"Look here, Ben," said Colonel Staveley, "something awful's happened and I want your help."
He was unusually smart in appearance, Ben noticed.
"Tell me quickly," she said.
"It's in this cable," said the Colonel. "Merrill's husband."
Ben read the message, which stated that the Rev. Egbert Bourne had died of pneumonia in Minneapolis a day or so before.
"Merrill's got to be told," said the Colonel.
"Of course," said Ben. "You'll go down at once, won't you?" She reached for the "A.B.C."
"Well, the fact is," said the Colonel, "I can't. Most unfortunate, but I've got an old engagement for to-day and I can't get out of it. One of those postponed things which it's idiotic to put off any more. For three years now I've promised to go to Ascot and each time something has occurred."
"But surely Belle wouldn't mind—considering everything," said Ben.
"Belle?" replied her father. "Oh, yes! But it isn't Belle. Belle doesn't care about racing. It's Lady Dunster. I should take Belle too, of course, if she wanted; feel it my duty to; but she doesn't care about racing, and it would be too absurd to disappoint Lady Dunster again. On such a fine day, too. And, after all, it isn't as if he died here. All those thousands of miles away! So I thought you'd be the good, kind girl you always are and just nip down to Astingham. I don't think it will be so very painful. Merrill never seemed to me to care much for him."
"I've got a taxi waiting," he went on, "so I'd better not stay any more. Of all forms of wasting money, letting a taxi tick up while it's standing still is the silliest."
And he was gone.
Ben's lips shaped themselves to whistle, but no sound came. "It's lucky for us that mother had some nice feelings," she permitted herself to think.
She called Jan.
"I've got to go down to the country," she said, "and I may stay the night. Tell Miss Marquand to open everything and act as if she were me."
"No one could do that," said the loyal Jan.
"Well, as nearly as possible then," said Ben."This is my address if you want anything special," and she hurried off.
At the station she sent a telegram to Merrill to announce her imminence, and then she settled down in the compartment to consider the situation.
Poor old Egbert, she thought. What an arid life! To a large extent wasted, with the kind of waste that is going on on all sides. What did he marry for? He thought he was in love, or, at any rate, in need of Merrill. But he wasn't. He no sooner acquired her than he forgot her; she became furniture; all he wanted was himself and the opportunity to get on with his foolish book, which didn't matter to anyone. Everything was sacrificed to that; his blood turned to ink; he ceased to be interested in actual present-day life; his sympathy changed to a pedantic curiosity; he gave what was meant for his fellow-creatures to a Biblical tribe that had been dead for thousands of years.
And how many other men were like him? They didn't all write about the Hittites, but they had their absorbing Hittites all the same, whether business Hittites or play Hittites, and so their altar promises became scraps of paper and the precious hours slipped away. What a muddle! What a muddle!
And Merrill? Fortunately she was of a more equable nature than so many a neglected wife; fortunately she had no great depths, or, at any rate, if she had, no man had discovered them. Egbert had been lucky in his choice. Many another woman would have taken things into her own hands and have secretly saved something from the wreck. But Merrill was too light-hearted, too simple. And now perhaps she would marry again—she was only a little over thirty—and be happy: marry a plus-four man, with a taste for dancing and the theatre, who, if he ever thought of the Hittites at all, thought of them as a Central African race who made bearers for hunters of big game.
That was Merrill's right husband, and they would have a large house in the country, and two or three children, and come to town for the season, and if he did any work at all it would be purely as a J.P.
There was nothing to meet Ben at the station, and when she reached the Vicarage the first thing she saw was her unopened telegram on the hall table.
Mrs. Bourne was playing golf, said the maid.
Poor Merrill, what ought to be done? Ben wondered. Was it fair to spoil her game? But,on the other hand, was it fair to let her go on and give a chance to malicious tongues?
Ben decided to walk to the links, and no sooner did she get there and observe Merrill and her partner than she realized that in all probability the plus-four man had already arrived.
Merrill, under the solicitous tuition of this tall and very good-looking country gentleman, was about to dig out the ball with a heavy iron when she caught sight of her younger sister.
At first she could not believe it, and then, "Ben, you darling!" she exclaimed, flung away the club and was in her arms.
"Whoever thought of seeing you here!" she went on. "But how splendid! Let me introduce Captain Andrews."
After a few conventional words, the Captain, who had tact as well as good looks, said that since Ben was there he would ask Mrs. Bourne to release him from his engagement to lunch with her; nor would he take any refusal.
For this Ben was very grateful to him, and it set him high in her estimation.
"But I want you to know my sister," said Merrill.
"And I want to know her," he said; "but to-day, I am sure, you have much to talk about. I'll order the car and drive you home."
It was while Merrill was in the club-house that Ben had an opportunity of speaking to the Captain.
"That was very thoughtful of you," she said; and she told him the nature of her errand.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, but in accents, she fancied, more of surprise, or even relief, than of sorrow. "Good God! I think," he added, after a moment, "I'll send my shover with you. Perhaps you will be so kind as to make my apologies to your sister," and he walked away.
"Is Captain Andrews married?" Ben asked, as they whirled along.
"No," said Merrill.
"Does he live near here?"
"Yes," said Merrill. "Between Petersfield and Midhurst. He's got a beautiful place. And now you darling," she said, "tell me truly why you came down. Much as you love mybeaux yeuxI know it wasn't for them."
"It was to fill them with tears," said Ben.
"What do you mean?" Merrill asked anxiously. "What has happened?"
"Egbert," said Ben.
"Egbert? Not dead?" said Merrill.
"Yes," said Ben. "In America, pneumonia."
"Merciful heavens!" Merrill exclaimed.
Grief and joy can inhabit amicably a verysmall house. But in Merrill's case grief was rather more like pity, and joy a consciousness of release. Only a dazed consciousness, though, at the moment.
"Poor Egbert, poor old Egbert," she murmured. "He didn't have much fun." And then, "Poor Egbert, what a long way to go to die!"
She was silent for a long while.
"I suppose I ought to do things," she said.
"Of course," said Ben. "There is so much to do. You must write to his relations. No one knows but you, I believe. You must write to the Bishop about the living. You will have to get clothes."
"I suppose so," said Merrill. "Yes, of course, clothes."
"And you ought to cable to America."
"What about?" Merrill asked.
"Well, what do you want done with—with Egbert? Sometimes they embalm——"
"Oh, no, he must be buried there," said Merrill. "Not here. Dying so far away, he must be buried far away. He had no real interest in this place. Some day, perhaps, I might go over there and see his grave. Where was it?"
"Minneapolis," said Ben.
"Yes, he was to lecture there," said Merrill.
"Some day—oh," she exclaimed, "I must let Captain Andrews know!"
"He does know," said Ben. "I told him."
Merrill looked at her. "That's why he sent the chauffeur," she said. "I see." Her perplexity gave way for a moment to a smile.
"Say," said the American, addressing Mr. Jack Harford, and stooping to pat that casual tradesman's inseparable companion, "is this a dog fancier's or a book store?"
"We sell books and water-colours," said Jack; "or, at least, we keep a stock of books. But this spaniel belongs to me and is not for sale."
"I'm sorry," said the American. "I was looking for a flea-trap. But what about this 'Beck and Call' sign. How can I get there? I've got some questions to ask. Is it a good place?"
"Very," said Jack. "The office is run by a Miss Staveley, and she seems to give satisfaction. But it depends rather on what you want. Through the shop and up the stairs."
"I'll try," said the American. "These chancey things often pan out best."
He ascended the stairs, and after Jan had, in Dolly's phrase, passed the rule over him, he was admitted to Ben.
"My name's Barclay Corbet," he began. "I see you solve Domestic Problems, so perhaps youcan solve mine. This is what I'm becking and calling about: I want to spend a few weeks in real England. Not the England that most of my countrymen are shown, but something that you'd call essentially 'old world.' Don't mention a cathedral," he added hastily; "I've had all the cathedrals I want and all the vergers. Don't mention a watering place, or the Dukeries, or anything like that. Don't mention Oxford or Cambridge. And above all don't mention Stratford-on-Avon. I want retirement. What I want is a place where there's no railway within miles, no corrugated iron roofs, no waiters in clawhammer coats, but pretty waiting-maids named Kate and Lucy instead, and no boys calling winners. And I want there to be a saddler in it making saddles in the midst of the smell of leather, and a churchyard with the graves all crooked and all over moss. And spaniels; yes, there must be spaniels. And another thing, a rookery. Can you do this?"
Ben furrowed her forehead.
"I wonder," she said, "if Shaftesbury would do? It's in Dorset; very old, very quiet and self-contained, and high up on a hill like an Italian town, like Siena."
"That settles it," said Mr. Corbet. "If it's high on a hill, it's no good to me. I've had allthe climbing I want. And if it's like anything Italian, it can fade away into the back seats. I've done with macaroni. No," he went on, "think again. Think of something where there's a river to loaf beside and a water mill."
"A water mill! Oh, I know," exclaimed Ben—"Bibury!"
"You seem mighty struck on places ending in 'bury'," said her client.
"It was you who insisted on a churchyard," Ben retaliated.
"So it was," said the American, "but for æsthetic purposes only. Still, tell me about this Bibury."
"Bibury is a dream," said Ben. "It's all grey stone, and every house looks as if it grew there. But they're beautiful too, and even the tiniest cottages have mullioned windows and delicious gables. The barns are like cathedrals—without," she added hastily, "any vergers—and the cattle-sheds are like cloisters. It's in Gloucestershire. It's miles from a station, and there's a trout stream, and—if you value that, but of course you don't—the people still touch their caps and the little girls curtsy. And when I was there last there certainly weren't any waiters—only nice girls, even if they weren't named Kate and Lucy. But their caps were white. And there aremillions of rooks, and if you were very lucky you might see a kingfisher."
"It's too good to be true," said the American. "Show it me in the 'A.B.C.'"
"I can't," said Ben. "It isn't there. You have to go to Cirencester."
"Better and better," said the American. "Places not in the 'A.B.C.' have a special appeal for me. And bury or no bury, I'll go there. Is the food good?"
"Didn't I say it was a fishing inn?" Ben replied.
"Well, young lady," said the American, "you've put me wise to what sounds like a very good thing. Tell me how I pay you."
"I don't think you do," said Ben. "Not this time. You must come again and let me do something more practical for you."
"It's a bet," said the American. "I'm very much obliged to you, young lady. You're the brightest thing I've struck in this country yet.Au revoir!We shall meet again."
On his way through "The Booklovers' Rest" he paused to ask Jack if he knew a place called Bibury.
"Know it?" said Jack. "I should think I do. It's one of the most beautiful spots in England."
"Bully," said the American; but he hadsufficient native scepticism to ask if the bright girl upstairs did not have an interest in the inn.
"Because she's been recommending it?" Jack asked.
"I just wondered," said the American. "No offence," he added quickly, as Jack's face darkened.
"It's just as well you said that," Jack replied, "or by jingo——" His fists relaxed.
"Now look here, young man," said the American, "forgive me. I meant no harm. And I like you for your feelings. I'll insure my life and come here again."
A few weeks or so later Mr. Barclay Corbet, who was as good as his word, was again announced by Jan.
"Miss Beck," he said, greeting Ben, "I've come to thank you for your advice about an English village and to ask you to help me some more. But this time it's a real business proposition. I've bought Bibury Grange and I want you to furnish it for me as a place should be furnished and find me some good servants. Will you?"
Ben collected her startled wits. "Of course," she said. "When do you want to go in?"
"In three weeks to the minute," said Mr. Corbet, looking at his watch.
"Three weeks!" Ben gasped.
"Yes. I can't wait any longer. I'm going over to New York for a day or two to settle some affairs, and I want when I return in exactly three weeks to find the house ready for me to live in. I want to go straight there and settle down and be happy. Will you do it?"
"But——" Ben was beginning.
"No 'buts,' Miss Beck," said the American. "Here's a plan of the house, every room measured up. Take it and get busy. And here's a cheque that will more than cover everything, and the bank is ready to let you have more on your signature, if you'll kindly write one out for me for reference. I haven't a minute now. The signature, please."
He rose.
"But I don't know your taste," said Ben.
"It's yours," said the American; "or rather, I should like it to be."
"Do you want a butler and a footman or only women?" Ben called after him.
"Nice women, named Kate and Lucy and Alice and things like that," he replied, as he left the room.
"And what about wall-paper?" she remembered to ask at the top of her voice.
"White distemper," he called back, and was gone.
With plenty of money one can acquire most of the less important things of life; and Ben was not stinted there. So we had three terrific weeks. I say "we" because I was in it.
We went to Bibury that evening, with an expert from one of the big furnishers, and early the next morning we were busy starting the work. Then we hurried back, with a full plan of house and garden, and began to compile catalogues of necessities. There are printed lists to be had from the big furnishers, and to these we added every kind of minute accessory. Ben wanted to leave no loophole for criticism whatever. Ten times in a night I would wake up and think of something that might be forgotten and jot it down; and if I woke up ten times, Ben probably woke up twenty, for this commission was her great chance.
I thought in this way of:
Nut-crackersGoloshesPepper millPond's ExtractCourt PlasterOrder for newspapersGarden seatsFishing tackleCigars and cigarettesLavender sachetsPaper clipsNotepaper die.
Nut-crackersGoloshesPepper millPond's ExtractCourt PlasterOrder for newspapersGarden seatsFishing tackleCigars and cigarettesLavender sachetsPaper clipsNotepaper die.
Ben was taking Mr. Barclay Corbet at his word and making her own taste control the whole scheme. This meant grey carpets and rose curtains, all of which had to be put in hand instantly. Then there were rush mattings and linos and rugs and blinds. Everything was new: there was no time to hunt for the old; but it was the best new, and we saw that every drawer opened easily. Fortunately two of the essentials of an American's house that take most time to supply—central heating and the telephone—were there already.
When it came to decorative inessentials we were cautious. Pictures, for example. It is very difficult to buy pictures for other people, as every one who has ever been in a hotel sitting-room will agree. Yet there were those great bare, white distempered walls.
The pictures being an acute problem, Ben, with deep cunning, left them to me.
"But I haven't seen your Barclay Corbet," I said. "A man can be anything in the world until you've seen him. How can I choose? Does he look like a hunting man?"
"No."
"That shuts out sets of coloured Alkens, which might be just the thing for such a place: Alken, Sartorius, Ben Marshall, all those fine old horsy fellows. Does he suggest exotic tastes?" I asked.
"No."
"That's puts a stopper on Japanese prints—as a rule such a safe line! And oil paintings would cost too much. And mezzotints of beautiful women, after Reynolds and Gainsborough, also dear, might not please him."
It was then that Mr. Harford came to the rescue. "If he likes Bibury so much," he said, "it follows that he must like Old England. I'll frame up a lot of our water-colours—De Wint, Birket Foster, William Callow, Tom Collier, David Cox, Varley—and if he likes them he can keep them, and if not I'll take them back. And now I come to think of it, he wanted to buy my dog, the swine! Called him a flea-trap! I've gotsome engravings of spaniels and setters after Stubbs—I'll hang those in the hall."
We settled the books in the same way. A certain number were decided upon without any question, such as the "Encyclopædia Britannica," Dickens and Thackeray, and then a mixed collection was put together by Mr. St. Quentin: to be retained or returned. All were supplied by that enterprising firm "The Booklovers' Rest" on the principle, as Ben said, of keeping Mr. Corbet in the family.
The few vases and bowls that were necessary were simpler: there are so many non-committal shapes and colours now.
Mr. Harford did not confine himself to supplying the pictures and books, but himself superintended their arrangement in the house, and when I went down to Bibury for a last look round two or three days before the time limit was up, in order to have the chance of supplying any last-minute deficiencies that might occur to any of us, I found that pleasant young gentleman among the people staying at the inn. Although a second-hand book seller, he seemed to have views on everything else too, together with a knack of getting things done, while in addition he found time to throw a fly now and then over the rapid waters of the Coln.
"Mr. Harford has been very kind," Ben said. "I'm sure he's needed in London, for Mr. St. Quentin has sent him several telegrams; but he wouldn't go back so long as there was any bother here."
We went over the house together, and it was undoubtedly an achievement. Between us we had, I believe, covered the ground; Mr. Harford, with diabolical thoroughness and perhaps a touch of malice, having actually provided the library with a cuspidor.
The time being ripe, Ben and I returned to London—Mr. Harford, having given in to his partner's S.O.S.'s the day before—for Ben preferred not to be present when her client arrived. She argued that a house may be described as more ready to live in if there is no one to welcome you but your own people. But she left a little note expressing her hope that she had succeeded in her task, and adding, "There is a corkscrew in every room."
It was, I imagine, the presence of the cuspidor which tickled Mr. Barclay Corbet's fancy and provoked him to the series of telegrams which he despatched to Ben. They came at intervals for a day or so. I can remember a few, with the replies:
Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London:Please explain curious article by library fire-place.Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury:Sorry if I have been over-zealous.——Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London:Do not seem to have any bellows.Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury:Look in oak chest in hall.——Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London:Gardener clamouring for secateur.Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury:In cupboard in summer-house.——Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London:Cannot find any shaving paper.Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury:Tear up "Times."
Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London:Please explain curious article by library fire-place.Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury:Sorry if I have been over-zealous.——Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London:Do not seem to have any bellows.Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury:Look in oak chest in hall.——Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London:Gardener clamouring for secateur.Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury:In cupboard in summer-house.——Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London:Cannot find any shaving paper.Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury:Tear up "Times."
And then came Mr. Barclay Corbet in person to express his absolute satisfaction and to make Ben and her staff a handsome present, and then to spend some hours downstairs in fixing up his shelves properly.
"Whoever thought I wanted an 'Encyclopædia Britannica,'" he said, "is the world's worst clairvoyant. What I want is the works of A. Trollope. They're good to read and they're good to send you to sleep."
Alicia, better dressed than usual, with a new vanity bag and a rather dashing hat, had been seated in Ben's room for many minutes before she could bring herself to be explicit and admit that she had received an offer of marriage. From a widower, a retired ironmaster, living at Hove. In one of the avenues, she added; with his sister: a horrid woman. They had met at a séance, for he, too, was interested in spiritualism and was in communication with his late wife. At least he had tried to be, but that lady had refused to be communicative because, she said, there was someone antipathetic to her in the room.
"You, I suppose," said Ben, in her blunt way.
"I don't know why you should say so," said Alicia, hurt.
"I don't see why she should rejoice in your presence, anyway," Ben replied. "It can't be much fun for dead wives, out of it for ever, watching their husbands preparing for a second marriage."
"That's just it," said Alicia, with a groan.
"What do you mean?" Ben asked.
"Nothing," said Alicia, and was silent for quite a long while.
"Do you want to marry him?" Ben asked.
"I don't dislike him," said Alicia, "but it is very sudden. I had never expected anything of the kind to happen, or indeed thought about it. As you know, I was anticipating a lonely life dedicated to the boys. And if it weren't for the boys I shouldn't consider it now, for an instant. But of course it would be good for them. He is so fond of them, and a man is a better influence than a weak, fond mother."
"So you will say yes?" said Ben.
"I don't know, oh, I don't know," said Alicia, dismally, with a glance at her pocket mirror. "You see," she added, "there's Bertrand. He ought to be told."
"I thought you said that he knew everything about you," said Ben.
"So I have thought," said Alicia. "But he ought to be told formally. And that can be done only through the medium, and I don't want her to know. I've never liked her, apart from her calling. Not a lady, by a long way. Not even the third drawer! But if Bertrand knew, wouldn't he have let me know? Some little message of encouragement? Surely! But no, nothing. Iused to feel so certain of him, but now it's all changed. Do you think I'm becoming less psychic or that he's cross?"
"I hope you're becoming less psychic," said Ben. "You oughtn't to marry retired iron-masters and be psychic too. Bertrand was a very just man," she continued. "He couldn't be so unreasonable as to wish you to be deprived of the company and consolation of a second husband."
"I'm not sure," said Alicia. "I feel that he counts on me, and I may lose him if I marry again."
"I suppose, to a certain extent, you would," said Ben.
"You think so?" Alicia asked eagerly.
"Yes, I think you would," said Ben. "It's only natural. And I think if you married you would want to, too."
"Want to lose Bertrand?" Alicia asked in amazement.
"Yes. It would be very awkward to have both."
"I suppose it would," Alicia admitted.
"And besides," said Ben, "after all, you may have been mistaken about conversing with Bertrand at all. The whole thing may be an hallucination, proceeding from yourself. The wish the father to the thought, you know."
"Do you think so?" Alicia asked with some excitement. "Do you think I have imagined it all and Bertrand and I have had no communication?"
"I think it quite possible," said Ben. "You'll never be able to prove it, of course. Anyway, from what I remember of Bertrand, he would want you to be happy, and he would like his boys to be looked after."
"You think he would?" Alicia asked.
"I'm certain of it," said Ben.
"Then you would marry Mr. Redforth?"
"If I liked him sufficiently, and trusted him, yes," said Ben. "In any case I should not let the vague possibility of Bertrand's disapproval deprive me of the chance of new happiness."
"Ben, you're a darling!" said Alicia, kissing her impulsively. "I'll do it."
"And what about Mr. Redforth's sister?" Ben asked.
"Oh, she must make her own arrangements," said Alicia.
Walking in Kensington Gardens to-day whom should I meet but Ben's Uncle Paul, with his latest yacht on his arm; and he seemed almost to welcome the opportunity of sitting down for a while to chat. For we are not the most intimate of acquaintances; not because of any inherent antipathy, but because of an acute observer would probably detect in each of us a slight suspicion of the other—a tincture of jealousy—each of us wishing to be the nearest and dearest among Ben's middle-aged friends. Her capture of a young man we should accept not with joy but with resignation—for it would be according to nature—but we should hate to see her adding another friend of fifty to her retinue.
We began, as we usually do when we meet, by mentioning her. It is a sign that true intimacy is lacking when a third person is called in as an ice-pick. And how often it happens!
"Have you seen Ben lately?" I asked, hoping fervently that the advantage was with me.
"She came in to see me last evening," saidUncle Paul, with all his usual difficulty of utterance, and my heart fell. (But of course relatives don't count. Relatives are in the line of least resistance. The real test is when a stranger is made a friend of.)
"How do you feel about the business?" Uncle Paul asked. "Do you think it is really thriving? Do you think it is too great a strain?"
"I don't think so," I said. "And she does it so well; she's so happy doing it that a little strain wouldn't matter."
"I went into the book shop underneath the other day," said Uncle Paul, "all unbeknown to Ben, to have a look at those young men. I suppose you've seen them?"
I had seen them often, confound them! "Yes," I said, "once or twice."
"And how do they strike you?" Uncle Paul inquired. "Because you know, I suppose——" He stopped for a while. "Well, I wonder what you think of them," he said.
"I am sorry to say," I replied, "that I don't see anything very wrong with either."
He looked at me through his highly magnifying gold-rimmed glasses. Then he laughed.
"I felt a little like that myself," he said. "But we mustn't be dogs in the manger: old men like us."
(Not so old as that, all the same! He must speak for himself.)
"I could wish that the quiet one had more legs," said Uncle Paul. "But I suppose that his disability is all in his favour with such a born manager as Ben. Would he be your choice?"
"I don't know," I said. "I sometimes think I should prefer her to take the jolly one. And I like a man to be complete."
"The jolly one might get on her nerves after a while," said Uncle Paul. "High spirits and facetiousness can ruin a marriage almost as easily as egotism and irony."
"I don't think Harford's humour is as virulent as that," I said. "I saw a lot of him at Bibury. I thought his gaiety rather attractive. He has some brains, too. His principal fault—and I wish I could share it—is that he finds life an adventure and a joke. But he will be cured of such heresies as those all too soon. Nothing so enrages the Powers above as to see anyone down here daring to be like that. And they have all the weapons of chastisement and correction so handy!"
"Well, I shall put my money on the lame one," said Uncle Paul.
"But why should she marry either?" I asked."She does not strike me as so inevitably a marrying girl."
"Geographical conditions largely," said Uncle Paul. "There they all are, so absolutely on the spot."
"I should have thought they would be jealous," I said.
"I've no doubt they are," said Uncle Paul, who seemed to me to know far too much for a stammering recluse given to Round Pond navigation. "And if one of them is not accepted, or both aren't refused, pretty soon, 'The Booklovers' Rest' will dissolve partnership."
"As bad as that?" I remarked.
"I think so," he said. "It's astonishing what a disturbing element in the lives of two young men one young woman can be."
"Yes," I said, "and it's more astonishing when it's such a sensible girl as Ben, who would not be bothered to make mischief with anyone, but merely wants to go her own way and be busy. But what does Nature care about 'The Becks and Calls'? Nature has only two ideas in her obstinate old head. One is that people should fall in love and become parents, and the other that they should grow old."
"You may think us very foolish," said the tall man, as he seated himself.
"Or very greedy," said his wife.
"But we want some advice about food, and seeing your signboard, which reminded me of the inn my father used to keep in Helmsley," the man continued, "we thought we'd come in and ask. But," he said, "I never thought to find a beautiful young lady like you, miss. You are 'miss,' I take it?"
"Yes," said Ben, laughing.
"Somehow," said the tall man, "our difficulty is more one to put to an older woman. But it's like this. My wife and I are just back from New Zealand, where we've lived ever since I was twenty. I've done very well, and we're having a look round London. We're staying at the Hotel Splendid, you know. Everything bang up. Private suite. Gold clock under a glass shade."
"Which doesn't go," said his wife.
"Steam heat," he continued, "that dries up all my tobacco. Everything perfect, in fact. Butwe can't get the food we like. You see, miss, we're very simple folk, and we want the old-fashioned things. All the way home we have been thinking and talking about the things we would eat, and now that we're here we can't get them. They serve them, but they're not right. Sausages and mashed—I know just how they ought to taste; but at the 'Splendid' they taste of nothing. And lots of things I used to be so fond of at home they don't serve at all. I can't get a pork-pie—'porch-peen,' as we used to call it. When I asked the head waiter for cow's heel, I thought he'd throw a fit. Batter pudding, boiled onions, apple dumplings; it's no good, they can't make them to taste of anything, or they can't make them at all. They've got such a horror of the flavour of apple that they smother it with lemon and cloves. Now, miss, couldn't you tell us of some smaller places—we don't mind how small or how common—where we could get some of the old homely stuff? My poor wife here is wasting away."
"Oh, John, it's you that want them much more than I do," said his wife.
"I don't know much about food myself," said Ben, "but I've heard my father say that there are certain things that no restaurant can ever do as well as home cooks. He says that no restaurantcan make bread sauce or horse-radish sauce properly. No restaurant can be trusted with mushrooms. My advice to you," she continued, "would be to cut out London altogether, unless you were set on it, and go either to a country inn or to a farm, where the milk isn't watered and the cream hasn't any boric acid, and the eggs are this morning's, and things taste as they should. London never gets anything really fresh. Why don't you go to your own Yorkshire?" she asked.
"We shall later," said the tall man. "But we want to see London first; and meanwhile we're starving."
"Then you must go into lodgings," said Ben, "where there is a good plain cook."
"John is so fond of the 'Splendid,'" said his wife. "He's always wanted to stay in that kind of hotel and waste his money on red carpets and sit in lounges and watch the actresses."
"Then stay at the 'Splendid,'" said Ben, "but eat at simpler places. It would be amusing to pay five pounds for a bed and five shillings for meals. The management ought to know about it—it might do them good. But wait a minute," she went on, "I've just thought of something."
She rang the bell and Dolly entered.
"We want your advice," she said. "Do youknow of any eating-houses where old-fashioned food is well cooked and tastes like itself?"
"Plenty, miss," said Dolly. "There's a place in the Hampstead Road with a placard up that says 'Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It.'"
The New Zealander slapped his thigh. "Now you're talking!" he cried. "Does it really say that? That's what we're looking for: 'Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It'—my! but that's a great sentence; that's literature. Where is this place, boy?"
"In the Hampstead Road," said Dolly. "But there are others too, very likely. And I can tell them about sausages, too, miss, and tripe and onions. Famous places. And stewed eels, miss."
Ben shuddered.
"This is great!" said her client. "Now, look here, miss," he continued, "this seems to me to be a bright boy. Let us have him for a few days to show us round, and name your own price. He'll take us to the places we want to see, like the Tower and the Zoo and Westminster Abbey, and he'll show us where to eat."
"What do you say, Dolly?" Ben asked.
Dolly was obviously flattered; but he had the business at heart.
"I was wondering if I could be spared," he replied.
"Well, if you can be, what do you think your time is worth?" Ben inquired.
"Including fares," he said, after some thought, "and taking into consideration the distress and upheaval caused here by my absence, fifteen bob a day, exclusive of lunch."
"We'll pay that," said the New Zealander, cheerfully, and the bargain was struck. Dolly had become, for a week, a courier.
Later that same afternoon, Ben told me—it was one of her mixed-grill days, as she called them, when every one was odd—a plainly dressed young woman asked to see Miss Staveley on very pressing private business, and was admitted.
"You won't know me, miss," she said, "but my mother was your Jane."
"Jane?" replied Ben. "You don't mean Jane Bunce?"
"Yes," said the girl. "The one who was with the Colonel and his lady for so long and only left to be married."
"Of course," said Ben. "We are all very fond of her. I can remember her perfectly, although I was so small. I hope she is all right."
"Yes," said the girl. "But father——"
"Tell me," said Ben.
"It's like this," said the girl. "Father's beenill now for months and months, and somehow mother heard about you setting up here as a kind of advice-giver. And she said 'You go along to Miss Ben's and ask her. I'm sure she wouldn't object, for old sake's sake.'"
"Tell me," said Ben again.
"It's like this," the girl resumed. "Father's been ill for months and months, and you know what sick folks are, how they get their minds set on things? Well, he sits in a chair at the window watching the motor-cars go by. We're in Peckham, you know, and motor-cars go by all the time, and even more on Sundays, and—well, miss—he's never been in one in his life. In motor-buses, yes, but never in a car. Motor-buses don't count. They've got solid tyres; they're public. But a shiny private car with rubber tyres, all his own for the time being—he's never been in one of those; and he sits there at the window and it's his only wish. But you see, miss, he can't ever do it now, because he's that weak, and the doctor only gives him another two or three days."
"Well?" said Ben.
"Well," the girl went on, dabbing her eyes, "well, mother told me to come and ask you if you think it would be very wrong—too extravagant, I mean—if we were to give him a motor funeral?As a surprise, miss, of course? What do you think, miss? What may I tell mother?"
"Give her my love," said Ben, "and tell her most certainly to do it. And tell her to come and see me when the funeral's over."
"May I come in?" asked the bronzed, soldierly-looking man, as he opened the door of Ben's room, having brought his handsome face and easy charm to break down, with their usual success, Jan's opposition.
"My dear Cecil!" Ben exclaimed, rushing into her brother's arms, "what brings you here? I thought you were in Paris."
"So we were," he said, "but I had to leave in self-defence. Yvonne was ruining me. We were to have stayed there a month, but I should never have got away at all if I hadn't put out all my strength and insisted on coming now.
"The clothes that child buys!" he continued. "We're heading straight for Queer Street. I see that you solve domestic problems; well, if anyone ever asks you for advice as to marrying a foreigner, tell them not to. The answer is in the negative. Foreigners are all right in their place, but don't marry them."
"Poor Cecil!" said Ben.
"No, it isn't as bad as that," he said. "Yvonneand I get on very well. But she's a foreigner, and once a foreigner, always a foreigner. They never get to understand. I can't make her realize that I'm not rich. She thinks that all Englishmen must be rich. She has plenty of relations in the French Army—naturally—and they are poor enough, but an English officer must necessarily be wealthy. Nothing that I can say or do has any effect. I show her my accounts; but I might just as well be exhibiting a bridge score. She has no idea of money or figures whatever. And if by any chance a glimmering that I may be telling the truth enters her brain, she says 'Ah, but your father is rich. Some day he will die—he is an old man—and then you will be rich too.' They're so practical, the French. They go straight for what they want, and what she wants is her father-in-law's death. But, as a matter of fact, as I have told her, judging by the governor's general appearance to-day, he is far less likely to peg out than I am. He's as skittish as a two-year-old on stepmother's money; and he and Yvonne are as thick as thieves. They're at some function or other together to-day—Ranelagh, I believe. Thank God you can't buy clothes at Ranelagh!"
"No," said Ben, "but you can see them and getenvious and plot terrific campaigns for to-morrow."
Cecil groaned.
"As a matter of fact," he said, "I don't see what I've gained by bringing her to London. There's a Rue de la Paix here too! The old joke had it that first you paid and then you rued, but I don't see how I can pay. It's her only fault, but it's deadly. I can't put a notice in the papers disowning her bills, because I'm not that sort, but it's getting very serious, and if something doesn't happen or someone doesn't leave me a fortune, I shall be up against it. When you see her, Ben, do try and make her understand."
"Of course I'll try," said Ben. "What a pity you haven't any children! If she had something like that to occupy her, she'd forget about dress."
"Not Yvonne!" said Cecil. "If Yvonne had been the old woman who lived in a shoe, she'd have had a different dress to do every whipping in."
"Doesn't she read?" Ben asked.
"She lies on the sofa with a book," said Cecil, "but she's not a reader. She's at heart amannequin; but she's a darling too," he added hastily. "Don't think I'm not in love with her still. I am. I adore her. But heavens! she's extravagant: I've had to give up polo entirely because of it.She doesn't know it, but I have. I pretended I'd strained my back."
That evening Ben and Yvonne met at Colonel Staveley's.
"But, my dear Ben," said Yvonne, in her pretty broken English, "you would not 'ave me shabbee?"
"That would be impossible," said Ben. "But poor old Cecil isn't rich, you know."
"Ah!" said Yvonne, giving Ben a pat with delicate ringed hands, "'e 'ave spoke with you about me. And you say 'I will defend my big brozzer against this—this—so naughty butterfly?' Is it not so?"
"Cecil adores you," said Ben. "I wish you had some children."
Yvonne's large brown eyes filled with tears.
"And I," she said. "Always I think of it. Butle bon Dieu, 'E say no."
Not long after the close of the Barclay Corbet episode Mr. Harford waylaid Ben as she passed through the shop.
"I was wondering," he said, "if you would break a chop with Soul and me this evening? Anywhere you like?"
Ben agreed.
"You shall not be restricted to a chop," said Jack. "Order anything in season or out of it. I'm rich to-day. I sold a lot of things to another Yank. They're the book seller's friends! Pat's at Leamington at a book sale—and I flatter myself he'll be surprised when he comes back."
"There are two ways of being surprised," said Ben, remembering the incident of the imperfect copy.
"That's a very nasty one," said Mr. Harford. "I credited you with a shorter memory. But the insult shall be washed out in red wine, or even, if you say the word, in the yellow and effervescing juices of Epernay or Rheims. Money is noobject. Consider me this evening as a Quaritch, or even a Rosenbach."
"As a matter of fact," said Ben, "I am in need of a particularly good dinner, for I have had a trying day. More than one thing has happened to tire me, and my last client—or would-be client—did more than tire, she humiliated me."
"'How come?'" asked Jack, who had added that detestable transatlantic locution to his vocabulary, chiefly with the meritorious if frivolous purpose of exasperating his partner.
"A very offensive woman called half an hour ago in a motor-car many yards long—you may have noticed her—to ask me to make arrangements to take her little Peter out for a walk three times every day while she is away in Paris," said Ben. "I was very angry and refused."
"Is Peter her little boy?" Jack asked.
"Little boy!" said Ben. "Nothing so unimportant. It's her Pekinese. When I refused she was furious. She almost accused me of being an impostor. She said that my business was to solve domestic problems and that no domestic problem was so acute as the exercising of dogs."
"I wish I'd known," said Mr. Harford. "I saw her go out. If I'd known, I should have offered her some suitable books: 'Self Help'by Smiles, or 'It's Never Too Late to Mend,' The—the——"
"Hush!" said Ben. "People who hang out signs can't be choosers."
"Now that we are firmly entrenched in this corner," said Mr. Harford, after they had finished their soup, "I've got a proposition to lay before you. I was useful at Bibury, wasn't I?"
"Very," said Ben.
"I helped in bucking the men up and getting things done?"
"Very," said Ben.
"And you don't dislike me?"
"Not particularly," said Ben.
"Well," said Mr. Harford, "what I was thinking is that you and I might do very well in partnership."
Ben flushed.
"No," he said quickly. "I don't mean what you think I mean—at any rate not at the moment. But you're not engaged, are you?"
"No," said Ben.
"Thank Heaven!" said Mr. Harford fervently. "But look here, Miss Staveley, I swear I didn't ask you here to ask you that. It was sprung on me. I swear I didn't. You believe me, won't you?"
Ben expressed her belief.
"When I said 'partnership,'" he resumed, "I meant business partnership, although—— When I said partnership I meant business partnership. Because it seems to me that you and I could do a lot of things together very profitably. You could get this kind of commission again—old Corbet is probably singing your praises all over the place to other impulsive and rich Americans, and that will mean business—and I could act as your overseer."
"But what about 'The Booklovers' Rest'?" Ben asked.
"Well, Pat would run that; or, if need be, I'd retire. You know, Miss Staveley, speaking in strict confidence, I don't believe I'm a born book seller. Honest, I don't."
Ben laughed. "What a wonderful discovery to have made!" she said.
"But," he went on, quite gravely, "I do believe I have aflairfor getting the best out of people under me."
"There won't always be a trout stream," said Ben.
"Now you're making fun of me," he said. "I'm really serious. I feel all tied up and congested in that shop among mouldy books. It's all right for Pat—he's a literary cove, and his one desire is to read books and write them."
"Does he want to write?" Ben asked. "I didn't know that."
"Oh, yes," said Mr. Harford; "that's his one ambition. But he can't afford to. He has to make a living. If he were rich he'd chuck book selling to-morrow and take to authorship; and he'd be jolly good too. I'd have my money in the business whatever happened. My mother is always good for more. But what do you say?"
"Well," said Ben, "I can't say anything very definite. We must wait till another Mr. Barclay Corbet comes along and then we might make some arrangement; but I think to talk of—of partnership is rather premature."
"But you don't hate me?" Mr. Harford asked anxiously.
"I said I didn't," Ben replied.
"I wish you could see my mother," he said. "She's splendid. But she lives rather a long way off—at Laycock. I suppose you wouldn't come down for a week-end? It is a delicious place, a little like Bibury, as a matter of fact. All grey too. Would you?"
"I don't see how I could," said Ben.
"No," said Mr. Harford. "I was afraid not."
He left her at her door.
She gave him her hand.