Chapter IX
Penelope was certainly on the verge of being in love, to go no farther than that. She discovered that certain of the horde had a curious tendency to disappear from her mind, though none of them lost any opportunity of appearing in her drawing-room. She was so sorry for those she didn’t love that her kindness to them increased. Her dread of the one she began to adore forbade her to show how soft she had grown to him. Not even Ethel and Chloe together could make anything out of it, which shows every one, of course, that they were two simple idiots, or that Penelope had a very remarkable character. It seems to me that the latter must have been the case, for Chloe was no fool in spite of the folly she had shown on one particular occasion.
“Am I a fool?” she asked Ethel Mytton, “or is Penelope the deepest, darkest mystery of modern times? I am convinced she has made her choice.”
“Oh, which do you think?” asked Ethel, with much anxiety. “Do you—do you think it is Captain Goby?”
“I don’t know,” replied Chloe; “it may be. I give it up. I shall ask Bob.”
“I’ve asked him,” said Ethel, “and he won’t say anything. I think he knows more than we do. He’s a sweet boy, but just as cunning as a ferret.”
But of course Bob knew no more than they did, though he would never own to it. He threw out casual hints that he was wiser than his elders, and the only one he was in the least frank with was Lord Bradstock, who asked him to lunch and was infinitely amused with him.
“I say, Lord Bradstock, if you’ll keep it dark, I’ll tell you something!”
Bradstock promised to keep it as dark as a dry plate.
“All these women think I know who Penelope’s sweet on, and I don’t. And, what’s more, I wouldn’t tell if I did. Would you?”
“Certainly not,” said Bradstock.
“You can’t think how I’m chased,” said Bob. “Ethel Mytton is the worst. She’s dead nuts on poor Goby, and Goby doesn’t see her when Pen’s in the room. And Mrs. Cadwallader, she’s always mugging up to me with chocolates or something to get things out of me. And the newspaper Johnnies are on me, too. And Williams takes me out, and Carew (I don’t care for Carew), and I like Goby best. Mr. de Vere is a rotter, don’t you think? The marquis was at Pen’s, and he said that if Pen didn’t marry him he’d go up in a balloon and never come back. I want him to take me in a balloon. Don’t you think I might go? Granny’s cross when I speak of it. I’ve always wanted to go in a balloon, and I think it hard lines I can’t go because she doesn’t like ’em. Pen won’t go, either. She thinks that if she did, Rivaulx would never let her come down again, or something. I daresay he wouldn’t; he’s quite mad, I think, sometimes. Baker says all Frenchmen are mad. Do you think so?”
Bradstock didn’t know; he wasn’t sure of it, though he owned to thinking it was possible.
“After all, Bob,” he said, when Bob went at last, “and after all I dare say Penelope won’t marry any of them.”
And of course that is what a good many people said. They said it was Lady Penelope’s fun. The Marchioness of Rigsby, who settled every one’s affairs, said so to Titania.
“Why wasn’t she beaten, my dear, when she was young?” asked the marchioness. “I was severely beaten; it did me good; it gave me sense. I always used to beat my girls with the flat of my hand, and now they are most sensible and married excellently, although I own they are not beauties. I can afford to own it now. I shall speak to Penelope myself.”
She did it and was routed. Pen was direct; she beat no one, and certainly did not beat about the bush. She had no fear of the world, and dreaded no marchioness.
“I’ll attend to my own affairs, thank you,” said Pen.
“My dear love,” said the marchioness, “you ought to have been beaten while you were still young. This conduct of yours is a scandal. It is merely a means of attracting public notice. And I am old enough to speak about it. I will speak about it.”
Pen left her speaking and went out.
“She is distinctly rude,” said the marchioness, viciously. “I wish she was about ten and I was her mother!”
But Pen could not endure being spoken to.
“I love him,” said Pen, “and what business is it of theirs? If they disapprove I shall hate them! If they approve I shall hate them worse. Oh, I almost wish I was going to marry some one who would make them die!”
“Mark me,” said the marchioness to Titania, “this will end in her marrying a groom. Has she a good-looking one?”
Titania started.
“Oh, a very good-looking one,” she cried.
“What did I say? Remember what I said,” said the marchioness, darkly. “No really good girl could act as she does. She will marry a groom!”
She went around saying so in revenge for Penelope’s want of politeness. The journalists took Timothy Bunting’s photograph, and Miss Weekes was proud till she heard the dreadful rumour. Timothy beat a man on a paper, and Bob was delighted. Titania took to her bed, and said the end of the world was at hand. Bradstock laughed till he cried, and cut the marchioness in the park. Her husband was very much pleased at this, and said it served her right. Chloe Cadwallader wrote her first letter since the scandal to Cadwallader in the Rockies, for she felt he would be the only man in the world who hadn’t heard of it. Ethel lay wait for Captain Goby, and asked him to kill some one. There was not a soul in London who did not hear of it. And then Timothy quarrelled with Harriet Weekes. He went to Penelope, and with a crimson face and bated breath and much humbleness asked to be sent down to the country.
“You shall go,” said Penelope, with great decision. “I can trust you, I know.”
“My lady, you can trust me with untold gold and diamonds,” replied Timothy Bunting, almost with tears.
“I shall send you to a house of mine you have never heard of,” said Penelope. “And I expect you, Bunting, not to write to any one from there. I do not wish any one to know I live there.”
“I’ll not tell the Harchbishop of Canterbury ’imself, my lady, not if he begged me on his knees, with lighted candles in his ’and,” said Bunting. “And, above all, my lady, I’ll not tell it to Miss Weekes. Her and me ’ave quarrelled, and ’ave parted for hever. And I wouldn’t trust her, my lady, not farther than you can sling a bull by the tail, my lady. I’ve trusted her to my rueing, so I have, and if she finds out hanything she’ll sell it to the Times, which ’ave promised her a public ’ouse at a corner.”
This revelation of the methods of Printing House Square shocked Penelope dreadfully.
“Oh, I always thought the Times was a respectable journal,” she said.
But Timothy Bunting shook his head.
“Their sportin’ tips ain’t a patch on many of the penny papers, my lady. But don’t you forget what I says of Miss Weekes. She’s a serpent in your boodore a-coiling everywhere, and speaking to newspaper men outside the harea like an ’ousemaid. Not but that I knows an ’ousemaid far above such dirty work, my lady.”
A little encouragement might have led him to say more about the housemaid who would not condescend to talk with journalists. But Penelope gave him an address, verbally.
“You will go to this place to-morrow,” she said. “There are no horses now, but there will be next week. I trust you to do what I tell you.”
“Miss—my lady, I mean,” said Timothy, proudly, “I wouldn’t reveal where I was if the Hemperor of Germany crawled to me for that purpose all along of the ground, making speeches as he went.”
Penelope smiled at her faithful henchman kindly, and she wondered how it happened that he thought of placing the emperor in such an absurd position; a position, too, which was very unlikely.
“Now are you sure you remember, Bunting?” she asked.
“Miss Mackarness, Moat ’Ouse, near Spilsby, Lincolnshire,” repeated Timothy.
“And you will speak personally to Miss Mackarness, who will give you every instruction,” said his young mistress. “I hope you don’t drink, Bunting?”
“Never,” said Bunting, promptly, “at least I won’t from now on till you give the word, my lady. But, my lady, as I’m goin’ from here I don’t mind revealin’ to you that Mr. Gubbles does. Mr. Gubbles ’as been very unkind to me, and—”
“That will do,” said Penelope. “Good-bye, Bunting. I expect to see you in about a month. It may be less.”
“I ’opes, my lady, it will be much less,” said the groom, and as he went away he nodded his close-cropped head.
“This is a damned rum start,” he murmured. “Wot’s up, I wonder? This ’ere Miss Mackarness was ‘ousekeeper at Upwell Castle, and I’m a Dutchman if any one of us ’as ever ’eard of Moat ’Ouse. She’s goin’ to do it, as she said, goin’ to be married and keep it dark. Women is wonderful strange and, so to speak, dreadful. I thot I knew ’Arriet Weekes through and through, and she turned out to be a serpent with false teeth, ready to sell Lady Penelope to the Times. And my lady ’as turned me round ’er finger. I’m knee-deep in secret hoaths, and, without knowin’ what I was doin’, I’ve swore off drink. Well, I always did like ginger-beer!”
But he sighed all the same. And that afternoon he packed up and disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him. Neither he nor any one of those who hunted for news had any notion of the fame which would presently be his. Nor did Penelope see quite what she had done when this nice-looking young man suddenly vanished by her orders.
But Penelope was in love.