Mr Bevan found no chance for a tête-à-tête with his fiancée again that night, perhaps because he did not seek one; he was not in the humour for love-making. He felt—to use the good old nursery term that applies so often, so very often, to grown-ups—"fractious."
He retired to his bedroom at half-past eleven, and was sitting with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, staring at the wood-fire brightly burning in his grate, when a knock came to the door and Lambert appeared.
I just dropped in to say good-night. Am I disturbing you?
Not a bit; sit down and have a cigarette.
Mr Lambert helped himself to a Marcovitch from a box on the table, drew up an easy-chair to the fire and sank into it with a sigh.
It seems funny, said he in a meditative tone, "that I should be sitting here smoking and yarning with you to-night, and only yesterday, so to speak, we were fighting like bull-dogs; but we're friends now, and you must come and see me when you're back in town. You live in the 'Albany'? I had rooms there once, years ago—years ago. Lord! what a change has come over London since the days when Evans' was stuffed of a night with all manner of people—the rows and ructions I remember! The things that went on. One night in Evans' I remember an old gentleman coming in and ordering a chop, and no sooner had he put on his spectacles and settled down to it with a smile all over his face, than Bob O'Grady, of the 10th—Black O'Grady—who'd been watching him—he was drunk as a lord—rose up and said, ''Scuse me,' he said, and took the chop by the shank-bone and flung it on the stage. A man could take his whack in those days, and be none the worse for it; but men are different, somehow, now, and they go in for tea and muffins and nerves just as the women used to, when I was twenty; and the women, begad, are the best men now'days. Look at Miss Pursehouse! as charming as a woman and as clever as a man. Look at this house of hers! One would think a man owned it, everything is so well done: brandies and sodas at your elbows, matches all over the place, and electric bells and a telephone. That's the sort of woman for me—not that I'm not fond of the old-fashioned sort of woman too. Fanny, my daughter—I must introduce you to her—is as old-fashioned as they make 'em. Screeches if she sees a rat, and knows nothing of woman's rights or the higher education of females, and is always ready to turn on the water-works, bless her heart! ready and willing to cry over anything you may put before her that's got the ghost of a cry in it. But, bless you! what's the good of talking about old-fashioned or modern women? From Hecuba down, they're all the same—born to deceive us and make our lives happy."
Can't see how a woman that deceives a man can make him happy.
My dear fellow, sure, what's happiness but illusion, and what's illusion but deception, and talking about deception, aren't men—the blackguards!—just as bad at deceiving as women?
Mr Bevan made no reply to this; he shifted uneasily in his chair.
You live at Highgate? he said.
Lambert woke up from a reverie he had fallen into with a start.
Yes, bad luck to it! I've got a house there I can't get rid of, and, talking of old-fashioned things, it's an old-fashioned house. There aren't any electric bells, and if there were you'd as likely as not ring up the ghost. For there's a ghost there, sure enough; she nearly frightened the gizzard out of my butler James.
He leaned back luxuriously in his chair, blowing cigarette rings at the fire, whilst Charles Bevan mentally recalled the vision of "My butler James."
He could not but admit that Lambert carried his poverty exceedingly well, and with a much better grace than that with which many men carry their wealth. The impression that Fanny Lambert had made upon him was not effaced in any way by the impression made upon him by her father. Lambert was not an impossible man. Wildly extravagant he might be, and reckless to the verge of lunacy, but he was a gentleman; and in saying the word "gentleman," my dear sir or madam I do not refer to birth. There lives many a hideous bounder who yet can fling his great-great-great-grandfather at your head, and many a noble-minded gentleman, the present or past existence of whose father is demonstrable only by the logic of physiology.
Lambert went off to his room at twelve, and Mr Bevan passed a broken night. He dreamt of lawyers and sunflowers. He dreamt that he saw old Francis, the village lunatic, waiting at the cross-roads; and when he asked him what he was waiting for, Francis replied that he was waiting to see his (Mr Bevan's) marriage procession go by: a dream which was scarcely a hopeful omen, considering the object of the old man's daily vigil as revealed by Lulu Morgan.
He came down to breakfast late. His hostess did not appear, and Miss Morgan announced that her friend was suffering from tic-douloureux.
'S far as I can make out, it's like having the grippe in one eye. I've physicked her with Bile Beans and Perry Davis, and I've sent for some Antikamnia. If she's not better by luncheon I'll send for the doctor.
She was not down by luncheon. After that meal, Charles, strolling across the hall to the billiard-room, felt something pluck at his sleeve. It was Miss Morgan.
I want to speak to you alone for a minute, said she. "Come into the garden; there's no one there."
He followed her, much wondering, and they passed down a shady path till they lost sight of the house.
Pamela's worried, said Lulu, "and I want to talk to you about her——"
Why, what can be——
We've been sitting up all night, she and I, and we've been discussing things, you 'specially.
Thank you——
Now, don't you be mad, for Pamela's vury fond of you, and I like you, for you're a right good sort; but, see here, Pamela thinks she's made a mistake.
A queer new feeling entered Mr Bevan's mind, peeped round and passed through it, so to speak—a feeling of relief—or more strictly speaking, release.
Indeed?
She thinks you have both made a mistake, and—you know——
The fact is, she doesn't want to marry me; why not say it at once? or, rather, why doesn't she say so to me frankly, instead of deputing another person to do so?
There's a letter, said Miss Morgan, producing one from her pocket. "She wrote it and told me to give it to you; it's eight pages long, and all sorts of things in it—she's very fond of you—keep it and read it. But I tell you one line that's in it, she says she will always feel as a sister to you, or be a sister to you, or words to that effect—that's fatal—once a girl says that she's said the last word."
I don't think she ever cared for me, really, said Mr Bevan—"let us sit down on this seat—no, I don't think she really ever cared for me."
What made you two get engaged
Why should we not?
Because you're too much alike; you are both rich, and both steady and well-balanced, you know, and that sort of thing. Likes ought never to get married. Dear—dear—dear—what a pity——
What?
I was only thinking of all the love-making there's wasted in the world. Now I know so many girls who would suit you to a T. I'll tell you of one, if you like——
Thank you, I—um——
I was thinking of Fanny Lambert, said Miss Morgan in a dreamy voice. "The girl I told you of yesterday——"
Now, Mr Bevan was the last man in the world—as I daresay you perceive—to discuss his feelings with any one. But Miss Morgan had a patent method of her own for extracting confidences, of making people talk out, as she would have expressed it herself.
I said to you yesterday that I had never met Miss Lambert: I had reasons connected with some law business for saying so—as a matter of fact, I have met her—once.
Oh, that's quite enough. If you've met Fanny Lambert once, you have met her for ever. Does she like you?—I don't ask you do you like her, for, of course, you do.
I think—she does.
You mustn't think—women hate men that think, they like them to be sure. If a man was only bold enough he could marry any woman on earth.
Is that your opinion?
'Tis, and my opinion is worth having. What a woman wants most is some one to make up her mind for her. Go and make Fanny's mind up for her; you and she are just suited.
In what way?
To begin with, you're rich and she's poor.
You said yesterday that she was rich.
Yes, but Pamela told me last night the Lamberts are simply stone-broke. Mr Lambert told her all his affairs, his estates are all encumbered. She says he's just like a child, and wants protecting; so he is, and so's Fanny; they're both a pair of children, and you are just the man to keep Fanny straight, and make her life happy and buy her beautiful clothes and diamonds. Why, she'll be the rage of London, Fanny will, if she's only properly staged—and she's a dear and a good woman, and would make any man happy. My!
Mr Bevan had taken Miss Morgan's hand in his and squeezed it.
Thank you for saying all that, said he. "Few women praise another woman. I shall leave here by this evening's train, of course; I cannot stay here any longer. I will think over what course I will pursue."
For heaven's sake, don't think, or you'll find her snapped up; I have a prevision that you will. Go and say to Fanny 'marry me.' I do want to see her settled, she's not like me, that can rough it, and she's just the girl to fling herself away on some rubbish.
I will see, said Mr Bevan. "I frankly confess that Miss Lambert—of course, this is between you and me—that Miss Lambert has made me think a good deal about her, but these things are not done in a moment."
Aren't they? I tell you love-making is just like making pancakes, if you don't do them quick they're done for. You just remember this, that many a man has proposed to a girl the first time he's met her and been accepted. Women like it, it's so different from the other thing—and, look here, kiss her first and ask her afterwards. Have two or three glasses of champagne—you've just got the steady brain that can stand it—and it will liven you up. I'm an old stager.
I will write to Miss Pursehouse from London to-morrow.
Dear me! I don't believe you've been listening to a word I've been saying. Well, go your own gate, as the old woman said to the cow that would burst through the hedge and tumbled into the chalk-pit and broke its leg. What you going to do with that letter?
I will read it in the train.
It never rains but it pours. It was pouring just now with Leavesley.
The morning after the excursion to Epping Forest he had written a long letter to Fanny: a business-like letter, explanatory of his prospects in life.
He had exhibited in this year's Academy; he had exhibited in the New gallery—more, he had sold the Academy picture for forty pounds. He had a hundred a year of his own, which, as he sagaciously pointed out, was "something." If Fanny would only wait a year, give him something to hope for, something to live for, something to work for. Three pages of business-like statements ending with a fourth page of raving declarations of love. The letter of a lunatic, as all love-letters more or less are.
He had posted this and waited for a reply, but none had come. He little knew that his letter and a bill for potatoes were behind a plate on the kitchen dresser at "The Laurels," stuffed there by Susannah in a fit of abstraction, also the outcome of the troubles of love.
On top of this all sorts of minor worries fell upon him. Mark Moses and Sonenshine, stimulated by the two pounds ten paid on account, were bombarding him with requests for more. A colour-man was also active and troublesome, and a bootmaker lived on the stairs.
Belinda, vice-president of the institution during Mrs Tugwell's sojourn at Margate, was "cutting up shines," cooking disgracefully, not cleaning boots, giving "lip" when remonstrated with, and otherwise revelling in her little brief authority. A man who had all but commissioned a portrait of a bull-dog sent word to say that the sittings couldn't take place as the dog was dead.
Then a cat had slipped into his bedroom and kittened on his best suit of clothes; and Fernandez, the picture dealer to whom he had taken the John the Baptist on the top of a four-wheeler, had offered him five pounds ten for it; and, worst of all, driven by necessity, he had not haggled, but had taken the five pounds ten, thus for ever ruining himself with Fernandez, who had been quite prepared to pay fifteen.
The Captain, who had suddenly come in for a windfall of eighty pounds, was going on like a millionaire—haunting the studio half-tipsy, profuse with offers of assistance and drinks, and, to cap all, the weather was torrid. The only consolation was Verneede, who would listen for hours to the praises of Miss Lambert, nodding his head like a Chinese mandarin and smoking Leavesley's cigarettes.
I don't know what to do, said the unhappy young man, during one of these conferences, "I don't know what to do. It's so unlike her."
Write again.
Not I—at least, how can I? If she won't answer that letter there's no use in writing any more.
Call.
I'm not going to creep round like a dog that has been beaten.
True.
She may be ill, for all I know. How do I know that she is not ill?
Illness, my dear Leavesley, is one of those things——
I know—but the question is, how am I to find out?
Could you not apply to their family physician? I should go to him, frankly——
But I don't know who their doctor is—do talk sense. See here! could you call and ask—ask did she get home all right, and that sort of thing?
Most certainly, with pleasure, if it would relieve your feelings. Anything—anything I can do, my dear Leavesley, in an emergency like this you can count on me to do.
You needn't mention my name.
I shall carefully abstain.
Unless she asks, you know.
Certainly, unless she asks.
Armbruster came in this morning, he's going to America. He's got on to a big firm for book illustrating; he wanted me to go with him and try my luck—offered to pay the expenses. You might hint, perhaps, if the subject turns up, that you think I am going to America.
Certainly.
When can you go?
Any time.
You might go now, for I'm awfully anxious to hear if she is all right. What's the time? Two—yes—if you go now you will get there about four.
Highgate?
Yes—'The Laurels,' John's Road. Have you any money?
Unfortunately I am rather unprovided with the necessary——
Wait.
Leavesley went to a little jug on the mantel and turned the contents of it into his hand.
Here's five shillings; will that be enough?
Ample.
Now go, like a good fellow, and do come back here straight.
As an arrow.
Don't say anything about my letter.
Not a word, not a word.
Mr Verneede departed, and the painter went on with his painting, feeling very much as Noah must have felt when the dove flew out of the Ark.
Mr Verneede first made straight for his lodgings. He inhabited a top-floor back in Maple Street, a little street leading out of the King's Road.
Here he blacked his boots, put bear's grease on his hair, and assumed a frock-coat a shade more respectable than the one he usually wore. Then, with his coat tightly buttoned, his best hat on his head, and his umbrella under his arm, he made off on his errand revolving in his wonderful mind the forthcoming interview. To assist thought, he turned into the four-ale bar of the "Spotted Dog." Here stood a woman with a baby in her arms, a regular customer, who was explaining domestic troubles to the sympathetic barmaid. Seeing Verneede seated with his ale before him, she included him in her audience. Half an hour later the old gentleman, having given much advice on the rearing of babies and management of husbands, emerged from the "Spotted Dog" slightly flushed and entirely happy.
It seemed so much pleasanter and cooler to enter a public house than an omnibus, that the "King's Arms," where the omnibuses stood, swallowed him easily. Here an anarchistical house-painter, who was destructing the British Empire, included him in his remarks; and it was, somehow, nearly five o'clock before he left the "King's Arms" more flushed and most entirely happy, and took an omnibus for Hammersmith.
At nine o'clock he was wandering about Hammersmith asking people to direct him to "The Hollies" in James' Road; at eleven he was criticising the London County Council in a bar-room somewhere in Shepherd's Bush, but it might have been in Paris or Berlin, Vienna or Madrid, for all he knew or cared.
Verneede having departed on his mission, Leavesley resumed his work with a feeling of relief.
He had done something. There is nothing that strains the mind so much as sitting waiting with hands folded, so to speak, doing nothing.
When Noah closed the trap-door of the Ark having let forth the dove, he no doubt followed its flight with his mind's eye—here flitting over wastes of water, here perched on the island he desired.
Even so Leavesley, as he worked, followed the flight of Verneede towards the object of his desires.
Leavesley was one of those unhappy people who meet their pleasures and their troubles half-way. He was an imaginative man, moving in a most unimaginative world, and as a result he was always knocking his nose against the concrete. Needless to say, his forecasts were nearly always wrong. If he opened a letter thinking it contained a bill, it, ten to one, enclosed a theatre ticket or a cheque, and if he expected a cheque, fifty to one he received a bill.
This temperament, however, sometimes has its advantages, for he was sitting now quite contentedly painting and getting on with his picture, whilst Mr Verneede was sitting quite contentedly in the bar of the "Spotted Dog."
He was also smoking furiously with all the windows shut. To the artistic temperament at times comes moods, when it shuts all the windows, excluding noise and air, lights the foulest old pipe it can find, and, to use a good old public school term, "fugs."
Suddenly he stopped work, half-sprang to his feet, palette in one hand, pipe in the other. A footstep was on the landing, a girl's footstep—it was her!
The door opened, and his aunt stood before him.
Since the other night when Fanny had dined with them, Miss Hancock had been much exercised in her mind.
How on earth had Leavesley known of the affair? Had he referred to Fanny when he made that mysterious remark about his uncle and a girl, or was there another girl? She had an axiom that when a man once begins to make a fool of himself he doesn't know where to stop; she had also a strong dash of her nephew's imaginative temperament. Fanny had troubled her at first; seraglios were now rising in her mental landscape. She had an intuition that her brother had broken the ice as regards the other sex, and a dreadful fear that now he had broken the ice he was going to bathe.
Whew! said Miss Hancock, waving her parasol before her to dispel the clouds of smoke.
Aunt!
For goodness sake, open the window. Open something—achu!—do you live in this atmosphere?
Leavesley opened wide the windows, tapped the ashes of his pipe out on a sill, and turned to his aunt, who had taken her seat in an uncomfortable manner on a most comfortable armchair.
This is an unexpected pleasure!
Miss Hancock made no reply. It was the first time she had been in the studio, the first time she had been in any studio.
She noticed the dust and the litter. The place was, in fact, extraordinarily untidy, for Belinda, engaged just now in the fascination of a policeman, had scarcely time even for such ordinary household duties as making beds without turning the mattresses, and flinging eggs into frying pans full of hot grease.
As fate would have it, or curiosity rather, Belinda at this moment entered the studio, attired in a sprigged cotton gown four inches shorter in front than behind as if to display to their full a pair of wonderful feet shod in list slippers. Her front hair was bound in Hindes' hair-binders tight down to her head, displaying a protruberant forehead that seemed to have been polished. It was the only thing polished about Belinda, and she made a not altogether pleasing picture as she slunk into the studio to "look for something," but in reality to take stock of the visitor.
It would have been much happier for her if she had stayed away.
She was slinking out again when Miss Hancock, who had been following her every movement, said:
Stop, please!
Belinda, with her hand on the door handle, faced round.
Are you the servant here?
Yus—sulkily.
And I suppose you are paid to keep this room in order. Where's your mistress?
She's in Margate, cut in Leavesley.
Stop twiddling that door handle, said Miss Hancock, entirely ignoring Leavesley, "and attend to what I'm saying. If you are paid to keep this room in order you are defrauding your mistress, and girls who defraud their mistresses end in something worse. Go, get a duster."
The feelings of Cruiser, when he first came under the hands of Mr Rarey, may have been comparable to the feelings of Belinda before this servant-tamer.
She recognised a mistress, but she did not give in at once. She stood looking sulkily from Leavesley to his aunt, and from his aunt to Leavesley.
Miss Hancock had no legal power over her, it was all moral.
Go, get a duster and a broom, cried Miss Hancock, stamping her foot.
One second more the animal stood in mute rebellion, then it went off and got the duster and the broom.
Take up that strip of carpet, commanded Mr Leavesley's aunt, when the duster and the broom returned in the hands of the animal. "Whew! Throw it outside the door and beat it in the back garden, if you have such a thing—burn it if you haven't. Give me the duster. Now sweep the floor, whilst I do these shelves; Frank, put those books in a heap. Whew! does no one ever clean this place? Ha! what are you doing sweeping under the couch? Pull out that couch. Mercy!!!"
Under the couch there was a heap of miscellaneous things—empty cigarette tins, an empty beer bottle, an empty whisky bottle, half a pack of cards, a dress tie, a glove, "The Three Musketeers," and an old waistcoat—and dust, mounds of dust.
Miss Hancock looked at this. Like the coster who looked back along the City road to see the way strewn with cabbages, lettuces, and onions which had leaked from his faulty barrow, language was quite inadequate to express her feelings.
Go, get a dust-pan, she said at last, "and a basket. Be quick about it. Mercy!!!"
By the time the place was in order, Belinda, to Leavesley's astonishment, had become transformed from a sulky-looking slattern to a semi-respectable-looking servant girl.
That will do, said Miss Hancock in a magisterial voice, when the last consignment of rubbish had been removed. "Now, you can go."
As the boar sharpens its tusks against a tree preparatory to using them to carve human flesh, so had Miss Hancock sharpened the tusks of her temper upon Belinda.
No thanks, I don't want any tea, she said, replying to Leavesley's invitation. "I've come to ask you for an explanation."
What of?
What you said the other day.
What did I say the other day?
About your uncle.
About my uncle? he replied, wrinkling his forehead. He couldn't for the life of him think what she was driving at; he had quite forgotten his Parthian remark about the "girl," the thing had no root in his mind—a bubble made of words that had risen to the surface of his mind, burst, and been forgotten.
Miss Hancock had her own way of dealing with hypocrites. "Well, we will say no more about your uncle. How about Miss Lambert?"
Leavesley made a little spring from his chair, as if some one had stuck a pin into him, and changed colour violently.
How—what do you know about Miss Lambert?——
I know all about it, said Miss Hancock grimly. She was so very clever that she had got hold of the wrong end of the stick entirely, as very clever people sometimes do. If she had come to him frankly she would have found out that he was Fanny's lover, and not James Hancock's confidant and go-between, as she now felt sure he was.
Unhappy Leavesley! his love affair with Fanny seemed destined to be mulled by every one who had a hand in it.
If you know all about it, he said sulkily, "that ends the matter."
Unfortunately it doesn't.
What do you mean?
It's dreadful, said Miss Hancock, apparently addressing a tobacco jar that stood on the table, "it's dreadful to watch a man consciously and deliberately making a fool of himself—to sit by and watch it, and not be able to move a hand."
Of course he thought she referred to himself, but he was so accustomed to hear his aunt calling people fools that her remarks did not ruffle him.
But what I can't understand is this, he said. "Who told you about Fanny—I mean Miss Lambert?"
Fanny! said the lady with a sniff. "You call her Fanny?"
Of course.
Of course!
Why not?
Why not!
Yes.
The world has altered since I was a girl, that's all. Then with deep sarcasm—"Does your uncle know that you call her Fanny?"
Of course not; I've never told him.
Miss Hancock stared at him stonily, then she spoke. "Are you in love with her too?" she asked.
What do you mean by 'too'?
Frank Leavesley, don't shuffle and prevaricate. Are you in love with her?
Of course I am; every one who meets her must love her. I believe old Verneede is in love with her. Love with her! I'd lay my life down for her, but it's hopeless—hopeless——
I trust so indeed, replied Miss Hancock.
For a minute he thought his aunt must be a little bit mad: this was more than her ordinary contrariness; then he went back to his original question.
I want to know who told you about this.
Bridgewater, for one, replied Miss Hancock.
Bridgewater!
Yes, Bridgewater.
But he knows nothing about it, cried Leavesley. "He couldn't have told you."
He told me everything—Miss Lambert's visit to the Zoological Gardens, her——
You may as well be exact whilst you are about it; it wasn't the Zoological Gardens, it was Epping Forest.
Frank Leavesley, a lie is bad enough, but a silly lie is much worse. Miss Lambert herself told me it was the Zoological Gardens; perhaps she has been to Epping Forest as well; perhaps next it will be a visit to Paris. I wash my hands of the affair.
You have seen Miss Lambert?
No matter what I have seen. I have seen enough to make me open my eyes—and shut them again.
Leavesley was now fuming about the studio. What on earth had possessed Bridgewater? How on earth had he found out about the affair, and how had he come to twist Epping Forest into the Zoological Gardens?
——and shut them again, resumed Miss Hancock. "However, it is none of my business, but if there is such a thing as honour you ought, in my humble opinion, to go to your uncle and tell him the state of your feelings towards Miss Lambert."
I'll go, said Leavesley—"go to the office to-day; and if uncle chooses to keep that antiquated liar of a Bridgewater in his service any longer after what I tell him, it will be his own look-out."
Miss Hancock had not reckoned on this, she looked uncomfortable.
Bridgewater is an honourable man, who has acted for the best.
I know, said Leavesley. "Now, I must go out; I have some business. Are you sure you won't have some tea?"
No tea, thank you, replied Miss Hancock, rising to depart.
It was just as well she refused the tea, for there was no one to make it. She had hypnotised Belinda, and Belinda coming out of the hypnotic state was having hysterical convulsions in the kitchen, assisted by the charwoman.
Belinda, cried Leavesley down the kitchen stairs, he had rung his bell vainly, "are you there?"
She's hill, sir, replied a hoarse voice, "I'm a-lookin' arter her."
Oh, well, if a Mr Verneede calls, will you ask him to wait for me? I'll be back soon.
Yessir.
He left the house and proceeded as fast as omnibuses could take him to Southampton Row.
Bridgewater was out, but Mr Wolf, the second in command, ushered him into Hancock's room.
Well, said Hancock, who was writing a letter—"Oh, it's you. Sit down, sit down for a minute."
He went on with his letter, and Leavesley took his seat and sat in a simmering state listening to the squeaking of the quill pen, and framing in his mind indictments against Bridgewater.
If he had been in a state of mind to absorb details he might have noticed that his uncle was looking younger and brighter. But the youthfulness or brightness of Mr Hancock were indifferent to him absorbed as he was with his own thoughts.
Well, said Hancock, finishing his letter with a flourish and leaning back in his chair.
Aunt came to see me to-day, said Leavesley, "and I came on here at once. It's most disgraceful."
What?
Bridgewater. You've got a man in your office who is not to be trusted, a mischief-making old——
Dear me, what's all this? A man in the office not to be trusted? To whom do you refer?
Bridgewater.
Bridgewater?
Yes.
What has he been doing?
Doing! He has been sneaking round to my aunt telling tales about a lady; that's what he has been doing.
What lady?
A Miss Lambert. He told her she had been to the Zoological Gardens with——
Hancock raised his hand. "Don't go on," he said, "I know it all."
You know it all?
Yes, and I have given Bridgewater a right good dressing down—meddling old stupid!
Leavesley was greatly taken back at this.
It's not his fault, continued Hancock. "It's your aunt's fault; she put him on to spy. However, it's rather a delicate subject, and we won't pursue it, but"—suddenly and in a friendly tone—"I take it very kindly of you to come round and tell me this."
I thought I'd better come, said the young man; "besides, the thing put me in such a wax. Of course, if he was egged on by aunt, it's not so much his fault."
I take it very kindly of you, and we'll say no more about it. He lapsed into meditation, and Leavesley sat filled with a vague feeling of surprise.
Every one seemed a little out of the ordinary to-day. Why on earth did his uncle take this news so very kindly?
I've been thinking, said Hancock suddenly—then abruptly: "How are you financially, now?"
Oh, pretty bad. I had to sell a picture of John the Baptist for five pounds the other day; it was worth twenty.
When your mother married your father, said Hancock, leaning back in his chair, "she flew in the face of her family. He was penniless and a painter."
I don't want to hear anything against my father, said Leavesley tartly. "Yes, he was penniless and a painter, and she married him, and I'm glad she did. She loved him, that was quite enough."
If you will excuse me, said Hancock, "I was going to say nothing against your father. I think a love-match—er—um—well, no matter. I am only stating the facts. She flew in the face of her family, and as a result the money that might have been hers, went to your aunt."
And a nice use she makes of it.
The hundred a year left you by your parents, resumed the lawyer, ignoring this reply, "is, I admit, a pittance. I offered you, however, as the head of the family, and feeling that your mother had not received exactly justice, I offered you the choice of a profession. I offered to take you into this office. You refused, preferring to be a painter. Now, I am not stingy, but I have seen much of the world, and in my experience, the less money a young man has in starting in life, the more likely is he to arrive at the top of the tree. You have, however, now started; I have been making enquiries, and you seem to be working, and I am pleased with you for two things. Firstly, when you came to me the other day for money for a—foolish purpose you didn't lie over the matter and say you wanted the money for your landlady, as nine out of ten young men would have done. Secondly, for coming to me to-day and apprising me of the unpleasant intelligence, to which we will not again refer. I appreciate loyalty."
He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his note-case.
What's your present liabilities?
Oh, I owe about ten pounds.
Sure that's all?
Of course, I'd tell you if it was more; it's somewhere about that.
Hancock took a five-pound note and a ten-pound note out of the note-case, looked at them both, and then put the ten-pound note back.
I'm going to lend you five pounds, he said. "It will serve for present expenses, and I expect you to pay me it back before the end of the week." He held out the note.
You had better keep it, said his nephew, "for there's not the remotest chance of my paying you before the end of the week."
Take the note, said Hancock testily, "and don't keep me holding it out all day; you don't know what may happen in the course of a week. Take the note."
Well, I'll take it if you will have it so; and I'll pay you back some time if I don't this week.
Now good day, said Hancock. "I'm busy."
He left the office feeling depressed. Spent anger generally leaves depression behind it.
Hancock's admission that his mother had been treated harshly by her family, though a well-known fact to him, did not decrease his gloom. He considered the thousands that ought to have fallen to her share, that had fallen to the share of Patience instead. For a second a wild hatred of the Hancocks and all their ways filled his breast, and he felt an inclination to take the five-pound note from his pocket, roll it into a ball, and fling it into the gutter. Not being a lunatic, he didn't. He went and dined instead, though it was only a little after five, and having dined he went back to the studio.
Verneede had not yet returned. At ten o'clock Verneede had not yet returned. Midnight struck.
Can he be staying there the night? thought Leavesley, who had gone to bed with a novel and a pipe and an ear, so to say, on every footstep ascending the stairs.
People often stayed the night at the Lamberts' drinking punch and playing cards; he had done so himself once.
He woke at seven and dressed, and at eight he was standing before the house of Verneede in Maple Street.
Hin! said the landlady, "I should think he was hin; and thankful he ought to be he's not hin the police station."
Good gracious, what has happened?
Woke us up at two in the mornin' hangin' like a coal sack over the railin's; might a-tumbled into the airy and broke his neck. Disgraceful, I call it!
May I go up and see him?
Yus, you can go up—he's in the top floor back—trouble enough we had to get him there.
Leavesley went up to the top floor back. The unfortunate Verneede was in bed, trying to remember things. He had brought his umbrella home safely, but in the pockets of his clothes, after diligent search in the grey dawn, he had been able to discover only one halfpenny. To make up for this deficiency, his head was swelled up till it felt like a pumpkin.
Good gracious, Verneede, cried Leavesley, staring at him, "what on earth has happened to you?
A fit, I think, said Verneede.
Did you go to Highgate?
Of course—of course; pray, my dear Leavesley, hand me the washing jug.
He began to drink from the jug.
Stop! said Leavesley, "you'll burst!"
I'm better now, said Mr Verneede, placing the jug, half empty, on the floor, and passing his hand across his brow.
Then go on and tell me all about it.
Verneede had no recollection of anything at all save a few more or less unpleasant incidents. He remembered the "Spotted Dog," the "King's Arms"; he remembered streets; he remembered being turned out of somewhere.
Tell you about what?
Good gracious—about the Lamberts, of course. What time did you get there?
Half-past two, I think.
You couldn't; you only left the studio at two.
Half-past four, I mean; yes, it was half-past four.
When did you leave?
Verneede scratched his head.
Six.
You saw Miss Lambert?
Yes.
Look here, Verneede, you were all right when you got there, I hope?
Perfectly, absolutely.
What did you talk about?
We talked of various topics.
Did you mention my name?
Ah yes, said Verneede, "I told her what you said."
What?
About your going to Australia.
America, you owl, cried Leavesley.
America, I mean—America, of course—America.
What did she say?
She said—she hoped you'd have a fine voyage, that the weather would be fine, in short, or words to that effect.
Leavesley sighed.
Was that all she said?
Absolutely.
Did you say anything about the letter I wrote her?
Yes; I remembered that.
But I told you not.
It escaped me, said Verneede weakly.
What did she say?
She said it didn't matter; at least that is what I gathered from her.
How do you mean gathered from her?
From her manner.
Leavesley sighed again, and Verneede leaned back on his pillow. He did not know in the least whether he had been at Lamberts' or not—he hoped he hadn't.
Since her visit to Leavesley Miss Hancock felt certain that her system of petty espionage had been discovered: the question remained as to what course her brother would take. He had as yet said nothing.
One fact stood before her very plainly: his infatuation for Miss Lambert. She had examined Fanny very attentively, and despite the fact that she had plotted and planned for years to keep her brother single, had he at that moment entered the room with the news that he was engaged to be married to George Lambert's daughter, she would have received it not altogether as a blow. In her lifelong opposition to his marrying, she had always figured his possible wife as a woman who would oust her, but Fanny was totally unlike all other girls she had ever met—very different from Miss Wilkinson and the other middle-class young women, with minds of their own, from whom she had fortunately or unfortunately guarded her brother. There were new possibilities about Fanny. She was so soft and so charmingly irresponsible that the idea of hectoring, ordering, directing and generally sitting upon her was equivalent to the idea of a new pleasure in life. To order, to put straight, to admonish were functions as necessary to Miss Hancock's being as excretion or respiration; a careless housemaid to correct, or a shiftless friend to advise, called these functions into play; and the process, however it affected the housemaid or the friend, left Miss Hancock a healthier and happier woman.
The Almighty, who, however we may look at the fact, made the fly to be the intimate companion of the spider, seemed in the construction of Miss Lambert to have had the vital requirements of Miss Hancock decidedly in view.
She had almost begun to form plans as to Fanny's dress allowance, in the event of her marriage—how it should be spent; her hair, how it should be dressed; and her life, how it should be generally made a conglomeration of petty miseries.
On the night before the day Bevan left for Sussex Mr Hancock and his great toe had a conversation. What his right great toe said to Mr Hancock that night I will report very shortly for the benefit of elderly gentlemen in general; Anacreon has said the thing much better in verse, but verse is out of date. Said the right great toe of Mr Hancock in a monologue punctuated with the stabs of a stiletto:
How old are you? Sixty-three? (stab), that's what you say, but you know very well you were born sixty-five years and six months ago. Wake up (stab, stab), you must not go to sleep. Sixty-five—five years more and you will be seventy; fifteen years more and you'll be eighty, and you are in love (stab, stab, stab). I'll teach you to eat sweet cakes and ice creams; I'll (stab) teach you to drink Burgundy. And you dared to call me Arthritic Rheumatism the other night, you (stab) dared! Now, go to sleep (stab, stab) ... wake up again, I want to speak to you, etc., etc., etc.
Gout talks to one very like a woman: you cannot reply to it, it simply talks on.
At eight o'clock next morning, when Miss Hancock left her room, Boffins informed her that her brother was ill and wished to see her.
I'm all right, said James, who was lying in bed with the sheets up to his nose, "I'm all right—for heaven's sake, don't fidget with that window blind—I want my letters brought up; shan't go to the office to-day. You can send round and tell Bridgewater to call, and send for Carter, I've got a touch of this Arthritic Rheumatism (ow!)—do ask that servant to make less row on the stairs. No, don't want any breakfast."
Well, Hancock, said Dr Carter, when he arrived, "got it again—whew! There's a foot! What have you been eating?"
Nothing, groaned the patient; "it's worry has done it, I believe."
Now, don't talk nonsense. What have you been eating and drinking?
Well, I believe I had an ice-cream some days ago, and—a cake.
An ice-cream, and a cake, and a glass of port—come, confess your sins.
No, a glass of Burgundy.
An ice-cream, and a cake, and a glass of Burgundy—well, you can commit suicide if you choose, but I can only warn you of this that if you wish to commit suicide in a most unpleasant manner you'll do such a thing again.
Dash it, Carter—oh, Lord! go gently, don't touch it there! What's the good of being alive? I remember the days when I could drink a whole bottle of port without turning a hair.
I know—but you're not as young as you were then, Hancock.
Oh, do say something original—say I'm getting old, and have done with it!
It's not your age so much as your diathesis, said the pitiless Carter. "It's unfortunate for you, but there you are. You might be worse, every man is born with a disease. Yours is gout—you might be worse. Suppose you had aneurism? Now, here's a prescription; get it made up at once. Thank goodness, you can stand colchicum."
How long will it be before I'm all right?
A week, at least.
Oh Lord!
There, you are grumbling. Remember, my dear fellow, that living is a business as well as lawyering. Take life easy, and forget the office for a few days.
I wasn't thinking of the office—give me that writing-case over there; I must write a letter.
When Bridgewater arrived half an hour later, he found his master laboriously addressing an envelope.
Take that and post it, Bridgewater. Bridgewater took it and placed it in his pocket without looking at the address upon it, and having reported on the morning letters, and received advice as to dealing with one or two matters, ambled off on his errand.
That evening at five o'clock, when Patience brought him up a cup of tea and the evening newspaper, James, considerably eased by the colchicum and pills of Dr Carter, said: "Put the tea on the table there, and sit down, Patience. I wish to speak to you."
Patience sat down, took her knitting from her apron pocket, and began to knit.
I have written a letter to-day to Miss Lambert.
Oh!
An important letter, a vitally important letter to me.
You mean, James, that you have written a letter of proposal—that you intend, in short, to marry Miss Lambert?
That is precisely my meaning.
Humph!
Does the idea displease you?
Yes, and no.
Please explain what you mean by 'yes' and 'no'; the expression lacks lucidity, to say the least of it.
I mean that it would be much better for you to remain as you are; but if you do intend to commit yourself in this way, well—Miss Lambert is at least a lady.
The keen eye of James examined his sister's face as she spoke, and he knew that what she said she meant. Despite all his tall talk to Bridgewater about sending his sister packing her influence upon him was very strong; thirty years of diffidence to her opinion in the minor details of life had not passed without leaving their effect upon his will; besides he, as a business man, had great admiration for her astuteness and power of dealing with things. Active opposition to his matrimonial plans would not have altered them, but it would have made him unhappy.
I am glad you think that, he said. "Give me the tea."
Mind, said Miss Hancock, as she handed the beverage, "I wash my hands of the matter; I think it distinctly unwise, considering your age, considering her age, considering everything."
Well, all that lies with me. You will be civil and kind to her, Patience?
It is not my habit to be unkind to any one. You have written, you say, to her to-day; you wrote without consulting me—the step is taken, and you must abide by it. I hope it will be for your happiness, James.
He was watching her intently, and was satisfied.
I wish, he said, putting the cup down on the table beside the bed, "I wish you knew her better."
I will call upon her, said Miss Hancock, counting her stitches; "she left her parasol behind her last night, I will take it back to her——"
No, don't, for goodness sake! said James, the Lambert ménage rising before him, and also a vague dread that his sister, despite her appearance and words of goodwill—or rather semi-goodwill—might be traitorously disposed at heart. "At least—I don't know—I suppose it would be the right thing to do."
I am not especially anxious to call, said Miss Hancock, who had quite made up her mind to journey to Highgate on the morrow and spy out the land of the Lamberts for herself. "In fact, the only possible day I could call would be to-morrow before noon. I have a meeting in Sloane Square to attend at five, and on Wednesday I have three engagements, two on Thursday; Friday I have to spend the day with Aunt Catherine at Windsor, where I will remain over Sunday."
Well, call to-morrow and bring her back her parasol—oh, damn!
James!
Oh Lord! I thought some one had shot a bullet into my foot. Give me the medicine, quick, and send round for Carter. I must have some opium, or I won't sleep a wink.
Miss Hancock administered the dose, and retired downstairs, when she sent a message to Dr Carter and ordered the lilac parasol of Miss Lambert to be wrapped in paper. Then she sent a message to the livery stables to order the hired brougham, which she employed several times a week, to be in attendance at 9.30 the following morning, to drive her to Highgate.
But next morning her brother was so bad that she could not leave him. But she called one morning later on.