“Not even brush and comb?” Philip interposed, horrified.
“Oh, yes, naturally, just the few things one always takes in a vade-mecum,” Bertram Ingledew answered, with a gracefully deprecatory wave of the hand, which Philip thought pretty enough, but extremely foreign. “Beyond that, nothing. I felt it would be best, you see, to set oneself up in things of the country in the country itself. One's surer then of getting exactly what's worn in the society one mixes in.”
For the first and only time, as he said those words, the stranger struck a chord that was familiar to Philip. “Oh, of course,” the Civil Servant answered, with brisk acquiescence, “if you want to be really up to date in your dress, you must go to first-rate houses in London for everything. Nobody anywhere can cut like a good London tailor.”
Bertram Ingledew bowed his head. It was the acquiescent bow of the utter outsider who gives no opinion at all on the subject under discussion, because he does not possess any. As he probably came, in spite of his disclaimer, from America or the colonies, which are belated places, toiling in vain far in the rear of Bond Street, Philip thought this an exceedingly proper display of bashfulness, especially in a man who had only landed in England yesterday. But Bertram went on half-musingly. “And you had told me,” he said, “I'm sure not meaning to mislead me, there were no formalities or taboos of any kind on entering into lodgings. However, I found, as soon as I'd arranged to take the rooms and pay four guineas a week for them, which was a guinea more than she asked me, Miss Blake would hardly let me come in at all unless I could at once produce my luggage.” He looked comically puzzled. “I thought at first,” he continued, gazing earnestly at Philip, “the good lady was afraid I wouldn't pay her what I'd agreed, and would go away and leave her in the lurch without a penny,—which was naturally a very painful imputation. But when I offered to let her have three weeks' rent in advance, I saw that wasn't all: there was a taboo as well; she couldn't let me in without luggage, she said, because it would imperil some luck or talisman to which she frequently alluded as the Respectability of her Lodgings. This Respectability seems a very great fetich. I was obliged at last, in order to ensure a night's lodging of any sort, to appease it by promising I'd go up to London by the first train to-day, and fetch down my luggage.”
“Then you've things at Charing Cross, in the cloak-room perhaps?” Philip suggested, somewhat relieved; for he felt sure Bertram Ingledew must have told Miss Blake it was HE who had recommended him to Heathercliff House for furnished apartments.
“Oh, dear, no; nothing,” Bertram responded cheerfully. “Not a sack to my back. I've only what I stand up in. And I called this morning just to ask as I passed if you could kindly direct me to an emporium in London where I could set myself up in all that's necessary.”
“A WHAT?” Philip interposed, catching quick at the unfamiliar word with blank English astonishment, and more than ever convinced, in spite of denial, that the stranger was an American.
“An emporium,” Bertram answered, in the most matter-of-fact voice: “a magazine, don't you know; a place where they supply things in return for money. I want to go up to London at once this morning and buy what I require there.”
“Oh, A SHOP, you mean,” Philip replied, putting on at once his most respectable British sabbatarian air. “I can tell you of the very best tailor in London, whose cut is perfect; a fine flower of tailors: but NOT to-day. You forget you're in England, and this is Sunday. On the Continent, it's different: but you'll find no decent shops here open to-day in town or country.”
Bertram Ingledew drew one hand over his high white brow with a strangely puzzled air. “No more I will,” he said slowly, like one who by degrees half recalls with an effort some forgotten fact from dim depths of his memory. “I ought to have remembered, of course. Why, I knew that, long ago. I read it in a book on the habits and manners of the English people. But somehow, one never recollects these taboo days, wherever one may be, till one's pulled up short by them in the course of one's travels. Now, what on earth am I to do? A box, it seems, is the Open, Sesame of the situation. Some mystic value is attached to it as a moral amulet. I don't believe that excellent Miss Blake would consent to take me in for a second night without the guarantee of a portmanteau to respectablise me.”