by Grant Allen
The languid lady turned away with a sickly, disappointed air. “Then they ought to have a conscription, or something,” she said, pouting her lips. “The Government ought to take it in hand and manage it somehow. It’s bad enough having to go by these beastly steamers to India at all, without having one’s breath poisoned by—” the rest of the sentence died away inaudibly in a general murmur of ineffective grumbling.
“Why do you think she is EXCLUSIVE?” I asked Hilda as we strolled on towards the stern, out of the spoilt child’s hearing.
“Why, didn’t you notice? — she looked about her when she came on deck to see whether there was anybody who WAS anybody sitting there, whom she might put her chair near. But the Governor of Madras hadn’t come up from his cabin yet; and the wife of the chief Commissioner of Oude had three civilians hanging about her seat; and the daughters of the Commander-in-Chief drew their skirts away as she passed. So she did the next best thing — sat as far apart as she could from the common herd: meaning all the rest of us. If you can’t mingle at once with the Best People, you can at least assert your exclusiveness negatively, by declining to associate with the mere multitude.”
“Now, Hilda, that is the first time I have ever known you to show any feminine ill-nature!”
“Ill-nature! Not at all. I am merely trying to arrive at the lady’s character for my own guidance. I rather like her, poor little thing. Don’t I tell you she will do? So far from objecting to her, I mean to go the round of India with her.”
“You have decided quickly.”
“Well, you see, if you insist upon accompanying me, I MUST have a chaperon; and Lady Meadowcroft will do as well as anybody else. In fact, being be-ladied, she will do a little better, from the point of view of Society, though THAT is a detail. The great matter is to fix upon a possible chaperon at once, and get her well in hand before we arrive at Bombay.”
“But she seems so complaining!” I interposed. “I’m afraid, if you take her on, you’ll get terribly bored with her.”
“If SHE takes ME on, you mean. She’s not a lady’s-maid, though I intend to go with her; and she may as well give in first as last, for I’m going. Now see how nice I am to you, sir! I’ve provided you, too, with a post in her suite, as you WILL come with me. No, never mind asking me what it is just yet; all things come to him who waits; and if you will only accept the post of waiter, I mean all things to come to you.”
“All things, Hilda?” I asked, meaningly, with a little tremor of delight.
She looked at me with a sudden passing tenderness in her eyes. “Yes, all things, Hubert. All things. But we mustn’t talk of that — though I begin to see my way clearer now. You shall be rewarded for your constancy at last, dear knight-errant. As to my chaperon, I’m not afraid of her boring me; she bores herself, poor lady; one can see that, just to look at her; but she will be much less bored if she has us two to travel with. What she needs is constant companionship, bright talk, excitement. She has come away from London, where she swims with the crowd; she has no resources of her own, no work, no head, no interests. Accustomed to a whirl of foolish gaieties, she wearies her small brain; thrown back upon herself, she bores herself at once, because she has nothing interesting to tell herself. She absolutely requires somebody else to interest her. She can’t even amuse herself with a book for three minutes together. See, she has a yellow-backed French novel now, and she is only able to read five lines at a time; then she gets tired and glances about her listlessly. What she wants is someone gay, laid on, to divert her all the time from her own inanity.”
“Hilda, how wonderfully quick you are at reading these things! I see you are right; but I could never have guessed so much myself from such small premises.”
“Well, what can you expect, my dear boy? A girl like this, brought up in a country rectory, a girl of no intellect, busy at home with the fowls, and the pastry, and the mothers’ meetings — suddenly married offhand to a wealthy man, and deprived of the occupations which were her salvation in life, to be plunged into the whirl of a London season, and stranded at its end for want of the diversions which, by dint of use, have become necessaries of life to her!”
“Now, Hilda, you are practising upon my credulity. You can’t possibly tell from her look that she was brought up in a country rectory.”
“Of course not. You forget. There my memory comes in. I simply remember it.”
“You remember it? How?”
“Why, just in the same way as I remembered your name and your mother’s when I was first introduced to you. I saw a notice once in the births, deaths, and marriages— ‘At St. Alphege’s, Millington, by the Rev. Hugh Clitheroe, M.A., father of the bride, Peter Gubbins, Esq., of The Laurels, Middleston, to Emilia Frances, third daughter of the Rev. Hugh Clitheroe, rector of Millington.’”
“Clitheroe — Gubbins; what on earth has that to do with it? That would be Mrs. Gubbins: this is Lady Meadowcroft.”
“The same article, as the shopmen say — only under a different name. A year or two later I read a notice in the Times that ‘I, Ivor de Courcy Meadowcroft, of The Laurels, Middleston, Mayor-elect of the Borough of Middleston, hereby give notice, that I have this day discontinued the use of the name Peter Gubbins, by which I was formerly known, and have assumed in lieu thereof the style and title of Ivor de Courcy Meadowcroft, by which I desire in future to be known.’
“A month or two later, again I happened to light upon a notice in the Telegraph that the Prince of Wales had opened a new hospital for incurables at Middleston, and that the Mayor, Mr. Ivor Meadowcroft, had received an intimation of Her Majesty’s intention of conferring upon him the honour of knighthood. Now what do you make of it?”
“Putting two and two together,” I answered, with my eye on our subject, “and taking into consideration the lady’s face and manner, I should incline to suspect that she was the daughter of a poor parson, with the usual large family in inverse proportion to his means. That she unexpectedly made a good match with a very wealthy manufacturer who had raised himself; and that she was puffed up accordingly with a sense of self-importance.”
“Exactly. He is a millionaire, or something very like it; and, being an ambitious girl, as she understands ambition, she got him to stand for the mayoralty, I don’t doubt, in the year when the Prince of Wales was going to open the Royal Incurables, on purpose to secure him the chance of a knighthood. Then she said, very reasonably, ‘I WON’T be Lady Gubbins — Sir Peter Gubbins!’ There’s an aristocratic name for you! — and, by a stroke of his pen, he straightway dis-Gubbinised himself, and emerged as Sir Ivor de Courcy Meadowcroft.”
“Really, Hilda, you know everything about everybody! And what do you suppose they’re going to India for?”
“Now, you’ve asked me a hard one. I haven’t the faintest notion.... And yet... let me think. How is this for a conjecture? Sir Ivor is interested in steel rails, I believe, and in railway plant generally. I’m almost sure I’ve seen his name in connection with steel rails in reports of public meetings. There’s a new Government railway now being built on the Nepaul frontier — one of these strategic railways, I think they call them — it’s mentioned in the papers we got at Aden. He MIGHT be going out for that. We can watch his conversation, and see what part of India he talks about.”
“They don’t seem inclined to give us much chance of talking,” I objected.
“No; they are VERY exclusive. But I’m very exclusive, too. And I mean to give them a touch of my exclusiveness. I venture to predict that, before we reach Bombay, they’ll be going down on their knees and imploring us to travel with them.”
At table, as it happened, from next morning’s breakfast the Meadowcrofts sat next to us. Hilda was on one side of me; Lady Meadowcroft on the other; and beyond her again, bluff Yorkshire Sir Ivor, with his cold, hard, honest blue North Country eyes, and his dignified, pompous English, breaking down at times into a North Country colloquialism. They talked chiefly to each other. Acting on Hilda’s instructi
ons, I took care not to engage in conversation with our “exclusive” neighbour, except so far as the absolute necessities of the table compelled me. I “troubled her for the salt” in the most frigid voice. “May I pass you the potato salad?” became on my lips a barrier of separation. Lady Meadowcroft marked and wondered. People of her sort are so anxious to ingratiate themselves with “all the Best People” that if they find you are wholly unconcerned about the privilege of conversation with a “titled person,” they instantly judge you to be a distinguished character. As the days rolled on, Lady Meadowcroft’s voice began to melt by degrees. Once, she asked me, quite civilly, to send round the ice; she even saluted me on the third day out with a polite “Good-morning, doctor.”
Still, I maintained (by Hilda’s advice) my dignified reserve, and took my seat severely with a cold “Good-morning.” I behaved like a high-class consultant, who expects to be made Physician in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
At lunch that day, Hilda played her first card with delicious unconsciousness — apparent unconsciousness; for, when she chose, she was a consummate actress. She played it at a moment when Lady Meadowcroft, who by this time was burning with curiosity on our account, had paused from her talk with her husband to listen to us. I happened to say something about some Oriental curios belonging to an aunt of mine in London. Hilda seized the opportunity. “What did you say was her name?” she asked, blandly.
“Why, Lady Tepping,” I answered, in perfect innocence. “She has a fancy for these things, you know. She brought a lot of them home with her from Burma.”
As a matter of fact, as I have already explained, my poor dear aunt is an extremely commonplace old Army widow, whose husband happened to get knighted among the New Year’s honours for some brush with the natives on the Shan frontier. But Lady Meadowcroft was at the stage where a title is a title; and the discovery that I was the nephew of a “titled person” evidently interested her. I could feel rather than see that she glanced significantly aside at Sir Ivor, and that Sir Ivor in return made a little movement of his shoulders equivalent to “I told you so.”
Now Hilda knew perfectly well that the aunt of whom I spoke WAS Lady Tepping; so I felt sure that she had played this card of malice prepense, to pique Lady Meadowcroft.
But Lady Meadowcroft herself seized the occasion with inartistic avidity. She had hardly addressed us as yet. At the sound of the magic passport, she pricked up her ears, and turned to me suddenly. “Burma?” she said, as if to conceal the true reason for her change of front. “Burma? I had a cousin there once. He was in the Gloucestershire Regiment.”
“Indeed?” I answered. My tone was one of utter unconcern in her cousin’s history. “Miss Wade, will you take Bombay ducks with your curry?” In public, I thought it wise under the circumstances to abstain from calling her Hilda. It might lead to misconceptions; people might suppose we were more than fellow-travellers.
“You have had relations in Burma?” Lady Meadowcroft persisted.
I manifested a desire to discontinue the conversation. “Yes,” I answered, coldly, “my uncle commanded there.”
“Commanded there! Really! Ivor, do you hear? Dr. Cumberledge’s uncle commanded in Burma.” A faint intonation on the word commanded drew unobtrusive attention to its social importance. “May I ask what was his name? — my cousin was there, you see.” An insipid smile. “We may have friends in common.”
“He was a certain Sir Malcolm Tepping,” I blurted out, staring hard at my plate.
“Tepping! I think I have heard Dick speak of him, Ivor.”
“Your cousin,” Sir Ivor answered, with emphatic dignity, “is certain to have mixed with nobbut the highest officials in Burma.”
“Yes, I’m sure Dick used to speak of a certain Sir Malcolm. My cousin’s name, Dr. Cumberledge, was Maltby — Captain Richard Maltby.”
“Indeed,” I answered, with an icy stare. “I cannot pretend to the pleasure of having met him.”
Be exclusive to the exclusive, and they burn to know you. From that moment forth Lady Meadowcroft pestered us with her endeavours to scrape acquaintance. Instead of trying how far she could place her chair from us, she set it down as near us as politeness permitted. She entered into conversation whenever an opening afforded itself, and we two stood off haughtily. She even ventured to question me about our relation to one another: “Miss Wade is your cousin, I suppose?” she suggested.
“Oh, dear, no,” I answered, with a glassy smile. “We are not connected in any way.”
“But you are travelling together!”
“Merely as you and I are travelling together — fellow-passengers on the same steamer.”
“Still, you have met before.”
“Yes, certainly. Miss Wade was a nurse at St. Nathaniel’s, in London, where I was one of the house doctors. When I came on board at Cape Town, after some months in South Africa, I found she was going by the same steamer to India.” Which was literally true. To have explained the rest would have been impossible, at least to anyone who did not know the whole of Hilda’s history.
“And what are you both going to do when you get to India?”
“Really, Lady Meadowcroft,” I said, severely, “I have not asked Miss Wade what she is going to do. If you inquire of her point-blank, as you have inquired of me, I dare say she will tell you. For myself, I am just a globe-trotter, amusing myself. I only want to have a look round at India.”
“Then you are not going out to take an appointment?”
“By George, Emmie,” the burly Yorkshireman put in, with an air of annoyance, “you are cross-questioning Dr. Cumberledge; nowt less than cross-questioning him!”
I waited a second. “No,” I answered, slowly. “I have not been practising of late. I am looking about me. I travel for enjoyment.”
That made her think better of me. She was of the kind, indeed, who think better of a man if they believe him to be idle.
She dawdled about all day on deck chairs, herself, seldom even reading; and she was eager now to drag Hilda into conversation. Hilda resisted; she had found a volume in the library which immensely interested her.
“What ARE you reading, Miss Wade?” Lady Meadowcroft cried at last, quite savagely. It made her angry to see anybody else pleased and occupied when she herself was listless.
“A delightful book!” Hilda answered. “The Buddhist Praying Wheel, by William Simpson.”
Lady Meadowcroft took it from her and turned the pages over with a languid air. “Looks awfully dull!” she observed, with a faint smile, at last, returning it.
“It’s charming,” Hilda retorted, glancing at one of the illustrations. “It explains so much. It shows one why one turns round one’s chair at cards for luck; and why, when a church is consecrated, the bishop walks three times about it sunwise.”
“Our Bishop is a dreadfully prosy old gentleman,” Lady Meadowcroft answered, gliding off at a tangent on a personality, as is the wont of her kind; “he had, oh, such a dreadful quarrel with my father over the rules of the St. Alphege Schools at Millington.”
“Indeed,” Hilda answered, turning once more to her book. Lady Meadowcroft looked annoyed. It would never have occurred to her that within a few weeks she was to owe her life to that very abstruse work, and what Hilda had read in it.
That afternoon, as we watched the flying fish from the ship’s side, Hilda said to me abruptly, “My chaperon is an extremely nervous woman.”
“Nervous about what?”
“About disease, chiefly. She has the temperament that dreads infection — and therefore catches it.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Haven’t you noticed that she often doubles her thumb under her fingers — folds her fist across it — so — especially when anybody talks about anything alarming? If the conversation happens to turn on jungle fever, or any subject like that, down goes her thumb instantly, and she clasps her fist over it with a convulsive squeeze. At the same time, too, her face twitches. I know what that trick mean
s. She’s horribly afraid of tropical diseases, though she never says so.”
“And you attach importance to her fear?”
“Of course. I count upon it as probably our chief means of catching and fixing her.”
“As how?”
She shook her head and quizzed me. “Wait and see. You are a doctor; I, a trained nurse. Before twenty-four hours, I foresee she will ask us. She is sure to ask us, now she has learned that you are Lady Tepping’s nephew, and that I am acquainted with several of the Best People.”
That evening, about ten o’clock, Sir Ivor strolled up to me in the smoking-room with affected unconcern. He laid his hand on my arm and drew me aside mysteriously. The ship’s doctor was there, playing a quiet game of poker with a few of the passengers. “I beg your pardon, Dr. Cumberledge,” he began, in an undertone, “could you come outside with me a minute? Lady Meadowcroft has sent me up to you with a message.”
I followed him on to the open deck. “It is quite impossible, my dear sir,” I said, shaking my head austerely, for I divined his errand. “I can’t go and see Lady Meadowcroft. Medical etiquette, you know; the constant and salutary rule of the profession!”
“Why not?” he asked, astonished.
“The ship carries a surgeon,” I replied, in my most precise tone. “He is a duly qualified gentleman, very able in his profession, and he ought to inspire your wife with confidence. I regard this vessel as Dr. Boyell’s practice, and all on board it as virtually his patients.”
Sir Ivor’s face fell. “But Lady Meadowcroft is not at all well,” he answered, looking piteous; “and — she can’t endure the ship’s doctor. Such a common man, you know! His loud voice disturbs her. You MUST have noticed that my wife is a lady of exceptionally delicate nervous organisation.” He hesitated, beamed on me, and played his trump card. “She dislikes being attended by owt but a GENTLEMAN.”
