Comedies and Errors

by Henry Harland

I

In the first-floor sitting-room of a lodging-house in Great College Street, Westminster, a young man—he was tall and thin, with a good deal of rather longish light-coloured hair, somewhat tumbled about; and he wore a pince-nez, and was in slippers and the oldest of tattered coats—a man of thirty-something was seated at a writing-table, diligently scribbling at what an accustomed eye might have recognised as “copy,” and negligently allowing the smoke from a cigarette to curl round and stain the thumb and forefinger of his idle hand, when the lodging-house maid-servant opened his door, and announced excitedly, “A lady to see you, sir.”

With the air of one taken altogether by surprise, and at a cruel disadvantage, the writer dropped his pen, and jumped up. He was in slippers and a disgraceful coat, not to dwell upon the condition of his hair. “You ought to have kept her downstairs until———” he began, frowning upon the maid; and at that point his visitor entered the room.

She was a handsome, dashing-looking young woman, in a toilette that breathed the very last and crispest savour of Parisian elegance: a hat that was a tangle of geraniums, an embroidered jacket, white gloves, a skirt that frou-froued breezily as she moved; and she carried an amazing silver-hilted sunshade, a thing like a folded gonfalon, a thing of red silk gleaming through draperies of black lace.

Poising lightly near the threshold, with a little smile of interrogation, this bewildering vision said, “Have I the honour of addressing Mr. William Stretton?”

The young man bowed a vague acknowledgment of that name; but his gaze, through the lenses of his pince-nez, was all perplexity and question.

“I’m very fortunate in finding you at home. I’ve called to see you about a matter of business,” she informed him.

“Oh?” he wondered. Then he added, with a pathetic shake of the head, “I’m the last man in the world whom any one could wisely choose to see about a matter of business; but such as I am, I’m all at your disposal.”

“So much the better,” she rejoined cheerily. “I infinitely prefer to transact business with people who are unbusinesslike. One has some chance of overreaching them.”

“You’ll have every chance of over-reaching me,” sighed he.

“What a jolly quarter of the town you live in,” she commented. “It’s so picturesque and Gothic and dilapidated, with such an atmosphere of academic calm. It reminds me of Oxford.”

“Yes,” assented he, “it is a bit like Oxford. Was your business connected——?”

“Oh, it is like Oxford?” she interrupted. “Then never tell me again that there’s nothing in intuitions. I’ve never been in Oxford, but directly I passed the gateway of Dean’s Yard, I felt reminded of it.”

“There’s undoubtedly a lot in intuitions,” he agreed; “and for the future I shall carefully abstain from telling you there isn’t.”

“Those things are gardens, over the way, behind the wall, aren’t they?” she asked, looking out of the window.

“Yes,” he said, “those things are gardens, the gardens of the Abbey. The canons and people have their houses there.”

“Very comfortable and nice,” said she. “Plenty of grass. And the trees aren’t bad, either, for town trees. It must be rather fun to be a canon. As I live,” she cried, turning back into the room, “you’ve got a Pleyel. This is the first Pleyel I’ve seen in England. Let me congratulate you on your taste in pianos.” And with her gloved hands she struck a chord and made a run or two. “You’ll need the tuner soon, though. It’s just the shadow of a shadow out. I was brought up on Pleyels. Do you know, I’ve half a mind to make you a confidence?” she questioned brightly.

“Oh, do make it, I pray you,” he encouraged her.

“Well, then, I believe, if you were to offer me a chair, I believe I could bring myself to sit down,” she admitted.

“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed; and she sank rustling into the chair that he pushed forward.

“Well, now for my business,” said she. “Would you just put this thing somewhere?” She offered him her sunshade, which he took and handled somewhat gingerly. “Oh, you needn’t be afraid. It’s quite tame,” she laughed, “though I admit it looks a bit ferocious. What a sweet room you’ve got—so manny, and smoky, and booky. Are they all real books?”

“More or less real,” he answered; “as real as any books ever are that a fellow gets for review.”

“Oh, you got them for review?” she repeated, with vivacity. “How terribly exciting. I’ve never seen a book before that’s actually passed through a reviewer’s hands. They don’t look much the worse for it. Whatever else you said about them, I trust you didn’t deny that they make nice domestic ornaments. But this isn’t business. You wouldn’t call this business?” she enquired, with grave curiosity.

“No, I should call this pleasure,” he assured her, laughing.

“Would you?” She raised her eyebrows. “Ah, but then you’re English.”

“Aren’t you?” asked he.

“Do I look English?”

“I’m not sure.” He hesitated for a second, studying her. “You certainly don’t dress English.”

“Heaven forbid Δ She made a fervent gesture. “I’m a miserable sinner, but at least I’m incapable of that. However, if you were really kind, you’d affect just a little curiosity to know the errand to which you owe my presence.”

“I’m devoured by curiosity,” he declared.

Again she raised her eyebrows. “You are? Then why don’t you show it?”

“Perhaps because I have a sense of humour—amongst other reasons,” he suggested, smiling.

“Well, since you’re devoured by curiosity, you must know,” she began; but broke off suddenly—“Apropos, I wonder whether you could be induced to tell me something.”

“I daresay I could, if it’s anything within my sphere of knowledge.” He paused, expectant.

“Then tell me, please, why you keep your Japanese fan in your fireplace,” she requested.

“Why shouldn’t I? Doesn’t it strike you as a good place for it?”

“Admirable. But my interest was psychological. I was wondering by what mental processes you came to hit upon it.”

“Well, then, to be frank, it wasn’t I who hit upon it; it isn’t my Japanese fan. It’s a conceit of my landlady’s. This is an age of paradox, you know. Would you prefer silver paper?”

“Must one have one or the other?”

“You’re making it painfully clear,” he cautioned her, “that you’ve never lived in lodgings.”

“If you go on at this rate,” she retorted, laughing, “I shall never get my task accomplished. Here are twenty times that I’ve commenced it, and twenty times you’ve put me off. Shall we now, at last, proceed seriously to business?”

“Not on my account, I beg. I’m not in the slightest hurry,” protested he.

“You said you were devoured by curiosity.”

“Did I say that?” He knitted his brow.

“Certainly you did.”

“It must have been aphasia. I meant contentment,” he explained.

“Devoured by contentment?”

“Why not, as well as by curiosity?”

“The phrase is novel,” she mused.

“It’s the occupation of my life to seek for novel phrases,” he reminded her. “I’m what somebody or other has called a literary man.”

“And you enjoy what somebody or other has called beating about the bush?”

“Hugely—with such a fellow-beater,” he responded.

“You drive me to extremities.” She shook her head. “I see there’s nothing for it but to plunge in médias res. You must know, then, that I have been asked to call upon you by a friend—by my friend Miss Johannah Rothe—I beg your pardon; I never can remember that she’s changed her name—my friend Miss Johannah Silver—but Silver née Rothe—of Silver Towers, in the County of Sussex.”

“Ah?” said he. “Ah, yes. Then never tell me again that there’s nothing in intuitions. I’ve never met Miss Silver, but directly you crossed the threshold of this room, I began to feel vaguely reminded of her.”

“Oh, there’s a lot in intuitions,” she agreed. “But don’t think to disconcert me. My friend Miss Silver——”

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Your friend?”

“Considering the sacrifice I’m making on her behalf to-day, it’s strange you should throw doubt upon my friendship for her,” she argued.

“You make your sacrifices with a cheerful countenance. I should never have guessed that you weren’t entirely happy. But forgive my interruption. You were about to say that your friend Miss Silver——”

“My occasional friend,” she substituted. “Sometimes, I confess, we quarrel like everything, and remain at daggers drawn for months. She’s such a flightly creature, dear Johannah, she not infrequently gets me into a perfect peck of trouble. But since she’s fallen heir to all this money, you’d be surprised to behold the devotion her friends have shown her. I couldn’t very well refuse to follow their example. One’s human, you see; and one can’t dress like this for nothing, can one?”

“Upon my word, I’m not in a position to answer you. I’ve never tried,” laughed he.

“In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I think we may safely assume one can’t,” said she. “However, here you are, beating about the bush again. I come to you as Johannah’s emissary. She desires me to ask you several questions.”

“Yes?” said he, a trifle uncomfortably.

“She would be glad to know,” his visitor declared, looking straight into his eyes, and smiling a little gravely, “why you have been so excessively nasty to her?”

“Have I been nasty to her?” he asked, with an innocence that was palpably counterfeit.

“Don’t you think you have?” She still looked gravely, smilingly, into his eyes.

“I don’t see how.” He maintained his feint of innocence.

“Don’t you think you’ve responded somewhat ungraciously to her overtures of friendship?” she suggested. “Do you think it was nice to answer her letters with those curt little formal notes of yours? Look. Johannah sat down to write to you. And she began her letter Dear Mr. Stretton. And then she simply couldn’t. So she tore up the sheet, and began another My Dear Cousin Will. And what did she receive in reply? A note beginning Dear Miss Silver. Do you think that was kind? Don’t you think it was the least bit mortifying? And why have you refused in such a stiff-necked way to go down to see her at Silver Towers?”

“Oh,” he protested, “in all fairness, in all logic, your questions ought to be put the other way round.”

“Bother logic! But put them any way you like,” said she.

“What right had Miss Silver to expect me to multiply the complications of my life by rushing into an ecstatic friendship with her? And why, being very well as I am in town just now, why should I disarrange myself by a journey into the country?”

“Why indeed?” she echoed. “I’m sure I can give no reason. Why should one ever do any one else a kindness? Your cousin has conceived a great desire to meet you.”

“Oh, a great desire!” He tossed his head. “One knows these great desires. She’ll live it down. A man named Burrell has been stuffing her up.”

“Stuffing her up?” She smiled enquiringly. “The expression is new to me.”

“Greening her, filling her head with all sorts of nonsensical delusions, painting my portrait for her in all the colours of the rainbow. Oh, I know my Burrell. He’s tried to stuff me up, too, about her.”

“Oh? Has he? What has he said?” she questioned eagerly.

“The usual rubbishy things one does say, when one wants to stuff a fellow up.”

“For instance?”

“Oh, that she’s tremendously good-looking, with hair and eyes and things, and very charming.”

“What a dear good person the man named Burrell must be,” she murmured.

“He’s not a bad chap,” he conceded, “but you must remember that he’s her solicitor.”

“And, remembering that, you weren’t to be stuffed?” she said.

“If she was charming and good-looking, it was a reason the more for avoiding her,” said he.

“Oh?” She looked perplexed.

“There’s nothing on earth so tiresome as charming women. They’re all exactly alike,” asserted he.

“Thank you,” his guest exclaimed, bowing.

“Oh, nobody could pretend that you’re exactly alike,” he assured her hastily. “I own at once that you’re delightfully different. But Burrell has no knack for character drawing.”

“You’re extremely flattering. But aren’t you taking a slightly one-sided point of view? Let us grant, for the sake of the argument, that it is Johannah’s bad luck to be charming and good-looking. Nevertheless, she still has claims on you.”

“Has she?”

“She’s your cousin.”

“Oh, by the left hand,” said he.

She stared for an instant, biting her lip. Then she laughed.

“And only my second or third cousin at that,” he went on serenely.

She looked at him with eyes that were half whimsical, half pleading. “Would you mind being quite serious for a moment?” she asked. “Because Johannah’s situation, absurd as it seems, really is terribly serious for Johannah. I should like to submit it to your better judgment. We’ll drop the question of cousinship, if you wish—though it’s the simple fact that you’re her only blood-relation in this country, where she feels herself the forlornest sort of alien. She’s passed her entire life in Italy and France, you know, and this is the first visit she’s made to England since her childhood. But we’ll drop the question of cousinship. At any rate, Johannah is a human being. Well, consider her plight a little. She finds herself in the most painful, the most humiliating circumstances that can be imagined; and you’re the only person living who can make them easier for her. Involuntarily—in spite of herself—she’s come into possession of a fortune that naturally, morally, belongs to you. She can’t help it. It’s been left to her by will—by the will of a man who never saw her, never had any kind of relations with her, but chose her for his heir just because her mother, who died when Johannah was a baby, had chanced to be his cousin. And there the poor girl is. Can’t you see how like a thief she must feel at the best? Can’t you see how much worse you make it for her, when she holds out her hand, and you refuse to take it? Is that magnanimous of you? Isn’t it cruel? You couldn’t treat her with greater unkindness if she’d actually designed, and schemed, and intrigued, to do you out of your inheritance, instead of coming into it in the passive way she has. After all, she’s a human being, she’s a woman. Think of her pride.”

“Think of mine,” said he.

“I can’t see that your pride is involved.”

“To put it plainly, I’m the late Sir William Silver’s illegitimate son.”

“Well? What of that?”

“Do you fancy I should enjoy being taken up and patronised by his legitimate heir?”

“Oh!” she cried, starting to her feet. “You can’t think I would be capable of anything so base as that.”

And he saw that her eyes had suddenly filled with tears.

“I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon a thousand times,” he said. “You would be utterly incapable of anything that was not generous and noble. But you must remember that I had never seen you. How could I know?”

“Well, now that you have seen me,” she responded, her eyes all smiles again, “now that I have put my pride in my pocket, and bearded you in your den, I don’t mind confiding in you that it’s nearly lunchtime, and also that I’m ravenously hungry. Could you ring your bell, and order up something in the nature of meat and drink? And while you are about it, you might tell your landlady or some one to pack your bag. We take,” she mentioned, examining a tiny watch, that seemed nothing more than a frivolous incrustation of little diamonds and rubies, “we take the three-sixteen for Silver Towers.”