Mammon and Co Part 36

"Whom?"

"Him. I went home to see if there were any letters for either of us--oh, there were two for you; catch hold--and as I came out I found him on the doorstep."

"What had he come for?"

"I didn't ask him. But I know what he went for. Spread-eagle on the pavement. All in his beautiful clothes. And the hansom went over his hat; d.a.m.ned neat it was. Oh, Lily, that made me feel better, and I felt, too, it was a good omen. I wish you had been there. You would have roared."

"Toby, you are a barbarian! What good does that do?" she said with severity.

"What that sort of a man wants is pain," remarked Toby.

"Was he much hurt?" asked Lily with extreme composure.

"I don't know. I hope so. I hope he was very much hurt."

"Do you mean you left him lying there?"

"Yes. He may be there now."

Lily's severity broke down.

"Then please have him taken away before I get back," she said. "Ah, here's Jack!"

Jack could not speak, nor was there need, but he shook hands, first with Lily, then with his brother, and nodded to them. Then suddenly his mouth grew tremulous, and he sat down quickly by the table, and covered his face with his hands.

Lily looked at Toby, and in answer to her look he went out of the room.

As she pa.s.sed Jack, following her husband, she laid her hand for one moment on his bowed shoulder, and went out also, closing the door behind her softly.

CHAPTER VI

LILY'S DESIRE

Toby and his wife left London the day before Easter to spend a fortnight at the cottage in Buckinghamshire, which Jack had lent them. Kit was going on as well as possible, but she could not yet be moved; they hoped, however, that both of them would come down to Goring before the others left. Mrs. Murchison was also spending Easter there, before she went back to America, where she purposed at present to be with her husband for a fortnight at least.

She had arrived just before tea, the others having come down in the morning, and was a torrent of amazing conversation.

"And then on Tuesday," she was saying, "I dined with dear Ethel Tarling at the Criterion. We had a beautiful dinner, and most amusing; and all during dinner some glee-club sang in the gallery those delicious English what-do-you-call-thems, only I don't mean meringues."

"Madrigals?" suggested Lily, in the wild hope it might be so.

"Madrigals, yes! They sang madrigals in the gallery--'Celia's Arbour'

and 'Glorious Apollyon from on high beheld us.'"

Lily gave a little spurt of uncontrollable laughter.

"Always making fun of your poor old mother, you naughty child!" said Mrs. Murchison, with great good-humour. "Toby, you should teach her better. And then afterwards we went to the Palace Theatre to see the Biography. Most interesting it was, and the one from the front of a train made me feel quite sick and giddy--most pleasant. Oh! and I remember that it was that evening we heard about poor Lady Conybeare.

How sad! I called there this morning, and they said she was much better, which is something."

"Yes, we hope that Jack and Kit will both come down here in ten days or so," said Toby.

"And Lord Comber, too," went on Mrs. Murchison guilelessly. "It was that same day he had a fall, and bruised himself very badly. Misfortunes never come singly. Did you not hear? He fell on his head, and I should think it was lucky he did not get percussion of the brain."

Toby did not glance at his wife.

"Very lucky," he said.

"Was it not? Then I spent Wednesday at Oxford, which I was determined to see before I left England. Most beautiful and interesting it is. I lunched with the Master of Magdalen College, whom I met in London several times, and saw the statue they put up on the place where Sh.e.l.ley died."

"I thought he was drowned," said Lily.

"Very likely, dear," said Mrs. Murchison; "and now I come to think of it, the place is near the river, so I expect they put it up as near as they could. You couldn't wish to see them put a rec.u.mbent statue, a very rec.u.mbent statue indeed, so it is, in ten feet of water, dear," she observed, with great justice.

Mrs. Murchison sipped her tea in a very ecstasy of content. It was barely a year since she had first seen Toby, and marked him down as the ideal husband for Lily; and there they were all three of them, drinking tea, as she said to herself, in the stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand! Her siege of London had been rapid and brilliantly successful. The fortifications had fallen sudden and flat, like the walls of Jericho; and she made no more of dining at the Criterion with that marvellous Lady Tarling than of washing her hands or going to America.

"Yes, the Master of Magdalen College was most kind," continued Mrs.

Murchison, "and said he remembered Toby well. Dear me, what a lot I shall have to tell your father, Lily! And after lunch--really, a most excellent lunch, I a.s.sure you, with quails in asps--we went down to the Ibis."

"To the where?" asked Lily.

"To the river," said Mrs. Murchison, suspecting a difficulty, "and saw where the college boats rowed their races--torpedoes, I think the Master called them, and I remember wondering why. His own torpedo won the last races."

Here Toby choked violently over his tea, and left the room with a rapid uneven step.

"Perhaps it's not torpedoes, then," went on his mother-in-law, supposing that he would have corrected her if he had been able to speak; "but it's something very like. Dear me, what a terrible noise poor Toby makes! Had we better go and pat him on the back? Then yesterday I went to the 'Messiah' at the Albert Hall, which made me cry."

Mrs. Murchison looked welcomingly at Toby, who here reappeared again, rather red and feeble.

"Dear Toby," she said, "it's just lovely to think of you and Lily so settled and t.i.tled and happy; and when I'm on the ocean, I shall often go to my state-room, and count the days till I come back. I must be in America at least a fortnight, if not ten days; and I shall try and persuade Mr. Murchison to come across with me when I return. I'm very lucky about ships: I go out in the Lucania, and come back in the Campagna. And is there anyone else coming down here before I go on Wednesday, or shall we have a nice little no-place-like-home all by ourselves?"

"Oh, we are going to be simply domestic," said Lily, rising, "and we shan't have a soul beside ourselves. You know both Toby and I are naturally most domestic animals. We neither of us have any pa.s.sion for the world. We like being out of doors, and playing the fool, and having high-tea--don't we, Toby?"

"I have no pa.s.sion for high-tea," remarked Toby.

"Oh yes, you have. Don't be stupid! I don't mean literal high-tea, but figurative high-tea."

"The less literalness there is about high-tea, the better I like it,"

said Toby.

Lily pa.s.sed behind his chair and pulled his wiry hair gently.

"Lord Evelyn Ronald Anstruther D'Eyncourt Ma.s.singbird, M.P., is not such a fool as a person might suppose," she remarked. "At times he shows glimmerings of sense. His love for figurative high-teas as opposed to figurative high-dinners is an instance. Don't blush, Toby. You've little else to be proud of."

"I've got you to be proud of," remarked Toby, bending back his head to look at her.