by Ian Hay
CHAPTER XVIII
_EX MACHINA_
Miss Joan Gaymer, pleasantly fatigued after last night's dissipation,reclined in a canvas chair on the lawn at Manors. She had just finishedreading a letter which had arrived by the afternoon post. It was fromher brother Lance, and conveyed, probably a good deal more fully thanHughie himself would have done, the reasons for Hughie's absence on theprevious evening. Joan's brow was puckered thoughtfully, and shesurveyed the tips of her small shoes, which were cocked at an unladylikealtitude upon a stool in front of her, with a profundity of maidenmeditation which was perhaps explained by the fact that she had receiveda proposal of marriage the evening before, and was expecting theproposer to come and second his own motion at any moment.
To her entered suddenly Jno. Alex. Goble.
"Yon felly!" he intimated austerely.
"Mr. Haliburton, do you mean, John?" inquired Miss Gaymer, hastilyletting down her feet.
"Aye. Wull I loose him in here?"
"Yes, please. No--I mean--"
But Cupid's messenger was gone. Presently he returned, and, with the airof one introducing the Coroner to the foreman of the jury, announced Mr.Haliburton.
That ardent suitor advanced gallantly across the lawn, and taking Joan'shand with an air of respectful rapture, endeavoured to draw its ownerinto the shade of the copper beech. Joan forestalled his intentions bysaying at once,--
"Come along into the library, Mr. Haliburton, and we'll see what myguardian has to say to you."
Mr. Haliburton hinted that there was no hurry, and made a pointedreference to Amaryllis and the shade; but his unsentimental nymphmarched him briskly across the lawn, round the corner of the house, andin at the front door.
They crossed the cool, dark hall, and Joan tapped at the oaken door ofthe library.
"Come in," said a voice.
The lovers entered.
"I have brought Mr. Haliburton to see you, Hughie," remarked MissGaymer, much as one might announce the arrival of a person to inspectthe gas meter.
Mr. Haliburton, who was not the man to show embarrassment, whether hefelt it or not, advanced easily into the room. Joan surveyed hisstraight back and square shoulders as he passed her, and the corners ofher mouth twitched, ever so little.
Then she looked at Hughie. It was her first meeting with him since hisreturn home that morning. He had answered her note by another, sayingthat he would be in the library at five o'clock. There was no twitchingabout his mouth. It was closed like a steel trap; and he stood with hisback to the wood-fire which glowed in the grate--it was getting on inSeptember, and cold out of the sun--with absolute stolidity. Joan saw ata glance that, whatever the difficulties of the position, her guardian'sline of action was now staked out and his mind made up--one way or theother.
She dropped into an arm-chair.
"Now, you two," she remarked encouragingly, "get to work! I want to hearwhat each of you has got to say about my future. It will be quiteexciting--like going to a palmist!"
The two men turned and regarded her in unfeigned surprise. They had notexpected this. Haliburton began swiftly to calculate whether Joan'spresence would be a help to him or not. But Hughie said at once:--
"You must leave us alone, Joan, please! I can't possibly allow you toremain."
Joan lay back in her chair and smiled up at him, frankly mutinous. Shehad never yet failed, when she so desired, to "manage" a man. Hughie wasregarding her stonily; but two minutes, she calculated, would make himsufficiently pliable.
She was wrong. At the end of this period Hughie was still rigidlywaiting for her to leave the room. Joan, a little surprised at hisobstinacy, remarked:--
"If you are going to object to--to Mr. Haliburton's suggestions, Hughie,I think I ought to hear what the objections are."
"Before you go," said Hughie in even tones, "I will tell you onething--and that should be sufficient. It is this. There is not theslightest prospect of this--this engagement coming off. My reasons forsaying so I am prepared to give to Mr. Haliburton, and if he thinksproper he can communicate them to you afterwards. But I don't think hewill. Now will you leave us, please?"
Joan was genuinely astonished. But she controlled herself. She wasdetermined to see the matter out now. All the woman in her--and she wasall woman--answered to the challenge contained in Hughie's dictatorialattitude. Besides, she was horribly curious.
She heaved a sad little sigh, and made certain shameless play with hereyes which she knew stirred poor Hughie to the point of desperation, andsurveyed the result through drooping lashes with some satisfaction.Hughie's mouth was fast shut, and he was breathing through his nose; andJoan could see a little pulse beating in his right temple. (Both ofthem, for the moment, had forgotten the ardent suitor by the window.)She would win through in a moment now.
But alas! she had forgotten a masculine weapon against which all theVotes for Women in the world will avail nothing, when it comes to apinch.
Hughie suddenly relaxed his attitude, and strode across to the door,which he held open for her.
"At _once_, please!" he said in a voice which Joan had never heardbefore, though many men had.
Without quite knowing why, Miss Gaymer rose meekly from her chair andwalked out of the room. The door closed behind her.
* * * * *
When Joan found herself on the lawn again she gasped a little.
"Ooh!" she said breathlessly. "I--I feel just as if I'd been hit in theface by a big wave! This game is not turning out quite as you expected,Joey, my child: the man Hughie is one up! Still, I'll take it out of himanother time. But--heavens!"--She was staring, like Red Riding-Hood on ahistoric occasion, at a recumbent figure in her canvas chair beneath thecopper beech--"Who on _earth_ is that in my chair? It's--it's--oh! JoeyGaymer, you've got hysterics! It's--it's--Uncle Jimmy! _Uncle Jimmy!...My Uncle--Jimmy!_"
Next moment she was reposing comfortably, a distracted bundle of tearsand laughter, in the arms of Jimmy Marrable.
"A bit sudden--eh, young lady?" enquired that gentleman at last. "Iought to have written, I suppose. But I quite forgot you would all thinkI was dead. Never mind--I'm not!"
He blew his nose resonantly to substantiate his statement.
Joan, satisfied at last that he was real, and greatly relieved to findthat she was not suffering from hysterical delusions arising fromHughie's brutal treatment of her, enquired severely of the truant wherehe had been for the last five years.
Jimmy Marrable told her. It was a long story, and the shadow of thecopper beech had perceptibly lengthened by the time the narrator hadembarked at Zanzibar for the port of Leith. They had the garden tothemselves, for the Leroys were out.
"I don't want to hear any more adventures, because I'm simply burstingwith questions," said Miss Gaymer frankly. "First of all, why did you goaway? You rushed off in such a hurry that you had no time to explain. Iwas barely eighteen then."
"It was the old failing--the Marrable wandering tendency," replied heruncle. "I had kept it at bay quite easily for close on fifteen years,but it came back very hard and suddenly about that time."
"Why?"
"Partly, I think, because the only thing that had kept me at home allthose years seemed to be slipping away from me."
"I _wasn't_!" declared Miss Gaymer stoutly. Then she reflected. "Do youmean--all those silly boys? Was it them?"
"It was," said Jimmy Marrable. "They not only put my nose out of jointbut they bored me to tears."
"You were always worth the whole lot of them put together, dear," saidMiss Gaymer affectionately.
"I knew that," replied Jimmy Marrable modestly, "but I wasn't quite sureif you did. I saw that for the next two or three years you would behealthily and innocently employed in making fools of young men, and socould well afford to do without your old wreck of an uncle. The seriouspart would not come until you grew up to be of a marriageable age. So Idecided in the meanwhile to
treat myself to just one last potter roundthe globe, and then, in a couple of years or so, come home and assumethe onerous duties of chucker-out."
"Then why did you stay away so long?" demanded Miss Gaymer.
"Because I heard Hughie had come home," said Jimmy Marrable simply.
Joan started guiltily, and her hand, which was resting in one of the oldgentleman's, relaxed its hold for a moment. Jimmy Marrable noticednothing, and proceeded:--
"I got news of him from a man in Cape Town. His name was Allerton. Heseemed a bit of a rolling stone, but had lately married the proprietressof a little public-house, Wynberg way, and was living in greatcontentment and affluence. His wife regarded his capture as the crowningachievement of her life, and altogether they were a most devoted couple.On hearing that my name was Marrable, he said he was sure I must beHughie's uncle, as Hughie had told him I was the only relation he had.He was a gentleman, of sorts, and seemed to regard friend Hughie as akind of cross between Providence and the Rock of Gibraltar. They hadbeen through some rather tough times together--on board the Orinoco. Iexpect Hughie has often told you all about that?"
Joan shook her head.
"No? Well, it was like him not to. However, Allerton told me for a factthat Hughie was now home for good; so I knew then that my plans hadworked out right after all, and that I need not hurry back. My littlegirl was safe."
He sighed contentedly, and patted Joan's hand.
"I'm a happy old fossil, Joey," he said. "I've always schemed in aclumsy way to bring this about, and now it has happened. 'There's adivinity that shapes our ends,' you know. And now, I suppose, you aremistress of this old house. How long have you been married?"
"We're not," said Joan in a very small voice.
"Not what?"
"Married."
She held up a ringless hand in corroboration. Jimmy Marrable inspectedit.
"Where's your engagement ring?" he demanded.
Joan felt that there was a bad time coming--especially for Uncle Jimmy.
"We--we're not engaged," she faltered. Then she continued swiftly, forthere was a look on Jimmy Marrable's brown and wrinkled face thatfrightened her, and she wanted to get explanations over: "Hughie and Ididn't quite care for one another--in that way. No, I'm a liar. _I_didn't care for Hughie in that way."
"He asked you, then?"
"Yes."
"And you--wouldn't--?"
Joan nodded. She suddenly felt unreasonably mean and despicable. She haddeclined to marry Hughie in all good faith, as she had a perfect rightto do, for the very sufficient reason that she did not like him--or hisway of putting things--well enough; and she had felt no particularcompunction at the time in dealing the blow. But none of these reasonsseemed any excuse for hurting Uncle Jimmy.
Since then, too, her feelings towards Hughie himself had altered to anextent which she was just beginning to realise. Of late she had foundherself taking a quite peculiar interest in Hughie's movements. Why,she hardly knew. He paid her few attentions; he was habituallyuncompromising in what he considered the execution of his duty; and hehad made a shocking mess of her affairs. But--he was in trouble; peoplewere down on him; and he had been her friend ever since she couldremember.
Now Joan Gaymer, if she was nothing else, was loyal; and loyalty in awoman rather thrives on adversity than otherwise. And a woman's loyaltyto a man who is her friend, if you endeavour to overstrain it or driveit into a corner, in nine cases out of ten will protect itself,Proteus-like, by turning into something entirely different, a somethingwhich is quite impervious to outward attack and can only be strained tobreaking-point by one person--the man himself; and not always then, ascountless undeserving husbands know. Joan's loyalty to Hughie was insome such process of transition. She thought about him a good deal, butshe had never once faced the question of her ultimate relations withhim. The modern maiden is not given to candid analysis of her ownfeelings towards members of the opposite sex,--she considers theseexercises "Early Victorian," or "sentimental," or "effeminate"; andconsequently Joan had never frankly asked herself what she reallythought about Hughie Marrable. At times, say when she heard people speakill of her deputy-guardian behind his back, she had been conscious thatshe was hot and angry; at others, when something occurred to bring hometo her with special force the tribulations that Hughie was enduring, shehad been conscious of a large and dim determination to "make it up tohim," in some manner as yet undefined and at some time as yetunspecified. In short, like many a daughter of Eve before her, she hadnot known her own mind. She knew it now. Her heart smote her.
Suddenly Jimmy Marrable's voice broke in with the rather unexpected butnot altogether unreasonable question:--
"Then if you aren't either engaged or married to Hughie, may I ask whatthe deuce you are doing in his house?"
"It isn't his house," replied Joan, recalling her wandering attention tothe rather irascible figure by her side. "He has let it to the Leroys,and he and I are both staying here as guests just now."
"What on earth did the boy want to let the place for? Why couldn't youand the Leroys come and stay here as _his_ guests?"
"I think," said Miss Gaymer delicately, "that Hughie is--rather hardup."
"Hard up? Stuff! He has eight hundred a year, and enough coming in fromthe estate to make it pay its own way without any expense to him. Howmuch more does he want?"
"I don't think Hughie is a very good business man," said Joan.
She made the remark in sincere defence of Hughie, just as a mother mightsay, "Ah, but he always _had_ a weak chest!" when her offspring comes inlast in the half-mile handicap. But Jimmy Marrable, being a man, tookthe suggestion as a reproach.
"Nonsense!" he said testily. "Hughie has as hard a head as any man Iknow. What do you mean by running him down? Have you any complaint tomake of the way he has managed _your_ affairs--eh?"
"None whatever," said Joan promptly.
"But--bless my soul!" cried Jimmy Marrable; "I forgot! You haven't_got_--" He paused, and appeared to be working out some abstruse problemin his head. "Look here, Joey," he continued presently, "if you aren'tmarried to Hughie, what are you living on?"
Joan stared at him in astonishment.
"On the money you left behind for me," she said. "What else?"
The old gentleman regarded her intently for a moment, and then said:--
"Of course: I forgot. I suppose Hughie pays it to you quarterly."
"Yes--into my bank account," replied Miss Gaymer with a touch of pride.
"How much?"
"Is it _quite_ fair to tell?" inquired Joan, instinctively protectingher fraudulent trustee.
"Of course. It was my money in the first instance. Go on--how much?"
"Four hundred a year," said Joan. "It was three hundred at first. Hughietold me you hadn't left as much as he expected, and that I should haveto be careful. But Ursula Harbord--she is the girl I share a flat with:she is frightfully clever about money and business--told me to askHughie what interest I was getting on my capital, or something. I foundout for her--four per cent, I think it was--and she said it wasn't_nearly_ enough. There were things called preference shares, orsomething, that pay ten or twelve per cent; and Hughie must sell out atonce, and buy these instead. What's the matter?"
Jimmy Marrable had suddenly choked.
"Nothing! Nothing!" he said, in some confusion. "A smart girl, thisfriend of yours! Takes a large size in boots and gloves, I should say,and acts as honorary treasurer to various charitable organisations!Twelve per cent! Aha!" He slapped himself feebly. "And what did MasterHughie say to _that_?"
"I could see he didn't half like it," continued Joan; "but Ursula haddeclared that if I wouldn't allow her to speak to him, she would consultsome responsible person; as she was _sure_ Hughie was mismanaging thingsdisgracefully. So to keep her quiet I let her. I think Hughie saw therewas something in what she said, though; because he immediately agreed togive me four hundred a year in future instead of three. _Is_ it enough,Uncle Jimmy, or has poor
Hughie really made a mess of things, as peoplesay? _Say_ it's enough, Uncle Jimmy! I _know_ he did his best, and I'drather go without--"
"Enough?"
Jimmy Marrable turned and scrutinised his ward closely, as if appraisingher exact value. Certainly she was very lovely. He whistled softly, andnodded his head in an enigmatical manner.
"I'd have done it myself," he murmured darkly. "Enough?" he repeatedaloud. "My little girl, do you know how much capital an income of fourhundred a year represents?"
Joan shook her head. Her experience of finance was limited to signing acheque in the proper corner.
"Well, about ten thousand pounds."
"Hoo!" said Miss Gaymer, pleasantly fluttered. "Have I got all that?"
"No."
"Oh! How much, then?"
Jimmy Marrable told her.
