Part 6

"Guardsmen are very difficult to dislodge," said Mrs. Hill-Owen, "and I'm afraid to go down and interfere, she's so touchy. She might give notice. It's the worst of this Knightsbridge district. I thought of a wonderful plan the other day, and that was to make her bring the key of the basement door up at ten every night; but as my husband said, 'How can you tell she's locked it?' It's really a terrible responsibility. And we're away so much too. What would you do?"

"I?" said Ben. "I should do my best to forget."

"Would you? How clever of you! Thank you so much. I'll try to."

This was one of Ben's odd days.

Mrs. Hill-Owen (she told me) had not been gone more than a few minutes when a Rolls Royce purred up to the door of "The Booklovers' Rest," and a richly dressed young woman emerged and made her way upwards to "The Beck and Call."

Ben, chancing to be in the front office, received her in person, and asked her requirements.

"I want," said the girl, "an engagement as parlour-maid."

"_You_ want?" Ben exclaimed. "But for someone else, of course."

"Oh, no," said the girl. "For myself. I want to go into service."

"Come inside," said Ben. "I must get this clear. You want," she said, when they were seated, "a situation as a parlour-maid?"

"Yes," said the girl. "But it must be in a really good house--a nobleman's for choice."

Ben's surprise led the girl to be confidential.

"I ought to explain," she said, "especially as I've had no experience of anything but helping mother at home. The fact is dad has suddenly become rich--enormously rich--and everything has changed. We used to live in a little house in Ealing, but now dad's bought one of those great places on Kingston Hill. He's happy enough, pottering about the garden, but it's very lonely for mother and me, because many of our old friends have disappeared--frightened, I suppose--and we can't make new ones of the new kind because--well, we're not easy with them. We don't know how to behave or what to say. They've called, you see. So I thought it would be a wonderful thing if I took service in a good family and kept my eyes open. I'm very quick; I should soon pick it up; and someone was saying that 'The Beck and Call' was the best place to come to with any inquiry, so I came. What do you think, miss?"

"You would have to keep your secret," said Ben.

"Oh, yes, of course," the girl replied.

"You'd have to leave that car behind."

"I shall love to," said the girl. "It's largely because of the chauffeur that I want to learn. He's so superior. Mother and dad, of course, will never be able to deal with servants, but I feel that after a little while I shall know enough to keep them in their place. And of course when I'm through we shall have new ones, and so start fair."

"Well," said Ben, "I think it's a most original plan. The principal difficulty is the noblemen. They're all so poor now that they probably do their own parlour-maiding. I know one personally who describes himself as the 'Gentleman with a duster,' and one of the most famous of our dukes boasts that he cleans the windows. You would take the lowest wages, of course?"

"Oh, yes," said the girl; "or none at all."

"No," said Ben, "that would be very foolish. Never do that. You would be suspected at once; and if the other servants found out they would be impossible to you. By the way, had you thought of the other servants?"

"Oh, yes."

"The footman?"

"Yes. But I've got to go through with it, and I'm very quick. You don't think it's unfair to the people who engage me to use them in this way?"

"No, I don't think so. All life is a lesson, and this is quite funny. But the real joke will come when you meet them later on, on level terms."

"Oh," said the girl, "how terrible! I never thought of that. I must--I must think a little more about it," she added, "and talk to mother."

She went off, and Ben watched the chauffeur's face as she got into the car. It certainly had an expression that needed very drastic treatment.

XXIII

"I don't want to be inquisitive or interfering," said Ben to Viola Marquand, "but I think we ought to be frank with each other about Toby. I'm afraid that that engagement ring is his?"

Viola looked a little confused, but admitted it.

"And what are your plans?" Ben asked. "How long are you prepared to wait for him, and what do you propose to live on? Don't mind those questions, but I feel rather responsible for both of you. I'm all the mother that Toby's got, and to some extent I am in charge of you as well, aren't I? Besides, I suppose I might be said to have thrown you together."

"Of course I don't mind," said Viola. "You've been far too kind. I like Toby tremendously. I don't say I was anxious to be engaged, but he was miserable till I said yes."

"I'm sure he was," said Ben. "He specializes in misery over delays. But what do you think he can do? And what will your people say?"

Viola became very grave. "Yes," she said, "what, indeed? They are sufficiently cross that I am here doing work; but that I don't mind. Girls have to expect that. I dare say you had some trouble yourself?"

Ben smiled. "Just at first," she said. "But fathers soon forget. They've got other things to think about."

"Mine doesn't seem to have," said Viola. "He's bent on my marrying someone rich, and he's afraid that working here may prejudice rich men against me."

"That's absurd," said Ben. "Men who want to marry pretty girls can't be prejudiced against them by anything; that is if they really want to marry them. People do what they want. Don't you agree?"

"Yes," said Viola, "I think I do. But it wouldn't convince father. Father hasn't much imagination, I'm afraid, and when he gets an idea he sticks to it."

"And your mother?" Ben asked.

"Mother does what she's told," said Viola. "Poor mother! We shan't all grow like that, I hope."

"Not if you marry Toby," said Ben. "Toby may be capricious and rather tiresome, but he'll never dictate. Toby's idea of marriage is to be deliciously, luxuriously enslaved. But if I were you I shouldn't wear that ring. He's too young. If you take my advice--and I don't think you are so deeply in love as to refuse to--you will give it back to him and say that you will wait a year before you ask for it again, if then."

"But it will break the poor child's heart," said Viola.

"Not more than is good for him--and for both of you," said Ben. "Think it over, anyway. If you made it a condition that he was earning enough money for both of you--or was in the way to do so--it would be all to the good. His whole tendency is to take things too easily, which wouldn't matter so much if he wasn't engaged. But, being engaged, he must work."

"It sounds frightfully sensible," said Viola. "And not at all like me."

"Well, your father would say the same," said Ben, "and very definitely too. It's inevitable if you admit the engagement. How much better for you to suggest it amicably!"

"I'll try," said Viola. "But it's rather rough luck."

She drew the ring slowly off her finger and looked wistfully at the mark it had left.

"You really are fond of him?" Ben asked.

"I think so," said Viola.

"It's so difficult," said Ben, in one of the worst sentences ever constructed, "for sisters to understand anyone losing their heads over their brothers."

XXIV

It was early in June that I had an urgent call from Ben asking if I would help her. A Canadian woman had been in to say that her husband, who was an invalid, had one mastering wish, and that was to hear the nightingale again before he returned home, probably for ever. Ben knew nothing of nightingales; but she wanted to oblige, and would I take the affair in hand?--my acquaintance with those birds being (I assume) notorious.

I agreed.

Mr. Measure was rather a tragic figure. A wealthy Canadian of cultured tastes, he had been stricken when only in the fifties, and this was a last visit to Europe to see once again the beautiful things that he knew so well and would regret so keenly. For "Dying," as he said to me, "would be nothing if were it not for what we leave behind."

They had been to Florence, to Siena, to Perugia, to Venice, to Rome, to little quiet places among the Italian hills that had old associations, to Chamounix again, to Avignon and Arles, to Puy-de-Dôme. In a day or so they were to sail for Quebec, where his home was and where his grave would be.

He had but one wish left as regarded his English visit, and that was to hear the nightingale. It had suddenly come to him as he read in a paper some reference to their season of song--he had had the idea that it was earlier and now finished--and his wife had chanced upon Ben's signboard and had asked for information there: as it happened, very fortunately.

I called at their hotel to discuss our plan of action. Mr. Measure, poor fellow, was clearly very ill; he was thin and weak, but his eye was bright and he was full of enthusiasm for the adventure. He did not want to sleep in a country inn, but did not mind how late he returned to London. Would I mind driving in a motor ambulance with himself and his wife?

Not at all.

His idea was that we should leave London after a very early dinner and go straight to a likely spot, hear the nightingale, and drive back. If we heard one sooner, so much the better.

"I know of a practically certain place," I said, "but it is a little late. A fortnight ago would have been better. Remember, I can't promise."

It was a favourable evening on which we slid away from Mr. Measure's hotel. I had my mind on a particular meadow in Sussex, just north of the Downs, skirted by a lane. This meadow is surrounded by a high, untrimmed hedge with oaks at intervals, and there is a tinkling stream close by. A few cottages here and there in the neighbourhood complete the nightingales' requirements, for they are fond of human sounds. In this meadow, which has never disappointed me yet--at any rate in late April and all May--nightingales have the enchanting habit of singing in threes, one against the other at the points of the triangle.

Knowing by bitter experience how useless it is to squander minute directions on such insensitive, non-receptive, unobservant, and unremembering creatures as chauffeurs, I sat on the box; not sorry either, for it was warm, and talking in a car is fatiguing.

We left London by way of Battersea Bridge and kept on the Brighton road as far as Hand Cross--over Walton Heath and down Reigate Hill and through Crawley. At Hand Cross we branched to the right, leaving Cuckfield on our left, and came through Bolney to Albourne and due south as far as Muddles Wood cross-roads. At intervals I had fancied I heard the magic notes and had slackened the car--you know how easy it is to imagine this sound--but always it was a false alarm, or the song had been only of momentary duration.

At Muddles Wood we turned to the right. The air was warm and there was no wind, only a sighing of the earth. The moon was now bright and the great bulk of the South Downs, sweetly undulating, rose against the quiet sky. We crept slowly along for a quarter of a mile and then dipped sharp to the left for fifty yards and stopped. This was the spot.

For a while there was not a sound, save now and then a rustle in the undergrowth, the whistle of a far-distant train, a car on the Henfield road, an owl's hoot, or a dog barking.

I had begun to be assured of the worst when there came a liquid note. Then silence again; and then suddenly a burst of song. It was very brief, and there was again a disconcerting silence; but then another singer replied, and gradually their songs grew more steady. They behaved like angels; they went through everything in the repertory, and although their voices were not in the perfection of mid-May, they were beautiful enough, and one of them repeated that plaintive single cry seventeen times.

Even the chauffeur was impressed. He had heard about nightingales all his life, but this was his first experience of them. Like a canary, wasn't it?

I did not intrude upon the sick man until the time came to go. He was in an ecstasy and I wished that Ben could see him. It would have been a triumph for "The Beck and Call."

"But I should call that song a happy one," he said. "Certainly not melancholy, except very rarely. Its charm is its volume and exultation, and the careless ease of it."

I agreed. "I am against Matthew Arnold here," I said. "To me the truest line about the bird in our poetry is in William Cory:--

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake.

That's what they are: pleasant voices, triumphantly 'telling the world.'"

"Even Keats," he said, "makes the song a little too voluptuous and passionate, although how true to say that the nightingale 'among the leaves' has never known

The weariness, the fever, and the fret!"

He paused, and then repeated, almost in a whisper, the lines:--

Now more than ever it seems rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul aloud In such an ecstasy!

To me, though he was but a stranger, these lines, as he murmured them, were, since I knew his secret, infinitely pathetic; to his poor wife they must have meant anguish.

The next morning I called at the hotel to see how Mr. Measure was and to bid him good-bye. He re-expressed his gratitude for the night's entertainment, and said he should die with that music in his ears. I reproved him for talking of dying soon with such certainty.

"Dying men," he said, "can prepare for death with more courage, composure, and acceptance than those who watch them, and I have no doubt that you are sorrier for me than I am for myself. Not that I want to die, but I know I must. I won't be insincere about it. I know I am going to die very shortly after reaching home, because I have the means of death always with me. I know that my trouble is incurable and that it is getting worse. Would you have me a burden on those around me? My mind, as I grow weaker, will be less clear, less trustworthy; would you cherish decay?"

I had no rebutting argument to set up.

"I have always," he went on, "dreaded this disease, and when I was hale and strong I prepared accordingly. I have no fears; any postponement is due to the fact that I want to see my lawyer again and be at home. Otherwise I should take a dose to-day.

"The greatest drawback to suicide," he continued, with a whimsical smile, "is not want of decision, but a dislike of giving trouble. If I were to commit suicide now, it would have to be done in a hotel, and that isn't fair to the hotel. Nor should I care to be found lying in a field: that would mean a shock to someone and too much newspaper squalor after. Also a public mortuary. In any well-organized State there would, of course, be a great pool of quicklime into which, after taking poison, we could roll; but lacking that we must behave ourselves as best we can. By waiting till I get to Canada, I can complete my will, fold my arms, and die like a gentleman in bed."

"While admiring," I replied, "your determination and nice taste, I would remind you that next spring the nightingales will be singing again. You might still be alive and well enough to hear them."

"I refuse," he said, "to linger on, a wreck."

And so passed Mr. Adrian Measure from my life.

XXV

"Dear Miss Staveley," ran the note which Ben found on her desk, "will you do me the divine favour of coming to the theatre with me this evening? If so, name your play, and I will fetch you at your rooms at 7.5, and we will dine first. I do so hope you are free and that the notion likes you."

"Yours sincerely, "JOHN HARFORD"

Ben accepted.

It was a very smart Mr. Harford who drove up to Aubrey Walk that evening and carried her off to dinner. The tweeds had given place to superlative dress clothes and a white waistcoat; and there was no dog.

He went upstairs for a moment to be introduced to Melanie, who had insisted on this ceremony. "And later," she had said, "I want to see the other one too."

"Why?" Ben asked.

"Just curiosity," said Melanie. "It is always interesting to see the men who fall in love with one's friends. And these two seem to be so different that it is more interesting than ever. Why don't you marry both?"

"Have I ever given you any reason to suppose I should marry either?" Ben asked.

"Plenty," said Melanie.

"How ridiculous you are!" said Ben. She was really rather annoyed. "I am so tired of this notion that men and women who are friendly must be going to marry."

"It is doubtful, however," said Melanie, "if any weariness on your part will lessen the popularity of union between the sexes."

"Oh, Melanie, shut up!" said Ben. "How tired I am also of that word 'sexes'!"

"None the less, old dear," said Melanie, "there it is, and it's come to stay. And to a large extent that's why I've got to eat my dinner alone this evening."

"Again I say, shut up!" said Ben.

"How extraordinarily different you and Miss Ames are!" said Jack, as the cab started. "And yet she's very nice too. But she's so detached, so cool, so ironical."

"She's a very close observer under it all," said Ben.

"I'm rather scared of her," said Jack.

"What becomes of Soul when you go out in the evening?" Ben asked.

"He mopes," said Jack. "I've got an excellent landlady, who does her best to keep him happy, but he has no life away from me really. Sometimes when I walk and go to the pit, I take him to the theatre and leave him with friendly commissionaires; but it isn't a kindness because, as I can't give him any notion of how long I shall be, he spends the time in searching the appearance of every passer-by. Considering how near the ground his eyes are, this must be a very tiring and anxious occupation."

"But when you do arrive, his joy makes up for everything," Ben suggested.

"Yes," said Jack. "Dogs have wonderful compensations. Still, I doubt if the Fates were quite kind to them to make them at once so understanding and so dumb, or to us to make them so short-lived. You like them, don't you?"

"I adore them," said Ben.

"Would you care to have Soul?" Jack asked. It was a terrible wrench, but he asked it. ("Love my dog, love me.")

"Oh, no," said Ben. "Never! If ever a dog belonged to one person, and one only, it is Soul. And even if I accepted him, he would still be yours. He would be too loyal to transfer any but superficial affections. But you are very generous to make the offer at all," she added, "and I shall never forget it."

Melanie was sitting up when Ben returned. She was one of those girls who prefer the small hours.

"How do you find Mr. Harford?" she asked.

"He's very jolly," said Ben.

"Yes, but has he got anything to say?"

"Not very much," said Ben. "He isn't quite grown up. Such lots of young Englishmen aren't. I suppose it's this domination of the ball which keeps them boys. French youths, who don't play games, always look so old. But he's very nice and kind."

"I'll bet he didn't try to kiss you in the cab," said Melanie.

"Certainly not," said Ben. "Why should he?"

"So many of them want to," said Melanie. "But the older ones chiefly. All the same," she added, "if you're not careful you'll very shortly have the chance of offering to be a sister to him."

"I wish you wouldn't be so absurd," said Ben. "Your suspicious nature smirches everything. Mr. Harford likes me, I know, but that's all."

"Was he always as smart as that?" Melanie inquired.

"I don't know," said Ben. "I've never seen him in evening clothes before."

"And he made no overtures to-night? Will you swear?"

"Of course," said Ben.

"He didn't offer you his spaniel or anything like that?"

"Oh, Melanie, how horrid you are!" Ben exclaimed as she banged the door.

Melanie chuckled.

XXVI

The Wimbledon tournament now being over, in which Tommy Clinton had survived but two rounds, that young gentleman was only too free to devote his time to Ben, and it was therefore the more galling to him to find her so busy. He called so frequently that Mr. Harford was constrained to mention the fact.

"You will excuse me, Miss Staveley," he said one afternoon after Tommy had left, "but would you mind if we put a ladder against the wall for your friend to come and leave by?"

"Which friend?" Ben asked.

"The affable gent in the Panama hat," said Mr. Harford, "who is here most days and walks through our modest but well-conducted premises as if they were a pig-sty. We don't mind a man despising the treasures of literature; reading is, after all, a matter of taste; but we do bar the way he scowls at us. Even Pat, mild and tolerant as he is, almost squared up to him to-day. My own idea is to exchange this poor little creature here--who shares the besetting sin of all spaniels in being too ready to make indiscriminate friends--for a man-eating mastiff. What's his quarrel with us, anyway? Does he dislike us personally or did a book seller once try to do him in?"

Ben laughed. "Poor Tommy!" she said. "Be a little patient, he's going back to Madeira next week."

"An excellent place for him," said Mr. Harford.

Ben herself found Tommy rather a trial, for he not only looked at her with such hungry hopelessness, but he took up a great deal of valuable time.

His next visit was a veritable ordeal.

"Look here, Ben," he said, "I've been working for you since I was here last and I think you'll agree that I've been rather useful. Of course I hate your being in this business--the very phrase 'Beck and Call' makes me sick, for a girl like you too!--and being mixed up with those two fellows downstairs. By the way, the lame one sings too: something about his 'Bonnie,' confound him! Well, since you're set on sticking to business, and since you won't do what I ask, I want to help you to be more comfortable and more successful. So I've been nosing about and I've found you some really good premises in a central part, far removed from this back-alley and those musical shopkeepers downstairs."

"What ever do you mean?" Ben demanded, her colour rising dangerously.

"Just what I have said," Tommy replied. "I have found you some really good premises. In Dover Street. Close to the big hotels, close to Piccadilly, and approached from the street direct by a staircase. Very important, that."

"My dear boy, no doubt you meant it very well," said Ben, with some temper, "but I can't have my affairs interfered with like this. I have a lease here, for one thing; for another, it has become well known. For another, I don't want to move. Dover Street, no doubt, is a good position; but I can't afford Dover Street. This is cheap and central enough. I hope you haven't committed yourself at all."

"I've got an option," said Tommy.

"Then please oblige me by instantly getting rid of it," said Ben.

"As to the higher rent," said Tommy, "you'd make that up in a jiffy when people found you had a separate entrance and didn't have to go through a shop."

"Please get rid of it instantly," said Ben. "I shan't have a moment's peace of mind till you do. I'll come down with you," she said, with a sudden foreboding of an explosion below.

"Oh, Ben," said Tommy, miserably, "and I did want to help you! All right," he added angrily, "I'll go. And I may as well say good-bye now instead of next week. Good-bye."

"But I'm coming down with you all the same," said Ben.

XXVII

"Is that Ben?" Toby asked over the telephone at Aubrey Walk, one evening.

"Speaking," said Ben.

"I must see you," said Toby. "At once."

"But I was just going out," said Ben. "Where are you?"

"I'm at home," said Toby. "I'll come and go with you to wherever you're going. It's frightfully important. It's a matter of life and death."

Ben smiled. She had been expecting this.

"I was only going to Uncle Paul's," she said. "I'll wait for you."

"Righto!" said Toby. "I'll come in a taxi."

He came, looking wild and haggard.

"This is awful," he said. "Vi says she won't wear my ring for six months. And she wants me not to see her."