X
SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH
"My dear Philippa," said Miss Shute gloomily, "I have about as muchchance of spending next winter in Florence as I have of spending it inthe moon. I despair of ever getting Bernard married. I look upon himas hopeless."
"I don't agree with you at all," replied Philippa, "don't you rememberhow demented he was about Sally Knox? And when we all thought he wason the verge of suicide, we discovered that he was deep in a flirtationwith that American girl. It seems to me he's ready to be devoted toany one who takes him in hand. He has none of that deadly helplessfidelity about him."
"I ought never to have allowed him to take up gardening," said MissShute, despondently pursuing her own line of thought, "it only promotesintimacies with dowagers."
"Yes, and it makes men elderly, and contented, and stay-at-home,"agreed Philippa; "it's one of the worst signs! But I can easily makeSybil Hervey think she's a gardener. She's a thoroughly nice,coercible girl. Alice has always been so particular about her girls.Of course with their money they've been run after a good deal, butthey're not in the least spoilt."
"I don't think," I murmured privately to Maria, who was trying tohypnotise me into letting her crawl on to the sofa beside me, "thatwe'll borrow half-a-crown to get drunk with her."
Maria wagged her tail in servile acquiescence.
"Nonsense!" said my wife largely.
A month from the date of this conversation, Sybil Hervey, my wife'spretty, young, and well-dowered niece, was staying beneath our roof. Ihad not changed my mind about the half-crown, though Maria, perfidiousas ever, feigned for her the impassioned affection that had so oftenimposed upon the guileless guest within my gates.
"Why, this dog has taken the most extraordinary fancy to me!" SybilHervey (who was really a very amiable girl) would say, and Maria, witha furtive eye upon her owners, would softly draw the guest's thirdpiece of cake into the brown velvet bag that she called her mouth.
This was all very well from Maria's point of view, but a friendshipwith Maria had not been the object of Miss Hervey's importation. Ievade, by main strength, the quotation from Burns proper to this stateof affairs, and proceed to say that the matrimonial scheme laid by mywife and Miss Shute was not prospering. Sybil Hervey, the coercible,the thoroughly nice, shied persistently at the instructive pages ofRobinson's "English Flower Garden," and stuck in her toes and refusedpoint blank to weed seedlings for her Aunt Philippa. Nor was acomprehensive garden party at Clountiss attended with any success; farotherwise. Miss Shute unfortunately thought it incumbent on her totrawl in deep waters, and to invite even the McRory family to herentertainment, with the result that her brother, Bernard--I quote mywife verbatim--made a ridiculous spectacle of himself by walking aboutall the afternoon with a fluffy-haired, certainly-rather-pretty, littleabomination, a creature who was staying with the McRorys. Worse eventhan this, Sybil had disappointed, if not disgraced, her backers, byvanishing from the ken of un-gentle men with Mr. De Lacy McRory, knownto his friends as "Curly."
I have before now dealt, superficially, and quite inadequately, withthe McRorys. It may even be permitted to me to recall again thegeneric description of each young male McRory. "A bit of a lad, butnothing at all to the next youngest." Since that time the family hadworn its way, unequally and in patches, into the tolerance of theneighbourhood. It was said, apologetically, that the daughters danced,and played tennis and golf so well, and the sons did the same and weresuch excellent shots, and that Mrs. McRory bought, uncomplainingly, allthat was offered to her at bazaars, and could always be counted on fora whole row of seats at local concerts. As for old McRory, people saidthat he was certainly rather awful, but that he was better than hisfamily in that he knew that he was awful, and kept out of the way. Asa matter of history, there were not many functions where a McRory ofsome kind, in accordance with its special accomplishment, did not find,at all events, standing room; fewer still where they did not form avalued topic of conversation.
Curly McRory was, perhaps, the pioneer of his family in their advanceto cross what has been usefully called "the bounder-y line." He playedall games well, and he was indisputably good-looking, he knew how to bediscreetly silent; he also, apparently, knew how to talk to Sybil whattime her accredited chaperon, oblivious of her position, played twoengrossing sets of tennis.
After this fiasco came a period of stagnation, during which Mr. De LacyMcRory honoured us with his first visit to Shreelane, bicycling over tosee me, on business connected with the golf club; in my regrettedabsence he asked for Mrs. Yeates, and stayed for tea. Following uponthis Sybil took to saying, "I will," in what she believed to be abrogue, instead of "yes," and was detected in fruitless search for theMcRorys of Temple Braney in the pages of Burke's Irish Landed Gentry.
It was at this unsatisfactory juncture that Mrs. Flurry Knox enteredinto the affair with an invitation to us to spend three days atAussolas Castle, one of which was to be devoted to the destruction of apack of grouse, fabled by John Kane, the keeper, to frequent a mountainback of Aussolas: the Shutes were also to be of the party. I seemed todetect in the arrangement a hand more diplomatic than that ofProvidence, but I said nothing.
The Flurry Knoxes were, for the moment, in residence at Aussolas, whileold Mrs. Knox made her annual pilgrimage to Buxton. They were sentthere to keep the servants from fighting, and because John Kane hadsaid that there was no such enemies to pigs as servants on board wages.(A dark saying, bearing indirectly on the plenishing of pig-buckets.)
Between servants and pigs, as indeed in most affairs of life, littleMrs. Flurry held the scales of justice with a remarkably steady hand,and under her regime one could at all events be reasonably sure ofhaving one's boots cleaned, and of getting a hot bath in the morning.We went to Aussolas, and Flurry and Bernard Shute and I put in ablazing September day on the mountain, wading knee deep in mattedheather and furze, in pursuit of the mythical grouse, and brought hometwo hares and a headache (the latter being my contribution to the bag).The ladies met us with tea; Sybil, in Harris tweed and admirable boots,looked, I must admit, uncommonly smart. Even Flurry was impressed, andit was palpable to the most superficial observer that Bernard was atlength beginning, like a baby, to "take notice." After tea he and shemoved away in sweet accord to wash teacups in a bog-hole, from whencetheir prattle came prosperously to the ears of the three diplomatists,seated, like the witches in Macbeth, upon the heath, and, like them,arranging futures for other people. Bearing in mind that one of thewitches had (in a previous incarnation as Miss Sally Knox) held Bernardin her thrall, and still retained him in a platonic sphere ofinfluence, any person of experience would have said that the odds weregreatly against Mr. Shute.
FLURRY AND I PUT IN A BLAZING SEPTEMBER DAY ON THEMOUNTAIN]
The hot bath that was the _fine fleur_ of Mrs. Flurry's regime atAussolas failed conspicuously next morning. It was the precursor of ageneral slump. When, at a liberal 9.30, I arrived in the dining-room,of neither host, hostess, nor breakfast was there any sign. The host,it appeared, had gone to a fair; having waited for a hungry half-hourwe were coming to the conclusion that the hostess had gone with him,when the door opened and Mrs. Flurry came swiftly into the room. Herface was as a book, where men might read strange matters; it was alsoof a hue that suggested the ardent climate of the kitchen; in her handshe carried a toast-rack, and following hard on her heels came threemaids, also heavily flushed, bearing various foods, and all,apparently, on the verge of tears. This cortege having retired, Mrs.Flurry proceeded to explain. The butler, Johnny, a dingy young man,once Mrs. Knox's bathchair-attendant, had departed at 8 A.M.,accompanied by Michael the pantry boy, to dig a grave for a cousin. Tothose acquainted with Aussolas there was nothing remarkable in this,but Sybil Hervey's china-blue eyes opened wide, and I heard her askBernard in a low voice if he thought it was anything agrarian. Theannoyance of the cook at the defection of the butler and pantry boy wasso acute that she had retired to her room and ref
used to send inbreakfast.
"That was no more than I should have expected from the servants here,"said Mrs. Flurry vindictively, "but what was just a little too much wasfinding the yard-boy cramming the toast into the toast-rack with hisfingers."
At this my wife's niece uttered the loud yell which all young womenwith any pretension to smartness have by them for use on emergencies,and exclaimed--
"Oh, _don't_!"
"You needn't be frightened," said Mrs. Flurry, giving Miss Hervey theeighth part of a glance of her greeny-grey eyes; "I made this stuffmyself, and you may all think yourselves lucky to get anything," shewent on, "as one of the herd of incapables downstairs said, 'to get asmuch milk as'd do the tea itself, that was the stratagem'!"
Hard on the heels of the quotation there came a rushing sound in thehall without, a furious grappling with the door-handle, and the cookherself, or rather the Tragic Muse in person, burst into the room. Hertawny hair hung loose about her head; her yellow-brown eyes blazed inan ashen and extremely handsome face; she shook a pair of freckledfists at the universe. I cannot pretend to do more than indicate thedrift of her denunciation. Brunhilde, ascending the funeral pyre, withfull orchestral accompaniment, could not more fully and deafeninglyhave held her audience, and the theme might have been taken out of thedarkest corner of any of the Sagas.
The burying-ground of her clan was--so she had been informed by a swiftrunner--even now being broken into by the butler and the pantry boy,and the graves of her ancestors were being thrown open to the FourWinds of the World, to make room for the Scuff of the Country (whateverthat might mean). Here followed the most capable and comprehensivecursings of the butler and the pantry boy that it has ever been my lotto admire, delivered at lightning speed, and with gestures worthy ofthe highest traditions of classic drama, the whole ending with thestatement that she was on her way to the graveyard now to drink theirblood.
"I trust you will, Kate," cordially responded Mrs. Flurry, "don't waita moment!"
The Tragic Muse, startled into an instant of silence, stared wildly atMrs. Flurry, seemed to scent afar off the possibility that she was notbeing taken seriously, and whirled from the room, a Vampire on thewarpath.
"I meant every word I said to her!" said Sally, looking round upon usdefiantly, "I was very near offering her your motor, Mr. Shute! Thesooner she kills Johnny and Michael the better pleased I shall be! AndI may tell you all," she added, "that we shall have no luncheon to-day,and most probably no dinner!"
"Oh, that's all right!" said Philippa, seeing her chance, and hammeringin her wedge with all speed, "now there's nothing for it but sandwichesand a picnic!"
The lake at Aussolas was one of a winding chain of three, connected bynarrow channels cut through the bog for the passage of boats thatcarried turf to the lake-side dwellers. The end one of these, known asBraney's Lake, was a recognised place for picnics; a ruined oratory ona wooded point supplying the pretext, and a reliable spring wellcompleting the equipment. The weather was of the variety speciallyassociated in my mind with Philippa's picnics, brilliantly fine, with afalling glass, and 12 o'clock saw us shoving out from the Aussolas turfquay, through the reeds and the rocks.
BRANEY'S LAKE]
We were a party of six, in two boats; diplomacy, whose I know not, hadso disposed matters that Bernard Shute and Sybil Hervey were despatchedtogether in a dapper punt, and I, realising to the full theinsignificance of my position as a married man, found myself tugging ata tough and ponderous oar, in a species of barge, known to history as"The-Yallow-Boat-that-was-painted-black." My wife and Mrs. Flurry tookturns in assisting my labours by paddling with a scull in the bow,while Miss Shute languidly pulled the wrong string at intervals, in thestern. Why, I grumbled contentiously, should, as it were, fish be madeof Bernard and flesh be made of me (which was a highly figurative wayof describing a performance that would take a stone off my weight ereall was done). Why, I repeated, should not Bernard put his broad backinto it in the heavy boat with me, and leave the punt for the ladies?My wife tore herself from _sotto voce_ gabblings with Sally in the bowto tell me that I was thoroughly unsympathetic, what time she dealt mean unintentional but none the less disabling blow in the spine, in hereffort to fall again into stroke. Mrs. Flurry, in order to take turnsat the oar with Philippa, had seated herself on the luncheon basket inthe bow, thereby sinking the old tub by the head, and, as we afterwardsfound, causing her to leak in the sun-dried upper seams. To ustravelled the voice of Bernard, lightly propelling his skiff over theruffled and sparkling blue water.
"He's telling her about all the alterations he's going to make atClountiss!" hissed Sally down the back of Philippa's neck.
"Almost actionable!" responded my wife, and in her enthusiasm her oaragain took me heavily between the shoulder blades.
We laboured out of the Aussolas lake, and poled down the narrow channelinto the middle lake, where shallows, and a heavy summer's growth ofreeds, did not facilitate our advance. The day began to cloud over; aswe wobbled out of the second channel into Braney's lake the sun wentin, a sharp shower began to whip the water, and simultaneously MissShute announced that her feet were wet, and that she thought the boatmust be leaking. I then perceived that the water was up to the bottomboards, and was coming in faster than I could have wished. A baler wasrequired, and I proceeded with confidence to search for the rustymustard tin, or cracked jam-crock, that fills that office. There wasnothing to be found.
"There are plenty of cups in the luncheon basket," said Sally,tranquilly; "Flurry once had to bale this old boat out with one of hisgrandmother's galoshes."
Philippa and I began to row with some vigour, while Sally wrestled withthe fastening of the luncheon basket in the bow. The lid opened with ajerk and a crack. There was one long and speechless moment, and thenSally said in a very gentle voice:
"They've sent the washing-basket, with all the clean clothes!"
Of the general bearings of this catastrophe there was no time to think;its most pressing feature was the fact that there were no cups withwhich to bale the boat. I looked over my shoulder and saw Bernarddragging the punt ashore under the ruined oratory, a quarter of a mileaway; there was nothing for it but to turn and make for the shore onour right at the best pace attainable. Sally and Philippadouble-banked the bow oar, and the old boat, leaking harder at eachmoment, wallowed on towards a landing stage that suddenly becamevisible amid the reeds--the bottom boards were by this time awash, andMiss Shute's complexion and that of her holland dress matched to ashade.
"Could you throw the washing overboard?" I suggested over my shoulder,labouring the while at my massy oar.
"My--new--nightgowns!" panted Mrs. Flurry, "never!"
Just then big rocks began to show yellow in the depths, the next momentthe boat scraped over one, and, almost immediately afterwards, settleddown quietly and with dignity in some three feet of brown water and mud.
Only those who have tried to get out of a submerged boat, can form anyidea of what then befell. Our feet and legs turned to lead, the waterto glue, all that was floatable in the boat rose to the surface, andlay about there impeding our every movement. We had foundered in sightof port and were not half-a-dozen yards from the landing stage, but todrag myself and three women, all up to our waists in water, and theladies hopelessly handicapped by their petticoats, over the gunwale ofa sunken boat, and to flounder ashore with them in mud, over unsteadyrocks, and through the ever-hampering reeds, was infinitely moredifficult and exhausting than it may seem.
Clasping a slimy post to my bosom with one arm, I was in the act ofshoving Miss Shute up on to the landing stage, when I heard theunmistakeable Dublin light tenor voice of a McRory hail me, announcingthat he was coming to our rescue. More distant shouts, and the rapidcreaking of hard-pulled oars told that Bernard and Sybil were alsospeeding to our aid. The three diplomates, dripping on the end of thepier, looked at each other bodefully, and Philippa murmured:
"The worst has happened!"
After that the worst continued to happen, and at a pace that overboreall resistance. Mr. De Lacy McRory, tall and beautiful, in lily-whiteflannels, took the lead into his own hands and played his gamefaultlessly. Philippa was the object of his chief solicitude, Sallyand Miss Shute had their share of a manly tenderness that resolutelyignored the degrading absurdity of their appearance; his father'shouse, and all that was therein was laid at our feet. Captive andhelpless, we slopped and squelched beside him through the shrubberiesof Temple Braney House, with the shower, now matured into a heavydown-pour, completing our saturation, too spiritless to resent theheavy pleasantries of Bernard, the giggling condolences of Sybil.
We have never been able to decide at which moment the knife ofhumiliation cut deepest, whether it was when we stood and dripped onthe steps, while Curly McRory summoned in trumpet tones his women-kind,or when, still dripping, we stood in the hall and were presented toMrs. McRory and a troop of young men and maidens, vociferous insympathy and hospitality; or when, having progressed like water cartsthrough the house, we found ourselves installed, like the Plague ofFrogs, in the bedchambers of the McRorys, face to face with the supremeembarrassment of either going to bed, or of arraying ourselves in theall too gorgeous garments that were flung before us with a generousabandon worthy of Sir Walter Raleigh.
I chose the latter course, and, in process of time, found myselfimmaculately clothed in what is, I believe, known to tailors as "aLounge Suit," though not for untold gold would I have lounged, or byany carelessness endangered the perfection of the creases of its darkgrey trousers.
The luncheon gong sounded, and, like the leading gentleman in anydrawing-room drama, I put forth from my dressing-room, and at the headof the stairs met my wife and Miss Shute. They were, if possible,grander than I, and looked as if they were going to a wedding.
"We had the choice of about eighty silk blouses," breathed Philippa,gathering up a long and silken train, "Sally has to wear Madame'sclothes, nothing else were short enough. We're in for it, you know,"she added, "a luncheon is inevitable, and goodness knows when we canget away, especially if this rain lasts--" her voice brokehysterically; I turned and saw Mrs. Flurry shuffling towards us invelvet slippers, holding up with both hands a flowing purple brocadeskirt. I pointed repressively downwards, to where, in the window seatof the hall below, were visible the crisped golden curls of Mr. De LacyMcRory, and the shining rolls and undulations of Miss Sybil Hervey's_chevelure_. Their heads were in close proximity, and their voiceswere low and confidential.
"This must be put a stop to!" said Philippa, rustling swiftlydownstairs.
We all moved processionally in to lunch, arm in arm with the McRorys.To Philippa had fallen old McRory, who was the best of the party (inbeing so awful that he knew he was awful). He maintained an unbrokensilence throughout the meal, but whistled jigs secretly through histeeth, a method of keeping up his courage of which I believe he wasquite unconscious. Of the brilliance of the part that I played withMrs. McRory it would ill become me to speak; what is more worthy ofrecord is the rapid and Upas-like growth of intimacy between CurlyMcRory and my wife's niece. She had probably never before encountereda young man so anxious to be agreeable, so skilled in achieving thatend. The fact that he was Irish accounted, no doubt, in her eyes, forall that was unusual in his voice and manners, and his long eyelashesdid the rest. Sybil grew momently pinker and prettier as the long,extraordinary meal marched on.
Of its component parts I can only remember that there was a soup tureenfull of custard, a mountainous dish of trifle, in whose veins ranhoney, instead of jam, and to whose enlivenment a bottle at least ofwhisky had been dedicated; certainly, at one period, Philippa had onone side of her plate a cup of soup, and on the other a cup of tea.Cecilia Shute was perhaps the member of our party who took it allhardest. Pale and implacable, attired in a brilliant blue garment thatwas an outrage alike to her convictions and her complexion, she satbetween two young McRorys, who understood no more of her language thanshe did of theirs, and was obliged to view with the frigid tranquillityboasted of by Doctor Johnson, the spectacle of her brother devotinghimself enthusiastically to that McRory cousin whom Philippa haddescribed as a fluffy-haired abomination. Everything, in fact, wasoccurring that was least desired by the ladies of my party, with thesingle exception of my niece by marriage; and the glowing satisfactionof the McRory family was not hid from us, and did not ameliorate theposition.
When luncheon was at length brought to a close nothing could well havebeen blacker than the outlook. The rain, and the splendour of ourborrowed plumes, put a return by boat out of the question. It was agood seven miles round by road, and the McRory family, fleet andtireless bicyclists, had but one horse, which was lame. A telegram toAussolas had been despatched an hour ago, but as Mrs. Flurry wasgloomily certain that every servant there had gone to the funeral, thetime of our release was unknown.
I do not now distinctly remember what occurred immediately after lunch,but I know there came a period when I found myself alone in the hall,turning over the pages of a dreary comic paper, uncertain what to do,but determined on one point, that neither principalities nor powersshould force me into the drawing-room, where sat the three unhappywomen of my party, being entertained within an inch of their lives byMrs. McRory. Sybil and Bernard and their boon companions had betakenthemselves to that distant and dilapidated wing of the house in which Ihad once unearthed Tomsy Flood, there to play squash racquets in one ofthe empty rooms. I was consequently enacting the part laid down for meby my lounge suit; I was lounging, as a gentleman should, without foran instant disturbing the creases of my trousers.
At times I was aware of the silent and respectful surveillance of Mr.McRory in the inner hall, but I thought it best for us both to feignunconsciousness of his presence. Through a swing door that, true toits definition, swung wheezily to the cabbage-laden draughts from thelower regions, I could hear the tide of battle rolling through thedisused wing. The squash racquets seemed to be of a most pervadingcharacter; the thunder of rushing feet, blent with the long,progressive shriek of an express train, would at intervals approachalmost to the swing door, but I remained unmolested. I had enteredupon my second cigarette, and a period of comparative peace, when Iheard a stealing foot, and found at my elbow a female McRory of abouttwelve as years go, but dowered with the accumulated experience of sixelder sisters.
"Did Pinkie and Mr. Shute come in this way to hide?" she began, lookingat me as if "Pinkie," whoever she might be, was in my pocket. "We'replaying hide'n-go-seek, and we can't find them."
I said I knew nothing of them.
The McRory child looked at me with supernal intelligence from under thewing of dark hair that was tied over one ear.
"They're not playing fair anyhow, and there's Curly and Miss Herveythat wouldn't play at all!" She eyed me again. "He took her out toshow her the ferrets and they never came back. I was watching them;she said one of the ferrets bit her finger, and Curly kissed it!"
"I suppose you mean he kissed the ferret," I said repressively, while Ithought of Alice Hervey, mother of Sybil, and trembled.
"Ah, go on! what a fool you're letting on to be!" replied the McRorychild, with elegant sarcasm. She swung round on her heel and sped awayagain upon the trail, cannoning against old McRory in the back hall.
"I tell you, that's the lady!" soliloquised old McRory, from the deepof the back hall. I gathered that he was referring to the socialcapacity of his youngest daughter and thought he was probably right.
It was at this moment that deliverance broke like a sunburst upon us; Isaw through the windows of the hall a dogcart and an outside car whirlpast the door and onwards to the yard. The former was driven by FlurryKnox, the car by Michael the Aussolas pantry boy, apparently none theworse for his encounter with the vampire cook. I snatched an umbrella,and, regardless of the lounge suit, followed with all speed the goldenpath of the sunburst.
Flurry, clad in glistening yellow oilskins, met me in the yard
, wearingan expression of ill-concealed exultation worthy of Job's comforters attheir brightest.
"D'ye know who opened your wire?" he began, regarding me with an allobservant eye from under his sou-wester, while the rain drops ran downhis nose. "I can tell you there's the Old Gentleman to pay atAussolas--or the old lady, and that's worse! That's a nice suit--youought to buy that from Curly."
"Who opened my telegram?" I said. I was not at all amused.
"'When she got there, the cupboard was bare,'" returned Flurry. "'Nota servant in the house, not a bit in the larder!' If it wasn't that bythe mercy of providence I found the picnic basket that you bright boyshad left after you, she'd have torn the house down!"
"I suppose you mean that your grandmother has come back," I saidstonily.
"She fought with her unfortunate devil of a doctor at Buxton," saidFlurry, permitting himself a grin of remembrance, "he told her she wastoo old to eat late dinner, and she told him she wasn't going to be aslave to her stomach or to him either, and she'd eat her dinner whenshe pleased, and she landed in at Aussolas by the mid-day train withouta word."
"What did she say when she opened my telegram?" I faltered.
"She said 'Thank God I'm not a fool!'" replied her grandson.
The proposition was unanswerable, and I took it, so to speak, lyingdown.
"Here!" said Flurry, summoning the pantry boy. "These horses must goin out of the rain. I'll look over there for some place I can putthem."
"I see Michael got back from the funeral," I said, following Flurryacross the wide and wet expanse of the yard, "I suppose the cook killedJohnny?"
"Ah, not at all," said Flurry, "anyway, my grandmother had the two ofthem up unpacking her trunks when I left. Here, this place looks likea stable----"
He opened a door, in front of which a cascade from a broken water-shootwas splashing noisily. The potent smell of ferrets greeted us.
Seated on the ferrets' box were Mr. De Lacy McRory, and Sybil, daughterof Alice Hervey. Apparently she had again been bitten by the ferret,but this time the bite was not on her finger.
Further Experiences of an Irish R.M. Page 11
