Chapter XXVIII
As all antiquarians know, Upwell Castle consists of two wings and a kind of centrepiece joining two civilizations and two divergent schools of architecture. The right wing is Tudor, and ruined; the left is Georgian, and habitable; the centre is nondescript and pseudo-Palladian. It cost a great deal to keep up, and nothing could keep it from falling down. Penelope’s mother fell in love with it on first sight, and fell out with her husband about the price. Its value has fallen since then, for landed property is the only stable thing which always falls. There were pictures in it that connoisseurs gloated over, and some that picture-cleaners had restored till they were as valuable as a Gothic cathedral brought up to date by a resurrected Vandal. There were carvings by Grinling Gibbons to be seen, and some that were not by Grinling Gibbons. There were some rooms decorated by Adams that would have made Adam ill. There was an oak staircase there that a thousand intoxicated noblemen had fallen down; there was another that no sober gentleman could go up. It was ruinous, romantic, and rat-haunted; tapestry waved in its corridors, ghosts loved its precincts; there was a room stained with something that the servants said was blood, and that the skeptical averred to be port wine. The only thing against the latter theory was that the dining-room was not stained, though some said it had been so flooded all over that nothing showed. It was a delightful place, and Penelope never stayed there. Miss Mackarness did, but then she was a Scotchwoman, and didn’t count. Bob adored it, but then Bob was Bob, and nothing could change him.
“I’ll fix this all up,” said Bob, “and make her happy. She’s silly. I’ll blow the gaff, as Baker says. She’s up-stairs now, crying her eyes out, and making the baby bellow.”
He wandered about the grounds, and wondered where Mary and Bunting and Miss Mackarness were.
“Silly fools!” said Bob; “the idea of being afraid of going in a motor-car. By Jove, I wonder what’s become of my man at Spilsborough! I suppose those people in Regent Street think I’ve stolen the car. What fun!”
He explored the ruined wing, and ruined it a little more, and came out again into the Queen Anne garden.
“By Jove, I do wish I knew where they all were!” he said. “I wonder what granny is doing. Is she having fits, and Dr. Lumsden Griff to look after ’em? I think Griff’s a soft-soapy ass. He says, ‘Well, how are we this morning?’ By Jove, all the rest of ’em will have fits, too. They will be sick. But I’m glad they’re out of it. I wonder where Lord Bradstock is. He’ll pull my wig when he sees me. And the bishop! Well, he’s not a bad old boy. I rather like bishops, but their legs are queer. By Jove, but it’s fun having skipped and done them! If they ever get to Spilsby and find us gone, they’ll be mad!”
He walked around the corner of the house, and paff came a motor-car and made him jump. Another one followed like a streak of light. Bob went quite pale for a boy with a complexion like an ancient red brick, and made a bolt for the door. He was too late, for Bradstock and the bishop stood in his way. Bob slowed down, put his hands in his pockets and whistled.
“I say,” said Bob, “how did you find this place out?”
“I own to being surprised and disappointed with you, Robert,” said the bishop; “very much surprised and greatly disappointed.”
Bob wagged his head to and fro.
“Why, what about?” he asked.
“At your not returning, sir,” said his lordship. “You treated me and Lord Bradstock, I regret to say, with great disrespect.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Bob, “but I couldn’t help it. Pen—Oh, Lord! there’s granny!”
The duchess intervened.
“Robert, where is Penelope?”
Bob hesitated.
“Gone to—t-to London for Paris and Marseilles and Australia,” said Bob, hurriedly. “She said she couldn’t wait, but had an appointment there somewhere. And she said I was to say she was sorry if any one called.”
“Robert,” said the duchess, severely, “do not keep your eyes fixed upon the distant landscape. Look me in the face. Are you speaking the truth?”
Bob wriggled and shuffled.
“No, I’m not,” he said. “It’s a beastly lie. But she did say the other day that she would go to the ends of the earth. And that’s Australia, ain’t it?”
“Bob,” said the bishop, “this is very painful to me. Speak the truth like a man.”
“I won’t,” said Bob; “it isn’t my truth. I won’t give Pen away to any one.”
His vision cleared, and he saw the lovers ranked behind his grandmother and the bishop.
“Oh, Mr. Gordon,” he cried, “do come and help me! Would you tell if you were me?”
“No,” said Gordon, “no, of course not.”
“I always liked you,” said Bob, “so I won’t.”
“I command you,” said Titania, looking at Gordon furiously.
“It’s no good,” said Bob, rapidly; “Pen’s a great way off, far enough, that is, and I swore I’d never disclose the secret of her whereabouts to any one. At least, if I didn’t swear it, I said it, and, if I said it, my lord, and broke my promise, it wouldn’t be honourable, would it?”
“I don’t care,” began Titania.
“Would it, my lord?” asked Bob.
“I’m afraid not,” said the bishop, “though perhaps in the circumstances, which are very peculiar—”
“Well, I won’t,” said Bob, “and that’s flat. Goby wouldn’t, I know, would you, Captain Goby?”
But the duchess waved Goby into the background.
“I mean to have the truth. Shall we listen to your foolish scruples now? If you won’t tell us where she is, tell us whom she has married. Is it one of these gentlemen?”
“I won’t give any of ’em away,” said Bob.
“Then you know?”
“Of course I know,” said Bob.
“Ah,” sighed the duchess, “then she is married?”
“She says so,” said Bob, “and, if it’s true, as I suppose, I know who it is. But Pen, before she went up—before she went, said I wasn’t to speak.”
Bradstock smiled.
“Titania, Penelope is in the house. Let us go in,” he said, and he marched up the steps. Bob shook himself free from the duchess and darted indoors before Bradstock. He bolted up-stairs to Penelope, and burst in upon her like a whirlwind.
“Pen, they’re all here, all the gang! I couldn’t keep ’em out!”
“Who are here?” asked Pen, in awful dismay.
“All of ’em, and the bishop and Bradstock and granny!”
“Oh, what shall I do?” wailed Penelope.
“I’ll tell you,” said Bob. “Let’s sneak down the back way and steal one of their cars now, and get away!”
“No, no,” said Penelope, “it wouldn’t be dignified. I must be dignified, Bob, I must be; I will go down and see them.”
“No,” said Bob.
“I will,” said Penelope.
“And tell ’em the truth?”
Penelope started.
“I can’t, I can’t, because we’ve quarrelled. But I will see them; I must.”
She went red and white and red again, and once more as pale as dawn. She kissed the sleeping, adopted, illegitimate, normal-coloured infant as he sprawled upon an historic bed, and went to the door.
“Come with me, Bob.”
“I’ll hold your hand, Pen. I say, you shake!”
“Squeeze my hand till you hurt me,” said Pen. “Now come!”
She swept down the big staircase, with Bob in tow, and found herself in the presence of the entire “gang,” as Bob had called them.
“Penelope!” said Titania, recoiling.
“Oh, Pen,” said Bradstock, advancing.
“My dear Lady Penelope,” said the bishop, sweetly, “do you recollect that I christened you at the early age of three months?”
“No,” said Penelope.
“No!” said the bishop, “no, to be sure, how could you? But I did.”
“It—it was very kind of you,” said Penelope. Titania recovered herself and advanced. Gordon and the rest hung about in the distance, looking as wretched as the ruined wing of the castle.
“Are you married, Penelope?” asked Titania.
“Yes,” said Penelope.
“Of course she is,” said Bob.
“Hold your tongue, Robert,” said his grandmother. “And to whom?”
“I won’t say,” replied Penelope. “I told you I wouldn’t, and I won’t.”
“I said she wouldn’t,” cried Bob.
Titania pointed her hand at the shrinking horde.
“Every single one of these gentlemen, to say nothing of Lord Bramber, who is with his invalid father at the present moment, came to me and said he was married to you! Every one of them without an exception!”
“I am very much obliged to them,” said Pen. “In the circumstances, I think it was noble of them.”
“Are you alluding to the advertisement in the Times?” asked Titania. “Are you aware that every one now says that you have adopted an infant?”
“What rot!” said Bob.
“Robert,” cried his grandmother, “be silent, I command you. I will not be interrupted by you. Are you aware, Penelope, that it is said all over England and Europe and the blatant United States that you have adopted an infant?”
Penelope shook her head.
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” said Penelope, who was the colour of a rose.
“Is it true? Do not evade my question,” cried Titania.
“I don’t see, granny, what right you have to ask ’em,” said the irrepressible Bob. “I sent you a wire to say it wasn’t black, and it isn’t.”
“Augustin, silence that boy,” said Titania.
But Augustin shook his head.
“Don’t you answer anything, Pen,” said Bob. “No one has any right to ask you anything.”
He marched over to Gordon.
“Don’t look so sad, Mr. Gordon.”
“I can’t help it, my boy,” said Gordon. “It’s a horrid situation. I don’t care whether it’s adopted or not. If she’ll marry me, I’ll have her.”
Bob squeezed his hand.
“I ain’t absolutely sure it isn’t you yet,” he said. “Pen hasn’t told me all, you know. By the way, Mr. Gordon, did that speculation come off?”
“Not so well as I thought by ten thousand,” said Gordon.
“Oh, I say,” said Bob, “but, after all, it doesn’t matter. I’ll make fifty or sixty thousand do.”
“You’re a fine boy,” said Gordon. “But, Bob, I would like to strangle your grandmother.”
“Would you?” asked Bob, eagerly. “I dare say Pen does, too. Grandmothers and aunts are very trying. At least, I find them so.”
The duchess’s voice rose now quite above the limits of social decency, except when any one is playing or singing.
“I will not be put off, Penelope. You will say who it is, and you will be married again by the bishop in his fine Gothic cathedral—”
“Mr. Dean’s cathedral,” interjected the bishop.
“With a proper service and the usual hymns, breathing over Eden, or I will stay here till you do.”
“Steady, Titania,” said Bradstock. “If she won’t, she won’t.”
“But she shall,” shrieked Titania. “Gentlemen, which of you is it? I am now entirely desperate; which of you is it?”
No one said a word.
“Marquis, is it you?” asked the duchess. “You said so before.”
“How can I say?” asked poor Rivaulx. “She says no one must.”
“Quite right,” said Bradstock. “Who will believe any one, Titania? Let’s have lunch and be friendly and stop this. I’m very hungry, Pen. And let’s see the baby.”
The duchess shivered.
“I cannot and will not see it,” said Titania. “For by all accounts, it is an adopted illegitimate child. If Penelope will send it back to the person she got it of, and own the truth, I will forgive her and have lunch, for I am very faint.”
“I want to see the baby, Pen,” said Augustin, with his hand on Pen’s shoulder. “You know, Pen, they still say it’s rather dusky.”
Penelope was very indignant.
“He’s not,” she cried. “They sha’n’t say it any more. Bob, tell that girl up-stairs to bring him down.”
And Bob ran up-stairs like a monkey up a stick.
“I decline to see it,” said Titania. “A baby without a name is a terrible object to me. It is an insult to the bishop and to the Church to bring one into the room. I will retire into the open air and try to breathe again.”
Goby assisted her outside.
“This is a calamity,” said Titania. “It’s a catastrophe. What is the truth, Captain Goby? Are you a liar, too?”
Goby sobbed.
“How can I say?” he asked. “You know I can’t.”
He looked out into the park.
“Here’s some one coming in a motor,” he cried. They all ran to the windows. But just then Bob and the nurse came down with the infant, who, though evidently awed by the number of creatures he saw about him, behaved like a gentleman, and not in the least like an adopted child.
“I congratulate you, Pen,” said Bradstock. “The mother must be a devilish pretty woman! Does she miss it much, Pen? Oh, Pen, what a queer, mad darling you are! I begin to see daylight.”
But nobody else did. Penelope blushed and hugged the baby tenderly, while Bob danced around her in the wildest state of excitement.
“I say, Captain Goby, come and look at it! Mr. de Vere! I say, marquis! Ain’t it a ripper, and as fat as a pup, and hardly a squeal out of it day or night! Granny dear, won’t you look at it?”
“No, no,” said Titania. “I cannot, cannot bring myself to do so!”
“You’ll soon be jolly sorry, I can tell you,” cried the loving grandson. “I’ll bet you’ll be sorry.”
He ran to Pen.
“I say, Pen, give the kid to me, or you’ll drop it.”
“Drop him!” exclaimed Penelope. “Oh, Bob, is it likely?”
“Very likely,” said Bob, “if you knew that I sent a telegram to some one just as soon as we got here!”
Pen flushed scarlet. But not with anger.
“Oh, Bob!”
“I did! You ain’t angry?”
“Oh, Bob!”
“I don’t care,” said Bob, as he took the child. “I don’t care a hang. I’m ruined with all these jossers now. De Vere will never buy any more dogs of me. I say, who’s that?”
A motor-car stopped outside the great hall door, and a gentleman in black got out. He came up the steps rapidly, and stopped dead when he found all the world in front of him.
“I thought so,” said Bradstock. “Now the catalogue is complete.”
“Lord Bramber!” cried the others. Penelope stood in the centre of the great hall as if she were turned to marble. But no marble ever had so sweet a colour.
“I believe it is now the Earl of Pulborough,” said Bradstock, gravely, to the newcomer.
“Yes,” he replied. “Penelope, you sent for me?”
Pen fell upon his neck before them all and did not deny it.
And, as they stood still in great amazement, Bob danced the baby up and down till that young gentleman made up his mind to roar as soon as he got his breath.
“This—this is Lord Bramber,” howled Bob, triumphantly. “Now admit you feel sorry you spoke, granny!”
He gave the baby to the nurse, and grabbed Goby by the arm.
“I say, I’m awfully sorry, but it isn’t my fault, Captain Goby, and Ethel Mytton is a very nice girl, and dead in love with you.”
“Is she?” sighed Goby.
“Mr. de Vere, I’ve got a bulldog—”
“Damn bulldogs!” said De Vere.
Bob seized Gordon.
“Do you feel very bad, Mr. Gordon?” he asked, sympathetically. “I almost wish it had been you.”
“It can’t be helped,” said Gordon, gloomily. “I never had a chance. Come and see me in the city next week, Bob.”
Rivaulx and Carew and Williams took their hats and slipped from the house, while Bob did what he could to soften things for them.
“I’ll come and see you all very often,” he cried. “Good-bye now!”
An hour later, when Titania had the baby upon her capacious lap, and said how certain she had been the whole time that Bramber was Penelope’s choice, Bob walked around the garden with the bishop and Lord Bradstock.
“Oh, it’s quite easy to understand,” said Bob. “After all she said, you expected she would marry some outsider, and you see she took the pick of the basket, and of course was ashamed. Oh, I know Pen.”
“You are a wonder, Bob,” said Bradstock.
The bishop said that upon adequate reflection he was inclined to agree with Bradstock.
“Well, Pen’s all right,” said Bob.
The End