The King of Schnorrers (Collection)/Mated by a Waiter
Mated by a Waiter.
CHAPTER I.
BLACK AND WHITE.
Jones! I mention him here because he is the first and last word of the story. It is the story of what might be called a game of chess between me and him; for I never made a move, but he made a counter-move. You must remember though that he played, so to speak, blindfold, while I started the game, not with the view of mating him, but merely for the fun of playing.
There was to be a Review of the Fleet, and the inhabitants of Ryde rejoiced, as befitted sons of the sea. Although many of them would be reduced to living in their cellars, like their own black-beetles, so that they might harbour the patriotic immigrant, they sacrificed themselves ungrudgingly. No, it was not the natives who grumbled.
My friends, Jack Woolwich and Merton Towers, being in the Civil Service, naturally desired to pay a compliment to the less civil department of State, and picked their month's holiday so as to include the Review. They took care to let the Review come out at the posterior extremity of the holiday, so as to find them quite well and in the enjoyment of excellent quarters at economical rates. They selected a comfortable but unfashionable hotel, at moderate but uninclusive terms, and joyously stretched their free limbs unswaddled by red-tape. Soon London became a forgotten nightmare.
They wrote to me irregularly, tantalising me unwittingly with glimpses of buoyant wave and sunny pasture. It fretted me to be immured in the stone-prison of the metropolis, and my friends' letters did but sprinkle sea-salt on my wounds; for I was working up a medical practice in the northern district, and my absence might prove fatal—not so much, perhaps, to my patients as to my prospects. I was beginning to be recognised as a specialist in throats and eyes, and I invariably sent my clients' ears to my old hospital chum, Robins, which increased the respect of the neighbourhood for my professional powers. Your general practitioner is a suspiciously omniscient person, and it is far sager to know less and to charge more.
"My dear Ted," wrote the Woolwich Infant (of course we could not escape calling Jack Woolwich thus), "I do wish we had you here. Such larks! We've got the most comical cuss of a waiter you ever saw. I feel sure he would appeal irresistibly to your sense of humour. He seems to boss the whole establishment. His name is Jones; and when you have known him a day you feel that he is the only Jones—the only Jones possible. He is a middle-aged man, with a slight stoop and a cat-like crawl. His face is large and flabby, ornamented with mutton-chop whiskers, streaked as with the silver of half a century of tips. He is always at your elbow—a mercenary Mephistopheles—suggesting drives or sails, and recommending certain yachts, boats, and carriages with insinuative irresistibleness. He has the tenacity of an army of able-bodied leeches, and if you do not take his advice he spoils your day. You may shake him off by fleeing into the interior of the Isle, or plunging into the sea; but you cannot be always trotting about or bathing; and at meal-times he waits upon those who have disregarded his recommendations. He has a hopelessly corruptive effect on the soul, and I, who have 
"the infant." always prided myself on my immaculate moral get-up, was driven to desperate lying within twenty-four hours of my arrival. I told him how much I had enjoyed the carriage-drive he had counselled, or the sail he had sanctioned by his approval; and, in return, he regaled me with titbits at our table d'hôte dinner. But the next day he followed me about with large, reproachful eyes, in grieved silence. I saw that he knew all; and I dragged myself along with my tail between my legs, miserably asking myself how I could regain his respect.
"Wherever I turned I saw nothing but those dilated orbs of rebuke. I took refuge in my bedroom, but he glided in to give me a bad French halfpenny the chambermaid had picked up under my bed; and the implied contrast to be read in those eyes, between the honesty of the establishment and my own, was more than I could bear. I flew into a passion—the last resource of detected guilt—and irrelevantly told him I would choose my own amusements, and that I had not come down to increase his commissions.
"Ted, till my dying day I shall not forget the dumb martyrdom of those eyes! When he was sufficiently recovered to speak, he swore, in a voice broken by emotion, that he would scorn taking commissions from the quarters I imagined. Ashamed of my unjust suspicions, I apologised, and went out that afternoon alone for a trip in the Mayblossom, and was violently sick. Merton funked it because the weather was rough, and had a lucky escape; but he had to meet Jones in the evening.
"Merton's theory is, that Jones doesn't get commissions, for the simple reason that the wagonettes and broughams and bath-chairs and boats and yachts he recommends all belong to him, and that the nominal proprietors are men of straw, stuffed by the only Jones. This theory is, I must admit, borne out by the evidence of O'Rafferty, a jolly old Irishman, whose wife died here early in the year, and who has been making holiday ever since. He says that Jones had a week off in March when there was hardly anybody in the hotel, and he was to be seen driving a wagonette between Ryde and Cowes daily. And, indeed, there is something curiously provincial and plebeian about Jones's mind which suggests a man who has risen from the cab-ranks.
"His ideas of tips are delightfully democratic, and you cannot insult him even with twopence. He handles a bottle of cheap claret as reverently as a Russian the image of his saint, and he has never got over his awe of champagne. To drink Monopole at dinner is to mount a pedestal of dignity, and I completely recovered his esteem by drowning the memories of that awful marine experience in a pint of 'dry.' When he draws the champagne cork he has a sacerdotal air, and he pours out the foaming liquid with the obsequiousness of an archbishop placing on his sovereign's
head the crown he may never hope to do more than touch. But perhaps the best proof of the humbleness of his origin is his veneration for the aristocracy. An average waiter is, from the nature of his occupation, liable to be brought into contact with the bluest of blood, and to have his undiminished reverence for it tempered with a good-natured perception of mortal foibles. But Jones's attitude is one of awestruck unquestioning worship. He speaks of a lord with bated breath, and he dare not, even in conversation, ascend to a duke.
"It would seem that this is not one of the hotels which the aristocrat's fancy turns to thoughts of; for apparently only one lord has ever stayed here, judging by the frequency with which Jones whispers his name. Though some of us seem to have a beastly lot of money, and to do all the year round what Merton and I can only indulge in for a month, we are a rather plebeian company I fear, and it is simply overwhelming the way Jones rams Lord Porchester down our throats.
"'When his lordship stayed here he partie'larly admired the view from that there window.' 'His lordship wouldn't drink anything but Pommery Green-oh; he used to swallow it by tumblersful, as you or I might rum-and-water, sir.' 'Ah, sir! Lord Porchester hired the Mayblossom all to himself, and often said: "By Jove! she's like a sea-gull. She almost comes near my own little beauty. I think I shall have to buy her, by gad I shall! and let them race each other."'
"And the fellow is such an inveterate gossip that everybody here knows everybody else's business. The proprietor is a quiet, gentlemanly fellow, and is the only person in the place who keeps his presence of mind in the presence of Jones, and is not in mental subjugation to the flabby, florid, crawling boss of the rest of the show.
"You may laugh, but I warrant you wouldn't be here a day before Jones would get the upper hand of you. On the outside, of course, he is as fixedly deferential as if every moment were to be your last, and the cab were waiting to take you to the Station; but inwardly, you feel he is wound about you like a boa-constrictor. I do so long to see him swathing you in his coils! Won't you come down, and give your patients a chance?"
"My dear Jack," I wrote back to the Infant, "I am so sorry that you are having bad weather. You don't say so, but when a man covers six sheets of writing-paper I know what it means. I must say you have given me an itching to try my strength with the only Jones; but, alas! this is a musical neighbourhood, and there is a run on sore throats, so I must be content to enjoy my Jones by deputy. Is there any other attraction about the shanty?"
Merton Towers took up the running:
"Barring ourselves and Jones," he wrote, "and perhaps O'Rafferty, there isn't a decent human being in the hotel- The ladies are either old and ugly, or devoted to their hus- bands. The only ones worth talking to are in the honeymoon stage. But Jones is worth a hundred petticoats: he is tremendous fun. We've got a splendid spree on now. I think the Infant told you that Jones has not enjoyed that actual contact with the 'hupper suckles' which his simple snobbish soul so thoroughly deserves; and that, in spite of the eternal Lord Porchester, his acquaintance is less with the beau monde than with the Bow and Bromley monde. Since the Infant and I discovered this we have been putting on the grand air. Unfortunately, it was too late to claim titles; but we have managed to convey the impression that, although commoners and plain misters, we have yet had the privilege of rubbing against the purple. We have casually and carelessly dropped hints of aristocratic acquaintances, and Jones has bowed down and picked them up reverently.
"The other day, when he brought us our Chartreuse after dinner, the Infant said: 'Ah! I suppose you haven't got Damtidam in stock?' The only Jones stared awestruck. 'Of course not! How can it possibly have penetrated to these parts yet?' I struck in with supercilious reproach. 'Damtidam! What is that, sir?' faltered Jones. 'What! you don't mean to say you haven't even heard of it?' cried the Infant in amaze. Jones looked miserable and apologetic. 'It's the latest liqueur,' I explained graciously. 'Awfully expensive; made by a new brotherhood of Anchorites in Dalmatia, who have secluded themselves from the world in order to concoct it. They only serve the aristocracy; but, of course, now and then a millionaire manages to get hold of a bottle. Lord Everett made me a present of some a couple of months ago, but I use it very, very sparingly, and I daresay the flask's at least half-full. I have it in my portmanteau.' 'How does it taste, sir?' enquired Jones, in a hushed, solemn whisper. 'Damtidam is not the sort of thing that would please the uncultured palate,' I replied haughtily. 'It's what they call an acquired taste, ain't it, sir?' he asked wistfully. 'Would you like to have a drop?' I said affably. ' Oh, Towers!' cried the Infant, 'what would Lord Everett say?' 'Well, but how is Lord Everett to know?' I responded. 'Jones will never let on.' 'His lordship shall never hear a word from my lips,' Jones protested gratefully. 'But you won't like it at first. To really enjoy Damtidam, you'll have to have several goes at it. Have you got a little phial?' Jones ran and fetched the phial, and I fished out of my portmanteau the bottle of dyspepsia mixture you gave us and filled Jones's phial. I watched him glide into the garden and put the phial to his lips with a heavenly expression, through which some suggestions of purgatory subsequently flitted. That was yesterday.
"'Well, Jones, how do you like Damtidam?' I enquired genially this morning. 'Very 'igh-class, very 'igh-class in its taste, thank you, sir,' he replied. 'It's 'ardly for the likes o' me, I'm afraid; but as you've been good enough to give me some, I'll make so bold as to enjoy it. I 'ad a second sip at it this morning, and I liked it a deal better than yesterday. It requires time to get the taste, sir; but, depend upon it, I'll do my best to acquire it.' 'I wish you success! ' I cried. 'Once you get used to it, it's simply delicious. Why, I'd never travel without a bottle of it. I often take it in the middle of the night. You finish that phial, Jones; never mind the cost. I'm writing to Lord Everett to-day, and I'll drop him a broad hint that I should like another.'
"Eureka! As I write this a glorious idea has occurred to me. I am writing to you to-day, and you are the giver of the Damtidam, alias dyspepsia mixture. Oh, if you could only come down and pose as Lord Everett! What larks we should have! Do, old boy; it'll be the greatest spree we've ever had. Don't say 'no.' You want a change, you know you do; or you'll be on the sick-list yourself soon. Come, if only for a week! Surely you can find a chum to take your practice. How about Robins? He can't be all ears. I daresay he's equal to looking after your throats and eyes for a week. The Infant joins with me, and says that if you don't come he'll kill off Jones, and deprive you for ever of the pleasure of knowing him.
"I remain,
"Yours till Jones's death,
"Merton Towers.
"P.S.—When you come, bring a dozen of Damtidam."
The prospect of becoming Lord Everett flattered and tickled me, and was a daily temptation to me in my dreary drudgery. To the appeal of the pictured visions of woods and waters was added the alluring figure of Jones, standing a little bent amid the smiling landscape, acquiring a taste for Damtidam; his pasty face kneaded ecstatically, his hand on the pit of his stomach. At last I could stand it no longer, I went to see Robins, and I wrote to my friends:
"Jones wins! Expect me about ten days before the Review, so that we can return to town together.
"When I first asked Robins to take my eyes, he was inclined to dash them; but the moment I let him into the plot against Jones, he agreed to do all my work on condition of being informed of the progress of the campaign.
"I shan't tell anyone I'm leaving town, and Robins will forward my letters in an envelope addressed to Lord Everett.
"P.S.—I am bottling a special brand of Damtidam."
CHAPTER II.
A DIFFICULT OPENING.
The proudest moment of Jones's life was probably when he assisted me to alight from the carriage I had ordered at the station. I wore a light duster, a straw hat, and goloshes (among other things), together with the air of having come over in the same steamboat as the Conqueror. I may as well mention here that I am tall, almost as tall as the Woolwich Infant, who frequently stands six foot two on my pet corn (Towers, by the way, is a short squat man, whose delusion that he is handsome can be read plainly upon his face). My features, like my habits, are regular. By complexion I belong to the fair sex; but there is a masculine vigour about my physique and my language which redeems me from effeminateness. I do not mention my tawny moustache, because that is not an exclusively male trait in these days of women's rights.
"Good morning, my lord!" said Jones, his obeisance so low and his voice so loud that I had to give the driver half-a-crown.
I nodded almost imperceptibly, knowing that the surest way to impress Jones with my breeding was to display no trace of it. I strolled languidly into the hall, deferentially followed by the Infant and Merton Towers, leaving Jones distracted between the desire to handle my luggage and to show me my room.
"Hexcuse me, my lord," said Jones, fluttered. "Jane, run for the master."
"Excuse me, my lord," said the Infant; "I'll run up and wash for lunch. See you in a moment. Come along, Merton. It's so beastly high-up. When are you going to get a lift, Jones?"
"In a moment, sir; in a moment!" replied Jones automatically.
He seemed half-dazed.
The quiet, gentlemanly young proprietor, who appeared to have been disturbed in his studies, for he held a volume of Dickens in his hand, conducted me to a gorgeously furnished bedroom on the first floor facing the sea.
"It's the best we can do for your lordship," he said apologetically; "but with the Review so near—"
I waved my hand impatiently, wishing he could have done worse for me. In town I had been too busy to realise the situation in detail; but now it began to dawn upon me that it was going to be an expensive joke. Besides, I was separated from my friends, who were corridors away and flights higher, and convivial meetings at midnight would mean disagreeable stockinged wanderings for somebody—a mere shadow of a trifle, no doubt, but little things like that worry more than they look. I was afraid to ask the price of this swell bedroom, and I began to comprehend the meaning of noblesse oblige.
"The sitting-room adjoins," said the hotel-keeper, suddenly opening a door and ushering me into a magnificent chamber, with a lofty ceiling and a dado. The furniture was plush-covered and suggestive of footmen. "I presume you will not be taking your meals in public? "
"H'm! H'm!" I muttered, tugging at my moustache. Then, struck by a bright idea, I said: "What do Mr. Woolwich and Mr. Towers do?"
"They join the table d'hôte, your lordship," said the proprietor. "They didn't require a sitting-room they said, as they should be almost entirely in the open air."
"Oh! well, I could hardly leave my friends," I said reflectively; "I suppose I shall have to join them at the table d'hôte."
"I daresay they would like to have your lordship with them," said the proprietor, with a faint, flattering smile.
I smiled internally at my cunning in getting out of the sitting-room.
"It's an awful bore," I yawned; "but I'm afraid they'd be annoyed if I ate up here alone, so—"
"You'll invite them up here for all meals? Yes, my lord," said Jones at my elbow.
He had sidled up with his cat-like crawl. Through the open door of communication I saw he had deposited my boxes in the gorgeous bedroom. There was a moment of tense silence, in which I struggled desperately for a response. The brazen shudder of a gong vibrated through the house.
"Is that lunch?" I asked in relief, making a step towards the door.
"Yes, my lord," said Jones; "but not your lordship's lunch. It will be laid here immediately, my lord. I will go at once and convey your invitation to your lordship's friends."
He hastened from the room, leaving me dumbfounded. I did not enjoy Jones as much as I had anticipated. In a moment a pretty parlour-maid arrived to lay the cloth. I became conscious that I was hungry and thirsty and travel-stained, and I determined to let things slide till after lunch, when I could easily set them right. The sunshine was flooding the room, and the sea was a dance of diamonds. The sight of the prandial preparations softened me. I retired to my beautiful bedroom and plunged my face into a basin of water.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in!" I spluttered.
"Your hot water, my lord!" It was Jones.
"I've got into enough already," I thought. "Don't want it," I growled peremptorily; "I always wash in cold."
I would have my way in small things, I resolved, if I could not have it in great.
"Certainly, your lordship; this is only for shaving."
My cheeks grew hot beneath the fingers washing them. I remembered that I had overslept myself that morning, and neglected shaving lest I should miss my train. There were but a few microscopic hairs, yet I felt at once I had not the face to meet Jones at lunch.
"Thank you!" I said savagely.
When I had wiped my eyes I found he was still in the room, bent in meek adoration.
"What in the devil do you want now?" I thundered.
His eyes lit up with rapture. It was as though I had made oath I was a nobleman and removed his last doubt.
"Pommery Green—oh or Hideseek, my lord? "
I cursed silently. I am of an easy-going disposition, and in my most penurious student days, had to spend twenty-five per cent more on my modest lunch whenever the waiter said: "Stout or bitter, sir?" But the present alternative was far more terrible. I was on the point of saying I was a teetotaller, when I remembered that would shut off my nocturnal whisky-and-water, and condemn me to goody-goody beverages at meals. I remembered, too, that Jones intended the champagne as much for my friends as myself, and that lords are proverbially disassociated from temperance. Oh! it was horrible that this oleaginous snob should rob a poor man of his beer! Perhaps I could escape with claret. In my agitation I commenced lathering my chin and returned no answer at all. The voice of Jones came at last, charged with deeper respect, but inevitable as the knell of doom.
"Did you say Pommery Green—oh! my lord?"
"No!" I yelled defiantly.
"Thank you, my lord. Lord Porchester was very partial to our Hideseek—when he was here. We have an excellent year."
"I wish you had twelve months," I thought furiously. Then when the door closed upon him, I ground my razor savagely and muttered: "All right! I'll take it out of you in Dantidam."
I heard the bustle of my friends arriving to lunch, and I shaved myself hastily. Then slipping on my coat and dabbing a bit of sticking-plaster on my chin, I threw open the the door violently; for I was not going to let those two fellows off an exhibition of slang. They should have thought out the plot more fully; have hired me a moderate bedroom in advance, and not have let me in for the luxuries of Lucullus. It was a cowardly desertion, their leaving me at the critical moment, and they should learn what I thought of it.
"You ruffians!" I began; but the words died on my lips. Jones was waiting at table.
It ought to have been a delicious lunch: broiled chickens and apple-tart; the cool breeze coming through the open window, the sea and the champagne sparkling. But I, who was hungriest, enjoyed it least; Jones, who ate nothing, enjoyed it most. The Infant and Merton Towers simply overflowed with high spirits, keeping up a running fire of aristocratic allusions, which galled me beyond endurance.
"By the way, how is the dowager-duchess?" wound up the Infant.
"D the dowager-duchess!" I roared, losing the remains of my temper.
Jones grew radiant, and the Infant winked irritating approval of my natural touches. Such contempt for duchesses could only be bred of familiarity. At last I could contain myself no longer; I must either explode or have a fit. I sent Jones for cigarettes.
Directly the door closed those two men turned upon me.
"I say, old fellow," exclaimed Towers reproachfully, "isn't this just going it a little too far? "
"What in creation made you take these howling apartments?" asked the Infant. "Review time, too! They've been saving up these rooms, foreseeing there would be some tip-top swells crowded out of the fashionable hotels. Why, there's a cosy little crib next to ours I made sure you'd have."
""Well, I call this cool!" I gasped.
"So it is," said the Infant; "I admit that. It's the coolest room in the house. It'll be real jolly up here; and if you can stand the racket I'm sure I'm not the chap to grumble."
"You must have been doing beastly well, old man," Towers put in enviously; "to feed us like critics on chicken and champagne. I suppose they'll be opening new cemeteries down your way presently."
"Look here, my fine fellows," I said ferociously, "don't you forget that there's plenty of room still in Ryde Churchyard."
"Hallo, Ted!" cried the Infant, looking up with ingenuous surprise, "I thought you came down here on a holiday?"
"Stash that!" I said. "It's you who've got me into this hole, and you know it."
"Hole!" cried Towers, looking round the room in amaze. "He calls this a hole! Hang it all, my boy, are you a millionaire? I call this good enough for a lord."
"Yes; but as I'm neither," I said grimly, "I should like you to understand that I'm not going to pay for this spread."
"What!" gasped the Infant. "Invite a man to lunch, and expect him to square the bill?"
"I never invited you! " I said indignantly.
"Who then?" said Towers sternly.
"Jones!" I answered.
"Yes, my lord! Sorry to have kept your lordship waiting; but I think you will find these cigarettes to your liking. I haven't been at this box since Lord Porchester was here, and it got mislaid."
"Take them away!" I roared. "They're Egyptians!"
"Yes, my lord! " said Jones, in delight.
He glided proudly from the room.
"'Jones invited us?'" pursued the Infant. "What rot! As if Jones would dare do anything you hadn't told him. We are his slaves. But you? Why, he hangs on your words!"
"D him! I should like to see him hanging on something higher!" I cried.
"Yes, your language is low," admitted the Infant. "But, seriously, what's all the row about? I thought this champagne lunch was a bit of realism, just to start off with."
I explained briefly how Jones had coiled himself around me, even as they had described. The dado echoed their ribald laughter.
"Oh, well," said the Infant, "it's only right you should give a lunch the day you come into a peerage. It's really too much to expect us to pay scot, when there was a beautiful lunch of cold beef and pickles waiting for us in the dining-room, and included in our terms per week. We aren't going to pay for two lunches."
"I don't mind the lunch," I said, smiling, my sense of humour returning now that I had poured forth my grievance. "I'd gladly give you chaps a lunch any day, and I'm pleased you enjoyed it so much. But, for the rest, I'm going to run this joke by syndicate, or not at all. I only came down with a tenner."
"A pound a day!" said Towers, "that ought to be enough."
"Why, there's a pound gone bang over this lunch already!" I retorted.
"And then there's the apartments," put in the Infant roguishly. "I wonder what they'll tot up to? "
"Jones alone knows," I groaned.
He came in—a veritable devil—while his name was on my lips, with a new box of cigarettes.
"Clear away!" I said briefly.
He cleared away, and we breathed freely. We leaned back in the plush-covered easy-chairs, sending rings of fragrant smoke towards the blue horizon, and I felt more able to face the situation calmly."I daresay we can lend you five quid between us," said Towers.
"What's the good of a loan to an honest man?" I asked. "Can't we work the joke without such a lot of capital? The first thing is to get out of these rooms, and into that cosy little crib near you. I can say I yearn for your society."
"But have you the courage to look Jones in the face and tell him that?" queried Towers dubiously.
I hesitated. I felt instinctively that Jones would be dreadfully shocked if I changed my palatial apartments for a cheap bedroom; that it would be better if some one else broke the news.
"Oh, the Infant'll explain," I said lightly.
"Nothing of the sort," said the Infant; "it won't wash now. Besides, they'd make you shell out in any case. They'd pretend they turned lots of applicants away this morning, because the rooms were let. No, keep the bed-room, and we'll go shares in this sitting-room. It's jollier to have a proper private room."
"Good!" I said. "Then it only remains to escape from these special meals and the champagne."
"You leave that to me," said the Infant. "I'll tell Jones that you hunger for our company at meals, but that we can't consent to come up here, because you, with that reckless prodigality which is wearing the dowager-duchess to a shadow, insist on paying for everything consumed on your premises, so that you must e'en come to the general table. Jones will be glad enough to trot you round."
"And I'll tell him," added Towers, " that, with that determined dipsomania which is making the money-lenders daily friendlier to your little brother, you swill champagne till you fly at waiters' throats like a mad dog, and that it is our sacred duty to diet you on table-beer or Tintara.""Wouldn't it be simpler to tell him the truth?" I asked feebly.
"What!" gasped the Infant, "chuck up the sponge? Don't spoil the loveliest holiday I ever had, old man. Just think how you will go up in his estimation, when we tell him you are a spendthrift and a drunkard! For pity's sake, don't throw a gloom over Jones's life."
"Very well," I said, relenting. "Only the exes must be cut down. The motto must be, 'Extravaganza without extravagance, or farces economically conducted.'"
"Right you are!" they said; and then we smoked on in halcyon voluptuousness, now and then passing the matches or a droll remark about Jones. In the middle of one of the latter there was a knock at the door, and Jones entered.
"The carriage will be round in five minutes, my lord," he announced.
"The carriage!" I faltered, growing pale.
"Yes, my lord. I took the liberty of thinking your lordship wouldn't waste such a fine afternoon indoors."
"No; I'm going out at once," I said resolutely. "But I shan't drive."
"Very well, my lord; I will countermand the carriage, and order a horse. I presume your lordship would like a spirited one? Jayes, up the street, has a beautiful bay steed."
"Thank you; I don't care for riding—er—other people's horses."
"No; of course not, my lord. I'll see that the Mayblossom is reserved for your lordship's use this afternoon. Your lordship will have time for a glorious sail before dinner."
He hastened from the room.
"You'd better have the carriage," said the Infant drily; "it's cheaper than the yacht. You'll have to have it once, and you may as well get it over. After one trial, you can say it's too springless and the cushions are too crustaceous for your delicate anatomy."
"I'll see him at Jericho first!" I cried, and wrenched at the bellpull with angry determination.
"Yes, my lord!"
He stood bent and insinuative before me.
"I won't have the yacht."
"Very well, my lord; then I won't countermand the carriage."
He turned to go.
"Jones!" I shrieked.
He looked back at me. His eyes, full of a trusting reverence, met mine. My resolution began oozing out at every pore.
"Is—is—are you going with the carriage?" I stammered, for want of something to say.
"No, my lord," he answered wistfully.
That settled it. I let him depart without another word.
It was certainly a pleasant drive through the delightful scenery of the Isle, and I determined, since I had to pay the piper, to enjoy the dance. The Infant and Towers were hilarious to the point of vulgarity: I let myself go at the will of Jones. When we got back, we realised with a start that it was half-past six. The dressing-gong was sounding. Jones met me in the passage.
"Dinner at seven, my lord, in your room."
I made frantic motions to the Infant."Tell him! " I breathed.
"It's too late now," he whispered back. "To-morrow!"
I telegraphed desperately to Towers. He shook his thick head helplessly.
"Have you invited my friends to dinner?" I asked Jones bitingly.
"No, my lord," he said simply. "I thought your lordship 'ad seen enough of them to-day."
There was a suggestion of reproach in the apology. Jones was more careful of my dignity than I was.
When I got to my room, I found, to my horror, my dress-clothes laid out on the bed—I had brought them on the off-chance of going to a local dance. Jones had opened my portmanteau. For a moment a cold chill traversed my spine, as I thought he must have seen the monogram on my linen, and discovered the imposture. Then I remembered with joy that it was an "E," which is the more formal initial of Ted, and would do for Everett. In my relief, I felt I must submit to the nuisance of dressing—in honour of Jones. While changing my trousers, a sudden curiosity took me. I peeped through the keyhole of my sitting-room, and saw Jones just arriving with another bottle of Heidsieck. I groaned. I knew I should have to drink it, to keep up the fiction Towers was going to palm off on Jones to-morrow. I felt like bolting on the spot, but I was in my Jaegers. Presently Jones sidled mysteriously towards my door and knelt down before it. It flashed upon me he wanted the keyhole I was occupying. I jumped up in alarm, and dressed with the decorum of a god with a worshipper's eye on him.
I swallowed what Jones gave me, fuming. With the roast, a blessed thought came to soothe me. Thenceforward I chuckled continuously. I refused the parfait aux frais and the savoury in my eagerness for the end of the meal. Revenge was sufficient sweets.
"Haw, hum!" I murmured, caressing my moustache. "Bring me a Damtidam."
I knew his little phial must be exhausted long since. I intended to give him a bottle.
"Did your lordship say Damtidam?"
"Damtidam!" I roared, while my heart beat voluptuous music. "You don't mean to say you don't keep it?"
"Oh no, my lord! We laid in a big stock of it; but Lord Porchester was that fond of it (used to drink it like your lordship does champagne), I doubt if I could lay my hand on a bottle."
"What an awful bo-ah!" I yawned. "I suppose I'll have to get a bottle of my own out of that little black box under my bed. I couldn't possibly go without it after dinner. Hang it all, the key is in my other trousers!"
"Oh, don't trouble, my lord," said Jones anxiously. "I'll run and see if I can find any."
I waited, gloating.
Jones returned gleefully.
"I've found plenty, my lord," he said, setting down a brimming liqueur-glass.
He lingered about, clearing the table. His eye was upon me. I drank the Damtidam. Then Jones departed, and I went about kicking the furniture, and striding about in my desolate grandeur, like Napoleon at St. Helena.
Presently the Infant and Towers came rushing in, choking with laughter.
"Your arrival has fired afresh all Jones's aristocratic ambitions," gurgled Towers. "Ha! ha! ha!"
"Ho! ho! ho!" panted the Infant. "He's coaxed us out of all our remaining Damtidam."
I grinned a sickly response.
"Great Scot!" the Infant bellowed. "What's this howling wilderness of shirt-front?"
"It's cooler," I explained.
CHAPTER III.
THE QUEEN COMES INTO PLAY.
I had to breakfast in my room, but by lunch the next day my friends had found an opportunity to explain me to Jones. They had on several occasions strongly exhorted Jones to secrecy as to my rank, so that the eyes of the whole table were on me when I entered. I ate with the ease of one conscious of giving involuntary lessons in etiquette to a furtive-glancing bourgeoisie. The Infant gave me Tintara, to break me gradually of champagne and reduce me to malt. After lunch Towers remonstrated with Jones on having obviously given me away.
"Sir," protested Jones, in righteous indignation, "I promised to tell no one in the hotel, and I have kept my word!"
"Well, how do they know then?" enquired Towers.
"I shouldn't be surprised if they read it in the Visitors' List," Jones answered.
Being now half-emancipated, I fell into the usual routine of a seaside holiday. I swam, I rowed, I walked, I lounged, whenever Jones would let me. One wet morning we even congratulated ourselves on our luxurious sitting-room, as we sat and smoked before the rain-whipt sea, till, unexpected, Jones brought up lunch for three. That evening, as we were entering the dining-room, Jones observed humbly to the Infant and Towers:
"Excuse me, gentlemen; I 'ave 'ad to separate you from his lordship. We've 'ad such a influx of visitors for the Review, I've been 'ard put to it to squeeze them all in."
Those wretched cowards marched feebly to a new extremity of the table, while I walked to my usual seat near the window, with anger flaming duskily on my brow. This time I was determined. I would stick to table-beer all the same.
But before I dropped into my chair every trace of anger vanished. My heart throbbed violently, my dazzled eyes surveyed my serviette. At my side was one of the most charming girls I had ever met. When the Heidsieck came, I raised my glass as in a dream, and silently drank to the glorious creature nearest my heart—on the left hand.
We medicos are not easily upset by woman's beauty; we know too well what it is made of. But there was something so exquisite about this girl's face as to make a hardened materialist hesitate to resolve her into a physiological formula. It was not long before I offered to pass her the pepper. She declined with thanks and brevity. Her accent grated unexpectedly on my ear: I was puzzled to know why. I spoke of the rain that still tapped at the window, as if anxious to come in.
"It was raining when I left Paris," she said; "but up till then I had a lovely time."
Now I saw what was the matter. She suffered from twang and was American. I have always had a prejudice against Americans—chiefly, I believe, because they always seem to be having "a lovely time." It was with a sense of partial disenchantment that I continued the conversation:
"So you have been in Paris?" I said, thinking of the old joke about good Americans going there when they die. "I must admit you look as if you had come from Heaven! "
"So wretched as all that!" she retorted, laughing merrily. There was no twang in the laugh; it was a ripple of music.
"I don't mean an exile from Heaven," I answered: "an excursionist, with a return-ticket."
"Oh! but I'm not going back," she said, shaking her lovely head.
"Not even when you die?" I asked, smiling.
"I guess I shall need a warmer climate then!" she flashed back audaciously.
"You're too good for that," I answered, without hesitation.
I caught a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, as she answered:
"Gracious! you're very spry at giving strange folks certificates."
"It's my business to give certificates," I answered, smiling.
"Marriage certificates, my lord?" she asked roguishly.
I was about to answer "Doctors' certificates," but her last two syllables froze the words on my lips.
"You—you—know me?" I stammered.
"Yes, your lordship," with a mock bow.
"Why—how—?" I faltered. "You've only just come."
"Jones," she answered.
"Jones!" I repeated, vexed.
"Yes, my lord."
He glided up and re-filled my glass.
"Jones is a nuisance," I said, when he was out of earshot again.
"Jones is a Britisher!" she said enigmatically. "Surely you don't mind people knowing who you are?"
"I'm afraid I do," I replied uneasily.
"I guess your reputation must be real shady," she said, with her American candour. "You English lords, we have just about sized you up in the States."
"I—I—" I stammered.
"No! don't tell me," she interrupted quickly; "I'd rather not know. My aunt here, that lady on my left,—she's a widow and half a Britisher, and respectable, don't you know,—will want me to cut you."
"And you don't want to?" I exclaimed eagerly.
"Well, one must talk to somebody," she said, arching her eyebrows. "It's all very well for my aunt. She's left her children at home. That's happiness enough for her. But that don't make things equally lively for me."
"Your language is frank," I said laughingly.
"Yes, that's one of the languages you've forgotten how to speak in this old country."
Again that musical ripple of mirth. Her fascination was fast enswathing me like another Jones, only a thousandfold more sweetly. Already I found her twang delightful, lending the last touch of charm to her original utterances. I looked up suddenly, and saw the Infant and Towers glaring enviously at me from the other end of the table. Then I was quite happy. True, they had the sprightly O'Rafferty between them, but he did not seem to console them—rather to chaff them.
"Ho! ho!" I roared, when we reached our sitting-room that night. "There's virtue in the peerage after all."
"Shut up!" the Infant snarled. "If you think you're going to annex that ripping creature, I warn you that bloated aristocracy will have to settle up for its marble halls. We're running this thing by syndicate, remember."
"Yes, but this isn't part of the profits," I urged defiantly,
"Oh, isn't it?" put in Towers. "Why do you suppose Jones sat her next to you, if not as a prerogative of nobility? "
"Well, but if I can get her to go out with me alone, that's a private transaction."
"No go, Teddy," said the Infant. "We don't allow you to play for your own hand."
"Or hers," added Towers. "While you were spooning, Jones was telling us all about her. Her name's Harper—Ethelberta Harper, and her old man is a Railway King, or something."
"She's a queen—I don't care of what!" I said fervently.
"We got very chummy, and I'm going to take her for a row to-morrow morning. It's not my fault if she doesn't pal on to you."
"Stow that cant! " cried the Infant. "Either you surrender her to the syndicate or pay your own exes. Choose!"
"Well, I'll compromise!" I said desperately.
"No, you don't! It's to prevent your compromising her we want to stand in. We'll all go for that row."
"No, listen to my suggestion. I'll invite her to lunch after the row, and I'll invite you fellows to meet her."
"But how do you know she'll come?" said Towers.
"She will if I ask her aunt too."
"Scoundrel, you've asked them both already!" cried the Infant. "Where's the compromise?"
"I hadn't asked you already," I reminded him.
"No, but now you propose to use the capital of the syndicate!" he rejoined sharply.
"Nothing of the kind," I retorted rashly.
So it was settled. I had four guests to lunch, and Jones expanded visibly. The Infant and Towers kept Miss Harper pretty well to themselves, while I was left to entertain Mrs. Windpeg, a comely but tedious lady, who gave me details of her life in England since she left New York, a newly married wife, twenty years before. She seemed greatly interested in these details. Ethelberta paid no attention to her aunt, but a great deal to my friends. Several times I found myself gnawing my lip instead of my wing. But I had my revenge at the table d'hôte. Jones kept my friends remorselessly at bay, and religiously guarded my proximity to the lovely American. Strange mental revolution! The idea of tipping Jones actually commenced to germinate in my mind.
It was on Review-day that I realised I was hopelessly in love. Of course my quartet of friends was at the windows of my sitting-room. Jones also selected this room to see the Review from, and I fancy he regaled my visitors with delicate refreshments throughout the day, and I remember being vaguely glad that he made amends for the general neglect of Mrs. Windpeg by offering her the choicest titbits; but I have no clear recollection of anything but Ethelberta. Her face was my Review, though there was no powder on it. The play of light on her cheeks and hair was all the manoeuvres I cared for—the pearls of her mouth were my ranged rows of ships; and when everybody else was peering hopelessly into the thick smoke, my eyes were feasting on the sunshine of her face. I did not hear the cannon, nor the long, endless clamour of the packed streets, only the soft words she spoke from time to time.
"To-morrow morning I must go away," I murmured to her at dinner. I fancied she grew paler, but I could not be sure, for Jones at that moment changed my plate.
"I am sorry," she said simply. "Must you go?"
"Yes," I answered sadly. "My beautiful holiday is over. To-morrow, to work."
"I thought, for you lords, life was one long holiday," she said, surprised.
I was glad of the reminder. My love was hopeless. A struggling doctor could not ask for the hand of an heiress. Even if he could, it would be a poor recommendation to start with a confession of imposture. To ask, without confessing, were to become a scoundrel and a fortune-hunter of the lowest type. No; better to pass from her ken, leaving her memory of me untainted by suspicion—leaving my memory of her an idyllic, unfinished dream. And yet I could not help reflecting, with agony, that if I had not begun under false colours, if I had come to her only as what I was, I might have dared to ask for her love—yea, and perhaps have won it. Oh, how weak I had been not to tell her from the first! As if she would not have appreciated the joke! As if she would not have enrolled herself joyously in the campaign against Jones!
"Ah! my life will be anything but a long holiday, I fear," I sighed.
"Say, you're not an hereditary legislator?" she asked.
"Legislation is not the hereditary disease I complain of," I said evasively.
"What then?"
"Love!" I replied desperately.
She laughed gaily.
"I guess that's an original view of love."
"Why? My parents suffered from it: at least, I hope they did."
"Doubtful! Your Upper Ten is usually supposed to have cured marriage of it."
She bent her head over her plate, so that I strove in vain to read her eyes.
"Well, it's a beastly shame," I said. "Don't you think so, Miss Harper—Ethelberta? May I call you Ethelberta?"
"If it gives you any comfort," she said plumply.
"It gives me more than comfort," I rejoined.
A wild hope flamed in my breast. What if she loved me after all! I would speak the word. But no! If she did, I had won her love under a false glamour of nobility. Better, far better, to keep both my secrets in my own breast. Besides, had I not seen she was a flirt? I continued to call her Ethelberta, but that was all. When we rose from table I had not spoken; knowing that my friends would claim my society for the rest of the evening, I held out my hand in final farewell. She took it. Her own hand was hot. I clasped it for a moment, gazing into the wonderful blue eyes; then I let it go, and all was over.
"I do believe Teddy is hit!" Towers said when I came into our room, whither they had preceded me.
"Rot!" I said, turning my face away. "A seasoned bachelor like me. Heigho! I shall be awfully glad to get to work again to-morrow."
"Yes," said the Infant. "I see from the statistics that the mortality of your district has declined frightfully. That Robins must be a regular duffer."
"I'll soon set that right!" I exclaimed, with a forced grin.
"She certainly is a stunner," Towers mused.
"Hullo! I'm afraid it's Merton that's damaged," I laughed boisterously.
"Well, if she wasn't an heiress—" began Towers slowly.
"She might have you," finished the Infant. "But I say, boys, we'd better ask for our bills; we've got to be off in the morning by the 8.5. Jones mightn't be up when we leave."
The room echoed with sardonic laughter at the idea. There was no need to ring for Jones; he found two pretexts an hour to come and gaze upon me. When my bill came, I went to the window for air and to hide my face from Jones.
"All right, Jones!" cried the Infant, guessing what was up. "We'll leave it on the table before we go to bed."
"Well?" my friends enquired eagerly, when Jones had crawled off.
"Twenty-seven pounds two and tenpence!" I groaned, letting the accursed paper drift helplessly to the floor.
"Dd reasonable!" said the Infant.
"You would go it!" Towers added soothingly.
"Reasonable or not," I said, "I've only got six pounds in my pockets."
"You said you brought ten," said Towers.
"Yes! but what of carriage-sails and yacht-drives?" I cried agitatedly.
"You're drunk," said the Infant brutally. "However, I suppose, before going into dividing exes we must get together the gross sum."
It was easier said than done. When every farthing had been scraped together, we were thirteen pounds short on the three bills. We held a long council of war, discussing the possibilities of surreptitious pledging—the unspeakable Jones, playing his blindfold game, had reduced us to pawn—but even these were impracticable.
"Confound you!" cried Merton Towers. "Why didn't you think of the bill before? "
As if I had not better things to think of! The horror of facing Jones in the morning drove us to the most desperate devices; but none seemed workable.
"There's only one way left of getting the coin, Teddy," said the Infant at last.
"What's that?" I cried eagerly.
"Ask the heiress."
It was an ambiguous phrase, but in whatever sense he meant it, it was a cruel and unmanly thrust; in my indignation I saw light.
"What fools we have been!" I shouted. "It's as easy as A B C. I'm not in an office like you, bound to be back to the day—I stay on over to-morrow, and you send me on the money from town."
"Where are we to get it from?" growled Towers.
"Anywhere! anybody!" I cried excitedly; "I'll write to Robins at once for it."
"Why not wire?" said the Infant.
"I don't see the necessity for wasting sixpence," I said; "we must be economical. Besides, Jones would read the wire."
CHAPTER IV.
THE WINNING MOVE.
Time slipped on; but I could not tear myself away from this enchanted hotel. The departure of my friends allowed me to be nearly all day with Ethelberta.
I had drowned reason and conscience: day followed day in a golden languor and the longer I stopped, the harder it was to go. At last Robins's telegrams became too imperative to be disregarded, and even my second supply of money would not suffice for another day.
The bitter experience of parting had to be faced again; the miserable evening, when I had first called her Ethelberta, had to be repeated. We spoke little at dinner; afterwards, as I had not my friends to go to this time, we left Mrs. Windpeg sitting over her dessert, and paced up and down in the little cultivated enclosure which separated the hotel from the parade. It was a balmy evening; the moon was up, silvering the greenery, stretching a rippling band across the sea, and touching Ethelberta's face to a more marvellous fairness. The air was heavy with perfume; everything combined to soften my mood. Tears came into my eyes as I thought that this was the very last respite. Those tears seemed to purge my vision: I saw the beauty of truth and sincerity, and felt that I could not go away without telling her who I really was; then, in future years, whatever she thought of me, I, at least, could think of her sacredlv, with no cloud of falseness between me and her.
"Ethelberta!" I said, in low trembling tones.
"Lord Everett!" she murmured responsively.
"I have a confession to make."
She flushed and lowered her eyes.
"No, no!" she said agitatedly; "spare me that confession. I have heard it so often; it is so conventional. Let us part friends."
She looked up into my face with that frank, heavenly glance of hers. It shook my resolution, but I recovered myself and went on:
"It is not a conventional confession. I was not going to say I love you."
"No?" she murmured.
Was it the tricksy play of the moon among the clouds, or did a shade of disappointment flit across her face? Were her words genuine, or was she only a coquette? I stopped not to analyse; I paused not to enquire; I forgot everything but the loveliness that intoxicated me.
"I—I—mean I was!" I stammered awkwardly; "I have loved you from the first moment I saw you."
I strove to take her hand; but she drew it away haughtily.
"Lord Everett, it is impossible! Say no more."
The twang dropped from her speech in her dignity; her accents rang pure and sweet.
"Why not?" I cried passionately. "Why is it impossible? You seemed to care for me."
She was silent; at last she answered slowly:
"You are a lord! I cannot marry a lord."
My heart gave a great leap, then I felt cold as ice.
"Because I am a lord?" I murmured wonderingly.
"Yes! I—I—flirted with you at first out of pure fun—believe me, that was the truth. If I loved you now," her words were tremulous and almost inaudible, "it would be right that I should be punished. We must never meet again. Good-bye!"
She stood still and extended her hand.
I touched it with my icy fingers.
"Oh! if you had only let me confess just now what I wanted to!" I cried in agony.
"Confess what?" she said. "Have you not confessed?"
"No! You may disbelieve me now; but I wanted to tell you that I am not a lord at all, that I only became one through Jones."
Her lovely eyes dilated with surprise. I explained briefly, confusedly.
She laughed, but there was a catch in her voice.
"Listen! " she said hurriedly, starting pacing again j "I, too, have a confession to make. Jones has corrupted me too. I'm not an heiress at all, nor even an American—just a moderately successful London actress, resting a few weeks, and Mrs. Windpeg is only my companion and general factotum, the widow of a drunken stage-carpenter, who left her without resources, poor thing. But we had hardly crossed the steps of the hotel, before Jones mentioned Lord Everett was in the place, and buzzed the name so in our ears that the idea of a wild frolic flashed into my head. I am a great flirt, you know, and I thought that while I had the chance I would test the belief that English lords always fall in love with American heiresses."
"It was no test," I interrupted. "A Chinese Mandarin would fall in love with you equally."
I let Mrs. Windpeg tell Jones all about me—imaginatively," she went on with a sad smile; "I told her to call me Harper, because Harper's Magazine came into my mind. But it was Jones who seated us together. I will believe that you took a genuine liking to me; still, it was a foolish freak on both sides, and we must both forget it as soon as possible."
"I can never forget it! " I said passionately; "I love you; and I dare to think you care for me, though while you fancied I was a peer you stifled the feeling that had grown up despite you. Believe me, I understand the purity of your motives, and love you the more for them."
She shook her head.
"Good-bye! " she faltered.
"I will not say 'good-bye'! I have little to offer you, but it includes a heart that is aching for you. There is no reason now why we should part."
Her lips were white in the moonlight.
"I never said I loved you," she murmured.
"Not in so many words," I admitted; "but why did you let me call you Ethelberta?" I asked passionately.
"Because it is not my name," she answered; and a ghost of the old gay smile lit up the lovely features.
I stood for a moment dumbfounded. Unconsciously we had come to a standstill under the window of the dining-room.
She took advantage of my consternation to say more lightly:
"Come, let us part friends."
I dimly understood that, in some subtle way I was too coarse to comprehend, she was ashamed of the part she had played throughout, that she would punish herself by renunciation. I knew not what to say; I saw the happiness of my life fading before my eyes. She held out her hand for the last time and I clasped it mechanically. So we stood, silent.
"What does that matter, Mrs. Windpeg? You're a real lady, that's enough for me. It wasn't because I thought you had money that I ventured to raise my eyes to you."
We started. It was the voice of Jones. Mrs. Windpeg had evidently lingered too long over her dessert.
"But I tell you I have nothing at all—nothing!" came the voice of Mrs. Windpeg.
"I don't want it. You see, I'm like you—not what I seem. This place belongs to me, only I was born and bred a waiter in this very hotel, and I don't see why the 'ouse shouldn't profit by the tips instead of a stranger. My son does the show part; but he ain't fit for anything but reading Dickens and other low-class writers, and I feel the want of a real lady, knowing the ways of the aristocrats. What with Lord Porchester and Lord Everett, it looks as if this hotel is going to be fashionable and I know there's lots of 'igh-class wrinkles I ain't picked up yet. Only lately I was flummoxed by a gent asking for a liqueur I'd never 'eard of. You're mixed up with tip-top swells; I loved you from the moment I saw you fold your first serviette. I'm a widower, you're a widow. Let bygones be bygones. Why shouldn't we make a match of it?"
We looked at each other and laughed; false subtleties were swept away by a wave of mutual merriment.
"'Let bygones be bygones. Why shouldn't we make a match of it?'" I echoed. "Jones is right." I tightened my grasp of her hand and drew her towards me, almost with- out resistance. "You're going to lose your companion, you'll want another."
Her lovely face came nearer and nearer.
"Besides," I said gaily, "I understand you're out of an engagement."
"Thanks," she said; "I don't care for an engagement in the Provinces, and I have sworn never to marry in the profession: they're a bad lot."
"Call me an actor?"
My lips were almost on hers.
"You played Lord Dundreary—not unforgivably."
Our lips met!
"Oh, Augustus," came the voice of Mrs. Windpeg, "I feel so faint with happiness!"
"Loose your arms a moment, my popsy. I'll fetch you a drop of Damtidam!" answered the voice of Jones.