I START ON THE QUEST
And now to set about sorting out some of these "clothes," after which my young mistress inquires so peremptorily! It won't take me long, thanks to the apple-pie order in which I keep them all. (So much easier to be "tidy" with new and gorgeous garments than it is with a chest of drawers full of makeshifts!)
I shall take her dressing-bag with the crystal-and-ivory fittings. That ought to impress even the Fourcastles' ménage, assuming that Lord Fourcastles has carried her off to his people's. I wonder whose dressing things and whose dress Miss Million made use of to-day? For, seriously, of course, she can't have gone "prancing about" in "me cerise evenin'-one." She must have worn borrowed plumes for the day—plumes probably miles too long for the sturdy little barn-door chicken that Million is! I wonder, I wonder from whom those plumes were borrowed? Please Heaven I shall know by this time to-morrow night!...
Here's her week-end case packed up. The choice of two costumes; the blue cloth and the tobacco-brown taffeta; blouses; a complete set of luxurious undies. Even the slip petticoat was an "under-dress" according to the shops Miss Million patronised! Shoes; a hat; a motor-veil and wrap. Yes, that's all.
That ought to do her—when we get the things to her!
But now to bed and to sleep the sleep of exhaustion after quite the most crowded day of my whole life.
To-morrow for Lewes—and more adventure!
We were shadowed on our Lewes journey, though scarcely in the way that I had anticipated. However, to begin at the beginning.
At nine o'clock this morning, in spite of all difficulties, I did find myself free of the "Cecil" and away in a two-seater with my mistress's luggage, sitting beside my mistress's cousin and whirling through the dull and domesticated streets of South London.
It was a gorgeous June day, just the very day for a quick flight out into the country. In spite of my anxiety about my mistress my spirits rose and rose. I could have sung aloud for joy as we left grimy London behind us and found ourselves whirling nearer the green heart of the country.
"This is better than your first idea of the railroad trip, Miss Smith?" said the young American at my side.
"Oh, far more enjoyable," I agreed so eagerly that he laughed.
"There is another thing about that," he said. "I suppose you haven't thought of what they would do if they saw you going off by train anywhere?"
"What?" I asked, looking up at him with startled eyes.
"Why, they would wire to every station along the line to take notice where you got off before Lewes, and to follow up all your movements, you real, artful, detective-dodging little diamond thief you," declared my companion teasingly.
And I saw him simply shaking with laughter over the steering-wheel as he went on.
"The brilliant idea of Rats, and the manager, that you and my little cousin Nellie should have gotten hold of his old ruby!"
"You knew at once," I said, "that we hadn't!"
And he laughed easily and said: "It didn't take much guessing when he had seen me and knew that Nellie Million was a relative of his and a niece of the old man's."
"Jewel thieves, not much!" he said in his quick, reassuring accent.
I said: "Well! I hope you put in a good word for us with that odious little Jew man that lost the ruby."
"Not on your life! I just love to watch somebody who thinks they are too quick and clever to live go over-reaching themselves some," said the American good-humouredly.
How funny it felt to be sitting there beside him, while the hedges whirled past—I, who had never set eyes on the young man before yesterday, now joining him in this wild quest of a cousin whom he had never yet seen!
"Oh, dear! I wonder if we shall find her!" I murmured.
"Why, I am determined not to close an eye to-night until we do, Miss Smith," said the missing heiress's cousin, gravely looking ahead at the sliding ribbon of white road. "It's a matter of some little importance to me that we find her soon. It is also no less important what I think of her when we do meet!"
I was a little surprised to hear him speak so impressively. Naturally, when one is going to meet a relative for the first time one wonders what sort of a mutual impression will be made. But why had this young man said so seriously that this was "important"?
He seemed to read my thoughts, for, as we cleared a village and came out into a long stretch of wide and empty road, he turned to me and said: "You know, it is as a matter of business that I am coming to see this cousin of mine and this mistress of yours. I have got to have a little serious heart-to-heart talk with her on the subject of the old man's money."
"Why?" I asked, startled. "Isn't it safe in that factory place where Mr. Chesterton said it had better be kept?"
"Oh, it is safe enough there," he said. "The question is, is all that money going to be allowed to remain in the hands of one little dark-haired girl without let or hindrance, as the lawyers say?"
"Allowed?" I echoed. "But who is to disallow it?"
There was a moment's silence.
Then the young American said meditatively: "I might! That is, I might have a try. True, it mightn't come off. I don't say that it is bound to come off. But, between you and me, the old gentleman was remarkably queer in his head when he made that second will, leaving the whole pile to his niece, Miss Nellie Million. The will he made a couple of years before, leaving everything to his nephew, Hiram P. Jessop, might be proved to be the valid one yet, if I liked to go setting things to work."
At the sound of this a dark cloud seemed to blot out some of the June sunshine that was steeping the white roads and the hawthorn hedges and the emerald-green fields of corn "shot" with scarlet poppies.
Poor little unsuspecting Million! Wherever she was, she had not an idea of this—that the fortune which she had only just begun to enjoy might be yet snapped out of her hands, leaving no trace of it behind but the costly new trousseau of clothes, a gorgeous array of trunks, and an unpaid hotel bill!
How terrible! It would be worse than if she had never had any money at all! For it is odd how quickly we women acclimatise ourselves to personal luxuries, even though we have not been brought up to them. For instance, already since I had had my own new things I felt that I could never bear to go back to lisle thread or cashmere stockings again. Only silk were possible for Miss Million's maid! Another awful thought. Supposing Miss Million ceased to be an heiress? She would then cease to require the services of a lady's-maid. And then I should be indeed upon the rocks!
Again that weird young American seemed to read my thoughts. Dryly he said: "You see yourself out of a job already, Miss Smith?"
"No, indeed, I don't," I said with spirit. "You have not got the money yet, my mistress is still in possession of it."
"And possession is nine-tenths of the law, you mean," he took up; "still I might choose to fight on the tenth point, mightn't I?"
He put back his head and laughed.
"Perhaps I shan't have to fight. This entirely depends upon how Nellie and I are going to fix it up when we do meet," he said cheerily.
"We have got to find her first," I said, with a feeling of apprehension coming over me again. And this young American who may have control of our future (mine and Miss Million's) said cheerfully: "We are going to find her or know why, I guess. Don't you get worrying."
Such an easy thing to say: "Don't worry"!
As if I hadn't had enough to worry me already! Now this fresh apprehension! I felt my face getting longer and longer and more despondent inside the frame of the thin black motor-scarf with which I had wreathed my hat. The young American glanced at it and smiled encouragingly.
"I guess you are starving with hunger," he said; "I'll wager you hadn't the horse sense to eat a decent breakfast before you started away from the 'Cess'? Tea and toast, what? I knew it. Now, see here, we are going to climb right down and have a nice early lunch at the first hostelry that we come to, with honeysuckle and English roses climbing over the porch."
It was hardly a mile further on that we came to a wayside inn such as he had described. There it was, a white-washed, low-roofed house, with roses and creepers, with a little bit of green in front of it, and a swinging painted sign, and a pond not far off, with a big white duck and a procession of little yellow ducklings waddling towards it across the road.
It looked quite like a page out of a Caldecott picture-book. The only twentieth-century detail in it was the other two-seater car that was drawn up just in front of the porch. This was a car very much more gorgeous than the hireling in which we were setting forth on our quest. She—this other car—appeared to be glitteringly new. The hedge-sparrow blue enamel and the brass work were a dazzlement to the eyes in the brilliant June sunshine. In front there was affixed the mascot, a beautiful copy of "The Winged Victory," modelled in silver.
I wondered for a moment who the lucky owner of such a gem of cars might be.
And then, even as I descended from the hireling, and entered the inner porch with my companion, I thought of the last time that I had heard a small car mentioned.
That was Lord Fourcastles's!
The gnarled-looking old woman who kept this decorative-looking inn shook her head doubtfully over the idea of being able to let us have lunch as early as all that.
"Mid-day dinner," she informed us rather reproachfully, "was at mid-day!"
However, if bread and cheese and cider would do us those we could have. She had taken a tray with those on already to the gentleman who had driven up in a small car, if we wouldn't mind having it in the little coffee-room with him.
Thankfully enough I preceded Mr. Jessop into the coffee-room. It was long, and low-ceilinged, and dark from the screen of tangled ivy and honeysuckle and jasmine that grew up about the low window. Inside was a framed picture of Queen Victoria as a blonde girl in a dressing-gown receiving the news of her accession to the English throne. Another picture showed her in Jubilee robes. There were also cases of stuffed birds and squirrels, padded chairs with woollen antimacassars. At the further table there loomed against the light the broad back of a man eating bread and cheese and reading a newspaper. From the look of him, he was the owner of that sumptuous car.
My American friend exclaimed in delight.
"Well, now, if any one had told me there still existed anything so real old-fashioned and quaint right close up to the most sophisticated old town in Europe I would never have believed them!" he ejaculated. "It takes Old England to supply anything in the nature of a setting for romance. Doesn't this look the exact parlour where the runaway couple would be fixing things up with the relenting pa on the way back from Gretna Green, Miss Smith?"
I laughed as I said: "It is rather a long way from here to Gret——"
Here there was a sudden noise of a man springing quickly to his feet.
The guest, who had been sitting there over his bread and cheese and cider, swung swiftly round.
"By the powers, but this is a delightful surprise!" he exclaimed.
I stared up at him with eyes now grown accustomed to the dimness of the inn parlour. I beheld, handsomer and more débonnaire than ever, no less a person than the Honourable Jim Burke!
As I shook hands I wondered swiftly from whom this blue-eyed pirate had borrowed the brand-new, spick-and-span little car that stood outside there with her nose and the mascot that was its ornament turned towards London.
I saw young Mr. Jessop staring with all his shrewd yet boyish eyes. I wondered what on earth he thought of my very conspicuous-looking friend; no, I can't call him "friend" exactly, my conspicuous-looking acquaintance to whom I hurriedly introduced him?
"Very happy to meet you," said the American, bowing. Mr. Burke, with the most extraordinary flavour of an American accent tinging his brogue, added: "Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Jessop."
Without my seeing how he did it exactly, Mr. Burke had arranged the chairs about his table so that we all sat at lunch there together. But he changed his seat so that it was Mr. Jessop who sat with his face to the light, opposite to the man I had known just a very little longer.
Really, it does seem odd to think that I am the same Beatrice Lovelace who used to live at No. 45 Laburnum Grove! There, from year's end to year's end, I never exchanged a single word with anything that you could describe as a young man!
And now, to parody the old story about the 'bus driver, "Young men are no treat to me!" Within forty-eight hours I have had one propose to me, one taking me out for a walk on the Embankment and arranging to bring me for this motor expedition to-day, and a third having lunch with me and the second!
It was a very funny lunch. And not a very comfortable one. The two men talked without ceasing about automobiles, and "makes," and garages, and speeds, and the difference between American and English workmen. (Mr. Burke really does seem to know something about America.) But I felt that the air of that shady coffee-room was simply quivering with the thoughts of both of them on very different subjects. Mr. Jessop was thinking: "Now, see here! Who's this young Irish aristocrat? He seems to be on such perfectly friendly terms of equality with my cousin's maid. How's this?"
Mr. Burke was thinking: "Who the dickens is this fellow? How is it that Miss Million's maid seems to be let loose for the whole day without her mistress, and a young man and a car to herself?"
The keynote of the next half-hour might be summed up in Kipling's phrase, "Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he dare not say!"
My heart meanwhile was bursting with the wild longing to find out if Mr. Burke knew anything at all of the whereabouts of my mistress.
I decided that he did not, for if he had wouldn't he have mentioned something to do with her?
As it was, which I am sure was buzzing in all of our brains, the name Million did not pass any of our lips!
The men went out together, apparently on the most friendly terms, to pay the landlady and exchange inspection of the "automobiles." By some man[oe]uvring or other Mr. Burke contrived to come back first into the coffee-room where I stood alone before the mirror readjusting the black gauze scarf.
He came behind and spoke to my reflection in the mirror, smiling into the eyes that met his own blue and unabashed ones in the glass.
"Child, a word with you," murmured the Honourable Jim in his flattering and confidential tones. "Will you tell me something? Does all this mean, now, that my good services are no longer required in the way of introducing to you with a view to matrimony the wealthy alien that I mentioned at that charming tea the day before yesterday, was it?"
"What do you mean, Mr. Burke?" I said. "What do you mean by all this?"
The Honourable Jim jerked his smooth black head towards the window, whence he could get a glimpse of the waiting cars.
"I mean our friend, the American Eaglet, who is so highly favoured that he doesn't even have to wait until Friday afternoon off," said the Honourable Jim softly, watching my face, "for his flights with the little black-plumaged pigeon."
Naturally when one is watched one colours up. Who could help it? The Honourable Jim said rather more loudly: "I'll tell you something. You have every symptom about you of a girl who has had a proposal of marriage in the last couple of days. Didn't I see it at lunch? The way you held your head! The new pride in your voice! Something in the very movement of the hand——"
He caught me very gently by the wrist of my left hand as he spoke. I hadn't yet put on my gloves.
"No ring there," said the Honourable Jim, dropping the hand again. "But—Miss Lovelace, child! Will you deny to me that some one has not proposed to you since you and I had tea together?"
At that I could not help thinking of poor Mr. Brace in Paris. He would be coming over at the end of the week to receive the answer which I had not yet had time to think about. I was so amazed at Mr. Burke's perspicacity that I could not help reddening even deeper with pure surprise. The Irishman said softly: "I am answered! Tell me, when are you going over to the Stars and Stripes?"
Good heavens! what an idiotic mistake. He really imagined that the man who had proposed to me was not Mr. Brace, but Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, of Chicago! I protested incoherently: "Why! I only met him last night."
"What is time to love?" laughed Mr. Burke.
"But don't be so ridiculous," I besought him. "This Mr. Jessop has nothing to do with me! He is——" Here the conversation was stopped by the entrance of Mr. Jessop himself.
I think Mr. Hiram P. Jessop soon discovered that Mr. Burke had made up his mind about one thing.
Namely, that he meant to start first from the inn where we'd lunched!
He rose to say good-bye, and to add that he must be "off" so very firmly, and just after he had helped me to another plateful of raspberries drowned in cream.
We shook hands, and in a few seconds we heard him starting his motor—or rather, the Super-car that I conclude he had borrowed, or "wangled," or whatever he calls it, from one of his many wealthy friends. Through the window I caught a flashing glimpse of this hedge-sparrow-blue car with her silver mascot whizzing past—on the road to Lewes.
This was odd, I thought.
For there was no doubt that when we pulled up at the inn, that car's nose had been towards home, and London.
Then we, too, started off for Lewes, and the inquiries we had to make there.
This was when I discovered that Mr. Jessop and I were, as I've said, "shadowed."
Mr. Burke, in that gorgeous car of his, had evidently determined, for some obscure reason, not to lose sight of us.
We overtook him, tooling leisurely along, a mile this side of Uckfield.
We waved; we caught a cheery gleam of his white teeth and black-lashed blue eyes. I thought that would be the last of him. Oh, dear, no. A quarter of a mile further on he appeared to the right by some cross-road. And from then on he and the light-blue car kept appearing and disappearing in our field of vision.
At one moment the light-blue and silver gleam of his motor would flash through the midsummer green of trees overshadowing some lane ahead of us. Again he would appear a little behind and to the left. Presently, again, to the right....
"That friend of yours seems to know the country considerable well," remarked the American to me. "Looks like as if he was chasing butterflies all over it. Is he a great Nature-lover, Miss Smith?"
"I couldn't tell you," I said vaguely, and feeling rather annoyed. "I don't know this Mr. Burke at all well."
"Is that so?" said the young American gravely.
Near Lewes we lost sight of that glittering car; it seemed finally.
I felt thoroughly relieved at that. He was a most embarrassing sort of travelling companion, the Honourable Jim!