II
On the Monday afternoon a hansom drew up at the door of the by no means pretentious house in which Miss Lorraine had her quarters. Out of it stepped Sir Frank Pickard. He bore with him upstairs what seemed to be a by no means insignificant portion of the contents of a fair-sized shop. In one hand he carried a magnificent bouquet, a large basket of splendid fruit, a big box of bonbons and a mysterious case which, as a matter of fact, was filled with various kinds of gloves. In the other were unconsidered trifles in the shape of bottles of perfume, silver knickknacks, a writing case, and other odds and ends. His arms were filled with parcels of different shapes and sizes which contained he alone knew what. Under the circumstances it was not surprising that he found it a little difficult to know what to do with his hat. As he entered Miss Lorraine's sitting-room he was in a state of some confusion. Plumping the contents of one of his arms on the nearest chair, whence they mostly proceeded to tumble on to the floor, he removed his hat in a fashion which was rather dexterous than elegant. As if conscious that he was not making his first appearance under the most propitious conditions, his cheeks were a beautiful peony red.
Miss Lorraine had risen to receive him. She had on her best frock-a frock which she specially reserved for high-days and holidays. Although she had made it herself, it could not have become-or fitted-her better had it been the creation of one of the world's great dressmakers. At least, such was the instant and unhesitating opinion of Sir Frank Pickard. He felt that he had never seen a more perfect example of feminine beauty-of all that was desirable in woman; he was convinced that he never should. He was trembling from head to foot; as some boys still do tremble when, for the first time in their lives, they are head over heels in love. Miss Lorraine, on the other hand, was both cool and calm-an accident which enabled her to perceive that her visitor was very much the reverse. She looked him up and down, inclining to the opinion, as the result of her inspection, that he was not an ill-looking boy. He was fairly tall, broad-shouldered, carried himself well, and looked a gentleman. She told herself that, had her affections not been pre-engaged, it was extremely possible that she might have regarded him in quite a different kind of way. But her heart really was Joe Lamb's; and she never for a moment contemplated the feasibility of transferring it to anybody else.
The lady was the first to speak.
"You are Sir Frank Pickard?"
The visitor had been afforded an opportunity to disencumber himself of his parcels, and therefore ought to have become more at his ease. But the simple truth was that the sight of the lady embarrassed him more than the parcels had done. His heart was thumping against his ribs; he seemed to be giving way at the knees; his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. However, he managed to stammer out something; though it was only with difficulty that he could articulate at all.
"It's awfully good of you to let me come and see you."
The lady smiled-a smile which might have been described as of the glacial kind.
"Will you sit down, Sir Frank?"
He sat down, on the extreme edge of a chair, as if fearful of occupying too much of it at once. He looked-and no doubt was-excessively uncomfortable. Placing herself in the only arm-chair the room contained, she observed him with an air which was at once both cruel and condescending.
"You have written me one or two notes, Sir Frank?"
He stammered worse than ever. Not only did he find the question an awkward one, but it seemed to him that the lady was even more bewitching in the arm-chair than she had been when standing up. As he realised-or thought he realised-her charms still more clearly, his few remaining senses were rapidly deserting him.
"I-I'm afraid I did."
"In which you asked me, a perfect stranger, to be your wife?"
"I-I'm awfully sorry."
"You are sorry? Indeed. Do you mean that you are sorry you asked me to be your wife?"
He gasped. There was something in her tone, something in the way in which she peeped at him from under the long lashes which shaded her violet eyes, something in her attitude, in the quality of the smile which parted her pretty lips, which set every fibre in his body palpitating. What did she mean? What could she mean? Was it possible that she meant-what he had scarcely dared to hope she ever would mean?
In his stuttering eagerness his words tumbled headforemost over each other.
"Of course what I meant was that I know perfectly well that I never ought to have written to you like that. It was frightful cheek, and-and the sort of thing I ought to be kicked for. But as for being sorry that I asked you to be my wife-!" The boy's feelings were so intense that for the moment his breath entirely failed him. When he continued, tears were actually standing in his eyes. "Oh, Miss Lorraine, if you only knew what I have felt since I first saw you. I have been to the theatre every night; I have waited at the stage door to see you come out-"
"So I understand. It was very wrong of you."
"I had to do something-I couldn't help it. I didn't know anyone who'd introduce me; you wouldn't answer my letters; you refused my presents-"
"Certainly; under the circumstances they were so many insults."
"I didn't mean them for insults-I swear I didn't. I wouldn't have insulted you, or allowed anyone else to insult you, not-not for all the gold of the Indies."
"Sir Frank, the question I put to you was, are you sorry that you asked me to be your wife? That is, did you really wish me to be your wife, and do you wish it still?"
"Wish it! I'd give all I have if you'd be my wife; you'd make me the happiest fellow in the world!"
"If you truly mean that-"
"Put me to the test and see if I mean it! – say yes!"
"I do believe that you mean it; so I will say yes. One moment, Sir Frank!" Rising from his chair the young gentleman showed symptoms of a desire to express his feelings in a style which the lady might have found slightly inconvenient. "A girl in my position cannot be too careful. If you care for me as you say, you will see that even better than I do." That was rather a bold stroke of Miss Lorraine's, and a clever one. For it made an irresistible appeal to the boy's quixotic nature. "Remember, you and I are still almost strangers. Nevertheless, you have asked me to be your wife; and I have consented. Will you write a few lines, setting forth the exact position of affairs, on this sheet of paper?"
She pointed to paper, pens and ink, which were on the centre table. The youngster did hesitate. There was a matter-of-fact air about the fashion in which the lady made her suggestion which, even to his eyes, rather blurred the romance of the situation. But his hesitation did not endure. He was like wax in her hands. Presently he sat down and wrote on a sheet of paper the words which-without his being altogether conscious of the fact-she had put at the point of his pen.
"You understand, Sir Frank," she remarked, as she folded up what, from her point of view, was an invaluable document, and slipped it in the bodice of her dress, "this engagement of ours must be no hole-and-corner affair. You must not conceal it from your mother!"
"Of course not. I never have concealed anything from her in my life, and I certainly don't mean to start concealing from her that I'm engaged to be married."
"You must introduce me to her."
"Rather! I shall be only too delighted, if you'll let me. She already has some idea of how it is with me. I wrote to her that I'd fallen head over heels in love. She always has said that she'd like me to marry young; when she hears that I'm to be married right away she'll be delighted."
Miss Lorraine was not so sure. But she did not say so. She was becoming momentarily more convinced that this really was a remarkable young man.
"When do you think you can introduce me to your mother? I should like it to be as soon as possible."
She was thinking of the following Sunday, and of her provisional promise to Mr Lamb.
"Next Wednesday, if that wouldn't be too early."
"Not at all. Wednesday would suit me perfectly."
"That's awfully good of you; because, in that case, I shall be able to introduce you not only to my mother, but, as it were, to everybody else as well. You see, the village people are holding their annual flower show on Wednesday, at my place in Sussex; I've lent them one of my fields. And my mother's got a house-party, and that kind of thing, to do honour to the occasion. I think it would be even better if you could come to-morrow, that's Tuesday. And then by Wednesday you'll know the whole houseful; and then at the flower show I could introduce you to the village people, they're nearly all my tenants. If you'll say yes, I'll run down at once and let my mother know you're coming."
"To-morrow will suit me even better than Wednesday, thank you."
"And of course you'll stay the rest of the week, and over Sunday."
"You'll be tired of me long before then; and your mother also."
"Not she! My mother doesn't tire so easily. And as for me, I shall never be tired of you-never!"
The lady was of a different opinion, but she did not say so.
When they parted it was on the understanding that Sir Frank Pickard was to go and prepare his mother's mind for the coming of his lady love upon the morrow; and the lady was left in the possession of more valuable property than she had previously owned, if all that she had ever had in her life had been lumped together.
As she contemplated her new belongings, and reread what was written on the sheet of paper which she took out of her bodice, she made certain inward comments.
"Some girls would marry him straight off, perhaps most girls, and forget that there ever was a Joe. And if I did marry him he should never have cause to regret it, nor to be ashamed of me; nor his mother either; nor his friends. If I liked, I could make as good a Lady Pickard as anyone. But, fortunately or unfortunately, I don't happen to be that particular kind of girl. I'd rather be Mrs Joe Lamb, with five thousand pounds in my pocket, than Lady Frank Pickard, with fifty thousand pounds a year."
She smiled a very peculiar smile, which, if anything, rather enhanced her charms. She made a very pretty picture as she turned Sir Frank's promise of marriage over and over between her fingers.
III
It is not on record how exactly Lady Pickard received her son's communication. It may be taken for granted that it was not with feelings of ecstatic delight. To hear that he proposed to present her with a daughter-in-law to whom he had spoken only once in his life could hardly have filled her breast with the proud consciousness of his peculiar wisdom. Nor, probably, was her estimate of his character heightened when she learned that the lady in question was a chorus girl at the Frivolity Theatre. It is within the range of possibility that the reception of the news was followed by what, for her, was a very bad half-hour. There is even reason to suspect that she then and there retired to her own apartment, and, for a time at least, was the unhappiest woman in England. No mother likes, unexpectedly, to discover that the son whom she has idolised has suddenly shown signs of being a hopeless idiot.
But Lady Pickard was a cleverer woman than her boy, at that time, imagined. When, after a few dreadful minutes, the first stress of the shock began to fade away, she commenced to perceive, however dimly, that the situation might not, after all, be so terrible as it actually appeared. She realised, also, that there were two or three facts which she would have to bear in mind.
In the first place, her son was his own master. Whom he would wed, he could wed; no one might say him nay. In the second, considering his position, and his sex, he had been on the whole a tolerably fair specimen of his kind; he was not, at bottom, such an absolute idiot as his own conduct had so uncomfortably suggested. She felt sure that there was something to be said about the girl, or he would not have chosen her. She had reason to know that his taste, as regards women, was fastidiousness itself. If he had asked her to his home she entertained a pleasant conviction that, superficially at anyrate, she need not fear any shocking scandal. He would bring no woman there of whose conduct, appearance, or manners there was any serious risk of his being ashamed. Of so much she felt persuaded. In her heart she was still persuaded that, where women were concerned, his judgment might, in the long run, be implicitly relied upon. Since there was positively no means of postponing the lady's threatened visit, she was far too wise to risk a public rupture with her son, with the accompanying scandal. It was just as well that she had such an assurance.
As for the future-well, her son was not yet married to Miss Ailsa Lorraine. All sorts of little accidents might intervene. Some one or other of them might yet induce him to change his point of view. It was conceivable that she might never quarrel with her boy at all, and still be rid of the lady.
She, of course, had not the dimmest notion of the fact that, for reasons of which she could not have the faintest inkling, there was not the slightest danger of Miss Ailsa Lorraine ever becoming Lady Pickard.
Various friends of her own were coming to stay with her during the week of the flower-show-that great event of the village year. On the Tuesday, carriage after carriage brought visitors from the station to the house. As the afternoon drew on nearly every bedroom in the big, old place had its occupant. It was glorious weather. Tea was being served out of doors. The people were, for the most part, in the best of tempers, and the highest spirits. Frank Pickard was very far from being the most miserable person there. On the contrary he was brimming over with health and happiness. So happy, indeed, was he, that, boy-like, he seemed quite incapable of concealing from anyone the cause of his contentment. Not altogether to his mother's satisfaction, he blurted out to everyone who cared to listen to the tale of his good fortune in being able to persuade a feminine paragon to promise to be his wife. Soon all were aware that, shortly, the lady was to be presented to them in person. Frank would have liked her to have come by an earlier train-indeed the earliest. But, instead, the lady had chosen to travel by what was almost the latest, one so late, in fact, that it necessitated putting off the already late dinner to permit of her being among the other guests at table.
"I'm frightfully sorry," he explained. "But, of course, if she couldn't come any earlier, she couldn't; we shall have to make the best of it. Hullo! – who's this?"
The drive to the house wound along one side of the lawn on which the guests were assembled for tea. As he spoke, there appeared on the drive a waggonette-a village waggonette-an ancient, dilapidated vehicle, which was the property of Mr Goshawk, the local flyman. On the box were two figures-a man and a woman. As Sir Frank spoke, the conveyance stopped. The woman climbed down from the box to the body of the vehicle, from which she presently emerged, carrying, as best she could, several brown-paper parcels, and a cardboard hatbox. The driver appeared to remonstrate.
"Don't you trouble about those, miss," he was heard to remark. "I'll take them up to the house."
The woman's reply was still more audible. "There aren't any flies on me; not much you don't. The odds are that if I once lose sight of my belongings I shall never see them again. I know you cabmen. Thank you very much; but if it's all the same to you, what's mine I'll stick to."
Hampered by her various possessions, she scrambled as best she could over the wire fencing on to the lawn. With one or other of her miscellaneous properties bumping against her at every step, she came striding towards the tea-drinkers. It chanced that young Brock was the first person she came to. He was engaged in a tête-à-tête with Florence Stacey of such an engrossing kind that he was not even aware of the advent of the waggonette. His first intimation of the stranger's approach was obtained from Miss Stacey.
"I do believe she's coming to you," she cried. Rising from his seat, Brock turned to see what was meant, and almost in the same instant found himself in the stranger's arms, that dexterous person managing to throw them about him without shedding a single parcel.
"Hullo, Frank, old boy," she exclaimed. "You're looking a bit of all right, upon my word. Catch hold of some of these, there's a good chap; I've had about enough of them."
Before the astounded Brock-who, at that stage of his existence, would not have been seen carrying even so much as a pair of gloves! – could realise what was happening, he found himself in possession of half-a-dozen large and untidy brown-paper parcels of different shades, and a shabby, old cardboard box, tied round with what looked like a clothes-line. It is true that, so soon as he had them he dropped them, but, as he was often told afterwards, that was the moment of his life at which he ought to have been photographed. He would have made a striking picture. So soon as his feelings permitted, he demanded an explanation.
"What do you mean by going on like this? Who are you? I don't know you. And my name's not Frank."
The newcomer remained unabashed.
"All right, old man; no harm done; keep your hair on."
She regarded him fixedly, as if he were some strange specimen which she was endeavouring to place, the unfortunate Brock showing a marked disposition to retreat from her immediate neighbourhood. At last it seemed she arrived at the conclusion that there had been some slight misunderstanding.
"Well, if I wasn't mistaking you for somebody else! It's lucky I didn't kiss you in front of the crowd, wasn't it?" Stanley Brock's inflamed countenance hinted that he thought it was. The lady only smiled. She proceeded to explain still further. "You're a nice-looking boy, especially in those nice white calico clothes" – the "calico" clothes in question were of linen duck-"but you're not my boy; now that I look at you right in front I see that you're not my boy. My boy's as nice-looking as you are, and perhaps a little nicer; no offence, my rosy lad." This was possibly a delicate allusion to Brock's complexion, which was becoming momentarily more ensanguined. "My boy's Sir Frank Pickard. You see, although I'm going to be his wife I've only seen him once; and then I scarcely had what you might call a real good look at him. Seems queer, doesn't it? Ours is a romance, ours is-one of the good old-fashioned sort. I'm Miss Ailsa Lorraine, and I was, up to yesterday, in the chorus at the Frivolity. He fell in love with me from the front row of stalls; that's how it is, you see. They tell me Sir Frank Pickard lives here. You don't happen to know if he's anywhere about just now?"
Frank Pickard's sensations during this scene were of a kind which, although they were never forgotten, he never cared-or dared-to recall. He would have found it difficult to diagnose them, either then or at any other time. When, in after years his thoughts recurred-as they sometimes would-to that moment, what he remembered chiefly was the burning desire which seized him that the ground might open, and he sink into it and be hidden from the sight of all for evermore.
The whole thing was such a bolt from the blue. A moment before he had been telling everyone what a charming person he had won for his wife-how she combined in her person all those attributes which go to make up the perfect woman. With his mother he had dwelt upon the fact of her refinement; had specially pointed out that, though she was only a chorus girl, she was still a high-bred lady. On questions of refinement and breeding he was conscious that his mother esteemed his judgment.
And now, all at once, he found himself confronted by a young woman who was attired in a costume which suggested, more than anything else, a caricature of the tasteless vulgarity to which a certain sort of female could attain. She wore-on that blazing summer's day-a fantastically-cut, ill-fitting dress of scarlet satin-very long behind and very short in front-which was edged and trimmed with some weird material in light green. A black silk petticoat-with ragged edges-was more than visible; as also were her openwork light blue silk stockings, terminated by a pair of cheap, brand-new mustard-coloured shoes. On her bedizened hair was a monstrous picture hat, which bade fair to take the earliest opportunity of toppling forward over her eyes. The fingers of her ungloved hands were covered with gaudy-but worthless-rings; half a dozen bracelets and bangles of silver, and more than dubious gold, were on either wrist; a preposterous chatelaine dangled from a still more ridiculous belt; while her neck was imprisoned by a two-inch-high collar of imitation pearls. To complete the picture, her cheeks were rouged and powdered; her eyebrows pencilled, and her eyes kohled; her lips carmined. In spite of all her efforts she had been unable to conceal the fact that she was pretty; but, under the circumstances, her prettiness seemed to make the matter worse.
Frank Pickard stared at her as if she were some creature born of a nightmare. Was this the dainty damsel whom he had been worshipping from a distance and who had seemed still daintier when he had been brought into close neighbourhood with her yesterday? What hideous metamorphosis had taken place in her between this and then? If he could only have taken to his heels and run!
He was not to escape so easily. Having received no answer from Stanley Brock, she repeated her inquiry.
"I say, old man, look lively! Didn't you hear me ask you if Sir Frank Pickard was anywhere about?"
Mr Brock moved his hand in a sort of vague half-circle, which comprised the spot on which the gentleman in question was standing as if rooted to the ground.
"There is Sir Frank Pickard."
With that genius for blundering which Miss Lorraine seemed to have all at once developed, swinging round, she grasped by both her hands the nearest gentleman, who happened to be General Taylor, one of Lady Pickard's oldest and most particular friends.
"Why, Frankie, I don't take it to be very kind of you not to be taking any notice of me at all. Scotland Yard! you're not Frankie! You're old enough to be his grandpa!" She returned to Stanley Brock; as if the fault were his. "What are you giving us? This isn't my Frank! I'm not collecting fossils just yet, if it's all the same to you."
What the General felt-and his friend the hostess-history does not recount. Silence had settled down on the assembly which was more eloquent than any ribald laughter could possibly have been; it was the silence of stupefaction. It meant that everyone was on tenterhooks as to what was the next thing which this extraordinary person-who had dropped from the clouds-would do or say. Screwing his courage to the sticking point, Frank did his best to rescue his friends from an impossible situation. Advancing towards the dreadful stranger, he addressed her with what one is bound to admit was a voice which trembled.
"Good afternoon, Miss Lorraine."
She looked at him with a glance which was both impudent and mischievous.
"Miss Lorraine! What ho! So you've turned up at last; and now you have turned up you don't seem over hearty. I say, Frankie dear, I wish you'd give me a hand with my baggage. These brown-paper parcels contain pretty nearly everything I've got in the world; my evening dress is in this one. Such a oner! you wait till you see it, you'll stare! Being tumbled about anyhow on the grass won't do it any good. Help me to put the whole lot of it straight, there's a dear."
She was stooping over her collection of miscellaneous rubbish with the apparent intention of piling it into something like a symmetrical heap. Frank showed commendable presence of mind.
"If you will walk with me up to the house, we will send a servant down, and have it all placed in your room."
Miss Lorraine showed no desire to associate herself with his plan to remove her, at anyrate, temporarily, from the scene.
"I'm not going to walk up to the house with you, not much I'm not. Where I am I'll stay. Look here, Frank, if these people are your friends you introduce them to your future wife; I don't like being among a lot of folks and not know who's who. It don't seem sociable. And where's your mother? You promised to introduce me to the old lady the very first chance you had."
The "old lady" thus delicately referred to-who was herself of opinion that she was still very far from being old-cast at her son such a glance that he became immediately conscious that compliance with Miss Lorraine's request was altogether out of the question. He ingeniously shirked it.
"Won't you have some tea? You must be tired-you came by an earlier train than we expected."
"That's how it turned out. I'll tell you how it was. This dress, you see, that I've got on, it isn't my own, it belongs to a lady who's a friend of mine. I asked her to lend it to me directly I knew I was coming down here, and she said she would; but we're not the same figures, you know, and I knew it'd want a good bit of altering, taking in here and letting out there; your friends'll understand how sometimes one lady's dress has to be pulled about before it can be got to fit another, and I thought it wouldn't be finished before the train I told you of. But it turned out after all that there wasn't so much difference in our waists as I'd supposed, she was only three-quarters of an inch-"
Frank made a gallant effort to curtail what bade fair to be some extremely intimate personal details.
"Did you say you'd have some tea?"
"I didn't say anything about it, that I know of. I can't say that I care for tea, not as a general rule; but I don't mind having a drop if there's nothing better going. Hullo, where's the old lady off to? – and the old chap I mistook for you?"
The "old lady" and the "old chap" were Lady Pickard and General Taylor. The pair were making a dash for cover.
"Why, they're all going!"
They all were. Following her ladyship's lead the entire company was showing a disposition to seek safety in flight. Frank stammered an explanation.
"You see, they had their tea before you came; I expect they've all got something to do."
Miss Lorraine feigned indifference, even if she felt it not.
"Oh, they can go for all I care. It makes no odds to me. If my company isn't good enough for them I'm sure I don't want to keep 'em. Besides, if we're left alone it'll give you a chance to say some of those pretty things which are nearly dropping off the tip of your tongue. I say, Frankie, don't you think I'm looking simply sweet?"
What "Frankie" answered the chronicles do not state.