The Girl on the Boat
decanter.
“How many English young men have you met?”
Billie met his eye squarely and steadily. “Well, now that I come to
think of it, not many. In fact, very few. As a matter of fact,
only....”
“Only?”
“Well, very few,” said Billie. “Yes,” she said meditatively, “I suppose
I really have been rather unjust. I should not have condemned a class
simply because ... I mean, I suppose there _are_ young Englishmen who
are not rude and ridiculous?”
“I suppose there are American girls who have hearts.”
“Oh, plenty.”
“I’ll believe that when I meet one.”
Sam paused. Cold aloofness was all very well, but this conversation was
developing into a vulgar brawl. The ghosts of dead and gone Marlowes,
all noted for their courtesy to the sex, seemed to stand beside his
chair, eyeing him reprovingly. His work, they seemed to whisper, was
becoming raw. It was time to jerk the interchange of thought back into
the realm of distant civility.
“Are you making a long stay in London, Miss Bennett?”
“No, not long. We are going down to the country almost immediately. I
told you my father and Mr. Mortimer had taken a house there.”
“You will enjoy that.”
“I’m sure I shall. Mr. Mortimer’s son Bream will be there. That will be
nice.”
“Why?” said Sam, backsliding.
There was a pause.
“_He_ isn’t rude and ridiculous, eh?” said Sam gruffly.
“Oh, no. His manners are perfect, and he has such a natural dignity,”
she went on, looking affectionately across the table at the heir of the
Mortimers, who, finding Mr. Bennett’s medical confidences a trifle
fatiguing, was yawning broadly, and absently balancing his wine glass
on a fork.
“Besides,” said Billie in a soft and dreamy voice, “we are engaged to
be married!”
§ 3
Sam didn’t care, of course. We, who have had the privilege of a glimpse
into his iron soul, know that. He was not in the least upset by the
news—just surprised. He happened to be raising his glass at the moment,
and he registered a certain amount of restrained emotion by snapping
the stem in half and shooting the contents over the tablecloth: but
that was all.
“Good heavens, Sam!” ejaculated Sir Mallaby, aghast. His wine glasses
were an old and valued set.
Sam blushed as red as the stain on the cloth.
“Awfully sorry, father! Don’t know how it happened.”
“Something must have given you a shock,” suggested Billie kindly.
The old retainer rallied round with napkins, and Sir Mallaby, who was
just about to dismiss the affair with the polished ease of a good host,
suddenly became aware of the activities of Bream. That young man, on
whose dreamy calm the accident had made no impression whatever, had
successfully established the equilibrium of the glass and the fork, and
was now cautiously inserting beneath the latter a section of a roll,
the whole forming a charming picture in still life.
“If that glass is in your way....” said Sir Mallaby as soon as he had
hitched up his drooping jaw sufficiently to enable him to speak. He was
beginning to feel that he would be lucky if he came out of this
dinner-party with a mere remnant of his precious set.
“Oh, Sir Mallaby,” said Billie, casting an adoring glance at the
juggler, “you needn’t be afraid that Bream will drop it. _He_ isn’t
clumsy! He is wonderful at that sort of thing, simply wonderful! I
think it’s so splendid,” said Billie, “when men can do things like
that. I’m always trying to get Bream to do some of his tricks for
people, but he’s so modest, he won’t.”
“Refreshingly different,” Sir Mallaby considered, “from the average
drawing-room entertainer.”
“Yes,” said Billie emphatically. “I think the most terrible thing in
the world is a man who tries to entertain when he can’t. Did I tell you
about the man on board ship, father, at the ship’s concert? Oh, it was
the most awful thing you ever saw. Everybody was talking about it!” She
beamed round the table, and there was a note of fresh girlish gaiety in
her voice. “This man got up to do an imitation of somebody—nobody knows
to this day who it was meant to be—and he came into the saloon and
directly he saw the audience he got stage fright. He just stood there
gurgling and not saying a word, and then suddenly his nerve failed him
altogether and he turned and tore out of the room like a rabbit. He
absolutely ran! And he hadn’t said a word! It was the most ridiculous
exhibition I’ve ever seen!”
The anecdote went well. Of course there will always be a small minority
in any audience which does not appreciate a funny story, and there was
one in the present case. But the bulk of the company roared with
laughter.
“Do you mean,” cried Sir Mallaby, choking, “the poor idiot just stood
there dumb?”
“Well, he made a sort of yammering noise,” said Billie, “but that only
made him look sillier.”
“Deuced good!” chuckled Sir Mallaby.
“Funniest thing I ever heard in my life!” gurgled Mr. Bennett,
swallowing a digestive capsule.
“May have been half-witted,” suggested Mr. Mortimer.
Sam leaned across the table with a stern set face. He meant to change
the conversation if he had to do it with a crowbar.
“I hear you have taken a house in the country, Mr. Mortimer,” he said.
“Yes,” said Mr. Mortimer. He turned to Sir Mallaby. “We have at last
succeeded in persuading your sister, Mrs. Hignett, to let us rent her
house for the summer.”
Sir Mallaby gasped.
“Windles! You don’t mean to tell me that my sister has let you have
Windles!”
Mr. Mortimer nodded triumphantly.
“Yes. I had completely resigned myself to the prospect of spending the
summer in some other house, when yesterday I happened to run into your
nephew, young Eustace Hignett, on the street, and he said he was just
coming round to see me about that very thing. To cut a long story
short, he said that it would be all right and that we could have the
house.” Mr. Mortimer took a sip of burgundy. “He’s a curious boy, young
Hignett. Very nervous in his manner.”
“Chronic dyspepsia,” said Mr. Bennett authoritatively, “I can tell it
at a glance.”
“Is Windles a very lovely place, Sir Mallaby?” asked Billie.
“Charming. Quite charming. Not large, of course, as country houses go.
Not a castle, I mean, with hundreds of acres of park land. But nice and
compact and comfortable and very picturesque.”
“We do not require a large place,” said Mr. Mortimer. “We shall be
quite a small party. Bennett and myself, Wilhelmina, Bream....”
“Don’t forget,” said Billie, “that you have promised to invite Jane
Hubbard down there.”
“Ah, yes. Wilhelmina’s friend, Miss Hubbard. She is coming. That will
be all, except young Hignett himself.”
“Hignett!” cried Mr. Bennett.
“Mr. Hignett!” exclaimed Billie.
There was an almost imperceptible pause before Mr. Mortimer spoke
again, and for an instant the demon of embarrassment hovered, unseen
but present, above the dinner table. Mr. Bennett looked sternly at
Billie; Billie turned a shade pinker and gazed at the tablecloth; Bream
started nervously. Even Mr. Mortimer seemed robbed for a moment of his
legal calm.
“I forgot to tell you that,” he said. “Yes, one of the stipulations—to
which I personally was perfectly willing to agree—was that Eustace
Hignett was to remain on the premises during our tenancy. Such a clause
in the agreement was, I am quite aware, unusual, and, had the
circumstances been other than they were, I would have had a good deal
to say about it. But we wanted the place, and we couldn’t get it except
by agreeing, so I agreed. I’m sure you will think that I acted rightly,
Bennett, considering the peculiar circumstances.”
“Well,” said Mr. Bennett reluctantly, “I certainly did want that
house....”
“And we couldn’t have had it otherwise,” said Mr. Mortimer, “so that is
all there is to it.”
“Well, it need make no difference to you,” said Sir Mallaby. “I am sure
you will find my nephew Eustace most unobtrusive. He may even be an
entertaining companion. I believe he has a nice singing voice. With
that and the juggling of our friend here and my sister’s late husband’s
orchestrion, you will have no difficulty in amusing yourselves during
the evenings. You remember the orchestrion, Sam?” said Sir Mallaby, on
whom his son’s silence had been weighing rather heavily for some time.
“Yes,” said Sam, and returned to the silence once more.
“The late Mr. Hignett had it put in. He was very fond of music. It’s a
thing you turn on by pressing a button in the wall,” continued Sir
Mallaby. “How you stop it, I don’t know. When I was down there last it
never seemed to stop. You mustn’t miss the orchestrion!”
“I certainly shall,” said Mr. Bennett decidedly. “Music of that
description happens to be the one thing which jars unendurably on my
nerves. My nervous system is thoroughly out of tune.”
“So is the orchestrion,” said Sir Mallaby. “I remember once when I was
down there....”
“I hope you will come down there again, Sir Mallaby,” said Mr.
Mortimer, “during our occupancy of the house. And you, too,” he said,
addressing Sam.
“I am afraid,” said Sam frigidly, “that my time will be very much
occupied for the next few months. Thank you very much,” he added, after
a moment’s pause.
“Sam’s going to work,” said Sir Mallaby.
“Yes,” said Sam with dark determination. “Work is the only thing in
life that matters!”
“Oh, come, Sam!” said Sir Mallaby. “At your age I used to think love
was fairly important, too!”
“Love!” said Sam. He jabbed at his soufflé with a spoon. You could see
by the scornful way he did it that he did not think much of love.
§ 4
Sir Mallaby, the last cigar of the night between his lips, broke a
silence which had lasted a quarter of an hour. The guests had gone, and
he and Sam were alone together.
“Sam,” he said, “do you know what I think?”
“No,” said Sam.
Sir Mallaby removed his cigar and spoke impressively. “I’ve been
turning the whole thing over in my mind, and the conclusion I have come
to is that there is more in this Windles business than meets the eye.
I’ve known your Aunt Adeline all my life, and I tell you it isn’t in
that woman to change her infernal pig-headed mind, especially about
letting her house. She is a monomaniac on that subject. If you want to
know my opinion, I am quite certain that your cousin Eustace has let
the place to these people without her knowledge, and intends to pocket
the cheque and not say a word about it. What do you think?”
“Eh?” said Sam absently.
“I said, what do you think?”
“What do I think about what?”
“About Eustace Hignett and Windles.”
“What about them?”
Sir Mallaby regarded him disapprovingly. “I’m hanged if I know what’s
the matter with you to-night, Sam. You seem to have unhitched your
brain and left it in the umbrella stand. You hadn’t a word to say for
yourself all through dinner. You might have been a Trappist monk. And
with that delightful girl Miss Bennett, there, too. She must have
thought you infernally dull.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s no good being sorry now. The mischief’s done. She has gone away
thinking you an idiot. Do you realise,” said Sir Mallaby warmly, “that
when she told that extremely funny story about the man who made such a
fool of himself on board the ship, you were the only person at the
table who was not amused? She must have thought you had no sense of
humour!”
Sam rose. “I think I’ll be going,” he said. “Good night!”
A man can bear just so much.
CHAPTER X.
TROUBLE AT WINDLES
§ 1
Mr. Rufus Bennett stood at the window of the drawing-room of Windles,
looking out. From where he stood he could see all those natural and
artificial charms which had made the place so desirable to him when he
first beheld them. Immediately below, flower beds, bright with assorted
blooms, pressed against the ivied stone wall of the house. Beyond,