"Do you know, Admiral," she began, "yesterday I made such a silly mistake. I called at your house, and I left the wrong card."
"The servant told me something about it. She said that you left a card with the name of "Dowsett" on it."
"That is so--Dowsett." She leaned back in the carriage. She shaded herself with her parasol in such a way that, while her face must have been invisible to the people on the front, it was visible enough to me. She looked supremely lovely. No wonder all the men were after her--the beggars. "Do you know, Admiral, that, at one time, I had almost made up my mind to enter Beachington under false colours."
I asked her to explain. She did explain.
"You know that we, who, so to speak, are born in the purple, have moments in our lives in which we are conscious that t.i.tle and honours are--what shall I say?--mere fripperies. One longs, now and then, to step down from the pedestal on which chance, rather than our desert, has placed us, and become--what shall I say again?--one of the ma.s.ses.
I don"t know how it may be with others in my position, but it is often so with me. And to such an extent, that at one time I even thought of coming to Beachington as plain Mrs Dowsett. I thought it would be such fun, so obviously ridiculous, you know. I even had cards printed with the name of Dowsett on them. Wasn"t it a curious fancy? I suppose one of them got mixed up with my own cards, and, in my silly way, I left it at your house by mistake." She paused, then she added: "My husband"s name was Dowsett. He was an American of the finest kind. He was what they call in America, One of the Four Hundred."
"Then, if your husband"s name was Dowsett, I presume that your name is Dowsett, too. So that you are Mrs Dowsett after all."
"My dear Admiral! Once a Princess always a Princess. I do not cease to be the Princess Margaretta because, by accident, I chance to have had a husband who was a commoner."
She said this in a way which showed that I had wounded her sensibilities.
Then I tried to bring the subject round to young Charles Marchmont. I got there by degrees. She caught up the hints I dropped with a quickness which confounded me.
"Poor Mr Marchmont! He is so utterly in love with me!"
"In love with you--Charles Marchmont!"
I stared. I almost let out that the young scoundrel was, nominally, engaged to Daisy--my little girl. But I did not choose to give my child away even to the Princess Margaretta.
"He has given me a hundred pounds."
I almost sprang from the carriage seat.
"Charles Marchmont has given you a hundred pounds!"
"I have not told him so, but I have almost made up my mind to devote it to the Russian Jews. It makes one so sad to think of them--don"t you think that it makes one sad? All the world knows how deeply I am interested in the sufferings of my unfortunate compatriots. Because they are Hebrews, is that a reason why we should give them stones instead of bread? Oh, no! Are they not my fellow-creatures? But every one in Beachington has made my sympathies his own. It is beautiful!"
The lovely creature wiped her lovely eyes. "Every one has showered gifts upon me--gifts of money and of money"s worth. Even Mr Rouse has given me five pounds and a ring which was his mother"s."
Poor Rouse! I doubt if he had any private means to speak of, and I know that the income from his curacy was only sixty pounds a year.
It is incredible--I am ashamed of myself when I think of it--but before I got out of that carriage, I actually gave her all the money I had in my purse. To the relief of the Russian Jews, I understood that it was to be devoted at the time, though I am free to admit that she did not make an exact statement of the fact. I did not dare to tell Mrs Beamish what I had done. I have never dared to tell her to this hour.
Two nights after Douglas came up to me on the pier. He was beaming with something--possibly with rapture. When he saw me, in the dim light, he rubbed his hands together--in a way he has.
"Congratulate me, Beamish! Congratulate me, my dear Beamish."
Before I congratulate a man, I like to know what I am expected to congratulate him on. I told him so. He dropped his voice to a sort of confidential whisper.
"She has promised to make me happy."
"She? Who?"
"The Princess Margaretta." He drew himself up. Douglas is a tall, thin man, so perhaps he thought that he would make himself still taller.
"The Princess Margaretta, Beamish, that august and most beautiful lady, has, scarcely an hour ago--most auspicious hour of my existence!--promised to be my wife."
I was dumbfounded. I could only stare. Douglas is an old Indian Civil.
He was Resident of--somewhere or other, I forget the name of the place. The driest old stick I ever yet encountered. As much fitted to be the husband of a fair young creature like the Princess Margaretta as--as I am.
"Yes, Beamish, I am to be married at last."
And quite time, too, ancient imbecile. I felt inclined to kick him as he stood there, smirking and twiddling his watch-chain.
"I have been making matrimonial approaches towards the Princess Margaretta almost since the moment in which she arrived at Beachington. I felt that such a woman as that must be mine, though, at the same time, I scarcely dared to hope. But the Princess is a woman of the widest sympathies. I am inclined to the belief that it is because I have made her sympathies my own that I have made her heart mine also. I presented her this afternoon with a cheque for a thousand guineas to be devoted to a cause in which she is much interested--the relief of the Russian Jews. It was, perhaps, for a person in my circ.u.mstances, a rash thing to do. But I do not regret it, for I am persuaded that it was that spontaneous act upon my part which induced her to say "yes" to my whispered prayers."
I moved away from him; I could not congratulate him--I could not! I fancy that he was so lifted up in the seventh heaven of his happiness that he never noticed the omission.
On the other side of the pier I came upon Macbride. Macbride is a Yankee--a New England man; as keen and cute, and yet as nice a fellow as you would care to meet. He spends three or four months of every year in England on business, and, during that time, he is continually in and out of Beachington.
He was leaning over the railings, looking down at the sea, when I came up to him.
"Macbride," I said, "did you ever hear anything in the States of a man named Dowsett?"
He knew what I was driving at immediately. That man knows everything!
"The Princess"s Dowsett?"
"That"s it. I see you know that her husband"s name was Dowsett."
Macbride considered a moment before he spoke.
"It"s my opinion that there never was a Dowsett."
"Macbride! Why, she told me so herself!"
"I imagine that she may have told you a good many things which belong to that order of fiction which is distinctly a stranger to truth." He was silent; although I could not see his face, I guessed, somehow, he was smiling. "It is my further opinion--I mention it to you, because I think that you are beginning to suspect as much yourself--that the Princess is no better than she ought to be."
I gasped. If she had been doing us! What would Mrs Beamish say? I had staked my reputation on the woman.
"Do you know that she has promised to marry Douglas?"
"I know she has. I also know--from her own lips, so the authority is an unquestionable one--that there is more than one man in Beachington who is under the pleasing impression that she has promised to marry him. For instance, she has more than half promised to marry me. And I, for my part, am more than half inclined to marry her."
"Macbride! when you say that you think she is no better than she ought to be!"
"If you consider, how many women are there who are any better than they ought to be? Where shall you find a perfect woman? And Heaven protect us from her when she"s found. Possibly you misconstrue my meaning. When I state that I believe her to be no better than she ought to be, I make a statement which, in my judgment, applies to all the women I ever met, not to speak of all the men. I think--I am not sure, but I think--that I understand the Princess Margaretta. I think, also, that she understands me. There is one advantage gained--a common understanding--especially as I am myself, in some respects, a rather peculiar person." For the first time he stood up, turned, and faced me. "Beamish, the Princess Margaretta is a clever woman. What she wants is a clever man. With a clever man she might be happy, and she might make him happy. Her misfortune has been that, up to now, the men she has encountered have been, generally speaking, fools."
I could not make him out. And I not only could not make him out, but I did not know what to say to him. What can you say to a man who tells you that he thinks a woman is no better than she ought to be, and then, in the very same breath, that he is more than half inclined to marry her? And that when he knows that she has not only promised to marry another man, but, as he more than hints, half a dozen other men besides.
The following morning, just as I was going to start for my morning stroll, the servant came and said that a "gentleman" wished to see me.
She hesitated as she said "gentleman," as if she were doubtful if that word exactly applied.
"Admiral Beamish?" enquired the visitor as I entered the room into which the maid had shown him. I told him that I was that individual.
"Can you tell me what is my wife"s present address? She appears to have changed her lodging. I am Mr Dowsett."