MISS WHICHELLO'S LUNCHEON-PARTY
The little lady trotted briskly across the square, and guided her guests
to a quaint old house squeezed into one corner of it. Here she had been
born some sixty odd years before; here she had lived her life of
spinsterhood, save for an occasional visit to London; and here she hoped
to die, although at present she kept Death at a safe distance by
hygienic means and dietary treatment. The house was a queer survival of
three centuries, with a pattern of black oak beams let into a
white-washed front. Its roof shot up into a high gable at an acute
angle, and was tiled with red clay squares, mellowed by Time to the hue
of rusty iron. A long lattice with diamond panes, and geraniums in
flower-pots behind them, extended across the lower storey; two little
jutting windows, also of the criss-cross pattern, looked like two eyes
in the second storey; and high up in the third, the casement of the
attic peered out coyly from under the eaves. At the top of a flight of
immaculately white steps there was a squat little door painted green and
adorned with a brass knocker burnished to the colour of fine gold. The
railings of iron round the area were also coloured green, and the
appearance of the whole exterior was as spotless and neat as Miss
Whichello herself. It was an ideal house for a dainty old spinster such
as she was, and rested in the very shadow of the Bishop Gandolf's
cathedral like the nest of a bright-eyed wren.
'Mab, my dear!' cried the wren herself, as she led the gentlemen into
the drawing-room, 'I have brought Captain Pendle and Mr Cargrim to
luncheon.'
Mab arose out of a deep chair and laid aside the book she was reading.
'I saw you crossing the square, Captain Pendle,' she said, shaking his
hand. 'Mr Cargrim, I am glad to see you.'
'Are you not glad to see me?' whispered George, in low tones.
'Do you need me to tell you so?' was Mab's reply, with a smile, and that
smile answered his question.
'Oh, my dear, such a heavenly sermon!' cried Miss Whichello, fluttering
about the room; 'it went to my very heart.'
'It could not have gone to a better place,' replied the chaplain, in the
gentle voice which George particularly detested. 'I am sorry to hear you
have suffered from your alarm last night, Miss Arden.'
'My nerves received rather a shock, Mr Cargrim, and I had such a bad
headache that I decided to remain at home. I must receive your sermon
second-hand from my aunt.'
'Why not first-hand from me?' said Cargrim, insinuatingly, whereupon
Captain George pulled his moustache and looked savage.
'Oh, I won't tax your good nature so far,' rejoined Mab, laughing. 'What
is it, aunty?' for the wren was still fluttering and restless.
'My dear, you must content yourself with Captain Pendle till luncheon,
for I want Mr Cargrim to come into the garden and see my fig tree; real
figs grow on it, Mr Cargrim,' said Miss Whichello, solemnly, 'the very
first figs that have ever ripened in Beorminster.'
'I am glad it is not a barren fig tree,' said Cargrim, introducing a
scriptural allusion in his most clerical manner.
'Barren indeed! it has five figs on it. Really, sitting under its shade
one would fancy one was in Palestine. Do come, Mr Cargrim,' and Miss
Whichello fluttered through the door like an escaping bird.
'With pleasure; the more so, as I know we shall not be missed.'
'Damn!' muttered Captain Pendle, when the door closed on Cargrim's smile
and insinuating looks.
'Captain Pendle!' exclaimed Miss Arden, becomingly shocked.
'Captain Pendle indeed!' said the young man, slipping his arm round Mab;
'and why not George?'
'I thought Mr Cargrim might hear.'
'He ought to; like the ass, his ears are long enough.'
'Still, he is anything but an ass--George.'
'If he isn't an ass he's a beast,' rejoined Pendle, promptly, 'and it
comes to much the same thing.'
'Well, you need not swear at him.'
'If I didn't swear I'd kick him, Mab; and think of the scandal to the
Church. Cargrim's a sneaking, time-serving sycophant. I wonder my father
can endure him; I can't!'
'I don't like him myself,' confessed Mab, as they seated themselves in
the window-seat.
'I should--think--not!' cried Captain George, in so deliberate and
disgusted a tone that Mab laughed. Whereat he kissed her and was
reproved, so that both betook themselves to argument as to the
righteousness or unrighteousness of kissing on a Sunday.
George Pendle was a tall, slim, and very good-looking young man in every
sense of the word. He was as fair as Mab was dark, with bright blue eyes
and a bronzed skin, against which his smartly-pointed moustache appeared
by contrast almost white. With his upright figure, his alert military
air, and merry smile, he looked an extremely handsome and desirable
lover; and so Mab thought, although she reproved him with orthodox
modesty for snatching a kiss unasked. But if men had to request favours
of this sort, there would not be much kissing in the world. Moreover,
stolen kisses, like stolen fruit, have a piquant flavour of their own.
The quaint old drawing-room, with its low ceiling and twilight
atmosphere, was certainly an ideal place for love-making. It was
furnished with chairs, and tables, and couches, which had done duty in
the days of Miss Whichello's grandparents; and if the carpet was old, so
much the better, for its once brilliant tints had faded into soft hues
more restful to the eye. In one corner stood the grandfather of all
pianos, with a front of drawn green silk fluted to a central button;
beside it a prim canterbury, filled with primly-bound books of
yellow-paged music, containing, 'The Battle of the Prague,' 'The
Maiden's Prayer,' 'Cherry Ripe,' and 'The Canary Bird's Quadrilles.'
Such tinkling melodies had been the delight of Miss Whichello's youth,
and--as she had a fine finger for the piano (her own observation)--she
sometimes tinkled them now on the jingling old piano when old friends
came to see her. Also there were Chippendale cupboards with glass doors,
filled with a most wonderful collection of old china--older even than
their owner; Chinese jars heaped up with dried rose leaves spreading
around a perfume of dead summers; bright silken screens from far Japan;
foot-stools and fender-stools worked in worsted which tripped up the
unwary; and a number of oil-paintings valuable rather for age than
beauty. None of your modern flimsy drawing-rooms was Miss Whichello's,
but a dear, delightful, cosy room full of faded splendours and relics of
the dead and gone so dearly beloved. From the yellow silk fire-screen
swinging on a rosewood pole, to the drowsy old canary chirping feebly in
his brass cage at the window, all was old-world and marvellously proper
and genteel. Withal, a quiet, perfumed room, delightful to make love in,
to the most beautiful woman in the world, as Captain George Pendle knew
very well.
'Though it really isn't proper for you to kiss me,' observed Mab,
folding her slender hands on her white gown. 'You know we are not
engaged.'
'I know nothing of the sort, my dearest prude. You are the only woman I
ever intend to marry. Have you any objections? If so, I should like to
hear them.'
'I am two years older than you, George.'
'A man is as old as he looks, a woman as she feels. I am quite
convinced, Miss Arden, that you feel nineteen years of age, so the
disparity rests rather on my shoulders than on yours.'
'You don't look old,' laughed Mab, letting her hand lie in that of her
lover's.
'But I feel old--old enough to marry you, my dear. What is your next
objection?'
'Your father does not know that you love me.'
'My mother does; Lucy does; and with two women to persuade him, my dear,
kind old father will gladly consent to the match.'
'I have no money.'
'My dearest, neither have I. Two negatives make an affirmative, and
that affirmative is to be uttered by you when I ask if I may tell the
bishop that you are willing to become a soldier's wife.'
'Oh, George!' cried Mab, anxiously, 'it is a very serious matter. You
know how particular your father is about birth and family. My parents
are dead; I never knew them; for my father died before I was born, and
my mother followed him to the grave when I was a year old. If my dear
mother's sister had not taken charge of me and brought me up, I should
very likely have gone on the parish; for--as aunty says--my parents were
paupers.'
'My lovely pauper, what is all this to me? Here is your answer to all
the nonsense you have been talking,' and George, with the proverbial
boldness of a soldier, laid a fond kiss on the charming face so near to
his own.
'Oh, George!' began the scandalised Mab, for the fifth time at least,
and was about to reprove her audacious lover again, when Miss Whichello
bustled into the room, followed by the black shadow of the parson.
George and Mab sprang apart with alacrity, and each wondered, while
admiring the cathedral opposite, if Miss Whichello or Cargrim had heard
the sound of that stolen kiss. Apparently the dear, unsuspecting old
Jenny Wren had not, for she hopped up to the pair in her bird-like
fashion, and took George's arm.
'Come, good people,' she said briskly, 'luncheon is ready; and so are
your appetites, I've no doubt. Mr Cargrim, take in my niece.'
In five minutes the quartette were seated round a small table in Miss
Whichello's small dining-room. The apartment was filled with oak
furniture black with age and wondrously carved; the curtains and carpet
and cushions were of faded crimson rep, and as the gaily-striped
sun-blinds were down, the whole was enwrapped in a sober brown
atmosphere restful to the eye and cool to the skin. The oval table was
covered with a snow-white cloth, on which sparkled silver and crystal
round a Nankin porcelain bowl of blue and white filled with deep red
roses. The dinner-plates were of thin china, painted with sprawling
dragons in yellow and green; the food, in spite of Mrs Pansey's report,
was plentiful and dainty, and the wines came from the stock laid down
by the father of the hostess in the days when dignitaries of the Church
knew what good wine was. It is true that a neat pair of brass scales was
placed beside Miss Whichello, but she used them to weigh out such
portions of food as she judged to be needful for herself, and did not
mar her hospitality by interfering with the appetites of her guests. The
repast was tempting, the company congenial, and the two young men
enjoyed themselves greatly. Miss Whichello was an entertainer worth
knowing, if only for her cook.
'Mab, my dear,' cried the lively old lady, 'I am ashamed of your
appetite. Don't you feel better for your morning's rest?'
'Much better, thank you, aunty, but it is too hot to eat.'
'Try some salad, my love; it is cool and green, and excellent for the
blood. If I had my way, people should eat more green stuff than they
do.'
'Like so many Nebuchadnezzars,' suggested Cargrim, always scriptural.
'Well, some kinds of grass are edible, you know, Mr Cargrim; although we
need not go on all fours to eat them as he did.'
'So many people would need to revert to their natural characters of
animals if that custom came in,' said George, smiling.
'A certain great poet remarked that everyone had a portion of the nature
of some animal,' observed Cargrim, 'especially women.'
'Then Mrs Pansey is a magpie,' cried Mab, with an arch look at her aunt.
'She is a magpie, and a fox, and a laughing hyaena, my dear.'
'Oh, aunty, what a trinity!'
'I suppose, Cargrim, all you black-coated parsons are rooks,' said
George.
'No doubt, captain; and you soldiers are lions.'
'Aunty is a Jenny Wren!'
'And Mab is a white peacock,' said Miss Whichello, with a nod.
'Captain Pendle, protect me,' laughed Miss Arden. 'I decline to be
called a peacock.'
'You are a golden bird of paradise, Miss Arden.'
'Ah, that is a pretty compliment, Captain Pendle. Thank you!'
While George laughed, Cargrim, rather tired of these zoological
comparisons, strove to change the subject by an allusion to the
adventure of the previous night. 'The man who attacked you was certainly
a wolf,' he said decisively.
'Who was the man?' asked Miss Whichello, carefully weighing herself some
cheese.
'Some tramp who had been in the wars,' replied George, carelessly; 'a
discharged soldier, I daresay. At least, he had a long red scar on his
villainous-looking face. I saw it in the moonlight, marking him as with
the brand of Cain.'
'A scar!' repeated Miss Whichello, in so altered a tone that Cargrim
stared at her, and hastened to explain further, so as to learn, if
possible, the meaning of her strange look.
'A scar on the right cheek,' he said slowly, 'from the ear to the
mouth.'
'What kind of a looking man is he?' asked the old lady, pushing away her
plate with a nervous gesture.
'Something like a gipsy--lean, tall and swarthy, with jet-black eyes and
an evil expression. He talks like an educated person.'
'You seem to know all about him, Cargrim,' said Captain Pendle, in some
surprise, while Miss Whichello, her rosy face pale and scared, sat
silently staring at the tablecloth.
'I have several times been to an hotel called The Derby Winner,'
explained the chaplain, 'to see a sick woman; and there I came across
this scamp several times. He stays there, I believe!'
'What is his name?' asked Miss Whichello, hoarsely.
'Jentham, I have been informed.'
'Jentham! I don't know the name.'
'I don't suppose you know the man either, aunty?'
'No, my love,' replied Miss Whichello, in a low voice. 'I don't suppose
I know the man either. Is he still at The Derby Winner, Mr Cargrim?'
'I believe so; he portions his time between that hotel and a gipsy camp
on Southberry Common.'
'What is he doing here?'
'Really, my dear lady, I do not know.'
'Aunty, one would think you knew the man,' said Mab, amazed at her
aunt's emotion.
'No, Mab, I do not,' said Miss Whichello, vehemently; more so than the
remark warranted. 'But if he attacks people on the high road he should
certainly be shut up. Well, good people,' she added, with an attempt at
her former lively manner, 'if you are finished we will return to the
drawing-room.'
All attempts to restore the earlier harmony of the visit failed, for the
conversation languished and Miss Whichello was silent and distraught.
The young men shortly took their leave, and the old lady seemed glad to
be rid of them. Outside, George and Cargrim separated, as neither was
anxious for the other's company. As the chaplain walked to the palace he
reflected on the strange conduct of Miss Whichello.
'She knows something about Jentham,' he thought. 'I wonder if she has a
secret also.'