It was with a feeling akin to despair that I saw Coverdale follow the others up the stairs. In the first place my own position was invidious. But there was nothing to be done. It was beyond question that Fitz must have a tried man like Coverdale at his elbow, whilst also it was necessary that a person with some pretensions to responsibility should take charge of the lady who was safely outside in the electric brougham. Yet, uppermost in my thoughts, was a more insistent care. The affair had taken a very ugly turn. Fitz had shown himself to be a man who did not stick at trifles, whilst von Arlenberg, unless his manner belied him, was cast in a similar mould. It was therefore with some uneasiness that I went to offer my services to her Royal Highness. That distinguished personage was seated greatly at her ease, yet with a slight frown upon her somewhat imperious countenance.
"Where is Nefil?" said she.
"I have to tell you, ma'am," said I, "that Mr. Fitzwaren is—er—discussing certain important matters with his Excellency, and that if it is agreeable to you he desires me to accompany you to your hotel."
"What are the matters?" Her gaze in its directness seemed to pass right through me.
"There are—er—certain details that have to be adjusted."
"Well, I hope Nefil will be able to shoot straight."
Whether I was more taken aback by the cynicism of the remark or by its sagacity, it would be fruitless to inquire. But to this pious hope I had nothing to add; and I stood feeling decidedly uncomfortable at the door of the car. There was no room in front by the side of the chauffeur, and I had received no invitation to take a seat within.
The pause was awkward, but somehow there seemed to be no help for it.
"Well?" said the lady, not without a suspicion of acerbity.
Even that I could not take for an invitation to get in. I stood acutely conscious that my embarrassment told against me.
"Aha,les Anglais!" The malice was not too genial. "Would you haf me open the door?"
I told the chauffeur to drive to the Savoy, and took the proffered seat by the side of the Crown Princess of Illyria.
The discovery has no claim to be original, but in order to find out what a woman really is, one should sit with her alone andtête-à-tête. The opportunity for frankness is not likely to be neglected upon either side, since a display of that engaging quality upon the one part seems automatically to evoke it on the other.
No sooner was I seated by the side of Mrs. Fitz than I felt more at ease. She was so sentient, so responsive; a creature who, beneath the trenchant reserve of her manner, was alive in every nerve.
She patted my knees with her fan.
"Aha,les Anglais!" In the light of the lamps, I thought her eyes were like stars. "So brave, so honest and sobête—I love them all!"
The spell of her presence seemed to overpower me.
"My brave Nefil will kill him, will he not?"
"I fear," said I, "that one of them will not see to-morrow."
"Indeed, yes; it cannot be otherwise."
Her calmness amazed me. And yet there was nothing callous or unnatural in it. Perhaps it might be described as the outward expression of an imperial nature. At least that was the impression that I gained. When her servants drew their swords in her cause they must not look for a prick in the arm. Let them prepare to stake their lives and to yield them gladly. I shivered slightly; it was barbarous that a woman could thus offer the father of her children to the gods, yet it was sublime.
All too soon we arrived at the restaurant where Fitz had ordered supper for seven. The place was filling up rapidly after the theatres. We sat on a sofa in the foyer to wait for our party; I with an acute anxiety and a sense of foreboding that held me tongue-tied; my companion with a detachment of mind that in the circumstances seemed almost inhuman. For her sake a man was being done to death; one whom she loved, or one whom her father honoured. But whatever Fate's decree, her nature was schooled to the point of submission.
Seated by my side in the foyer, she subjected the throng of returning playgoers to a frankly humorous and malicious scrutiny. These English who were sobêteamused her vastly. The clothes they wore, the airs they gave themselves, the things they did and the things they refrained from doing, not a detail escaped that audaciously frank, that alertly curious intelligence.
"Your women are not as you, you fine, big English good dogs," she said, bestowing another indulgent pat upon my knees. "Les Anglaises, how prim and pinched they are, what dresses they wear, and how they do walk! But I adorevos jolis hommes: was ever such distinction, such charm, such stupidity!Mon pèreshall have an English regiment. I will raise it myself, and be its colonel."
Her laughter was deep and rich and full of malice. Even I, stupid and stricken with fear as I was, was yet sufficiently indiscreet to attempt to seize the opportunity.
"It will be the easiest thing in the world, ma'am. Have you not raised it already?"
Another indulgent pat was my reward.
"Très bon enfant!Quel esprit! You shall sit by my side when we eat."
Her ridicule had a velvet sheath, but even an Englishman, who felt as miserably ineffectual as did I, was susceptible of the thrust.
It is difficult for the average Briton, acutely conscious that he is enduring the patronage of a superior, to be easy, graceful and natural in his bearing; to say the appropriate things in the appropriate way, and to carry off the situation lightly. Every moment that I sat by the side of her Royal Highness in the centre of the public gaze, I felt my position to be growing more invidious. The pose of my companion seemed to become more Olympian; while if I ventured a half-heartedriposteor a timid pleasantry, I suffered for it; or if I remained silent and respectful—and that after all is the only course to take in the presence of our betters—I furnished an additional example of the heaviness of my countrymen.
I came to the conclusion that the less I said the better it would fare with my over-sensitive dignity, but even the utterance of an occasional monosyllable did not save me.
"When I hear the big dogs growl, the English masteefs, I say to myself, 'Ah, the dear fellows, how excellently they speak the language!'"
Unless one springs from the Chosen Race, it takes more than three generations to produce a courtier. I felt myself to be growing stiffer and generally more infelicitous in my demeanour. And then, as if to complete my overthrow, there entered the foyer a supper-party, whose appearance on the scene I could only regard with horror.
Who has not felt that among the astral bodies there is a malign power, a kind of Court Dramatist, who arranges sinister coincidences and mischievous surprises for us humble denizens below, in order to divert the privileged onlookers sitting in heaven? The supper-party which came into our midst, which looked as though it had been to see "The Importance of Being Earnest," and had been shocked by its reprehensible levity, consisted of Dumbarton, our illustrious neighbour, "dear Evelyn" high of coiffure and robed in pink satin, the august Mrs. Catesby, and the highly respectable George, with one or two others of minor importance as far as this narrative is concerned, although in other spheres not prone to yield pride of place to anybody.
It was clear from the rigid, slow and undeviating manner in which the ducal party walked past our sofa, that we were discovered. Mrs. Catesby, in particular, gazed down her nose with really awful solemnity; George, the highly respectable, wearing his Quarter Sessions expression; Dumbarton, looking like a Royal Duke painted in oils; and "dear Evelyn," his pink-robed spouse, a really admirable picture of what can be achieved in the way of high-bred hauteur. I can only say that, speaking for myself, I addressed a humble prayer to heaven that the floor might open and let me through.
A chill of apprehension settled upon me. I sat very close, not daring to move an eyelid.
Alas! as the procession filed past, there arose a note of derision; a clear, resonant, bell-like note.
"Ach, pink! Pink in dis climate and wis dat complexion!"
Even thechef de receptionwas compelled to follow the example of Mrs. Catesby of looking down his nose with really awful solemnity.
The sweat sprang to my miserable forehead. I never have a nightmare now without I dream of pink satin. The ducal party passed beyond our ken, leaving me shattered utterly and more than ever at the mercy of my companion. However, to my relief, the "Stormy Petrel" began to betray a care in regard to her husband. It began to seem that the aim of his adversary had been the straighter.
Fitz was certainly a desperate fellow, and my intercourse with the lady whom he had prevailed upon to share his name rendered that aspect of his character the more clear. What enormous grit the man must have to abduct such a lioness and to attempt to keep house with her upon a basis of equality. But had he met his overthrow at last? Had he tempted fate once too often? The hands of the clock were creeping on towards midnight.
"Nefil has missed his aim." The voice of the Princess trembled.
Almost immediately, however, this was proved to be not the case. There were further arrivals in the foyer; five men entered together, and the first of these was Fitz.
It may have been the fault of my overwrought fancy, but it seemed to me that each of the five was looking excited and pale. My companion rose to receive them. "It is well," she said. "It is well." She turned to Fitz, who looked ghastly, and extended her hand with a gesture that I can only compare to that of Medusa. Fitz bore the hand to his lips.
"What happened?" I said to Coverdale in a hoarse whisper.
"Don't ask!" he said, half turning away.
"Do you mean——" I said; but the sentence died in my throat.
The invasion of the supper-room was a pretty grave ordeal to have to face. The stress of that day, woven of the very tissue of excitement, had told upon me; and again I was in the grip of a nameless fear. Instead of following in the train of Mrs. Fitz into the glare of a too notorious publicity, I wanted to run away and hide myself.
The room was crowded with people who were there to see and to be seen. We had to make our way past a number of tables to one reserved for us at the far end of the room. In the middle of our progress, like a lion in the gate, was the ducal party toying elegantly with quails and champagne.
Each member of her Royal Highness's bodyguard, including the indomitable O'Mulligan, was looking downcast and unhappy and far from his best. But the lady herself, in bearing and in manner, made no secret of her status. She was the Heiress-Apparent to Europe's oldest monarchy condescending to eat in the midst of barbarians.
It was clear that the ducal party was fully determined to take an extreme course. By the animation of its conversation and its assiduous regard for quails and champagne, it evidently hoped to make the fact quite plain that our privacy would be respected if only we had the decency to extend a like indulgence to theirs.
Alas! in certain kinds of warfare there are no sanctities.
"Ach, pink!" said Mrs. Fitz, in that voice which had such a terrible quality of penetration. "Can any one tell mewhypink——?"
The nervous fancy of a married man, a father of a family, and a county member, seemed to detect a titter from the adjoining tables. Coverdale pressed forward sombrely. Her Royal Highness, instinct with a ruthless and humorous disdain, went forward too. Fitz, however, lingered a moment, and touched his distinguished neighbour upon the shoulder with incredible Napoleonic heartiness.
"Hullo, Duke!" he said.
"How are you, Fitzwaren?" said the great man, in a voice that seemed to come out of his shoes.
"Never mind the Missus!" said the Man of Destiny, with a comic half-cock of the left eye at the patrician aspect of her Grace. "It's only her fun."
The man's effrontery, his cynicism, his absence of taste, were staggering. But what a sublime courage the fellow had. On he sauntered, with his hands buried in his pockets, in the wake of Coverdale and her Royal Highness. Brasset and I, walking delicately, were crowding upon his heels, when what can only be described as a peremptory and insistent hiss recalled us to the danger zone.
"Reggie! Odo Arbuthnot!"
We proffered a forlorn salute to the most august of her sex.
"Beg pardon, Mrs. Catesby, didn't see you, y'know."
Brasset's apologetic feebleness was in singular and painful contrast to the epic breadth of the inconceivable Fitz.
"Don't dare to offer me a word, either of you," said the Great Lady, in a whisper of Homeric truculence. "You are committing the act of social suicide. When I think of your mother, Reggie, and of your wife and daughter, Odo Arbuthnot, I——but I will say nothing. But it is social suicide for all of you, including that fatuous police constable."
The flesh cannot endure more than a given amount of suffering, although the measure of its capacity is so terrible. But whatever it was, I was already past it.
"Pink is certainly a trying colour," I whispered.
"Dear Evelyn will never forgive it. Have none of you a sense of decency? It is madness!"
I agreed that it was, and retreated limply to the next table but two.
Our supper party should have been a dismal function, but somehow it was not. It was only reasonable to assume that some fell occurrence had taken place at the Embassy, but whatever its nature was, its witnesses began to pull themselves together under the magnetic influence of Mrs. Fitz. Her imperious gaiety, if it did not wholly banish Coverdale's abysmal gloom, did much to make it less. As for the other members of the party, conscience-stricken and uneasy at heart as they were, it was impossible not to respond to her power.
Even the Master of the Crackanthorpe, whose sense of humour is of a decidedly primitive order, indulged in a loud guffaw at one of her pungent remarks.
"Restrain yourself, my dear fellow, for heaven's sake!" I admonished him. "Dumbarton is already looking like doom. Your presence here has already cost the poultry fund fifty pounds, see if it hasn't. If he hears you laugh in that way he will close his covers and stick up wire."
"Don't care what he does!" said the Master of the Crackanthorpe, with an unnatural brightness in his eyes.
The siren had indeed a terrible power. The imperious glance, the distended nostril, the mobile lips, the skin of gleaming olive, the whole figure vivid with the entrancing charm of sex and the romance of ages—who were we,les hommes moyens sensuels, that we should have the strength of soul to resist it all? Nature had fashioned a sorceress; and when she takes the trouble to do that, she bestows, as a rule, a consciousness of power upon her chosen instrument, and the determination to wield it ruthlessly. We drained our glasses and basked in her smiles.
Our laughter waxed higher; our joy in her presence the more unguarded. I retained discretion enough to be aware that no detail of our conduct was lost upon the august party two tables away. Every guffaw of which we were guilty would be used against us. What had happened to the impeccable tradition of reticence and right thinking that men of known probity should yield with this publicity to the blandishments of a queen of the sawdust?
It was a desperately unlucky position; but we were committed to it irrevocably. Nothing now could save our good name among our neighbours. Yet that half-hour after midnight was crowded and glorious. Who were we, weak-willed mediocrities, that we should resist the moment? After the passes we had braved in the service of one so splendid and so ill-starred, after the long-drawn suspense we had endured, could we be insensible to the gay music, half-affectionate, half-insolent, of our names upon her lips?
Coverdale sat by the right of the sorceress, I by the left—responsible men—yet even with the Gorgon's eye of the Great Lady upon us, we were fain to publish to the world that we were neither less nor more than the bond-slaves of the circus rider from Vienna.
By a merciful dispensation, the ducal party withdrew at twenty-five minutes past twelve, doubtless to avert the ignominy of compulsion at the half-hour. By that means we were at least spared any further ordeal that might be forthcoming from that quarter. And yet would it have been an ordeal? That conflict which a little while ago had seemed so demoralising to the overwrought nerves was now only too likely to be hailed as the sublimity of battle.
We were loth to obey the inexorable decree of the Licensing Act, but there was no choice. Happily the five minutes' start enjoyed by our friends and neighbours gave us a clear field, and without further misadventure the "Stormy Petrel" was escorted to her chariot. She drove off with Fitz to her hotel, while the rest of us, in no humour for repose, yielded to the suggestion of Alexander O'Mulligan, "that we should toddle round to Jermyn Street and draw him for a drink."
It had begun to freeze. Although the pavements were like glass, overhead the stars were wonderful. The shrewd air was like a balm for the fumes of the wine and the spirit of lawlessness that had aroused us to a pitch of exaltation that was almost dangerous. We decided to walk, if only to lessen the tension upon our nerves. The three junior members of the conspiracy walked ahead, a little roisterous of aspect, arm in arm, uncertain of gait—to be sure the condition of the streets afforded every excuse—and their hats askew. At a respectful distance and in a fashion more decorous they were followed by the Chief Constable and myself.
"And now, Coverdale," said I, "have the goodness to explain what you meant when you told me not to ask what happened to the Ambassador?"
I received no answer.
"My dear fellow," I urged, "I think I am entitled to know."
"You ought to be able to guess!"
"I don't understand; Fitz is certainly safe and sound. How did you manage to bring them to reason?"
"They were not brought to reason."
The grim tone alarmed me.
"What do you mean?"
I stopped under a street lamp to look into the face of my companion.
"I simply mean this," said he. "The madman shot him dead!"
Involuntarily I reeled against the lamp post.
"You can't mean that," I said feebly.
"If only we could deceive ourselves!" said Coverdale, in a hoarse tone. "All the time I sat at supper with that—that woman I was trying to persuade myself that the thing had not happened. The whole business ought to be a fantastic dream, but my God, it isn't!"
"Well, it was his life or Fitz's, I suppose?"
"Yes, there can be no question about that. The Embassy people admit it. And there is this to be said for those fellows, they know how to play the game."
"A pretty low down game anyhow. If they steal a man's wife they must take the consequences."
"I agree; but the circumstances were exceptional. And give those fellows their due, as soon as we came to the ballroom they played the game right up."
"What will happen?"
"No one can say; but they can be trusted to give nothing away."
"But surely the whole thing must come out?"
"Quite possibly; but one prefers to hope that it may not. It is a very ugly affair, involving international issues; but the First Secretary—I forget his name—appeared to take a very matter-of-fact and common-sense view of it. After all, Fitzwaren has merely vindicated his rights."
Dismally enough we followed in the wake of the others. All day we had been hovering between tragedy and farce, never quite knowing what would be the outcome of the extravaganza in which we were bearing a part. But now we had the answer with no uncertainty.
"All along, some such sequel as this was to be feared," said I, "and yet I fail to see that any real blame attaches to us."
"Do you! If you ask my opinion, we have all been guilty of unpardonable folly in backing this fellow Fitzwaren. Really, I can't think what we have been about. Before the last has been heard of this business, it strikes me that there will be the devil to pay all round."
In my heart I felt only too clearly that this was the truth.
At O'Mulligan's rooms we drank out of long glasses and were accorded the privilege of inspecting his "pots." The trophies of the amateur middle-weight champion of Great Britain, who claimed Dublin as his natal city, made an extremely brave array. But neither they, nor the refreshment that was offered to us, were able to dispel the gloom that had descended upon one and all.
"There is one thing to be said for this chap Fitzwaren," said Alexander O'Mulligan, in a tone that was not devoid of reverence. "He is grit all through!"
Truth there might be in this reflection, but there was little consolation. Sadly we bade adieu to Alexander O'Mulligan and went to our hotel to bed, yet not to sleep. For myself, I can answer that throughout the night I had dark forebodings and distorted images for my bed-fellows; and it was not until it was almost time to rise that I was at last able to snatch a brief doze.
It was fair to assume that the slumbers of the others had been equally precarious, for at ten o'clock I found myself to be the first of our party at the breakfast table. In a few minutes I was joined by Coverdale, who carried the morning paper in his hand.
He directed my attention to the obituary notice of H.E. the Illyrian Ambassador, who, it appeared, had met his death at the Illyrian Embassy in Portland Place at 11.30 o'clock the previous evening, in peculiarly tragic and distressing circumstances. It appeared that his Excellency, a noted shot who took a keen interest in firearms of every description, was engaged in demonstrating to various members of the Embassy certain merits in the mechanism of a new type of revolver, of which his Excellency claimed to be the inventor, when the weapon went off, killing the unfortunate nobleman instantly. The brief statement of the tragic event was followed by a eulogium, in which the dead Ambassador's martial, political and social attainments, and the irreparable loss, not only to his sovereign, but to the polity of nations, was dealt with at length.
"Those fellows have done well," said Coverdale. "But I should be glad to think that the last has been heard of this."
This conviction I shared with the Chief Constable, but it was good to find that thus far Illyrian diplomacy had proved equal to the occasion. It had the effect of giving me a better appetite for breakfast, and in consequence I ordered two boiled eggs instead of one.
There was one other item of sinister interest to be found among the morning's news. In glancing over it my attention was drawn to the brief account of a mysterious tragedy which had been enacted in Hyde Park near the Broad Walk the previous evening between six and seven o'clock. A man who, according to papers found in his possession, bore the name of Ludovic Bolland, of Illyrian extraction, had been found dead with a bullet wound in the brain. It was not clear whether it was a case of murder or suicide. The police inclined to the former opinion, but at present were not in possession of any information capable of throwing light upon the subject.
I did not reveal to Coverdale the fell suspicion that I could not keep out of my thought. The incident of the taxi following us, the foreign-looking man who had entered the hotel, and Fitz's words and subsequent conduct, all conspired to form a theory that I was very loth to entertain and yet from which I was unable to escape. It certainly had the effect of making me profoundly uncomfortable and caused the second egg I had ordered to be superfluous after all.
Beyond all things now I longed to return to my country home without delay. The past twenty-four hours formed a page in my experience which, if impossible to erase, I earnestly desired to forget.
In spite of the fact that Fitz had accepted Alexander O'Mulligan's invitation to witness "Burns's do with the 'Gunner'" at the National Sporting Club that evening, he retrieved his motor from the garage in Regent Street, wherein Illyrian diplomacy had placed it, and immediately after luncheon set out for the country with that other item of his recovered property. He was accompanied by Coverdale. The Chief Constable seemed to feel that the peace of our county could not endure if he spent another night in the metropolis. He was certainly able to return in the simple consciousness of having done his duty. Like a man and a brother he had stood by a fellow Englishman in the hour of his need.
To one of primitive rural instincts, such as myself, London under even the most favourable conditions is apt to pall. During the reaction which followed the excitements of the previous night it filled me with loathing. But I owed it to an ingrained love of veracity that I should drive to Bolton Street to offer consolation to my grandmother in the hour of her affliction. She is a charming old lady, and she knows the world. She was unaffectedly glad to see me and immediately ordered a fire to be lit in the guest-chamber, although "she really didn't know that I was in need of money." My explanation that it was spontaneous natural affection which had led me to seek first-hand information on the perennial subject of her bronchitis, merely provoked a display of the engaging scepticism that seems to flourish in the hearts of old ladies of considerable private means.
At the first moment consistent with honour—to be precise, on the following Monday at noon—I found myself on No. 2 platform at the Grand Central. The guilt of my conscience was agreeably countered by the thrill of relief in my heart. I was going back to the Madam and Miss Lucinda. Less than three days ago long odds had been laid by an overwrought fancy that I should never see them again. Howbeit, the fates, in their boundless leniency, had ordained that I should return to tell the tale.
Yet, if I must confess the truth, such havoc had been worked with the delicately hung nervous system of "a married man, a father of a family, and a county member" that it would not have surprised me in the least, even now I had taken my ticket for Middleham, to find the hand of a well-dressed detective laid on my shoulder, or to find a revolver next my temple at the instance of some sombre alien. Still, these fears were hardly worthy of the broad light of day or of the distinction of my escort. Not only was my relation by marriage returning with me, but he had prevailed upon the amateur middle-weight champion of Great Britain to accept Brasset's cordial invitation that he should satisfy himself that the gentle art of chasing the fox was quite as well understood by the Crackanthorpe Hounds as by the Galway Blazers.
In the presence of Alexander O'Mulligan's epic breadth of manner it was impossible for a man to take pessimistic views of his destiny. If I had a suspicion of the skill of a Dickens or a Thackeray I should try to give that "touch of the brogue" which flavoured the conversation of this paladin like a subtle condiment. Attached to our express in a loose box, in the care of a native of Kerry, was "an accomplished lepper" up to fifteen stone, not merely the envy of the Blazers, but of every man, woman, and child in the kingdom of Ireland. If his price was not three hundred of the yellow boys, his owner cordially invited anybody—anybodyto contradict him violently.
Next to Alexander O'Mulligan's horse and his breadth of manner, his clothes call for mention. Their cut and style must be pronounced as "sporting." In particular his waistcoat was a thing of beauty. It was a canary of the purest dye, forming a really piquant, indeed æsthetic, contrast to the delicate tint of green in his eye. The presence in that organ of that genial hue is thought by some to invite the presumption of the worldly; but according to Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, whose humble devotion to his hero was almost pathetic, it called for a very stout fellow indeed "to try it on" with the amateur middle-weight champion of Great Britain.
Nevertheless, like every paladin of the great breed, Alexander O'Mulligan was as gentle as he was brave. He had hardly set foot in Dympsfield House, which he did somewhere about tea-time on the day of his arrival in our parish, before he captured the heart of Miss Lucinda. He straightway assumed therôleof a bear with the most realistic and thrilling completeness. Not only was his growl like distant thunder in the mountains, but also he had the faculty of rolling his eyes in a savage frenzy, and over and above everything else, a tendency to bite your legs upon little or no provocation. It was not until he had promised to marry her that she could be induced to part with him.
The ruler of Dympsfield House returned from Doughty Bridge, Yorks, equally felicitous in her health and in her temper. We dined agreeablytête-à-têtewith the aid of Heidsieck cuvée 1889. I reported that the venerable inhabitant of Bolton Street, Mayfair, was supporting her affliction with her accustomed grace and resignation; and duly received the benediction of my parents-in-law, who in the opinion of their youngest daughter had never been in more vigorous health—which is no more than one expects to hear of those who dedicate their lives to virtue.
I was in the act of paring an apple when Mrs. Arbuthnot said, with an air of detachment that was Vane-Anstruther of very good quality, "By the way, has anything been heard of that creature?"
"Creature, my angel?" said I. If my tone conveyed anything it was that the world contained only one creature, and she at that moment was balancing a piece of preserved ginger on her fruit knife.
"The circus woman."
"Circus woman?" said I, blandly. Our glasses were half empty and I filled them up. "Somehow," said I, "this stuff does not seem equal to the Bellinger that your father sends us at Christmas." Strictly speaking this was not altogether the case, but then truth has many aspects, as the pagan philosophers have found occasion to observe.
"Mrs. Fitz, you goose!"
"She has come home, I believe," said I, with a casual air, which all the same belonged to the region of finished diplomacy.
"Come home!" The fount of my felicity indulged in a glower that can only be described as truculent, but her flutelike tones had a little piping thrill that softened its effect considerably. "Come home! Do you mean to say that Fitz has taken her back again?"
"There is reason to believe he has done so."
"What amazing creatures men are!"
"Yes,mon enfant, we have the authority of Haeckel, that matter assumed a very remarkable guise when man evolved himself out of the mud and water."
"Don't be trivial, Odo. To think she has dared to come home. If I were a man and my wife bolted with the chauffeur, I wonder if she would dare to come home again?"
"The hypothesis is unthinkable. Freedom and poetry and romance, translated into that overtaxed, down-trodden bondslave, the registered and betrousered parliamentary voter!"
The next morning the Crackanthorpe met at the Marl Pits. All the world and his wife were there. The lawless mobs which are the curse of latter-day fox-hunting are not quite so rampant in our country as they are in that of more than one of our neighbours. Why this merciful dispensation has been granted to us no man can explain. It may be that we have not a sufficient care for the "bubble reputation." But as our reverend Vicar says, our immunity is one further proof, if such were needed, that the Providence which watches over the lowliest of God's creatures is essentially beneficent: certainly a very becoming frame of mind for a humble-minded vicar in Christ who keeps ten horses in his stables and hunts six days a week.
Brasset in a velvet cap winding the horn of his fathers is a figure for respect. Even the Nimrods of the old school, who feel that his courtesy and his care for the feelings of others are beneath the dignity of the chase, accord to his office a recognition which they would be the last to grant to his merely human qualities. This morning the noble Master was esquired by his distinguished guest. The O'Mulligan of Castle Mulligan, pride of the Blazers, possessor of the straightest left in the western hemisphere, was immediately presented to the mistress of Dympsfield House.
That lady, mounted so expensively, that her weakling of a husband was deservedly condemned to bestride a quadruped that Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther publicly stigmatised as "an insult to the 'unt,'" was instantly prepossessed, as her daughter had been, in favour of the amateur middle-weight champion. Certainly his blandishments were many. Grinning from ear to ear, revealing two regular and gleaming rows of white teeth, his bearing had both grace and cordiality. His smile in itself was enough to take the bone out of the ground, and he had all the charming volubility of his nation. As for his aide-de-camp, he too deserves mention. Having done very well at "snooker" the previous day, my relation by marriage was looking very pleasant and happy in the most perfectly fitting coat that ever embellished the human form. He was mounted on Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, thepièce de résistanceof his stable.
We were accepting the hospitality of the Reverend, an agreeable function that was rendered necessary by the fact that his parsonage is within a mile of the tryst, when portentous toot-toots accompanied by prodigious gruntings assailed our ears.
"I say, Jo," said Alexander O'Mulligan in an aside to his admiring camp-follower, "here comes ould Fizzamagig."
This elegant pseudonym veiled the identity of the most august of her sex. The famous fur coat and the bell-shaped topper converged upon the Rectory gravel, at the instance of a worn-out dust distributor whose manifold grunts and wheezes all too clearly proclaimed that it belonged to an early phase of the industry.
It was the broad light of day, I was in the midst of friends and brother sportsmen, but once again the chill of apprehension went down my spine. For an instant I had a vision of pink satin. Mrs. Catesby accepted the glass of brown sherry and the piece of cake respectfully proffered by the Church. But while she discoursed of parochial commonplaces in that penetrating voice of hers, it was plain that her august head was occupied with affairs of state. Her grave grey eye travelled to the middle of the lawn, where the noble Master was sharing a ham sandwich with Halcyon and Harmony; thence to the inadequately mounted Member for the Uppingdon Division of Middleshire; thence to the Magnificent Youth and the heroic O'Mulligan. Finally in contemplative austerity it rested upon the trim outline of the lady whose habit had not a fault, although there is reason to believe that in the eyes of one it erred a little on the side of fashion, who with the aid of the Parsoness and Laura Glendinning was engaged in putting the scheme of things in its appointed order.
Once again I was undergoing the process of feeling profoundly uncomfortable, when we were regaled with an incident so pregnant with drama that a mere private emotion was swept away. An imperious vision in a scarlet coat, mounted on a noble and generous horse, came in at the Parson's gate. She was accompanied by the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth.
"What ho, the military!" murmured Alexander O'Mulligan.
To the sheer amazement of all, save three of his followers, the Master of the Crackanthorpe was the first to greet Mrs. Fitz. A recent incident was fresh in the minds of all. It was pretty well understood that "the circus rider from Vienna" and her cavalier entered the Rectory grounds without an invitation, for the Fitzwaren stock stood lower than ever in the market. It was expected of our battered and traduced chieftain that at least he should withhold official recognition from these lawless invaders. He was expected to vindicate his office and maintain what was left of his dignity by looking assiduously in another direction. But he did nothing of the sort.
In the most heedless and tactless manner the noble Master proceeded to forfeit the sympathy, the esteem, and the confidence of those who had hitherto dispensed those commodities so lavishly. It would be hard to conceive a more grievous affront to the feminine followers of the Crackanthorpe than was furnished by the Master's personal reception of the lady in the scarlet coat. The grave, yet cordial humility of his bearing, admirably Christian in the light of too-recent history, received no interpretation in the terms of the higher altruism.
"He will have to resign," breathed the august Mrs. Catesby in the ear of the outraged Laura Glendinning.
It was a relief to everybody when a move was made to the top cover. Without loss of time the question of questions was put. Was the famous ticked fox at home? Was that almost mythical customer, whose legend was revered in three countries, in his favourite earth?
In a half-circle, each thinking his thoughts, and with a furtive eye for his neighbour, we waited.
A succession of silvery notes from the pack at last proclaimed the answer to the question. As usual the father of cunning had set his mask for Langley Dumbles. One of the stiffest bits of country in the Shires lay stretched out ahead. Two distinct and well-defined courses were immediately presented to the field. The one was pregnant with grief yet fragrant with glory. The other, if not the path of honour, was certainly more appropriate to the married man, the father of the family, and the county member, particularly if the wife of the member has a weakness for three-hundred-guinea hunters. There was also a middle course for those who, while retaining some semblance of ambition, have learned to temper it with prudence, observation, and sagacity. It was to the middle course that nature had condemned old Dobbin Grey and his rider.
Not for us the intemperate delights of the thruster. Crash through a bullfinch went Alexander O'Mulligan, the pride of the Blazers. Almost in his pocket followed the lady in the scarlet coat. Almost in hers followed Mrs. Arbuthnot. Laura Glendinning and little Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins were obviously hardening their hearts for prodigious deeds of gallantry. It was already clear as the sun at noon that if our old and sportsmanlike friend, whose jacket had the curious ticking, only kept to the line it generally pleased him to follow, some very jealous riding was about to be witnessed among the feminine followers of the Crackanthorpe Hounds.
"My God, they call this 'untin'!" said Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, who to his disgust had allowed himself, in the preliminary scuffle for places, to be nonplussed by the unparalleled ardour of these Amazons.
One thing was obvious. Old Dobbin Grey and his rider were a little too near the centre of the picture. Let us blush to relate it, but at the obsequious promptings of memory we moved down the hedgerow of that wide and heavy pasture, yea, even unto its uttermost left-hand corner where a gate was known to lurk. But alas! Nemesis lurked also in that corner of the landscape. For we were doomed to discover that the eternal standby of the lover of the middle course, nay the indubitable emblem of it, the goodly handgate, had been removed of malice prepense, and in lieu thereof was a stiff and upstanding post and rails, freshly planted and painted newly!
It was a great shock to the old horse. It was also a crisis in the life of his rider. The rails looked terribly high and stout; we had lost so much time already that every second was priceless if we were to see hounds again. It was hard on the old horse, yet it really seemed that there was only one thing to be done. However, before resolve could be translated into action, other lovers of the middle course bore down upon us; no less a pair than Mrs. Catesby mounted upon Marian.
"It was my intention not to speak to you again, Odo Arbuthnot," said the august rider of Marian, "but if you will give us a lead over that post and rails we will follow."
"Place aux dames," said I, with ingrained gallantry. "Besides, you are quite as competent to break that top rail as we are."
"Out hunting," said the high-minded votary of Diana, "you must behave like a gentleman, even if at the Savoy——"
With due encouragement the old horse really did very well indeed, hitting the top rail fore and aft it is true, describing in his descent a geometrical figure not unlike a parabola, but landing on his legs and gathering himself up quite respectably in the adjoining fifty acres of ridge and furrow. With a little pardonable condescension, I turned round to look how Marian would behave with her resolute-minded mistress. It is no disparagement to the Dobbin to say that Mrs. Catesby's chestnut is a cleverer beast than he ever was, also she has youth on her side; and she is taller by a hand. She grazed the rail with her hind legs, but her performance was quite good enough to be going on with.
Mrs. Catesby can ride as straight as anybody, but now she is "A Mother of Seven" who writes to theTimesupon the subject of educational reform, and she has taken to sitting upon committees—in more senses than one—she feels that she owes it to the mothers of the nation that she should set them an example in the matter of paying due respect to their vertebrae. The negotiation of the post and rails had put us on excellent terms with ourselves, if not with each other, and side by side we made short work of the fifty acres of ridge and furrow; popped through a sequence of handgates and along a succession of lanes; and made such a liberal use of the craft that we had painfully acquired in the course of more seasons than we cared to remember, that in the end it was only by the mercy of Allah that we did not head the fox!
The fortune of war had placed us in the first flight, but the celebrated customer was still going so strong that we should have to show cause if we were going to remain there.
The noble Master was looking very anxious. Well he might, for between him and his hounds was the lady in the scarlet coat. Mounted upon the most magnificent-looking bay horse I have ever seen she seemed fully prepared to hunt the pack. And I grieve to relate that following hard upon her line, and as close as equine flesh and blood could contrive it, was Mrs. Arbuthnot on her three-hundred-guinea hunter.
"Look at Mops," quoth a disgusted voice. "Clean off her rocker. Hope to God there won't be a check, that's all!"
Jodey soared by us, taking a fence in his stride.
On the contrary, old Dobbin Grey was beginning devoutly to hope that a check there would be. But, as game as a pebble, the old warrior struggled on. It would never do for him to be cut out by Marian, and in that opinion his rider concurred. Luckily we found an easy place in the fence, but all too soon a more formidable obstacle presented itself. It was Langley Brook. Very bold jumping would be called for to save a wet jacket; and it is an open secret that, even in his prime, the Dobbin has always held that the only possible place for water is a stable bucket.
We decided to go round by the bridge. A perfectly legitimate resolution, I am free to maintain, for ardent followers of the middle course. Having arrived at this statesmanlike decision there was time to look ahead. It was not without trepidation that we did so. In front was a welter of ambitious first flighters. Yet, as always, the one to catch the eye was the lady in the scarlet coat. Utterly heedless, she went at the Brook at its widest, the noble bay rose like a Centaur and landed in safety. Sticking ever to her, closer than a sister, was Mrs. Arbuthnot. I shuddered and had a vision of a broken back for the three-hundred-guinea hunter, and a ducking for its rider. Happily, if you are a member of the clan Vane-Anstruther, the more critical the moment the cooler you are apt to be; also you are born with the priceless faculty of sitting still and keeping down your hands. The three-hundred-guinea hunter floundered on to the opposite bank, threatened to fall back into the stream, by a Herculean effort recovered itself and emerged onterra firma.
It was with a heart devout with gratitude that I turned to the bridge. To my surprise, for as all my attention had been for the Brook I had had none to spare for the field as a whole, I found myself cheek by jowl with Jodey. In the hunting field I know no young man whom nature has endowed so happily. His air of world-weariness is a cloak for a justness of perception, which apparently without the expenditure of the least exertion generally lands him there or thereabouts at the finish.
"The silly blighters!—don't they see they have lost their fox?"
This piece of criticism was hurled not merely at the Amazons, who had already negotiated the water, but also at the noble Master and his attendant satellites who were in the act of following their example.
"Reggie is quite right for once," said a voice from the near side, severe and magisterial in quality. "It is his duty to prevent, if he can, his hounds being overridden by those unspeakable women. If Irene belonged to me I should send her straight home to bed."
"Ought to be smacked," said the sportsman on the off side, cordially. "Anybody'd think she'd had no upbringin'!"
Feeling in a sense responsible for the misbehaviour of my lawful property, I "lay low and said nuffin." Indeed, there was precious little to be said in defence of such conduct in the presence of the whole field.
On the strength of Jodey's pronouncement we crossed the bridge at our leisure. As usual his wisdom hastened to justify itself. Reynard was tucked snugly under a haystack, doubtless with his pad to his nose. He was upon sacred earth, where, after a tremendous turn-up with Peter, the Crackanthorpe terrier, the Crackanthorpe hounds and the Crackanthorpe huntsman reluctantly left him.
A halt was called; flasks and sandwiches were produced; and the honourable company of the less enterprising, or the less fortunate, began to assemble in force without the precincts of the Manor Farm stackyard. Conversation grew rife; and at least one fragment that penetrated to my ears was pungent.
"Look here, Mops," was its context, "when do you suppose you are goin' to give over playing the goat?"
The rider of the three-hundred-guinea hunter was splashed with mud up to her green collar, her hair was coming down, her hat was anyhow, her cheeks were flame colour, and the sides of Malvolio were sobbing.
"Mon enfant," I ventured sadly to observe, "it may be magnificent, but it is not the art of chasing the fox, even as it is practised in the flying countries."
The light of battle flamed in the eyes of the star of my destiny.
"What nonsense you talk, Odo! Do you think that the circus woman——"
"Sssh! She will hear you."
"Hope she will!"
"Fact is, Mops," said her admonisher in chief, "as I've always said, you are only fit for aprovincialpack."
Having thus delivered himself Mrs. Arbuthnot's brother washed his hands of this "hard case" in the completest and most effectual manner. He turned about and bestowed his best bow upon the circus rider from Vienna. The act was certainly irrational. The behaviour of the lady in the scarlet coat was quite as much exposed to censure. To be sure her nationality was to be urged in her defence, but then, as the sorely tried Master confided to me in a pathetic aside, "she had been out quite often enough to learn the rules of the game."
"You can't expect Crown Princesses, my dear fellow, to trouble about rules," said I. "They make their own."
"Then I wish they would hunt hounds of their own and leave mine to me," said the long-suffering one tragically. "It turns me dizzy every time I see her among 'em. If Fitz had any sense of decency he would look after her."
"Fitz is the slave of circumstance. Brasset, if you are a wise fellow and you are not above taking the advice of a friend, you will never marry the next in succession to an old-established and despotic monarchy."
"My God—no!" The voice of the noble Master vibrated with profound emotion.
In honour of this resolution we exchanged flasks.