'What? Am I to have it for nothing, Brownie?' Elsie exclaimed,
bewildered, when I read the letter to her.
I assumed the airs of a woman of the world. 'Why, certainly, my dear,' I
answered, as if I always expected to find bicycles showered upon me.
'It's a mutual arrangement. Benefits him; benefits you. Reciprocity is
the groundwork of business. _He_ gets the advertisement; _you_ get the
amusement. It's a form of handbill. Like the ladies who exhibit their
back hair, don't you know, in that window in Regent Street.'
Thus inexpensively mounted, we scoured the country together, up the
steepest hills between Stanzstadt and Meiringen. We had lots of nibbles.
One lady in particular often stopped to look on and admire the Manitou.
She was a nice-looking widow of forty-five, very fresh and round-faced;
a Mrs. Evelegh, we soon found out, who owned a charming _chalet_ on the
hills above Lungern. She spoke to us more than once: 'What a perfect
dear of a machine!' she cried. 'I wonder if I dare try it!'
'Can you cycle?' I asked.
'I could once,' she answered. 'I was awfully fond of it. But Dr.
Fortescue-Langley won't let me any longer.'
'Try it!' I said dismounting. She got up and rode. 'Oh, isn't it just
lovely!' she cried ecstatically.
'Buy one!' I put in. 'They're as smooth as silk; they cost only twenty
pounds; and, on every machine I sell, I get five pounds commission.'
'I should love to,' she answered; 'but Dr. Fortescue-Langley----'
'Who is he?' I asked. 'I don't believe in drug-drenchers.'
She looked quite shocked. 'Oh, he's not that kind, you know,' she put
in, breathlessly. 'He's the celebrated esoteric faith-healer. He won't
let me move far away from Lungern, though I'm longing to be off to
England again for the summer. My boy's at Portsmouth.'
'Then, why don't you disobey him?'
Her face was a study. 'I daren't,' she answered in an awe-struck voice.
'He comes here every summer; and he does me _so_ much good, you know. He
diagnoses my inner self. He treats me psychically. When my inner self
goes wrong, my bangle turns dusky.' She held up her right hand with an
Indian silver bangle on it; and sure enough, it was tarnished with a
very thin black deposit. 'My soul is ailing now,' she said in a
comically serious voice. 'But it is seldom so in Switzerland. The moment
I land in England the bangle turns black and remains black till I get
back to Lucerne again.'
When she had gone, I said to Elsie, 'That _is_ odd about the bangle.
State of health might affect it, I suppose. Though it looks to me like a
surface deposit of sulphide.' I knew nothing of chemistry, I admit; but
I had sometimes messed about in the laboratory at college with some of
the other girls; and I remembered now that sulphide of silver was a
blackish-looking body, like the film on the bangle.
However, at the time I thought no more about it.
[Illustration: SHE INVITED ELSIE AND MYSELF TO STOP WITH HER.]
By dint of stopping and talking, we soon got quite intimate with Mrs.
Evelegh. As always happens, I found out I had known some of her cousins
in Edinburgh, where I always spent my holidays while I was at Girton.
She took an interest in what she was kind enough to call my
originality; and before a fortnight was out, our hotel being
uncomfortably crowded, she had invited Elsie and myself to stop with her
at the _chalet_. We went, and found it a delightful little home. Mrs.
Evelegh was charming; but we could see at every turn that Dr.
Fortescue-Langley had acquired a firm hold over her. 'He's so clever,
you know,' she said; 'and so spiritual! He exercises such strong odylic
force. He binds my being together. If he misses a visit, I feel my inner
self goes all to pieces.'
'Does he come often?' I asked, growing interested.
'Oh, dear, no,' she answered. 'I wish he did: it would be ever so good
for me. But he's so much run after; I am but one among many. He lives at
Chateau d'Oex, and comes across to see patients in this district once a
fortnight. It is a privilege to be attended by an intuitive seer like
Dr. Fortescue-Langley.'
Mrs. Evelegh was rich--'left comfortably,' as the phrase goes, but with
a clause which prevented her marrying again without losing her fortune;
and I could gather from various hints that Dr. Fortescue-Langley,
whoever he might be, was bleeding her to some tune, using her soul and
her inner self as his financial lancet. I also noticed that what she
said about the bangle was strictly true; generally bright as a new pin,
on certain mornings it was completely blackened. I had been at the
_chalet_ ten days, however, before I began to suspect the real reason.
Then it dawned upon me one morning in a flash of inspiration. The
evening before had been cold, for at the height where we were perched,
even in August, we often found the temperature chilly in the night, and
I heard Mrs. Evelegh tell Cecile, her maid, to fill the hot-water
bottle. It was a small point, but it somehow went home to me. Next day
the bangle was black, and Mrs. Evelegh lamented that her inner self must
be suffering from an attack of evil vapours.
I held my peace at the time, but I asked Cecile a little later to bring
me that hot-water-bottle. As I more than half suspected, it was made of
india-rubber, wrapped carefully up in the usual red flannel bag. 'Lend
me your brooch, Elsie,' I said. 'I want to try a little experiment.'
'Won't a franc do as well?' Elsie asked, tendering one. 'That's equally
silver.'
'I think not,' I answered. 'A franc is most likely too hard; it has base
metal to alloy it. But I will vary the experiment by trying both
together. Your brooch is Indian and therefore soft silver. The native
jewellers never use alloy. Hand it over; it will clean with a little
plate-powder, if necessary. I'm going to see what blackens Mrs.
Evelegh's bangle.'
I laid the franc and the brooch on the bottle, filled with hot water,
and placed them for warmth in the fold of a blanket. After _dejeuner_,
we inspected them. As I anticipated, the brooch had grown black on the
surface with a thin iridescent layer of silver sulphide, while the franc
had hardly suffered at all from the exposure.
I called in Mrs. Evelegh, and explained what I had done. She was
astonished and half incredulous. 'How could you ever think of it?' she
cried, admiringly.
'Why, I was reading an article yesterday about india-rubber in one of
your magazines,' I answered; 'and the person who wrote it said the raw
gum was hardened for vulcanising by mixing it with sulphur. When I heard
you ask Cecile for the hot-water-bottle, I thought at once: "The sulphur
and the heat account for the tarnishing of Mrs. Evelegh's bangle."'
'And the franc doesn't tarnish! Then that must be why my other silver
bracelet, which is English make, and harder, never changes colour! And
Dr. Fortescue-Langley assured me it was because the soft one was of
Indian metal, and had mystic symbols on it--symbols that answered to the
cardinal moods of my sub-conscious self, and that darkened in sympathy.'
I jumped at a clue. 'He talked about your sub-conscious self?' I broke
in.
'Yes,' she answered. 'He always does. It's the key-note of his system.
He heals by that alone. But, my dear, after this, how can I ever believe
in him?'
'Does he know about the hot-water-bottle?' I asked.
'Oh, yes; he ordered me to use it on certain nights; and when I go to
England he says I must never be without one. I see now that was why my
inner self invariably went wrong in England. It was all just the sulphur
blackening the bangles.'
I reflected. 'A middle-aged man?' I asked. 'Stout, diplomatic-looking,
with wrinkles round his eyes, and a distinguished grey moustache,
twirled up oddly at the corners?'
'That's the man, my dear! His very picture. Where on earth have you seen
him?'
'And he talks of sub-conscious selves?' I went on.
'He practises on that basis. He says it's no use prescribing for the
outer man; to do that is to treat mere symptoms: the sub-conscious self
is the inner seat of diseases.'
'How long has he been in Switzerland?'
'Oh, he comes here every year. He arrived this season late in May, I
fancy.'
'When will he visit you again, Mrs. Evelegh?'
'To-morrow morning.'
I made up my mind at once. 'Then I must see him, without being seen,' I
said. 'I think I know him. He is our Count, I believe.' For I had told
Mrs. Evelegh and Elsie the queer story of my journey from London.
'Impossible, my dear! Im-possible! I have implicit faith in him!'
'Wait and see, Mrs. Evelegh. You acknowledge he duped you over the
affair of the bangle.'
[Illustration: THE COUNT.]
There are two kinds of dupe: one kind, the commonest, goes on believing
in its deceiver, no matter what happens; the other, far rarer, has the
sense to know it has been deceived if you make the deception as clear as
day to it. Mrs. Evelegh was, fortunately, of the rarer class. Next
morning, Dr. Fortescue-Langley arrived, by appointment. As he walked up
the path, I glanced at him from my window. It was the Count, not a doubt
of it. On his way to gull his dupes in Switzerland, he had tried to
throw in an incidental trifle of a diamond robbery.
I telegraphed the facts at once to Lady Georgina, at Schlangenbad. She
answered, 'I am coming. Ask the man to meet his friend on Wednesday.'
Mrs. Evelegh, now almost convinced, invited him. On Wednesday morning,
with a bounce, Lady Georgina burst in upon us. 'My dear, such a
journey!--alone, at my age--but there, I haven't known a happy day since
you left me! Oh, yes, I got my Gretchen--unsophisticated?--
well--h'm--that's not the word for it: I declare to you, Lois, there
isn't a trick of the trade, in Paris or London--not a perquisite or a
tip that that girl isn't up to. Comes straight from the remotest
recesses of the Black Forest, and hadn't been with me a week, I assure
you, honour bright, before she was bandolining her yellow hair, and
rouging her cheeks, and wearing my brooches, and wagering gloves with
the hotel waiters upon the Baden races. _And_ her language: _and_ her
manners! Why weren't you born in that station of life, I wonder, child,
so that I might offer you five hundred a year, and all found, to come
and live with me for ever? But this Gretchen--her fringe, her shoes, her
ribbons--upon my soul, my dear, I don't know what girls are coming to
nowadays.'
'Ask Mrs. Lynn-Linton,' I suggested, as she paused. 'She is a recognised
authority on the subject.'
The Cantankerous Old Lady stared at me. 'And this Count?' she went on.
'So you have really tracked him? You're a wonderful girl, my dear. I
wish you were a lady's maid. You'd be worth me any money.'
I explained how I had come to hear of Dr. Fortescue-Langley.
Lady Georgina waxed warm. 'Dr. Fortescue-Langley!' she exclaimed. 'The
wicked wretch! But he didn't get my diamonds! I've carried them here in
my hands, all the way from Wiesbaden: I wasn't going to leave them for
a single day to the tender mercies of that unspeakable Gretchen. The
fool would lose them. Well, we'll catch him this time, Lois: and we'll
give him ten years for it!'
'Ten years!' Mrs. Evelegh cried, clasping her hands in horror. 'Oh, Lady
Georgina!'
We waited in Mrs. Evelegh's dining-room, the old lady and I, behind the
folding doors. At three precisely Dr. Fortescue-Langley walked in. I had
difficulty in restraining Lady Georgina from falling upon him
prematurely. He talked a lot of high-flown nonsense to Mrs. Evelegh and
Elsie about the influences of the planets, and the seventy-five
emanations, and the eternal wisdom of the East, and the medical efficacy
of sub-conscious suggestion. Excellent patter, all of it--quite as good
in its way as the diplomatic patter he had poured forth in the train to
Lady Georgina. It was rich in spheres, in elements, in cosmic forces. At
last, as he was discussing the reciprocal action of the inner self upon
the exhalations of the lungs, we pushed back the door and walked calmly
in upon him.
His breath came and went. The exhalations of the lungs showed visible
perturbation. He rose and stared at us. For a second he lost his
composure. Then, as bold as brass, he turned, with a cunning smile, to
Mrs. Evelegh. 'Where on earth did you pick up such acquaintances?' he
inquired, in a well-simulated tone of surprise. 'Yes, Lady Georgina, I
have met you before, I admit; but--it can hardly be agreeable to you to
reflect under what circumstances.'
Lady Georgina was beside herself. 'You dare?' she cried, confronting
him. 'You dare to brazen it out? You miserable sneak! But you can't
bluff me now. I have the police outside.' Which I regret to confess was
a light-hearted fiction.
'The police?' he echoed, drawing back. I could see he was frightened.
I had an inspiration again. 'Take off that moustache!' I said, calmly,
in my most commanding voice.
[Illustration: I THOUGHT IT KINDER TO HIM TO REMOVE IT ALTOGETHER.]
He clapped his hand to it in horror. In his agitation, he managed to
pull it a little bit awry. It looked so absurd, hanging there, all
crooked, that I thought it kinder to him to remove it altogether. The
thing peeled off with difficulty; for it was a work of art, very firmly
and gracefully fastened with sticking-plaster. But it peeled off at
last--and with it the whole of the Count's and Dr. Fortescue-Langley's
distinction. The man stood revealed, a very palpable man-servant.
Lady Georgina stared hard at him. 'Where have I seen you before?' she
murmured, slowly. 'That face is familiar to me. Why, yes; you went once
to Italy as Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's courier! I know you now. Your name
is Higginson.'
It was a come-down for the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, but he swallowed
it like a man at a single gulp.
'Yes, my lady,' he said, fingering his hat nervously, now all was up.
'You are quite right, my lady. But what would you have me do? Times are
hard on us couriers. Nobody wants us now. I must take to what I can.' He
assumed once more the tone of the Vienna diplomat. '_Que voulez-vous_,
madame? These are revolutionary days. A man of intelligence must move
with the Zeitgeist!'
Lady Georgina burst into a loud laugh. 'And to think,' she cried, 'that
I talked to this lackey from London to Malines without ever suspecting
him! Higginson, you're a fraud--but you're a precious clever one.'
He bowed. 'I am happy to have merited Lady Georgina Fawley's
commendation,' he answered, with his palm on his heart, in his grandiose
manner.
'But I shall hand you over to the police all the same! You are a thief
and a swindler!'
He assumed a comic expression. 'Unhappily, not a thief,' he objected.
'This young lady prevented me from appropriating your diamonds.
_Convey_, the wise call it. I wanted to take your jewel-case--and she
put me off with a sandwich-tin. I wanted to make an honest penny out of
Mrs. Evelegh; and--she confronts me with your ladyship, and tears my
moustache off.'
Lady Georgina regarded him with a hesitating expression. 'But I shall
call the police,' she said, wavering visibly.
'_De grace_, my lady, _de grace_! Is it worth while, _pour si peu de
chose_? Consider, I have really effected nothing. Will you charge me
with having taken--in error--a small tin sandwich-case--value,
elevenpence? An affair of a week's imprisonment. That is positively all
you can bring up against me. And,' brightening up visibly, 'I have the
case still; I will return it to-morrow with pleasure to your ladyship!'
'But the india-rubber water-bottle?' I put in. 'You have been deceiving
Mrs. Evelegh. It blackens silver. And you told her lies in order to
extort money under false pretences.'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'You are too clever for me, young lady,' he
broke out. 'I have nothing to say to you. But Lady Georgina, Mrs.
Evelegh--you are human--let me go! Reflect; I have things I could tell
that would make both of you look ridiculous. That journey to Malines,
Lady Georgina! Those Indian charms, Mrs. Evelegh! Besides, you have
spoiled my game. Let that suffice you! I can practise in Switzerland no
longer. Allow me to go in peace, and I will try once more to be
indifferent honest!'
[Illustration: INCH BY INCH HE RETREATED.]
He backed slowly towards the door, with his eyes fixed on them. I stood
by and waited. Inch by inch he retreated. Lady Georgina looked down
abstractedly at the carpet. Mrs. Evelegh looked up abstractedly at the
ceiling. Neither spoke another word. The rogue backed out by degrees.
Then he sprang downstairs, and before they could decide was well out
into the open.
Lady Georgina was the first to break the silence. 'After all, my dear,'
she murmured, turning to me, 'there was a deal of sound English
common-sense about Dogberry!'
I remembered then his charge to the watch to apprehend a rogue. 'How if
'a will not stand?'
'Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the
rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.' When
I remembered how Lady Georgina had hob-nobbed with the Count from Ostend
to Malines, I agreed to a great extent both with her and with Dogberry.
V
THE ADVENTURE OF THE IMPROMPTU MOUNTAINEER
The explosion and evaporation of Dr. Fortescue-Langley (with whom were
amalgamated the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, Mr. Higginson the courier,
and whatever else that versatile gentleman chose to call himself)
entailed many results of varying magnitudes.
In the first place, Mrs. Evelegh ordered a Great Manitou. That, however,
mattered little to 'the firm,' as I loved to call us (because it shocked
dear Elsie so); for, of course, after all her kindness we couldn't
accept our commission on her purchase, so that she got her machine cheap
for L15 from the maker. But, in the second place--I declare I am
beginning to write like a woman of business--she decided to run over to
England for the summer to see her boy at Portsmouth, being certain now
that the discoloration of her bangle depended more on the presence of
sulphur in the india-rubber bottle than on the passing state of her
astral body. 'Tis an abrupt descent from the inner self to a hot-water
bottle, I admit; but Mrs. Evelegh took the plunge with grace, like a
sensible woman. Dr. Fortescue-Langley had been annihilated for her at
one blow: she returned forthwith to common-sense and England.
'What will you do with the _chalet_ while you're away?' Lady Georgina
asked, when she announced her intention. 'You can't shut it up to take
care of itself. Every blessed thing in the place will go to rack and
ruin. Shutting up a house means spoiling it for ever. Why, I've got a
cottage of my own that I let for the summer in the best part of
Surrey--a pretty little place, now vacant, for which, by the way, I want
a tenant, if you happen to know of one: and when it's left empty for a
month or two----'
'Perhaps it would do for me?' Mrs. Evelegh suggested, jumping at it.
'I'm looking out for a furnished house for the summer, within easy reach
of Portsmouth and London, for myself and Oliver.'
Lady Georgina seized her arm, with a face of blank horror. 'My dear,'
she cried. 'For you! I wouldn't dream of letting it to you. A nasty,
damp, cold, unwholesome house, on stiff clay soil, with detestable
drains, in the deadliest part of the Weald of Surrey,--why, you and your
boy would catch your deaths of rheumatism.'
'Is it the one I saw advertised in the _Times_ this morning, I wonder?'
Mrs. Evelegh inquired in a placid voice. '"Charming furnished house on
Holmesdale Common; six bedrooms, four reception-rooms; splendid views;
pure air; picturesque surroundings; exceptionally situated." I thought
of writing about it.'
[Illustration: NEVER LEAVE A HOUSE TO THE SERVANTS, MY DEAR!]
'That's it!' Lady Georgina exclaimed, with a demonstrative wave of her
hand. 'I drew up the advertisement myself. Exceptionally situated! I
should just think it was! Why, my dear, I wouldn't let you rent the
place for worlds; a horrid, poky little hole, stuck down in the bottom
of a boggy hollow, as damp as Devonshire, with the paper peeling off the
walls, so that I had to take my choice between giving it up myself ten
years ago, or removing to the cemetery; and I've let it ever since to
City men with large families. Nothing would induce me to allow you and
your boy to expose yourself to such risks.' For Lady Georgina had taken
quite a fancy to Mrs. Evelegh. 'But what I was just going to say was
this: you can't shut your house up; it'll all go mouldy. Houses always
go mouldy, shut up in summer. And you can't leave it to your servants;
_I_ know the baggages; no conscience--no conscience; they'll ask their
entire families to come and stop with them _en bloc_, and turn your
place into a perfect piggery. Why, when I went away from my house in
town one autumn, didn't I leave a policeman and his wife in charge--a
most respectable man--only he happened to be an Irishman. And what was
the consequence? My dear, I assure you, I came back unexpectedly from
poor dear Kynaston's one day--at a moment's notice--having quarrelled
with him over Home Rule or Education or something--poor dear Kynaston's
what they call a Liberal, I believe--got at by that man Rosebery--and
there didn't I find all the O'Flanagans, and O'Flahertys, and O'Flynns
in the neighbourhood camping out in my drawing-room; with a strong
detachment of O'Donohues, and O'Dohertys, and O'Driscolls lying around
loose in possession of the library? Never leave a house to the servants,
my dear! It's positively suicidal. Put in a responsible caretaker of
whom you know something--like Lois here, for instance.'
'Lois!' Mrs. Evelegh echoed. 'Dear me, that's just the very thing. What
a capital idea! I never thought of Lois! She and Elsie might stop on
here, with Ursula and the gardener.'
I protested that if we did it was our clear duty to pay a small rent;
but Mrs. Evelegh brushed that aside. 'You've robbed yourselves over the
bicycle,' she insisted, 'and I'm delighted to let you have it. It's I
who ought to pay, for you'll keep the house dry for me.'
I remembered Mr. Hitchcock--'Mutual advantage: benefits you, benefits
me'--and made no bones about it. So in the end Mrs. Evelegh set off for
England with Cecile, leaving Elsie and me in charge of Ursula, the
gardener, and the _chalet_.
As for Lady Georgina, having by this time completed her 'cure' at
Schlangenbad (complexion as usual; no guinea yellower), she telegraphed
for Gretchen--'I can't do without the idiot'--and hung round Lucerne,
apparently for no other purpose but to send people up the Bruenig on the
hunt for our wonderful new machines, and so put money in our pockets.
She was much amused when I told her that Aunt Susan (who lived, you will
remember, in respectable indigence at Blackheath) had written to
expostulate with me on my 'unladylike' conduct in becoming a bicycle
commission agent. 'Unladylike!--the Cantankerous Old Lady exclaimed,
with warmth. 'What does the woman mean? Has she got no gumption? It's
"ladylike," I suppose, to be a companion, or a governess, or a
music-teacher, or something else in the black-thread-glove way, in
London; but not to sell bicycles for a good round commission. My dear,
between you and me, I don't see it. If you had a brother, now, _he_
might sell cycles, or corner wheat, or rig the share market, or do
anything else he pleased, in these days, and nobody'd think the worse of
him--as long as he made money; and it's my opinion that what is sauce
for the goose can't be far out for the gander--and _vice-versa_. Besides
which, what's the use of _trying_ to be ladylike? You _are_ a lady,
child, and you couldn't help being one; why trouble to be _like_ what
nature made you? Tell Aunt Susan from me to put _that_ in her pipe and
smoke it!'
I _did_ tell Aunt Susan by letter, giving Lady Georgina's authority for
the statement; and I really believe it had a consoling effect upon her;
for Aunt Susan is one of those innocent-minded people who cherish a
profound respect for the opinions and ideas of a Lady of Title.
Especially where questions of delicacy are concerned. It calmed her to
think that though I, an officer's daughter, had declined upon trade, I
was mixing at least with the Best People!