Ruggles of Red Gap Part 28

"Ruggles' International Relish" she had named it after a moment's thought. Below was a print of my face taken from an excellent photographic portrait, followed by a brief summary of the article's unsurpa.s.sed excellence, together with a list of the viands for which it was commended. As the International Relish is now a matter of history, the demand for it having spread as far east as Chicago and those places, I may add that it was this capable woman again who devised the large placard for h.o.a.rdings in which a middle-aged but glowing bon-vivant in evening dress rebukes the blackamoor who has served his dinner for not having at once placed Ruggles' International Relish upon the table. The genial annoyance of the diner and the apologetic concern of the black are excellently depicted by the artist, for the original drawing of which I paid a stiffish price to the leading artist fellow of Spokane. This now adorns the wall of my sitting-room.

It must not be supposed that I had been free during these months from annoyance and chagrin at the manner in which the Honourable George was conducting himself. In the beginning it was hoped both by Belknap-Jackson and myself that he might do no worse than merely consort with the rougher element of the town. I mean to say, we suspected that the apparent charm of the raffish cattle-persons might suffice to keep him from any notorious alliance with the dreaded Bohemian set. So long as he abstained from this he might still be received at our best homes, despite his regrettable fondness for low company. Even when he brought the murderer Spilmer to dine with him at my place, the thing was condoned as a freakish grotesquerie in one who, of una.s.sailable social position, might well afford to stoop momentarily.

I must say that the murderer--a heavy-jowled brute of husky voice, and quite lacking a forehead--conducted himself on this occasion with an entirely decent restraint of manner, quite in contrast to the Honourable George, who betrayed an expansively nave pride in his guest, seeming to wish the world to know of the event. Between them they consumed a fair bottle of the relish. Indeed, the Honourable George was inordinately fond of this, as a result of which he would often come out quite spotty again. Cousin Egbert was another who became so addicted to it that his fondness might well have been called a vice. Both he and the Honourable George would drench quite every course with the sauce, and Cousin Egbert, with that explicit directness which distinguished his character, would frankly sop his bread-crusts in it, or even sip it with a coffee-spoon.

As I have intimated, in spite of the Honourable George's affiliations with the slum-characters of what I may call Red Gap's East End, he had not yet publicly identified himself with the Klondike woman and her Bohemian set, in consequence of which--let him dine and wine a Spilmer as he would--there was yet hope that he would not alienate himself from the North Side set.

At intervals during the early months of his sojourn among us he accepted dinner invitations at the Grill from our social leaders; in fact, after the launching of the International Relish, I know of none that he declined, but it was evident to me that he moved but half-heartedly in this higher circle. On one occasion, too, he appeared in the trousers of a lounge-suit of tweeds instead of his dress trousers, and with tan boots. The trousers, to be sure, were of a sombre hue, but the brown boots were quite too dreadfully unmistakable. After this I may say that I looked for anything, and my worst fears were soon confirmed.

It began as the vaguest sort of gossip. The Honourable George, it was said, had been a guest at one of the Klondike woman's evening affairs.

The rumour crystallized. He had been asked to meet the Bohemian set at a Dutch supper and had gone. He had lingered until a late hour, dancing the American folkdances (for which he had shown a surprising adaptability) and conducting himself generally as the next Earl of Brinstead should not have done. He had repeated his visit, repairing to the woman's house both afternoon and evening. He had become a constant visitor. He had spoken regrettably of the dulness of a meeting of the Onwards and Upwards Society which he had attended. He was in the woman's toils.

With gossip of this sort there was naturally much indignation, and yet the leaders of the North Side set were so delicately placed that there was every reason for concealing it. They redoubled their attentions to the unfortunate man, seeking to leave him not an unoccupied evening or afternoon. Such was the gravity of the crisis. Belknap-Jackson alone remained finely judicial.

"The situation is of the gravest character," he confided to me, "but we must be wary. The day isn't lost so long as he doesn't appear publicly in the creature's train. For the present we have only unverified rumour. As a man about town Vane-Basingwell may feel free to consort with vicious companions and still maintain his proper standing. Deplore it as all right-thinking people must, under present social conditions he is undoubtedly free to lead what is called a double life. We can only wait."

Such was the state of the public mind, be it understood, up to the time of the notorious and scandalous defection of this obsessed creature, an occasion which I cannot recall without shuddering, and which inspired me to a course that was later to have the most inexplicable and far-reaching consequences.

Theatrical plays had been numerous with us during the season, with the natural result of many after-theatre suppers being given by those who attended, among them the North Side leaders, and frequently the Klondike woman with her following. On several of these occasions, moreover, the latter brought as supper guests certain representatives of the theatrical profession, both male and female, she apparently having a wide acquaintance with such persons. That this sort of thing increased her unpopularity with the North Side set will be understood when I add that now and then her guests would be of undoubted respectability in their private lives, as theatrical persons often are, and such as our smartest hostesses would have been only too glad to entertain.

To counteract this effect Belknap-Jackson now broached to me a plan of undoubted merit, which was nothing less than to hold an afternoon reception at his home in honour of the world's greatest pianoforte artist, who was presently to give a recital in Red Gap.

"I've not met the chap myself," he began, "but I knew his secretary and travelling companion quite well in a happier day in Boston. The recital here will be Sat.u.r.day evening, which means that they will remain here on Sunday until the evening train East. I shall suggest to my friend that his employer, to while away the tedium of the Sunday, might care to look in upon me in the afternoon and meet a few of our best people. Nothing boring, of course. I've no doubt he will arrange it. I've written him to Portland, where they now are."

"Rather a card that will be," I instantly cried. "Rather better cla.s.s than entertaining strolling players." Indeed the merit of the proposal rather overwhelmed me. It would be dignified and yet spectacular. It would show the Klondike woman that we chose to have contact only with artists of acknowledged preeminence and that such were quite willing to accept our courtesies. I had hopes, too, that the Honourable George might be aroused to advantages which he seemed bent upon casting to the American winds.

A week later Belknap-Jackson joyously informed me that the great artist had consented to accept his hospitality. There would be light refreshments, with which I was charged. I suggested tea in the Russian manner, which he applauded.

"And everything dainty in the way of food," he warned me. "Nothing common, nothing heavy. Some of those tiny lettuce sandwiches, a bit of caviare, macaroons--nothing gross--a decanter of dry sherry, perhaps, a few of the lightest wafers; things that cultivated persons may trifle with--things not repugnant to the artist soul."

I promised my profoundest consideration to these matters.

"And it occurs to me," he thoughtfully added, "that this may be a time for Vane-Basingwell to silence the slurs upon himself that are becoming so common. I shall beg him to meet our guest at his hotel and escort him to my place. A note to my friend, 'the bearer, the Honourable George Augustus Vane-Basingwell, brother of his lordship the Earl of Brinstead, will take great pleasure in escorting to my home----' You get the idea? Not bad!"

Again I applauded, resolving that for once the Honourable George would be suitably attired even if I had to bully him. And so was launched what promised to be Red Gap's most notable social event of the season.

The Honourable George, being consulted, promised after a rather sulky hesitation to act as the great artist's escort, though he persisted in referring to him as "that piano Johnny," and betrayed a suspicion that Belknap-Jackson was merely bent upon getting him to perform without price.

"But no," cried Belknap-Jackson, "I should never think of anything so indelicate as asking him to play. My own piano will be tightly closed and I dare say removed to another room."

At this the Honourable George professed to wonder why the chap was desired if he wasn't to perform. "All hair and bad English--silly brutes when they don't play," he declared. In the end, however, as I have said, he consented to act as he was wished to. Cousin Egbert, who was present at this interview, took somewhat the same view as the Honourable George, even a.s.serting that he should not attend the recital.

"He don't sing, he don't dance, he don't recite; just plays the piano.

That ain't any kind of a show for folks to set up a whole evening for," he protested bitterly, and he went on to mention various theatrical pieces which he had considered worthy, among them I recall being one ent.i.tled "The Two Johns," which he regretted not having witnessed for several years, and another called "Ben Hur," which was better than all the piano players alive, he declared. But with the Honourable George enlisted, both Belknap-Jackson and I considered the opinions of Cousin Egbert to be quite wholly negligible.

Sat.u.r.day's _Recorder_, in its advance notice of the recital, announced that the Belknap-Jacksons of Boston and Red Gap would entertain the artist on the following afternoon at their palatial home in the Pettengill addition, where a select few of the North Side set had been invited to meet him. Belknap-Jackson himself was as a man uplifted. He constantly revised and re-revised his invitation list; he sought me out each day to suggest subtle changes in the very artistic menu I had prepared for the affair. His last touch was to supplement the decanter of sherry with a bottle of vodka. About the caviare he worried quite fearfully until it proved upon arrival to be fresh and of prime quality. My man, the Hobbs boy, had under my instructions pressed and smarted the Honourable George's suit for afternoon wear.

The carriage was engaged. Sat.u.r.day night it was tremendously certain that no hitch could occur to mar the affair. We had left no detail to chance.

The recital itself was quite all that could have been expected, but underneath the enthusiastic applause there ran even a more intense fervour among those fortunate ones who were to meet the artist on the morrow.

Belknap-Jackson knew himself to be a hero. He was elaborately cool. He smiled tolerantly at intervals and undoubtedly applauded with the least hint of languid proprietorship in his manner. He was heard to speak of the artist by his first name. The Klondike woman and many of her Bohemian set were prominently among those present and sustained glances of pitying triumph from those members of the North Side set so soon to be distinguished above her.

The morrow dawned auspiciously, very cloudy with smartish drives of wind and rain. Confined to the dingy squalor of his hotel, how gladly would the artist, it was felt, seek the refined cheer of one of our best homes where he would be enlivened by an hour or so of contact with our most cultivated people. Belknap-Jackson telephoned me with increasing frequency as the hour drew near, nervously seeming to dread that I would have overlooked some detail of his refined refreshments, or that I would not have them at his house on time. He telephoned often to the Honourable George to be a.s.sured that the carriage with its escort would be prompt. He telephoned repeatedly to the driver chap, to impress upon him the importance of his mission.

His guests began to arrive even before I had decked his sideboard with what was, I have no hesitation in declaring, the most superbly dainty buffet collation that Red Gap had ever beheld. The atmosphere at once became tense with expectation.

At three o'clock the host announced from the telephone: "Vane-Basingwell has started from the Floud house." The guests thrilled and hushed the careless chatter of new arrivals.

Belknap-Jackson remained heroically at the telephone, having demanded to be put through to the hotel. He was flushed with excitement. A score of minutes later he announced with an effort to control his voice: "They have left the hotel--they are on the way."

The guests stiffened in their seats. Some of them nervously and for no apparent reason exchanged chairs with others. Some late arrivals bustled in and were immediately awed to the same electric silence of waiting. Belknap-Jackson placed the sherry decanter where the vodka bottle had been and the vodka bottle where the sherry decanter had been. "The effect is better," he remarked, and went to stand where he could view the driveway. The moments pa.s.sed.

At such crises, which I need not say have been plentiful in my life, I have always known that I possessed an immense reserve of coolness.

Seldom have I ever been so much as slightly fl.u.s.tered. Now I was calmness itself, and the knowledge brought me no little satisfaction as I noted the rather painful distraction of our host. The moments pa.s.sed--long, heavy, silent moments. Our host ascended trippingly to an upper floor whence he could see farther down the drive. The guests held themselves in smiling readiness. Our host descended and again took up his post at a lower window.

The moments pa.s.sed--stilled, leaden moments. The silence had become intolerable. Our host jiggled on his feet. Some of the quicker-minded guests made a pretence of little conversational flurries: "That second movement--oh, exquisitely rendered!... No one has ever read Chopin so divinely.... How his family must idolize him!... They say.... That exquisite concerto!... Hasn't he the most stunning hair.... Those staccato pa.s.sages left me actually limp--I'm starting Myrtle in Tuesday to take of Professor Gluckstein. She wants to take stenography, but I tell her.... Did you think the preludes were just the tiniest bit idealized.... I always say if one has one's music, and one's books, of course--He must be very, _very_ fond of music!"

Such were the hushed, tentative fragments I caught.

The moments pa.s.sed. Belknap-Jackson went to the telephone. "What? But they're not here! Very strange! They should have been here half an hour ago. Send some one--yes, at once." In the ensuing silence he repaired to the buffet and drank a gla.s.s of vodka. Quite distraught he was.

The moments pa.s.sed. Again several guests exchanged seats with other guests. It seemed to be a device for relieving the strain. Once more there were scattering efforts at normal talk. "Myrtle is a strange girl--a creature of moods, I call her. She wanted to act in the moving pictures until papa bought the car. And she knows every one of the new tango steps, but I tell her a few lessons in cooking wouldn't--Beryl Mae is just the same puzzling child; one thing one day, and another thing the next; a mere bundle of nerves, and so sensitive if you say the least little thing to her ... If we could only get Ling Wong back--this j.a.p boy is always threatening to leave if the men don't get up to breakfast on time, or if Gertie makes fudge in his kitchen of an afternoon ... Our boy sends all his wages to his uncle in China, but I simply can't get him to say, 'Dinner is served.' He just slides in and says, 'All right, you come!' It's very annoying, but I always tell the family, 'Remember what a time we had with the Swede----'"

I mean to say, things were becoming rapidly impossible. The moments pa.s.sed. Belknap-Jackson again telephoned: "You did send a man after them? Send some one after him, then. Yes, at once!" He poured himself another peg of the vodka. Silence fell again. The waiting was terrific.

We had endured an hour of it, and but little more was possible to any sensitive human organism. All at once, as if the very last possible moment of silence had pa.s.sed, the conversation broke loudly and generally: "And did you notice that slimpsy thing she wore last night? Indecent, if you ask me, with not a petticoat under it, I'll be bound!... Always wears shoes twice too small for her ... What men can see in her ... How they can endure that perpetual smirk!..." They were at last discussing the Klondike woman, and whatever had befallen our guest of honour I knew that those present would never regain their first awe of the occasion. It was now unrestrained gabble.

The second hour pa.s.sed quickly enough, the latter half of it being enlivened by the buffet collation which elicited many compliments upon my ingenuity and good taste. Quite almost every guest partook of a gla.s.s of the vodka. They chattered of everything but music, I dare say it being thought graceful to ignore the afternoon's disaster.

Belknap-Jackson had sunk into a mood of sullen desperation. He drained the vodka bottle. Perhaps the liquor brought him something of the chill Russian fatalism. He was dignified but sodden, with a depression that seemed to blow from the bleak Siberian steppes. His wife was already receiving the adieus of their guests. She was smouldering ominously, uncertain where the blame lay, but certain there was blame.

Criminal blame! I could read as much in her narrowed eyes as she tried for aplomb with her guests.

My own leave I took un.o.btrusively. I knew our strangely missing guest was to depart by the six-two train, and I strolled toward the station.

A block away I halted, waiting. It had been a time of waiting. The moments pa.s.sed. I heard the whistle of the approaching train. At the same moment I was startled by the approach of a team that I took to be running away.

I saw it was the carriage of the Pierce chap and that he was driving with the most abandoned recklessness. His pa.s.sengers were the Honourable George, Cousin Egbert, and our missing guest. The great artist as they pa.s.sed me seemed to feel a vast delight in his wild ride. He was cheering on the driver. He waved his arms and himself shouted to the maddened horses. The carriage drew up to the station with the train, and the three descended.

The artist hurriedly shook hands in the warmest manner with his companions, including the Pierce chap, who had driven them. He beckoned to his secretary, who was waiting with his bags. He mounted the steps of the coach, and as the train pulled out he waved frantically to the three. He kissed his hand to them, looking far out as the train gathered momentum. Again and again he kissed his hand to the hat-waving trio.

It was too much. The strain of the afternoon had told even upon my own iron nerves. I felt unequal at that moment to the simplest inquiry, and plainly the situation was not one to attack in haste. I mean to say, it was too pregnant with meaning. I withdrew rapidly from the scene, feeling the need for rest and silence.

As I walked I meditated profoundly.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

From the innocent lips of Cousin Egbert the following morning there fell a tale of such cold-blooded depravity that I found myself with difficulty giving it credit. At ten o'clock, while I still mused pensively over the events of the previous day, he entered the Grill in search of breakfast, as had lately become his habit. I greeted him with perceptible restraint, not knowing what guilt might be his, but his manner to me was so unconsciously genial that I at once acquitted him of any complicity in whatever base doings had been forward.