Читать книгу Quicksands - B. M. Croker - Страница 7

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It is strange but true that my future lot was profoundly affected by the microbe of influenza. Influenza accomplishes various evils; this obnoxious germ carries weakness, depression and death, but it is rare to find it a medium that launches a young woman into the great wide world.

An excursion to London every January was one of the hard-and-fast rules of “The Roost”; about the middle of the month, when Christmas festivities had waned, the professor and his niece journeyed together to a boarding-house in Bayswater, and there enjoyed—each in their own way—a fortnight of the Metropolis. She, in attending sales and classical concerts, looking up old friends and going to “teas” arrayed in her best clothes. He, in personally worrying managers and dramatic agents, patronising theatres, telephoning incessantly, and giving expensive entertainments to needy professionals, who fed his insatiable vanity with enormous helpings of the sweetest flattery, and sent him back to his dull old den with a swollen head and a somewhat empty pocket.

Just before this half-yearly expedition, when rooms had been engaged, luggage packed, and our arrival formally notified, Lizzie suddenly collapsed under a violent attack of “flu.” As her temperature was found to be 103, a journey was out of the question. The doctor who was summoned ordered bed and nursing, and declared the ailment to be of a particularly virulent type. Lizzie, painfully distressed and apologetic, endeavoured to assert herself and talked of “being all right in a couple of days,” but when the doctor uttered the word “pneumonia” she succumbed.

At first the attitude of the professor was sympathetic, then by degrees he became silent, sullen, and finally morose; as vexed at his postponed holidays as any spoilt child.

“But I thought you hated London,” I said, not sorry to tease him a little. “You have always said you were so thankful to live outside the noise and clamour of the world.”

My remarks irritated the professor to such a degree that I believe he could have thrown a book at me had one been handy, but they had merely the effect of inflaming his passion for the great city with its vast opportunities.

“Why not let him go alone?” I suggested to the invalid. “He says the rooms will have to be paid for, and he is miserable about all the important appointments he is missing. If you could look out of the window, you would see him raging up and down the garden.”

“Oh yes, I know,” said Lizzie impatiently, “he always does that when he’s put out. Somehow I am reluctant to let Uncle Sep out of my sight, especially in London; he does crazy, impulsive things and is so easily talked into follies, such as spending and lending, and I act as a sort of brake; then those chattering elderly women at Number 20 make no end of him and imply that he is quite a lady-killer and irresistibly attractive. Poor Uncle Sep never was either; clever enough, but not very wise, especially since he slipped on a banana and fell on the back of his head. You say he is dull and disappointed?”

“‘Dull and disappointed’ but feebly conveys the case! He is like Kipper when he sees me with my hat on, frantic to go out. He ate no dinner last night.”

“Then, indeed, he is in a bad way! Well, ask him to saturate himself with eucalyptus, and to come and talk it all over with me after lunch.”

The result of this talk was the departure of the professor the very next morning. He made an almost imposing figure in his London clothes, tall hat, frock coat, neat umbrella, and modern boots. As I escorted him to the little gate he remarked:

“Well, Evie, this time I shall do something with the managers. I have a presentiment that I shall bring back a huge success.”

“Only it’s so cold I’d throw my shoe after you,” I replied, “but I wish you the best of luck.”

Without any further remark, or even the formality of a farewell, he climbed into the creaking fly and was presently lumbering away. Lizzie’s illness lasted longer than we anticipated; she kept her room for nearly three weeks; meanwhile, village and parochial business was more or less dislocated. Mr. Chesterfield the rector called daily and sent flowers, newspapers, and notes, but never approached the infected premises nearer than a hundred yards.

At last the ruler of “The Roost” crawled downstairs, a weak and shattered remnant of her keen and energetic self. However, the “sofa,” and “feeding up” were duly prescribed, with excellent results. Letters from the professor—once so copious—had lately degenerated into picture postcards, and these chiefly conveyed bulletins of the weather. He had been absent nearly a month, and to me this was a happy relief. Lizzie was now convalescent, and once more managing Beke with her accustomed capability.

One afternoon we were returning from a long and muddy walk, when a boy darted out of the post office, and handed her a telegram. It came from Uncle Sep, and said, “Arrive to-night, send fly to the seven; have good fires and dinner.”

“What a funny telegram!” she exclaimed handing it to me; “as if we don’t always have fires and a good dinner. As it happens, there is a goose to-night. I will tell Eliza to make a roly-poly and Welsh rarebit—Uncle Sep loves them—and also to put a big fire in his bedroom. I expect he’s had a play accepted, and wishes to commemorate his return with a feast.”

It was nearly eight o’clock when I heard the fly stop at the front gate. I had been listening expectantly; even the return of the tiresome professor made a change in my monotonous existence. He would bring, if not news, at least some illustrated papers. I went into the hall and looked out; it was a cold, dark night, with drifting showers of sleet; nevertheless, I stood bravely at the open door, whilst Clarice, with the skirt of her dress flung over her head, pattered down to the cab. The professor descended heavily backwards, and instead of as usual hurrying indoors, he turned about, apparently in order to assist another to alight—a woman! In a second I divined the truth. Uncle Sep had brought home a wife!

Naturally a desperate moral coward, he had shrunk from announcing the marriage to his niece, and left it to the bride to break the intelligence in person. I dashed into the dining-room, where Lizzie was deliberately lighting candles on the mantelpiece, and gasped out:

“Your uncle has brought someone back with him—I think it is Mrs. Bickers!”

Lizzie turned about, and stood staring at me stupidly, her mouth half open—a lighted taper in her unconscious hand. I remembered Mrs. Bickers at the boarding-house, a plump widow of fifty with a strongly corseted figure, black eyes like boot buttons, a high colour, and a long chin.

Yes, I was right, it was Mrs. Bickers! Already she was standing in the doorway, clad in a black waterproof and an aggressive-looking hat covered with pointed wings. The cowardly professor pushed her into the room before him, saying in a loud, would-be jovial voice:

“Hallo, Liz, I have brought you a present from London. Here is your new aunt and old friend, Mrs. Bickers—now Mrs. Puckle. We were married ten days ago!”

The announcement was succeeded by a prolonged and dramatic silence. For my part, my nerves were throbbing with excitement, and it may appear callous and hard-hearted, but personally I felt as if I were witnessing a powerful scene in some play. The atmosphere seemed to be charged with animosity and fear; fear being well represented by Uncle Sep, who was breathing audibly in quick short gasps; animosity had sprung to arms within the eyes of the two ladies.

“My dear Lizzie,” said Mrs. Puckle; then suddenly advancing upon her and seizing her unawares she attacked her with a vigorous embrace.

“Well, Uncle,” said Lizzie, releasing herself as vigorously, and straightening her back; “you have indeed given us a surprise!”

I knew that Lizzie was furious, wild with indignation and consternation, but years of governessing had taught her extraordinary self-control.

“Yes, my dear, life is full of surprises,” said the professor, to whom things seemed to be going unexpectedly well. “I hope there is a good fire in my room,” he added bumptiously. “Jessie,” to the bride, “you will like to take your things off, and we will have dinner at once.”

“All right,” she answered obediently. “Dear me, how warm and cosy it all looks!” and the bride’s quick eyes travelled round the room, and noted the solid mahogany furniture, the massive table appointments, and the whole appearance of unostentatious comfort. On her way towards the door she halted and addressed herself particularly to Lizzie.

“Your uncle and I were always friendly you remember, and a fortnight’s propinquity was too much for us both!”

“Was it really?” rejoined Lizzie, speaking with set lips, and a bright red spot on either cheek.

“Yes,” replied the bride, “we have so much in common, and are both old enough to know our own minds.” And then she turned her broad back on her new niece, and passed into the hall.

“This I suppose is the drawing-room?” And the bride threw open the door and stood in a “monarch of all I survey” attitude on the threshold. Within, it looked black and aggressively forbidding; it was as if the spirit of the old house distrusted this stranger.

“Oh dear me, what a horrible smell of damp and dry rot! I shall have a fire in here every day.”

Having made this announcement, Mrs. Puckle closed the door with emphasis, and mounted the stairs.

The landing was already piled with luggage—bags, baskets, battered cardboard boxes, and shabby trunks. Lizzie conducted her supplanter to her quarters with exaggerated ceremony—even dissembling her feelings so far as to get out fresh towels and the best scented soap—and having been told to order dinner to be ready in ten minutes’ time, she flew down to me.

As the craven and base professor was a refugee in his den, Lizzie and I had the dining-room to ourselves.

“So for once he did mind telling!” I began.

“Eva, how can you joke?” she interrupted indignantly; “I was wrong to let him go alone, but influenza makes one such a worm, not only weak in body but in mind, otherwise I never would have consented to this trip to London—a most fatal excursion for him. Mrs. Bickers is the worst, most catty, and pushing of all the widows. I believe she is penniless and has just flattered herself into this comfortable home.” Then to Clarice who had entered gaping, “Clarice, your master was married ten days ago; let Eliza know.”

“Eliza, she do know,” was the prompt reply. “She says the master be daft!”

A stealthy rustle on the stairs interrupted Clarice, who hurried out, only to return almost immediately with the soup tureen and evidently prepared to enjoy a good leisurely stare at the stranger—a sleek, complacent matron, wearing a pink satin blouse and a large lace collar, fastened by a new-looking diamond brooch.

Seating herself at the head of the table and seizing the soup ladle, Mrs. Puckle said:

“I’ll just sit here, Lizzie dear, I know you won’t mind, and begin to take over at once—it saves trouble.”

Lizzie’s answer was a bow as she placed herself opposite to me; the professor now appeared and, with assumed geniality, announced that he was “starving.”

I noticed that his appearance was considerably improved. He wore a glossy white shirt, his hair and beard had been trimmed—also his nails.

“Well, Lizzie,” he began, blinking his eyelids—sure sign of nervousness—“I thought I’d do something to get out of the rut. Beke is such a stick-in-the-mud sort of place, eh? I suppose this is the surprise of your life?”

“Well, Uncle, I confess it is—so far——”

“‘Happy the wooing that’s not long a doing,’ and you know we had no one to consult. We shall all shake down together, eh? The more the merrier. It’s a fine big house. I remember hearing that old Elias Puckle, who lived here eighty years ago, had a family of fifteen children!”

“How many bedrooms?” inquired the bride in her brusquest manner.

“About eight,” I replied, now thrusting myself into the conversation, as Lizzie seemed to be temporarily dumb. “Not counting the servants’ rooms, garrets, and cellars.”

“You are not thinking of taking P.G.’s?” put in the professor jocosely.

“No, no, darling, of course not.”

To hear the professor addressed as “darling” was altogether too much for my gravity. I choked, and then stooped for an imaginary handkerchief to hide my smiles.

“Have you done anything about your plays?” I asked as soon as I had recovered my usual composure.

“Oh yes, I have everything in capital train now; the missis there has interest, she has relations on the boards. We expect great things from ‘The Termagant,’ don’t we, ducky?”

“Of course we do; it will be an enormous success,” she answered, speaking as it were in capital letters. “Recognition has been a long time in coming to the dear professor, has it not?”

As she spoke, Mrs. Puckle fastened her eyes on me; undoubtedly she had heard of “the readings.”

“Most geniuses have had the same painful experiences. Shakespeare, by all accounts, had little honour in his own day, and think of poor dear Chatterton! It’s my belief—and I know what I’m talking about—that the professor’s plays will be acclaimed by packed houses yet—his name and fame will be world-wide.”

As Mrs. Puckle’s manner was distinctly challenging, I meekly murmured:

“I hope so, I’m sure.”

The lady now proceeded to criticise, dissect, and destroy the reputations of the leading dramatic authors of the day. She talked ceaselessly; evidently she was talking for talking’s sake, in order to counteract Lizzie’s gloomy silence.

After the professor had swallowed a second strong tumbler of whisky and water, he ventured to draw his niece into the conversation; under the circumstances her composure was extraordinary. I sat amazed, as she unfolded parish happenings and domestic news, as if totally unconscious that a stranger had suddenly descended on her home and usurped her position. Meanwhile, I observed the new aunt carefully examining the forks and spoons and turning them about to discover the hall-mark. Satisfied that they were mostly old Georgian silver, she proceeded to cross-examine me.

“So you live at ‘The Roost’ altogether, Miss Lingard?”

“For the present—yes.”

“And are you really related to the Lingards of Torrington?” she inquired condescendingly.

“Yes, Mr. Lingard is my uncle.”

“And Miss Lingard who is to marry Sir Beaufort Finsbury is your cousin?”

I nodded assent.

“Torrington Park is quite a large place, is it not?”

“Yes,” I admitted, “it is rather large.”

“How many servants do they keep?”

“I really do not know.”

“Doesn’t it seem rather a pity that you cannot live with your own relations?”

This was a nasty one for me, and for the moment I could not think of any effective reply.

“And you,” firing a shot at Lizzie, “were the governess at Torrington—nursery, or otherwise?”

To this impertinent question there was no rejoinder.

By this time the goose, pudding, savoury and cheese had been disposed of, and having dined satisfactorily, and figuratively shown her teeth, Mrs. Puckle made a move. Addressing the professor, she said:

“As I am rather tired, darling, I’ll go up early and unpack. Don’t be long, and don’t smoke more than one pipe.”

“All right, ducky,” he assented, then rising with remarkable agility and pushing back his chair, he retired to the security afforded by his den. It amused me to see how desperately he was afraid of being left alone with us; possibly he was troubled by an uneasy conscience.

As soon as the happy pair had departed, Lizzie rang the bell for Clarice, but for once the bell was answered by Eliza, who came to inform us that “Clarice was upstairs with the mistress, unpacking her boxes.” Having made this announcement she began to collect the dinner things as if she bore them a vicious personal spite. Eliza, like Lizzie, was in moments of emotional stress a woman of few words, and whilst she crashed crockery Lizzie was busy scribbling a note at the bureau, which, when finished and folded, she handed to our retainer and said:

“Just run over with this to the rectory, Eliza; there is no answer.”

“And how would I run that am bent in two with the rheumatics?” demanded Eliza in a querulous tone. “One run I’ll make, and it’s out of this house—I know the class of that one, so I do.”

“That is enough, Eliza,” said Lizzie with dignity. “Come, Eva, there is a good fire in my room.”

As soon as I was seated in a comfortable easy chair I flung out my arms and exclaimed: “What a dinner! I declare there was a smell of gunpowder in the air! Tell me, Liz, what you are going to do? I know you have some plan—I see it in your eye.”

“We leave here to-morrow,” she announced with curt decision.

“Oh! Not really?”

“Yes,” she proceeded, “to stay at the rectory as a sort of pied-à-terre. I made up my mind about everything before that woman had been in the house five minutes. You shall go to Torrington.”

“No, no, Lizzie,” I protested, “anywhere but Torrington. Do you know it is a fact, that when I was last there I used to lie awake at night for hours hating Aunt Mina? Besides, they won’t have me,” I concluded triumphantly.

“But they must,” she answered, with an air of serene resolution. “I no longer have a suitable home to offer you. I intend to move up to London and take a small flat.”

“And leave Mrs. Puckle monarch of all she surveys?”

“By no means,” deliberately turning up her skirt and placing a pair of neat black velvet shoes upon the fender. “Uncle Sep has misled her. She believes that the house and money are exclusively his, and is not aware that the half of everything belongs to me. I shall consult my solicitor, value, remove and store my portion of the furniture, let half ‘The Roost,’ and take my share of all—yes, to the ultimate egg spoon!”

“Will you?” I ejaculated. “What fun!”

“I’m afraid Mrs. Puckle will not see the humour of the situation, but find herself bitterly disappointed. With our united incomes, and your hundred a year, Uncle Sep and I were almost rich. Now he will be obliged to economise. I am sorry for Uncle Sep. I have always understood that Mrs. Puckle, who was penniless, contrived to make herself so agreeable to Mrs. Williams at Number 20 that she kept her on as useful help, advertiser and toady! I believe she has two ne’er-do-well sons and a married daughter, and no doubt will accommodate them all at ‘The Roost.’ Poor Uncle!”

To which adjuration I added a fervent “Amen.”

“I shall be sorry to part with you, dear child,” continued Lizzie, “but you are sensible for your age and have your wits about you, and it is time you put out from the shore; your aunt cannot refuse a harbour, and, with a favouring breeze, I believe your little skiff will go far. As for me, I shall have my freedom; I have saved, and in London I shall breathe freely among people of my own tastes. Well, we can do the rest of our talking at the rectory, for now I must pack. I intend to make an early flitting. Jones will cart over our boxes in the wheelbarrow, and, as I have a great deal to gather and sort, I expect to be up all night. You, my dear child, have only your clothes and books, so it will not be a long business, but go and set about it at once, and good night.”

The next morning we found ourselves comfortably installed at the rectory, Lizzie encompassed with the results of many trips by wheelbarrow; and here, when her flight was discovered, she received the visit and onslaught of her aunt and uncle. But they found the fugitive firmly entrenched behind facts and will power; no alluring invitations would induce her to return to “The Roost” and “go shares.” She was excessively polite but immovable, and her visitors were compelled to retreat in obvious confusion—the professor dazed and pallid, his bride on the contrary with a beetroot complexion, and seething over with suppressed passion.

Soon after their departure the dog Kipper arrived; formally dispatched in charge of the gardener, accompanied by his luggage so to speak—bowl, basket, coat and lead; to intimate that he was absolutely expelled from “The Roost.”

And now the question arose, what was to be done with him? The rector—most selfish of men—flatly refused him a home, declaring that he was too old for a dog, and that his personal cat was elderly and a fixture. It was clear that Lizzie could not have Kipper in her flat on possibly a fifth floor, although there was a legend that, once upon a time, a lady had maintained a duck in similar quarters!

“You shall take him, Evie,” she announced, with an air of cool decision. “He was always your friend, and in a big place like Torrington one dog more or less will never be noticed.”

“But I am confident that Aunt Mina won’t have me,” I protested, “much less the dog.”

“Oh yes she will,” rejoined Lizzie with conviction; “I know your aunt. I ought to, after living under her roof for eight years. Whatever her feelings are she studies appearances, and now that Dora is going to be married there will be room for you in the landau.”

My aunt’s invitation was somewhat tardy. Before its arrival I made many farewell calls and spent a whole day with the Soadys, where I received (in confidence) the news of Tossie’s engagement to Fred Block. She had made up her mind at last! I was much interested, so also was the village, in beholding great vans loading up in front of “The Roost,” and subsequently carrying away Lizzie’s share of the furniture. I also observed a large painted board, stoutly planted in the front garden, on which was announced “The Half of this House to be Let, Eight Good Rooms. Apply at the Post Office.” The vans and the advertisement gave our little community plenty of topics for discussion.

Ultimately the “Beetle” fly transported Lizzie and myself to the junction station, and the curtain fell on Beke.