by Unknown
“Well,” said Sam, “you can’t say it’s not a temptation. And you know what you Napoleons of the Underworld are!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1
If there is one thing more than another which weighs upon the mind of a story-teller as he chronicles the events which he has set out to describe, it is the thought that the reader may be growing impatient with him for straying from the main channel of his tale and devoting himself to what are after all minor developments. This story, for instance, opened with Mrs. Horace Hignett, the world-famous writer on Theosophy, going over to America to begin a lecture-tour; and no one realises more keenly than I do that I have left Mrs. Hignett flat. I have thrust that great thinker into the background and concentrated my attention on the affairs of one who is both her mental and moral inferior, Samuel Marlowe. I seem at this point to see the reader—a great brute of a fellow with beetling eyebrows and a jaw like the ram of a battleship, the sort of fellow who is full of determination and will stand no nonsense—rising to remark that he doesn’t care what happened to Samuel Marlowe and that what he wants to know is, how Mrs. Hignett made out on her lecturing-tour. Did she go big in Buffalo? Did she have ‘em tearing up the seats in Schenectady? Was she a riot in Chicago and a cyclone in St. Louis? Those are the points on which he desires information, or give him his money back.
I cannot supply the information. And, before you condemn me, let me hastily add that the fault is not mine but that of Mrs. Hignett herself. The fact is, she never went to Buffalo. Schenectady saw nothing of her. She did not get within a thousand miles of Chicago, nor did she penetrate to St. Louis. For the very morning after her son Eustace sailed for England in the liner Atlantic, she happened to read in the paper one of those abridged passenger-lists which the journals of New York are in the habit of printing, and got a nasty shock when she saw that, among those whose society Eustace would enjoy during the voyage was Miss Wilhelmina Bennett, daughter of J. Rufus Bennett, of Bennett, Mandelbaum and Co. And within five minutes of digesting this information, she was at her desk writing out telegrams cancelling all her engagements. Iron-souled as this woman was, her fingers trembled as she wrote. She had a vision of Eustace and the daughter of J. Rufus Bennett strolling together on moonlit decks, leaning over rails damp with sea-spray, and, in short, generally starting the whole trouble over again.
In the height of the tourist season it is not always possible for one who wishes to leave America to spring on to the next boat. A long morning’s telephoning to the offices of the Cunard and the White Star brought Mrs. Hignett the depressing information that it would be a full week before she could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable Eustace would have over two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing, and Mrs. Hignett’s heart sank, till suddenly she remembered that so poor a sailor as her son was not likely to have had leisure for any strolling on the deck during the voyage of the Atlantic.
Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations for departure with an easier mind. The danger was still great, but there was a good chance that she might be in time to intervene. She wound up her affairs in New York and, on the following Wednesday, boarded the Nuronia bound for Southampton.
The Nuronia is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats. It was built at a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an ocean liner broke the record by getting across in nine days. It rolled over to Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours, then sauntered across the Channel and strolled into Southampton Water in the evening of the day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane plotting with Webster, the valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam, sidling through the windows of the drawing-room, slid into the cupboard behind the piano, Mrs. Hignett was standing at the Customs barrier telling the officials that she had nothing to declare.
Mrs. Hignett was a general who believed in forced marches. A lesser woman might have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to Windles at her ease on the following afternoon. Mrs. Hignett was made of sterner stuff. Having fortified herself with a late dinner, she hired an automobile and set out on the cross-country journey. It was only when the car, a genuine antique, had broken down three times in the first ten miles, that it became evident to her that it would be much too late to go to Windles that night, and she directed the driver to take her instead to the “Blue Boar” in Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired but thankful to have reached it at all, at about eleven o’clock.
At this point many, indeed most, women, having had a tiring journey, would have gone to bed: but the familiar Hampshire air and the knowledge that half an hour’s walking would take her to her beloved home acted on Mrs. Hignett like a restorative. One glimpse of Windles she felt that she must have before she retired for the night, if only to assure herself that it was still there. She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich brought to her by the night-porter, whom she had roused from sleep, for bedtime is early in Windlehurst, and then informed him that she was going for a short walk and would ring when she returned.
Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her home and felt the well-remembered gravel crunching under her feet. The silhouette of the ruined castle against the summer sky gave her the feeling which all returning wanderers know. And, when she stepped on to the lawn and looked at the black bulk of the house, indistinct and shadowy with its backing of trees, tears came into her eyes. She experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite faint, and which lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order to facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from noticing the fact.
All the proprietor in Mrs. Hignett was roused. This, she felt indignantly, was the sort of thing she had been afraid would happen the moment her back was turned. Evidently laxity—one might almost say anarchy—had set in directly she had removed the eye of authority. She marched to the window and pushed it open. She had now completely abandoned her kindly scheme of refraining from rousing the sleeping house and spending the night at the inn. She stepped into the drawing-room with the single-minded purpose of rousing Eustace out of his sleep and giving him a good talking to for having failed to maintain her own standard of efficiency among the domestic staff. If there was one thing on which Mrs. Horace Hignett had always insisted it was that every window in the house must be closed at lights-out.
She pushed the curtains apart with a rattle and, at the same moment, from the direction of the door there came a low but distinct gasp which made her resolute heart jump and flutter. It was too dark to see anything distinctly, but, in the instant before it turned and fled, she caught sight of a shadowy male figure, and knew that her worst fears had been realised. The figure was too tall to be Eustace, and Eustace, she knew, was the only man in the house. Male figures, therefore, that went flitting about Windles, must be the figures of burglars.
Mrs. Hignett, bold woman though she was, stood for an instant spellbound, and for one moment of not unpardonable panic, tried to tell herself that she had been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though something soft had been kicked, followed by a low gurgle and the noise of staggering feet. Unless he was dancing a pas seul out of sheer lightness of heart, the nocturnal visitor must have tripped over something.
The latter theory was the correct one. Montagu Webster was a man who at many a subscription ball had shaken a wicked dancing-pump, and nothing in the proper circumstances pleased him better than to exercise the skill which had become his as the result of twelve private lessons at half-a-crown a visit: but he recognized the truth of the scriptural adage that there is a time for dancing, and that this was not it. His only desire when, stealing into the drawing-room he had been confronted through the curtains by a female figure, was to ge
t back to his bedroom undetected. He supposed that one of the feminine members of the house-party must have been taking a stroll in the grounds, and he did not wish to stay and be compelled to make laborious explanations of his presence there in the dark. He decided to postpone the knocking on the cupboard door, which had been the signal arranged between himself and Sam, until a more suitable occasion. In the meantime he bounded silently out into the hall, and instantaneously tripped over the portly form of Smith, the bulldog, who, roused from a light sleep to the knowledge that something was going on, and being a dog who always liked to be in the centre of the maelstrom of events, had waddled out to investigate.
By the time Mrs. Hignett had pulled herself together sufficiently to feel brave enough to venture into the hall, Webster’s presence of mind and Smith’s gregariousness had combined to restore that part of the house to its normal nocturnal condition of emptiness. Webster’s stagger had carried him almost up to the green baize door leading to the servants’ staircase, and he proceeded to pass through it without checking his momentum, closely followed by Smith who, now convinced that interesting events were in progress which might possibly culminate in cake, had abandoned the idea of sleep and meant to see the thing through. He gambolled in Webster’s wake up the stairs and along the passage leading to the latter’s room, and only paused when the door was brusquely shut in his face. Upon which he sat down to think the thing over. He was in no hurry. The night was before him, promising, as far as he could judge from the way it had opened, excellent entertainment.
Mrs. Hignett had listened fearfully to the uncouth noises from the hall. The burglars—she had now discovered that there were at least two of them—appeared to be actually romping. The situation had grown beyond her handling. If this troupe of terpsichorean marauders was to be dislodged she must have assistance. It was man’s work. She made a brave dash through the hall, mercifully unmolested: found the stairs: raced up them: and fell through the doorway of her son Eustace’s bedroom like a spent Marathon runner staggering past the winning-post.
2
In the moment which elapsed before either of the two could calm their agitated brains to speech, Eustace became aware, as never before, of the truth of that well-known line, “Peace, perfect Peace, with loved ones far away!”
“Eustace!”
Mrs. Hignett gasped, hand on heart.
“Eustace, there are men in the house!”
This fact was just the one which Eustace had been wondering how to break to her.
“I know,” he said uneasily.
“You know!” Mrs. Hignett stared. “Did you hear them!”
“Hear them?” said Eustace, puzzled.
“The drawing-room window was left open, and there are two burglars in the hall.”
“Oh, I say, no! That’s rather rotten!” said Eustace.
“I saw and heard them. Come with me and arrest them.”
“But I can’t. I’ve sprained my ankle.”
“Sprained your ankle? How very inconvenient! When did you do that?”
“This morning.”
“How did it happen?”
Eustace hesitated.
“I was jumping.”
“Jumping! But—oh!” Mrs. Hignett’s sentence trailed off into a suppressed shriek, as the door opened.
Immediately following on Eustace’s accident, Jane Hubbard had constituted herself his nurse. It was she who had bound up his injured ankle in a manner which the doctor on his arrival had admitted himself unable to improve upon. She had sat with him through the long afternoon. And now, fearing lest a return of the pain might render him sleepless, she had come to bring him a selection of books to see him through the night.
Jane Hubbard was a girl who by nature and training was well adapted to bear shocks. She accepted the advent of Mrs. Hignett without visible astonishment, though inwardly she was wondering who the visitor might be.
“Good evening,” she said, placidly.
Mrs. Hignett, having rallied from her moment of weakness, glared at the new arrival dumbly. She could not place Jane. She had the air of a nurse, and yet she wore no uniform.
“Who are you?” she asked stiffly.
“Who are you?” countered Jane.
“I,” said Mrs. Hignett portentously, “am the owner of this house, and I should be glad to know what you are doing in it. I am Mrs. Horace Hignett.”
A charming smile spread itself over Jane’s finely-cut face.
“I’m so glad to meet you,” she said. “I have heard so much about you.”
“Indeed?” said Mrs. Hignett. “And now I should like to hear a little about you.”
“I’ve read all your books,” said Jane. “I think they’re wonderful.”
In spite of herself, in spite of a feeling that this young woman was straying from the point, Mrs. Hignett could not check a slight influx of amiability. She was an authoress who received a good deal of incense from admirers, but she could always do with a bit more. Besides, most of the incense came by mail. Living a quiet and retired life in the country, it was rarely that she got it handed to her face to face. She melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to look like a basilisk, but she began to look like a basilisk who has had a good lunch.
“My favorite,” said Jane, who for a week had been sitting daily in a chair in the drawing-room adjoining the table on which the authoress’s complete works were assembled, “is ‘The Spreading Light.’ I do like ‘The Spreading Light!’”
“It was written some years ago,” said Mrs. Hignett with something approaching cordiality, “and I have since revised some of the views I state in it, but I still consider it quite a good text-book.”
“Of course, I can see that ‘What of the Morrow?’ is more profound,” said Jane. “But I read ‘The Spreading Light’ first, and of course that makes a difference.”
“I can quite see that it would,” agreed Mrs. Hignett. “One’s first step across the threshold of a new mind, one’s first glimpse….”
“Yes, it makes you feel….”
“Like some watcher of the skies,” said Mrs. Hignett, “when a new planet swims into his ken, or like….”
“Yes, doesn’t it!” said Jane.
Eustace, who had been listening to the conversation with every muscle tense, in much the same mental attitude as that of a peaceful citizen in a Wild West saloon who holds himself in readiness to dive under a table directly the shooting begins, began to relax. What he had shrinkingly anticipated would be the biggest thing since the Dempsey-Carpentier fight seemed to be turning into a pleasant social and literary evening not unlike what he imagined a meeting of old Vassar alumni must be. For the first time since his mother had come into the room he indulged in the luxury of a deep breath.
“But what are you doing here?” asked Mrs. Hignett, returning almost reluctantly to the main issue.
Eustace perceived that he had breathed too soon. In an unobtrusive way he subsided into the bed and softly pulled the sheets over his head, following the excellent tactics of the great Duke of Wellington in his Peninsular campaign. “When in doubt,” the Duke used to say, “retire and dig yourself in.”
“I’m nursing dear Eustace,” said Jane.
Mrs. Hignett quivered, and cast an eye on the hump in the bedclothes which represented dear Eustace. A cold fear had come upon her.
“‘Dear Eustace’!” she repeated mechanically.
“We’re engaged,” said Jane. “We got engaged this morning. That’s how he sprained his ankle. When I accepted him, he tried to jump a holly-bush.”
“Engaged! Eustace, is this true?”
“Yes,” said a muffled voice from the interior of the bed.
“And poor Eustace is so worried,” continued Jane, “about the house.” She went on quickly. “He doesn’t want to deprive you of it, because he knows what it means to you. So he is hoping—we are both hoping—that you will accept it as a present when we are married. We really shan’t want it, you know. We are going to li
ve in London. So you will take it, won’t you—to please us?”
We all of us, even the greatest of us, have our moments of weakness. Let us then not express any surprise at the sudden collapse of one of the world’s greatest female thinkers. As the meaning of this speech smote on Mrs. Horace Hignett’s understanding, she sank weeping into a chair. The ever-present fear that had haunted her had been exorcised. Windles was hers in perpetuity. The relief was too great. She sat in her chair and gulped: and Eustace, greatly encouraged, emerged slowly from the bedclothes like a worm after a thunderstorm.
How long this poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it. But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody had touched off the orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing instrument had begun again in the middle of a bar at the point where it had been switched off. Its wailing lament for the passing of Summer filled the whole house.
“That’s too bad!” said Jane, a little annoyed. “At this time of night!”
“It’s the burglars!” quavered Mrs. Hignett. In the stress of recent events she had completely forgotten the existence of those enemies of society. “They were dancing in the hall when I arrived, and now they’re playing the orchestrion!”
“Light-hearted chaps!” said Eustace, admiring the sang-froid of the criminal world. “Full of spirits!”
“This won’t do,” said Jane Hubbard, shaking her head. “We can’t have this sort of thing. I’ll go and fetch my gun.”
“They’ll murder you, dear!” panted Mrs. Hignett, clinging to her arm.
Jane Hubbard laughed.
“Murder me!” she said, amusedly. “I’d like to catch them at it!”
Mrs. Hignett stood staring at the door as Jane closed it safely behind her.
“Eustace,” she said, solemnly, “that is a wonderful girl!”