The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols Part 12

'Will you come and lunch with me?' said Mr. Tom (he had recovered himself after the inadvertent blush). 'We can walk along to the club.'

'Yes, I will; said Frank King, heartily. 'Which is your club?'

'The Waterloo. They call it that because it isn't in Waterloo Place.

It's in Regent Street.'

'All right,' said the other; but instantly he began to pursue his inquiries. 'Yes, I heard of you and your family from the Strathernes.

There have been great changes since I left England. Your eldest sister is married, is she not?'

'You mean Moll: yes. They live in town--a small house back there in Mayfair. He used to be a richer man,' observed Mr. Tom, contemplatively, 'before he took silk.'

'But they are going to make him a judge, I hear.'

'Faith, then, I hope he'll never have to try me,' said Mr. Tom, with an air of conviction. 'He and I never could hit it off. I hate pompous people, and people who give themselves airs. Now, I took a liking to you the first five minutes I saw you.'

Captain King was dutifully grateful for this condescension. He said he also hated pompous people--he couldn't bear them. And then he asked about Tom's sister Edith.

'She's engaged to be married, isn't she?'

'It's my belief,' said Mr. Tom, with a smile, 'that she has engaged herself to both of them, just to make sure; and that she can't make up her mind which to send off. I don't wonder at her pulling a wry mouth about having to marry a soda-water manufacturer; but Soda-water isn't half a bad sort of fellow, and he is fearfully rich. You see he is particularly beaming just now, for there have been two or three blazing hot summers running, and the demand must have been tremendous. Then young Thynne, he's no end of a swell, no doubt; but you may be cousin to all kinds of earls and dukes without their giving you anything. I should fancy his father lets him have two or three hundred a year. I should like to see the Sentimental get along with that! You can't live on a fellow's ancestry. I think she should take Soda-water, even if he hasn't got anything like a father to speak of. And even if he hasn't got a father--this was what Nan said--he might be equally "_sans pere et sans reproche_."'

'It was your sister Anne said that, was it?' remarked Frank King, quickly.

'That was in her saucy days,' said Mr. Tom, sadly. 'It's quite different now. Now she's on the pious lay.'

'The what?' said Frank King. It was clear that, however Mr. Tom had altered, he had not chosen to improve his manner of speech.

'Oh, High Church and reredoses,' said the irreverent youth. 'Silver embroideries, don't you know, and visiting the poor, and catching all sorts of confounded infection. And then I suppose she'll end by marrying that curate that's always about the house. What a shame it is! She used to be such a brick. And to go and marry a curate.'

'I heard of that, too,' said Captain Frank, with a bit of a sigh. It was indeed among the first things he had heard after returning to England.

By this time they had reached Mr. Tom's club, which was pleasantly situated at a corner of the great thoroughfare, so that it had from its coffee-room windows a s.p.a.cious view, and was altogether a light and cheerful sort of place.

'But you don't ask about the Baby,' said Mr. Tom, as he was entering his friend's name in the strangers' book--the Waterloo being a hospitable little club that allowed visitors to come in at any hour.

'And the Baby _is_ in a hole.'

'Well, it must be a sad thing for a baby to be in a hole; but I don't quite understand,' said Captain King.

'Don't you remember the Baby? The youngest--Madge?'

'Oh. Well, I only saw her once, I think. What is the matter with her?'

'First pick out what you want for lunch, and then I'll tell you.'

This was easily done; and the two friends sat down at a small window-table, which enabled them to glance out at the pa.s.sing crowd, and even as far as the Duke of York's column and the tops of the trees in St. James's Park.

'You see my sisters have all been wards in Chancery. I was also,' said Mr. Tom, with a slight blush; for he was no more than six months escaped from tutelage. 'I suppose the executors funked something about my father's will; at all events, they flung the whole thing in. Well, no great harm has come of it; not so much cost or worry as you would expect. Only the girls have had bad times of it about their sweethearts. I mean the Baby----'

'The Baby! How old is she?'

'Eighteen; and uncommonly good-looking, I think. Have some sherry.

Well, the Baby made the acquaintance at somebody's house of a young fellow--son of a barrister--not a farthing but what he picks up at pool. I don't think she meant anything--I don't a bit. There's a lot of that kind of nonsense goes on down there: Nan is the only one who has kept clear out of it. Well, the guardians didn't see it; and they went to the Court, and they got the Vice-Chancellor to issue an order forbidding young Hanbury from having any sort of communication with Madge. Now, you know, if you play any games with an order of that sort hanging over you, it's the very devil. It is. Won't you have some pickles?'

'And how is Miss Madge affected by the order?' asked Captain King.

'Oh,' said this garrulous youth, who had entirely forgotten his cultivated, reticent manner in meeting this old friend, 'she pretends to be greatly hurt, and thinks it cruel and heart-breaking and all the rest of it; but that's only her fun, don't you know? She's precious glad to get out of it, that's my belief; and n.o.body knew better than herself he wouldn't do at all. Finished? Come and have a game of billiards then.'

They went upstairs to a long, low-roofed apartment, in which were two tables. They lit cigars, chose their cues, and fell to work. Frank King had not played half-a-dozen strokes when Mr. Tom said, generously--

'I will put you on thirty points.'

They played five minutes longer.

'Look here, I will give you another thirty.'

'Sixty in a hundred?' said King, laughing. 'Well, that is rather a confession of bad play.'

'Oh, as for that,' said Mr. Tom, 'I don't see that a naval officer should be ashamed of playing badly at billiards. He should be proud of it. I shan't glory in it if I beat you.'

Mr. Tom was really very friendly. After a couple of games or so he said--

'Look here, it's nearly four o'clock. I am going down to Brighton by the 4.30. Will you come down and see my mother and the girls? I am afraid we can't put you up; but you can get a bedroom at the Norfolk or Prince's; and we dine at eight.'

Frank King hesitated for a minute or two. Ever since he had come to England he had had a strange wish to see Nan Beresford, even though he had heard she was going to be married. He wished to see whether she had turned out to be what he had predicted to himself; whether she retained those peculiar distinctions of character and expression and manner that had so attracted him; somehow he thought he would like just to shake hands with her for a moment, and see once before him those clear, blue-gray, shy, humorous eyes. But this proposal was too sudden. His heart jumped with a quick dismay. He was not prepared.

Nevertheless, Tom Beresford insisted. Was Captain King staying at a hotel? No; he had got a bedroom in Cleveland Row. That was the very thing; they could stop the hansom there on their way to Victoria Station. The girls would be glad to see him. They had always been watching his whereabouts abroad, in the Admiralty appointments in the newspapers.

At last, with some little unexpressed dread, Frank King consented; and together they made their way to Victoria Station.

'You know,' said Mr. Tom, apologetically, in the Pullman, 'I've been talking a lot about my sisters; but I tell you honestly I don't see any girls to beat them anywhere. I don't. The Sentimental is rather stupid, perhaps; but then she scores by her music. Nan's the one for my money, though. She isn't the prettiest; but set her down at any dinner table, and you can lay odds on her against the field. I believe there are a dozen old gentlemen who have got her name in their will--not that she cares for worldly things any more--it is all sanct.i.ty now. I wish to goodness somebody would----'

But Mr. Tom had a little discretion. He said no more.

'I suppose they are all very much changed in appearance,' Frank King said, thoughtfully. 'I shouldn't be surprised if I scarcely recognised them.'

'Oh, yes, they are. And I will confess that Nan has improved in one way. She isn't as cheeky as she used to be; she's awfully good-natured--she'd do anything for you. When I get into trouble, I know Nan will be my sheet-anchor.'

'Then I hope the cable will hold,' said Frank King.

They reached Brighton. Tom Beresford found his companion strangely silent and preoccupied. The fact was that Captain Frank was very unusually agitated. He hoped she might not be alone. Then he strove to convince himself that she must be quite altered now. She must be quite different from the young girl who walked up the Splugen Pa.s.s with him. Then she was scarcely over seventeen; now she was over twenty.

He would see some one he might fail to recognise; not the Nan of former days; not the Nan that had long ago enchained him with her frank odd ways, and her true eyes.

They drove first to a hotel, and secured a bed; then they went to Brunswick Terrace. When they went upstairs to the drawing-room, they found it empty.

'They can't be all out,' said Mr. Tom; 'I'll go and find them.'

He left; and Captain Frank began to try to quiet down this uncalled-for perturbation. Why should he fear to see her? The past was over.

Never was any decision given more irrevocably; even if there had been any question as to an open future, that had been disposed of by the news that had met him on his return to England. It ought only to be a pleasure to him to see her. He thought she would welcome him in a kind way; and he would show her that he quite accepted circ.u.mstances as they were. Only--and this he kept repeating to himself--he must expect to be disillusionised. Nan would no longer be that former Nan. Some of the freshness and the young wonder would be gone; she would be eligible as a friend; that, on the whole, was better.