Nothing marred the quiet peace of Mulberry Grove. No policeman ever came near it. Tradesmen's boys, when they entered it on tricycles, hushed their whistling. And even stray dogs, looking in with the idea of having a bark at the swans, checked themselves with an apologetic cough on seeing where they were and backed out respectfully.
The Biscuit was well pleased with the place.
'O. jolly K.,' he said to himself.
And, pausing for an instant to throw a banana skin at the swan Percy, who had stretched out his neck and was making a noise like an escape of steam and appeared generally to be getting a bit above himself, he passed on and came to a gate on which was painted in faded letters the word:
PEACEHAVEN
Peacehaven was a two-storey edifice in the Neo-Suburbo-Gothic style of architecture, constructed of bricks which appeared to be making a slow recovery from a recent attack of jaundice. Like so many of the houses in Valley Fields, it showed what Montgomery Perkins, the local architect, could do when he put his mind to it. It was he, undoubtedly, who was responsible for the two stucco Sphinxes on either side of the steps leading to the front door.
Where Nature had collaborated with Mr Perkins, the result was more pleasing. A merciful rash of ivy had broken out over one half of the building, and a nice box hedge ran along the front fence. Substantial laurel-bushes stood here and there, and there were flowers bordering the short snail-walk which Mr Cornelius would most certainly have described as a sweeping carriage-drive.
To the right, shaded by a rowan tree, was a latticed door, leading apparently to the back premises. And the Biscuit, with a nature-lover's eagerness to set his eye roaming over the park-like grounds, made for it immediately.
He passed through and, having passed, paused, not exactly spellbound but certainly surprised. Digging energetically in one of the borders with a spade not so very much smaller than herself was a girl.
Nothing in Mr Cornelius's conversation had prepared the Biscuit for girls in the park-like.
'Hullo!' he said.
The digger ceased to dig. She looked up, and straightened herself.
'Hello!' she replied.
A man who has so recently become engaged to be married as Lord Biskerton has, of course, no right to stare appreciatively at strange girls. But this is what the Biscuit found himself doing. The fact that Ann Moon had accepted his hand had done nothing to impair his eyesight, and he could not fail to note that this girl was an exceptionally pretty girl. Her blue eyes were resting on his: and what the Biscuit felt was, as far as he was concerned, let the thing go on.
Something – perhaps the fact that she was a blonde and he a gentleman – seemed to draw him strangely to this intruder.
'Are you anybody special?' he asked. 'I mean, do you go with the place?'
'Are you Mr Smith?'
'Yes,' said the Biscuit.
'Pleased to meet you,' said the girl.
Her voice had that agreeable intonation which he had noticed in a slighter degree in the voice of his betrothed.
'You're American, aren't you?' asked the Biscuit.
She nodded, and a bell of gold hair danced about her face. Very attractive, the Biscuit – quite improperly – thought it. At the same time she made an observation which was neither 'Yep,' 'Yup,' nor 'Yop,' but a musical blend of all three.
'I've just come over from America,' she said.
This was undoubtedly the moment at which the Biscuit should have been frank and candid. 'Ah!' he should most certainly have remarked in a casual tone. 'An odd coincidence. My fiancée is also American.'
Instead of which, he said:
'Oh? And how were they all?'
'I'm visiting with my uncle at Castlewood,' said the girl. 'Over there,' she indicated with a sideways shake of the golden bell. 'I came over the fence. Your garden looked awful. It hadn't had a thing done to it in weeks, I should think. If there's one thing that gives me the megrims, it's a neglected garden. I've been trying to get it straight.'
'Frightfully good of you,' said the Biscuit. 'The real Girl Guide spirit. I'm glad you like gardening. I fancy it's going to be one of my hobbies. We must do a bit of spade and trowel work together.'
'You're just moving in, aren't you?'
'Yes. My things came down the day before yesterday. I expect old Berry has fixed them all up neatly by now. He said he would.'
'Berry?'
'Squire Conway of the Nook. His property marches with mine.'
'Oh? I haven't met Mr Conway.'
'Well, you've met me,' said the Biscuit. 'Isn't that enough of a treat for a small girl about half the size of a peanut?'
He paused. He perceived that he was allowing his tongue to run away with him. A newly engaged man, conversing with blue-eyed girls, should be austerer, more aloof.
'Nice day,' he said, primly.
'Fine.'
'Making a long stay over here?'
'I shouldn't wonder.'
'Capital!' said the Biscuit. 'And what might the name be?'
'What name?'
'Yours, of course, fathead. Whose did you think I meant?'
'My name is Valentine.'
'And the Christian name, for purposes of informal chat?'
'Kitchie.'
'Caught cold?' asked the Biscuit.
'I was telling you my name. It's Kitchie.'
Something of sternness crept into the Biscuit's gaze.
'You needn't think that just because I've got one of those engaging, open faces you can kid me,' he said. 'I'm pretty intelligent, let me tell you, and I know the difference between a name and a sneeze. Nobody could possibly be called Kitchie.'
'Well, I am. It's short for Katherine. What's your first name?'
'Godfrey. Short for William.'
'Well,' said the girl, who during these conversational exchanges had been eyeing his upper lip with some intentness, 'let me just tell you one thing. You ought to do something about that moustache of yours – either let it grow or cut it off. At present it makes you look like Charlie Chaplin. If you'll excuse me being personal.'
'Replying to your remarks in the reverse order,' said the Biscuit, 'be as personal as you desire. If two old buddies like us can't be frank with one another, who can? In the second place, I see no harm in resembling Charlie Chaplin, a man of many sterling qualities whom I respect. Thirdly, I am letting it grow – in moderation and within due bounds. And, finally, the object under discussion is not a moustash, you poor Yank, it is a moustarsh. These points settled tell me how you like England. Enjoying your visit, are you? Glad you came?'
'I like it all right. I wish I was back home, though.'
'Oh? Where's that?'
'Great Neck, New York.'
'And you wish you were there?'
'I certainly do.'
'Why "certainly"?' asked the Biscuit, nettled. 'What an extraordinary girl you must be. Here you are, having an absorbing conversation with one of the best minds in Valley Fields – and that best mind, mark you, wearing a new suit made by the finest bespoke tailor in London, and you say you wish you were elsewhere. Inexplicable! What is there so wonderfully attractive about Great Neck?'
Kitchie's blue eyes clouded.
'Mer's there,' she said.
'Ma? Your mother, you mean?'
'I didn't say Ma. I said Mer. Merwyn Flock. The boy I'm engaged to. Dad got sore because Mer's an actor, and he sent me over to England to get me away from him. Now do you understand?'
The Biscuit understood. Yet, oddly, he was not pleased. To an engaged man the news that a golden-haired, blue-eyed girl he has just met is an engaged girl ought to be splendid news. It ought to make him feel that he and she belonged to a great fellowship. He ought to feel like a brother hearing joyful tidings about a sister. Lord Biskerton felt none of these things. Utterly immersed though he was in a wholehearted worship of his fiancée, the information that this girl before him was also betrothed made him feel absolutely sick.
'Merwyn Flock!' he said, and clenc
hed his teeth to say it.
'You ought to hear Mer play the uke!'
'I don't want to hear Mer play the uke,' said Lord Biskerton vehemently. 'I wouldn't listen to him playing the uke if you paid me. Merwyn! Ha!'
'That's all right, you standing there saying "Merwyn",' said Miss Valentine with equal warmth. 'It's a darned sight better name than Godfrey.'
It struck the Biscuit that he was allowing the tone of conversation to become acrimonious.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Don't let's quarrel. Cheer up, half-portion, and let us speak of other things. Tell me your impressions of England. What's it like living at Castlewood? Jolly? Festive?'
'Not so very. And I expected it would be a bigger place. When I was told I had an uncle living in a house called Castlewood, I thought it was going to be a sort of palace.'
'Well, so it is. It's got a summer-house, and a bird-bath. What more do you want? And, if you're disappointed, what about me? What's become of the civic welcome I was entitled to expect? Where are the villagers?'
'What villagers?'
'I always understood that a chorus of villagers turned out on these occasions to welcome the new Squire with dance and song. It won't be long before I find myself believing that I have no seigneurial rights at all. How about that, by the way?'
'What about it?'
'Well, for one thing, as I came along here I noticed a sort of lake or mere across the road. Do I own the fishing? And the swanning, what of that? I shall most certainly want to have a pop at those swans with my bow and arrow very shortly.'
The girl was looking at him earnestly.
'You know,' she said, 'when you talk quick, you remind me of Mer. His nose twitches like that.'
It was on the tip of Lord Biskerton's tongue to say something so scathing and devastating about Mer that the friendship ripening between this girl and himself would have withered like a juvenile crocus in an early blizzard. At this moment, however, he perceived out of the corner of his eye that strange things were going on in Castlewood.
'I say,' he said, directing his companion's attention to these phenomena. 'there's an extraordinarily ugly little devil in an eyeglass next door, glaring and waving his hands at one of the windows.'
'That's my uncle.'
'Oh? I'm sorry.'
'It isn't your fault,' said the girl kindly.
The Biscuit surveyed the human semaphore with interest.
'What is it? Swedish exercises?'
'I expect he wants me to come in. Now I remember, when I said I was thinking of coming over into your garden, he told me that I wasn't on any account to stir a step till he had called on you and seen what you were like. I suppose I'd better go.'
'But I was just going to ask you to come in and see my little home. I expect there are all sorts of things in it that call for the feminine touch.'
'Some other day. Anyway, I've some letters to write. A girl I met on the boat has just got engaged, I see in the paper. I must write and congratulate her.'
'Engaged!' said the Biscuit gloomily. 'It seems to me that the whole bally world is engaged.'
'Are you?'
'Me!' said the Biscuit, starting. 'I say, I think you had better rush. Uncle seems to be hotting up.'
He stood where he was for a moment, admiring the nimble grace with which his small friend shinned over the fence. Then, pondering deeply, he made his way into the house to ascertain what sort of a dump this was into which Fate and his creditors had thrust him.
That night, smoking a friendly cigarette with his next-door neighbour, John Beresford Conway of the Nook, Lord Biskerton, somewhat to his companion's surprise, spoke with warm approbation, rising at times to the height of enthusiasm, of the home-life of the Mormon elder.
A Mormon elder, said the Biscuit, had the right idea. His, he considered, was the jolliest life on earth. He also stated that in his opinion bigamy, being, as it was, merely the normal result of a generous nature striving to fulfil itself, ought not to be punishable at law.
'And what you've got against Valley Fields, old boy,' he said, 'is more than I can see. I don't know when I've struck a place I liked more. I consider it practically a Garden of Eden, and you may give that statement to the Press, if you wish, as coming from me.'
He then relapsed into a long and thoughtful silence, from which he emerged to utter a single word.
It was the word 'Merwyn!'
CHAPTER 6
I
It was hardly to be expected that Lord Biskerton's disappearance from his customary haunts should have gone unnoticed and unmourned by the inhabitants of his little world. Hawes and Dawes felt it deeply. So did Dykes, Dykes and Pinweed and the rest of his creditors. They or their representatives called daily at the empty nest, only to be informed by Venner, the Biscuit's trusted manservant, that his lordship had left Town and that it was impossible to say when he would return. Upon which they took their departure droopingly, feeling, as so many poets have felt, that there is no tragedy like the tragedy of the vanished face.
The Earl of Hoddesdon was another of those whom the young man's flight distressed. He went round to see his sister about it.
'Er – Vera.'
Lady Vera Mace raised a shapely hand.
'No, George,' she said, 'not another penny!'
Lord Hoddesdon's aristocratic calm was shaken by a spasm of justifiable irritation.
'Don't sit there making Stop and Go signals at me,' he snapped. 'You aren't a traffic policeman.'
'Nor am I a moneylender.'
'I didn't come to borrow money,' cried his lordship, passionately. 'I came to discuss this lunacy of Godfrey's.'
'It is annoying that Godfrey should have got mumps,' said Lady Vera, who was a fair-minded woman, 'but I fail to see . . .'
Lord Hoddesdon ground the teeth behind his grey moustache. In their nursery days he would have found vent for his emotion by hitting his sister on the side of the head or pulling her pigtail. Deprived of this means of solace by the spirit of Noblesse oblige and the fact that the well-coiffured woman does not wear a pigtail, he kicked a chair. The leg came off, and he felt better.
'Never mind the dashed chair,' he said, as Lady Vera fell to lamentation over the wreck. 'This business is much more important than chairs. I've been round to Godfrey's flat and I've got the truth out of that man of his, that fellow Venner. The boy hasn't got mumps. He's living down in the suburbs.'
'Living down in the suburbs?'
'Living down in the suburbs. Under the name of Smith. At Peacehaven, Mulberry Grove, Valley Fields. Venner told me so. He's forwarding letters there.'
Lady Vera forgot the chair.
'Is he mad?' she cried.
'No,' Lord Hoddesdon was forced to admit. 'He's doing it to keep from being County-Courted by, as far as I can make out, about a hundred tradesmen. As far as that goes, his conduct is sensible. At any rate, it's a lot better than going about London in a false beard, which was what he wanted to do. What is the behaviour of a lunatic is this telling the girl he's got mumps.'
'I don't understand what you mean.'
'Why, use your intelligence, dash it. She must have accepted him from some sort of passing whim, and it was vital that he refrained from doing anything to make her think it over and regret. And he goes and tells her he's got mumps. Mumps! Of all infernal, loathsome things. How long do you think that girl is going to cherish her dream of a knightly lover, when every time she thinks of him it is to picture a hideous object with a face like a football, probably with flannel wrapped round it? I shouldn't wonder if she isn't weakening already.'
'George!'
'It's maddening. When there are a dozen things he could have told her. That's what makes my blood boil. If he had consulted me, I could have suggested a hundred alternatives. He could have said that he thought of going into Parliament and that he had to go and live in this beastly suburb to nurse the constituency. She would never have seen through that. Or he could have invented a dying relative in Ireland or Mentone
or Madeira. But, no! He has to go and say that he's swelling horribly in bed at his flat. I shouldn't wonder if the girl hasn't changed her mind already. You've been seeing her every day. How is she? Thoughtful? Have you caught her musing lately? Meditating? Like a girl who's been turning things over in her mind and has come to the conclusion that she has made a grave mistake?'
Lady Vera started.
'It's odd that you should say that, George!'
'It isn't at all odd,' retorted Lord Hoddesdon. 'It's what any sensible, far-seeing man would say. What makes you call it odd?'
'She has been thoughtful lately. Very thoughtful.'
'Good God!'
'Yes. I have noticed it. Several times lately, when we have been dining quietly at home, I have seen a curious, pensive expression come into her face. I've seen just the same look in my dear Sham-Poo's eyes when he has heard the coffee-cups rattle outside. He is so devoted to coffee sugar, the darling.'
'Don't talk to me about Sham-Poo,' said Lord Hoddesdon vehemently. He was not an admirer of his sister's Pekingese. 'If you have anything to say about Sham-Poo, tell it to the vet. For the moment oblige me by concentrating upon this girl Ann Moon.'
'I am simply telling you,' replied his sister with spirit, 'that there was the same look in her eyes as there is in Sham-Poo's when he thinks of coffee sugar. As if she were dreaming some beautiful dream.'
'But, dash it, that's all right, then. I mean, if all she is doing is dreaming beautiful dreams . . .'
Lady Vera crushed his rising hopes. Her face was very grave.
'But, George, consider. Would a girl who was thinking of Godfrey look as if she were dreaming a beautiful dream?'
'Good Lord, no. That's right. You mean . . . ?' exclaimed his lordship, quivering from head to foot as the frightful significance of his sister's words came home to him. 'You don't mean . . . ?'
Lady Vera nodded sombrely.
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