Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

  “What is that?”

  “Write!”

  Harry groaned. Mr. Walthew raised his eyebrows. Mrs. Ringrose sat triumphant.

  “Write what, my dear Mary?”

  “Articles — poems — books.”

  A grim resignation was given to Harry, and he laughed aloud as the clergyman shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

  “On his own showing,” said Uncle Spencer, “I should doubt whether he has — er — the education — for that.”

  Mrs. Ringrose looked displeased, and even dangerous, for the moment; but she controlled her feelings on perceiving that the boy himself was now genuinely amused.

  “You are quite mistaken,” she contented herself with saying. “Have I never shown you the parody on Gray’s Elegy he won a guinea for when he was fourteen? Then I will now.”

  And the fond lady was on her feet, only to find her boy with his back to the door, and laughter, shame and anger fighting for his face.

  “You shall do no such thing, mother,” Harry said firmly. “That miserable parody!”

  “It was nothing of the kind. It began, ‘The schoolbell tolls the knell — —’”

  “Hush, mother!”

  “‘Of parting play’” she added wilfully.

  Mr. Walthew’s eyebrows had reached their apogee.

  “That is quite enough, Mary,” said he. “I disapprove of parodies, root and branch; they are invariably vulgar; and when the poem parodied has a distinctly religious tendency, as in this case, they are also irreverent and profane. I am only glad to see that Henry is himself ashamed of his lucubration. If he should write aught of a religious character, and get it into print — a difficult matter, Henry, for one so indifferently equipped — my satisfaction will not be lessened by my surprise. Meanwhile let him return to those classics he should never have neglected, for by the dead languages only can we hope to obtain a mastery of our own; and I, for my part, will do my best in what, after all, I regard as a much less hopeless direction. Good-bye, Mary. I trust that I shall see you both on Sunday.”

  But Mrs. Ringrose would not let him go without another word for her boy’s parody.

  “When I read it to Mr. Lowndes,” said she, to Harry’s horror, “he said that he thought that a lad who could write so well at fourteen should have a future before him. So you see everybody is not of your opinion, Spencer; and Mr. Lowndes saw nothing vulgar.”

  “Do I understand you to refer,” said Mr. Walthew, bristling, “to the person who has done me the honour of calling upon me in connection with your affairs?”

  “He is the only Mr. Lowndes I know.”

  “Then let me tell you, Mary, that his is not a name to conjure with in my hearing. I should say, however, that he is the last person to be a competent judge of vulgarity or — or other matters.”

  “Then you dislike him too?” cried poor Mrs. Ringrose.

  “Do you?” said Mr. Walthew, turning to Harry; and uncle and nephew regarded one another for the first time with mutually interested eyes.

  “Not I,” said Harry stoutly. “He has been my mother’s best friend.”

  “I am sorry to hear it,” the clergyman said; “what’s more, I don’t believe it.”

  “But he has been and he is,” insisted the lady; “you little know what he has done for me.”

  “I wouldn’t trust his motives,” said her brother. “I am sorry to say it, Mary; he is very glib and plausible, I know; but — he doesn’t strike me as an honest man!”

  Mrs. Ringrose was troubled and vexed, and took leave of the visitor with a face as sombre as his own; but as for Harry, he recalled his own feelings on the journey up, and he felt less out of sympathy with his uncle than he had ever done in his life before. But Mr. Walthew was not one to go without an irritating last word, and in the passage he had his chance. He had remarked on the packing cases, and Harry had dived into his mother’s room and returned with an ostrich egg in each hand, of which he begged his uncle’s acceptance, saying that he would send them by the parcels post. Mr. Walthew opened his eyes but shook his head.

  “I could not dream of taking them from you,” said he, “in — in your present circumstances, Henry.”

  “But I got them for nothing,” said Harry, at once hurt and nettled. “I got a dozen of them, and any amount of assegais and things, all for love, when I was on the Zambesi. I should like you and my aunt to have something.”

  “Really I could not think of it; but, if I did, I certainly should not permit you to incur the expense of parcel postage.”

  “Pooh! uncle, it would only be sixpence or a shilling.”

  “Only sixpence or a shilling! As if they were one and the same thing! You talk like a millionaire, Henry, and it pains me to hear you, after the conversation we have had.”

  Harry wilfully observed that he never had been able to study the shillings, and his uncle stood shocked on the threshold, as indeed he was meant to be.

  “Then it’s about time,” said he, “that you did learn to study them — and the sixpences — and the pence. You were smoking a pipe when I came. I confess I was surprised, not merely because the habit is a vile one, for it is unhappily the rule rather than the exception, but because it is also an extravagant habit. You may say — I have heard young men say — that it only costs you a few pence a week. Then, pray, study those few pence — and save them. It is your duty. And as for what you say you got for nothing, the ostrich eggs and so forth, take them and sell them at the nearest shop! That also is your bounden duty, unless you wish to be a burden to your mother in her poverty; and I am very sorry that you should compel me to tell you so by talking of not ‘studying’ the shillings.”

  He towered in the doorway, a funereal monument of righteous horror; and once more Harry held out his hand, and let his elder go with the last word. The lad realised, in the first place, that he had just heard one or two things which were perfectly true; and yet, in the second, he was certain that he could not have replied without insolence — after his own prior and virtuous resolve to sell the curios himself. Now he never would sell them — so he felt for the moment; and he found himself closing the door as though there were illness in the flat, in his anxiety to keep from banging it as he desired.

  “I fear your Uncle Spencer has been vexing you too,” his mother said; “and yet I know that he will do his best to secure you a post.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, mother; he was kind enough; it’s only his way,” said Harry, for he could see that his mother was sufficiently put out as it was.

  “It’s a way that makes me miserable,” said poor Mrs. Ringrose, with a tear in her voice. “Did you hear what he said to me? He said what I never shall forgive.”

  “Not about those rotten verses?”

  “No — about Mr. Lowndes. Your uncle said he didn’t think him an honest man.”

  CHAPTER VI.

  THE GAME OF BLUFF.

  An inscrutable note reached Harry by the last post that night. It was from Gordon Lowndes, and it ran: —

  “Leadenhall Street, E.C.

  “May 20.

  “Dear Ringrose, — If you are still of the same mind about a matter which we need not name, let me hear from you by return, and I’ll ‘inspan’ the best detective in the world. He is at present cooling his heels at Scotland Yard, but may be on the job again any day, so why not on ours?

  “Perhaps you will kindly drop me a line in any case, as I await your instructions.

  “Yours faithfully,

  “Gordon Lowndes.”

  “What is it, my boy?”

  “A line from Lowndes.”

  “Am I not to see it?”

  “I would rather you didn’t, mother dear.”

  “You haven’t offended him, I hope?”

  “Oh, no, it’s about something we spoke of in the train; it has come to nothing, that’s all.”

  And Mrs. Ringrose gathered, as she was intended to gather, that some iron or other had already been in the fire — and co
me out again. She said no more. As for Harry, the final proof of his father’s dishonour had put out of his mind the oath which he had made Lowndes swear in that almost happy hour when he could still refuse to believe; and the sting of the reminder, and of the contrast between his feelings then and now, was such that he was determined his mother should not bear it with him. But yet, with all the pain it gave, the note from Lowndes both puzzled and annoyed him; it was as though there were some subtle thing between the lines, a something in a cipher to which he had not the key; and he resented being forced to reply. After long deliberation, however, this was written and rewritten, and taken stealthily to the pillar in the small hours: —

  “Kensington, May 21st.

  “Dear Mr. Lowndes, — I am not of the same mind about the matter which you very kindly do not name. I hope that neither you nor I will ever have occasion to name it again, and that you will forgive me for what I said yesterday before I could believe the truth. I hardly know now what I did say, but I do honestly apologise, and only beg of you never to speak, and, if possible, not to think, of it again.

  “Believe me that I am grateful for your kind offer, and more than grateful for all your goodness to my mother.

  “Yours sincerely,

  “Harry Ringrose.”

  This had the effect of bringing Lowndes to the flat the following afternoon, in the high spirits which were characteristic of the normal man; it was only natural they should have deserted him the day before; and yet when Harry came in and found him taking tea with his mother, radiant, voluble, hilarious, the change was such that he seemed to the boy another being. Humour shone through the gold-rimmed glasses and trembled at the tip of the pointed nose. Harry had never seen a jollier face, or listened to so boisterous a laugh; and they were what he needed, for he had come in doubly embittered and depressed.

  He had been to the great house which had supplied his mother with her groceries for so many years. He had seen a member of the firm, a gentleman of presence and aplomb, in whose courtly company Harry and his old clothes were painfully outclassed. The resultant and inevitable repulse was none the less galling from being couched in terms of perfectly polite condescension. Harry carried his specimen battle-axe home in the brown paper he had taken it in, and pitched it upon the sofa with a wry face before recounting his experience.

  Lowndes instantly said that he would get a price for the curios if Harry would send them along to his office. Whereupon Harry thanked him, but still looked glum, for a worse experience remained untold.

  The boy was in glaring need of new clothes; he could not possibly seek work in town as he was; and Mrs. Ringrose had characteristically insisted that he should go to his father’s and his own old London tailors. There was, moreover, some point in such a course, since it was now known that Mr. Ringrose had settled his tailors’ account, with several others of the kind, on the very eve of his flight; so that in the circumstances these people might fairly be expected to wait for their money until Harry could earn it. Elsewhere he would have to pay ready cash, a very serious matter, if not an impossibility for some time to come. So Harry was really driven to go where he was known, but yet so ashamed, that it was only the miserable interview with the well-groomed gentleman aforesaid which had brought him to the point. He had called at the tailors’ on his way home, chosen his cloth and been measured, only to be confronted by the senior partner at the door.

  “What do you think he wanted?” cried Harry in a blaze. “A guarantee that they would be paid! I told them they needn’t trouble to make the things at all, and out I came.”

  Lowndes dashed down his cup and was on his legs in an instant.

  “I’ll give them their guarantee,” said he. “You swallow your tea and get your hat; we’ll take a hansom back to your tailors, and I’ll give them their guarantee!”

  Harry was against any such intervention, but Mrs. Ringrose was against Harry, and in less than five minutes Lowndes had carried him off. In the hansom the spirits of that mirthful man rose higher than ever; he sat rubbing his hands and chuckling with delight; but so truculent were his sentiments that Harry, who hated a row as much as his companion appeared to like one, was not a little nervous as to what would happen, and got out finally with his heart in his mouth.

  What did happen need not be described. Suffice it that Mr. Lowndes talked to that master-tailor with extraordinary energy for the space of about three minutes, and that in several different strains, preparing his soil with simple reproaches, scarifying with sarcasm, and finally trampling it down with a weight of well-worded abuse the like of which Harry had never listened to off the stage. And the effect was more extraordinary than the cause: the tradesman took it like a lamb, apologised to Harry on the spot, and even solicited his friend’s custom as they turned to leave the shop. The result opened Harry’s mouth in sheer amazement. After a first curt refusal, Mr. Lowndes hesitated, fingered a cloth, became gradually gracious, and in the end was measured for no fewer than three suits and an Inverness cape.

  “Couldn’t resist it!” said he, roaring with laughter in the cab. “Trustfulness is a virtue we should all encourage, and I hope, Ringrose, that you’ll continue to encourage it in these excellent fellows. I’ve sown the seed, it’s for you to reap the flower; and recollect that they’ll think much more of you when you order six suits than when you pay for one.”

  “It was extraordinary,” said Harry, “after the dressing-down you gave them!”

  “Dressing-down?” said Lowndes. “I meant to dress ‘em down, and I’ll dress anybody down who needs it — of that you may be sure. What’s this? Grosvenor Square? Do you see that house with the yellow balcony in the far corner? That’s my Lady Banff’s — I gave her a bit of my mind the other evening. Went to see my Lord on business. Left standing in the hall twenty minutes. Down came my Lady to dinner, so I just asked her, as a matter of curiosity, if they took me for a stick or an umbrella, to leave me there, and then I told her what I thought of the manners and customs of her house. My Lady had me shown into the library at once, and made me a handsome apology into the bargain. I guarantee friend Yellowplush to know better next time!”

  Lowndes stayed to supper at the flat, and he became better and better company as Harry Ringrose gradually yielded to the contagion of his gaiety and his good-humour. He was certainly the most entertaining of men; yet for a long time Harry resented being entertained by him, and would frown one moment because he had been forced to laugh the moment before. Nor was this because of anything that had already happened; it was due entirely to the current behaviour of Gordon Lowndes. The man took unwarrantable liberties. His status at the flat was rightly that of a privileged friend, but Harry thought he presumed upon it insufferably.

  Like many great talkers, Lowndes was a vile listener, who thought nothing of interrupting Mrs. Ringrose herself; while as for Harry, he tried more than once to set some African experience of his own against the visitor’s endless anecdotes; but he never succeeded, and for a time the failures rankled. It was the visitor, again, who must complain of the supper: the lamb was underdone, the mint sauce too sweet for him, and the salad dressing which was on the table not to be compared with the oil and vinegar which were not. These were the things that made Harry hate himself when he laughed; yet laugh he must; the other’s intentions were so obviously good; and he did not offend Mrs. Ringrose. She encouraged him to monopolise the conversation, but that without appearing to attach too much importance to everything he said. And once when Harry caught her eye, himself raging inwardly, there was an indulgent twinkle in it which mollified him wonderfully, for it seemed to say: “These are his little peculiarities; you should not take them seriously; they do not make him any the less my friend — and yours.” It was this glance which undermined Harry’s hostility and prepared his heart for eventual surrender to the spell of which Gordon Lowndes was undoubted master.

  “I tell you what, Ringrose,” said he, as they rose from the table, “if you don’t get a billet within the ne
xt month, I’ll give you one myself.”

  “You won’t!” cried Harry, incredulously enough, for the promise had been made without preliminary, and it seemed too good to be possible.

  “Won’t I?” laughed Lowndes; “you’ll see if I won’t! What’s more, it’ll be a billet worth half-a-dozen such as that uncle of yours is likely to get you. What would you say to three hundred for a start?”

  “I knew you were joking,” was what Harry said, with a sigh; and his mother turned away as though she had known it too.

  “I was never more serious in my life,” retorted Lowndes. “I’m up to my chin in the biggest scheme of the century — bar none — though I’m not entitled to tell you what it is at this stage. It’s a critical stage, Ringrose, but this week will settle things one way or the other. It’s simply a question whether the Earl of Banff will or whether the Earl of Banff won’t, and he’s going to answer definitely this week. If he will — and I haven’t the slightest doubt of it in my own mind — the Company will be out before you know where you are — and you shall be Secretary — —”

  “Secretary!”

  “Be good enough not to interrupt me, Ringrose. You shall be Secretary with three hundred a year. Not competent? Nonsense; I’ll undertake to make you competent in a couple of hours; but if I say more, you’ll know too much before the time, and I’m pledged to secrecy till we land the noble Earl. He’s a pretty big fish, but I’ve as good as got him. However, he’s to let us know this week, and perhaps it would be as well not to raise the wind on that three hundred meanwhile; but it’s as good as in your pocket, Ringrose, for all that!”

  Mrs. Ringrose sat in her chair, without a sound save that of her knitting needles; and Harry formed the impression that she was already in the secret of the unmentionable scheme, but that she disapproved of it. He remarked, however, that he only wished he had known of such a prospect in time to have mentioned it to his uncle at their interview.

  “Your uncle!” cried Lowndes. “I should like to have seen his face if you had! I asked him to take shares the other day — told him I could put him on the best thing of the reign — and it was as good as a pantomime to see his face. Apart from his religious scruples, which make him regard the City of London as the capital of a warmer place than England, he’s not what you would call one of Nature’s sportsmen, that holy uncle of yours. He’s a gentleman who counts the odds. I wouldn’t trust him in the day of battle. Never till my dying day shall I forget our first meeting!”