Poor Relations Part 48

"I do not wish to be disturbed until I am called for the third act."

"Very good, Sir Percy."

"And G.o.dfrey!"

"Sir Percy?"

"The whisky and soda for Mr. Touchwood. Oh, and G.o.dfrey!"

"Sir Percy?"

"If the Duke of Shropshire comes behind, tell His Grace that I am unavoidably prevented from seeing him until after the third act. I will _not_ be interrupted."

"No, Sir Percy. I quite understand, Sir Percy."

The valet set the decanter at John's elbow and vanished like the ghost of a king.

"It's just this, my dear fellow," the actor-manager began, when John who had been trying to decide whether he should suggest Peter the Great or Augustus the Strong as the next part for his host was inclining towards Augustus. "It's just this. I believe that Miss Cartright, a former member of my company, is _also_ a relation of yours."

"She is my sister-in-law," admitted John, swallowing both Peter and Augustus in a disappointed gulp.

"In fact, I believe that in private life she is Mrs. George Touchwood.

Correct me if I am wrong in my names."

Sir Percy waited, but John did not avail himself of the offer, and he went on.

"Well, my dear fellow, she has approached me upon a matter which I confess I have found somewhat embarra.s.sing, referring as it does to another man's private affairs; but as one of the--as--how shall I describe myself?--" He fingered the ribbon of the Victorian Order for inspiration. "As an actor-manager of some standing, I felt that you would prefer me to hear what she had to say in order that I might thereby adjudicate--yes, I think that is the word--without any--no, forgive me--adjudicate is _not_ the word. Adjudicate is too strong. What is the word for outsiders of standing who are called in to a.s.sist at the settlement of a trade dispute? Whatever the word is, that is the word I want. I understand from Miss Cartright--Mrs. George Touchwood in private life--that her husband is in a very grave state of health and entirely without means." Sir Percy looked at himself in the gla.s.s and dabbed his face with the powder-puff. "Miss Cartright asked me to use my influence with you to take some steps to mitigate this unpleasant situation upon which, it appears, people are beginning to comment rather unfavorably.

Now, you and I, my dear fellow, are members of the same club. You and I have high positions in our respective professions. Is it wise? There may of course be a thousand reasons for leaving your brother to starve with an incurable disease. But is it wise? As a man of the world, I think not." He touched his cheeks with the hare's-foot and gave them a richer bloom. "Don't allow me to make any suggestion that even borders upon the impertinent, but if you care to accept my mediation--_that_ is the word I couldn't remember." In his enthusiasm Sir Percy smacked his leg, which caused him a momentary anxiety for the perfection of his trousers.

"Mediation! Of course, that's it--if you care, as I say, to accept my mediation I am willing to mediate."

John stared at the actor-manager in angry amazement. Then he let himself go:

"My brother is not starving--he eats more than any human being I know.

Nor is he suffering from anything incurable except laziness. I do not wish to discuss with you or anybody else the affairs of my relations, which I regret to say are in most cases only too much my own affairs."

"Then there is nothing for me to do," Sir Percy sighed, deriving what consolation he could from being unable to find a single detail of his dress that could be improved.

"Nothing whatever," John agreed, emphatically.

"But what shall I say to Miss Cartright, who you _must_ remember is a former member of my company, as well as your sister-in-law?"

"I leave that to you."

"It's very awkward," Sir Percy murmured. "I thought you would be sure to see that it is always better to settle these unpleasant matters--out of court, if I may use the expression. I'm so afraid that Miss Cartright will air her grievance."

"She can wash as much dirty linen as she likes and air it every day in your theater," said John, fiercely. "But my brother George shall _not_ go on a voyage round the world. You've nothing else to ask me? Nothing about my plans for the near future?"

"No, no. I've a success, as you know, and I don't expect I shall want another play for months. You've seen my performance, of course?"

"No," said John, curtly, "I've not."

And when he left the actor-manager's dressing-room he knew that he had wounded him more deeply by that simple negative than by all the mighty insults imaginable.

However, notwithstanding his successful revenge John left the theater in a rage and went off to his club with the hope of finding a sympathetic listener into whose ears he could pour the tale of Sir Percy's megalomania; but by ill luck there was n.o.body suitable in the smoking-room that night. To be sure, Sir Philip Cranbourne was snoring in an armchair, and Sir Philip Cranbourne was perhaps a bigger man in the profession than Sir Percy Mortimer. Yet, he was not so much bigger but that he would have welcomed a tale against the younger theatrical knight whose promotion to equal rank with himself he had resented very much. Sir Philip, however, was fast asleep, and John doubted if he hated Sir Percy sufficiently to welcome being woken up to hear a story against him--particularly a story by a playwright, one of that miserable cla.s.s for which Sir Philip as an actor had naturally a very profound contempt.

Moreover, thinking the matter over, John came to the conclusion that the story, while it would tell against Sir Percy would also tell against himself, and he decided to say nothing about it. When he was leaving the club he ran into Mr. Winnington-Carr, who greeted him airily.

"Evening, Touchwood!"

"Good evening."

"What's this I hear about Hugh going to Sierra Leone? Bit tough, isn't it, sending him over to a plague spot like that? You saw that paragraph in _The Penguin_? Things we should like to know, don't you know? Why John Touchwood's brother is taking up a post in the tropics and whether John himself is really sorry to see him go."

"No, I did not see that paragraph," said John, icily.

Next morning a bundle of press-cuttings arrived.

"There is nothing here but stupid gossip," said John to his secretary, flinging the packet into the fire. "Nothing that is worth preserving in the alb.u.m, I mean to say."

Miss Hamilton smiled to herself.

CHAPTER XIV

The buzz of gossip, the sting of scandalous paragraph, even the blundering impertinence of the actor-knight were all forgotten the following afternoon when a telegram arrived from Hampshire to say that old Mrs. Touchwood was dying. John left London immediately; but when he reached Ambles he found that his mother was already dead.

"She pa.s.sed away at five o'clock," Edith sobbed.

Perhaps it was to stop his wife's crying that Laurence abandoned at any rate temporarily his unbelief and proclaimed as solemnly as if he were still Vicar of Newton Candover that the old lady was waiting for them all above. Hilda seemed chiefly worried by the fact that she had never warned James of their mother's grave condition.

"I did telegraph Eleanor, who hasn't come; and how I came to overlook James and Beatrice I can't think. They'll be so hurt. But Mama didn't fret for anybody in particular. No, Hugh sat beside the bed and held her hand, which seemed to give her a little pleasure, and I was kept occupied with changing the hot-water bottles."

In the dining-room George was knitting lugubriously.

"You mustn't worry yourself, old chap," he said to John with his usual partiality for seductive advice. "You can't do anything now. None of us can do anything till the funeral, though I've written to Eleanor to bring my top-hat with her when she comes."

The embarra.s.sment of death's presence hung heavily over the household.

The various members sat down to supper with apologetic glances at one another, and n.o.body took a second helping of any dish. The children were only corrected in whispers for their manners, but they were given to understand by reproachful head-shakes that for a child to put his elbows on the table or crumble his bread or drink with his mouth full was at such a time a cruel exhibition of levity. John could not help contrasting the treatment of children at a death with their treatment at a birth. Had a baby arrived upstairs, they would have been hustled out of sight and sound of the unclean event; but over death they were expected to gloat, and their curiosity was encouraged as the fit expression of filial piety.

"Yes, Frida, darling, dear Grandmama will have lots and lots of lovely white flowers. Don't kick the table, sweetheart. Think of dear Grandmama looking down at you from Heaven, and don't kick the table-leg, my precious," said Edith in tremulous accents, gently smoothing back her daughter's indefinite hair.

"Can people only see from Heaven or can they hear?" asked Harold.

"Hush, my boy," his Uncle Laurence interposed. "These are mysteries into which G.o.d does not permit us to inquire too deeply. Let it suffice that our lightest actions are known. We cannot escape the omniscient eye."

"I wasn't speaking about G.o.d," Harold objected. "I was asking about Grandmama. Does she hear Frida kicking the table, or does she only see her?"