JIMMY SETS TO WORK
"Is Colonel Faversham at home?" asked Jimmy.
"Do you wish to see him!" said Carrissima.
"Well, yes," was the answer, "I do--rather particularly."
"Because he is not in the very best mood for a visitor," said
Carrissima. "At the present moment he is shut up in his smoking-room.
I give you a fair warning, Jimmy!"
"I think I shall have to risk it," he returned.
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Carrissima. "How tremendously curious you make
me! Although I'm entirely in the dark, I feel certain that important
events are happening. You see, Jimmy, my father is constantly at
Golfney Place--so are you! This morning he came home unusually
early--actually with a large parcel in his hand. He had a face like
ever so many thunder-clouds. Do you think there has been any sort
of--of disagreement between Bridget and the colonel?"
"Why, yes," said Jimmy, "I fancy you've hit the mark!"
"I wish you wouldn't be so dreadfully mysterious," she answered. "Now,
why can't you tell me what it is all about?"
He could not see his way to gratify her. Bridget had insisted that the
engagement had remained a secret at Colonel Faversham's wish, and Jimmy
had no wish to make things unpleasant for him at home. He had told
Sybil, it was true, but probably he would not even have enlightened his
sister if he had taken time for reflection.
"Do you think," asked Jimmy, instead of replying to Carrissima's
question, "that Bridget would be likely to go abroad again?"
"Jimmy," she answered seriously, "wherever she may have gone, you will
be wise to take my advice."
"What is that?"
"To make no attempt to follow her!"
Jimmy laughed at this, and reminded Carrissima of his wish to speak to
Colonel Faversham. Somewhat reluctantly she accompanied him
down-stairs again, and opened the door of the smoking-room, taking the
precaution to make as much noise as possible with the handle.
Colonel Faversham looked the embodiment of dejection, when at last,
followed by Jimmy, she entered his room. He was sitting in an
easy-chair, leaning forward with his hands to his head. All his usual
exuberance appeared to have left him; he looked quite old and feeble.
Seeing Jimmy, he scowled fiercely, making no attempt to rise or to
offer his hand.
"Good-morning, colonel," said the visitor cheerfully. "Sorry if I am
disturbing you, but I wanted a few words, if you can spare a minute."
"A broad hint for me to go," cried Carrissima, backing towards the
door, with the most painful curiosity.
"Well, what is it?" demanded Colonel Faversham, as soon as he was alone
with Jimmy.
"I am going to ask you a straight question!" was the answer. "I have
heard of your engagement----"
"Who the devil told you?" exclaimed Colonel Faversham, sitting suddenly
erect.
"Well, you know," said Jimmy, "I imagine there was only one person who
had it in her power to tell me."
"Bridget, you mean?"
"Yes," replied Jimmy.
"When was that?"
"Just after you left her yesterday morning."
Rising from his chair, Colonel Faversham seemed to pull himself
together. He blew out his cheeks, put back his shoulders and fixed his
eyeglass as if he wished to examine Jimmy more distinctly.
"I should like to know," he said, "what my engagement has to do with
you!"
"Nothing in the world," returned Jimmy, "if it still exists. That is
all I am anxious to hear--whether it does or not."
Colonel Faversham stood glaring into Jimmy's face. So it was true, as
he had suspected, that he had been thrown over for the benefit of this
confounded fellow, who had the audacity to catechize him! Well, the
battle was to the young! Colonel Faversham set it down to that. He
must be growing old, hang it all! and here was Jimmy Clynesworth, whom
he had nursed as a small boy, civil enough, as far as that went, but
probably laughing in his sleeve, as those who win may.
"Jimmy," said the colonel, with a chastened and rather pathetic air, "I
tell you what it is. I've been infernally badly treated. No use to
mince matters. I've been jilted, sir. Jilted!"
"I suppose I may gather from that," suggested Jimmy, striving to keep
anything resembling elation from his voice, "that, as far as you're
concerned, Bridget is free----"
"Free!" cried Colonel Faversham. "Any woman can easily be free who
attaches no value to her most solemn vows. Free! Good gracious! How
can a man bind such a wench?"
"Thank you," said Jimmy, turning towards the door, "that's all I wanted
to hear!"
His position did not appear very enviable, because while he could not
tolerate any abuse of Bridget, to tell the truth it was impossible to
say a word in her defence.
"One minute--one minute, Jimmy!" cried Colonel Faversham. "The more I
think of it, the more extraordinary this visit of yours seems! As a
boy you always had plenty of cheek! Between ourselves! You seem to
know a good deal. I hope to goodness you haven't blabbed to
Carrissima!"
"About your engagement, do you mean?"
"Yes, yes," said the colonel impatiently.
"I haven't said a word. In fact, she has not the remotest idea of
anything of the kind."
"Well, that's a blessing," was the answer, and Jimmy went away, getting
out of the house without seeing Carrissima again. The moment he
reached Upper Grosvenor Street he inquired for Sybil, and being told
she was in her own room, mounted the stairs several treads at a time.
"May I come in?" he asked, tapping at her door.
"Whatever is the matter now, Jimmy?" exclaimed Sybil, throwing it open.
"Well, it has been a wonderful morning," he explained. "I have got a
free hand. Bridget has thrown old Faversham over."
"My dear," said Sybil, "how extremely barefaced!"
"I have seen him," Jimmy continued. "There is nothing on earth in my
way. All I have to do is to find her, and that won't take many days."
While he stood outside Sybil's bedroom door, explaining how he had
heard the news of Bridget's departure from Golfney Place, his sister
underwent the sorest temptation of her life. Surely no situation could
be more tantalizing. If it were not for the solemn promise she had
made to Carrissima, how easy it would prove to keep Jimmy from the
pursuit which might end in his ruin!
Although he remained so strangely uninfluenced by the knowledge of
Bridget's engagement to Colonel Faversham, her simultaneous intrigue
with Mark Driver could scarcely fail to bring Jimmy to his senses. For
the present, however, Sybil tried to hope that there might be more
difficulty in running his quarry to earth than he anticipated. She
might indeed be hiding somewhere perplexingly close at hand; and most
likely Mark held the clue!
Jimmy lost no time in setting to work in earnest. In the first place,
he inserted advertisements in the halfpenny evening papers and such of
their morning contemporaries as made a special feature of betting news.
These he thought would be most in favour amongst taxi-cab drivers, and,
of course, the important thing was to discover the man who had driven
"a lady and her luggage from No. 5, Golfney Place" that fateful
afternoon.
Not content with this, Jimmy motored to Sandbay, and stopping at a
stationer's shop, succeeded in purchasing a local Directory. In this
he found the name of "Dobson, the Misses," who lived at No. 8, Downside
Road. The house was named "Fairbank." Thither Jimmy drove at once,
and few thoroughfares could have had a more sedately retired
appearance. A wide, gravelled roadway, smoothly rolled, with red-brick
villas all precisely alike on one side, and yellow-brick villas,
equally uniform, on the other.
There must have been fewer than the average number of children in the
neighbourhood, and these must have been unusually silent and well
conducted. Such dogs as there were always went out with a lead, and
often wearing neat little home-made coats, with a leather strap instead
of a collar.
On almost every gate a metal label was affixed: "No hawkers or street
musicians." In the most sedate of the red-brick villas with the
neatest front garden, lived the Misses Dobson. If any one ever
ventured to speak of them in their hearing as the "Miss Dobsons" he was
certain to be corrected. In truth, "The Misses Dobson" seemed to
describe them far more accurately.
The difference between their ages was only eighteen months, and casual
observers assumed that they were twins. They invariably dressed alike,
in a fashion which had become out of date in London several years
before. They never went out separately, and in order that the same
ideas should penetrate their minds at the same moment, one of the pair
read aloud while the other sewed and listened.
Well-to-do in the world, they were exceedingly kind to the poor, and
they had never succeeded in grasping Bridget's reasons for refusing to
accept their hospitality. This afternoon they were sitting together in
their superlatively neat drawing-room, and Miss Dobson was knitting
while Miss Frances was reading a novel from the circulating library.
In the middle of chapter four they were astonished to hear the unwonted
sound of a motor-car, and when the sentence was finished they both rose
and walked to the window.
There stood a large red car, with a chauffeur in dark-grey livery with
a light-brown fur rug round his knees. Before their astonishment
permitted the remark that some one must have stopped at the wrong
house, the door opened and the most demure parlour-maid in England
stood nervously holding the handle.
"A gentleman in a motor-car," said Selina.
"I think," answered Miss Dobson, "that he must have made a mistake in
the number."
"He asked for Miss Dobson," said Selina. "Not knowing the name, I left
him in the hall."
"Quite right," returned Miss Frances.
"Name o' Clynesworth," said Selina.
"Perhaps," suggested Miss Dobson, "he wishes to sell something."
"A motor-car!" remarked Miss Frances.
"I suppose we ought to receive him," said her sister, and accordingly
Jimmy was conducted to the drawing-room, where he at once began to make
an almost abject apology.
"My only excuse," he concluded, "is that I have the honour to call
myself a friend of Miss Rosser's."
"Our dearest niece," murmured Miss Dobson.
"You may know," said Jimmy, who had scarcely ever felt quite so nervous
in his life, "that Bridget has been living at No. 5, Golfney Place!"
"Extremely unsuitable on all accounts," answered Miss Dobson.
"Extremely," said Miss Frances.
"As she left her rooms the day before yesterday," Jimmy explained, "I
thought it possible she might have come to you."
"We sincerely wish she had," said Miss Dobson.
"Sincerely," said Miss Frances.
"You may think it is rather strange that I should be pursuing Bridget
in this way," suggested Jimmy.
"We do," said Miss Dobson.
"My object," continued Jimmy, "is to ask her to marry me!"
"Will you kindly take a chair," cried Miss Dobson, and they all looked
about as if to make certain there was nothing in the way, and then sat
down. "The present," Miss Dobson added, "may not be the most suitable
occasion to inquire concerning your eligibility. My niece is a sweet
girl."
"I entirely agree with you," said Jimmy.
"A little impulsive, it may be," said Miss Dobson.
"Perhaps, a little," murmured Miss Frances.
"But exceedingly good to her father after our poor sister's death."
"Very, very good," said Miss Frances, and both sisters blinked their
eyes as Jimmy rose to say "good-bye." He was, however, not to make his
escape just yet. The Misses Dobson were obviously disturbed in mind.
They could not tolerate the idea of Bridget's whereabouts remaining
unknown, and all Jimmy's coolness and assurance were required to
restore them to anything resembling tranquillity.
He left the house with a feeling that the scent of lavender must be
still clinging to his clothes, and the next morning found him at
Crowborough. There, however, he could obtain no news of Bridget, and
now he began to wonder whether it was probable she had gone to Paris,
where she had lived with David Rosser during the last years of his
life. It was on Monday morning that Sybil saw Jimmy in the act of
parting from a stranger at the door.
"Who was your visitor?" she inquired, having waited in the dining-room
for the purpose.
"A man named Winchester--a private detective," said Jimmy.
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Sybil, "how sincerely I wish you would let
Miss Rosser go her own way!"
"Haven't I succeeded yet," demanded Jimmy, "in making you understand
that her way will always be mine?"
"And yet you know how horridly she treated poor Colonel Faversham,
Jimmy. You have always insisted on truth and honesty before
anything----"
"Now I only insist," said Jimmy, "that Bridget shall become my wife."
At this Sybil grew reckless.
"Jimmy," she cried, "it is really quite impossible."
"Why?" he demanded.
"My dear, I scarcely like to say the words, but she knew Mark Driver
long before she knew you."
"Well, I hope she will see a good deal of old Mark in the future also,"
answered Jimmy. "You force me to break my word," said Sybil, with
considerable emotion. "Carrissima will never forgive me. I am sure
she won't. But I really cannot keep silence while you go to
destruction. I really can't. I promised I would never breathe a
syllable----"
"Would you mind," urged Jimmy, "breathing it quickly!"
"There has been an--an understanding between Miss Rosser and Mark from
the very first," said Sybil.
"Oh, you mustn't talk foolishness," returned Jimmy.
"Carrissima saw them----"
"What in the world did she see?"
"She happened to go to Golfney Place unexpectedly the afternoon before
Miss Rosser left," Sybil explained. "She saw the girl in--in Mark's
arms. Jimmy, he was kissing her; actually kissing her, and all the
time she must have been engaged to Colonel Faversham."
"Nonsense," said Jimmy; "I don't believe a word of it."
"Do you imagine that Carrissima could possibly tell me an untruth?"
demanded Sybil. "She was half beside herself when I met her, or she
would never have said a word."
"Now," suggested Jimmy, "you have hit the explanation. Carrissima was
beside herself. Of course," he added, "I shall clear the matter up,
but I tell you, to begin with, I don't believe a word of it."
"How Carrissima managed to carry it off," said Sybil, "seems wonderful
to me."
"A wonderful story altogether," returned Jimmy.
"Neither Mark nor--nor his companion had the slightest idea they were
discovered," said Sybil.
"Oh, then Carrissima didn't tackle the fellow!"
"How could she?" asked Sybil. "You see, she had no actual right to
complain! Mark Driver, I dare say, would consider himself free to--to
kiss any woman he pleased."
"Anyhow," said Jimmy, with all the assurance in the world, "he didn't
kiss Bridget."
"Oh, how can you be so blind!" exclaimed his sister.
"When other people see so much," he answered, "what can be more
desirable?"
"Well," said Sybil, with tears in her eyes, "I have told you what
Carrissima saw, and naturally she drew her own conclusions."
"What were they?" asked Jimmy, thrusting his hands deep in his jacket
pockets.
"You are bound," Sybil explained, "to take into consideration what had
gone before. Only a few hours earlier Mark told Carrissima that he
hadn't seen Miss Rosser for some weeks. He said he never wished to see
her again. Then in face of that, Carrissima went to Golfney Place, and
there was the woman in his arms."
"Well," cried Jimmy, "we shall hear what Mark has to say about it."
"My dear," said Sybil nervously, "I do hope and trust you won't get me
into trouble. I should never have uttered a word if it were not for
your good."
"Any one would imagine," was the answer, "that I had been wrapped in
cotton-wool all my life. I suppose I should have been if you could
have managed it. Well, I am off to Weymouth Street at once," added
Jimmy.