The Husbands of Edith Part 7

"d.a.m.n the Odell-Carneys," was what Freddie Ulstervelt said as the train drew out of the station. Brock looked up approvingly.

"That's the first sensible thing I've heard him say," he muttered loud enough to be heard by Miss Fowler. "I say, who are the Odell-Carneys?

First I've heard of 'em."

"The Odell-Carneys? Oh, dear, have you never heard of them?" she cried in surprise. He felt properly rebuked. "They are very swell Londoners.

It is said--"

"Then, good heavens, they'll know I'm not Medcroft," he whispered in alarm.

"Not at all, my dear Roxbury. That's just where you're wrong. They don't know Roxbury the first. I've gone over it all with Edith. She's just crazy to get into the Odell-Carney set. I regret to say that they have failed to notice the Medcrofts up to this time. Secretly, Edith has ambitions. She has gone to the Lord Mayor's dinners and to the Royal Antiquarians and to Sir John Rodney's and a lot of other functions on the outer rim, but she's never been able to break through the crust and taste the real sweets of London society. My dear Roxbury, the Odell-Carneys entertain the n.o.bility without compunction, and they've been known to hobn.o.b with royalty. Mrs. Odell-Carney was a Lady Somebody-or-other before she married the second time. She's terribly smart, Roxbury."

"How, in the name of heaven, do they happen to be hobn.o.bbing, as you call it, with the Rodneys, may I ask?"

"Well, it seems that Odell-Carney is promoting a new South African mining venture. I have it from Freddie Ulstervelt that he's trying to sell something like a million shares to Mr. Rodney, who has loads of money that came from real mines in the Far West. He'd never be such a fool as to sink a million in South Africa, you know, but he's just clever enough to see the advantage of keeping Odell-Carney in tow, as it were. It means a great deal to Mrs. Rodney, don't you know, Roxbury, to be able to say that she toured with the Odell-Carneys. Freddie says that Cousin Alfred is talking in a very diplomatic manner of going on to London in August to look fully into the master. It is understood that the Rodneys are to be the guests of the Odell-Carneys while in London.

It won't be the season, of course, so there won't be much of a commotion in the smart set. It is our dear Edith's desire to slip into the charmed circle through the rift that the Rodneys make. Do you comprehend?"

They were seated side by side in the corner of the compartment, his broad back screening her as much as possible from the persistent glances of Freddie Ulstervelt, who was n.o.bly striving to confine his attentions to Katherine. Brock's eyes were devouring her exquisite face with a greediness that might have caused her some uneasiness if there had not been something pleasantly agreeable in his way of doing it.

"Yes--faintly," he replied, after an almost imperceptible conflict between the senses of sight and hearing. "But how does she intend to explain me away? I'll be a dreadful skeleton in her closet if it comes to that. When she is obliged to produce the real Roxbury, what then?"

"She's thought it all out, Roxbury," said Constance severely but almost inaudibly. "I'm sure Freddie heard part of what you said. Do be careful.

She's going to reveal the whole plot to Mrs. Odell-Carney just as soon as Roxbury gives the word--treating it as a very clever and necessary ruse, don't you see. Mrs. Odell-Carney will be implored to aid in the deception for a few days, and she'll consent, because she's really quite a bit of a sport. At the psychological moment the Rodneys will be told.

That places Mrs. Odell-Carney in the position of being an abettor or accomplice: she's had the distinction of being a sharer in a most glorious piece of strategy. Don't you see how charmingly it will all work in the end?"

"What are you two whispering about?" demanded Freddie Ulstervelt noisily, patience coming to an end.

"Wha--what the devil is that to--" began Brock furiously. Constance brought him up sharp with a warning kick on the ankle. He vowed afterward that he would carry the mark to his grave.

"He's telling me what a nice chap you are, Freddie," said she sweetly.

Brock glared out of the window. Freddie sniffed scornfully.

"I'm getting sick of this job," growled Brock under his breath. "I didn't calculate on--"

"Now, Roxbury dear, don't be a bear," she pleaded so gently, her eyes so full of appeal, that he flushed with sudden shame and contrition.

"Forgive me," he said, the old light coming back into his eyes so strongly that she quivered for an instant before lowering her own. "I hate that confounded puppy," he explained lamely, guarding his voice with a new care. "If you felt as I do, you would too."

She laughed in the old way, but she was not soon to forget that moment when panic was so imminent.

"I--I don't see how anyone can help liking Freddie," she said, without actually knowing why. He stared hard at the Danube below. After a long silence he said,--

"It's all tommy-rot about it being blue, isn't it?"

She was also looking at the dark brown, swollen river that has been immortalised in song.

"It's never blue. It's always a yellow-ochre, it seems to me."

He waited a long time before venturing to express the thought that of late had been troubling him seriously.

"I wonder if you truly realise the difficulty Edith will have in satisfying an incredulous world with her absolutely truthful story.

She'll have to explain, you know. There's bound to be a sceptic or two, my dear Constance."

"But there's Roxbury," she protested, her face clouding nevertheless.

"_He_ will set everything right."

"The world will say he is a gullible fool," said he gently. "And the world always laughs at, not with, a fool. Alas, my dear sister, it's a very deep pool we're in." He leaned closer and allowed a quaint, half-bantering, wholly diffident smile to cross his face. "I--I'm afraid that you are the only being on earth who can make the story thoroughly plausible."

"I?" she demanded quickly. Their eyes met, and the wonder suddenly left hers. She blushed furiously. "Nonsense!" she said, and abruptly left him to take a seat beside Katherine Rodney. He found small comfort in the whisperings and t.i.tterings that came, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, to his burning ears from the corner of the compartment. He had a disquieting impression that they were discussing him; it was forced in upon him that being a brother-in-law is not an enviable occupation.

"Wot?" he asked, almost fiercely, after the insistent Freddie had thrice repeated a question.

"I say, will you have a cigaret?" half shouted Freddie, exasperated.

"Oh! No, thanks. The train makes such a beastly racket, don't you know."

"They told me at the Bristol you were deaf, but--Oh, I say, old man, I'm sorry. Which ear is it?"

"The one next to you," replied Brock, recovering from his confusion. "I hear perfectly well with the other one."

"Yes," drawled Freddie, with a wink, "so I've observed." After a reflective silence the young man ventured the interesting conclusion, "She's a stunning girl, all right." Brock looked polite askance. "By Jove, I'm glad she isn't _my_ sister-in-law."

"I suppose I'm expected to ask why," frigidly.

"Certainly. Because, if she was, I _couldn't_. Do you get the point?" He crossed his legs and looked insupportably sure of himself.

They reached Munich late in the afternoon and went at once to the Hotel Vier Jahretzeiten, where they were to find the Odell-Carneys.

Mr. Odell-Carney was a middle-aged Englishman of the extremely uninitiative type. He was tall and narrow and distant, far beyond what is commonly accepted as _blase_; indeed, he was especially slow of speech, even for an Englishman, quite as if it were an everlasting question with him whether it was worth while to speak at all. One had the feeling when listening to Mr. Odell-Carney that he was being favoured beyond words; it took him so long to say anything, that, if one were but moderately bright, he could finish the sentence mentally some little time in advance of the speaker, and thus be prepared to properly appreciate that which otherwise might have puzzled him considerably. It could not be said, however, that Mr. Odell-Carney was ponderous; he was merely the effectual result of delay. Perhaps it is safe to agree with those who knew him best; they maintained that Odell-Carney was a pose, nothing more.

His wife was quite the opposite in nearly every particular, except height and angularity. She was bony and red-faced and opinionated. A few sallow years with a rapid, profligate n.o.bleman had brought her, in widowhood, to a fine sense of appreciation of the slow-going though tiresomely unpractical men of the Odell-Carney type. It mattered little that he made poor investment of the money she had sequestered from his lordship; he had kept her in the foreground by a.s.sociating himself with every big venture that interested the financial smart set.

Notwithstanding the fact that he never was known to have any money, he was looked upon as a financier of the highest order. Which is saying a great deal in these unfeeling days of pounds and shillings.

Of course Mrs. Odell-Carney was dressed as all rangy, long-limbed Englishwomen are p.r.o.ne to dress,--after a model peculiarly not her own.

She looked ridiculously ungraceful alongside the smart, chic American women, and yet not one of them but would have given her boots to be able to array herself as one of these. There was no denying the fact that Mrs. Odell-Carney was a "regular tip-topper," as Mr. Rodney was only too eager to say. She had the air of a born leader; that is to say, she could be gracious when occasion demanded, without being patronising.

In due course of time the Medcrofts and Miss Fowler were presented to the distinguished couple. This function was necessarily delayed until Odell-Carney had time to go into the details of a particularly annoying episode of the afternoon. He was telling the story to his friend Rodney, and of course everything was at a standstill until he got through.

It seems that Mr. Odell-Carney felt the need of a nap at three o'clock.

He gave strict injunctions that there was to be no noise in the halls while he slept, and then went into his room and stretched out. Anyone who has stopped at the Hotel Four Seasons will have no difficulty in recalling the electric hall-bells which serve to attract the chambermaids to given spots. If one needs the chambermaid, he presses the b.u.t.ton in his room and a little bell in the hall tinkles furiously until she responds and shuts it off. In that way one is sure that she has heard and is coming, a most admirable bit of German ingenuity. If she happens to be taking her lunch at the time, the bell goes on ringing until she returns; it is a faithful bell. Coming back to Odell-Carney: the maid on his floor was making up a room in close proximity when a most annoying thing happened to her. A porter who had reason to dislike her came along and turned her key from the outside, locking her in the room. She couldn't get out, and she had been warned against making a sound that might disturb the English guest. With rare intelligence, she did not scream or make an outcry, but wisely proceeded to press the b.u.t.ton for a chambermaid. Then she evidently sat down to wait. To make the story short, she rang her own call-bell for two hours, no other maid condescending to notice the call, which speaks volumes for the almost martial system of the hotel. The bell was opposite the narrator's door.

Is it, therefore, surprising that he required a great deal of time to tell all that he felt? It was not so much of what he did that he spoke at such great length, but of what he felt.

"'Pon me soul," he exploded in the end, twisting his mustache with nervous energy, "it was the demdest nap I ever had. I didn't close my eyes, c'nfend me if I did."

While Odell-Carney was studiously adjusting his eyegla.s.s for a final glare at an unoffending 'bus boy who almost dropped his tray of plates in consequence, Mr. Rodney fussily intervened and introduced the Medcrofts. Mrs. Odell-Carney was delightfully gracious; she was sure that no nicer party could have been "got together." Her husband may have been excessively slow in most things, but he was quick to recognise and appreciate feminine beauty of face and figure. He unbent at once in the presence of the unmistakably handsome Fowler sisters; his expressive "chawmed" was in direct contrast to his ordinary manner of acknowledging an introduction.

"Mr. Medcroft is the famous architect, you know," explained the anxious Mrs. Rodney.

"Oh, yes, I know," drawled Mr. Odell-Carney. "You American architects are doing great things, 'pon my soul," he added luminously. Brock stuck his eyegla.s.s in tighter and hemmed with raucous precision. Mrs. Medcroft stiffened perceptibly.