CHAPTER IV TIC-DOULOUREUX

Mr Bevan found no chance for a tête-à-tête with his fiancée again that night, perhaps because he did not seek one; he was not in the humour for love-making. He felt—to use the good old nursery term that applies so often, so very often, to grown-ups—"fractious."

He retired to his bedroom at half-past eleven, and was sitting with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, staring at the wood-fire brightly burning in his grate, when a knock came to the door and Lambert appeared.

"I just dropped in to say good-night. Am I disturbing you?"

"Not a bit; sit down and have a cigarette."

Mr Lambert helped himself to a Marcovitch from a box on the table, drew up an easy-chair to the fire and sank into it with a sigh.

"It seems funny," said he in a meditative tone, "that I should be sitting here smoking and yarning with you to-night, and only[Pg 236] yesterday, so to speak, we were fighting like bull-dogs; but we're friends now, and you must come and see me when you're back in town. You live in the 'Albany'? I had rooms there once, years ago—years ago. Lord! what a change has come over London since the days when Evans' was stuffed of a night with all manner of people—the rows and ructions I remember! The things that went on. One night in Evans' I remember an old gentleman coming in and ordering a chop, and no sooner had he put on his spectacles and settled down to it with a smile all over his face, than Bob O'Grady, of the 10th—Black O'Grady—who'd been watching him—he was drunk as a lord—rose up and said, ''Scuse me,' he said, and took the chop by the shank-bone and flung it on the stage. A man could take his whack in those days, and be none the worse for it; but men are different, somehow, now, and they go in for tea and muffins and nerves just as the women used to, when I was twenty; and the women, begad, are the best men now'days. Look at Miss Pursehouse! as charming as a woman and as clever as a man. Look at this house of hers! One would[Pg 237] think a man owned it, everything is so well done: brandies and sodas at your elbows, matches all over the place, and electric bells and a telephone. That's the sort of woman for me—not that I'm not fond of the old-fashioned sort of woman too. Fanny, my daughter—I must introduce you to her—is as old-fashioned as they make 'em. Screeches if she sees a rat, and knows nothing of woman's rights or the higher education of females, and is always ready to turn on the water-works, bless her heart! ready and willing to cry over anything you may put before her that's got the ghost of a cry in it. But, bless you! what's the good of talking about old-fashioned or modern women? From Hecuba down, they're all the same—born to deceive us and make our lives happy."

"Can't see how a woman that deceives a man can make him happy."

"My dear fellow, sure, what's happiness but illusion, and what's illusion but deception, and talking about deception, aren't men—the blackguards!—just as bad at deceiving as women?"

Mr Bevan made no reply to this; he shifted uneasily in his chair.

"You live at Highgate?" he said.

[Pg 238]

Lambert woke up from a reverie he had fallen into with a start.

"Yes, bad luck to it! I've got a house there I can't get rid of, and, talking of old-fashioned things, it's an old-fashioned house. There aren't any electric bells, and if there were you'd as likely as not ring up the ghost. For there's a ghost there, sure enough; she nearly frightened the gizzard out of my butler James."

He leaned back luxuriously in his chair, blowing cigarette rings at the fire, whilst Charles Bevan mentally recalled the vision of "My butler James."

He could not but admit that Lambert carried his poverty exceedingly well, and with a much better grace than that with which many men carry their wealth. The impression that Fanny Lambert had made upon him was not effaced in any way by the impression made upon him by her father. Lambert was not an impossible man. Wildly extravagant he might be, and reckless to the verge of lunacy, but he was a gentleman; and in saying the word "gentleman," my dear sir or madam I do not refer to birth. There lives many a hideous bounder who yet can fling his[Pg 239] great-great-great-grandfather at your head, and many a noble-minded gentleman, the present or past existence of whose father is demonstrable only by the logic of physiology.

Lambert went off to his room at twelve, and Mr Bevan passed a broken night. He dreamt of lawyers and sunflowers. He dreamt that he saw old Francis, the village lunatic, waiting at the cross-roads; and when he asked him what he was waiting for, Francis replied that he was waiting to see his (Mr Bevan's) marriage procession go by: a dream which was scarcely a hopeful omen, considering the object of the old man's daily vigil as revealed by Lulu Morgan.

He came down to breakfast late. His hostess did not appear, and Miss Morgan announced that her friend was suffering from tic-douloureux.

"'S far as I can make out, it's like having the grippe in one eye. I've physicked her with Bile Beans and Perry Davis, and I've sent for some Antikamnia. If she's not better by luncheon I'll send for the doctor."

She was not down by luncheon. After that meal, Charles, strolling across the hall to the[Pg 240] billiard-room, felt something pluck at his sleeve. It was Miss Morgan.

"I want to speak to you alone for a minute," said she. "Come into the garden; there's no one there."

He followed her, much wondering, and they passed down a shady path till they lost sight of the house.

"Pamela's worried," said Lulu, "and I want to talk to you about her——"

"Why, what can be——"

"We've been sitting up all night, she and I, and we've been discussing things, you 'specially."

"Thank you——"

"Now, don't you be mad, for Pamela's vury fond of you, and I like you, for you're a right good sort; but, see here, Pamela thinks she's made a mistake."

A queer new feeling entered Mr Bevan's mind, peeped round and passed through it, so to speak—a feeling of relief—or more strictly speaking, release.

"Indeed?"

"She thinks you have both made a mistake, and—you know——"

[Pg 241]

"The fact is, she doesn't want to marry me; why not say it at once? or, rather, why doesn't she say so to me frankly, instead of deputing another person to do so?"

"There's a letter," said Miss Morgan, producing one from her pocket. "She wrote it and told me to give it to you; it's eight pages long, and all sorts of things in it—she's very fond of you—keep it and read it. But I tell you one line that's in it, she says she will always feel as a sister to you, or be a sister to you, or words to that effect—that's fatal—once a girl says that she's said the last word."

"I don't think she ever cared for me, really," said Mr Bevan—"let us sit down on this seat—no, I don't think she really ever cared for me."

"What made you two get engaged"

"Why should we not?"

"Because you're too much alike; you are both rich, and both steady and well-balanced, you know, and that sort of thing. Likes ought never to get married. Dear—dear—dear—what a pity——"

"What?"

"I was only thinking of all the love-making there's wasted in the world. Now I know so[Pg 242] many girls who would suit you to a T. I'll tell you of one, if you like——"

"Thank you, I—um——"

"I was thinking of Fanny Lambert," said Miss Morgan in a dreamy voice. "The girl I told you of yesterday——"

Now, Mr Bevan was the last man in the world—as I daresay you perceive—to discuss his feelings with any one. But Miss Morgan had a patent method of her own for extracting confidences, of making people talk out, as she would have expressed it herself.

"I said to you yesterday that I had never met Miss Lambert: I had reasons connected with some law business for saying so—as a matter of fact, I have met her—once."

"Oh, that's quite enough. If you've met Fanny Lambert once, you have met her for ever. Does she like you?—I don't ask you do you like her, for, of course, you do."

"I think—she does."

"You mustn't think—women hate men that think, they like them to be sure. If a man was only bold enough he could marry any woman on earth."

"Is that your opinion?"

[Pg 243]

"'Tis, and my opinion is worth having. What a woman wants most is some one to make up her mind for her. Go and make Fanny's mind up for her; you and she are just suited."

"In what way?"

"To begin with, you're rich and she's poor."

"You said yesterday that she was rich."

"Yes, but Pamela told me last night the Lamberts are simply stone-broke. Mr Lambert told her all his affairs, his estates are all encumbered. She says he's just like a child, and wants protecting; so he is, and so's Fanny; they're both a pair of children, and you are just the man to keep Fanny straight, and make her life happy and buy her beautiful clothes and diamonds. Why, she'll be the rage of London, Fanny will, if she's only properly staged—and she's a dear and a good woman, and would make any man happy. My!"

Mr Bevan had taken Miss Morgan's hand in his and squeezed it.

"Thank you for saying all that," said he. "Few women praise another woman. I shall leave here by this evening's train, of course; I[Pg 244] cannot stay here any longer. I will think over what course I will pursue."

"For heaven's sake, don't think, or you'll find her snapped up; I have a prevision that you will. Go and say to Fanny 'marry me.' I do want to see her settled, she's not like me, that can rough it, and she's just the girl to fling herself away on some rubbish."

"I will see," said Mr Bevan. "I frankly confess that Miss Lambert—of course, this is between you and me—that Miss Lambert has made me think a good deal about her, but these things are not done in a moment."

"Aren't they? I tell you love-making is just like making pancakes, if you don't do them quick they're done for. You just remember this, that many a man has proposed to a girl the first time he's met her and been accepted. Women like it, it's so different from the other thing—and, look here, kiss her first and ask her afterwards. Have two or three glasses of champagne—you've just got the steady brain that can stand it—and it will liven you up. I'm an old stager."

"I will write to Miss Pursehouse from London to-morrow."

[Pg 245]

"Dear me! I don't believe you've been listening to a word I've been saying. Well, go your own gate, as the old woman said to the cow that would burst through the hedge and tumbled into the chalk-pit and broke its leg. What you going to do with that letter?"

"I will read it in the train."