Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Mr. Alington was a sound sleeper and an early riser, and neither his new and dizzy schemes nor the pathos of the Passion Music kept him awake. He had various appointments in the City on the following morning, and was going to lunch with Lord Conybeare at White’s. Jack was not there when he arrived, and he had to solace his waiting moments with the inspection of the room set aside for the reception of strangers. It was furnished with a table, on which stood an empty inkstand and a carafe of stale-looking water, two horsehair chairs, a weighing-machine, and a row of hat pegs hung up inside a shelfless bookcase. He hoped, however, that he would not in the future have to confine himself to the stranger’s room when he made an appointment there, since Jack had put him up for the membership of the club, got Tom Abbotsworthy to second him, and had induced a large number of members to append their noble names to his candidature.

  Jack came in before long, looking as he always looked, even in the most broiling weather — perfectly cool, unharassed, and ill to quarrel with. He never seemed to get either hot or dirty, even in the underground; smuts passed him by, and settled on the noses of his less fortunate neighbours.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “Let us have lunch at once. You have not been here long, I hope.”

  “Only a few moments,” said Alington; “and I fancy I was here before my time.”

  “A fine habit,” murmured Jack. “How punctual we should be between us!”

  They entered the dining-room, which was rather empty, and took their seat at a small table a little removed from other lunchers.

  “I did not see you last night at the Embassy,” said Jack. “I thought you were sure to be there. Kit told me she had an invitation sent you, and busy men like you always seem to have time for everything.”

  “One has all the time there is,” said Alington; “and I meant to go. But the mail brought me news — important news from Australia.”

  “Indeed? Good news, I hope.”

  “Excellent news. We shall very soon require your services.”

  “Ah! What will you drink?”

  “Thanks, I never touch wine at lunch. A little water, please. I am a bit of an ascetic in certain ways. Yes, the news was excellent. I shall get out a prospectus at once, and float the companies. Out of the five mines, the same reef, a very rich one, runs through three. The other two are outliers from this reef, but there appears to be a good deal of surface gold. They ought to begin paying at once almost. I propose making two groups out of these five mines — one comprising the outliers, the other three the main reef. Or we might amalgamate them later. I strongly recommend your purchasing these outliers in large quantities. That, at least, is what I intend to do myself.”

  Jack laughed.

  “It is easy to recommend my making large purchases,” he said; “and I wonder if I could run up a bill for them. But circumstances over which I have long ceased to have any control — —”

  Mr. Alington held up his large white hand.

  “You will not need to cover,” he said. “Pay the first call, or, at most, the first two calls. I assure you that that will be all that is necessary. Unless I am much more mistaken than I have ever been in my life, the price will rise very soon and very considerably. You must remember that you draw a salary as a director. If you wish, I will advance that for this year.”

  “That would be very convenient,” observed Jack with truth and candour.

  “The first call will be half a crown,” continued Alington. “A thousand pounds will thus enable you to command eight thousand shares.”

  “It is a long time since I have had eight thousand anythings,” remarked Jack; “Of course, I don’t count debts. I never count debts. But what will happen to me if the shares do not go up?”

  “The shares will go up,” said Alington dryly. “I should advise you to put yourself entirely in my hands about this. I simply cannot be wrong. As a director, you are bound to hold shares. I recommend you to put the greater part of them into these two outlying mines.”

  “I ask nothing better than to be guided by you,” said Jack. “Many thanks for the hint.”

  Mr. Alington waved the thanks away, as if they were disproportionately large to the favour bestowed.

  “And I should like to have a meeting of the directors on Tuesday,” he said, “if that will suit you and Lord Abbotsworthy. I am going to see him this afternoon. I propose to employ my own brokers, men whom I have dealt with for years.”

  By degrees the room filled up, and, as the tables near them had begun to be occupied, they dismissed for the present the subject of the mines. Jack was more than content to leave his own financial venture in Alington’s hands, for he felt convinced that he was playing fair with him. Habitually somewhat cynical, he would have thought twice about going bail for his most intimate acquaintance; but he believed that Alington, as he himself candidly said, was acting for his own interests in making it worth a Marquis’s while to join the board. About Alington’s ability he had found no two opinions; extensive inquiries showed him that on all hands he was considered the shrewdest of the shrewd. The market had already got hints about the new issue, and was waiting with some impatience for the publication of its prospectus. And the interest extended far beyond the professional operators; the British public, as Alington had said, were nearly ripe to go mad on the subject of Australian gold, and he had chosen his moment well.

  CHAPTER VIII. THE SIMPLY NOBODY

  The “quiet dinner, simply nobody,” to which Kit had invited the gratified Mrs. Murchison and her daughter the night before had grown like a rolling snowball during the hours of the Hungarian ball. If you are having a quiet dinner, one more does not make any difference or change the character of the entertainment, and there had been many such. Among others, Kit had met Alice Haslemere in the Park next morning, and the latter had made an appeal ad misericordiam to her.

  “I am bidden to meet a Serene Transparency or a Transparent Serenity of some sort to-night,” she had said. “Who? Oh, some second-class little royalty made in Germany, and I don’t intend to go, and have said so. I gave an excuse, Kit; I gave you as my excuse, because you are a sort of privileged person, and even royalty lets you do as you choose. How do you manage it, dear? I wish you would tell me. Anyhow, I said that you asked me to dine to-night six weeks ago. You see, I owe you one over that disingenuous way you treated me about Jack and the baccarat. So you did ask me, didn’t you?”

  Kit slowed down; she was riding a white bicycle picked out with crimson.

  “Seven weeks ago, Alice,” she said; “and if you had forgotten I should never have forgiven you. Quite quietly, you know; and so we are quits. Lady Conybeare’s dinner,” she said with some ceremony, “will be served as usual at eight-thirty.”

  They were both riding the wrong side of the road, and Lady Haslemere cast an offended look at her father’s coachman, who did not recognise her, and made way for the carriage.

  “I knew it was an old, old engagement,” she said, with feeling. “And who is coming? I forget; it is so long since you told me.”

  “Murchison mère et fille,” said Kit; “and the fille is going to marry Toby. You just see. Also Ted and Toby and the baccarat man. Jack is very thick with him just now, and my ladyship smells money. Oh, Alice, we might play baccarat again to-night; I was thinking that it would be rather tiresome having to play gooseberry to Toby all the evening, but a hand at cards would help to pass the time, would it not? Let’s see, baccarat is the game where you have to try and get nine, isn’t it? How pleasant! There are some other people coming, too, and there will probably be more before evening. I notice that when there are dinners for Transparencies people ask me to ask them. I am a sort of refuge from royalty.”

  “Yes, and how transparent!” remarked Lady Haslemere.

  “Isn’t it? and what a bad joke! But wear a tea-gown, Alice, because I told Mrs. M. to do so. Yes, we’ll play detectives on the Alington this evening. I hope he’ll cheat again. It must be so amusing to be a real
detective. I think I shall become one if all else fails. And most things have failed.”

  “To see if shopping takes so long, and whether the club accounts for late hours,” quoted Lady Haslemere, with a touch of regret. “But, Kit, what a blessing it is that one does not feel bound to watch one’s husband! Haslemere is so safe, you know; one might as well watch St. Paul’s Cathedral to see if it flirted with St. Mary Magdalene’s. It would bore me to death watching him. Only once have I seen him at all excited.”

  “Who was the happy lady?” asked Kit, with interest.

  “It wasn’t a lady at all — not even me. It was a wire puzzle, and he said it was mathematically impossible, and woke me up about three in the morning to tell me so. He was really quite feverish about it. But in demonstrating to me how impossible it was he accidentally did it, upon which he became perfectly normal, and we lived happily ever afterwards.”

  They turned into the road north of the Serpentine by the Achilles statue, and quickened their pace.

  “One always does live happily ever afterwards,” said Kit thoughtfully. “Truth is quite as strange as fiction. There’s the old Duchess — what a cat! And just look at her wig all sideways! But I am also thankful that one’s husband is not a detective. Jack would make such a bad one. I should be ashamed of him.”

  “I suppose he would. He is clever,” said Alice, “and criminals are so short-sighted. They make the obvious mistakes. But Jack would make a ripping criminal.”

  “That is just it. As a detective Jack would overlook the obvious things because they are so obvious. Consequently, he would never find out anything, because criminals always make stupid mistakes, not clever ones. Jack never found out that the mine man cheated at baccarat, for instance. Oh, I forgot, you guessed that. Look, there’s Ted. How badly he rides!”

  “And he never finds out about Ted,” remarked Lady Haslemere, with extreme dryness.

  “Never. You see, there’s nothing to find out. I always tell him what a darling Ted is, and so he never thinks he is a darling. I’m very fond of Ted, but — but —— After all, frankness pays better than anything else, especially when you have nothing to conceal.”

  Lady Haslemere considered the proposition for a moment, but found nothing to say about it.

  “How is the mine man?” she asked abruptly.

  “Green bay-trees. So he must be wicked. A few nights ago, when he dined with us, I asked him to sing after dinner, and he sang a sort of evening hymn in four sharps. Don’t you know the kind? He has a really beautiful voice, and it nearly made me cry, I felt so regretful for something I had forgotten. Now, that shows he must be wicked. Good people only make me yawn, because they try and adapt themselves to me and talk about worldly things. And it is only wicked people who sing hymns with real feeling, who make me want to cry. Luckily, they are rare.”

  “And the mines?” asked Alice.

  “Well, Jack is excited about the mines, like Haslemere with the wire puzzle, and when Jack is excited it means a good deal. He told me that if things went decently we should be solvent again — it sounds like a chemical — in fact, the mines are playing up. For to make Jack and me solvent, Alice, means a lot.”

  They had reached the Serpentine, and Kit dismounted and rested by the rails. It was a typically fine June day. The sky was cloudless, the trees were comparatively green, large wood-pigeons wandered fatly about, and childlike old gentlemen were sailing miniature yachts across the water.

  “What a pity one is not a person of simple pleasures!” remarked Lady Haslemere. “There is an old gentleman there who takes more delight in his silly little boat than you do in the prospect of solvency, or Haslemere even in a new wire puzzle. How happy he must be and how dull! I think dulness is really synonymous with happiness. Think of cows! You never found an absorbing cow, nor an unhappy one. The old gentleman has eaten a good breakfast; he will eat a good lunch. And he has probably got a balance at his bank.”

  “It’s all stomach,” said Kit regretfully— “all except the balance, I mean.”

  “Yes, that’s what it comes to. So we shall play detectives to-night, Kit.”

  Kit started; she was absorbed in the toy yacht.

  “Detectives? Oh, certainly,” she replied. “But I almost wish we were wrong about the whole concern.”

  “The mine man cheated,” said Alice, with decision. “I was thinking of asking Tom whether he saw.”

  “Oh, don’t do that,” said Kit. “We don’t want a scandal. Look!”

  A squall shattered the reflections in the calm water, and the old gentleman’s toy yacht bowed to it and skimmed off like a swallow.

  “Oh, how nice!” cried Kit, who was rapidly taking the colour of her surroundings. “Alice, shall we save up our money and buy a little toy yacht? Think how happy we should be!”

  “If you are going to play the milkmaid, Kit,” said Alice severely, “I shall go home. I won’t play milkmaid for anybody. Playing gooseberry to Toby is nothing to it.”

  Kit sighed.

  “Dear old gentleman!” she said. “Alice, I would give anything to be an old gentleman with white whiskers and a silly little yacht. Yes, I know, it is an impossible dream. About the baccarat, what were you saying?”

  “I have things to say, if you will be so kind as to attend. Try to forget about your white whiskers, Kit.”

  “Yes, I will. There were no such white whiskers.”

  “Last night,” said Lady Haslemere, “I lost two hundred and forty pounds and sixpence.”

  “How sixpence? What small stakes you must have been playing! Was it the game where you try to get nine?”

  “Yes,” said Alice, “and I lost the sixpence because I dropped it on the floor. I don’t know how I got it, and I don’t know what happened to it.”

  “Like Melchisedech,” put in Kit.

  “Exactly. Anyhow, I dropped it, and it just shows what extraordinary people people are. We all took candles and grovelled on the ground looking for that sixpence. Losing it annoyed me more than I can say. I didn’t care so much about the rest.”

  “I should have cared much more,” said Kit very fervently. “But you are quite right. And it explains to a certain extent how a very rich man like Mr. Alington can cheat over a few shillings.”

  “I dreamed about the sixpence too,” said Alice. “I thought my salvation depended on it.”

  Kit did not reply at once.

  “That seems inexpensive,” she said at length. “I would go as far as that. Look at the yacht — oh, I forgot, I mustn’t look at the yacht. Alice, I believe these mines are a big affair. Jack got up this morning at nine in order to be in the City by half-past eight, and it takes a lot to make him as punctual as that. Are you going to take a hand in them?”

  “I want to, but Tom says no. He says he has more opportunity of judging, or something tedious, and will make enough for us both. He is willing to invest for me, but that is no fun.”

  “That is so like Jack,” said Kit. “He wants me to have nothing to do with the mines. He expects to make enough for two, which is absurd, considering that nobody can possibly make enough for one. But I shall call myself Miss de Rougemont, spinster, care of the Daily Chronicle, or something, and so invest.”

  “Have you got a little nest-egg, dear?” asked Alice sympathetically. “How nice! I always have, but the stupid cards ate a big piece of the yolk last night.”

  “I know; they do. But, on the other hand, they fill it up again. I expect most women have nest-eggs of some sort. It may be money, or virtue, or vice, or secrets. Well, I’m going to drop mine slap into the Australian goldfields.”

  “I intend to be cautious,” said Lady Haslemere. “But just to spite Tom I shall risk something. Tom was most tiresome and interfering. He says women know nothing about business. A lot he knows himself! If I had to pick out one man eminently unfitted to be director of anything, it would be Tom.”

  “I can’t have Jack left out in the cold like that,” said Kit.

  “T
hey are a pretty pair. Tom’s honest; that is all that can be said for him.”

  Kit screamed with laughter.

  “I bet you that Jack is as honest as Tom,” she said. “But that is just the way with your family, dear. They all think that they have a monopoly of the cardinal virtues, just as Mr. Leiter thought he could have a corner in corn. But, seriously, I do hope and trust that Alington’s mines are sound. Think how the Radical papers would shout if something — well, if something untoward happened. Salaries, you know! Supposing the British public dropped a lot of money and there was an inquiry? Personally, I think Jack is rash to be chairman. He is paid for his name — he knows that perfectly well; but directors are supposed to be dimly responsible. And his boss cheats at baccarat! Also I think he shouldn’t have a salary as director; that doesn’t look well.”

  “That will surely be periphrased in the accounts, won’t it?” asked Alice.

  “I hope so; periphrasis covers a multitude of cheques.”