by Grant Allen
‘Does he know about the hot-water-bottle?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes; he ordered me to use it on certain nights; and when I go to England he says I must never be without one. I see now that was why my inner self invariably went wrong in England. It was all just the sulphur blackening the bangles.’
I reflected. ‘A middle-aged man?’ I asked. ‘Stout, diplomatic-looking, with wrinkles round his eyes, and a distinguished grey moustache, twirled up oddly at the corners?’
‘That’s the man, my dear! His very picture. Where on earth have you seen him?’
‘And he talks of sub-conscious selves?’ I went on.
‘He practises on that basis. He says it’s no use prescribing for the outer man; to do that is to treat mere symptoms: the sub-conscious self is the inner seat of diseases.’
‘How long has he been in Switzerland?’
‘Oh, he comes here every year. He arrived this season late in May, I fancy.’
‘When will he visit you again, Mrs. Evelegh?’
‘To-morrow morning.’
I made up my mind at once. ‘Then I must see him, without being seen,’ I said. ‘I think I know him. He is our Count, I believe.’ For I had told Mrs. Evelegh and Elsie the queer story of my journey from London.
‘Impossible, my dear! Im-possible! I have implicit faith in him!’
‘Wait and see, Mrs. Evelegh. You acknowledge he duped you over the affair of the bangle.’
THE COUNT.
There are two kinds of dupe: one kind, the commonest, goes on believing in its deceiver, no matter what happens; the other, far rarer, has the sense to know it has been deceived if you make the deception as clear as day to it. Mrs. Evelegh was, fortunately, of the rarer class. Next morning, Dr. Fortescue-Langley arrived, by appointment. As he walked up the path, I glanced at him from my window. It was the Count, not a doubt of it. On his way to gull his dupes in Switzerland, he had tried to throw in an incidental trifle of a diamond robbery.
I telegraphed the facts at once to Lady Georgina, at Schlangenbad. She answered, ‘I am coming. Ask the man to meet his friend on Wednesday.’
Mrs. Evelegh, now almost convinced, invited him. On Wednesday morning, with a bounce, Lady Georgina burst in upon us. ‘My dear, such a journey! — alone, at my age — but there, I haven’t known a happy day since you left me! Oh, yes, I got my Gretchen — unsophisticated? — well — h’m — that’s not the word for it: I declare to you, Lois, there isn’t a trick of the trade, in Paris or London — not a perquisite or a tip that that girl isn’t up to. Comes straight from the remotest recesses of the Black Forest, and hadn’t been with me a week, I assure you, honour bright, before she was bandolining her yellow hair, and rouging her cheeks, and wearing my brooches, and wagering gloves with the hotel waiters upon the Baden races. And her language: and her manners! Why weren’t you born in that station of life, I wonder, child, so that I might offer you five hundred a year, and all found, to come and live with me for ever? But this Gretchen — her fringe, her shoes, her ribbons — upon my soul, my dear, I don’t know what girls are coming to nowadays.’
‘Ask Mrs. Lynn-Linton,’ I suggested, as she paused. ‘She is a recognised authority on the subject.’
The Cantankerous Old Lady stared at me. ‘And this Count?’ she went on. ‘So you have really tracked him? You’re a wonderful girl, my dear. I wish you were a lady’s maid. You’d be worth me any money.’
I explained how I had come to hear of Dr. Fortescue-Langley.
Lady Georgina waxed warm. ‘Dr. Fortescue-Langley!’ she exclaimed. ‘The wicked wretch! But he didn’t get my diamonds! I’ve carried them here in my hands, all the way from Wiesbaden: I wasn’t going to leave them for a single day to the tender mercies of that unspeakable Gretchen. The fool would lose them. Well, we’ll catch him this time, Lois: and we’ll give him ten years for it!’
‘Ten years!’ Mrs. Evelegh cried, clasping her hands in horror. ‘Oh, Lady Georgina!’
We waited in Mrs. Evelegh’s dining-room, the old lady and I, behind the folding doors. At three precisely Dr. Fortescue-Langley walked in. I had difficulty in restraining Lady Georgina from falling upon him prematurely. He talked a lot of high-flown nonsense to Mrs. Evelegh and Elsie about the influences of the planets, and the seventy-five emanations, and the eternal wisdom of the East, and the medical efficacy of sub-conscious suggestion. Excellent patter, all of it — quite as good in its way as the diplomatic patter he had poured forth in the train to Lady Georgina. It was rich in spheres, in elements, in cosmic forces. At last, as he was discussing the reciprocal action of the inner self upon the exhalations of the lungs, we pushed back the door and walked calmly in upon him.
His breath came and went. The exhalations of the lungs showed visible perturbation. He rose and stared at us. For a second he lost his composure. Then, as bold as brass, he turned, with a cunning smile, to Mrs. Evelegh. ‘Where on earth did you pick up such acquaintances?’ he inquired, in a well-simulated tone of surprise. ‘Yes, Lady Georgina, I have met you before, I admit; but — it can hardly be agreeable to you to reflect under what circumstances.’
Lady Georgina was beside herself. ‘You dare?’ she cried, confronting him. ‘You dare to brazen it out? You miserable sneak! But you can’t bluff me now. I have the police outside.’ Which I regret to confess was a light-hearted fiction.
‘The police?’ he echoed, drawing back. I could see he was frightened.
I had an inspiration again. ‘Take off that moustache!’ I said, calmly, in my most commanding voice.
I THOUGHT IT KINDER TO HIM TO REMOVE IT ALTOGETHER.
He clapped his hand to it in horror. In his agitation, he managed to pull it a little bit awry. It looked so absurd, hanging there, all crooked, that I thought it kinder to him to remove it altogether. The thing peeled off with difficulty; for it was a work of art, very firmly and gracefully fastened with sticking-plaster. But it peeled off at last — and with it the whole of the Count’s and Dr. Fortescue-Langley’s distinction. The man stood revealed, a very palpable man-servant.
Lady Georgina stared hard at him. ‘Where have I seen you before?’ she murmured, slowly. ‘That face is familiar to me. Why, yes; you went once to Italy as Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst’s courier! I know you now. Your name is Higginson.’
It was a come-down for the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, but he swallowed it like a man at a single gulp.
‘Yes, my lady,’ he said, fingering his hat nervously, now all was up. ‘You are quite right, my lady. But what would you have me do? Times are hard on us couriers. Nobody wants us now. I must take to what I can.’ He assumed once more the tone of the Vienna diplomat. ‘Que voulez-vous, madame? These are revolutionary days. A man of intelligence must move with the Zeitgeist!’
Lady Georgina burst into a loud laugh. ‘And to think,’ she cried, ‘that I talked to this lackey from London to Malines without ever suspecting him! Higginson, you’re a fraud — but you’re a precious clever one.’
He bowed. ‘I am happy to have merited Lady Georgina Fawley’s commendation,’ he answered, with his palm on his heart, in his grandiose manner.
‘But I shall hand you over to the police all the same! You are a thief and a swindler!’
He assumed a comic expression. ‘Unhappily, not a thief,’ he objected. ‘This young lady prevented me from appropriating your diamonds. Convey, the wise call it. I wanted to take your jewel-case — and she put me off with a sandwich-tin. I wanted to make an honest penny out of Mrs. Evelegh; and — she confronts me with your ladyship, and tears my moustache off.’
Lady Georgina regarded him with a hesitating expression. ‘But I shall call the police,’ she said, wavering visibly.
‘De grace, my lady, de grace! Is it worth while, pour si peu de chose? Consider, I have really effected nothing. Will you charge me with having taken — in error — a small tin sandwich-case — value, elevenpence? An affair of a week’s imprisonment. That is positively all you can bring up against me. And,’ brig
htening up visibly, ‘I have the case still; I will return it to-morrow with pleasure to your ladyship!’
‘But the india-rubber water-bottle?’ I put in. ‘You have been deceiving Mrs. Evelegh. It blackens silver. And you told her lies in order to extort money under false pretences.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You are too clever for me, young lady,’ he broke out. ‘I have nothing to say to you. But Lady Georgina, Mrs. Evelegh — you are human — let me go! Reflect; I have things I could tell that would make both of you look ridiculous. That journey to Malines, Lady Georgina! Those Indian charms, Mrs. Evelegh! Besides, you have spoiled my game. Let that suffice you! I can practise in Switzerland no longer. Allow me to go in peace, and I will try once more to be indifferent honest!’
INCH BY INCH HE RETREATED.
He backed slowly towards the door, with his eyes fixed on them. I stood by and waited. Inch by inch he retreated. Lady Georgina looked down abstractedly at the carpet. Mrs. Evelegh looked up abstractedly at the ceiling. Neither spoke another word. The rogue backed out by degrees. Then he sprang downstairs, and before they could decide was well out into the open.
Lady Georgina was the first to break the silence. ‘After all, my dear,’ she murmured, turning to me, ‘there was a deal of sound English common-sense about Dogberry!’
I remembered then his charge to the watch to apprehend a rogue. ‘How if ‘a will not stand?’
‘Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.’ When I remembered how Lady Georgina had hob-nobbed with the Count from Ostend to Malines, I agreed to a great extent both with her and with Dogberry.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE IMPROMPTU MOUNTAINEER
The explosion and evaporation of Dr. Fortescue-Langley (with whom were amalgamated the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, Mr. Higginson the courier, and whatever else that versatile gentleman chose to call himself) entailed many results of varying magnitudes.
In the first place, Mrs. Evelegh ordered a Great Manitou. That, however, mattered little to ‘the firm,’ as I loved to call us (because it shocked dear Elsie so); for, of course, after all her kindness we couldn’t accept our commission on her purchase, so that she got her machine cheap for £15 from the maker. But, in the second place — I declare I am beginning to write like a woman of business — she decided to run over to England for the summer to see her boy at Portsmouth, being certain now that the discoloration of her bangle depended more on the presence of sulphur in the india-rubber bottle than on the passing state of her astral body. ’Tis an abrupt descent from the inner self to a hot-water bottle, I admit; but Mrs. Evelegh took the plunge with grace, like a sensible woman. Dr. Fortescue-Langley had been annihilated for her at one blow: she returned forthwith to common-sense and England.
‘What will you do with the chalet while you’re away?’ Lady Georgina asked, when she announced her intention. ‘You can’t shut it up to take care of itself. Every blessed thing in the place will go to rack and ruin. Shutting up a house means spoiling it for ever. Why, I’ve got a cottage of my own that I let for the summer in the best part of Surrey — a pretty little place, now vacant, for which, by the way, I want a tenant, if you happen to know of one: and when it’s left empty for a month or two — —’
‘Perhaps it would do for me?’ Mrs. Evelegh suggested, jumping at it. ‘I’m looking out for a furnished house for the summer, within easy reach of Portsmouth and London, for myself and Oliver.’
Lady Georgina seized her arm, with a face of blank horror. ‘My dear,’ she cried. ‘For you! I wouldn’t dream of letting it to you. A nasty, damp, cold, unwholesome house, on stiff clay soil, with detestable drains, in the deadliest part of the Weald of Surrey, — why, you and your boy would catch your deaths of rheumatism.’
‘Is it the one I saw advertised in the Times this morning, I wonder?’ Mrs. Evelegh inquired in a placid voice. ‘“Charming furnished house on Holmesdale Common; six bedrooms, four reception-rooms; splendid views; pure air; picturesque surroundings; exceptionally situated.” I thought of writing about it.’
NEVER LEAVE A HOUSE TO THE SERVANTS, MY DEAR!
‘That’s it!’ Lady Georgina exclaimed, with a demonstrative wave of her hand. ‘I drew up the advertisement myself. Exceptionally situated! I should just think it was! Why, my dear, I wouldn’t let you rent the place for worlds; a horrid, poky little hole, stuck down in the bottom of a boggy hollow, as damp as Devonshire, with the paper peeling off the walls, so that I had to take my choice between giving it up myself ten years ago, or removing to the cemetery; and I’ve let it ever since to City men with large families. Nothing would induce me to allow you and your boy to expose yourself to such risks.’ For Lady Georgina had taken quite a fancy to Mrs. Evelegh. ‘But what I was just going to say was this: you can’t shut your house up; it’ll all go mouldy. Houses always go mouldy, shut up in summer. And you can’t leave it to your servants; I know the baggages; no conscience — no conscience; they’ll ask their entire families to come and stop with them en bloc, and turn your place into a perfect piggery. Why, when I went away from my house in town one autumn, didn’t I leave a policeman and his wife in charge — a most respectable man — only he happened to be an Irishman. And what was the consequence? My dear, I assure you, I came back unexpectedly from poor dear Kynaston’s one day — at a moment’s notice — having quarrelled with him over Home Rule or Education or something — poor dear Kynaston’s what they call a Liberal, I believe — got at by that man Rosebery — and there didn’t I find all the O’Flanagans, and O’Flahertys, and O’Flynns in the neighbourhood camping out in my drawing-room; with a strong detachment of O’Donohues, and O’Dohertys, and O’Driscolls lying around loose in possession of the library? Never leave a house to the servants, my dear! It’s positively suicidal. Put in a responsible caretaker of whom you know something — like Lois here, for instance.’
‘Lois!’ Mrs. Evelegh echoed. ‘Dear me, that’s just the very thing. What a capital idea! I never thought of Lois! She and Elsie might stop on here, with Ursula and the gardener.’
I protested that if we did it was our clear duty to pay a small rent; but Mrs. Evelegh brushed that aside. ‘You’ve robbed yourselves over the bicycle,’ she insisted, ‘and I’m delighted to let you have it. It’s I who ought to pay, for you’ll keep the house dry for me.’
I remembered Mr. Hitchcock— ‘Mutual advantage: benefits you, benefits me’ — and made no bones about it. So in the end Mrs. Evelegh set off for England with Cécile, leaving Elsie and me in charge of Ursula, the gardener, and the chalet.
As for Lady Georgina, having by this time completed her ‘cure’ at Schlangenbad (complexion as usual; no guinea yellower), she telegraphed for Gretchen— ‘I can’t do without the idiot’ — and hung round Lucerne, apparently for no other purpose but to send people up the Brünig on the hunt for our wonderful new machines, and so put money in our pockets. She was much amused when I told her that Aunt Susan (who lived, you will remember, in respectable indigence at Blackheath) had written to expostulate with me on my ‘unladylike’ conduct in becoming a bicycle commission agent. ‘Unladylike! — the Cantankerous Old Lady exclaimed, with warmth. ‘What does the woman mean? Has she got no gumption? It’s “ladylike,” I suppose, to be a companion, or a governess, or a music-teacher, or something else in the black-thread-glove way, in London; but not to sell bicycles for a good round commission. My dear, between you and me, I don’t see it. If you had a brother, now, he might sell cycles, or corner wheat, or rig the share market, or do anything else he pleased, in these days, and nobody’d think the worse of him — as long as he made money; and it’s my opinion that what is sauce for the goose can’t be far out for the gander — and vice-versâ. Besides which, what’s the use of trying to be ladylike? You are a lady, child, and you couldn’t help being one; why trouble to be like what nature made you? Tell Aunt Susan from me to put that in her pipe and smoke it!’
I di
d tell Aunt Susan by letter, giving Lady Georgina’s authority for the statement; and I really believe it had a consoling effect upon her; for Aunt Susan is one of those innocent-minded people who cherish a profound respect for the opinions and ideas of a Lady of Title. Especially where questions of delicacy are concerned. It calmed her to think that though I, an officer’s daughter, had declined upon trade, I was mixing at least with the Best People!
We had a lovely time at the chalet — two girls alone, messing just as we pleased in the kitchen, and learning from Ursula how to concoct pot-au-feu in the most approved Swiss fashion. We pottered, as we women love to potter, half the day long; the other half we spent in riding our cycles about the eternal hills, and ensnaring the flies whom Lady Georgina dutifully sent up to us. She was our decoy duck: and, in virtue of her handle, she decoyed to a marvel. Indeed, I sold so many Manitous that I began to entertain a deep respect for my own commercial faculties. As for Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock, he wrote to me from Frankfort: ‘The world continues to revolve on its axis, the Manitou, and the machine is booming. Orders romp in daily. When you ventilated the suggestion of an agency at Limburg, I concluded at a glance you had the material of a first-class business woman about you; but I reckon I did not know what a traveller meant till you started on the road. I am now enlarging and altering this factory, to meet increased demands. Branch offices at Berlin, Hamburg, Crefeld, and Düsseldorf. Inspect our stock before dealing elsewhere. A liberal discount allowed to the trade. Two hundred agents wanted in all towns of Germany. If they were every one of them like you, miss — well, I guess I would hire the town of Frankfort for my business premises.’
One morning, after we had spent about a week at the chalet by ourselves, I was surprised to see a young man with a knapsack on his back walking up the garden path towards our cottage. ‘Quick, quick, Elsie!’ I cried, being in a mischievous mood. ‘Come here with the opera-glass! There’s a Man in the offing!’
