"An" the young lidy said as "ow she"d write you a note explynin". So I tells Milly not to bother you no more abaht it, but put the "at-box in the keb, sir--wishin" not to "inder you."
"Thoughtful of you, I"m sure. But didn"t the--ah--woman who keeps the hat-shop mention the name of the--ah--person who purchased the hat?"
By the deepening of its corrugations, the forehead of Mrs. Gigg betrayed the intensity of her mental strain. Her eyes wore a far-away look and her lips moved, at first silently. Then--"I ain"t sure, sir, as she did nime the lidy, but _if_ she did, it was somethin" like Burnside, I fancy--or else Postlethwayt."
"Nor Jones nor Brown? Perhaps Robinson? Think, Mrs. Gigg! Not Robinson?"
"I"m sure it may "ave been eyether of them, sir, now you puts it to me pl"in."
"That makes everything perfectly clear. Thank you so much."
With this, Staff turned hastily away, nodded to his driver to cut along, and with groans and lamentations squeezed himself into what s.p.a.ce the bandbox did not demand of the interior of the vehicle.
III
TWINS
On the boat-train, en route for Liverpool, Mr. Staff found plenty of time to consider the affair of the foundling bandbox in every aspect with which a lively imagination could invest it; but to small profit. In fact, he was able to think of little else, with the d.a.m.ned thing smirking impishly at him from its perch on the opposite seat. He was vexed to exasperation by the consciousness that he couldn"t guess why or by whom it had been so cavalierly thrust into his keeping. Consequently he cudgelled his wits unmercifully in exhaustive and exhausting attempts to clothe it with a plausible _raison d"etre_.
He believed firmly that the Maison Lucille had acted in good faith; the name of Staff was too distinctive to admit of much lat.i.tude for error.
Nor was it difficult to conceive that this or that young woman of his acquaintance might have sent him the hat to take home for her--thus ridding herself of a c.u.mbersome package and neatly saddling him with all the bother of getting the thing through the customs. But ...! Who was there in London just then that knew him well enough so to presume upon his good nature? None that he could call to mind. Besides, how in the name of all things inexplicable had anybody found out his intention of sailing on the Autocratic, that particular day?--something of which he himself had yet to be twenty-four hours aware!
His conclusions may be summed up under two heads: (a) there wasn"t any answer; (b) it was all an unmitigated nuisance. And so thinking, divided between despair and disgust, Mr. Staff gave the problem up against his arrival on board the steamship. There remained to him a single gleam of hope: a note of explanation had been promised; he thought it just possible that it might have been sent to the steamship rather than to his lodgings in London.
Therefore, the moment he set foot aboard the ship, he consigned his hand-luggage to a steward, instructing the fellow where to take it, and hurried off to the dining-saloon where, upon a table round which pa.s.sengers buzzed like flies round a sugar-lump, letters and telegrams for the departing were displayed. But he could find nothing for Mr.
Benjamin Staff.
Disappointed and indignant to the point of suppressed profanity, he elbowed out of the thronged saloon just in time to espy a steward (quite another steward: not him with whom Staff had left his things) struggling up the main companionway under the handicap of several articles of luggage which Staff didn"t recognise, and one which he a.s.sured himself he did: a bandbox as like the cause of all his perturbation as one piano-case resembles another.
Now if quite out of humour with the bandbox and all that appertained thereunto, the temper of the young man was such that he was by no means prepared to see it confiscated without his knowledge or consent. In two long strides he overhauled the steward, plucked him back with a peremptory hand, and abashed him with a stern demand:
"I say! where the devil do you think you"re going, my man?"
His man showed a face of dashed amazement.
"Beg pardon, sir! Do you mean _me_?"
"Most certainly I mean you. That"s my bandbox. What are you doing with it?"
Looking guiltily from his face to the article in question, the steward flushed and stammered--culpability incarnate, thought Staff.
"Your bandbox, sir?"
"Do you think I"d go charging all over this ship for a silly bandbox that wasn"t mine?"
"But, sir--"
"I tell you, it"s mine. It"s tagged with my name. Where"s the steward I left it with?"
"But, sir," pleaded the accused, "this belongs to this lidy "ere. I"m just tikin" it to "er st.i.teroom, sir."
Staff"s gaze followed the man"s nod, and for the first time he became aware that a young woman stood a step or two above them, half turned round to attend to the pa.s.sage, her air and expression seeming to indicate a combination of amus.e.m.e.nt and impatience.
Precipitately the young man removed his hat. Through the confusion clouding his thoughts, he both foreglimpsed humiliation and was dimly aware of a personality of force and charm: of a well-poised figure cloaked in a light pongee travelling-wrap; of a face that seemed to consist chiefly in dark eyes glowing lambent in the shadow of a wide-brimmed, flopsy hat. He was sensitive to a hint of breeding and reserve in the woman"s att.i.tude; as though (he thought) the contretemps diverted and engaged her more than he did who was responsible for it.
He addressed her in a diffident and uncertain voice: "I beg pardon...."
"The box is mine," she affirmed with a cool and even gravity. "The steward is right."
He choked back a counterclaim, which would have been unmannerly, and in his embarra.s.sment did something that he instantly realised was even worse, approaching downright insolence in that it demanded confirmation of her word: he bent forward and glanced at the tag on the bandbox.
It was labelled quite legibly with the name of Miss Eleanor Searle.
He coloured, painfully contrite. "I"m sorry," he stammered.
"I--ah--happen to have with me the precise duplicate of this box. I didn"t at first realise that it might have a--ah--twin."
The young woman inclined her head distantly.
"I understand," she said, turning away. "Come, steward, if you please."
"I"m very sorry--very," Staff said hastily in intense mortification.
Miss Searle did not reply; she had already resumed her upward progress.
Her steward followed, openly grinning.
Since it is not considered good form to kick a steward for knowing an a.s.s when he meets one, Staff could no more than turn away, disguise the unholy emotions that fermented in his heart, and seek his stateroom.
"It _had_ to be me!" he groaned.
Stateroom 432-433 proved to be very much occupied when he found it--chiefly, to be sure, by the bandbox, which took up most of the floor s.p.a.ce. Round it were grouped in various att.i.tudes of dejection sundry other pieces of travelling-gear and Mr. Iff. The latter was sitting on the edge of the lower berth, his hands in his pockets, his brow puckered with perplexity, his gaze fixed in fascination to the bandbox. On Staff"s entrance he looked up.
"h.e.l.lo!" he said crisply.
"Afternoon," returned Staff with all the morose dignity appropriate to severely wounded self-esteem.
Iff indicated the bandbox with a delicate gesture.
"No wonder," he observed mildly, "you wanted the ship to yourself."
Staff grunted irritably and, picking his way through and over the mound of luggage, deposited himself on the transom opposite the berths.
"A present for the missis, I take it?" pursued Iff.
"You might take it, and welcome, for all of me.... Only it isn"t mine.
_And_ I am not married."