He did make up his mind at last, and put together the photographs of Elaine, and restored them to the drawer—where, by the way, they no longer kept theatrical company, or any company but their own. One of Elaine’s photographs, however—the latest and the best—was kept out. It was a full-length portrait in fancy dress, with an expansive hat, a milk-pail, a milking-stool, and other pretty properties; and this really charming picture was stuck up forthwith on the chimneypiece.
Nettleship had made up his mind at last, once and for all, and for good. The words upon his lips as he blew out the lamp were indicative of an uncompromising attitude.
“She would have liked it well enough once,” he said; “she will have to lump it now. The fool of a woman!”
But this, as it happened, was scarcely kind to the lady alluded to, seeing that an invitation card for her “At Home” on Friday was even then gravitating towards Nettleship’s letter-box.
III.
“Where did this come from?” said Elaine to Enid.
It was Friday evening, at the new house in Sussex Square. The first carriage might arrive at any moment. As yet the two girls had the drawing-room to themselves, and were delicately disarranging the room in a truly enlightened spirit; though there was in it a newness, a stiffness, and a pervading sense of Tottenham Court Road that only the hand of time could soften. The subject of Elaine’s inquiry, however, whencesoever it had come, was not—it was safe to bet—of that thoroughfare. And indeed, as Enid explained, it had come from quite another quarter, that afternoon, on approval.
“Approval!” said Elaine, with a slight and pardonable sneer. “Does that mean that it is to be paraded to-night, and to-morrow returned as unsuitable? It has happened before, you know.”
“Perhaps it is to happen again. I don’t know. I only know that, as we drove back from the Park, mamma declared she must get something pretty for the room; so we went to Labrano’s, and this little oddity took her fancy. It is pretty, isn’t it?—and it looks well by itself on this absurd little table. Well, you know mamma’s way—her town way. I heard her say, ‘Mr. M’llwraith is a great judge of Eastern work—quite his hobby, in fact—but it seems an enormous price. I really cannot decide until he sees it.’ So it ended in our bringing it away with us in the carriage.”
“Hobby, indeed!” cried Elaine scornfully. “When had papa any hobby but one? But it appears to be an article in the London creed—at least, in mamma’s interpretation of it—to tell stories whenever you possibly can. I must say, I congratulate her on the ease with which she embraces the new faith. At least she has the courage of her inventions.”
“Hasn’t she! But let us leave the vase where it is, for it is really very pretty—”
“And no doubt valuable; which makes it meaner still. Yes, it can stay there—but, hush!”
For at that moment Mr. M’llwraith entered the room. As his daughter had truly observed, he had but one hobby—and that was political, which made him a dangerous man to meet in quiet corners. He talked of nothing else. Allowances could perhaps be made for him on the plea that he was so very new to St. Stephen’s; but those best acquainted with him found it hard to make them. A new Bill, which affected Mr M’llwraith’s sympathies as a politician no less than his personal interests as an employer of labour, was then intermittently before the House; and, naturally enough, his head was full of it. It was a fine head, a magnificent head, but he ran fearful risks with it: it was quite distended with that Bill. Even now, in the absence of men of his own weight, the poltroon fell upon his defenceless daughters, and assaulted them with his last night’s speech. No. They had not read it. They confessed they had not, and hung their heads.
“Ah!” said Mr. M’llwraith kindly. “No time, I see; an exceptional day, I suppose. Well, well, we’ll say no more about it at present. The Times is still intact, I daresay; you have laid it aside for a quiet time perhaps. Good! You will find the report of my speech full—satisfactorily full, I may say—though not verbatim. I could wish it had been verbatim. But you will read it, girls, before you go to bed, and we will discuss it at breakfast; when I shall be able to give you, word for word—for my memory is luckily a good one—all that they saw necessary to exclude.”
“You are not going to-night, papa?” Enid ventured.
“To the House? Yes, late—in time for the division. I must do that in deference to my constituents. Personally, however, there is nothing of any interest to me going on to-night. What is the division about, you ask, Elaine? Ireland, my girl, Ireland. Now, what is far more important in my eyes—”
Mr. M’llwraith took his foot from the stirrup, in the very act of remounting, on the entrance, at this point, of his wife. His wife’s want of appreciation or sympathy where his nearest and dearest projects were concerned was notorious, and damaging to the dignity of the senator. She had even been known (while her husband was speaking) to point to one of her ears and snap her fingers at the other, simultaneously, in panto-mimic illustration of the velocity with which his best periods passed in and out of her cranium. There was no occasion, however, to stable the trusty animal just yet. Already there were sounds upon the stairs, and old M’llwraith smelt the blood of Englishmen to whom resistance and escape would be alike impossible.
Once started, the influx of guests seemed never to abate during the remainder of the evening. Following the very oldest precedents, Mrs. M’llwraith had laid herself out for lions, and not without success. There were some entirely tame lions from Westminster, colleagues of her husband—whom they sedulously shunned all the evening. There was the wife of an illustrious lion—Professor Josling—who regretted that that eminent antiquary could not himself be present. There was a fearful and wonderful lion from the Chinese Legation, who was so scandalously guyed, behind his back, by the well-bred Enoch Arden (instigated by the bold Launcelot), that Thomas, the page, disgraced himself with the coffee-tray, and received notice that very night. Then there was the athletic lion captured at Lord’s, a literary cub from Fleet Street, and an artistic whelp from Chelsea. To crown all, a professional lion—with a high-class satirical entertainment, free from vulgarity—was due at eleven.
As the evening advanced, Mrs. M’llwraith might have been seen moving about among the nobodies of her party and whispering into their private ears interesting personalities concerning the somebodies. For the time being, in fact, she became a kind of verbal paragraphist of the evening press; and as she was, if possible, rather more inaccurate than her prototype, the listener was either distracted or entertained, according to his—or, more generally, her—intelligence.
“That, my dear Mrs. Smythe, is Mrs. Josling, wife of the celebrated antiquary. He is busy with the proofs of a new book, so was prevented from coming—much to his disgust, he sends me word. Proofs, you know—so like these terrible professors—they are for ever proving what nobody wants to know, you know!… And that is our delightful oddity, Mr. LingLung—Chinese Embassy, you know. Shall I introduce you? No? Then let me whisper: he came in those lovely garments at my special request!… You know Mr. Nettleship, of course? No? Dear me, I thought everybody knew Mr. Nettleship. He is the champion cricketer of England; bowled ninety-nine of the Cambridge wickets at Lord’s the other day. Ninety-nine, poor man! So near and yet so far! We had a carriage on the ground, and he lunched with us during the match, you know.”
Having thus displayed her knowledge of the national game, Mrs. M’llwraith raised her pince-nez with a view to pointing out its doughty exponent. He was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. M’llwraith steered a zigzag course down the room, but could not find him. Elaine was missing too. A sudden dread entered the lady’s breast.
The windows of the room were tall, narrow, three in number, and opened each upon a small balcony of the most useless type. They were wide open on account of the excessively warm weather; for the same reason the blinds were up; and soft Oriental curtains (from Labrano’s) alone—and but partially—excluded the zephyrs of Sussex Square. Naturally enough, among the sil
ky fabrics of window number three, innocently contemplating the night, Mrs. M’llwraith discovered the missing pair. Their backs, of course, were alone presented; but Mrs. M’llwraith instantly identified Elaine’s dress, and tapped her daughter on the shoulder with her fan, in unconscious imitation of the business between the smart detective and the discomfited villain in the fifth act.
Elaine started, of course; nevertheless, the radiance could not and would not at once forsake her face when she turned and confronted her mother. Mrs. M’llwraith spoke not a word. Her blue eyes glittered upon Nettleship’s cool face for one instant; the next, she turned, as abruptly as was possible in a woman of her size, and sailed away with her prize. The little incident was quickly over, and attracted no notice, owing to forethought in the choice of windows.
Nettleship continued in solitude his survey of the night. He was in no way put out; but he did not immediately step back into the light of the room. When he did, however, his step was a thought jaunty, his smile bordered upon insolence, and his hands were in his pockets. He became at once aware that something of interest was taking place at the other end of the room. A small crowd was surrounding somebody, reminding Nettleship, in a small way, of the crowd by St. Clement Danes when the converted cannibal is swallowing the lighted fusees. With a somewhat similar amount of curiosity he approached this crowd. On his way he saw his host lead off the ill-starred Chinaman to political execution in the study. A moment later he heard the silvery tones of his hostess proceeding from the centre of the little crowd.
“Indeed, and indeed, you make too much of my modest little heirloom, dear Mrs. Josling!”
“If the Professor were here, he would make a good deal more of it,” that lady stoutly rejoined. “But you must really allow me to obtain a simple impression, with this pencil and piece of paper, of such delicate and utterly fantastic tracery. He shall see what that is like, at all events.”
There was a pause. Nettleship raised himself to his full height, and saw an intellectual-looking lady carefully pencilling a piece of paper held closely over a spherical surface. He was mildly interested.
“And this has really been in your family for a century, Mrs. M’llwraith?” some one asked.
“Since the Battle of Plassey,” said Mrs. M’llwraith glibly. “My grandfather fought there.”
“That’s perfectly true,” thought Nettleship. “I have heard of it often enough. But I never before heard of any heirloom. What can it be?”
He drew himself up once more to his full height, which it was his bad habit not to make the most of. And then he saw what it was—and would have whistled aloud had he not been a thoroughly cool-headed fellow. For the cynosure of all eyes—the heirloom of the M’llwraiths—the spoil of Plassey—was nothing more nor less than the Indian vase of bronze lately in Nettleship’s own possession, and but three days ago on sale at Labrano’s!
“And still they come!” cried Mrs. M’llwraith, smiling—under the public eye—quite sweetly upon the famous cricketer. “Look at it, Mr. Nettleship? Of course you may! With pleasure! But really, it is too absurd! To think that our wretched little heirloom should attract so much attention!”
Nettleship did look at it—with exaggerated interest; with unnecessary elaboration; in every light and upon every side; at ridiculous length. His lingering manner was in itself calculated to attract attention. Mrs. M’llwraith began to feel uncomfortable.
“Do you know, Mrs. M’llwraith,” he said at last, with great distinctness, “I cannot remember ever once to have seen this most interesting curio up North?”
Mrs. M’llwraith explained, with a strange mixture of hot and cold in her manner, that she had kept it under lock and key while the children were young. And then, with a sudden determination to carry it off serenely, in spite of her feelings, Mrs. M’llwraith laughed. It was a nervous, unsuccessful laugh; nor was there any apparent reason for a laugh at all.
But Nettleship had already attracted the attention that was so undesirable; and this was doubled in an instant when the young man deliberately raised the bronze vase to his nose, and sniffed it suspiciously.
“Why,” he exclaimed, looking round upon the company, “it smells of tobacco!”
“Impossible!” said poor Mrs. M’llwraith, forcing another laugh. But this time her laughter was worse than unsuccessful and nervous; it was hysterical.
“Oh, but it does, though,” chuckled Nettleship, putting the vase into his hostess’s trembling hands; “try it! It’s tobacco or nothing. What’s more, I recognise the brand. It’s Callender’s Honeydew Mixture. I smoke it myself.”
Mrs. M’llwraith turned white as a sheet; but she was not the woman to faint, and Nettleship knew it.
“I never knew before,” went on the forward young man, humorously, “that Mr. M’llwraith smoked Callender’s Honeydew Mixture!”
It was here put forward by several persons, who considered Nettleship’s manner offensive, that Mr. M’llwraith did not smoke at all, but, on the other hand, cordially detested tobacco in any shape or form. Nettleship knew this also; he had known it from his boyhood. Moreover, he was perfectly aware that his manner was offensive; and, at a glance of agonised appeal from Mrs. M’llwraith, he had the wit at last to change the subject And this he did so deftly that the lady experienced in her first moments of relief an emotion of gratitude towards her torturer. In the same way, perhaps, the mediaevals loved the thumbscrew-man when he slackened off on their renunciation of the faith. We hear, it is true, only of those who never, never renounced; but no doubt there was an unpretentious majority that did.
The entry of the distinguished entertainer, however, set Mrs. M’llwraith free to begin hating’ young Nettleship for the rest of her natural life. Still, her presence of mind was shattered for the evening; she had not even enough left to prevent Elaine and Nettleship sitting together during the entertainment. And this is a portion of the whispered conversation that took place between the pair.
“I shall have to win your mother next.”
“I wish I thought you could, Ned.”
“I believe I can, though only by scoring off her first.”
“Then do, Ned, do! Don’t mind me a little bit.”
“Well, I don’t mean to in this case, my darling. The fact is, I see my way to scoring off her as it is—with absolute certainty!”
If he had seen his way to scoring off the fiend himself (in the shape of the Demon Bowler) with absolute certainty (and on a bad wicket), he could not have mentioned it with greater exultation.
IV.
At eleven o’clock the following morning Nettleship strode into Labrano’s. He was waited upon by the manager with surprising alacrity.
“I have good news for you, sir; good news at last, Mr. Nettleship.”
“Have you, indeed!” said Nettleship coldly. The man’s congratulatory tone would have been offensive to him under any circumstances.
“Well, I think I have, sir. That little Indian vase has been taken by a lady customer, on approval—”
“On approval, eh?” cried Nettleship.
“Well, yes; but you may rely upon it that it is in safe hands; and I may tell you that I have every reason to believe they will keep it, and pay the price.”
“There you are mistaken. They will neither keep it nor will they pay the price. You must get it back from them at once. Money will not buy it now!”
“Sir!”
“I have had a narrow escape,” continued Nettleship. “I have discovered that that simple-looking vase is absolutely priceless.”
The shopman whistled, and turned red.
“So I must ask you, if you please, to send a special messenger for it at once, in a hansom. My good sir, I’ll pay you for the trouble and expense at your own figure—only send off your messenger at once.”
But the tradesman’s confusion had nothing to do with the young man’s request. It was simply accounted for by an overwhelming sense of a marvellous bargain missed—through an imperfect knowledge of
Eastern relics, and an exaggerated, narrow-minded, imbecile regard for Craze.
The request, indeed, was immediately complied with. In the course of an hour the messenger returned with the vase, and brought word from Mrs. M’llwraith that her custom ceased from that hour. Nettleship paid up as liberally for the trouble as the dignity of Messrs. Labrano would permit, jumped into the emissary’s hansom, and drove off to the Temple with his treasure. He entered his chambers in high glee; the prospect of the score looked even rosier than when he had left them an hour ago.
That was on the Saturday. Nettleship waited patiently until the following Tuesday, which was Mrs. M’llwraith’s day for receiving callers. At half-past four to the minute on the Tuesday afternoon he presented himself in Sussex Square.
Even as he was announced, the flowing speech of Mrs. Professor Josling fell upon his ears; and Nettleship scented the vase. He was received with flawless outward serenity, sat down modestly in an obscure corner (which, however, commanded a fine view of his hostess’s face), and flattered Mrs. Josling with a peculiarly earnest attention as that lady resumed her interrupted narration.
“Well, as I was saying, I was prepared to interest my husband with my little reproduction of the tracery; but I did not expect to administer a galvanic shock, my dear Mrs. M’llwraith. He pushed back his proofs, and said—indeed, I don’t know what he didn’t say. He is so excitable, the Professor—and nervous, and almost irritable—when he is busy with proofs. The artistic temperament, Mrs. M’llwraith; for, as you know, the Professor is a man of letters as well as a scientist. But above all he is a virtuoso; and my crude reproduction absorbed him at the time to the exclusion of all other subjects. At first I could learn nothing. He was lost in rapt contemplation of the design. But at last he told me that your vase must be a very valuable possession indeed; that he only knew of one other like it in existence, and that in the British Museum. The quaint figures on the vase, he says, probably represent scenes in the life of Gautama Buddha, which would complete the resemblance to the Museum vase. But, to be quite sure, he would like above all things to see the vase itself. He desired me to tell you this, and to crave, on his behalf, the favour of permission to call quietly one afternoon and thoroughly examine the vase.”
Under Two Skies Page 5