Meet Mr Mulliner (24 page)

“And dashed sensible of him, too; dashed
sensible,” said James warmly.

“And yet,” she went on, a little
wistfully, “I sometimes wonder—”

“Don’t!” said James. “Don’t! You must
respect daddy’s dying wish. There’s nothing like daddy’s dying wish; you can’t
beat it. So he’s coming here to-morrow, is he? Capital, capital! To lunch, I
suppose? Excellent! I’ll run down and tell Mrs Who-Is-It to lay in another
chop.”

It was with a gay and uplifted heart that
James strolled the garden and smoked his pipe next morning. A great cloud
seemed to have rolled itself away from him. Everything was for the best in the
best of all possible worlds. He had finished
The Secret Nine
and shipped
it off to Mr McKinnon, and now as he strolled there was shaping itself in his
mind a corking plot about a man with only half a face who lived in a secret den
and terrorised London with a series of shocking murders. And what made them so
shocking was the fact that each of the victims, when discovered, was found to
have only half a face too. The rest had been chipped off, presumably by some
blunt instrument.

The thing was coming out magnificently,
when suddenly his attention was diverted by a piercing scream. Out of the
bushes fringing the river that ran beside the garden burst the apple-cheeked
housekeeper.

“Oh, sir! Oh, sir! Oh, sir!”

“What is it?” demanded James irritably.

“Oh, sir! Oh, sir! Oh, sir!”

“Yes, and then what?

“The little dog, sir! He’s in the river!”

“Well, whistle him to come out.”

“Oh, sir, do come quick! He’ll be drowned!”

James followed her through the bushes,
taking off his coat as he went. He was saying to himself, “I will not rescue
this dog. I do not like the dog. It is high time he had a bath, and in any case
it would be much simpler to stand on the bank and fish for him with a rake.
Only an ass out of a Leila J. Pinckney book would dive into a beastly river to
save—”

At this point he dived. Toto, alarmed by
the splash, swam rapidly for the bank, but James was too quick for him.
Grasping him firmly by the neck, he scrambled ashore and ran for the house,
followed by the housekeeper.

The girl was seated on the porch. Over her
there bent the tall soldierly figure of a man with keen eyes and greying hair.
The housekeeper raced up.

“Oh, miss! Toto! In the river! He saved
him! He plunged in and saved him!”

The girl drew a quick breath.

“Gallant, damme! By Jove! By gad!

Yes, gallant, by George!” exclaimed the
soldierly man.

The girl seemed to wake from a reverie.

“Uncle Henry, this is Mr Rodman. Mr
Rodman, my guardian, Colonel Carteret.”

“Proud to meet you, sir,” said the
colonel, his honest blue eyes glowing as he fingered his short crisp moustache.
“As fine a thing as I ever heard of, damme!”

“Yes, you are brave—brave,” the girl
whispered.

“I am wet—wet,” said James, and went
upstairs to change his clothes.

When he came down for lunch, he found to
his relief that the girl had decided not to join them, and Colonel Carteret was
silent and preoccupied. James, exerting himself in his capacity of host, tried
him with the weather, golf, India, the Government, the high cost of living,
first-class cricket, the modern dancing craze, and murderers he had met, but
the other still preserved that strange, absent-minded silence. It was only when
the meal was concluded and James had produced cigarettes that he came abruptly
out of his trance.

“Rodman,” he said, “I should like to speak
to you.”

“Yes?” said James, thinking it was about
time.

“Rodman,” said Colonel Carteret, “or
rather, George—I may call you George?” he added, with a sort of wistful diffidence
that had a singular charm.

“Certainly,” replied James, “if you wish
it. Though my name is James.”

“James, eh? Well, well, it amounts to the
same thing, eh, what, damme, by gad?” said the colonel with a momentary return
of his bluff soldierly manner. “Well, then, James, I have something that I wish
to say to you. Did Miss Maynard—did Rose happen to tell you anything about
myself in—er—in connection with herself?”

“She mentioned that you and she were
engaged to be married.”

The colonel’s tightly drawn lips quivered.

“No longer,” he said.

“What?”

“No, John, my boy.”

“James.”

“No, James, my boy, no longer. While you
were upstairs changing your clothes she told me—breaking down, poor child, as
she spoke—that she wished our engagement to be at an end.”

James half rose from the table, his cheeks
blanched.

“You don’t mean that!” he gasped.

Colonel Carteret nodded. He was staring
out of the window, his fine eyes set in a look of pain.

“But this is nonsense!” cried James. “This
is absurd! She—she mustn’t be allowed to chop and change like this. I mean to
say, it—it isn’t fair—”

“Don’t think of me, my boy.”

“I’m not—I mean, did she give any reason?”

“Her eyes did.”

“Her eyes did?”

“Her eyes, when she looked at you on the
porch, as you stood there—young, heroic —having just saved the life of the dog
she loves. It is you who have won that tender heart, my boy.”

“Now listen,” protested James, “you aren’t
going to sit there and tell me that a girl falls in love with a man just
because he saves her dog from drowning?”

“Why, surely,” said Colonel Carteret
surprised. “better reason could she have?” He sighed. “It is the old, old
story, my boy. Youth to youth. I am an old man. I should have known—I should
have foreseen—yes, youth to youth.”

“You aren’t a bit old.”

“Yes, yes.”

“No, no.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Don’t keep on saying yes, yes!” cried
James, clutching at his hair. “Besides, she wants a steady old buffer—a steady,
sensible man of medium age—to look after her.”

Colonel Carteret shook his head with a
gentle smile.

“This is mere quixotry, my boy. It is
splendid of you to take this attitude; but no, no.”

“Yes, yes.

“No, no.” He gripped James’s hand for an
instant, then rose and walked to the door. “That is all I wished to say, Tom.”

“James.”

“James. I just thought that you ought to
know how matters stood. Go to her, my boy, go to her, and don’t let any thought
of an old man’s broken dream keep you from pouring out what is in your heart. I
am an old soldier, lad, an old soldier. I have learned to take the rough with
the smooth. But I think—I think I will leave you now. I—I should—should like to
be alone for a while. If you need me you will find me in the raspberry bushes.”

He had scarcely gone when James also left
the room. He took his hat and stick and walked blindly out of the garden, he
knew not whither. His brain was numbed. Then, as his powers of reasoning
returned, he told himself that he should have foreseen this ghastly thing. If
there was one type of character over which Leila J. Pinckney had been wont to
spread herself, it was the pathetic guardian who loves his ward but relinquishes
her to the younger man. No wonder the girl had broken off the engagement. Any
elderly guardian who allowed himself to come within a mile of Honeysuckle
Cottage was simply asking for it. And then, as he turned to walk back, a sort
of dull defiance gripped James. Why, he asked, should he be put upon in this
manner? If the girl liked to throw over this man, why should he be the goat?

He saw his way clearly now. He just wouldn’t
do it, that was all. And if they didn’t like it they could lump it.

Full of a new fortitude, he strode in at
the gate. A tall, soldierly figure emerged from the raspberry bushes and came
to meet him.

“Well?” said Colonel Carteret.

“Well?” said James defiantly.

“Am I to congratulate you?”

James caught his keen blue eye and
hesitated. It was not going to be so simple as he had supposed.

“Well—er—” he said.

Into the keen blue eyes there came a look
that James had not seen there before. It was the stem, hard look which—probably—
had caused men to bestow upon this old soldier the name of Cold-Steel Carteret.

“You have not asked Rose to marry you?

“Er—no; not yet.”

The keen blue eyes grew keener and bluer.

“Rodman,” said Colonel Carteret in a
strange, quiet voice, “I have known that little girl since she was a tiny
child. For years she has been all in all to me. Her father died in my arms and
with his last breath bade me see that no harm came to his darling. I have
nursed her through mumps, measles—aye, and chicken pox— and I live but for her
happiness.” He paused, with a significance that made James’s toes curl. “Rodman,”
he said, “do you know what I would do to any man who trifled with that little
girl’s affections?” He reached in his hip pocket and an ugly-looking revolver
glittered in the sunlight. “I would shoot him like a dog.”

“Like a dog?” faltered James.

“Like a dog,” said Colonel Carteret. He
took James’s arm and turned him toward the house. “She is on the porch. Go to her.
And if—” He broke off. “But tut!” he said in a kindlier tone. “I am doing you
an injustice, my boy. I know it.”

“Oh, you are,” said James fervently. “Your
heart is in the right place.”

“Oh, absolutely,” said James.”

“Then go to her, my boy. Later on you may
have something to tell me. You will find me in the strawberry beds.”

It was very cool and fragrant on the
porch. Overhead, little breezes played and laughed among the roses. Somewhere
in the distance sheep bells tinkled, and in the shrubbery a thrush was singing
its evensong.

Seated in her chair behind a wicker table
laden with tea things. Rose Maynard watched James as he shambled up the path.

“Tea’s ready,” she called gaily. “Where is
Uncle Henry?” A look of pity and distress flitted for a moment over her flower-like
face. “Oh, I—I forgot,” she whispered. “He is in the strawberry beds,” said
James in a low voice.

She nodded unhappily. “Of course, of
course. Oh, why is life like this?” James heard her whisper.

He sat down. He looked at the girl. She
was leaning back with closed eyes, and he thought he had never seen such a
little squirt in his life. The idea of passing his remaining days in her
society revolted him. He was stoutly opposed to the idea of marrying anyone;
but if, as happens to the best of us, he ever were compelled to perform the
wedding glide, he had always hoped it would be with some lady golf champion who
would help him with his putting, and thus, by bringing his handicap down a
notch or two, enable him to save something from the wreck, so to speak. But to link
his lot with a girl who read his aunt’s books and liked them; a girl who could
tolerate the presence of the dog Toto; a girl who clasped her hands in pretty,
childish joy when she saw a nasturtium in bloom—it was too much. Nevertheless,
he took her hand and began to speak.

“Miss Maynard—Rose—”

She opened her eyes and cast them down. A
flush had come into her cheeks. The dog Toto at her side sat up and begged for
cake, disregarded.

“Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time
there was a lonely man who lived in a cottage all by himself—”

He stopped. Was it James Rodman who was
talking this bilge?

“Yes?” whispered the girl.

“—but one day there came to him out of
nowhere a little fairy princess. She—”

He stopped again, but this time not
because of the sheer shame of listening to his own voice. What caused him to
interrupt his tale was the fact that at this moment the tea table suddenly
began to rise slowly in the air, tilting as it did so a considerable quantity
of hot tea on to the knees of his trousers.

“Ouch!” cried James, leaping.

The table continued to rise, and then fell
sideways, revealing the homely countenance of William, who, concealed by the
cloth, had been taking a nap beneath it. He moved slowly forward, his eyes on
Toto. For many a long day William had been desirous of putting to the test,
once and for all, the problem of whether Toto was edible or not. Sometimes he
thought yes, at other times no. Now seemed an admirable opportunity for a
definite decision. He advanced on the object of his experiment, making a low
whistling noise through his nostrils, not unlike a boiling kettle. And Toto,
after one long look of incredulous horror, tucked his shapely tail between his
legs and, turning, raced for safety. He had laid a course in a bee line for the
open garden gate, and William, shaking a dish of marmalade off his head a little
petulantly, galloped ponderously after him. Rose Maynard staggered to her feet.

“Oh, save him!” she cried.