On the morning of the following day, while the Vidame strayed with Matilda in the park, Mrs. Brown-Smith was closeted with Mrs. Malory in her boudoir.
"Everything is arranged," said Mrs. Brown-Smith. "I, guilty and reckless that I am, have only to sacrifice my character, and all my things. But I am to retain Methven, my maid. That concession I have won from his chivalry."
"How do you mean?" asked Mrs. Malory.
"At seven he will get a telegram summoning him to Paris on urgent business. He will leave in your station brougham in time to catch the 9.50 up train at Wilkington. Or, rather, so impatient is he, he will leave half an hour too early, for fear of accidental delays. I and my maid will accompany him. I have thought honesty the best policy, and told the truth, like Bismarck, "and the same,"" said Mrs. Brown-Smith hysterically, ""with intent to deceive." I have pointed out to him that my best plan is to pretend to you that I am going to meet my husband, who really arrives at Wilkington from Liverpool by the 9.17, though the Vidame thinks that is an invention of mine. So, you see, I leave without any secrecy, or fuss, or luggage, and, when my husband comes here, he will find me flown, and will have to console himself with my luggage and jewels. He--this Frenchified beast, I mean--has written a note for your daughter, which he will give to her maid, and, of course, the maid will hand it to _you_. So he will have burned his boats. And then you can show it to Matilda, and so," said Mrs. Brown-Smith, "the miracle of opening her eyes will be worked. Johnnie, my husband, and I will be hungry when we return about half-past ten. And I think you had better telegraph that there is whooping cough, or bubonic plague, or something in the house, and put off your shooting party."
"But that would be an untruth," said Mrs. Malory.
"And what have I been acting for the last ten days?" asked Mrs. Brown- Smith, rather tartly. "You must settle your excuse with your conscience."
"The cook"s mother really is ill," said Mrs. Malory, "and she wants dreadfully to go and see her. That would do."
"All things work together for good. The cook must have a telegram also,"
said Mrs. Brown-Smith.
The day, which had been extremely hot, clouded over. By five it was raining: by six there was a deluge. At seven, Matilda and the Vidame were evicted from their dusky window seat by the butler with a damp telegraph envelope. The Vidame opened it, and handed it to Matilda. His presence at Paris was instantly demanded. The Vidame was desolated, but his absence could not be for more than five days. Bradshaw was hunted for, and found: the 9.50 train was opportune. The Vidame"s man packed his clothes. Mrs. Brown-Smith was apprised of these occurrences in the drawing-room before dinner.
"I am very sorry for dear Matilda," she cried. "But it is an ill wind that blows n.o.body good. I will drive over with the Vidame and astonish my Johnnie by greeting him at the station. I must run and change my dress."
She ran, she returned in morning costume, she heard from Mrs. Malory of the summons by telegram calling the cook to her moribund mother. "I must send her over to the station in a dog-cart," said Mrs. Malory.
"Oh no," cried Mrs. Brown-Smith, with impetuous kindness, "not on a night like this; it is a cataclysm. There will be plenty of room for the cook as well as for Methven and me, and the Vidame, in the brougham. Or _he_ can sit on the box."
The Vidame really behaved very well. The introduction of the cook, to quote an old novelist, "had formed no part of his profligate scheme of pleasure." To elope from a hospitable roof, with a married lady, accompanied by her maid, might be an act not without precedent. But that a cook should come to form _une partie carree_, on such an occasion, that a lover should be squeezed with three women in a brougham, was a trying novelty.
The Vidame smiled, "An artist so excellent," he said, "deserves a far greater sacrifice."
So it was arranged. After a tender and solitary five minutes with Matilda, the Vidame stepped, last, into the brougham. The coachman whipped up the horses, Matilda waved her kerchief from the porch, the guilty lovers drove away. Presently Mrs. Malory received, from her daughter"s maid, the letter destined by the Vidame for Matilda. Mrs.
Malory locked it up in her despatch box.
The runaways, after a warm and uncomfortable drive of three-quarters of an hour, during which the cook wept bitterly and was very unwell, reached the station. Contrary to the Vidame"s wish, Mrs. Brown-Smith, in an ulster and a veil, insisted on perambulating the platform, buying the whole of Mr. Hall Caine"s works as far as they exist in sixpenny editions. Bells rang, porters stationed themselves in a line, like fielders, a train arrived, the 9.17 from Liverpool, twenty minutes late.
A short stout gentleman emerged from a smoking carriage, Mrs.
Brown-Smith, starting from the Vidame"s side, raised her veil, and threw her arms round the neck of the traveller.
"You didn"t expect _me_ to meet you on such a night, did you, Johnnie?"
she cried with a break in her voice.
"Awfully glad to see you, Tiny," said the short gentleman. "On such a night!"
After thus unconsciously quoting the _Merchant of Venice_, Mr.
Brown-Smith turned to his valet. "Don"t forget the fishing-rods," he said.
"I took the opportunity of driving over with a gentleman from Upwold,"
said Mrs. Brown-Smith. "Let me introduce him. Methven," to her maid, "where is the Vidame de la Lain?"
"I heard him say that he must help Mrs. Andrews, the cook, to find a seat, Ma"am," said the maid.
"He really _is_ kind," said Mrs. Brown-Smith, "but I fear we can"t wait to say good-bye to him."
Three-quarters of an hour later, Mr. Brown-Smith and his wife were at supper at Upwold.
Next day, as the cook"s departure had postponed the shooting party, they took leave of their hostess, and returned to their moors in Perthshire.
Weeks pa.s.sed, with no message from the Vidame. He did not answer a letter which Mrs. Malory allowed Matilda to write. The mother never showed to the girl the note which he had left with her maid. The absence and the silence of the lover were enough. Matilda never knew that among the four packed in the brougham on that night of rain, one had been eloping with a married lady--who returned to supper.
The papers were "requested to state that the marriage announced between the Vidame de la Lain and Miss Malory will not take place." Why it did not take place was known only to Mrs. Malory, Mrs. Brown-Smith, and Merton.
Matilda thought that her lover had been kidnapped and arrested, by the Secret Police of France, for his part in a scheme to restore the Royal House, the White Flag, the Lilies, the children of St. Louis. At Mrs.
Brown-Smith"s place in Perthshire, in the following autumn, Matilda met Sir Aylmer Jardine. Then she knew that what she had taken for love (in the previous year) had been,
"Not love, but love"s first flush in youth."
They always do make that discovery, bless them! Lady Jardine is now wrapped up in her baby boy. The mother of the cook recovered her health.
IX. ADVENTURE OF THE LADY NOVELIST AND THE VACCINATIONIST
"Mr. Frederick Warren"--so Merton read the card presented to him on a salver of Limoges enamel by the office-boy.
"Show the gentleman in."
Mr. Warren entered. He was a tall and portly person, with a red face, red whiskers, and a tightly b.u.t.toned frock-coat, which more expressed than hid his goodly and prominent proportions. He bowed, and Merton invited him to be seated. It struck Merton as a singular circ.u.mstance that his visitor wore on each arm the crimson badge of the newly vaccinated.
Mr. Warren sat down, and, taking a red silk handkerchief out of the crown of his hat, he wiped his countenance. The day was torrid, and Mr. Merton hospitably offered an effervescent draught.
"Without the whisky, if you please, sir," said Mr. Warren, in a provincial accent. He pointed to a blue ribbon in the b.u.t.tonhole of his coat, indicating that he was conscientiously opposed to the use of alcoholic refreshment in all its forms.
"Two gla.s.ses of Apollinaris water," said Merton to the office-boy; and the innocent fluid was brought, while Merton silently admired his client"s arrangement in blue and crimson. When the thirst of that gentleman had been a.s.suaged, he entered upon business thus:
"Sir, I am a man of principle!"
Merton congratulated him; the age was lax, he said, and principle was needed. He wondered internally what he was going to be asked to subscribe to, or whether his vote only was required.
"Sir, have you been vaccinated?" asked the client earnestly.
"Really," said Merton, "I do not quite understand your interest in a matter so purely personal."
"Personal, sir? Not at all. It is the first of public duties--the debt that every man, woman, and child owes to his or her country. Have you been vaccinated, sir?"
"Why, if you insist on knowing," said Merton, "I have, though I do not see--"
"Recently?" asked the visitor.
"Yes, last month; but I cannot conjecture why--"