THE REGRETTABLE WEDNESDAY
"What a very singular thing," said the Mayor, meeting the witch
towards three o'clock in the afternoon, as she came down the Broad Walk
towards Kensington, having slept invisibly among the daffodils for
nearly twelve hours. "A really very singular thing. 'Tisn't once in five
years I visit these parts, and now I'm here I meet the very person I was
thinkin' about." He winked.
"It's almost like magic, isn't it," said the witch, winking busily in
return.
"Well, I've done what you told me to," said the Mayor.
"What was that?"
"You will 'ave your joke," he retorted indulgently. "Pretending not to
know, indeed. I've done what you told me the other day when you came to
that committee with your cat. I thought it over--I'm not a proud man,
never above takin' a hint,--and I admitted to meself that what you
said was fair about makin' money. Some'ow I never thought but what money
was the first thing to make in business. To tell you the truth, I always
thought it rather a feather in my cap that I never took advantage of
Brown Borough customers in selling adulterated goods, for--Lawdy--they'd
swallow anythink. It's different with your business, bein' in an
'igher-class locality. 'Igh prices, I thought, was only natural. Make
'ay while the sun shines was my motter, and I says to meself there was
no reason why this war should make _everyone_ un'appy. As for lookin' at
the grocery business as a trust from God, like you said, I never dremp
of such a thing, although I've bin to Chapel regular for ten years. But
I see now there was a lot in what you said, and when I come to think of
it, there was no need to make such a terrible lot of extra hay, 'owever
much the sun might be shinin'. When you put it like that, I couldn't say
why I was so set on more money, 'aving quite enough. Well, I says to
meself, after shutting meself up to think it out, like you said, 'ere
am I giving up all my life an' all my jolly days an' 'olidays, an' I'm
damned if I know what for. For money,--just money stewin' in its own
juice in a bank,--not money I can use. Well, everybody's trained so, I'm
thinkin'. Anyway I took it friendly of you to put it so delicate, so
fanciful as you did, so as them charity ladies didn't smell a rat. I
appreciated that, an' thought the more of what you said. I'm not a proud
man."
"You're just proud enough," said the witch. "You're a darling. If ever I
can help you in a business way, let me know. If you want to start a side
line, for instance, in Happiness, I can give you a tip where to get it
wholesale, within limits. It'd go like wildfire in the Brown Borough, if
you put in an ounce or two, gratis of course, with every order."
"You will 'ave your joke," murmured the Mayor. "But I like it in you.
I'm a man that never takes a joke amiss. Let's go for a walk together."
"No," said the witch. "I am so hungry that my ribs are beginning to bend
inwards. I must go and have sausages and mash and two apple dumplings."
They found themselves presently seated at the marble-topped table of an
A.B.C. After an interval that could hardly be accurately described as
presently, sausages and mash dawned on the horizon, and the witch waved
her fork rudely at it as it approached.
"Mashed is splendid stuff to sculp with," she said, roughing in a ground
plan upon her plate with the sure carelessness of the artist. "This is
going to be an ivory castle built upon a rock in a glassy sea. The
sausage is the dragon guarding it, and this little crumb of bread is the
emprisoned princess, a dull but sterling creature----"
"Look 'ere, Miss Watkins," interrupted the Mayor. "I'm not as a rule an
impulsive man, and I don't want to startle you----"
"How d'you mean startle me?" asked the witch. "You haven't startled me
at all. But the fact is, I never have been much of a person for getting
married, thank you very much. I'm an awful bad house-keeper. And I _do_
so much enjoy having no money."
"Well, I'm blessed," exclaimed the Mayor. "You're a perfect witch, I
declare." He laid a large meat-like hand upon hers. "But you know, you
can't put the lid on me so easy as that. Ever since you came into that
old committee room I saw there was something particular about you,
something that you an' me 'ad in common. I'm not speakin' so much of us
bein' in the same line of business. Some'ow--oh, 'ang it all, let's get
out of this and take a taxi. I'm not a kissing man, but----"
He seemed very persistent in applying negatived adjectives to himself.
It was not his fault if the world failed to grasp exactly what he was,
or rather exactly what he was not.
"I have often wondered," interrupted the witch, "talking of
kissing--what would happen if two snipes wanted to kiss each other? It
would have to be at such awfully long range, wouldn't it. Or----"
"Come off it," ordered the Mayor irritably. "What about gettin' out of
this and----"
"Don't you think this is becoming rather a tiresome scene?" said the
witch. "Somehow over luscious, don't you think? I wish those apple
dumplings would hurry up."
"'Ere, miss," said the Mayor ungraciously to a passing whirlwind. "'Urry
them dumplings."
"'Urry them dumplings," echoed the whirlwind to a little hole in the
wall.
The witch had a silly vision of two distressed dumplings, like dilatory
chorus girls, mad with the nightmare feeling of not being dressed in
time, hearing their cue called in a heartless voice from the inexorable
sky, desperately applying the last dab of flour to their imperfect
complexions. But the witch found no fault with them when they came. She
gave them her whole attention for some minutes.
"Well, well," she said, laying down her fork and spoon, "that's good. I
feel awfully grown-up, having had a proposal. When real girls ask me now
how many I've had, I shall be able to say One. But I met a girl the
other day who had had six. She had six photographs, but she called them
scalps. If you would give me your photograph I could label it A Scalp,
and hang it in the Shop. That would be very grown-up, wouldn't it?"
"You will 'ave your joke," said the Mayor in a hollow voice. "I never
met such a gurl as you for a bit of fun. I don't believe you've got any
'eart."
There, of course, he was right. A heart is a sort of degree conferred by
Providence on those who have passed a certain examination. Magic people
are only freshmen in our college, and it is useless for us--secure in
the possession of many learned letters after our names--to despise them.
They will become sophisticated in due course.
"How d'you mean--heart?" asked the witch therefore. "I've still got an
awful hunger inside me, if that's anything to do with it. I'll tell you
what. It's Wednesday. Let's go and call on Miss Ford. She might have
grassy sandwiches."
There was a most abrupt and disturbing draught in Miss Ford's sleek and
decorous flat as the witch and the Mayor entered it. The serenity of the
night and the morning had been suddenly obliterated, and Kensington
suffered a gust or two of gritty wind which blew the babies home from
the Gardens, and kept all the window-gazers in the High Street on the
alert with their fingers on the triggers of their umbrellas.
But no rain fell. Rain cannot fall in this book of fine weather.
The draught that intruded into the flat ruffled the neat hair of five
persons, Miss Ford herself, Lady Arabel Higgins, Miss Ivy MacBee, Mr.
Bernard Tovey, and Mr. Darnby Frere.
Miss MacBee always seemed to be seated on tenterhooks, even in the most
comfortable of chairs. Her Spartan spine never consented graciously to
the curves of cushions. She had smooth padded hair and smooth padded
manners, and her eyes were magnified by thick pince-nez to a cow-like
size. Most people, especially most women, were instinctively sorry for
her, because she always looked a little clever and very uncomfortable.
Mr. Bernard Tovey was a blunt-nosed beaming person. He leaned forward
abruptly whenever he spoke, thereby swinging a lock of hair into his
right eye. He agreed so heartily with everything that was said that
people who addressed him were left with the happy impression that they
had said something Rather Good. This habit, combined with the fact that
he never launched an independent remark, had given him the reputation of
being one of the best talkers in Kensington.
Mr. Darnby Frere was the editor of an advanced religious paper called _I
Wonder_, but he never wondered really. He knew almost everything, and
therefore, while despising the public for knowing so little, he
encouraged it to continue wondering, so that he might continue despising
and instructing it.
Now it was an almost unprecedented thing for two members of the small
trades-man class to come into Miss Ford's drawing-room, especially on a
Wednesday. The utmost social mingling of the classes that those walls
had ever seen was the moment when Miss Ford asked the electric light man
what he thought of the war. The electric light man's reply had been
quoted in the dialect on two or three of the following Wednesdays, as a
proof of Miss Ford's daring intimacy with men in Another Station of
Life. Really it would have been simpler, though of course not so
picturesque, to have quoted it direct from its original source, _John
Bull_, the electric light man's Bible.
The entrance of the witch and the Mayor was to a certain extent a
crisis, but Miss Ford kept her head, and her three friends, though
grasping at once the extraordinary situation, did not give way to panic.
"Well, well, well," said the Mayor, looking round and breathing very
loudly. "This is a cosy little nook you've got 'ere."
He was not at all at his ease, but being a business man, and being also
blessed with a peculiarly inexpressive face, he was successfully
dissembling his discomfort.
For it had happened that the lift had been one of those lifts that can
do no wrong, the kind that the public is indulgently allowed to work by
itself. And the Mayor, looking upon this fact as specially planned by a
propitious god of love, had tried to kiss the witch as they shot up the
darkened shaft. If I remind you that the witch was still accompanied by
her broomstick, Harold, a creature of unreasoning fidelity, I need
hardly describe the scene further. The Mayor stepped out of the lift
with a tingling scraped face, and if he had possessed enough hair on his
head, it would have been on end. As it was, when the lift stopped, he
retrieved his hat from the floor with a frank oath, and, as the witch
had at once rung the bell of Miss Ford's flat, he instinctively followed
her across that threshold.
She looked round in the hall, and said with a friendly smile: "I'm
afraid Harold gets a bit irritable sometimes. I often tell him to count
ten before he lets himself go, but he forgets. Did he hurt you?"
I am afraid the angry Mayor did not give Harold credit for much
initiative.
"Kissing is such a funny habit, isn't it," said the witch briskly as she
shook Miss Ford's hand. "I wonder who decided in the first place which
forms of contact should express which forms of emotion. I wonder----"
She interrupted herself as her eyes fell on some green sandwiches which
were occupying the third floor of a wicker Eiffel Tower beside Miss
Ford. "Oh how gorgeous," she said. "Do you know, I've only had two meals
in the last two days."
Nobody present had ever been obliged to miss a meal, so this statement
seemed to every one to be a message from another world.
"You must tell us about all your experiences, my dear Miss Watkins,"
said Miss Ford, leading the witch towards a chair by the fire. The witch
sat down suddenly cross-legged on the hearth-rug, leaving her rather
embarrassed hostess in the air, so to speak, towering rigidly above her.
"How d'you mean--experiences?" said the witch, after eating one sandwich
in silent ecstasy. "I was up in the sky last night, talking to a German.
Was that an experience?"
"The sky last night was surely no place for a lady," said Mr. Frere with
rather sour joviality.
"Oh, I know what she means," said Miss MacBee earnestly. "I was up in
the sky last night too----"
"Great Scott," exclaimed the witch. "But----"
"Yes, I was," persisted Miss MacBee. "I lay on the hammock which I have
had slung in my cellar, and shut my eyes, and loosed my spirit, and it
shot upward like a lark released. It detached itself from the common
trammels of the body, yes, my spirit, in shining armour, fought with the
false, cruel spirits of murderers."
"I hadn't got any shining armour," sighed the witch, who had been
looking a little puzzled. "But I had the hell of a wrangle with a Boche
witch who came over. We fought till we fell off our broomsticks, and
then she quoted the _Daily Mail_ at me, and then she fell through a hole
and broke her back over the cross on St. Paul's."
It was Miss MacBee's turn to look puzzled, but she said to Miss Ford:
"My dear, you have brought us a real mystic."
Mr. Frere, though emitting an applauding murmur, leaned back and fixed
his face in the ambiguous expression of one who, while listening with
interest to the conversation of liars, is determined not to appear
deceived.
"How d'you mean--mystic?" asked the witch. "I don't think I can have
made myself clear. Excuse me," she added to Miss Ford, "but this room
smells awfully clever to any one coming in from outside. Do you mind if
I dance a little, to move the air about?"
"We shall be delighted," said Miss Ford indulgently. "Shall I play for
you?"
The witch did not answer; she rose, and as she rose she threw a little
white paper packet into the fire. She danced round the sofa and the
chairs. The floor shook a little, and all her watchers twisted their
necks gravely, like lizards watching an active fly.
The parlour-maid, by appearing in the doorway with an inaudible
announcement, diverted their attention, though she did not interrupt the
witch's exercises.
A very respectable-looking man came in. Darnby Frere, who was a student
of Henry James's works, and therefore constantly made elaborate guesses
on matters that did not concern him, and then forgot them
because--unlike Mr. James's guesses--they were always wrong, gave the
newcomer credit for being perhaps a shopwalker, or perhaps a
South-Eastern and Chatham ticket-collector, but surely a chapel-goer.
At any rate the stranger looked ill at ease, and especially disconcerted
by the sight of the dancing witch.
Miss Ford realised by now that her Wednesday had for some reason gone
mad. She had lost her hold on the reins of that usually dignified
equipage; there was nothing now for her to do but to grip tight and keep
her head.
She therefore concealed her ignorance of her newest guest's identity,
she stiffened her lips and poured out another cup of tea with a
nerveless hand. The stranger took the cup of tea with some relief, and
said: "Thenk you, meddem."
The witch stopped dancing, and stood in front of the newcomer's chair.
"I think yours must be a discouraging job," she said to him. "Getting
people punished for doing things you'd love to do yourself. Oh, awfully
discouraging. And do tell me, there's a little problem that's been on my
mind ever since the war started. I hear that Hindenburg says the German
Army intends to march through London the moment it can brush away the
obstacles in front of it. Have you considered what will happen to the
traffic, because you know Germans on principle march on the wrong side
of the street--indeed everybody in the world does, except the
conscientious British. Think of the knotted convulsions of traffic at
the Bank, with a hundred thousand Boches goose-stepping on the wrong
side of the road--think of poor thin Fleet Street, and the dam that
would occur in Piccadilly Circus. What do you policemen intend to do
about it?"
"I don't know I'm sure, miss," said the newcomer coldly. "It's a long
time since I was on point duty. I'm a plain clothes man, meddem," he
added to Miss Ford. "I'm afraid I'm intruding on your tea-party, owing
to your maid misunderstanding my business. But being 'ere, I 'ope you'll
excuse me stating what I've come for."
"Oh certainly, certainly," said Miss Ford, who was staring vaguely into
the fireplace. A rather fascinating thread of lilac smoke was spinning
itself out of the ashes of the little white paper packet.
"The names of the Mayor of the Brown Borough, Miss Meter Mostyn Ford,
and Lady A. 'Iggins--all of 'oom I understand from the maid are
present--'ave been mentioned as being presoomably willing to give
information likely to be 'elpful in the search for a suspicious
cherecter 'oo is believed to 'ave intruded on a cheritable meeting, at
which you were present last Seturday, in order to escape arrest, 'aving
just perpetrated a petty theft from a baker, 'Ermann Schwab. The
cherecter is charged now with a more important offence, being in
possession of an armed flying machine, in defiance of the Defence of the
Realm Act, and interfering with the work of 'Is Majesty's Forces during
enemy attack. The cherecter is believed to be a man in female disguise,
but enquiry up to date 'as failed to get any useful description. You
ladies and gents, I understand, should be able to 'elp the Law in this
metter."
There was a stunned silence in the room, broken only by the pastoral
sound of the witch eating grassy sandwiches. After a moment Miss Ford,
the Mayor, and Lady Arabel all began speaking at once, and each stopped
with a look of relief on hearing that some one else was ready to take
the responsibility of speaking.
Then the witch began with her mouth full: "You know----," but Lady
Arabel interrupted her.
"Angela dear, be silent. This does not concern you. Of course,
inspector, we're all only too dretfully anxious to do anything to help
the Law, but you must specify the occasion more exactly. Our committee
sees so many applicants."
"You are Lady A. 'Iggins, I believe," said the policeman impassively.
"Well, my lady, may I ask you whether you are aware thet the cherecter
in question was seen to leave your 'ouse last night, at nine forty-five
P.M., after the warning of approaching enemy atteck was given, and to
disappear in an easterly direction, on a miniature 'eavier than air
machine, make and number unknown?"
The threads of curious smoke in the fireplace were increasing. They
shivered as though with laughter, and flowed like crimped hair up the
chimney.
"I had a dinner-party last night certainly," stammered Lady Arabel. A
trembling seized the sock she was knitting. She had turned the heel some
time ago, but in the present stress had forgotten all about the toe. The
prolonged sock grew every minute more and more like a drain-pipe with a
bend in it. "Why yes, of course I had a dinner-party; why shouldn't I?
My son Rrchud, a private in the London Rifles, this young lady, Miss
Angela--er--, and her friend--such a good quiet creature...."
"And 'oo else was in the 'ouse?" asked the policeman, glancing haughtily
at the witch.
"Oh nobody, nobody. The servants all gave notice and left--too dretfully
tahsome how they can't stand Rrchud and his ways. Of course there was
the orchestra--twenty-five pieces--but _so_ dependable."
"Dependable," said the witch, "is a mystery word to me. I can't think
how it got into the English language without being right. Surely
Depend-on-able----"
"Your son 'as peculiar ways, you say, my lady," interrupted the
policeman.
"Oh, nothing to speak of," answered Lady Arabel, wincing. "Merely
lighthearted ... too dretfully Bohemian ... ingenious, you know, in
making experiments ... magnetism...."
"Experiments in Magnetism," spelt the policeman aloud into his notebook.
"And 'oo left your 'ouse at nine forty-five P.M. last night?"
"I did," said the witch.
The policeman withered her once more with a glance.
"Lady 'Iggins, did you say your son left your 'ouse at nine forty-five
P.M. last night?"
"Yes, but----"
"Thenk you, my lady."
"You seem to me dretfully impertinent," said Lady Arabel. "This is not a
court of law. My son Rrchud left the house with me and our guest to seek
shelter from the raid."
"Thenk you, my lady," repeated the policeman coldly, and turned to Miss
Ford.
"Could you identify the cherecter 'oo came into your committee room last
Seturday?" he asked of her.
"No," she replied.
"Couldn't you say whether it seemed like a male or a female in disguise?
Couldn't you mention any physical pecooliarity that struck you?"
"No," said Miss Ford.
"'Ave you no memory of last Seturday night?"
"No," said Miss Ford.
"I have," said the witch.
The policeman bridled. "I was addressing this 'ere lady, Miss M.M. Ford.
Can you at least tell me, meddem, 'ow long you and the 'Iggins family
'ave been acquainted?"
"No," said Miss Ford.
"Eighteen years," said Lady Arabel.
The fumes from the fireplace were very strong indeed, but nobody called
attention to them.
"I'm sorry, ..." said Miss Ford presently, very slowly, "that ... I ...
can't help you. I have ... been having ... nerve-storms ... since ...
last ... Saturday...."
The policeman fixed his ominous gaze upon her for quite a minute before
he wrote something in his notebook.
"Is Private Richard 'Iggins in town to-night?" he asked of Lady Arabel
in a casual voice.
"I suppose so," she replied. "But he has such a dretful habit of
disappearing...."
The policeman turned to the Mayor.
"Now, sir," he said. "Could you help me at all in----"
"Look here," said the witch, rising. "If you would only come along to my
house in Mitten Island I can truly give you all the information you
need. In fact, won't you come to supper with me? If some one will kindly
lend me half-a-crown I will go on ahead and cook something."
Mr. Tovey mechanically produced a coin.
"Here, Harold," called the witch, and holding Harold's collar she
stepped out on to the balcony, mounted, and flew away.
She left a room full of noise behind her.
The policeman, who was intoxicated with the strange fumes, said: "Hell.
Hell. Hell."
Lady Arabel called in vain: "Angela, Angela, don't be so dretfully
rash."
Mr. Tovey, now afflicted with a lock of hair in each eye, seized the
policeman by the shoulder thinking to prevent him from jumping out of
the window. "You fool," he shouted.
The Mayor slapped his thigh with a loud report. "Lawdy," he yelled.
"She's a sport. She will 'ave 'er joke."
Miss MacBee laughed hysterically and very loudly.
Mr. Darnby Frere said "My word" rather cautiously several times, and
rubbed the bridge of his nose. He rather thought everybody was pulling
his leg, but could not be sure.
Only Miss Ford sat silent.