"I'm afraid I am," I muttered.
I was too cast down to do anything else but mutter. There was a look in her eyes which, unless I was mistaken, meant temper. And she was such a very stalwart person that I had a horrible feeling that, unless I was very careful, she might make nothing of shaking me.
"Perhaps you're stronger in singles; I should like to play you a single; will you?"
"Thank you, some--some other time."
"Shall we say to-morrow?"
We did not say to-morrow. I would not have said to-morrow for a good deal. Margaret came to my rescue.
"You play Bertha. Molly and I'll look on."
We looked on, while they performed prodigies. I had never before seen such playing. The idea of my associating myself with them was preposterous. As we watched, Margaret was not so loquacious as I should have desired. In her silence I seemed to read disapprobation of the exhibition of incompetence which I had given. Moreover, when she did speak, her remarks took the form of criticisms of the play, approving this stroke, condemning that, with a degree of severity which made me wince. It was impossible to sit beside her for many seconds without realising that she regarded lawn-tennis with a seriousness of which--in that connection--I had never dreamed. Obviously, with her, it was one of the serious things of life.
Suddenly she hit upon a theme which was not much more palatable to me than lawn-tennis had been, in such company.
"Let's play ping-pong, you and me?"
"Ping-pong?" My heart sank afresh. It seemed in that house, that games were in the air. "Wouldn't you rather sit here and watch them playing tennis. I like to watch them."
I would rather have watched anyone play anything than play myself. But Margaret was of a different mind.
"Oh no, what's the fun of it? One gets rusty. Let's do something. Of course ping-pong's not a game one can take really in earnest; but there's a tournament in the schoolroom on Wednesday, and I ought to keep my hand in. Come along and let's have a knock up."
We went along. She did not give me a chance to refuse to go along. She led the way.
"Of course youdoplay?"
"Well--I have played. But I'm quite sure that I don't play in your sense."
"Oh, everyone plays ping-pong--the merest children even. I maintain that it's nothing but a children's game."
It might be. In that case, she would soon discover that I was past the age of childhood.
"Have you brought your bat?" I had not. "It doesn't matter. We've got about thirty different kinds. You're sure to find your sort among them."
A ping-pong board was set up in the billiard-room. On a table at one side were enough bats to stock a shop. I took the one she recommended, and we began.
Ping-pong is a loathsome game. I have always said it, and always shall. At home we played it on the dining-room table. The boys made sport of me. They used to declare in derision, that I played "pat-ball." I should have liked some of them to have played with Margaret. She would have played with them, or I err. I thought the serves had come in with disgusting swiftness at lawn-tennis--they were nothing compared to her serves at ping-pong. That wretched little celluloid ball whizzed over the net like lightning, and then, as I struck at it blindly, expecting it to come straight towards me, like a Christian thing, it flew off at an angle, to the right or left, and my bat encountered nothing but the air. On the other hand, when I served she smashed my ball back with such force that it leaped right out of my reach, or any one's, and sometimes clean over the billiard-table. I had soon had enough of it.
"Hadn't we better stop?" I inquired, when, for the second time in succession, she had smashed my service nearly up to the ceiling. "It can't be very amusing for you to play with me."
A similar reflection seemed to occur to her. Resting her bat on the edge of the board, she regarded me in contemplative fashion.
"Whatisyour favourite game?" she asked.
For some occult reason the question made me blush, so far, that is, as my state of heat permitted.
"I'm not good at any, so I suppose I haven't a favourite game. Indeed, I don't think I'm fond of games."
"Not fond of games?" Her tone was almost melancholy, as if my admission grieved her. "That is unfortunate. We're such a gamey crowd--we are all so keen on games."
Her bearing so hinted that I had been the occasion to her of actual pain that it almost moved me to tears.
When I got up into my room to dress for dinner I was a mixture of feelings. It would not have needed much to have made me sneak down the stairs, and out of the house, and back to the station, if I had been sure of getting safely away. I could not say exactly what I had expected, but I certainly had not expected this. Philip had always made such a fuss of me, that, I fear, I had taken it for granted that, under the circumstances, his people would make a fuss of me too. Instead of which they had received me with a take-it-for-granted air, as if they had known me for years and years; and then had promptly proceeded to make me feel so unutterably small, that I was almost inclined to wish that I had never been born.
I hated to be made small. I hated games. I hated--during those moments, in which I was tearing off my frock, I nearly felt as if I hated everything. But just in time, it was borne in to me how wicked I was. It was not their fault if I was a little donkey; it was my own. They were not to blame if I had allowed my education to be neglected, and had not properly appreciated the paramount importance of tennis, and ping-pong, and golf, and all the other, to my mind, somewhat exasperating exercises which came under the generic heading of "games." As I proceeded with my toilette, and surveyed the result in the mirror, my spirit became calmer. At least they none of them looked better than I did. I might not be such an expert, but I certainly was not uglier than they were. And that was something. Besides, I was young, and strong, and healthy, and active. If I set myself to do it, it was quite within the range of possibility that I might become a match for them even at tennis and ping-pong. I did not believe that I was such a duffer as I had seemed.
No one could have been nicer than they were when I went down into the drawing-room; Miss Reeves actually was so nice that she took my breath away. They stared as I entered; then broke into a chorus.
"Well," began Bertha, with that outspokenness which seemed a family characteristic, "one thing's sure and certain--you'll be the beauty of the family. We shall have to show you as an illustration of what we can achieve in that direction. You look a perfect picture."
"A dream of loveliness!" cried Miss Reeves. "Now, if I were a man, you're just the sort of girl I'd like to marry. Even as a mere girl I'd like to kiss you."
She put her hands lightly on my bare shoulders, and she did kiss me--on both cheeks, and on the lips--there and then. It was most bewildering. I had not looked for that sort of thing from her. But Mrs Sanford's words warmed the very cockles of my heart.
"If you are as delightful as you look, my dear, that boy of mine ought to be a very happy fellow."
No woman had ever spoken to me like that before. It filled me with a delightful glow--made me even bold. I went close up to her, and I whispered--
"I should like to make him happy."
Then she drew me to her, and she kissed me--laughing as she did so. It was really a most peculiar position for a person to be in. But I forgave them for making such an object of me at tennis.
After dinner Mrs Sanford said,--
"Bertha, Margaret, and I will go over to the island in the dinghy,--we, being on this occasion, the chief exponents of parlour tricks, and responsible for all the other performers of the same--and then, Pat, you and Molly might follow in the punt."
At Mrs Sanford's mischievous allusion to "parlour tricks" they all looked at me, and laughed; but, by now, I was beginning to get used to their ways: I laughed too. A little while before I should have objected to being again paired off with Miss Reeves, but my sentiments were also commencing to change towards her. Mrs Sanford went on--
"We shall have to see that all things are ready and in order; so that you will have fifteen or twenty minutes before you need appear."
We saw them off--the garden ran right down to the water's edge. Then Miss Reeves proposed that, since there was no need to hurry, we should get into the punt, and dawdle about upon the river till it was time to join them. The idea commended itself to me; although I was regarding the punt--which was moored alongside--with some misgivings. Incredible though it may sound, I had never seen such an article before.
But then I had never before been within miles and miles of the Thames,--except over London Bridge, and that kind of thing. I had never been in a boat in my life, whether large or small, on sea or river. Such was my ignorance, that I had not been aware that women ever rowed--especially in little weeny boats all alone by themselves. The workmanlike manner in which Bertha and Margaret had rowed off with their mother had filled me with amazement,--they had gone off with nothing on their heads, or shoulders, or even their hands. They had a heap of wraps in the bottom of the boat; but it had not seemed to occur to them that it was necessary to put them on. True, it was a lovely evening and delightfully warm, but there were lots of other boats about; and it did seem odd that three ladies should start off in a boat all alone by themselves in exactly the same costume in which they had just been sitting at dinner.
"Hadn't I better put something on?" I inquired of Miss Reeves, who showed symptoms of a desire to hurry me into the punt before I was ready.
"Why," she rejoined. "It'll be hot all through the night. You don't feel chilly?"
"No; I don't feel chilly--but--"
I looked about me at the strangers in the other boats in a way which she was quick to understand. She was shrewd enough.
"My dear Miss Boyes--" she paused. "I mean my dear Molly--I must call you Molly--I really must--up here, one regards the Thames as one's own private river. It's the mode to do--and to dress--exactly as one pleases. In summer, on the upper reaches of the Thames, one is in Liberty Hall. Step into that punt--if it pleases you, just as you are; or if it pleases you, smother yourself in wraps--only do step in. Are you going to pole, or am I?"
"To pole?"
She eyed me quizzically.
"Don't tell me that you don't know what to pole means?"
"But I don't. How should I, when I never saw a punt before this second."
"Dear me, how your rudiments have been neglected. Poling, you uninstructed child, with the stream, and the right companion, on a summer evening, is the poetry of life. Jump inside that boat, and I'll give you an illustration of the verb--to pole."
She gave me one; a charming illustration too. Certainly, lying on the bottom of that punt, amid a pile of cushions while it moved smoothly over those glittering waters, under that cloudless sky, was delicious. And the ease with which she sent us along, just dipping the long pole into the stream, while the gleaming drops of water fell off the shining shaft.
"Well," she asked, "how do you like my illustration?"
"It's lovely! I could go on like this for ever,--just looking at you. It shows off your figure splendidly." She laughed. "And it doesn't seem to be so difficult either."
"What doesn't seem difficult?--poling? It isn't. You only have to put it in, and take it out again. Nothing could be simpler."
Of course I knew that she was chaffing me; and that it was not quite so simple as that. But, all the same, I leaned to the opinion that it was not so very hard. And I resolved that, when Philip came, and he was there to teach me, and to take a genuine interest in my education, that I would try my hand. I suspected that I might look rather decent, poling him along.
It was very jolly on the island. There were crowds of people, some of them gorgeous, some in simple skirts and blouses, but scarcely any of them wore hats,--the men looked nicer than I had ever seen men look before. I came to the conclusion that the river costume did suit men. The "parlour tricks" were excellent; I became more and more ashamed of myself for having spoken of them as parlour tricks. Bertha and Margaret and Mrs Sanford were splendid. I believe that the people would have liked them to have kept on doing things all night long--and no wonder. If I had only been a hundredth part as clever, I should have been as proud as a peacock. Everything would have gone off perfectly, and I should have had one of the pleasantest evenings of my life, if it had not been for my stupidity.
When all was over I found myself in the punt with Margaret. She was kneeling at one end, arranging her music and things. Although it was pretty late there was a full moon in an unclouded sky, so that it was almost as light as day. All at once I discovered that we had got untied or something, and were drifting farther and farther from the land.
"We're going," I exclaimed.
"That's all right," said Margaret. "Pole her clear."
Evidently she, engrossed in affairs of her own, took it for granted that I was no novice; in that part of the world novices seemed to be things unknown. There were lots of boats about us; people were making laughing remarks about our being in the way; the pole was lying in the punt: Miss Reeves had handled it as if it were a feather. Here was an earlier opportunity to try my hand than I had anticipated; but--surely!--until Margaret was disengaged, I could act on her instructions and "pole clear." So I picked up the pole.
Two things struck me instantly; one, that it was much longer than it had seemed; and the other, that it was a very great deal heavier. But I had been so hasty that, before I realised these facts--though I realised them rapidly enough--the end of it was in the water. Down it went with a jerk to the bottom. Had I not hung on to it with sudden desperation it would all of it have gone. I wished it had! For while I clung to it I all at once perceived that, in some mysterious way, the boat was running away from underneath me. It was the most extraordinary sensation I had ever experienced, and so startling! and it all took place with such paralysing swiftness. Before I understood what was really happening--before I had time to scream or anything, I found that I was actually pushing the punt away with my own feet, that I was standing on the edge of it, and splash! I was in the river.
There was no water to speak of. It was quite shallow; only a foot or two deep. I was out again almost as soon as I was in. But I was soaked to the skin. And the worst of it was, that I knew that not a creature there sympathised with me truly. All round me people were laughing outright--at me--as if it were quite a joke. I could not see where the joke came in. Although Mrs Sanford and the girls and Miss Reeves pretended to sympathise with me, I felt persuaded that even they were laughing at me in their heart of hearts. More than once I caught them in a grin.
I did feel so wild with myself when I got between the sheets! All the same, I slept like a top. I seemed to have only been asleep a minute or two when I was disturbed by a knocking at my bedroom door.
"Who's there?" I cried.
"Come for a dip?" returned Margaret's voice.
"A dip?" I shuddered; she had roused me from the loveliest dream. "Where?"
"Why, in the river, child! It's a perfect morning for a swim!"
"In the river?--for a swim?--But I can't swim."
"I'm coming in," she cried. And in she came, rushing across the floor, putting her strong arms underneath my shoulders, raising me from the pillow. "I don't believe you can do anything--you little goose! But you're a darling all the same!"
She kissed me three or four times, then dropped me; scurried back across the floor, and out of the room.
I sighed, and, I believe, I turned over and went to sleep again.
When I got down to breakfast I found that they had all been about for hours. There was a letter from Philip lying on my plate. He wrote to say that he was coming down by the first train.
"You might go and meet him," suggested Mrs Sanford. "Can you drive?"
They all grinned; but I did not mind, not a tiny bit.
"Can I drive?" I retorted scornfully. "Why, I've driven since I was a little thing."
"And pray, how long ago is that? Anyhow, if you can drive you might go to meet him by yourself."
I did--in the pony phaeton; it was lovely. When Philip came out of the station my heart jumped into my mouth; especially when he took his hat off, and kissed me in front of all the people. It was so unexpected.
As I drove him back I told him what an absolute duffer I was, what an utter failure, what an all-round nincompoop. He declared that he did not believe a word of it; which seems, from one point of view, to have been a trifle rude. And he said that, as for my not being able to do things, he would show me how to do them all, and he guaranteed--but I knew there was a twinkle in his eye--that soon I would do them better than anyone else.
And I should not be surprised if he does teach me how to do some things. He has taught me such a deal already.
So, as I observed at the outset, although I am not quite, I am almost perfectly happy. And, after all, that is something. Particularly as I daresay I shall be quite happy before very long.
She was not only charming--quite common women are sometimes charming-- but there was about her an air of dignity which--I had almost written which was indescribable. She made you feel what an altogether superior person she was, and what an altogether inferior person you were, and yet she did it in a way which really almost made you feel as if she flattered you; paid you a delicate compliment, in fact. I recognised this peculiarity about her from the first.
She made her first appearance on the pier. And an extraordinary sensation she made. Nobody knew who she was, and yet anybody could see that she was somebody. There was, even about the way in which she carried her parasol--my wife noticed it at the time--an indefinable something which marked her out as not being one of the rank and file.
It was one morning when the band was playing that she first appeared. That same night she was at the entertainment in the pavilion. The "Caledonian Opera Company" were there that week, and even the shilling seats were crowded. She was in the second row among the shillings. And by the greatest chance in the world Grimshaw happened to make her acquaintance. He sat in the next seat to her. She dropped her programme; he picked it up; and so the acquaintance was made.
Her behaviour towards him was instinct with the greatest condescension. Grimshaw assured me that he was almost overwhelmed. She really treated him as if he had been her equal; as if he had been an acquaintance of some standing. She allowed him to escort her to her hotel. And she told him all about herself; and, of course, it all came out.
This divinely beautiful woman--I have never heard a word whispered against her beauty, even by the women--was the Princess Margaretta. She had taken a suite of rooms at the hotel--quite a palatial suite, considering--and she had come to stay at Beachington for the season.
I suppose there is no place anywhere where people of rank and position may expect to receive a warmer welcome than at Beachington.
When it was known that the Princess Margaretta was staying at the "Parade Hotel," all the inhabitants of Beachington called upon her, one might say, within five minutes. The inhabitants of Beachington do not, as a rule, call upon visitors. They are rather a higgledy-piggledy lot, are visitors. In general, they are only welcomed by the hotel proprietors, and lodging-house keepers, and the tradesmen and that class of person. But, in the case of a Princess, Beachington society felt that, as a society it had its duties to fulfil, and it fulfilled them. In that statement you have the situation.
The Princess received everybody. I must own that, for my part, I was a little surprised. She received the Pattens, for instance. And the Pattens are nothing and nobody. It was like their impudence to call on a Princess. Patten was only in the Custom House. And as for his wife--we never even speak of his wife. Then she received the Jacksons. It is the belief, at Beachington, that old Jackson used to keep a public-house. It is not only that he suffers from a chronic thirst, but he looks like it. And there were other people. But then, of course, she could not be expected to be able to discriminate at first. She wanted an adviser. I am bound to say that, ere long, she had more advisers than perhaps she cared for. Some people are so pushing.
I assure you that I have never known Beachington livelier than it was that season. The Princess was a widow. There is something pathetic even in the mere state of widowhood. In the case of a young and beautiful woman the pathos is heightened. And the Princess was rich. She owned it with a most charming frankness. It seemed her husband had been an American, and he had added his fortune to her fortune, and the result was a mountain of wealth which weighed the Princess down. She spoke of handing it over to the starving millions, and being free again. As I have said, I had never imagined that Beachington could have been so lively.
I confess that I was taken aback when, one day, Grimshaw dragged me along the parade, past the asphalt, on to the rough ground, where there were no people, and put to me this question,--
"Beamish, do you think it would be impossible for a man to fight a duel nowadays?"
I stared at him. I asked him what he meant. Then it all came out.
Grimshaw was actually making eyes at the Princess Margaretta: Grimshaw is three years younger than I am, and I am fifty-five. He is short and stout, not to say puffy. He is balder than I am, and my wife says that for me to brush my hair is a farce. He lives in unfurnished rooms, for which he pays twenty pounds a year with attendance, and he has nothing but his half pay to live upon.
"Do you think that if I were to fix a public insult upon Crookshanks I could force him to call me out?"
Crookshanks--he calls himself "Surgeon-General" upon his cards; he is a retired army doctor--is about sixty. He has been a widower nearly twenty years. His eldest daughter is herself a widow. She has two children. Mother and children all live with him. He has two other daughters, both unmarried. Between them poor Crookshanks hardly dare call his soul his own. And yet Crookshanks was not only making up to the Princess, but, in Grimshaw's judgment, he was proving himself a dangerous rival.
I told Grimshaw that it was only because Crookshanks was a greater idiot than himself that he was not the greatest idiot in Beachington. I don't stand on ceremony with Grimshaw--I never have done.
"I don't know." Grimshaw mopped his brow. The slightest exertion makes him painfully warm. "If I could only get Crookshanks out of the way, I have reason to believe she cares for me."
I asked him what his reason was. He hesitated. When he spoke his tone was doubtful. I detected it, although he tried to disguise the thing.
"I lent her fifteen pounds. I don't think that a woman would borrow money from a man unless she cared for him. What do you think--eh, Beamish?"
I did not know what to think. I happen to know that Grimshaw's daily expenditure is measured out with mathematical exactness. I wanted to know where he got his fifteen pounds from. This time his tone was unmistakably rueful.
"I had to borrow it myself; and I had to pay a stiff price for it, too. She wanted it for flowers."
Wanted it for flowers! I told him that I thought he had more sense. Russian women are notoriously careless in money matters. Fifteen pounds were nothing to her, while to him--they were fifteen pounds. I promised that he would never see his money again. I left Grimshaw with his heart in his boots. He made no further reference to fighting Crookshanks.
But, the fact is, I soon found out that everybody was making love to the Princess Margaretta. Not only all the unmarried men but, unless rumour lied, some of the married men as well, There were some pretty scandals! Rouse, the curate of St Giles', had atête-à-têtedinner with her in her private sitting-room, and stayed so late that the landlord of the "Parade Hotel" had to tell him it was time to go. I charged Rouse with it to his face. He had the grace to blush.
"The Princess is a member of the Greek Church--a most interesting subject." That is what he said. "I have hopes, Admiral, of winning her to the faith we hold so dear. It is only a passage in one of the Articles which keeps her back. I do not understand exactly how--it seems to be almost a question of grammar--yet so it is. But it would, indeed, be a triumph to win her from the Greeks."
What I objected to most was the conduct of young Marchmont. It was only shortly before that he had asked my permission to pay his attentions to our Daisy. And he had paid his attentions with a vengeance. Yet here he was dangling about the Princess's skirts as though he were tied to her apron-strings. I did not wish to have a discussion with him, for Daisy's sake; but I made up my mind to say a word to the Princess.
My chance came before I expected. She stopped me one afternoon on the Front. I was walking, she was in a carriage. She asked me to get in, so I got in, and away we drove.
"Do you know, Admiral," she began, "yesterday I made such a silly mistake. I called at your house, and I left the wrong card."
"The servant told me something about it. She said that you left a card with the name of 'Dowsett' on it."
"That is so--Dowsett." She leaned back in the carriage. She shaded herself with her parasol in such a way that, while her face must have been invisible to the people on the front, it was visible enough to me. She looked supremely lovely. No wonder all the men were after her--the beggars. "Do you know, Admiral, that, at one time, I had almost made up my mind to enter Beachington under false colours."
I asked her to explain. She did explain.
"You know that we, who, so to speak, are born in the purple, have moments in our lives in which we are conscious that title and honours are--what shall I say?--mere fripperies. One longs, now and then, to step down from the pedestal on which chance, rather than our desert, has placed us, and become--what shall I say again?--one of the masses. I don't know how it may be with others in my position, but it is often so with me. And to such an extent, that at one time I even thought of coming to Beachington as plain Mrs Dowsett. I thought it would be such fun, so obviously ridiculous, you know. I even had cards printed with the name of Dowsett on them. Wasn't it a curious fancy? I suppose one of them got mixed up with my own cards, and, in my silly way, I left it at your house by mistake." She paused, then she added: "My husband's name was Dowsett. He was an American of the finest kind. He was what they call in America, One of the Four Hundred."
"Then, if your husband's name was Dowsett, I presume that your name is Dowsett, too. So that you are Mrs Dowsett after all."
"My dear Admiral! Once a Princess always a Princess. I do not cease to be the Princess Margaretta because, by accident, I chance to have had a husband who was a commoner."
She said this in a way which showed that I had wounded her sensibilities.
Then I tried to bring the subject round to young Charles Marchmont. I got there by degrees. She caught up the hints I dropped with a quickness which confounded me.
"Poor Mr Marchmont! He is so utterly in love with me!"
"In love with you--Charles Marchmont!"
I stared. I almost let out that the young scoundrel was, nominally, engaged to Daisy--my little girl. But I did not choose to give my child away even to the Princess Margaretta.
"He has given me a hundred pounds."
I almost sprang from the carriage seat.
"Charles Marchmont has given you a hundred pounds!"
"I have not told him so, but I have almost made up my mind to devote it to the Russian Jews. It makes one so sad to think of them--don't you think that it makes one sad? All the world knows how deeply I am interested in the sufferings of my unfortunate compatriots. Because they are Hebrews, is that a reason why we should give them stones instead of bread? Oh, no! Are they not my fellow-creatures? But every one in Beachington has made my sympathies his own. It is beautiful!" The lovely creature wiped her lovely eyes. "Every one has showered gifts upon me--gifts of money and of money's worth. Even Mr Rouse has given me five pounds and a ring which was his mother's."
Poor Rouse! I doubt if he had any private means to speak of, and I know that the income from his curacy was only sixty pounds a year.
It is incredible--I am ashamed of myself when I think of it--but before I got out of that carriage, I actually gave her all the money I had in my purse. To the relief of the Russian Jews, I understood that it was to be devoted at the time, though I am free to admit that she did not make an exact statement of the fact. I did not dare to tell Mrs Beamish what I had done. I have never dared to tell her to this hour.
Two nights after Douglas came up to me on the pier. He was beaming with something--possibly with rapture. When he saw me, in the dim light, he rubbed his hands together--in a way he has.
"Congratulate me, Beamish! Congratulate me, my dear Beamish."
Before I congratulate a man, I like to know what I am expected to congratulate him on. I told him so. He dropped his voice to a sort of confidential whisper.
"She has promised to make me happy."
"She? Who?"
"The Princess Margaretta." He drew himself up. Douglas is a tall, thin man, so perhaps he thought that he would make himself still taller. "The Princess Margaretta, Beamish, that august and most beautiful lady, has, scarcely an hour ago--most auspicious hour of my existence!--promised to be my wife."
I was dumbfounded. I could only stare. Douglas is an old Indian Civil. He was Resident of--somewhere or other, I forget the name of the place. The driest old stick I ever yet encountered. As much fitted to be the husband of a fair young creature like the Princess Margaretta as--as I am.
"Yes, Beamish, I am to be married at last."
And quite time, too, ancient imbecile. I felt inclined to kick him as he stood there, smirking and twiddling his watch-chain.
"I have been making matrimonial approaches towards the Princess Margaretta almost since the moment in which she arrived at Beachington. I felt that such a woman as that must be mine, though, at the same time, I scarcely dared to hope. But the Princess is a woman of the widest sympathies. I am inclined to the belief that it is because I have made her sympathies my own that I have made her heart mine also. I presented her this afternoon with a cheque for a thousand guineas to be devoted to a cause in which she is much interested--the relief of the Russian Jews. It was, perhaps, for a person in my circumstances, a rash thing to do. But I do not regret it, for I am persuaded that it was that spontaneous act upon my part which induced her to say 'yes' to my whispered prayers."
I moved away from him; I could not congratulate him--I could not! I fancy that he was so lifted up in the seventh heaven of his happiness that he never noticed the omission.
On the other side of the pier I came upon Macbride. Macbride is a Yankee--a New England man; as keen and cute, and yet as nice a fellow as you would care to meet. He spends three or four months of every year in England on business, and, during that time, he is continually in and out of Beachington.
He was leaning over the railings, looking down at the sea, when I came up to him.
"Macbride," I said, "did you ever hear anything in the States of a man named Dowsett?"
He knew what I was driving at immediately. That man knows everything!
"The Princess's Dowsett?"
"That's it. I see you know that her husband's name was Dowsett."
Macbride considered a moment before he spoke.
"It's my opinion that there never was a Dowsett."
"Macbride! Why, she told me so herself!"
"I imagine that she may have told you a good many things which belong to that order of fiction which is distinctly a stranger to truth." He was silent; although I could not see his face, I guessed, somehow, he was smiling. "It is my further opinion--I mention it to you, because I think that you are beginning to suspect as much yourself--that the Princess is no better than she ought to be."
I gasped. If she had been doing us! What would Mrs Beamish say? I had staked my reputation on the woman.
"Do you know that she has promised to marry Douglas?"
"I know she has. I also know--from her own lips, so the authority is an unquestionable one--that there is more than one man in Beachington who is under the pleasing impression that she has promised to marry him. For instance, she has more than half promised to marry me. And I, for my part, am more than half inclined to marry her."
"Macbride! when you say that you think she is no better than she ought to be!"
"If you consider, how many women are there who are any better than they ought to be? Where shall you find a perfect woman? And Heaven protect us from her when she's found. Possibly you misconstrue my meaning. When I state that I believe her to be no better than she ought to be, I make a statement which, in my judgment, applies to all the women I ever met, not to speak of all the men. I think--I am not sure, but I think--that I understand the Princess Margaretta. I think, also, that she understands me. There is one advantage gained--a common understanding--especially as I am myself, in some respects, a rather peculiar person." For the first time he stood up, turned, and faced me. "Beamish, the Princess Margaretta is a clever woman. What she wants is a clever man. With a clever man she might be happy, and she might make him happy. Her misfortune has been that, up to now, the men she has encountered have been, generally speaking, fools."
I could not make him out. And I not only could not make him out, but I did not know what to say to him. What can you say to a man who tells you that he thinks a woman is no better than she ought to be, and then, in the very same breath, that he is more than half inclined to marry her? And that when he knows that she has not only promised to marry another man, but, as he more than hints, half a dozen other men besides.
The following morning, just as I was going to start for my morning stroll, the servant came and said that a "gentleman" wished to see me. She hesitated as she said "gentleman," as if she were doubtful if that word exactly applied.
"Admiral Beamish?" enquired the visitor as I entered the room into which the maid had shown him. I told him that I was that individual. "Can you tell me what is my wife's present address? She appears to have changed her lodging. I am Mr Dowsett."
I stared. The visitor was a small, insignificant, sandy-haired, mild-looking individual of about forty years of age. No wonder the servant had hesitated to call him a "gentleman." He carried "small shopkeeper" on him, written large.
"I don't understand you. I fancy there is some mistake," I said.
The stranger eyed me as though the mere tone of my voice filled him with alarm.
"Perhaps so. But my wife told me that she had the honour of your acquaintance, She mentioned your name in her last letter."
"Your wife? Who is your wife?"
"My wife is Mrs Dowsett."
"Dowsett?" A cold shiver went down my back. I had heard the name before. "Is it possible that you are referring to the Princess Margaretta?"
"The--who?"
"The Princess Margaretta--who, as all the world knows, is staying at the 'Parade Hotel'?"
"I hope not--I do hope not. I hope she's not gone so far as the Princess Margaretta."
The little man wrung his hands together as if he were positively suffering pain.
"The Princess did say that her late husband's name was Dowsett. Perhaps you are a relation of his?"
"Her late husband! I'm her present husband, if it's Mrs Dowsett. But perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me what kind of party the Princess Margaretta is--I mean to look at."
I told him. I described the Princess's many charms. I spoke of her glorious hair, her great blue eyes, her irresistible smile, her exquisite figure, her bearing of great lady. I did not do her justice--who can do a beautiful woman justice by a mere description?--but I apparently did her sufficient justice to enable him to recognise the picture I had drawn. When I had finished, that little man dropped into a chair with what sounded to me very like a cry of anguish.
"It's Eliza!" That is how he referred to the Princess Margaretta--the, as she had given me to understand, near relation to the Romanoffs, the reigning Russian family. "She's done it again! And worse than ever!--After all she promised!"
When I understood what his broken exclamations might mean, I began to perspire.
"I fear that you and I, sir, are at cross purposes. May I ask you to explain! And, first of all, be so good as to tell me who you are."
"That's me." He took from his pocket a card, a common tradesman's card, on which was printed "James Dowsett. Grocer and General Provision Merchant," with an address at Islington. "That's me," he repeated with an air of positive pride, "that's who I am. And I'll do you as good a tea at one and ten as you'll get anywhere in London, though I say it."
"And do you mean to tell me," I gasped, "that the Princess Margaretta is not a widow, not--not a relation of the Romanoffs, but--but a small grocer's actual wife?"
"Not such a small grocer's as you might think. I could give you a banker's reference which perhaps would startle you. It isn't always them, you know, who carry things off with the biggest air who are the biggest."
"But," I cried, "are you aware, sir, that the person whom you assert to be your wife, has, here in Beachington, laid claim to Royal rank?"
The little man's air of modest pride disappeared with even comic suddenness.
"Not to Royal rank? Not quite to Royal rank, I hope?"
"But I say yes--I say yes. She told me with her own lips that she was a near relation to the Russian Czar."
Mr Dowsett began again to wring his hands.
"Oh, Eliza, what have you done?"
"If the person you refer to as 'Eliza'--great powers, what a name!--is the person who calls herself the Princess Margaretta, then she has been guilty of the most impudent fraud of which I ever heard, and proved herself to be a swindler of the purest water."
Mr Dowsett stared, or, rather, glared at me. He drew himself to his full height--five foot three inches. He turned pale with rage; he actually shook his fist in my face.
"Don't you call my wife a swindler, you--you old villain!"
I was astounded.
"May I ask, Mr Dowsett, what language you would apply to a person who, being a grocer's wife, calls herself a widow, in possession of a large fortune, a Princess in her own right, and a near relative of the reigning Czar?"
Mr Dowsett looked at me, as if he were at a loss for words. Then, to my surprise and my disgust, he began to cry. Mr Dowsett appeared to be a man of variable moods.
"You sha'n't call her a swindler, you sha'n't! She's no more a swindler than you are. It's all them--them dratted books."
"Dratted books, Mr Dowsett? What do you mean?"
"It's them penny novelettes and the stories in the fashion papers, and that stuff. She gets reading about things, and then she thinks she's the things she reads about. I'll tell you what she said to me not very long ago. 'Jimmy,' she said--I'm Jimmy--'let's pretend that I'm a duchess. I've been reading about such a beautiful duchess. Let's pretend I'm her.' So we did, just her and me. I called her 'Your Grace,' and all. We kept it up for nearly a month. Then she said, 'Jimmy, I'm tired of being a duchess. I've been reading such a lovely story about a lone, lorn orphan. Let's pretend I'm a lone, lorn orphan, whom you picked up out of the streets, for a change.' So we pretended that she was a lone, lorn orphan who'd gone through enough to make your hair go grey. But, there! I don't know what we haven't pretended she was."
That any man could be capable of such childish imbecility seemed to me almost incredible. But then man's capacity of imbecility is incredible. Consider how a man of my standing had been induced to receive a grocer's wife as a Royal Princess!
"May I ask, Mr Dowsett, how you came to allow your wife to come to Beachington unaccompanied by her husband?"
"Well, sir, it was this way. I was more than usually busy this year, and Eliza was anxious for a change, and she begged me to let her go, so I let her go."
"And do you mean to tell me that she has given you no hint of what she has been doing since she came?"
"Lor' bless you, she's written to me every day, regular. The best letters ever you saw--that funny! How I have laughed at them, oh lor'!" Mr Dowsett seemed inclined to laugh even at the recollection. "But, to tell you the truth, I didn't know what was true in them and what was make-believe. She did say that she told every one that she was a Princess, and that every one took her for one; but I never thought for a moment she was in earnest. Though goodness knows that she's clever enough, and beautiful enough for one, isn't she, sir?" I didn't tell him what I thought; though I felt that in the truth of that lay my excuse. "She wouldn't give me her address. She said it would spoil the fun. So I sent my letters to the post-office."
"Did you, indeed? There appear to be some curious husbands and wives in existence nowadays, but scarcely a more curious couple, I apprehend, Mr Dowsett, than you and the--lady whom I know as the Princess Margaretta. Although you do not know her address, I do. So, with your permission, we will pay an immediate visit to the Princess Margaretta."
When we pulled up in front of the "Parade Hotel," the little man gave a little start.
"My gracious! Is she staying here? She did mention once that she was stopping at the biggest hotel in the place. But I thought that was her fun. Oh, Eliza, what have you done?"
As he went into the hotel Grimshaw was coming out. He seemed to be in a state of considerable agitation. He addressed me almost at the top of his voice.
"Beamish, you will find Crookshanks lying senseless on the landing. When he comes to, tell him that I shall be perfectly ready to give him the satisfaction of a gentleman."
He went striding off, without giving me a chance to request him to be a little more explicit. We did not find Crookshanks lying senseless on the landing. We met him coming down the stairs, with his handkerchief to his nose. He looked at us askance.
"Is Major Grimshaw downstairs?"
He put the question to me in a sort of anxious whisper.
"Grimshaw's just gone out."
"You are quite sure he's gone?
"Certainly. He just now passed me."
"Thank you. I--I was afraid he might be waiting down below."
He continued sneaking down the stairs, as if a weight had been taken off his mind. I had expected better things of Crookshanks. But perhaps those three girls of his have knocked the heart all out of him.
Unannounced I entered the Princess Margaretta's sitting-room. I wanted to take her unawares. I took her unawares. Quite a dramatic little scene seemed to be taking place within. Old Douglas and Mr Macbride appeared to be indulging in that kind of conversation in which one does not care to indulge in the presence of a lady.
When the Princess saw who had come in with me, she came dashing forward. She gave a little cry of joy.
"Oh, Jimmy!" She actually threw herself upon his breast in the presence of us all. "You dear, I'm so glad you've come. I'm tired to death of being the Princess Margaretta."
The little grocer seemed to be as happy as a king when he had her in his arms, as though he asked for nothing more.
Macbride declared that he had suspected something of the truth all through. But I doubt it. She had been "playing" at being the Princess Margaretta--to think of that minx's brazen impudence! Every one got back his own again. I even got back the contents of my purse. But when he was presented with the bill at the hotel that grocer must have stared.
To my mind Beachington has never been the same since the incident of the Princess Margaretta.