IN WHICH CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, AND
HUGHIE MISSES HIS TRAIN
The dentist laid aside his excavating pick with a regretful sigh, and
began to fit what looked like a miniature circular saw into the end of
the electric drill.
Hughie, recumbent in the chair, telling himself resolutely that,
appearances to the contrary, the man was doing this because it was
really necessary, and not from mere voluptuousness, cautiously inserted
his tongue into the hole, and calculated that the final clearance would
be a three minutes' job at the shortest.
"It seems hard to believe," said the dentist morosely, setting the
machinery of the drill in motion with his foot, "that your teeth have
not been attended to for eight years. A little wider, please!"
Hughie realised that he was being called a liar as unmistakably as a man
can be; but at this moment the drill came into full operation, and he
merely gripped the arms of the chair.
"A man," continued the dentist, removing the drill and suddenly
syringing the cavity with ice-cold water,--"empty, please!--should make
a point of having his teeth inspected once every six months; a woman,
once every three."
"A man," replied Hughie (who believed that the operations with the drill
were completed), "must have his teeth inspected when he can. That is,"
he added rapidly,--the dentist was deliberately fitting a fresh tool
into the drill,--"I have been abroad for the last eight or nine years."
"Away from civilisation, perhaps," said the dentist compassionately,
getting good leverage for his operating hand by using Hughie's lower jaw
as a fulcrum.
"Quite!" gurgled Hughie, whose head at the moment was clasped tight to
his inquisitor's waistcoat buttons.
"In that case," said the dentist in distinctly mollified tones, "we must
not be too hard on you. Tongue down, please!"
He completed his excavating and inundating operations, and, regretfully
pushing away the arm of the drilling-machine, began to line his victim's
mouth with some material which tasted like decomposing sponge-bags.
"Your teeth have preserved their soundness in quite an unaccountable
way," he continued, with the air of a just man conscientiously
endeavouring to minimise a grievance. "There is one other small hole
here,"--he ran a pointed instrument well into it to prove his
statement,--"but beyond that there is nothing further to find fault
with."
He began to pound up a mysterious mixture in a small mortar, and ran
on:--
"You must have been very careful in your diet."
"No sweets," said Hughie laconically. "And I used very often to eat my
meat right off the bone. That keeps teeth white, doesn't it?"
The dentist put down the mortar with some deliberation, and glared.
Anything in the shape of levity emanating from occupants of the rack
jars upon a Chief Tormentor's sense of what is professionally proper.
But Hughie was lying back in the chair with his mouth open and eyes
shut, exhibiting no sign of humorous intention. Still, this must not
occur again. The dentist looked round for a gag. He produced from
somewhere a long snaky india-rubber arrangement, terminating in a hooked
nozzle. This he hung over Hughie's lower [Greek: erkos odontôn],
effectually stifling his utterance and reducing his share in the
conversation to a sort of Morse Code of single gurgles and long-drawn
sizzles suggestive of the emptying of a bath.
Then, taking up his mortar, he proceeded, with the air of one who is
using a giant's strength magnanimously,--
"You have visited the Antipodes, perhaps?"
"Gug-gug-guggle!" proceeded from the india-rubber-lined orifice before
him.
"Ah! that must have been very interesting," continued the dentist. "Had
you many opportunities of discussing the question of Colonial Preference
with the leading men out there?"
"Glug!" came the reply.
"That was unfortunate. But perhaps you were able to form some idea of
the general Australian attitude towards the question?"
"G-r-r-r-r-r! Guggle, guggle! Ch'k, ch'k!" observed Hughie.
"Personally," continued the dentist, rolling the pulverised substance in
the mortar between his finger and thumb, and lighting a spirit-lamp, "I
am an ardent upholder of the principles of that truly great man, the
immortal Richard Cobden. Are you?"
Hughie, thoughtlessly lifting the gag for a moment, replied--with fatal
distinctness.
It was a mad act. The dentist simply took up a humorous-looking
bulb-shaped appliance, and having filled it with red-hot air at the
spirit-lamp, discharged its contents, in one torrid blast, into the
excavated tooth.
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later Hughie was ushered into the street, and stood
poising himself doubtfully on the doorstep. He did not know what to do.
Strictly speaking, his next engagement should have been to entertain Mr.
Lance Gaymer at luncheon. But that exposer of fraudulent trustees had
not replied to Hughie's written invitation. Hence Hughie's stork-like
attitude outside the dentist's premises. Personally he had not the
slightest desire to entertain Lance Gaymer at luncheon or any other
meal. On the other hand, he had promised Joan to seek out her brother
and ascertain if all was well with him. Ergo, since the Mountain
declined to come to Mohammed, or even answer his letters, Mohammed must
put his pride in his pocket and go to the Mountain.
The prophet accordingly hailed a hansom, and was directing the cabman to
drive to the Mountain's residence in Maida Vale,--a paradoxical address
for a Mountain, by the way,--when a strange thing happened. Nay, it was
a providential thing; for if Hughie had not resolutely summoned up his
courage and told the dentist to go in and finish off the small hole in
the last tooth,--a treat which that sated epicure was inclined to
postpone until another occasion,--he would have hailed this hansom
twenty minutes sooner and so missed his just reward.
Mrs. Lance Gaymer suddenly came round a corner of the quiet square, and
crossed the road directly in front of Hughie's hansom. Hughie
dismounted, and greeted her.
"Why," cried Mrs. Lance, "I do declare, it's Mr. Marrable!"
She smiled upon Hughie in a manner so intoxicating that the cabman
coughed discreetly to the horse. That intelligent animal made no
comment, but turned round and looked at the cabman.
"Fancy meeting you!" she continued archly.
"Did your husband get a letter from me yesterday, Mrs. Gaymer, do you
know?" asked Hughie.
No, Mrs. Gaymer was sure he had not. The poor boy had took to his bed a
week ago, with the "flu"; so Mrs. Lance had been conducting his
correspondence for him, and could therefore vouch for the non-arrival of
Hughie's letter. She hazarded the suggestion that possibly Hughie had
written to Maida Vale.
Yes. Hughie had.
"That's it, then!" said Mrs. Lance. "We moved from there six weeks ago.
We live in Balham now."
Hughie was not sufficiently conversant with suburban caste distinctions
to feel sure whether this was a step up or down in the social scale, so
he merely expressed a hope that Lance was getting well again.
"I want to come and see him, if I may," he said. "I asked him to come
and lunch with me, but I suppose that is out of the question at
present."
"You're right there," said Mrs. Lance in distinctly guarded tones. "He
ain't what you'd call spry. He's not seeing anybody."
"I shouldn't stay long," urged Hughie.
"Is it business?" enquired Mrs. Gaymer with a touch of hostility.
"Yes," said Hughie.
Mrs. Gaymer surveyed him curiously. To most people she would have said
flatly and untruthfully that her husband was unfit to see any one, for
she had her own reasons for discouraging visitors to Balham just now.
But she had always cherished a weakness for Hugh Marrable. He treated
her exactly as he treated all women--with a scrupulous courtesy which,
while it slightly bored frivolous damsels of his acquaintance, was
appreciated at its true value by a lady whose social status was more
than a little equivocal. It is only when one has secret doubts about
being a real lady that one appreciates being treated as such.
"Could you come to-morrow?" she said at last.
"I have to get back to Manors to-night," said Hughie. "Might I come out
to Balham this afternoon? Or, better still, will you come and lunch with
me somewhere now, and we can drive out there afterwards? Or must you get
back to the invalid?" he added, with just a suspicion of hopefulness.
Mrs. Lance, however, expressed her willingness to come and lunch, but
insisted on being allowed to precede Hughie to Balham by at least one
hour. The house was _that_ untidy! she explained.
Accordingly Hughie, having decided in his mind upon an establishment
where he would not be likely to encounter any of his own friends, and
which would yet conform with Mrs. Gaymer's notions of what was
sufficiently "classy," conveyed his fair charge thither in a hansom; and
presently found himself engaged in that traditional _ne plus ultra_ of
dissipation--the entertainment of another man's wife to a meal in a
public restaurant.
Mrs. Lance, after she desisted from her efforts to impress upon her host
the fact that she was quite accustomed to this sort of thing, was
amusing enough. She addressed the waiter--an inarticulate Teuton--as
"Johnny," and made a point of saying a few words to the manager when he
passed their table. She smoked a cigarette after lunch, and was good
enough to commend Hughie's taste in champagne--a brand which he had
hazily recognised in the wine-list as being the sweetest and stickiest
beverage ever distilled from gooseberries. (It was the sort of champagne
which goes well with chocolate creams: "Chorus Girls' Entire," he
remembered they used to call it.) At any rate it met with Mrs. Lance's
undivided approval, and Hughie realised for the first time that a
University education can after all be useful to one in after-life.
Suddenly Mrs. Lance enquired:--
"Do you know any theatrical managers, my dear boy?"
Yes, Hughie had come across one or two. "Why?"
"Well," said Mrs. Lance expansively, "you've always treated me like
flesh and blood, which is more than what some of your relations have
done; so I'll tell you. After all, I've got me feelings, same as--"
"What about the theatrical managers?" inquired Hughie tactfully.
"Oh, yes. Do you think you could ask one of 'em to give me a shop? The
chorus would do. I was in it before," said Mrs. Gaymer candidly.
"Why do you want to go back there?"
"I--I've got a fancy for it--that's all," replied Mrs. Gaymer in a
thoroughly unconvincing tone.
Hughie wondered if Lance and his wife were beginning to tire of one
another.
"I do know one or two men," he said, "who are interested in some of the
musical-comedy syndicates. Shall I try them?"
"Will you reelly? You'll be a duck if you do," said Mrs. Gaymer.
After the deliverance of this unsolicited testimonial Hughie's guest
observed that she must be getting home, and Hughie, having put her into
a cab and paid the driver, retired to his club, clogged with viscous
champagne and feeling excessively unwell, to wait until it should be
time for him to follow her.
To look at the double row of eligible residences which composed Talbot
Street, Balham, you would hardly have suspected that any of them would
support what the Inland Revenue Schedule calls a "male servant." And
yet, when Hughie rang the bell of Number Nineteen, the door was opened
by such an appanage of prosperity. He was an elderly gentleman with a
rheumy but humorous eye, and a nose which suggested the earlier stages
of elephantiasis. He wore a dress-coat of distinctly fashionable cut
(which, needless to say, did not fit him) and the regulation white shirt
and collar, the latter quite two sizes too small; but his boots and
trousers apparently belonged to a totally different class of society.
"Name of Marrable?" he enquired, smiling benevolently upon Hughie.
"Yes."
"Step in. We've been expectin' of you for 'alf-an-hour. Don't wipe your
boots on that mat. It's worth one-and-eight."
After this somewhat remarkable confidence, the Gaymers' major-domo
conducted the visitor upstairs. Here he threw open a door with truly
theatrical grandeur, and announced,--
"'Ere's the young toff for you, my de--"
"Thank you, James: that will do," interposed Mrs. Lance Gaymer, with a
very fair imitation of the manner of a musical-comedy duchess. "How do
you do, Mr. Marrable?"
She was attired in the faded glories of a tea-gown, of a material more
pretentious than durable; and in the half-light of the drawing-room--the
blinds were partially lowered--looked extremely handsome in a tawdry
way.
She apologised for her retainer's familiarity. Mr. Marrable would
doubtless know what old servants was. Still, James must certainly be
spoke to about it.
"You'll drink a cup of tea with me," she continued, "and then we'll pop
up and see Lance, pore boy! Ring the bell, please."
Hughie did so, and a rather laborious quarter-of-an-hour followed. He
ploughed his way through a morass of unlikely topics, while Mrs. Lance,
who was obviously perturbed at the non-appearance of tea, replied in
_distrait_ monosyllables. Hughie was conscious about half-way through
the conversation of a faint crash in the lower regions, and wondered
dimly whether calamity had overtaken the afternoon meal. If so, he had
no doubt as to which of the domestic staff of Number Nineteen was
responsible.
At last the door opened, and the inestimable James appeared.
"You done it this time!" he remarked severely. "The 'andle of that
tea-pot 'as came right away in me 'and. It must have been that way this
long while. You won't get no tea now. Wot's more, that tea-pot will 'ave
to come off the invent--"
By this time Mrs. Lance Gaymer, with dumb but frenzied signallings, was
herding her censorious hireling through the door, and his concluding
remarks were lost in the passage outside.
Presently she returned, smiling bravely. Hughie experienced a sudden
pang of pity and admiration. Lance's wife was the right sort of girl
after all.
"I _reelly_ must apologise--" she began.
But Hughie interrupted her. He rose, and looked her frankly in the face.
"Mrs. Gaymer," he said, "please don't bother about keeping up
appearances with me. I never cared a hang about them, and never shall.
Tell me, what are you doing with a bailiff in the house?"
Mrs. Lance broke down and cried,--more from relief than anything
else,--and presently Hughie, much to his surprise, found himself sitting
beside her, patting her large but shapely hand, and uttering words of
comfort and encouragement into her ear.
* * * * *
Half an hour later he concluded an interview with Mr. Albert Mould,
broker's man,--late James, the butler,--in the dingy dining-room
downstairs. The latter gentleman, the more gorgeous items of his apparel
now replaced by garments of equal social standing with his boots and
trousers, was laboriously writing a receipt with Hughie's fountain-pen,
following the movements of the nib with the end of a protruding tongue.
Presently he finished.
"There you are, sir," he said, breathing heavily upon the paper to dry
the ink. "Twenty-seven, fifteen, eight--and thank you! What beats me,"
he added reflectively, "is 'ow you spotted me. What was it give me away?
Seems to me I _looked_ all right. I was wearin' the young feller's
evenin' coat and one of 'is shirts, and I thought I was lookin' a treat
all the time. Was it me trousis?"
To avoid wounding his guest's feelings, Hughie agreed that it _was_ his
trousis.
"It's a queer trade, this of yours," he said.
"You got to earn a livin' some'ow," said Mr. Mould apologetically, "same
as any other yewman bean. It's not a bad job, as jobs go. They carry on
a lot, o' course, when you're first put in, and usually the wife cries;
but they soon finds out as you won't do 'em no 'arm. You makes your
inventory and settles down in the kitching, with a pint o' somethink in
your 'and an' a pipe in your face, and in less than 'alf a tick you're
one o' the family, a'most. Why, I've 'elped wash the baby afore now."
"Don't you ever get thrown out?" asked Hughie.
"I _'ave_ bin," replied Mr. Mould, in a tone which gently reproved the
tactlessness of the question, "but not often. After all, I only come
_in_ agin; and it's a matter of seven days for assault, p'raps, on top
o' the distraint. Most of 'em 'as the sense to remember that, so they
humours me, as it were. They speak me fair, and give me jobs to do
about the house. Still, it were a bit of a surprise when 'er ladyship
comes 'ome to-day about two o'clock and asks me would 'arf-a-crown be
any good to me, and, if so, would I mind playin' at bein' a butler for
a hour or two. I felt a fool, like, dressed up that way, but I always
was one to oblige a bit o' skirt. Been weak with women," he added
autobiographically, "from a boy. This fer me?" as Hughie opened the
street-door and sped the parting guest in a particularly acceptable
manner. "Thank you, Captain! _Good_ day!"
He shuffled down the steps and along the street, obviously on his way to
liquidate Hughie's half-crown, and the donor of that gratuity returned
to the dining-room, where he took Mr. Mould's laboriously indited
receipt from the table. Then he went upstairs, feeling desperately sorry
for Mr. and Mrs. Lance. He had done what he could for them, in his
eminently practical fashion, and set them on their feet again; but--for
how long? Debts! Millstones! Poor things!
On the landing above he encountered Mrs. Gaymer, wide-eyed and
incredulous.
"Lance would like to see you now," she said. "In here!" She opened a
door. "And--and--I say," she added, half in a whisper, "surely you don't
mean to say he's been and _gawn_!"
For answer Hughie awkwardly handed her the stamped receipt, and passed
into the bedroom.
His interview with Lance lasted an hour and a half. Much passed between
them during that period, and by the time Hughie rose and said he must be
going, each man had entirely revised his opinion of the other. Most of
us have the right stuff concealed in us somewhere, however heavily it
may be overlaid by folly or vanity or desire to make a show. There are
few men who do not improve on acquaintance, once you get right through
the veneer.
Poor Lance, struggling in deep waters, suddenly discovered in the dour
and undemonstrative Hughie a cheerful helper and--most precious of all
to a proud nature--an entirely uncritical confidant. Hughie on his part
discovered what he had rather doubted before, namely, that Lance was a
man. Moreover, he presently laid bare a truly human and rather sad tale
of genuine ability and secret ambition, heavily handicapped by youthful
cocksureness and want of ballast.
They discussed many things in that dingy bedroom: Lance's past; Uncle
Jimmy's little allowance, mortgaged many years in advance; the creditors
to whom, together with the law of the land, he was indebted for the
presence beneath his roof of the versatile Mr. Mould; his future; the
journalistic work which was promised him as soon as he should be fit
again; Mrs. Lance; and also Mr. Haliburton.
Joan's name was barely mentioned. Lance exhibited a newborn delicacy in
the matter. His officious solicitude on his sister's behalf was dead; he
knew now that no woman need ever regret having trusted Hugh Marrable;
and he was content to leave it at that.
"Well, I must be moving," said Hughie at last. "Buck up, and get fit!
It's good to hear that there's work waiting for you when you get about
again. Grand tonic, that! So long!"
He shook Lance's hand, and the two parted undemonstratively. Lance made
no set speech: he appreciated Hughie's desire that there should be no
returning of thanks or contrite expressions of gratitude. All he said
was:--
"Hughie, you are a sportsman!"
Then he settled down on his pillow with a happy sigh. He had paid Hughie
the highest compliment it was in his power to bestow--and that costs an
Englishman an effort.
So they parted. But Mrs. Lance did not let Hughie off so easily. As she
accompanied him downstairs to open the door for him, she suddenly seized
his hand and kissed it. Tears were running down her cheeks.
Hughie grew red.
"I say, Mrs. Lance," he said in clumsy expostulation, "it's all right,
you know! He'll soon be quite well again."
"Let me cry," said Mrs. Lance comfortably. "It does me good."
They stood together in the obscurity of the shabby little hall, and
Hughie, surveying the flamboyant but homely figure before him, wondered
what the future might hold in store for this little household. It all
depended, of course, on--
"Mrs. Lance," he said suddenly, "tell me--do you--love him?"
"I do!" replied Mrs. Lance, in a voice which for the moment relegated
her patchouli and dyed eyebrows to nothingness.
"And does he--love you?"
"He _does_--thank God!"
"You are both all right, then," said Hughie, nodding a wise head.
"Nothing matters much--except that!"
"That's true," said Mrs. Gaymer. "But--I wonder how _you_ knew!" she
added curiously.
"Good-bye!" said Hughie.
* * * * *
As Hughie stood in the darkening street a church clock began to chime.
He looked at his watch.
It was six o'clock, and he had promised faithfully to be at Joey's
entertainment at eight! He had good reason for his absence, it is true,
but a reason is not always accepted as an excuse.
"I've fairly torn it, this time!" he reflected morosely.
He was right.
Early next morning he arrived at the village station by the newspaper
train, and made his way on foot to Manors. A sleepy housemaid was
sweeping out the hall, which was strewn with _confetti_,--some cotillion
figures had been included in last night's festivities,--and as Hughie
made his way to his dressing-room, intent upon a bath and shave before
breakfast, he reflected not without satisfaction that, despite Joey's
prospective fulminations, he had escaped something by missing his train.
On his dressing-table he found a note, addressed to him in Joan's
handwriting. It said:--
DEAR HUGHIE,--To-night at the dance Mr. Haliburton asked me to
marry him. Being a dutiful ward above all things, I have
referred him to you. He is coming to see you to-morrow
afternoon--that is, if you are back. I hope you had a good time
in town.
J.