened patiently, but seemed wedded to some monstrous view of his
own.
“Them dames of that there North Side set better watch out,” he
remarked ominously. “First thing they know, what that Kate Kenner’ll
hand them--they can make a lemonade out of!”
I could make but little of this, save its general import, which was of
course quite shockingly preposterous. I found myself wishing, to be
sure, that his lordship had been able to accomplish his mission to
North America without appearing to meet the person as a social equal,
as I feared indeed that a wrong impression of his attitude would be
gained by the undiscerning public. It might have been better, I was
almost quite certain, had he adopted a stern and even brutal method at
the outset, instead of the circuitous and diplomatic. Belknap-Jackson
shared this view with me.
“I should hate dreadfully to have his lordship’s reputation suffer for
this,” he confided to me.
The first week dragged to its close in this regrettable fashion.
Oftener than not his hosts caught no glimpse of his lordship
throughout the day. The smart trap and the tandem team were constantly
ready, but he had not yet been driven abroad by his host. Each day he
alleged the necessity of conferring with the woman.
“Dangerous creature, my word! But dangerous!” he would announce.
“Takes no end of managing. Do it, though; do it proper. Take a high
hand with her. Can’t have silly old George in a mess. Own brother,
what, what! Time needed, though. Not with you at dinner, if you don’t
mind. Creature has a way of picking up things not half nasty.”
But each day Belknap-Jackson met him with pressing offers of such
entertainment as the town afforded. Three times he had been
obliged to postpone the informal evening affair for a few smart
people. Yet, though patient, he was determined. Reluctantly at last he
abandoned the design of driving his guest about in the trap, but he
insistently put forward the motor-car. He would drive it himself. They
would spend pleasant hours going about the country. His lordship
continued elusive. To myself he confided that his host was a nagger.
“Awfully nagging sort, yes. Doesn’t know the strain I’m under getting
this silly affair straight. Country interesting no doubt, what, what!
But, my word! saw nothing but country coming out. Country quite all
about, miles and miles both sides of the metals. Seen enough country.
Seen motor-cars, too, my word. Enough of both, what, what!”
Yet it seemed that on the Saturday after his arrival he could no
longer decently put off his insistent host. He consented to accompany
him in the motor-car. Rotten judging it was on the part of
Belknap-Jackson. He should have listened to me. They departed after
luncheon, the host at the wheel. I had his account of such following
events as I did not myself observe.
“Our country club,” he observed early in the drive. “No one there, of
course. You’d never believe the trouble I’ve had----”
“Jolly good club,” replied his lordship. “Drive back that way.”
“Back that way,” it appeared, would take them by the detached villa of
the Klondike person.
“Stop here,” directed his lordship. “Shan’t detain you a moment.”
This was at two-thirty of a fair afternoon. I am able to give but the
bare facts, yet I must assume that the emotions of Belknap-Jackson as
he waited there during the ensuing two hours were of a quite
distressing nature. As much was intimated by several observant
townspeople who passed him. He was said to be distrait; to be smoking
his cigarettes furiously.
At four-thirty his lordship reappeared. With apparent solicitude he
escorted the Klondike person, fetchingly gowned in a street costume of
the latest mode. They chatted gayly to the car.
“Hope I’ve not kept you waiting, old chap,” said his lordship
genially. “Time slips by one so. You two met, of course, course!” He
bestowed his companion in the tonneau and ensconced himself beside
her.
“Drive,” said he, “to your goods shops, draper’s, chemist’s--where was
it?”
“To the Central Market,” responded the lady in bell-like tones, “then
to the Red Front store, and to that dear little Japanese shop, if he
doesn’t mind.”
“Mind! Mind! Course not, course not! Are you warm? Let me fasten the
robe.”
I confess to have felt a horrid fascination for this moment as I was
able to reconstruct it from Belknap-Jackson’s impassioned words. It
was by way of being one of those scenes we properly loathe yet
morbidly cannot resist overlooking if opportunity offers.
Into the flood tide of our Saturday shopping throng swept the car and
its remarkably assembled occupants. The street fair gasped. The
woman’s former parade of the Honourable George had been as nothing to
this exposure.
“Poor Jackson’s face was a study,” declared the Mixer to me later.
I dare say. It was still a study when my own turn came to observe it.
The car halted before the shops that had been designated. The Klondike
person dispatched her commissions in a superbly leisured manner,
attentively accompanied by the Earl of Brinstead bearing packages for
her.
Belknap-Jackson, at the wheel, stared straight ahead. I am told he
bore himself with dignity even when some of our more ingenuous
citizens paused to converse with him concerning his new motor-car. He
is even said to have managed a smile when his passengers returned.
“I have it,” exclaimed his lordship now. “Deuced good plan--go to that
Ruggles place for a jolly fat tea. No end of a spree, what, what!”
It is said that on three occasions in turning his car and traversing
the short block to the Grill the owner escaped disastrous collision
with other vehicles only by the narrowest possible margin. He may have
courted something of the sort. I dare say he was desperate.
“Join us, of course!” said his lordship, as he assisted his companion
to alight. Again I am told the host managed to illumine his refusal
with a smile. He would take no tea--the doctor’s orders.
The surprising pair entered at the height of my tea-hour and were
served to an accompaniment of stares from the ladies present. To this
they appeared oblivious, being intent upon their conference. His
lordship was amiable to a degree. It now occurred to me that he had
found the woman even more dangerous than he had at first supposed. He
was being forced to play a deep game with her and was meeting guile
with guile. He had, I suspected, found his poor brother far deeper in
than any of us had thought. Doubtless he had written compromising
letters that must be secured--letters she would hold at a price.
And yet I had never before had excuse to believe his lordship
possessed the diplomatic temperament. I reflected that I must always
have misread him. He was deep, after all. Not until the two left did I
learn that Belknap-Jackson awaited them with his car. He loitered
about in adjacent doorways, quite like a hired fellow. He was
passionately smoking more cigarettes than were good for him.
I escorted my guests to the car. Belknap-Jackson took his seat with
but one glance at me, yet it was eloquent of all the ignominy that had
been heaped upon him.
“Home, I think,” said the lady when they were well seated. She said it
charmingly.
“Home,” repeated his lordship. “Are you quite protected by the robe?”
An incautious pedestrian at the next crossing narrowly escaped being
run down. He shook a fist at the vanishing car and uttered a stream of
oaths so vile that he would instantly have been taken up in any
well-policed city.
Half an hour later Belknap-Jackson called me.
“He got out with that fiend! He’s staying on there. But, my God! can
nothing be done?”
“His lordship is playing a most desperate game,” I hastened to assure
him. “He’s meeting difficulties. She must have her dupe’s letters in
her possession. Blackmail, I dare say. Best leave his lordship free.
He’s a deep character.”
“He presumed far this afternoon--only the man’s position saved him
with me!” His voice seemed choked with anger. Then, remotely, faint as
distant cannonading, a rumble reached me. It was hoarse laughter of
the Mixer, perhaps in another room. The electric telephone has been
perfected in the States to a marvellous delicacy of response.
I now found myself observing Mrs. Effie, who had been among the
absorbed onlookers while the pair were at their tea, she having
occupied a table with Mrs. Judge Ballard and Mrs. Dr. Martingale.
Deeply immersed in thought she had been, scarce replying to her
companions. Her eyes had narrowed in a way I well knew when she
reviewed the social field.
Still absorbed she was when Cousin Egbert entered, accompanied by the
Honourable George. The latter had seen but little of his brother since
their first stormy interview, but he had also seen little of the
Klondike woman. His spirits, however, had seemed quite undashed. He
rarely missed his tea. Now as they seated themselves they were joined
quickly by Mrs. Effie, who engaged her relative in earnest converse.
It was easy to see that she begged a favour. She kept a hand on his
arm. She urged. Presently, seeming to have achieved her purpose, she
left them, and I paused to greet the pair.
“I guess that there Mrs. Effie is awful silly,” remarked Cousin Egbert
enigmatically. “No, sir; she can’t ever tell how the cat is going to
jump.” Nor would he say more, though he most elatedly held a secret.
With this circumstance I connected the announcement in Monday’s
_Recorder_ that Mrs. Senator Floud would on that evening entertain
at dinner the members of Red Gap’s Bohemian set, including Mrs. Kate
Kenner, the guest of honour being his lordship the Earl of Brinstead,
“at present visiting in this city. Covers,” it added, “would be laid
for fourteen.” I saw that Cousin Egbert would have been made the
ambassador to conduct what must have been a business of some delicacy.
Among the members of the North Side set the report occasioned the
wildest alarm. And yet so staunch were known to be the principles of
Mrs. Effie that but few accused her of downright treachery. It seemed
to be felt that she was but lending herself to the furtherance of some
deep design of his lordship’s. Blackmail, the recovery of compromising
letters, the avoidance of legal proceedings--these were hinted at. For
myself I suspected that she had merely misconstrued the seeming
cordiality of his lordship toward the woman and, at the expense of the
Belknap-Jacksons, had sought the honour of entertaining him. If, to do
that, she must entertain the woman, well and good. She was not one to
funk her fences with the game in sight.
Consulting me as to the menu for her dinner, she allowed herself to be
persuaded to the vegetable soup, boiled mutton, thick pudding, and
cheese which I recommended, though she pleaded at length for a chance
to use the new fish set and for a complicated salad portrayed in her
latest woman’s magazine. Covered with grated nuts it was in the
illustration. I was able, however, to convince her that his lordship
would regard grated nuts as silly.
From Belknap-Jackson I learned by telephone (during these days, being
sensitive, he stopped in almost quite continuously) that Mrs. Effie
had profusely explained to his wife about the dinner. “Of course, my
dear, I couldn’t have the presumption to ask you and your husband to
sit at table with the creature, even if he did think it all right to
drive her about town on a shopping trip. But I thought we ought to do
something to make the dear Earl’s visit one to be remembered--he’s
_so_ appreciative! I’m sure you understand just how things
are----”
In reciting this speech to me Belknap-Jackson essayed to simulate the
tone and excessive manner of a woman gushing falsely. The fellow was
quite bitter about it.
“I sometimes think I’ll give up,” he concluded. “God only knows what
things are coming to!”
It began to seem even to me that they were coming a bit thick. But I
knew that his lordship was a determined man. He was of the bulldog
breed that has made old England what it is. I mean to say, I knew he
would put the woman in her place.