Ruggles of Red Gap/Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THREE days later came the satisfying answer to my cable message:
"Damn! Sailing Wednesday.—Brinstead."
Glad I was he had used the cable. In a letter there would doubtless have been still other words improper to a peer of England.
Belknap-Jackson thereafter bore himself with a dignity quite tremendous even for him. Graciously aloof, he was as one carrying an inner light. "We hold them in the hollow of our hand," said he, and both his wife and himself took pains on our own thoroughfare to cut the Honourable George dead, though I dare say the poor chap never at all noticed it. They spoke of him as "a remittance man"—the black sheep of a noble family. They mentioned sympathetically the trouble his vicious ways had been to his brother, the Earl. Indeed, so mysteriously important were they in allusions of this sort that I was obliged to caution them, lest they let out the truth. As it was, there ran through the town an undercurrent of puzzled suspicion. It was intimated that we had something in our sleeves.
Whether this tension was felt by the Honourable George, I had no means of knowing. I dare say not, as he is self-centred, being seldom aware of anything beyond his own immediate sensations. But I had reason to believe that the Klondike woman had divined some menace in our attitude of marked indifference. Her own manner, when it could be observed, grew increasingly defiant, if that were possible. The alliance of the Honourable George with the Bohemian set had become, of course, a public scandal after the day of his appearance in her trap and after his betrayal of the Belknap-Jacksons had been gossiped to rags. He no longer troubled himself to pretend any esteem whatever for the North Side set. Scarce a day passed but he appeared in public as the woman's escort. He flagrantly performed her commissions, and at their questionable Bohemian gatherings, with their beer and sausages and that sort of thing, he was the gayest of that gay, mad set.
Indeed, of his old associates, Cousin Egbert quite almost alone seemed to find him any longer desirable, and him I had no heart to caution, knowing that I should only wound without enlightening him, he being entirely impervious to even these cruder aspects of class distinction. I dare say he would have considered the marriage of the Honourable George as no more than the marriage of one of his cattle-person companions. I mean to say, he is a dear old sort and I should never fail to defend him in the most disheartening of his vagaries, but he is undeniably insensitive to what one does and does not do.
The conviction ran, let me repeat, that we had another pot of broth on the fire. I gleaned as much from the Mixer, she being one of the few others besides Cousin Egbert in whose liking the Honourable George had not terrifically descended. She made it a point to address me on the subject over a dish of tea at the Grill one afternoon, choosing a table sufficiently remote from my other feminine guests, who doubtless, at their own tables, discussed the same complication. I was indeed glad that we were remote from other occupied tables, because in the course of her remarks she quite forcefully uttered an oath, which I thought it as well not to have known that I cared to tolerate in my lady patrons.
"As to what Jackson feels about the way it was handed out to him that Sunday," she bluntly declared, "I don't care a" The oath quite dazed me for a moment, although I had been warned that she would use language on occasion. "What I do care about," she went on briskly, "is that I won't have this girl pestered by Jackson or by you or by any man that wears hair! Why, Jackson talks so silly about her sometimes you'd think she was a bad woman—and he keeps hinting about something he's going to put over till I can hardly keep my hands off him. I just know some day he'll make me forget I'm a lady. Now, take it from me, Bill, if you're setting in with him, don't start anything you can't finish."
Really she was quite fierce about it. I mean to say, the glitter in her eyes made me recall what Cousin Egbert had said of Mrs. Effie, her being quite entirely willing to take on a rattlesnake and give it the advantage of the first two assaults. Somewhat flustered I was, yet I hastened to assure her that, whatever steps I might feel obliged to take for the protection of the Honourable George, they would involve nothing at all unfair to the lady in question.
"Well, they better hadn't!" she resumed threateningly. "That girl had a hard time all right, but listen here—she's as right as a church. She couldn't fool me a minute if she wasn't. Don't you suppose I been around and around quite some? Just because she likes to have a good time and outdresses these dames here—is that any reason they should get out their hammers? Ain't she earned some right to a good time, tell me, after being married when she was a silly kid to Two-spot Kenner, the swine—and God bless the trigger finger of the man that bumped him off! As for the poor old Judge, don't worry. I like the old boy, but Kate Kenner won't do anything more than make a monkey of him just to spite Jackson and his band of lady knockers. Marry him? Say, get me right, Bill—I'll put it as delicate as I can—the Judge is too darned far from being a mental giant for that."
I dare say she would have slanged me for another half-hour but for the constant strain of keeping her voice down. As it was, she boomed up now and again in a way that reduced to listening silence the ladies at several distant tables.
As to the various points she had raised, I was somewhat confused. About the Honourable George, for example: He was, to be sure, no mental giant. But one occupying his position is not required to be. Indeed, in the class to which he was born one well knows that a mental giant would be quite as distressingly bizarre as any other freak. I regretted not having retorted this to her, for it now occurred to me that she had gone it rather strong with her "poor old Judge." I mean to say, it was almost quite a little bit raw for a native American to adopt this patronizing tone toward one of us.
And yet I found that my esteem for the Mixer had increased rather than diminished by reason of her plucky defence of the Klondike woman. I had no reason to suppose that the designing creature was worth a defence, but I could only admire the valour that made it. Also I found food for profound meditation in the Mixer's assertion that the woman's sole aim was to "make a monkey" of the Honourable George. If she were right, a mésalliance need not be feared, at which thought I felt a great relief. That she should achieve the lesser and perhaps equally easy feat with the poor chap was a calamity that would be, I fancied, endured by his lordship with a serene fortitude.
Curiously enough, as I went over the Mixer's tirade point by point, I found in myself an inexplicable loss of animus toward the Klondike woman. I will not say I was moved to sympathy for her, but doubtless that strange ferment of equality stirred me toward her with something less than the indignation I had formerly felt. Perhaps she was an entirely worthy creature. In that case, I merely wished her to be taught that one must not look too far above one's station, even in America, in so serious an affair as matrimony. With all my heart I should wish her a worthy mate of her own class, and I was glad indeed to reflect upon the truth of my assertion to the Mixer, that no unfair advantage would be taken of her. His lordship would remove the Honourable George from her toils, a made monkey, perhaps, but no husband.
Again that day did I listen to a defence of this woman, and from a source whence I could little have expected it. Meditating upon the matter, I found myself staring at Mrs. Judson as she polished some glassware in the pantry. As always, the worthy woman made a pleasing picture in her neat print gown. From staring at her rather absently I caught myself reflecting that she was one of the few women whose hair is always perfectly coiffed. I mean to say, no matter what the press of her occupation, it never goes here and there.
From the hair, my meditative eye, still rather absently, I believe, descended her quite good figure to her boots. Thereupon, my gaze ceased to be absent. They were not boots. They were bronzed slippers with high heels and metal buckles and of a character so distinctive that I instantly knew they had once before been impressed upon my vision. Swiftly my mind identified them: they had been worn by the Klondike woman on the occasion of a dinner at the Grill, in conjunction with a gown to match and a bluish scarf—all combining to achieve an immense effect.
My assistant hummed at her task, unconscious of my scrutiny. I recall that I coughed slightly before disclosing to her that my attention had been attracted to her slippers. She took the reference lightly, affecting, as the sex will, to belittle any prized possession in the face of masculine praise.
"I have seen them before," I ventured.
"She gives me all of hers. I haven't had to buy shoes since baby was born. She gives me—lots of things—stockings and things. She likes me to have them."
"I didn't know you knew her."
"Years! I'm there once a week to give the house a good going over. That Jap of hers is the limit. Dust till you can't rest. And when I clean he just grins."
I mused upon this. The woman was already giving half her time to superintending two assistants in the preparation of the International Relish.
"Her work is too much in addition to your own," I suggested.
"Me? Work too hard? Not in a thousand years. I do all right for you, don't I?"
It was true; she was anything but a slacker. I more nearly approached my real objection."
"A woman in your position," I began, "can't be too careful as to the associations she forms" I had meant to go on, but found it quite absurdly impossible. My assistant set down the glass she had and quite venomously brandished her towel at me.
"So that's it?" she began, and almost could get no farther for mere sputtering. I mean to say, I had long recognized that she possessed character, but never had I suspected that she would have so inadequate a control of her temper.
"So that's it?" she sputtered again. "And I thought you were too decent to join in that talk about a woman just because she's young and wears pretty clothes and likes to go out. I'm astonished at you, I really am. I thought you were more of a man!" She broke off, scowling at me most furiously.
Feeling all at once rather a fool, I sought to conciliate her. "I have joined in no talk," I said. "I merely suggested" But she shut me off sharply.
"And let me tell you one thing: I can pick out my associates in this town without any outside help. The idea! That girl is just as nice a person as ever walked the earth, and nobody ever said she wasn't except those frumpy old cats that hate her good looks because the men all like her."
"Old cats!" I echoed, wishing to rebuke this violence of epithet, but she would have none of me.
"Nasty old spite-cats," she insisted with even more violence, and went on to an almost quite blasphemous absurdity. "A prince in his palace wouldn't be any too good for her!"
"Tut, tut!" I said, greatly shocked.
"Tut nothing!" she retorted fiercely. "A regular prince in his palace, that's what she deserves. There isn't a single man in this one-horse town that's good enough to pick up her glove. And she knows it, too. She's carrying on with your silly Englishman now, but it's just to pay those old cats back in their own coin. She'll carry on with him—yes! But marry? Good heavens and earth! Marriage is serious!" With this novel conclusion she seized another glass and began to wipe it viciously. She glared at me, seeming to believe that she had closed the interview. But I couldn't stop. In some curious way she had stirred me rather out of myself—but not about the Klondike woman nor about the Honourable George. I began most illogically, I admit, to rage inwardly about another matter.
"You have other associates," I exclaimed quite violently, "those cattle-persons I know quite all about it. That Hank and Buck—they come here on the chance of seeing you; they bring you boxes of candy, they bring you little presents. Twice they've escorted you home at night when you quite well knew I was only too glad to do it" I felt my temper most curiously running away with me, ranting about things I hadn't meant to at all. I looked for another outburst from her, but to my amazement she flashed me a smile with a most enigmatic look back of it. She tossed her head, but resumed her wiping of the glass with a certain demureness. She spoke almost meekly:
"They're very old friends, and I'm sure they always act right. I don't see anything wrong in it, even if Buck Edwards has shown me a good deal of attention."
But this very meekness of hers seemed to arouse all the violence in my nature.
"I won't have it!" I said. "You have no right to receive presents from men. I tell you I won't have it! You've no right!"
"Haven't I?" she suddenly said in the most curious, cool little voice, her eyes falling before mine. "Haven't I? I didn't know."
It was quite chilling, her tone and manner. I was cool in an instant. Things seemed to mean so much more than I had supposed they did. I mean to say, it was a fair crumpler. She paused in her wiping of the glass but did not regard me. I was horribly moved to go to her, but coolly remembered that that sort of thing would never do.
"I trust I have said enough," I remarked with entirely recovered dignity.
"You have," she said.
"I mean I won't have such things," I said.
"I hear you," she said, and fell again to her work. I thereupon investigated an ice-box and found enough matter for complaint against the Hobbs boy to enable me to manage a dignified withdrawal to the rear. The remarkable creature was humming again as I left.
I stood in the back door of the Grill giving upon the alley, where I mused rather excitedly. Here I was presently interrupted by the dog, Mr. Barker. For weeks now I had been relieved of his odious attentions, by the very curious circumstance that he had transferred them to the Honourable George. Not all my kicks and cuffs and beatings had sufficed one whit to repulse him. He had kept after me, fawned upon me, in spite of them. And then on a day he had suddenly, with glad cries, become enamoured of the Honourable George, waiting for him at doors, following him, hanging upon his every look. And the Honourable George had rather fancied the beast and made much of him.
And yet this animal is reputed by poets and that sort of thing to be man's best friend, faithfully sharing his good fortune and his bad, staying by his side to the bitter end, even refusing to leave his body when he has perished—starving there with a dauntless fidelity. How chagrined the weavers of these tributes would have been to observe the fickle nature of the beast in question! For weeks he had hardly deigned me a glance. It had been a relief, to be sure, but what a sickening disclosure of the cur's trifling inconstancy. Even now, though he sniffed hungrily at the open door, he paid me not the least attention—me whom he had once idolized!
I slipped back to the ice-box and procured some slices of beef that were far too good for him. He fell to them with only a perfunctory acknowledgment of my agency in procuring them.
"Why, I thought you hated him!" suddenly said the voice of his owner. She had tiptoed to my side.
"I do," I said quite savagely, "but the unspeakable beast can't be left to starve, can he?"
I felt her eyes upon me, but would not turn. Suddenly she put her hand upon my shoulder, patting it rather curiously, as she might have soothed her child. When I did turn she was back at her task. She was humming again, nor did she glance my way. Quite certainly she was no longer conscious that I stood about. She had quite forgotten me. I could tell as much from her manner. "Such," I reflected, with an unaccustomed cynicism, "is the light inconsequence of women and dogs." Yet I still experienced a curiously thrilling determination to protect her from her own good nature in the matter of her associates.
At a later and cooler moment of the day I reflected upon her defence of the Klondike woman. A "prince in his palace" not too good for her! No doubt she had meant me to take these remarkable words quite seriously. It was amazing, I thought, with what seriousness the lower classes of the country took their dogma of equality, and with what naïve confidence they relied upon us to accept it. Equality in North America was indeed praiseworthy; I had already given it the full weight of my approval and meant to live by it. But at home, of course, that sort of thing would never do. The crude moral worth of the Klondike woman might be all that her two defenders had alleged, and indeed I felt again that strange little thrill of almost sympathy for her as one who had been unjustly aspersed. But I could only resolve that I would be no party to any unfair plan of opposing her. The Honourable George must be saved from her trifling as well as from her serious designs, if such she might have; but so far as I could influence the process it should cause as little chagrin as possible to the offender. This much the Mixer and my charwoman had achieved with me. Indeed, quite hopeful I was that when the creature had been set right as to what was due one of our oldest and proudest families she would find life entirely pleasant among those of her own station. She seemed to have a good heart.
As the day of his lordship's arrival drew near, Belknap-Jackson became increasingly concerned about the precise manner of his reception and the details of his entertainment, despite my best assurances that no especially profound thought need be given to either, his lordship being quite that sort, fussy enough in his own way but hardly formal or pretentious.
His prospective host, after many consultations with me, at length allowed himself to be dissuaded from meeting his lordship in correct afternoon garb of frock-coat and top-hat, consenting, at my urgent suggestion, to a mere lounge-suit of tweeds with a soft-rolled hat and a suitable rough day stick. Again in the matter of the menu for his lordship's initial dinner which we had determined might well be tendered him at my establishment. Both husband and wife were rather keen for an elaborate repast of many courses, feeling that anything less would be doing insufficient honour to their illustrious guest, but I at length convinced them that I quite knew what his lordship would prefer: a vegetable soup, an abundance of boiled mutton with potatoes, a thick pudding, a bit of scientifically correct cheese, and a jug of beer. Rather trying they were at my first mention of this—a dinner quite without finesse, to be sure, but eminently nutritive—and only their certainty that I knew his lordship's ways made them give in.
The affair was to be confined to the family, his lordship the only guest, this being thought discreet for the night of his arrival in view of the peculiar nature of his mission. Belknap-Jackson had hoped against hope that the Mixer might not be present, and even so late as the day of his lordship's arrival he was cheered by word that she might be compelled to keep her bed with a neuralgia.
To the afternoon train I accompanied him in his new motor-car, finding him not a little distressed because the chauffeur, a native of the town, had stoutly—and with some not nice words, I gathered—refused to wear the smart uniform which his employer had provided.
"I would have shopped the fellow in an instant," he confided to me, "had it been at any other time. He was most impertinent. But as usual, here I am at the mercy of circumstances. We couldn't well subject Brinstead to those loathsome public conveyances."
We waited in the usual throng of the leisured lower-classes who are so naïvely pleased at the passage of a train. I found myself picturing their childish wonder had they guessed the identity of him we were there to meet. Even as the train appeared Belknap-Jackson made a last moan of complaint.
"Mrs. Pettingill," he observed dejectedly, "is about the house again and I fear will be quite well enough to be with us this evening." For a moment I almost quite disapproved of the fellow. I mean to say, he was vogue and all that, and no doubt had been wretchedly mistreated, but after all the Mixer was not one to be wished ill to.
A moment later I was contrasting the quiet arrival of his lordship with the clamour and confusion that had marked the advent among us of the Honourable George. He carried but one bag and attracted no attention whatever from the station loungers. While I have never known him be entirely vogue in his appointments, his lordship carries off a lounge-suit and his gray-cloth hat with a certain manner which the Honourable George was never known to achieve even in the days when I groomed him. The grayish rather aggressive looking side-whiskers first caught my eye, and a moment later I had taken his hand. Belknap-Jackson at the same time took his bag, and with a trepidation so obvious that his lordship may perhaps have been excusable for a momentary misapprehension. I mean to say, he instantly and crisply directed Belknap-Jackson to go forward to the luggage van and recover his box.
A bit awkward it was, to be sure, but I speedily took the situation in hand by formally presenting the two men, covering the palpable embarrassment of the host by explaining to his lordship the astounding ingenuity of the American luggage system. By the time I had deprived him of his check and convinced him that his box would be admirably recovered by a person delegated to that service, Belknap-Jackson, again in form, was apologizing to him for the squalid character of the station and for the hardships he must be prepared to endure in a crude Western village. Here again the host was annoyed by having to call repeatedly to his mechanician in order to detach him from a gossiping group of loungers. He came smoking a quite fearfully bad cigar and took his place at the wheel entirely without any suitable deference to his employer.
His lordship during the ride rather pointedly surveyed me, being impressed, I dare say, by something in my appearance and manner quite new to him. Doubtless I had been feeling equal for so long that the thing was to be noticed in my manner. He made no comment upon me, however. Indeed almost the only time he spoke during our passage was to voice his astonishment at not having been able to procure the London Times at the press-stalls along the way. His host made clucking noises of sympathy at this. He had, he said, already warned his lordship that America was still crude.
"Crude? Of course, what, what!" exclaimed his lordship. "But naturally they'd have the Times! I dare say the beggars were too lazy to look it out. Laziness, what, what!"
"We've a job teaching them to know their places," ventured Belknap-Jackson, moodily regarding the back of his chauffeur which somehow contrived to be eloquent with disrespect for him.
"My word, what rot!" rejoined his lordship. I saw that he had arrived in one of his peppery moods. I fancy he could not have recited a multiplication table without becoming fanatically assertive about it. That was his way. I doubt if he had ever condescended to have an opinion. What might have been opinions came out on him like a rash in form of the most violent convictions.
"What rot not to know their places, when they must know them!" he snappishly added.
"Quite so, quite so!" his host hastened to assure him.
"A—dashed—fine big country you have," was his only other observation.
"Indeed, indeed," murmured his host mildly. I had rather dreaded the oath which his lordship is prone to use lightly.
Reaching the Belknap-Jackson house, his lordship was shown to the apartment prepared for him.
"Tea will be served in half an hour, your—er—Brinstead," announced his host cordially, although seemingly at a loss how to address him.
"Quite so, what, what! Tea, of course, of course! Why wouldn't it be? Meantime, if you don't mind, I'll have a word with Ruggles. At once."
Belknap-Jackson softly and politely withdrew at once.
Alone with his lordship, I thought it best to acquaint him instantly with the change in my circumstances, touching lightly upon the matter of my now being an equal with rather most of the North Americans. He listened with exemplary patience to my brief recital and was good enough to felicitate me.
"Assure you, glad to hear it—glad no end. Worthy fellow; always knew it. And equal, of course, of course! Take up their equality by all means if you take 'em up themselves. Curious lot of nose-talking beggars, and putting r's every place one shouldn't, but don't blame you. Do it myself if I could—England gone to pot. Quite!"
"Gone to pot, sir?" I gasped.
"Don't argue. Course it has. Women! Slasher fiends and firebrands! Pictures, churches, golf-greens, cabinet members—nothing safe. Pouring their beastly filth into pillar boxes. Women one knows. Hussies, though! Want the vote—rot! Awful rot! Don't blame you for America. Wish I might, too. Good thing, my word! No backbone in Downing Street. Let the fiends out again directly they're hungry. No system! No firmness! No dash! Starve 'em proper, I would."
He was working himself into no end of a state. I sought to divert him.
"About the Honourable George, sir" I ventured.
"What's the silly ass up to now? Dancing girl got him—yes? How he does it, I can't think. No looks, no manner, no way with women. Can't stand him myself. How ever can they? Frightful bore, old George is. Well, well, man, I'm waiting. Tell me, tell me, tell me!"
Briefly I disclosed to him that his brother had entangled himself with a young person who had indeed been a dancing girl or a bit like that in the province of Alaska. That at the time of my cable there was strong reason to believe she would stop at nothing—even marriage, but that I had since come to suspect that she might be bent only on making a fool of her victim, she being, although an honest enough character, rather inclined to levity and without proper respect for established families.
I hinted briefly at the social warfare of which she had been a storm centre. I said again, remembering the warm words of the Mixer and of my charwoman, that to the best of my knowledge her character was without blemish. All at once I was feeling preposterously sorry for the creature.
His lordship listened, though with a cross-fire of interruptions. "Alaska dancing girl. Silly! Nothing but snow and mines in Alaska." Or, again, "Make a fool of old George? What silly piffle! Already done it himself, what, what! Waste her time!" And if she wasn't keen to marry him, had I called him across the ocean to intervene in a vulgar village squabble about social precedence? "Social precedence silly rot!"
I insisted that his brother should be seen to. One couldn't tell what the woman might do. Her audacity was tremendous, even for an American. To this he listened more patiently.
"Dare say you're right. You don't go off your head easily. I'll rag him proper, now I'm here. Always knew the ass would make a silly marriage if he could. Yes, yes, I'll break it up quick enough. I say I'll break it up proper. Dancers and that sort. Dangerous. But I know their tricks."
A summons to tea below interrupted him.
"Hungry, my word! Hardly dared eat in that dining-coach. Tinned stuff all about one. Appendicitis! American journal—some Colonel chap found it out. Hunting sort. Looked a fool beside his silly horse, but seemed to know. Took no chances. Said the tin-opener slays its thousands. Rot, no doubt. Perhaps not."
I led him below, hardly daring at the moment to confess my own responsibility for his fears. Another time, I thought, we might chat of it.
Belknap-Jackson with his wife and the Mixer awaited us. His lordship was presented, and I excused myself.
"Mrs. Pettingill, his lordship the Earl of Brinstead," had been the host's speech of presentation to the Mixer.
"How do do, Earl; I'm right glad to meet you," had been the Mixer's acknowledgment, together with a hearty grasp of the hand. I saw his lordship's face brighten.
"What ho!" he cried with the first cheerfulness he had exhibited, and the Mixer, still vigorously pumping his hand, had replied, "Same here!" with a vast smile of good nature. It occurred to me that they, at least, were quite going to "get" each other, as Americans say.
"Come right in and set down in the parlour," she was saying at the last. "I don't eat between meals like you English folks are always doing, but I'll take a shot of hooch with you."
The Belknap-Jacksons stood back not a little distressed. They seemed to publish that their guest was being torn from them.
"A shot of hooch!" observed his lordship "I dare say your shooting over here is absolutely top-hole—keener sport than our popping at driven birds. What, what!"