The Duchess in Pursuit/The Duchess and the Daffodils
I.—The Duchess and the Daffodils
IT was the spring that began it. The spring is responsible for so many things—bad poetry, measles, love at first sight, and other painful human epidemics included—and it was undoubtedly responsible for the conduct of certain otherwise highly respectable members of society. The fact that the chief personage concerned was a duchess is surely evidence enough in support of the latter statement, because whatever a duchess does must be, in the nature of things, respectable.
Now, the duchess' house in Park Lane faced onto a monster flower bed wherein a gardener with an eye for mass effect had planted an army of daffodils. The blaze of pale gold caught the duchess' eye as she stepped solemnly into her solemn victoria, and afterward haunted her all through the wedding ceremony.
On this occasion, moreover, not only was the bride the niece of her oldest friend, Sir John O'Neill, but the ceremony marked the high tide in the season's events. St. George's overflowed with the great little people whose world-shaking careers fill the smart journals; and afterward, at the reception in Sir John's house in Berkeley Square, it was almost impossible to move.
But for all this, the duchess remained incredibly absent-minded. The vision of the daffodils obsessed her—very much to her annoyance; and having greeted two important members of his majesty's government by the wrong names, and congratulated a bishop on the death of his wife, she beat a flustered retreat to Sir John's library, lest worse should befall.
Two other refugees had forestalled her. An elderly gentleman with an iron-gray mustache, a military carriage, and a certain tendency to embonpoint, occupied the hearth, and a high-backed chair set off to their best advantage the slender figure and the faded golden hair of a widow in elegant, unrelieved mourning.
The three personages greeted each other with the solemn thankfulness of old comrades unexpectedly united on a desert island.
The duchess sank gracefully into Sir John's Chesterfield—a rather astonishing feat, seeing that she was very small and the Chesterfield of masculine dimensions, but then the duchess had never been ungraceful in her life.
“It's a very trying wedding,” she said. “Weddings are not what they used to be. There is no repose—no solemnity—no grace about them. They are vulgar—almost rowdy. It is a vulgar, rowdy age, and there are times when I refuse to cope with it.”
The elderly gentleman shuddered.
“Quite right, duchess. There is nothing for it but to retire. Can't think why I came—'pon my soul I can't.”
The lady in weeds gave a pensive sigh.
“We had to,” she murmured. “Sir John would have been very hurt. After all, we're his best friends. One has to bring one's sacrifices. Life is made up of sacrifices.”
“Of course,” said the duchess.
She was still suffering from absent-mindedness and a slight increase of irritability.
Colonel Douglas Magree tugged at the military mustache.
“It's a hideous farce,” he said bitterly. “It's heathenish. It ought to be discouraged. If people will make asses of themselves, they ought to do it quietly. What's the good of all this fuss? Who's any the better for it except the dressmakers and buzzards and a few hungry reporters? I ask you.”
“My dear colonel,” Mary Cochrane began in her gentle, languid way, “it makes two people happy, at least.”
“I doubt it.”
“That's because you've never been married.”
He looked at her glumly.
“Is that my fault?” he demanded. Whereat, a faint color tingeing her delicately sad features, he threw out his chest and took on a tone of terrific masculinity. “The truth is, our ancestors managed things better,” he said. “They just clubbed their women over the head and dragged them off by their hair. There was some sense in that. We're too namby-pamby. We don't seize what we want. We just wait for it to drop into our mouths, and of course it never drops. It's a rotten generation.”
“At least it is civilized,” said Mrs. Cochrane reproachfully.
“Pooh!” said the colonel.
“And I don't think your idea of clubbing people over the head at all nice,” said the duchess. “I'm sure my ancestors never did things like that. It sounds very plebeian. I'm glad you didn't think of it when you were younger, colonel. We shouldn't have liked it, should we, Mary?”
Apparently Mary Cochrane did not hear, or found the_question embarrassing. She stared absently into the firelight, and the crimson glow lit up the pale, transparent features as if with an inward brightness. It was wonderful how she carried her years and her sorrow. She so rarely smiled; she made no effort to cover the telltale lines about her gentle blue eyes; and if the hair under the widow's cap persisted in retaining its soft gold, it was not her fault. And yet she was pleasant to look upon in her graceful weeds, and the tragedy that they represented had become an institution—almost a cult. Everybody knew about it. It was surrounded with an atmosphere of sanctity. People lowered their voices when they spoke of it or its owner.
“You know—Reginald Cochrane. Killed in the first days of their honeymoon. Poor thing! It's twenty years ago, and yet she has never forgotten.”
And then, to crown the story, an elderly gentleman with a florid face and a martial manner would be pointed out as an emblem of romantic, hopeless devotion.
It was all very beautiful. Mary Cochrane was the first to see how beautiful it was. She was thinking of it when the elderly gentleman himself broke in upon her thoughts with a melancholy laugh.
“Well, I shan't club anybody on the head,” he said. “My days for that sort of thing are over. Barclay—you know—Sir John's nephew—has knocked me off practically all exercise. Says I've got to take things easy—heart, you know.” He assumed the awe-struck solemnity of a man about to relate his symptoms. “It's been queer for a long time. Might stop at any moment”
“Oh, no!” interposed Mary Cochrane hurriedly. “You mustn't talk like that—you really mustn't.”
The colonel shook his head. He seemed suddenly to become more cheerful.
“One can't last forever,” he said. “I've had my day. An old fellow like me—what does it matter?”
“It does matter,” she said softly.
The duchess started. Euphemistically speaking, she had been daydreaming—and she was correspondingly anxious to seem wide awake. She sat up straighter and shook back the precious lace that hung over her small, white, beautifully jeweled hands.
“It's the life we lead,” she said energetically. “Is there any one in this country who works for the public good as we do? Look at me—a wedding to-day, the St. James' bazaar to-morrow, the new mission hall on Friday, a christening on Saturday! There's simply no rest. My dear”—she addressed herself exclusively to Mrs. Cochrane—“positively there are times when I should be glad to change places with my own tenants—to lead their simple, untroubled lives, milking the cows, churning the butter—it is churning I mean, isn't it?—preparing the homely meal with rosy-cheeked children at one's knee. How happy they are! What do they know of our cares and responsibilities?
“What indeed?” murmured Mary Cochrane sadly.
“And always under the protection of others,” the duchess went on. “Only the other day, I opened a new school-house. I gave it them. They never even had to ask for it. I gave it them. And goodness knows, in these horrible radical days, how our rent rolls have suffered!”
“Our lives are in the service-of the people,” said the colonel.
“And we have grown old serving,” sighed the duchess.
Then all three thought of national insurance and old-age pensions, and how the vitality of the country was being sapped by a coddling democracy, and how poverty was the hotbed of other people's virtues. But they said nothing. They knew one another's thoughts so well. And presently the duchess dozed again.
A ragged cheer from the street and the sudden opening of the folding doors aroused her. Another elderly gentleman had entered. He greeted the three with a ceremonious little bow.
“They are just going,” he explained. “I prefer to watch from the window. Rheumatism, you know. At my time of life, one does not defy the April wind lightly. Duchess, I believe you were asleep.”
“Certainly not,” she retorted hurriedly. “I was thinking—I shan't come to any more weddings. They upset me.”
He shook his head in gallant denial and gave her his arm. He was much taller than she was and very slenderly built. His clothes were no doubt the creation of a great tailor, for they fitted his broad-shouldered, lean-flanked figure to perfection, but they had an Old World air about them like the man himself. One expected to find lace frills and strapped trousers and a gold fob under a flowered waistcoat. His very manner demanded them.
They reached the French window in time to see two rather scared figures flash through the swaying, absurdly excited crowd of disinterested onlookers and disappear into a waiting carriage under a hail of rice. Then it was over; nothing remained but a portly policeman—like an immovable monument to law and order.
Silence sank on the solemn, oak-paneled library. The dull, monotonous hubbub from the reception rooms grew fainter, and the street beneath resounded less and less frequently with the shrill call of a whistle and the mutterings of impatient motor cars. The chill, flat-tasting atmosphere of exhausted revelry seemed to creep in under the doors and weigh oppressively on the four elderly people. They found nothing to say to one another.
The duchess caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror at the far end of the room. It was growing dusk, and the picture that she saw was dim and misty, like a remembered dream. It was the picture of a little woman—a trifle too rotund, perhaps, for youth and beauty—with snow-white hair under a dainty, yet sedate bonnet, with delicate, aristocratic features and arched black brows and beautiful hands like flowers amid a foliage of rich laces. Behind her loomed the tall shadow of a man, his gray head bent, his shoulders bowed as if, not knowing he was observed, he watched her. It was like an old-fashioned miniature—touched up to suit the taste of another generation.
“Ghosts!” said the duchess under her breath. “Just like ghosts!” She made a little gesture that was almost defiant. “Now I know why we're all so cross,” she declared. “We're old—and all these young people—all this giving and taking in marriage—have made us realize how old—and we don't like it.”
“Yes, we're shelved,” growled Magree from the fireside.
“Onlookers!” murmured Mary Cochrane.
“We must be satisfied with the back-waters, while youth flows by,” said Sir John gracefully. “That is the rule of life.”
“I'd like my carriage, announced the duchess decisively.
Sir John gave her his arm, and in silence they made their way down the private staircase. Near the side door, in an alcove dimly lit by a lamp held by a giant bronze figure, the duchess paused and looked back.
“Why don't those two marry?” she said a little breathlessly. “She loves him—I'm sure she does—and he has been so faithful.”
“Faithfulness is not always rewarded,” he ventured with gentle significance.
“No, of course not. Why should it be? I mean—I don't mean that at all. Only it seems such waste”
“We, too, have been wasteful in our time, Elizabeth.”
The duchess' hand fluttered on his arm.
“You ought not to call me 'Elizabeth,' John. We're too old”
“Surely our age protects us,” he returned with rueful humor.
She shook her head.
“Besides, I was talking about Mary and Douglas. It's absurd. She can't always go on mourning for that scapegrace.”
“She is too old to forget, perhaps,” he suggested.
“Nonsense! She's younger than I am.”
“That reminds me that I am older than he is.”
“Why will you be personal, John?” said the duchess plaintively.
“Because I feel personal. Now that Diana has gone, I shall be very lonely. Aren't you a little sorry for me?”
“Very, very sorry.”
“My dear—I wish you had been sorry when it would have mattered.”
The duchess gave a little troubled laugh.
“John—the wedding has upset us both. We're old. We mustn't be ridiculous even in private. And—and it is ridiculous.”
He did not answer for a moment. Though the duchess had forgotten it, she still held the offending daffodil, and he took it gently from her.
“Spring!” he said meditatively. “Another springtime!”
“But the daffodil has faded,” she answered. “It will never come to life again. There is only one springtime for us all.”
He sighed, and they stood silent, looking at each other. The half light was kind to them, half concealing, half revealing.
“The carriage, your grace!”
They started guiltily. The butler threw open the side door, and a cold blast whirled in upon them. The duchess shivered. Sir John bowed over her hand, a little stiffly.
“You will excuse my escorting you farther, duchess? My rheumatism, you know—I am an old fellow.”
“We are both old,” said the duchess. “Both old!”
So the footman helped her into the becrested victoria.
And the April wind rushed past with a jolly laugh and a splendid whoop of defiance.
Sir John O'Neill went back to the library. He found Colonel Magree alone, and they sat opposite each other, smoking and listening to the wind. Sir John put the faded daffodil back in the cloisonné vase and frowned to see how it drooped among its shining fellows.
“Well, that's over!” he said.
The colonel grunted.
“Tired?”
“Not particularly.”
“Nor am I. I could do it all over again. That nephew of yours, Barclay, exaggerates.” He gave an uneasy chuckle. “I believe I could get married myself, blessed if I couldn't!”
“Why not?" Sir John agreed warmly. “Older people than you get married.”
“Of course they do. Look at that fellow, Richards.” Seventy to a day—and married only last week.”
“Why shouldn't he?”
“Yes, why the devil shouldn't he?”
They stared dreamily into the fire. Presently the door opened and a young man entered. He was not actually noisy, and yet the effect of his entry was curiously cyclonic. The two men by the fire started like conspirators caught red-handed.
“Hello!” said the newcomer cheerfully. “Did I wake you up?”
“Certainly not,” said Sir John.
“Why on earth should we be asleep?” grumbled the colonel.
“Oh, well, it's been pretty tiring for you, I should say.” Barclay held his hands to the fire. He was a young doctor with a rich father and a consulting room in Harley Street and quite a number of patients among his relatives and all those of their friends who had nothing the matter with them save money. “I thought I'd stay and speed the parting guests, uncle,” he explained. “I guessed you'd be fagged.”
“Fagged? Not at all. To tell you the truth, I—I forgot all about them.”
“Well, one does get absent-minded as one gets on.” His professional manner was wonderfully consoling. “Colonel, put that cigar away. You know what I told you—your heart won't stand it.”
The colonel muttered under his breath, but the cigar went into the fender. Sir John drew himself up in his chair.
“By the way, did you see that old Richards is married?” he asked abruptly.
Claude Barclay thrust his hands into his pockets.
“Rather! It's been the joke of the week. Old idiot! Must be in his dotage. Some one ought to have certified him and shut him up.”
“Certainly!” said the colonel firmly.
“Idiotic!” agreed Sir John.
They avoided each other's eyes.
“Don't you two go in for anything of that sort,” Claude Barclay threatened jocularly. “I'll certify you, right enough.”
“I hope you will,” said Sir John.
“Rather!” said the colonel.
The two elderly gentlemen laughed heartily, with their eyes fixed intently on the fire.
II.
The firm of Timothy Baines & Son was as old as the neighborhood, and, in fact, older. Long before the idea of slums had penetrated to that part of the world, there had been a Timothy Baines to supply the straggling houses on the common, and among the present generation there was not one purchaser whose mother's mother had not haggled with one or another of the family. They were aristocrats in their way, were the Timothy Baineses.
In the meantime, the common had vanished. In its place was a labyrinth of exceedingly dirty streets, with dirtier houses in and out of which people swarmed with the helpless, ineffectual profusion of ants in an ant heap.
In the midst of them Timothy Baines & Son held their accustomed place of honor. The only visible change was that the shop had grown bigger and the Timothy smaller. Whereas the first of the line had been a fine, upstanding, broad-shouldered countryman whose merchandise had consisted entirely of green grocery, the present Timothy was a bit of a fellow, a regular little cockney, weedy, tough, rather pimply, who sold pretty well everything from a turnip to a comforter.
As to the “& Son,” he was so small that he can scarcely be mentioned. For he had only just been born.
Every one knew about it. Elderly persons in plaid shawls and dissipated-looking bonnets lowered their voices as they approached the counter. Young things remarkable for “curlers” on week days and corkscrews and feathers on Sundays dropped their pertness a they crossed the threshold. Goodness knows how many times the turnips and the comforters and all the rest of the shop's contents had to listen to the hoarsely whispered question, “And 'ow's the missus, Mr. Baines?”
As for Mr. Baines, he was “all over himself,” as the saying goes. His small, anemic face and pale-blue eyes were radiant with the joy that had come to him. Every time there was a lull in the business, he would scamper upstairs to the dim, carefully hushed room where lay the wailing heir and the wonderful, amazing woman. He would ask inane questions of a phlegmatic nurse, and murmur playful, emotion-wrought incoherences over the patient. He was a highly strung little man, and his customers had to bear with him that day. They rattled their pennies on the counter and were discreetly oblivious to the short weight that he gave them in his confusion. For in the general upheaval, inherited instinct got the better of a natural integrity and, besides, if a mistake had to be made, it must obviously not be to the disadvantage of the wailing “& Son” upstairs.
Finally he put up shutters five minutes before time, sent the evening accounts to the winds, and crept up to the miracle of miracles with the helpless fatuity of a moth drawn to a candle. The nurse had disappeared, and he sat down on the edge of the bed and held his wife's hand.
She was not beautiful. She was just another cockney—snub-nosed, with commonplace brown eyes and colorless hair, but mercifully there are many different beauty standards in this world, and to Timothy Baines she was a “bit of orl right,” as he would have expressed it. As to the “& Son,” he compelled as yet awe rather than admiration. He was distinctly strange to look upon, but Timothy, being given to understand that he was the “himage of 'is father,” accepted his peculiarities meekly.
“Feelin' better, ol' girl?” he whispered.
“Fine, thank yer, Tim. Ain't 'e beautiful?”
“Fust class.” He gave a little chuckle. “Lor, ain't it strange? Fancy, I was born in this 'ere very room, and me father before me. One of these days, 'e'll be sittin' 'ere where I am and sayin' 'Feelin' better, ol' girl?' just like I did.”
“Lor', Tim, 'ow you do go on!”
He rubbed his knees with the palms of his hands.
“I was only thinkin', It's good to ave a bit of a place of one's very own, aint it? We Baineses—we ain't the ''ere-to-day-and-gorn-to-morrow' style. We've always been 'ere. Each of us 'as added 'is bit. When me grandfather bought this bit of land and built the shop, 'e didn't know 'ow it was goin' to grow—not 'e. Just sold garden stuff and all that. 'Adn't dreamed of boot polish and brushes and soap and such-like. Just you wait! If things go on like they are, I'll 'ave a millinery department—you see!”
“Lor', Tim!” said the weak voice. “You are a one!”
They smiled. Refined people would have been quite amazed at the happiness that these two plain and unrefined people found in each other and in the red-faced heir to the cheap little shop.
Some one banged at the outer door, and Mr. Baines growled and pattered unwillingly downstairs. He had hardly withdrawn the bolts before he informed the invisible intruder of the rather obvious fact that the shop was shut, but the intruder remained obdurate. He proved to be a person of smug rotundity and smugger opulence. He wore a bowler and an important overcoat, not to mention dogskin gloves—all of which proved him a stranger to those parts. Mr. Baines sized him up at once.
“We don't want no samples,” he said firmly. “I've got all I want of everythin' enough for a year. Good evenin'.”
The stranger put his foot neatly in the doorway.
“I'm not a commercial traveler;” he said. “I've come about the lease. If you don't mind, I'll just step in.”
He stepped in. He had the air of a man accustomed to “stepping in” under much the same unpropitious circumstances, and Mr. Baines gazed at him in wordless indignation. Still unperturbed, the intruder seated himself calmly by the counter and laid down a sheaf of papers. “I was round this way and thought I'd give you a look up,” he explained casually. “It's about the lease.”
Mr. Baines recovered speech.
“Look 'ere,” he said. “My wife's gone and 'ad a kid, and I don't want no fuss. You've made a mistake. There ain't no lease knockin' round 'ere. This is the property of Mr. Timothy Baines & Son. Don't you forget it.”
The stranger remained unmoved. He referred to a notebook.
“Lease expires on the tenth instant of January, 1912,” he observed dispassionately. “What do you propose doing about it, Mr. Baines?”
“Do? Put you out! You've been drinkin', that's wot you 'ave!” He drew himself up to his full height. “Once and fer all, this is the premises of Timothy Baines & Son,” he recapitulated.
“Until tenth instant, January, 1912,” interposed the imperturbable person. “Upon which date,” he added legally, “the property reverts to the original landowner, unless otherwise arranged.” He presented his card. “That's who I am,” he finished crushingly.
Mr. Baines snatched at the piece of pasteboard.
“James Henry Hewell,” he read aloud, “clerk for the Ashminster Estate. What the devil is the Ashminster Estate?” he demanded ironically.
The stranger pushed back his bowler hat.
“This is the Ashminster Estate.” He waved his hand expressively. “All this part,” he added. “The property of the duchess.”
“And 'oo,” said Mr. Baines, with gathering satire, “and 'oo the devil is the duchess?”
“The owner of this property,” said Mr. Henry James Hewell lucidly.
“Oh, she is, is she?” Mr. Baines stemmed one fist against his thigh and one on the counter. His attitude was aggressive. “Look 'ere!” he said. “My grandfather built this shop. 'E left it to my father, and my father left it to me. That's legal, ain't it?”
“Maybe,” said Mr. Hewell noncommittally.
“So it's my property, and your old duchess be blowed!”
“The land is the property of the duchess,” said Mr. Hewell.
“It ain't. My grandfather bought it.”
Mr. Hewell smiled.
“Come, come, Mr. Baines, you know perfectly well he didn't. He leased it. You've been paying ground rent. You've been paying it to the duchess because it's her ground. Think a bit.”
Mr. Baines obeyed. Having “thought a bit” he went behind the counter. He felt safer there. He was shaking in every limb. A dry, nameless fear clutched at his throat. But he remained ironic.
“And 'oo gave this 'ere land to the duchess?” he asked.
“Henry VIII.” Mr. Hewell began.
“One of 'is wives, no doubt,” sneered Mr. Baines. Then he suddenly lost his nerve. He banged the counter with his fist in an access of terror. “We've made this 'ere business,” he shouted. “We Bainsees 'ave made it. If a man makes a thing, it's 'is, ain't it?”
“Not at all,” said the agent. “More often it's some one else's.”
Mr. Baines caught his breath. He tried to regain ground—to laugh.
“Why,” he said, “we've been 'ere since the Flood, we 'ave. It was a bit of our orange peel Mr. Wot's-is-name slipped on at the Battle of 'Astings.” His facetiousness rang flat. He leaned forward. “Look 'ere!” he said. “Wot's it all mean?”
Mr. Henry James Hewell became more animated.
“It means,” he said, holding up two fingers in succession, “either you renew the lease or you clear out. That's the matter—plain as a pikestaff. For the renewal of lease one thousand pounds down and two thousand pounds in installments”
“My grandfather paid one 'undred pounds,” Mr. Baines burst out hysterically.
“No doubt. Land's been going up in these parts. Three thousand pounds is dirt cheap.”
“But I 'aven't got three thousand pounds.”
“Well, you can clear out, then.”
Mr. Baines moistened his dry lips.
“Oh, I can, can I? And wot about this 'ere shop wot my grandfather built? I can take it with me, I s'pose?”
“Certainly not. If you decide to stay, though, we shall want two hundred pounds for the good will of the business.” He smiled pleasantly. “It's worth it. You've worked it up no end.” He got up and righted his bowler. “Well, you can think it over and let us know,” he finished.
Mr. Baines followed him to the door. His teeth were clenched so that he could scarcely unlock them.
“Good will!” he stuttered. “Two 'undred pounds for the good will of my own business! That's cool! It's a crime, that's wot it is!”
“You let me know,” said Mr. Hewell, unperturbed.
“Blowed if I do! I'll 'ave a talk with your precious duchess first, I will.”
Mr. Hewell smiled. The smile really got the better of him.
“I should,” he said. “No. Park Lane will find her grace. But I'd leave it to me if I were you. The duchess doesn't know anything about it. She gives us a free hand, so to speak”
“A damned free hand, it is, too!” shouted Mr. Baines. “I'll see you blowed”
Mr. Henry James Hewell hesitated conciliatingly.
“It's no use getting angry,” he said. “The neighborhood's gone up, and what with Lloyd George and such, the gentry have got to get their living somewhere, haven't they? That's reason.”
“Oh, get out!” said Mr. Baines.
Mr. Henry James Hewell got out. Evidently the experience was not unusual. He seemed quite unoffended. Mr. Baines slammed and bolted the door, shutting his castle against the enemy.
But once the bolts were drawn and there was no fear of unsympathetic, observing eyes, Mr. Baines collapsed. He crept to the high chair by the counter and sank down there, his face buried in his shaking hands. At first he was too stunned to think, and presently, when his shaken faculties began to right themselves, he refused to believe. It was a nightmare—an hallucination. He looked helplessly about him.
In the dim light of the single gas jet, the little shop had an unfamiliar, ghostly look. The biscuit tins on the shelves twinkled maliciously. The jam jars and the preserves pyramided by skillful hands loomed somberly over him, and the great boxes of oranges and apples piled away for the night were sinisterly like coffins, An hour—less than an hour—ago, he had loved them all. They had been his vassals, his heralds, ready to go out into the world and proclaim silently, but eloquently: “Baines' are the Best. Baines gives you your Money's worth. Baines, established nearly a hundred years. Go to Baines for Everything.” They had been his reputation—part of the kingdom he and his patient, toiling race had built out of nothing. Every penny that he could spare had gone to make that kingdom better, securer, for the “& Son.” And now!
Now it was gone. Some woman—some vampire whom his confused brain associated vaguely with Henry VIII. and various domestic irregularities—had taken it from him—just taken it, cool as you please, without an apology, shamelessly, the whole world looking on. It was incredible—monstrous! His belief in law and order and justice were shattered at one blow. He was to be turned out—out of the house the first Timothy had built so firmly—like some poor, feckless, hand-to-mouth devil with his rent in arrears! What was the good of industry and honesty and thrift? Might as well loaf and beg. It was the rich ones who got home in the end, whatever you did.
The tears dried on Timothy's cheeks. His quivering lips steadied. He clenched his fists and shook them and swore horrible oaths. He swore so that the nurse, by this time returned to her duties, called to him down the stairs to be quiet. At that, he steadied. He grew deadly quiet, his small face set with hard and reckless thoughts.
Presently he went upstairs. Mrs. Timothy Baines & Son were asleep, and the latter only awoke when Mr. Baines opened the squeaking drawer that contained his Sunday clothes. Mrs. Baines watched him with a drowsy wonder.
“Wotcher lookin' for, Tim?”
He started.
“My red tie.”
“Wotcher want your red tie for?” she persisted.
“I want it,” said Mr. Baines deliberately, “because I'm a socialist. That's wot I am—a socialist. And socialists wear red ties.”
“It ain't respectable,” Mrs. Baines murmured huskily. “Socialists ain't respectable.”
“'Oo cares?” muttered Mr. Baines under his breath.
Mrs. Baines did not hear him, and she was too weak to argue. Mr. Baines came over on tiptoe and kissed her. Her commonplace brown eyes opened and brightened tenderly.
“Goin' out, Tim?”
“Just for a bit. Don't you worry if I'm late.”
“Goin' to see a pal?”
“Well—not a pal exactly.” He gave a dry little laugh. “I'm goin' to pay a sort o' surprise call on a duchess. That's all. Beginnin' to move in 'igh circles, I am.”
Her laugh echoed his faintly.
“Lor', Tim, 'ow you go on! You are a one!”
He peeped at the bundle lying curled up in the hollow of her arm.
“So long, old son!” he whispered. “We ain't done yet, we two, not 'alf!”
He went out stealthily, like a thief.
III.
Though it manifested itself suddenly, there is no doubt that it had been coming on all day. Looking back on the incident afterward, she recognized that there had been warning symptoms, but at the moment it seemed to spring from nowhere—a Pucklike absurdity, the sort of freakish impulse that can goad the most serious-minded, in the very midst of a soul-stirring drama, to tickle the bald pate of the gentleman-in the next row of the stalls.
It was while the becrested victoria was rolling solemnly through the park that it happened. It pounced on the duchess—figuratively bowled her over.
She wanted to get out and walk.
She wanted to ride on the top of a bus.
She had not walked farther than the breadth of the pavement for years, She had never ridden on a bus in her life—had never wanted to. It was horrible. But the thing was too sudden to be resisted. She called, “James” before she knew what she was doing. They were driving at a good pace, and James, rigid as a statue, remained glaring stolidly into space. The duchess called again. She did not want to; she was simply obsessed. This time James turned, an image of respectful inquiry,
“Yes, your grace?”
“IT want” began the duchess, Then, under that eye of implacable respectability, she faltered—faltered and recovered with a gasp as one jerked back from the edge of a precipice. “Tell Charles,” she said sternly, “to drive more slowly.”
“Yes, your grace.”
The high-stepping chestnuts were discreetly restrained. The duchess sank back among her furs. She was shaking all over with the shock of the thing. A duchess—wanting to walk—in the twilight—through the park—to ride on the top of an omnibus. She felt much as if she had stepped on an unsuspected ice slide and gone down with hideous indignity. She grew hot and cold at the thought of what might have happened had James been a shade less respectable.
The street lamps were lit as the victoria drew up at the big corner house in Park Lane. One of them, the one across the way, threw a patch of light on the bed of daffodils. The duchess regarded them almost malignantly. In some inexplicable way, they were a part of the bus-ride impulse. She had an absurd idea that they were making fun of her, and the very fact that she could imagine anything so silly aggravated her the more.
Inside, further annoyance awaited her. Passing the door of one of those odd, rarely used apartments that lurk about big houses, she heard her daughter talking through the telephone. Now the duchess hated telephones. She had consented to one only because she understood that they were the essence of modern civilization, but in her heart of hearts she considered them vulgar. Further, it must be explained how it came about that the duchess' only daughter, the Lady Angela, had not gone to the wedding. She had not gone because she never went anywhere where she should go. She was the despair of society journals. She attended art schools, wore impossible, though quite charming, clothes, and mixed with extraordinary people. Nobody could manage her—least of all the duchess. Which is to say that she was extremely modern.
She was talking through the detested instrument, and the duchess, without the slightest intention of eavesdropping, stopped to listen.
“Why, of course I'll come,” said the Lady Angela. “Robert, you are a duffer! Why shouldn't I? Oh, no, it's no use asking mother. I never do. She's an old darling, but you can't expect her to understand. Autre temps, outre moeurs—that's French. So long, till Tuesday, then.”
She hung up the receiver, and the duchess entered, closing the door firmly in the face of a large footman.
“My dear,” she said, “who were you talking to?”
Her tone of stern authority would have impressed most people. It left the Lady Angela quite cheerful and unconcerned. She came and kissed her mother and, having placed her in an uncomfortable gilt chair by the fire-place, perched herself on the arm. Her careless, unconscious prettiness was deliciously enhanced by an obstinate chin and eyes that would have outraged an earlier generation by their frank fearlessness. But the duchess was past being outraged—where the Lady -Angela was concerned.
“I was talking to Robert,” the latter personage explained cheerfully. “Robert Drake, you know.”
“I don't know,” the duchess responded coldly.
“Well, no, I suppose you don't. One of the students at the art school. Ripping black and white. Oils, too. And poetry. Most things worth doing, in fact. You'll be proud to know him one of these days.”
The duchess repressed the obvious retort. She was feeling fretful, and the Lady Angela's habit of clipping her sentences was intensely aggravating. Moreover, she wished her daughter wouldn't stroke her cheek as if she, the duchess, were some elderly, pampered pet. Young people, the duchess decided, were very trying.
“I dare say I shall be proud,” she said, “but at present I don't know him. I do wish, Angela, you would bring some of your friends here. Your descriptions of them make me very anxious. And that dreadful habit of calling people by their Christian names! A girl in your position”
“Mother, don't begin all that again! You can't understand”
“So you remarked before, my dear.”
“Well, you can't. How could I bring my friends here? They'd be bored stiff.”
“Angela, your expressions! Why should they be bored st—I mean bored, pray?”
“Well, they're young, for one thing, and”
“And I'm old,” said the duchess irritably. “Is that it?”
The Lady Angela kissed her.
“Aren't you? Of course you are, quite beautifully old, darling. Look at your lovely white hair, and your dear wrinkled face, and your sweet bonnets. Robert would just love to paint you if I could only drag him here. He says old faces have so much more in them than young ones. But he'd never come—never.”
The duchess smiled a frosty understanding.
“No doubt he would feel himself ill at ease here.”
“It's not that exactly”
“Isn't he presentable, then?”
“To tell you the truth,” said the Lady Angela with a burst of frankness, “he wouldn't come because he doesn't approve of you.”
“What?” said the duchess quite rudely.
“Well, he doesn't. He thinks duchesses out of date—almost immoral. Not you in particular, darling, but all of us. He thinks I'm a brand from the burning.” She laughed. “You mustn't be upset. You think you're all right—don't you?—and that's all that matters.”
The duchess said nothing, having nothing to say. One cannot reply satisfactorily to the babblings of a lunatic. But she was annoyed. The Lady Angela continued to soothe her aggravatingly.
“Wedding go off well, mummy?”
“Very well,” stiffly.
“That's good. Dear old Sir John as beautiful as ever? Such a gentleman! Did he kiss your hand and say pretty things? Isn't he wonderful? Like a piece of animated Sheraton, I always think.” She considered a moment. “Do you know, I often wonder—why didn't you marry him instead of poor, reckless papa? He's so devoted and good, and papa—papa was just a little wayward, wasn't he? Aren't you sorry?”
The duchess almost fluttered.
“Angela—please”
“Do you mind? Of course it's too late now, and that's what's so sweet and romantic about it. You two dear, beautiful old things”
The duchess rose.
“I think,” she said, “that you are positively indecent, Angela. You have no respect for anything or any one. I am thoroughly annoyed. I only hope,” she added quite venomously, “that you will live to be as—as aggravated as I am.”
She went out. She was, in truth, thoroughly upset. Everything had combined to upset her—the absurd obsession of those flowers, the wedding, the drive home, and now Angela the last straw. The duchess scarcely recognized herself. She sent away the two maids who waited for her in her dressing room. She even locked the door. It was absolutely essential that she should have time to recover her ordinary serenity.
But it was not so easy. The beautiful room, with its Louis XVI. furniture and brocaded curtains, stifled her. The gold ornaments on her dressing table by the window unaccountably added to her irritation. She picked up a novel and could not read it. She tried to rest and failed even to close her eyes for two minutes. Finally, obeying another irrational impulse, she pulled aside the curtains and opened the windows.
After that she felt easier. The room was on the ground floor and looked out on to a garden that, as London gardens go, was of quite respectable dimensions. It was dark now, and she could not see the flowers that had been bedded out in solemn order by solemn ducal gardeners, but the cool night air carried their perfume and filled the room with life. It was, indeed, as if a living force had brushed away the ghosts of those dead-and-gone folk who had rustled their brocades and satins among its gilded splendors.
Now that the window was open, the priceless Louis XVI. chairs and mirrors had a faded, dead look. The gold ornaments looked poor and dim.
But the duchess breathed more freely. She defied rheumatism and sat down by the open window and stared at herself in the glass. It was as if she had never seen herself before. Yes—the hair was white—white as snow—and there were wrinkles. Of course there were; not so many perhaps—but still enough. Once she had been young and very beautiful. One could see traces even now—more than traces. That nose for instance, those arched brows, the almond-shaped eyes—the whole outline. Compared to her, even now, the Lady Angela was a hoyden—a pink-and-white milkmaid. But even the Lady Angela had something the duchess could never have again. Never again.
Youth—springtime.
And suddenly the tears sprang to the duchess' eyes.
She had not cried for ten years and more. She was so unaccustomed to the process that she sat bolt upright, proud and soundless, the tears running down her cheeks. She tried to ignore them. She scorned herself. But she could not stop. And in the very midst of it all, she caught sight of Timothy Baines.
Not that she saw all that there was of him at once. He developed slowly, like the Cheshire Cat in “Alice in Wonderland”—first a face and then a pair of shoulders and then a body and finally a pair of legs that carried him into the duchess' room. There they paused for a moment, incapable of further action.
The duchess neither screamed nor fainted. She did not even change color. She was vividly conscious of her jeweled hands lying loosely clasped on the dressing table, and she knew that her hour had come. She was terrified out of her life, but she regarded Timothy Baines with freezing contempt. Noblesse oblige.
As for Timothy Baines, he trembled in every limb, and terror contorted his innocent features into a bloodcurdling mask of diabolical wickedness. He bent forward, shaking an already shaking fist.
“If you move or hutter a single sound, I'll do you hin!” he whispered hoarsely. “D'yer hear?”
The duchess intimated that she had heard. She was too intent on keeping her own voice steady to notice that Timothy's quavered in a way wholly unsuitable to nefarious, not to say homicidal, practices.
“I should like to know how you got here,” she remarked pleasantly, “if you don't mind telling me.”
“I don't mind.” He jerked his head toward the garden. “Through the side door. Unlocked it was. Anybody could 'ave come in.”
“That's a very consoling thought,” said the duchess. She had just calculated that the electric bell was well out of reach. She might scream, of course, but that would only precipitate the impending catastrophe. Moreover, she had an instinctive objection to screaming, which seemed to her vulgar under any circumstances. “And now that you are here,” she continued, “what, exactly, do you want?”
Timothy Baines shifted his position. He bent forward, scrutinizing her face with a curiosity greater than his terror.
“You're the duchess, ain't you?” he asked.
“I am.”
“Well, then—wot I wants with you”—he brought his fist down with a cautious emphasis on the polished dressing table—“wot I wants is a straight talk with yer 'ighness. I've risked a lot for it, and I means to 'ave it. So now you knows.”
One thing she did know—the man was obviously insane, and the knowledge did not particularly comfort her. A thief you can bribe. A lunatic has to be humored on his own lines. She indicated a gilt-backed chair near her with a superbly self-possessed gesture.
“In that case you'd better sit down,” she suggested.
Timothy Baines accepted the invitation gingerly. But he was distinctly comforted. Some of the disfiguring terror faded from his small features, and something of his popular professional manner—an ingratiating earnestness that had stood him in good stead on more than one ocassion when confronted with deteriorated new-laid eggs—returned to him as he bent forward, an appealing hand outstretched.
“Look 'ere, yer 'ighness, as one man to another, wotcher want with my shop?” he asked. “Wotcher want with it? Ain't yer got enough? Look at this 'ere room; look at yer jools; look at them gold things. Wotcher want my shop for?”
The duchess stared. Denial was on her lips. Never, even in her youth, had she ever wanted a shop. But Timothy was not to be interrupted.
“Look 'ere,” he persisted cajolingly. “Don't you take it, yer 'ighness. If you'll only leave me alone, I'll supply yer 'ousehold, cost prices, honor bright. Only leave us alone.”
“But I don't want your shop,” she began. “I don't”
He shook his head at her reproachfully.
“Yer 'ighness—yer agent—a fat, oily chap—'e came round only to-night and 'e said to me, 'You've got to clear out, you 'ave. This 'ere is the property of the Duchess of Ashminster”
“If he said it was my property, then I suppose it is,” she interrupted, beginning to see light. “I suppose you can't pay your rent”
It was like fire to gunpowder. Timothy Baines sprang to his feet. He ceased to be ingratiating. He towered over her, an image of outraged dignity, of insulted pride.
“Pay me rent? Why should I pay rent? It's my property.”
“You said just now”
“I didn't. 'E did. But 'e's a liar. Look ere!” He flung out his hand under the duchess' nose. “A 'undred years ago, it was just a scrubby bit of common—no good to you or anybody. My grandfather bought it—leased it. 'E built the shop. 'E took it. My father, 'e went on with it, 'E added on the hegg department. 'E took up with the groceries, You might say 'e made the neighborhood. People came from far and wide. Every one knew us. It was Baines for this and Baines for that and Baines for every think. When me father was dyin', 'e said to me, 'Tim, you keep the old shop goin'!' An' I swore I would. And mow you come along and say, '’Ere, you clear out. That's my bit o' earth you're sittin' on.' And you takes the shop and you wants cash for 'avin' let me make it what it is”
“But if it is my ground” the duchess interrupted obstinately.
“Ah, but 'oo gave it cher? Henry VIII. for 'avin' 'elped push off one of 'is missuses. That's a nice record for a respectable woman, ain't it?”
This surmise as to the origin of the Ashminster Estate was so near the historical truth, though usually expressed with more courtesy as “reward for services to king and country”—that the duchess gasped. Timothy Baines' open hand became a clenched fist
“You're a vampire feedin' on us poor!” he stuttered.
“My dear man”
“You are”
“I am nothing of the sort. It's the idiotic way you—you people have of thinking. We—we spend our lives in your service. Only last week I gave a reading room to my village—and a—a mission hall.”
“Takin' money from us to give us things we don't want, that's wot it is! Takin' my shop to give some poor devils a readin' room and a mission 'all!” He laughed ferociously. “'Oo wants mission 'alls?' he demanded.
“I—I really don't know,” said the duchess. She drew herself up. “At any rate, you are very rude,” she said. “Even if you have no respect for my position—which I see you haven't—you might respect an old woman”
“Old!” he echoed. He gazed at her intently. “You ain't old. You've got white 'air, but you've a face like a girl. Old! Why, you ain't even grown up. Never been properly alive—never 'ad a breath of fresh air—never been out and jostled with real, livin' 'uman bein's. I'll lay a 'undred to one you've never so much as been on a bus.”
“Never!” said the duchess regretfully. She regarded Mr. Baines with growing kindness.
“That's it. You don't know what life is. You don't know what real people are. You ain't old. It ain't years that matter—it's the livin' of them. And you ain't lived at all. You've just moldered.”
“Really!” said the duchess.
“You've lived in this 'ere 'ideousness and eaten too much, and you think yer old—because you're bored stiff”
“'Bored stiff!'” echoed the duchess under her breath.
“You come out an' 'ave a look at life,” said Timothy Baines suddenly. “You'll feel as spry as a kitten. Only p'raps you can't. P'raps they won't let you. Lor'!” He regarded her with a sudden commiseration. “Lor', what a life!”
“It's kind of you to be sorry for me,” said the duchess. “You seemed to have some troubles of your own, if you remember.”
Timothy Baines remembered. He wilted visibly under the duchess' bright, sarcastic eyes.
“I 'ave, yer 'ighness. I 'ave. And only this mornin' I was as jolly as a sandboy. My wife—she's just 'ad a kid—our fust. I was that proud! 'E was to 'ave been the '& Son'—Baines & Son, you know. And when that there agent came along, it was as though some one 'ad 'it me over the 'éad with a 'ammer. I went clean off me dot—and 'ere I am.” He looked about him wildly. “I'd better clear out,” he muttered.
“Wait!” said the duchess.
She went over to her writing table—past the electric bell—and began to write hastily. She was trembling with a never-before-experienced excitement. Some one tapped at the door. She put her fingers to her lips.
“Wait!”
She went on writing for a minute, while the tapping increased in violence, and Timothy Baines danced in a fever of alarm.
“There!” she said. “Give that to my agent when he calls. It's my christening present to the—'& Son.'”
Timothy Baines stared at her. There was color in her cheeks, laughter in her eyes. He gasped, snatched the sealed envelope, and turned to fly. But at the window he turned again and looked back.
“If yer wasn't a duchess,” he whispered hoarsely, “ye'd be a bit of orl right, you would,” and vanished.
But not so quietly as he had come. Evidently, in his excitement, he missed his footing. There was a crash—a groan—the sound of breaking glass. Then silence.
The duchess ran forward. She was not accustomed to rapid movement, and the gilded chair on which Mr. Baines had sat happening to be in the way and being equally unaccustomed to violence, went over with a bang. The duchess peered out of the window.
“Mr. Baines—are you hurt—can I help you?”
No answer.
The tapping became frantic, but the duchess ignored it. She fetched a heavy plaid cape, which she wore on the rare occasions when she inspected the garden, and covered her head with a Shetland shawl. She went down the steps, feeling her way carefully.
“Mr. Baines!”
Mr. Baines, dead or alive, had vanished. The door in the high wall leading out on to the side street stood open, and a lamp threw a dim, oblong reflection on the path. Now, whether the duchess was looking for Mr. Baines or whether the spirit of adventure had already got possession of her, no one can say. All that one can do is to relate the incredible facts. The duchess went out on to the street. She walked down the street and up another street, looking for the injured Mr. Baines, and meeting not so much as a policeman. She enjoyed the sensation. And when she came back, she found the garden gate shut and bolted.
Obviously, the situation, for a duchess, was awkward. To have to go round to the front entrance and explain to the big footman that she had been wandering the streets in a plaid cape and shawl was painful, to stay indefinitely on the wrong side of the garden door impossible. So the duchess summoned up the courage of her ancestors and went round to face the footman. But when she turned the corner of the road, she found her farther progress blocked. A small, but increasing crowd encircled the entrance to the ducal residence, whose doors stood wide open, exhibiting hurrying, excited silhouettes. Policemen seemed to have sprung from nowhere, and were heavily moving about doing nothing with an air of immense purpose. A lady in a bonnet with a somewhat bedraggled osprey bumped up against the duchess and apologized.
“Awful, ain't it?”
“What's awful?” asked the duchess, vaguely wondering how she was ever going to explain to James. “What's happened?”
“Lor', ain't yer heard? Some one's been murdered. They 'eard the screams—and there's blood hall over the place.”
“And the crooks 'ave got away with the goods,” added a neighbor with admiration. “There was a hawful struggle. The door was locked, and the maids 'eard the screams. When they broke down the door, the corpse 'ad gone.”
“The corpse?” echoed the duchess helplessly.
“Yus—no one knows 'ow they did it Hawful tragedy. A duchess, too.”
The crowd increased. A policeman pushed the duchess roughly to one side. No one had ever pushed her before, It was an experience that made her unusually angry. She nearly announced her identity—which was, of course, what she ought to have done. She ought to have gone straight up the important-looking steps and explained. She did nothing of the kind. She stood there on the edge of the crowd, listening to the garrulous, slightly inebriated lady with the bonnet, trying to make head or tail of her own emotions.
It was very pleasant standing there—so cool and fresh, with the wind blowing over the park, laden with all the freshness of spring. There were the daffodils shining under the lamplight. The duchess regarded them without malevolence. They seemed to explain something, to be part of a daring, amazing, incredible thought
There was a fresh thrill of excitement. An inspector was coming down the steps, and the duchess' attention was drawn back to the house. How big and stuffy and dull it looked! She could almost taste its pomposity.
“This 'ere 'ideousness” Timothy Baines had called it.
She thought of James and the ten footmen and the seven-course dinner that awaited her. She thought of the bazaar to-morrow and the new mission hall on Friday.
“'Oo wants mission 'alls?” Timothy Baines had asked. She thought of all the days that loomed before her—other people's weddings and other people's christenings—an endless succession.
“Bored stiff!”
Was she really so old? Just fifty. Her hair was white, but what did that signify? It had been white at forty. She had been hustled, bored, into old age.
“You come out and 'ave a look at life!” had said Timothy Baines.
The lady in the bonnet sighed heavily.
“It ain't all beer and skittles being a duchess!” she said. “I'd rather be me.”
The duchess started from her reflections.
“You're quite right,” she said. “I'm sure the poor dead lady agrees with you. It's—it's not—not all—eh—beer and skittles?”
“She's out of it now; any'ow, poor dear!” the bebonneted one philosophized, exhibiting a tendency to tears.
“Well out of it,” said the duchess.
And, having cast a farewell glance at the glum shadow of the ducal residence, she walked straight in the opposite direction.
It was at about the same hour that Sir John O'Neill awoke from a pre-dinner doze. It was a bad habit of his—a habit brought on by increasing years, as he told himself with a melancholy shake of the head. Sleeping before and after meals meant the beginning of the end, the decay of the faculties, the gradual drifting toward the final rest.
It was a sad thought. Sir John, lingering over it, threw a tender, reminiscent glance at the vase of daffodils beside him. Elizabeth! How sweet, how pathetic, she had looked as she had placed the seal on the closed book of their romance!
“There is only one springtime for us all!” she had said.
He looked for the faded daffodil that she had given him—the symbol of an unrecallable past, of their own withered youth. He would treasure it as such.
But apparently the faded daffodil had other ideas on the subject. It refused to symbolize anything so unpleasant; it refused to be treasured on such conditions.
For it had come back to life, and held up its golden head gayly and boldly among its fellows.