It was all about India Bills, and telegraphic transfers, and selling
cotton short, and holding tight to Egyptian Unified. Markets, it seemed,
were glutted. Hungarians were only to be dealt in if they
hardened--hardened sinners I know, but what are hardened Hungarians? And
fears were not unnaturally expressed that Turks might be 'irregular,'
Consols, it appeared, were certain to give way for political reasons;
but the downward tendency of Australians, I was relieved to learn, for
the honour of so great a group of colonies, could only be temporary.
Greeks were growing decidedly worse, though I had always understood
Greeks were bad enough already; and Argentine Central were likely to be
weak; but Provincials must soon become commendably firm, and if Uruguays
went flat, something good ought to be made out of them. Scotch rails
might shortly be quiet-- I always understood they were based upon
sleepers; but if South-Eastern stiffened, advantage should certainly be
taken of their stiffening. He would telegraph particulars on Monday
morning. And so on till my brain reeled. Oh, artistic Florence! was
_this_ the Filippo Lippi, the Michael Angelo I dreamed of?
At the end of the hour, the Urbane Old Gentleman rose urbanely. He drew
on his gloves again with the greatest deliberation, and hunted for his
stick as if his life depended upon it. 'Let me see; I had a pencil; oh,
thanks; yes, that is it. This cover protects the point. My hat? Ah,
certainly. And my notes; much obliged; notes _always_ get mislaid.
People are so careless. Then I will come again to-morrow; the same hour,
if you will kindly keep yourself disengaged. Though, excuse me, you had
better make an entry of it at once upon your agenda.'
'I shall remember it,' I answered, smiling.
'No; will you? But you haven't my name.'
'I know it,' I answered. 'At least, I think so. You are Mr. Marmaduke
Ashurst. Lady Georgina Fawley sent you here.'
He laid down his hat and gloves again, so as to regard me more
undistracted. 'You are a most remarkable young lady,' he said, in a very
slow voice. 'I impressed upon Georgina that she must not mention to you
that I was coming. How on earth did you recognise me?'
'Intuition, most likely.'
He stared at me with a sort of suspicion. '_Please_ don't tell me you
think me like my sister,' he went on. 'For though, of course, every
right-minded man feels--ur--a natural respect and affection for the
members his family--bows, if I may so say, to the inscrutable decrees of
Providence--which has mysteriously burdened him with them--still, there
_are_ points about Lady Georgina which I cannot conscientiously assert I
approve of.'
I remembered 'Marmy's a fool,' and held my tongue judiciously.
'I do not resemble her, I hope,' he persisted, with a look which I could
almost describe as wistful.
'A family likeness, perhaps,' I put in. 'Family likenesses exist, you
know--often with complete divergence of tastes and character.'
He looked relieved. 'That is true. Oh, how true! But the likeness in my
case, I must admit, escapes me.'
I temporised. 'Strangers see these things most,' I said, airing the
stock platitudes. 'It may be superficial. And, of course, one knows that
profound differences of intellect and moral feeling often occur within
the limits of a single family.'
'You are quite right,' he said, with decision. 'Georgina's principles
are not mine. Excuse my remarking it, but you seem to be a young lady of
unusual penetration.'
I saw he took my remark as a compliment. What I really meant to say was
that a commonplace man might easily be brother to so clever a woman as
Lady Georgina.
[Illustration: HE BOWED TO US EACH SEPARATELY.]
He gathered up his hat, his stick, his gloves, his notes, and his
typewritten letters, one by one, and backed out politely. He was a
punctilious millionaire. He had risen by urbanity to his brother
directors, like a model guinea-pig. He bowed to us each separately as if
we had been duchesses.
As soon as he was gone, Elsie turned to me. 'Brownie, how on earth did
you guess it? They're so awfully different!'
'Not at all,' I answered. 'A few surface unlikenesses only just mask an
underlying identity. Their features are the same; but his are plump;
hers, shrunken. Lady Georgina's expression is sharp and worldly; Mr.
Ashurst's is smooth, and bland, and financial. And then their manner!
Both are fussy; but Lady Georgina's is honest, open, ill-tempered
fussiness; Mr. Ashurst's is concealed under an artificial mask of
obsequious politeness. One's cantankerous; the other's only pernicketty.
It's one tune, after all, in two different keys.'
From that day forth, the Urbane Old Gentleman was a daily visitor. He
took an hour at a time at first; but after a few days, the hour
lengthened out (apologetically) to an entire morning. He 'presumed to
ask' my Christian name the second day, and remembered my father--'a man
of excellent principles.' But he didn't care for Elsie to work for him.
Fortunately for her, other work dropped in, once we had found a client,
or else, poor girl, she would have felt sadly slighted. I was glad she
had something to do; the sense of dependence weighed heavily upon her.
The Urbane Old Gentleman did not confine himself entirely, after the
first few days, to Stock Exchange literature. He was engaged on a
Work--he spoke of it always with bated breath, and a capital letter was
implied in his intonation; the Work was one on the Interpretation of
Prophecy. Unlike Lady Georgina, who was tart and crisp, Mr. Marmaduke
Ashurst was devout and decorous; where she said 'pack of fools,' he
talked with unction of 'the mental deficiencies of our poorer brethren.'
But his religious opinions and his stockbroking had got strangely mixed
up at the wash somehow. He was convinced that the British nation
represented the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel--and in particular Ephraim--a
matter on which, as a mere lay-woman, I would not presume either to
agree with him or to differ from him. 'That being so, Miss Cayley, we
can easily understand that the existing commercial prosperity of England
depends upon the promises made to Abraham.'
I assented, without committing myself. 'It would seem to follow.'
Mr. Ashurst, encouraged by so much assent, went on to unfold his System
of Interpretation, which was of a strictly commercial or
company-promoting character. It ran like a prospectus. 'We have
inherited the gold of Australia and the diamonds of the Cape,' he said,
growing didactic, and lifting one fat forefinger; 'we are now inheriting
Klondike and the Rand, for it is morally certain that we shall annex the
Transvaal. Again, "the chief things of the ancient mountains, and the
precious things of the everlasting hills." What does that mean? The
ancient mountains are clearly the Rockies; can the everlasting hills be
anything but the Himalayas? "For they shall suck of the abundance of the
seas"--that refers, of course, to our world-wide commerce, due mainly to
imports--"and of the treasures hid in the sand." Which sand?
Undoubtedly, I say, the desert of Mount Sinai. What then is our obvious
destiny? A lady of your intelligence must gather at once that it
is----?' He paused and gazed at me.
'To drive the Sultan out of Syria,' I suggested tentatively, 'and to
annex Palestine to our practical province of Egypt?'
He leaned back in his chair and folded his fat hands in undisguised
satisfaction. 'Now, you are a thinker of exceptional penetration,' he
broke out. 'Do you know, Miss Cayley, I have tried to make that point
clear to the War Office, and the Prime Minister, and many leading
financiers in the City of London, and I _can't_ get them to see it. They
have no heads, those people. But _you_ catch at it at a glance. Why, I
endeavoured to interest Rothschild and induce him to join me in my
Palestine Development Syndicate, and, will you believe it, the man
refused point blank. Though if he had only looked at Nahum iii. 17----'
'Mere financiers,' I said, smiling, 'will not consider these questions
from a historical and prophetic point of view. They see nothing above
percentages.'
'That's it,' he replied, lighting up. 'They have no higher feelings.
Though, mind you, there will be dividends too; mark my words, there will
be dividends. This syndicate, besides fulfilling the prophecies, will
pay forty per cent on every penny embarked in it.'
'Only forty per cent for Ephraim!' I murmured, half below my breath.
'Why, Judah is said to batten upon sixty.'
He caught at it eagerly, without perceiving my gentle sarcasm.
'In that case, we might even expect seventy,' he put in with a gasp of
anticipation. 'Though I approached Rothschild first with my scheme on
purpose, so that Israel and Judah might once more unite in sharing the
promises.'
'Your combined generosity and commercial instinct does you credit,' I
answered. 'It is rare to find so much love for an abstract study side by
side with such conspicuous financial ability.'
His guilelessness was beyond words. He swallowed it like an infant. 'So
I think,' he answered. 'I am glad to observe that you understand my
character. Mere City men don't. They have no soul above shekels. Though,
as I show them, there are shekels in it, too. Dividends, dividends,
di-vidends. But _you_ are a lady of understanding and comprehension. You
have been to Girton, haven't you? Perhaps you read Greek, then?'
'Enough to get on with.'
'Could you look things up in Herodotus?'
'Certainly?'
'In the original?'
'Oh, dear, yes.'
He regarded me once more with the same astonished glance. His own
classics, I soon learnt, were limited to the amount which a public
school succeeds in dinning, during the intervals of cricket and football
into an English gentleman. Then he informed me that he wished me to hunt
up certain facts in Herodotus "and elsewhere" confirmatory of his view
that the English were the descendants of the Ten Tribes. I promised to
do so, swallowing even that comprehensive "elsewhere." It was none of my
business to believe or disbelieve: I was paid to get up a case, and I
got one up to the best of my ability. I imagine it was at least as good
as most other cases in similar matters: at any rate, it pleased the old
gentleman vastly.
By dint of listening, I began to like him. But Elsie couldn't bear him.
She hated the fat crease at the back of his neck, she told me.
After a week or two devoted to the Interpretation of Prophecy on a
strictly commercial basis of Founders' Shares, with interludes of mining
engineers' reports upon the rubies of Mount Sinai and the supposed
auriferous quartzites of Palestine, the Urbane Old Gentleman trotted
down to the office one day, carrying a packet of notes of most
voluminous magnitude. "Can we work in a room alone this morning, Miss
Cayley?" he asked, with mystery in his voice: he was always mysterious.
"I want to intrust you with a piece of work of an exceptionally private
and confidential character. It concerns Property. In point of fact," he
dropped his voice to a whisper. "I want you to draw up my will for me."
"Certainly," I said, opening the door into the back office. But I
trembled in my shoes. Could this mean that he was going to draw up a
will, disinheriting Harold Tillington?
And, suppose he did, what then? My heart was in a tumult. If Harold were
rich--well and good, I could never marry him. But, if Harold were poor--
I must keep my promise. Could I wish him to be rich? Could I wish him to
be poor? My heart stood divided two ways within me.
The Urbane Old Gentleman began with immense deliberation, as befits a
man of principle when Property is at stake. 'You will kindly take down
notes from my dictation,' he said, fussing with his papers; 'and
afterwards, I will ask you to be so good as to copy it all out fair on
your typewriter for signature.'
'Is a typewritten form legal?' I ventured to inquire.
'A most perspicacious young lady!' he interjected, well pleased. 'I have
investigated that point, and find it perfectly regular. Only, if I may
venture to say so, there should be no erasures.'
'There shall be none,' I answered.
The Urbane Old Gentleman leant back in his easy chair, and began
dictating from his notes with tantalising deliberateness. This was the
last will and testament of him, Marmaduke Courtney Ashurst. Its verbiage
wearied me. I was eager for him to come to the point about Harold.
Instead of that, he did what it seems is usual in such cases--set out
with a number of unimportant legacies to old family servants and other
hangers-on among 'our poorer brethren.' I fumed and fretted inwardly.
Next came a series of quaint bequests of a quite novel character. 'I
give and bequeath to James Walsh and Sons, of 720 High Holborn, London,
the sum of Five Hundred Pounds, in consideration of the benefit they
have conferred upon humanity by the invention of a sugar-spoon or silver
sugar-sifter, by means of which it is possible to dust sugar upon a
tart or pudding without letting the whole or the greater part of the
material run through the apertures uselessly in transit. You must have
observed, Miss Cayley--with your usual perspicacity--that most
sugar-sifters allow the sugar to fall through them on to the table
prematurely.'
'I have noticed it,' I answered, trembling with anxiety.
'James Walsh and Sons, acting on a hint from me, have succeeded in
inventing a form of spoon which does not possess that regrettable
drawback. "Run through the apertures uselessly in transit," I think I
said last. Yes, thank you. Very good. We will now continue. And I give
and bequeath the like sum of Five Hundred Pounds--did I say, free of
legacy duty? No? Then please add it to James Walsh's clause. Five
Hundred Pounds, free of legacy duty, to Thomas Webster Jones, of Wheeler
Street, Soho, for his admirable invention of a pair of braces which will
not slip down on the wearer's shoulders after half an hour's use. Most
braces, you must have observed, Miss Cayley----'
'My acquaintance with braces is limited, not to say abstract,' I
interposed, smiling.
He gazed at me, and twirled his fat thumbs.
'_Of_ course,' he murmured. '_Of_ course. But most braces, you may not
be aware, slip down unpleasantly on the shoulder-blade, and so lead to
an awkward habit of hitching them up by the sleeve-hole of the waistcoat
at frequent intervals. Such a habit must be felt to be ungraceful.
Thomas Webster Jones, to whom I pointed out this error of manufacture,
has invented a brace the two halves of which diverge at a higher angle
than usual, and fasten further towards the centre of the body in
front--pardon these details--so as to obviate that difficulty. He has
given me satisfaction, and he deserves to be rewarded.'
I heard through it all the voice of Lady Georgina observing, tartly,
'Why the idiots can't make braces to fit one at first passes _my_
comprehension. But, there, my dear; the people who manufacture them are
a set of born fools, and what can you expect from an imbecile?' Mr.
Ashurst was Lady Georgina, veneered with a thin layer of ingratiating
urbanity. Lady Georgina was clever, and therefore acrimonious. Mr.
Ashurst was astute, and therefore obsequious.
He went on with legacies to the inventor of a sauce-bottle which did not
let the last drop dribble down so as to spot the table-cloth; of a
shoe-horn the handle of which did not come undone; and of a pair of
sleeve-links which you could put off and on without injury to the
temper. 'A real benefactor, Miss Cayley; a real benefactor to the
link-wearing classes; for he has sensibly diminished the average annual
output of profane swearing.'
When he left Five Hundred Pounds to his faithful servant Frederic
Higginson, courier, I was tempted to interpose; but I refrained in time,
and I was glad of it afterwards.
At last, after many divagations, my Urbane Old Gentleman arrived at the
central point--'and I give and bequeath to my nephew, Harold Ashurst
Tillington, Younger of Gledcliffe, Dumfriesshire, attache to Her
Majesty's Embassy at Rome----'
[Illustration: I WAITED BREATHLESS.]
I waited, breathless.
He was annoyingly dilatory. 'My house and estate of Ashurst Court, in
the County of Gloucester, and my town house at 24 Park Lane North, in
London, together with the residue of all my estate, real or
personal----' and so forth.
I breathed again. At least, I had not been called upon to disinherit
Harold.
'Provided always----' he went on, in the same voice.
I wondered what was coming.
'Provided always that the said Harold Ashurst Tillington does not
marry----leave a blank there, Miss Cayley. I will find out the name of
the young person I desire to exclude, and fill it in afterward. I don't
recollect it at this moment, but Higginson, no doubt, will be able to
supply the deficiency. In fact, I don't think I ever heard it; though
Higginson has told me all about the woman.'
'Higginson?' I inquired. 'Is he here?'
'Oh, dear, yes. You heard of him, I suppose, from Georgina. Georgina is
prejudiced. He has come back to me, I am glad to say. An excellent
servant, Higginson, though a trifle too omniscient. All men are equal in
the eyes of their Maker, of course; but we must have due subordination.
A courier ought not to be better informed than his master--or ought at
least to conceal the fact dexterously. Well, Higginson knows this young
person's name; my sister wrote to me about her disgraceful conduct when
she first went to Schlangenbad. An adventuress, it seems; an
adventuress; quite a shocking creature. Foisted herself upon Lady
Georgina in Kensington Gardens--unintroduced, if you can believe such a
thing--with the most astonishing effrontery; and Georgina, who will
forgive anything on earth, for the sake of what she calls
originality--another name for impudence, as I am sure you must
know--took the young woman with her as her maid to Germany. There, this
minx tried to set her cap at my nephew Harold, who can be caught at once
by a pretty face; and Harold was bowled over--almost got engaged to her.
Georgina took a fancy to the girl later, having a taste for dubious
people (I cannot say I approve of Georgina's friends), and wrote again
to say her first suspicions were unfounded: the young woman was in
reality a paragon of virtue. But _I_ know better than that. Georgina has
no judgment. I regret to be obliged to confess it, but cleverness, I
fear, is the only thing in the world my excellent sister cares for. The
hussy, it seems, was certainly clever. Higginson has told me about her.
He says her bare appearance would suffice to condemn her--a bold, fast,
shameless, brazen-faced creature. But you will forgive me, I am sure, my
dear young lady: I ought not to discuss such painted Jezebels before
you. We will leave this person's name blank. I will not sully your
pen--I mean, your typewriter--by asking you to transcribe it.'
I made up my mind at once. 'Mr. Ashurst,' I said, looking up from my
keyboard, '_I_ can give you this girl's name; and then you can insert
the proviso immediately.'
'_You_ can? My dear young lady, what a wonderful person you are! You
seem to know everybody, and everything. But perhaps she was at
Schlangenbad with Lady Georgina, and you were there also?'
'She was,' I answered, deliberately. 'The name you want is--Lois
Cayley!'
He let his notes drop in his astonishment.
I went on with my typewriting, unmoved. 'Provided always that the said
Harold Ashurst Tillington does not marry Lois Cayley; in which case I
will and desire that the said estate shall pass to----whom shall I put
in, Mr. Ashurst?'
He leant forward with his fat hands on his ample knees. 'It was really
_you_?' he inquired, open-mouthed.
I nodded. 'There is no use in denying the truth. Mr. Tillington did ask
me to be his wife, and I refused him.'
'But, my dear Miss Cayley----'
'The difference in station?' I said; 'the difference, still greater, in
this world's goods? Yes, I know. I admit all that. So I declined his
offer. I did not wish to ruin his prospects.'
The Urbane Old Gentleman eyed me with a sudden tenderness in his glance.
'Young men are lucky,' he said, slowly, after a short pause; '--and--
Higginson is an idiot. I say it deliberately--an idiot! How could one
dream of trusting the judgment of a flunkey about a lady? My dear,
excuse the familiarity from one who may consider himself in a certain
sense a contingent uncle--suppose we amend the last clause by the
omission of the word _not_. It strikes me as superfluous. "Provided
always the said Harold Ashurst Tillington consents to marry"-- I think
that sounds better!'
He looked at me with such fatherly regard that it pricked my heart ever
to have poked fun at his Interpretation of Prophecy on Stock Exchange
principles. I think I flushed crimson. 'No, no,' I answered, firmly.
'That will not do either, please. That's worse than the other way. You
must not put it, Mr. Ashurst. I could not consent to be willed away to
anybody.'
He leant forward, with real earnestness. 'My dear,' he said, 'that's not
the point. Pardon my reminding you that you are here in your capacity as
my amanuensis. I am drawing up my will, and if you will allow me to say
so, I cannot admit that anyone has a claim to influence me in the
disposition of my Property.'
'_Please!_' I cried, pleadingly.
He looked at me and paused. 'Well,' he went on at last, after a long
interval; 'since _you_ insist upon it, I will leave the bequest to stand
without condition.'
'Thank you,' I murmured, bending low over my machine.'
'If I did as I like, though,' he went on, 'I should say, Unless he
marries Miss Lois Cayley (who is a deal too good for him) the estate
shall revert to Kynaston's eldest son, a confounded jackass. I do not
usually indulge in intemperate language; but I desire to assure you,
with the utmost calmness, that Kynaston's eldest son, Lord Southminster,
is a con-founded jackass.'
I rose and took his hand in my own spontaneously. 'Mr. Ashurst,' I said,
'you may interpret prophecy as long as ever you like, but you are a dear
kind old gentleman. I am truly grateful to you for your good opinion.
'And you will marry Harold?'
'Never,' I answered; 'while he is rich. I have said as much to him.'
'That's hard,' he went on, slowly. 'For ... I should like to be your
uncle.'
I trembled all over. Elsie saved the situation by bursting in abruptly.
I will only add that when Mr. Ashurst left, I copied the will out
neatly, without erasures. The rough original I threw (somewhat
carelessly) into the waste-paper basket.
That afternoon, somebody called to fetch the fair copy for Mr. Ashurst.
I went out into the front office to see him. To my surprise, it was
Higginson--in his guise as courier.
[Illustration: WHAT, YOU HERE! HE CRIED.]
He was as astonished as myself. 'What, _you_ here!' he cried. 'You dog
me!'
'I was thinking the same thing of you, M. le Comte,' I answered,
curtsying.
He made no attempt at an excuse. 'Well, I have been sent for the will,'
he broke out, curtly.
'And you were sent for the jewel-case,' I retorted. 'No, no, Dr.
Fortescue-Langley; _I_ am in charge of the will, and I will take it
myself to Mr. Ashurst.'
'I will be even with you yet,' he snapped out. 'I have gone back to my
old trade, and am trying to lead an honest life; but _you_ won't let
me.'
'On the contrary,' I answered, smiling a polite smile. 'I rejoice to
hear it. If you say nothing more against me to your employer, I will not
disclose to him what I know about you. But if you slander me, I will. So
now we understand one another.'
And I kept the will till I could give it myself into Mr Ashurst's own
hands in his rooms that evening.
VII
THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNOBTRUSIVE OASIS
I will not attempt to describe to you the minor episodes of our next
twelve months--the manuscripts we type-wrote and the Manitous we sold.
'Tis one of my aims in a world so rich in bores to avoid being tedious.
I will merely say, therefore, that we spent the greater part of the year
in Florence, where we were building up a connection, but rode back for
the summer months to Switzerland, as being a livelier place for the
trade in bicycles. The net result was not only that we covered our
expenses, but that, as chancellor of the exchequer, I found myself with
a surplus in hand at the end of the season.
When we returned to Florence for the winter, however, I confess I began
to chafe. 'This is slow work, Elsie!' I said. 'I started out to go round
the world; it has taken me eighteen months to travel no further than
Italy! At this rate, I shall reach New York a gray-haired old lady, in a
nice lace cap, and totter back into London a venerable crone on the
verge of ninety.'