Mixed Grill/Before Lunch
X
BEFORE LUNCH
Other travellers were becoming jammed in the corridor of the train, their tempers taking the tone of acerbity easy to those about to start on a railway journey. A determined young woman came up the step, and supported the conductor in an appeal for order, addressing herself more particularly to the English passengers; quiet obtained, she took the first advantage of it by presenting her ticket. The conductor showed gratitude by escorting her at once to her place.
“You don't mean to say” stammered the occupant of seat Number Twenty. “It can't be! I shall begin to think I'm losing my senses.”
“If you're Mr. Chiswell,” she replied briskly, “there's no reason to be afraid of that.”
“A remark,” protested Mr. Chiswell, “so unkind that I can tell it comes from nobody but Miss Everitt.” She lifted her bag to the rack, and when she had succeeded in placing it there, he made a gesture of assistance. Glancing at herself in the mirror below the rack, she remarked that she looked a perfect bird frightener.
“I don't agree with you,” he said.
“So far as I remember,” she said, “you seldom did.”
“We won't exaggerate,” urged Mr. Chiswell. “For my part, I'm very glad that we're to be fellow travellers, and I trust we shall have a pleasant journey. It's clear enough to me, Miss Everitt, that fate has brought us together again.”
“Then I wish to goodness fate would mind its own business.”
The last passenger came into the saloon; the conductor's forehead cleared of wrinkles, and he hung up his brown peaked cap with a sigh of relief. The train moved out from the Gare de Lyon in a casual way, as though it were going for a short stroll, and giving no indication that it intended to occupy the day by racing down the map of France. Folk on the low platform of the station waved handkerchiefs, blew kisses, cried.
“Is Freddy with you?” asked Miss Everitt.
“Need you ask! Is Emily with you?”
“Course she is.”
“Neither of 'em married?”
“Neither of them married,” agreed Miss Everitt. “Just as well perhaps. There are people who, so long as they remain single, can keep up a certain style and position; once they get spliced, first thing they do is to cut down expenses.”
“Exactly the view I took of it,” he cried eagerly. He leaned forward, and gave a glance around the saloon to make certain that no one listened. “Just the way I looked at the matter. Between ourselves, it was because of that I acted as I did.”
The attendant from the dining-car came to inquire whether the passengers wished to lunch in the first series, or in the second series; the two, after consultation, settled to take the meal together at the later hour. They found new grounds for agreement in the view that coffee and rolls at half-past seven in the morning, at a Paris hotel, formed but a mere imitation of a breakfast.
“I know perfectly well that what I'm going to tell you,” said Chiswell confidentially, “won't go any further. I recollect how in the old days when we were—well, friends—you always knew when to keep your mouth shut. A great quality, that, in a girl, and I don't want to flatter you when I say that one very seldom comes across it. What I'm about to tell you refers to”
He jerked his head, and she nodded.
“They might meet,” she said.
“It wouldn't matter,” he replied confidently. “They're not on speaking terms now.”
“Fire away with what you were going to tell me.”
“As a Member of Parliament,” began Mr. Chiswell, “Freddy was not what the world might call a roaring success. Used to take a lot of trouble, and the Duke, his old father, was always getting at him, and asking when he was going to be asked to join the Cabinet. As a matter of fact, his speeches sounded all right when he said 'em off to me in Curzon Street, but apparently when he tried 'em in the House they didn't go for nuts. I never went down there to hear him—got too much respect for myself to go near the place—but I always read the Parliamentary reports, and there, when he did get the chance of speaking, the papers mentioned his name amongst the 'Also spokes,' and that was about all. Whatever faults he may have had as a Member of Parliament, he was, and he is, a first-class chap to valet, and I don't care”—Mr. Chiswell gave a resolute gesture—“I don't care where the next comes from. I've only to say one word against a suit of clothes, and that suit of clothes is virtually handed over to me on the spot. I know to a penny what his income is, and I know to a penny what his expenses amount to. A peculiar chap, mind you, in some ways; never able, for instance, to bear the idea of being in debt. Most extraordinary, with people of his class.”
Chiswell dismissed this problem.
“Now you must understand—you know me well enough to realise it—that I'm not one of those who want to be always chopping and changing. If I'm in a nice comfortable easy-chair like this, I'm not the kind of chap to give it up, and go and sit out there in the corridor on a tip-up wooden seat. I'm the sort that”
“Leave off bragging as soon as you're tired,” suggested Miss Everitt, “and get on with your story.”
The young man, an elbow resting on the ledge of the window, and giving no attention to the scenery which flew past, with a straight road curling up like a length of white ribbon, applied himself to the task of describing the course of procedure adopted. The girl gave now and again a cough of criticism, here and there a slightly astonished lift of the eyebrows. Occasionally she sniffed at a bottle of Eau de Cologne with the air—obviously copied from some superior model—the air of having temporarily lost interest in the subject. Stated with a brevity that Chiswell, the day before him and personal exultation behind, could not be induced to show, the particulars might be fairly stated thus. Chiswell—
“Mind you,” he said firmly, “no one can call me a Paul Pryer. I look after myself; I don't profess to look after others.”
—Chiswell happened, by chance, to come across a note addressed to his master which, so far as he could judge, had no reference to his master's Parliamentary duties, or to any scheme for improvement of the masses; he founded his opinion on the fact that it commenced “My dearest.” Chiswell, a man of the world, would have been prepared to exercise tolerance and to pass it by with a wink, but for the fact that the communication was dated from an exclusive ladies' club; the fact that the writer adopted a pen name baffled him and aroused his curiosity. He left the letter on the table, and concealed inquisitiveness until he should be entrusted with letters for the post. Looking through the bundle handed to him at four o'clock he felt pained and grieved to find that his master had not trusted him fully and entirely; the envelopes were addressed either to Esquires or to ladies known to the world as seriously interested in the work of the party. He particularly asked whether there were any other communications to be placed in the pillar box for despatch, and his master, on the point of running off to the House, distinctly and formally answered:
“No, Chiswell. That's the lot. Don't forget to post them.”
“Quite sure, sir?”
The reply to this polite and deferential question came in the form of a request, first that Chiswell should not be a fool, second that if he could not help being a fool, he would at any rate take steps to hide and to mask the circumstance. Chiswell was affected by these remarks as a duck is concerned by water running over its back; what did perturb him was the want of confidence shown between master and man after an acquaintance that had lasted for years. Chiswell, pondering on this, was placing the letters singly in the pillar box and giving to each a final examination when he discovered that one, addressed to
“I know!” said Miss Everitt, much interested.
—Bore a special sign on the flap of the envelope. Mr. Chiswell, scarce hoping that he had struck the trail, retained this and kept it back for further consideration.
The custom of placing scarlet wax on the flap of an envelope and impressing the wax with a seal is probably an old-fashioned tradition dating from the days when gum could not be trusted. In the case of an envelope fastened in the ordinary way, Chiswell would have had to take the trouble of placing a kettle on the gas stove; in the present instance his work was rendered easy by the help of a penknife and, later, the use of a stick of wax and the seal. The matter appeared to be serious. A passing flirtation Chiswell might have permitted, although that he would have held undignified in a Member of the House of Commons, but within the few lines of the letter before him there seemed a plain hint of marriage. He was about to tear up the letter in the hope of thus giving a start to a misunderstanding when it suddenly occurred to him—
“An inspiration,” said Chiswell contentedly. “That's what you may call it.”
—It suddenly occurred to him that the insertion of two words in the brief note, just two words in a space that seemed to have been left temptingly for them, would entirely alter the meaning: changing it from a hurried message of affection into a hasty intimation of dislike. “Do not” were the two words, and Chiswell took the pen and wrote them as quickly as he now, in the Cote d'Azur express, spoke them.
“You're not blaming me,” urged Mr. Chiswell apprehensively.
“Go on,” she ordered.
Little else to go on about. The letter, resealed, went to its destination; the General Election came, and that meant a quick departure for the country. Freddy, greatly worried with one matter and another, seemed, so far as his valet could judge, to enter upon the contest in anything but a whole-hearted fashion; Chiswell managed to intercept and cancel a telegram sent to the same young party, urgently begging her to come and help. The meetings were noisy, and the candidate, who but a few years before made retorts which became classical, and delivered speeches the reports of which had to be decorated by reporters with “Loud laughter” and “Long and continued cheering,” gave no signs of alertness, falling back on dreary statistics which he himself could not understand, and his audiences declined to accept. Now that it was all over, they were on their way to Nice, where Chiswell hoped to meet no one but other defeated candidates and attendants who, it might be hoped, would, in their own interests, abstain from the vulgar chaff to which he and his master had been subjected in town.
“But what I want to point out to you, my dear—beg pardon—what I want to say is that I managed to stop him from entering upon marriage, and in doing so, I reckon I did a good turn for myself, and that I did a good turn for you.”
“She was very much worried and upset.”
Chiswell stretched himself luxuriously.
“It don't do to share other people's anxieties,” he said. “Great thing in this world is to keep trouble off your own shoulders. Do that, and you may reckon you've done pretty well. How have you been getting along since—since”
“Since you dropped me?”
“Mutual consent,” he argued, rather uneasily, “mutual consent.” Both looked out of the window for a time. “By the by, do you ever see anything of that chap Miller? You don't remember him perhaps; he was in Grosvenor Gardens when last I heard of him.”
“I believe he's there still,” she answered, examining the tips of her boots.
“When did you”
“Oh, don't bother me!” cried Miss Everitt sharply. “You're always wanting to know everything about everybody. A nuisance, that's what you are.”
“I've got no grievance against Miller,” contended Chiswell. “You're doing me an injustice. Me and Miller are good friends enough. Last time I met him he gave me some information, and we parted on what I may call the most amicable terms. I shouldn't at all mind,” he went on generously, “I shouldn't object in the least to running across poor Miller again.”
“You needn't call him 'poor.'”
“I'm not using the term,” said Mr. Chiswell, “in a monetary sense.”
“The monetary sense, as you call it, is about the only one you possess.”
Noting that she tapped the side of her easy-chair and that her head trembled, he decided to say nothing more on the subject, reverting instead to the matter already discussed. In going over some of the circumstances he found excuse for increased content; the swiftness of his action, and the general dexterity he had displayed made his eyes grow round and bulgy. The dining-car attendant came through to announce that the first series for lunch was ready, and Chiswell said he would smoke one cigarette and then go along and see whether his services were required by Freddy. Miss Everitt rose, remarking that it would be well, perhaps, for her to ascertain, at once, whether she could be of any use to Emily.
They returned to their chairs in less than five minutes: one perturbed, the other calm.
“Well, of all the” he spluttered. “What I mean to say is, what in the world is going to happen next, I wonder?”
“That's more than either of us can tell,” remarked Miss Everitt composedly. “What I know is that I do want my lunch. Sight of food in the dining-car has made me feel hungry.”
“The two of them! The two of them sitting there at a small table opposite each other!”
“I caught sight through the glass door of the bill of fare,” said Miss Everitt. “The name of the fish I couldn't quite make out, but there were côtes de bœuf rôtis, and poularde, and haricots verts”
“They were sharing a bottle of Chablis together. And he—he'd placed his hand on the top of her hand. Did you notice?”
“Wonder whether they'll give us an ice?”
Chiswell found a handkerchief and rubbed his forehead.
“All very well for you to sit there and talk about food; how do you know that now they've met and made it up, that she won't get rid of you in the same way that he's jolly well certain to manage without me?”
“It doesn't matter,” she replied, with calm. “I've saved!”
“The amount you've saved, my girl,” he declared, “will last you for just about five weeks.”
“What do you know about how much I've put by?” she demanded.
“I can tell you the sum to within a pound. I can write it down now, if you'll lend me a lead pencil.”
He scribbled some figures on the margin of his newspaper, and handed it across to her.
“Guess again!” she said.
“It isn't a question of guessing,” he said. “I happen to know. Unless you've made a considerable sum within the last three months, that's the exact amount.”
“You really believed, then, what Mr. Miller told you?”
The conductor came, and returned to each the green cardboard covers enclosing their tickets. Under the impression that Chiswell was still a blade, a chum, a jovial companion, the conductor aimed at him a cheerful blow on the shoulder, and the train giving at this moment a lurch, the action took something of a more aggressive nature. Chiswell blazed up, trying to disengage himself from his coat. Other passengers in the saloon looked around interestedly; Miss Everitt interposed and ordered Chiswell to behave himself, to remember that he was in the presence of ladies. The conductor apologised and went on; the French passengers remarked to each other that the English formed an excitable nation.
“Pardon me,” said Chiswell to his companion, “but I should like to know your facts. I should be very glad indeed if you'll kindly place me in possession of the true circumstances. To put it plainly—here's your pencil—how much have you actually got in the bank on deposit, or on current account at the present moment? That's all I want to know.”
She struck out his figures and wrote underneath. Leaning over he gave a whistle of astonishment.
“My dear,” he said deferentially. “There's been a misunderstanding, due to the interference of outsiders. It's not too late to put it all smooth and right again, but at the same time I'm bound to say such conduct is altogether inexcusable. When I come across Miller, I shall tell him so to his face. Who asked him to come to me, and give me wrong information, I should like to know?”
“I did!” she remarked. “But I've just made up for it by giving correct information on another subject to my young mistress.”
Chiswell threw himself back in his chair, and gazed severely at the roof of the saloon carriage.
“All I can say is,” he declared, “it's absolutely ruined my lunch.”