CHAPTER IV
Notonly has Moxon his ideas about me; he has also his ideas about women.
"They're a strange lot of people," he said once to me, meaning women, but as if they were all huddled together in waiting down in the hall.
"By which you mean?" said I.
"By which I mean, sir, that my sister Amy has thrown off the man she was engaged to and has taken to religion."
That was not telling me much what he meant. I doubt if he really knew himself. In all probability it was that he had come violently to the conclusion that he knew nothing whatever about them, in which case a man will speak knowingly of women in non-committal terms.
In the same diplomatic way, I knew he must be thinking a great deal with every blast of that whistle out in the street, and doubtless in the same diplomatic way, he would express it later.
I returned therefore with a certain amount of expectancy to my room as soon as the "taxi" had driven off and that poor little creature had vanished away into the grey heart of her world in Bloomsbury. There was that which I had slipped into her purse which might pay for the fare and perhaps a hat as well. God knows what hats cost, for I do not. Wherefore, when I put my hand into my pocket, I left it to God to suggest the amount.
And then, as I say, I returned, with a deal of expectancy in my mind. Moxon was putting out my slippers with Dandy looking on—Dandy assuring him, with expressions of contempt for his intelligence, that it was not a bit of good.
"There's some one with him," sniffed Dandy. "We shall have to sit up till they go," and he looked back again into the fire.
I remained there for a moment watching him, really waiting to hear what Moxon had to say. He stood up then, and as he said it, upon my soul, I came to the conclusion that I had never had such respect for diplomacy before.
"Is there anything more, sir?" he asked, and had there been a conscience to prick me, I swear to Heaven I should have begged his pardon for having asked so much. As it was, I smiled serenely when I looked back into his face.
"No—I think that's enough," said I.
And when he replied, "Yes, sir," it was intended to convey that he entirely agreed with me.
I let him get to the door and there he stopped, looking round the room once more, to see if I had forgotten anything on my own account; then as he was departing, I called him back. It might have been enough for him; it was a gross misrepresentation to say that it was enough for me.
"Do you mean to say, Moxon," I began, "that you wouldn't help a woman if she was in trouble?"
"I was not aware, sir," he replied, "that I had said anything about any woman."
I had to swallow that as best I could and begin again on a fresh score.
"Well," I continued, "if a woman had asked you to give her her cab fare home—a woman drenched to the skin, sheltering in a doorway, shivering in the cold at one o'clock at night—what would you do?"
"Naturally—if you put it that way, sir—but it's against my principles, and, what's more, I'm never out at one o'clock at night, I make a point of being in by half-past eleven."
This was too evasive for me. So far as his principles are concerned, I know all about them. A man who supports his mother and two sisters out of his earnings has every right to talk about it being against his principles to help a woman in distress; but there is no special call upon one to believe him. I fancy myself that when, in a moment of confidence, Moxon told me that women as a rule do not take to him, it is that he wishes to hide his affection for the whole sex. I quite agree with him. If I had any affection for the sex, I should try to hide it myself.
But all this was really beside the point. One thing, and one thing only, was in full occupation of my mind—the last words that little half-drowned mouse had said to me before she went. "She'll thank you for it one day."
A vision of Clarissa thanking me grew formlessly into my mind. I gazed over Dandy's head into the fire. She was there. There was her little gown of canary-colored satin, the very shade of it, leaping and dancing with all the joy that I had brought. A very silly dream! I tried to put it out of my head. I turned to Moxon, asking him if ever in the course of our travels we had been to Ballysheen. He shook his head.
"Where is it, sir?"
"In Ireland."
He shook his head again.
"Why does it sound familiar to me then?" I asked.
He assumed the attitude of a Prime Minister in deep thought. I cannot say that I know what that attitude is; but it was the attitude I fancy I should assume if I were asked to play the part of a Prime Minister in an advertising world. It impressed me immensely. I felt that his mind was working at a Herculean task. It lasted a good two minutes. Dandy and I watched him with keen interest all the time. So much were we wrought up to the pitch in fact, that when it was all over and Moxon suddenly made a swift movement towards my desk, Dandy rushed at him, barking loudly. It says much for the histrionic powers of Moxon. I could have made some similar exhibition of emotion myself, but I am more reserved.
After a few moments' hunting about among my correspondence—letters I have kept over two or three years which I need to refer to again—he produced an envelope and, in a triumph of silence, gave it into my hands.
I opened it. Then, when I saw the address stamped on the top of the note-paper, it all came back to me. The Rosary—Ballysheen.
"Why, Townshend!" said I.
Moxon inclined his head with dignity, like a conjuror who has produced the card from the hair of a lady in the audience.
"My dear A.H.," ran the letter, "The floods are all over and all our pools are stocked. We shall have the best season we've ever had. There's a rod tired of hanging here for you. Come and flog the water for a week—only come at once. Yours—F.H. Townshend."
"That was the 18th of April—two years ago," said I.
"You didn't go, sir."
Of course I had not gone. Should I have forgotten Ballysheen if I had? That was the time we went to Algiers, and I glanced at Dandy.
"You can go to bed, Moxon," said I, and therewith I sat down at my desk and pulled out a clean sheet of note-paper.
"Good-night, sir."
"Good-night," I answered, and I dipped my pen in the ink.
"My dear F.H.," I wrote, "If the fishing is anything like it was two years ago, may I come over and hold a rod in your honor? My doctor tells me I want a change and I am beginning to believe him, accordingly when I happened on your letter of two years ago, I made up my mind to force your hospitality. If inconvenient don't hesitate to say so.—Yours,A.H. Bellairs. P.S.—Are there two old maiden ladies in Ballysheen of the name of Fennell?"
When I had finished, I read it through. Could any man guess from that innocent little postscript, the mad errand I had in contemplation? I think I know now why women are such past-masters in the use of that particular form of letter writing. As a method of diplomacy, there is nothing to touch it. What you say in a postscript can have no possible significance to the man who reads it. Were it a matter of dignity alone, no one would admit to themselves that you had treated them with such scant courtesy. No—that postscript was the one bright spot in my letter, and therewith I sealed it up.
When I came back to the fire, there was Dandy still staring at the leaping antics of the canary-colored flame. I sat down on the hearthrug and put one arm round his neck.
"You can see that satin gown, too, can you?" said I. Dandy blinked his eyes. "And do you think she'll be grateful?" I went on. "Do you really imagine that any woman is grateful to a rank outsider for breaking her heart? It will break her heart, you know. She's breaking it now, longing for her blue skies and her palm trees—but if we send her back there without him, it'll break her heart altogether. Yet that's what we shall have to do. We shall have to send her back again. What do you think about it all?"
Dandy yawned towards the fire, and the yellow flame danced higher than ever. At moments it looked as though it were going to leap up the chimney out of sight, yet always it came back into the heart of the fire once more like a spirit chained to the furnace.
Three days later there came a reply from Ballysheen.
"There's not a fish in the water," wrote Townshend. "But come all the same, you never know. Your company is as good as any twenty-pounder in the slackest of seasons." "What, is he lonely too?" I thought. "There are Miss Fennells here," the letter continued, "but for God's sake don't talk of them as old maiden ladies—Miss Emily wears an orange-colored wig, so they say in Ballysheen—and she would have you know that at thirty-seven a woman is in her prime. I don't promise you entertainment from them—but come anyway."
And I am going. I have just rung the bell for Moxon, and Dandy already is beginning to lift his nose to the scent of adventure in the wind.