Calls for help came out of the vast beyond, and they took guiltily to pursuit, to find Helwise and Hamer marooned up a blind alley in the swamping sea of the dark, and, as they set them right again, a new elf-candle appeared from the opposite direction, having Wiggie somewhere in its vicinity. He was just back from an engagement in town, and in the glowing hall at Watters looked shockingly thin and ill, though excellently clothed and brushed, making Lancaster conscious of muddy boots and the general wear of a busy day. He began to have his favourite complaint of feeling old, and when Dandy, after a miracle-change into something softly pink, danced in to dinner on the singer’s arm, the lightly-welded link of the Lane snapped as lightly, leaving her farther than before.
Wiggie had brought her from town an infinite variety of excitements, new books, new music, even new fashions, described after his own manner. There was also an umbrella-thing meant especially for country use—so they had told him in London; indeed, they had been quite feverish about it. You could sit on it when you went shooting or fishing or mushrooming or marketing on Saturday, and it had buttoned pockets for carrying anything from grouse to reels of cotton, and collapsible spokes that could be adjusted to cover any part of a hat, and a purse and a pocket-handkerchief and a plate with the owner’s name. He had practised with it in the train, but he had been dreadfully stupid and allowed it to take steck in the door, so that, when the train stopped, none of the ordinary umbrella-people inside could get out, and a very cross inspector on the platform couldn’t get in. However, the collapsible spokes had collapsed before they were carried on to Carlisle, and he was quite sure that Dandy would manage them in a few lessons. Dandy was quite certain of it, and could scarcely live through the enormous Tram-Dinner in her anxiety to try. It was a first-class Highways-and-Hedges Dinner; and now that Wiggie had turned up, they were only one or two short, after all.
He was immensely thrilled about Harriet, and full of hope that the “joke” would prove serious. He hadn’t another engagement for—oh, next door to never!—except, of course, “Elijah” in Bluecaster—and would love to run round and help if they would let him stay so long. His joyousness set Dandy shining like a clear light on gems, bringing home to Lancaster how different she was with himself. Probably he seemed old and staid to her, certainly dull and one-sided. Wigmore’s was her natural atmosphere. Wiggie could ring every pretty change on her as easily as he rippled the vocal octave, but the elder man had no key to her moods. The sympathy in the Lane had been shallow and fleeting. Not here—not here was the making of his “silly home”!
He said little during the evening, and, in the car, showed scant enthusiasm for his aunt’s surprise-packet from town—a large pot pug, with a chocolate-box interior and an almanac on his chest. Wiggie loved people’s little weaknesses, and saw no reason for refusing to pander to them. He did it charmingly enough, too, but, after all, it wasn’t Wiggie who had to live with the pot dogs.
Helwise was in ecstasies over the luxurious car, and more than once nearly wrecked them all by switching on the electric light just as the unhappy chauffeur rounded a bend. She thought Lancelot might see his way to giving up his horse and buying a motor. Bluecaster would help. Look what he had done about the bath!
Lanty answered unkindly that if ever he did own a car, it would certainly not be at Bluecaster’s expense, and that he preferred the old gee to all the petrol-puffers in creation; and then felt ashamed when she sighed and was hurt. No doubt he did sound cross and discourteous after Wiggie’s chocolate-box consideration, just as in all probability he had seemed countrified and slow beside the singer’s wit and finish. That was the worst of these pandering sympathisers! They showed you up as a very bad second, though you might really be carrying a big load quite respectably. Still, he need not have snubbed Helwise so brutally. It was partly Bluecaster’s own fault that she looked upon him less as an employer than as a free emporium and family asset. He could see him buying her the car without a murmur. He had to admit, too, that the padded elegance of the limousine fitted her to a nicety, just as the luxury of Watters seemed her natural setting. There was no doubt you couldn’t expect the best of people out of their special environment—certainly not weak creatures like Helwise, formed for others to pity and sustain.
Nevertheless, his philosophy did little to soothe him on arrival at their own cheerless dwelling. The fires were all out, of course, and they were met by a wandering odour of kippered herring not to be located anywhere, certainly not in the burnt slices of chilly ham congealed on the dining-room table. He found a telephone-message from the House ingeniously concealed in the barometer, and could have sworn that there was a fresh scratch on the maltreated wall. He waited while Helwise introduced the new pug to the old collection, and then requested a candle for his empty stick. His nightly tour discovered bolts unshot, gases burning and taps half-turned, not to speak of a general back-premises condition sufficient to set a fastidious taste hunger-striking for weeks. And so upstairs with the rocking candle to his cold bedroom, and had barely shut his door before Helwise called him to unhook her gown. There was only carbolic soap to wash with, and the kitchen fire had long ago left the cylinder in the lurch. Probably the flue wanted cleaning, anyhow. He thought of the bathroom at Watters, with its hot rails and shining taps, and hated himself for even remembering them. They reminded him, however, that there offered to be a sharp frost in the early hours, and he betook himself to an icy attic to see that a certain pipe was properly wrapped. Finally, to a lumpy bed with wandering sheets. Sleep brought oblivion, but no magic. He did not dream, as Dandy, of swung lanterns in a lover’s lane.
But before that dream-flower blossomed, she asked Hamer whether he really meant to back Harriet’s Attempt. She was curled on the hearth at his knee, with her mother nodding asleep at one side, and Wiggie’s overbright eyes on the other. Hamer took his cigar from his mouth, and pressed her head against him before replying.
“I’ll let it lie till morning,” he said thoughtfully, “and then, if it doesn’t seem too much of a forlorn hope, I’ll run over and set her going. She won’t need overmuch persuasion! I’m new, of course, but I can do a bit of talking and getting folks interested. She’s well enough known, and there’s a good many that think a lot of her judgment. They’ll laugh, at first, but I shouldn’t wonder if she went through, and I don’t mind laying that they’ll find her pretty useful. She’s not the ordinary woman. She looks at things like a man, and she’s get-up-and-git enough to run a train. She wants more outlet, too, and Fate owes her more than a bit for that halma-board of a father, especially as all the elections in the kingdom will never get her the one big thing——”