Mrs. Fitz

by J. C. Snaith

  CHAPTER XXVII

  PROVIDES A LITTLE FEMININE DIVERSION

  At the breakfast table, Mrs. Arbuthnot was moved to inquire of ourdistinguished guest whether he would care to meet some of our friendsand neighbours at dinner. His _incognito_ should be preserved rigidly;and perhaps a few fresh faces would serve to lighten the tedium of hisstay in our midst. The King assented to the proposal with his usualhearty good-humour.

  Personally I was deeply grateful to Mrs. Arbuthnot for having had theinspiration to make it. I was prepared to welcome anything that wouldwithdraw me from the perilous altitudes upon which I had been walkingthroughout the night. I might be said to yearn for anything that couldre-attach me to the humbler plane of men and things, in whosefamiliarity lay mental security.

  After breakfast, however, when I came to discuss this apparentlyinnocent proposal with Mrs. Arbuthnot, it was clear that somethinglurked behind it.

  "I have got a little plan, you know," said she, with a plaintive,childlike air. "They have all been so uppish with me lately that Ihave thought of a little plan of scoring them off properly."

  "By asking them to meet royalty and giving them an excellent dinner?"

  "There shall be nothing wrong with the dinner," said Mrs. Arbuthnot,"but it ought to be very amusing. I shall drive round to Mary's atonce and ask her to forgive the short notice, but Sonia's father hasunexpectedly turned up and, much against our will, we are having toentertain him."

  "Where is the jest? The bald and painful truth is seldom amusing."

  "Goose! As they are all convinced that Sonia was formerly a circusrider in Vienna, what can be more natural than that her father is theproprietor of the circus?"

  "True, madam. But how will you explain away his title?"

  "It will be the simplest thing out. You can always buy a title inIllyria, like you can here. The old circus man has made a fortune andpurchased a title accordingly."

  I confessed that that had a fairly plausible sound.

  "They will swallow it, see if they don't," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, givingan ever freer rein to her invention. "And the old circus man is reallytoo funny, and if Mary Catesby and Laura Glendinning and George and theVicar and Mrs. Vicar, and that pushing little American would like tosee for themselves, we shall be very glad for them to dine hereto-morrow evening. And," concluded Mrs. Arbuthnot, in a tone in whichchildlike conviction and a natural love of mischief were excellentlyblended, "just see if they don't, that's all!"

  "But why, my child? I confess that I cannot see any particular charmin such an entertainment."

  "They will come, if only to score us off afterwards, you goose. Youdon't know them as well as I do."

  I confessed that I did not.

  Mrs. Arbuthnot lost no time in driving round to her friends, andreturned in high glee with them all in her net.

  "What did I say!" she declaimed triumphantly. "I called first on Mary.I knew, if I persuaded her, the rest would be easy. Well, you know herlittle way. She read me a terrible lecture about the duties of myposition. As the wife of the member, my responsibilities were simplyenormous. Not on any account would she sit down at the same table asMrs. Fitz. But I drew such a fancy portrait of the old circus man andof his friend the ring-master, who was almost as funny as himself, thatI got her to consent. So she and George are coming."

  "Mischievous monkey!"

  "Then I went on to the Vicarage. The Vicar had no engagement, but hehummed and hawed, until I told him Mary was coming, so he is comingtoo, and he is going to bring Lavinia. Then there will be Laura andthe little American and Reggie Brasset, and Jodey, of course. We shallbe quite a family party, and it ought to be tremendous fun."

  "Won't Brasset and Jodey be rather flies in your ointment? Don't theyknow your guilty secret?"

  "I shall tell them all about it, of course, and they will help us tocarry it off. And I mean to ask Colonel Coverdale to come too. Hewill like to meet the King, and we must persuade him not to give usaway."

  I was in no mood to give free play to whatever I may have in the way ofa sense of humour. But Mrs. Arbuthnot's scheme, doubtful as it was onthe score of morality, had at least the merit of diverting the currentof my thoughts into another channel. It certainly did something tolessen the tension.

  Mrs. Arbuthnot laid her plans with considerable precaution. She had along and extremely animated conversation over the telephone with theChief Constable. I could almost hear the great man growl and chuckleas she expounded her wicked design. But in the end he was unable toresist her and he was in her net as well. Jodey and Brasset, ofcourse, were only too eager to lend a hand, and both agreed with her"that they all deserved to be scored off properly." Personally, theworkings of the "scoring-off" process were a little too much for myenfeebled mental system, but I was informed peremptorily that I alwayswas a dull dog.

  Determined to leave nothing to chance, Mrs. Arbuthnot even went to thelength of taking Fitz into her confidence.

  "You know, Nevil," she said, engagingly, "how they have behaved toSonia and what they have said about her behind her back."

  "What have they said?" Fitz's indifference bordered upon the sublime.

  "Why, don't you know?" Mrs. Arbuthnot transfixed the Man of Destinywith starlike orbs. "Don't you know that when Laura Glendinning foundout that Sonia rides just as straight as she does and that she looksmuch smarter, it made her frightfully jealous?"

  "Did it indeed!" grunted the Man of Destiny.

  "And can you believe, Nevil,"--the starlike orbs grew ever rounder andmore luminous--"she circulated the story that dear Sonia was a circusrider from Vienna!"

  "Oh, really!" Fitz concealed a yawn in a rather perfunctory manner.

  "And, what is more, she got everybody to believe it."

  Fitz's boredom was dissembled with a smile of twelve-horse-powerpoliteness.

  "And so, to score them off," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, rising to pleasantlyhistrionic heights, "I have invited the ringleaders to dinner to-nightto meet the circus rider's father, the proprietor of the circus, whohas made a fortune out of his show and has bought himself a title, as,of course, you can in Illyria. And Baron von Schalk is the ringmasterof his circus."

  The Man of Destiny guffawed with languid inefficiency and declared thatthe plot was like a comic opera. In my private ear he recorded anopinion subsequently to which it would be hardly kind to give publicity.

  "Nobody but a woman would have thought of it," he said. "If it turnsout to be funny, so be it, but I must say it looks like spoiling a goodmeal--you've got a top-hole cook, old son--and making things damneduncomfortable for everybody."

  I adjured Fitz, who, like myself, was evidently in no mood toappreciate refined humour, to wait and see.

  Lieutenant-Colonel John Chalmers Coverdale, C.M.G., late of HisMajesty's Carabineers, was the first to arrive.

  "Sailing rather near the wind, aren't you?" was his greeting to hishostess, who in her best gown was a ravishing example of picturesquedemureness.

  "I think it will go all right," said she. "Mary Catesby and Georgewill be too killing."

  Certainly, when that august matron arrived she was very _grande dame_and honest George five feet three inches of meticulous good breeding.They greeted Fitz and his wife with a distant reverence. Ferdinand theTwelfth and his famous minister had not yet appeared upon the scene.Most of their day had been spent upon the much-debated Clause Three ofthe Illyrian Land Bill.

  Eight o'clock is the hour at which we dine in the Crackanthorpecountry. It is the established custom for regular followers of thatdistinguished pack to be extremely hungry at that hour. As thepresentation timepiece chimed the hour from the drawing-roomchimneypiece, there was a full muster of Mrs. Arbuthnot's dinnerguests: the Vicar and his wife, looking rather pinched and formal,their invariable attitude towards public life, yet the Vicar wearing asomewhat worldly pair of shoes of patent leather and equally worldlymauve socks and rather short trousers; Miss Laura Glendinning, ourlocal
Diana, who looked horse and talked horse and who would doubtlesshave eaten horse had it been in the menu; my charming little friend,the relict of Josiah P. Perkins of Brownville, Mass.; the noble Masterenveloped in a sartorial masterpiece and a frown of perplexity; his_aide-de-camp_, Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther enveloped ditto,but leaning up not ungracefully against a corner of the chimneypiecewith his hands in his pockets, not looking at anybody, not speaking toanybody, but with a covert gaze fixed upon the drawing-room door inquest of early information in regard to Ferdinand the Twelfth.

  In the middle of the _salon_ the august Mrs. Catesby discussed theMinority Report with the Vicar of the parish and Prison Reform with theChief Constable, whilst I, sharing the largest and most comfortablesofa with Mrs. Nevil Fitzwaren, had to answer a succession ofsympathetic inquiries in regard to my arm.

  "A mere scratch," everybody was assured. "Lucky it wasn't worse. Factis, those taxis are rather dangerous."

  The presentation timepiece chimed a quarter past eight. The proprietorof the Viennese circus and his faithful acolyte were yet to seek.Romantic figures as they doubtless were--at least, there was theauthority of the hostess that such was their nature--the manner inwhich they were obstructing the serious business of life was hard tocondone.

  Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins came up to our sofa. She gave a demure,down-looking glance at the lady seated by my side, who was decidedly_piano_, which of course was as it should be, and made the plaintiveconfession, "I am so hungry. I wouldn't mind the hind leg off thatsatinwood table."

  "You have full permission to have it," said I.

  "Oh, no," said Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins, "it would spoil the suite. Buthardly any breakfast, a sandwich at the Top Covert, in which there washardly any hog, one cup of tea at the Vicarage, and you know what thatis, and now--oh dear!----"

  In these harrowing circumstances I conceived it to be my duty to findout what was toward. I yielded my place to Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins, andas she collapsed into it, I heard her say, "I suppose if you once get acinch on circuses you make a regular pile right soon?"

  But as I made to go forth in search of Ferdinand the Twelfth, lo andbehold! that monarch came in with his minister. He was wearing noorders, there was nothing to enhance or to distort his personality, butit struck me that his bearing had a simple majesty beyond that of anyperson I had ever seen.

  "Make our apologies, milady," he said in a low voice, which was yetquite audible to most in the room, since upon his entrance theconversation had been suspended automatically. "That mad Dutchman iswaving his torch over the powder keg, and we had forgotten the time."

  And then, with the greatest simplicity and good-nature, he started tomake a tour of the room, shaking each man by the hand heartily, saying"Very pleased to meet you, sir," and bowing to each lady in turn withsmiling gravity. He then gave the hostess his arm.

  At the table I had Mrs. Catesby on my right hand, Mrs. Josiah P.Perkins on my left.

  "What a lovely man!" said Charybdis on the left.

  "I don't believe," said Scylla, "that he has any connection with acircus whatever."

  "He is Mrs. Fitz's father, anyhow."

  "What is his name?"

  "Count Zhygny, but titles are cheap in Illyria."

  "It is a noble head," said the Great Lady.

  "Objective criticism is proverbially unsafe," I hazarded. "Hisdaughter has a noble face."

  "He is just bully." Charybdis was waxing enthusiastic. "QuiteBawston."

  The Great Lady addressed herself in grim earnest to the seriousbusiness of life, and I am bound to say--although doubtless I am thewrong person to insist on the fact--that it was worthy of all theattention that was paid to it. We were twenty-five minutes late at thepost, as Jodey had complained bitterly to his hostess, but thedistinguished _chef_ lately in the service of a nobleman had fairlyexcelled himself. Good-humour, nay, even cordiality, reigned all alongthe line.

  "Are those pearls real?" said an imperious whisper from the right.

  "I am not a judge of precious stones," I admitted, "although in theprocess of time I think I shall be."

  "One can't believe they are real. If they are, they must be priceless.What a wonderful head that man has! And who, pray, is the other?"

  "Herr Brouss is his name. The circus-ring is his vocation."

  "I once met a distinguished foreigner, a Baron Somebody, a greatpolitician who looked exactly like that. It was at Spa or one of thoseforeign watering-places. By the way, Odo, what did the other man meanby 'the mad Dutchman is waving his torch over the powder keg'? I seein the paper this morning that relations are strained between Germanyand Illyria.

  "It is one of those cryptic phrases to which we have not the key."

  "What a delicious _entree_! This is coals of fire with a vengeance. Ihope you are not living beyond your means."

  "Try the madeira--I see our excellent Vicar has discovered it. I amwondering, Mary, whether I could win a little support again in highplaces, as an out-and-out opponent of socialism in any shape or form."

  "I will make no rash promises, Odo"--the Great Lady took a wary sip ofthe paternal vintage--"but I will speak to dear Evelyn if you wish,although you certainly don't deserve to be forgiven."

  "I hope you will assure her that no one has a profounder veneration fora poor but deserving class."

  In spite of the fact that Fitz and his wife remained silent andpreoccupied, the progress of the feast was marked by a temperategaiety. The hostess was on the crest of the wave. She made no attemptto veil an almost indecent sense of triumph. Precisely why she shouldhave harboured it I cannot say, but she betrayed all the outward andvisible signs of that emotion. There was a light in her eye, there wasa piquancy about her discourse, there was a deferential archness in herattitude towards the high personages by whom she was surrounded, whichcommunicated themselves to the whole table. In response to her salliesthe reverberations of the royal laughter were loud and long.

  "Toppin' good sort, ain't he?" said my relation by marriage in a momentof expansion to Miss Laura Glendinning.

  "Who is a toppin' good sort?" said that literal Diana.

  "Why, the King, of course."

  "I have never met him," said Diana.

  "Where, pray, did you meet him, Joseph?" was the severe inquiry of theGreat Lady over the brim of her madeira.

  "In the paddock at Newmarket," said the young fellow, making abrilliant recovery.

  "Fathead!" said the noble Master in a whisper of indulgent languor."You nearly blewed it then."

  The royal laughter continued to reverberate.

  "I suppose he began life as a clown?" said the Great Lady.

  "Nearly all these circus chaps do, don't they?" said Jodey, who nearlysuffered misfortune in a too strenuous desire to preserve his gravity.

  "Or as a bare-back rider," said I, taking up the parable.

  "One would certainly say a clown," said the Great Lady. "Dear me, whatmanners!"

  The port wine had appeared and had been duly dispensed. At thisprecise moment Ferdinand the Twelfth was giving the table-cloth aperemptory tap. He rose, glass in hand.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, my good friends," said he. "I haf one toast topropose. We will drink, if you please, to the health of _le bon roiEdouard_. God bless him!"

  Upon the Chief Constable's extremely prompt initiative the company didnot hesitate to follow the Circus Proprietor's lead.

  "The King! God bless him!"

  This incident, which the Circus Proprietor had invested with suchauthority that it seemed perfectly in order, nearly led to the undoingof Jodey and his noble friend. Overborne by the emotion of the moment,they indulged in a little side show of their own. The toast of _le bonroi Edouard_ having been honoured in form the rest of the company satdown at once, but our two sportsmen remained upon their feet. Fillingup their glasses, they turned towards the illustrious guest andrepeated the solemn formula:

  "The King. God bless him!"

  "Sit
down, you asses," said the Chief Constable in a truculentundertone.

  Nevertheless, the proprietor of the circus bowed to them and smiledpaternally.

  "One shouldn't look for too much," said the Vicar, "but I think the oldfellow is a bit of a sportsman."

  "Not at all a bad fellow," said honest George, expansively. "Not atall a bad fellow. Not at all a bad fellow."

  However, a subtle fear lay within the breast of a married man, a fatherof a family, and a county member, lest our excellent Vicar had spokenin excess of his knowledge. I foresaw that the ordeal by fire wascoming. When the ladies left the room desperation urged me to bestow apointed hint upon the Church.

  "Perhaps, Vicar," I said, plaintively, "if you joined the ladies? Notat all a bad fellow, you know, not at all a bad fellow, but perhapsnot--er--altogether--don't you know!"

  "None the worse for that," said the hardest riding parson in threecounties, filling up his glass with composure and with cordiality. "Ifyou think the old buffer can appreciate a yarn, I will tell that oldone of my Uncle Jackson's. It is rather a chestnut these days, butperhaps he mayn't have heard it."

  The clerical effort was by no means _vieux jeu_. And it is only justto the Church to mention that the style of the raconteur compared veryfavourably with that he affected in his vocation. Ferdinand theTwelfth guffawed heartily, and replied with a couple of masterpiecesthat brought the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty. I am afraidthere was only one cheek, however, in which the emblem in question wasable to find sanctuary, and truth compels me to assert that it wasneither that of the Church nor the Police.

  For nearly an hour by the clock the bottle was circulated and we wereroyally entertained. Ferdinand had had a rich and various experienceof life. Much had he seen and done; he had made and unmade history; hewas of the world, he loved it and he courted it; no personality hademerged upon the European chequer-board during the past half-century ofwhom he could not discourse out of a full and intimate knowledge. Ifit pleased him, he could pull aside the curtain and disclose theshowman making the puppets dance in the political theatre.

  He spoke with immense gusto; his zest of life was magnificent, andsomewhat strangely there was nothing cynical or ignoble about his pointof view. For the best part of an hour he held the least wise of us inthrall. He had an abundance, an overplus of nature, and subtle andJesuitical--for want of a happier word--as he doubtless was, there wassomething humane and great-hearted about him as a man.

  He gave away the great ones of the earth, showing them in their habitas they dwelt. He made them neither less nor more than they were.Naught was set down in malice, but his anecdotes mostly had aRabelaisian tang which sprang from a prodigality of nature. He was agreat and not unbeneficent force who drained the cup of life to thelees, smacked his lips heartily, and demanded more. His philosophyseemed to be to fear God but not to scruple to use to the full all thenoble and infinite gifts of your inheritance. His rule of conduct,however, was not, to measure men by their strength but by theirweakness. "Every man has his blind spot," he said, _apropos_ ofBismarck. "Find it and he is yours."

  Such a crowded hour of wisdom, wit and historic revelation was anexperience that even a dullard was not likely to forget. GeorgeCatesby and the Vicar alone were unacquainted with the identity of ourguest, and as far as they were concerned the cat was more or less outof the bag.

  When we joined the ladies we found that card-tables had been set out.Mrs. Arbuthnot and Coverdale engaged Mrs. Catesby and the King. No onewatching the play could fail to be amused by the Circus Proprietor'scaustic but good-humoured reflections upon the performance of hispartner. The Great Lady bore it all, however, with a stoical humility.To my surprise, she cut in for a second rubber, and her demeanour madeit clear to Jodey, who disdained games like "_britch_" and preferred towatch the royal _partie_, "that she smelt a rat."

  "I expect the show has pretty well given itself away by now," he saidin an aside to his host, "but anyhow they have been scored offproperly."

  The mystery of "scoring off" was still too much for my inadequatemental processes. But I gathered that there was a consensus of opinionamong persons of a more vivid intellectual cast that such indeed wasthe case.

  "We sha'n't half pull her leg, I don't think"--in the exuberance of thehour the young fellow relapsed into a semi-lyrical music-hall comedyvein--"about the old circus johnny who drank a health unto his Majesty.I only wish old Alec had been there, that's all."

  "A digger, madame, a digger," said the Circus Proprietor in a tone ofhumorous expostulation, "when you haf not a treek!"

  The Great Lady accepted the reproof with Christian meekness.

  It was not until hard upon midnight that the departing guest was spedin divers chariots; the Church in the identical "one-hoss shay" ofinimitable and pious memory. "So many thanks, Mrs. Arbuthnot, for areally _memorable_ evening," said the Church, with a wave of a somewhatunclerical bowler.

  Plutocracy in the little person of Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins had a Daimlerof sixty horse power. She gave a lift to a less fortunate sister inthe person of Miss Laura Glendinning. The Great Lady and the excellentGeorge, "a good vintage sound but dull," as I have heard him describedby a friend and neighbour, had recourse to a medium of travel of twelvehorse power only, as became the representatives of our sorelyimpoverished land-owning class.

  "_Such_ a success, my dear!" said the Great Lady, bestowing her partingblessing. "But," in a voice of mystery, "I shall _insist_ upon thewhole thing being cleared up."