§ 2
Bobby, with an instinct that is given to young people for such occasions, perceived that he interested Christina Alberta extremely. He parleyed with her and Devizes in Mrs. Plumer’s little downstairs room. He spoke chiefly to her. Devizes he treated as a secondary figure, a voice at her elbow. “He’s got a nasty cold on his chest,” he said. “He’s been asking for Miss Preemby——”
“Christina Alberta,” said Christina Alberta.
“Christina Alberta a lot. But it was only last night I could get the address out of him. He’d forgotten it before. We’ve been here over a day. He caught the cold coming here.”
“How did you come here?” Devizes threw in.
“Motor bicycle,” said Bobby. “But there was a lot of waiting about before we could get away and it was a cold raw morning, and he had just his nightgown and dressing-gown and slippers. So hard to foresee everything.”
“But how did you come to be rescuing him?”
Bobby smiled at Devizes. “Somebody had to be rescuing him.”
He turned to Christina Alberta again. “Couldn’t bear the thought of his being under lock and key. He took a room, you see, in the place where I lodged, and there was something innocent and—delightful about him. I’ve a weakness, a sympathy perhaps, with absurdity.... You ought to go up to him and see him.”
“Yes, we’d better look at him,” said Devizes.
(Who the devil was this fellow?)
Bobby asserted himself. “Christina Alberta first, I think.”
He took Christina Alberta up to her daddy and closed the door on a warm embrace. “And now, Mr. de Vezes, or whatever you are,” he said to himself on the staircase, “where do you come in?” He descended and found Devizes standing very irritatingly upon his hearthrug before his fire. As he stood there a remote resemblance to Christina Alberta was perceptible. Bobby had an incoherent recognition of the fact that in some obscure way Devizes was responsible for Christina Alberta’s failure to produce blue eyes. He was a little slow in saying what he intended to say, and Devizes was able to take the initiative. “Forgive my blunt impertinence,” he said, “but may I ask who you are?”
“I’m a writer,” said Bobby, refraining from any glance at the accumulation of Aunt Suzannah material upon the side table.
“You’ve finished lunch?” asked Devizes in a disregarded parenthesis.
“May I ask the same question of you?” said Bobby, “and how it is you come to be connected with the Preembys?”
“I’m a blood relation,” said Devizes, considering it. “On the mother’s side. A sort of cousin. And I happen to be a nervous and mental specialist. That’s why I’ve been brought in to-day.”
“I see,” said Bobby. “You’ve got no intention of—putting him back?”
“None at all. We’re not antagonists, Mr——”
“Roothing.”
“We’re on the same side. You did well to get him out. We were trying to do the same thing by less original methods. We’re very grateful to you. The lunacy laws are rather a clumsy and indiscriminating machine. But, as you probably know, if he keeps clear of them for fourteen days, they’ll have to begin with him all over again. He renews his sanity. We’re allies in that. We’ve got to know each other better. Your intervention—most surprising—strikes me as being at once eccentric and courageous. I wish you’d tell me more about it, how you met him, how they got hold of him, and what set you thinking of an escape.”
“H’m,” said Bobby, and came and asserted his right to half the hearthrug. He had thought of the way in which he could tell this story—to Christina Alberta—the original Christina Alberta with the blue eyes. He felt that that version needed considerable revision, indeed, possibly even a complete rearrangement, for the present hearer. He was by no means sure he wanted to tell it to the present hearer. The man was a doctor and a mental specialist and a distant relation, and he was for keeping Sargon out of an asylum, and that was all to the good, but it still lingered in Bobby’s mind that he was an interloper. Nevertheless, he made way for Bobby quite civilly on the hearthrug, and his manner was attentive and respectful. Bobby embarked upon a description of Sargon’s first appearance in Midgard Street.
Devizes showed himself alert and intelligent. He grasped the significance of Sargon’s projected visit to the dome of Saint Paul’s at once. “I’ve no doubt he did it,” said Devizes. “Neither have I,” said Bobby, “though I’ve not asked him about it yet.” They pieced together the probable story of the calling of the disciples before Billy and Bobby had come upon the procession. “It’s touching,” said Devizes, “and immense.” Bobby approved these words.
“You see how he got me,” said Bobby.
A distinct flavour of friendliness for Devizes crept by imperceptible degrees into Bobby’s mind. Difficulties that had seemed to threaten his explanation vanished; this man, he perceived, could understand anything a fellow did. Devizes made him feel that the extraction of Sargon from Cummerdown by a perfect stranger was the most simple and natural thing to do imaginable. Bobby warmed to his story; his sense of humour took heart of grace, and he became frank and amusing about his difficulties on the visiting day. As he was telling of the foxy-faced deaf mute, Christina Alberta came back again into the downstairs room.
“He takes me as a matter of course,” she said. “He seems weak and drowsy and his chest is bad.” She spoke more definitely to Devizes. “I think you ought to overhaul him.”
“There is a doctor in attendance?” he asked Bobby.
Bobby explained. Devizes considered. Was Sargon dozing? Yes. Then let him doze for a bit. Bobby, working now a little more consciously for effect, went on with his story. Christina Alberta regarded him with manifest approval.
By tea-time Bobby had adjusted his mind to the existence of Devizes and the unexpectedness of Christina Alberta. All that carried over from his state of expectation was the idea that his relations with Christina Alberta were to be very profound and intimate. He still believed that, hidden away in her somewhere, there must be a blue-eyed, yielding, really feminine person, but it was very deeply hidden. Meanwhile the superimposed disguise struck him as agreeable, alert, humorous, and friendly. Devizes too he saw more and more as a strong, capable, understanding personality. He had seen Devizes examining Sargon, and it was clever, confidence-provoking doctoring. Sargon’s lungs, he said, were badly congested, especially on the left side; he was on the edge of pneumonia and without much vitality to fight it. He ought to be kept in a warmer, less draughty room with a night-nurse available. Mrs. Plumer had no room for a nurse, and not an hour away by automobile was Paul Lambone’s excessively comfortable week-end cottage at Udimore. A little masterly telephoning and telegraphing and the cottage was available, fires were alight in the best bedroom, a trained nurse was on her way to it, and it was all settled for Sargon, warmly wrapped up and fortified with hot-water bottles, to go thither. Bobby found himself a mere accessory in this new system of things; he was to follow next day to Udimore on his motor bicycle, for there would be room for all of them in Paul Lambone’s cottage. Apparently Paul Lambone’s conception of a simple cottage in the wilderness involved a housekeeper, several servants, and four or five visitors’ rooms.
This fellow Devizes carried out all his arrangements with a smooth competence that gave Bobby no scope for self-assertion. Sargon and Christina Alberta and Devizes would depart at five and get to Udimore by six, by which time the nurse would be installed. Then Devizes would go back to London and get there in time to dress for a dinner he had to attend. On Saturday morning he would be busy in London, and then he would come back to Udimore and see if Sargon was recovered enough for the beginnings of his mental treatment. Perhaps the unknown Paul Lambone would be there too. He was a lazy person, Bobby gathered; he’d have to be brought down by Devizes. Bobby was to stay at Udimore for some days. He made modest protestations. “No, you’re in it now,” said Devizes cheerfully and glanced at Christina Alberta. “You’re in for Sargon like the rest of us. Bring your work with you.”
“Yes, do come,” said Christina Alberta.
The only reason Bobby had for resisting the invitation was that it attracted him so much.