CHAPTER EIGHT
I have never been able to recall the precise moment the next morningwhen I began to feel a strange disquietude but the opening hours of theday were marked by a series of occurrences slight in themselves yet socumulatively ominous that they seemed to lower above me like a cloudof menace.
Looking from my window, shortly after the rising hour, I observed apaper boy pass through the street, whistling a popular melody as heran up to toss folded journals into doorways. Something I cannotexplain went through me even then; some premonition of disasterslinking furtively under my casual reflection that even in this remotewild the public press was not unknown.
Half an hour later the telephone rang in a lower room and I heard Mrs.Effie speak in answer. An unusual note in her voice caused me tolisten more attentively. I stepped outside my door. To some one shewas expressing amazement, doubt, and quick impatience which seemed toculminate, after she had again, listened, in a piercing cry ofconsternation. The term is not too strong. Evidently by the unknownspeaker she had been first puzzled, then startled, then horrified; andnow, as her anguished cry still rang in my ears, that snakypremonition of evil again writhed across my consciousness.
Presently I heard the front door open and close. Peering into thehallway below I saw that she had secured the newspaper I had seendropped. Her own door now closed upon her. I waited, listeningintently. Something told me that the incident was not closed. A briefinterval elapsed and she was again at the telephone, excitedlydemanding to be put through to a number.
"Come at once!" I heard her cry. "It's unspeakable! There isn't amoment to lose! Come as you are!" Hereupon, banging the receiver intoits place with frenzied roughness, she ran halfway up the stairs toshout:
"Egbert Floud! Egbert Floud! You march right down here this minute,sir!"
From his room I heard an alarmed response, and a moment later knewthat he had joined her. The door closed upon them, but high wordsreached me. Mostly the words of Mrs. Effie they were, though I coulddetect muffled retorts from the other. Wondering what this couldportend, I noted from my window some ten minutes later the hurriedarrival of the C. Belknap-Jacksons. The husband clenched a crumplednewspaper in one hand and both he and his wife betrayed signs to thetrained eye of having performed hasty toilets for this early call.
As the door of the drawing-room closed upon them there ensued aterrific outburst carrying a rich general effect of astounded rage.Some moments the sinister chorus continued, then a door sharply openedand I heard my own name cried out by Mrs. Effie in a tone that causedme to shudder. Rapidly descending the stairs, I entered the room toface the excited group. Cousin Egbert crouched on a sofa in a farcorner like a hunted beast, but the others were standing, and allglared at me furiously.
The ladies addressed me simultaneously, one of them, I believe, askingme what I meant by it and the other demanding how dared I, which hadthe sole effect of adding to my bewilderment, nor did the words ofCousin Egbert diminish this.
"Hello, Bill!" he called, adding with a sort of timid bravado: "Don'tyou let 'em bluff you, not for a minute!"
"Yes, and it was probably all that wretched Cousin Egbert's fault inthe first place," snapped Mrs. Belknap-Jackson almost tearfully.
"Say, listen here, now; I don't see as how I've done anything wrong,"he feebly protested. "Bill's human, ain't he? Answer me that!"
"One sees it all!" This from Belknap-Jackson in bitter and judicialtones. He flung out his hands at Cousin Egbert in a gesture ofpitiless scorn. "I dare say," he continued, "that poor Ruggles wasmerely a tool in his hands--weak, possibly, but not vicious."
"May I inquire----" I made bold to begin, but Mrs. Effie shut me off,brandishing the newspaper before me.
"Read it!" she commanded in hoarse, tragic tones. "There!" she added,pointing at monstrous black headlines on the page as I weakly took itfrom her. And then I saw. There before them, divining now the enormityof what had come to pass, I controlled myself to master the followingscreed:
RED GAP'S DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of London and Paris, late of the British army, bon-vivant and man of the world, is in our midst for an indefinite stay, being at present the honoured house guest of Senator and Mrs. James Knox Floud, who returned from foreign parts on the 5:16 flyer yesterday afternoon. Colonel Ruggles has long been intimately associated with the family of his lordship the Earl of Brinstead, and especially with his lordship's brother, the Honourable George Augustus Vane-Basingwell, with whom he has recently been sojourning in la belle France. In a brief interview which the Colonel genially accorded ye scribe, he expressed himself as delighted with our thriving little city.
"It's somewhat a town--if I've caught your American slang," he said with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "You have the garden spot of the West, if not of the civilized world, and your people display a charm that must be, I dare say, typically American. Altogether, I am enchanted with the wonders I have beheld since landing at your New York, particularly with the habit your best people have of roughing it in camps like that of Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson among the mountains of New York, where I was most pleasantly entertained by himself and his delightful wife. The length of my stay among you is uncertain, though I have been pressed by the Flouds, with whom I am stopping, and by the C. Belknap-Jacksons to prolong it indefinitely, and in fact to identify myself to an extent with your social life."
The Colonel is a man of distinguished appearance, with the seasoned bearing of an old campaigner, and though at moments he displays that cool reserve so typical of the English gentleman, evidence was not lacking last evening that he can unbend on occasion. At the lawn fete held in the spacious grounds of Judge Ballard, where a myriad Japanese lanterns made the scene a veritable fairyland, he was quite the most sought-after notable present, and gayly tripped the light fantastic toe with the elite of Red Gap's smart set there assembled.
From his cordial manner of entering into the spirit of the affair we predict that Colonel Ruggles will be a decided acquisition to our social life, and we understand that a series of recherche entertainments in his honour has already been planned by Mrs. County Judge Ballard, who took the distinguished guest under her wing the moment he appeared last evening. Welcome to our city, Colonel! And may the warm hearts of Red Gap cause you to forget that European world of fashion of which you have long been so distinguished an ornament!
In a sickening silence I finished the thing. As the absurd sheet fellfrom my nerveless fingers Mrs. Effie cried in a voice hoarse withemotion:
"Do you realize the dreadful thing you've done to us?"
Speechless I was with humiliation, unequal even to protesting that Ihad said nothing of the sort to the press-chap. I mean to say, he hadwretchedly twisted my harmless words.
"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" demanded Mrs. Belknap-Jackson,also in a voice hoarse with emotion. I glanced at her husband. He,too, was pale with anger and trembling, so that I fancied he dared nottrust himself to speak.
"The wretched man," declared Mrs. Effie, addressing them all, "simplycan't realize--how disgraceful it is. Oh, we shall never be able tolive it down!"
"Imagine those flippant Spokane sheets dressing up the thing," hissedBelknap-Jackson, speaking for the first time. "Imagine theirblackguardly humour!"
"And that awful Cousin Egbert," broke in Mrs. Effie, pointing adesperate finger toward him. "Think of the laughing-stock he'llbecome! Why, he'll simply never be able to hold up his head again."
"Say, you listen here," exclaimed Cousin Egbert with sudden heat;"never you mind about my head. I always been able to hold up my headany time I felt like it." And again to me he threw out, "Don't you let'em bluff you, Bill!"
"I gave him a notice for the paper," explained Mrs. Effie plaintively;"I'd written it all nicely out to save them time in the office, andthat would have prevented this disgrace, but
he never gave it in."
"I clean forgot it," declared the offender. "What with one thing andanother, and gassing back and forth with some o' the boys, it kind ofwent out o' my head."
"Meeting our best people--actually dancing with them!" murmured Mrs.Belknap-Jackson in a voice vibrant with horror. "My dear, I truly amso sorry for you."
"You people entertained him delightfully at your camp," murmured Mrs.Effie quickly in her turn, with a gesture toward the journal.
"Oh, we're both in it, I know. I know. It's appalling!"
"We'll never be able to live it down!" said Mrs. Effie. "We shall haveto go away somewhere."
"Can't you imagine what Jen' Ballard will say when she learns thetruth?" asked the other bitterly. "Say we did it on purpose tohumiliate her, and just as all our little scraps were being smoothedout, so we could get together and put that Bohemian set in its place.Oh, it's so dreadful!" On the verge of tears she seemed.
"And scarcely a word mentioned of our own return--when I'd taken suchpains with the notice!"
"Listen here!" said Cousin Egbert brightly. "I'll take the piece downnow and he can print it in his paper for you to-morrow."
"You can't understand," she replied impatiently. "I casually mentionedour having brought an English manservant. Print that now and insultall our best people who received him!"
"Pathetic how little the poor chap understands," sighedBelknap-Jackson. "No sense at all of our plight--naturally,naturally!"
"'A series of entertainments being planned in his honour!'" quaveredMrs. Belknap-Jackson.
"'The most sought-after notable present!'" echoed Mrs. Effieviciously.
Again and again I had essayed to protest my innocence, only to provokerenewed outbursts. I could but stand there with what dignity Iretained and let them savage me. Cousin Egbert now spoke again:
"Shucks! What's all the fuss? Just because I took Bill out and givehim a good time! Didn't you say yourself in that there very piece thathe'd impart to coming functions an air of smartiness like they haveall over Europe? Didn't you write them very words? And ain't healready done it the very first night he gets here, right at that therelawn-feet where I took him? What for do you jump on me then? I tookhim and he done it; he done it good. Bill's a born mixer. Why, he hadall them North Side society dames stung the minute I flashed him;after him quicker than hell could scorch a feather; run out from undertheir hats to get introduced to him--and now you all turn on me like apassel of starved wolves." He finished with a note of genuineirritation I had never heard in his voice.
"The poor creature's demented," remarked Mrs. Belknap-Jacksonpityingly.
"Always been that way," said Mrs. Effie hopelessly.
Belknap-Jackson contented himself with a mere clicking sound ofcommiseration.
"All right, then, if you're so smart," continued Cousin Egbert. "Justthe same Bill, here, is the most popular thing in the whole KulancheValley this minute, so all I got to say is if you want to play thishere society game you better stick close by him. First thing you know,some o' them other dames'll have him won from you. That Mis' Ballard'sgoing to invite him to supper or dinner or some other doings rightaway. I heard her say so."
To my amazement a curious and prolonged silence greeted this amazingtirade. The three at length were regarding each other almostfurtively. Belknap-Jackson began to pace the floor in deep thought.
"After all, no one knows except ourselves," he said in curiouslyhushed tones at last.
"Of course it's one way out of a dreadful mess," observed his wife.
"Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of the British army," said Mrs. Effie in apeculiar tone, as if she were trying over a song.
"It may indeed be the best way out of an impossible situation,"continued Belknap-Jackson musingly. "Otherwise we face a socialupheaval that might leave us demoralized for years--say nothing ofmaking us a laughingstock with the rabble. In fact, I see nothing elseto be done."
"Cousin Egbert would be sure to spoil it all again," objected Mrs.Effie, glaring at him.
"No danger," returned the other with his superior smile. "Being quiteunable to realize what has happened, he will be equally unable torealize what is going to happen. We may speak before him as before ababe in arms; the amenities of the situation are forever beyond him."
"I guess I always been able to hold up my head when I felt like it,"put in Cousin Egbert, now again both sullen and puzzled. Once more hethrew out his encouragement to me: "Don't let 'em run any bluffs,Bill! They can't touch you, and they know it."
"'Touch him,'" murmured Mrs. Belknap-Jackson with an able sneer. "Mydear, what a trial he must have been to you. I never knew. He's as badas the mater, actually."
"And such hopes I had of him in Paris," replied Mrs. Effie, "when hewas taking up Art and dressing for dinner and everything!"
"I can be pushed just so far!" muttered the offender darkly.
There was now a ring at the door which I took the liberty ofanswering, and received two notes from a messenger. One bore theaddress of Mrs. Floud and the other was quite astonishingly to myself,the name preceded by "Colonel."
"That's Jen' Ballard's stationery!" cried Mrs. Belknap-Jackson. "Trusther not to lose one second in getting busy!"
"But he mustn't answer the door that way," exclaimed her husband as Ihanded Mrs. Effie her note.
They were indeed both from my acquaintance of the night before.Receiving permission to read my own, I found it to be a dinnerinvitation for the following Friday. Mrs. Effie looked up from hers.
"It's all too true," she announced grimly. "We're asked to dinner andshe earnestly hopes dear Colonel Ruggles will have made no otherengagement. She also says hasn't he the darlingest English accent. Oh,isn't it a mess!"
"You see how right I am," said Belknap-Jackson.
"I guess we've got to go through with it," conceded Mrs. Effie.
"The pushing thing that Ballard woman is!" observed her friend.
"Ruggles!" exclaimed Belknap-Jackson, addressing me with suddendecision.
"Yes, sir."
"Listen carefully--I'm quite serious. In future you will try toaddress me as if I were your equal. Ah! rather you will try to addressme as if you were _my_ equal. I dare say it will come to youeasily after a bit of practice. Your employers will wish you toaddress them in the same manner. You will cultivate toward us a mannerof easy friendliness--remember I'm entirely serious--quite as if youwere one of us. You must try to be, in short, the Colonel MarmadukeRuggles that wretched penny-a-liner has foisted upon these innocentpeople. We shall thus avert a most humiliating contretemps."
The thing fair staggered me. I fell weakly into the chair by which Ihad stood, for the first time in a not uneventful career feeling thatmy _savoir faire_ had been overtaxed.
"Quite right," he went on. "Be seated as one of us," and he amazinglyproffered me his cigarette case. "Do take one, old chap," he insistedas I weakly waved it away, and against my will I did so. "Dare sayyou'll fancy them--a non-throat cigarette especially prescribed forme." He now held a match so that I was obliged to smoke. Never have Ibeen in less humour for it.
"There, not so hard, is it? You see, we're getting on famously."
"Ain't I always said Bill was a good mixer?" called Cousin Egbert, buthis gaucherie was pointedly ignored.
"Now," continued Belknap-Jackson, "suppose you tell us in a chatty,friendly way just what you think about this regrettable affair." Allsat forward interestedly.
"But I met what I supposed were your villagers," I said; "your smalltradesmen, your artisans, clerks, shop-assistants, tenant-farmers, andthe like, I'd no idea in the world they were your county families.Seemed quite a bit too jolly for that. And your press-chap--preposterous,quite! He quizzed me rather, I admit, but he made it vastly different.Your pressmen are remarkable. That thing is a fair crumpler."
"But surely," put in Mrs. Effie, "you could see that Mrs. JudgeBallard must be one of our best people."
"I saw she was a goodish sort," I explained, "but it n
ever occurred tome one would meet her in your best houses. And when she spoke ofentertaining me I fancied I might stroll by her cottage some fair dayand be asked in to a slice from one of her own loaves and a dish oftea. There was that about her."
"Mercy!" exclaimed both ladies, Mrs. Belknap-Jackson adding a bitmaliciously I thought, "Oh, don't you awfully wish she could hear himsay it just that way?"
"As to the title," I continued, "Mr. Egbert has from the first had acurious American tendency to present me to his many friends as'Colonel.' I am sure he means as little by it as when he calls me'Bill,' which I have often reminded him is not a name of mine."
"Oh, we understand the poor chap is a social incompetent," saidBelknap-Jackson with a despairing shrug.
"Say, look here," suddenly exclaimed Cousin Egbert, a new heat in histone, "what I call Bill ain't a marker to what I call you when Ireally get going. You ought to hear me some day when I'm feelingright!"
"Really!" exclaimed the other with elaborate sarcasm.
"Yes, sir. Surest thing you know. I could call you a lot of goodthings right now if so many ladies wasn't around. You don't think I'dbe afraid, do you? Why, Bill there had you licked with one wallop."
"But really, really!" protested the other with a helpless shrug to theladies, who were gasping with dismay.
"You ruffian!" cried his wife.
"Egbert Floud," said Mrs. Effie fiercely, "you will apologize toCharles before you leave this room. The idea of forgetting yourselfthat way. Apologize at once!"
"Oh, very well," he grumbled, "I apologize like I'm made to." But headded quickly with even more irritation, "only don't you get the ideait's because I'm afraid of you."
"Tush, tush!" said Belknap-Jackson.
"No, sir; I apologize, but it ain't for one minute because I'm afraidof you."
"Your bare apology is ample; I'm bound to accept it," replied theother, a bit uneasily I thought.
"Come right down to it," continued Cousin Egbert, "I ain't afraid ofhardly any person. I can be pushed just so far." Here he lookedsignificantly at Mrs. Effie.
"After all I've tried to do for him!" she moaned. "I thought he hadsomething in him."
"Darn it all, I like to be friendly with my friends," he bluntlypersisted. "I call a man anything that suits me. And I ain't everapologized yet because I was afraid. I want all parties here to getthat."
"Say no more, please. It's quite understood," said Belknap-Jacksonhastily. The other subsided into low mutterings.
"I trust you fully understand the situation, Ruggles--ColonelRuggles," he continued to me.
"It's preposterous, but plain as a pillar-box," I answered. "I canonly regret it as keenly as any right-minded person should. It's notat all what I've been accustomed to."
"Very well. Then I suggest that you accompany me for a drive thisafternoon. I'll call for you with the trap, say at three."
"Perhaps," suggested his wife, "it might be as well if Colonel Ruggleswere to come to us as a guest." She was regarding me with a gaze thatwas frankly speculative.
"Oh, not at all, not at all!" retorted Mrs. Effie crisply. "Havingbeen announced as our house guest--never do in the world for him to goto you so soon. We must be careful in this. Later, perhaps, my dear."
Briefly the ladies measured each other with a glance. Could it be, Iasked myself, that they were sparring for the possession of me?
"Naturally he will be asked about everywhere, and there'll be loads ofentertaining to do in return."
"Of course," returned Mrs. Effie, "and I'd never think of putting itoff on to you, dear, when we're wholly to blame for the awful thing."
"That's so thoughtful of you, dear," replied her friend coldly.
"At three, then," said Belknap-Jackson as we arose.
"I shall be delighted," I murmured.
"I bet you won't," said Cousin Egbert sourly. "He wants to show youoff." This, I could see, was ignored as a sheer indecency.
"We shall have to get a reception in quick," said Mrs. Effie, her eyesnarrowed in calculation.
"I don't see what all the fuss was about," remarked Cousin Egbertagain, as if to himself; "tearing me to pieces like a passel ofwolves!"
The Belknap-Jacksons left hastily, not deigning him a glance. And todo the poor soul justice, I believe he did not at all know what the"fuss" had been about. The niceties of the situation were beyond him,dear old sort though he had shown himself to be. I knew then I wasnever again to be harsh with him, let him dress as he would.
"Say," he asked, the moment we were alone, "you remember that thingyou called him back there that night--'blighted little mug,' was it?"
"It's best forgotten, sir," I said.
"Well, sir, some way it sounded just the thing to call him. It soundedbully. What does it mean?"
So far was his darkened mind from comprehending that I, in a foreignland, among a weird people, must now have a go at being a gentleman;and that if I fluffed my catch we should all be gossipped to rags!
Alone in my room I made a hasty inventory of my wardrobe. Thanks tothe circumstance that the Honourable George, despite my warning, hadfor several years refused to bant, it was rather well stocked. Theevening clothes were irreproachable; so were the frock coat and amorning suit. Of waistcoats there were a number showing but slightwear. The three lounge-suits of tweed, though slightly demoded, wouldstill be vogue in this remote spot. For sticks, gloves, cravats, andbody-linen I saw that I should be compelled to levy on the store I hadlaid in for Cousin Egbert, and I happily discovered that his top-hatset me quite effectively.
Also in a casket of trifles that had knocked about in my box I had thegood fortune to find the monocle that the Honourable George haddiscarded some years before on the ground that it was "ballynonsense." I screwed the glass into my eye. The effect was tremendous.
Rather a lark I might have thought it but for the false militarytitle. That was rank deception, and I have always regarded any sort ofwrongdoing as detestable. Perhaps if he had introduced me as a meresubaltern in a line regiment--but I was powerless.
For the afternoon's drive I chose the smartest of the lounge-suits, aCarlsbad hat which Cousin Egbert had bitterly resented for himself,and for top-coat a light weight, straight-hanging Chesterfield withvelvet collar which, although the cut studiously avoids a fittedeffect, is yet a garment that intrigues the eye when carried with anydistinction. So many top-coats are but mere wrappings! I had, too,gloves of a delicately contrasting tint.
Altogether I felt I had turned myself out well, and this I found to bethe verdict of Mrs. Effie, who engaged me in the hall to say that Iwas to have anything in the way of equipment I liked to ask for.Belknap-Jackson also, arriving now in a smart trap to which he drovetwo cobs tandem, was at once impressed and made me compliments upon mytenue. I was aware that I appeared not badly beside him. I mean tosay, I felt that I was vogue in the finest sense of the word.
Mrs. Effie waved us a farewell from the doorway, and I was consciousthat from several houses on either side of the avenue we attractedmore than a bit of attention. There were doors opened, blinds pushedaside, faces--that sort of thing.
At a leisurely pace we progressed through the main thoroughfares. Thatwe created a sensation, especially along the commercial streets, wheremy host halted at shops to order goods, cannot be denied. Furore isperhaps the word. I mean to say, almost quite every one stared. Rathermore like a parade it was than I could have wished, but I was againresolved to be a dead sportsman.
Among those who saluted us from time to time were several of thelesser townsmen to whom Cousin Egbert had presented me the eveningbefore, and I now perceived that most of these were truly persons Imust not know in my present station--hodmen, road-menders, grooms,delivery-chaps, that sort. In responding to the often floridsalutations of such, I instilled into my barely perceptible nod acertain frigidity that I trusted might be informing. I mean to say,having now a position to keep up, it would never do at all to chatterand pal about loosely as Cousin Egbert did.
"You will find us crude, Ruggles, as I warned you," my host observed."Take this deserted clubhouse at this hour. It tells the story. Takeagain the matter of sherry and a biscuit--so simple! Yet no one everthinks of them, and what you mean by a biscuit is in this wretchedhole spoken of as a cracker."
I thanked him for the item, resolving to add it to my list of curiousAmericanisms. Already I had begun a narrative of my adventures in thiswild land, a thing I had tentatively entitled, "Alone in NorthAmerica."
"Though we have people in abundance of ample means," he went on, "youwill regret to know that we have not achieved a leisured class. Barelyonce in a fortnight will you see this club patronized, after all thepains I took in its organization. They simply haven't evolved to theidea yet; sometimes I have moments in which I despair of their everdoing so."
As usual he grew depressed when speaking of social Red Gap, so that wedid not tarry long in the silent place that should have been quitealive with people smartly having their tea. As we drove back hetouched briefly and with all delicacy on our changed relations.
"What made me only too glad to consent to it," he said, "is the soddendepravity of that Floud chap. Really he's a menace to the community. Isaw from the degenerate leer on his face this morning that he will notbe able to keep silent about that little affair of ours back there.Mark my words, he'll talk. And fancy how embarrassing had youcontinued in the office for which you were engaged. Fancy it beingknown I had been assaulted by a--you see what I mean. But now, let himtalk his vilest. What is it? A mere disagreement between twogentlemen, generous, hot-tempered chaps, followed by mutual apologies.A mere nothing!"
I was conscious of more than a little irritation at his manner ofspeaking of Cousin Egbert, but this in my new character I could hardlybetray.
When he set me down at the Floud house, "Thanks for the breeze-out," Isaid; then, with an easy wave of the hand and in firm tones, "Goodday, Jackson! See you again, old chap!"
I had nerved myself to it as to an icy tub and was rewarded by a glowsuch as had suffused me that morning in Paris after the shamefulproceedings with Cousin Egbert and the Indian Tuttle. I mean to say, Ifelt again that wonderful thrill of equality--quite as if my superiorswere not all about me.
Inside the house Mrs. Effie addressed the last of a heap ofinvitations for an early reception--"To meet Colonel MarmadukeRuggles," they read.
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