"Where have you hidden her?" she says.
It was at that moment cook entered with the coffee.
If they had taken the trouble to look at her they might have had an
idea. The tray was trembling in her hands, and in her haste and
excitement she had put on her cap the wrong way round. But she kept
control of her voice, and asked if she should bring some more coffee.
"Ah, yes! You'd all like some coffee, wouldn't you?" says Mr. Parable.
Miss Bulstrode did not reply, but Mr. Quincey said he was cold and
would like it. It was a nasty night, with a thin rain.
"Thank you, sir," says cook, and we went out together.
Cottages are only cottages, and if people in the parlour persist in
talking loudly, people in the kitchen can't very well help overhearing.
There was a good deal of talk about "fourteen days," which Mr. Parable
said he was going to do himself, and which Miss Dorton said he mustn't,
because, if he did, it would be a victory for the enemies of humanity.
Mr. Parable said something about "humanity," which I didn't rightly
hear, but, whatever it was, it started Miss Dorton crying; and Miss
Bulstrode called Mr. Parable a "blind Samson," who had had his hair cut
by a designing minx who had been hired to do it.
It was all French to me, but cook was drinking in every word, and when
she returned from taking them in their coffee she made no bones about
it, but took up her place at the door with her ear to the keyhole.
It was Mr. Quincey who got them all quiet, and then he began to explain
things. It seemed that if they could only find a certain gentleman and
persuade him to come forward and acknowledge that he began a row, that
then all would be well. Mr. Quincey would be fined forty shillings,
and Mr. Parable's name would never appear. Failing that, Mr. Parable,
according to Mr. Quincey, could do his fourteen days himself.
"I've told you once," says Mr. Parable, "and I tell you again, that I
don't know the man's name, and can't give it you."
"We are not asking you to," says Mr. Quincey. "You give us the name of
your tango partner, and we'll do the rest."
I could see cook's face; I had got a bit interested myself, and we were
both close to the door. She hardly seemed to be breathing.
"I am sorry," says Mr. Parable, speaking very deliberate-like, "but I
am not going to have her name dragged into this business."
"It wouldn't be," says Mr. Quincey. "All we want to get out of her is
the name and address of the gentleman who was so anxious to see her
home."
"Who was he?" says Miss Bulstrode. "Her husband?"
"No," says Mr. Parable; "he wasn't."
"Then who was he?" says Miss Bulstrode. "He must have been something
to her--fiance?"
"I am going to do the fourteen days myself," says Mr. Parable. "I
shall come out all the fresher after a fortnight's complete rest and
change."
Cook leaves the door with a smile on her face that made her look quite
beautiful, and, taking some paper from the dresser drawer, began to
write a letter.
They went on talking in the other room for another ten minutes, and
then Mr. Parable lets them out himself, and goes a little way with
them. When he came back we could hear him walking up and down the
other room.
She had written and stamped the envelope; it was lying on the table.
"'Joseph Onions, Esq.,'" I says, reading the address. "'Auctioneer and
House Agent, Broadway, Hammersmith.' Is that the young man?"
"That is the young man," she says, folding her letter and putting it in
the envelope.
"And was he your fiance?" I asked.
"No," she says. "But he will be if he does what I'm telling him to do."
"And what about Mr. Parable?" I says.
"A little joke that will amuse him later on," she says, slipping a
cloak on her shoulders. "How once he nearly married his cook."
"I shan't be a minute," she says. And, with the letter in her hand,
she slips out.
Mrs. Meadows, we understand, has expressed indignation at our
publication of this interview, she being under the impression that she
was simply having a friendly gossip with a neighbour. Our
representative, however, is sure he explained to Mrs. Meadows that his
visit was official; and, in any case, our duty to the public must be
held to exonerate us from all blame in the matter.
* * *
Mr. Joseph Onions, of the Broadway, Hammersmith, auctioneer and house
agent, expressed himself to our representative as most surprised at the
turn that events had subsequently taken. The letter that Mr. Onions
received from Miss Comfort Price was explicit and definite. It was to
the effect that if he would call upon a certain Mr. Quincey, of
Harcourt Buildings, Temple, and acknowledge that it was he who began
the row at the Earl's Court Exhibition on the evening of the
twenty-seventh, that then the engagement between himself and Miss
Price, hitherto unacknowledged by the lady, might be regarded as a fact.
Mr. Onions, who describes himself as essentially a business man,
decided before complying with Miss Price's request to take a few
preliminary steps. As the result of judiciously conducted inquiries,
first at the Vine Street Police Station, and secondly at Twickenham,
Mr. Onions arrived later in the day at Mr. Quincey's chambers, with, to
use his own expression, all the cards in his hand. It was Mr. Quincey
who, professing himself unable to comply with Mr. Onion's suggestion,
arranged the interview with Miss Bulstrode. And it was Miss Bulstrode
herself who, on condition that Mr. Onions added to the undertaking the
further condition that he would marry Miss Price before the end of the
month, offered to make it two hundred. It was in their joint
interest--Mr. Onions regarding himself and Miss Price as now one--that
Mr. Onions suggested her making it three, using such arguments as,
under the circumstances, naturally occurred to him--as, for example,
the damage caused to the lady's reputation by the whole proceedings,
culminating in a night spent by the lady, according to her own account,
on Ham Common. That the price demanded was reasonable Mr. Onions
considers as proved by Miss Bulstrode's eventual acceptance of his
terms. That, having got out of him all that he wanted, Mr. Quincey
should have "considered it his duty" to communicate the entire details
of the transaction to Miss Price, through the medium of Mr. Andrews,
thinking it "as well she should know the character of the man she
proposed to marry," Mr. Onions considers a gross breach of etiquette as
between gentlemen; and having regard to Miss Price's after behaviour,
Mr. Onions can only say that she is not the girl he took her for.
Mr. Aaron Andrews, on whom our representative called, was desirous at
first of not being drawn into the matter; but on our representative
explaining to him that our only desire was to contradict false rumours
likely to be harmful to Mr. Parable's reputation, Mr. Andrews saw the
necessity of putting our representative in possession of the truth.
She came back on Tuesday afternoon, explained Mr. Andrews, and I had a
talk with her.
"It is all right, Mr. Andrews," she told me; "they've been in
communication with my young man, and Miss Bulstrode has seen the
magistrate privately. The case will be dismissed with a fine of forty
shillings, and Mr. Quincey has arranged to keep it out of the papers."
"Well, all's well that ends well," I answered; "but it might have been
better, my girl, if you had mentioned that young man of yours a bit
earlier."
"I did not know it was of any importance," she explained. "Mr. Parable
told me nothing. If it hadn't been for chance, I should never have
known what was happening."
I had always liked the young woman. Mr. Quincey had suggested my
waiting till after Wednesday. But there seemed to me no particular
object in delay.
"Are you fond of him?" I asked her.
"Yes," she answered. "I am fonder than--" And then she stopped
herself suddenly and flared scarlet. "Who are you talking about?" she
demanded.
"This young man of yours," I said. "Mr.--What's his name--Onions?"
"Oh, that?" she answered. "Oh, yes; he's all right."
"And if he wasn't?" I said, and she looked at me hard.
"I told him," she said, "that if he would do what I asked him to do,
I'd marry him. And he seems to have done it."
"There are ways of doing everything," I said; and, seeing it wasn't
going to break her heart, I told her just the plain facts. She
listened without a word, and when I had finished she put her arms round
my neck and kissed me. I am old enough to be her grandfather, but
twenty years ago it might have upset me.
"I think I shall be able to save Miss Bulstrode that three hundred
pounds," she laughed, and ran upstairs and changed her things. When
later I looked into the kitchen she was humming.
Mr. John came up by the car, and I could see he was in one of his moods.
"Pack me some things for a walking tour," he said. "Don't forget the
knapsack. I am going to Scotland by the eight-thirty."
"Will you be away long?" I asked him.
"It depends upon how long it takes me," he answered. "When I come back
I am going to be married."
"Who is the lady?" I asked, though, of course, I knew.
"Miss Bulstrode," he said.
"Well," I said, "she--"
"That will do," he said; "I have had all that from the three of them
for the last two days. She is a Socialist, and a Suffragist, and all
the rest of it, and my ideal helpmate. She is well off, and that will
enable me to devote all my time to putting the world to rights without
bothering about anything else. Our home will be the nursery of
advanced ideas. We shall share together the joys and delights of the
public platform. What more can any man want?"
"You will want your dinner early," I said, "if you are going by the
eight-thirty. I had better tell cook--"
He interrupted me again.
"You can tell cook to go to the devil," he said.