A Safety Match Part 23

"Certainly," said madam in freezing tones.

The waiter bowed deferentially, and departed.

"Stiffy," inquired Nicky in agonised tones, "what _is_ a _blanchaille?_ Don't say it's a cod!"

Stiffy devoted three hours a-week to the study of Modern Languages, but so far no _blanchaille_ has swum into his vocabulary.

"I've a notion," he said after a prolonged mental effort, "that it is a sturgeon."

"How big is a sturgeon?"

"It's about the size of a shark, I think."

"Mercy! And we have ordered a whole one each!"

But their capacity was not to be taxed after all. The waiter returned, and with the nonchalant demeanour of a hardened clubman playing out an unexpected ace of trumps, laid down two plates. In the centre of each reposed a single forlorn diminutive whitebait.

But it was here that Veronica Elizabeth Vereker rose to her greatest heights. She inspected her own portion and then her brother's.

"Waiter," she said at last, "will you kindly take away this young gentleman's fish and ask the cook to give you a rather longer one?

About three-quarters of an inch, I should say. The child"--indicating her hirsute and crimson senior--"gets very peevish and fretful if his portion is smaller than any one else's."

Without a word the waiter picked up Stiffy's plate and bore it away.

His broad back had become slightly bowed, and his finely chiselled legs had a warped and bandy appearance. The strain was telling.

Stiffy gazed upon his sister in rapt admiration.

"Nicky, you _ripper_!" he said.

After this it was mere child's play to request a stout gentleman with a chain round his neck to submit the wine list--an imposing volume of many pages--and after a heated and highly technical discussion on the respective merits of Pommery and Cliquot, to order one stone-ginger and two gla.s.ses.

Nicky next instructed the waiter to present her compliments to the leader of the band, and to request as a special favour that he and his colleagues would oblige with a rendering of _Shall We Gather at the River?_ The waiter returned with a reply to the effect that the _chef d'orchestre_ would be delighted. Unfortunately he had not the full score by him at the moment, but had sent along to the Cafe Royal to borrow a copy. Everything would be in readiness about tea-time. It was then a little after two, and it was admitted by both Nicky and Stiffy that honours on this occasion were divided.

So far both sides, as the umpires say on Territorial field-days, had acquitted themselves in a manner deserving great credit; but the waiter scored the odd and winning trick a little later, in a particularly subtle manner. Age and experience always tell. Nicky, unduly inflated by early success, insisted upon Stiffy ordering a liqueur with his coffee. Green Chartreuse was finally selected and brought.

"Shall I pour it into your coffee, sir?" asked the waiter respectfully.

"Please," said the unsuspecting Stiffy.

The man obeyed, and directly afterwards emitted a sound which caused both children to glance up suddenly. They glared suspiciously, first at one another, then at the back of the retreating foe.

"Do people drink Green Chartreuse _in_ their coffee?" asked Nicky apprehensively.

"I don't know," said Stiffy. He tasted the compound. "No, I'm _blowed_ if they do! Nicky, we've been had. He's one up!"

"It would score him off," replied the undefeated Nicky, "if you could manage to be sick."

But Stiffy held out no hope of this happy retaliation; and they ultimately produced the five-pound note and paid the score with somewhat chastened mien, adding a _douceur_ which was as excessive as it was unnecessary. Waiters do not get much entertainment out of serving meals as a rule.

II.

"Now we must meet Daphne," said Stiffy, as they left the restaurant and hailed a cab.

They were in town for an all-too-brief sojourn of twenty-four hours, to a.s.sist at the inspection of Daphne's new house. It was now February, and Lady Carr had not seen her husband since the eruption at Belton last summer. Juggernaut had made no attempt to prevent her going home, and when she wrote later, requesting that Master Brian Vereker Carr might be sent to her, had despatched him without remonstrance. No one save Cilly and her beloved G.o.dfrey--least of all the Rector--knew of the true state of affairs; and all during that autumn and winter Daphne was happier in a fashion than she had ever been. To a large extent she resumed command of the household, setting Cilly free for other very right and natural diversions; and a sort of _edition de luxe_ of the old days came into being, with first-hand food at every meal and a boy to clean the boots and drive the pony.

Daphne was entirely impervious to the gravity of the situation. There are certain women who are curiously wanting in all sense of responsibility. They preserve the child's lack of perspective and proportion even after they grow up, and the consequences are sometimes disastrous. If love arrives upon the scene no further harm ensues, for the missing qualities spring up, with that Jonah's-gourd-like suddenness which characterises so many feminine developments, at the first touch of the great magician's wand. The r.e.t.a.r.ded faculties achieve maturity in a flash, and their owner becomes maternal, solicitous, Martha-like; and all is well.

Daphne was one of these women; but so far, unfortunately, she had failed to fall in love. Her marriage had never really touched her. Her husband had vibrated many strings in her responsive impulsive young heart--grat.i.tude, affection, admiration,--but the great harmonious combination, the master-chord, had yet to be struck. Consequently she saw nothing unusual in living apart from her husband, financing her family with his money, and enjoying herself with friends whom he did not know.

Early in the year, however, it occurred to her that it would be pleasant to go home again for a time. Her elastic nature had entirely recovered from the stress of last summer's crisis, and she was frankly consumed with curiosity on the subject of the new house in Berkeley Square--and said so. It was perhaps an unfortunate reason for a wife to give for wishing to return to her husband, but this did not occur to her at the time. She received a brief note in reply, saying that the furnishing and decorating were now practically completed, and the house was ready for her inspection any time she cared to come up to town. Hence this joyous expedition.

Daphne had half expected to find her husband waiting for her at the house, for the Parliamentary recess was over and she knew he was almost certain to be in town. Instead, she was received by an overwhelmingly polite individual named Hibbins, from the house-furnishers. Mr Hibbins' appearance and deportment proved a sore trial to the composure of Nicky, who exploded at frequent and unexpected intervals throughout the afternoon, lamely alleging the fantastic design of some very ordinary wallpaper or the shortness of Stiffy's Sunday trousers in excuse.

It was essentially a masculine house, furnished in accordance with the man's ideas of solidity and comfort. The high oak panelling and dark-green frieze in the dining-room pleased Daphne, who recognised that gla.s.s and silver, well-illuminated, would show up bravely in such a setting. The drawing-room was perhaps a little too severe in its scheme of decoration: Daphne would have preferred something more feminine. "But that comes," she reflected characteristically, "of leaving the declaration to your partner!" There was a billiard-room in which Nicky declared it would be a sin to place a billiard-table, so perfectly was it adapted for waltzing after dinner.

Opening out of the billiard-room was a plainly furnished but attractive little set of apartments--"the bachelor suite" Mr Hibbins designated it--consisting of a snug study with an apartment adjoining, containing a small camp-bed and a large bath. Daphne's own rooms consisted of a bedroom and boudoir on the first floor, with wide bow-windows.

The nursery came last. It was a large irregular-shaped room at the top of the house, full of unexpected corners and curious alcoves such as children love, affording convenient caves for robbers and eligible lairs for wild beasts, fabulous or authentic. In addition to the regulation nursery furniture there was a miniature set, in green-stained wood--a table barely eighteen inches high, a tiny arm-chair, and a pigmy sofa upon which Master Brian's friends might recline when they came to drink tea, or its equivalent. Round the whole room ran a brightly coloured dado covered with life-size figures of all the people we love when we are young--Jack the Giant-Killer, Old King Cole, Cinderella, and the Three Bears. Even Peter Pan, with residence and following, was there. The spectacle of Doctor Johnson taking a walk down Fleet Street would pale to insignificance compared with that of Master Brian Vereker Carr enjoying a const.i.tutional along his own dado, encountering a new friend round every corner.

Daphne suddenly realised that here was yet another aspect of this strange, impenetrable husband of hers. The room in its way was a work of genius--the genius that understands children.

As they departed to catch the afternoon train to Snayling the obsequious Mr Hibbins produced a letter.

Sir John Carr, he explained, had called at the head office of their firm that morning--in _person_, Mr Hibbins added with a gratified smile--and requested that this letter should be handed to her ladyship in the afternoon. Sir John had also instructed Mr Hibbins to inform her ladyship that any improvements or alterations which she desired had only to be mentioned to be carried out.

Mr Hibbins having handed them into a cab and bidden them an unctuous farewell, they drove away to the station, Nicky atoning for previous aloofness by hanging out of the window and waving her handkerchief until they turned the corner.

III.

The journey from London to Snayling, involving as it does a run of forty miles by main line, a wait of indefinite duration at a junction furnished with no other facilities for recreation than a weighing-machine and a printed and detailed record of the fate which awaits persons who compa.s.s the awe-inspiring but c.u.mbrous crime of travelling-by-a-cla.s.s-superior-to-that-to-which-the-ticket-in-their- possession-ent.i.tles-them, and concluding with an interminable crawl along a branch line, is not at first sight an enterprise that promises much joyous adventure; but Nicky and Stiffy, who usually contrived to keep _ennui_ at arm's-length, had a very tolerable time of it.

Their efforts at first were directed to securing an apartment to themselves--an achievement which, when you come to think of it, fairly epitomises the Englishman's outlook on life in general.

"Hang your face out of the window, Stiffy, my lad," commanded Nicky, returning from an unsuccessful attempt to wheedle the guard into labelling their carriage "engaged," "and play at Horatius Cocles till the train starts. That ought to do the trick."

But no. At the last moment a crusty-looking old gentleman wrenched the door open, nearly precipitating Horatius Cocles (and face) on to the platform, and sat down with great determination in the corner seat. He glared ferociously at the demure-looking pair before him, in a manner which intimated plainly that he was too old a customer to be kept out of his usual compartment by tricks of _that_ kind. After this he produced _The Westminster Gazette_ from a handbag and began to read it.

Nicky gave him five minutes. Then, turning to her brother and scrutinising his freckled countenance, she observed in clear and measured tones--

"I think they have let you out rather _soon_, John."

Stiffy, realising that he was the person addressed and that some fresh game was afoot, looked as intelligent as possible, and waited. Daphne, in the far corner of the carriage, hurriedly opened her husband's letter and began to read it.

"The marks aren't all gone yet," continued Nicky, inspecting her brother anxiously. "Are you still peeling?"

"Yes--I think so," said Stiffy, groping for his cue.