Poor Relations Part 51

An indignant telegram was sent to Hugh; but the prepaid answer came back from Hilda to say that he had gone off with a friend a fortnight ago without leaving any address. Mr. Ricketts, who had been telephoned for in the morning, arrived about noon in a taxi loaded with exotic luggage.

"I can't wait," he a.s.sured John. "The lad must come on by the next boat.

I shan't go up country for a week or so. Good-by, Mr. Touchwood; I'm sorry not to have your brother's company. I was going to put him wise to the job on the trip across."

"But look here, can't you...." John began, despairingly.

"Can't wait. I shall miss the boat. West India Docks," he shouted to the driver, "and stop at the last decent pub in the city on the way through."

The taxi buzzed off.

Two days later Hugh appeared at Church Row, mentioned casually that he was sorry he had missed the boat, but that he had been doing a little architectural job for a friend of his.

"Very good bridge," he commented, approvingly.

"Over what?" John demanded.

"Over very good whisky," said Hugh. "It was up in the North. Capital fun. I was designing a smoking-room for a man I know who's just come into money. I've had a ripping time. Good hands every evening and a very decent fee. In fact, I don't see why I shouldn't start an office of my own."

"And what about mahogany?"

"Look here, I never liked that idea of yours, Johnnie. Everybody agrees that British Honduras is a rotten climate, and if you want to help me, you can help me much more effectively by setting me up on my own as an architect."

"I do not want to help you. I've invested 2,000 in mahogany and logwood, and I insist on getting as much interest on my money as your absence from England will bring me in."

"Yes, that's all very well, old chap. But why do you want me to leave England?"

John embarked upon a justification of his att.i.tude, in the course of which he pointed out the dangers of idleness, reminded Hugh of the forgery, tried to inspire him with hopes of independence, hinted at moral obligations, and rhapsodized about colonial enterprise. As a mountain of forensic art the speech was wonderful: clothed on the lower slopes with a rich and varied vegetation of example and precept, it gradually ascended to the hard rocks of necessity, honor, and duty until it culminated in a peak of snow where John's singleness of motive glittered immaculately and inviolably to heaven. It was therefore discouraging for the orator when he paused and walked slowly up stage to give the culprit an opportunity to make a suitably penitent reply, after which the curtain was to come down upon a final outburst of magnanimous eloquence from himself, that Hugh should merely growl the contemptuous monosyllable "rot."

"Rot?" repeated John in amazement.

"Yes. Rot. I'm not going to reason with you...."

"Ah, indeed?" John interrupted, sarcastically.

"Because reason would be lost on you. I simply repeat 'Rot!' If I don't want to go to British Honduras, I won't go. Why, to hear you talk anybody would suppose that I hadn't had the same opportunities as yourself. If you chose to blur your intelligence by writing romantic tushery, you must remember that by doing so you yielded to temptation just as much as I did when I forged Stevie's name. Do you think I would write plays like yours? Never!" he proclaimed, proudly.

"It seems to me that the conversation is indeed going outside the limits of reason," said John, trying hard to restrain himself.

"My dear old chap, it has never been inside the limits. No, no, you collared me when I was down over that check. Well, here's what you paid to get me out of the mess." He threw a bundle of notes on the table. "So long, Johnnie, and don't be too resentful of my having demonstrated that when I _am_ left for a while on my own I can earn money as well as you.

I'm going to stay in town for a bit before I go North again, so I shall see you from time to time. By the way, you might send me the receipt to Carlington Road. I'm staying with Aubrey as usual."

When his brother had gone, John counted the notes in a stupor. It would be too much to say that he was annoyed at being paid back; but he was not sufficiently pleased to mention the fact to Miss Hamilton for two days.

"Oh, I am so glad," she exclaimed when at last he did bring himself to tell her.

"Yes, it's very encouraging," John agreed, doubtfully. "I'm still suffering slightly from the shock, which has been a very novel sensation. To be perfectly honest, I never realized before how much less satisfactory it is to be paid back than one thinks beforehand it is going to be."

In spite of the disturbing effect of Hugh's honesty, John soon settled down again to the play, and became so much wrapped up in its daily progress that one afternoon he was able without a tremor to deny admittance to Laurence, who having written to warn him that he was taking advantage of a further reduction in the price on day-tickets, had paid another visit to London. Laurence took with ill grace his brother-in-law's message that he was too busy on his own work to talk about anybody's else at present.

"I confess I was pained," he wrote from Ambles on John's own note-paper, "by the harsh reception of my friendly little visit. I confess that Edith and I had hoped you would welcome the accession of a relative to the ranks of contemporary playwrights. We feel that in the circ.u.mstances we cannot stay any longer in your house. Indeed, Edith is even as I pen these lines packing Frida's little trunk. She is being very brave, but her tear-stained face tells its own tale, and I confess that I myself am writing with a heavy heart. Eleanor has been most kind, and in addition to giving me several more introductions to her thespian friends has arranged with the proprietress of Halma House for a large double room with dressing-room attached on terms which I can only describe as absurdly moderate. Do not think we are angry. We are only pained, bitterly pained that our happy family life should suddenly collapse like this. However, excelsior, as the poet said, or as another poet even greater said, 'sic itur ad astra.' You will perhaps be able to spare a moment from the absorption of your own affairs to read with a fleeting interest that Sir Percy Mortimer has offered me the part of the butler in a comedy of modern manners which he hopes to stage--you see I am already up to the hilt in the jargon of the profession--next autumn.

Eleanor considers this to be an excellent opening, as indeed so do I.

Edith and little Frida laugh heartily when they are not too sad for such simple fun when I enter the room and a.s.sume the characteristic mannerisms of a butler. All agree I have a natural propensity for droll impersonation. Who knows? I may make a great hit, although Sir Percy warns me that the part is but a slight one. Eleanor, however, reminds me that deportment is always an a.s.set for an actor. Have I not read somewhere that the great Edmund Kean did not disdain to play the tail end of a dragon erstwhile? I wish you all good luck in your own work, my dear John. People are interested when they hear you are my brother-in-law, and I have told them many tales of the way you are wont to consult me over the little technical details of religion in which I as a former clergyman have been able to afford you my humble a.s.sistance."

"What a pompous a.s.s the man is," said John to his secretary. He had read her the letter, which made her laugh.

"I believe you're really quite annoyed that _he's_ showing an independent spirit now."

"Not at all. I'm delighted to be rid of him," John contradicted. "I suppose he'll share George's aquarium at Halma House."

"You don't mind my laughing? Because it is very funny, you know."

"Yes, it's funny in a way," John admitted. "But even if it weren't, I shouldn't mind your laughing. You have, if I may say so, a peculiarly musical laugh."

"Are you going to have Joan's scaffold right center or left center?" she asked, quickly.

"Eh? What? Oh, put it where you like. By the way, has your mother been girding at you lately?"

Miss Hamilton shrugged her shoulders.

"She isn't yet reconciled to my being a secretary, if that's what you mean."

"I'm sorry," John murmured. "Confound all relations!" he burst out. "I suppose she'd object to your going to France with me to finish off the play?"

"She would object violently. But you mustn't forget that I've a will of my own."

"Of course you have," said John, admiringly. "And you will go, eh?"

"I'll see--I won't promise. Look here, Mr. Touchwood, I don't want to seem--what shall I call it--timid, but if I did go to France with you, I suppose you realize my mother would make such a fuss about it that people would end by really talking? Forgive my putting such an unpleasant idea into your innocent head; being your confidential secretary, I feel I oughtn't to let you run any risks. I don't suppose you care a bit how much people talk, and I'm sure I don't; at the same time I shouldn't like you to turn round on me and say I ought to have warned you."

"Talk!" John exclaimed. "The idea is preposterous. Talk! Good gracious me, can't I take my secretary abroad without bring accused of ulterior motives?"

"Now, don't work yourself into a state of wrath, or you won't be able to think of this terribly important last scene. Anyway, we sha'n't be going to France yet, and we can discuss the project more fully when the time comes."

John thought vaguely how well Miss Hamilton knew how to keep him unruffled, and with a grateful look--or what was meant to be a grateful look, though she blushed unaccountably when he gave it--he concentrated upon the site of his heroine's scaffold.

During March the weather was so bright and exhilarating that John and his secretary took many walks together on Hampstead Heath; they also often went to town, and John derived much pleasure from discussing various business affairs with her clerical support; he found that it helped considerably when dealing with the manager of a film company to be able to say "Will you make a note of that, please, Miss Hamilton?"

The only place, in fact, to which John did not take her was his club, and that was only because he was not allowed to introduce ladies there.

"A rather mediaeval restriction," he observed one day to a group a.s.sembled in the smoking-room.

"There was a time, Touchwood, when you used to take refuge here from your leading ladies," a bachelor member chuckled.

"But nowadays Touchwood has followed Adam with the rest of us," put in another.

"What's that?" said John, sharply.

There was a general burst of merriment and headshaking and wagging of fingers, from which and a succession of almost ribald comment John began to wonder if his private life was beginning to be a subject for club gossip. He managed to prevent himself from saying that he thought such chaff in bad taste, because he did not wish to give point to it by taking it too much in earnest. Nevertheless, he was seriously annoyed and avoided the smoking-room for a week.