CHAPTER EIGHT
I HAVE never been able to recall the precise moment the next morning when I began to feel a strange disquietude, but the opening hours of the day were marked by a series of occurrences slight in themselves yet so cumulatively ominous that they seemed to lower above me like a cloud of menace.
Looking from my window, shortly after the rising hour, I observed a paper boy pass through the street, whistling a popular melody as he ran up to toss folded journals into doorways. Something I cannot explain went through me even then; some premonition of disaster slinking furtively under my casual reflection that even in this remote wild the public press was not unknown.
Half an hour later the telephone rang in a lower room and I heard Mrs. Effie speak in answer. An unusual note in her voice caused me to listen more attentively. I stepped outside my door. To some one she was expressing amazement, doubt, and quick impatience, which seemed to culminate, after she had again listened, in a piercing cry of consternation. The term is not too strong. Evidently by the unknown speaker she had been first puzzled, then startled, then horrified; and now, as her anguished cry still rang in my ears, that snaky premonition of evil again writhed across my consciousness.
Presently I heard the front door open and close. Peering into the hallway below I saw that she had secured the newspaper I had seen dropped. Her own door now closed upon her. I waited, listening intently. Something told me that the incident was not closed. A brief interval elapsed and she was again at the telephone, excitedly demanding to be put through to a number.
"Come at once!" I heard her cry. "It's unspeakable! There isn't a moment to lose! Come as you are!" Here upon, banging the receiver into its place with frenzied roughness, she ran halfway up the stairs to shout:
"Egbert Floud! Egbert Floud! You march right down here this minute, sir!"
From his room I heard an alarmed response, and a moment later knew that he had joined her. The door closed upon them, but high words reached me. Mostly the words of Mrs. Effie they were, though I could detect muffled retorts from the other. Wondering what this could portend, I noted from my window some ten minutes later the hurried arrival of the C. Belknap-Jacksons. The husband clenched a crumpled newspaper in one hand and both he and his wife betrayed signs to the trained eye of having performed hasty toilets for this early call.
As the door of the drawing-room closed upon them there ensued a terrific outburst carrying a rich general effect of astounded rage. Some moments the sinister chorus continued, then a door sharply opened and I heard my own name cried out by Mrs. Effie in a tone that caused me to shudder. Rapidly descending the stairs, I entered the room to face the excited group. Cousin Egbert crouched on a sofa in a far corner like a hunted beast, but the others were standing, and all glared at me furiously.
The ladies addressed me simultaneously, one of them, I believe, asking me what I meant by it and the other demanding how dared I, which had the sole effect of adding to my bewilderment, nor did the words of Cousin Egbert diminish this.
"Hello, Bill!" he called, adding with a sort of timid bravado: "Don't you let 'em bluff you, not for a minute!"
"Yes, and it was probably all that wretched Cousin Egbert's fault in the first place," snapped Mrs. Belknap-Jackson almost tearfully.
"Say, listen here, now; I don't see as how I've done anything wrong," he feebly protested. "Bill's human, ain't he? Answer me that!"
"One sees it all!" This from Belknap-Jackson in bitter and judicial tones. He flung out his hands at Cousin Egbert in a gesture of pitiless scorn. "I dare say," he continued, "that poor Ruggles was merely a tool in his hands—weak, possibly, but not vicious."
"May I inquire" I made bold to begin, but Mrs. Effie shut me off, brandishing the newspaper before me.
"Read it!" she commanded in hoarse, tragic tones. "There!" she added, pointing at monstrous black headlines on the page as I weakly took it from her. And then I saw. There before them, divining now the enormity of what had come to pass, I controlled myself to master the following screed:
RED GAP'S DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of London and Paris, late of the British army, bon-vivant and man of the world, is in our midst for an indefinite stay, being at present the honoured house guest of Senator and Mrs. James Knox Floud, who returned from foreign parts on the 5:16 flyer yesterday afternoon. Colonel Ruggles has long been intimately associated with the family of his lordship the Earl of Brinstead, and especially with his lordship's brother, the Honourable George Augustus Vane-Basingwell, with whom he has recently been sojourning in la belle France. In a brief interview which the Colonel genially accorded ye scribe, he expressed himself as delighted with our thriving little city.
"It's somewhat a town—if I've caught your American slang," he said with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "You have the garden spot of the West, if not of the civilized world, and your people display a charm that must be, I dare say, typically American. Altogether, I am enchanted with the wonders I have beheld since landing at your New York, particularly with the habit your best people have of roughing it in camps like that of Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson among the mountains of New York, where I was most pleasantly entertained by himself and his delightful wife. The length of my stay among you is uncertain, though I have been pressed by the Flouds, with whom I am stopping, and by the C. Belknap-Jacksons to prolong it indefinitely, and in fact to identify myself to an extent with your social life."
The Colonel is a man of distinguished appearance, with the seasoned bearing of an old campaigner, and though at moments he displays that cool reserve so typical of the English gentleman, evidence was not lacking last evening that he can unbend on occasion. At the lawn fête held in the spacious grounds of Judge Ballard, where a myriad Japanese lanterns made the scene a veritable fairyland, he was quite the most sought-after notable present, and gayly tripped the light fantastic toe with the élite of Red Gap's smart set there assembled.
From his cordial manner of entering into the spirit of the affair we predict that Colonel Ruggles will be a decided acquisition to our social life, and we understand that a series of recherché entertainments in his honour has already been planned by Mrs. County Judge Ballard, who took the distinguished guest under her wing the moment he appeared last evening. Welcome to our city, Colonel! And may the warm hearts of Red Gap cause you to forget that European world of fashion of which you have long been so distinguished an ornament!
In a sickening silence I finished the thing. As the absurd sheet fell from my nerveless fingers Mrs. Effie cried in a voice hoarse with emotion:
"Do you realize the dreadful thing you've done to us?"
Speechless I was with humiliation, unequal even to protesting that I had said nothing of the sort to the press-chap. I mean to say, he had wretchedly twisted my harmless words.
"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" demanded Mrs. Belknap-Jackson, also in a voice hoarse with emotion. I glanced at her husband. He, too, was pale with anger and trembling, so that I fancied he dared not trust himself to speak.
"The wretched man," declared Mrs. Effie, addressing them all, "simply can't realize—how disgraceful it is. Oh, we shall never be able to live it down!"
"Imagine those flippant Spokane sheets dressing up the thing,", hissed Belknap-Jackson, speaking for the first time. "Imagine their blackguardly humour!"
"And that awful Cousin Egbert," broke in Mrs. Effie, pointing a desperate finger toward him. "Think of the laughing-stock he'll become! Why, he'll simply never be able to hold up his head again."
"Say, you listen here," exclaimed Cousin Egbert with sudden heat; "never you mind about my head. I always been able to hold up my head any time I felt like it." And again to me he threw out, "Don't you let 'em bluff you, Bill!"
"I gave him a notice for the paper," explained Mrs. Effie plaintively; "I'd written it all nicely out to save them time in the office, and that would have prevented this disgrace, but he never gave it in."
"I clean forgot it," declared the offender. "What with one thing and another, and gassing back and forth with some o' the boys, it kind of went out o' my head."
"Meeting our best people—actually dancing with them!" murmured Mrs. Belknap-Jackson in a voice vibrant with horror. "My dear, I truly am so sorry for you."
"You people entertained him delightfully at your camp," murmured Mrs. Effie quickly in her turn, with a gesture toward the journal.
"Oh, we're both in it, I know. I know. It's appalling!"
"We'll never be able to live it down!" said Mrs. Effie "We shall have to go away somewhere."
"Can't you imagine what Jen' Ballard will say when she learns the truth?" asked the other bitterly. "Say we did it on purpose to humiliate her, and just as all our little scraps were being smoothed out, so we could get together and put that Bohemian set in its place. Oh, it's so dreadful!" On the verge of tears she seemed.
"And scarcely a word mentioned of our own return—when I'd taken such pains with the notice!"
"Listen here!" said Cousin Egbert brightly. "I'll take the piece down now and he can print it in his paper for you to-morrow."
"You can't understand," she replied impatiently. "I casually mentioned our having brought an English man-servant. Print that now and insult all our best people who received him!"
"Pathetic how little the poor chap understands," sighed Belknap-Jackson. "No sense at all of our plight—naturally, naturally!"
"'A series of entertainments being planned in his honour!'" quavered Mrs. Belknap-Jackson.
"'The most sought-after notable present!'" echoed Mrs. Effie viciously.
Again and again I had essayed to protest my innocence, only to provoke renewed outbursts. I could but stand there with what dignity I retained and let them savage me. Cousin Egbert now spoke again:
"Shucks! What's all the fuss? Just because I took Bill out and give him a good time! Didn't you say yourself in that there very piece that he'd impart to coming functions an air of smartiness like they have all over Europe? Didn't you write them very words? And ain't he already done it the very first night he gets here, right at that there lawn-feet where I took him? What for do you jump on me then? I took him and he done it; he done it good. Bill's a born mixer. Why, he had all them North Side society dames stung the minute I flashed him; after him quicker than hell could scorch a feather; run out from under their hats to get introduced to him—and now you all turn on me like a passel of starved wolves." He finished with a note of genuine irritation I had never heard in his voice.
"The poor creature's demented," remarked Mrs. Belknap-Jackson pityingly.
"Always been that way," said Mrs. Effie hopelessly.
Belknap-Jackson contented himself with a mere clicking sound of commiseration.
"All right, then, if you're so smart," continued Cousin Egbert. "Just the same Bill, here, is the most popular thing in the whole Kulanche Valley this minute, so all I got to say is if you want to play this here society game you better stick close by him. First thing you know, some o' them other dames'll have him won from you. That Mis' Ballard's going to invite him to supper or dinner or some other doings right away. I heard her say so."
To my amazement a curious and prolonged silence greeted this amazing tirade. The three at length were regarding each other almost furtively. Belknap-Jackson began to pace the floor in deep thought.
"After all, no one knows except ourselves," he said in curiously hushed tones at last.
"Of course it's one way out of a dreadful mess," observed his wife.
"Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of the British army," said Mrs. Effie in a peculiar tone, as if she were trying over a song.
"It may indeed be the best way out of an impossible situation." continued Belknap-Jackson musingly. "Otherwise we face a social upheaval that might leave us demoralized for years—say nothing of making us a laughing-stock with the rabble. In fact, I see nothing else to be done."
"Cousin Egbert would be sure to spoil it all again," objected Mrs. Effie, glaring at him.
"No danger," returned the other with his superior smile. "Being quite unable to realize what has happened, he will be equally unable to realize what is going to happen. We may speak before him as before a babe in arms; the amenities of the situation are forever beyond him."
"I guess I always been able to hold up my head when I felt like it," put in Cousin Egbert, now again both sullen and puzzled. Once more he threw out his encouragement to me: "Don't let 'em run any bluffs, Bill! They can't touch you, and they know it."
"'Touch him,'" murmured Mrs. Belknap-Jackson with an able sneer. "My dear, what a trial he must have been to you. I never knew. He's as bad as the mater, actually."
"And such hopes I had of him in Paris," replied Mrs. Effie, "when he was taking up Art and dressing for dinner and everything!"
"I can be pushed just so far!" muttered the offender darkly.
There was now a ring at the door which I took the liberty of answering, and received two notes from a messenger. One bore the address of Mrs. Floud and the other was quite astonishingly to myself, the name preceded by "Colonel."
"That's Jen' Ballard's stationery!" cried Mrs. Belknap-Jackson. "Trust her not to lose one second in getting busy!"
"But he mustn't answer the door that way," exclaimed her husband as I handed Mrs. Effie her note.
They were indeed both from my acquaintance of the night before. Receiving permission to read my own, I found it to be a dinner invitation for the following Friday. Mrs. Effie looked up from hers.
"It's all too true," she announced grimly. "We're asked to dinner and she earnestly hopes dear Colonel Ruggles will have made no other engagement. She also says hasn't he the darlingest English accent. Oh, isn't it a mess!"
"You see how right I am," said Belknap-Jackson.
"I guess we've got to go through with it," conceded Mrs. Effie.
"The pushing thing that Ballard woman is!" observed her friend.
"Ruggles!" exclaimed Belknap-Jackson, addressing me with sudden decision.
"Yes, sir."
"Listen carefully—I'm quite serious. In future you will try to address me as if I were your equal. Ah! rather you will try to address me as if you were my equal. I dare say it will come to you easily after a bit of practice. Your employers will wish you to address them in the same manner. You will cultivate toward us a manner of easy friendliness—remember I'm entirely serious—quite as if you were one of us. You musy try to be, in short, the Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles that wretched penny-a-liner has foisted upon these innocent people. We shall thus avert a most humiliating contretemps."
The thing fair staggered me. I fell weakly into the chair by which I had stood, for the first time in a not uneventful career feeling that my savoir faire had been overtaxed.
"Quite right," he went on. "Be seated as one of us," and he amazingly proffered me his cigarette case. "Do take one, old chap," he insisted as I weakly waved it away, and against my will I did so. "Dare say you'll fancy them—a non-throat cigarette especially prescribed for me." He now held a match so that I was obliged to smoke. Never have I been in less humour for it.
"There, not so hard, is it? You see, we're getting on famously."
"Ain't I always said Bill was a good mixer?" called Cousin Egbert, but his gaucherie was pointedly ignored.
"Now," continued Belknap-Jackson, "suppose you tell us in a chatty, friendly way just what you think about this regrettable affair." All sat forward interestedly.
"But I met what I supposed were your villagers," I said; "your small tradesmen, your artisans, clerks, shop-assistants, tenant-farmers, and the like. I'd no idea in the world they were your county families. Seemed quite a bit too jolly for that. And your press-chap—preposterous, quite! He quizzed me rather, I admit, but he made it vastly different. Your pressmen are remarkable. That thing is a fair crumpler."
"But surely," put in Mrs. Effie, "you could see that Mrs. Judge Ballard must be one of our best people."
"I saw she was a goodish sort," I explained, "but it never occurred to me one would meet her in your best houses. And when she spoke of entertaining me I fancied I might stroll by her cottage some fair day and be asked in to a slice from one of her own loaves and a dish of tea. There was that about her."
"Mercy!" exclaimed both ladies, Mrs. Belknap-Jackson adding a bit maliciously I thought, "Oh, don't you awfully wish she could hear him say it just that way?"
"As to the title," I continued, "Mr. Egbert has from the first had a curious American tendency to present me to his many friends as 'Colonel.' I am sure he means as little by it as when he calls me 'Bill,' which I have often reminded him is not a name of mine."
"Oh, we understand the poor chap is a social incompetent," said Belknap-Jackson with a despairing shrug.
"Say, look here," suddenly exclaimed Cousin Egbert, a new heat in his tone, "what I call Bill ain't a marker to what I call you when I really get going. You ought to hear me some day when I'm feeling right!"
"Really!" exclaimed the other with elaborate sarcasm.
"Yes, sir. Surest thing you know. I could call you a lot of good things right now if so many ladies wasn't around. You don't think I'd be afraid, do you? Why, Bill there had you licked with one wallop."
"But really, really!" protested the other with a helpless shrug to the ladies, who were gasping with dismay.
"You ruffian!" cried his wife.
"Egbert Floud," said Mrs. Effie fiercely, "you will apologize to Charles before you leave this room. The idea of forgetting yourself that way. Apologize at once!"
"Oh, very well," he grumbled, "I apologize like I'm made to." But he added quickly with even more irritation, "only don't you get the idea it's because I'm afraid of you."
"Tush, tush!" said Belknap-Jackson.
"No, sir; I apologize, but it ain't for one minute because I'm afraid of you."
"Your bare apology is ample; I'm bound to accept it," replied the other, a bit uneasily I thought.
"Come right down to it," continued Cousin Egbert, "I ain't afraid of hardly any person. I can be pushed just so far." Here he looked significantly at Mrs. Effie.
"After all I've tried to do for him!" she moaned. "I thought he had something in him."
"Darn it all, I like to be friendly with my friends," he bluntly persisted. "I call a man anything that suits me. And I ain't ever apologized yet because I was afraid. I want all parties here to get that."
"Say no more, please, It's quite understood," said Belknap-Jackson hastily. The other subsided into low mutterings.
"I trust you fully understand the situation, Ruggles—Colonel Ruggles," he continued to me.
"It's preposterous, but plain as a pillar-box," I answered. "I can only regret it as keenly as any right-minded person should. It's not at all what I've been accustomed to."
"Very well. Then I suggest that you accompany me for a drive this afternoon. I'll call for you with the trap, say at three."
"Perhaps," suggested his wife, "it might be as well if Colonel Ruggles were to come to us as a guest." She was regarding me with a gaze that was frankly speculative.
"Oh, not at all, not at all!" retorted Mrs. Effie crisply. "Having been announced as our house guest—never do in the world for him to go to you so soon. We must be careful in this. Later, perhaps, my dear."
Briefly the ladies measured each other with a glance. Could it be, I asked myself, that they were sparring for the possession of me?
"Naturally he will be asked about everywhere, and there'll be loads of entertaining to do in return."
"Of course," returned Mrs. Effie, "and I'd never think of putting it off on to you, dear, when we're wholly to blame for the awful thing."
"That's so thoughtful of you, dear," replied her friend coldly.
"At three, then," said Belknap-Jackson as we arose.
"I shall be delighted," I murmured.
"I bet you won't," said Cousin Egbert sourly. "He wants to show you off." This, I could see, was ignored as a sheer indecency.
"We shall have to get a reception in quick," said Mrs. Effie, her eyes narrowed in calculation.
"I don't see what all the fuss was about," remarked Cousin Egbert again, as if to himself; "tearing me to pieces like a passel of wolves!"
The Belknap-Jacksons left hastily, not deigning him a glance. And to do the poor soul justice, I believe he did not at all know what the "fuss" had been about. The niceties of the situation were beyond him, dear old sort though he had shown himself to be. I knew then I was never again to be harsh with him, let him dress as he would.
"Say," he asked, the moment we were alone, "you remember that thing you called him back there that night—'blighted little mug,' was it?"
"It's best forgotten, sir," I said.
"Well, sir, some way it sounded just the thing to call him. It sounded bully. What does it mean?"
So far was his darkened mind from comprehending that I, in a foreign land, among a weird people, must now have a go at being a gentleman; and that if I fluffed my catch we should all be gossipped to rags!
Alone in my room I made a hasty inventory of my wardrobe. Thanks to the circumstance that the Honourable George, despite my warning, had for several years refused to bant, it was rather well stocked. The evening clothes were irreproachable; so were the frock coat and a morning suit. Of waiscoats there were a number showing but slight wear. The three lounge-suits of tweed, though slightly demoded, would still be vogue in this remote spot. For sticks, gloves, cravats, and body-linen I saw that I should be compelled to levy on the store I had laid in for Cousin Egbert, and I happily discovered that his top-hat set me quite effectively.
Also in a casket of trifles that had knocked about in my box I had the good fortune to find the monocle that the Honourable George had discarded some years before on the ground that it was "bally nonsense." I screwed the glass into my eye. The effect was tremendous.
Rather a lark I might have thought it but for the false military title. That was rank deception, and I have always regarded any sort of wrongdoing as detestable. Perhaps if he had introduced me as a mere subaltern in a line regiment—but I was powerless.
For the afternoon's drive I chose the smartest of the lounge-suits, a Carlsbad hat which Cousin Egbert had bitterly resented for himself, and for top-coat a light weight, straight-hanging Chesterfield with velvet collar which, although the cut studiously avoids a fitted effect, is yet a garment that intrigues the eye when carried with any distinction. So many top-coats are but mere wrappings! I had, too, gloves of a delicately contrasting tint.
Altogether I felt I had turned myself out well, and this I found to be the verdict of Mrs. Effie, who engaged me in the hall to say that I was to have anything in the way of equipment I liked to ask for. Belknap-Jackson also, arriving now in a smart trap to which he drove two cobs tandem, was at once impressed and made me compliments upon my tenue. I was aware that I appeared not badly beside him. I mean to say, I felt that I was vogue in the finest sense of the word.
Mrs. Effie waved us a farewell from the doorway, and I was conscious that from several houses on either side of the avenue we attracted more than a bit of attention. There were doors opened, blinds pushed aside, faces—that sort of thing.
At a leisurely pace we progressed through the main thoroughfares. That we created a sensation, especially along the commercial streets, where my host halted at shops to order goods, cannot be denied. Furore is perhaps the word. I mean to say, almost quite every one stared. Rather more like a parade it was than I could have wished, but I was again resolved to be a dead sportsman.
Among those who saluted us from time to time were several of the lesser townsmen to whom Cousin Egbert had presented me the evening before, and I now perceived that most of these were truly persons I must not know in my present station—hodmen, road-menders, grooms, delivery-chaps, that sort. In responding to the often florid salutations of such, I instilled into my barely perceptible nod a certain frigidity that I trusted might be informing. I mean to say, having now a position to keep up, it would never do at all to chatter and pal about loosely as Cousin Egbert did.
When we had done a fairish number of streets, both of shops and villas, we drove out a winding roadway along a tarn to the country club. The house was an unpretentious structure of native wood, fronting a couple of tennis courts and a golf links, but although it was tea-time, not a soul was present. Having unlocked the door, my host suggested refreshment and I consented to partake of a glass of sherry and a biscuit. But these, it seemed, were not to be had; so over pegs of ginger ale, found in an ice-chest, we sat for a time and chatted.
"You will find us crude, Ruggles, as I warned you," my host observed. "Take this deserted clubhouse at this hour. It tells the story. Take again the matter of sherry and a biscuit—so simple! Yet no one ever thinks of them, and what you mean by a biscuit is in this wretched hole spoken of as a cracker."
I thanked him for the item, resolving to add it to my list of curious Americanisms. Already I had begun a narrative of my adventures in this wild land, a thing I had tentatively entitled, "Alone in North America."
"Though we have people in abundance of ample means," he went on, "you will regret to know that we have not achieved a leisured class. Barely once in a fortnight will you see this club patronized, after all the pains I took in its organization. They simply haven't evolved to the idea yet; sometimes I have moments in which I despair of their ever doing so."
As usual he grew depressed when speaking of social Red Gap, so that we did not tarry long in the silent place that should have been quite alive with people smartly having their tea. As we drove back he touched briefly and with all delicacy on our changed relations.
"What made me only too glad to consent to it," he said, "is the sodden depravity of that Floud chap. Really he's a menace to the community. I saw from the degenerate leer on his face this morning that he will not be able to keep silent about that little affair of ours back there. Mark my words, he'll talk. And fancy how embarrassing had you continued in the office for which you were engaged. Fancy it being known I had been assaulted by a—you see what I mean. But now, let him talk his vilest. What is it? A mere disagreement between two gentlemen, generous, hot-tempered chaps, followed by mutual apologies. A mere nothing!"
I was conscious of more than a little irritation at his manner of speaking of Cousin Egbert, but this in my new character I could hardly betray.
When he set me down at the Floud house, "Thanks for the breeze-out," I said; then, with an easy wave of the hand and in firm tones, "Good day, Jackson! See you again, old chap!"
I had nerved myself to it as to an icy tub and was rewarded by a glow such as had suffused me that morning in Paris after the shameful proceedings with Cousin Egbert and the Indian Tuttle. I mean to say, I felt again that wonderful thrill of equality—quite as if my superiors were not all about me.
Inside the house Mrs. Effie addressed the last of a heap of invitations for an early reception—"To meet Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles," they read.