Upsidonia

Mrs. Claudie indicated me. "This is Mr. Howard," she said. "Let me introduce you to Lord Potter."

Lord Potter affected an air of intense astonishment. "This fellow!" he exclaimed. "My dear lady, you have been victimised. This is an impudent adventurer, who spent his first night in Culbut in a gaol. He may be good enough company for Mr. Perry, but I am more surprised than I can say to find him here."

There was an awkward silence, which I broke by saying: "I am just as surprised to see Lord Potter here as he can be to see me. He knew perfectly well who I was. He could have stopped away if he didn"t want to meet me."

Lord Potter ignored this speech. "I am very sorry to have to cast a cloud over your pleasant party, Mrs. Chanticleer," he said, "but this fellow is not what he pretends to be. He is no more a Highlander than I am. When I get back to town I shall put the police on to him. I expect it will be found that he has absconded from some big house and has left a lot of money behind him. He is masquerading as a poor man, but he will certainly get into trouble over it. I should advise you to pack him off, and have no more to do with him."

Fortunately, Miriam was not near us at the time, but I saw Edward shouldering his way through the group of puzzled and rather scandalised people who surrounded us. n.o.body seemed inclined to say anything, and I had had time during Lord Potter"s speech to reflect that he could not know that I was not a Highlander, and that he had put a weapon into my hands by his affectation of not knowing who I was.

"I will certainly leave your party if you wish me to, Mrs. Chanticleer,"

I said. "Lord Potter and I have come up against one another before. It is true that when I first came into Culbut he managed to get me arrested for playing rather a foolish practical joke upon him, which he does not seem able to forget. But when he tells you he is sorry to disturb your party, he is not speaking the truth, because he can"t have come here for any other purpose. He knew that he would find me here, and has not scrupled to break in on your brilliant and memorable gathering, with the object of ruining its success by his absurd charges."

There were murmurs among the aristocratic dames who were gathered about us. Although Lord Potter was the dirtiest of the dirty, and held a high position among the men of the set, I heard afterwards that he was not popular among the ladies, not only because of his arrogance, but because, being a most eligible bachelor, he had omitted to marry so many of their daughters. Besides, Mrs. Claudie"s party had gone with such a swing so far that it was felt to be too bad of him to come in in this way and try to spoil it.

But Mrs. Claudie showed herself full of tact and resource. She laughed lightly. "I really can"t be expected to settle a silly quarrel between two men," she said. "I have all my own quarrels to settle, and most of my women friends" besides. Come and have a shy at Siggy Rosenbaum"s nuts, Lord Potter; and, Mr. Howard, you go and find Miriam and take her to have a few s"rimps."

Perhaps Lord Potter would have allowed himself to hold over his account with me for the time being, and I certainly had no wish to carry it on then or at any time. But unfortunately Edward had by this time arrived fully on the scene, and with all his excellent qualities he was a trifle too weighty for a situation that wanted delicate handling.

"Mr. Howard is a guest in my father"s house," he said, his face pale and determined from the stress of the moment, "and I cannot allow him to be insulted."

"Oh, my dear Edward, n.o.body wants to insult anybody," said Mrs. Claudie.

"Please let us go to the cocoanuts."

But Lord Potter"s temper had been aroused by the challenge. "I have nothing to do with you or your father," he said disagreeably. "You have both uncla.s.sed yourselves. You can keep what company you please, as far as I am concerned. But when you take into your house a highly suspicious character, you ought to keep him to yourselves, and not foist him on to respectable company."

Edward was about to reply hotly, but I didn"t want to leave my case in his hands; he knew too much about me, and might give it away in his unthinking annoyance.

"How do you know I am staying with Mr. Perry?" I asked quickly. "You pretended just now to be surprised to find I was _that_ Howard. And yet you heard my name when we first met, and you saw me go away with Mr.

Perry."

"I will settle with you later, sir," he said furiously. "You have been going about in expensive clothes, and I have reason to believe you are an impostor, and are wanted by the police."

"Oh, do leave off and come to the cocoanuts," cried poor Mrs. Claudie, desolated at the prospect of a disturbance. But the situation was now beyond her.

"Perhaps you will say that my father and I are impostors, because we go about in clean clothes," said Edward angrily. "Mr. Howard is studying social conditions, as we are. He is a gentleman, as anyone can see, whatever he chooses to wear."

Perhaps it is rather conceited of me to mention it, but there were murmurs of approval here. In my old Norfolk jacket and weather-beaten hat, I must have appeared all that was desirable in the matter of fashionable attire, according to Upsidonian standards.

Encouraged by these murmurs, I stuck to my point with Lord Potter. "Will you answer a plain question?" I asked him. "Did you know who I was when you came and tried to break up this delightful party, or did you tell Mrs. Chanticleer a lie?"

It was not much of a point, but it settled him. There were more murmurs, and Mrs. Claudie said reproachfully: "You know you did refuse my invitation, Lord Potter. And if you did know who Mr. Howard was, it is not very friendly of you to come after all, and try to spoil our fun."

The d.u.c.h.ess of Somersault, who was a great enough lady not to stand in awe of anybody, and had already married off all her daughters, now intervened:

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Hezekiah Potter," she said in a loud clear voice. "Anybody would think this was a reception by the wife of a millionaire by the way you poke yourself in on it and try to start a vulgar brawl. I shall be very pleased to welcome Mr. Howard at any time to my van, and I am not in the habit of receiving adventurers there."

Such a bold, and, to me, almost overwhelming, offer of recognition from so great a lady naturally turned the tables completely in my favour.

Lord Potter shrugged his shoulders, one of which could be plainly seen through the discoloured cloth of his filthy jacket, muttered something into his ragged beard, and shuffled off in the dust towards Culbut. Mrs.

Claudie instantly collected a party of young people to throw at Sir Sigismund"s cocoanuts; and the incident appeared to be completely at an end.

But I could see that people were talking about it for the rest of the afternoon, and as we made our way homewards later on, and I very much fear that Mrs. Claudie Chanticleer wept tears of disappointment when she retired to her railway arch that night, over this unfortunate interruption of what would otherwise have been the most talked-of a.s.sembly of the now waning season.

As far as I was concerned, I was made to feel that I had come out of my engagement with Lord Potter with credit. I had stood up to a great man, and he had been driven off the field by a great lady. I was even something of a lion for the rest of the afternoon, and if I had wished could have taken my place then and there as a popular addition to the dirty set, and enjoyed all the advantages of that enviable condition.

But Edward"s gloomy brow, as he ranged apart with his hands in his pockets, warned me that there was trouble ahead, and I had not been too busily engaged with Lord Potter to miss the spectacle of excited newspaper reporters edging in amongst the spectators and busily taking down all that was said in their notebooks.

What was quite certain was that I could no longer expect to be able to hide such light as I might give forth under a bushel. It would be known all over the country to-morrow that I had been denounced as an adventurer, and accused of representing myself as coming from a place which I had never seen.

A nice young reporter, more enterprising than the rest, who had hurried off on their bicycles to hand in their copy, did try to interview me, and I wished I had been in a position to give him the information for his paper that he asked for. It was only for my address in the Highlands, and a statement of why and how I had come to Culbut, and would have settled the matter for me, if I had really been the completely misunderstood person that I was supposed to be.

But I had to send him away empty, and I am sorry to say that he was annoyed with me, and hinted in his account of the fracas that there was more in Lord Potter"s charges than appeared on the surface.

I was also somewhat disturbed by a conversation I had with the d.u.c.h.ess of Somersault, sitting proudly on the tail-board of her van, in sight of everybody.

She said that she had never crossed the mountains in her wanderings, but had been pretty close to them, and she mentioned the names of several members of the Highland aristocracy with whom she was acquainted. She seemed a little disappointed when I showed myself ignorant of all of them, but was not, I think, suspicious, as she might have been. She talked, during most of my visit to her, in a full-bodied voice that was evidently music in her own ears, and though she plied me with questions she provided most of the answers to them herself. She wore a magenta gown, a violently checked shawl, and an enormous feathered hat, and sat with her knees wide apart and her elbows on them, smoking a clay pipe, while she talked to me. She was of ma.s.sive form and highly equiline features, and looked every inch of her a _grandame_.

"I met Lord McGillicuddy the last time the Duke and I were up north,"

she said. "Of course you know him. A grand old man, is he not? The Master of McGillicuddy is on his way to Culbut now, with a flock of sheep, and if he arrives before we go out of town I shall ask a few friends to meet him, and I hope you will make one of the party, Mr.

Howard. And, of course, dear Miriam too. If he does not arrive in time we shall no doubt meet him, for we take the north road this summer, I am happy to say. There is always a great demand for wicker cradles on it; in the north they are more prolific than we are--as of course you know.

I shall certainly tell him what a pleasure it has been to meet you, and get him to look you up. He will be able to support you if you have any more trouble with that tiresome Hezekiah Potter, who seems to think he can behave exactly as he pleases, and must, I am afraid, have given you a poor opinion of our pleasant little society here."

I a.s.sured her Grace, as seemed to be expected of me, that she herself had dissipated any unfortunate ideas I might have formed on that subject. She dismissed me with an agreeable smile, and an a.s.surance of her continued support, for whatever it might be worth.

Miriam returned in the d.u.c.h.ess" van. She was a favourite with the Duke, who asked her to sit up beside him, while he drove his old toastrack of a horse.

I walked with Edward, who was much disturbed in his mind over what had happened. He said that Potter"s insolence was beyond all bearing, and he had been seriously considering whether it was not his filial duty to seek him out with a horsewhip and give him a sound thrashing.

"To think that my dear good old father should be subjected to the foul insults of such a man as that!" he said. "It positively makes my blood boil. On the one side you have a man whose whole being radiates self-sacrifice and benevolence, and on the other a wretched cur snarling at his heels. What am I to do, Howard? I don"t want to be sent to prison, but upon my word I feel inclined to risk it for the pleasure of a.s.saulting that scoundrel."

"I should treat him with the contempt he deserves," I said. "It is a case of dignity and impudence. Surely, your father"s n.o.ble life speaks for itself! Nothing that you could do to such a contemptible person as Potter would make it shine with brighter effulgence."

He turned to me and wrung me warmly by the hand. The tears were in his eyes, and he was too much moved to speak for the moment. "Thank you for those words," he said presently, in a low voice. "I am sure they were spoken from the heart, and I shall not forget them. There are few who are blessed with such fathers as mine, and I have the pleasure of feeling that he will soon be your father too, and that you will revere him as he deserves. Tell me, Howard, didn"t that count with you, when you made up your mind to propose to my sister?"

"Well, perhaps I was thinking more about _her_ at the time," I said.

"But naturally I congratulate myself on the prospect of having such a father-in-law."

Edward was so taken up with the insult offered to his father that he did not notice as we came to the tramway terminus, from which the road to Magnolia Hall branched off, a newspaper placard on which were displayed the lines:

DISGRACEFUL BRAWL AT SOCIETY GATHERING.

WELL-KNOWN NAMES INVOLVED.

WHO IS MR. JOHN HOWARD?

Well, if that question was going to interest the inhabitants of Upsidonia, it seemed about time for me to be making arrangements for the modest competency that would enable me to leave the country.