possible points of view on the matter. He might desire, for example,
that Harold should marry me, under the impression that his marriage with
a penniless outsider would annoy his uncle; for the pea-green young man
doubtless thought that I was still to Mr. Ashurst just that dreadful
adventuress. If so, his obvious cue would be to promote a good
understanding between Harold and myself, in order to make us marry, so
that the urbane old gentlemen might then disinherit his favourite
nephew, and make a new will in Lord Southminster's interest. Or again,
the pea-green young man might, on the contrary, be aware that Mr.
Ashurst and I had got on admirably together when we met at Florence; in
which case his aim would naturally be to find out something that might
set the rich uncle against me. Yet once more, he might merely have heard
that I had drawn up Uncle Marmaduke's will at the office, and he might
desire to worm the contents of it out of me. Whichever was his design, I
resolved to be upon my guard in every word I said to him, and leave no
door open to any trickery either way. For of one thing I felt sure, that
the colourless young man had torn himself away from the mud-honey of
Piccadilly for this voyage to India only because he had heard there was
a chance of meeting me.
That was a politic move, whoever planned it--himself or Higginson; for a
week on board ship with a person or persons is the very best chance of
getting thrown in with them; whether they like it or lump it, they can't
easily avoid you.
It was while I was pondering these things in my mind, and resolving with
myself not to give myself away, that the young man with the pea-green
face lounged in and dropped into the next seat to me. He was dressed
(amongst other things) in a dinner jacket and a white tie; for myself, I
detest such fopperies on board ship; they seem to me out of place; they
conflict with the infinite possibilities of the situation. One stands
too near the realities of things. Evening dress and _mal-de-mer_ sort
ill together.
[Illustration: HE TURNED TO ME WITH AN INANE SMILE.]
As my neighbour sat down, he turned to me with an inane smile which
occupied all his face. 'Good evening,' he said, in a baronial drawl.
'Miss Cayley, I gathah? I asked the skippah's leave to set next yah. We
ought to be friends--rathah. I think yah know my poor deah old aunt,
Lady Georgina Fawley.'
I bowed a somewhat, freezing bow. 'Lady Georgina is one of my dearest
friends,' I answered.
'No, really? Poor deah old Georgey! Got somebody to stick up for her at
last, has she? Now that's what I call chivalrous of yah. Magnanimous,
isn't it? I like to see people stick up for their friends. And it must
be a novelty for Georgey. For between you and me, a moah cantankerous
spiteful acidulated old cough-drop than the poor deah soul it 'ud be
difficult to hit upon.'
'Lady Georgina has brains,' I answered; 'and they enable her to
recognise a fool when she sees him. I will admit that she does not
suffer fools gladly.'
He turned to me with a sudden sharp look in the depths of the
lack-lustre eyes. Already it began to strike me that, though the
pea-green young man was inane, he had his due proportion of a certain
insidious practical cunning. 'That's true,' he answered, measuring me.
'And according to her, almost everybody's a fool--especially her
relations. There's a fine knack of sweeping generalisation about deah
skinny old Georgey. The few people she reahlly likes are all archangels;
the rest are blithering idiots; there's no middle course with her.'
I held my peace frigidly.
'She thinks me a very special and peculiah fool,' he went on, crumbling
his bread.
'Lady Georgina,' I answered, 'is a person of exceptional discrimination.
I would almost always accept her judgment on anyone as practically
final.'
He laid down his soup-spoon, fondled the imperceptible moustache with
his tapering fingers, and then broke once more into a cheerful expanse
of smile which reminded me of nothing so much as of the village idiot.
It spread over his face as the splash from a stone spreads over a
mill-pond. 'Now that's a nice cheerful sort of thing to say to a
fellah,' he ejaculated, fixing his eye-glass in his eye, with a few
fierce contortions of his facial muscles. 'That's encouraging, don't yah
know, as the foundation of an acquaintance. Makes a good cornah-stone.
Calculated to place things at once upon what yah call a friendly basis.
Georgey said you had a pretty wit; I see now why she admiahed it. Birds
of a feathah: very wise old proverb.'
I reflected that, after all, this young man had nothing overt against
him, beyond a fishy blue eye and an inane expression; so, feeling that I
had perhaps gone a little too far, I continued after a minute, 'And your
uncle, how is he?'
'Marmy?' he inquired, with another elephantine smile; and then I
perceived it was a form of humour with him (or rather, a cheap
substitute) to speak of his elder relations by their abbreviated
Christian names, without any prefix. 'Marmy's doing very well, thank
yah; as well as could be expected. In fact, bettah. Habakkuk on the
brain: it's carrying him off at last. He has Bright's disease very
bad--drank port, don't yah know--and won't trouble this wicked world
much longah with his presence. It will be a happy release--especially
for his nephews.'
I was really grieved, for I had grown to like the urbane old gentleman,
as I had grown to like the cantankerous old lady. In spite of his
fussiness and his Stock Exchange views on the interpretation of
Scripture, his genuine kindliness and his real liking for me had
softened my heart to him; and my face must have shown my distress, for
the pea-green young man added quickly with an afterthought: 'But _you_
needn't be afraid, yah know. It's all right for Harold Tillington. You
ought to know that as well as anyone--and bettah: for it was you who
drew up his will for him at Florence.'
I flushed crimson, I believe. Then he knew all about me! 'I was not
asking on Mr. Tillington's account,' I answered. 'I asked because I have
a personal feeling of friendship for your uncle, Mr. Ashurst.'
His hand strayed up to the straggling yellow hairs on his upper lip once
more, and he smiled again, this time with a curious undercurrent of
foolish craftiness. 'That's a good one,' he answered. 'Georgey told me
you were original. Marmy's a millionaire, and many people love
millionaires for their money. But to love Marmy for himself-- I do call
that originality! Why, weight for age, he's acknowledged to be the most
portentous old boah in London society!'
'I like Mr. Ashurst because he has a kind heart and some genuine
instincts,' I answered. 'He has not allowed all human feeling to be
replaced by a cheap mask of Pall Mall cynicism.'
'Oh, I say; how's that for preaching? Don't you manage to give it hot to
a fellah, neithah! And at sight, too, without the usual three days of
grace. Have some of my champagne? I'm a forgiving creachah.'
'No, thank you. I prefer this hock.'
'Your friend, then?' And he motioned the steward to pass the bottle.
To my great disgust, Elsie held out her glass. I was annoyed at that. It
showed she had missed the drift of our conversation, and was therefore
lacking in feminine intuition. I should be sorry if I had allowed the
higher mathematics to kill out in me the most distinctively womanly
faculty.
From that first day forth, however, in spite of this beginning, Lord
Southminster almost persecuted me with his persistent attentions. He
did all a fellah could possibly do to please me. I could not make out
precisely what he was driving at; but I saw he had some artful game of
his own to play, and that he was playing it subtly. I also saw that,
vapid as he was, his vapidity did not prevent him from being worldly
wise with the wisdom of the self-seeking man of the world, who utterly
distrusts and disbelieves in all the higher emotions of humanity. He
harped so often on this string that on our second day out, as we lolled
on deck in the heat, I had to rebuke him sharply. He had been sneering
for some hours. 'There are two kinds of silly simplicity, Lord
Southminster,' I said, at last. 'One kind is the silly simplicity of the
rustic who trusts everybody; the other kind is the silly simplicity of
the Pall Mall clubman who trusts nobody. It is just as foolish and just
as one-sided to overlook the good as to overlook the evil in humanity.
If you trust everyone, you are likely to be taken in; but if you trust
no one, you put yourself at a serious practical disadvantage, besides
losing half the joy of living.'
'Then you think me a fool, like Georgey?' he broke out.
'I should never be rude enough to say so,' I answered, fanning myself.
'Well, you're what I call a first-rate companion for a voyage down the
Red Sea,' he put in, gazing abstractedly at the awnings. 'Such a lovely
freezing mixture! A fellah doesn't need ices when _you're_ on tap. I
recommend you as a refrigeratah.'
'I am glad,' I answered demurely, 'if I have secured your approbation in
that humble capacity. I'm sure I have tried hard for it.'
[Illustration: NOTHING SEEMED TO PUT THE MAN DOWN.]
Yet nothing that I could say seemed to put the man down. In spite of
rebuffs, he was assiduous in running down the companion-ladder for my
parasol or my smelling-bottle; he fetched me chairs; he stayed me with
cushions; he offered to lend me books; he pestered me to drink his wine;
and he kept Elsie in champagne, which she annoyed me by accepting. Poor
dear Elsie clearly failed to understand the creature. 'He's so kind and
polite, Brownie, isn't he?' she would observe in her simple fashion. 'Do
you know, I think he's taken quite a fancy to you! And he'll be an earl
by-and-by. I call it romantic. How lovely it would seem, dear, to see
you a countess.'
'Elsie,' I said severely, with one hand on her arm, 'you are a dear
little soul, and I am very fond of you; but if you think I could sell
myself for a coronet to a pasty-faced young man with a pea-green
complexion and glassy blue eyes--I can only say, my child, you have
misread my character. He isn't a man: he's a lump of putty!'
I think Elsie was quite shocked that I should apply these terms to a
courtesy lord, the eldest son of a peer. Nature had endowed her with the
profound British belief that peers should be spoken of in choice and
peculiar language. 'If a peer's a fool,' Lady Georgina said once to me,
'people think you should say his temperament does not fit him for the
conduct of affairs: if he's a roue or a drunkard, they think you should
say he has unfortunate weaknesses.'
What most of all convinced me, however, that the wishy-washy young man
with the pea-green complexion must be playing some stealthy game, was
the demeanour and mental attitude of Mr. Higginson, his courier. After
the first day, Higginson appeared to be politeness and deference itself
to us. He behaved to us both, _almost_ as if we belonged to the titled
classes. He treated us with the second best of his twenty-seven
graduated manners. He fetched and carried for us with a courtly grace
which recalled that distinguished diplomat, the Comte de
Laroche-sur-Loiret, at the station at Malines with Lady Georgina. It is
true, at his politest moments, I often caught the undercurrent of a
wicked twinkle in his eye, and felt sure he was doing it all with some
profound motive. But his external demeanour was everything that one
could desire from a well-trained man-servant; I could hardly believe it
was the same man who had growled to me at Florence, 'I shall be even
with you yet,' as he left our office.
'Do you know, Brownie,' Elsie mused once, 'I really begin to think we
must have misjudged Higginson. He's so extremely polite. Perhaps, after
all, he is really a count, who has been exiled and impoverished for his
political opinions.'
I smiled and held my tongue. Silence costs nothing. But Mr. Higginson's
political opinions, I felt sure, were of that simple communistic sort
which the law in its blunt way calls fraudulent. They consisted in a
belief that all was his which he could lay his hands on.
'Higginson's a splendid fellah for his place, yah know, Miss Cayley,'
Lord Southminster said to me one evening as we were approaching Aden.
'What I like about him is, he's so doosid intelligent.'
'Extremely so,' I answered. Then the devil entered into me again. 'He
had the doosid intelligence even to take in Lady Georgina.'
'Yaas; that's just it, don't you know. Georgey told me that story.
Screamingly funny, wasn't it? And I said to myself at once, "Higginson's
the man for me. I want a courier with jolly lots of brains and no
blooming scruples. I'll entice this chap away from Marmy." And I did. I
outbid Marmy. Oh, yaas, he's a first-rate fellah, Higginson. What _I_
want is a man who will do what he's told, and ask no beastly unpleasant
questions. Higginson's that man. He's as sharp as a ferret.'
'And as dishonest as they make them.'
He opened his hands with a gesture of unconcern. 'All the bettah for my
purpose. See how frank I am, Miss Cayley. I tell the truth. The truth is
very rare. You ought to respect me for it.'
'It depends somewhat upon the _kind_ of truth,' I answered, with a
random shot. 'I don't respect a man, for instance, for confessing to a
forgery.'
He winced. Not for months after did I know how a stone thrown at a
venture had chanced to hit the spot, and had vastly enhanced his opinion
of my cleverness.
'You have heard about Dr. Fortescue-Langley too, I suppose?' I went on.
'Oh, yaas. Wasn't it real jam? He did the doctor-trick on a lady in
Switzerland. And the way he has come it ovah deah simple old Marmy! He
played Marmy with Ezekiel! Not so dusty, was it? He's too lovely for
anything!'
'He's an edged tool,' I said.
'Yaas; that's why I use him.'
'And edged tools may cut the user's fingers.'
[Illustration: YAH DON'T CATCH ME GOING SO FAH FROM NEWMARKET.]
'Not mine,' he answered, taking out a cigarette. 'Oh deah no. He can't
turn against _me_. He wouldn't dare to. Yah see, I have the fellah
entirely in my powah. I know all his little games, and I can expose him
any day. But it suits me to keep him. I don't mind telling yah, since I
respect your intellect, that he and I are engaged in pulling off a big
_coup_ togethah. If it were not for that, I wouldn't be heah. Yah don't
catch me going away so fah from Newmarket and the Empire for nothing.'
'I judged as much,' I answered. And then I was silent.
But I wondered to myself why the neutral-tinted young man should be so
communicative to an obviously hostile stranger.
For the next few days it amused me to see how hard our lordling tried to
suit his conversation to myself and Elsie. He was absurdly anxious to
humour us. Just at first, it is true, he had discussed the subjects that
lay nearest to his own heart. He was an ardent votary of the noble
quadruped; and he loved the turf--whose sward, we judged, he trod mainly
at Tattersall's. He spoke to us with erudition on 'two-year-old form,'
and gave us several 'safe things' for the spring handicaps. The Oaks he
considered 'a moral' for Clorinda. He also retailed certain choice
anecdotes about ladies whose Christian names were chiefly Tottie and
Flo, and whose honoured surnames have escaped my memory. Most of them
flourished, I recollect, at the Frivolity Music Hall. But when he
learned that our interest in the noble quadruped was scarcely more than
tepid, and that we had never even visited 'the Friv.,' as he
affectionately called it, he did his best in turn to acquire our
subjects. He had heard us talk about Florence, for example, and he
gathered from our talk that we loved its art treasures. So he set
himself to work to be studiously artistic. It was a beautiful study in
human ineptitude. 'Ah, yaas,' he, murmured, turning up the pale blue
eyes ecstatically towards the mast-head. 'Chawming place, Florence! I
dote on the pickchahs. I know them all by heart. I assuah yah, I've
spent houahs and houahs feeding my soul in the galleries.'
'And what particular painter does your soul most feed upon?' I asked
bluntly, with a smile.
The question staggered him. I could see him hunting through the vacant
chambers of his brain for a Florentine painter. Then a faint light
gleamed in the leaden eyes, and he fingered the straw-coloured moustache
with that nervous hand till he almost put a visible point upon it. 'Ah,
Raphael?' he said, tentatively, with an inquiring air, yet beaming at
his success. 'Don't you think so? Splendid artist, Raphael!'
'And a very safe guess,' I answered, leading him on. 'You can't go far
wrong in mentioning Raphael, can you? But after him?'
He dived into the recesses of his memory again, peered about him for a
minute or two, and brought back nothing. 'I can't remembah the othah
fellahs' names,' he went on; 'they're all so much alike: all in _elli_,
don't yah know; but I recollect at the time they impressed me awfully.'
'No doubt,' I answered.
He tried to look through me, and failed. Then he plunged, like a noble
sportsman that he was, on a second fetch of memory. 'Ah--and Michael
Angelo,' he went on, quite proud of his treasure-trove. 'Sweet things,
Michael Angelo's!'
'Very sweet,' I admitted. 'So simple; so touching; so tender; so
domestic!'
I thought Elsie would explode; but she kept her countenance. The
pea-green young man gazed at me uneasily. He had half an idea by this
time that I was making game of him.
However, he fished up a name once more, and clutched at it. 'Savonarola,
too,' he adventured. 'I adore Savonarola. His pickchahs are beautiful.'
'And so rare!' Elsie murmured.
'Then there is Fra Diavolo?' I suggested, going one better. 'How do you
like Fra Diavolo?'
He seemed to have heard the name before, but still he hesitated.
'Ah--what did he paint?' he asked, with growing caution.
I stuffed him valiantly. 'Those charming angels, you know,' I answered.
'With the roses and the glories!'
'Oh, yaas; I recollect. All askew, aren't they; like this! I remembah
them very well. But----' a doubt flitted across his brain, 'wasn't his
name Fra Angelico?'
'His brother,' I replied, casting truth to the winds. 'They worked
together, you must have heard. One did the saints; the other did the
opposite. Division of labour, don't you see; Fra Angelico, Fra Diavolo.'
[Illustration: WASN'T FRA DIAVOLO ALSO A COMPOSAH?]
He fingered his cigarette with a dubious hand, and wriggled his
eye-glass tighter. 'Yaas, beautiful; beautiful! But----' growing
suspicious apace, 'wasn't Fra Diavolo also a composah?'
'Of course,' I assented. 'In his off time, he composed. Those early
Italians--so versatile, you see; so versatile!'
He had his doubts, but he suppressed them.
'And Torricelli,' I went on, with a side glance at Elsie, who was
choking by this time. 'And Chianti, and Frittura, and Cinquevalli, and
Giulio Romano.'
His distrust increased. 'Now you're trying to make me commit myself,' he
drawled out. 'I remembah Torricelli--he's the fellah who used to paint
all his women crooked. But Chianti's a wine; I've often drunk it; and
Romano's--well, every fellah knows Romano's is a restaurant near the
Gaiety Theatre.'
'Besides,' I continued, in a drawl like his own, 'there are Risotto, and
Gnocchi, and Vermicelli, and Anchovy--all famous paintahs, and all of
whom I don't doubt you admiah.'
Elsie exploded at last. But he took no offence. He smiled inanely, as if
he rather enjoyed it. 'Look heah, you know,' he said, with his crafty
smile; 'that's one too much. I'm not taking any. You think yourselves
very clevah for kidding me with paintahs who are really macaroni and
cheese and claret; yet if I were to tell you the Lejah was run at Ascot,
or the Cesarewitch at Doncastah, why, you'd be no wisah. When it comes
to art, I don't have a look in; but I could tell you a thing or two
about starting prices.'
And I was forced to admit that there he had reason.
Still, I think he realised that he had better avoid the subject of art
in future, as we avoided the noble quadruped. He saw his limitations.
Not till the last evening before we reached Bombay did I really
understand the nature of my neighbour's project. That evening, as it
chanced, Elsie had a headache and went below early. I stopped with her
till she dozed off; then I slipped up on deck once more for a breath of
fresh air, before retiring for the night to the hot and stuffy cabin. It
was an exquisite evening. The moon rode in the pale green sky of the
tropics. A strange light still lingered on the western horizon. The
stifling heat of the Red Sea had given way long since to the refreshing
coolness of the Indian Ocean. I strolled a while on the quarter-deck,
and sat down at last near the stern. Next moment, I was aware of
somebody creeping up to me.
'Look heah, Miss Cayley,' a voice broke in; 'I'm in luck at last! I've
been waiting, oh, evah so long, for this opportunity.'
I turned and faced him. 'Have you, indeed?' I answered. 'Well, I have
_not_, Lord Southminster.'
I tried to rise, but he motioned me back to my chair. There were ladies
on deck, and to avoid being noticed I sank into my seat again.
'I want to speak to you,' he went on, in a voice that (for him) was
almost impressive. 'Half a mo, Miss Cayley. I want to say--this last
night--you misunderstand me.'
'On the contrary,' I answered, 'the trouble is--that I understand you
perfectly.'
'No, yah don't. Look heah.' He bent forward quite romantically. 'I'm
going to be perfectly frank. Of course yah know that when I came on
board this ship I came--to checkmate yah.'
'Of course,' I replied. 'Why else should you and Higginson have bothered
to come here?'
He rubbed his hands together. 'That's just it. You're always clevah. You
hit it first shot. But there's wheah the point comes in. At first, I
only thought of how we could circumvent yah. I treated yah as the enemy.
Now, it's all the othah way. Miss Cayley, you're the cleverest woman I
evah met in this world; you extort my admiration.'
I could not repress a smile. I didn't know how it was, but I could see I
possessed some mysterious attraction for the Ashurst family. I was fatal
to Ashursts. Lady Georgina, Harold Tillington, the Honourable Marmaduke,
Lord Southminster--different types as they were, all succumbed without
one blow to me.
'You flatter me,' I answered, coldly.
'No, I don't,' he cried, flashing his cuffs and gazing affectionately at
his sleeve-links. ''Pon my soul, I assuah yah, I mean it. I can't tell
you how much I admiah yah. I admiah your intellect. Every day I have
seen yah, I feel it moah and moah. Why, you're the only person who has
evah out-flanked my fellah, Higginson. As a rule I don't think much of
women. I've been through several London seasons, and lots of 'em have
tried their level best to catch me; the cleverest mammas have been aftah
me for their Ethels. But I wasn't so easily caught: I dodged the Ethels.
With you, it's different. I feel'--he paused--'you're a woman a fellah
might be really proud of.'
'You are too kind,' I answered, in my refrigerator voice.
'Well, will you take me?' he asked, trying to seize my hand. 'Miss
Cayley, if you will, you will make me unspeakably happy.'
It was a great effort--for him--and I was sorry to crush it. 'I regret,'
I said, 'that I am compelled to deny you unspeakable happiness.'
[Illustration: TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, YOU'RE STAKING YOUR MONEY ON THE
WRONG FELLAH.]
'Oh, but you don't catch on. You mistake. Let me explain. You're backing
the othah man. Now, I happen to know about that: and I assuah you, it's
an error. Take my word for it, you're staking your money on the wrong
fellah.'
'I do not understand you,' I replied, drawing away from his approach.
'And what is more, I may add, you could never understand me.'
'Yaas, but I do. I understand perfectly. I can see where you go wrong.
You drew up Marmy's will; and you think Marmy has left all he's worth to
Harold Tillington; so you're putting every penny you've got on Harold.
Well, that's mere moonshine. Harold may think it's all right; but it's
not all right. There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the Probate Court.
Listen heah, Miss Cayley: Higginson and I are a jolly sight sharpah than
your friend Harold. Harold's what they call a clevah fellah in society,
and I'm what they call a fool; but I know bettah than Harold which side
of my bread's buttahed.'
'I don't doubt it,' I answered.
'Well, I have managed this business. I don't mind telling you now, I had
a telegram from Marmy's valet when we touched at Aden; and poor old
Marmy's sinking. Habakkuk's been too much for him. Sixteen stone going
under. Why am I not with him? yah may ask. Because, when a man of
Marmy's temperament is dying, it's safah to be away from him. There's
plenty of time for Marmy to altah his will yet--and there are othah
contingencies. Still, Harold's quite out of it. You take my word for it;
if you back Harold, you back a man who's not going to get anything;
while if you back me, you back the winnah, with a coronet into the
bargain.' And he smiled fatuously.