Chapter XVIII
By breakfast-time or a little later, Goby and Gordon and De Vere and Rivaulx knew not only what was said about Timothy Bunting, but also that every one of them had told the Duchess of Goring that he was married to Penelope. When the bishop looked in to see the marquis, he found him exceedingly difficult to manage. He wanted the duelling-swords back in order to fight every one. His especial desire now was to put cold steel through Gordon, and this led to a general evacuation of Spilsborough.
“I say, Mr. Gordon,” said Bob, rushing in upon the financier while he was shaving, “I’ve just met the bishop, and he wanted to know if I knew you, and I said ‘rather,’ and he said would I ask you, in the interests of peace, to go back to London, because the marquis wanted to cut your throat with swords hanging in the bishop’s dining-room. I say, will you go, or stay and fight?”
Gordon cut himself, and then, as Bob said, “cut his stick” and went back to town shaved on one side and not on the other. As a result of this, several men in the city sold bears of everything that Gordon was interested in, and they got left most horribly, especially on Amalekites. Never afterward did they venture to think that any financier was on the borders of ruin if he came into the city partially shaved. In fact, three very shady Jews, with some wildcat stock to boom, played the trick successfully, and, through not being shaved themselves, they shaved others.
But this is all by the way, and it only shows that a real financier in love or in despair is just as dangerous as at other times. Bob and the bishop talked the situation over in Spilsborough while Gordon was going to town, and the result was what might have been expected.
“All we know is that Penelope, poor dear Penelope is near Spilsborough,” said the bishop.
“And that she’s married,” said Bob.
“We infer that from general grounds, our knowledge of her character,” said the logical bishop. “Strictly we cannot be said to know it. It is not a primary datum of consciousness, nor is it a judgment or a purely rational conclusion, Bob.”
“Oh,” said Bob, “well, perhaps not.”
“I think,” said the bishop, “that I shall write to her—”
“Where to?”
“To everywhere,” said the bishop, “and ask her to come and confide in me. And in the meantime, as the others have gone, and your presence here is no longer necessary, I think you should go home and console your grandmother, and apply yourself to work.”
“All right,” said Bob; “I don’t think it’s interesting here any more. But are you glad I came in time to stop the duel?”
“I am glad,” said the bishop. “But, to tell the truth, Robert, I should not have allowed a duel on Mr. Dean’s ancient grass and under his immemorial elms without a remonstrance, even a physical remonstrance.”
Within the memory of this portly and admirable pillar of the Church to which the British Empire owes all its greatness, and to which it pays a great deal of its money, were many fierce encounters at Oxford, that haunt of ancient peace and modern progress.
“Would you have knocked ’em down?” asked Bob, eagerly.
“Certainly,” said the bishop. “I would have knocked them as flat as a flounder.”
And Bob bade him good-bye.
“I think he’s a ripping good bishop,” said Bob. “I’ll ask Mr. Gordon to help restore the cathedral.”
He got back to Goring to find Titania no longer suffering from fits. Fits were not equal to the situation. All her friends were writing to her to condole with her on the marriage of Penelope to Timothy Bunting. They came down in droves to condole and to get the latest intelligence, while gamekeepers and grooms were keeping journalists out of the grounds with guns and pitchforks.
For the world was absolutely certain that Miss Weekes was right, and Pen’s ci-devant maid was making the salary of a star at the Empire by according interviews to those halfpenny papers which are England’s glory and her hope. The editors endeavoured to interview the lovers, but they were stern and savage. They would not speak to each other and avoided strangers. But it was no secret now that they each claimed to be Lady Penelope’s husband. As the acutest journalist of them all remarked, this was hardly possible. The only theory that held water (or, at least, “good” water, as the Baboo pleader remarked) was the Bunting theory. But if Bunting was the man, where was he? and why this mystery? A journalist solved it, or said he did. Bunting was a very handsome man. There was no doubt of that. But he was an uneducated man. That was quite certain. If a lady of Penelope’s standing married a man of Bunting’s, what would she do? The answer was easy. She would send him to Oxford to acquire the accent and the aplomb and the insolence which have rendered Oxford men the idols of the mob, and have put them into every position where tact with inferior races is a sine qua non. This is what the journalist said. He ought to have known, as he had been brought up in the Yorkshire Dissenting College, and dissented from all other codes of manners, except those popular with the non-conformist conscience, which, equally with the Church of England, has made the empire what it is and what it should be.
But this journalist knew his market. The eyes of the civilized world once more turned to Oxford.
“If it’s Bunting, I’ll kill him,” said all the lovers who were not married to Penelope. “She has made a mistake, if it’s true, and he must be got rid of.”
Now was the time of the Marchioness of Rigsby’s glory.
“Did I not tell you she had married her groom?” she demanded of Titania. “Penelope was extremely rude to me. I am almost glad she has married a groom. If he is a nice groom, he may improve her manners.”
“She hasn’t married any groom,” cried Titania, furiously. “I am perfectly certain it is the Marquis of Rivaulx.”
She was certain of nothing. Bradstock was certain of nothing. They both asked Bob what he was certain of, and Bob replied all the lovers were in such a state of mind that it couldn’t be any of them. And then at last Titania hit upon a certain truth.
“Whoever it is would be just as miserable as all the others,” she said. “He’ll be sorry now that he agreed to it, and he’ll be asking her to give in, and she won’t. And they’ll quarrel.”
“You’re right, Titania,” cried Bradstock, slapping his thigh. “Bob, I believe the most miserable of them all is the man. Which is the most miserable?”
Bob thought.
“Gordon cried a little.”
“Ha!” said the duchess.
“But Rivaulx cried a good deal,” said Bob.
“Oh,” said the duchess. “But which do you think it is, Robert?”
“I think it’s Timothy Bunting,” said Bob. “And I want to go to Oxford to find out if he’s there. Baker says—”
“Do you discuss these matters with Baker?” demanded his grandmother, haughtily.
“He knows a great deal about the world,” said Bob, “and about Bunting, you know. Baker says—”
“You may go to Oxford,” cried Titania, “and I will go to bed and stay there. I am a most unhappy woman, and Goring does not care!”
So Bob went to Oxford all by himself, and called upon an undergraduate who had just come up from Harrow, one of the schools which Bob had been requested to leave on account of pugilism. Jack Harcourt was four years Bob’s senior, but could not fight so well in spite of that, and there was much more equality between them than would seem possible at first sight. But then it is almost impossible to feel very much superior to a boy who has knocked you absolutely senseless, as Bob did Harcourt. And Bob was one of those boys who make all the world equal. He was familiar with princes, and said “Baker says” to cabinet ministers. And if his uncle didn’t marry, he was bound to be a duke. Dukes are very important people, somehow, and the fact that Bob never showed any side was much in his favour over and above that important fact.
“I say, is there a man up here called Bunting?” asked Bob.
And Harcourt, after consulting a calendar, said there was.
“Timothy Bunting?” asked Bob, jumping as if he were shot.
“Thomas,” said Harcourt.
“Oh, he’d say Thomas, I dare say,” said Bob. And he told Harcourt all about it.
“Do you think she’s married him?” asked the undergraduate.
“Who knows what girls will do?” said Bob. “Don’t you remember the black-eyed one in the pastry-cook’s at Harrow who wouldn’t look at you and was in love with that beast Black?”
Harcourt did remember, but changed the conversation as quickly as possible.
“This fellow is at All Saints,” he said. “I dare say, they’d let a groom in there.”
“Let’s go and find him,” said Bob. “Poor old Bunting will be sick to see me. I’m very sorry for him if he is a presumptuous beast. It will be very awkward for the family. But we must know. The uncertainty is killing my grandmother, and Baker says it’s always best to know the worst at once. Baker’s the best judge of dogs and horses I know. He was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers. Oh, I told you that!”
And when they got into the High Street, they ran right into Plant, who smiled a sickly smile and said he had come up to have a look at Oxford.
“I say, Mr. Plant, what’s the matter with your clothes?” asked Bob. “Have you fallen downstairs?”
Plant murmured something unintelligible and hurried away, leaving Bob staring.
“That’s one of ’em, Harcourt,” he said to his friend. “He’s a millionaire.”
“Then I think he might afford a hat without a dint in it,” replied Harcourt.
Bob shook his head.
“I can’t make it out. He’s very particular,” he said. “But let’s get on.”
Around the next corner they bumped into Gordon, who also announced that he had been struck with a wild desire to have a look at the ancient university city. Bob shook his head.
“I say, Mr. Gordon, you want brushing badly. Do you know you look as if you had fallen downstairs?” he asked.
Gordon said, “Do I?” and bolted.
“I can’t make this out,” said Bob. “This has all the appearance of a mystery, Harcourt.”
“It has,” said Harcourt. As they entered All Saints, they saw a man run across the grass and disappear under the far archway which led out into the Turl.
“That looked very much like De Vere,” said Bob, “very much. Only I never saw him run except that time when the bulldog chased him. And then he ran differently. But of course it can’t be De Vere.”
After asking two reverend-looking members of the university, who looked as if they knew all about the subjective world, and a scout with every appearance of a deep acquaintance with the objective one, they discovered Mr. Bunting’s rooms.
“I think he’s havin’ some gents to lunch, though I’m not his scout, sir, and they seems to be enjoying themselves now very much,” said the scout. “Mr. Bunting is readin’ ’ard, so I ’ear, but he’s relaxin’ a little to-day. Just now I see a gentleman drop hout of ’is window, sir. And you’re the third lot I’ve directed there. This is ’is staircase, gents, first floor. Thank you, sir, I’m sure. I’ll drink your ’ealth.”
And here Harcourt said he thought he’d leave Bob. So Bob went up about six dark steps by himself, and then he stopped.
“Whoever he is, he’s making a devil of a row,” said Bob, pausing, “a devil of a row. I wonder if it is Bunting. I think Harcourt might have stayed. But he never did like fighting or rows.”
He climbed up another step or two, and heard a mighty uproar.
“I think they must be having a boxing party,” said Bob. And then he heard a door open on the landing above him.
“Confound you, sir! to the devil with you, sir!” said a voice that he certainly did not recognize. Then he heard a noise which was presently explained by the fact that Carteret Williams fell down the stairs, turning a crooked corner most wonderfully in company with a very large Liddell and Scott’s Dictionary of that beautiful language, Greek.
“Oh, is that you, Mr. Williams?” asked Bob.
Williams appeared rather confused.
“Yes, Bob,” he said, as he hugged the dictionary. “I—I think so.”
“Why have you fallen down-stairs?” asked Bob.
“That damn groom threw me down,” said Williams. “At least, he threw this book at me, and I came down.”
“What, is it really Bunting?” roared Bob, eagerly.
“He says his name’s Bunting,” replied Williams. “But he’s very difficult to handle.”
“Oh, Tim can box,” said Bob. “But is he our Bunting?”
“Whichever Bunting he is, you are welcome to him,” said the enraged war correspondent.
“I must go up and see,” said Bob. “Do you think he threw Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon down, too? I met ’em just now, and they looked as if he had.”
“I’m sure he’s capable of it,” said Williams, bitterly. “Here, take this book with you. I don’t want it.”
And Bob climbed up, hugging several pounds’ weight of Greek with him. He stood at the door and listened, and heard a man inside snorting violently and slamming things about as if he was very much disturbed in his mind. Bob knocked at the door, and it was opened suddenly. The man who opened it was in deep shadow.
“It is—it is. No, it isn’t,” said Bob, quite aloud.
“Are you another of ’em?” asked the occupier of the rooms.
“Oh, it isn’t,” said Bob. And, choking down his disappointment, his politeness returned.
“Is this your Greek dictionary?” he asked, courteously. “I found it lying on Mr. Carteret Williams on the next landing, and he said he didn’t want it.”
The man named Bunting seized the dictionary, and then took Bob by the shoulder and led him in. Bob went like a lamb, for this Mr. Bunting was six feet high, about three feet across the chest, more or less, and had a grip like clip-hooks on a bale.
“Was that man named Williams?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Bob.
“You know him?”
“Why, of course,” said Bob. “I know ’em all.”
“All I’ve thrown down-stairs this afternoon?”
“I think so,” said Bob, modestly. “At least, I met Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon, who looked very much as if they had fallen down-stairs. And I think the little gentleman you dropped out of the window on the grass must have been Mr. Austin de Vere.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Bunting, “sit down, boy, and look at me. Do I look mad?”
Bob looked at him and then at the room.
“The room looks mad,” he replied. And it certainly did.
“That was the last one,” said Mr. Bunting. “He was very troublesome.”
“He’s a war correspondent,” said Bob. “But why is your name Bunting?”
“How the devil do I know?” asked the other, in reply. “Perhaps, as you seem to know them, you can explain what it all means?”
“I will try, sir, if you will tell me what occurred,” said Bob.
“First of all,” said the outraged member of All Saints, “the American person knocked and came in, and he said: ‘Is your name Bunting?’ And I said, ‘Yes, confound you, for your infernal impudence, and what is yours?’ And he said, ‘What the devil do you mean by saying you have married her?’ And I said I’d said nothing of the kind, and I said if he didn’t get out in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I’d throw him out. And he was furious, and couldn’t and wouldn’t explain, so I did throw him out. And, as he tumbled down-stairs, he said he’d married her himself. And he went away, and I sat down to read Thucydides. He’s under the sofa now somewhere. And then the Jew came, and he said: ‘You mutht contradict the report of your being married to her at onth,’ and that made me very cross, and I said I wouldn’t, and that made him very wild, so I said I was married to her just as he said he was—”
“Oh,” said Bob, “and are you? Oh, dear, I am so confused! Are you really, really married to Pen?”
“I shall drop you out of the window in a minute,” said Mr. Bunting. “I said it to annoy him, and it did, and he said I was a liar. So I opened the door and took him by the neck and dropped him down-stairs, and he howled awfully. And I said to him over the bannisters, ‘I am married to her, and have been married for years to her, and she loves me very much, and we are going to acknowledge it as soon as I’ve taken my B.A.’ And he went away holding his neck, and then the little man came in. Did you say he was a poet?”
“A very good poet, too,” said Bob. “And I sell him bulldogs.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Bunting, blankly, “you do, do you? Why?”
“Because Pen thought they would do him good.”
Mr. Bunting shook his head.
“Thicksides is lucid compared with this!” he murmured. “But patience, patience, and I shall construe it yet.”
“And what did Mr. de Vere say?” asked Bob.
“The same thing. He stood there and said I must contradict it. And he said of course it was very kind of her to have me educated, but that, if I had a spark of decency, I should know that a man who had once occupied the position I had couldn’t possibly marry her. And, by the way, what position had I occupied in regard to her?”
“A groom,” said Bob. “You were supposed to have been a groom.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Bunting, “how interesting and remarkable. Still no light, no real light! And of course I said I had married her, and I asked him did he think I would desert the lady now? And he went scarlet. Why did he go scarlet do you think?”
“I know,” said Bob, “it must have been on account of the baby!”
Mr. Bunting smote his forehead.
“So it must,” he said. “I never thought of that. What a fearful complication! And then he, too, said I was a liar. So I took him by the collar and led him to the window, and I opened it and dropped him out. And then the one you call Williams came, and he also was indignant, and said I was to deny it, and I wouldn’t of course. And then we fought, and the furniture was much disarranged and Thicksides went under the sofa, and at last I got him outside, and finished him with Liddell and Scott. And now you know all! In your turn you can explain what it means. I beg you to do it, and then we will have some tea.”
And Bob explained the whole story.
“You might have seen it in the papers,” said Bob.
“I don’t read ’em,” said Bunting, “except to turn a Times leader into Greek. But it seems a complicated situation, doesn’t it?”
“It is very complicated,” sighed Bob, “and my grandmother is very ill about it. And now she will wonder if it’s you, after all!”
“Dear me, so she will,” said Bunting. “Have some tea.”
They had tea, and Bob rose to go.
“Will you write to the Times, and say you haven’t married her?” he asked.
“Certainly not,” said Mr. Bunting. “Didn’t I say to the others that I threw down-stairs that I had married her?”
“So you did,” said Bob. “But of course you haven’t?”
Bunting smiled.
“Good-bye. When you come to Oxford again, come and see me. I must crawl under the sofa now.”
“What for?” asked Bob.
“For Thucydides, of course,” replied Mr. Bunting.
And when Bob was in the train for London, he turned very pale.
“Good heavens!” he said, “how do I know it isn’t this Bunting, after all?”