In the Tideway Part 5

"You well may be. I have put it into my own room because the professor declared it was genuine--a real savage fate. No--that isn't true, so don't distress yourself. I took a fancy to it. I have a habit of taking fancies to _things_ and to _people_; so there it shall remain."

Rick's face lit up. "Let me make you a better one," he began.

"I said, Mr. Halmar, that I took a fancy to _it_; and now, don't you think you should make your confession like a good boy?"

He made it very prettily, but with a frank enjoyment of the mistake, which was infectious. So much so, that the chief sufferer, stimulated into unusual playfulness by Miss Willina's wit, actually went into the house for his discredited belief and brought it out for her to burn.

So, with much laughter, they stood round the fire, causing poor James almost to burst under his efforts after dignity, till suddenly, with something between a chuckle and a cough, the butler himself gave way into the remark that "I 'adn't made a Guy Forks--_kck-kh-kh_--since 'e was a boy,--_kh-kh-kh_,--but if 'er ladyship pleased, Jeames could run round to the gun-room for some powder and 'e'd 'ave some squibs ready in no time."

So Numbo Jumbo was burnt with all the honours, and the butler, going back for his own tea to the housekeeper's room, hummed, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November," until the cook, with a snort, asked wherever to goodness he had picked up such a vulgar ditty.

"Now I have no doubt all you learned people think me very foolish,"

said Miss Willina, drawing on her gloves with the air of one who has completed a good work; "but I really am immensely relieved in my mind.

I had a presentiment about that devil of Rick's; besides, these old superst.i.tions invariably have their origin in some fundamental fact or law of Nature. Don't you think so, professor?"

"Undoubtedly, my dear madam; the Folklore Society--"

But Miss Willina had a profound contempt for all societies and proclaimed it cheerfully. "Therefore, the only remaining thing to be done," she continued, shaking her head at Rick, "is to make rest.i.tution for that naughty boy's mischief. So, if you will walk over to Eval some day, Mr. Endorwick, I will give you that bone ring with the Runic inscription about which I was telling you."

"My dear lady," cried the professor with greed in his eyes, "I really could not dream--"

"I don't want to give it to _you_, of course," she went on frankly; "but my brother says it should be in a museum; so you can put 'Given by Miss Macdonald through Professor Endorwick' on the ticket. And, by the bye, it was found on Grada and Malcolm, Aig says."

Meanwhile Lady Maud had turned to Rick with a quizzical smile. "Do you accept the responsibility of my fate, Mr. Halmar? or shall I have a private _auto-da-fe_ in my room?"

The boy's face positively shone with pleasure as he took her hand to say goodbye.

"I couldn't do anything that would bring you harm, I think--you are too--too beautiful." The absolute simplicity of the statement rendered it inoffensive, and Lady Maud laughed.

"Take your nephew away, Miss Macdonald; he is paying me compliments."

"I don't wonder at it," retorted the little lady, nodding her head, "and compliments are pleasant things; at least, I used to find them so."

"Why employ the past tense, dear lady?" said the professor with a bow, as he shook hands, whereat Miss Willina declared that the only safety lay in flight; and Lady Maud, as she went back to the house, told herself once more that to-day was very different from yesterday. This background of _persiflage_, with just a serious touch here and there to help out the chiaro-oscuro, suited figures in modern dress.

Tailor-made figures guiltless of a wrinkle and oblivious of vitality's claim for an uncrushed organ or two.

"If her ladyship please," said Josephine, when the dressing bell brought her to her mistress' room, "Mr. 'Ooper, he desire a few word of milady."

"Hooper! didn't they say he had gone with Mr. Wilson?"

"Monsieur 'ave just return; Mr. Gordon also wid Capitaine Veek and--_Mon Dieu! quel gibier!_ Sall I bid him come?"

Lady Maud, at the writing-table, rested her head on her hand, feeling a sudden need of courage. They had all come back, and some things must be faced before life could run smoothly once more. Eustace must be made to understand that there was to be no drifting, and her husband must consent to let her hand be on the tiller ropes.

"Well, Hooper?"

Rather a diffident-looking man; nervous too in his manner. "I am sorry to have to trouble your ladyship, but I think Dr. Haddon would wish it, under the circ.u.mstances. It is about master, your ladyship."

Her heart gave a great throb. "Your master, Hooper? Well?"

The diffident man, holding on to the doork.n.o.b as for support, cleared his throat. "It is a little difficult, my lady, and Mr. Gordon, when he spoke to me, was for saying nothing; but I have been considering the matter and I think Dr. Haddon--"

"Who is Dr. Haddon?"

"I was not quite sure if your ladyship knew--anything. But master was under Dr. Haddon for a time. It--it is for the liquor habit, my lady, and Dr. Haddon is most successful. He was most successful with master.

Four years I have been with him since we came back from America, and never till last night--" he coughed slightly and paused. Lady Maud sate staring at him without a word.

"I am very sorry, my lady. The other servants will tell you how distressed I was to be absent from my duty. It arose from my not understanding the porter's accent, my lady; but it will not occur again. I mean, my lady, that--ahem--nothing of the sort will occur again. So there is no need for--for distress or anxiety."

"You mean that as long as--as you are with Mr. Wilson--" so far she managed in a cold hard voice; then came silence.

"Just so, my lady--it is a question of influence. I undertake the entire responsibility. There is really no cause for alarm."

"That--that will do, Hooper; you can go." Her one thought was to get rid of this man, this servant, who seemed to have reached out his common hand and touched her very soul. He paused, still with his hand on the door.

"I beg pardon, my lady, but there is one thing. Dr. Haddon's system is based on influence. It does not allow any appeal to--ahem--to the moral sense. Therefore, if your ladyship could kindly treat the mistake of yesterday with silence, it would be better--for the system.

Dr. Haddon ignores failure on principle, it--it is part of the system; and any interference may be dangerous. Therefore, if your ladyship--"

"I quite understand. You can go."

When she was left alone, she sate staring on at the door he had closed behind him. Behind whom? why the man who--oh! it was an impossible, an incredible, position! She had married her husband without caring for him, but she had married him also because she intended that he _should_ care for her. And now! What was he but a puppet, dependent on this man? She had not married Edward Wilson, but Wilson-c.u.m-Haddon, -c.u.m-Hooper. And Eustace knew it! Her husband, the possible father of her children! She had known all along that he was a weak man, but that the very possibility of his living decently lay in the will of another was hopeless, horrible degradation. She had often in society talked lightly of the part hypnotism was to play in the future regeneration of the world; but now that even a suspicion of it touched her inner life, it left her in wild revolt. When all was said and done, that man to whom they paid so many pounds a year was master of her fate. It should never be! Better, far better, that her husband should be drunk; and yet what right had she to interfere?

"It will be too late to make milady _charmante_," suggested Josephine, coming in, reproachfully.

She stood up hastily with clenched hands. Eustace should not see her degradation--she would show him--

"There is plenty of time," she said coldly. "Put on my diamonds, Josephine--that dress is dull. They can wait if I am not ready."

She was worth waiting for, and Mr. Wilson's weak face brightened as she went up to him with easy grace. "Did you have a good day, Edward?

I saw Hooper for a moment, but I forgot to ask him about the sport."

She failed in her object for all her bravado. The eyes she sought to blind saw too clearly.

"So Louisa comes to-morrow," she said lightly, as, after keeping all the men, her husband included, at her feet during the evening, she rose to say good-night and let her hand linger purposely in her cousin's, so that he should see she did not care, that she was not afraid.

"No!" he replied coldly; "I've had another wire. She came as far as Portree, and, hearing that the gathering is next week, decided to stay and show off her new dresses. She got about a ton of them in Paris if you remember, and women, even the best of them, love to show off."

His tone roused her to reckless resentment by its a.s.sumption of knowledge and condemnation.

"He does not look very sorry for his wife's decision, does he, professor?" she asked with a laugh.

"My dear lady, how could he be sorry for anything, in his present position?"

"Or I in mine?" she retorted, giving a little mock curtsey over the hand she still held.

Eustace Gordon bit his lip, but said nothing.