"Those things are not important," said Mrs. Eggelby, "but-"
"The fact that we"ve both forgotten them proves that they are important,"
said Clovis; "you must have noticed that it"s always the important things that one forgets, while the trivial, unnecessary facts of life stick in one"s memory. There"s my cousin, Editha Clubberley, for instance; I can never forget that her birthday is on the 12th of October. It"s a matter of utter indifference to me on what date her birthday falls, or whether she was born at all; either fact seems to me absolutely trivial, or unnecessary-I"ve heaps of other cousins to go on with. On the other hand, when I"m staying with Hildegarde Shrubley I can never remember the important circ.u.mstance whether her first husband got his unenviable reputation on the Turf or the Stock Exchange, and that uncertainty rules Sport and Finance out of the conversation at once. One can never mention travel, either, because her second husband had to live permanently abroad."
"Mrs. Shrubley and I move in very different circles," said Mrs. Eggelby stiffly.
"No one who knows Hildegarde could possibly accuse her of moving in a circle," said Clovis; "her view of life seems to be a non-stop run with an inexhaustible supply of petrol. If she can get some one else to pay for the petrol so much the better. I don"t mind confessing to you that she has taught me more than any other woman I can think of."
"What kind of knowledge?" demanded Mrs. Eggelby, with the air a jury might collectively wear when finding a verdict without leaving the box.
"Well, among other things, she"s introduced me to at least four different ways of cooking lobster," said Clovis gratefully. "That, of course, wouldn"t appeal to you; people who abstain from the pleasures of the card-table never really appreciate the finer possibilities of the dining-table. I suppose their powers of enlightened enjoyment get atrophied from disuse."
"An aunt of mine was very ill after eating a lobster," said Mrs. Eggelby.
"I daresay, if we knew more of her history, we should find out that she"d often been ill before eating the lobster. Aren"t you concealing the fact that she"d had measles and influenza and nervous headache and hysteria, and other things that aunts do have, long before she ate the lobster?
Aunts that have never known a day"s illness are very rare; in fact, I don"t personally know of any. Of course if she ate it as a child of two weeks old it might have been her first illness-and her last. But if that was the case I think you should have said so."
"I must be going," said Mrs. Eggelby, in a tone which had been thoroughly sterilised of even perfunctory regret.
Clovis rose with an air of graceful reluctance.
"I have so enjoyed our little talk about Eric," he said; "I quite look forward to meeting him some day."
"Good-bye," said Mrs. Eggelby frostily; the supplementary remark which she made at the back of her throat was-
"I"ll take care that you never shall!"
A HOLIDAY TASK
Kenelm Jerton entered the dining-hall of the Golden Galleon Hotel in the full crush of the luncheon hour. Nearly every seat was occupied, and small additional tables had been brought in, where floor s.p.a.ce permitted, to accommodate latecomers, with the result that many of the tables were almost touching each other. Jerton was beckoned by a waiter to the only vacant table that was discernible, and took his seat with the uncomfortable and wholly groundless idea that nearly every one in the room was staring at him. He was a youngish man of ordinary appearance, quiet of dress and un.o.btrusive of manner, and he could never wholly rid himself of the idea that a fierce light of public scrutiny beat on him as though he had been a notability or a super-nut. After he had ordered his lunch there came the unavoidable interval of waiting, with nothing to do but to stare at the flower-vase on his table and to be stared at (in imagination) by several flappers, some maturer beings of the same s.e.x, and a satirical-looking Jew. In order to carry off the situation with some appearance of unconcern he became spuriously interested in the contents of the flower-vase.
"What is the name of these roses, d"you know?" he asked the waiter. The waiter was ready at all times to conceal his ignorance concerning items of the wine-list or menu; he was frankly ignorant as to the specific name of the roses.
"_Amy Sylvester Partington_," said a voice at Jerton"s elbow.
The voice came from a pleasant-faced, well-dressed young woman who was sitting at a table that almost touched Jerton"s. He thanked her hurriedly and nervously for the information, and made some inconsequent remark about the flowers.
"It is a curious thing," said the young woman, that, "I should be able to tell you the name of those roses without an effort of memory, because if you were to ask me my name I should be utterly unable to give it to you."
Jerton had not harboured the least intention of extending his thirst for name-labels to his neighbour. After her rather remarkable announcement, however, he was obliged to say something in the way of polite inquiry.
"Yes," answered the lady, "I suppose it is a case of partial loss of memory. I was in the train coming down here; my ticket told me that I had come from Victoria and was bound for this place. I had a couple of five-pound notes and a sovereign on me, no visiting cards or any other means of identification, and no idea as to who I am. I can only hazily recollect that I have a t.i.tle; I am Lady Somebody-beyond that my mind is a blank."
"Hadn"t you any luggage with you?" asked Jerton.
"That is what I didn"t know. I knew the name of this hotel and made up my mind to come here, and when the hotel porter who meets the trains asked if I had any luggage I had to invent a dressing-bag and dress-basket; I could always pretend that they had gone astray. I gave him the name of Smith, and presently he emerged from a confused pile of luggage and pa.s.sengers with a dressing-bag and dress-basket labelled Kestrel-Smith. I had to take them; I don"t see what else I could have done."
Jerton said nothing, but he rather wondered what the lawful owner of the baggage would do.
"Of course it was dreadful arriving at a strange hotel with the name of Kestrel-Smith, but it would have been worse to have arrived without luggage. Anyhow, I hate causing trouble."
Jerton had visions of hara.s.sed railway officials and distraught Kestrel-Smiths, but he made no attempt to clothe his mental picture in words. The lady continued her story.
"Naturally, none of my keys would fit the things, but I told an intelligent page boy that I had lost my key-ring, and he had the locks forced in a twinkling. Rather too intelligent, that boy; he will probably end in Dartmoor. The Kestrel-Smith toilet tools aren"t up to much, but they are better than nothing."
"If you feel sure that you have a t.i.tle," said Jerton, "why not get hold of a peerage and go right through it?"
"I tried that. I skimmed through the list of the House of Lords in "Whitaker," but a mere printed string of names conveys awfully little to one, you know. If you were an army officer and had lost your ident.i.ty you might pore over the Army List for months without finding out who your were. I"m going on another tack; I"m trying to find out by various little tests who I am _not_-that will narrow the range of uncertainty down a bit. You may have noticed, for instance, that I"m lunching princ.i.p.ally off lobster Newburg."
Jerton had not ventured to notice anything of the sort.
"It"s an extravagance, because it"s one of the most expensive dishes on the menu, but at any rate it proves that I"m not Lady Starping; she never touches sh.e.l.l-fish, and poor Lady Braddleshrub has no digestion at all; if I am _her_ I shall certainly die in agony in the course of the afternoon, and the duty of finding out who I am will devolve on the press and the police and those sort of people; I shall be past caring. Lady Knewford doesn"t know one rose from another and she hates men, so she wouldn"t have spoken to you in any case; and Lady Mousehilton flirts with every man she meets-I haven"t flirted with you, have I?"
Jerton hastily gave the required a.s.surance.
"Well, you see," continued the lady, "that knocks four off the list at once."
"It"ll be rather a lengthy process bringing the list down to one," said Jerton.
"Oh, but, of course, there are heaps of them that I couldn"t possibly be-women who"ve got grandchildren or sons old enough to have celebrated their coming of age. I"ve only got to consider the ones about my own age. I tell you how you might help me this afternoon, if you don"t mind; go through any of the back numbers of _Country Life_ and those sort of papers that you can find in the smoking-room, and see if you come across my portrait with infant son or anything of that sort. It won"t take you ten minutes. I"ll meet you in the lounge about tea-time. Thanks awfully."
And the Fair Unknown, having graciously pressed Jerton into the search for her lost ident.i.ty, rose and left the room. As she pa.s.sed the young man"s table she halted for a moment and whispered:
"Did you notice that I tipped the waiter a shilling? We can cross Lady Ulwight off the list; she would have died rather than do that."
At five o"clock Jerton made his way to the hotel lounge; he had spent a diligent but fruitless quarter of an hour among the ill.u.s.trated weeklies in the smoking-room. His new acquaintance was seated at a small tea-table, with a waiter hovering in attendance.
"China tea or Indian?" she asked as Jerton came up.
"China, please, and nothing to eat. Have you discovered anything?"
"Only negative information. I"m not Lady Befnal. She disapproves dreadfully of any form of gambling, so when I recognised a well-known book maker in the hotel lobby I went and put a tenner on an unnamed filly by William the Third out of Mitrovitza for the three-fifteen race. I suppose the fact of the animal being nameless was what attracted me."
"Did it win?" asked Jerton.
"No, came in fourth, the most irritating thing a horse can do when you"ve backed it win or place. Anyhow, I know now that I"m not Lady Befnal."
"It seems to me that the knowledge was rather dearly bought," commented Jerton.
"Well, yes, it has rather cleared me out," admitted the ident.i.ty-seeker; "a florin is about all I"ve got left on me. The lobster Newburg made my lunch rather an expensive one, and, of course, I had to tip that boy for what he did to the Kestrel-Smith locks. I"ve got rather a useful idea, though. I feel certain that I belong to the Pivot Club; I"ll go back to town and ask the hall porter there if there are any letters for me. He knows all the members by sight, and if there are any letters or telephone messages waiting for me of course that will solve the problem. If he says there aren"t any I shall say: "You know who I am, don"t you?" so I"ll find out anyway."
The plan seemed a sound one; a difficulty in its execution suggested itself to Jerton.
"Of course," said the lady, when he hinted at the obstacle, "there"s my fare back to town, and my bill here and cabs and things. If you"ll lend me three pounds that ought to see me through comfortably. Thanks ever so. Then there is the question of that luggage: I don"t want to be saddled with that for the rest of my life. I"ll have it brought down to the hall and you can pretend to mount guard over it while I"m writing a letter. Then I shall just slip away to the station, and you can wander off to the smoking-room, and they can do what they like with the things.
They"ll advertise them after a bit and the owner can claim them."