He touched his cap and withdrew.
A wrestle with mental arithmetic showed me that the draught which I had encountered nearly an hour before had cost me exactly one and a half guineas.
Ordinarily I should have dismissed the matter from my mind, but for some reason I had no sooner let the chauffeur go than I was tormented by a persistent curiosity regarding the identity of his considerate mistress. If I had not promised to rejoin Berry for lunch – a meal for which I was already half an hour late – I should have gone to the Berkeley and scrutinized the guests. The reflection that such a proceeding must only have been unprofitable consoled me not at all, so contrary a maid is Speculation. For the next two hours Vexation rode me on the curb. I quarrelled with Berry, I was annoyed with myself, and when the hall porter at the Club casually observed that there was “a nasty wind,” I agreed with such hearty and unexpected bitterness that he started violently and dropped the pile of letters which he was searching on my behalf.
A visit to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, however, with regard to an estate of which I was a trustee, followed by a sharp walk in the Park, did much to reduce the ridiculous fever of which my folly lay sick, and I returned home in a frame of mind almost as comfortable as that in which I had set out.
It was half-past four, but no one of the others was in, so I ordered tea to be brought to the library, and settled down to the composition of a letter to
The Observer
.
I was in the act of recasting my second sentence, when the light went out.
By the glow of the fire I made my way to the door. A glance showed me that the hall and the staircase were in darkness. It was evident that a fuse had come to a violent end.
I closed the door and returned to my seat. Then I reached for the telephone and put the receiver to my ear.
“What an extraordinary thing!” said a voice. “And you’ve no idea whose it was?”
“Not the slightest.” came the reply. There was a musical note in the girlish tone that would have attracted any one. “There it was, on the top of the car, when we got to the Berkeley. It wasn’t such a bad hat, either.”
“Excuse me,” said I. “It was a jolly good hat.”
A long tense silence followed my interruption. At length—
“I say, are you there, Dot?”
“Yes,” came the reply in an excited whisper. “Who was that speaking?”
“I’ve not the faintest idea,” rejoined the first voice I had heard. “Somebody must have got on to our line. I expect—”
A familiar explosion severed the sentence with the clean efficiency of the guillotine.
“Isn’t that sickening?” said I. “Now we shall never know what her theory was.”
“It’s all your fault, whoever you are. If you hadn’t butted in—”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I retorted. “I was ushered into your presence, so to speak, by
la force majeure
. French. Very difficult.”
“Well, when you heard us talking, you ought to have got off the line.”
“I should have, if you hadn’t started disparaging my headgear. I repeat, it was a hat of unusual elegance. It had a personality of its own.”
“But it wasn’t your hat we were discussing.”
I sighed.
“All right,” I said wearily. “It wasn’t. Have it your own way. Some other fool followed a silver-grey Homburg twice round the Park this morning. Some other fool—”
A little gasp interrupted me.
“But how did you know my number?”
“I didn’t. I don’t. I never could have been about to should. Negatives all the way. It’s just chance, my dear. Chance with a Capital J – I mean C. D’you mind if I smoke?”
Her reply was preceded by a refreshing gurgle.
“Not at all,” said my lady. “D’you mean to say you chased us all that way?”
“Further. And if it hadn’t been for that fire engine—”
“I remember. Wilkins turned down a side-street.”
“Exactly.”
“What a shame. Well, if you go to your hatter’s you’ll get it again.”
“Your ingenuity is only equalled by your consideration. Isn’t that neatly put? You see, I’m writing a letter to
The Observer
, and, when I get going, I can just say things like that one after another.”
“How wonderful. But I’m afraid I’m interrupting you, and I shouldn’t like to deprive Humanity—”
“Your name,” said I, “is Dot. But I shall call you Mockery. And if you’re half as sweet as you sound—”
“Goodbye.”
I protested earnestly.
“Please don’t say that. We’ve only just met. Besides…why was Clapham Common?”
“Clapham what?”
“No, Common. Why was Clapham Common?”
“Well, why was it?”
“I can’t think, my dear. I thought you might know. It’s worried me for years.”
There was a choking sound, which suggested indignation struggling with laughter. Then—
“I’ve a good mind to ring off right away,” said Dot in a shaking voice.
“That would be cruel. Think of the dance you led me this morning. More. Think of the dances you’re going to give me on Wednesday week.”
“Oh, you’re going, are you?”
“If you are.”
“What as?” she demanded.
“A billiard-marker in the time of Henry the Fourth. And you?”
“I can’t rise to that. I’m going as myself in a silver frock.”
“Could anything be sweeter? A little silver Dot. I shall cancel the body-snatcher – I mean billiard-marker – and go as Carry One. Then we can dance together all the evening. By the way, in case I don’t hear your voice, how shall I know you?”
“A dot,” said my lady, “is that which hath position, but no magnitude.”
“Possibly,” said I. “It hath also a dear voice, which, though it be produced indefinitely, will never tire. All the same, in view of the capacity of the Albert Hall, you’ve not given me much to go on.”
“As a matter of fact, each of us is going as a parallel line. And that’s why I can tell you that I like the sound of you, and – oh, well, enough said.”
“Thank you, Dot. And why parallel lines?”
“They never meet. So long.”
There was a faint chunk.
My lady had rung off.
Heavily I hung up my receiver.
When the others came in, I was still sitting in the dark at the table, thinking…
The bitter wind reigned over London for seven long days, meting untempered chastisement to its reluctant subjects, and dying unwept and gasping on a Monday night. Tuesday was fair, still by comparison and indeed. The sun shone and the sky was blue, and the smoke rose straight out of its chimneys with never the breath of a breeze to bend it, or even to set its columns swaying over the high roofs. There was a great calm. But, with it all, the weather was terribly cold.
That rare beauty which Dusk may bring to the Metropolis was that evening vouchsafed. Streets that were mean put off their squalor, ways that were handsome became superb. Grime went unnoticed, ugliness fell away. All things crude or staring became indistinct, veiled with a web of that soft quality which only Atmosphere can spin and, having spun, hang about buildings of a windless eve.
As Night drew on, Magic came stealing down the blurred highways. Lamps became lanterns, shedding a muffled light, deepening and charging with mystery the darkness beyond. Old friends grew unfamiliar. Where they had stood, fantastic shapes loomed out of the mist and topless towers rose up spectral to baffle memory. Perspective fled, shadow and stuff were one, and, save where the radiance of the shops in some proud thoroughfare made gaudy noon of evening, the streets of Town were changed to echoing halls and long, dim, rambling galleries, hung all with twinkling lights that stabbed the gloom but deep enough to show their presence, as do the stars.
So, slowly and with a dazzling smile, London put on her cloak of darkness. By eight o’clock you could not see two paces ahead.
On Wednesday morning the fog was denser than it had been the night before. There was no sign of its abatement, not a puff of wind elbowed its way through the yellow drift, and the cold was intense. The prospect of leaving a comfortable home at nine in the evening to undertake a journey of some two miles, clad in habiliments which, while highly ornamental, were about as protective from cold as a grape-skin rug, was anything but alluring.
For reasons of my own, however, I was determined to get to the Ball. My sister, whom nothing daunted, and Jill, who was wild with excitement, and had promised readily to reserve more dances than could possibly be rendered, were equally firm. Jonah thought it a fool’s game, and said as much. Berry was of the same opinion, but expressed it less bluntly, and much more offensively. After a long tirade—
“All right,” he concluded. “You go. It’s Lombard Street to a china orange you’ll never get there, and, if you do, you’ll never get back. None of the band’ll turn up, and if you find twenty other fools in the building to exchange colds with, you’ll be lucky. To leave your home on a night like this is fairly clamouring for the special brand of trouble they keep for paralytic idiots. I’ve known you all too long to expect sagacity, but the instinct of self-preservation characterizes even the lower animals. What swine, for instance, would leave its cosy sty—”
“How dare you?” said Daphne. “Besides, you can’t say ‘its.’ Swine’s plural.”
“My reference was to the fever-swine,” was the cold reply. “A singular species. Comparable only with the deep-sea dip-sheep.”
“I think you’re very unkind,” said Jill, pouting. “Boy can walk in front with a lamp, and Jonah can walk behind with a lamp—”
“And I can walk on both sides, I suppose, with a brazier in either hand. Oh, this is too easy.”
“We can but try,” said I.
“You can but close your ugly head,” said Berry. “If you want to walk about London half the night, looking like a demobilised pantaloon, push off and do it. But don’t try and rope in innocent parties.”
To this insult I made an appropriate reply, and the argument waxed. At length—
“There’s no reason,” said Jonah, “why we shouldn’t go on like this for ever. If we had any sense, we should send for Fitch and desire his opinion. It’s rather more valuable than any one of ours, and, after all, he’s more or less interested. And you can trust him.”
Now, Fitch was our chauffeur.
Amid a chorus of approval, I went to the telephone to speak to the garage.
I was still waiting to be connected, when—
“Is that the Club?” said a voice.
“No,” said I. “Nothing like it.”
“Well, there’s a bag of mine in the hall, and—”
“No, there isn’t,” said I.
“What d’you mean?” was the indignant retort.
“What I say. Our hall is bagless.”
“I say,” said the voice with laboured clarity, “I say there is a bag in the hall. A BAG. Hang it all, you know what a bag is?”
“Rather,” said I heartily. “What you put nuts in. An uncle of mine had one.”
The vehemence with which the unknown subscriber replaced his receiver was terrible to hear.
Ten minutes later Fitch entered the room.
“Can you get to the Albert Hall tonight, Fitch?” said Daphne.
“I think so, madam. If we go slow.”
“Can you get back from the Albert Hall tomorrow afternoon?” said Berry.
“If I can get there, sir, I can get back.”
“How long, will it take?”
“I ought to do it in ’alf an hour, sir. I can push along in the Park, where it’s all straight going. It’s getting along the streets as’ll take the time. It’s not that I won’t find me way, but it’s the watchin’ out for the hother vehicles, so as they don’t run into you.”
“Bit of an optimist, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Thank you, Fitch,” said Daphne hastily. “Half-past nine, please.”
“Very good, madam.”
He bowed and withdrew.
Triumphantly my sister regarded her husband.
“At making a mountain out of a molehill,” she said, “no one can touch you.”
Berry returned her gaze with a malevolent stare. Then he put a thumb to his nose and extended his fingers in her direction.
The unfortunate incident occurred in the vicinity of Stanhope Gate.
So far we had come very slowly, but without incident, and, in spite of the fact that we were insufficiently clad, we were nice and warm. For this, so far as Berry and I were concerned, two footwarmers and a pair of rugs were largely responsible, for the elaborate nature of our costumes put the wearing of overcoats out of the question. A high-collared Italian cloak of the shape that was seen in the time of Elizabeth made it impossible for me to wear a
surtout
of any description, and I was reduced to wrapping a muffler about my neck and holding a woollen shawl across my chest, while Berry, in that puffed and swollen array, which instantly remembers Henry the Eighth, derived what comfort he could from an enormous cloak of Irish frieze which, while it left his chest uncovered, succeeded in giving him a back about four feet square.
Hitherto we had encountered little or no traffic, and an excellent judgment, coupled with something akin to instinct, on the part of Fitch had brought us surely along the streets; but here, almost before we knew it, there were vehicles in front and on either side. Hoarse directions were being shouted, lanterns were being waved, engines were running, and a few feet away frantic endeavours were being made to persuade a pair of horses to disregard twin headlights whose brilliancy was adding to the confusion. Berry lowered the window.
“What about it, Fitch?”
“Well, sir, I’m just opposite the gate, but it’s rather awkward to slip across, in case I meet somethin’. If I ’as to pull up ’alf-way, we might be run into.”
“Which means that one of us must guide you over?”
“It’d be safer, sir.”
By a majority of three it was decided that Berry should enact the
role
of conducting officer. Jonah had a cold, and was sitting on the back seat between the girls. I had no coat, and required the services of both hands if I was to hold my shawl in position. Only my brother-in-law remained. He did not go down without a struggle, but after a vigorous but vain appeal “to our better natures,” he compared himself to a lion beset by jackals, commented bitterly upon “the hot air which is breathed about self-sacrifice,” and, directing that after death his veins should be opened in the presence of not less than twelve surgeons, as a preliminary to his interment in the Dogs’ Cemetery, opened the door and stepped sideways into the roadway.