“Merely samples of an ordinary, everyday description, I assure you, madam, on me sacred honarr!” Here he bowed again twice, and signalled quickly with a hand behind him to hasten Mr. Deacon’s departure. “As to the exact species of sample, therre madam, you place me, as a gentleman, in a certain difficulty. Perhaps it will suffice if you allow me to observe, me de-arr madam that the subject would be better discussed with another of your own charming sex, when I have withdrawn. Permit me, me de-arr madam, to indicate the lady up the garden who will no doubt give you every information; and pardon me if I seize the opportunity to rejoin me de-arr friend with the—the samples!”
Mrs. Griffin, stimulated beyond measure by this mysterious communication, made straightway for the hapless Miss Wicks; while the magniloquent stranger hurried after the fast-retreating Mr. Deacon.
In the mind of Mr. Deacon perplexity and panic were succeeded by bewilderment. Who was this affable stranger, and why should he come to the rescue out of nowhere? Revolving this puzzle, Mr. Deacon emerged from the gate, and barely noticed that the scoffer had found himself another post, and now accepted its support with a gloomy relish of the domestic revolution he supposed to be in progress in Mr. Deacon’s household. He barely noticed it because his whole attention was taken by a voice—a distinct voice, audible from under the hood of the perambulator.
“Maria!” said the voice. “I’ll swear that was Filer!
“Mr Deacon’s bewilderment was doubled. How soon did babies begin to talk like that? It was most extraordinary. He stopped to listen again, and with that he found the stranger by his side.
“Well, my joker,” said the stranger, in a low voice, looking him hard in the eye “what’s the game?”
“The game?” repeated the mystified Mr. Deacon. “I don’t understand you.”
“Cheese that,” replied the stranger. “I suppose you want a bit for yourself, eh?”
“A bit? A bit of what?” asked Mr. Deacon, amazedly, laying his hand by instinct on his own gate as they reached it.
The stranger took another hard look at him and then at once resumed his earlier flowery manner.
“I beg your pardon, me de-arr sir—I humbly beg your pardon! Of course, I should nevarr have doubted I was talking to a gentleman. Your own premises, sir? Ah—permit me!” He pushed open the gate and flourished and crowded Mr. Deacon and the perambulator into the garden. “Better in private, of course. Now, my de-arr sir, touching the contents of this, ah—vehicle?”
“They seem very extraordinary babies,” said Mr. Deacon.
“Ah, wonderful—wonderful babies indeed, sir”—this with a quick glance at Mr. Deacon’s puzzled face. “Truly wonderful babies, as you say. Family man yourself, sir?”
“No, I’m a bachelor.”
“Ah, precisely. You would be all the more surprised, I can well understand. May I inquire how they came into your charge?”
Mr. Deacon made shift to tell the tale in a dozen words.
“My de-arr sir, accept the heartfelt gratitude of a—what one might almost call more or less a father! Your devotion to these helpless infants has been equal to anything recorded in the annals of heroism. I will trespass no longer on your noble philanthropy. Their nurse is close at hand—a de-arr creature, devoted to these darling infants—”
“Ah-h-h!” came a startling voice from the hedge, like a bull’s. “Me heart’s bleedin’ for thim blessed babbies!”
“Shut up, Lanigan!” cried the tall man, angrily. “A male nurse,” he went on, to Mr. Deacon, “who is devoted to the de-arr children, and who was in charge of them this morning till he foolishly entrusted them to the care of a stranger on an emergency—”
“Met a frind I hadn’t seen for years!” came the voice from the hedge again.
“Was unavoidably detained—”
“They’re that moighty slow behoind the bar at the Green Dragon!” wailed the voice.
“Will you shut up, Lanigan? Was detained, as I say, and the stranger basely handed over her charge to somebody else. Fortunately, my de-arr sir—”
“Misther Filer! Misther Filer!” came the voice once more, this time in a stage whisper.
“What now? What?”
“He’s there—he’s comin’ wid a policeman They’re talkin’ wid the man at the post!”
“Who are? Who is it?” Mr. Filer’s voice was hushed now.
“Whist! Sh-sh-sh!”
Mr. Deacon, blank with amaze, and Mr Filer, frowning and pulling his moustache listened intently. There were hurried step on the road without, and then a dozen thing happened at once.
In at the gate came a threatening, red-faced man in a white hat, dragging the local policeman with him and blaring denunciation at Filer. Down went both hoods of the perambulator at once, and over the side, with astounding agility, went both the babies in their white gowns. The nearest hedge was that dividing the two gardens, and through a hole in that hedge by the ground the two babies bolted like rabbits. The white-hatted man and the policeman turned and ran round by the gate for Miss Wicks’s garden, and Mr. Deacon, three-fourths demented, ran after them.
Once returned within Miss Wicks’s gate an appalling sight met the eye. Mrs. Griffin sat gasping in a bed of geraniums, while Miss Wicks fled shrieking with her apron over her face, followed by the babies at a most amazing rate, with the white-hatted man after them and the policeman bringing up the rear. First Miss Wicks, then the babies, then the white-hatted man, and then the policeman vanished in a shrubbery, whence presently emerged the white-hatted man and the policeman only.
“All right!” cried the white-hatted man. “They can’t go far now we know they’re here. But here’s one o’ the gang,” he added, pointing to Mr. Deacon. “My name’s Challis, of Challis’s Nat’ral Wonders, an’ I give this feller in charge for kidnappin’ my dwarfs! Three years’ contract that married pair had with me, straight and legal, and Filer and this chap ’ticed ’em away from me in a p’rambulator! Promised ’em double salaries or summat, I s’pose. They’d find salaries want some gettin’ out o’ Filer, when it comes to the pinch! I’ll ’ave the lor o’ them all right, but just you make sure o’ this feller!”
The scoffer at the post was a difficult man to please, in general, but he always admitted that this particular Bank Holiday was a complete success. Mrs. Griffin, also, did manage to make something out of it, after all, when the first shock was over, at tea-tables; and Miss Wicks is slowly recovering under medical care.
THE EAST A-CALLIN’
First published in The Strand Magazine, March 1913
I.
Sir Hudson Bagg’s title was brand new, and his country house was so newly occupied and recently furnished and freshly painted and lately aired that it seemed brand-new also, although it had stood in the same place for two hundred years. But the deeds of conveyance were as new as the house looked, and Sir Hudson Bagg and Lady Bagg were strangers in the county though desperately anxious to remain so no more; for Lady Bagg already, in her mind’s eye, saw the Baggs pre-eminent among the county families. At present, however, calls were strangely few and tardy, so that expedients were necessary, and Sir Hudson and Lady Bagg became patrons of the Philanthropic Society for Harassing the Indigent. That alone, of course, was not enough; it was merely a step. The next was to take so active an interest in the society that it became advisable to organize a great meeting and conversazione in furtherance of its principles to which everybody desirable in the county and out of it was invited, and for which Sir Hudson Bagg very kindly allowed the use of the Hall and grounds, where he and Lady Bagg were “at home” to all distinguished Harassers of the Indigent, and speeches and tea and resolutions and a garden-party took their parts in the confusion.
The success was glorious. The Philanthropic Harassers were a society of very high patronage, and for some while Lady Bagg even dared to indulge a hope that a minor Royalty might be n
etted. This failed to “come off,” but the company was nevertheless sufficiently numerous and distinguished to constitute a triumph for the house of Bagg and the first of many. So much, therefore for Sir Hudson and Lady Bagg, who merely provide the house and grounds for this story as they did for the Philanthropic Society for Harassing the Indigent.
The day was fine, and a large crowd of people brightened the grounds. At least some of them did, but a great proportion were a very serious-looking lot indeed. Bishops dotted the landscape, deans punctuated the lawns; one or two countesses were visible, and a duchess very nearly came, but not quite. The less distinguished Harassers pointed out the more distinguished to each other, and the more distinguished exhibited themselves with great affability. There were several quite respectable politicians, and three Labour members came in strange mixtures of clothes which had cost hours of thinking out to express their unutterable independence.
“Why,” said one visitor to another indicating a clerically-attired figure in the distance, “I do believe that’s Aubrey Fitzmaurice!”
“No, is it?” replied his friend. “I haven’t seen him since he buried himself in the East-end—not since he left Oxford in fact. Mightn’t have recognized him in those things.”
The first speaker turned to a second friend and repeated his remark.
“Why, so I believe it is!” answered this third observer. “Who’d have expected to see him here? I thought he didn’t believe in this sort of thing. I’ll go over and speak to him presently.”
Each of these three pointed out the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice to somebody else, for he was a man of celebrity among East-end parsons, and many tales were told of his whole-souled devotion to his work. A man of brilliant gifts, notable connections and some private fortune, he had married a wife of like mind with himself, and had gone to live altogether in one of the worst of the East-end parishes, cutting himself off entirely from his old acquaintance, and giving his whole time and faculties for the bettering of the people in his parish. He lived with them and liked them, it was said, and gathered the worst of them about him in a club, where he met them on equal terms, playing billiards with them, boxing with them, and sharing as much of their lives as they would allow. It was so great a change for this exquisite of Balliol in particular that he was noted and talked of above the generality of them that laboured east of Aldgate, though he displayed himself less than any, and had vanished wholly from his earlier world.
“That,” said a lady in the crowd, who had just been told, “is Aubrey Fitzmaurice, who married Clara Tyrwhitt and hid her and himself in some parish in the East-end. They’ve made quite a mania of it. Nobody’s seen her since the wedding.”
“Is that the man?” replied the other. “Why, Clara Tyrwhitt was my greatest chum at school, and I haven’t seen her for years. I must ask about her. Does anybody know him?”
“I believe his aunt’s coming presently—Lady Bilbury. And there’s Clara’s cousin Mary right across the lawn. We’ll speak to her.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Harry Benyon, who had not seen the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice since he left Oxford, strolled across with his two friends and accosted the exile.
“Why, Aubrey, old chap!” said Harry Benyon. “I hardly knew you!”
“Wotcheer!” replied the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice, looking up quickly and continuing his walk. “Cheer-oh!”
“Why, I don’t believe you know me,” answered Benyon, following and offering his hand. “You remember Harry Benyon, surely?”
“What-ho! Don’t I rather!” responded the reverend gentleman, shaking hands vigorously. “Good ol ’Arry! An’ ’ow’s yerself?”
“First-rate, thanks. But, I say, you are East-end, you know!”
“What d’ you think? Right in it! I’m one o’ the nuts down ’Oxton!”
“I’m sure you are. But do you keep it up always?”
“Keep it up? Not ’arf! Always keep it up. I’m a-thinkin’ out a sermon now.”
Benyon and his friends looked at each other blankly, and then at the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice.
“Well,” said one, “if you deliver ’em like that I’d like to come and hear one.”
“Right-o, ol’ cockalorum! Come whenever you like. Any old sinner’s welcome; an’ bring a bob for the whack round. We don’t often get a toff.”
“We’ll all come,” said Benyon, “and all bring our bobs for the—the what-d’ye-call-it. But now just you forget that sermon and the East-end for a bit and be yourself again. This function’s going to be dull—we’ll keep together.”
“Garn—cheese it, ’Arry!” replied the Reverend Mr. Fitzmaurice. “What price my sermon? I got to think it over, I tell ye. See ye later on, matey.”
The reverend gentleman sheered off to a quieter part and left the three friends somewhat perplexed.
“They told me he’d gone East-end mad,” remarked Benyon, “and by Jove he has! Who’d have dreamed he’d have played it as low as that—he, of all men? Making oneself popular in the parish is all very well, but—hang it all!”
“There may be something in it,” observed one of the others. “I’ve heard they’re very suspicious of strange ways down there, and the Oxford manner they won’t stand at any price.”
“But, my dear chap—”
“Oh, of course I know he’s got it pretty rank, but it’s only more extreme than some of the others. Some of them do all sorts of wild things and play it most amazin’ low to catch the fancy of the Eastenders. There was even a bishop—”
“Oh, yes, we know about that; but Aubrey isn’t an advertising bishop, and, more he was never that sort at all. I believe it’s actual mania—I do, positively. He is East-end mad, that’s plain. But we’ll see him again in course of the afternoon.”
Meanwhile, the lady who had been Mrs. Fitzmaurice’s greatest chum at school and her friend, Miss Cust, had lost sight of Mrs. Fitzmaurice’s cousin Mary, but presently found her in another part of the grounds.
Before they could speak of the thing themselves she said: “Do you know, Clara’s husband’s here somewhere? Harry Benyon’s been talking to him. He’s gone clean East-end mad, it seems—worse than the Bishop of Limehouse. Talks just like a costermonger. Isn’t it quaint? I can’t think what aunt will say!”
“Oh, we must speak to him,” said Miss Cust’s friend. “Indeed, we were looking for you to introduce him. I never saw him before; I haven’t seen Clara for years.”
“I don’t know him myself; the engagement was very short, and we were away in Egypt at the time of the wedding. Harry Benyon promised to find him again for me. Harry says he’s become quite a curiosity. I hope he won’t swear very much!”
At this moment Harry Benyon hove in sight, hauling with him the reluctant Aubrey.
“I tell y’ I’m a-thinkin’ out a sermon!” he was heard to protest as he approached.
“Here you are—I’ve found him,” said Harry Benyon. “Mr. Aubrey Fitzmaurice—Mrs. Fitzmaurice’s cousin Mary, Miss Cust and Miss Peyton.”
“What-oh! ’Ow do?” said the Reverend Aubrey, shaking hands all round. “My ol’ pal ’Arry ’ere, ’e won’t let me think out my sermon, blimy. Still, as it’s laidies—”
“We’ve been longing to see you for ages,” said Miss Tyrwhitt. “Tell us all about Clara. Why isn’t she here?”
“Washin’ day,” said the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice.
“What? you don’t mean to say that poor Clara does her own washing?”
“Lummy, no—not all of it. ’Tain’t likely is it?”
“I shouldn’t have thought so. I suppose she does a little, just as a sort of example to the poor women in the parish?”
“Right-o! Got it in once. She does lead the fashions—no kid!”
“Well, you must both be very devoted I’m sure. And does Clara talk that funny way, too?”
“Talk funny? Ra
ts! No more’n what me an’ you do.”
“Oh, well! But doesn’t she find it very dull?”
“Dull? Blimy, no! I ain’t the sort to be dull with. She don’t ’ave time to be dull.”
“Of course, I suppose there’s a lot of visiting?”
“Not ’arf! She goes a-visitin’ every day—except washin’ day, o’ course. An she ’aves ’er pals in to tea, too, sometimes—’Oxton pals, I mean. Dull? Why, the Paragon an’ the Britannia’s close by, an’ a corkin’ movin’-picture show just raand the corner—on’y a dee a time!”
“Poor Clara! But there, no doubt she likes it as much as you. I suppose it is necessary to be so very East-end? I expect you find the people appreciate it?”
“Fair knocks ’em. Me an’ the ol’ Dutch—”
“Old what?”
“Ol’ Dutch; the delo elrig, you know—the storm an’ strife; the missis, I mean—Clara.”
“Clara? Oh, don’t call her such things as that!”
“Don’t? Well, what would you call ’er? But stow all this—no ’ank, I must think out that sermon. So long! See you later.”
“But surely you don’t think out sermons in places like this! And here comes your aunt; I expect she’s looking for you. Lady Bilbury, we’ve just been introduced to Aubrey, and he’s such an East-ender!”
Lady Bilbury, stout, imposing, and peering through an ivory-handled lorgnon, came sailing toward the group. The Reverend Aubrey, with an air of resignation, stayed his departure, and then smiled cheerfully as he met Lady Bilbury’s gaze and plunged to meet her.
“Wotcheer, auntie!” he cried, and kissed her with a loud smack.
Lady Bilbury, her lorgnon knocked into one eye, choked with fury.
“Go away, Aubrey, you fool!” she gasped. “It’s plain you are mad, as everybody says. You neglect us all for two years, and then make a disgusting public exhibition of yourself like this! You’re not fit to be at large!”
“’Ere, cheese it, auntie!” protested the reverend gentleman, somewhat abashed for Lady Bilbury could be a very terrible person on occasion. “Draw it mild. Don’t go chewin’ the rag afore company. I’ll do a bunk till your monkey climbs down. Got to think out a sermon. Tooraloo!”
The Arthur Morrison Mystery Page 185