The Claverings Part 68

"That's just the question."

"Is it from--the devil, do you think?" said Archie, whispering the name of the Evil One in a very low voice.

"Well, yes, I suppose that's most likely."

"Because they don't seem to do a great deal of harm with it, after all.

As for my money, she would have had that any way, for I intended to give it to her."

"There are people who think," said Doodles, "that the spirits don't come from anywhere, but are always floating about."

"And then one person catches them, and another doesn't?" asked Archie.

"They tell me that it depends upon what the mediums or medias eat and drink," said Doodles, "and upon what sort of minds they have. They must be cleverish people, I fancy, or the spirits wouldn't come to them."

"But you never hear of any swell being a medium. Why don't the spirits go to a prime minster or some of those fellows? Only think what a help they'd be."

"If they come from the devil," suggested Doodles, "he wouldn't let them do any real good."

"I've heard a deal about them," said Archie, "and it seems to me that the mediums are always poor people, and that they come from n.o.body knows where. The Spy is a clever woman I dare say--"

"There isn't much doubt about that," said the admiring Doodles.

"But you can't say she's respectable, you know. If I was a spirit, I wouldn't go to a woman who wore such dirty stockings as she had on."

"That's nonsense, Clavvy. What does a spirit care about a woman's stockings?"

"But why don't they ever go to the wise people? that's what I want to know." And as he asked the question boldly he struck his ball sharply, and, lo! the three b.a.l.l.s rolled vanquished into three different pockets.

"I don't believe about it," said Archie, as he readjusted the score.

"The devil can't do such things as that, or there'd be an end of everything; and as to spirits in the air, why should there be more spirits now than there were four-and-twenty years ago?"

"That's all very well, old fellow," said Doodles, "but you and I ain't clever enough to understand everything." Then that subject was dropped, and Doodles went back for a while to the perils of Jack Stuart's yacht.

After the lunch, which was, in fact, Archie's early dinner, Doodles was going to leave his friend, but Archie insisted that his brother captain should walk with him up to Berkeley Square, and see the last of him into his cab. Doodles had suggested that Sir Hugh would be there, and that Sir Hugh was not always disposed to welcome his brother's friends to his own house after the most comfortable modes of friends.h.i.+p; but Archie explained that on such an occasion as this there need be no fear on that head; he and his brother were going away together, and there was a certain feeling of jollity about the trip which would divest Sir Hugh of his roughness. "And besides," said Archie, "as you will be there to see me off; he'll know that you're not going to stay yourself." Convinced by this, Doodles consented to walk up to Berkeley Square.

Sir Hugh had spent the greatest part of this day at home, immersed among his guns and rods, and their various appurtenances. He also had breakfasted at his club, but had ordered his luncheon to be prepared for him at home. He had arranged to leave Berkeley Square at four, and had directed that his lamb chops should be brought to him exactly at three.

He was himself a little late in coming down stairs, and it was ten minutes past the hour when he desired that the chops might be put on the table, saying that he himself would be in the drawing-room in time to meet them. He was a man solicitous about his lamb chops, and careful that the asparagus should be hot--solicitous also as to that bottle of Lafitte by which those comestibles were to be accompanied, and which was, of its own nature, too good to be shared with his brother Archie.

But as he was on the landing by the drawing-room door, descending quickly, conscious that, in obedience to his orders, the chops had been already served, he was met by a servant who, with disturbed face and quick voice, told him that there was a lady waiting for him in the hall.

"D---- it," said Sir Hugh.

"She has just come, Sir Hugh, and says that she specially wants to see you."

"Why the devil did you let her in?"

"She walked in when the door was opened, Sir Hugh, and I couldn't help it. She seemed to be a lady, Sir Hugh, and I didn't like not to let her inside the door."

"What's the lady's name?" asked the master.

"It's a foreign name, Sir Hugh. She said she wouldn't keep you five minutes." The lamb chops and the asparagus and the Lafitte were in the dining-room, and the only way to the dining-room lay through the hall to which the foreign lady had obtained an entrance. Sir Hugh, making such calculations as the moments allowed, determined that he would face the enemy, and pa.s.s on to his banquet over her prostrate body. He went quickly down into the hall, and there was encountered by Sophie Gordeloup, who, skipping over the gun-cases, and rus.h.i.+ng through the portmanteaus, caught the baronet by the arm before he had been able to approach the dining-room door. "Sir 'Oo," she said, "I am so glad to have caught you. You are going away, and I have things to tell you which you must hear--yes; it is well for you I have caught you, Sir 'Oo." Sir Hugh looked as though he by no means partic.i.p.ated in this feeling, and, saying something about his great hurry, begged that he might be allowed to go to his food. Then he added that, as far as his memory served him, he had not the honor of knowing the lady who was addressing him.

"You come in to your little dinner," said Sophie, "and I will tell you everything as you are eating. Don't mind me. You shall eat and drink, and I will talk. I am Madam Gordeloup--Sophie Gordeloup. Ah! you know the name now. Yes. That is me. Count Pateroff is my brother. You know Count Pateroff? He knowed Lord Ongar, and I knowed Lord Ongar. We know Lady Ongar. Ah! you understand now that I can have much to tell. It is well you was not gone without seeing me! Eh! yes. You shall eat and drink; but suppose you send that man into the kitchen!"

Sir Hugh was so taken by surprise that he hardly knew how to act on the spur of the moment. He certainly had heard of Madam Gordeloup, though he had never before seen her. For years past her name had been familiar to him in London, and when Lady Ongar had returned as a widow it had been, to his thinking, one of her worst offences that this woman had been her friend. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, his judgment would have directed him to desire the servant to put her out into the street as an impostor, and to send for the police if there was any difficulty. But it certainly might be possible that this woman had something to tell with reference to Lady Ongar which it would suit his purposes to hear. At the present moment he was not very well inclined to his sister-in-law, and was disposed to hear evil of her. So he pa.s.sed on into the dining-room and desired Madam Gordeloup to follow him. Then he closed the room door, and standing up with his back to the fire-place, so that he might be saved from the necessity of asking her to sit down, he declared himself ready to hear anything that his visitor might have to say.

"But you will eat your dinner, Sir 'Oo. You will not mind me. I shall not care."

"Thank you, no; if you will just say what you have got to say, I will be obliged to you."

"But the nice things will be so cold! Why should you mind me? n.o.body minds me."

"I will wait, if you please, till you have done me the honor of leaving."

"Ah! well, you Englishmen are so cold and ceremonious. But Lord Ongar was not with me like that. I knew Lord Ongar so well."

"Lord Ongar was more fortunate than I am."

"He was a poor man who did kill himself. Yes. It was always that bottle of Cognac. And there was other bottles that was worser still. Never mind; he has gone now, and his widow has got the money. It is she has been a fortunate woman. Sir 'Oo, I will sit down here in the arm chair."

Sir Hugh made a motion with his hand, not daring to forbid her to do as she was minded. "And you, Sir 'Oo--will not you sit down also?"

"I will continue to stand if you will allow me."

"Very well; you shall do as most pleases you. As I did walk here, and shall walk back, I will sit down."

"And now, if you have any thing to say, Madam Gordeloup," said Sir Hugh, looking at the silver covers which were hiding the chops and the asparagus, and looking also at his watch, "perhaps you will be good enough to say it."

"Any thing to say! Yes, Sir 'Oo, I have something to say. It is a pity you will not sit at your dinner."

"I will not sit at my dinner till you have left me. So now, if you will be pleased to proceed--"

"I will proceed. Perhaps you don't know that Lord Ongar died in these arms." And Sophie, as she spoke, stretched out her skinny hands, and put herself as far as possible into the att.i.tude in which it would be most convenient to nurse the head of a dying man upon her bosom. Sir Hugh, thinking to himself that Lord Ongar could hardly have received much consolation in his fate from this incident, declared that he had not heard the fact before. "No, you have not heard it. She have tell nothing to her friends here. He die abroad, and she has come back with all the money; but she tell nothing to any body here, so I must tell."

"But I don't care how he died, Madam Gordeloup. It is nothing to me."

"But yes, Sir 'Oo. The lady, your wife, is the sister to Lady Ongar. Is not that so? Lady Ongar did live with you before she was married. Is not that so? Your brother and your cousin both wishes to marry her and have all the money. Is not that so? Your brother has come to me to help him, and has sent the little man out of Warwicks.h.i.+re. Is not that so?"

"What the d---- is all that to me?" said Sir Hugh, who did not quite understand the story as the lady was telling it.

"I will explain, Sir 'Oo, what the d---- it is to you, only I wish you were eating the nice things on the table. This Lady Ongar is treating me very bad. She treat my brother very bad too. My brother is Count Pateroff. We have been put to, oh, such expenses for her! It have nearly ruined me. I make a journey to your London here altogether for her.

Then, for her, I go down to that accursed little island--what you call it? where she insult me. Oh, all my time is gone. Your brother and your cousin, and the little man out of Warwicks.h.i.+re, all coming to my house, just as it please them."

"But what is this to me?" shouted Sir Hugh.

"A great deal to you," screamed back Madam Gordeloup. "You see I know every thing--every thing. I have got papers."

"What do I care for your papers? Look here Madam Gordeloup, you had better go away."

"Not yet, Sir 'Oo, not yet. You are going away to Norway--I know; and I am ruined before you come back."

"Look here, madam, do you mean that you want money from me?"