Bobby Ravenshaw did not spend the day at the Charing Cross Hotel waiting for Simon; he amused himself otherwise, leaving Mudd to do the waiting.
At eleven o'clock he called at the hotel. Mr. Mudd was upstairs in Mr. Pettigrew's room, and he would be called down.
Bobby thought that he could trace a lot of things in the porter's tone and manner, a respect and commiseration for Mr. Mudd and perhaps not quite such a high respect for himself and Simon. He fancied that the hotel was beginning to have its eye upon him and Simon as questionable parties of thebon vivanttype—a fancy that may have been baseless, but was still there.
Then Mudd appeared.
"Well, Mudd," said Bobby, "hasn't he turned up yet?"
"No, Mr. Robert."
"Where on earth can he be?"
"I'm givin' him till half-past eleven," said Mudd, "and then I'm off to Vine Street."
"What on earth for?"
"To have the hospitals circulated to ask about him."
"Oh, nonsense!"
"It's on my mind he's had an accident," said Mudd. "Robbed and stunned, or drugged with opium and left in the street. I know London—and him as he is! He'll be found with his pockets inside out—I know London. You should have got him down to the country to-day, Mr. Robert, somewhere quiet; now, maybe, it's too late."
"It's very easy to say that. I tried to, and he wouldn't go, not even to Richmond. London seems to hold him like a charm; he's like a bee in a bottle—can't escape."
At this moment a horrid little girl in a big hat and feathers, boots too large for her, and a shawl, made her appearance at the entrance door, saw the hall porter and came towards him. She had a letter in her hand.
The hall porter took the letter, looked at it, and brought it to Mudd.
Mudd glanced at the envelope and tore it open.
"10,Duke Street,"Leicester Square"Mr. Modd,"Come at once."Celestine Rossignol."
"10,Duke Street,"Leicester Square
"Mr. Modd,
"Come at once.
"Celestine Rossignol."
That was all, written in an angular, old-fashioned hand and in purple ink.
"Where's my hat?" cried Mudd, running about like a decapitated fowl. "Where's my hat? Oh ay, it's upstairs!" He vanished, and in a minute reappeared with his hat; then, with Bobby, and followed by the dirty little girl trotting behind them, off they started.
They tried to question the little girl on the way, but she knew nothing definite.
The gentleman had been brought 'ome—didn't know what was wrong with him; the lady had given her the letter to take; that was all she knew.
"He's alive, anyway," said Bobby.
"The Lord knows!" said Mudd.
The little girl let them in with a key and, Mudd leading the way, up the stairs they went.
Mudd knocked at the door of the sitting-room.
Madame and Cerise were there, quite calm,and evidently waiting; of Simon there was not a trace.
"Oh, Mr. Modd," cried the old lady, "how fortunate you have received my letter! Poor Monsieur Pattigrew——"
"He ain't dead?" cried Mudd.
No, Simon was not dead. She told. Poor Monsieur Pattigrew and a very big gentleman had arrived over an hour ago. Mr. Pattigrew could not stand; he had been taken ill, the big gentleman had declared. Such a nice gentleman, who had sat down and cried whilst Mr. Pattigrew had been placed on the sofa—taken ill in the street. The big gentleman had gone for a doctor, but had not yet returned. Mr. Pattigrew had been put to bed. She and the big gentleman had seen to that.
Mr. Pattigrew had recovered consciousness for a moment during this operation and had produced a number of bank-notes—such a number! She had placed them safely in her desk; that was one of the reasons she had sent so urgently for Mr. Modd.
She produced the notes—a huge sheaf.
Mudd took them and examined them dazedly, hundreds and hundreds of pounds' worth of notes; and he had only started with two hundred pounds!
"Why, there's nearly a thousand pounds' worth here," said Mudd.
Bobby's astonishment might have been greater had not his eyes rested, from the first moment of their coming in, on Cerise. Cerise with parted lips, a heightened colour, and the air of a little child at a play she did not quite understand.
She was lovely. French, innocent, lovely as a flower—a new thing in London, he had never seen anything quite like her before. The poverty of the room, Uncle Simon, his worries and troubles, all were banished or eased. She was music, and if Saul could have seen her he would have had no need for David.
Had Uncle Simon added burglary to knocker-snatching, broken into a jeweller's and disposed of his takings to a "fence," committed robbery? All these thoughts strayed over his mind, harmless because of Cerise.
The unfortunate young man, who had fooled so long with girls, had met the girl who had been waiting for him since the beginning of the world. There is always that; she may be blowsy, she may be plain, or lovely like Cerise—she is Fate.
"And here is the big gentleman's card," said Madame, taking a visiting card from her desk, then another and another.
"He gave me three."
Mudd handed the card to Bobby, who read:
"The Hon. Richard Pugeot,"Pall Mall Place, St. James.
"Guards' Club."
"I know him," said Bobby. "That'sall right, and Uncle Simon couldn't have fallen into better hands."
"Is, then, Monsieur Pattigrew your oncle?" asked the old lady.
"He is, Madame."
"Then you are thrice welcome here, monsieur," said she.
Cerise looked the words, and Bobby's eyes as they met hers returned thanks.
"Come," said Madame, "you shall see him and that he is safe."
She gently opened the door leading to the bedroom, and there, in a little bed, dainty and white—Cerise's little bed—lay Uncle Simon, flushed and smiling and snoring.
"Poor Monsieur Pattigrew!" murmured the old lady.
Then they withdrew.
It seemed that there was another bed to be got in the house for Cerise, and Mudd, takingcharge of the patient, the ladies withdrew. It was agreed that no doctor was wanted. It was also agreed between Bobby and Mudd that the hotel was impossible after this.
"We must get him away to the country tomorrow," said Mudd, "if he'll go."
"He'll go, if I have to take him tied up and bound," said Bobby. "My nerves won't stand another day of this. Take care of those notes, Mudd, and don't let him see them. They'll be useful getting him away. I'll be round as early as I can. I'll see Pugeot and get the rights of the matter from him. Good night."
Off he went.
In the street he paused for a moment, then he took a passing taxi for the Albany.
Tozer was in, playing patience and smoking. He did not interrupt his game for the other.
"Well, how's Uncle Simon?" asked Tozer.
"He's asleep at last after a most rampageous day."
"You look pretty sober."
"Don't mention it," said Bobby, going to a tantalus case and helping himself to some whisky. "My nerves are all unstrung."
"Trailing after him?"
"Thank God, no!" said Bobby. "Waiting for him to turn up dead, bruised, battered, orsimply intoxicated and stripped of his money. He gave me the slip in Piccadilly with two hundred-pound notes in his pocket. The next place I find him was half an hour ago in a young lady's bed, dead to the world, smiling, and with nearly a thousand pounds in bank-notes he'd hived somehow during the day."
"A thousand pounds!"
"Yes, and he'd only started with two hundred."
"I say," said Tozer, forgetting his cards, "what a chap he must have been when he was young!"
"When hewasyoung! Lord, I don't want to see him any younger than he is; if this is youth, give me old age."
"You'll get it fast enough," said Tozer, "don't you worry; and this will be a reminder to you to keep old. There's an Arab proverb that says, 'There are two things colder than ice, an old young man and a young old man.'"
"Colder than ice!" said Bobby. "I wish you had five minutes with Uncle Simon."
"But who was this lady—this young——"
"Two of the nicest people on earth," said Bobby, "an old lady and her daughter—French. He saved the girl in an omnibus accident or something in one of his escapades, andtook her home to her mother. Then to-night he must have remembered them, and got a friend to take him there. Fancy, the cheek! What made him, in his state, able to remember them?"
"What is the young lady like?"
"She's beautiful," said Bobby; then he took a sip of whisky-and-soda and failed to meet Tozer's eye as he put down the glass.
"That's what made him remember her," said Tozer.
Bobby laughed.
"It's no laughing matter," said the other, "at his age—when the heart is young."
Bobby laughed again.
"Bobby," said Tozer, "beware of that girl."
"I'm not thinking of the girl," said Bobby; "I'm thinking how on earth the old man——"
"The youth, you mean."
"Got all that money."
"You're a liar," said Tozer; "you are thinking of the girl."
"Higgs!" cried the Hon. Richard Pugeot.
"Sir?" answered a voice from behind the silk curtains cutting off the dressing and bathroom from the bedroom.
"What o'clock is it?"
"Just gone eight, sir."
"Get me some soda-water."
"Yes, sir."
The Hon. Richard lay still.
Higgs, a clean-shaven and smart-looking young man, appeared with a bottle of Schweppes and a tumbler on a salver.
The cork popped and the sufferer drank.
"What o'clock did I come home?"
"After twelve, sir—pretty nigh one."
"Was there anyone with me?"
"No, sir."
"No old gentleman?"
"No, sir."
"Was Randall there?"
"Yes, sir."
"And the car?"
"Yes, sir."
"There was no old gentleman in the car?"
"No, sir."
"Good heavens!" said Pugeot. "What can I have done with him?"
Higgs, not knowing, said nothing, moving about putting things in order and getting his master's bath ready.
"I've lost an old gentleman, Higgs," said Pugeot, for Higgs was a confidential servant as well as a valet.
"Indeed, sir," said Higgs, as though losing old gentlemen was as common as losing umbrellas.
"And the whole business is so funny I can scarcely believe it's true. I haven't a touch of the jim-jams, have I, Higgs?"
"Lord, sir, no! You're all right."
"Am I? See here, Higgs. Yesterday morning I met old Mr. Simon Pettigrew, the lawyer; mind, you are to say nothing about this to anyone—but stay a moment, go into the sitting-room and fetch meWho's Who."
Higgs fetched the book.
"'Pettigrew, Simon,'" read out Pugeot,with the book resting on his knees, "'Justice of the Peace for Herts—President of the United Law Society—Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries'—h'm, h'm—'Club, Athenæum.' Well, I met the old gentleman in Piccadilly. We went for a spin together, and the last thing I remember was seeing him chasing a stableman round some inn yard, where we had stopped for petrol or whisky or something; chasing him round with a bucket. He was trying to put the bucket over the stableman's head."
"Fresh," said Higgs.
"As you say, fresh—but I want to know, was that an optical illusion? There were other things, too. If it wasn't an optical illusion I want to know what has become of the old gentleman? I'm nervous—for he did me a good turn once, and I hope to heaven I haven't let him in for any bother."
"Well, sir," said Higgs, "I wouldn't worry, not if I were you. It was only his little lark, and most likely he's home safe by this."
"I have also a recollection of two ladies that got mixed up in the affair," went on the other, "but who they were I can't say. Little lark! The bother of it is, Higgs, one can't play little larks like that, safely, if one is a highly respectable person and a J.P. anda member of the what's-its-name society."
He got up and tubbed and dressed, greatly troubled in his mind. People sucked into the Simon-whirl were generally troubled in their minds, so great is the Power of High Respectability when linked to the follies of youth.
At breakfast Mr. Robert Ravenshaw's card was presented by Higgs.
"Show him in," said Pugeot.
"Hullo, Ravenshaw!" said Pugeot. "Glad to see you. Have you had breakfast?"
"Yes, thanks. I only called for a moment to see you about my uncle."
"Which uncle?"
"Pettigrew——"
"Good heavens! You don't say he's——"
Bobby explained.
It was like a millstone removed from Pugeot's neck.
Then he, in his turn, explained.
Then Bobby went into details.
Then they consulted.
"You can't get him out of London without telling him where you are taking him to," said Pugeot. "He'll kick the car over on the road if he's anything like what he was last night. Leave it to me andI'lldo the trick. But the question is, where shall we take him? There'sno use going to a place like Brighton; too many attractions for him. A moated grange is what he wants, and even then he'll be tumbling into the moat."
"I know of a place," said Bobby, "down at Upton-on-Hill. A girl told me of it; it's the Rose Hotel."
"I know it," said Pugeot; "couldn't be better. I have a cousin there living at a place called The Nook. There's a bowling-green at the hotel and a golf-course near. Can't hurt himself. Leave it all to me."
He told Higgs to telephone for the car, and then they sat and smoked whilst Pugeot showed Bobby just the way to deal with people of Uncle Simon's description.
"It's all nonsense, that doctor man's talk," said Pugeot. "The poor old chap has shed a nut or two. I ought to know something about it for I've had the same bother in my family. Got his youth back—pish! Cracked, that's the real name for it. I've seen it. I've seen my own uncle, when he was seventy, get his youth back—and the last time I saw him he was pulling a toy elephant along with a string. He'd got a taste also for playing with matches. Is that the car, Higgs? Well, come along, and let's try the power of a little gentle persuasion."
Simon was finishing breakfast when they arrived, assisted by Madame and Cerise. Poor Monsieur Pattigrew did not seem in the least in the need of pity either, though the women hung about him as women hang about an invalid. He was talking and laughing, and he greeted the newcomers as good companions who had just turned up. His geniality was not to be denied, and it struck Bobby, in a weird sort of manner, that Uncle Simon like this was a much pleasanter person than the old original article. Like this: that is to say, for a moment out of danger from the vicious grinding wheels of a city that destroys butterflies and a society that requests respectable old solicitors to remain respectable old solicitors.
Then, the women having discreetly retired for a while, Pugeot began his gentle persuasion.
Uncle Simon, with visions of yesterday's rural pleasures in his mind, required no persuasion, and he would come for a run into the country with pleasure; but Pugeot was not taking that sort of thing on any more. He was gay, but a very little of that sort of gaiety sufficed him for a long time.
"I don't mean that," said he; "I mean let's go down and stay for a while quietly at some nice place—I mean you and Ravenshawhere—for business will oblige me to come back to town."
"No, thanks," said Simon; "I'm quite happy in London."
"But think how nice it will be in the country this weather," said Bobby. "London's so hot."
"I like it hot," said Simon; "weather can't be too hot for me."
Then the gentle persuaders alternately began offering inducements—bowls, golf, a jolly bar at an hotel they knew, even girls.
They might just as well have been offering buns to the lions of Trafalgar Square.
Then Bobby had an idea, and, leaving the room, he had a conference on the stairs with Madame Rossignol; with Cerise also.
Then leaving Simon to the women for a while, they went for a walk, and returned to find the marble wax.
Simon did not mind a few days in the country if the ladies would come as his guests; he was enthusiastic on the subject now. They would all go and have a jolly time in the country. The old poetical instinct that had not shown itself up to this, restrained, no doubt, by the mesmerism of London, seemed to be awakening and promising new developments.
Bobby did not care; poetry or a Pickford'svan were all the same to him as long as they got Simon out of London.
He had promised Julia Delyse, if you remember, to see her that day, but he had quite forgotten her for the moment.
She hadn't forgotten him.
Julia, with her hair down, in an eau-de-Nil morning wrapper, and frying bacon over a Duplex oilstove, was not lovely—though, indeed, few of us are lovely in the early morning. She had started the flat before she was famous. It was a bachelor girl's flat, where the bachelor girl was supposed to do her own cooking as far as breakfast and tea were concerned. Money coming in, Julia had refurnished the flat and requisitioned the part-time service of a maid.
Like the doctors of Harley Street who share houses, she shared the services of the maid with another flat-dweller, the maid coming to Julia after three o'clock to tidy up and to bring in afternoon tea and admit callers. She was quite well enough off to have employed a whole maid, but she was careful—her publishers could have told you that.
The bacon fried and breakfast over andcleared away, Julia, with her hair still down, set to work at the cleared table before a pile of papers and account-books.
Never could you have imagined her the Julia of the other evening discoursing "literature" with Bobby.
She employed no literary agent, being that rare thing, a writer with an instinct for business. When you see vast publishing houses and opulent publishers rolling in their motor-cars you behold an optical illusion. What you see, or, rather, what you ought to see, is a host of writers without the instinct for business.
Julia, seated before her papers and turning them over in search of a letter, came just now upon the first letter she had ever received from a publisher, a very curt, business-like communication saying that the publisher thought he saw his way to the publishing of her MS. entitled "The World at the Gate," and requesting an interview. With it was tied, as a sort of curiosity, the agreement that had been put before her to sign and which she had not signed.
It gave—or would have given—the publisher the copyright and half the American, serial, dramatic and other rights. It offered ten per cent, on the published price of all copies soldafterthe first five hundred copies; it stipulatedthat she should give him the next four novels on the same terms as an inducement to advertise the book properly—and it had drawn from Julia the prompt reply, "Send the typescript of my novel backat once."
So ended the first lesson.
Then, heartened by this evidently good opinion of her work, she had gone to another publisher? Not a bit—or at least, not at first. She had joined the Society of Authors—an act as necessary to the making of a successful author as baptism to the making of a Christian. She had studied the publishing tribe, its ways and its works, discovered that they had no more love for books than greengrocers for potatoes, and that such a love, should it exist, would be unhealthy. For no seller of commodities ought to love the commodities he sells.
Then she had gone to a great impudently-advertising roaring trading-firm that dealt with books as men deal with goods in bulk, and, interviewing the manager as man to man, had driven her bargain, and a good one, too.
These people published poets and men of letters—but they respected Julia.
Free of creative work this morning, she could give her full attention to accounts and so forth.
Then she turned to a little book which she sometimes scribbled in, and the contents of which she had a vague idea of some time publishing under a pseudonym. It was entitled "Never," and it was not poetry. It was a thumb-book for authors, made up of paragraphs, some long, some short.
"Never dine with a publisher—luncheon is even worse."
"Never give free copies of books to friends, or lend them. The given book is not valued, the lent book is always lost—besides, the booksellers and lending libraries are your real friends."
"Never lower your price."
"Never attempt to raise your public."
"Never argue with a critic."
"Never be elated with good reviews, or depressed by bad reviews, or enraged by base reviews. The Public is your reviewer—Itknows," and so on.
She shut up "Never," having included:
"Never give a plot away." Then she did her hair and thought of Bobby.
He had not fixed what hour he would call; that was a clause in the agreement she had forgotten—she, who was so careful about agreements, too.
Then she dressed and sat down to read "De Maupassant" and smoked a cigarette.
She had luncheon in the restaurant below stairs and then returned to the flat. Tea-time came and no Bobby.
She felt piqued, put on her hat, and as the mountain would not come to Mohammed, Mohammed determined to go to the mountain.
Her memory held his address, "care of Tozer,B12, the Albany."
She walked to the Albany, arriving there a little after five o'clock, foundB12, and climbed the stairs.
Tozer was in, and he opened the door himself.
"Is Mr. Ravenshaw at home?" asked Julia.
"No," said Tozer; "he's away, gone to the country."
"Gone to the country?"
"Yes; he went to-day."
Tozer had at once spotted Julia as the Lady of the Plot. He was as unconventional as she, and he wanted further acquaintance with this fascinator of hisprotégé.
"I think we are almost mutual acquaintances," said he; "won't you come in? My name is Tozer and Ravenshaw is my best friend.I'd like to talk to you about him. Won't you come in?"
"Certainly," said the other. "My name is Delyse—I daresay you know it."
"I know it well," said Tozer.
"I don't mean by my books," said Julia, taking her seat in the comfortable sitting-room, "but from Mr. Ravenshaw."
"From both," said Tozer, "and what I want to see is Ravenshaw's name as well known as yours some day. Bobby has been a spendthrift with his time, and he has lots of cleverness."
"Lots," said Julia.
Tozer, who had a keen eye for character, had passed Julia as a sensible person—he had never seen her in one of her love-fits—and she was a lady. Just the person to look after Bobby.
"He has gone down to the country to-day with an old gentleman, his uncle."
"I know all abouthim," said Julia.
"Bobby has told you, then?"
"Yes."
"About the attack of youth?"
"Yes."
"Well, a whole family party of them went off in a motor-car to-day. Bobby called here for his luggage and I went into Vigo Street and saw them off."
"How do you mean—a family party?"
"The youthful old gentleman and a big blonde man, and Bobby, and an old lady and a pretty girl."
Julia swallowed slightly.
"Relations?"
"No, French, I think, the ladies were. Quite nice people, I believe, though poor. The old gentleman had picked them up in some of his wanderings."
"Bob—Mr. Ravenshaw promised to see me to-day," said Julia. "We are engaged—I speak quite frankly—at least, as good as engaged, you can understand."
"Quite."
"He ought to have let me know," said she broodingly.
"He ought."
"Have they gone to Upton-on-Hill, do you know?"
"They have. The Rose Hotel."
Julia thought for awhile. Then she got up to go.
"If you want my opinion," said Tozer, "I think the whole lot want looking after. They seemed quite a pleasant party, but responsibility seemed somewhat absent; the old lady, charming though she was, seemed to mescarcely enough ballast for so much youth."
"I understand," said Julia. Then she went off and Tozer lit a pipe.
The pretty young French girl was troubling him. She had charmed even him—and he knew Bobby, and his wisdom indicated that a penniless beauty was not the first rung of the ladder to success in life.
Julia, on the other hand, was solid. So he thought.
Upton-On-Hill stands on a hogback of land running north and south, timbered with pines mostly, and commanding a view of half Wessex, not the Wessex of Thomas Hardy, however. You can see seven church spires from Upton, and the Roman road takes it in its sweep, becomes the Upton High Street for a moment, and passes on to be the Roman road again leading to the Downs and the distant sea.
It is a restful place, and in spring the shouting of the birds and the measured call of the cuckoo fills the village, mixing with the voice of the ever-talking pine-trees. In summer Upton sleeps amongst roses in an atmosphere of sunlight and drowsiness, sung to by the bees and the birds. The Rose Hotel stands, set back from the High Street, in its own grounds, and beside the Rose there are two other houses for refreshment, the Bricklayer's Arms and the Saracen's Head, of which more hereafter.
It is a pleasant place as well as a restful. Passing through it, people say, "Oh, what a dream!" living in it one is driven at last to admit there are dreams and dreams. It is not the place that forces this conviction but the people.
Just as the Roman road narrows at the beginning of the High Street, so the life of a stranger coming, say, from London, narrows at the beginning of his or her residence in Upton. If you are a villager you find yourself under a microscope with three hundred eyes at the eyepiece; if you are a genteel person, but without introductions, you find yourself the target of half a score of telescopes levelled at you by the residents.
Colonel Salmon—who owned the fishing rights of the trout-stream below hill—the Talbot-Tomsons, the Griffith-Smiths, the Grosvenor-Jones and the rest, all these, failing introductions, you will find to be passive resisters to your presence.
Now, caution towards strangers and snobbishness are two different things. The Uptonians are snobbish because, though you may be as beautiful as a dream or as innocent as a saint, you will be sniffed at and turned over; but if you are wealthy it is another matter, as in the caseof the Smyth-Smyths, who were neither beautiful nor innocent—but that is another story.
"The village is a mile further on," said Pugeot; "let's turn down here before we go to the hotel and have afternoon tea with my cousin. Randall, steer for The Nook."
The car was not the Dragon-Fly, but a huge closed limousine, with Mudd seated beside Randall, and inside, the rest of that social menagerie about to be landed on the residents of Upton upon the landing-stage of the social position of Dick Pugeot's cousin, Sir Squire Simpson.
All the introductions in the world could not be better than the personal introduction totheResident of Upton by the Hon. Richard Pugeot.
They passed lodge gates and then up a pleasant drive to a big house-front, before which a small garden-party seemed to be going on; a big afternoon tea it was, and there were men in flannels, and girls in summer frocks, and discarded tennis racquets lying about, and the sight of all this gave Bobby a horrible turn.
Uncle Simon had been very quiet during the journey—happy but quiet—squeezed between the two women, but this was not the sort of place he wanted to land Uncle Simon in despite hisquietude and happiness. Mudd evidently also had qualms, for he kept looking back through the glass front of the car and seemed trying to catch Bobby's eye.
But there was no turning back.
The car swept along the drive, past the party on the lawn, and drew up at the front door. Then, as they bundled out, a tall old man, without a hat and dressed in grey tweed, detached himself from the lawn crowd and came towards them.
This was Sir Squire Simpson, Bart. His head was dome-shaped, and he had heavy eyelids that reminded one of half-closed shutters, and a face that seemed carved from old ivory—an extremely serious-looking person and a stately; but he was glad to see Pugeot, and he advanced with a hand outstretched and the ghost of an old-fashioned sort of smile.
"I've brought some friends down to stay at the hotel," said Pugeot, "and I thought we would drop in here for tea first. Didn't expect to find a party going on."
"Delighted," said the Squire.
He was introduced to "My friend, Mr. Pettigrew, Madame—er—de Rossignol, Mademoiselle de Rossignol, Mr. Ravenshaw."
Then the party moving towards the lawn,they were all introduced to Lady Simpson, a harmless-looking individual who welcomed them and broke them up amongst her guests and gave them tea.
Bobby, detaching himself for a moment from the charms of Miss Squire Simpson, managed to get hold of Pugeot.
"I say," said he, "don't you think this may be a bit too much for uncle?"
"Oh, he's all right," said Pugeot; "can't come to any harm here. Look at him, he's quite happy."
Simon seemed happy enough, talking to a dowager-looking woman and drinking his tea; but Bobby was not happy. It all seemed wrong, somehow, and he abused Pugeot in his heart. Pugeot had said himself a moated grange was the proper place for Uncle Simon, and even then he might tumble into the moat—and now, with the splendid inconsequence of his nature, he had tumbled him into this whirl of local society. This was not seclusion in the country. Why, some of these people might, by chance, be Uncle Simon's clients!
But there was no use in troubling, and he could do nothing but watch and hope. He noticed that the women-folk had evidently taken up with Cerise and her mother, and he could notbut wonder vaguely how it would have been if they could have seen the rooms in Duke Street, Leicester Square, and the picture of Uncle Simon tucked up and snoring in Cerise's little bed.
The tennis began again, and Bobby, firmly pinned by Miss Squire Simpson—she was a plain girl—had to sit watching a game and trying to talk.
The fact that Madame and Cerise were foreigners had evidently condoned their want of that touch in dress which makes for style. They were being led about and shown things by their hostess.
Uncle Simon had vanished towards the rose-garden at the back of the house, in company with a female; she seemed elderly. Bobby hoped for the best.
"Are you down here for long?" asked Miss Squire Simpson.
"Not very long, I think," replied he. "We may be here a month or so—it all depends on my uncle's health."
"That gentleman you came with?"
"Yes."
"He seems awfully jolly."
"Yes—but he suffers from insomnia."
"Then he'll get lots of sleep here," said she."Oh, do tell me the name of that pretty girl who came with you! I never can catch a name when I am introduced to a person."
"A Miss Rossignol—she's a friend of uncle's—she's French."
"And the dear old lady is her mother, I suppose?"
"Yes. She writes books."
"An authoress?"
"Yes—at least, I believe she translates books. She is awfully clever."
"Well played!" cried Miss Squire Simpson, breaking from the subject into an ecstasy at a stroke made by one of the flannelled fools—then resuming:
"Shemustbe clever. And are you all staying here together?"
"Yes, at the Rose Hotel."
"You will find it a dear little place," said she, unconscious of anydouble entendre, "and you will get lots of tennis down here. Do you fish?"
"A little."
"Then you must make up to Colonel Salmon—that's him at the nets—he owns the best trout-stream about here."
Bobby looked at Colonel Salmon, a stout, red-faced man with a head that resembledsomewhat the head of a salmon—a salmon with a high sense of its own importance.
Then Pugeot came along smoking a cigarette, and then some of the people began to go. The big limousine reappeared from the back premises with Mudd and the luggage, and Pugeot began to collect his party. Simon reappeared with the elderly lady; they were both smiling and he had evidently done no harm. It would have been better, perhaps, if he had, right at the start. The French ladies were recaptured, and as they bundled into the car quite a bevy of residents surrounded the door, bidding them good-bye for the present.
"Remember, you must come and see my roses," said Mrs. Fisher-Fisher. "Don't bother about formality, just drop in, all of you."
"You'll find Anderson stopping at the hotel; he's quite a nice fellow," cried Sir Squire Simpson. "So long—so long."
"Are they not charming?" said old Madame Rossignol, whose face was slightly flushed with the good time she had been having; "and the beautiful house—and the beautiful garden."
She had not seen a garden for years; verily, Simonwasa good fairy as far as the Rossignols were concerned.
They drew up at the Rose Hotel. A vastclambering vine of wisteria shadowed the hall door, and out came the landlord to meet them. Pugeot had telegraphed for rooms; he knew Pugeot, and his reception of them spoke of the fact.
Then the Rossignols were shown to their room, where their poor luggage, such as it was, had been carried before them.
It was a big bedroom, with chintz hangings and a floor with hills and valleys in it; it had black oak beams and the window opened on the garden.
The old lady sat down.
"How happy I am!" said she. "Does it not seem like a dream,ma fée?"
"It is like heaven," said Cerise, kissing her.
"No, sir," said Mudd, "he don't take scarcely anything in the bar of the hotel, but he was sitting last night till closing-time in the Bricklayer's Arms."
"Oh, that's where he was," said Bobby. "How did you find out?"
"Well, sir," said Mudd, "I was in there myself in the parlour, having a drop of hot water and gin with a bit of lemon in it. It's a decent house, and the servants' room in this hotel don't please me, nor Mr. Anderson's man. I was sitting there smoking my pipe when in he came to the bar outside. I heard his voice. Down he sits and talks quite friendly with the folk there and orders a pint of beer all round. Quite affable and friendly."
"Well, there's no harm in that," said Bobby. "I've often done the same in a country inn. Did he stick to beer?"
"He did," said Mudd grimly. "He'd got that ten-pound note I was fool enough to let himhave. Yes, he stuck to beer, and so did the chaps he was treating."
"The funny thing is," said Bobby, "that though he knows we have his money—and, begad, there's nearly eleven thousand of it—he doesn't kick at our taking it—he must have known we cut open that portmanteau—but comes to you for money like a schoolboy."
"That's what he is," said Mudd. "It's my belief, Mr. Robert, that he's getting younger and younger; he's artful as a child after sweets. And he knows we're looking after him, I believe, and he doesn't mind, for it's part of his amusement to give us the slip. Well, as I was saying, there he sat talking away and all these village chaps listening to him as if he was the Sultan of Turkey laying down the law. That's what pleased him. He likes being the middle of everything; and as the beer went down the talk went up—till he was telling them he'd been at the battle of Waterloo."
"Good Lord!"
"Theydidn't know no different," said Mudd, "but it made me crawl to listen to him."
"The bother is," said Bobby, "that we are dealing, not only with a young man, but with the sort of young man who was young forty years ago. That's our trouble, Mudd; we can'tcalculate on what he'll do because we haven't the data. And another bother is that his foolishness seems to have increased by being bottled so long, like old beer, but he can't come to harm with the villagers, they're an innocent lot."
"Are they?" said Mudd. "One of the chaps he was talking to was a gallows-looking chap. Horn's his name, and a poacher he is, I believe. Then there's the blacksmith and a squint-eyed chap that calls himself a butcher; the pair ofthemaren't up to much. Innocent lot! Why, if you had the stories Mr. Anderson's man has told me about this village the hair would rise on your head. Why, London's a girl-school to these country villages, if all's true one hears. No, Mr. Robert, he wants looking after here more than anywhere, and it seems to me the only person who has any real hold on him is the young lady."
"Miss Rossignol?"
"Yes, Mr. Robert, he's gone on her in his foolish way, and she can twist him round her finger like a child. When he's with her he's a different person, out of sight of her he's another man."
"Look here, Mudd," said the other, "he can't be in love with her, for there's not a girl he sees he doesn't cast his eye after."
"Maybe," said Mudd, "but when he's with her he's in love with her; I've been watching him and I know. He worships her, I believe, and if she wasn't so sensible I'd be afeard of it. It's a blessing he came across her; she's the only hold on him, and a good hold she is."
"It is a blessing," said Bobby. Then, after a pause, "Mudd, you've always been a good friend of mine, and this business has made me know what you really are. I'm bothered about something—I'm in love with her myself. There, you have it."
"With Miss Rossignol?"
"Yes."
"Well, you might choose worse," said Mudd.
"But that's not all," said Bobby. "There's another girl—Mudd, I've been a damn fool."
"We've all been fools in our time," said Mudd.
"I know, but it's jolly unpleasant when one's follies come home to roost on one. She's a nice girl enough, Miss Delyse, but I don't care for her. Yet somehow I've got mixed up with her—not exactly engaged, but very near it. It all happened in a moment, and she's coming down here; I had a letter from her this morning."
"Oh, Lord!" said Mudd, "another mixture. As if there wasn't enough of us in the business!"
"That's a good name for it, 'business.' I feel as if I was helping to run a sort of beastly factory, a mad sort of show where we're trying to condense folly and make it consume its own smoke—an illicit whisky-still, for we're trying to hide our business all the time, and it gives me the jim-jams to think that at any moment a client may turn up and see him like that. I feel sometimes, Mudd, as fellows must feel when they have the police after them."
"Don't talk of the police," said Mudd, "the very word gives me the shivers. When is she coming, Mr. Robert?"
"Miss Delyse? She's coming by the 3.15 train to-day to Farnborough station, and I've got to meet her. I've just booked her a room here. You see how I am tied. If I was here alone she couldn't come, because it wouldn't be proper, but havinghimhere makes it proper."
"Have you told her the state he's in?"
"Yes. She doesn't mind; she said she wished everyone else was the same—she said it was beautiful."
They were talking in Bobby's room, which overlooked the garden of the hotel, and glancing out of the window now, he saw Cerise.
Then he detached himself from Mudd. He reached her as she was passing through the littlerambler-roofed alley that leads from the garden to the bowling-green. There is an arbour in the garden tucked away in a corner, and there is an arbour close to the bowling-green; there are several other arbours, for the hotel-planner was an expert in his work, but these are the only two arbours that have to do with our story.
Bobby caught up with the girl before she had reached the green, and they walked together towards it, chatting as young people only can chat with life and gaiety about nothing. They were astonishingly well-matched in mind. Minds have colours just like eyes; there are black minds and brown minds and muddy-coloured minds and grey minds, and blue minds. Bobby's was a blue mind, though, indeed, it sometimes almost seemed green. Cerise's was blue, a happy blue like the blue of her eyes.
They had been two and a half days now in pretty close propinquity, and had got to know each other well despite Uncle Simon, or rather, perhaps, because of him. They discussed him freely and without reserve, and they were discussing him now, as the following extraordinary conversation will show.
"He's good, as you say," said Bobby, "but he's more trouble to me than a child."
Said Cerise: "Shall I tell you a little secret?"
"Yes."
"You will promise me surely, most surely, you will never tell my little secret?"
"I swear."
"He is in loff with me—I thought it was maman, but it is me." A ripple of laughter that caught the echo of the bowling-alley followed this confession.
"Last night he said to me before dinner, 'Cerise, I loff you.'"
"And what did you say?"
"Then the dinner-gong rang," said Cerise, "and I said, 'Oh, Monsieur Pattigrew, I must run and change my dress.' Then I ran off. I did not want to change my dress, but I did want to change the conversation," finished Cerise.
Then with a smile, "He loffs me more than any of the other girls."
"Why, how do you know he loves other girls?"
"I have seen him look at girls," said Cerise. "He likes all the world, but girls he likes most."
"Are you in love with him, Cerise?" asked Bobby, with a grin.
"Yes," said Cerise candidly. "Who could help?"
"How much are you in love with him, Cerise?"
"I would walk to London for him without my shoes," said Cerise.
"Well, that's something," said Bobby. "Come into this little arbour, Cerise, and let's sit down. You don't mind my smoking?"
"Not one bit"
"It's good to have anyone love one like that," said he, lighting a cigarette.
"He draws it from me," said Cerise.
"Well, I must say he's more likeable as he is than as he was; you should have seen him before he got young, Cerise."
"He was always good," said she, as though speaking from sure knowledge; "always good and kind and sweet."
"He managed to hide it," said Bobby.
"Ah yes—maybe so—there are many old gentlemen who seem rough and not nice, and then underneath it is different."
"How would you like to marry uncle?" asked he, laughing.
"If he were young outside as he is young inside of him—why, then I do not know. I might—I might not."
Then the unfortunate young man, forgetting all things, even the approaching Julia, let his voice fall half a tone; he wandered from Uncle;Simon into the question of the beauty of the roses.
The conversation flagged a bit, then he was holding one of her fingers.
Then came steps on the gravel. A servant.
"The fly is ready to take you to the station, sir."
It was three o'clock.
It was a cross between a hansom cab and a "growler," with the voice of the latter, and the dust of the Farnborough road, with the prospect of a three-mile drive to meet Julia and a three-mile drive back again, did not fill Bobby with joy—also the prospect of having to make explanations.
He had quite determined on that. After the arbour business it was impossible to go on with Julia; he had to break whatever bonds there existed between them, and he had to do the business before she got to the hotel. Then came the prospect of having to live with her in the hotel, even for a night. He questioned himself, asking himself were he a cad or not, had he trifled with Julia? As far as memory went, they had both trifled with one another. It was a sudden affair, and no actual promise had been made; he had not even said "I love you"—but he had kissed her. The legal mind would, no doubt, have construed that into a declarationof affection, but Bobby's mind was not legal—anything but—and as for kissing a girl, if he had been condemned to marry all the girls he had kissed he would have been forced to live in Utah.
He had to wait half an hour for the train at Farnborough, and when it drew up out stepped Julia, hot, and dressed in green, dragging a hold-all and a bundle of magazines and newspapers.
"H'are you?" said Bobby, as they shook hands.
"Hot," said Julia.
"Isn't it?"
He carried the hold-all to the fly and a porter followed with a basket-work portmanteau. When the luggage was stowed in they got in and the fly moved off.
Julia was not in a passionate mood; no person is or ever has been after a journey on the London and Wessex and South Coast Railway—unless it is a mood of passion against the railway. She seemed, indeed, disgruntled and critical, and a tone of complaint in her voice cheered up Bobby.
"I know it's an awful old fly," said he, "but it's the best they had; the hotel motor-car is broken down or something."
"Why didn't you wire me that day," said She, "that you were going off so soon? I only got your wire from here next morning. You promised to meet me and you never turned up. I went to the Albany to see if you were in, and I saw Mr. Tozer. He said you had gone off with half a dozen people in a car——"
"Only four, not including me," cut in Bobby.
"Two ladies——"
"An old French lady and her daughter."
"Well, that's two ladies, isn't it?"
"I suppose so—you can't make it three. Then there was uncle; it's true he's a host in himself."
"How's he going on?"
"Splendidly."
"I'm very anxious to see him," said Julia. "It's so seldom one meets anyone really original in this life; most people are copies of others, and generally bad ones at that."
"That's so," said Bobby.
"How's the novel going on?" said Julia.
"Heavens!" said Bobby, "do you think I can add literary work to my other distractions? The novel is not going on, but the plot is."
"How d'you mean?"
"Uncle Simon. I've got the beginning andmiddle of a novel in him, but I haven't got the end."
"You are going to put him in a book?"
"I wish to goodness I could, and close the covers on him. No, I'm going to weave him into a story—he's doing most of the weaving, but that's a detail. Look here, Julia——"
"Yes?"
"I've been thinking."
"Yes?"
"I've been thinking we have made a mistake."
"Who?"
"Well, we. I didn't write, I thought I'd wait till I saw you."
"How d'you mean?" said Julia dryly.
"Us."
"Yes?"
"Well, you know what I mean. It's just this way, people do foolish things on the spur of the moment."
"What have we done foolish?"
"We haven't done anything foolish, only I think we were in too great a hurry."
"How?"
"Oh, you know, that evening at your flat."
"Oh!"
"Yes."
"You mean to say you don't care for me any more?"
"Oh, it's not that; I care for you very much."
"Say it at once," said Julia. "You care for me as a sister."
"Well, that's about it," said Bobby.
Julia was silent, and only the voice of the fly filled the air.
Then she said:
"It's just as well to know where one is."
"Are you angry?"
"Not a bit."
He glanced at her.
"Not a bit. You have met someone else. Why not say so?"
"I have," said Bobby. "You know quite well, Julia, one can't help these things."
"I don't know anything about 'these things,' as you call them; I only know that you have ceased to care for me—let that suffice."
She was very calm, and a feeling came to Bobby that she did not care so very deeply for him. It was not a pleasant feeling somehow, although it gave him relief. He had expected her to weep or fly out in a temper, but she was quite calm and ordinary; he almost felt like making love to her again to see if shehadcaredfor him, but fortunately this feeling passed.
"We'll be friends," said he.
"Absolutely," said Julia. "How could a little thing like that spoil friendship?"
Was she jesting with him or in earnest? Bitter, or just herself?
"Is she staying at the hotel?" asked she, after a moment's silence.
"She is," said Bobby.
"It's the French girl?"
"How did you guess that?"
"I knew."
"When?"
"When you explained them and began with the old lady. But the old lady will, no doubt, have her turn next, and to the next girl you'll explain them, beginning with the girl."
Bobby felt very hot and uncomfortable.
"Now you're angry with me," said he.
"Not a bit."
"Well, let's be friends."
"Absolutely. I could never fancy you as the enemy of anyone but yourself."
Bobby wasn't enjoying the drive, and there was a mile more of it—uphill, mostly.
"I think I'll get out and give the poor old horse a chance," said he; "these hills are beastly for it."
He got out and walked by the fly, glancing occasionally at the silhouette of Julia, who seemed ruminating matters.
He was beginning to feel, now, that he had done her an injury, and she had said nothing about going back to-morrow or anything like that, and he was held as by a vice, and Cerise and he would be under the microscope, and Cerise knew nothing about Julia.
Then he got into the fly again and five minutes later they drove up to the Rose. Simon was standing in the porch as they drove up; his straw hat was on the back of his head and he had a cigar in his mouth.
He looked at Bobby and Julia and grinned slightly. It seemed suddenly to have got into his head that Bobby had been fetching a sweetheart as well as a young lady from the station. It had, in fact, and things that got into Simon's youthful head in this fashion, allied to things pleasant, were difficult to remove.