Spot was so fat and so porcine that he was unlikely to run away and
carry Cousin Edith with him in a Gadarene rush down the face of the
cliff. Yes, with Spot to detain her, not much could happen to Cousin
Edith.
But Jasmine was wrong. Spot had a fetish: the sensation of twigs or
leaves faintly tickling his back gave him such exquisite pleasure that
to secure it he would use the cunning of a morphinomaniac in pursuit of
his drug. He would put back his ears and creep very slowly under the
lower branches of a shrub, so that Cousin Edith, who in her affection
for the family felt bound to indulge the dog to the whole length of his
lead and even further, was lured after him deep into the chosen bush, so
that finally, immaterial as she was, she was herself entangled in the
upper branches.
"I think I'm getting rather scratched," she would cry helplessly to
Jasmine, who would have to come to the rescue with a sharp tug at Spot's
lead. This used to give such a shock to the bloated fox-terrier that,
torn from his sensation of being scratched by canine houris, he would
choke, while Cousin Edith, dancing feebly on the still autumn air, would
beg Jasmine never again to be so rough with him.
The music of the Spa band grew louder while they were descending the
winding paths of the cliff, until at last it burst upon Jasmine with the
full force of an operatic finale and gave a throb of life to her
hitherto lifeless morning. The music stopped before they reached the
last curve of the descent, where they paused a moment to watch the
movement of the daedal throng, above which parasols floated like great
butterflies. From the sands beyond, above the chattering, came up the
sound of children's laughter, and beyond that the pale blue winking sea
was fused with the sky in the silver haze of August so that the furthest
ships were sailing in the clouds.
And then, just when it really was beginning to seem worth while to be
alive again, Cousin Edith's hand alighted uncertainly like a
daddy-longlegs on Jasmine's arm and jigged up and down as a prelude to
whispering in what, were that insect vocal, would certainly have been
the voice of a daddy-longlegs:
"Do you think we can communicate with the dead?"
"No, I don't," said Jasmine sharply. "And if we could, I shouldn't want
to."
Cousin Edith opened wide her globular eyes, which, like those of an
insect, were set apparently on her face rather than in it. But before
she could combat the blasphemy she had been lured by Spot deep into a
privet bush, so deep that the old rhyme came into Jasmine's head about
the man of Thessaly who scratched out his eyes in bushes and at his own
will scratched them in again in other bushes. He must have had eyes like
Cousin Edith's--external and globular.
"Poor old Spot," she murmured, disengaging her lips from a cobweb as
genteelly as possible. "He so enjoys his little walk. Up here now,
dear," she added, seeing that Jasmine was preparing to go down to the
promenade.
"But shan't we go and listen to the music?"
"We have Spot with us."
"Well?"
Cousin Edith came very close to her and whispered:
"Dogs are not allowed on the promenade."
"Then let's tie him up and leave him here," suggested Jasmine.
Cousin Edith laughed. At least Jasmine supposed it was a laugh, even if
it did sound more like the squeaking of a slate pencil. Indeed she was
pretty sure that it was a laugh, because when it was finished Cousin
Edith's fingers danced along her arm and she said:
"How droll you are! We'll go out by the north gate. Unless," she added,
"you would like to sit in this summer-house for a little while and
listen to the band from here."
There was a summer-house close at hand which, with the appearance of a
decayed beehive, smelt of dry-rot and was littered with paper bags.
"I often sit here," Cousin Edith explained. Jasmine was tempted to reply
that she looked as if she did; but a sense of inability to struggle any
longer against the withering influence of the Grants came over her, and
she followed Cousin Edith into the summer-house. There on a semicircular
rustic seat they sat in silence, staring out at the dim green world,
while Spot seduced a few strands of the tangled creeper round the
entrance to play upon his back paradisal symphonies. Then Cousin Edith
began to talk again; and while she talked a myriad little noises of
insect life in the summer-house, which had been temporarily disturbed,
began again--little whispers, little scratches, little dry sounds that
were indefinable.
"You have no idea how kind Cousin May is. But, of course, she isn't
Cousin May to you, she's Aunt May, isn't she?" Again the desiccated
titter of Cousin Edith's mirth sounded. The myriad noises stopped in
alarm for a moment, but quickly went on again. "Already she has planned
for you a delightful surprise."
Jasmine's impulsive heart leaped toward the good intention of her aunt,
and with an eager question in her eyes she jumped round so energetically
that she shook the fabric, bringing down a skeleton leaf of ivy, which
fluttered over Spot's back and gave him the finest thrill of the
morning.
"What can it be?" she cried, clapping her hands. This was too much for
the summer-house. Skeleton leaves, twigs, dead flies, mummied earwigs
began to drop down in all directions.
"It's quite dusty in here," said Cousin Edith in a perplexed tone. "I
think perhaps we had better be moving along."
"But the surprise?" Jasmine persisted.
Cousin Edith trembled with self-importance, and her long forefinger
waved like an antenna when she bade Jasmine follow her in the direction
of the promised revelation. They strolled along the winding paths of the
shrubberies above the promenade until they reached the main entrance of
the Spa.
"Will you hold Spot for a tiny minute? I have a little business here,"
Cousin Edith pleaded. Having adjured Spot to be a good dog, and promised
him that she would not be long, Cousin Edith engaged the ticket clerk in
a conversation, and so much did she appear to be pecking at her purse
and so nearly did she seem to be ruffling her feathers when she bobbed
her hat up and down that if she had presently flown into the office
through the pigeon-hole and perched beside her mate on the desk inside
it would have appeared natural. Jasmine might have wondered what Cousin
Edith was doing if she had not been too much occupied with Spot, who in
default of a convenient bush was trying to extract his dorsal sensations
from a little girl's frock. When he was jerked away by a heavier hand
than Cousin Edith's he began to growl, whereupon Jasmine smacked him
with her glove, which so surprised the fat dog that he collapsed in the
path and breathed stertorously to attract the sympathy of the
passers-by. Cousin Edith came back from her colloquy with the clerk, and
in a rapture of esoteric benevolence she pressed into Jasmine's palm a
round green cardboard disk.
"Your season ticket," she murmured. "Cousin May--I mean Aunt May--asked
me to buy you one while we were out."
Jasmine felt that she ought to jump in the air and embrace the
gate-keeper in the excess of her joy. As for Cousin Edith, she watched
her as one watches a child that has been given a sweet too large for its
mouth. She seemed afraid that Jasmine would choke if she swallowed such
a benefaction whole.
"And now," she said, as if after such a display of generosity it were
incredible that there might be more to come, "and now Aunt May--there, I
said it right that time!--Aunt May suggested that we might have a cup of
chocolate together at the Oriental Cafe afterwards."
"Hullo!" cried a cheerful voice, which brought Jasmine back to earth
from the dazzling prospects being offered by Cousin Edith. "Why, we've
met even sooner than I hoped we should."
Jasmine's sandy-haired railway companion, looking delightfully at ease,
every freckle in his face twinkling with geniality and pleasure, shook
hands. For the first time she regretted that it was Cousin Edith's duty
to hold Spot. If Cousin Edith had not been detained by the fat
fox-terrier, she might have floated away like a child's balloon, such
evident dismay did Mr. Vibart's irruption create in one who was under
the obsession that all the young men in the world fit to be known were
already friends of Lettice and Pamela. Jasmine introduced Mr. Vibart
without any explanation, and poor Cousin Edith, who was too genteel, and
had been too long dependent to know how to escape from an
acquaintanceship she did not wish to be forced on her, allowed Mr.
Vibart to shake her hand. When, however, he calmly suggested that they
should all turn back and listen to the band, she pulled herself together
and declared that it was quite impossible.
"The dog...." she began.
"Oh, we'll leave the dog with the gate-keeper," said Mr. Vibart.
"I'm afraid, Jasmine, your friend doesn't understand that dear old Spot
is quite one of the family." And turning with a bitter-sweet smile to
the intrusive young man: "Spot is a great responsibility," she added.
"I should think so," Mr. Vibart agreed, regarding with unconcealed
disgust the fox-terrier, who, having been rolling on his back in the
dust, looked now more like a sheep than a pig. Jasmine understood at
once what Mr. Vibart wanted, and as she wanted the same thing so much
herself she nearly answered his unspoken invitation by saying, "Very
well, Mr. Vibart and I will go and listen to the band for half an hour,
and when you've finished your chocolate at the cafe, we'll meet you
here." She felt, however, that such independence of action was too
precipitate for Spaborough.
"I'm afraid that we were just going to the Oriental Cafe," Cousin Edith
had begun, when Mr. Vibart interrupted her.
"Capital! Just what I should like to do myself!"
Before Cousin Edith could do anything about it they were all on their
way to the town; but by the time the cafe was reached she had perfected
her strategy.
"Thank you very much for escorting us," she murmured. "Miss Grant and I
are much obliged to you. You, of course, will prefer the smoking-room.
We always go into the ladies' room."
The Oriental Cafe included among its appropriate features a zenana,
outside the door of which, marked _LADIES ONLY_, Mr. Vibart was left
disconsolate, although before it closed Jasmine had managed to whisper,
"Strathspey House, South Parade."
Within the zenana, to which Spot was admitted as little boys under six
are admitted to ladies' bathing-machines, Cousin Edith warned a young
girl against the wiles of men.
"I shan't say anything to Aunt May about this unpleasant little
business," she promised Jasmine, who was convinced that she would take
the first opportunity to tell her aunt everything. "No, I shan't tell
Aunt May," Cousin Edith went on, "because I think it would pain her.
She's so particular about Lettice and Pamela, and we always have such
nice men at Strathspey House." But lest Jasmine should suppose that the
presence of nice men there implied a chance for her in the near future,
she made haste to add:
"Though, of course, we must always be careful, even with the nicest men.
I must say that it seems to me a dreadful idea that a young girl like
you should be able to meet a man in the train, travel with him
unprotected, and actually be accosted by him the next day. Ugh! I'm so
glad we had Spot with us! Brave old Spot!" And in her gratitude to Spot
for the preservation of their modesty she gave him half of one of the
free biscuits that the Oriental Cafe allowed to the purchaser of a cup
of chocolate.
"Do you know," went on Cousin Edith, flushed by the thought of their
narrow escape and by the deliciously hot chocolate, "do you know that
once, nearly five years ago, a man winked at me in a bus? I was quite
alone inside, and the conductor was taking the fares on the top."
"What did you do?" Jasmine asked with a smile.
"Why, of course I rang the bell, got out almost before the bus had fully
stopped, and walked the rest of the way. But it made such an impression
on me that when I reached my friend's house she had to give me several
drops of valerian, my heart was in such a state, what with walking so
fast and being so frightened. Perhaps I oughtn't to have told you such a
horrid story. But I'm older than you, and I want you to feel that I'm
your friend. Oh yes, the things men do! Well, I was brought up very
strictly, but I have a very strong imagination, and sometimes when I'm
alone I just sit and gasp at the wickedness of men. And now," Cousin
Edith concluded with an uneasy glance round the zenana, "I think we
ought to hurry back as fast as we can. Come, Spot! Good old Spot! I'll
show you the Aquarium, dear, as we go home. You can see the roof quite
well when we turn round the corner from Marine Crescent."
Perhaps Cousin Edith thought that Jasmine's indiscretion would be more
valuable as a weapon for herself if it was unrevealed, for she did not
say a word to Lady Grant about the meeting at the gates of the Spa;
indeed all the way home she talked about nothing except the wonder of
possessing a season ticket of one's own, ascribing to the round green
cardboard disk a potency such as few talismans have possessed.
"You will be able to go and see the fireworks on gala nights," she
explained, "and you'll be able to go and hear concerts--though, of
course, if you want to sit down you have to pay extra--and you'll be
able to go and drink the waters--though, of course, you have to pay a
penny for the glass--and you'll be able to take a short cut from South
Parade to the beach--though, of course, you won't care for the beach,
because it's apt to be a little vulgar--and then the promenade is far
the best place to hear the pierrots from--though I'm afraid that even
they have been getting vulgar lately. I'm so glad that Cousin May
thought of making you this present. It makes me so happy for you, dear."
While Cousin Edith was extolling its powers, the green cardboard disk,
which was originally about the size of a florin, seemed to be growing
larger and larger in Jasmine's glove, until by the time South Parade was
reached it seemed the size of a saucer. In fact it was only after
Jasmine had warmly thanked her aunt for the kind thought that it shrank
back into being a small green cardboard disk again. At least she was no
longer aware of its burning her palm; but when she came to take off her
gloves she found that this was because the ticket was no longer there.
The loss of the Koh-i-nur diamond could not have been treated more
seriously. The house was turned upside down, and small parties were sent
out into South Parade to examine carefully every paving stone and to
peer down the gratings of the drains. Sir Hector, who had been in
charge of the operations conducted inside the house, suddenly became
overheated and announced that it was useless to search any longer, but
that when he paid his own afternoon visit to the Spa he would go into
the question with the authorities, and if necessary actually buy another
ticket.
"And perhaps your uncle will take you with him," said Lady Grant.
Cousin Edith clasped her hands in envious amazement. "Jasmine!" she
exclaimed. "Do you hear that? Perhaps Sir Hector will take you with
him!"
Lettice and Pamela did not come back to lunch, and at four o'clock Sir
Hector sent Hargreaves up to Jasmine's room to inform her that he was
ready. Two minutes later he sent Hargreaves up to say that he was
waiting. Four minutes later he sent Hargreaves up to say that he would
walk slowly on. Six minutes later, Jasmine, not quite sure which way her
hat was facing or whether her dress was properly fastened, found Sir
Hector, watch in hand, at the nearest entrance of the gardens.
"If there is ever any doubt about the time," he told her, "we always
follow the clock in my room. Let me see. You have lost your season
ticket, so that at this entrance you will have to pay. Wait a minute,
however; I will see if the gate-keeper will let you through for once."
The gate-keeper was perfectly willing to trust Sir Hector's account of
the accident to the season ticket, and Sir Hector, carrying himself more
upright even than usual, observed to Jasmine as they walked along
towards the main entrance, "You see they know me here."
"Now where are you going to keep this ticket so that you don't lose it
like the other one?" asked Sir Hector when he had presented Jasmine with
the second small green disk, for which the management had regretfully
but firmly exacted another payment.
Jasmine proposed to put it in her purse.
"Yes," said Sir Hector judicially, "that might be a good place. But be
very careful that you don't drop it when you want to take out any
money."
"There's only tenpence halfpenny to take out," said Jasmine. "But I can
put the ticket in the inside compartment, which is meant for gold."
"Good Heavens! I hope you don't carry much gold about with you,"
exclaimed her uncle.
"No, not very much," she replied. "A broken locket, that's all."
On the way to the promenade Sir Hector was saluted respectfully by
various people; and several ladies sitting on sunny benches quivered as
he went by, with that indescribable tribute of the senses which they
accord to a popular Lenten preacher who passes them on the way to the
pulpit.
"Some of my patients," Sir Hector explained.
Jasmine wondered if it would be more tactful to say that they looked
very well or that they looked very ill; not being able to decide, she
smiled. At that moment Sir Hector stopped beside a bath-chair.
"Duchess," he proclaimed in a voice sufficiently loud to be heard by all
the passers-by, most of whom turned round and stared, first at the
Duchess, then at Sir Hector, then at Jasmine, and finally at the
chairman, "you are looking definitely better."
"Ah, Sir Hector, I wish I felt better."
"You will.... You will...." Sir Hector prophesied, and, raising his hat,
he passed on.
"That," he said to Jasmine, "is Georgina, Duchess of Shropshire. Yes
... yes ... it's odd.... They're all my patients.... The Duchess of
Shropshire, ... Georgina, Duchess of Shropshire, ... Eleanor, Duchess of
Shropshire."
Jasmine, who came from Sirene, where any summer Italian duchesses
bathing are to be found as thick as limpets on the rocks, was less
impressed than she ought to have been.
"What's the matter with her?" she enquired.
Sir Hector never encouraged his patients to ask what was the matter with
themselves, and he certainly did not approve of his niece's enquiry.
"You would hardly understand," he said severely, and then relapsed into
silence, to concentrate upon threading his way through the crowd of the
Promenade.
Sir Hector, who wished to be the cynosure of the promenaders floating
with the opposite current, kept on the extreme edge of the downward
stream, so that Jasmine, with two feet less height than her uncle and no
title, found it difficult to make headway, so difficult indeed that in
trying to keep up with him she got too much to the left and was swept
back by the contrary stream, in which, though she managed to keep her
season ticket, she lost herself. Several times during this promenade
eternal as the winds of hell, she caught sight of her uncle's neck
lifted above the swirl like a cormorant's, and once she managed to get
to the outside of the stream and actually to pluck at his sleeve as he
went by in the opposite direction; but her voice was drowned by the
music, and he did not notice her. She was beginning to feel tired of
walking round and round like this, and at last, finding herself working
across to the right of the current, she struggled ashore, or in other
words went into the concert room.
The concert room of the Spa looked like a huge conservatory full of
dead vegetation. The hundreds of chairs stacked one upon another in rows
seemed a brake of withered canes; the music-stands on the platform
resembled the dried-up stalks of small shrubs; while the few palms and
foliage plants that preserved their greenery only served to enhance the
deadness all round, and were themselves streaked with decay. Outside,
the gay throng passing and repassing like fish added a final touch to
the desolation of the interior. Two small boys, with backward uneasy
glances, were creeping furtively through the maze of chairs. Jasmine
thought that they like herself had been overcome by the mystery haunting
this light and arid interior, until a dull boom from the direction of
the platform, followed by the screech of hurriedly moved chairs and the
clatter of frightened feet made her realize that their cautious advance
had been the preliminary to a daring attempt to bang, if only once, the
big drum muffled in baize. No sooner had the boys successfully escaped
than Jasmine was seized with a strong desire to bang the drum for
herself, to bang it, however, much more loudly than those boys had
banged it, to raise the drumstick high above her and bring it down upon
the drum as a smith brings his hammer down upon the anvil. The longer
she sat here, the harder she found it to keep away from the platform.
Finally the temptation became too strong to be resisted; she snatched
the baize cover from the instrument, seized the drumstick, and brought
it down with a crash.
"I wish I could do that at Strathspey House," she sighed; and then,
hearing a voice at the back of the hall, she turned round to see an
indignant man in a green baize apron looking at her over folded arms.
"Here! you mustn't do that," he was protesting.
"I'm sorry," said Jasmine. "I simply couldn't help it."
"It isn't as if I didn't have to spend half my time as it is chasing
boys out of here, but I never reckoned to have to go chasing after young
ladies."
"No; I'm sorry," said Jasmine. She hesitated for a moment what to do;
then she thought of her talisman and fumbled in her purse. The attendant
wiped his hands on the apron in preparation for the half-crown that he
estimated was the least remuneration he could receive for the loudest
bang on that drum he had ever heard, and when Jasmine produced nothing
but a season ticket he was inclined to be nasty.
"You needn't think you can come in here and rattle all the windows and
fetch me away from my work just because you're a season ticket holder,
which only makes it worse in my opinion, and I'll have to take your name
and number, miss, and complain to the management. That's all there is to
it. I've been asking to have this place closed when not in use, and now
perhaps they'll do it. Only this morning I barked my shins something
cruel trying to catch hold of a boy who was playing the banjo on the
double bass. I've got your number, miss, 17874, and you'll hear from the
management about it; and that's all there is to it."
He wiped his other hand on the apron and waited a moment; when Jasmine
did not seem to understand what he wanted, he invited her to leave the
hall forthwith, and retired to formulate his complaint. As for Jasmine,
she rejoined the throng; but by now, in whatever direction she looked,
she could not even see Sir Hector's long red neck, much less meet him
face to face. She began to be bewitched by the continuous circling round
the bandstand. It was really delicious on this golden afternoon to be
borne round upon these mingled perfumes of scent and asphalt. The
asphalt, softened by the heat, was pleasant to walk on, like grass, and
it was only after circling for about half an hour that she realized how
tiring it was to the feet. At this moment the music stopped; the opening
bars of _God Save the King_ were played; a patriotic gentleman next to
her planted his foot on her own in his desire to remind people that he
was an old soldier. Two minutes later the Promenade was empty, and
Jasmine, with any number of chairs to choose from now, sat down.
She had not been there more than five minutes when round the corner came
Mr. Vibart, walking in the way people walk when they have an object.