THE LORD PROPRIETOR RECEIVES A DOUBLE SHOCK
"H'm!" said Miss Gabriel again, as she once more surveyed the shrinking
Archelaus. "So you allowed you'd steal a march on me?"
"I had no such thought, ma'am," stammered Archelaus.
"You'll get no good out of it, anyway; and of that I warn you. Good
morning, sir!"--this with a curtsey to the Lord Proprietor.
"Good morning, ma'am! How d'ye do, Pope?--and your good lady is well, I
hope? But to what do I owe this unexpected--er--honour?"
"Him," said Miss Gabriel, nodding, and with scarcely a change of tone.
"To Sergeant Archelaus, ma'am? Why, what has he been doing?"
"You might better ask--" Miss Gabriel answered slowly, emphatically,
with her eye on the culprit--"what he has not."
"Whichever you please, ma'am. Come!"
"I find a difficulty in putting a name to it," pursued Miss Gabriel,
still in the same level tone. "But Mr. Pope will bear me out. If he
doesn't, I shall still allow no false delicacy to stand between me and
my duty."
"Miss Gabriel means, sir," explained Mr. Pope, "that the articles in
question----"
"What articles, man?" asked the Lord Proprietor, as Mr. Pope, in his
turn, hesitated.
"Trousers," said Miss Gabriel, setting her face. "No, Charlotte"--she
turned upon Mrs. Pope--"this is no time for mincing language. They were
on a scarecrow, sir, in the very middle of the garrison garden, along
with my waistcoat----"
"Your waistcoat, ma'am!"
"That is to say, with my antimacassar, which I had converted into a
waistcoat and presented, in the innocence of my heart, to Treacher; the
clothing of these men being nothing short of a scandal. But for
scandal, sir, their clothes won't compare with their doings. Not to
mention----"
"My dear lady, I implore you, let us take one thing at a time! You wish
to make some statement about a scarecrow--in the garrison
garden--adorned (am I right?) with a waistcoat you were once kind
enough to present to Sergeant Treacher, and (I gather) with a pair of
trousers about which you are less explicit." The Lord Proprietor
paused. His eyes grew round with sudden, terrible suspicion. "You don't
mean to tell me--" he asked slowly.
Miss Gabriel nodded, and wagged an accusing forefinger at Archelaus.
"That's just what I _do_ mean. And if you want a picture of guilt, look
at that man!"
The Lord Proprietor turned and stared at him, gasping.
"My trousers? _Mine?_" But here speech failed him, and he stood opening
and shutting his mouth like a newly-landed fish.
Archelaus flung a wild glance about him, vainly seeking escape.
"You're looking at it in the wrong light, all of you," he mumbled,
feebly.
"And on the Sabbath, too!" put in Mrs. Pope.
"This man"--the Lord Proprietor held up a hand as though calling Heaven
to witness--"On what pretence do you suppose that he came here this
morning? Why, to thank me! To thank me for those very--er--articles of
which you tell me he makes a public mock! Look at the bag in his
hand--what do you suppose that it contains?"
"Adders," suggested Mrs. Pope. "I shouldn't be surprised."
"You may well say so, ma'am. It might well be adders. Indeed, I'm not
sure it isn't worse."
"Oh!" Mrs. Pope, already backing before the horrors of her own
imagination, caught at the balustrade for support.
"Daffodils, ma'am! A present of daffodil bulbs, with the Commandant's
compliments, and in acknowledgment of my gift! Could hypocrisy go
farther?"
"Major Vigoureux," said Miss Gabriel, "was never a friend of mine. Let
those who thought better of him defend him now, when he shows himself
in his true colours."
But here Archelaus pulled himself together.
"The Governor," he answered sullenly, "had nothing to do with it. The
Governor was in church at the time, as is well known to all of you."
"Yes, yes," interposed Mrs. Pope. "Let us be just. The Commandant was
certainly in church at the time. On our homeward way we met him
returning from church; and I would add, sir--if you will forgive
me--that he is a gentleman quite incapable of suggesting or conniving
at so vulgar a trick."
"H'm!" The Lord Proprietor accepted this with a snort, for he could not
help being aware of its truth. But his wrath still needed a vent, and
he turned upon Archelaus again.
"The Governor?" he echoed. "Are you ignorant that Major Vigoureux is
not Governor of these Islands, nor has he been for three years?--even
if he had ever a right to the title."
"He's _my_ Governor, anyway," answered Archelaus, turning more and more
dogged; "and he's Treacher's; and I reckon you'll find, if you try any
games, that he's Treacher's missus' Governor, too."
"Insolent!"--This from Miss Gabriel.
"I ain't denyin' it, ma'am. Insolent I be, and a little freedom o'
speech about it is no more than your rights. Insolent I've behaved, and
if you'll take and ask the Governor to punish me for it, 'tisn't more
than I deserve. He'll do it, be sure. As Mister Pope told you just now,
the Governor's a gentleman; he wouldn't play such a trick, not if you
was to offer him the world and the kingdoms thereof; and he'll be teasy
as fire when he hears about it. But I warn you, ladies and gentlemen,
all, don't you take the law into your own hands over this distressin'
case, but go to him meek-like an' say you want Arch'laus punished.
That's all. Leastways, that's all, unless you ask my honest opinion on
the breeches in question, which is, that I wouldn't put 'em astride a
clothes-horse and call him a son o' mine."
The Lord Proprietor stepped back, purple in the face.
But Miss Gabriel flew at game higher than Archelaus.
"That is all very well," she interposed, in her coldest, most incisive
tone. "But to whom does the credit of this insult belong if not to
Major Vigoureux? You may talk till doomsday, my man, before I'll
believe that you and Treacher thought of it." She stood for a second or
two, eyeing him. "A-ah!" she said, a little above her breath. "I
thought as much!... There _was_ a woman, Charlotte, and that woman is
at the bottom of the whole business. I ask you, if you doubt it, to
look at his face."
"She'd nothin' to do with it," affirmed Archelaus, stolidly, drawing
the back of his hand across his brow.
"She?" mocked Miss Gabriel. "And pray who is 'she'?"
Archelaus made a bold effort to recover himself. "Why, Treacher's
missus ... unless you mean the Ghost."
"That Treacher's missus (as you call her) bore her hand in the sport I
have the evidence of my own eyes; and if by 'the Ghost' you allude to a
painted hussy that Mrs. Pope and I surprised, the other night, in your
master's quarters, I advise you to keep that for the Marines.
Sir,"--Miss Gabriel turned to the Lord Proprietor--"this petty insult
of the scarecrow is the smallest part of our complaint against Major
Vigoureux. We have reason to believe--we have ocular proof--that the
Major is at this moment and by stealth entertaining a most undesirable
guest at the Barracks."
"My dear Elizabeth, we cannot be altogether sure!" objected Mrs. Pope.
"Speak for yourself, Charlotte." Miss Gabriel folded her hands and bent
on Archelaus a gaze under which he felt himself withering. "I am quite
sure."
"Undesirable, ma'am?" asked the Lord Proprietor, thoroughly mystified.
"In what sense undesirable?"
"--Unless," answered Miss Gabriel, tapping her foot, and with the air
of one who curbs a virtuous impatience, "unless you can suggest a term
more appropriate to a Jezebel; in which case I shall stand corrected."
"Jezebel? Jezebel? But, my dear Miss Gabriel, consider before you bring
such a charge: here especially in the presence of Major Vigoureux's
servant, who will doubtless report it to his master. Reflect how
serious it is. Reflect----"
"Why, bless the man!" Miss Gabriel cut him short disdainfully. "As if I
hadn't been reflecting for three days on end! Let him sue me for
slander if he dare. I'll stick to my guns, if I kiss the book upon it;
and what's more, so will Charlotte Pope."
"I never said so, Elizabeth," pleaded Mrs. Pope.
"And very wisely, ma'am." Sir Cæsar nodded approval. "For, as I was
about to say, reflect upon the extreme improbability--nay, the utter
impossibility--that--er--such a person could visit the Islands
unnoticed and actually spend three days on Garrison Hill undetected by
any save yourself. Nay, if we grant the miracle of her arrival, who is
to assure us that she has not by this time as mysteriously vanished? In
that case, what have we to show for our suspicions? How, setting aside
the Major's indignation, shall we find ourselves less than a laughing
stock for the whole population of the Islands?"
"And sarve ye right!" added Archelaus, who began to perceive that this
thundercloud had its silver lining. But if he counted on daunting Miss
Gabriel, he was mistaken.
"Turn you round, my man," snapped that indomitable lady. "Turn you
round, and give me a look at those coat-tails of yours. Ha!" she
exclaimed, as Archelaus, by habit obedient to the word of command,
faced about towards the balustrade. "There was a coat-tail missing
yesterday, if I remember, when you crept out from the bushes like a
whipped urchin, and now there's two: and you'll be telling me that
these fine stitches were put in by Jane Treacher, who is like most
soldier's wives, and sews like a cow!"
"The Lord have mercy upon us!" said Archelaus, in a hushed voice.
It took them two or three seconds to understand that the words were not
an answer to Miss Gabriel; that he had spoken them to himself,
staring--as he still stared--down the steps, down the green alley
leading to the terrace.
Then, perceiving that something was amiss with the man, they too
stepped to the balustrade and looked down--as up the leafy path came
the very woman of their speculations--Vashti, faultlessly arrayed,
trailing a neat parasol and humming a song as she drew near.
"The same!" gasped Miss Gabriel. "I call you to witness, Charlotte!"
"But, you'll excuse me," Mr. Pope objected, "she don't appear to answer
precisely to a Jezebel."
"You men think of nothing but outward show," snapped Miss Gabriel.
"Well, and that's something," Archelaus put in with affability, his
spirits rising as the danger drew nearer. "Talk about Garrison Hill!
She seems to be pretty well at home on Inniscaw, too." For Vashti,
halting in the chequered sunlight beneath a trellised arch, had reached
up the hooked handle of her sunshade to draw down the spray of a late
autumnal rose, and stood for a moment inhaling its odour.
It may be that just then she caught sight of the watchers upon the
terrace. If so, not a movement betrayed her. As though reluctantly, she
released the branch and, as it sprang upward, resumed her way up the
path, disappearing for a moment under a massed canopy of Virgin's
Bower. A few seconds, and she would emerge into view again, almost at
the foot of the terrace stairs.
They waited.
"But whatever has become of the woman?" asked Miss Gabriel.
"It's confoundedly odd!" growled the Lord Proprietor.
"She may have turned down a by-path."
"There's no by-path within fifty yards of her. More likely she's
stopping to take a smell of the clematis.... We might step down and
see." The Lord Proprietor suited the action to the words and led the
way.
"In my opinion, if you want it," said Archelaus, "you won't find her
there. Because why? She's a ghost."
"A ghost?" quavered Mrs. Pope.
"Nonsense, my dear!" Her husband offered his arm to assist her down the
steps. "Such a beautiful young person!"
"The first time I saw her she didn't frighten me at all," agreed Mrs.
Pope; "but if she's going to bob in and out of sight in this way, I
shan't sleep in my bed to-night."
A cry from the Lord Proprietor startled them. He had plunged down the
path beneath the overarching clematis. They ran to overtake him, and
found him staring at vacancy. Vashti had vanished, apparently into thin
air.
"Oh, but this is midsummer moonshine!" declared Sir Cæsar. "The woman
must be hiding somewhere near. Miss Gabriel, if you will kindly attend
to Mrs. Pope, her husband and I will search the thickets hereabouts."
They searched in the thickets and along the garden paths, but without
recovering a trace of the unknown. Not so much as a glimpse of her
skirt rewarded them.
Sergeant Archelaus abandoned the search early, dodged into the
plantations on the left, and went his way chuckling, back to his boat.
"A terrible trying morning," he allowed, as he cast loose; "but the end
was worth it."