Читать книгу The Man from Brodney's - George Barr McCutcheon - Страница 18

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Contrary to all expectations, the Brownes arrived the next morning. The Deppinghams and their miserably frightened servants were scarcely out of bed when Saunders came in with the news that a steamer was standing off the shallow harbour. Bowles had telephoned up that the American claimant was on board.

Lady Agnes and her husband had not slept well. They heard noises from one end of the night to the other, and they were most unusual noises at that. The maids had flatly refused to sleep in the servants' wing, fully a block away, so they were given the next best suite of rooms on the floor, quite cutting off every chance the Brownes may have had for choice of apartments. Pong howled all night long, but his howls were as nothing compared to the screams of night birds in the trees close by.

The deepest gloom pervaded the household when Lady Deppingham discovered that not one of their retinue knew how to make coffee or broil bacon. Not that she cared for bacon, but that his lordship always asked for it when they did not have it. The evening before they had philosophically dined on tinned food. She brewed a delightful tea, and Antoine opened three or four kinds of wine. Altogether it was not so bad. But in the morning! Everything looked different in the morning. Everything always does, one way or another.

Bromley upset the last peg of endurance by hoping that the Americans were bringing a cook and a housemaid with them.

"The Americans always travel like lords," she concluded, forgetting that she served a lord, and not in the least intending to be ironical.

"That will do, Bromley," said her mistress sharply. "If they're like most Americans I've seen they'll have nothing but wet nurses and chauffeurs. I can't eat this vile stuff." She had already burned her fingers and dropped a slice of beechnut bacon on her sweet little morning gown. "Come on, Deppy; let's go up and watch the approach of the enemy."

Dolefully they passed out of the culinary realm; it is of record that they never looked into it from that hour forth. On the broad, vine-covered gallery they sat in dour silence and in silence took turns with Deppy's binoculars in the trying effort to make out what was going on in the offing. The company's tug seemed unusually active. It bustled about the big steamer with an industriousness that seemed almost frantic. The laziness that had marked its efforts of the day before was amazingly absent. At last they saw it turn for the shore, racing inward with a great churning of waves and a vast ado in its smokestack.

From their elevated position, the occupants of the gallery could see the distant pier. When the tug drew up to its moorings, the same motionless horde of white-robed natives lined up along the dock building. Trunks, boxes and huge crated objects were hustled off the boat with astonishing rapidity. Deppingham stared hard and unbelieving at this evidence of haste.

Five or six strangers stood upon the pier, very much as their party had stood the day before. There were four women and—yes, two men. The men seemed to be haranguing the natives, although no gesticulations were visible. Suddenly there was a rush for the trunks and boxes and crates, and, almost before the Lady Agnes could catch the breath she had lost, the whole troupe was hurrying up the narrow street, luggage and all. The once-sullen natives seemed to be fighting for the privilege of carrying something. A half dozen of them dashed hither and thither and returned with great umbrellas, which they hoisted above the heads of the newcomers. Lady Agnes sank back, faint with wonder, as the concourse lost itself among the houses of the agitated town.

Scarcely half an hour passed before the advance guard of the Browne company came into view at the park gates below. Deppingham recalled the fact that an hour and a half had been consumed in the accomplishment yesterday. He was keeping a sharp lookout for the magic red jacket and the Tommy Atkins lid. Quite secure from observation, he and his wife watched the forerunners with the hand bags; then came the sweating trunk bearers and then the crated objects in—what? Yes, by the Lord Harry, in the very carts that had been their private chariots the day before!

Deppingham's wrath did not really explode until the two were gazing open-mouthed upon Robert Browne and his wife and his maidservants and his ass—for that was the name which his lordship subsequently applied, with no moderation, to the unfortunate gentleman who served as Mr. Browne's attorney. The Americans were being swiftly, cozily carried to their new home in litters of oriental comfort and elegance, fanned vigorously from both sides by eager boys. First came the Brownes, eager-faced, bright-eyed, alert young people, far better looking than their new enemies could conscientiously admit under the circumstances; then the lawyer from the States; then a pert young lady in a pink shirt waist and a sailor hat; then two giggling, utterly un-English maids—and all of them lolling in luxurious ease. The red jacket was conspicuously absent.

It is not to be wondered at that his lordship looked at his wife, gulped in sympathy, and then said something memorable.

Almost before they could realise what had happened the newcomers were chattering in the spacious halls below, tramping about the rooms, and giving orders in high, though apparently efficacious voices. Trunks rattled about the place, barefooted natives shuffled up and down the corridors and across the galleries, quick American heels clattered on the marble stairways; and all this time the English occupants sat in cold silence, despising the earth and all that therein dwelt.

Mr. and Mrs. Browne evidently believed in the democratic first principles of their native land: they did not put themselves above their fellow-man. Close at their heels trooped the servants, all of whom took part in the discussion incident to fresh discoveries. At last they came upon the great balcony, pausing just outside the French windows to exclaim anew in their delight.

"Great!" said the lawyer man, after a full minute. He was not at all like Mr. Saunders, who looked on from an obscure window in the distant left. "Finest I've ever seen. Isn't it a picture, Browne?"

"Glorious," said young Mr. Browne, taking a long breath. The Deppinghams, sitting unobserved, saw that he was a tall, good-looking fellow. They were unconscionably amused when he suddenly reached out and took his wife's hand in his big fingers. Her face was flushed with excitement, her eyes were wide and sparkling. She was very trim and cool-looking in her white duck; moreover, she was of the type that looks exceedingly attractive in evening dress—at least, that was Deppingham's innermost reflection. It was not until after many weeks had passed, however, that Lady Agnes admitted that Brasilia Browne was a very pretty young woman.

"Most American women are, after a fashion," she then confessed to Deppingham, and not grudgingly.

"What does Baedeker say about it, Bobby?" asked Mrs. Browne. Her voice was very soft and full—the quiet, well-modulated Boston voice and manner.

"Baedeker?" whispered Deppingham, passing his hand over his brow in bewilderment. His wife was looking serenely in the opposite direction.

The pert girl in the pink waist opened a small portfolio while the others gathered around her. She read therefrom. The lawyer, when she had concluded, drew a compass from his pocket, and, walking over to the stone balustrade, set it down for observation. Then he pointed vaguely into what proved to be the southwest.

"We must tell Lady Deppingham not to take the rooms at this end," was the next thing that the listeners heard from Mrs. Browne's lips. Her ladyship turned upon her husband with a triumphant sniff and a knowing smile.

"What did I tell you?" she whispered. "I knew they'd want the best of everything. Isn't it lucky I pounced upon those rooms? They shan't turn us out. You won't let 'em, will you, Deppy?"

"The impudence of 'em!" was all that Deppy could sputter.

At that moment, the American party caught sight of the pair in the corner. For a brief space of time the two parties stared at each other, very much as the hunter and the hunted look when they come face to face without previous warning. Then a friendly, half-abashed smile lighted Browne's face. He came toward the Deppinghams, his straw hat in his hand. His lordship retained his seat and met the smile with a cold stare of superiority.

"I beg your pardon," said Browne. "This is Lord Deppingham?"

"Ya-as," drawled Deppy, with a look which was meant to convey the impression that he did not know who the deuce he was addressing.

"Permit me to introduce myself. I am Robert Browne."

"Oh," said Deppy, as if that did not convey anything to him. Then as an afterthought: "Glad to know you, I'm sure." Still he did not rise, nor did he extend his hand. For a moment young Browne waited, a dull red growing in his temples.

"Don't you intend to present me to Lady Deppingham?" he demanded bluntly, without taking his eyes from Deppy's face.

"Oh—er—is that necess—"

"Lady Deppingham," interrupted Browne, turning abruptly from the man in the chair and addressing the lady in azure blue who sat on the balustrade, "I am Robert Browne, the man you are expected to marry. Please don't be alarmed. You won't have to marry me. Our grandfathers did not observe much ceremony in mating us, so I don't see why we should stand upon it in trying to convince them of their error. We are here for the same purpose, I suspect. We can't be married to each other. That's out of the question. But we can live together as if we—"

"Good Lord!" roared Deppy, coming to his feet in a towering rage. Browne smiled apologetically and lifted his hand.

"—as if we were serving out the prescribed period of courtship set down in the will. Believe me, I am very happily married, as I hope you are. The courtship, you will perceive, is neither here nor there. Please bear with me, Lord Deppingham. It's the silly will that brings us together, not an affinity. Our every issue is identical, Lady Deppingham. Doesn't it strike you that we will be very foolish if we stand alone and against each other?"