Buch lesen: «Mrs. Fitz», Seite 9

We decided to go round by the bridge. A perfectly legitimate resolution, I am free to maintain, for ardent followers of the middle course. Having arrived at this statesmanlike decision there was time to look ahead. It was not without trepidation that we did so. In front was a welter of ambitious first flighters. Yet, as always, the one to catch the eye was the lady in the scarlet coat. Utterly heedless, she went at the Brook at its widest, the noble bay rose like a Centaur and landed in safety. Sticking ever to her, closer than a sister, was Mrs. Arbuthnot. I shuddered and had a vision of a broken back for the three-hundred-guinea hunter, and a ducking for its rider. Happily, if you are a member of the clan Vane-Anstruther, the more critical the moment the cooler you are apt to be; also you are born with the priceless faculty of sitting still and keeping down your hands. The three-hundred-guinea hunter floundered on to the opposite bank, threatened to fall back into the stream, by a Herculean effort recovered itself and emerged on terra firma.

It was with a heart devout with gratitude that I turned to the bridge. To my surprise, for as all my attention had been for the Brook I had had none to spare for the field as a whole, I found myself cheek by jowl with Jodey. In the hunting field I know no young man whom nature has endowed so happily. His air of world-weariness is a cloak for a justness of perception, which apparently without the expenditure of the least exertion generally lands him there or thereabouts at the finish.

"The silly blighters! – don't they see they have lost their fox?"

This piece of criticism was hurled not merely at the Amazons, who had already negotiated the water, but also at the noble Master and his attendant satellites who were in the act of following their example.

"Reggie is quite right for once," said a voice from the near side, severe and magisterial in quality. "It is his duty to prevent, if he can, his hounds being overridden by those unspeakable women. If Irene belonged to me I should send her straight home to bed."

"Ought to be smacked," said the sportsman on the off side, cordially. "Anybody'd think she'd had no upbringin'!"

Feeling in a sense responsible for the misbehaviour of my lawful property, I "lay low and said nuffin." Indeed, there was precious little to be said in defence of such conduct in the presence of the whole field.

On the strength of Jodey's pronouncement we crossed the bridge at our leisure. As usual his wisdom hastened to justify itself. Reynard was tucked snugly under a haystack, doubtless with his pad to his nose. He was upon sacred earth, where, after a tremendous turn-up with Peter, the Crackanthorpe terrier, the Crackanthorpe hounds and the Crackanthorpe huntsman reluctantly left him.

A halt was called; flasks and sandwiches were produced; and the honourable company of the less enterprising, or the less fortunate, began to assemble in force without the precincts of the Manor Farm stackyard. Conversation grew rife; and at least one fragment that penetrated to my ears was pungent.

"Look here, Mops," was its context, "when do you suppose you are goin' to give over playing the goat?"

The rider of the three-hundred-guinea hunter was splashed with mud up to her green collar, her hair was coming down, her hat was anyhow, her cheeks were flame colour, and the sides of Malvolio were sobbing.

"Mon enfant," I ventured sadly to observe, "it may be magnificent, but it is not the art of chasing the fox, even as it is practised in the flying countries."

The light of battle flamed in the eyes of the star of my destiny.

"What nonsense you talk, Odo! Do you think that the circus woman – "

"Sssh! She will hear you."

"Hope she will!"

"Fact is, Mops," said her admonisher in chief, "as I've always said, you are only fit for a provincial pack."

Having thus delivered himself Mrs. Arbuthnot's brother washed his hands of this "hard case" in the completest and most effectual manner. He turned about and bestowed his best bow upon the circus rider from Vienna. The act was certainly irrational. The behaviour of the lady in the scarlet coat was quite as much exposed to censure. To be sure her nationality was to be urged in her defence, but then, as the sorely tried Master confided to me in a pathetic aside, "she had been out quite often enough to learn the rules of the game."

"You can't expect Crown Princesses, my dear fellow, to trouble about rules," said I. "They make their own."

"Then I wish they would hunt hounds of their own and leave mine to me," said the long-suffering one tragically. "It turns me dizzy every time I see her among 'em. If Fitz had any sense of decency he would look after her."

"Fitz is the slave of circumstance. Brasset, if you are a wise fellow and you are not above taking the advice of a friend, you will never marry the next in succession to an old-established and despotic monarchy."

"My God – no!" The voice of the noble Master vibrated with profound emotion.

In honour of this resolution we exchanged flasks.

CHAPTER XVII
A GLARE IN THE SKY

The Society for the Maintenance of the Public Decency has a record of long and distinguished usefulness, but never in its annals has it been moved to a more determined activity than during the week which followed this ill-starred run. The Ruling Dames or Past Grand Mistresses – I don't quite know what their true official title is – of this august body met and conferred and drank tea continually. Those who were conversant with the Society's methods made dire prophecy of a public action of an unparalleled rigour. But beyond the fact that Mrs. Arbuthnot's china-blue eyes had an inscrutable glint, and that Mrs. Catesby's Minerva-like front was as lofty and menacing as became the daughter of Jove, nothing happened during this critical period which really aspires to the dignity of history.

Three times within that fateful space the noble Master led forth his hounds; three times was it whispered confidently in my ear by my little friend Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins with a piquant suggestion in her accent of her old Kentucky home, which sometimes overtakes her very charmingly in moments of acute emotion, "that if the tenderfoot from the rotunda hit the trail, Reg would take the fox-dogs home"¹; three times did the lady in the scarlet coat do her best to override the fox-dogs in question; three times, as the veracious historian is fain to confess, nothing happened whatever. It is true that more than once the noble Master looked at the offender "as no gentleman ought to look at a lady." More than once he cursed her by all his gods, but never within her hearing. Rumour had it that he also told Fitz that if he didn't look after his wife he should give the order for the kennels. Unfortunately, Miss Laura Glendinning was the sole authority for this melodramatic statement.

However, on the evening of the seventh day the stars in their courses said their word in the matter. Doubtless the behaviour of the astral bodies was the outcome of a formally expressed wish of the Society; at least it is well known that certain of its members carry weight in heaven. Whether Mrs. Catesby and the Vicar's Wife headed a deputation to Jupiter I am not in a position to affirm. Be that as it may, on the evening of the seventh day fate issued a decree against "the circus rider from Vienna" and all her household.

Let this fell occurrence be recorded with detail. Myself and co-partner in life's felicities had had a tolerable if somewhat fatiguing day with the Crackanthorpe Hounds. We had assisted at the destruction of a couple of fur-coated members of society who had done us no harm whatever; and having exchanged the soaked, muddy and generally uncomfortable habiliments of the chase for the garb of peace, had fared tête-à-tête– Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther regaling his friends at the Hall with the light of his countenance and his post-prandial skill at snooker – with sumptuous decency upon baked meats and the good red wine.

We were in the most harmonious stage of all that this chequered existence has to offer; taking our ease in our inn while our nether limbs, whose stiffness was a not unpleasing reminiscence of the strenuous day we had spent in the saddle, toasted luxuriously before a good sea-coal fire; smoking the pipe of peace together, although this is by way of being a figure of speech, since Mrs. Arbuthnot affected a mild Turkish cigarette; comparing notes of our joint adventures by flood and field, with the natural and inevitable De Vere Vane-Anstruther note of condescension quite agreeably mitigated by one tiny liqueur glass of the 1820 brandy – a magic potion which ere now has caused the Magnificent Youth himself to abate a few feathers of his plumage. We were conducting an exhaustive inquiry into the respective merits of Pixie and Daydream, and I had been led with a charm that was irresistible into a concurrence with the sharer of my bliss that both were worth every penny of the price that had been paid for them, although I had not so much as thrown a leg over either of these quadrupeds of most distinguished ancestry.

"It is rather a lot to pay, but you can't call them dear, can you, because they do fetch such prices nowadays, don't they? And Laura is perfectly green with envy."

"I'm glad of that," said I, with undefeated optimism. "If her greenness approximates to the right shade it will match the Hunt collar. How green is she?"

"Funny old thing!" Mrs. Arbuthnot's beam was of childlike benignity. "She is not such a bad sort, really. Besides, plain people are always the nicest, aren't they, poor dears? Yes, Parkins, what is it?"

Parkins the peerless had entered the drawing-room after a discreet preliminary knock for which the circumstances really made no demand whatever. He had sidled up to his mistress, and in his mien natural reserve and a desire to dispense information were finely mingled.

"Beg pardon, ma'am, but have you seen the glare in the sky?"

"What sort of a glare, Parkins?" A lazy voice emerged from the seventh heaven of the hedonist. "Do you mean it's a what-do-you-call-it? A planet I suppose you mean, Parkins?"

"It can hardly be a comet, ma'am," said Parkins, with his most encyclopaedic air. "It is so bright and so fixed, and it seems to be getting larger."

"So long as it isn't the end of the world," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, fondling her gold cigarette-case with a little sigh.

"It looks to me like the Castle, ma'am. It is over in that direction. I remember when the west wing was burnt twelve years ago."

"You think the Castle is on fire?" said I.

I also was in the seventh heaven of the hedonist. But gathering my faculties as resolutely as I could, I rose from the good sea-coal fire and assisted Parkins to pull aside the curtains.

"By Jove, you're right. There is a blaze somewhere, But isn't it rather near for the Castle?"

"It might be the Grange," said Parkins.

I was fain to agree that the Grange it might be. Somehow that seemed a place excellently laid for disaster. The announcement that the Grange was on fire brought Mrs. Arbuthnot to the window. Born under Mars, the star of my destiny is nothing if not a woman of action. In spite of her present rather lymphatic state she ordered the car round immediately. Within five minutes we were braving a dark and stormy December night.

The beacon growing ever brighter as we went, it did not take long to convince us that the Grange would be our destination. It is to be feared that we broke the law, for in something considerably under half an hour we had come to the home of the Fitzwarens.

A heartrending scene it was. The beautiful but always rather desolate old house, which dates from John o' Gaunt, seemed already doomed. A portion of it was even now in ruins and on all sides the flames were leaping up fiercely to the sky. Engines had not yet had time to come from Middleham, and the progress of the fire was appalling.

A number of servants and villagers had devoted themselves to the task of retrieving the furniture. On a lawn at some distance from the house an incongruous collection of articles had been laid out: a picture by Rubens side by side with a trouser-press; a piece of Sèvres cheek by jowl with a kitchen saucepan. Standing in their midst in the charge of a nurse was the small elf of four. Her eyes were sparkling and she was dancing and clapping her hands in delight at the spectacle. The nurse was in tears.

Mrs. Arbuthnot had not seen the creature before. But her instincts are swift and they are sure.

"Come with me," she said to the nurse. "Saunders will take you in the car to Dympsfield House. They will make up a bed for you in the day nursery and see that you get some warm food."

Hardly had the little girl suffered herself to be led away by the prospect of a new adventure before two men came towards the spot where I stood. They were grimy and dishevelled, and the upper part of their persons seemed to be enveloped in folds of wet blanket. They were staggering under a very large and unwieldy burden which was swathed in a material similar to that which they wore themselves.

With much care this object was deposited upon a Sheraton table, and then I found myself greeted by a familiar voice.

"Hullo, Arbuthnot! Didn't expect to see you here. Very good of you to come."

It was the voice of Fitz speaking with the almost uncanny insouciance of the wonderful night at Portland Place. He cast off the curious wrappings which encumbered his head, and said to his companion, who was in similar guise, "I'm afraid it has us beat. The sooner we get out of this kit the better."

There came an incoherent growl out of the folds of wet blanket.

"Why, Coverdale!" I said in astonishment.

"I think we ought to make a sporting dash for that Holbein," said the growl, becoming coherent. "That is, if you are quite sure it isn't a forgery."

"Personally I think it is," said Fitz, in his voice of unnatural calm. "But my father always believed it to be genuine."

"Better take the word of your father. Let us get at it."

It was the work of a moment to strip the wrappings off the retrieved masterpiece upon the Sheraton table.

"Can I help?" said I.

"If you want to be of use," said Fitz, "go and give the Missus a hand with the horses."

Leaving Fitz and Coverdale to make yet another entry into what seemed hardly less than a furnace of living fire, I made my way round to the stables. To approach them one had to be careful. The heat was intense; sparks and burning fragments were being flung a considerable distance by the gusts of wind, and masonry was crashing continually. The out-buildings had not yet caught, but with the wind in its present quarter it would only be the work of a few moments before they did so.

My recollection is of plunging, rearing and frightened animals, and of a commanding, all-pervading presence in their midst. Amid the throng of stable-hands, villagers, firemen and policemen who had now come upon the scene, it rose supreme, directing their energies and sustaining them with that imperious magnetism which she possessed beyond any creature I have ever seen. I heard it said afterwards that she alone had the power to induce the twelve horses to quit their loose boxes; that one by one she led them out, soothing and caressing them; and that so long as she was with them they showed comparatively little fear of the roaring furnace that was so near to them, but that no sooner were they handed over to others than they became unmanageable.

Certainly it was due to a consummate exhibition of her power that the horses were got out of their stalls without harm to themselves or to others. They were confided to the care of the friendly farmers of the neighbourhood, who, assembled in force, were working heroically to combat the flames. All night long the work of salvage went on, but in spite of all that could be done, even with the aid of numerous fire-engines from Middleham, nothing could save the old house. It burnt like tinder. By three o'clock that December morning it was a smouldering ruin, with only a few fragments of stone wall remaining.

At intervals during the night some of the Grange servants had been dispatched to Dympsfield House, with as many of the personal belongings of their master and mistress as they could collect. Our establishment is a modest one, but not for a moment did it occur to Mrs. Arbuthnot that it would be unable to offer sanctuary to those who needed it so sorely.

The fire had run its course and all were resigned to the inevitable when Mrs. Arbuthnot, without deigning to consult the nominal head of our household, made the offer of our hospitality to Fitz and his wife. At her own request she had previously forgone an introduction to "the circus rider from Vienna"; and now in these tragic December small hours she deemed such a formality to be unnecessary. Verily misfortune makes strange bedfellows!

If I must tell the truth, it surprised me to learn that the Fitzwarens had been prevailed upon to accept the hospitality of Dymspfield House. True, they were homeless; but, looking at the case impartially, it seemed to me that they had not been very generously treated by their neighbours. The foibles of "the circus rider from Vienna" had aroused a measure of covert hostility to which the most obtuse people could not have been insensible. Had the average ordinary married couple been in the case of Fitz and his wife, I do not think they would have yielded to Mrs. Arbuthnot's impulsive generosity.

The Fitzwarens, however, were far from being ordinary average people. Therefore, by a quarter to five that morning they had crossed our threshold; and as some recompense for the privations of that tragic night they were promptly regaled with a scratch meal of coffee and sandwiches.

One other individual, at his own suggestion, accompanied our guests to Dympsfield House. He was of a sinister omen, being no less a person than the Chief Constable of the county. His presence at the fire had been a matter for surprise. And when, as we were about to quit the unhappy scene, he came to me privately and said that if we could squeeze a corner for him in the car he should be glad to come with us, that surprise was not made less.

CHAPTER XVIII
MRS. ARBUTHNOT BEGINS TO TAKE NOTICE

It was a little before six when the ladies retired in the quest of their lost repose. No sooner had they left us than we lit our pipes and drew our chairs up to the fire. In patience I awaited the riddle of the Chief Constable's presence being read to me.

"Arbuthnot," – the great man sucked at his pipe pensively – "there are several things that Fitzwaren and I are agreed that you ought to know."

Fitz nodded his head in curt but rather sinister approval.

"Yes, tell him," he said.

"Before Fitzwaren accepted your hospitality," said the great man, "he asked my advice."

"Oh, really?" said I.

"And I think it only right to mention" – the air of the great man reminded me of my old tutor expounding a proposition in Euclid – "that it is upon my advice he has accepted it."

"I ought to feel honoured."

"Well, yes, perhaps you ought." The Chief Constable removed his pipe from his lips and tapped it upon an extremely dirty boot. "But whether you will feel honoured when you have heard all we have to say to you I am not so sure."

"Nor I," said Fitz.

"You see, Arbuthnot, we have a rather delicate problem to deal with. It is neither more nor less than the personal safety of the Princess."

"I hope," said I, "her Royal Highness will be at least as safe here as she would be anywhere else."

"That is the crux of the whole matter. Fitzwaren and I have come to the conclusion that, for the time being, the Princess will actually be safer in this house than she would be in any other."

"Really!"

"Our local police, acting in conjunction with Scotland Yard, hope to be able to ensure her safety, that is if she and her friends take reasonable care."

"You may depend upon it, Coverdale, that as far as my wife and I are concerned we shall do nothing to jeopardise it."

"That is taken for granted. But her present position is much more critical than perhaps you are aware."

"I know, of course, that Ferdinand the Twelfth is determined to have her back in Illyria."

"Yes, and further than that, the Republican Party is equally determined that she never shall go back to Illyria. The events of last night have furnished another proof of their sentiments."

"I don't understand."

"There is reason to believe that the destruction of the Grange is the work of an incendiary. That is to say, a bomb was thrown through one of the windows, as was the case at Blaenau recently. There can be no question that the object of the crime was to kill the Princess, as it was to kill the King, but in each case the business was bungled. In this instance, rather miraculously, not a soul was hurt, although the house, as you know, has been entirely destroyed. A bomb was thrown into the dining-room, but as dinner happened to be half an hour later than usual, nobody was there."

This grisly narrative gave me a sharp shock, I confess. And I must have betrayed my state of mind, for the Chief Constable favoured me with a smile of reassurance.

"Put your trust in the Middleshire police," said he, "with a little assistance from the Yard. They won't play that game twice with us, you can depend upon it. If the Yard had not been rather late with their information they would never have played it at all. Our people were actually on the way to the Grange when the outrage was committed."

For all the air of professional reassurance, the married man, the father of the family, and the county member was thoroughly alarmed.

"It is all very well, Coverdale, but what guarantee is there that even at this moment they are not dropping bombs into our bedrooms?"

"Four men in plain clothes are patrolling your park, and will continue to do so as long as the Princess remains under your roof."

It would have been ungrateful not to express relief for this official vigilance. But that it was felt in any substantial measure is more than I can affirm.

"Of course, my dear fellow," said Fitz, "now that you are in possession of all the facts of the case, you have a perfect right to withdraw the offer of your hospitality. Coverdale and I are agreed that it will do much to promote my wife's safety for the time being, because this house will be kept under continual observation. But as soon as I can make other arrangements I shall do so, of course. And if you really believe that the safety of your house and family is involved, we shall have no alternative but to go at once."

To what length ought we to carry our altruism? Here was a grave problem for the married man, the father of the family, and the county member. In spite of the opinion of the cool-headed and sagacious Coverdale, I could not allay the feeling that to harbour the "Stormy Petrel" was to incur a grave risk. But at the same time it was not in me to turn her adrift into the highways and hedges.

"Now that we have had due warning of what to expect," said Coverdale, "these gentry will not find it quite so easy to throw bombs in this country as they do in Illyria. And if I thought for one moment you were not justified in extending your hospitality to the Princess I should certainly say so."

Events are generally too strong for the humble mortals who are content to tread the path of mediocrity. We had already offered sanctuary to the Crown Princess of Illyria. A little painful reflection seemed to show that to revoke it now would be rather inhuman and rather cowardly. All the same, it was impossible to view with enthusiasm the prospect of four men in plain clothes continually patrolling the park.

"By the way," said the Chief Constable, "you will, I hope, treat this business of the bombs as strictly confidential. It won't help matters at all to find it in the morning papers."

"I appreciate that; but won't the servants be rather curious about those four sportsmen in plain clothes?"

"Ostensibly they are there to look after a gang of burglars who are expected in the neighbourhood."

"Not exactly a plausible story, I am afraid!"

"The story doesn't matter, so long as they don't suspect the truth. And as Mrs. Fitzwaren's incognito has been so well kept, there is no reason why they should."

So much for the latest development of this amazing situation. From the very moment the curtain had risen upon the first act of the tragi-comedy of the Fitzwarens I had seemed to be cast for the uncomfortable rôle of the weak soul in the toils of fate. From the beginning it had been contrary to the promptings of the small voice within that I had borne a part in their destinies. And here they were established under my roof, a menace to my household and the enemies of all peace of mind.

It only remained to make the best of things and to hope devoutly that Fitz would soon arrange to relieve us of the presence of the "Stormy Petrel." But in spite of all the dark knowledge it was necessary to keep locked up in one's heart, there was an aspect of the matter which was rather charming. To watch the lion and the lamb lying down together, a veritable De Vere Vane-Anstruther playing hostess to the fair equestrienne from a continental circus was certainly pleasant.

I think it is up to me to admit that at the core Mrs. Arbuthnot is as sound as a bell. Certainly her demeanour towards her guests was faultless. Indeed, it made me feel quite proud of her to reflect that had she really known the true status of our visitor she could have done nothing more for her comfort and for that of her entourage. Her foibles were condoned and "her little foreign ways" were yielded to in the most gracious manner; and after dinner that evening it was a great moment when our distinguished guest volunteered to accompany on the piano her hostess's light contralto.

I took this to be symbolical of the complete harmony in which the day had been spent. Confirmation of this was forthcoming an hour later, when we had the drawing-room to ourselves.

"Really she is not half such a trial as I feared she would be," Mrs. Arbuthnot confessed.

"If you meet people fairly and squarely half-way," said I, in my favourite rôle of the hearthrug philosopher, "there are surprisingly few with whom you can't find something in common."

"Perhaps there is such a thing as being too fastidious."

"We are apt to draw the line a little close at times, eh?"

"Some of these Bohemians must be rather interesting in their way," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"No doubt they have some sort of a standard to which they try to conform," said I, with excellent gravity.

"Of course she is not exactly a lady. Yet in some ways she is rather nice. Doesn't look at things in the way we do, of course. Awfully unconventional in some of her ideas."

"By unconventional you mean continental, I presume?"

"No, not continental exactly. At least, I was 'finished' in Dresden, but I didn't learn anything of that kind."

"Had you been 'finished' in an Austrian circus perhaps you might have done."

"I hardly think so. They don't seem to be ideas you could pick up. I should think you would have to be born with them. They seem somehow to belong to your past – to your ancestors."

"It has not occurred to me that circus-riders were troubled with ancestors."

"Hardly, perhaps, in the sense that we mean. But there is something rather fine in their way of looking at things."

"A good type of Bohemian would you say?"

"Surprisingly so in some ways. She doesn't seem to care a bit about money and she is absolutely devoted to Fitz. She doesn't seem to care a bit about jewels, either. She has got some positively gorgeous things, and if there is anything I care to have she hopes I'll take it. Of course I shall do nothing of the kind, but I should just love to have them all."

"She appears to have had her admirers in Vienna, evidently."

"That is what one can't make out. She has three tiaras, and they must be priceless."

"Nonsense, mon enfant. Even the glamour of the sawdust a thousand times reflected cannot transmute paste into the real thing."

"But the odd part of it is they are real. I am convinced of it; and Adèle, my maid, who was two years with dear Evelyn, is absolutely sure."

"Is it conceivable that the possessor of three diamond tiaras would choose to jump for a livelihood through a hoop in pink tights?"

"Yes, I know it's absurd. But nothing will convince me that her diamonds are not real."

"And she offered you the pick of them?"

"The pick of everything except the smallest of the three tiaras, which she thought perhaps her father might not like her to part with."

"One would have thought that he would at least have set his affections upon the largest of the three."

"Really, I can hardly swallow the circus."

"You haven't by any chance asked her the question?"

"Dear no! One wouldn't like to ask a question of that sort unless one knew her quite well. I don't think she was ever in a circus at all. Or if she was, she may have been a sort of foundling."

"Stolen by gipsies from the ancestral castle in her infancy. After all, there is nothing to prevent her father being a duke."

"I don't think it would surprise me, although, of course, she is rather odd. But then in all ways she is so different from us."

"Did you observe whether she ate with her knife and drank out of the finger-bowls?"

"Her manners are just like those of anybody else. I am asking Mary to dine here on Friday, so that she can see for herself. It is her ideas that are un-English; yet, judged by her own standard she might be considered quite nice."

"Mrs. Arbuthnot, surely a very generous admission!"

"Let us be fair to everybody. I'm not sure that one couldn't get almost to like her. There is something about her that seems to take right hold of you. Personal magnetism, I suppose."

"Or some uncomfortable Bohemian attribute? Can it be, do you suppose, that the standard the English gentlewoman likes the whole world to conform to would be none the worse for a little wider basis?"