"How in the world does she know them?" thought the bewildered officer.
The children mounted the elephant.
"Now, Major Apsley," said Miss Blossom, "I have found your children."
"I owe you thanks, Madam; I have been very anxious, but--"
"It is more than your thanks I want. I want you to do something for me, a very little thing," said Miss Blossom, with the air of a supplicating angel, the violet eyes dewy with tears.
"I am sure I shall be delighted to do anything you ask, but--"
"Will you _promise_? It is a very little thing indeed!" and her hands were clasped in entreaty. "Please promise!"
"Well, I promise."
"Then keep your word: it is a little thing! Take Tommy home this instant, let n.o.body speak to him or touch him--and--make him take a bath, and see him take it."
"Take a bath!"
"Yes, at once, in your presence. Then ask him . . . any questions you please, but pay extreme attention to his answers and his face, and the sound of his voice. If that is not enough do the same with Batsy. And after that I think you had better not let the children out of your sight for a short time."
"These are very strange requests."
"And it was by a strange piece of luck that I met you driving home to see if the lost children were found, and secured your attention before it could be pre-engaged."
"But where did you find them and why?"
Miss Blossom interrupted him, "Here is the address of Dr. Maitland, I have written it on my own card; he can answer some questions you may want to ask. Later I will answer anything. And now in the name of G.o.d," said the girl reverently, with sudden emotion, "you will keep your promise to the letter?"
"I will," said the Major, and Miss Blossom waved her parasol to the children. "You must give the poor elephant a rest, he is tired," she cried, and the tender-hearted Batsy needed no more to make her descend from the great earth-shaking beast. The children attacked her with kisses, and then walked off, looking back, each holding one of the paternal hands, and treading, after the manner of childhood, on the paternal toes.
Miss Blossom walked till she met an opportune omnibus.
About an hour later a four-wheeler bore a woman with blazing eyes, and a pile of trunks gaping untidily, from the Major"s house in St. John"s Wood Road.
The Honourable Company had won its first victory: Major Apsley, having fulfilled Miss Blossom"s commands, had seen what she expected him to see, and was disentangled from Miss Limmer.
The children still call their new stepmother None-so-pretty.
IV. ADVENTURE OF THE RICH UNCLE
"His G.o.d is his belly, Mr. Graham," said the client, "and if the text strikes you as disagreeably unrefined, think how it must pain me to speak thus of an uncle, if only by marriage."
The client was a meagre matron of forty-five, or thereabouts. Her dark scant hair was smooth, and divided down the middle. Acerbity spoke in every line of her face, which was of a dusky yellow, where it did not rather verge on the faint hues of a violet past its prime. She wore thread gloves, and she carried a battered reticule of early Victorian days, in which Merton suspected that tracts were lurking. She had an anxious peevish mouth; in truth she was not the kind of client in whom Merton"s heart delighted.
And yet he was sorry for her, especially as her rich uncle"s cook was the G.o.ddess of the gentleman whose G.o.d had just been denounced in scriptural terms by the client, a Mrs. Gisborne. She was sad, as well she might be, for she was a struggler, with a large family, and great expectations from the polytheistic uncle who adored his cook and one of his n.o.bler organs.
"What has his history been, this gentleman"s--Mr. Fulton, I think you called him?"
"He was a drysalter in the City, sir," and across Merton"s mind flitted a vision of a dark shop with Finnan haddocks, bacon, and tongues in the window, and smelling terribly of cheese.
"Oh, a drysalter?" he said, not daring to display ignorance by asking questions to corroborate his theory of the drysalting business.
"A drysalter, sir, and isingla.s.s importer."
Merton was conscious of vagueness as to isingla.s.s, and was distantly reminded of a celebrated racehorse. However, it was clear that Mr.
Fulton was a retired tradesman of some kind. "He went out of isingla.s.s--before the cheap scientific subst.i.tute was invented (it is made out of old quill pens)--with seventy-five thousand pounds. And it _ought_ to come to my children. He has not another relation living but ourselves; he married my aunt. But we never see him: he said that he could not stand our Sunday dinners at Hampstead."
A feeling not remote from sympathy with Mr. Fulton stole over Merton"s mind as he pictured these festivals. "Is his G.o.d very--voluminous?"
Mrs. Gisborne stared.
"Is he a very portly gentleman?"
"No, Mr. Graham, he is next door to a skeleton, though you would not expect it, considering."
"Considering his devotion to the pleasures of the table?"
"Gluttony, shameful waste _I_ call it. And he is a stumbling block and a cause of offence to others. He is a patron of the City and Suburban College of Cookery, and founded two scholarships there, for scholars learning how to pamper the--"
"The epicure," said Merton. He knew the City and Suburban College of Cookery. One of his band, a Miss Frere, was a Fellow and Tutor of that academy.
"And about what age is your uncle?" he asked.
"About sixty, and not a white hair on his head."
"Then he may marry his cook?"
"He will, sir."
"And is very likely to have a family."
Mrs. Gisborne sniffed, and produced a pocket handkerchief from the early Victorian reticule. She applied the handkerchief to her eyes in silence.
Merton observed her with pity. "We need the money so; there are so many of us," said the lady.
"Do you think that Mr. Fulton is--pa.s.sionately in love, with his domestic?"
"He only loves his meals," said Mrs. Gisborne; "_he_ does not want to marry her, but she has a hold over him through--his--"
"Pa.s.sions, not of the heart," said Merton hastily. He dreaded an anatomical reference.
"He is afraid of losing her. He and his cronies give each other dinners, jealous of each other they are; and he actually pays the woman two hundred a year."
"And beer money?" said Merton. He had somewhere read or heard of beer money as an item in domestic finance.