THEbuzz of gossip, the sting of scandalous paragraph, even the blundering impertinence of the actor-knight were all forgotten the following afternoon when a telegram arrived from Hampshire to say that old Mrs. Touchwood was dying. John left London immediately; but when he reached Ambles he found that his mother was already dead.
"She passed away at five o'clock," Edith sobbed.
Perhaps it was to stop his wife's crying that Laurence abandoned at any rate temporarily his unbelief and proclaimed as solemnly as if he were still Vicar of Newton Candover that the old lady was waiting for them all above. Hilda seemed chiefly worried by the fact that she had never warned James of their mother's grave condition.
"I did telegraph Eleanor, who hasn't come; and how I came to overlook James and Beatrice I can't think. They'll be so hurt. But Mama didn't fret for anybody in particular. No, Hugh sat beside the bed and held her hand, which seemed to give her a little pleasure, and I was kept occupied with changing the hot-water bottles."
In the dining-room George was knitting lugubriously.
"You mustn't worry yourself, old chap," he said to John with his usual partiality for seductive advice. "You can't do anything now. None of us can do anything till the funeral, though I've written to Eleanor to bring my top-hat with her when she comes."
The embarrassment of death's presence hung heavily over the household. The various members sat down to supper with apologetic glances at one another, and nobody took a second helping of any dish. The children were only corrected in whispers for their manners, but they were given to understand by reproachful head-shakes that for a child to puthis elbows on the table or crumble his bread or drink with his mouth full was at such a time a cruel exhibition of levity. John could not help contrasting the treatment of children at a death with their treatment at a birth. Had a baby arrived upstairs, they would have been hustled out of sight and sound of the unclean event; but over death they were expected to gloat, and their curiosity was encouraged as the fit expression of filial piety.
"Yes, Frida, darling, dear Grandmama will have lots and lots of lovely white flowers. Don't kick the table, sweetheart. Think of dear Grandmama looking down at you from Heaven, and don't kick the table-leg, my precious," said Edith in tremulous accents, gently smoothing back her daughter's indefinite hair.
"Can people only see from Heaven or can they hear?" asked Harold.
"Hush, my boy," his Uncle Laurence interposed. "These are mysteries into which God does not permit us to inquire too deeply. Let it suffice that our lightest actions are known. We cannot escape the omniscient eye."
"I wasn't speaking about God," Harold objected. "I was asking about Grandmama. Does she hear Frida kicking the table, or does she only see her?"
"At this solemn moment, Harold, when we should all of us be dumb with grief, you should not persist. Your poor grandmother would be pained to hear you being persistent like this."
Harold seemed to think he had tricked his uncle into answering the question, for he relapsed into a satisfied silence; Edith's eyes flashed gladly through her tears to welcome the return of her husband's truant orthodoxy. All managed to abstain while they were eating from any more conspicuous intrusion of the flesh than was inevitable; but there was a painful scene after supper, because Frida insisted that she was frightened to sleep alone, and refused to be comforted by the offer of Viola for company. The terrible increase of Grandmama's powers of hearing and seeingmight extend to new powers of locomotion in the middle of the night, in which case Viola would be no protection.
"But Grandmama is in Heaven, darling," her mother urged.
"I want to sleep with you. I'm frightened. I want to sleep with you," she wailed.
"Laurence!" murmured Edith, appealingly.
"Death is a great leveler," he intoned. Grateful to the chance of being able to make this observation, he agreed to occupy his daughter's room and thereby allow her to sleep with her mother.
"You're looking sad, Bertram," John observed, kindly, to his favorite nephew. "You mustn't take this too much to heart."
"No, Uncle John, I'm not. Only I keep wishing Grandmama had lived a little longer."
"We all wish that, old man."
"Yes, but I only meant a very little longer, so that I needn't have gone back for the first week of term."
John nervously hurried his nephew up to bed beyond the scorching of Laurence's rekindled flames of belief. Downstairs, he tried to extract from the attitude of the grown-up members of the family the attitude he would have liked to detect in himself. If a few months ago John had been told that his mother's death would affect him so little he would have been horrified by the suggestion; even now he was seriously shocked at himself. Yet, try as he might, he could not achieve the apotheosis of the old lady that he would have been so content to achieve. Undoubtedly a few months ago he would have been able without being conscious of self-deception to pretend that he believed not only in the reality of his own grief, but also in that of the others. He would have taken his part in the utterance of platitudes about life and death, separation and reunion. His own platitudes would have been disguised with poetic tropes, and he might have thought to himself how well such and such a phrase was put; but he would quickly have assured himselfthat it was well put because it was the just expression of a deep emotion. Now he could not make a single contribution to the woeful reflections of those round him. He believed neither in himself nor in them. He knew that George was faintly anxious about his top-hat, that Hilda was agitated at the prospect of having to explain to James and Beatrice her unintentional slight, that Laurence was unable to resist the opportunity of taking the lead at this sorrowful time by reverting to his priestly office. And Hugh, for whom the old lady had always possessed a fond unreasoning affection, did his countenance express more than a hardly concealed relief that it was all over? Did he not give the impression that he was stretching his legs after sitting still in one position for too long? Edith, to be sure, was feeling some kind of emotion that required an endless flow of tears, but it seemed to John that she was weeping more for the coming of death than for the going of her mother. And the children, how could they be expected to feel the loss of the old lady? There under the lamp like a cenotaph recording the slow hours of age stood her patience-cards in their red morocco case; there they would be allowed to stand for a while to satisfy the brief craving for reverence, and then one of the children realizing that Grandmama had no more need of playing would take possession of them; they would become grubby and dog-eared in younger hands; they would disappear one by one, and the memory of that placid presence would hardly outlive them.
"It's so nice to think that her little annuity died with her," sighed Edith. She spoke of the annuity as if it were a favorite pug that had died out of sympathy with its mistress. "I should hate to feel I was benefiting from the death of somebody I loved," she explained presently.
John shivered; that remark of his sister's was like a ghostly footstep upon his own grave, and from a few years hence, perhaps much less, he seemed to hear the family lawyer cough before he settled himself down to read the last will and testament of John Touchwood.
"Of course, poor Mama had been dreadfully worried these last weeks," Hilda said. "She felt very much the prospect of Hugh's going abroad—and other things."
John regarded his elder sister, and was on the point of asking what she meant to insinuate by other things, when a lament from upstairs startled the assembled family.
"Come to bed, mother, come to bed, I want you," Frida was shrieking over the balustrade. "The door of Grandmama's room made a noise just now."
"You had better go," said Laurence in answer to his wife's unvoiced appeal; and Edith went off gratefully.
"It will always be a consolation to me," said Laurence, "that Mama was able to hearThomasread to her. Yes, yes, she was so well upon that memorable evening. So very well. By the way, John, I shall arrange with the Vicar to read the burial service myself. It will add the last touch to the intimacy of our common grief."
In his own room that night John tried hard not to criticize anybody except himself. It was he who was cynical, he who was hard, he who was unnatural, not they. He tried to evoke from the past early memories of his mother, but he could not recall one that might bring a tear to his eye. He remembered that once she had smacked him for something George had done, that she had never realized what a success he had made of his life's work, that she was—but he tore the unfilial thoughts from his brain and reminded himself how much of her personality endured in his own. George, Edith, and himself resembled her: James, Hilda, and Hugh resembled their father. John's brothers and sisters haunted the darkness; and he knew that deep down in himself he blamed his father and mother for bringing them all into the world; he could not help feeling that he ought to have been an only child.
"I do resent their existence," John thought. "I'm a heartless egotist. And Miss Hamilton thinks I'm an egotist. Her manner towards me lately has been distant, even contemptuous. Could that suggestion of Hilda's have had anytruth in it? Was Mama worried to death by Hugh's going abroad? Did James complain to her about my taking the portraits and the silver? Is it from any standpoint conceivable that my own behavior did hasten her end?"
John's self-reproaches were magnified in the darkness, and he spent a restless and unhappy night, trying to think that the family was more important than the individual.
"You feel it terribly, don't you, dear Johnnie?" Edith asked him next morning with an affectionate pressure upon his arm. "You're looking quite worn out."
"We all feel it terribly," he sighed.
During the three days before the funeral John managed to work himself up into a condition of sentimentality which he flattered himself was outwardly at any rate affecting. Continuous reminders of his mother's existence culminating in the arrival of a new cap she had ordered just before her last swift illness seemed to induce in him the illusion of sorrow; and without the least idea of what he intended to do with them afterwards he collected a quantity of small relics like spectacle-cases and caps and mittens, which he arranged upon his dressing-table and brooded over with brimming eyes. He indulged Harold's theories about the psychical state of his grandmother; he practiced swinging a golf club, but he never once took out a ball; he treated everybody to magnificent wreaths, and presented the servants as well as his nephews and nieces with mourning; he ordered black-edged note-paper; he composed an epitaph in the manner of Sir Thomas Browne with cadences and subtle alliterations. Then came the funeral, which ruined the last few romantic notions of grief that he had been able to preserve.
To begin with, Beatrice arrived in what could only be described as a towering rage: no less commonplace epithet would have done justice to the vulgarity of her indignation. That James the eldest son and she his wife should not have been notified of the dangerous condition of Mama, but should have been summoned to the obsequies like mere friends ofthe family had outraged her soul, or, as Beatrice herself put it, had knocked her down like a feather. Oh yes, she had always been considered beneath the Touchwood standard of gentility, but poor Mama had not thought the worse of her for that; poor Mama had many times gone out of her way to be specially gracious towards her; poor Mama must have "laid" there wondering why her eldest daughter-in-law did not come to give her the last and longest farewell. She had not been lucky enough to be blessed with children, but poor Mama had sometimes congratulated her upon that fact; poor Mama had realized only too well that children were not always a source of happiness. She knew that the undeserved poverty which had always dogged poor old Jimmie's footsteps had lately caused to be exacted from him the family portraits and the family silver pressed upon him by poor Mama herself; but was that a reason for excluding him from his mother's death-bed? She would not say whom she blamed, but she had her own ideas, and though Hilda might protest it was her fault, she knew better; Hilda was incapable of such barbarity. No, she wouldnotwalk beside James as wife of the chief mourner; she would follow in the rear of the funeral procession and hope that at any rate she was not grudged that humble place. If some people resented her having bought the largest wreath from a very expensive flower-shop, she was not too proud to carry the wreath herself; she had carried it all the way from town first-class to avoid its being crushed by heedless third-class passengers.
"And when I die," sobbed Beatrice, "I hope that James will remember we weren't allowed to see poor Mama before she went to Heaven, and will let me die quite alone. I'm sure I don't want my death to interfere with other people's amusements."
The funeral party gathered round the open grave; Laurence read the service so slowly and the wind was so raw that grief was depicted upon every countenance; the sniffing of many noses, above which rose Beatrice's sobs of mortificationand rage, mingled with the sighing of the yews and the sexton's asthma in a suitably lachrymose symphony.
"Now that poor Mama has gone," said Hilda to her brother that afternoon, "I dare say you're anxious for me to be gone too."
"I really don't think you are entitled to ascribe to me such unnatural sentiments," John expostulated. "Why should I want you to die?"
He could indeed ask this, for such an event would inevitably connote his adoption of Harold.
"I didn't mean you wanted me to die," said Hilda, crossly. "I meant you would like me to leave Ambles."
"Not at all. I'm delighted for you to stay here so long as it suits your convenience. And that applies equally to Edith. Also I may say to George," he added with a glance at Eleanor, who had taken the opportunity of mourning to equip herself with a new set of black bearskin furs. Eleanor shook herself like a large animal emerging from the stream.
"And to me?" she asked with a challenge in her eyes.
"You must judge for yourself, Eleanor, how far my hospitality is likely to be extended willingly to you after last week," replied John, coldly. He had not yet spoken to his sister-in-law about the interference of Sir Percy Mortimer with his private affairs, and he now awaited her excuses of reproaches with a curiosity that was very faintly tinged with apprehension.
"Oh, I'm not at all ashamed of what I did," she declared. "George can't speak up for himself, and it was my duty to do all I could to help him in a matter of life and death."
John's cheeks flushed with stormy rose like a menacing down, and he was about to break over his sister-in-law in thunder and lightning when Laurence, entering the room at the moment and only hearing imperfectly her last speech, nodded and sighed:
"Yes, yes. Eleanor is indeed right. Yes, yes. In the midst of life...."
Everybody hurried to take advantage of the diversion;a hum of platitudes rose and fell upon the funereal air. John in a convulsion of irritability ordered the dog-cart to drive him to the station. He was determined to travel back to town alone; he feared that if he stayed any longer at Ambles his brother-in-law would revive the discussion about his play; he was afraid of Hugh's taking advantage of his mother's death to dodge British Honduras and of James' trading upon his filial piety to recover the silver and the family portraits.
When John got back to Church Row he found a note from Miss Hamilton to say she had influenza and was unlikely to be back at work for at least a week—if indeed, she added, she was able to come back at all. This unpleasant prospect filled him with genuine gloom, and it was with great difficulty that he refrained from driving immediately to Camera Square in order to remonstrate with her in person. His despondency was not lightened by Mrs. Worfolk's graveside manner and her assumption of a black satin dress hung with jet bugles that was usually reserved to mark the more cheerful festivals of the calendar. Worn thus out of season hung it about the rooms like a fog, and its numerous rustlings coupled with the housekeeper's sighs of commiseration added to the lugubrious atmosphere a sensation of damp which gave the final touch to John's depression. Next morning the weather was really abominable; the view over London from his library window showed nothing but great cobwebs of rain that seemed to be actually attached to a sky as gray and solid as a dusty ceiling. Action offered the only hope of alleviating life upon such a day, and John made up his mind to drive over to Chelsea and inquire about his secretary's health. He found that she was better, though still in bed; being anxious to learn more about her threatened desertion he accepted the maid's invitation to come in and speak to Mrs. Hamilton. The old lady looked more like a clown than ever in the forenoon while the rice-powder was still fresh upon her cheeks, and John found her humor as irritating as he would have found the humor of a real clownin similar circumstances. Her manner towards him was that of a person who is aware of, but on certain terms is willing to overlook a grave indiscretion, and she managed most successfully to make him feel that he was on his defense.
"Yes, poor Doris has been very seedy. And her illness has unluckily coincided with mine."
"Oh, I'm sorry ..." he began.
"Thank you. I'm used to being ill. I am always ill. At least, as luck will have it, I usually feel ill when Doris has anything the matter with her."
This John was ready to believe, but he tried to look at once shocked and sympathetic.
"Do not let us discuss my health," Mrs. Hamilton went on scorching her eyebrows in the aureole of martyrdom she wore. "Of what importance is my health? Poor Doris has had a very sharp attack, a very sharp attack indeed."
"I'm afraid that the weather...."
"It's not the weather, Mr. Touchwood. It is overwork." And before John could say a word she was off. "You must remember that Doris is not used to hard work. She has spent all her life with me, and you can easily imagine that with a mother always at hand she has been spared the least hardship. I would have done anything for her. Ever since my husband died, my life has been one long buffer between Doris and the world. You know how obstinately she has refused to let me do all I wanted. I refer to my brother-in-law, Mr. Hamilton of Glencockie. And this is the result. Nervous prostration, influenza, a high temperature—and sharp pains, which between ourselves I'm inclined to think are perhaps not so bad as she imagines. People who are not accustomed to pains," said the old lady, jealously, "are always apt to be unduly alarmed and to attribute to them a severity that is a leetle exaggerated. I suffer so much myself that I cannot take these pains quite as seriously as Doris does. However, the poor child really has a good deal to put up with, and of course I've insisted that she must never attempt such hard work again. I don't supposeyou meant to be inconsiderate, Mr. Touchwood. I don't accuse you of deliberate callousness. Please do not suppose that I am suggesting that the least cruelty in your behavior; but youhaveoverworked her. Moreover, she has been worried. One or two of our friends have suggested more in joke than in earnest that she might be compromised by her association with you. No doubt this was said in joke, but Doris lacks her mother's sense of humor, and I'm afraid she has fretted over this. Still, a stitch in time saves nine, and her illness must serve as an excuse for what with a curiously youthful self-importance she calls 'leaving you in the lurch.' As I said to her, 'Do not, my dear child, worry about Mr. Touchwood. He can find as many secretaries as he wants. Probably he thought he was doing you a good turn, and you've overstrained yourself in trying to cope with duties to which you have not been accustomed. You cannot expect to fly before you can walk.'"
The old lady paused to fan back her breath, and John seized the conversation.
"Does Miss Hamilton herself wish to leave me like this, or is it only you who think that she ought to leave me?"
"I will be frank with you," the old lady panted. "Doris has not yet made up her mind."
"As long as she is allowed to make up her own mind," said John, "I have nothing to say. But I hope you are not going to overpersuade her. After all she is old enough to know what she wants to do."
"She is not as old as her mother."
He shook his head impatiently.
"Could I see her?"
"See her?" the old lady answered in amazement. "See her, Mr. Touchwood? Didn't I explain that she was in bed?"
"I beg your pardon. I'd forgotten."
"Men are apt to forget somewhat easily. Come, come, do not let us get bitter. I took a great fancy to you when I met you first, and though I have been a little disappointedby the way in which you have taken advantage of Doris's eagerness for new experiences I don't really bear you any deep grudge. I don't believe you meant to be selfish. It is only a mother who can pierce a daughter's motives. You with your recent loss should be able to appreciate that particularly now. Poor Doris! I wish she were more like me."
"If you really think I have overworked her," said John, "I'm extremely sorry. I dare say her enthusiasm carried me away. But I cannot relinquish her services without a struggle. She has been, and sheisinvaluable," he added, warmly.
"Yes, but we must think of her health. I'm sorry to seem sointransigente, but I am only thinking of her."
John was not at all taken in by the old lady's altruism, but he was entirely at a loss how to argue in favor of her daughter's continuing to work for him. His perplexity was increased by the fact that she herself had written to express her doubtfulness about returning; it might conceivably be that she did not want to return and that he was misjudging Mrs. Hamilton's sincerity. Yet when he looked at the old lady he could not discover anything but a cold egotism in every fold of those flabby cheeks where the powder lay like drifted snow in the ruts of a sunless lane. It was surely impossible that Doris should willingly have surrendered the liberty she enjoyed with him; she must have written under the depressing effects of influenza.
While John was pondering his line of action Mrs. Hamilton had fanned herself into a renewed volubility; finding that it was impossible to cross the torrent of words that she was now pouring forth, he sat down by the edge of it, confused and deafened, and sometimes gasping a faint protest when he was splashed by some particularly outrageous argument.
"Well, I'll write to her," he said at last.
"I beg you will do nothing of the kind. In the present feeble state of her health a letter will only agitate her. I hope to persuade her to come with me to Glencockie whereher uncle will, I know, once more suggest adopting her as his heiress...."
The old lady flowed on with schemes for the future of Doris in which there was so much talk of Scotland that in the end his secretary appeared to John like an advertisement for whisky. He saw her rosy-cheeked and tam-o-shantered, smiling beneath a fir-tree while mockingly she quaffed a glass to the health of her late employer. He saw her as a kind of cross between Flora Macdonald and Highland Mary by the banks of Loch Lomond. He saw her in every guise except that in which he desired to see her—bending with that elusive and ironical smile over the typewriter they had purchased together. Damn!
John made hurried adieus and fled to his taxi from the little house in Camera Square. The interview with Mrs. Hamilton had cost him half-a-crown and his peace of mind: it had cost the driver one halfpenny for the early edition of theStar. How much happier was the life of a taxi-driver than the life of a playwright!
"I wouldn't say as how Benedictine mightn't win at Kempton this afternoon," the driver observed to John when he alighted. "I reckon I'll have half-a-dollar on, any old way. It's Bolmondeley's horse and bound to run straight."
Benedictine did win that afternoon at six to one: indubitably the life of a taxi-driver was superior to his own, John thought as he turned with a shudder from the virgin foolscap upon his writing-desk and with a late edition of theStarsank into a deep armchair.
"A bachelor's life is a very lonely one," he sighed. For some reason Maud had neglected to draw the curtains after tea, and the black yawning window where the rain glistened drearily weighed upon his heart with a sense of utter abandonment. Ordinarily he would have rung the bell and pointed reproachfully to the omission; but this afternoon, he felt incapable of stirring from his chair to ring a bell. He could not even muster enough energy to poke the fire, which would soon show as little life as himself. He listened vainlyfor the footsteps of Maud or Mrs. Worfolk that he might call out and be rescued from this lethargy of despair; but not a sound was audible except the dripping rain outside and the consumptive coughs of the moribund fire.
"Perhaps I'm feeling my mother's death," said John, hopefully.
He made an effort to concentrate his mind upon an affectionate retrospect of family life. He tried to convince himself that the death of his mother would involve a change in the attitude of his relations. Technically he might not be the eldest son, and while his mother had been alive he had never assumed too definitely the rights of an eldest son. Practically, however, that was his status, and his acquisition of the family portraits and family silver could well be taken as the visible sign of that status; with his mother's death he might surely consider himself in the eyes of the world the head of the family. Did he want such an honor? It would be an expensive, troublesome, and ungrateful post like the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. Why didn't Maud come and draw those curtains? A thankless job, and it would be more congenial to have a family of his own. That meant marriage. And why shouldn't he get married? Several palmists had assured him he would be married one day: most of them indeed had assured him he was married already.
"If I get married I can no longer be expected to bother about my relations. Of course in that case I should give back the portraits and the silver. My son would be junior to Bertram. My son would occupy an altogether inconspicuous position in the family, though he would always take precedence of Harold. But if my son had a child, Harold would become an uncle. No, he wouldn't. Harold would be a first cousin once removed. Harold cannot become an uncle unless Hilda marries again and has another child who has another child. Luckily, it's all very improbable. I'm glad Harold is never likely to be an uncle: he would bring the relationship into an even greater disrepute. Still, even now an uncle is disreputable enough.The wicked uncle! It's proverbial, of course. We never hear of the wicked cousin or the nefarious aunt. No, uncles share with stepmothers the opprobrium and with mothers-in-law the ridicule of the mob. Unquestionably, if I do marry, I shall still be an uncle, but the status may perhaps be merged in paternity. Suppose I marry and never have any children? My wife will be pitied by Hilda, Edith, and Eleanor and condoled with by Beatrice. She would find her position intolerable. My wife? I wish to goodness Maud would come in and draw those curtains. My wife? That's the question. At this stage the problem of her personality is more important than theoretical speculation about future children. Should I enjoy a woman's bobbing in and out of my room all the time? Suppose I were married at this moment, it would be my wife's duty to correct Maud for not having drawn those curtains. If I were married at this moment I should say, 'My dear, Maud does not seem to have drawn the curtains. I wonder why.' And my wife would of course ring the bell and remonstrate with Maud. But suppose my wife were upstairs? She might be trying on a new hat. Apparently wives spend a great deal of time with hats. In that case I should be no better off than I am at present. I should still have to get out of this chair and ring for Maud. And I should have to complain twice over. Once to Maud herself and afterwards all over again to my wife about Maud. Then my wife would have to rebuke Maud. Oh, it would be a terribly complicated business. Perhaps I'm better off as a bachelor. It's an odd thing that with my pictorial temperament I should never yet have visualized myself as a husband. My imagination is quite untrammeled in most directions. Were I to decide to-morrow that I would write a play about Adam and Eve, I should see myself as Adam and Eve and the Serpent and almost as the Forbidden Fruit itself without any difficulty. Why can't I see myself as a husband? When I think of the number of people and things I've been in imagination it really does seem extraordinary I should never have thoughtof being a husband. Apparently Maud has completely forgotten about the curtains. It looks as if I should have to give up all hope now of her coming in to draw them of her own accord. Poor Miss Hamilton! I do trust that horrible old clown of a mother isn't turning somersaults round her room at this moment and sending up her temperature to three figures. Of course, she must come back to me. She is indispensable. I miss her very much. I've accustomed myself to a secretary's assistance, and naturally I'm lost without her. These morbid thoughts about matrimony are due to my not having done a stroke of work all day. I will count seventeen and rise from this chair."
John counted seventeen, but when he came to the fatal number he found that his will to move was still paralyzed, and he went on to forty-nine—the next fatal number in his private cabbala. When he reached it he tightened every nerve in his body and leapt to his feet. Inertia was succeeded by the bustle of activity: he rang for Maud; he poked the fire; he brushed the tobacco-ash from his waistcoat; he blew his nose; he sat down at his desk.
My dear Miss Hamilton, [he wrote,] I cannot say how distressed I was to hear the news of your illness and still more to learn from your mother that you were seriously thinking of resigning your post. I'm also extremely distressed to hear from her that there are symptoms of overwork. If I've been inconsiderate I must beg your forgiveness and ask you to attribute it to your own good-will. The fact is your example has inspired me. With your encouragement I undoubtedly do work much harder than formerly. Today, without you, I have not written a single word, and I feel dreadfully depressed at the prospect of your desertion. Do let me plead for your services when you are well again, at any rate until I've finished Joan of Arc, for I really don't think I shall ever finish that play without them. I have felt the death of my poor mother very much, but I do not ascribe my present disinclination for work to that. No, on the contrary,I came back from the funeral with a determination to bury myself—that might be expressed better—to plunge myself into hard work. Your note telling me of your illness was a great shock, and your mother's uncompromising attitude this morning has added to my dejection. I feel that I am growing old and view with horror the approach of age. I've been sitting by the fire indulging myself in very morbid thoughts. You will laugh when I tell you that amongst them was the idea—I might call it the chimera of marriage. Do please get well soon and rescue me from myself.
Yours very sincerely,JOHNTOUCHWOOD.
I do not, of course, wish to disturb the relationship between yourself and your mother, but my own recent loss has reminded me that mothers do not live forever.
JOHNwaited in considerable anxiety for Miss Hamilton's reply to his letter, and when a few days later she answered his appeal in person by presenting herself for work as usual he could not express in words the intensity of his satisfaction, but could only prance round her as if he had been a dumb domestic animal instead of a celebrated romantic playwright.
"And what have you done since I've been away?" she asked, without alluding to her illness or to her mother or to her threat of being obliged to leave him.
John looked abashed.
"Not very much, I'm afraid."
"How much?"
"Well, to be quite honest, nothing at all"
She referred sympathetically to the death of Mrs. Touchwood, and, without the ghost of a blush, he availed himself of that excuse for idleness.
"But now you're back," he added, "I'm going to work harder than ever. Oh, but I forgot. I mustn't overwork you."
"Nonsense," said Miss Hamilton, sharply. "I don't think the amount you write every day will ever do me much harm."
John busied himself with paper, pens, ink, and notebooks, and was soon as deep in the fourth act as if there had never been an intermission. For a month he worked in perfect tranquillity, and went so far as to calculate that if Miss Hamilton was willing to remain forever in his employ there was no reason why he should not produce three plays a year until he was seventy. Then one morning in mid-February Mr. Ricketts arrived in a state of perturbation to say that he had been unable to obtain any reply to several lettersand telegrams informing Hugh when their steamer would leave. Now here they were with only a day before departure, and he was still without news of the young man. John looked guilty. The fact was that he had decided not to open any letters from his relations throughout this month, alleging to himself the interruption they caused to his work and trusting to the old superstition that if left unanswered long enough all letters, even the most disagreeable, answered themselves.
"I was wondering why your correspondence had dwindled so," said Miss Hamilton, severely.
"But that is no excuse for my brother," John declared. "Because I don't write to him, that is no reason why he shouldn't write to Mr. Ricketts."
"Well, we're off to-morrow," said the mahogany-planter.
An indignant telegram was sent to Hugh; but the prepaid answer came back from Hilda to say that he had gone off with a friend a fortnight ago without leaving any address. Mr. Ricketts, who had been telephoned for in the morning, arrived about noon in a taxi loaded with exotic luggage.
"I can't wait," he assured John. "The lad must come on by the next boat. I shan't go up country for a week or so. Good-by, Mr. Touchwood; I'm sorry not to have your brother's company. I was going to put him wise to the job on the trip across."
"But look here, can't you...." John began, despairingly.
"Can't wait. I shall miss the boat. West India Docks," he shouted to the driver, "and stop at the last decent pub in the city on the way through."
The taxi buzzed off.
Two days later Hugh appeared at Church Row, mentioned casually that he was sorry he had missed the boat, but that he had been doing a little architectural job for a friend of his.
"Very good bridge," he commented, approvingly.
"Over what?" John demanded.
"Over very good whisky," said Hugh. "It was up in the North. Capital fun. I was designing a smoking-room for a man I know who's just come into money. I've had a ripping time. Good hands every evening and a very decent fee. In fact, I don't see why I shouldn't start an office of my own."
"And what about mahogany?"
"Look here, I never liked that idea of yours, Johnnie. Everybody agrees that British Honduras is a rotten climate, and if you want to help me, you can help me much more effectively by setting me up on my own as an architect."
"I do not want to help you. I've invested £2,000 in mahogany and logwood, and I insist on getting as much interest on my money as your absence from England will bring me in."
"Yes, that's all very well, old chap. But why do you want me to leave England?"
John embarked upon a justification of his attitude, in the course of which he pointed out the dangers of idleness, reminded Hugh of the forgery, tried to inspire him with hopes of independence, hinted at moral obligations, and rhapsodized about colonial enterprise. As a mountain of forensic art the speech was wonderful: clothed on the lower slopes with a rich and varied vegetation of example and precept, it gradually ascended to the hard rocks of necessity, honor, and duty until it culminated in a peak of snow where John's singleness of motive glittered immaculately and inviolably to heaven. It was therefore discouraging for the orator when he paused and walked slowly up stage to give the culprit an opportunity to make a suitably penitent reply, after which the curtain was to come down upon a final outburst of magnanimous eloquence from himself, that Hugh should merely growl the contemptuous monosyllable "rot."
"Rot?" repeated John in amazement.
"Yes. Rot. I'm not going to reason with you...."
"Ah, indeed?" John interrupted, sarcastically.
"Because reason would be lost on you. I simply repeat 'Rot!' If I don't want to go to British Honduras, I won'tgo. Why, to hear you talk anybody would suppose that I hadn't had the same opportunities as yourself. If you chose to blur your intelligence by writing romantic tushery, you must remember that by doing so you yielded to temptation just as much as I did when I forged Stevie's name. Do you think I would write plays like yours? Never!" he proclaimed, proudly.
"It seems to me that the conversation is indeed going outside the limits of reason," said John, trying hard to restrain himself.
"My dear old chap, it has never been inside the limits. No, no, you collared me when I was down over that check. Well, here's what you paid to get me out of the mess." He threw a bundle of notes on the table. "So long, Johnnie, and don't be too resentful of my having demonstrated that when Iamleft for a while on my own I can earn money as well as you. I'm going to stay in town for a bit before I go North again, so I shall see you from time to time. By the way, you might send me the receipt to Carlington Road. I'm staying with Aubrey as usual."
When his brother had gone, John counted the notes in a stupor. It would be too much to say that he was annoyed at being paid back; but he was not sufficiently pleased to mention the fact to Miss Hamilton for two days.
"Oh, I am so glad," she exclaimed when at last he did bring himself to tell her.
"Yes, it's very encouraging," John agreed, doubtfully. "I'm still suffering slightly from the shock, which has been a very novel sensation. To be perfectly honest, I never realized before how much less satisfactory it is to be paid back than one thinks beforehand it is going to be."
In spite of the disturbing effect of Hugh's honesty, John soon settled down again to the play, and became so much wrapped up in its daily progress that one afternoon he was able without a tremor to deny admittance to Laurence, who having written to warn him that he was taking advantage of a further reduction in the price on day-tickets, had paid anothervisit to London. Laurence took with ill grace his brother-in-law's message that he was too busy on his own work to talk about anybody's else at present.
"I confess I was pained," he wrote from Ambles on John's own note-paper, "by the harsh reception of my friendly little visit. I confess that Edith and I had hoped you would welcome the accession of a relative to the ranks of contemporary playwrights. We feel that in the circumstances we cannot stay any longer in your house. Indeed, Edith is even as I pen these lines packing Frida's little trunk. She is being very brave, but her tear-stained face tells its own tale, and I confess that I myself am writing with a heavy heart. Eleanor has been most kind, and in addition to giving me several more introductions to her thespian friends has arranged with the proprietress of Halma House for a large double room with dressing-room attached on terms which I can only describe as absurdly moderate. Do not think we are angry. We are only pained, bitterly pained that our happy family life should suddenly collapse like this. However, excelsior, as the poet said, or as another poet even greater said, 'sic itur ad astra.' You will perhaps be able to spare a moment from the absorption of your own affairs to read with a fleeting interest that Sir Percy Mortimer has offered me the part of the butler in a comedy of modern manners which he hopes to stage—you see I am already up to the hilt in the jargon of the profession—next autumn. Eleanor considers this to be an excellent opening, as indeed so do I. Edith and little Frida laugh heartily when they are not too sad for such simple fun when I enter the room and assume the characteristic mannerisms of a butler. All agree I have a natural propensity for droll impersonation. Who knows? I may make a great hit, although Sir Percy warns me that the part is but a slight one. Eleanor, however, reminds me that deportment is always an asset for an actor. Have I not read somewhere that the great Edmund Kean did not disdain to play the tail end of a dragon erstwhile? I wish you all good luck in your own work, my dear John. People areinterested when they hear you are my brother-in-law, and I have told them many tales of the way you are wont to consult me over the little technical details of religion in which I as a former clergyman have been able to afford you my humble assistance."
"What a pompous ass the man is," said John to his secretary. He had read her the letter, which made her laugh.
"I believe you're really quite annoyed thathe'sshowing an independent spirit now."
"Not at all. I'm delighted to be rid of him," John contradicted. "I suppose he'll share George's aquarium at Halma House."
"You don't mind my laughing? Because it is very funny, you know."
"Yes, it's funny in a way," John admitted. "But even if it weren't, I shouldn't mind your laughing. You have, if I may say so, a peculiarly musical laugh."
"Are you going to have Joan's scaffold right center or left center?" she asked, quickly.
"Eh? What? Oh, put it where you like. By the way, has your mother been girding at you lately?"
Miss Hamilton shrugged her shoulders.
"She isn't yet reconciled to my being a secretary, if that's what you mean."
"I'm sorry," John murmured. "Confound all relations!" he burst out. "I suppose she'd object to your going to France with me to finish off the play?"
"She would object violently. But you mustn't forget that I've a will of my own."
"Of course you have," said John, admiringly. "And you will go, eh?"
"I'll see—I won't promise. Look here, Mr. Touchwood, I don't want to seem—what shall I call it—timid, but if I did go to France with you, I suppose you realize my mother would make such a fuss about it that people would end by really talking? Forgive my putting such an unpleasant idea into your innocent head; being your confidential secretary, Ifeel I oughtn't to let you run any risks. I don't suppose you care a bit how much people talk, and I'm sure I don't; at the same time I shouldn't like you to turn round on me and say I ought to have warned you."
"Talk!" John exclaimed. "The idea is preposterous. Talk! Good gracious me, can't I take my secretary abroad without bring accused of ulterior motives?"
"Now, don't work yourself into a state of wrath, or you won't be able to think of this terribly important last scene. Anyway, we sha'n't be going to France yet, and we can discuss the project more fully when the time comes."
John thought vaguely how well Miss Hamilton knew how to keep him unruffled, and with a grateful look—or what was meant to be a grateful look, though she blushed unaccountably when he gave it—he concentrated upon the site of his heroine's scaffold.
During March the weather was so bright and exhilarating that John and his secretary took many walks together on Hampstead Heath; they also often went to town, and John derived much pleasure from discussing various business affairs with her clerical support; he found that it helped considerably when dealing with the manager of a film company to be able to say "Will you make a note of that, please, Miss Hamilton?" The only place, in fact, to which John did not take her was his club, and that was only because he was not allowed to introduce ladies there.
"A rather mediæval restriction," he observed one day to a group assembled in the smoking-room.
"There was a time, Touchwood, when you used to take refuge here from your leading ladies," a bachelor member chuckled.
"But nowadays Touchwood has followed Adam with the rest of us," put in another.
"What's that?" said John, sharply.
There was a general burst of merriment and headshaking and wagging of fingers, from which and a succession of almost ribald comment John began to wonder if his privatelife was beginning to be a subject for club gossip. He managed to prevent himself from saying that he thought such chaff in bad taste, because he did not wish to give point to it by taking it too much in earnest. Nevertheless, he was seriously annoyed and avoided the smoking-room for a week.
One night, after the first performance of a friend's play, he turned in to the club for supper, and, being disinclined for sleep, because although it was a friend's play it had been a tremendous success, which always made him feel anxious about his own future he lingered on until the smoking-room was nearly deserted. Towards three o'clock he was sitting pensively in a quiet corner when he heard his name mentioned by two members, who had taken seats close by without perceiving his presence. They were both strangers to him, and he was about to rise from his chair and walk severely out of the room, when he heard one say to the other:
"Yes, they tell me his brother-in-law writes his plays for him."
John found this so delightfully diverting an idea that he could not resist keeping quiet to hear more.
"Oh, I don't believe that," said the second unknown member.
"Fact, I assure you. I was told so by a man who knows Eleanor Cartright."
"The actress?"
"Yes, she's a sister-in-law of his."
"Really, I never knew that."
"Oh yes. Well, this man met her with a fellow called Armitage, an ex-monk who broke his vows in order to marry Touchwood's sister."
John pressed himself deeper into his armchair.
"Really? But I never knew monks could marry," objected number two.
"I tell you, he broke his vows."
"Oh, I see," murmured number two, who was evidently no wiser, but was anxious to appear so.
"Well, it seems that this fellow Armitage is a thundering fine poet, but without much experience of the stage. Of course, he wouldn't have had much as a monk."
"Of course not," agreed number two, decidedly.
"So, what does Johnnie Touchwood do—"
"Damned impudence calling me Johnnie," thought the subject of the duologue.
"But make a contract with his brother-in-law to stay out of the way down in Devonshire or Dorsetshire—I forget which—but, anyway, down in the depths of the country somewhere, and write all the best speeches in old Johnnie's plays. Now, it seems there's been a family row, and they tell me that Armitage is going to sue Johnnie."
"What was the row about?"
"Well, apparently Johnnie is a bit close. Most of these successful writers are, of course," said number one with the nod of an expert.
"Of course," agreed his companion, with an air of equally profound comprehension.
"And took advantage of his position as the fellow with money to lord it over the rest of his family. There's another brother—an awful clever beggar—James, I think his name is—a real first-class scientist, original research man and all that, who's spent the whole of his fortune on some great discovery or other. Well, will you believe it, but the other day when he was absolutely starving, Johnnie Touchwood offered to lend him some trifling sum if he would break the entail."
"I didn't know the Touchwoods were landed proprietors. I always understood the father was a dentist," said number two.
"Oh, no, no. Very old family. Wonderful old house down in Devonshire or Dorset—I wish I could remember just where it is. Anyway, it seems that the eldest brother clung on to this like anything. Of course, he would."
"Of course," number two agreed.
"But Johnnie, who's hard as flint, insisted on breakingthe entail in his own favor, and now I hear he's practically turned the whole family into the street, including James' boy, who in the ordinary course of events would have inherited."
"Did Eleanor Cartright tell your friend this?" asked number two.
"Oh no, I've heard that from lots of people. It seems that old Mrs. Touchwood died of grief over the way Johnnie carried on. It's really a very grim story when you hear the details; unfortunately, I can't remember all of them. My memory's getting awfully bad nowadays."
Number two muttered an expression of sympathy, and the other continued:
"But one detail I do remember is that another brother—"
"It's a large family, then?"
"Oh, very large. As I was saying, the old lady was terribly upset not only about breaking the entail, but also over her youngest son, who had some incurable disease. It seems that he was forced by Johnnie to go out to the Gold Coast—I think it was—in order to see about some money that Johnnie had invested in rubber or something. As I say, I can't remember the exact details. However, cherchez la femme, I needn't add the reasons for all this."
"A woman?"
"Exactly," said number one. "Some people say it's a married woman, and others say it's a young girl of sixteen. Anyway, Johnnie's completely lost his head over her, and they tell me...."
The two members put their heads together so that John could not hear what was said: but it must have been pretty bad, because when they put them apart again number two was clicking his tongue in shocked amazement.
"By Jove, that will cause a terrific scandal, eh?"
John decided he had heard enough. Assuming an expression of intense superiority, the sort of expression a man might assume who was standing on the top of Mount Everest, he rose from his chair, eyed the two gossips with disdain,and strode out of the smoking-room. Just as he reached the door, he heard number one exclaim:
"Hulloa, see who that was? That was old Percy Mortimer."
"Oh, of course," said number two, as sapiently as ever, "I didn't recognize him for a moment. He's beginning to show his age, eh?"
On the way back to Hampstead John tried to assure himself that the conversation he had just overheard did not represent anything more important than the vaporings of an exceptionally idiotic pair of men about town; but the more he meditated upon the tales about himself evidently now in general circulation, the more he was appalled at the recklessness of calumny.
"One has joked about it. One has laughed at Sheridan'sSchool for Scandal. One has admitted that human beings are capable of almost incredible exaggeration. But—no, really this is too much. I've gossiped sometimes myself about my friends, but never like that about a stranger—a man in the public eye."
John nearly stopped the taxi to ask the driver ifhehad heard any stories about John Touchwood; but he decided it would not be wise to run risk of discovery that he enjoyed less publicity than he was beginning to imagine, and he kept his indignation to himself.
"After all, it is a sign of—well, yes, I think it might fairly be called fame—a sign of fame to be talked about like that by a couple of ignorant chatterboxes. It is, I suppose, a tribute to my position. But Laurence! That's what annoyed me most. Laurence to be the author of my plays! I begin to understand this ridiculous Bacon and Shakespeare legend now. The rest of the gossip was malicious, but that was—really, I think it was actionable. I shall take it up with the committee. The idea of that pompous nincompoop writing Lucretia's soliloquy before she poisons her lips! Laurence! Good heavens! And fancy Laurence writing Nebuchadnezzar's meditation upon grass! By Jove, anaudience would have some cause to titter then! And Laurence writing Joan's defense to the Bishop of Beauvais! Why, the bombastic pedant couldn't even write a satisfactory letter to the Bishop of Silchester to keep himself from being ignominiously chucked out of his living."
The infuriated author bounced up and down on the cushions of the taxi in his rage.
"Shall I give you an arm up the steps, sir?" the driver offered, genially, when John, having alighted at his front door, had excessively overpaid him under the impression from which he was still smarting of being called a skinflint.
"No, thank you."
"Beg pardon, sir. I thought you was a little bit tiddly. You seemed a bit lively inside on the way up."
"I suppose the next thing is that I shall get the reputation of being a dipsomaniac," said John to himself, as he flung open his door and marched immediately, with a slightly accentuated rigidity of bearing, upstairs to bed.
But he could not sleep. The legend of his behavior that was obviously common gossip in London oppressed him with its injustice. Every accusation took on a new and fantastic form, while he turned over and over in an attempt to reach oblivion. He began to worry now more about what had been implied in his association with Miss Hamilton than about the other stories. He felt that it would only be a very short time before she would hear of the tale in some monstrous shape and leave him forever in righteous disgust. Ought he, indeed, to make her aware to-morrow morning of what was being suggested? And even if he did not say anything about the past, ought he to compromise her more deeply in the future?
It was six o'clock before John fell asleep, and it was with a violent headache that he faced his secretary after breakfast. Luckily there was a letter from Janet Bond asking him to come and see her that morning upon a matter of importance. He seized the excuse to postpone any discussion of last night's revelation, and, telling Miss Hamilton heshould be back for lunch, he decided to walk down to the Parthenon Theater in the hope of arriving there with a clearer and saner view of life. He nearly told her to go home; but, reflecting that he might come back in quite a different mood, he asked her instead to occupy herself with the collation of some scattered notes upon Joan of Arc that were not yet incorporated into the scheme of the play. He remembered, too, that it would be his birthday in three days' time, and he asked her to send out notes of invitation to his family for the annual celebration, at which the various members liked to delude themselves with the idea that by presenting him with a number of useless accessories to the smoking-table they were repaying him in full for all his kindness. He determined that his birthday speech on this occasion should be made the vehicle for administering a stern rebuke to malicious gossip. He would dam once for all this muddy stream of scandal, and he would make Laurence write a letter to the press disclaiming the authorship of his plays. Burning with reformative zeal and fast losing his headache, John swung down Fitzjohn's Avenue in the spangled March sunlight to the wicked city below.
The Parthenon Theater had for its acropolis the heights of the Adelphi, where, viewed from the embankment gardens below, it seemed to be looking condescendingly down upon the efforts of the London County Council to intellectualize the musical taste of the generation. In the lobby—it had been called the propylæum until it was found that such a long name had discouraged the public from booking seats beforehand through fear of mispronunciation—a bust of Janet Bond represented the famous statue Pallas Athene on the original acropolis, and the programme-girls, dressed as caryatides, supplied another charming touch of antiquity. The proprietress herself was the outstanding instance in modern times of the exploitation of virginity—it must have been a very profitable exploitation, because the Parthenon Theater itself had been built and paid for by her unsuccessful admirers. Each year made Janet Bond's position asvirgin and actress more secure, and at the rate her reputation was growing it was probable that she would soon be at liberty to produce the most immodest plays. At present, however, she still applied the same standard of her conduct to her plays as to herself. Nor did she confine herself to that. She was also very strict about the private lives of her performers, and many a young actress had been seen to leave the stage door in tears because Miss Bond had observed her in unsuitable company at supper. Mothers wrote from all over England to beg Miss Bond to charge herself with the care of their stage-struck daughters; the result was a conventional tone among the supernumeraries slightly flavored with militant suffragism and the higher mathematics. Nor was art neglected; indeed some critics hinted that in the Parthenon Theater art was cultivated at the expense of life, though none of them attempted to gainsay that Miss Bond had learned how to make virtue pay without selling it.
In appearance the great tragedienne was somewhat rounder in outline than might have been expected, and more matronly than virginal, perhaps because she was in her own words a mother to all her girls. Her voice was rich and deep with as much variety as a cunningly sounded gong. She never made up for the stage, and she wore hygienic corsets: this intimate fact was allowed to escape through the indiscretion of a widespread advertisement, but its publication helped her reputation for decorum, and clergymen who read their wives'QueenorLadycommented favorably on the contrast between Miss Bond and the numerous open-mouthed actresses who preferred to advertise toothpaste. England was proud of Miss Bond, feeling that America had no longer any right to vaunt a monopoly of virtuous actresses; and John, when he rang the bell of Miss Bond's flat that existed cleverly in the roof of the theater, was proud of his association with her. He did not have to wait long in her austere study; indeed he had barely time to admire the fluted calyx of a white trumpet daffodil that in chaste symbolism was theonly occupant of a blue china bowl before Miss Bond herself came in.
"I'm so hating what I'm going to have to say to you," she boomed.
This was a jolly way to begin an interview, John thought, especially in his present mood. He tried to look attentive, faintly surprised, dignified, and withal deferential; but, not being a great actor, he failed to express all these states of mind at a go, and only succeeded in dropping his gloves.
"Hating it," the actress cried. "Oh, hating it!"
"Well, if you'd rather postpone it," John began.
"No, no. It must be said now. It's just this!" She paused and fixed the author more intensely than a snake fixes a rabbit or a woman in a bus tries to see if the woman opposite has blacked her eyelashes. "Can I produceJoan of Arc?"
"I think that question is answered by our contract," replied John, who was used to leading ladies, and when they started like this always fell back at once in good order on business.
"Yes, but what about my unwritten contract with the public?" she demanded.
"I don't know anything about that," said the author. Moreover, I don't see how an unwritten contract can interfere with our written contract."
"John Touchwood, I'm going to be frank with you, fiercely frank. I can't afford to produce a play by you about a heroine like Joan of Arc unless you take steps to put things right."
"If you want me to cut that scene...."
"Oh, I'm not talking about scenes, John Touchwood. I'm talking about these terrible stories that everybody is whispering about you. I don't mind myself what you do. Good gracious me, I'm a broad-minded modern woman; but my public looks for something special at the Parthenon. The knowledge that I am going to play the Maid of Orleans hasmoved them indescribably; I was fully prepared to give you the success of your career, but ... these stories! This girl! You know what people are saying? You must have heard. How can I put your name on my programme as the author ofJoan of Arc? How can I, John Touchwood?"
If John had not overheard that conversation at his club the night before, he would have supposed that Miss Bond had gone mad.
"May I inquire exactly what you have heard about me and my private life?" he inquired, as judicially as he could.
"Please spare me from repeating the stories. I can honestly assure you that I don't believe them. But you as a man of the world know very well how unimportant it is whether a story is true or not. If you were a writer of realistic drama, these stories, however bad they were, wouldn't matter. If your next play was going to be produced at the Court Theater, these stories would, if anything, be in favor of success ... but at the Parthenon...."
"You are talking nonsense, Miss Bond," interrupted John, angrily. "You are more in a condition to play Ophelia than Joan of Arc. Moreover, you shan't play Joan of Arc now. I've really been regretting for some weeks now that you were going to play her, and I'm delighted to have this opportunity of preventing you from playing her. I don't know to what tittle-tattle you've been listening. I don't care. Your opinion of your own virtue may be completely justified, but your judgment of other people's is vulgar and—however, let me recommend you to produce a play by my brother-in-law, the Reverend Laurence Armitage. Even your insatiable ambition may be gratified by the part of the Virgin Mary, who is one of the chief characters. Good morning, Miss Bond. I shall communicate with you more precisely through my agent."
John marched out of the theater, and on the pavement outside ran into Miss Ida Merritt.
"Ah, you're a sensible woman," he spluttered, much to her astonishment. "For goodness' sake, come and have lunch with me, and let's talk over everything."
John, in his relief at meeting Miss Merritt, had taken her arm in a cordial fashion, and steered her across the Strand to Romano's without waiting to choose a less conspicuously theatrical restaurant. Indeed in his anxiety to clear his reputation he forgot everything, and it was only when he saw various people at the little tables nudging one another and bobbing their heads together that he realized he was holding Miss Merritt's arm. He dropped it like a hot coal, and plunged down at a table marked "reserved." The head waiter hurried across to apprise him of the mistake, and John, who was by now horribly self-conscious, fancied that the slight incident had created a stir throughout the restaurant. No doubt it would be all over town by evening that he and his companion in guilt had been refused service at every restaurant in London.
"Look here," said John, when at last they were accommodated at a table painfully near the grill, the spitting and hissing from which seemed to symbolize the attitude of a hostile society. "Look here, what stories have you heard about me? You're a journalist. You write chatty paragraphs. For heaven's sake, tell me the worst."
"Oh, I haven't heard anything that's printable," Miss Merritt assured him, with a laugh.
John put his head between his hands and groaned; the waiter thought he was going to dip his hair into the hors d'œuvres and hurriedly removed the dishes.
"No, seriously, I beg you to tell me if you've heard my name connected in any unpleasant way with Miss Hamilton."
"No, the only thing I've heard about Doris is that your brother, Hugh, is always pestering her with his attentions."
"What?" John shouted.
"Coming, sir," cried the waiter, skipping round the table like a monkey.
John waved him away, and begged Miss Merritt to be more explicit.
"Why didn't she complain to me?" he asked when he had heard her story.
"She probably thought she could look after herself. Besides, wasn't he going to British Guiana?"
"He was," replied John. "At least he was going to some tropical colony. I've heard so many mentioned that I'm beginning myself to forget which it was now. So that's why he didn't go. But he shall go. If I have to have him kidnaped and spend all my savings on chartering a private yacht for the purpose, by Heaven, he shall go. If he shrivels up like a burnt sausage the moment he puts his foot on the beach he shall be left there to shrivel. The rascal! When does he pester her? Where?"
"Don't get so excited. Doris is perfectly capable of looking after herself. Besides, I think she rather likes him in a way."
"Never," John cried.
"Liver is finished, sair," said the officious waiter, dancing in again between John and Miss Merritt.
John shook his fist at him and leant earnestly over the table with one elbow in the butter.
"You don't seriously suggest that she is in love with him?" he asked.
"No, I don't think so. But I met him myself once and took rather a fancy to him. No, she just likes him as a friend. It's he who's in love with her."
"Under my very eyes," John ejaculated. "Why, it's overwhelming."
A sudden thought struck him that even at this moment while he was calmly eating lunch with Miss Merritt, as he somewhat loosely qualified the verb, Hugh might be making love to Miss Hamilton in his own house.
"Look here," he cried, "have you nearly finished? Because I've suddenly remembered an important appointment at Hampstead."
"I don't want any more," said Miss Merritt, obligingly.
"Waiter, the bill! Quick! You don't mind if I rush off and leave you to finish your cheese alone?"
His guest shook her head and John hurried out of the restaurant.
No taxi he had traveled in had ever seemed so slow, and he kept putting his head out of the window to urge the driver to greater speed, until the man goaded to rudeness by John's exhortations and the trams in Tottenham Court Road asked if his fare thought he was a blinking bullet.
"I'm not bullying you. I'm only asking you to drive a little faster," John shouted back.
The driver threw his eyes heavenward in a gesture of despair for John's sanity but he was pacified at Church Row by half-a-sovereign and even went so far as to explain that he had not accused John of bullying him, but merely of confusing his capacity for speed with that of a bullet's. John thought he was asking for more money, gave him half-a-crown and waving his arm, half in benediction, half in protest, he hurried into the hall.
"They've nearly finished lunch, sir," murmured Maud who was just coming from the dining-room. "Would you like Elsa to hot you up something?"
John without a word pounced into the dining-room, where he caught Hugh with a stick of celery half-way to his mouth and Miss Hamilton with a glass of water half-way down from hers in the other direction.
"Oh, I'm so sorry we began without you," said the culprits simultaneously.
John murmured something about a trying interview with Janet Bond, lit a cigar, realized it was rude to light cigars when people were still eating, threw the cigar away, and sat down with an appearance of exhaustion in one of those dining-room armchairs that stand and wait all their lives to serve a moment like this.
"I'm sorry, but I must ask you to go off as soon as you'vefinished your lunch, Hugh. I've a lot of important business to transact with Miss Hamilton."
"Oh, but I've finished already," she exclaimed, jumping up from the table.
It was the first pleasant moment in John's day, and he smiled, gratefully. He felt he could even afford to be generous to this intrusive brother, and before he left the room with Miss Hamilton he invited him to have some more celery.
"And you'll find a cigar in the sideboard," he added. "But Maud will look after you. Maud, look after Mr. Hugh, please, and if anybody calls this afternoon, I'm not at home."