Chapter XI
It was Friday when Penelope disappeared from London in a motor-car, and was carried off by a motor pirate, unknown to any one, because he wore a peak cap, a fur coat with the fur outside, and gigantic goggles, making him resemble a diver or a cuttlefish.
It was Monday when she returned to town in a motor-car with Geordie Smith. And all the way into town Geordie said:
“Blessed if I’d ha’ thought it. I always reckoned it would have been one of the others. I lose money on this, but if I do, it warms the cockles of my heart to see my lady happy. Bless her sweet face, I wish she’d leave the blooming world alone and have a good time. I never set eyes on such an aggravatin’ beautiful sweet lady for interferin’ with men. Just as if the queen herself could alter our ways! Women always gas that they can or mean to, and they’re just like hens with men for ducks.”
If he had been a classical scholar he might have remembered Ariadne up to her knees in the sea, with her lover on the deep in a boat.
“When I saw who it was at Moat House,” said Geordie, “you could have knocked me endwise with something less than a steel spanner. And that horse-whipping ass of a Bunting was equal took aback. For somehow we never spotted him as likely to make the non-stop run. Humph, humph!”
And he left Penelope at her house just in time for afternoon tea. As she lay on the sofa she handed a paper to Chloe Cadwallader, saying:
“I wish you would send out cards to all these people for Thursday night.”
“That’s very short notice, darling,” said Chloe.
“They’ll come,” said Pen.
And when Chloe looked at the list she found it included only Pen’s particular friends, her most bitter relations, and the whole of the “horde.”
“I wonder—” said Chloe, and she wondered somewhat later with Ethel.
“Is it?” said Ethel.
“Can it be?” cried Chloe.
“It can’t be,” said Ethel.
“Who knows?” asked Chloe. “She is so plain and so simple and straightforward that there is no certainty about anything she does. I understand the wicked and the weak, but Penelope—”
She threw up her hands, and presently wrote out the cards. And Penelope was trying “to a degree,” as Chloe said all Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. And on Thursday she sent for Bob, who came helter-skelter in a hansom.
“You’ll stand by me, Bob,” said Pen, clutching him.
Bob put his hands in his pockets and stood straddle-legs. He stared at her. What was hidden from the wisdom of Chloe was revealed to the simplicity of this boy.
“Pen,” said Bob, solemnly, “I’ll stick by you till death. But ain’t you going to tell me who it is?”
“Who what is?” asked Pen, feebly.
“Him,” said Bob. “Pen, you’ve been and gone and done it.”
Pen, the strong and mighty Pen, wept a little.
“Don’t snivel,” said Bob. “It can’t be helped now, I suppose, unless you get a divorce. Do you want one?”
“Oh, no!” said Pen. “Not at all!”
Bob considered the matter for a few minutes.
“I say, what makes you cry?” he asked.
“I—I don’t know,” said Penelope.
“Girls are very rum. Baker says they are. He’s not married, you know. He says mules are easy to them. He drove mules once in India, he says. You know you are doing all this off your own bat, Pen, ain’t you? Why don’t you chuck it?”
“Chuck what, dear?”
“Oh, this notion of not letting on. Baker says it’s the rummest start he ever knew, and he says he’s seen some rum things in his life, especially when he was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers. Can’t you chuck it?”
“Oh, no, certainly not,” said Pen, firmly. “It’s only, Bob, that I’m not used to it yet, you see.”
“Of course not,” said Bob. “Being married is strange at first, I suppose. Baker says he knew a woman who was married four times, and by the fourth time she wasn’t nervous to speak of. But is it true, Pen, that you won’t tell any one who it is?”
“I won’t,” said Pen.
“Bravo,” cried Bob. “Stick to it. Oh, it will make granny so savage! Has Bill spoken about it to you?”
“He laughs,” said Pen. “He always does laugh.”
“He tells rattling good stories,” said Bob. “He told me a splendid one about a man who stole a parrot the other day. I’ll tell it you sometime when I remember it. Is anything going to happen to-night, Pen?”
Pen shivered.
“Oh, dear, I don’t know. Mind you come, too, Bob.”
Bob vowed he wouldn’t miss coming for worlds.
“I believe you’re thinking of telling ’em you’ve done it,” he said, and Pen said she was thinking of telling them.
“You won’t tell me who it is? I’m as close as wax,” urged Bob.
“I can’t, dear,” said Pen.
“Oh, by Jove, I remember Bill’s parrot story, Pen. A man stole a parrot, and when he was caught he said he took it for a lark. And the man who owned it said he’d make a bally fine judge at a bird-show.”
“Oh,” said Pen, rather blankly; “but if he only took it for a lark, I suppose they let him off. Did they?”
“Let him off what?”
“Why—going to prison, of course,” said Pen.
“I don’t know,” replied Bob, staring. “Don’t you see it’s a joke?”
“Yes, I see, of course,” said Pen. “Why, the man said it was a lark, and it was a parrot. I think it’s a very good story, Bob.”
And Bob went away wondering whether it was or not.
“I’ll tell it to Baker,” he said, thoughtfully.
He turned up at nine o’clock that night with Titania, who was in a state of mind requiring instant attention from a physician.
“Good heavens, what is it, I wonder,” said Titania. “Robert, I wonder what it is? But what do you know? I am in a tremble; I am sure she will do or say something even more scandalous than she has done yet. I put it all on Bradstock; to make him her guardian was a fatal error. My nerves—but I have none. I quiver like a jelly; I shake; I must be pale as a ghost. Why should we take so much trouble over anything? I must think of myself. I will go to bed and stay there for a week, and send for Dr. Lumsden Griff.”
But Bradstock was as calm as a philosopher without anything in the objective world to worry him.
“What does it matter?” he inquired. “Does anything matter?”
Brading, whom no one had seen for many months, as he had spent the whole winter in a yacht down the Mediterranean, was perfectly good-humoured.
“You see, she’s a dear, but only my half-sister after all,” he said to Bradstock, “and women are so wonderful! I can tell you a story by and by of a Greek lady, and one about a Spaniard. And, to tell the truth, I almost agree with Pen. I’m a bit of a socialist, or an anarchist, if you like. Have you read Nietzsche?”
“Who wrote it?” asked Bradstock.
But the horde came in one by one, and Penelope, who was dressed in the most unremarkable costume at her disposal, and looked like a lily, received them at the door.
“A most awful and improper situation,” said Titania.
“I say, I’ll tell you about that Greek girl,” said Brading. “Do you think Pen could stick a knife in a fellow?”
Bradstock didn’t think so, and listened to the story of the lady who suggested the notion.
“Right through my coat and waistcoat,” said Brading. “Only a very stiff piece of starch saved my life!”
“Good heavens!” cried Bradstock.
The room was full, and Bob buzzed around it like a bluebottle in an orchard.
“Oh, I say,” he cried to every one. He told the story of the parrot after he had asked Brading whether he had it right. He tried it on De Vere and failed. Goby roared handsomely. Bramber was absent-minded with his eye on Penelope. Gordon said, “Yes, yes, a ripping good story.” The Marquis de Rivaulx balked at it, but was led to understand it.
“And when can I go up in a balloon?” asked Bob. He waited for no answer, but told it to Williams, suggesting that the war correspondent might pay for it by a story with blood and torture in it, please. And all of a sudden it was noticed that the hostess had slipped out of the room.
“Where—where is Penelope?” asked trembling Titania. “Mrs. Cadwallader, where is Lady Penelope?”
Bob ran her to earth in her bedroom, and after many appeals he was let in.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” said Penelope. “Bob, let me take hold of you. Do I tremble?”
“Rather,” said Bob. “I’ll bet you couldn’t drink a glass of wine without spilling it. What’s wrong? Buck up. Ain’t you comin’ in to tell ’em? I’ve broken it a bit for you.”
Pen screamed.
“You wretched boy, what have you done?”
“Bless you, nothing to speak of,” said Bob. “I only said you would make ’em sit up presently. They think I know something, and want to bribe me. I say, Pen, if you say nothing for a few days, I believe old Gordon will make me a director. Can you? I want to make money and restore the family property. I say, do.”
But Pen paid no attention to him. She groaned instead.
“Where’s the pain?” asked Bob, anxiously. “Shall I get you some brandy?”
“No, no, Bob! I must go in and tell them.”
“Come on, then,” said Bob, eagerly. “I don’t care about the directorship. They’re all white and shaking. I guess they are in a stew.”
But still Pen did not move, and when Chloe came she sent her away, saying, “In a moment, in a moment!”
Then Bob had a brilliant idea.
“I say, Pen, I’ll do it!”
“Do what?”
“I’ll go in and tell ’em you’ve done it. It would be a lark!”
But Pen shook her head.
“No, I must, I will be brave. If a woman has ideas she must live up to them. I have done good so far. Are they not very much improved, Bob?”
“Some, I think,” said Bob, carelessly. “But I dare say they’ll go regular muckers now. Come on, Pen, I do want to see their jaws drop.”
And Pen went with him. She stayed outside the door, and Bob went in first.
“She’s coming,” said Bob. And Pen entered with her eyes on the floor. Bob took her hand.
“Buck up and spit it out,” he said, in an encouraging whisper, which was audible in the farthest corner of the room. Some of the horde turned pale; Titania fell back in her chair; Bradstock leant against the wall. Brading put up his eyeglass, and then told Bradstock Pen reminded him of a girl who had once tried to smother him with a pillow.
“She had Penelope’s straightforwardness, and never gave in, just like Pen,” said Brading, thoughtfully.
And now Penelope took hold of her courage, so to speak, and opened her mouth.
“S-sh,” said Bob, who looked on himself as the master of the ceremonies, “s-sh, I say.”
And he took hold of Pen’s hand.
“I’m so glad to see you here to-night,” said the reformer, “for I am so much interested in you all, you see. And you’ve all been so brave.”
“Hear, hear,” said Bob.
“So brave in different ways, about balloons and motor-cars and curing yourselves of your weak points,” went on Penelope. “That’s what I hoped my influence would do. I said I was only a girl, but even a girl ought to do something, and I knew you all liked me very much, for you all said so, and I said, what can I do for you? And I did my best, and you did yours, I’m sure, for I’ve heard from every one of you all about the others.”
This made many of them look rather queer, as no doubt it might.
“And months ago I said—I said—”
“Go ahead, Pen,” whispered Bob. “You mean you said you’d marry one of ’em.”
“I said I’d—marry one of you.”
Titania groaned in the corner of a vast settee. Bradstock and Brading whistled, or it seemed so. But the other poor wretches stared at Penelope, and saw no one, heard no one, but her.
“And I wanted you to come to-night so that I could ask you all to go on in the path of rectitude and simplicity and courage, balloons and hard work and healthiness and thought for others, even if I was married,” said Pen, with a gasp. “Will you, oh, will you?”
“We will,” said the crowd, Goby leading with a deep bass voice and tears in his eyes.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Penelope, “for I shall not have lived in vain even if I died to-night. And now—and now—I have to tell you something.”
“Great heavens,” said Titania, in an awestricken and penetrating whisper, “what is she going to say now?”
“I have kept my word,” said Penelope, with her eyes on the floor. “I have kept my word!”
“What—what word?” asked the collapsed duchess, and Pen tried to say what word she had kept.
“Speak up,” said Bob, “speak up, Pen!”
And she did speak up.
“For—for,” gasped Penelope, “for, you see, I have married one of you!”
Titania uttered a scream and promptly fainted. The men looked at each other furiously and suspiciously, while Pen was on her knees beside the poor duchess. At that moment a message was brought in for Gordon, and an urgent note from the whip for Bramber. Brading stood in a corner and whistled. Bradstock shrugged his shoulders, and Bob buzzed all over the room like a wasp in a bottle. By dint of water and smelling-salts and the slapping of hands Titania was brought to, and when she had recovered consciousness to the extent of knowing what it was that had bowled her over, she uttered words on the spur of the moment which were almost as much of a bombshell as those Penelope had spoken.
“I don’t believe she’s married at all,” said Titania.