The Gay Adventure: A Romance
you are to watch! That is he from whom you are to recover the document!"
"The deuce it is!" said Henry, gazing after Lionel with interest. "Well,
he's big enough to give trouble...."
"You are not afraid?"
"Not particularly," he said with a slow smile. "It's not a job I hanker
after, but I've promised you to try, and I will try. You'll tell me, I
dare say, what you think the best way of setting about it?"
"Of course. You are far too stupid to think for yourself. And now,
good-by!"
"I say, you're not going! And I had such a lot to talk about ... that
wedding, for instance...."
"What wedding?" She paused, chin in air.
"Come! that's a good 'un. Ours."
"Pstt! the assurance of these male creatures!--As if I would marry a man
who kisses me by force! No, Mr. Brown, do not count on that. Do what you
have promised first, and then I will think about it. If I choose,
well ... If I do not choose, well ... I promise nothing."
"That's a poor sort of bargain."
"It is no bargain: I do not bargain. I give an order. Good-by. Oh, I
will write to you----"
"Thank you--thank you----" he began.
"To tell you what to do. I shall not be far, but you must not attempt to
see me without my leave."
She turned on her heel and marched down the road. The odd-job man
whistled in amused dismay. "They're all alike," he muttered as he turned
to his work again and met the vicar's wife. She was coming from the
house and wore a severe expression.
"Did I hear you talking, Brown?"
"I can't say, ma'am," he answered stolidly. She frowned.
"Be good enough not to equivocate," she commanded. "_Were_ you talking?"
"I often talk aloud to myself," said Henry mildly. He was an honest man
and did not take kindly to lies, even of the whitest. Mrs. Peters
frowned again.
"Indeed!" she said icily. "Do you mean to say you were not talking to a
young woman through the hedge?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Henry, "I was. I suppose I'm allowed to rest for a
minute now and then."
"Rest is a very different thing from philandering. That I can not allow.
It looks very bad from the road to see the vicarage servants gossiping
or worse through the hedge. Remember, Brown, it must not happen again. I
can not understand one of our village girls----"
She paused interrogatively, but Henry was not so silly as to fall into
the trap. He began to oil the machine, and even Mrs. Peters did not
like to ask pointblank who his sweetheart was. Instead, she finished
with a snap, "--making herself so cheap."
She went back to the house again. Henry straightened up and glared after
her. "They're all alike!" he said again; but how he could include two
such different people as Mrs. Peters and his adored in the same
condemnation is hard to understand. The words of the sentence, it is
true, were identical; but the inflection hinted at a great gulf fixed
between the two offenders. Possibly they were charged with different
offenses.
"They're all alike...." Are they? Does the same essential lurk beneath
the surface? Supposing we could dissect Mrs. Peters, Alicia, Mizzi,
Beatrice Blair, and a thousand Ermyntrudes or Sallies, should we find
the same germ of woman? Take Lionel's evidence, if it were available.
You might safely assert that to him Beatrice was different from and
superior to any other woman you could produce. Henry Brown would as
stoutly hold the same of his anonymous sweetheart. Mr. Peters and Mr.
Hedderwick we may hope would take an identical line, or at least they
would have once. But these are, or have been, lovers, the blindest of
mortals, and their evidence is too partial to be trustworthy. A cynic
like Pope would tell you that every woman is at heart a rake, and might
find a score of others to support him. A Shaw might produce a monster
like Ann Whitfield and brazenly say she was typical. A Chesterton would
talk of women being sublime as individuals but horrible in a herd. A son
might say that his mother was perfect, but he, too, would be partial.
What is the truth about woman? Only a woman can say, and she would find
it hard to take a detached view. Probably truth was partly expressed by
the odd-job man in words--wholly expressed by his words and inflection.
They are human and feminine if you probe deep enough, but there are
variations, unimagined harmonies and discords for the seeker. "They're
all alike"--with a difference, and no man can learn the whole truth from
a text-book. The text-book can give him elementary rules which may serve
him well, but he must be prepared to find plenty of exceptions. The
student, however, need not fear monotony.
But while we have been indulging in cheap philosophy Mr. Brown's
sweetheart has got well down the road, following at a considerable
distance the footsteps of Lionel. Evidently she is in a good humor with
the world, for she hums an air that has a sprightly sound as of the
boulevards or cabarets, and she stops to pick a wild rose. She is
smiling at her thoughts--possibly at the lamentable lack of self-control
exhibited by her lover, possibly at the remembrance of the grass still
to be mown and neatly gathered. And as she is in a good humor,
self-possessed, and the air is of the balmiest, is it wonderful that she
should smile absently on a good-looking stranger sitting by the
roadside, smoking a cigarette? Surely not, as the stranger is Tony Wild,
who has left Mr. Hedderwick exhausted at The Happy Heart, while he
strolls out to examine the lie of the land.
"Good morning," says Tony courteously, raising his cap. He does not get
up, for that might frighten her away. "Can you tell me which is the road
to Hetton-le-Hole? Forgive me asking, but...."
"I have never heard of it," says the lady, with a smile that shows she
penetrates Tony's elementary artifice. "I am sorry.... Good morning."
Tony deliberately flicks the ash from his cigarette.
"What a bore!" he observes with a fluent laziness in his voice, and of
course the lady can not continue her progress while he is speaking. It
would look so prudish. "I was awfully keen on seeing Hetton-le-Hole, but
nobody here seems to know the road, so I suppose I shall have to give up
the idea. I say, don't you find life rather a bore?" It was an abrupt
change of subject, but there seemed no inconsequence as the words
dropped idly from his lips. He appeared to be talking at random for an
obvious purpose, but with an unaffected sincerity. "Nothing to do, I
mean, and not a vast amount to see. One day following another, and so
forth, you know...."
"Heavens, no!" replied the lady with an amused contempt. "There is so
much to see--to ask--to think about! What can a young man like you think
of himself if he is bored at ... at twenty-six?"
"Good shot!" said Tony. "I say, please forgive me being so forward and
pushing and all that, and do sit down and talk to me. I should be
tremendously gratified, and I'd do my best to amuse you."
"I have stayed too long already," she said with a crisp note of rebuke.
"I have neither the time nor the wish to stop and relieve the tedium of
bored strangers. I hope you will soon find the road you speak of."
She turned and went on her way. Tony smiled good-naturedly; really, she
had been quite lenient, though he had hardly deserved all she said and
implied. She was more than pretty and was evidently no fool. A lady?
N--no ... but ... was it worth following up? Should he try to engineer a
small flirtation or be content with the fair promises held out by Mr.
Hedderwick? N ... no ... Yes! She had spurned his lightly-proffered
homage to her charms, and amour propre would not allow him to give in
without a struggle. He was only too willing in most things to step aside
of his own free will--things so soon lost their interest; but to be
forced to play the part of rejected spectator, that could not be
permitted. His eyes followed her smilingly. "I bet she turns and waves!"
thought the despicable Tony. "She's a charming lady's maid who likes
fun, respects herself, and means to be treated with correctness--when
she chooses. She will turn and wave before reaching that bend in the
road. And _I_ will be stand-offish and refuse to reply. A perfect cause
of offense, with a delightful misunderstanding to follow. _But_, I shall
follow her secretly along the hedge and find out where she lives.
Admirable!"
She had gone some little distance, but still did not turn round.
Worshipers of beauty, modesty, good feeling and decorous behavior,
rejoice! She did not turn round! Her gay _svelte_ figure marched bravely
along, virginal defiance in her shoulders and the swing of her
tailor-made skirt. The fragments of a gallant whistle floated back to
Tony, and he murmured "Bravado!" with an uneasy doubt. The curve of the
road was close at hand now: a few more yards would carry her past in
triumph, and the sex be vindicated. Tony was in painful agitation, for
his knowledge of woman and powers of swift diagnosis were at stake.
Three yards were left--two--hope seemed dead. Then, alas! she stopped
and a smile crept to his lips. But she did not turn round--there is
still a loophole for the sex,--she did not turn round! All she did was
to open her reticule and take her handkerchief from it. As the
handkerchief was withdrawn a bit of pasteboard was caught in its folds
and fell--unnoticed?--on the road. Tony waited with vast contentment
until she had turned the corner. Then with a light heart he followed and
picked up the card. He read the inscription with amused curiosity. It
was, "Miss Arkwright, The Quiet House."
CHAPTER XIII
RATHER STAGY
After Beatrice had bidden Lionel good-by in the early dawn she did the
most sensible thing possible: she went to bed. But it is one thing to go
to bed and another to go to sleep, as many a sufferer--from insomnia,
love, indigestion, or kindred ailments--has found to his cost. You feel
weary, oppressed with the want of sleep, let us say, yawnsome--in a
word, ready to drop off the moment you are between the sheets. But, if a
white night be inscribed in the book of Fate, how changed the mood as
soon as the light is out! At once, almost, you lose that sense of
impending slumber and become wide awake, clear-eyed and keen of brain.
Something occurs to interest your mind and you meditate perspicaciously
thereon. Another thought succeeds, and another, and you grow more
wakeful every moment. Soon you begin to say, "I must go to sleep now,"
and resolutely try to refuse to think. But resolution is vain before
insomnia. Eyelids may be tightly shut, but the masked eyeballs still
peer vigilantly into the void: hands may clench themselves in the
hopeless effort to compose the will and induce the wished-for slumber:
the alert body may strive to cheat itself by observing the accustomed
ritual--first on the right side, then left, then right again--in the
expectation of influencing mind by matter: droves of sheep may be
counted passing through innumerable gates--poems recited till the very
thought of verse revolts--numerals repeated by the ticking brain--but
still you are far from the haven. It seems that
"Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world"
could bestow the most blessed of all boons. And at last you give up the
unequal struggle and try to make the best of it.
Failing drugs--and one has to be a smart society lady, a broken man or
woman, for them--there are various palliatives. You may turn on the
light and read till sleep comes with soothing fingers upon tired brows.
Or, if young and enterprising, you can go for a walk and see the dawn.
Or sometimes an impromptu bedroom picnic--bread and cheese and a bottle
of beer raided thief-wise from the pantry, taking great care not to let
the stairs creak and alarm the house--may have excellent results. These,