"I shudder to think of wot would "ave "appened if we had, sir," said he, meaning no doubt to placate me. "Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e says the Countess "as been up all night worrying about you, sir. She has been distracted.
She wanted "im to go out and search for you at four o"clock this morning, but he says he a.s.sured "er you"d turn up all right. He says Mrs.--the elderly lady, begging your pardon, sir,--thought she was doing for the best when she took a special. She wanted to save us all the trouble she could. He says she was very much distressed by our failure to "ave some one meet her with a launch when she got here last night, sir. As it was, she didn"t reach the castle until nearly one, and she looked like a drowned rat when she got there, being hex--exposed to a beastly rainstorm. See wot I mean? She went to bed in a _dreadful_ state, he says, but he thinks she"ll be more pleasant before the day is over."
I burst into a fit of laughter. "Hurray!" I shouted, exultantly. "So she was out in it too, eh? Well, by Jove, I don"t feel half as badly as I did five minutes ago. Come! Let us be off."
We started briskly down the street. My spirits were beginning to rebound. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e had said that she worried all night about me! She had been distracted! Poor little woman! Still I was glad to know that she had the grace to sit up and worry instead of going to sleep as she might have done. I was just mean enough to be happy over it.
p.o.o.pend.y.k.e met us on the town side of the river. He seemed a trifle haggard, I thought. He was not slow, on the other hand, to announce in horror-struck tones that I looked like a ghost.
"You must get those wet clothes off at once, Mr. Smart, and go to bed with a hot water bottle and ten grains of quinine. You"ll be very ill if you don"t. Put a lot more elbow grease into those oars, Max. Get a move on you. Do you want Mr. Smart to die of pneumonia?"
While we were crossing the muddy river, my secretary, his teeth chattering with cold and excitement combined, related the story of the night.
"We were just starting off for the boat-house up the river, according to plans, Max and Rudolph and I with the two boats, when the Countess came down in a mackintosh and a pair of gum boots and insisted upon going along with us. She said it wasn"t fair to make you do all the work, and all that sort of thing, and I was having the devil"s own time to induce her to go back to the castle with Mr. Bangs. While we were arguing with her,--and it was getting so late that I feared we wouldn"t be in time to meet you,--we heard some one shouting on the opposite side of the river. The voice sounded something like Britton"s, and the Countess insisted that there had been an accident and that you were hurt, Mr. Smart, and nothing would do but we must send Max and Rudolph over to see what the trouble was. It was raining cats and dogs, and I realised that it would be impossible for you to get a boatman on that side at that hour of the night,--it was nearly one,--so I sent the two Schmicks across. I"ve never seen a night as dark as it was.
The two little lanterns bobbing in the boat could hardly be seen through the torrents of rain, and it was next to impossible to see the lights on the opposite landing stage--just a dull, misty glow.
"To make the story short, Mrs. t.i.tus and her sons were over there, with absolutely no means of crossing the river. There were no boatmen, the ferry had stopped, and they were huddled under the eaves of the wharf building. Everything was closed and locked up for the night. The night-watchman and a policeman lit the pier lamps for them, but that"s as far as they"d go. It took two trips over to fetch the whole party across. Raining pitchforks all the time, you understand. Mrs. t.i.tus was foaming at the mouth because you don"t own a yacht or at least a launch with a canopy top, or a limousine body, or something of the sort.
"I didn"t have much of a chance to converse with her. The Countess tried to get her upstairs in the east wing but she wouldn"t climb another step. I forgot to mention that the windla.s.s was out of order and she had to climb the hill in mud six inches deep. The Schmicks carried her the last half of the distance. She insisted on sleeping in the hall or the study,--anywhere but upstairs. I a.s.sumed the responsibility of putting her in your bed, sir. It was either that or--"
I broke in sarcastically "You couldn"t have put her into your bed, I suppose."
"Not very handily, Mr. Smart," he said in an injured voice. "One of her sons occupied my bed. Of course, it was all right, because I didn"t intend to go to bed, as it happened. The older son went upstairs with the Countess. She gave up her bed to him, and then she and I sat up all night in the study waiting for a telephone message from you. The younger son explained a good many things to us that his mother absolutely refused to discuss, she was so mad when she got here. It seems she took it into her head at the last minute to charter a special train, but forgot to notify us of the switch in the plans. She travelled by the regular train from Paris to some place along the line, where she got out and waited for the special which was following along behind, straight through from Paris, too. A woeful waste of money, it seemed to me. Her idea was to throw a couple of plain-clothes men off the track, and, by George, sir, she succeeded. They thought she was changing from a train to some place in Switzerland, and went off to watch the other station. Then she sneaked aboard the special, which was chartered clear through to Vienna. See how clever she is? If they followed on the next train, or telegraphed, it would naturally be to Vienna. She got off at this place and--well, we have her with us, sir, as snug as a bug in a rug."
"What is she like, Fred?" I inquired. I confess that I hung on his reply.
"I have never seen a wet hen, but I should say, on a guess, that she"s a good bit like one. Perhaps when she"s thoroughly dried out she may not be so bad, but--" He drew a long, deep breath. "But, upon my word of honour, she was the limit last night. Of course one couldn"t expect her to be exactly gracious, with her hair plastered over her face and her hat spoiled and her clothes soaked, but there was really no excuse for some of the things she said to me. I shall overlook them for your sake and for the Countess"s." He was painfully red in the face.
"The conditions, Fred," I said, "were scarcely conducive to polite persiflage."
"But, hang it all, I was as wet as she was," he exploded, so violently that I knew his soul must have been tried to the utmost.
"We must try to make the best of it," I said. "It will not be for long." The thought of it somehow sent my heart back to its lowest level.
He was glum and silent for a few minutes. Then he said, as if the thought had been on his mind for some hours: "She isn"t a day over forty-five. It doesn"t seem possible, with a six-foot son twenty-six years old."
Grimly I explained. "They marry quite young when it"s for money, Fred."
"I suppose that"s it," he sighed. "I fancy she"s handsome, too, when she hasn"t been rained upon."
We were half way up the slope when he announced nervously that all of my dry clothing was in the closet off my bedroom and could not be got at under any circ.u.mstance.
"But," he said, "I have laid out my best frock coat and trousers for you, and a complete change of linen. You are quite welcome to anything I possess, Mr. Smart. I think if you take a couple of rolls at the bottom of the trousers, they"ll be presentable. The coat may be a little long for you, but--"
My loud laughter cut him short.
"It"s the best I could do," he said in an aggrieved voice.
I had a secret hope that the Countess would be in the courtyard to welcome me, but I was disappointed. Old Gretel met me and wept over me, as if I was not already sufficiently moist. The chef came running out to say that breakfast would be ready for me when I desired it; Blatchford felt of my coat sleeve and told me that I was quite wet; Hawkes had two large, steaming toddies waiting for us in the vestibule, apparently fearing that we could get no farther without the aid of a stimulant. But there was no sign of a single t.i.tus.
Later I ventured forth in p.o.o.pend.y.k.e"s best suit of clothes--the one he uses when he pa.s.ses the plate on Sundays in far-away Yonkers. It smelled of moth-b.a.l.l.s, but it was gloriously dry, so why carp! We sneaked down the corridor past my own bedroom door and stole into the study.
Just inside the door, I stopped in amazement. The Countess was sound asleep in my big armchair, a forlorn but lovely thing in a pink peignoir. Her rumpled brown hair nestled in the angle of the chair; her hands drooped listlessly at her sides; dark lashes lay upon the soft white cheeks; her lips were parted ever so slightly, and her bosom rose and fell in the long swell of perfect repose.
p.o.o.pend.y.k.e clutched me by the arm and drew me toward the door, or I might have stood there transfixed for heaven knows how long.
"She"s asleep," he whispered.
It was the second time in twelve hours that some one had intimated that I was blind.
CHAPTER XVI
I INDULGE IN PLAIN LANGUAGE
The door creaked villainously. The gaunt, ecclesiastical tails of my borrowed frock coat were on the verge of being safely outside with me when she cried out. Whereupon I swiftly transposed myself, and stuck my head through the half-open door.
"Oh, it"s you!" she cried, in a quavery voice. She was leaning forward in the chair, her eyes wide open and eager.
I advanced into the room. A look of doubt sprang into her face. She stared for a moment and then rather piteously rubbed her eyes.
"Yes, it is I," said I, spreading my arms in such a way that my hands emerged from the confines of p.o.o.pend.y.k.e"s sleeves. (Upon my word, I had no idea that he was so much longer than I!) "It is still I, Countess, despite the shrinkage."
"The shrinkage?" she murmured, slowly sliding out of the chair. As she unbent her cramped leg, she made a little grimace of pain, but smiled as she limped toward me, her hand extended.
"Yes, I always shrink when I get wet," I explained, resorting to facetiousness.
Then I bent over her hand and kissed it. As I neglected to release it at once, the cuff of p.o.o.pend.y.k.e"s best coat slid down over our two hands, completely enveloping them. It was too much for me to stand.
I squeezed her hand with painful fervour, and then released it in trepidation.
"p.o.o.pend.y.k.e goes to church in it," I said vaguely, leaving her to guess what it was that p.o.o.pend.y.k.e went to church in, or, perhaps, knowing what I meant, how I happened to be in it for the time being. "You"ve been crying!"
Her eyes were red and suspiciously moist.
As she met my concerned gaze, a wavering, whimsical smile crept into her face.
"It has been a disgustingly wet night," she said. "Oh, you don"t know how happy I am to see you standing here once more, safe and sound, and--and amiable. I expected you to glower and growl and--"
"On a bright, glorious, sunshiny morning like this?" I cried. "Never!
I prefer to be graciously refulgent. Our troubles are behind us."
"How good you are." After a moment"s careful, scrutiny of my face: "I can see the traces of very black thoughts, Mr. Smart,--and recent ones."
"They were black until I came into this room," I confessed. "Now they are rose-tinted."
She bent her slender body a little toward me and the red seemed to leap back into her lips as if propelled by magic. Resolutely I put my awkward, ungainly arms behind my back, and straightened my figure. I was curiously impressed by the discovery that I was very, very tall and she very much smaller than my memory recorded. Of course, I had no means of knowing that she was in bedroom slippers and not in the customary high-heeled boots that gave her an inch and a half of false stature.