To increase his discomfiture the march of events tended to shift the blame of ravaged chicken-coops from the supposed culprit who had already paid full forfeit; the young chicks were still carried off, and it seemed highly probable that the cat had only haunted the chicken-run to prey on the rats which harboured there. Through the flowing channels of servant talk the children learned of this belated revision of verdict, and Octavian one day picked up a sheet of copy-book paper on which was painstakingly written: "Beast. Rats eated your chickens." More ardently than ever did he wish for an opportunity for sloughing off the disgrace that enwrapped him, and earning some happier nickname from his three unsparing judges.
And one day a chance inspiration came to him. Olivia, his two-year-old daughter, was accustomed to spend the hour from high noon till one o"clock with her father while the nursemaid gobbled and digested her dinner and novelette. About the same time the blank wall was usually enlivened by the presence of its three small wardens. Octavian, with seeming carelessness of purpose, brought Olivia well within hail of the watchers and noted with hidden delight the growing interest that dawned in that hitherto sternly hostile quarter. His little Olivia, with her sleepy placid ways, was going to succeed where he, with his anxious well-meant overtures, had so signally failed. He brought her a large yellow dahlia, which she grasped tightly in one hand and regarded with a stare of benevolent boredom, such as one might bestow on amateur cla.s.sical dancing performed in aid of a deserving charity. Then he turned shyly to the group perched on the wall and asked with affected carelessness, "Do you like flowers?" Three solemn nods rewarded his venture.
"Which sorts do you like best?" he asked, this time with a distinct betrayal of eagerness in his voice.
"Those with all the colours, over there." Three chubby arms pointed to a distant tangle of sweet-pea. Child-like, they had asked for what lay farthest from hand, but Octavian trotted off gleefully to obey their welcome behest. He pulled and plucked with unsparing hand, and brought every variety of tint that he could see into his bunch that was rapidly becoming a bundle. Then he turned to retrace his steps, and found the blank wall blanker and more deserted than ever, while the foreground was void of all trace of Olivia. Far down the meadow three children were pushing a go-cart at the utmost speed they could muster in the direction of the piggeries; it was Olivia"s go-cart and Olivia sat in it, somewhat b.u.mped and shaken by the pace at which she was being driven, but apparently retaining her wonted composure of mind. Octavian stared for a moment at the rapidly moving group, and then started in hot pursuit, shedding as he ran sprays of blossom from the ma.s.s of sweet-pea that he still clutched in his hands. Fast as he ran the children had reached the piggery before he could overtake them, and he arrived just in time to see Olivia, wondering but unprotesting, hauled and pushed up to the roof of the nearest sty. They were old buildings in some need of repair, and the rickety roof would certainly not have borne Octavian"s weight if he had attempted to follow his daughter and her captors on their new vantage ground.
"What are you going to do with her?" he panted. There was no mistaking the grim trend of mischief in those flushed by sternly composed young faces.
"Hang her in chains over a slow fire," said one of the boys. Evidently they had been reading English history.
"Frow her down the pigs will d"vour her, every bit "cept the palms of her hands," said the other boy. It was also evident that they had studied Biblical history.
The last proposal was the one which most alarmed Octavian, since it might be carried into effect at a moment"s notice; there had been cases, he remembered, of pigs eating babies.
"You surely wouldn"t treat my poor little Olivia in that way?" he pleaded.
"You killed our little cat," came in stern reminder from three throats.
"I"m sorry I did," said Octavian, and if there is a standard measurement in truths Octavian"s statement was a.s.suredly a large nine.
"We shall be very sorry when we"ve killed Olivia," said the girl, "but we can"t be sorry till we"ve done it."
The inexorable child-logic rose like an unyielding rampart before Octavian"s scared pleadings. Before he could think of any fresh line of appeal his energies were called out in another direction. Olivia had slid off the roof and fallen with a soft, unctuous splash into a mora.s.s of muck and decaying straw. Octavian scrambled hastily over the pigsty wall to her rescue, and at once found himself in a quagmire that engulfed his feet. Olivia, after the first shock of surprise at her sudden drop through the air, had been mildly pleased at finding herself in close and unstinted contact with the sticky element that oozed around her, but as she began to sink gently into the bed of slime a feeling dawned on her that she was not after all very happy, and she began to cry in the tentative fashion of the normally good child. Octavian, battling with the quagmire, which seemed to have learned the rare art of giving way at all points without yielding an inch, saw his daughter slowly disappearing in the engulfing slush, her smeared face further distorted with the contortions of whimpering wonder, while from their perch on the pigsty roof the three children looked down with the cold unpitying detachment of the Parcae Sisters.
"I can"t reach her in time," gasped Octavian, "she"ll be choked in the muck. Won"t you help her?"
"No one helped our cat," came the inevitable reminder.
"I"ll do anything to show you how sorry I am about that," cried Octavian, with a further desperate flounder, which carried him scarcely two inches forward.
"Will you stand in a white sheet by the grave?"
"Yes," screamed Octavian.
"Holding a candle?"
"An" saying "I"m a miserable Beast"?"
Octavian agreed to both suggestions.
"For a long, long time?"
"For half an hour," said Octavian. There was an anxious ring in his voice as he named the time-limit; was there not the precedent of a German king who did open-air penance for several days and nights at Christmas-time clad only in his shirt? Fortunately the children did not appear to have read German history, and half an hour seemed long and goodly in their eyes.
"All right," came with threefold solemnity from the roof, and a moment later a short ladder had been laboriously pushed across to Octavian, who lost no time in propping it against the low pigsty wall. Scrambling gingerly along its rungs he was able to lean across the mora.s.s that separated him from his slowly foundering offspring and extract her like an unwilling cork from it"s slushy embrace. A few minutes later he was listening to the shrill and repeated a.s.surances of the nursemaid that her previous experience of filthy spectacles had been on a notably smaller scale.
That same evening when twilight was deepening into darkness Octavian took up his position as penitent under the lone oak-tree, having first carefully undressed the part. Clad in a zephyr shirt, which on this occasion thoroughly merited its name, he held in one hand a lighted candle and in the other a watch, into which the soul of a dead plumber seemed to have pa.s.sed. A box of matches lay at his feet and was resorted to on the fairly frequent occasions when the candle succ.u.mbed to the night breezes. The house loomed inscrutable in the middle distance, but as Octavian conscientiously repeated the formula of his penance he felt certain that three pairs of solemn eyes were watching his moth-shared vigil.
And the next morning his eyes were gladdened by a sheet of copy-book paper lying beside the blank wall, on which was written the message "Un-Beast."
THE PHANTOM LUNCHEON
"The Smithly-Dubbs are in Town," said Sir James. "I wish you would show them some attention. Ask them to lunch with you at the Ritz or somewhere."
"From the little I"ve seen of the Smithly-Dubbs I don"t thing I want to cultivate their acquaintance," said Lady Drakmanton.
"They always work for us at election times," said her husband; "I don"t suppose they influence very many votes, but they have an uncle who is on one of my ward committees, and another uncle speaks sometimes at some of our less important meetings. Those sort of people expect some return in the shape of hospitality."
"Expect it!" exclaimed Lady Drakmanton; "the Misses Smithly-Dubb do more than that; they almost demand it. They belong to my club, and hang about the lobby just about lunch-time, all three of them, with their tongues hanging out of their mouths and the six-course look in their eyes. If I were to breathe the word "lunch" they would hustle me into a taxi and scream "Ritz" or "Dieudonne"s" to the driver before I knew what was happening."
"All the same, I think you ought to ask them to a meal of some sort,"
persisted Sir James.
"I consider that showing hospitality to the Smithly-Dubbs is carrying Free Food principles to a regrettable extreme," said Lady Drakmanton; "I"ve entertained the Joneses and the Browns and the Snapheimers and the Lubrikoffs, and heaps of others whose names I forget, but I don"t see why I should inflict the society of the Misses Smithly-Dubb on myself for a solid hour. Imagine it, sixty minutes, more or less, of unrelenting gobble and gabble. Why can"t _you_ take them on, Milly?" she asked, turning hopefully to her sister.
"I don"t know them," said Milly hastily.
"All the better; you can pa.s.s yourself off as me. People say that we are so alike that they can hardly tell us apart, and I"ve only spoken to these tiresome young women about twice in my life, at committee-rooms, and bowed to them in the club. Any of the club page-boys will point them out to you; they"re always to be found lolling about the hall just before lunch-time."
"My dear Betty, don"t be absurd," protested Milly; "I"ve got some people lunching with me at the Carlton to-morrow, and I"m leaving Town the day afterwards."
"What time is your lunch to-morrow?" asked Lady Drakmanton reflectively.
"Two o"clock," said Milly.
"Good," said her sister; "the Smithly-Dubbs shall lunch with me to-morrow. It shall be rather an amusing lunch-party. At least, I shall be amused."
The last two remarks she made to herself. Other people did not always appreciate her ideas of humour. Sir James never did.
The next day Lady Drakmanton made some marked variations in her usual toilet effects. She dressed her hair in an unaccustomed manner, and put on a hat that added to the transformation of her appearance. When she had made one or two minor alterations she was sufficiently unlike her usual smart self to produce some hesitation in the greeting which the Misses Smithly-Dubb bestowed on her in the club-lobby. She responded, however, with a readiness which set their doubts at rest.
"What is the Carlton like for lunching in?" she asked breezily.
The restaurant received an enthusiastic recommendation from the three sisters.
"Let"s go and lunch there, shall we?" she suggested, and in a few minutes" time the Smithly-Dubb mind was contemplating at close quarters a happy vista of baked meats and approved vintage.
"Are you going to start with caviare? I am," confided Lady Drakmanton, and the Smithly-Dubbs started with caviare. The subsequent dishes were chosen in the same ambitious spirit, and by the time they had arrived at the wild duck course it was beginning to be a rather expensive lunch.
The conversation hardly kept pace with the brilliancy of the menu.
Repeated references on the part of the guests to the local political conditions and prospects in Sir James"s const.i.tuency were met with vague "ahs" and "indeeds" from Lady Drakmanton, who might have been expected to be specially interested.
"I think when the Insurance Act is a little better understood it will lose some of its present unpopularity," hazarded Cecilia Smithly-Dubb.