London Lavender

CHAPTER XXXIII

IN WHICH I BECOME THE VERY OPPOSITE OF A THIEF, YET FEEL ALL A THIEF'S SENSE OF GUILT

After visiting Naomi to tell her of the state of things upstairs, I returned to Mr. Carstairs' room and awaited the doctor. The sick man did not recover consciousness. It was then necessary to inform the Misses Packer and telephone to the undertaker, and this I agreed to do. Before, however, I descended to the basement with my grim message, I secured some paper and string, made a parcel of the little Verrocchio, and placed it on a shelf in my room. Having agreed to carry out this peculiar and delicate commission, I meant to do it thoroughly.

Miss Laura and Miss Emma took the demise of Mr. Carstairs as a personal affront. I gathered that he had never been a favourite with them, although his money was good and he gave no trouble; but to die under their roof they held to be an action not only ungentlemanly but dishonest.

"Brings such a bad name on a house to have anyone die in it," said Miss Laura. "I shouldn't be at all surprised if Mr. Spanton were to leave. Of course with you, sir, it's different, you not being acquainted with the deceased, and two floors away, whereas Mr. Spanton's so close."

Having had another look at the mysterious cupboard, I thought it best to obtain the services of a lawyer before proceeding further; and together we looked for the will. It was easily found, and on reading it I discovered that the old fellow had truly inserted my name as his executor with a firm hand some days before he asked me: not a bad divination of my besetting complaisance! I discovered also something that caused the Misses Packer not only to change their tone with regard to the deceased but send them cheerfully to his funeral in new and becoming mourning, for he left them each fifty pounds in recognition of their unremitting kindness, and asked to be allowed to pay for the new papering and whitewashing of his rooms. To Mrs. Wiles he left ten pounds, and to his executor, "to compensate him for any unusual worry, vexation, and expense to which he may be put," five hundred pounds—an amount which seemed to perplex the lawyer not a little. "You're very lucky, my dear sir," he said. "Why, there's nothing to do!" If the Law only knew!

We buried John Carstairs at Kensal Green, and I ordered the stonecutter to place on his tombstone the words, from the Song of Solomon, "O thou fairest among women," and to this hour the honest fellow thinks I am mad.

These things being accomplished, I was free to bend my mind to the question of the restitution of the little Verrocchio; and this I had to work out absolutely alone. I could not even tell Naomi, even under that elastic understanding which is held to entitle married people to share secrets entrusted to either, for although I am no believer in the old saying that no woman can keep a secret, or, rather, do not believe that a woman is less of an oyster in these matters than a man, yet I did not wish to burden her with so good a forbidden mystery. I do not say she would have been embarrassed to retain it; but even the most cautious of us have a way now and then of dressing up a friend's confidence vaguely, with several removes, and so forth, which, though safe enough in some companies, might give everything away to a clever listener who was acquainted with one's circle. Anyway I did not tell her.

The only real temptation which I had to break the dead man's injunction, was to tell Lacey. Lacey would not only have been useful, but he would have so enjoyed it. I did not even dare to skirt the subject with him, to get the benefit of his improvisations. Furley, too, what would he not have given to be in a position to "film" me (as he calls it) with the famous picture under my arm on the errand of restitution!

I began—as I guess most criminals do, and I was a kind of inverted criminal with all a criminal's desire for secrecy—by inventing elaborate schemes, the cleverest things you ever heard of. But I gave them all up in favour of the most obvious commonplace simplicity. Having decided what to do, I waited three months and then did it. The delay was due to the fear that if I acted at once, two and two might easily be put together, since Carstairs had left all his money—no inconsiderable sum—to the National Art Collections Fund, and a comparison of dates might lead to investigation, and an interview with the Misses Packer or Mrs. Wiles might educe the fact of the locked cupboard, and then perhaps there would be a cross-examination of myself, from which the truth would probably emerge. At least, so I feared.

I therefore allowed the parcel to remain among my papers—every night waking up convinced the house was on fire, and never leaving it without expecting to find only ashes on my return—and at the end of three months I chose a moment when everyone was out, and in broad day conveyed the parcel to the cloak-room of that very centre of bustle and incuriosity, the Piccadilly Circus Tube station, where in the thick of passengers and chorus girls, I deposited it and paid my twopence. The boy gave me my ticket without lifting his eyes, and I again merged with the crowd. I had already printed on a piece of plain paper an intimation that if the Director of the National Gallery would send for the parcel concerned, he would not regret the deed, and this I enclosed with the ticket in an envelope, and dropped it into the post.

I could not send the picture direct, because that would have meant either an intermediary or myself carrying it. I could not send the note by express, because that would have meant a visit to the post office at a given registered time. Hence the pillar box, which, though safe, gave me one further anxiety—fear lest the Piccadilly Circus station should also be consumed by fire in the night; but this very unlikely contingency did not keep me awake, for, as Trist says, "The art of life is to take all reasonable precautions and then throw the responsibility on the shoulders of Fate."

The next day nothing happened, but The Times of the morning after had the whole glorious story. The lines

"RECOVERY OF A LOST MASTERPIECE.
THE STOLEN VERROCCHIO."

caught my eye at once, and I settled down to the perusal of what still is to me the most amusing piece of literature in the language.

"Listen," I said to Naomi, "here's something interesting," and I read as follows:

"'It will be remembered that some four years ago the world was startled by the news that the portrait of an unknown woman, attributed to Verrocchio, the master of Leonardo da Vinci, had disappeared from the National Gallery. The theft was contrived in full daylight, probably by a clever gang whose plans had long been maturing, and although Scotland Yard exerted every effort, no trace of the miscreant was found. Yesterday the Director received, by the first post, a letter in a disguised hand enclosing a ticket for the cloak-room at Piccadilly Circus station on the Hammersmith-Finsbury Park Railway, and the parcel when opened was found to contain the missing picture. As to who brought the parcel in, the cloak-room attendant has no knowledge; he is too busy, he says, to take particular notice of people, but he fancies it was an elderly woman.

"'The picture has been subjected to the most careful scrutiny, and is found to be in perfect condition, and any question of its being a copy may be set aside. The nation is to be congratulated on the recovery of such a treasure. No doubt certain lines of investigation will be followed, but it is not likely that the Trustees will wish to devote any large portion of their very exiguous income to the inquiry, which after all could afford only a certain sentimental satisfaction. We may take it that the restitution sufficiently indicates the remorse of the thief, and let the question of punishment go.

"'The picture, we may add, came into the possession of the nation in 1888, the bequest of a wealthy merchant and connoisseur named James Murchison, who committed suicide on a voyage to America very shortly after leaving Queenstown. This is the same James Murchison who founded and endowed the Murchison night refuges all over London."

I need hardly add that there followed a short article proving that whoever painted the picture it was most certainly not Verrocchio.

"What a strange thing!" said Naomi. "How did you say the picture was returned?"

"Someone seems to have left it at a Tube cloak-room," I replied, "and sent the Director the ticket."

"That was very clever," Naomi said. "I wonder how you would set about it if you had to restore a stolen picture. Not like that, I feel certain. You'd do something at once more clever and less clever."

"Yes," I said.

"I should like to see the picture so much," Naomi continued. "Do you think it is on view?"

"Sure to be," I said.

"Then let's look in this morning, shall we?"

I was only too willing, and together we stood before the little Verrocchio in its new position, screwed to the wall, with a custodian on either side. Never have I been so glad to see any picture in its right place.

"Why do you sigh like that?" Naomi asked.

"It's so satisfying," I said, but I did not mean quite what she thought.

And so ended not only my first, and I hope last, participation in the higher crime, but also my first, and I hope last, deception of Naomi.

CHAPTER XXXIV

IN WHICH I BRING TOGETHER THREE MEN WHO WERE DUE TO MEET, AND A NOVEL AND BENEFICIAL SCHEME IS DECIDED UPON

Heaven, I am glad to say, has been pleased to remove Mr. Wiles's adopted daughter from this transitory sphere. She was sickly when she came, and she never rallied, in spite of the most assiduous care on his part, in which he was more or less assisted by a loyal wife.

"Wiles does nothing but mope," Mrs. Wiles told Naomi. "At first, after he found it was no good and the creature was bound to die, he was a little excited and above himself with a scheme he had for getting it Christian burial. I don't know what's come over the man—he never used to have such ideas—but he actually thought of trying to smuggle it into a cemetery as though it was a real child. Went about peering in undertakers' windows and wondering which looked most like helping him. But I put a stop to all that. It wasn't fair to the real people buried there, I said. A pretty thing to pay money for a nice grave or comfortable family vault, and then have a heathen ape laid near you! Wiles came round to my way of thinking, but he's never recovered his spirits. In the end, he paid good money to have it buried in the dogs' cemetery in the Bayswater Road, and he let me have the scullery new whitewashed without saying a word. If he doesn't get something to do soon I don't know what will happen. But I'm afraid of the drink and the Stock Exchange, both, for he's begun to be interested in tin mines and things like that. If only Mr. Falconer could find him an occupation!"

The good woman's concern about her husband had long made me want to help, and after Mrs. Duckie's statement that the head waiter of the "Golden Horn" had saved enough to start an eating-house of his own, the finger of Providence seemed to be in it, pointing directly at the homely features of Mordecai Wiles, late of the New Ape House.

It is amusing to be able to help a little, but a mistake to congratulate oneself upon the feat. For two reasons, of which one is that one is only an instrument of fate or chance, and the other that most deeds which at first wear the guise of assistance have a way of turning into mischief. The Spaniards, whose proverbs are the best, say that he who would tell the truth should have one foot in the stirrup; and similarly I would advise most self-conscious benefactors of their neighbours to be all ready to run. For otherwise they are in danger of the wrong kind of thanks.

In the present case, however, no harm has yet come to me. The victims of my experiment in busybodydom—or helpfulness, if you like—are not only Mr. Wiles and Mr. Duckie, but (such strange bedfellows can an active altruist bring together) Mr. Lacey. Mr. Duckie for the reasons given; Mr. Wiles also for the reasons given; and Mr. Lacey, because he had told me of his wonderful chop-house scheme. It was a simple duty to unite them; and we met at Mr. Wiles's for the purpose—the time and the place and the interested ones all together.

The weight of the interview fell upon Mr. Lacey, but he enjoyed it. He had to convince Mr. Wiles that there was money in an eating-house at all; and Mr. Duckie, that to limit the food so severely was practicable; and both, that (as I had told them, but men are stubbornly sceptical in such matters) he was an enthusiast and not a company promoter. One can so easily be misunderstood on this point.

He outlined his scheme, I must admit, with a persuasiveness that no company promoter could exceed, and a poor observer might easily have confused him with that bête noire; but neither of his hearers kindled perceptibly. Mr. Wiles has had so many affable gentlemen endeavouring, as Farrar's phrase has it, to bite his ear, that he has come to adopt an apathetic mien as second nature; while Mr. Duckie was obviously pained and startled by the revolutionary character of Mr. Lacey's proposal.

"Hot chops, of course, gentlemen like," said Mr. Duckie, "but not for ever. Cold chops I've never heard of. That is to say, chops cold on purpose."

Mr. Lacey admitted that it was an experiment. Possibly there might not be many customers who would come every day, but there ought to be enough regular customers for every other day, and plenty of strangers in a hurry, always. It would be, frankly, a house for hasty lunches. That would be stated. There should be no disguise about it; the outside would convey the intimation that within you could have a cold chop and salad in one minute, or a hot chop and hot buttered toast in ten minutes, and nothing else. "This world," said Mr. Lacey, "would be a vastly easier place if everyone announced his business in plain language. There's no diplomacy like frankness."

The idea was a novel one to Mr. Duckie, who had served for so many years in a restaurant where the bill of fare spelt new potatoes and new peas in capital letters right into August, and prefixed the word fresh to its coffee all the year round.

"People don't like to be told that they can't get nothing else," he said. "The words are not hospitable, if I may say so."

Mr. Lacey pointed out that in the long run the plain dealer won. That is, if his quality was equal to his candour.

Mr. Duckie, however, was a very old dog to learn such unwonted tricks.

"But what about the people who want roast beef?" he asked at length.

"They must go elsewhere," said Mr. Lacey. "We have nothing for them."

"Yes," said Mr. Duckie, "but roast beef's such a popular dish."

"It can't be helped," said Mr. Lacey. "We must specialize."

"I see that," said Mr. Duckie, "but wouldn't it be better to specialize in beef rather than mutton? Gentlemen are so partial to beef. Hot beef, cabbage, and potatoes, or cold beef and salad."

Mr. Lacey pointed out the difference between the two schemes. "If you want beef and vegetables you want an oven and a totally different arrangement of kitchens. The difficulty about potatoes is, they are never hot; cabbage is not always in season; and joints of beef mean a certain amount of waste. Chops and toast can be cooked at the grill, and there is no waste. The place would need plenty of grill accommodation and two or three of the best grillers to be obtained. Also the best chops, butter, and salad oil. Could anything be simpler? The salad oil should come from Italy direct; the house should become famous for it. Tarragon vinegar too—very little dearer than the other and much more memorable."

What a wonderful man, I thought, as he went on, kindling as he spoke, and thinking as he spoke, for he is a born improviser; business men in every walk of life ought to pay him ten guineas an hour just to make him talk on their own affairs. But business men have always a horror of men with ideas.

Mr. Duckie, I noticed, began to kindle too, but very cautiously. He still had beef on his mind.

"Very true," he said; "but what I mean about roast beef is, that gentlemen seem to expect it. When they're in a hurry they always ask if there's any cold beef."

Mr. Lacey told him again about the big notice outside the chop-house. No one could come in under false pretences.

"But, sir," said Mr. Duckie, "you don't know them. It doesn't matter what you say outside, they'll come in and ask for roast beef. People who're hungry have no reason."

"Very well, then, let them ask; they won't get it," said Mr. Lacey.

"But it's such a mistake in a restaurant not to have what people want," said Mr. Duckie.

Poor Lacey, his quick mind was in despair.

I relieved his agony by asking Mr. Wiles how it all struck him.

"I think it is a good scheme," he said. "I believe in finding a good food and sticking to it. That's what we do with our apes, and after all they're not so wonderfully different from city men. We find what suits them best and keep them on it, with a grape or two or slice of apple when they've done a trick, of course. I'm all for cold mutton myself. It's nourishing and it's clean. You can cut it with a pocket knife, like whittling a stick, and eat it all. But what I've been wondering is, what about drink?"

"Beer," said Mr. Lacey, "and whisky and soda, and coffee. Nothing else. But the best of each."

Mr. Duckie had been very thoughtful. "Supposing," he said, at last, "we were to have three beef days a week and three mutton?"

Mr. Lacey would not hear of it. "But," he said, "look here. This is what I'll do. The scheme's mine, and if you take it up I'll help you with advice about a site and furnishing and so forth, and you shall give me ten per cent. of the profits after each of you has drawn ten per cent., and nothing if you don't draw that. That's all I ask, and I ask that only if you stick to my idea. But if you decide to do something else, then I make you a present of the whole thing and retire at once. It interests me only as a whole."

Mr. Duckie admitted that this was more than fair, and looked at Mr. Wiles.

Mr. Wiles said that for his part he would go into it and find capital to run it for three years at a reasonable loss, with Mr. Duckie as manager and partner, on a definite understanding—but only if I approved and Mr. Lacey had control. "But," he said, "of course I must ask my wife's opinion," and Mrs. Wiles was called in.

The good woman, after asking my views and finding that I supported the scheme, pronounced in its favour, speaking both as a cook and a speculator. "And all I can say," she ended, "is, that I hope you'll arrange to keep Wiles busy. For I'm tired of him mooning about the house. And now, sir, if you've finished your talk, I wish you'd come and see my Annie."

She drew me from the room, and with her finger on her lips and tiptoeing along, led me to a bedroom, where, in a cot, I saw a little girl asleep.

"That's our Annie," she said proudly. "She only came to-day. I want Mrs. Falconer to see her to-morrow, if she will, because, of course, Annie was her idea."

Lenient as thoughts of Lavender had made me to all small creatures, I cannot say that I viewed Annie with any active satisfaction, she was so poor and stunted a little Cockney. But, of course, it is best that the good woman should lavish herself on a weakling than on a robust child. The robust grow up anyway, but the others want attention. I asked Annie's history.

"It's very sad," said Mrs. Wiles. "She is an only child, and the mother and father died within a few days of each other. The mother died of pneumonia, which in a kind of way gives Wiles a special interest in Annie, he having seen so much of it; while the father was knocked down and killed by a motor-bus only last week. So the child was taken to the St. Pancras Workhouse, and we heard of it through one of Wiles's friends, and applied for her, and here she is. But I shall never think quite the same about motor-buses any more. Talk about blessings in disguise—I mean, of course, to Wiles and me; but what a disguise!"

Upon rejoining the others, Lacey and I came away, leaving Mr. Duckie as the Wiles's guest for supper. The last words I heard him say were to his hostess, to the effect that, for some reason or other, gentlemen seemed to like beef best.

CHAPTER XXXV

IN WHICH LAVENDER FALCONER ENTERS THIS LIFE AND MEETS WITH GENERAL APPROVAL

After a period of reluctance, in which she very nearly lost all my good opinion, Miss Lavender Falconer entered this vale of tears at the most inconvenient hour possible, namely, at 3.15 A.M. on a rainy morning. My night's rest was ruined; but mother and child at once began to do exceedingly well.

I do not pretend that Lavender was beautiful. She had a crumpled appearance impossible to reconcile with that lissom gracefulness beneath her gown which her proud father some years hence will so value in her; but there was something very attractive in her helplessness—although even at the tender age of twelve hours she was manifestly already a member of the stronger sex. She dominated the room, and still dominates whatever room she may occupy, and promises to continue so to do. So far as I am concerned, I have no objection. I like a strong woman in the background engendering confidence.

Lavender's visitors were many and enthusiastic, and some, like the Magi, brought gifts. Her grandfather placed in each of her tiny fists a new sovereign by way of laying the foundation of her dot, and these she at once allowed to drop on the floor, an action which was held by wise observers to predicate a generous nature. Mr. Lacey made a special visit to Mitcham for lavender and filled the room with it, while the Director produced from his stores of melody this charming old lavender cry:

Won't you buy my sweet blooming lav - en - der, Six-teen
branch - es one pen - ny? La - dies fair, make no de -
lay, I have your lav-en-der fresh to-day! Buy it once you'll
buy it twice—It makes your clothes smell sweet and nice.
It will scent your pock-et - hand - ker - chiefs— Six - teen
branch - es for one pen - ny! As I walk thro' London streets, I
have your lav-en-der nice and sweet, Sixteen branches for one pen-ny!

The Misses Packer were in ecstasies of admiration, although, of course, we did not permit unskilled evidence to turn our heads. Still, they had seen many babies in their time and were entitled to respectful hearing when they indulged in comparison between Lavender and those others.

"Mrs. Harvey's baby, you remember, Emmie," said Miss Laura, "was a picture; but nothing compared with Mrs. Falconer's. There's a something about this little darling—I don't know what it is, but a something—which makes it more remarkable than any I've ever seen."

Miss Emma agreed with her, attempting—I thought hazardously—to discover what the something was, but of course failing.

Mrs. Wiles also came in to worship, and as she gazed grew very tearful. "Adopted children are all very well," she said, "and my Annie's a little pet; but there's nothing like one of your own. Well, well, we can't have everything, and Wiles has just bought a lovely gramophone, and Annie is trying to say 'Daddy' and 'Mammy' quite natural; and the invites that come to us to join committees of charitable societies, with lords and ladies sitting on them too, would make some of our friends go green with envy."

CHAPTER XXXVI

IN WHICH MRS. DUCKIE EMPLOYS AN ANNIHILATING PHRASE WHICH SO RANKLES THAT IT SEEMS ALMOST ABSURD TO GO ON AT ALL

Mrs. Duckie, whom, after her long speech to me on the duties of husbands, I felt I must acquaint with Lavender's arrival, came up in her best bonnet to see the ladies. She had tea with me afterwards in the sitting-room, the nurse having driven her and her kindly but not too reposeful tongue sternly forth. She said nothing for a minute or two except about Mr. Duckie and the "Gog and Magog Chop House," which is doing famously, thanking me for my share in it; but then, laying down her cup, she uttered quietly, as if speaking of the weather, the most devastating words I ever listened to.

"It's the healthiest baby I ever saw," she said, "and I've seen many. I'm so glad about it. And now you could die to-morrow, Mr. Falconer, if you liked."

Did you ever hear of such a bombshell?

What on earth did she mean? I asked.

"Why," she said, "I often think about it. That's what we're for—to marry and have children. But I didn't mean to say what I did. It must have sounded dreadful. It just popped out. Still, you're one as understands. You know what a difference there is between a father and a mother—the mothers have all the responsibility."

"All very well," I said, "if one were limited to one child. But am I not needed for more?"

"Oh," said Mrs. Duckie, laughing, "don't worry about that. You'll never have another. Not you! You've got 'one child only' written all over you."

"Then Nature's done with me?" I said as lightly as I could.

"Oh, I dare say you'll live to be eighty, and I hope you will," Mrs. Duckie replied, "such a nice gentleman as you are; but you've—you've——"

"I've answered her purpose," I suggested bravely.

"Yes," said Mrs. Duckie, without the faintest trace of mercy.

"And what about bringing up—education and so forth?"

"Oh, Mrs. Falconer will do that beautifully," said this vixen. "I couldn't think of a better mother."

I was struck dumb for a while. Here was an attitude for a woman (and one's old landlady too, thus aggravating the offence) to take up to a lord of creation!

"So you don't think husbands are any other use?" I asked at last.

"They bring in the money, of course," she replied, "but that's all. They don't really help with the children—not most of them don't. A few, yes, but even those very likely are only a bother, when all's said, and in your case there's enough money already."

No need to say that I was glad when she had gone; but when I peeped into Naomi's room and the nurse (who used to be a nice woman) hushed me sternly away, my spirits sank again.

I walked out into Regent's Park and sat down and thought about it. City men in tall hats were hastening home. "Foolish to be in such a hurry," I said; "you're not wanted. Homes are for women. Leave the money for the rent and the butcher and get out again." Nurses and mothers were here and there with their charges. "Ladies," I said, "I salute you. Permit one who could die to-morrow, if he liked, without being missed, to bid you farewell. Not, however, that your reign is much longer than mine—but a little longer. Wait till those babies are of age and see then how much you are needed!" Children were playing all about. "To you," I said, apostrophizing them at large, "is the earth and the fulness thereof. It is for you that all Nature is working, but only that you may work for her, for she does nothing for nothing. In a few years' time you too will be fathers and mothers under sentence, like me. So play on and be happy while you can."

As I was sitting there Lacey came up and joined me. "You look blue," he said—"so am I. It's that infernally beautiful sunset that's done it. Not for nothing did Dürer give his 'Melancholia' the setting sun. What's the matter? Have you suddenly discovered that your nose is out of joint?" (What an instinct the fellow has!) "Every baby puts someone's nose out of joint; either its father's or mother's or another baby's. But that's all right. That's part of the fun. Life is nothing but readjusting. Lovers are always becoming parents. There's no sense in the world, only movement; but luckily we all have our moments off, and the thing is to get as many of them as possible. That's the principal reason why brewers and distillers are so rich and noble, and why old Furley's films do so well. Anodynes, don't you see; devices for cheating facts. Take me into the Zoo with your powerful autograph and we'll soon forget our troubles. There's a little kinkajou on the right as we go in, with a tail like a boa, who hangs round your neck and drives all griefs away. I dare say, if we only knew, there's a wild animal for every mental malady."

We went in and strolled about for a while: bewaring of pickpockets, according to instructions.

"As a matter of fact," said Lacey, as we sat down in the little pavilion reserved for Fellows and ordered something to drink, "I am miserable too. But then that's about all I expect. I've made such a mess of things. Never mind how, but I have. I get too fond of too many people. Anyway, I called on an old flame of mine to-day who is married—happily married—and it hurt. I ought to have married her myself, but things went wrong. I understood her and she understood me, but we had no luck. At least perhaps she did. We fenced a good deal to-day, of course. It was the only thing to do. She asked me that inevitable question, What I was doing with my life and going to do? When a happily married woman asks this it means only one thing: it means, When are you going to be happily married too? I said I had no reason to admire marriage sufficiently to think of nothing else.

"'But love?' she asked.

"I admitted that love was all right, and was silent in the idiotic way that one is, at intervals, during such meetings.

"'Well?' she asked after a while.

"'I have nothing to report,' I replied. Nor had I, Heaven knows; yet I should not have mentioned it, even if I had. There is no pleasure in confessing to those who belong to another. She was still charming and beautiful and sympathetic; but sympathy when one comes second is a very different thing from sympathy when one might possibly come first. And then I left the house and, of course, for a while I saw nothing but pretty girls on young fellows' arms, as one always does when one's most lonely and miserable; and then I walked bang into that blighting sunset and then into you."

He said nothing for a while and we watched the passers-by.

"How happy other people can be, confound them!" he said. "And that is why one is never so wretched as in a crowd. Omar's comparison of life to a game of chess—

    'But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon the Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
    Hither and thither moves, and checks, and stays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays—'

is no doubt true enough to such a pessimistic mind as poor, fastidious, solitary FitzGerald's and those of us to whom the Creator has not given the happy acceptive temperament. But when one hears the stories that London—and I suppose all other towns and cities—has in such numbers, of frustrated affections and loveless marriages and irregular alliances, it is rather as His jig-saw puzzle that one sees life, where the least likely pieces fit together and the most likely can never be joined. Well!"

He got up. "Now I'm going to be jolly again," he said. "Life, with all its bothers and disappointments and disillusions, and even with the circumstance that one has to live it chiefly with that impostor oneself, is too good to run down. There are so many little things to keep one going. Here, for example, see what I found to-day in a West End bookseller's catalogue:

À KEMPIS. Imitation of Christ. Printed on Real Vellum (only ten copies issued). Illuminated Frontispiece and Illuminated Fronts, and all the initials illuminated. Bound in Cape Levant Morocco Red, tooled in blind design with doublures. £18 18s. net.

There's a first step towards imitating the simple Nazarene! Eighteen guineas for the primer. One has no right to be doleful in a world where things like this happen."

Lacey's revived spirits did me good, and on returning home I found Naomi more sweet than ever before, and even Nan conveyed some of the illusion of pleasure at my approach, although the nurse (who was otherwise her old self again) insisted that the phenomenon was purely the effect of internal disturbance.

Lacey was more right than not. I did not and shall not forget what Mrs. Duckie said, because I know it to be true; but it has already sunk below the surface of memory into that woolly receptacle where so much of the past is preserved. Not often do I bring it out, but it has a way of desiring an airing between four and five A.M. when one's pulse is at its lowest and hope almost non-existent; and I am often conscious of its presence when I watch Naomi and Nan together, or, greatly daring, take Nan into my own hands. Greatly daring!—there you have it again. For Naomi does not greatly dare: she picks up this fragile pink atom as naturally and unthinkingly as a cricketer picks up the ball.

Nan, I must admit, does not help me. Perhaps some day, as I tell her, when she is tall and slender and seventeen, she will be more ready to accompany her grey father than her bonny mother; and then (if I have succeeded in living so long) I shall be in receipt of a little return for all my services to Nature. But it will be only for a brief season then, for her eyes will be beginning to wander this way and that for the comely form (as she considers it) of another of Nature's dupes, who at this moment is perhaps squealing in another awkward progenitor's arms in some other London nursery. For life, as Lacey says, is all progression, if not progress.

Nan, as I say, gives me no help. There is something about my features, which are not unpleasing to many of my friends, that she finds curiously terrifying; and the more kindly disposed I am to her and beam with tenderness on her little person, the more evidently do I remind her of one of the most fearsome monsters of that mysterious nowhere from which she journeyed hither.

But with her mother...! The two together make such an adorable picture that I wish I could get it painted by a worthy brush. The balance of sex wants readjusting among the representations, both in paint and in stone, of mother and child. For centuries no man of genius ever painted or graved a girl-baby at all: there might not have been such a thing in the world. In fact, if art and not biology were the evidence upon which the historian has to work, there never was a girl-baby until quite recently. It is a great pity, because this preoccupation with the boy-baby has deprived us of renderings of girl-babies which would have been exquisite beyond imagination. Think what adorable little nestling mites Luca della Robbia could have moulded, and what tiny feminine rogues Correggio would have painted! One wonders that no artist rebelled. Did none of them ever look at a family of children and think the little girls lovely? Or, against their better taste, did they merely slavishly obey tradition?

CHAPTER XXXVII

IN WHICH A TRYING CEREMONY GOES FOR NOTHING, AND A FATHER PUTS DOWN HIS FOOT

Dollie and Ann walked in after lunch, looking, as I think now, a shade less natural than usual, but only a shade. Their visit was so remarkable that I wish to record its progress with minute accuracy.

Dollie greeted us with a somewhat piano "Wow, wow!" and sat himself in the most comfortable chair. Ann took a chair by the window and asked how Lavender was, and if she might see her.

Naomi went out to arrange for the display, and Dollie asked if cigarette smoke was bad for it.

I asked what he meant by "it," and he said he meant Lavender, and Ann told him with some asperity that he ought to be more careful in referring to babies. She seemed more critical of him even than usual.

I asked after her father, and she said he had seemed all right at breakfast.

"Better than he'll be at dinner, I guess," Dollie said darkly, and Ann frowned.

After a long silence Dollie said that it had turned colder. He then asked me if I had had any racing tips lately, and I asked him in return how I, moving in the society that I did, could expect to have any. "I go nowhere," I said. "Except to the Zoo. Besides, I don't want tips."

"Why don't you ask the keepers?" he said, and Ann told him not to be absurd.

Naomi, entering with Lavender, made a diversion.

Ann asked if she might hold her and was exceedingly tender, and pretty in her tenderness. Dollie threw away his cigarette, surveyed Lavender minutely through his monocle, and said nothing, but sighed heavily.

Naomi asked Dollie where he was dining that night, and he looked at Ann.

Ann said she was not sure.

I drew Dollie to the window and said, "Well?"

He gripped me by the hand and took out another cigarette, and I guessed that these young hesitants had this morning come at last to grips, and that the day was named, and I was feeling very complacent about my devilish perspicacity when Ann took off her gloves and revealed the newest wedding-ring on earth.

And then, Lavender having been removed, on account of her immaturity, we had the story. These young idiots had been registered that very morning, and Sir Gaston did not yet know.

"But why weren't you married properly?" Naomi asked.

"Well," said Ann, "we didn't want the fuss of a wedding, and, honestly, I wanted to save father all that trouble and expense."

"But it's so furtive-looking," Naomi said.

"That's all right," said Dollie. "We had witnesses. Farrar was there and Gwen. Farrar signed the book like a good 'un. All straight and above board."

"Yes," said Naomi, "that's all right, I know, but, Ann, think of your grandmother, old Mrs. Ingleside. She would have given everything to be at your wedding. And your mother, Dollie."

"Oh well," said Dollie, "my mother gave me up as a conventional being years ago. She'll be jolly glad I'm settled and done for. That's what she'll say."

"But your sisters? How they would have enjoyed being bridesmaids!"

"Not they," said Dollie; "they've done it too often. Besides, I protest against marrying in order to give one's people enjoyment. That's all out of date. Ann and I wanted to save fuss, and, by Jingo, we've done it!"

"And what is the next move?" I asked.

"Well," said Ann, "we wondered if you would come down to Buckingham Street with us and help with father."

"I like that," I was beginning to say, when, "Of course he will," said Naomi.

Sir Gaston was in when we arrived.

After greeting me, he looked at Dollie and remarked that he had the appearance of one who had backed a loser.

Dollie groaned. "Not so bad as that, I hope," he murmured.

Ann went over to her father and kissed him.

He seemed rather surprised, but merely asked what he had done to receive such an unusual attention.

Ann replied that she felt like it, and I realized that the time had come to stop this drama of reticences and disguised feelings.

"Well, Ingleside," I said, "I must say you take it very much as a matter of course."

"What?" he asked.

"Why, a kiss from a pretty, young, married woman," I said.

"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, running his keen eyes over Ann and Dollie.

"Yes," I said, "this is Mrs. Adolphus Heathcote. She asked me to introduce her."

"I'm very glad," he said. "Have some cake," and we all mercifully laughed, and the strain snapped.

"But," he said a little later, "we must now fix the date of the wedding."

"We are married," said Ann. "Look at my ring."

"Yes," said her father. "That's all right. But we'll forget that. I can't have my daughter marrying in this hole-and-corner way. Saving trouble and expense is all very well, but there are things more important. One of them is giving my aged mother an opportunity of seeing you at the chancel steps. There are others, too, but that comes first. Now get out an almanack—I'm sure Dollie has a bookmaker's diary in his pocket—and find the earliest date for dresses and so forth, and we'll get it over properly; but until then you must consider yourself still Ann Ingleside."

Dollie looked by no means cheerful as he searched for the diary.

"I'm afraid you're vexed with me?" he said to Sir Gaston.

"Not at all," was the reply. "I should have been, if you hadn't come to me to-day. But your mother and sisters ought to be."

"That's a cert," said Dollie.

"Yes, and there's someone who would have been even more furious than any of them," said Sir Gaston.

"Who?" Dollie asked.

"Your tailor. The idea of trying to evade destiny in this way! If ever there was a man born to be married in new clothes, it is you, and you sneak about London in tweeds trying to find a registrar base enough to be your accomplice. Now, Ann has never been dressy. For Ann it was all right. But you—my dear Dollie, never do anything so out of character again. It doesn't suit you. Go right off to Savile Row the first thing in the morning and arrange for the war-paint, and Ann, in her own more restricted way, will do the same. Meanwhile, I claim the custody of the ring."

The next evening I chanced to run across Dollie in St. James's Park as I was on my way to Queen Anne's Gate, and he had a smile that irradiated his honest countenance like the sun on the sea. He unfolded an evening paper, and although the breeze defeated his efforts several times, he pronounced no malediction. Evidently Mr. Adolphus Heathcote was in a good temper.

"Look here," he said, "here's a little bit of all right."

I followed the direction of his gloved finger and saw that a horse named Decree Nisi had won a race.

"Wait a bit," he said, moving his finger lower, and I saw that the starting price of Decree Nisi was 20 to 1.

"What do you think of that?" he asked. "Not bad odds?"

"Very good," I said.

"Well," he said, "what do you think I did? After the painful experiences of yesterday I took them as a tip, because, don't you see, I was, in a manner of speaking, jolly well divorced last evening, wasn't I? Very well. I added the cost of the wedding ring—three pounds ten, for it was a downright, solid affair, as I dare say you noticed—to the cost of the special licence, and put the whole boiling on Decree Nisi. And it romps in at 20 to 1. Never let me hear anyone talk about marriage being unlucky again. Wow, wow!"

CHAPTER THE LAST

IN WHICH FAREWELL IS SAID TO PRIMROSE TERRACE, AND THE EARTH FINDS A NEW AXIS

I write these final words in another house, not too far from Primrose Terrace and our dear Lacey and the Zoo; a house with its own garden. For Lavender could not flourish in the Misses Packers' restricted space, and Lavender is, of course, the principal person to consider. And since it is a house with a garden, and all our own, it follows (in London) that we have no neighbours, and therefore, not having neighbours any more to describe, there is nothing to do but to take my novelist friend's best piece of advice.

Finding the right house was as difficult as ever it is, and was attended by the usual rages as we gazed upon ideal residences already selfishly occupied by other persons; more difficult, indeed, since it was to be the theatre of the dramas of Lavender's infancy, childhood, girlhood, and young womanhood. No joke selecting an historic abode of this kind.

Yet here we are, on our first evening, and Lavender (whose home it so pre-eminently is) has just consented to fall asleep.

The house—but, excuse me, I feel certain I heard her cry.

THE END