CHAPTER XIV

ANOTHER COSY CHAT, WITH AN INTERRUPTION

I

_The victim_, continued Connie presently, _is now upon the sofa, wedged in between the Chief Ogress and the Assistant Tormentor. She is scared out of her wits, poor thing, but has stood up to the pair of them splendidly so far_.

"It was good of you to come down to this poky little corner of the country, Miss Welwyn," Lady Adela was saying, handing Tilly a second cup of tea. "It is so nice when one's friends take one as they find one, is it not?"

Tilly, wide-eyed and quaking, was understood to assent to this proposition.

"You live in town, I understand?" continued Lady Adela cautiously.

Tilly took a deep breath, and began:--

"Yes--in Russell Square. The house," she continued rapidly, "is very old-fashioned. It belonged to my grandfather. My father inherited from him, and we have lived there ever since we left Cambridge. We have often talked of leaving, but Dad says he can't bear transplanting at his time of life. So," concluded Tilly, with an hysterical little gasp--Lady Adela and Sylvia were listening with the dispassionate immobility of a pair of well-nourished sphinxes--"we just stay on."

_She has confessed that she lives in Bloomsbury_, wrote Mrs. Carmyle. _The Inquisition are one up_.

"Russell Square!" cooed Lady Adela. "How charming and old-fashioned! So handy for the British Museum, too!"

"And Euston Road!" added Sylvia enthusiastically.

_Cats! Cats!! Cats!!!_ recorded Connie furiously.

Lady Adela offered Tilly a bun, and resumed her long-distance fire.

"You are quite a small family, I imagine?"

"Well," began Tilly readily--they had reached a topic that lay very near her heart--"there are Father and Mother, of course, and my brother Percy, and my sister, and two quite tiny ones. My grandmother--"

"How nice," murmured Lady Adela indulgently, closing her eyes as if to mitigate the strain of this enumeration. "And what is your little sister's name?"

"Amelia."

"Amelia? Delightful! Perfect! It suits Russell Square exactly."

"One feels," corroborated Sylvia, "as if the Sedleys and the Osbornes and the Rawdon Crawleys all lived next door."

_Why don't they smack people like Sylvia more in their youth?_ enquired Mrs. Carmyle's letter plaintively.

"I don't think we have met any of _them_," said Miss Welwyn doubtfully. "The Mossops live on one side of us and the Rosenbaums on the other. We don't call on them, of course," she added apprehensively. "And oh, Lady Adela, I have an invitation for you from my mother, to come and have tea with us."

"That is very kind of your mother," said Lady Adela graciously. "You shall give me the invitation when you have unpacked your boxes."

"It's--it's not a written invitation," said Tilly. "Mother just asked me to ask you, any day you happen to be coming into town. Then you would meet my father and the others."

"That will be charming," replied Lady Adela. "I think we have no engagement on Monday." (_Lady A. is simply bursting with curiosity about the girl's family_, observed Connie at this point.) "I will write a little note to your mother, and you shall take it back with you on Monday morning. Are you the eldest of the family?"

"No. Perce--Percy is the eldest. He is twenty-two."

"Is he at the University?"

Miss Welwyn shook her head.

"Not now," she said. She spoke with more freedom. The restraint of her surroundings was wearing off, and her courage, which was considerable, was beginning to assert itself. "He is in the City. He dislikes it very much, poor boy. He is so fond of open-air sports, and he finds an office very trying. My father was a great sportsman, too. He used to go racing a good deal at one time, but he has given it up now. He says he is on the shelf."

"And he was a Fellow of his College, I think you said?" remarked Lady Adela, a little bored with this prattle.

"Yes--Fellow and Tutor."

"But he is no longer in residence, you say?"

"No," said Tilly briefly.

_There is something shady about the poor child's father_, wrote Mrs. Carmyle, _but Lady A. has got no change out of her so far_.

"I am looking forward greatly to making your father's acquaintance, Miss Welwyn," said Lady Adela, with absolute sincerity. "Now, I wonder if I know any of your mother's people. I don't think you have mentioned her maiden name."

"She was a Banks," replied Miss Welwyn readily.

_Bill, dear, this little girl is splendid!_ recorded Connie enthusiastically.

"I beg your pardon?" said Lady Adela.

"A Banks," repeated Tilly politely.

Lady Adela nodded her head intelligently.

"Ah, to be sure!" she said. "Let me see. Are they a Warwickshire family, now?"

"Or is it a Cornish name?" queried Sylvia, with an encouraging smile.

"No," said Tilly. "Mother came from Bedfordshire--or else Cambridgeshire," she added rather breathlessly, for the four eyes of the sphinxes were upon her once more.

"But, dear Miss Welwyn--" began Sylvia.

_I can stand this no longer!_ scribbled Connie, and threw down her pen.

"Thank goodness, that's over!" she exclaimed, rising and coming over to the fire. "What a nuisance affectionate husbands are! Talking of husbands, Sylvia, I hear you are going to marry a plumber."

Lady Adela and Sylvia, taken in flank, both turned and eyed the frivolous interloper severely. Had they not done so, they would have noted that Miss Welwyn's teacup had almost leaped from its saucer.

"Dear Connie, you are priceless," commented Sylvia patronisingly. "I wonder where you got your quaint sense of humour."

"Lady Adela was my informant," said Connie, quite unruffled. She had drawn the enemy's fire upon herself, which was precisely what she had intended to do. "Jolly sensible of you, too! A plumber is a useful little thing to have about a house. My Bill is practically one, you know, although he calls himself something grander. Now, what about a four-handed game of billiards before dinner? Do you feel inclined to play, Miss Welwyn?"

"I am rather out of practice," said Tilly dubiously.

"Never mind!" said Connie. "You can play with Dicky against Mr. Mainwaring and me."

She walked to the foot of the staircase, and called up: "Mr. Richard, forward!"

"In one moment, Miss!" replied a voice far up the height. "I'm just attending to a lady at the ribbon counter. I'll step down directly." Then a stentorian bawl: "Sign, please!"

During this characteristic exchange of inanities an electric bell purred faintly in the distance, with the usual result that the dining-room door opened, to emit the jinnee-like presence of Mr. Milroy.

"What is it, Milroy?" enquired Lady Adela.

"Front door bell, my lady," replied Milroy, and disappeared like a corpulent wraith through the curtains.

"Heavens, not _another_ caller!" exclaimed the overwrought mistress of the household.

"Probably Mr. Rylands come back for his goloshes," said Sylvia. At the same moment Dicky and his father appeared, descending the staircase together.

"_And_ the next article, madam?" continued Dick lustily, addressing Mrs. Carmyle, who stood below.

He was answered, not by the lady to whom his query was addressed, but by Milroy, who appeared holding back one of the curtains which covered the entrance to the vestibule, to announce, in the resigned tones of a man for whom life holds no further surprises:--

"Mr. Percy Welwyn!"

II

Mr. Percy Welwyn entered. He was a slender young man with an insufficient chin and a small moustache. He looked like a shop assistant; and Dicky's last remark, still ringing through the hall, emphasised rather than suggested the comparison. His hair was brushed low down upon his forehead, with an elaborate curl over his right eyebrow. His eyes were bulgy. He wore a tight-fitting cycling suit, splashed with mud, and carried in his hand a small tweed cap bearing a metal badge. Altogether an impartial observer might have been excused for not feeling greatly surprised that Dicky and Tilly had mislaid him.

Mr. Welwyn advanced to the fire, with the easy grace of one who is habitually a success in whatever grade of society he finds himself, and remarked: "Good-evenin', all!"

For a moment there was a frozen silence. Then Dicky hurried forward.

"My dear Percy," he exclaimed, wringing the newcomer by the hand, "here you are, after all! Dear old soul! Let me present the rest of my family."

He linked his arm in that of the travel-stained cyclist, and led him towards the petrified Lady Adela.

"Mother," he announced, "this is my friend Percy Welwyn."

"Mr. Percy Welwyn," said a gentle voice in his ear.

"Sorry, old man!" said Dicky hastily.

"No offence taken," Mr. Welwyn assured him, "where none intended. This, I presume,"--he waved his dripping tweed cap in the face of the speechless matron before him,--"is your hostess."

"Yes," said Dicky. "My mother, Lady Adela Mainwaring."

Mr. Welwyn shook hands affably.

"How de do, your ladyship?" he said. "Very pleased to make your ladyship's acquaintance, I'm sure."

"And this," continued Dicky, swiftly wheeling his guest out of the danger zone, "is my old Dad."

"How do you do, Mr. Welwyn?" said Mr. Mainwaring, with a courteous little bow. "We make you welcome."

"How de do, your lordship?" replied Mr. Welwyn, repeating his hand-shaking performance. "Very pleased to make your lordship's acquaintance."

"That's an error on your part, Percy," said Dicky smoothly. "Dad's only a commoner. But we'll work it out afterwards. This is my little sister Sylvia."

Mr. Welwyn greeted the statuesque Miss Mainwaring as he had greeted her parents, throwing in an ingratiating ogle which plainly intimated that he intended to make an impression in this quarter.

"Very pleased to make _your_ acquaintance, Miss," he said. "We shall be calling each other Perce and Sylvie in no time, I can see. And now," he continued, turning his back upon the quivering figure of his future playmate, "I should like to address a few observations to the happy couple. You're a nice pair of turtle-doves to come and play gooseberry to, I don't suppose! Here I give up a whole Saturday afternoon to come and chaperon our Tilly and her young gentleman down to his ancestral home; and the first thing I know is the pair of them give me the slip at Waterloo! Chronic, I call it!"

"What else did you expect, Mr. Welwyn?" interposed Connie, coming characteristically to the rescue, the majority of the Mainwaring family being in no condition to cope with Percy. "Have n't you ever been engaged yourself?"

Her unsolicited intrusion into the conversation was plainly a shock to Percy's sense of decorum. He coughed reprovingly behind his hand, and turning to Dicky, remarked:--

"Introdooce me!"

Dicky, humble and apologetic, complied. Mr. Welwyn went through his usual performance, and continued:--

"Engaged, Mrs. Carmyle? Not me! Not that I might n't have bin, mark you, if I had n't been born careful. Be born careful, and you need n't be born lucky. The Proverbs of Perce--Number one!" he added, in a humorous aside. "Well, to resume. Luckily I had the old push-bike with me, and I managed to find my way down here in a matter of an hour and a half or so. And then what happens? Just as I am doing a final spin up your kerridge-drive, your ladyship--_bing! bang!_ and I get bowled over in the dark by a charging rhinoceros!"

Mr. Welwyn concluded this dramatic narrative with a few appropriate gestures, and paused to note its effect upon his auditors.

"That was Maximilian, I fancy," explained Dicky cheerfully. "The little fellow must have got loose. Did you notice which way he was going?"

"I did," replied Percy with feeling. "He was going the opposite way to me."

"In that case," replied Dicky reflectively, "he must be halfway back to mother by this time. Well, perhaps it is just as well. Did you happen to observe whether he had the rain-gauge with him?"

"All I remarked," replied Mr. Welwyn bitterly, "was about half a mudguard. But that," he continued, with a winning smile to the ladies, "is neither here nor there, is it? Seeing as you are safe, Tilly, old girl, I think I may now resign the post of chaperon into her ladyship's hands. And perhaps," he added with a graceful bow, "I may be permitted to remark that in my humble opinion a more capable pair of hands could not be found for the job."

Lady Adela had suffered severely that day, and her spirit for the time being was almost broken. She merely smiled weakly.

Mr. Welwyn, now at the very top of his form, struck an attitude.

"My trusty iron steed," he declaimed, "waits without the battlements--all but a few spokes, that is, accounted for by the aforesaid rhinoceros--and I must hence, to ketch the seven-fifteen back to Londinium."

"Does that mean he is going?" murmured Lady Adela to her daughter, with a flutter of hope upon her drawn features.

Sylvia was nodding reassuringly, when the tactless Dicky broke in:--

"Percy, old son, you really must stay for dinner, if not for the night."

"We can't send you away empty in weather like this, Mr. Welwyn," added Mr. Mainwaring hospitably. "My dear--"

He turned to his wife, but the words froze upon his lips, for Lady Adela presented an appearance that can only be described as terrible. But the impervious Percy noticed nothing.

"By my halidom," he exclaimed, highly gratified, "that was well spoken! Yet it cannot be. I thank you, ladies and gentles all, for your courtly hospitality; but, as the bard observes: 'I _must_ get home to-night!'" (Here he broke into song, and indulged in what are known in theatrical circles as "a few steps.") "The club has an important run billed for to-morrow, and if little Percy is missing, there will be enquiries. Still, rather than disoblige, I'll split the difference. I will drain a stirrup-cup of foaming Bass with ye ere I depart. Then, forward across the drawbridge! Yoicks! Likewise Tally Ho! Which way, fair sir," concluded this high-spirited youth, turning to his host, "to the Saloon Bar?"

"Percy," remarked Dicky hurriedly, "you are immense! You ought to go on the Halls. Come along! This way!"

"I have bin approached, mind you," began the comedian, taking Dicky's arm, "but!"

"Are you coming too, Tilly?" asked Dicky, looking back.

Tilly, who had been apprehensively regarding the flinty countenances of her future relatives-in-law, assented hurriedly and gratefully.

"Yes, please," she said. "I will come and see Percy off."

She took Dicky's free arm.

"'T is meet and fitting," observed the ebullient Percy. "We will drain a tankard jointly. Right away! Pip, pip! Good-morrow, knights and ladies all!"

The trio disappeared into the dining-room, leaving a most uncanny silence behind them!

Mr. Mainwaring hastily picked up the evening paper and enshrouded himself in its folds. Lady Adela feebly signalled to Sylvia for the smelling-salts.

"A perfectly _appalling_ young man!" she announced.

"And a perfectly sweet little girl!" quoth loyal Connie.