The Twickenham Peerage Part 28

The young lady, turning to the older one, made a queer movement with her hands.

'I don't understand her in the very faintest atom; do you? Do you think she's--quite right in her mind?'

'Hush!' said the other.

She came to me. And I saw that she wasn't so very old after all. While for loveliness I had never seen anything like her. Compared to her I was like a doll. She was beautifully dressed, and she had a way about her I can't describe. And such a voice it did you good to hear her speak.

'Sit down, my dear,' she said. I sat down, and she sat down beside me.

'Now tell me all about it from the beginning. Where do you live?'

'At 32 Little Olive Street, Vauxhall Bridge Road.'

'And you say that your name is Merrett, and your husband is known as Mr. Montagu Babbacombe. What is he?'

'Anything and everything.'

'That's rather vague.'

'The last thing he did was a thirty days' sleep at the Royal Aquarium.'

'A thirty days' sleep. Now I think I begin to understand. I remember reading something about it in the papers. So that was your husband?'

'That was my James. And that was where Mr. Smith--or Mr. Howarth, as it seems that he is--first saw him.'

'Indeed! And when did he first see him? On what day?'

'Let me see. It was the Thursday before he went away--that was a fortnight last Thursday.'

'A fortnight last Thursday?'

The young lady burst out with something I didn't understand.

'How very odd! That was the day on which he first saw Twickenham.'

The other lady was silent for, I should think, quite a minute. And when she did speak her voice seemed changed.

'Yes; it is odd. At that time your husband was giving an exhibition as--what?'

'As a sleeping man.'

'As a sleeping man? What a strange thing to do! What kind of man is your husband? Is he old?'

'He's older than I am.'

'Older than you are? About forty?'

'About that, I should think.'

'Have you known him all your life?'

'I've been married six years, and I only knew him a week before we were married.'

'Only a week! What a courageous thing to do! Do you know his relatives?'

'I don't think he has any. I never heard him speak of them. The only thing I know about him is that he's a gentleman.'

'What do you understand by a gentleman?'

'I can't explain. But I know a gentleman when I see him, and I'm sure my James is one.'

She seemed to hesitate before she put her next question.

'When he went out that Sunday morning was he well?'

'He was never better.'

'Did he suffer from a weak heart?'

'He's never had an hour's illness during all the time I've known him.'

Somehow I don't think that was just the answer she expected. She kind of drew her breath, as if she was relieved. The young lady interrupted.

'I don't know, Edith, what it is you're driving at, nor do I as yet at all understand how, or why, Mrs. Merrett a.s.sociates Douglas with her husband.'

'Nor I. But here comes Douglas to answer for himself.'

As she said it the room door opened, and in came a gentleman. He was very tall, and his brown hair, which was curly, was just turning grey; as, likewise, was his big moustache, which turned up at the ends. His good looks were not what I had expected: and his sweet smile reminded me of the lady who had been asking me questions. Somehow he looked worried--downright ill, indeed; and he had a queer way of starting at nothing, and looking about him, as if he saw and heard something which you didn't, which would soon have got upon my nerves.

'Douglas,' said the young lady, 'here is some one who wishes to ask you a question.'

She spoke as if she was sure he'd find the question an amusing one.

But as soon as I set eyes upon him I knew better. Although he smiled at the two ladies as he came in, all the while he was glancing at me in a fidgety sort of way as if he resented my intruding.

'Indeed!' he said. 'And who may this lady be?'

'You had better ask her. She will be able to tell you better than I can. I am so stupid that I'm quite unable to understand.'

When he came in, the lady, who had been asking me questions, had moved a little to one side. I stood up and faced him. Although he was so big and tall, and quite the great gentleman, somehow I was not half so afraid as I had expected to be. I gave him look for look.

'You wish to see me?'

'Yes, sir.'

'In private?'

'That, sir, is for you to say.' The young lady put in a word.

'I don't think, Douglas, that any privacy is necessary. Mrs. Merrett merely wishes to ask you a plain and simple question.'