“Very fit.”
“Did you have good sport?”
“Splendid. I have stacks of heads, horns, and skins at Jubbulpore
waiting for me to take them home.”
“You will be going soon?”
“That depends. I called to-day on Mrs. Hooper, and rather hoped to see
you. I suppose you were out?”
“No, she wasn’t,” broke in Teesie, who had been an attentive listener,
“she was giving me a music lesson. Mamma never lets the governesses see
company.”
“Hush, Teesie,” I expostulated, and Teesie turned to her sister, and
they gabbled together and held a violent argument in what was really
their native tongue. “I’m afraid we must be going home,” I said. “I
cannot keep these children out when the mist rises from the lake.”
“May I walk back with you?” he asked.
“No, no, he may not,” declared Teesie with dignified decision. “A young
police officer used to come and walk with Miss Shaw, and I told mummy,
and Miss Shaw was sent away directly!” and she cracked her finger
joints till they sounded like so many squibs.
“And I don’t wish to be sent away,” I said with a smile, as I offered
him my hand.
“Well, I wonder at that!” he exclaimed, “but, of course, it would
be heart-breaking to part with that delightful child. _Au revoir!_”
raising his cap; and as we passed down the hill, I felt unaccountably
uplifted and consoled.
I noticed Mr. Sandars at evening church on Sunday, and he walked home
with me, as if it were entirely a matter of course.
“I have friends who live here,” he said, “the Osbornes, and they have
told me all about the life you lead with the smart Mrs. Hooper--_joie
de rue, douleur de maison_.”
“Oh, please don’t listen to Naini Tal gossip!” I protested.
“Then please listen to me. You know this ball that comes off on Monday?
My friends are going--Mrs. Osborne has met you at tiffin, and she
desires me to say she will be delighted to take you.”
“It is most kind of her--but Colonel Hooper----”
“Will make no objection. I’ve squared _him_--he knows my people at
home, and he agrees that it is time you had some little distraction.”
“I am sure Mrs. Hooper won’t like it--and I know no one----”
“So much the better,” he interrupted, “then you can dance all the time
with me. I suppose you have a dress?”
“Yes, and I’ll wear the pearl necklace. I’ve not been to a dance for a
year; it seems too good to be true!”
After all, it was Mrs. Hooper who chaperoned me to the dance (much
against the grain), and good-natured Colonel Hooper who introduced me
to partners. I spent a delightful evening, my card was filled in five
minutes, and I could have danced every dance three times. I gave four
waltzes to Mr. Sandars, and, for once, tasted the pleasures of a social
success! In fact, I overhead whispers of, “What a pretty girl! Who is
she?” and the invariable answer was, “_Mrs. Hooper’s governess_.”
But Mrs. Hooper was not pleased with her governess. Indeed the
following morning she informed me that I had made myself too shockingly
conspicuous, and was altogether such _bad_ style; and kindly Teesie
threw oil upon the flames, for a little later Mrs. Hooper, looking
white and austere, came to me, and said in her most impressive manner,
and in her deepest tone:
“Miss Harlowe, is it _true_ that you have met Mr. Sandars in the upper
Mall, and that he said you did not look happy--and asked you about the
pearls?”
“He said I did not look _well_,” I corrected, “and as to the pearls,
that was merely an old joke.”
“Bring them to me at once!” she commanded authoritatively. I brought
them obediently, and placed them in her hands. “They were remarked
on last night,” she announced, “someone said the Viceroy’s wife had
no better! Yes,” turning them over as she spoke, “they _are_ real,”
and her voice vibrated with indignation, “real; splendid, and worth
thousands! How can a governess on forty pounds a year afford such?
But that is easily--too easily--explained. Mr. Sandars is the
explanation--he gave them to you, of course! He was your partner most
of last evening--it’s simply disgraceful! Now look here,” breathing
hard, “I give you three days’ notice, a month’s salary, and you get out
of my house!”
Mrs. Hooper absolutely refused to listen to _any_ explanation. She
would not allow me to speak. Crimson in the face, and hoarse with
passion, she reiterated:
“You assured me that they were imitation! I know better now! It is
_you_ who are the imitation--the imitation of a decent, respectable
young woman. I believe your references were forged!”
Luckily the children were at a party, not listening (as usual) at the
other side of the portière, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. I
wrote home, and also to Mrs. Mason, and carried my letters down to the
post-office, as I intended to dispatch a wire. On the hill I came face
to face with Mr. Sandars.
“Hullo!” he exclaimed, as he paused and surveyed me, “so you have been
crying!”
I informed him that I had just been summarily dismissed, and all
because Mrs. Hooper believed that I had not come honestly by the
pearls. I also proceeded to tell him how nearly they had been stolen
on two occasions, although they were worthless--and that there was
certainly something peculiar about them--at any rate, they had brought
me bad luck.
“It is extraordinary,” he assented, “and I cannot make it out! The
pearls look magnificent. I noticed them last night; and yet you bought
them yourself, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and my sister was with me. I know the very shop in Regent Street.”
“Ah well, never mind the pearls _now_!” he exclaimed with an air of
almost fierce determination.
“No, and I shall certainly not wear them in my next situation,” I
replied.
“Your next situation?” he repeated.
“I think Mrs. Mason knows of one that will suit me.”
“If it comes to that--so do _I_.”
I stared at him in amazement. Then, with a gesture of impatience, he
resumed, “Look here, I can’t talk to you here among this buzzing crowd”
(we were now close to the landing-stage); “come out on the lake with me
for ten minutes. Never mind Mrs. Hooper or Mrs. Grundy.”
When he had rowed some distance in dead silence, he suddenly rested on
his oars and confronted me with a serious face.
“Miss Harlowe,” he said, “I’ve brought you out here, where you cannot
escape, to ask you to marry me. Yes, no wonder you start--but listen.
Ever since I first saw you, from the moment you sat down at table
opposite to me looking so timid and white, I’ve been in love with
you. My uncle knew all about it; he, too, experienced your charm, but
he urged me to go slow--you were so young and so inexperienced. He
improved your acquaintance in those long board-ship walks and talks,
and made me furiously jealous; and as to that Bilton fellow, who
started such running at first, I felt inclined to pick a quarrel and
pitch him overboard. Perhaps you don’t know that I am ridiculously
rich; I wish I wasn’t; it sounds a funny thing to say, but money is an
immense responsibility, and Uncle Tom said I was bound to marry a girl
who had a head on her shoulders, who could hold her own in society and
be a help--and that you were a mere inexperienced child. However, he
soon altered that opinion. He found you modest, accomplished, dignified
and sensible. The next objection was far more serious. He declared
that you did not care a brass button about _me_.”
It was not for me to enlighten him, and after a pause he gravely
continued:
“You never seemed to mind which of us you talked to--indeed, of the
two, you were far more confidential and friendly with the General,
and never gave _me_ any encouragement. However, I just ran up here
to see you. I have had your face before me all the time I’ve been
away shooting, and I seem to have arrived at what they call the
psychological moment--when your affairs have come to a crisis; and the
upshot of this long story is--will you marry me?”
Subsequently we spent an exciting quarter of an hour explaining,
arguing, urging, and protesting, for somehow though I felt desperately
agitated, and most unspeakably happy, I was frightened by his money
and the responsibilities of my future ‘position.’ However, as might
be supposed, it ended in my landing at the boat-house the _fiancée_
of Alaric Sandars, and it was promptly arranged by my future lord and
master that I was to go straight to the Osbornes as soon as I had put
some things together, and there make my preparations for an immediate
departure to England.
* * * * *
“Now that we have despatched our wires, letters, secured passages,
and done no end of fagging things--including my interview with Mrs.
Hooper--let us discuss the great pearl mystery,” said Alaric, as we
paced up and down Mrs. Osborne’s long verandah, whilst the monsoon
torrents poured and splashed outside. “You say you never had them out
of your hands but once--and when was that?”
“The day before I sailed,” I replied, “when I was in London with Linda,
I broke the string, and we went out and left the necklace at a shop, a
middling sort of jewellers, near our middling sort of hotel, and said
we would call back for it that evening, which we did. It was getting
dusk, and after a little delay a woman, whom I had not seen before,
found the pearls and handed them to me; the charge was three shillings,
and we thought it extravagant for just a string of cotton!”
“I see it! I see light!” exclaimed Alaric, coming to a standstill. “By
mistake, she gave you another necklace--a necklace of real pearls--and
has never been able to trace it! Letty, it must be our first business,
when we get home, to find this woman, and restore the treasure-trove.”
* * * * *
Alaric faithfully fulfilled his promise; he and Linda and I, after
some difficulty, discovered the jeweller’s shop, but it was closed and
“To Let.” We enquired for the late tenant, and were informed that his
name was Hobhouse; he had had a lot of trouble, become a bankrupt, and
completely disappeared. After long and vexatious delay we eventually
traced the man to a small seaside town, where he was endeavouring to
earn money as a working jeweller, whilst his wife took in a humble
class of summer lodgers. In a little formal row of thin red-brick
houses we knocked at number nine, and the door was opened by Mrs.
Hobhouse herself. When she beheld us she turned a ghastly colour.
“Tom, it’s _them_!” she screamed to someone in the back of the
premises, “the two girls come at last!” Then she staggered into a
musty little sitting-room and collapsed on the sofa in floods of
hysterical tears. Her husband now joined us, a thin, careworn man,
who was evidently trembling with agitation. As soon as Mrs. Hobhouse
could speak (she subsequently did all the talking) she informed us
that a most valuable heirloom had been entrusted to her husband for
some slight repairs. It was a family treasure, but her ladyship knew
that Hobhouse was as honest as the sun. In the dusk she herself had
given me the treasure by mistake, and next day handed the mock pearls
to the countess! Of course there was an awful outcry--terrible work.
Hobhouse had done everything he could to trace me; employed detectives,
and advertised far and wide--even to America--but all to no purpose.
They were sued by the countess, who had been deprived of her ancestral
pearls--and implacably sold up.
Ruined alike in money and credit--and that just as they were beginning
to make a start--no one would believe them--no, not their own
relatives; but all the world wondered what they had done with the
Warrenford pearls?
I handed them over to Hobhouse when he entered, and never, never shall
I forget his gasp of relief. (Strange to say, my own imitation pearls
still remained in their possession, and when I departed I carried them
away.) Poor people, their joy, ecstasy, and thankfulness was touching;
for my own part, I felt painfully overwhelmed as I listened to the list
of extraordinary misfortunes of which _I_ had been the unconscious
cause.
That same evening I wrote to Lady Warrenford, the owner of the pearls;
and thanks to her good offices, and a substantial cheque from Alaric,
Mr. and Mrs. Hobhouse are once more reinstated, and doing a flourishing
business.
Linda and I are no longer Miss Harlowe and Miss Letty Harlowe, but Mrs.
Fortescue and Mrs. Sandars. It is Miss Pinfold’s proud boast that her
prophecy respecting _me_ has been nobly fulfilled; thanks to her urgent
entreaties and advice, I was persuaded to adventure to India, and, as a
natural consequence, had made a magnificent match!
I have no doubt that my inquisitive maid marvels, when arranging the
famous Sandars’ diamonds and other jewels, she finds treasured among
these, a string of very ordinary imitation pearls.
But thereby hangs a tale!
V