CHAPTER IX
MR. AND MRS. ASHFORTH (2)
Miss Bussey was much relieved when the doctor pronounced her convalescent and allowed her to come downstairs. To fall ill on an outing is always exasperating, but beyond that she felt that her enforced seclusion was particularly unfortunate at the moment. Here were two young people, not engaged nor going to be engaged to one another; and for three days or more circumstances had abandoned them to an inevitable and unchaperoned tête-à-tête! Mary made light of it; she relied on the fraternal relationship, but that was, after all, a fiction, quite incapable, in Miss Bussey’s opinion, of supporting the strain to which it had been subjected. Besides Mary’s sincerity appeared doubtful; the kind girl, anxious to spare her aunt worry, made light of the difficulties of her position, but Miss Bussey detected a restlessness in her manner which clearly betrayed uneasiness. Here, of course, Miss Bussey was wrong; neither Mary nor John were the least self-conscious; they felt no embarrassment, but, poor creatures, wore out their spirits in a useless vigil over the letter-rack.
Miss Bussey was restored to active life on the morning after the party from Cannes arrived in Paris, and she hastened to emphasize the fact of her return to complete health by the unusual effort of coming down to breakfast. She was in high feather, and her cheery conversation lifted, to some extent, the gloom which had settled on her young friends. While exhorting to patience she was full of hope, and dismissed as chimerical all the darker explanations which the disconsolate lovers invented to account for the silence their communications had met with. Under her influence the breakfast-table became positively cheerful, and at last all the three burst into a hearty laugh at one of the old lady’s little jokes.
At this moment Arthur Laing entered the room. His brow was clouded. He had searched his purse, his cigar-case, the lining of his hat—in fact every depository where a careful man would be likely to bestow documents whose existence he wished to remember; as no careful man would put such things in the pocket of his ‘blazer’, he had not searched there; thus the telegrams had not appeared, and the culprit was looking forward, with some alarm, to the reception which would await him when he ‘turned up’ to lunch with his friends, as he had promised to do. Hardly, however, had he sat down to his coffee when his sombre thoughts were cleared away by the extraordinary spectacle of young Mr. and Mrs. Ashforth hobnobbing with their maid, the latter lady appearing quite at home and leading the gayety and the conversation. Laing laid down his roll and his knife and looked at them in undisguised amazement.
For a moment doubt of his cherished theory began to assail his mind. He heard the old lady call Ashforth “John;” that was a little strange, and it was rather strange that John answered by saying: “That must be as you wish; I am entirely at your disposal.” And yet, reflected Laing, was it very strange, after all? In his own family they had an old retainer who called all the children, whatever their age, by their Christian names, and was admitted to a degree of intimacy hardly distinguishable from that accorded to a relative.
Laing, weighing the evidence pro and contra, decided that there was an overwhelming balance in favor of his old view, and dismissed the matter with the comment that, if it ever befell him to go on a wedding-tour, he would ask his wife to take a maid with rather less claims on her kindness and his toleration.
That same morning the second pair of telegrams, forwarded by post from Cannes, duly arrived. Dora and Charlie, reading them in the light of their recent happy information, found them most kind and comforting, although in reality they, apart from their missing forerunners, told the recipients nothing at all. John’s ran: “Am in Paris at European. Please write. Anxious to hear. Everything decided for the best.—John.” Mary’s to Charlie was even briefer; it said, “Am here at European. Why no answer to last?”
“It’s really very kind of Mr. Ashforth,” said Dora to Charlie, as they strolled in the garden of the Tuileries, “to make such a point of what I think. I expect the wire that stupid Mr. Laing lost was just to tell me the date of the marriage.”
“Not a doubt of it. Miss Tr—Mrs. Ashforth’s wire to me makes that clear. They want to hear that we’re not desperately unhappy. Well, we aren’t, are we, Dolly?”
“Well, perhaps not.”
“Isn’t it extraordinary how we mistook our feelings? Of course, though, it’s natural in you. You had never been through anything of the sort before. How could you tell whether it was the real thing or not?”
Dora shot a glance out of the corner of her eye at her lover, but did not disclaim the innocence he imputed to her; she knew men liked to think that, and why shouldn’t they, poor things? She seized on his implied admission and carried the war into his country.
“But you,—you who are so experienced—how did you come to make such a mistake?”
Charlie was not at a loss.
“It wasn’t a mistake then,” he said. “I was quite right then. Mary Travers was about the nicest girl I had ever seen. I thought her as charming as a girl could be.”
“Oh, you did! Then why”
“My eyes have been opened since then.”
“What did that?”
“Why don’t you ever pronounce my name?”
“Never mind your name. What opened your eyes?”
“Why, yours, of course.”
“What nonsense! They’re very nice about it, aren’t they? Do you think we ought to call?”
“Shall you feel it awkward?”
“Yes, a little. Shan’t you? Still we must let them know we’re here. Will you write to Mrs. Ashforth?”
“I suppose I’d better. After lunch ’ll do, won’t it?”
“Oh, yes. And I’ll write a note to him. I expect they won’t be staying here long.”
“I hope not. Hullo, it’s a quarter past twelve. We must be getting back. Laing’s coming to lunch.”
“Where arc the Deanes?”
“Lady Deane’s gone to Belleville with your father to see slums, and Roger’s playing tennis with Laing. He said we weren’t to wait lunch. Are you hungry, Dolly?”
“Not very. It seems only an hour since breakfast.”
“How charming of you! We’ve been walking here since ten o’clock.”
“Mr. Ellerton, will you be serious for a minute? I want to say something important. When we meet the Ashforths there mustn’t be a word said about—about—you know.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I couldn’t! So soon! Surely you see that. Why, it would be hardly civil to them, would it, apart from anything else?”
“Well, it might look rather casual.”
“And I positively couldn’t face John Ashforth. You promise, don’t you?”
“It’s a nuisance, because, you see, Dolly
“You’re not to get into the habit of saying ‘Dolly’. At least not yet.”
“Presently?”
“If you’re good. Now promise!”
“All right.”
“We’re not engaged.”
“All right.”
“Nor thinking of it,”
“Rather not.”
“That’s very nice of you, and when the Ashforths are gone”
“I shall be duly rewarded?”
“Oh, we’ll see. Do come along. Papa hates being kept waiting for his meals, and they must have finished their slums long ago.”
They found Lady Deane and the General waiting for them, and the latter proposed an adjournment to a famous restaurant near the Opera. Thither they repaired, and ordered their lunch.
“Deane and Laing will find out where we’ve gone and follow,” said the General. “We won’t wait,” and he resumed his conversation with Lady Deane on the events of the morning.
A moment later the absentees came in; Sir Roger in his usual leisurely fashion, Laing hurriedly. The latter held in his hand two telegrams, or the crumpled débris thereof. He rushed up to the table and panted out, “Found ’em in the pocket of my blazer—must have put ’em there—stupid ass—never thought of it—put it on for tennis—awfully sorry.”
Wasting no time in reproaches, Dora and Charlie grasped their recovered property.
“Excuse me!” they cried simultaneously, and opened the envelopes. A moment later both leant back in their chairs, the pictures of helpless bewilderment.
Dora had read: “Marriage broken off. Coming to you 28th. Write directions—European, Paris.”
Charlie had read: “Engagement at end. Aunt and I coming to Paris—European, on 28th. Can you meet?”
Lady Deane was writing in her note-book. The General, Sir Roger, and Laing were busy with the waiter, the menu, and the wine-list. Quick as thought the lovers exchanged telegrams. They read, and looked at one another.
“What does it mean?” whispered Dora.
“You never saw anything like the lives those ragpickers lead, Dora,” observed Lady Deane, looking up from her task. “I was talking to one this morning and he said”
“Maître d’hotel for me,” broke in Sir Roger.
“I haven’t a notion,” murmured Charlie.
“Look here, what’s your liquor, Laing?”
“Anything; with this thirst on me”
“There are ample materials for a revolution more astonishing and sanguinary”
“Nonsense, General, yon must have something to drink.”
“Can they have changed their minds again, Dolly?”
“They must have, if Mr. Laing is”
“Dry? I should think I was. So would you be, if you’d been playing tennis.”
Laing cut across the currents of conversation:
“Hope no harm done, Miss Bellairs, about that wire?”
“I—I—I don’t think so.”
“Or yours, Charlie?”
Charlie took a hopeful view.
“Upon my honor, Laing, I’m glad you hid it.”
“Oh, I see!” cried Laing. “Tip for the wrong ’un, eh, and too late to put it on now?”
“You’re not far off,” answered Charlie Ellerton.
“Roger, is it to-night that the General is going to take me to the”
“Hush! Not before Miss Bellairs, my dear! Consider her filial feelings. You and the General must make a quiet bolt of it. We’re only going to the Palais-Royal.”
The arrival of fish brought a momentary pause, but the first mouthful was hardly swallowed when Arthur Laing started, hunted hastily for his eyeglass, and stuck it in his eye.
“Yes, it is them,” said he. “See, Charlie, that table over there. They’ve got their backs to us, but I can see ’em in the mirror.”
“See who?” asked Charlie in an irritable tone.
“Why, those honeymooners. I say, Lady Deane, it’s a queer thing to have a lady’s-maid to break Why, by Jove, she’s with them now! Look!”
His excited interest aroused the attention of the whole party, and they looked across the long room.
“Ashforth’s their name,” concluded Laing. “I heard the Abigail call him Ashforth; and the lady is”
He was interrupted by the clatter of a knife and fork falling on a plate. He turned in the direction whence the sound came.
Dora Bellairs leant back in her chair, her hands in her lap; Charlie Ellerton had hidden himself behind the wine-list. Lady Deane, her husband, and the General gazed inquiringly at Dora.
At the same instant there came a shrill little cry from the other end of the room. The mirror had served Mary Travers as well as it had Laing. For a moment she spoke hastily to her companion; then she and John rose, and, with radiant smiles on their faces, advanced toward their friends. The long-expected meeting had come at last.
Dora sat still, in consternation. Charlie, peeping out from behind his menu, saw the approach.
“Now, in Heaven’s name,” he groaned, “are they married or aren’t they?” and having said this he awaited the worst.