CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG, ANDJOAN MISSES HER CUE

Hughiespent the next few months chiefly in wondering.

He wondered what Mr. Haliburton's game might be. What was he doing behind Lance Gaymer? That the latter might consider himself justified in poking his nose into his only sister's affairs was understandable enough—but why drag in Haliburton? Was that picturesque ruffian a genuine friend of Lance's, enlisted in a brotherly endeavour to readjust Jimmy Marrable's exceedingly unsymmetrical disposition of his property, or was he merely a member of that far-reaching and conspicuously able fraternity (known in sporting circles as "The Nuts"), to whom all mankind is fair game, and whose one article of faith is a trite proverb on the subject of a fool and his money, pursuing his ordinary avocation of "making a bit"? In other words, was Lance Gaymer pulling Haliburton, or was Haliburton pushing Lance Gaymer?

Hughie also wondered about a good many other things, notably—

(a) Joan.

(b) More Joan; coupled with dim speculations as to how it was all going to end.

But for the present life followed an uneventful course. Since Lance's display of fireworks at Hughie's luncheon-party, Hughie's friends had studiously avoided the mention of the word money in their late host's presence; and Master Lance himself, evidently realizing that, however excellent his intentions or pure his motives, he had made an unmitigated ass of himself, avoided Hughie's society entirely.

Of Joan Hughie saw little until the beginning of October, when he arrived at Manors to shoot pheasants.

He was greeted, almost with tears of affection, by John Alexander Goble, who had been retained by Jack Leroy as butler when Hughie relinquished his services; and found the house packed with young men and maidens, the billiard-room strewn with many-hued garments, and the atmosphere charged with the electricity of some great enterprise in the making.

"Theatricals!" explained Mrs. Leroy resignedly, as she handed him his tea. "Tableaux, rather. At least, it is a sort of variety entertainment," she concluded desperately, "in theParish Hall. In aid of some charity or other, but that doesn't matter."

"Joey's latest, I suppose?"

"Yes; the child is wild about it. What, sweet one?" (This to the infant Hildegard, in an attitude of supplication at her side.) "Cake? certainly not! You are going out to tea at the Rectory in half an hour. Do you remember what happened the last time you had two teas?"

Stodger reflected, and remembered; but pleaded, in extenuation,—

"But I did itallat the Rectory, mummy."

"She was sick," explained her sister, turning politely to Hughie.

"Twice!" corroborated Stodger, not without pride.

"Yes; in a decent basin provided by the parish," continued Duckles hazily. She had recently begun to attend church, and her reading during the sermon had opened to her a new and fertile field for quotation.

"Tell me more about the tableaux, Jack," said Hughie hastily, as Mrs. Leroy accelerated her ritualistic progeny's departure upstairs.

"They're spendin' lashings of money on them. Won't make a farthing profit, I don't suppose; but the show should be all right. They're getting a 'pro.' down to stage-manage 'em."

"My word, they are going it! Hallo, Joey!"

Miss Gaymer's entrance brought theatrical conversation up to fever heat; and for the rest of the meal, and indeed for the next few days, Hughie lived and breathed in a world composed of rickety scenery, refractory pulleys, and hot size, inhabited by people who were always talking, usually cross, and most intermittent in their feeding-times.

One afternoon Joan took him down to the Hall, ostensibly as a companion, in reality to shift some large flats of scenery, too wide for feminine arms to span.

Captain Leroy had already offered himself in that capacity, but his services had been brutally declined, on the ground that the scenery was not concave.

"The programmes are being printed to-day. We are going to have the tableaux in the first half," Joan rattled on, as they walked through the plantations. "Well-known pictures, you know. Some of them are perfectly lovely. I am in three," she added, rather naïvely.

Hughie asked for details.

"Well, the first one is to be The Mirror of Venus—a lot of girls looking into a pool."

"Are you in that?"

"Not much!Thatis for all the riff-raff who have crowded in without being invited—the Mellishes, and the Crumfords, and the Joblings.(You know the lot!) There's another tableau for their men:suchhorrors, my dear! But that disposes of them for Part One: they don't have to appear again until the waxworks. Then there's a perfectly sweet one—The Gambler's Wife."

"Who is she to be?"

"Sylvia Tarrant. She sits under a tree in an old garden, looking sad," gabbled Joan without pausing, "while her husband gambles with some other men on the lawn behind. You'll cry! I come after that—Two Strings to her Bow. A girl walking arm-in-arm with two men. She looks quite pleased with herself: the men have both got camelious hump."

"Who are they?"

"It's not quite settled yet. I told them they could fight it out among themselves. I expect it will be Binks and Cherub, though. But they must decide soon, because time is getting on, and Mr. Haliburton says—"

"Who?"

"Mr. Haliburton."

"Haliburton?" said Hughie, stopping short.

"Yes. Didn't you know? He is stage-managing us. He came down this morning."

"Is he staying in the house?" was Hughie's next question.

"No: we couldn't get him in. He's putting up at The Bull, in the village," said Joan. "I wishwe could have found room for him," she added, with intention. She knew that most men neither loved Mr. Haliburton nor approved of their girl friends becoming intimate with him; and this alone was quite sufficient to predispose her in that misjudged hero's favour.

In her heart of hearts Miss Gaymer was just a littleéprisewith Mr. Haliburton, and, as becomes one who is above such things, just a little ashamed of the fact. She had found something rather compelling in his dark eyes and silky ways, but, being anything but a susceptible young person, rather resented her own weakness. Still, the fact remained. She had seen a good deal of Mr. Haliburton in London—how, she could hardly explain, though possibly Mr. Haliburton could have done so—and had listened, not altogether unmoved, to tales of a patrimony renounced for Art's sake, of an ancestral home barred by a hot-headed but lovable "old pater"; and to various reflections, half-humorous, half-pathetic, on the subject of what might have been if this world were only a juster place.

Joan, who did not know that Mr. Haliburton's ancestral home had been situated over a tobacconist's shop somewhere between the back of Oxford Street and Soho Square, and that his "old pater" had but lately retired from the post of head waiter at a theatrical restaurant in MaidenLane, in order to devote his undivided attention to the more perfect colouring of an already carnelian proboscis, felt distinctly sorry for her romantic friend. When a young girl begins to feel sorry for a man, the position is full of possibilities; and when heavy-handed and purblind authority steps in and forbids the banns, so to speak, the possibilities become probabilities, and, in extreme cases, certainties.

Joan glanced obliquely at Hughie. That impassive young man was advancing with measured strides, frowning ferociously. She continued, not altogether displeased:—

"The next tableau is Flora Macdonald's Farewell—very Scotch. A man in a kilt stands in the centre—"

She babbled on, but Hughie's attention wandered.

Haliburton again! He did not like the idea. Consequently it was not altogether surprising if, when Joan paused to enquire whether he regarded Queen Elizabeth or a suffragette as the most suitable vehicle for one of Mrs. Jarley's most cherished "wheezes," Hughie should have replied:—

"Joan, how did that chap come here? Was he engaged by you, or did he offer himself?"

"He offered himself—very kindly!" said Joan stiffly.

"I suppose he is being paid?"

"Yes, of course—a guinea or two. It's his profession," said Joan impatiently. "Do you object?"

The occasion called for considerable tact, and poor heavy-handed Hughie sighed in anticipation. Joan heard him.

"Whatisthe trouble?" she asked, more amused than angry. "Out with it, old Conscientiousness?"

"Joey," said Hughie, "I don't like the idea of your taking up with that chap."

On the whole, it could not have been put worse.

"It seems to me," said Miss Gaymer scornfully, "that it's not women who are spiteful, but men. I wonder why every male I know is so down on poor Mr. Haliburton. Silly children like Binks and Cherub I can understand, butyou, Hughie—you ought to be above that sort of thing. What's the matter with the man, that you all abuse him so? Tell me!"

Hughie's reply to this tirade was lame and unconvincing. The modern maiden is so amazingly worldly-wise on various matters on the subject of which she can have had no other informant than her own intuitions, that she is apt to scout the suggestion that there are certain phases of life of which happily she as yet knows nothing;and any attempt to hint the same to her is scornfully greeted as a piece of masculine superiority. Consequently Joey thought she knew all about Mr. Haliburton; wherein she was manifestly wrong, but not altogether to be blamed; for when your knowledge of human nature, so far as it goes, is well-nigh perfect, it is difficult for you to believe that it does not go all the way.

It was a most unsatisfactory conversation. All Hughie did was to reiterate his opinion of Mr. Haliburton without being able (or willing) to furnish any fresh facts in support of it; and the only apparent result was to prejudice Joan rather more violently in Haliburton's favour than before, and to make Hughie feel like a backbiter and a busybody. It was a relief when Joan abruptly changed the conversation, and said:—

"Hughie, have you seen anything of Lance lately?"

No, Hughie had not. "Why?"

"I'm bothered about him," said Joan, descending from her high horse and slipping into what may be called her confidential mood. "He used to write to me pretty regularly, even after he married that freak, and we were always fond of one another, even though we quarrelled sometimes. But he seems to have dropped out of things altogether lately. Do you know what he is doing?"

"Can't say, I'm sure," said Hughie.

"Could you find out for me?"

"Of course I will," said Hughie, quite forgetting the present awkwardness of his relations with Lance in the light of the joyous fact that Lance's sister had just asked him to do her a service. "I'll go and look him up. He may be ill, or short of cash. But can't you get news of him from—from—"

He stopped suddenly. He had been about to ask a question which had just struck him as rather ungenerous.

"You mean from Mr. Haliburton?" said Joan, with her usual directness. "I did ask him, but he says he has seen nothing of Lance for quite a long time; so I'm afraid I must bother you, Hughie. I don't like to, because I know you won't want to go out of your way on his account, after—"

"Never mind that!" said Hughie hastily. "I'll go and look him up."

Joan turned to him gratefully.

"You're a good sort, Hughie," she said. "I don't know what I should do without you."

Hughie glowed foolishly. Her words did not mean anything, of course; still, they warmed him for the time being. He never thought of making capital out of Joan's impulsive outbursts of affection. He regarded them as a sort of consolationprize—nothing more. He had never attempted to make love to her since his first rebuff. The memory of that undignified squabble still made him tingle, and in any case it would never have occurred to him to renew the attack. Man-like, he had taken for granted the rather large proposition that a woman invariably means what she says. To pester Joan with further attentions, especially in his exceptional position, savoured to him of meanness.

For all that, the girl and he seemed of late to have adjusted their relations with one another. Joan never played with him now, encouraging him one moment and flouting him the next, as in the case of most of her faithful band. Her attitude was that of a good comrade. She was content to sit silent in his company, which is a sound test of friendship; she brought to him her little troubles, and occasionally ministered to his; and in every way she showed him that she liked and trusted him. A vainer or cleverer man would have taken heart of grace at these signs. Hughie did not. He was Joan's guardian, and as such entitled to her confidence; also her very good friend, and as such entitled to her affection. That was all. It was rotten luck, of course, that she was not sufficiently fond of him to marry him, but then rotten luck is a thing one must be prepared for in this world. He would get accustomed to the situationin time: meanwhile there must be no more castles in the air.

"I'll tell you what," he continued presently. "I shall be in town on Wednesday. I'll go and look Lance up then."

"But, Hughie," cried Joan in dismay, "Wednesday is the day of the entertainment. Youmustcome to that. What is your engagement, if it's not indiscreet to inquire?"

"Dentist," said Hughie lugubriously.

"Dentist?" Joan laughed, or rather crowed, in her characteristically childlike way. "Hughie at the dentist's! It seems so funny," she explained apologetically.

"It will be the reverse of funny," said Hughie severely, "when he gets hold of me. Do you know how long it is since I sat in a dentist's chair? Eight years, no less!"

"You'll catch it!" said Miss Gaymer confidently. "But you simply must not go on that day. I want you at the show. Can't you change the date?"

"The assassin gave me to understand," said Hughie, "that it was a most extraordinary piece of luck for me that he should be able to take me at all; and he rather suggested that if I broke the appointment I need not expect another on this side of the grave. Besides, next Wednesday is about our one off-day from shooting. I also—"

Miss Gaymer fixed a cold and accusing eye on him.

"Confess, miserable shuffler!" she said. "You arranged that date with the dentist on purpose, so as to escape the theatricals."

"Guilty, my lord!" replied the criminal resignedly.

"Well, you are let off with a caution," said Joan graciously, "but you'll have to come, all the same. Youwill, won't you, Hughie?"

"Will my presence make so much difference?" said Hughie, rather boldly for him. He was inviting a heavy snub, and he knew it.

Joan raised her eyes to his for a moment.

"Yes," she said, rather unexpectedly, "it will."

"Then I'll come," said Hughie, with vigour. "I go to the dentist at ten. I'll get that over, ask Lance to lunch, and come down by the afternoon train. What time does the show begin?"

"Eight."

"The train gets in at seven-fifty. I'll come straight to the Parish Hall—"

"You'll get no dinner," said Joan in warning tones.

"Never mind!" said Hughie heroically. "There's to be a supper afterwards, isn't there?"

"Yes."

"I'll last out, then. By the way, does it matter if I'm not in evening kit?"

"Not a bit, if you don't mind yourself. Of course the front rows will be full of people with their glad rags on," said Joan. "But if you feel shy, come round behind the scenes. Then you'll be able to keep an eye on me—and Mr. Haliburton!" she added, with a provocative little glance.

Hughie duly departed to town, promising faithfully to come back for the theatricals, and wondering vaguely why Joan had insisted so strongly on his doing so. Joan felt rather inclined to wonder herself. She was a little perplexed by her own impulses at present. But her mind was occupied by some dim instinct of self-preservation, and she felt somehow distinctly happier when Hughie promised to come.

However, there was little time for introspection. Rehearsals—"with the accent on the hearse," as Mr. Binks remarked during one protracted specimen—were dragging their slow length along to a conclusion; tickets were selling like hot cakes; and presently the great day came.

Amateur theatricals are a weariness to the flesh, but viewed in the right spirit they are by no means destitute of entertainment. The drama's laws, as interpreted by the amateur, differ materially from those observed by the professional branch—the members of which, itmust be remembered, have to please to live—in several important particulars; and with these the intending playgoer should at once make himself conversant.

Here is aprécis:—

(1) Remember that the performance has been got up entirely for the benefit of the performers, and that you and the rest of the audience have merely been brought in to make the thing worth while.

(2) Abandon all hope of punctuality at the start or reasonability in the length of the intervals. Amateur scene-shifters and musicians do not relish having their "turns" curtailed any more than the more conspicuous members of the cast.

(3) Bear in mind the fact that the play isnotthe thing, but the players. The most thrilling Third Act is as dross compared with the excitement and suspense of watching to see whether Johnny Blank willreallykiss Connie Dash in the proposal scene, or whether the fact (known to at least two-thirds of the audience) that they have not been on speaking terms for the past six months will result in the usual amateurne plus ultra—a sort of frustrated peck, falling short by about six inches. Again, the joy of hearing the hero falter in a stirring apostrophe to the gallery is enhanced by the knowledge that he is readingit from inside the crown of his hat, and has lost the place: while the realistic and convincing air of deference with which the butler addresses the duchess is the more readily recognized and appreciated by an audience who are well aware that he happens in private life to be that lady's husband.

The entertainment to which we must now draw the reader's unwilling attention was to consist of three parts. First, the Tableaux Vivants—thirty seconds of tableaux to about ten minutes of outer darkness and orchestral selection; then a comedietta; and finally, Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks.

The largest room behind the scenes had been reserved for the ladyartistes; a draughty passage, furnished chiefly with flaring candles and soda-water syphons, being apportioned to the gentlemen. Theloge des dameswas a bare and cheerless apartment, but tables and mirrors had been placed round the walls; and here some fifteen or twenty maidens manœuvred with freezing politeness or unrestrained elbowings (according to their shade of social standing) for positions favourable to self-contemplation.

Joan and Sylvia Tarrant foregathered in the middle of the floor.

"I think we'd better dress here, dear," said Joan cheerfully, "and leave the nobility and gentry to fight for the dressing-tables. After all,"she added complacently, "you and I need the least doing up of any of them."

The tableaux on the whole were a success, though it was some time before the audience were permitted to inspect them. The musical director, a nervous individual with apenchantfor applied science, had spent the greatest part of two days in fixing up an electric bell of heroic proportions controlled from the conductor's desk, and ringing into the ear of the gentleman in charge of the lighting arrangements. A carefully type-written document (another by-product of the musician's versatility) apprised this overwrought official that one ring signified "stage-lights up," and two rings "stage-lights down."

Just before the curtain rose for the first tableau the conductor pressed his button once. After an interval of about two seconds, since the stage-lights showed no inclination to go up,—as a matter of fact the controller of illuminants was tenderly nursing a hopelessly perforated eardrum,—the agitated musician, convinced that the bell had not rung, rang it again. Consequently, just as the curtain rose, every single lamp on the stage, from the footlights to the overhead battens, was hastily extinguished. Confusion reigned supreme. The conductor pressed his button frantically and continuously; the electrician lost his head completely, and began toturn off switches which controlled the lights in the dressing-rooms and the hall itself; while the faithful orchestra, suddenly bereft of both light and leadership, endeavoured with heroic but misguided enthusiasm to keep the flag flying by strident improvisations of the most varied and individual character.

The audience, who had come prepared for anything, sat unmoved; but dolorous cries were heard from the dressing-rooms and vestibule. Above all rose the voice of the conductor, calling aloud for the blood of the electrician and refusing to be comforted. The firsttableau vivantpartook of the nature of an "extra turn," and was not foreshadowed in the programme. It took place in the middle of the stage, and depicted two overheated gentlemen (one carrying abâtonand the otheren déshabille) explaining (fortissimo) the purport of a type-written document to a third (who caressed his right ear all the time) by the light of a single wax vesta.

After this gratuitous contribution to the gaiety of the proceedings the official programme came into force, and various attractive and romantic visions were unfolded to the audience. Certainly the tableaux were well mounted. The success of A Gambler's Wife and Two Strings to her Bow was beyond question. Haliburton, too, made a striking appearance in Orchardson's Hard Hit—thefamous gambling picture with the countless packs of cards strewn upon the floor—wherein the broken gamester turns with his hand on the door-handle to take a last look at the three men who have mastered him.

There were minor blemishes, of course. The composure of the beauteous band who were discovered—when the conductor had been hounded back to his stool and the bemused electrician replaced by a man of more enduring fibre—contemplating their own charms in The Mirror of Venus was utterly wrecked—yea, transformed into helpless giggles—by a totally unexpected ejaculation of "Good old Gertie!" proceeding from a young man in the front row—evidently a brother—chiefly remarkable for a made-up tie and a red silk handkerchief, and directed apparently (if one may judge by consequences) at a massively-built young woman kneeling third from the end on the prompt side. During another tableau, as Prince Charles stood rigid in the embrace of Flora Macdonald, the audience sat spellbound for thirty breathless seconds, what time the unhappy prince's tartan stockings slipped inch by inch from the neighbourhood of his knees, past the boundary line where artificial brown left off and natural white began, right down to his ankles—acontretempswhich, as Mr. D'Arcy remarked to Mrs. Leroy, added a touch of animation towhat would otherwise have been a somewhat lifeless representation.

The comedietta was not an unqualified success. It was one of those characteristic products of what may be called the Back-Drawing-Room School, in which complications begin shortly after the rise of the curtain with the delivery and perusal of a certain letter, and are automatically adjusted at the end of about thirty-five minutes by the introduction of another, which explains everything, settles differences, precipitates engagements, and brings the curtain down upon all the characters standing in a row in carefully assorted couples.

This somewhat trite and conventional plot was agreeably varied by the vagaries of the talented gentleman who played the footman responsible for the delivery of the letters. He brought on the second letter first, with the result that the heroine found herself exclaiming: "How foolish I have been! Gerald had been true to me through all! I must go to him at once! We can be married to-morrow!" after the drama had been in progress some three minutes,—a catastrophe only tided over by some perfectly Napoleonic "gagging" by the comic man and an entirely unrehearsed entrance (with obvious assistance from the rear) of the footman, with the right letter.

Fortunately these divergences from the drama'snormal course were lost upon the majority of the audience; for the actors, whether from nervousness or frank boredom, were inaudible beyond the first three rows of seats. Even here the feat of following the drift of the dialogue was rendered almost impossible by the persistent and frantic applause of two obvious "deadheads" in the front row,—poor relations of the gentleman who played the footman,—who, since they occupied free seats, evidently considered it their bounden duty to applaud every entrance and exit of their munificent relative, even when he came on with the wrong letter or was elbowed off to fetch the right one. The only member of the company who performed his duties with anything like thoroughness was the prompter, a retired major with lungs of brass. He had evidently decided, with the true instinct of a strong man, that if you want a thing well done you must do it yourself. Consequently his voice re-echoed through the hall in an unceasing monologue which, while it lacked the variety inseparable from the deliverances of a whole company, did much to keep the occupants of the back benchesau faitwith the intricacies of the plot. The best laugh of the evening, however, was aroused by the temerity of one of the actors, who suddenly interrupted the prompter to remark mildly but distinctly: "All right, old man, I know this bit!"

Then came Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks. The curtain rose upon the usual group of historical and topical characters, seated round the stage in a semicircle, most of them twitching with incipient hysteria, and all resolutely avoiding the eye of the audience. Presently Mrs. Jarley (Binks), accompanied by Master Jarley (Cherub, in a sailor suit and white socks), made her appearance, and plunged into a slightly laboured monologue, what time her offspring walked round the stage, and, by dint of dusting, oiling, and other operations, stimulated any of the figures which could possibly have been mistaken for waxworks into a fitting display of life and activity.

One "Mrs. Jarley" is very like another, and the audience, who were beginning to suffer from a slight attack of theatrical indigestion, were a little slow in responding to Binks's hoary "wheezes" and unfathomable topical allusions. It was not until a bench at the back of the stage, occupied by Oliver Cromwell, General Booth, Dorando, and a Suffragette, suddenly toppled over backwards, and discharged its tenants, with four alarming thuds, into the chasm which yawned between the back of the staging and the wall, that the entertainment could be said to have received a proper fillip. After the first sensation of surprise and resentment at finding themselves reposing upon the backs of their necks in thedust, the four gentlemen affected (who, it is to be feared, had been priming themselves for this, their first appearance on any stage, in the customary manner) accepted the situation with heroic resignation. Remembering that they were waxworks, and for that if for no other reason incapable of getting up, they continued in their present posture, invisible to the naked eye except for their legs, which stuck straight up into the air. The flagging audience, imagining that the entire disaster was part of the performance, applauded uproariously, and Mrs. Jarley seized the opportunity to deliver a pithyextemporelecture upon character as read from the soles of the feet.

The performance concluded with a song and chorus, specially composed for the occasion, and sung by Mrs. Jarley and her exhibits in spasmodic antistrophe. Mrs. Jarley began,—

"Some ladies have one figure—one, home grown!But I have quite a lot, like Madam Tussaud.And whatever sort of one you'd like to own,Just order me to make it, and I'll do so.I can make you waxen figures that can walk,Or wave their arms, or turn and look behind 'em—"

Here, in attempting to suit the action to the word, the singer tripped heavily over her own train, and was only saved from completebouleversementby the miraculously animated and suddenly outstretched arm of Henry the Eighth, who was sittingclose behind. Binks continued, quite undisturbed,—

"And some of them (the female ones!) can talk,And it's wonderful how useful people find them."So send for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!And she'll reproduce each feature that you've got.It will save a deal of troubleIf you have a waxen double,Which will do your work when you would rather not!"

"And some of them (the female ones!) can talk,And it's wonderful how useful people find them.

"So send for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!And she'll reproduce each feature that you've got.It will save a deal of troubleIf you have a waxen double,Which will do your work when you would rather not!"

"Now then, waxworks! All together! Give them a lead, Sousa!"

Mr. Sousa (second from the end, o. p. side) obediently began to agitate hisbâton, partially scalping Sunny Jim in the process, and the waxworks sang out,fortissimo, with a distinct but unevenly distributedaccelerandotoward the end,—

"Then send for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!And she'll reproduce each feature that you've got.All your business she will see to,Black your boots, and make your tea, too,If you'll only put a penny in the slot!"

The tune was good, and the chorus went with a swing. But now a difficulty arose. The second verse should have been sung by one of the late occupants of the back bench—Dorando, to be precise; and Mrs. Jarley, realizing the circumstance, was on the point of beginning it herself,when a muffled voice, proceeding apparently from the infernal regions, struck into the opening lines. Dorando, faint yet pursuing, was evidently determined to fulfil his contract, even if he had to do it on his head. For various reasons (chiefly dust and incipient apoplexy), his articulation was not all that could be desired, and the verse, which told of the ingenious device of one Tommy Sparkes, who, faced by the prospect of corporal punishment,

"Sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot,And explained that he was going to get it hot"—

whereupon that resourceful lady

"Made a figure, small and ruddy,To be Tommy's understudy;And the figure got—what Tommy should have got!"

was lost upon the audience. But every one took up the chorus with a will, and the third verse entered upon its career under the happiest auspices.

On this occasion the lines were distributed among the figures themselves.

"Now Mrs. Bumble-Doodle gave a ball"—

began Queen Elizabeth;

"But twenty-seven men all wired to say"—

continued Peter Pan;

"That they very much regretted, after all"—

carolled Sunny Jim;

"To find they simplycouldn'tget away!"—

bellowed a voice (Oliver Cromwell's) from under the platform.

"Said Mrs. Bumble-Doodle, in despair"—

resumed Master Jarley, after a yell of laughter had subsided;

"The ball will be a failure—not a doubt of it!"

announced a Pierrette, with finality.

"The girls won't find a single partner there"—

wailed a waxwork in a kilt (possibly Rob Roy or Harry Lauder)—

There was a break. The piano paused expectantly, and all the waxworks turned their heads (most unprofessionally) to see what had happened to Cherry Ripe, whose turn it was to sing the next verse. Apparently that lady had permitted her attention to wander, for she was scrutinising the audience, to the neglect of her cue. The sudden silence—or possibly the attentions of Master Jarley, who bustled up and assiduously oiled her mouth and ears—seemed to recall her errant wits.

"Sorry!" she remarked calmly, and sang in a clear voice,—

"Oh, what a mess! How are we to get out of it?"

"She sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!"

declaimed that lady triumphantly,

—"And the girls were quite content with what they got.True, a dummy cannot flirt;But he does not tear your skirt,Or say that he can dance when he can not!"

"Now, then,alltogether!"

Mrs. Jarley, waxworks, and audience swung into the final chorus. Even the four inverted Casabiancas at the back assisted by swinging their legs.

"She sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!And the girls were quite content with what they got.They were spared that youth entrancing,Who says: 'I don't much care for dancing,But I don't mind sitting out with you—eh, what?'"

But Cherry Ripe was not singing. She was saying to herself,—

"Not in the hall, and not behind the scenes! I wonder where he can have got to! Hemayhave missed his train, of course; but then he could have wired, hours ago. Well, Hughie,mon ami, if that's the way you treat invitations—"

But the curtain had fallen, and all the waxworks were scuffling off their high chairs and trooping to the dressing-rooms. Cherry Ripe, following their example, put an arm round Pierrette, and said:—

"Come along, Sylvia! Home, supper, and a dance! That's the programme now."

On reaching Manors, Joan enquired of Mr. Goble,—

"Is Mr. Hughie back, John?"

"'Deed, no, mem."

"Any telegram, or anything?" asked Joan carelessly.

"Naething whatever! He'll no be back till the morn, I doot," said Mr. Goble.

Two hours later, when supper was over and the dancing at its height, Mr. Haliburton approached Joan.

"Our dance, I think, Cherry Ripe?" he said.

Cherry Ripe concurred.

"Will you come and sit in the conservatory?" continued Haliburton. "I want to say something particular to you."

Joan regarded him covertly for a moment.

"All right!" she said.

IN WHICH CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, ANDHUGHIE MISSES HIS TRAIN

Thedentist laid aside his excavating pick with a regretful sigh, and began to fit what looked like a miniature circular saw into the end of the electric drill.

Hughie, recumbent in the chair, telling himself resolutely that, appearances to the contrary, the man was doing this because it was really necessary, and not from mere voluptuousness, cautiously inserted his tongue into the hole, and calculated that the final clearance would be a three minutes' job at the shortest.

"It seems hard to believe," said the dentist morosely, setting the machinery of the drill in motion with his foot, "that your teeth have not been attended to for eight years. A little wider, please!"

Hughie realised that he was being called a liar as unmistakably as a man can be; but at this moment the drill came into full operation, and he merely gripped the arms of the chair.

"A man," continued the dentist, removing the drill and suddenly syringing the cavity with ice-cold water,—"empty, please!—should makea point of having his teeth inspected once every six months; a woman, once every three."

"A man," replied Hughie (who believed that the operations with the drill were completed), "must have his teeth inspected when he can. That is," he added rapidly,—the dentist was deliberately fitting a fresh tool into the drill,—"I have been abroad for the last eight or nine years."

"Away from civilisation, perhaps," said the dentist compassionately, getting good leverage for his operating hand by using Hughie's lower jaw as a fulcrum.

"Quite!" gurgled Hughie, whose head at the moment was clasped tight to his inquisitor's waistcoat buttons.

"In that case," said the dentist in distinctly mollified tones, "we must not be too hard on you. Tongue down, please!"

He completed his excavating and inundating operations, and, regretfully pushing away the arm of the drilling-machine, began to line his victim's mouth with some material which tasted like decomposing sponge-bags.

"Your teeth have preserved their soundness in quite an unaccountable way," he continued, with the air of a just man conscientiously endeavouring to minimise a grievance. "There is one other small hole here,"—he ran a pointed instrument well into it to prove his statement,—"butbeyond that there is nothing further to find fault with."

He began to pound up a mysterious mixture in a small mortar, and ran on:—

"You must have been very careful in your diet."

"No sweets," said Hughie laconically. "And I used very often to eat my meat right off the bone. That keeps teeth white, doesn't it?"

The dentist put down the mortar with some deliberation, and glared. Anything in the shape of levity emanating from occupants of the rack jars upon a Chief Tormentor's sense of what is professionally proper. But Hughie was lying back in the chair with his mouth open and eyes shut, exhibiting no sign of humorous intention. Still, this must not occur again. The dentist looked round for a gag. He produced from somewhere a long snaky india-rubber arrangement, terminating in a hooked nozzle. This he hung over Hughie's lower ερκος οδονΤων, effectually stifling his utterance and reducing his share in the conversation to a sort of Morse Code of single gurgles and long-drawn sizzles suggestive of the emptying of a bath.

Then, taking up his mortar, he proceeded, with the air of one who is using a giant's strength magnanimously,—

"You have visited the Antipodes, perhaps?"

"Gug-gug-guggle!" proceeded from the india-rubber-lined orifice before him.

"Ah! that must have been very interesting," continued the dentist. "Had you many opportunities of discussing the question of Colonial Preference with the leading men out there?"

"Glug!" came the reply.

"That was unfortunate. But perhaps you were able to form some idea of the general Australian attitude towards the question?"

"G-r-r-r-r-r! Guggle, guggle! Ch'k, ch'k!" observed Hughie.

"Personally," continued the dentist, rolling the pulverised substance in the mortar between his finger and thumb, and lighting a spirit-lamp, "I am an ardent upholder of the principles of that truly great man, the immortal Richard Cobden. Are you?"

Hughie, thoughtlessly lifting the gag for a moment, replied—with fatal distinctness.

It was a mad act. The dentist simply took up a humorous-looking bulb-shaped appliance, and having filled it with red-hot air at the spirit-lamp, discharged its contents, in one torrid blast, into the excavated tooth.

Twenty minutes later Hughie was ushered into the street, and stood poising himself doubtfully on the doorstep. He did not know what to do.

Strictly speaking, his next engagement should have been to entertain Mr. Lance Gaymer at luncheon. But that exposer of fraudulent trustees had not replied to Hughie's written invitation. Hence Hughie's stork-like attitude outside the dentist's premises. Personally he had not the slightest desire to entertain Lance Gaymer at luncheon or any other meal. On the other hand, he had promised Joan to seek out her brother and ascertain if all was well with him. Ergo, since the Mountain declined to come to Mohammed, or even answer his letters, Mohammed must put his pride in his pocket and go to the Mountain.

The prophet accordingly hailed a hansom, and was directing the cabman to drive to the Mountain's residence in Maida Vale,—a paradoxical address for a Mountain, by the way,—when a strange thing happened. Nay, it was a providential thing; for if Hughie had not resolutely summoned up his courage and told the dentist to go in and finish off the small hole in the last tooth,—a treat which that sated epicure was inclined to postpone until another occasion,—he would have hailed this hansom twenty minutes sooner and so missed his just reward.

Mrs. Lance Gaymer suddenly came round a corner of the quiet square, and crossed the road directly in front of Hughie's hansom. Hughie dismounted, and greeted her.

"Why," cried Mrs. Lance, "I do declare, it's Mr. Marrable!"

She smiled upon Hughie in a manner so intoxicating that the cabman coughed discreetly to the horse. That intelligent animal made no comment, but turned round and looked at the cabman.

"Fancy meeting you!" she continued archly.

"Did your husband get a letter from me yesterday, Mrs. Gaymer, do you know?" asked Hughie.

No, Mrs. Gaymer was sure he had not. The poor boy had took to his bed a week ago, with the "flu"; so Mrs. Lance had been conducting his correspondence for him, and could therefore vouch for the non-arrival of Hughie's letter. She hazarded the suggestion that possibly Hughie had written to Maida Vale.

Yes. Hughie had.

"That's it, then!" said Mrs. Lance. "We moved from there six weeks ago. We live in Balham now."

Hughie was not sufficiently conversant with suburban caste distinctions to feel sure whether this was a step up or down in the social scale, so he merely expressed a hope that Lance was getting well again.

"I want to come and see him, if I may," he said. "I asked him to come and lunch with me,but I suppose that is out of the question at present."

"You're right there," said Mrs. Lance in distinctly guarded tones. "He ain't what you'd call spry. He's not seeing anybody."

"I shouldn't stay long," urged Hughie.

"Is it business?" enquired Mrs. Gaymer with a touch of hostility.

"Yes," said Hughie.

Mrs. Gaymer surveyed him curiously. To most people she would have said flatly and untruthfully that her husband was unfit to see any one, for she had her own reasons for discouraging visitors to Balham just now. But she had always cherished a weakness for Hugh Marrable. He treated her exactly as he treated all women—with a scrupulous courtesy which, while it slightly bored frivolous damsels of his acquaintance, was appreciated at its true value by a lady whose social status was more than a little equivocal. It is only when one has secret doubts about being a real lady that one appreciates being treated as such.

"Could you come to-morrow?" she said at last.

"I have to get back to Manors to-night," said Hughie. "Might I come out to Balham this afternoon? Or, better still, will you come and lunch with me somewhere now, and we candrive out there afterwards? Or must you get back to the invalid?" he added, with just a suspicion of hopefulness.

Mrs. Lance, however, expressed her willingness to come and lunch, but insisted on being allowed to precede Hughie to Balham by at least one hour. The house wasthatuntidy! she explained.

Accordingly Hughie, having decided in his mind upon an establishment where he would not be likely to encounter any of his own friends, and which would yet conform with Mrs. Gaymer's notions of what was sufficiently "classy," conveyed his fair charge thither in a hansom; and presently found himself engaged in that traditionalne plus ultraof dissipation—the entertainment of another man's wife to a meal in a public restaurant.

Mrs. Lance, after she desisted from her efforts to impress upon her host the fact that she was quite accustomed to this sort of thing, was amusing enough. She addressed the waiter—an inarticulate Teuton—as "Johnny," and made a point of saying a few words to the manager when he passed their table. She smoked a cigarette after lunch, and was good enough to commend Hughie's taste in champagne—a brand which he had hazily recognised in the wine-list as being the sweetest and stickiest beverage ever distilled from gooseberries. (It was the sort of champagnewhich goes well with chocolate creams: "Chorus Girls' Entire," he remembered they used to call it.) At any rate it met with Mrs. Lance's undivided approval, and Hughie realised for the first time that a University education can after all be useful to one in after-life.

Suddenly Mrs. Lance enquired:—

"Do you know any theatrical managers, my dear boy?"

Yes, Hughie had come across one or two. "Why?"

"Well," said Mrs. Lance expansively, "you've always treated me like flesh and blood, which is more than what some of your relations have done; so I'll tell you. After all, I've got me feelings, same as—"

"What about the theatrical managers?" inquired Hughie tactfully.

"Oh, yes. Do you think you could ask one of 'em to give me a shop? The chorus would do. I was in it before," said Mrs. Gaymer candidly.

"Why do you want to go back there?"

"I—I've got a fancy for it—that's all," replied Mrs. Gaymer in a thoroughly unconvincing tone.

Hughie wondered if Lance and his wife were beginning to tire of one another.

"I do know one or two men," he said, "whoare interested in some of the musical-comedy syndicates. Shall I try them?"

"Will you reelly? You'll be a duck if you do," said Mrs. Gaymer.

After the deliverance of this unsolicited testimonial Hughie's guest observed that she must be getting home, and Hughie, having put her into a cab and paid the driver, retired to his club, clogged with viscous champagne and feeling excessively unwell, to wait until it should be time for him to follow her.

To look at the double row of eligible residences which composed Talbot Street, Balham, you would hardly have suspected that any of them would support what the Inland Revenue Schedule calls a "male servant." And yet, when Hughie rang the bell of Number Nineteen, the door was opened by such an appanage of prosperity. He was an elderly gentleman with a rheumy but humorous eye, and a nose which suggested the earlier stages of elephantiasis. He wore a dress-coat of distinctly fashionable cut (which, needless to say, did not fit him) and the regulation white shirt and collar, the latter quite two sizes too small; but his boots and trousers apparently belonged to a totally different class of society.

"Name of Marrable?" he enquired, smiling benevolently upon Hughie.

"Yes."

"Step in. We've been expectin' of you for 'alf-an-hour. Don't wipe your boots on that mat. It's worth one-and-eight."

After this somewhat remarkable confidence, the Gaymers' major-domo conducted the visitor upstairs. Here he threw open a door with truly theatrical grandeur, and announced,—

"'Ere's the young toff for you, my de—"

"Thank you, James: that will do," interposed Mrs. Lance Gaymer, with a very fair imitation of the manner of a musical-comedy duchess. "How do you do, Mr. Marrable?"

She was attired in the faded glories of a tea-gown, of a material more pretentious than durable; and in the half-light of the drawing-room—the blinds were partially lowered—looked extremely handsome in a tawdry way.

She apologised for her retainer's familiarity. Mr. Marrable would doubtless know what old servants was. Still, James must certainly be spoke to about it.

"You'll drink a cup of tea with me," she continued, "and then we'll pop up and see Lance, pore boy! Ring the bell, please."

Hughie did so, and a rather laborious quarter-of-an-hour followed. He ploughed his way through a morass of unlikely topics, while Mrs. Lance, who was obviously perturbed at the non-appearance of tea, replied indistraitmonosyllables.Hughie was conscious about half-way through the conversation of a faint crash in the lower regions, and wondered dimly whether calamity had overtaken the afternoon meal. If so, he had no doubt as to which of the domestic staff of Number Nineteen was responsible.

At last the door opened, and the inestimable James appeared.

"You done it this time!" he remarked severely. "The 'andle of that tea-pot 'as came right away in me 'and. It must have been that way this long while. You won't get no tea now. Wot's more, that tea-pot will 'ave to come off the invent—"

By this time Mrs. Lance Gaymer, with dumb but frenzied signallings, was herding her censorious hireling through the door, and his concluding remarks were lost in the passage outside.

Presently she returned, smiling bravely. Hughie experienced a sudden pang of pity and admiration. Lance's wife was the right sort of girl after all.

"Ireellymust apologise—" she began.

But Hughie interrupted her. He rose, and looked her frankly in the face.

"Mrs. Gaymer," he said, "please don't bother about keeping up appearances with me. I never cared a hang about them, and never shall. Tell me, what are you doing with a bailiff in the house?"

Mrs. Lance broke down and cried,—more from relief than anything else,—and presently Hughie, much to his surprise, found himself sitting beside her, patting her large but shapely hand, and uttering words of comfort and encouragement into her ear.

Half an hour later he concluded an interview with Mr. Albert Mould, broker's man,—late James, the butler,—in the dingy dining-room downstairs. The latter gentleman, the more gorgeous items of his apparel now replaced by garments of equal social standing with his boots and trousers, was laboriously writing a receipt with Hughie's fountain-pen, following the movements of the nib with the end of a protruding tongue. Presently he finished.

"There you are, sir," he said, breathing heavily upon the paper to dry the ink. "Twenty-seven, fifteen, eight—and thank you! What beats me," he added reflectively, "is 'ow you spotted me. What was it give me away? Seems to me Ilookedall right. I was wearin' the young feller's evenin' coat and one of 'is shirts, and I thought I was lookin' a treat all the time. Was it me trousis?"

To avoid wounding his guest's feelings, Hughie agreed that itwashis trousis.

"It's a queer trade, this of yours," he said.

"You got to earn a livin' some'ow," said Mr. Mould apologetically, "same as any other yewman bean. It's not a bad job, as jobs go. They carry on a lot, o' course, when you're first put in, and usually the wife cries; but they soon finds out as you won't do 'em no 'arm. You makes your inventory and settles down in the kitching, with a pint o' somethink in your 'and an' a pipe in your face, and in less than 'alf a tick you're one o' the family, a'most. Why, I've 'elped wash the baby afore now."

"Don't you ever get thrown out?" asked Hughie.

"I'avebin," replied Mr. Mould, in a tone which gently reproved the tactlessness of the question, "but not often. After all, I only comeinagin; and it's a matter of seven days for assault, p'raps, on top o' the distraint. Most of 'em 'as the sense to remember that, so they humours me, as it were. They speak me fair, and give me jobs to do about the house. Still, it were a bit of a surprise when 'er ladyship comes 'ome to-day about two o'clock and asks me would 'arf-a-crown be any good to me, and, if so, would I mind playin' at bein' a butler for a hour or two. I felt a fool, like, dressed up that way, but I always was one to oblige a bit o' skirt. Been weak with women," he added autobiographically, "from a boy. This fer me?" as Hughie opened the street-doorand sped the parting guest in a particularly acceptable manner. "Thank you, Captain!Goodday!"

He shuffled down the steps and along the street, obviously on his way to liquidate Hughie's half-crown, and the donor of that gratuity returned to the dining-room, where he took Mr. Mould's laboriously indited receipt from the table. Then he went upstairs, feeling desperately sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Lance. He had done what he could for them, in his eminently practical fashion, and set them on their feet again; but—for how long? Debts! Millstones! Poor things!

On the landing above he encountered Mrs. Gaymer, wide-eyed and incredulous.

"Lance would like to see you now," she said. "In here!" She opened a door. "And—and—I say," she added, half in a whisper, "surely you don't mean to say he's been andgawn!"

For answer Hughie awkwardly handed her the stamped receipt, and passed into the bedroom.

His interview with Lance lasted an hour and a half. Much passed between them during that period, and by the time Hughie rose and said he must be going, each man had entirely revised his opinion of the other. Most of us have the right stuff concealed in us somewhere, however heavily it may be overlaid by folly or vanity or desire to make a show. There are few men who do notimprove on acquaintance, once you get right through the veneer.

Poor Lance, struggling in deep waters, suddenly discovered in the dour and undemonstrative Hughie a cheerful helper and—most precious of all to a proud nature—an entirely uncritical confidant. Hughie on his part discovered what he had rather doubted before, namely, that Lance was a man. Moreover, he presently laid bare a truly human and rather sad tale of genuine ability and secret ambition, heavily handicapped by youthful cocksureness and want of ballast.

They discussed many things in that dingy bedroom: Lance's past; Uncle Jimmy's little allowance, mortgaged many years in advance; the creditors to whom, together with the law of the land, he was indebted for the presence beneath his roof of the versatile Mr. Mould; his future; the journalistic work which was promised him as soon as he should be fit again; Mrs. Lance; and also Mr. Haliburton.

Joan's name was barely mentioned. Lance exhibited a newborn delicacy in the matter. His officious solicitude on his sister's behalf was dead; he knew now that no woman need ever regret having trusted Hugh Marrable; and he was content to leave it at that.

"Well, I must be moving," said Hughie at last. "Buck up, and get fit! It's good to hear thatthere's work waiting for you when you get about again. Grand tonic, that! So long!"

He shook Lance's hand, and the two parted undemonstratively. Lance made no set speech: he appreciated Hughie's desire that there should be no returning of thanks or contrite expressions of gratitude. All he said was:—

"Hughie, you are a sportsman!"

Then he settled down on his pillow with a happy sigh. He had paid Hughie the highest compliment it was in his power to bestow—and that costs an Englishman an effort.

So they parted. But Mrs. Lance did not let Hughie off so easily. As she accompanied him downstairs to open the door for him, she suddenly seized his hand and kissed it. Tears were running down her cheeks.

Hughie grew red.

"I say, Mrs. Lance," he said in clumsy expostulation, "it's all right, you know! He'll soon be quite well again."

"Let me cry," said Mrs. Lance comfortably. "It does me good."

They stood together in the obscurity of the shabby little hall, and Hughie, surveying the flamboyant but homely figure before him, wondered what the future might hold in store for this little household. It all depended, of course, on—

"Mrs. Lance," he said suddenly, "tell me—do you—love him?"

"I do!" replied Mrs. Lance, in a voice which for the moment relegated her patchouli and dyed eyebrows to nothingness.

"And does he—love you?"

"Hedoes—thank God!"

"You are both all right, then," said Hughie, nodding a wise head. "Nothing matters much—except that!"

"That's true," said Mrs. Gaymer. "But—I wonder howyouknew!" she added curiously.

"Good-bye!" said Hughie.

As Hughie stood in the darkening street a church clock began to chime. He looked at his watch.

It was six o'clock, and he had promised faithfully to be at Joey's entertainment at eight! He had good reason for his absence, it is true, but a reason is not always accepted as an excuse.

"I've fairly torn it, this time!" he reflected morosely.

He was right.

Early next morning he arrived at the village station by the newspaper train, and made his way on foot to Manors. A sleepy housemaid was sweeping out the hall, which was strewn withconfetti,—some cotillion figures had been includedin last night's festivities,—and as Hughie made his way to his dressing-room, intent upon a bath and shave before breakfast, he reflected not without satisfaction that, despite Joey's prospective fulminations, he had escaped something by missing his train.

On his dressing-table he found a note, addressed to him in Joan's handwriting. It said:—

Dear Hughie,—To-night at the dance Mr. Haliburton asked me to marry him. Being a dutiful ward above all things, I have referred him to you. He is coming to see you to-morrow afternoon—that is, if you are back. I hope you had a good time in town.J.

Back to Index Next