CHAPTER XXIII

THE REAL MR. WELWYN

"_There is an evenin' paper--_"

quavered Mr. Stillbottle blithely, with his feet upon the kitchen hob,--

--"_which is published in the mornin'!_ _Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, little Star!_"

He unfolded the early edition of the organ in question and devoted himself to a laboured perusal of the list of probable starters for the Lincolnshire Handicap, now looming in the immediate future; for he was anxious to ascertain whether his premonitions as to the identity of the winner coincided with those of the prophet retained by the management. Apparently they did; for presently the paper was laid aside with a contented sigh, and the student of form resumed the hoary lay which anxiety connected with the investment of his newly acquired capital had caused him momentarily to abandon.

"_Twinkle, Star!_ _Tiddley Wink!_ _Twinkle on till you dunno where you are!_ _Oh, we 'll make things warm for 'Arcourt,_ If 'e ever comes down our court!* _Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, little St--_"

Conscious of a draught upon the back of his neck, the vocalist turned uneasily in the direction of the door. It had opened some six inches, revealing to view a pair of cherubic heads, set one above the other. Each head was furnished with a pair of quite circular blue eyes, which surveyed Mr. Stillbottle, with unwinking and unnerving ecstasy.

"The Funny Man!" proclaimed The Cure joyously.

"Yesh," agreed The Caution. "Lesh box him."

The pair entered the room hand in hand, and advanced grimly to the attack.

Mr. Stillbottle hastily removed his feet from the hob.

"You two," he announced, "can get on out of this. I ain't never done you no 'arm, 'ave I?" he added appealingly; "so why---"

At this point The Caution dealt him a playful but disabling blow in the waistcoat. The Cure, with a shriek of rapture, seized Mr. Stillbottle's frayed coat by the tails and whirled its owner round three times upon his axis.

"Now catch me!" she shrieked.

"If I _do_--" gasped Mr. Stillbottle, clutching dizzily at the mantelpiece. Further words failed him, and entrenching himself behind a table, he waited like a hunted animal for the further assaults of his enemies.

He was not kept long in suspense. Having armed themselves with the fire-irons, the two affectionate but boisterous infants were upon the point of inaugurating a game of what they called "beat-the-carpet"--it is hardly necessary to specify the role assigned to Mr. Stillbottle--when the door opened, revealing the welcome figure of Dicky Mainwaring.

Straightway weapons were thrown down, and the newcomer found himself the centre of a cloud of embraces. Dicky was a prime favourite with children and dogs--no bad test of character, either.

Presently, having shaken himself free from the unmaidenly caresses of the youngest Miss Welwyn, Dicky became aware of the pathetic presence of Mr. Stillbottle.

"Good-morning, Mr. Russell," he said. "You are just the man I want to see."

"You can see me as often and as long as you like, sir," replied the afflicted Russell fervently, "if only you'll put those two imps on the other side of that door."

"Certainly," said Dicky. "Now you two, skedaddle!"

To the amazement and admiration of their late victim the two freebooters departed immediately, merely pausing to receive a valedictory salute from their evictor. Dicky closed the door upon them, and motioning the broker's man to a chair, enquired:--

"Where is everybody this morning, Mr. Russell?"

"My name, in mufti, to my friends," replied the grateful Russell, "is Stillbottle. But you was asking about 'everybody.' Meanin' the Barcelona Troupe of Performing Nuts?"

Dicky nodded.

"Upstairs, most of 'em," said Stillbottle. "All but your little bit. She 'as gone out."

Dicky looked up sharply.

"For long?" he asked.

"I could n't say," replied the broker's man. "Perce has gone to the City. Mother and the little 'un are a-makin' of the beds. The Principal Filbert is still between the sheets. I'm the only member of the cast visible at present. But as you say it's me you came to see, perhaps you'll kindly state your business."

Dicky did so.

A quarter of an hour later he ascended to the drawing-room, restored to its usual aspect of dingy propriety after yesterday's junketings. He noticed that his carnations had disappeared.

Mr. Welwyn was just entering from his bedroom. At the sight of Dicky he started, but recovering himself with his usual readiness, shook hands.

"Good-morning, Mr. Mainwaring," he said. "Be seated."

Dicky complied. "You seem surprised to see me, sir," he said.

"Frankly," replied Mr. Welwyn, "I am. After our treatment of you yesterday I hardly expected you to return. I can only extenuate our performance by assuring you that what looked like a carefully graduated series of insults was nothing more than the logical, if unforeseen, development of a somewhat childish attempt upon our part to delude your family into the impression that our circumstances were not so straitened as, in point of fact, they are. We meant well, but--"

Mr. Welwyn concluded this explanation with a rather helpless gesture. It was an awkward and difficult moment. With all his faults he was a man of feeling, with a gentleman's inherent distaste for anything savouring of sharp practice; and he knew that the boy before him felt the situation as acutely as himself. There are few sadder sights than that of an old man eating humble pie to a young man.

But Dicky, The Freak, was equal to the occasion. He answered gravely:--

"The point of view which I prefer to take, Mr. Welwyn, is this--that you were all trying to do a good turn to Tilly."

"Thank you, Dick," said Mr. Welwyn simply. "Still, there was a second reason which I thought might perhaps keep you away."

"What was that?"

"Well--the presence in one's abode of a sheriff's officer is apt to exercise a dispersive influence upon one's calling acquaintance."

"On this occasion, however," replied Dicky serenely, "you will find that a calling acquaintance has dispersed the sheriff's officer."

Mr. Welwyn, who had been perambulating the room, stopped dead.

"You don't mean to tell me," he exclaimed, "that the fellow is gone?"

Dicky nodded. "Five minutes ago," he said.

"But--I don't understand," muttered the elder man. "Did you _kick_ him out? If so, the fat is in the fire with a--"

"He left this behind him," interposed Dicky awkwardly. "Under the circumstances--I took the liberty."

Mr. Welwyn gazed long and silently at the stamped document which lay beneath his eyes. Then he looked up at Dicky and made a movement as if to shake hands; then drew back and bowed, not without dignity.

"Mr. Mainwaring," he said, "I thank you. I will leave it at that. If I possessed a less intimate knowledge of my own character, I should hasten to give utterance to the sentiment which at this moment dominates my mind--namely, a sincere determination never to rest until I have repaid you this sum. But I have not arrived at my present estate without learning that any such impulse on my part would be entirely transitory. From the age of five I can never recollect having formed a single resolution that I was able to keep. I therefore accept your very generous aid without protest or false pride. My wife, of course, would not approve. She comes of a class whose sole criterion of respectability is a laborious solvency during life and an expensive funeral after death. Do not imagine that I am belittling her. She is the one sound investment I ever made. I need not trouble you with the facts of our courtship and marriage; but I will tell you this, my boy, that if a man had real cause to be grateful for and proud of his wife, that man is Lucius Welwyn. And the extraordinary part of it all is that she is proud of me--_me_! Instead of acting like a sensible woman and deploring me as a commercial and domestic liability, she persists in exalting me into a social asset of the first water. I do not attempt to dispel these illusions of hers. In a woman's hands an illusion, after she has fashioned it to the shape that pleases her, hardens into a solid, enduring, and comforting fact. Perhaps, then, things are best as they are. But I cherish no illusions about myself. I know my limits. I am a considerate husband and an affectionate father. My temper, except at times of the severest domestic stringency, is irreproachable; and I find myself generally regarded as good company by my friends. But I am not a worldly success. I take life too easily, perhaps. I allow others to step over my head. I am too ready to stand by and watch the passing show, rather than plunge in and take my part."

The speaker paused, and for a moment his glance rested upon the honest, rather puzzled, but deeply interested eyes of the young man upon the sofa. Suddenly an exposition of candour came upon Mr. Welwyn.

"There was a time," he said in a less buoyant tone, "when these propensities of mine used to distress me. The day I was deprived of my Fellowship, for instance--"

His voice shook suddenly.

"Don't tell me about it, sir, if you would rather not," said Dicky quietly.

"For drunkenness, Mr. Mainwaring--for drunkenness!" burst out Mr. Welwyn. "Not for chronic, sordid soaking--that has never been a foible of mine--but for characteristic inability to do things in their right order. Take warning by me, Dick, and never put the cart before the horse. I had been invited to lecture to a very learned body upon a very special occasion. A successful appearance would have gained me my F.R.S. The natural and proper course for me to pursue was to deliver the lecture first and treat myself to a magnum of champagne afterwards. What I actually did was to treat myself to the magnum of champagne and then deliver the lecture. I may say with all modesty that that lecture caused a profound sensation. It is still quoted--but not in textbooks; and it ended my University career. My life since has been a series of similar incidents--disaster arising from my inherent inability to distinguish between the time to be merry and the time to sing psalms. Still, I keep on smiling. Fortune has not touched me for many years now. Fortune likes fresh blood: once you get used to her she leaves you alone. You see the manner of man I now am--a seasoned philosopher--a man who takes life as it comes--a man who never meets trouble halfway--a man unburdened by the sentimental craving, so prevalent in this hysterical age, to confer unsolicited benefits upon his fellows--a man unhampered at the same time by narrow scruples about accepting, in the spirit in which it is offered, the occasional assistance of his friends. In short, a sane, dispassionate, evenly balanced man of the world, insured against sudden upheaval by a sense of proportion, and against depression of spirits by a sense of humour."

Mr. Welwyn paused again, and there was another silence, punctuated by the rattle of traffic outside. Presently he continued, in yet another mood:--

"Sometimes my point of view changes. I look at myself, and what do I see? An elderly, shabby-genteel inhabitant of Bloomsbury, with not a single memory of the past to fall back on, save that of a youth utterly wasted--a youth hung about with golden opportunities, each and all successively disregarded from a fatuous, childish belief that the supply was inexhaustible--and with nothing to look forward to but a further period of dependence upon a wife who is as much my moral superior as she is my social inferior. An earner of casual guineas--a picker-up of stray newspapers--the recipient of refreshment respectfully proffered by unintellectual but infinitely more worthy associates in bar parlours. A loafer--a waster--a _failure_! That, Mr. Mainwaring, is the father of the girl whom you desire to marry.... I am not what you would call religious, but sometimes the impulse comes upon me--and I obey it forthwith--to go down upon my knees and thank God from the bottom of my heart that my children take after their mother."

The broken scholar dropped wearily into his chair.

"Youth! Youth! Youth! Youth!" he murmured. "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth!"

His head slipped down between his hands.

Dicky, curiously stirred, attempted to say some word, but nothing came.

Suddenly Mr. Welwyn sprang to his feet. The cloud had lifted, or else pride had come to the rescue. It is often difficult to tell which.

"Dick," he said, "I perceive from your attitude that you are about to be sympathetic. Don't! Sympathy is wasted on me. In five minutes from now this mood will have passed. In half an hour I shall be as happy as an ostrich with its head in the sand. That has been my lifelong posture, and a very comfortable posture, too, once you get used to it! It is only when one comes up to breathe that things hurt a bit. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go out. I have had a letter this morning offering me some exceedingly welcome and possibly permanent work. I do not know where Tilly is, but she should be in presently. I do not ask what your business with her may be. I have no right--and no need."

The two men shook hands.

"Good-bye, dear Dick," said Mr. Welwyn, "and thank you for the very unobtrusive manner in which you have helped a lame dog over a stile."

Next moment the door closed, and he was gone.

"We are queer mixtures," mused philosophic Dicky.... "I wonder where Tilly is!"

----

Five minutes later the drawing-room door opened again, this time to admit little 'Melia. She paused and drew back, at the spectacle of her late ally sprawling at ease before the scanty fire.

"Hallo, 'Melia!" said Dicky cheerfully.

"Hallo!" replied Amelia cautiously. "Have you come to--see mother?"

"Not to-day, thank you," said Dicky. He regarded the little girl curiously. "I say, 'Melia, have I offended you in any way?"

"You? Me? No!" replied Amelia, in wide-eyed surprise. "Why?"

Dicky smiled coyly.

"There used to be a pleasant little form of greeting," he intimated.

"You still want to?" cried 'Melia in a flutter.

"Please."

Next moment Miss Amelia Welwyn, feeling that the bottom had not dropped out of the universe after all, was giving Mr. Richard Mainwaring a kiss.

"Where is Tilly this morning?" asked Dicky carelessly.

"Gone out," said Amelia--"to look for a job. She gave up the other one when she got--engaged."

"I see," said Dicky, nodding his head.

"I suppose you have come to break it off," continued the experienced Amelia. "They all said last night you were bound to do it, after what had happened."

"That sort of thing," explained Dicky, "is done for one by one's parents, I believe. I am rather young, you see," he added apologetically.

He rose, gently displacing his small admirer from his knee.

"Now I must be off," he said. "Give this to Tilly for me, will you?"

Amelia was still twisting and turning the letter in her hands when the bang of the front door signalled Dicky's departure.

"If his parents are going to break it off for him," said Amelia to herself in a puzzled whisper, "what does he want to go writing to her for?"