CHAPTER VIUNWARRANTABLE BEHAVIOR OF TOBIAS
THE old lady sat very upright to receive her niece.
It is regrettable to have to state that a subtle air of triumph was hovering around Mr. Marchbanks as he announced Miss Perry. For that irresponsible person still retained her hooded cloak, the preposterous hat was there in all itsnaïveté, her frock looked more shrunken and her cobbled boots more conspicuous than ever; and in her left hand the wicker basket tied with string was very firmly borne.
The old lady mounted her eyeglass as a preliminary measure. She gazed at herprotégéewith a resolution that was almost awful. But it took more than this to defeat Miss Perry.
“Oh, how do you do?” said that irresponsible person, coming forward and completely enveloping the old lady and her gentlewoman in a most gracious beam. “I hope you are quite well.”
The presiding genius of the blue drawing-room looked Miss Perry up and looked Miss Perry down, from the crown of the luckless hat to the soles of the cobbled boots. At a disdainful leisure the Amazonian proportions, which the general inadequacy of the outgrowngarments seemed to accentuate, sank into the ruthless critic. The grim old mouth relaxed in frank astonishment.
“Dear me!” it said, “how uncomfortable.”
Miss Perry was not really abashed, although the turban, the eyeglass, the ebony cane, the hawklike features, and the general day-of-judgment demeanor certainly gave pause to that Featherbrain. At least, she opened her blue eyes very wide and gripped her wicker basket very firmly.
The old lady’s truculent gaze fell upon that unfortunate accompaniment.
“What, pray, is that contrivance?” she demanded.
Miss Perry tucked the wicker basket under her arm.
“Oh, if you please, Aunt Caroline,” said she, with a drawl that was really irresistibly foolish, “this is Tobias.”
“Tobias,” said the old lady, suspiciously. “Who pray, and what, pray, is Tobias?”
Perhaps it is right to mention that the old lady was not alone in her suspiciousness. It was shared by Ponto. That overfed quadruped, having made a very good luncheon indeed, was curled up at the feet of his mistress. Yet at the mere mention of Tobias, whether by an association of ideas, or by a process of mental telepathy peculiar to the dumb creation, I am not prepared to say, but Ponto began to grow decidedly restless.
“I trust,” said the old lady, viewing the wickerbasket with an increasing disfavor, “that Tobias is not any kind of an animal.”
As if to corroborate his mistress, Ponto opened his eyes and began to grow uncommonly wide-awake.
“Tobias is just a sweet,” said Miss Perry, with a charming air of reassurance. “He is just an old precious.”
The old lady looked so positively arctic as she addressed the custodian of Tobias that both Miss Burden and Mr. Marchbanks were chilled to the marrow.
“If Tobias is a living thing,” said the old lady, “and I have every reason to believe that it is, I forbid it the blue drawing-room. And I consider it an act of gross impertinence——”
However, before the old lady could conclude a speech which was intended to exterminate both Tobias and his custodian, there befell a most melancholy occurrence. Whether Tobias, growing incensed at his excommunication, became violent in his basket, or whether his custodian was so much distressed thereby as to relax her hold upon it, will never be known with any degree of certainty. But what happened was this. Right in the middle of the old lady’s ruthless deliverance upon the subject the wicker basket fell with a thud onto the Persian carpet.
At the same instant the lid fell off in the most dramatic manner. Two yellow shin pads, which had seen service in the hockey field, and a long, lean brown body flew out together. Miss Burden screamed; and incredible as it may appear, Ponto shot straightup the window curtains, and feeling dear life to be at stake balanced himself very precariously upon the pole at the top.
Miss Burden approached the verge of hysteria. Mr. Marchbanks seemed overwhelmed. As for the custodian of Tobias, she picked up the yellow shin pads with spacious and charming unconcern, quite as if nothing had happened. The old lady’s nerves were undoubtedly shaken; all the same she retained the perfect command of a lively and vigorous self-possession.
She gathered her black silk dress about her, and poised her ebony walking-stick determinedly, and then she stormed.
“What is it?” she demanded. “Is it a snake?”
Miss Burden screamed.
Miss Perry replaced the yellow shin pads in the wicker basket with a leisureliness which was highly reassuring.
“Speak, girl,” stormed the old lady. “I repeat, what is it? If you have dared to introduce a reptile into my drawing-room you shall both leave this house immediately.”
Even this decree did not perturb Miss Perry. She still preserved her constitutional obliviousness to anything in the nature of commotion.
“Oh no, dear Aunt Caroline,” she drawled. “Tobias is not a snake. He is only a ferret.”
The old lady snorted blood and fire.
“A ferret!” she stormed. “I positively forbid ferrets in my drawing-room. Marchbanks, removeit immediately, and then have the goodness to fetch down Ponto from the curtain-pole.”
Now, although Mr. Marchbanks was a strong, silent man he did not quite know how to grapple with the situation. To begin with, although his experience of men and things was very wide, it has to be confessed that he had never handled a ferret in his life. And, again, it was not easy to know where Tobias had got to.
“Remove it immediately,” stormed the old lady.
Mr. Marchbanks stooped very cautiously to peer under the table. To his infinite relief Tobias was not there.
However, the hawklike eyes of his mistress very quickly detected the whereabouts of the alien presence.
“It is behind the window curtains.”
Mr. Marchbanks approached the window curtains very warily. But even then he was unable to see Tobias.
“There it is,” said his mistress. “In the corner there. Approach quietly. And if you value your fingers be careful where you put them.”
Mr. Marchbanks appeared to value his fingers so much that nothing seemed farther from his intention than to bring them into the vicinity of Tobias.
“Why don’t you do as you are told, man? There it is in the corner, straight in front of your nose.”
Mr. Marchbanks, however, still seemed wholly unable to locate Tobias.
It was left to Miss Perry to play the part of thegoddess out of the machine. That Scatterbrain, having at last clearly realized the situation, came forward to the window curtains, open basket in hand, in the friendliest and most reassuring manner.
“He is just a sweet,” she said to Mr. Marchbanks. “He never bites a soul if you take him round the throat gently. There he is, the duckums!”
Mr. Marchbanks appeared still unable to see Tobias.
“Do you think,” said Miss Perry, “I had better take him myself?”
“Yes, girl,” stormed the old lady, “I think you had better.”
Mr. Marchbanks, who seemed to share the opinion of his mistress, stepped back haughtily several paces.
“Come along, then,” said Miss Perry, cooing to the window curtains. “Come along, Toby, then.” She knelt down and began to grope. “Come along, Toby, boy. There he is, the sweet!”
Very deftly she made a grab at the lurking, lean, brown form of Tobias, took him by the throat, popped him into the open basket, and fastened down the lid.
“He wouldn’t bite a soul,” she said, rising to her full height, with a smile of invincible friendliness. “He is just a precious.”
“Carry it into the hall!” cried the old lady. “Marchbanks, fetch down Ponto.”
Poised very insecurely upon a chair, Mr. Marchbanks found it not altogether easy to induce Ponto to quit his place of refuge. At length, however, he wasable to restore the quivering quadruped to his mistress.
In the meantime Miss Perry, with affectionate pride, had carried the wicker basket into the hall.
“Burden,” said the old lady, truculently, “that girl ought to be flogged.”
Upon the return of Miss Perry, with uplifted finger, the old lady ordered her to approach.
“Come here, girl,” said she. “I think your behavior is disgraceful. Were you brought up in a barn?”
Such a direct and ruthless mode of address caused a blush to overspread the extremely picturesque countenance of Miss Perry. Quite suddenly her great blue eyes swam with tears.
“Tobias did not mean any harm,” said she. “Heissuch a sweet. It was not his fault that I dropped the basket.”
“Let us have no more of Tobias,” said the old lady. “Now understand”—the finger went up again—“upon no pretext whatever will I allow in future a ferret to enter my drawing-room. I really—I—upon my word——!”
The old lady subsided in an incoherent gurgle of indignation.
Meanwhile, the sight of tears, as was always the case, had moved the tender heart of Miss Burden.
“Dear Lady Crewkerne,” said she, “Miss Perry has had a long journey. I feel sure she must be tired. Would she not like a little refreshment?”
The mention of the word refreshment seemed unmistakablyto touch a responsive chord in the susceptible mechanism of Miss Perry.
“Bring some tea,” said the old lady to Mr. Marchbanks very gruffly. And then to the culprit she said with tremendous austerity, “Would you like something to eat?”
“Oh yes, please,” said Miss Perry. At the same moment she mopped up her tears with an absurdly small handkerchief with a blue-spotted border.
“What do you eat, as a rule?” said the old lady, with a sarcasm that was not in the least obvious to Miss Perry.
“I eat bread and jam, as a rule,” said Miss Perry, with a promptitude that was delightfully persuasive.
“Humph,” said the old lady. She measured Miss Perry with her grim old eyes as though she were a rare specimen in the Zoölogical Garden. “Bread and jam,” said she. And then, with an air of really tremendous sarcasm, she said for the guidance of a discreet spectator, “Have the goodness, Marchbanks, to bring some bread and jam.”
The old lady made a second survey of Miss Perry, from the crown of the luckless straw hat to the soles of the cobbled boots, while the object of it folded up neatly the handkerchief with the spotted border and returned it to a mysterious pocket. She then stood wondering what was going to happen in a singularly solemn manner.
“Sit down,” said the old lady.
Miss Perry sat down spaciously upon a chair that was particularly fragile.
“The most uncomfortable creature I have ever seen,” said the old lady in an aside to her gentlewoman. “Quite out of place in a drawing-room.” And then to Miss Perry: “Have you ever been in a drawing-room before?”
“Oh yes,” said Miss Perry.
“Where?” said the old lady.
“We have one at home,” drawled Miss Perry, “but it is only a little one.”
“Ah,” said the old lady. “And where is your home, pray?”
“I live at the Parsonage at Slocum Magna,” said Miss Perry.
“Humph!” said the old lady. “Some kind of clerical bear-garden, I presume.”
The providential reappearance of Mr. Marchbanks came to the aid of Miss Perry. He bore a massive silver tray with an equally massive silver teapot upon it. There was also an exquisite plate of old blue china. Upon this were five tiny pieces of bread and butter, each a little larger than Miss Perry’s thumbnail, each arranged at an artistic angle, and each spread with a very thin layer of jam.
A beautiful table of rare Indian inlay work was set before Miss Perry. Mr. Marchbanks placed the silver tray upon it.
Miss Perry immediately sat very upright indeed.
“Thank you so much,” said she. Her air was so charmingly sincere that it went some way towards reconciling Mr. Marchbanks to many things.
The old lady mounted her eyeglass again. It wasclear from the general irony of her demeanor that she was expecting some kind of development. In this expectation she was not disappointed.
For a moment Miss Perry appeared to be rather troubled by the wafer-like texture of the bread and jam. It was only for a moment, however. Without waiting to pour out the tea into the tiny blue china cup that had been provided for its reception, she proceeded very carefully to pile each of the wafer-like pieces of bread and jam one upon another. These by their united efforts having become a tolerable-sized morsel, Miss Perry opened her mouth with pensive deliberation, and placed therein gently but firmly the five pieces as one.
If there is a combination of words in the English language which can express the manner in which the old lady turned to meet the half-frightened gaze of her gentlewoman, it is certainly not in the possession of her biographer. Miss Perry, however, masticated her morsel with superb unconcern.
“Burden, have the goodness to ring the bell,” said the old lady, with formidable politeness.
Mr. Marchbanks entered. As a preliminary measure his mistress fixed that diplomatist with her eye. She literally dared him to move a muscle.
“Marchbanks,” said she, “have the goodness to bring another plate of bread and jam.”
Mr. Marchbanks made a bow worthy of a reception at the Foreign Office.
“Thank you so much,” said Miss Perry.
The old lady turned to Miss Perry, who appearedto be stimulated by the morsel she had eaten, and even more so by the prospect of another.
“By the way,” said the old lady, “whereisSlocum Magna?”
Miss Perry’s blue eyes, which by now were perfectly dry, opened to a width that was astonishing. The ignorance of London people was really very remarkable.
“Slocum Magna is the next village to Widdiford,” said Miss Perry.
“Ah, yes, the next village to Widdiford. One ought to have known.”
The manner in which Miss Perry strove to extenuate the painfully obvious ignorance of her august and formidable relation was really a triumph of good breeding.
“They haven’t quite got the railway at Widdiford yet, don’t you know,” said Miss Perry, “but it is only three miles away, of course.”
“The railway is only three miles away, of course,” said the old lady, assenting with a grim chuckle.
The arrival of the second relay of bread and jam imposed silence upon Miss Perry. The faithfulness with which it was dealt with was quite equal to that previously displayed. It is no exaggeration to say that Miss Burden still looked a little frightened, while Ponto raised himself on his forepaws with a look of open admiration.
“By the way, what is your name?” said the old lady.
A somewhat lengthy pause was necessary toenable Miss Perry to do justice to such a leading question.
“My name is Araminta,” said she, and her drawl was carried to such a ludicrous length that even Ponto smiled at it, although he had very little sense of humor, “but they call me Goose because I amrathera Sil-lay.”
The beak of the old lady seemed to take an additional curve. The hanging-judge look had never seemed so awe-inspiring.
“Your name is Araminta,” she repeated with a deliberation that was positively sinister, “but they call you Goose because you are rather a silly. Do they indeed!”
Miss Perry beamed upon the old lady with a comprehensiveness that was perfectly distracting.
“I don’t think I am really a silly,” said she, as if she were quite convinced she were not, “but Muffin says I am. It’s because I can never remember whether Tuesday comes after Monday or whether Monday comes after Tuesday.”
“Who, pray, is Muffin?”
“Muffin is my sister, don’t you know,” said Miss Perry. “Her name is Elizabeth really, but we call her Muffin because she israthera ragamuffin.”
“Humph!” said the old lady.
By nature she was grave and grim, but it was Miss Burden’s opinion that she had never looked quite so grave and quite so grim as in the course of this first interview with the late Lady Augusta’s second daughter.
“Burden,” said she in a truculent aside, “this comes of mixing the breed. Polly was a born fool, but she was never equal to this. What is to be done with the creature? It was my intention to marry her respectably so that she might be a help to her family, who are as poor as mice and who appear to live like pigs. But who, pray, will marry a natural?”
Miss Burden, however, was at heart incurably lenient in her judgments. She demurred with a vigor she seldom displayed.
“She is a singularly beautiful girl,” said Miss Burden, with enthusiasm. “Her manner is delightfully her own, and she is formed like a goddess and she is perfectly charming.”
“Faugh!” said the old lady, ruthlessly. “Burden, you are a born fool. The creature is an idiot. Look at her now.”
Miss Perry had renounced her chair for political reasons. She was sitting now in the middle of the sofa. Her lips were slightly parted and one finger was unmistakably in her mouth. Her great blue eyes were gazing far away into vacancy. Also they appeared to be slightly moist. The fact was that at that moment Miss Perry was back at the Parsonage at Slocum Magna. Her sister Polly was pouring out tea for seven in really sensible cups, and Miss Perry herself was occupied in carving a piece of bread according to her personal fancy. At the Parsonage it was the very rational rule always to cut your own bread and spread your own jam; both of which, beingmade at home, were among the very few things of which you could have as much as you wanted.
It was doubtless an unfortunate moment for the higher criticism to observe Miss Perry.
“An extraordinary creature,” said the old lady.
“I am reminded of some one,” said Miss Burden, “yet I cannot think who it can be. It is somebody who is celebrated.”
“That abandoned straw hat!” said the old lady. “It appears to have been originally used for carrying vegetables.”
“She reminds me of some one,” said Miss Burden, plaintively. “Who can it be, I wonder?”
And then the unexpected happened. Mr. Marchbanks announced: “The Earl of Cheriton.”