Doctor Claudius, A True Story Part 12

"About the tenth of next month, I should say. Will that be convenient?"

Margaret turned to Claudius.

"Do you think we can finish our book by the tenth, Dr. Claudius?"

"If not," broke in the Duke, "there is no reason why you should not finish it on board. We shall have lovely weather."

"Oh no!" said Margaret, "we must finish it before we start. I could not understand a word of it alone."

"Alone?" inquired the Duke. "Ah! I forgot. Thought he had told you. I have asked Dr. Claudius to give us the pleasure of his company."

"Oh, indeed!" said Margaret. "That will be very nice." She did not look as if she thought so, however. Her expression was not such as led the Duke to believe she was pleased, or Claudius to think she would like his going. To tell the truth, she was annoyed for more than one reason. She thought the Duke, although he was such an old friend, should have consulted her before making up the list of men for the party. She was annoyed with Claudius because he had not told her he was going, when he really thought she knew it, and was displeased at it. And most of all, she was momentarily disconcerted at being thus taken off her guard.

Besides, the Duke must have supposed she liked Claudius very much, and he had perhaps contrived the whole excursion in order to throw them together. Her first impulse was to change her mind and not go after all.

Meanwhile Claudius was much astonished at the turn things had taken.

Margaret had known nothing about the invitation to the Doctor after all, and her coldness this morning must be attributed to some other cause.

But now that she did know she looked less pleased than ever. She did not want him. The Doctor was a proud man in his quiet way, and he was, moreover, in love, not indeed hopelessly as yet, for love is never wholly irrevocable until it has survived the crucial test, attainment of its object; but Claudius loved, and he knew it. Consequently his pride revolted at the idea of thrusting himself where he was not wanted, and his love forbade him to persecute the woman he worshipped. He also said to himself, "I will not go." He had not yet accepted the invitation.

"I had intended to write to you this afternoon," he said, turning to the Duke. "But since it is my good fortune to be able to thank you in person for your kind invitation, let me do so now."

"I hope you are going," said the Duke.

"I fear," answered Claudius, "that I shall be prevented from joining you, much as I would like to do so. I have by no means decided to abandon my position in Heidelberg."

Neither Margaret nor the Duke were in the least prepared for this piece of news. The Duke was taken aback at the idea that any human being could refuse such an invitation. Following on his astonishment that Margaret should not be delighted at having the Doctor on board, the intelligence that the Doctor did not want to go at all threw the poor man into the greatest perplexity. He had made a mistake somewhere, evidently; but where or how he could not tell.

"Barker," he said to himself, "is an a.s.s. He has made me m.u.f.f the whole thing." However, he did not mean to give up the fight.

"I am extremely sorry to hear you say that, Dr. Claudius," he said aloud, "and I hope you will change your mind, if I have to send you an invitation every day until we sail. You know one does not ask people on one's yacht unless one wants them very much, and we want you. It is just like asking a man to ride your favourite hunter; you would not ask him unless you meant it, for fear he would." The Duke seldom made so long a speech, and Claudius felt that the invitation was really genuine, which gave his wounded pride a pleasant little respite from its aches. He was grateful, and he said so. Margaret was silent and plied her needle, planning how she might escape the party if Claudius changed his mind and went, and how she could with decency leave herself the option of going if he remained. She did not intend to give people any farther chance of pairing her off with Claudius or any one else whom they thought she fancied, and she blamed herself for having given people even the shadow of an idea that such officious party-making would please her.

Claudius rose to go. The position was not tenable any longer, and it was his only course. The Countess bade him good morning with more cordiality than she had displayed as yet; for, in spite of her annoyance, she would have been sorry to wound his feelings. The change of tone at first gave Claudius a thrill of pleasure, which gave way to an increased sense of mortification as he reflected that she was probably only showing that she was glad to be rid of him--a clumsy, manlike thought, which his reason would soon get the better of. So he departed.

There was silence for some minutes after he had gone, for Margaret and the Englishman were old friends, and there was no immediate necessity for making conversation. At last he spoke with a certain amount of embarra.s.sment.

"I ought to have told you before that I had asked those two men."

"Who is the other?" she inquired without looking up.

"Why, Barker, his friend."

"Oh, of course! But it would have been simpler to have told me. It made it rather awkward, for of course Dr. Claudius thought I knew he was asked and wondered why I did not speak of it. Don't you see?" she raised her eyes as she put the question.

"It was idiotic of me, and I am very sorry. Please forgive me."

"As he is not going, it does not make any difference, of course, and so I forgive you."

Considering that Barker had suggested the party, that it was Barker whom the Duke especially wanted to amuse him on the trip, that Barker had proposed Margaret and Claudius, and that, finally, the whole affair was a horrid mess, the Duke did not see what he could have done. But he knew it was good form to be penitent whenever it seemed to be expected, and he liked Margaret well enough to hope that she would go. He did not care very much for the society of women at any time. He was more or less married when he was at home, which was never for long together, and when he was away he preferred the untrammelled conversational delights of a foreign green-room to the twaddle of the emba.s.sies or to the mingled sn.o.bbery and philistinism produced by the modern fusion of the almighty dollar and the _ancienne n.o.blesse_.

And so he was in trouble just now, and his one idea was to submit to everything the Countess might say, and then to go and "give it" to Mr.

Barker for producing so much complication. But Margaret had nothing more to say about the party, and launched out into a discussion of the voyage. She introduced a cautious "if" in most of her sentences. "_If_ I go I would like to see Madeira," and "_if_ we join you, you must take care of Miss Skeat, and give her the best cabin," etc. etc. The Duke wisely abstained from pressing his cause, or asking why she qualified her plans. At last he got away, after promising to do every conceivable and inconceivable thing which she should now or at any future time evolve from the depths of her inventive feminine consciousness.

"By the way, Duke," she called after him, as he went over the, lawn, "may I take old Vladimir if I go?"

"If you go," he answered, moving back a step or two, "you may bring all the Imperial Guards if you choose, and I will provide transports for those that the yacht won't hold."

"Thanks; that is all," she said laughing, and the stalwart peer vanished through the house. The moment he was gone Margaret dropped her work and lay back in her long chair to think. The heavy lids half closed over her dark eyes, and the fingers of her right hand slowly turned round and round the ring she wore upon her left. Miss Skeat was upstairs reading Lord Byron's _Corsair_ in antic.i.p.ation of the voyage. Margaret did not know this, or the thought of the angular and well-bred Scotchwoman bounding over the glad waters of the dark blue sea would have made her smile. As it was, she looked serious.

"I am sorry," she thought to herself. "It was nice of him to say he would not go."

Meanwhile the strong-legged n.o.bleman footed it merrily towards Barker's hotel. It was a good two miles, and the Duke's ruddy face shone again under the August sun. But the race characteristic was strong in him, and he liked to make himself unnecessarily hot; moreover he was really fond of Barker, and now he was going to pitch into him, as he said to himself, so it was indispensable to keep the steam up. He found his friend as usual the picture of dried-up coolness, so to say. Mr. Barker never seemed to be warm, but he never seemed to feel cold either, and at this moment, as he sat in a half-lighted room, clad in a variety of delicate gray tints, with a collar that looked like fresh-baked biscuit ware, and a pile of New York papers and letters beside him, he was refreshing to the eye.

"Upon my word, Barker, you always look cool," said the Duke, as he sat himself down in an arm-chair, and pa.s.sed his handkerchief round his wrists. "I would like to know how you do it."

"To begin with, I do not rush madly about in the sun in the middle of the day. That may have something to do with it."

The Duke sneezed loudly, from the mingled dust and sunshine he had been inhaling.

"And then I don't come into a cold room and catch cold, like you. Here I sit in seclusion and fan myself with the pages of my newspapers as I turn them over."

"You have got us all into the deuce of a mess with your confounded coolness," said the Duke after a pause, during which he had in vain searched all his pockets for his cigar-case. Barker had watched him, and pushed an open box of Havanas across the table. But the Duke was determined to be sulky, and took no notice of the attention. The circular wrinkle slowly furrowed its way round Barker's mouth, and his under jaw pushed forward. It always amused him to see sanguine people angry. They looked so uncomfortable, and "gave themselves away" so recklessly.

"If you won't smoke, have some beer," he suggested. But his Grace fumed the redder.

"I don't understand how a man of your intelligence, Barker, can go and put people into such awkward positions," he said. "I think it is perfectly idiotic."

"Write me down an a.s.s, by all means," said Barker calmly; "but please explain what you mean. I told you not to buy in the Green Swash Mine, and now I suppose you have gone and done it, because I said it might possibly be active some day."

"I have been to see the Countess this morning," said the Duke, beating the dust from his thick walking-boot with his cane.

"Ah!" said Barker, without any show of interest. "Was she at home?"

"I should think so," said the Duke. "Very much at home, and Dr. Claudius was there too."

"Oh! so you are jealous of Claudius, are you?" The ducal wrath rose.

"Barker, you are insufferably ridiculous."

"Duke, you had much better go to bed," returned his friend.

"Look here, Barker--"

"Do not waste your vitality in that way," said the American. "I wish I had half of it. It quite pains me to see you. Now I will put the whole thing clearly before you as I suppose it happened, and you shall tell me if it is my fault or not, and whether, after all, it is such a very serious matter. Countess Margaret did not know that Claudius was going, and did not speak of the trip. Claudius thought she was angry, and when you arrived and let the cat out of the bag the Countess thought you were trying to amuse yourself by surprising her, and she was angry too. Then they both made common cause and would have nothing more to do with you, and told you to go to the devil, and at this moment they are planning to remain here for the next forty or fifty years, and are sending off a joint telegram to Professor Immanuel Spencer, or whatever his name is, to hurry up and get some more books ready for them to read. I am glad you have not bought Green Swash, though, really." There was a pause, and the Duke glared savagely at the cigar-box.

"Is your serene highness satisfied that I know all about it?" asked Barker at last.

"No, I am not. And I am not serene. She says she will go, and Claudius says he won't. And it is entirely your fault."

"It is not of any importance what he says, or whether it is my fault or not. If you had bestirred yourself to go and see her at eleven before Claudius arrived it would not have happened. But he will go all the same; never fear. And the Countess will persuade him too, without our doing anything in the matter."