Chapter IV Concerning a Mysterious Lady, and an Elderly Beau
This was evidently to be a memorable afternoon in the annals of Pomander Walk; for no sooner had it recovered from its mirth over the Doctor’s antiquarian discovery than Jim, who had been training the sweet peas at the corner of the Admiral’s house, shouted hoarsely:
“Admiral! Pirate in the offing!”
Such a startling announcement was well calculated to silence all laughter; and the imposing figure who now appeared round the corner certainly did nothing to encourage mirth: a very tall, very gaunt, very bony lady, severely but richly dressed; her face hidden in the remote recesses of a more than usually capacious poke bonnet. She was followed by an enormous footman carrying a gold-headed cane in one hand, while a fat pug reposed on his other arm. The Walk was paralysed and could only stare and gasp. Who was she? Where did she come from? Whom did she want?
She stopped and examined the Eyesore through her uplifted face-à-main, as if he had been some strange, unpleasant animal. “Fellow,” she said, “is this Pomander Lane?” A shudder ran through the Walk. Pomander Lane, indeed!—The only answer the lady got from the Eyesore was that at that precise moment he found it agreeable to scratch his back. With an exclamation of disgust she turned from him only to find herself face to face with Jim. Now Jim was not pretty to look at.
“Fellow, is this Pomander Lane?” she repeated.
“You ’ve a-lost yer bearin’s, mum,” replied the old tar huskily and not too cordially.
“What savages!” muttered the Lady as she turned to Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn. “You! Is this Pomander Lane?”
Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn had laid himself out to fascinate her with his courtliest manner, but the “You!” with which she addressed him aroused the turkey-cock within him, and it was an icy and raging Brooke-Hoskyn who replied, “This, ma’am, is Pomander Walk!”
“Same thing,” said the Lady contemptuously.
“Excuse me, ma’am—!” exclaimed Sir Peter hotly.
But she waved him aside and proceeded in a tone intended to be ingratiating, and therefore more offensive than any tone she could have chosen, “My good people”—imagine the Walk’s feelings!—“I have undertaken to look after the morals of this part of your parish. I have made it my duty to give advice and distribute alms.”
Morals—parish—advice—alms! Had the Walk ever heard such words uttered within its genteel precincts? The Lady turned to Ruth, who happened to be at her side. “Where are your children?”
Ruth stood aghast. She could only breathe indignantly, “I am a spinster.”
“Are there no children?” said the Lady reproachfully.
Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn’s nurse happened to pass at the moment on her way into the house. The Lady stopped her. “Ah, yes.” Mrs. Poskett and the Admiral had sunk in helpless surprise on the bench under the elm. The Lady turned to them. “The father and mother, I suppose?”
Mrs. Poskett and the Admiral started apart, as if they had been shocked by a galvanic battery. Mrs. Poskett uttered an indignant scream; the Admiral could only gasp, “Gobblessmysoul!”
Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn, purple in the face, came clucking down. “This, ma’am, is my youngest. The youngest of four—at present.”
The Lady looked him up and down. “I will give your wife instructions about their management—”
Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn danced with rage. “You’ll—haha!—She’ll teach Selina!—Hoho!—Oh, that’s good!”
But the Lady had caught sight of Marjolaine, who with Barbara was standing by the Gazebo. Both young ladies, I regret to say, were laughing immoderately. Brushing the Admiral aside, she sailed imposingly across to them and addressed Marjolaine, who was by this time looking demure, and overdoing it.
“What do I see?” said the Lady severely, examining Marjolaine through her glasses. “Curls? At your age, curls? Fie!” Then shaking a lank finger at her, “Mind! your hair must be quite straight when next I come.”
To the delight of the Walk Marjolaine made a pretty and submissive curtsey, and answered, “Yes, ma’am; but don’t come again in a hurry. Give me lots and lots of time!”
Meanwhile Mrs. Poskett and Ruth had been urging the Admiral on. Now he approached the Lady in his quarter-deck manner, and said,
“Madam—hum—we give alms, and we do not take advice. You ’re on the wrong tack. You ’re out of your reckoning.” Then, pointing grandly to the only entrance to the Walk, “That is your course for Pomander Lane.”
“Yes,” said Brooke-Hoskyn, with the same action, “That!”
“Yes,” said all the ladies, pointing melodramatically to the corner, “That!”
“Jim,” ordered the Admiral, “pilot the lady out.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
The Lady eyed them all in turn through her face-à-main. “Very well,” she said, with magnificent scorn. “I was told I should have difficulty here. I was told you only go to church twice on Sundays. I did not expect to find you so bad as you are. I shall come again. I am not so easily beaten. I shall certainly come again!”
In grim silence she gathered her skirts about her and departed as she had come, followed by the footman and the fat pug.
When she had turned the corner the Walk once more indulged in a burst of laughter.
“What a figure of fun!” cried Ruth.
“I gave here her sailing orders—what?” chuckled the Admiral.
And Mrs. Poskett gazed into his face with admiration.
“What a wonderful man you are, Sir Peter!”
When they had all recovered, Basil came to Marjolaine and eagerly reminded her it was high time for her singing-lesson.
Marjolaine appealed to Barbara: “Maman told me to ask you to come with me.”
Barbara gave a little hop of delight, but Ruth exclaimed, “Shall I take your place, dear?”
“No, no,” cried Barbara, almost as if she were in a fright, “I love to hear her.” Barbara, Marjolaine, and Basil moved slowly towards Number Three, while Ruth approached Mrs. Poskett. “Will you come in and take a dish of tea?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Poskett, “no, thank you,” and then, with a giggle, “I’m going—you’ll never guess!—I ’m going to comb my wig.”
Seeing the ladies all strolling towards their houses the Admiral once more challenged Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn to play off the rubber at quoits. But he declined. “I think not, Sir Peter. Selina will be expecting me.”
Mrs. Poskett stopped. “I wonder you can bear to leave her so much alone.”
Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn felt the implied reproach. With a countenance full of woe, he replied, “It tears my heart-strings, ma’am; but she will have it so. ‘Brooke,’ she says—or ‘Jerome,’ as the case may be—‘your place is in the fashionable world, among the hote tonn.’ So I sacrifice my inclination to her pleasure.”
“How unselfish of you!” said Ruth.
Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn continued more cheerfully. “She has many innocent pastimes. At the present moment the dear soul is joyously darning my socks.”
By this time Mrs. Poskett and the other ladies were on their respective door-steps. Mrs. Poskett gave a startled cry and called the Admiral’s attention to the corner of the Walk, where four men in livery had just deposited a sedan chair. “Company, Sir Peter!” she cried.
Sir Peter turned abruptly and examined the person who was with difficulty emerging from the sedan. “Eh?— Gobblessmysoul! Is it possible?— My old friend, Lord Otford!” He bustled up to the newcomer, shouting “Otford! Otford!”
Now the name had had a magical effect on Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn. At the sound of it the colour had all vanished from his fat cheeks, the strength seemed to have gone out of his legs, and his knees were knocking together. “Lord Otford, by all that’s unlucky!” he exclaimed.
Mrs. Poskett had swept back to the elm. She happened to have a very becoming dress on, and she was determined the noble lord should see it. She caught sight of Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn’s face. “What’s the matter?”
Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn pulled himself together with a mighty effort. “Nothing, ma’am.” Then with great dignity, “He and I differ in politics. There might be bloodshed.” And while Mrs. Poskett exclaimed “Well, I never!” he had dashed into his house as a rabbit dashes into its burrow.
Mrs. Poskett sailed up to her house trying to catch his lordship’s eye. I am afraid all the ladies were anxious to be noticed, for all lingered at their doors. A real, live lord was not an ordinary sight in Pomander Walk. And this one happened to be a handsome one; well set up, dressed in the height of fashion, yet quietly, as a gentleman should dress; and carrying his forty-five years as though they had been no more than thirty.
“You’re looking well, Peter!” he exclaimed, still shaking the Admiral by the hand.
“My dear Jack! My dear old Jack!” cried the latter. “Here! come into the house!”
“No, no,” laughed his friend, with a suspicious glance at the diminutive window. “Stuffy. No. Looks pleasant under the elm.”
“Why, come along, then!” shouted the Admiral, dragging him towards the tree.
Lord Otford took off his hat to Mrs. Poskett with an elaborate bow. “I say, Peter, in clover, you rascal!”
“Dam fine woman—what?”
Here Lord Otford caught sight of Marjolaine just disappearing in the doorway of Number Three. He stopped short. “Ay, and pretty gel on door-step.” Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, “By Jove!”
“Dainty little thing, eh?” said the Admiral with a chuckle.
“Yes,” replied the nobleman, pensively. “Reminds me vaguely—” but he changed the subject. “Well! You’re hale and hearty!”
“Nothing amiss with you, neither,” laughed Sir Peter, sitting on the bench and drawing his friend down beside him. “I am glad to see you! Thought you was in Russia.”
“Got home a month ago, Peter. Not married yet?”
“Peter Antrobus married? That’s a good ’un.” Up went the Admiral’s finger to his nose. “No, my Lord. All women, yes. One woman, no!”
“Sure nobody can hear us?”
Sir Peter looked round cautiously. Save for the Eyesore, absorbed in his placid effort to catch fish, there was no sign of life in the Walk. Nobody was visible at the windows. From Number Three came the sound of a fresh young voice singing scales and arpeggios.
“Quite safe, Jack,” said he.
“Peter, I want your help.”
“Woman?” asked Sir Peter.
“Yes. Not my woman, though, this time. It’s about my boy—Jack.”
“Aha! Got into a mess? Chip of the old block—what?”
“No, no. Marriage.”
“Gobblessmysoul! How old is he?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Good Lord!”
“I want to see Jack settled. There ’s the succession to think of.”
“You talk as though you was a king.”
“Well, so I am, in a small way. Think of the estate! I want Jack to take the reins.”
“How can he, when he ’s on the sea?”
“He’s to retire as soon as he gets his Captaincy.”
The Admiral jumped up. “Retire! Now! With Boney ready to gobble us up!”
Otford drew him down again. “Don’t you see? With all this battle and bloodshed, now’s the time for Jack to give me a grandson. He ’s my only child, remember. Why, hang it, man, if he was to die without issue, the title and the estates would go to that infernal whig scoundrel, James Sayle.”
“That won’t do,” Sir Peter assented, wisely nodding his head.
“Of course it won’t. Now, there’s old Wendover’s gel—Caroline Thring.”
The Admiral made a wry face. “Caroline Thring? I’ve heard of her. Never seen her: but heard of her. Eccentric party, ain’t she? And did n’t I hear there was an affair with Young Beauchamp?”
“That’s fallen through. She’s an estimable person.”
“Ugh,” said the Admiral.
“People call her eccentric,” Lord Otford continued, hotly, “because she goes about doing good—distributing alms—”
The Admiral was about to exclaim, but Otford gave him no time. “You ’re prejudiced, you old reprobate. Wendover ’s willing, and there’s nothing in the way. The estates join. She’s sole heiress. Gad, sir, that alliance would make Jack the biggest man in the Three Kingdoms.”
“Is Jack fond of her?”
“Does n’t object to her. Hesitates. Says he don’t want to marry at all. Says he has n’t had his fling.”
“Well—what’s it all got to do with me?”
“Ever since Jack’s been home on leave, he’s done nothing but talk about you—”
“Good lad!” cried Sir Peter, slapping his thigh. “I loved him when he was a middy on board the Termagant.”
“And he loves you. Coming to look you up. To-day, very likely. When he comes, refer to Caroline—carelessly. Say what a fine gel she is. Don’t say a word about the estate. These young whipper-snappers have such high-and-mighty ideas about marrying for money. Refer to young Beauchamp. Say in your time young fellers did n’t let other young fellers cut ’em out. See?”
“You ’re a wily old fox, Jack. But, hark’ee! Sure he’s not in love with anybody else?”
“He says he is n’t. Oh, there may be a Spanish Senorita!—Gad! I should almost be ashamed of him if there wasn’t!—But there’s no—no—”
“No Lucy Pryor?” said the Admiral carelessly.
The name seemed to fall on Lord Otford like a blow. He sat quite still a moment, looking straight before him into who knows what memories. At last he said very sadly, “No. No Lucy Pryor.”
The Admiral realised his own tactlessness. He took Lord Otford’s hand. “I beg your pardon, Jack. I ’m sorry.”
“It still hurts, Peter,” said his Lordship with a wistful smile. “Like an old bullet.—Well! You ’ll do what you can, eh?—I don’t want you to overdo it. Just edge him in the right direction.”
“Keep his eye in the wind, what?”
“That’s it.—Well? Any new-comers in the Walk?”
“Yes,” chuckled the Admiral, “two oil lamps. One in front of my house, and one in front of Sternroyd’s. They wanted to give us their new-fangled, stinking gas, but the whole Walk mutinied.”
“Very fine, but—”
“They ’re only used when there’s no moon.”
“But I meant new people!”
“Oh! Ah! Yes!—” Then with a sort of smack of the lips indicative of the highest appreciation, “A French widow and her daughter.”
At once Lord Otford showed a lively interest. “French, eh?—What? the little gel I saw going in?”
“Yes,” answered the Admiral, rising and leading his friend towards the Gazebo where his whisper would no longer make the windows of the Walk rattle. “Yes. They’re not really French, y’ know. Mother’s the widow of a Frenchman. Madame Lachesnais.”
This sounded very dull. His Lordship stifled a yawn, but he noticed the Admiral’s kindling eye, and felt constrained to continue the subject.
“Pleasant?”
“De-lightful!” answered Sir Peter, kissing the tips of his fingers at an imaginary ideal. “The Walk was shy of ’em at first. So was I. Thought they was foreigners. Foreigners are all very well for you and me, Jack. We ’re men o’ the world. But think of Mrs. Poskett! Think of the Misses Pennymint! Think of Mr. and Mrs. Brooke-Hoskyn!”
Lord Otford started slightly at the last name.
“Eh? Mr. and Mrs. what?”
“Brooke-Hoskyn. Sh!” pointing to the house with his thumb. “Very distinguished man. Moves in the highest circles. Hote tonn, Jack. Dines in town regularly four times a week.”
“Man of family?” asked Lord Otford.
“Family?” roared the Admiral. “Well, I should say so. Four little gels in five years, and more to come! Never met him?”
“I seem to remember a man called Hoskyn,” said his friend nonchalantly.
The Admiral shook his head in dismissal of the undistinguished Hoskyn. “No, no. This is Brooke-Hoskyn; Brooke—h’m—Hoskyn; with a hyphen.”
Lord Otford had had enough of Brooke-Hoskyn. “Go on about the French widow.”
“Well, one morning their shay was signalled from the back of the Misses Pennymint. We’d all been watching for their coming, y’ know, because of their house having been painted white—but that’s another yarn altogether. Shays can’t get beyond the corner of Pomander Lane; so I had time to put on my uniform, and my medals, and my cocked hat—”
“Meant to show ’em you was Admiral on your own quarter-deck, eh?”
“That’s it. And then—” the Admiral glowed with enthusiasm—“well, then Madame came round the corner; and then Mademerzell. They did n’t walk, Jack, they floated. And what did I do? I just sneaked back into harbour, and struck my colours. Yes!— She was the most gracious creature I ’d ever seen. And the gel—! Well, you saw her.” He paused for a moment, and then added in a curiously subdued voice: “They brought something new into the Walk.”
Lord Otford looked at him enquiringly. “What do you mean?”
It was some little time before Sir Peter answered. He sat gazing into vacancy a moment, like a man who is remembering happier things, calling up a mental picture of a beautiful landscape—or perhaps of a beautiful face—suddenly smitten by the recollection of his own youth. At last, with something like a sigh he went on.
“We’re rather an elderly lot, y’know. Beyond our springtime, Jack, and that’s the truth. When we sit and think, we think of the past, and try not to think of the future. And, suddenly, here was this Grace and Beauty and Youth in the midst of us. It gave the Walk a shock, I can tell ye. All the women lay-to in repairing-dock for days. Mrs. Poskett never showed her nose till she ’d got a new wig from town; Pringle tells me he caught poor little Barbara Pennymint looking at herself in the glass and crying; and Brooke-Hoskyn says his wife, who had watched ’em come from her window, not being able to get downstairs, poor soul, sobbed her heart out and made him swear he loved her.”
“By Jove!” cried Lord Otford, “you make me want to see these paragons!”
“Well, Madame ’s only gone shopping. She ’ll be back directly. Wait, and I ’ll present you.”
“No,” said his friend, signalling to the sedan-bearers. “Not to-day. I’m on my way to old Wendover, at Brentford.”
“Ah! That marriage! Well, I hope I shall see Jack soon.”
“You’ll help me, won’t you?”
“I will. I will. God bless you.”
Sir Peter escorted his friend to the sedan; saw him safely into it and walked at its side until it turned the corner. As he came back he found himself face to face with Marjolaine, who had finished her lesson and was coming out of Number Three with a book in her hand.
“There, now, Missie,” he cried, “if you’d come a moment earlier, I’d have presented you to a very great man!”
“Oh?”
At his door the Admiral put his hand up to his mouth and whispered confidentially—a confidential whisper which could have been heard the other side of the river—“I say!—We ’ll have a go at that horn-pipe by-and-by—what?” And chuckling he went into his house.
Marjolaine came slowly to the elm, seated herself, and proceeded to read the “Adventures of Telemachus.”