CHAPTER XIX

"Good-morning, monsieur. Here is the chocolate."

"Good-morning. And madame, has hers been taken in?"

"Ah, three hours ago!... Look, it is a beautiful day, monsieur!"

Then, when the waiter had let in the sunshine and gone, Kent would rise, and find Cynthia either busily stirring more food over the fire, or preparing the boy's bath. Afterwards she would carry him into the little enclosure opposite, and, what with her unfamiliarity with a nurse's duties and the makeshifts that she was put to, it often seemed to her that this was the only time during the day that she was free to sit down.

Their meals were all served in Kent's bedroom; but just as the luncheon appeared, the baby, who was feverish and fretful, would surely cry, and she would be obliged to call out that Kent was not to wait for her. "Begin!" For dinner, she made desperate efforts. By this time the child, bathed once more, was supposed to be already asleep; and more oatmeal had to be stirred and carefully watched for five-and-twenty minutes, an operation that entailed burning cheeks and occasionally despair, since the saucepan had a habit of boiling over without warning and requiring to be filled and stirred for twenty-five minutes again. When the task was achieved, there followed a hurried attempt to make herself look cool and nice before the soup arrived--Kent was apt to be irritable if she was not ready--and providing the baby did not wake at the last moment and prevent her going in after all, the dinner-hour was very agreeable.

Thanks to the chambermaid, they had been able to dispense with the tallow candles at sixpence each, and had obtained a lamp, which was much more cheerful. The _vin compris_ had turned out to be rather good, too, and after the appalling meals at the Garins' the cuisine struck them as quite first-rate. Not infrequently, when the coffee was brought in, they sent down for liqueurs, and their evenings, despite the worry of the day, and their ignorance where the money was coming from to pay the bill, were very jolly.

Beaufort's expectations were still unrealised. On Tuesday he was certain "Things would be right on Thursday," and on Thursday, with undiminished confidence, he repeated, "Early in the week." The proprietress of the hotel was a huge red woman, who had been a low-class domestic servant. The "gracious service unexpressed" by which she had attained her present prosperity, the squinting chambermaid did not know, and she added, with a grin and a grimace, that it was really very difficult to conjecture it. The flaming countenance and belligerent eye of the proprietress would, in the circumstances, have scared Kent from the door, had she been visible when he came there to arrange, and on Friday night he slept uneasily. She presented the bill next morning at nine o'clock, and at twelve sent him a message that she wished it to be settled at once. His interview with her was eminently unpleasant, and on Monday, when the fire for the child was not laid and Cynthia inquired the reason, she learnt that the woman had forbidden the servant to take up any fuel.

But for Nanette, their position would now have been untenable. She smuggled wood to the room; pacified her mistress by the recital of imaginary telegrams picked up on monsieur Kent's floor; and finally, squeezing Cynthia's hand one afternoon, offered to bring down some money that she had saved out of her wages. This was the last straw. Cynthia put her arms round her neck and kissed her; and when Humphrey came home and she told him what had happened, they both felt that to have to decline such a loan and wish that it could be accepted, was about the deepest humiliation to which it was possible for people to sink.

They were mistaken, but it was the lowest point that they themselves were called upon to touch. The day following, Beaufort telegraphed, asking Humphrey to meet him at the Cabaret Lyonnais, where, at a moderate price, he ordered a little dinner of supreme excellence. Billy had not had his loan made yet--that, he said buoyantly, was "certain for next week"--but he had had a lucky night at baccarat. And after the benedictine he pulled out a bundle of notes on to the table of the shabby restaurant and, beaming with rectitude, paid his debt in full.

With a cigar in his mouth and delight bubbling in his veins, Kent jumped into a cab, and, having rattled to the rue des Soeurs Filandières, threw their receipt and the remainder of the money into Cynthia's lap. She nearly dropped the baby with astonishment, and though they were unable to go out anywhere, it was perhaps the liveliest night that they had spent in Paris. After adding the Garins' account, and the cost of their return, and a present to Nanette, it was momentarily disconcerting to perceive how few of the notes would be left; but the relief was so enormous that their spirits speedily arose again, and, extravagant as it was, they ordered champagne, and invited Nanette to share it.

Kent recovered their luggage the next morning, and the morning after that they departed for London. They had heard in the meanwhile that the Walfords could easily put them up until No. 64 was ready for them. The journey without a nurse was awkward, and though it had been essential to go to the Walfords', Kent was chagrined to reflect that her absence would have to be explained. Compared with the crossing from Newhaven, this passage was, to Cynthia, who had to remain below all the time, a long voyage; when they reached Victoria at last, she felt that she would have given a good deal to be going to the Grosvenor Hotel. Strawberry Hill was gained about nine o'clock, and Kent found the house a pathetic descent from The Hawthorns. Mr. and Mrs. Walford, however, were not unamiable, and as they did not refer to the absence of the nurse otherwise than by inquiring how soon he expected to replace her; he concluded that his wife had anticipated their surprise and discounted it more or less dexterously in her letters.

"So the paper was a failure?" said Walford, when the excitement of the entrance had subsided. "Oh, well, you will be able to get something to do here, I dare say, before long. What do you think of the house? Not so bad, eh?"

"Not bad at all," said Kent--"very pretty! That was awful news, sir! I was infernally sorry to hear about it. Might have been worse, though --a good deal."

"Ups and downs," said the jobber; "we'll get square at the finish. Grin and bear it, Louisa, old girl! You'll always have enough to eat."

Mrs. Walford laughed constrainedly. She did not relish allusion to their reverses; it appeared to her insult added to injury.

"I don't think we've either of us much cause to grieve," she answered. "We're very comfortable here, don't you think so, Humphrey? There are such nice people in the neighbourhood, Cynthia--people who move in the best society, and--hee, hee, hee!--we are making quite a fashionable circle; we are out almost every night. Well, I don't hear much about Paris? Did you have a jolly time?"

"We went everywhere and saw everything," said Cynthia. "Humphrey got no end of tickets, and--well, yes, Paris is lovely!"

"Why 'well, yes'?"

"Well, of course, the paper's stopping was an anxiety to us, mamma. Naturally. How's Aunt Emily?"

"Emily writes us once a week, acknowledging the receipt of her allowance. How she is I really can't tell you; she says very little more than that she has 'received the money.' She's living in apartments in Brunswick Square, and I believe she is very glad she is alone. _I_ am, I can tell you! She has become very sour, Emily has."

"Apartments in Brunswick Square aren't so remarkably cheap," said Kent. "Aunt Emily must be expensive, mater?"

"Well, she has--er--one room. It's a nice large room, I understand, and quite enough for one person, I'm sure! There was no occasion for her to take a suite, she isn't going to give any parties."

"No occasion whatever. A bedroom can be very cosy when the lamp's lighted and there's a bottle of wine on the table, can't it, Cynthia?"

"She won't have any bottles of wine. What are you thinking of?" said Mrs. Walford. "Not but what she could afford wine," she added hastily; "but it doesn't agree with her; it never did! I suppose you know that Cæsar is still in Germany? He has settled there. If there are moments when I feel out of it in spite of the company we see at Strawberry Hill, it's when I read of the life that boy leads in Berlin. He is in a brilliant circle--most brilliant!"

"Cynthia told me he had a first-rate thing."

"Capital thing!" affirmed Sam briskly. "I tell you, he's going to the top of the tree. When he's my age Cæsar will be a big figure in Europe."

Kent thought he was a fair size already, but replied briefly that he had been "very fortunate."

"Ability, my lad! He's got the brains! Do you know, Louisa, it was damn foolishness of us ever to persuade that boy to go on the stage? He was meant for what he is--we'd no right to divert his natural bent. He's in the proper groove because his tendency was too strong for us. But we were wrong--I say we did very wrong! By George! he might never have made more than a couple of hundred a week among greasy opera-singers all his life. What a thing!" By dint of many midnight conferences with Louisa, he had almost succeeded in believing that he meant part of what he said.

"Are his prospects so very wonderful, then?" asked Cynthia, surprised. "What is it he _is_ doing? It is only a sort of clerkship, isn't it?"

"A clerkship?" shrieked her mother. "How can you talk such ridic'lous nonsense? A clerkship? Absurd! He's McCullough's right hand--quite his right hand! McCullough says he would be worth twice as much as he is to-day if he had met Cæsar five years ago. He told your papa so last week--didn't he, Sam?"

"He did," said the jobber. But there was less conviction in his tone. This was new, and he hadn't taught himself to try to credit it yet.

"He told your papa that Cæsar's power of--er--of gripping a subject was immense; he had never met anything like it. He consults him in everything; he doesn't take a step without asking Cæsar's opinion first; I don't suppose a young man ever had such an extraordinary position before. Clerkship? Ho, you don't know what you're talking about!"

Kent gave the conversation a twist by inquiring Miss Wix's number, as he and Cynthia would have to pay her a visit; and, on searching for her address, Mrs. Walford discovered, with much surprise, that she was not in Brunswick Square, after all, but that her one room was in a street leading out of it.

The mistake was unimportant. Moreover, his mind was too much occupied for him really to think of making social calls on any one but Turquand. To the office of _The Outpost_ he betook himself next morning, and learnt that his friend was at Brighton until Monday. This did not look as if he had been pressed for his six pounds, but in other respects it was disappointing. Kent proceeded from _The Outpost_ to the offices of two other papers, where he left advertisements, and after that he had only to stroll back through the streets, which looked very ugly and depressing after Paris, to Ludgate Hill. Luncheon was over when he re-entered the villa, but it had not been cleared away, and he found Cynthia in the dining-room alone, reading a novel. He noted, with as agreeable surprise as she could have afforded him, that it was the copy of his own book that he had given to Mrs. Walford on their return from Dieppe. He looked at his wife kindly.

"Turk's not in town," he said, helping himself to cold sirloin and salad; "gone to Brighton for a day or two. I've paid for my advertisements. Have you sent off yours yet, to try to induce a general servant to accept a situation?"

Cynthia shook her head meaningly, and came across and took a chair beside him.

"Kemp is awfully nice with Baby," she said; "she is upstairs with him now, and on the whole I've been thinking that we had better not hurry to get home again; we had better be a long time arranging matters, Humphrey! While we are here we haven't any expenses."

Kent stared, and then smiled.

"This is abominable morality," he said. "Paris has certainly corrupted you, young woman. And, besides, your people would worry my life out with questions. Nothing puts me in a worse temper than being asked what my news is when I haven't any."

"That's all very well, my dear boy, but we have no money. There's a quarter's rent overdue now, isn't there? and we should only have a month's peace before the tradespeople began to bother. I really think we ought to take two or three weeks, at all events, finding a girl; I do indeed. Mamma and papa would beg us to stop if they knew what a state we were in; it seems to me we ought to do it without giving them the--ahem--needless pain of listening to our confession."

"You're very specious," laughed Kent. The semi-serious conclusion might have been uttered by himself, and he approved the tone without recognising the model. "Has your mother noticed that you haven't got your ring on?"

"No. I couldn't tell her a story about it, and I'm praying that she won't. I've been envying you your trouser-pockets ever since we arrived. Don't take ale, Humphrey--have some claret, it will do you more good. If we sold our furniture----"

"What would it fetch at a sale? And apartments would cost us more than the house! No ... we'll make ourselves welcome here for a week or so. And--well, let's hope the advertisements will turn up trumps! Then we shall be independent."

One of the advertisements was to appear on Monday.