Mrs. Fitz

by J. C. Snaith

  CHAPTER VI

  EXPERT OPINION

  Every mile of the eight to Middleham, Fitz was as gloomy as the grave.In spite of the confidence he had been led to repose in my judgment, heseemed wholly unable to extend it to that of Coverdale. He had amorbid dread of the police and of the publicity that would invest anydealings with them. The preservation of his wife's incognito wasundoubtedly a matter of paramount importance.

  It was half-past twelve when we reached Middleham. We were luckyenough to find Coverdale at his office at the sessions hall.

  "Well, what can I do for you?" said the Chief Constable, heartily.

  "You can do a great deal for us, Coverdale," said I. "But the firstthing we shall ask you to do is to forget that you are an official. Wecome to you in your capacity of a personal friend. In that capacity weseek any advice you may feel able or disposed to give us. But beforewe give you any information, we should like to have your assurance thatyou will treat the whole matter as being told to you in the strictestsecrecy."

  Coverdale has as active a sense of humour as his exalted station allowshim to sustain. There was something in my mode of address that seemedto appeal to it.

  "I will promise that on one condition, Arbuthnot," said he; "which isthat you do not seek to involve me in the compounding of a felony."

  "Oh no, no, no, no!" Fitz burst out.

  Fitz's exclamation and his tragic face banished the smile that lurkedat the corners of Coverdale's lips.

  I deemed it best that Fitz should re-tell the story of his tragedy, andthis he did. In the course of his narrative the sweat ran down hisface, his hands twitched painfully, and his bloodshot eyes grew so wildthat neither Coverdale nor I cared to look at them.

  Coverdale sat mute and grave at the conclusion of Fitz's remarkablestory. He had swung round in his revolving chair to face us. His legswere crossed and the tips of his fingers were placed together, afterthe fashion that another celebrity in a branch of his calling is saidto affect.

  "It's a queer story of yours, Fitzwaren," he said at last. "But theworld is full of 'em--what?"

  "Help me," said Fitz, piteously. His voice was that of a drowning man.

  "I think we shall be able to do that," said Coverdale. He spoke in thesoothing tones of a skilful surgeon.

  "The first thing to know," said the Chief Constable, "is the number ofthe car."

  "G.Y. 70942 is the number."

  Coverdale jotted it down pensively upon his blotting-pad.

  "Have you a portrait of Mrs. Fitzwaren?" he asked.

  "I have this," said Fitz.

  In the most natural manner he flung open his overcoat, pulled away hisevening tie, tore open his collar, and produced from under the rumpledshirt front a locket suspended by a fine gold chain round his neck. Itcontained a miniature of the Princess, executed in Paris. BothCoverdale and I examined it curiously, but as we did so I fear ourminds had a single thought. It was that Fitz was a little mad.

  "Will you entrust it to me?" said Coverdale.

  Fitz's indecision was pathetic.

  "It's the only one I've got," he mumbled. "I don't suppose I shallever be able to get another. I ought to have had a replica while I hadthe chance."

  "I undertake to return it within three days," said Coverdale, with asimple kindliness for which I honoured him.

  Fitz handed the locket to him impulsively,

  "Of course take it, by all means," he said, hurriedly. "I know youwill take care of it. Fact is, you know, I'm a bit knocked over."

  "Naturally, my dear fellow," said Coverdale. "So should we all be.But I shall go up to town this afternoon and have a talk with them atScotland Yard.

  "I was afraid that would have to happen. I wanted it to be kept anabsolute secret, you know."

  "You can depend upon the Yard to be the soul of discretion. It is notthe first time they have been entrusted with the internal affairs of areigning family. If the Princess is still in this country and she isstill alive, and there is no reason to think otherwise, I believe weshall not have to wait long for news of her."

  Coverdale spoke in a tone of calm reassurance, which at least waseloquent of his tact and his knowledge of men. Overwrought as Fitzwas, it was not without its effect upon him.

  "Ought not the ports to be watched?" he said.

  "I hardly think it will be necessary. But if Scotland Yard thinksotherwise, they will be watched of course. Whatever happens,Fitzwaren, you can be quite sure that nothing will be left undone inour endeavour to find out what has really happened to the lady we shallagree to call Mrs. Fitzwaren. Further, you can depend upon it thatabsolute discretion will be used."

  We left Coverdale, imbued with a sense of gratitude for his cordialoptimism, and I think we both felt that a peculiarly delicate businesscould not be in more competent hands. He was a man of sound judgmentand infinite discretion. Throughout this singular interview he hademerged as a shrewd, tactful and eminently kind-hearted fellow.

  As a result of this visit to the sessions hall at Middleham, poor Fitzallowed himself a little hope. He had been duly impressed by the manof affairs who had taken the case in hand. However, he was still by nomeans himself. He was still in a strangely excited and gloomycondition; and this was aggravated by his friendlessness and thefeeling that the hand of every man was against him.

  In the circumstances, I felt obliged to yield to his expressed wishthat I should accompany him to the Grange. As the crow flies it isless than four miles from my house.

  The home of the Fitzwarens is a rambling, gloomy and dilapidated placeenough. An air pervades it of having run to seed. Every Fitzwaren whohas inhabited it within living memory has been a gambler and a _roue_in one form or another. The Fitzwarens are by long odds the oldestfamily in our part of the world, and by odds equally long their recordis the most unfortunate. Coming of a long line of ill-regulated lives,the heavy bills drawn by his forbears upon posterity seemed to havebecome payable in the person of the unhappy Fitz. Doubtless it was notright that one who in Mrs. Catesby's phrase was a married man, a fatherof a family, and a county member, should constitute himself as theapologist of such a man as Fitz. But, in spite of his errors, I hadnever found it in my heart to act towards him as so many of hisneighbours did not hesitate to do. The fact that he had fagged for meat school and the knowledge that there was a lovable, a pathetic andeven a heroic side to one to whom fate had been relentlessly cruel,made it impossible for me to regard him as wholly outside the pale.

  I can never forget our arrival at the Grange on this piercing winterafternoon. My car belonged to that earlier phase of motoring when thetraveller was more exposed to the British climate than modern scienceconsiders necessary. The snow, at the beck of a terrible north-easter,beat in our faces pitilessly. And when we came half frozen into thehouse, we were met on its threshold by a mite of four. She was theimage of her mother, with the same skin of lustrous olive, the samemass of raven hair, and the same challenging black eyes. In her handwas a mutilated doll. It was carried upside down and it had beendecapitated.

  "I want my mama," she said with an air of authority which wasludicrously like that of the circus rider from Vienna. "Have youbrought my mama?"

  "No, my pearl of price," said Fitz, swinging the mite up to hissnow-covered face, "but she will be here soon. She has sent you this."

  He kissed the small elf, who had all the disdain of a princess and thewitchery of a fairy.

  "Who is dis?" said she, pointing at me with her doll.

  "Dis, my jewel of the east, is our kind friend Mr. Arbuthnot. If youare very nice to him he will stay to tea."

  "Do you like my mama, Mistah 'Buthnot?" said the latest scion ofEurope's oldest dynasty, with a directness which was disconcerting froma person of four.

  "Very much indeed," said I, warmly.

  "You can stay to tea, Mistah 'Buthnot. I like you vewy much."

  The prompt cordiality of the verdict was certainly pleasant to a humbleunit of a
monarchical country. The creature extended her tiny paw witha gesture so superb that there was only one thing left for a courtierto do. That was to kiss it.

  The owner of the paw seemed to be much gratified by this discreetaction.

  "I like you vewy much, Mistah 'Buthnot; I will tell you my name."

  "Oh, do, please!"

  "My name is Marie Sophie Louise Waren Fitzwaren."

  "Phoebus, _what_ a name!"

  "And dis, Mistah 'Buthnot, is my guv'ness, Miss Green. She is a tarnfool."

  The lady thus designated had come unexpectedly upon the scene. Anestimable and bespectacled gentlewoman of uncompromising mien, shegazed down upon her charge with the gravest austerity.

  "Marie Louise, if I hear that phrase again you will go to bed."

  As Miss Green spoke, however, she gazed at me over her spectacles in ahumorously reflective fashion.

  Marie Louise shrugged her small shoulders disdainfully, and in a tonethat, to say the least, was peremptory, ordered the butler, who lookedvenerable enough to be her great-grandfather, to bring the tea. The_conge_ that the venerable servitor performed upon receiving this orderrendered it clear that upon a day he had been a confidential retainerin the royal house of Illyria.

  "I am afraid, Miss Green," said I, tentatively, "that your post is nosinecure."

  "That mite of four has the imperious will of a Catherine of Russia,"said Miss Green, with an amused smile. "If she ever attains the estateof womanhood, I shudder to think what she will be."

  Fitz entreated me to dine with him. I yielded in the hope that alittle company might help him to fight his depression. The meal wasnot a cheerful one. Under the most favourable conditions Fitz is not acheerful individual; but I was obliged to note that of late years hehad learned to exercise his will. In many ways I thought he hadchanged for the better. He had lost his coarseness of speech; he wasscrupulously moderate in what he ate and drank, and his bearing hadgained in reserve and dignity. In a word, he had grown into a morecivilised, a more developed being than I had ever thought it possiblefor him to become.

  It was past eleven when I returned to my own domain. The blizzardstill prevailed, and I found Mrs. Arbuthnot in the drawing-roomenthroned before a roaring fire, which happily served as somemitigation of the arctic demeanour with which my return was greeted.This, in conjunction with the adverse elements through which I hadalready passed, was enough to complete the overthrow of the strongestconstitution.

  The ruler of Dympsfield House--Dympsfield House is the picturesque nameconferred upon our ancestral home by my grandfather, Mr. GeorgeArbuthnot of Messrs. Arbuthnot, Boyd and Co., the celebrated firm ofsugar refiners of Bristol--the ruler of Dympsfield House was ostensiblyengaged in the study of a work of fiction of a pronounced sportingcharacter, with a yellow cover. Works of this nature and theprovincial edition of the _Daily Courier_, which is guaranteed to havea circulation of ten million copies _per diem_, are the only forms ofliterature that the ruler of Dymspfield House considers it "healthy" toperuse.

  When I entered the drawing-room with a free and easy air which wasdesigned to suggest that my conscience had nothing to conceal andnothing to defend, the wife of my bosom discarded her novel and fixedme with that cool gaze which all who are born Vane-Anstruther considerit to be the hall-mark of their caste to wield.

  "Where have you been, Odo?" was the greeting that was reserved for me.

  "Dining with Fitz," said I, succinctly.

  A short pause.

  "What did you say?"

  I repeated my modest statement.

  A snort.

  "Upon my word, Odo, I can't think----!"

  It called for a nice judgment to know which opening to play.

  "Fitz is in trouble," said I.

  "Is that _very_ surprising?"

  It is difficult to render the true Vane-Anstruther vocal inflections interms of literary art. A similar problem is presented by theunwavering glint of the china-blue eye and the subtle curl of the lip.

  "In the sense you wish to convey, _mon enfant_, it is surprising. Fitzis one of the poor devils who are by no means so black as they arepainted."

  A toss of the head.

  "Don't forget that I have known Fitz all his life; that we were atschool together; and that one way and another I have seen a good dealof him."

  "I wouldn't boast about it, if I were you. The man is a byword; youknow that. It is not kind to me."

  I was in mortal fear of tears. That dread accessory of conjugal lifeis permitted by the Code De Vere Vane-Anstruther in certain situations.However, although the weather was very heavy, for the time being thatwas spared me, and I breathed more freely.

  Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, who had a cigarette between hislips, and was lying full length upon a chintz that was charminglydevised in blue and yellow, inquired whether I had mentioned to Fitzthe subject of a meeting with the outraged Brasset.

  "If the weather don't pick up," said this Corinthian, "we shall go upto town to-morrow, and my pal in Jermyn Street will put Brasset throughhis facings. With a bit of practice Brasset ought to be able to giveFitz his gruel."

  "I fail to see," said I, "why the unfortunate husband should be broughtto book for the sins of the wife."

  "If you take to yourself a wife," said my relation by marriage, with adidacticism of which he is seldom guilty, "it is for better or forworse; and if your missus overrides the best 'ound in the pack and then'its the Master over the head with her crop because he tells her whathe thinks of her, you are looking both ways for trouble."

  "It is a hard doctrine," said I.

  "If a chap is such a fool as to marry, he must stand to theconsequences."

  "He must!"

  Such a prompt corroboration of the young fellow's reasoning can only bedescribed as sinister. A flash of the china-blue eyes came from thevicinity of the hearthrug.

  "How did Mrs. Fitz bear herself at the dinner table?" inquired thesharer of my joys. "Did she eat with her knife and drink out of thefinger bowls?"

  "No, _mon enfant_, I am compelled to say that she did not."

  Mrs. Arbuthnot frowned a becoming incredulity.

  "You surprise one."

  "Perhaps it is not altogether remarkable."

  "A matter of opinion, surely."

  "Personally, I prefer to regard it as a matter of fact. You see, Mrs.Fitz was not at the dinner table."

  "Where was she, may I ask?"

  "She had gone up to town."

  "And was that why her husband was so upset?"

  "There is reason to believe that it was."

  "Oh!"

  There was great virtue in that exclamation. My amiable coadjutor, as Iknew perfectly well, was burning to pursue her inquiries, but herstatus as a human being did not permit her to proceed farther. Thereare many advantages incident to the proud condition of a De VereVane-Anstruther, but that almost inhuman eminence has its drawbacksalso. Chief among them are the limits imposed upon a perfectly naturaland healthy curiosity. It is not seemly for a member of thatdistinguished clan to enter too exhaustively into the affairs of herneighbours.

  On the following morning, in spite of the behaviour of the weather, wewere favoured by an early visit from Mrs. Catesby. She was in highfeather.

  "You have heard the news, of course!" she proclaimed for the benefit ofMrs. Arbuthnot and with an expansion of manner that she does not alwayspermit herself. "Of course Odo has told you what brought NevilFitzwaren here yesterday morning."

  "Oh no, he hasn't," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, rather aggrievedly.

  "Is it conceivable, my dear child, that you have _not_ heard the news?"

  "I only know, Mary, that Nevil Fitzwaren is in trouble. Odo did notthink well to supply the details, and really the affairs of theFitzwarens interest one so little that one did not feel inclined toinquire."

  "The creature has bolted, my dear."

  In spite of Mrs. Arbuthnot's determination to take no interest in theaffairs of the
Fitzwarens, she was not proof against this melodramaticannouncement.

  "Bolted, Mary!"

  "Bolted, child. And with whom do you suppose?"

  "One would say with the chauffeur," hazarded Mrs. Arbuthnot, promptly.

  Mrs. Catesby's countenance fell. She made no attempt to dissemble herdisappointment.

  "Then Odo _has_ told you after all."

  "Not a syllable, I assure you, Mary. But I am certain that if Mrs.Fitz has bolted with anybody, it must have been with the chauffeur."

  "How clever of you, my dear child!" The Great Lady's admiration wasopen and sincere. "Such a right feeling about things! She hascertainly bolted with the chauffeur."

  "Odo," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, triumphant, yet imperious, "why didn't youtell me all this?"

  "_Mon enfant_," said I, in the mellowest tones of which I am master,"you gave me clearly to understand that the affairs of the Fitzwarenshad no possible interest for you."

  Mrs. Arbuthnot went to the length of biting her lip. By withholdingsuch a sensational bit of news, I had been guilty of an unheard-ofoutrage upon human nature. But she could not deny my plea ofjustification.

  "Nevil Fitzwaren is far luckier than he deserves to be," said the GreatLady. "It is a merciful dispensation that dear Evelyn did not actuallycall upon her. I feel sure she would have done, had I not implored hernot to be hasty."

  "But Mary, I was under the impression that you called upon heryourself."

  "So I did, Odo. But that was merely out of respect for the memory ofNevil's mother. Besides, it was only right that somebody should seewhat her home was like."

  "What was it like, Mary?" said I.

  Mrs. Catesby compressed her lips.

  "I ask you, Mary. You alone sacrificed yourself upon the altar ofpublic decency; you alone are in possession of the grim facts."

  "Let us be charitable, my dear Odo. After all, what can one expect ofa person from a continental circus?"

  "What indeed!" was my pious objuration.

  "There is only one thing, I fear, for Nevil to do now," said the GreatLady. "He must get a divorce and marry his cook."

  The august matron denied us the honour of her company at luncheon. Shewas due at the Vicarage. And there was reason to believe that shewould drink tea at the Priory and dine at the Castle. It was sonecessary that the joyful tidings of the Divine justice that hadovertaken the wicked should be spread abroad.