by Ian Hay
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
INTERVENTION.
"Madame," announced the major-domo of the Hotel Magnifique with asuperb gesture, "the post from England!"
"Thank you, Themistocle," said Mrs Carfrae. "But you areover-generous: one of these letters is not for me."
She handed back an envelope.
Themistocle, needless to remark, was desolated at his owncarelessness, and said so. But the old lady cut him short.
"Don't distress yourself unduly, Themistocle. It is a mistake even anEnglish body might have made. There is not much difference betweenCarfrae and Carthew."
The punctilious Themistocle refused to be comforted.
"But no, madame," he persisted; "I should have observed that theletter addressed itself to a monsieur, and not a madame. Doubtless itis intended for one of the English party who arrive this afternoon."
"An English party? Is my seclusion to be disturbed by the disciples ofthe good Monsieur Cook?"
"Assuredly no, madame. These are English milords from Marseilles. TheRiviera season has been a failure: the mistral blows eternally.Therefore the party abandons Cannes and telegraphs for apartments atthe Hotel Magnifique."
"Are they from London? Possibly I may be acquainted with some of them.What are their names?"
Themistocle would inquire. He departed amid a whirlwind of bows,leaving Mrs Carfrae to continue her _dejeuner_ in the sunny verandahof her sitting-room. She came to Algiers every spring, and she cameunattended save for a grim-faced Scottish maid of her own age. It wasMrs Carfrae's habit to assume that she and her wheeled chair were adrag upon the world; and she systematically declined invitations tojoin friends upon the Riviera. People, she explained, who wouldotherwise have been playing tennis at the Beau Site or roulette at theCasino would feel bound to relinquish these pursuits and entertainher. So she came to Algiers by herself, this proud, lonely old lady.
"Carthew?" she mused. "That is the name of Johnny Carr's familiarspirit. And that letter was in Johnny's handwriting. Well,Themistocle, who are--stand _still_, man!"
Themistocle reluctantly curtailed an elaborate obeisance, and came toattention. The leader of the expedition, he announced, was Milord theRight Hon. Sir Hilton Bart., with Milady Hilton Bart. The names of theother guests were not known, but there were eleven of them.
They arrived on the steamer that afternoon, and drove in an imposingprocession up the long and dusty hill that leads to MustaphaSuperieur, leaving Algiers--that curious combination of Mauretanianantiquity and second-rate French provincialism--baking peacefully inthe hot sunshine below. As Themistocle had predicted, they cameunshepherded by the good Mr Cook. They were of the breed and castethat has always found its own way about the world.
There was Sir Arthur Hilton, a slow-moving Briton of few words, with apretty wife of complementary volubility. There were one or twosoldiers on leave; there was a Cambridge don; there were three grasswidows. There were two newly emancipated schoolgirls, gobbling life inindigestible but heavenly lumps. There was a tall and beautifuldamosel, with a demeanour which her admirers--and they weremany--described as regal, and which her detractors--and their name waslegion--described as affected; and whom her chaperon, Lady Hilton,addressed as "Nina, dearest." And there was a squarely built,freckle-faced young man with whom we are already acquainted. His namewas Jim Carthew.
Altogether they were a clean-bred, self-contained, easy-going band,unostentatious but quietly exclusive--thoroughly representative of thesanest and most reputable section of that variegated cosmos whichrepresents what Gallic students of British sociology term "Le Higlif."Very few of them possessed much money: theirs was a stratum of societyto which money was no passport. You could have money if you liked,they conceded, but you must have a good many other things first. Hencethe absence from their midst of Hoggenheimer and Aspasia.
Jim Carthew had not meant to come. Juggernaut had given him six weeks'leave, for there had been an Autumn Session in town and an industrialupheaval in the country, and the squire had worked early and late byhis knight's side. Consequently when the spring came Carthew wassummarily bidden to go to Scotland and fish. Without quite knowingwhy, he went to Cannes instead, where Nina Tallentyre, attended by azealous but mutually-distrustful guard-of-honour, was enjoying herselfafter her fashion under the inadequate wing of Lady Hilton. When theexodus to Algiers was mooted, Carthew labelled his portmanteau London.But he ultimately crossed the Mediterranean with the rest. He hadnever seen Africa, he explained to himself.
Daphne was of the party too. (Possibly the reader has alreadyidentified her as one of the three grass widows.) She had despatchedMaster Brian Vereker Carr to Belton for a season, and joined theHiltons' party four weeks ago. The great new house in town stoodempty. After her husband's bombshell in February, she had felt boundto do something to show her spirit. Another strike was brewing in thenorth, so doubtless her lord and master would soon be congeniallyoccupied in starving his dependents into submission. Meanwhile herduty was to herself. Domestic ties were at an end. She would enjoylife.
She experienced no difficulty in the execution of this project. Everyone seemed anxious to assist her. Despite precautions, the fact thatall was not well in the house of Juggernaut was public property; andthe usual distorted rumours on the subject had set out upon theirrounds, going from strength to strength in the process. Daphne wassoon made conscious that people were sorry for her. Frivolous butwarm-hearted women were openly sympathetic. Large, clumsy menindicated by various awkward and furtive acts of kindness that theytoo understood the situation, but were too tactful to betray the fact.Altogether Daphne was in a fair way to becoming spoiled. With all herfaults no one had ever yet been able or inclined to call her anythingbut unaffected and natural; but about this time she began to assumethe virtuous and long-suffering demeanour of a _femme incomprise_. Shewas only twenty-four, and few of us are able to refuse a martyr'scrown when it is pressed upon us.
Only her monosyllabic host--"The Silent Knight," his friends calledhim, denying him his baronetcy in their zest for the nickname--wasunable to appreciate the extreme delicacy of the situation. He was aplain man, Arthur Hilton, and hated mysteries.
"Why isn't that girl at home, lookin' after her husband, Ethel?" heinquired of his wife one morning.
"I think she is happier with us, dear," replied Lady Hilton withimmense solemnity.
The Silent Knight emitted a subdued rumble, indicative of a desire toargue the point, and continued--
"Happier--eh? Hasn't she got a baby, or somethin', somewhere? What thedev----"
"Yes, dear, she _has_ a baby," replied his wife, rolling up herfine eyes to the ceiling; "but I fear she has not been veryfortunate in her marriage. She was the daughter of a countryclergyman--_dreadfully_ poor, I understand--and wanted to improvethe family fortunes. There were eight or nine of them, so she tookthis old man."
The Silent Knight's engine fairly raced.
"Old man be damned!" he observed with sudden heat. "Sorry, my dear!But Jack Carr can't be more than forty-six. I'm forty-eight. I'm anold man, too, I suppose! Back number--eh? One foot in the grave! Youlookin' about for my successor, Ethel--what?"
It was useless to explain to this obtuse and uxorious critic that ayoung and sensitive girl cannot be expected to dwell continuouslybeneath the roof of a husband whose tastes are not her tastes, who hasmerely married her to keep house for him, and who neglects her intothe bargain. Not that this prevented Lady Hilton from endeavouring todo so. When she had finished, her husband knocked the ashes out of hispipe, and remarked--
"Can't make you women out. Here's old Juggernaut--best man _I_ evercame across, and as kind as they make 'em--marries this little foolof a girl and gives her everything she wants; and she goes off andleaves him slavin' at his work, while she comes trapesin' abouthere with a collection of middle-aged baby-snatchers andknock-kneed loafers. Next thing, she'll start flirting; then she'llfall in love with some bounder, and then there'll be the devil of amess. Rotten, I call it! Don't kno
w what wives are comin' tonowadays. Have _you_ goin' off next, Ethel--leavin' me and thekids, and becomin' a Suffragette--what?"
After this unusual outburst the Silent Knight throttled himself downand said no more, all efforts on his wife's part to lure him intoground less favourable to his point of view proving fruitless. Hemerely smoked his pipe and emitted an obstinate purr.
"But what else can one expect, dearest," Ethel Hilton confided to afriend afterwards, "if one marries an internal combustion engine?"
II.
Neither was Mrs Carfrae satisfied to find her beloved Johnny Carr'slawful wife disporting herself in her present company. One afternoonshe heckled Jim Carthew upon the subject, to the extreme embarrassmentof that loyal youth. The rest of the party had gone off to exploreAlgiers, and were safely occupied for the present with thecontemplation of the passing show--ghostlike Moors in snowy burnouses,baggy-trousered members of that last resort of broken men, _La LegionEtrangere_, and spectacled French officials playing at colonies.
Mrs Carfrae's chair had been wheeled into a corner of the opencourtyard which occupied the middle of the Hotel Magnifique, as far aspossible from the base of operations of a pseudo-Tzigane orchestrawhich discoursed languorous melody twice daily; and its occupant wasdispensing to Carthew what Themistocle was accustomed to describe as"some five o'clock."
"So you are leaving us, Mr Carthew," observed the hostess.
"Yes, the day after to-morrow. There is a boat then. I must go. Thereis trouble brewing in the colliery districts again, and Sir John wantsme."
"And you will take Lady Carr with you?"
"Oh no," said Carthew, flushing. "We are not together. I mean, it isnot on her account that I am here."
"So I have noticed," said Mrs Carfrae dryly.
"I was invited here by the Hiltons," explained Carthew, and plungedinto a sea of unnecessary corroborative details. "I was quitesurprised to find Lady Carr here," he colluded. "I thought she was inLondon."
"And why," inquired the old lady with sudden ferocity, "is she not atBelton, with her man?"
The faithful Carthew stiffened at once.
"I expect Sir John sent her out here to have a good time," he said."He could not get away himself, so----"
Mrs Carfrae surveyed him for a moment over her glasses.
"You are a decent lad," she observed rather unexpectedly.
This testimonial had its desired effect of reducing Carthew tosilence, and Mrs Carfrae continued--
"You have been with John Carr for some time now, have you not?"
"Yes; ever since I came down from Cambridge."
"How did you meet him? He does not take to young men readily as arule, so I have heard."
"I had the luck," said Carthew, his eye kindling with historicreminiscence, "to meet him at dinner one night at the end of my thirdyear, at my tutor's. Sir John was an old member of the College,staying there for the week-end. He told us at dinner that he had comeup to find a good ignorant unlicked cub to help him with his work, whocould be trusted to obey an order when he received one and act forhimself when he did not. Those were his exact words, I remember."
"Ay, they would be. Go on."
"This unlicked cub was to come and be a sort of general factotum tohim, and do his best to help him with his work, and so on. Marvyn (thetutor) and I sat trying to think of likely men, and finally we made alist of about six, whom Sir John said he would run his eye over nextday. After that I went off to bed. I remember wishing to myself thatI had taken a better degree and been a more prominent member of theCollege: then I might have had a shot for this berth, instead of goinginto a solicitor's office. But as things were, I hadn't the cheek.Well, do you know, Jug--Sir John came round to me next morning----"
"Before breakfast, I doubt."
"Yes, as a matter of fact I had just come in from a run and wassitting down to it. He asked if he might have some: and after that heoffered me--_ME!_--this grand billet. Of course I jumped at it--whowouldn't, to be with a man like that?--and I have been with him eversince."
"Well," said Mrs Carfrae, "you should know more of the creature thanmost folk. What is your unbiassed opinion of him?"
"I think he is the greatest man that ever lived," said the boy simply.
"Hmph! As a matter of fact, he has less sense than anybody I everknew," replied the old lady calmly. "Still, you are entitled to youropinion. I need not trouble you with an account of _my_ first meetingwith him: it occurred a long time ago. But--wheel me a little nearerthe sun, laddie: this corner is a thing too shady--it may interest youto know that he would have been my son-in-law to-day, had it notbeen--" she paused for a moment, very slightly--"for the uncertaintyof human life. And that is why I take something more than a passinginterest in the doings of that slim-bodied, brown-eyed, tow-headedhempie that he married on. And that brings me to the point. Laddie,those two are getting over-far apart, and it must be _stopped_!"
"Yes, but how?" inquired Carthew dismally. "I understand that enteringa lions' den just before dinner-time is wisdom itself compared withinterfering between husband and wife."
A quiver passed through Elspeth Carfrae's frail body, and shestraightened herself in her chair.
"I am a havering and doited old woman," she announced with greatdecision, "and no one takes any notice of what I say or do. But I tellyou this. So long as my old heart beats and my old blood runs, I shallbe perfectly willing to face every single lion in the Zoo, gin it willbring a moment's happiness to Johnny Carr. The lad deserves a goodwife. Once he nearly got one--the best and fairest in all theworld--but God decided otherwise. Now he has got another: I know her:she has the right stuff in her. And when I leave this hotel next weekI am going to take her with me, in her right mind, and deliver her toher man!"
The old lady concluded her intimation with tremendous vigour. Carthewsat regarding her with a mixture of reverence and apprehension.
"You are going to--to speak to her about it?" he asked.
"I am," replied Mrs Carfrae, with vigour.
"I would do anything," said Carthew awkwardly, "to put things rightbetween those two. But supposing you make your attempt, Mrs Carfrae,and--and fail, won't it make matters worse?"
"Much," said Mrs Carfrae calmly. "If I interfere, unsuccessfully, Idoubt if either of them will ever speak to me again. That is the usualand proper fate of busybodies. But--I am going to risk it!... Run meback to my sitting-room now, and call Janet. I hear your friendsyattering out there in the verandah. They will be through withAlgiers."
