Part 10

"They are noble fellows," she said. "I have done them an immense amount of good. A year ago not one of them could have risen to such heights of abnegation, such love, such tenderness. I shall see them bringing in a new era yet. Leopold Gordon will inaugurate a new and pure finance. The dear marquis will abolish anti-Semitism and duelling in France. De Vere will write poems of a purity appealing equally to Brixton and Belgravia, and my dear friend Carew will vindicate the Royal Academy's policy of showing that charity begins at home. And the rest--ah, me! Poor dear aunty, how I love her!"

And by the time that she had pondered over a renewed world, Geordie Smith was sending off the wires from Spilsborough with wonderful results.

"I like this," said Smith. "This is what I like! There's nothing dull about it. I wonder what'll happen now? I'll lay five to one I can guess!"

He guessed right as to some, for in about four hours Rufus Plant arrived in Spilsborough on his racing-car, and put up at the Grand Hotel.

"I guess she must be somewhere in this neighbourhood," said Plant. "And here I stay till I find her. And by the tail of the sacred bull, whatever happens, I'll marry her right here in this hyer noble pile of a cathedral. And if she'll do it, I'll restore it for the authorities free of charge, till it's as gawdy as a breastpin and right up to date."

He ran against Gordon, and the two men fell back in horrible surprise.

"You--"

"You!"

"Oh, yes," said Plant, "I'm here on business connected with the cathedral."

"And I'm to see the--bishop, who will join the board on allotment," mumbled Gordon.

And then Goby roared into town on his motorcar. The others saw him, and he saw them, and ignored them palely. He, too, put up at the Grand, but never spoke to them. And De Vere came in while they were at dinner, and sat down opposite to Goby. He said, "Oh!" and, rising, at once bolted from the table.

"I'm damned," said Goby, and he lost his appetite.

"How many more of us?" they asked themselves.

They looked up at every one who entered.

"Bramber will be in any moment," said Plant.

Poor De Vere sat in his bedroom and was ill.

"If I look out into the corridor, I know I shall see that beast Williams," he sobbed.

"Where's that French fool, Rivaulx?" asked Gordon. They all believed the other was the scoundrel of the dreadful drama.

And then the evening papers came in. They declared in big lines that there had been "A Fracas in High Life." They added that it had taken place in the Row at four o'clock that very afternoon. They went on to say that Lord Bramber and the Marquis de Rivaulx, well known as a great sportsman and a balloonist, had fought in a flower-bed, and had been torn from each other's arms and a big rhododendron by two dukes, three earls, and a viscount. They further declared that it was a matter of public notoriety that all the trouble rose out of the mystery connected with the _Times_ and Lady Penelope Brading. They promised more details in later editions.

"They'll fight," said Gordon, savagely. "I hope they'll kill each other. But especially I hope that the marquis will be killed first and most!"

And about eleven o'clock Rivaulx turned up with his chauffeur and a bad black eye.

"He shall fight me here," said Rivaulx. "This is a quiet town. No one will think of Spilsborough! He does not know that _she_ sent me a telegram from here!"

He put up at the Angel, and escaped seeing the others for the time. On his way up he had sent a defiant telegram to Bramber, desiring him to come to Spilsborough, and fight there with swords or pistols or any weapon that commended itself to him. This telegram Bramber never got, for, on reaching home and washing away the traces of the struggle in Hyde Park before all the loveliness of London, he had found his telegram from Spilsborough sent by Geordie Smith. After looking in the ABC guide, and finding no good train, he pelted off in his motor-car, leaving a note for Rivaulx, saying that, though duels were absurd and illegal, he would not refuse to meet the marquis in France or Belgium, if he desired to make a bigger fool of himself than he had already done in the park.

"Curse and confound them all," said Bramber, who was horribly cross and exceedingly sick of the whole world, even including Penelope. "I wonder what she means by this telegram. I wish I was dead! Is she at Spilsborough?"

Just in the middle of Spilsborough he met Rivaulx and pulled up short, not having the least notion, of course, that he would meet him there. But Rivaulx grinned a ghastly smile and raised his hat, as Bramber stopped.

"Ha, I am pleased to see you," said the French marquis. "You have come quickly. It is a fine night, there is a moon, and close by here under the shadow of the cathedral there is a most beautiful piece of grass. There we will fight. I have brought swords with me. Or have you brought guns?"

"I haven't brought guns," said Bramber, who was entirely stunned and at a loss for a word.

The marquis bowed.

"We will fight with swords, my lord. I think this hotel is good; the lady is amiable; there are rooms to spare. When the moon rises, ha! I will call you forth."

And Bramber went to the hotel to think what he should do.

"The ass! the lunatic! How did he get here? I can't get out of fighting him."

He sat outside in his car.

"No, I won't. I'm damned if I do!" he said.

He went in and wrote a note for Rivaulx, who was out in the cathedral close picking what he considered a good place for a duel. The spot he chose was not far from the dean's house.

"I wish it had been Mr. Plant," he said. "Of Bramber, who is a young ass, I am not jealous. But of Plant I am horribly jealous, and he is a bad man. If I met Plant I would say, 'Fight me at once now, and I will put off Lord Bramber till another day.'"

And, going around the corner, he ran right into Plant, who was raging about the town, wondering where Penelope was and how everything was going to end.

"The scoundrel is that marquis," said Plant. And he ran into the scoundrel's arms.

And just while Bramber was shaking the dust of Spilsborough from the tires of his motor-car, Bob himself came into the town in a hired Daimler, full of the most extraordinary news. And Titania was having a series of fits down at Goring, with Dr. Lumsden Griff in attendance.

*CHAPTER XVI.*

It cannot be imagined that Titania, who had survived so many shocks, was ill for nothing. When Bob discovered what she was ill of, he stood outside on the lawn with his hands deep in his pockets and with his legs wide apart.

"I must tell 'em this at once," said Bob, gloomily. "If I don't tell Gordon, he'll forget he's invested a hundred of mine in something to make hair curl, and I shall lose the money. I mean to make money to keep up Goring by and by. And he said he'd make me a director, too. For the sake of the family, I can't neglect him. Or De Vere, either. Or any of 'em. But--but I never thought it of Pen!"

With his pockets full of money derived from the sale of dogs to De Vere, he rushed off to the station and caught a train for town. When he reached London, he sent a wire to "Old Guth."

"I'm in town on important business. Break it to grandmother between fits. I hope to be back to-morrow."

He rushed off to Park Lane to find Gordon.

"Mr. Gordon has gone to Spilsborough, sir," said Gordon's man.

"D-- I mean confound it!" said Bob. He went to Plant's.

"Mr. Plant went to Spilsborough in a great hurry this afternoon, sir," said Plant's landlady. The American millionaire still lived in Bloomsbury, though not on ten shillings a week.

"Oh," said Bob, "I wonder what this means. There's a secret here!"

He drove in a hansom to find Bramber. A very ingenuous piece of humanity in buttons told Bob that Lord Bramber came in about four o'clock torn to ribbons, and found a telegram waiting him.

"And off he went in his motor-car."

"Where?" asked Bob.

"I don't know," said the buttons. But on Bob's going to Bramber's room, he found the ABC open on the table at the page with Spilsborough on it.

"Sherlock Holmes would say he has gone to Spilsborough," cried Bob. "And if Gordon and Plant have gone there, too, I'll bet all the rest have gone. I'll go, too."

But there was no train for three hours!

"I'm done," said Bob, "No, I'm not. I'll hire a motor-car."

He went to the nearest place in Regent Street and hired one.

"Very well, sir," said the man, "but it's rather expensive, you know."

Bob pulled out a handful of sovereigns.

"Take as many as you think fair," he said, grandly. "And don't forget I want a speedy one, and a man that can drive, and I'll pay the fines of course!"

That was how he came to Spilsborough just in time and about the hour when the moon was to rise. He passed a motor-car in the ditch about ten miles out of the cathedral city, and did not stop to find out what was the matter. He thus missed the discovery that Bramber and his chauffeur were both sitting upon the wreck, using very awful language to each other on the subject of losing the way and coming bolt down a side road into the opposing hedge. It is astonishing how an accident at thirty miles an hour brings owners and mechanics down to the same human level.

When Bob reached Spilsborough, he was covered with dust, but was as spry as a grasshopper and awfully full of his news.

"You _can_ drive," said Bob to his man. "I'm very much pleased with you. Stop at this hotel."

He went into the Angel, and staggered blithely to the office.

"Is Mr. Gordon here, or Mr. Plant, or the Marquis of Rivaulx?" he demanded.

He thus discovered the marquis.

He drove off to the Grand, and found Plant and Goby and De Vere and Gordon were there. They were all in bed but Plant, and Plant had gone to see the cathedral by moonlight.

"All right, we'll put up here," said Bob, "and I'll see if I can find Plant. I say, I wonder what Baker will think of this? It beats me!"

He got to the cathedral precincts just about an hour after Rivaulx and Plant had run into each other's arms. Much had occurred since then.

For Rivaulx started back from Plant and almost forgot the existence of Bramber.

"You are a scoundrrrel," said Rivaulx, rolling his r's in the most fearful manner.

"You are a lunatic," replied Plant, coolly; "when did you escape?"

"I have not escaped, I am here," snorted Rivaulx, "but you shall not escape. I meant to kill Lord Bramber upon this spot, but I prefer to keel you. I let him go; he is nothing. You are the scoundrrel!"

"Oh, dry up!" said Plant, crossly. "You tire me, you fatigue me very much. I am exhausted by looking at you. Go home, or I will break you in three pieces and eat them!"

Rivaulx foamed at the mouth.

"Do you refuse to fight me, sare?"

"Certainly not," said Plant. "Take your coat off and hang it on a tombstone, and I'll leave nothing of you but a smear."

"I do not fight with fists," said Rivaulx, contemptuously. "I fight with swords, with steel, with guns or pistols."

Plant shook his head.

"I've none of 'em about me, my son!"

"At the hotel I have swords," cried Rivaulx, eagerly. "I brought them to kill Bramber, who punched my eye in the Rotten Row, and we rolled in bushes. But I will first fight you. Wait and I fetch the swords."

He ran violently into the darkness, and Plant sat on a railing.

"What am I to do? Am I to wait and fight a lunatic? Or shall I go back to the hotel? I think I'll go back. If that raging idiot is found prancing about here with swords, they will run him in."

But he did not know how fast the marquis could run and how near the hotel was. Before he had made up his mind to go, Rivaulx came back again. He flung the swords at Plant's feet.

"Take one and let us begin," he said.

"I think on the whole I'll have both," said Plant, suiting the action to the word. "Now go home, marquis, like a good little boy, and come to the Grand Hotel in the morning and tell me why you want to be hanged in England."

He put both the weapons under his arm.

"You will not fight?" said the marquis, gasping like a dying dolphin.

"What kind of a galoot do you reckon me?" asked Plant, quite unintelligibly.

"Ha!" said the marquis, "I know not what a galoot is, but I will fight you here and leave your body on the grass."

Neither of them had observed the approach of a portly and pleasant gentleman behind them. He was now leaning upon the railing, watching them with a great deal of kindly curiosity.

"I think, gentlemen, that the dean will object," he said at length, and they both turned around suddenly.

"You must not interfere," said Rivaulx; "we do not know you."

"To be sure, to be sure," replied the gentleman, who was dressed very curiously, as Rivaulx noticed. "I hate interfering, especially with anything belonging to a dean. Deans, gentlemen, are very touchy about matters connected with their cathedrals. Now Dean Briggs, gentlemen, takes the very greatest care of that grass on which you both are now illegally trampling, and I understand that he has made a rule never to have duels upon it. He is very firm on that point. Do I mistake you if I say that it looks to an unprejudiced observer as if you were going to fight a duel?"

Rivaulx bowed.

"I do not know you, sare, and I do not want to. I want to keel this man, who is a scoundrrel."

The stranger addressed Plant.

"And are you equally anxious to break this very rigid rule of the dean's?" he asked, suavely.

"Certainly not," replied Plant; "I want to go to bed."

"I am delighted to hear it. I am intensely gratified to hear it. If one duellist, having possession of both deadly weapons, desires to go to bed, I cannot see anything to hinder him, unless, indeed, he wants to lie down on Mr. Dean's grass. You see, gentlemen, I am a bishop, and a bishop's first desire is to be on good terms with the dean. If Mr. Dean heard that I encouraged any one to break his rules about duelling or going to bed in the precincts of this cathedral, I should _not_ be on good terms with him, I assure you."

"I do not understand," said Rivaulx. "I want to fight, that is all I want to do!"

"Stay!" said the bishop, mildly. "If the somewhat excited gentleman, who is, I gather, not an Englishman, will accompany me a few yards, we will go to the dean's, with whom I have been dining, and will refer the matter to him."

"Of course," said Plant, "that is the right thing to do. Marquis, his lordship the bishop suggests the only course open to gentlemen. I trust you will accept his offer, and, if you do, I undertake to fight you if the dean gives his permission."

"Stay, sare, my lord the bishop," said Rivaulx, "one moment, sare, the bishop. Is this dean of whom you speak a gentleman?"

"Certainly, certainly," replied the bishop, hastily. "He is of the highest breeding, and in his youth he fenced like a fencing-master."

"Then he understands the code of honour, sare the bishop?"

"Absolutely, for a dean," replied his lordship.

"Then I agree, sir lord," cried Rivaulx.

"Ha, we will go to his house, then," said the bishop, "if you will step over this railing. But stop here one moment and observe the moon rising over Mr. Dean's cathedral. Is it not a peaceful, pleasant spot, gentlemen?"

"It beats thunder," said Plant.

"It does, it does," nodded his lordship. "Many Americans, who admire this cathedral immensely, have made the same acute observation. May I ask your names, gentlemen? I am the bishop of this diocese."

"My name is Plant, Rufus Q. Plant, and my friend is the Marquis of Rivaulx."

"Indeed," returned the bishop, "is the gentleman the French nobleman who is interested in balloons?"

"Yes," said Plant.

"Dear me! I am delighted," said his lordship. "I, too, am interested in balloons. I saw one go up once."

"You like them?" asked Rivaulx, warmly. "That is good! I will take you up in one."

"We will talk of it later," said the bishop, rather hastily for a man of his gentle flowing speech. "But this is the dean's house. If I knock at this window, he will put his head out."

He knocked at the window, and Mr. Dean did put his head out.

"I am _so_ loath to disturb you, Mr. Dean," said his lordship, "but, as I was leaving you and taking a little stroll before retiring, I met two gentlemen, one from the United States and one a French marquis, who were engaged in a warm discussion on a point of honour. I am ignorant of the exact point, and I dare say there is no necessity for our knowing. As a result of this discussion, the French marquis desired to fight a duel with swords (you will observe them under the arm of the gentleman from the United States), and I ventured to intervene, as the duel was to take place upon your grass."

"Humph, indeed!" said the dean, in great astonishment. "And what did you say?"

"I said that it was against your rules to allow any one to fight duels there. Was I not right?"

"Rather!" said the dean. "I should say so."

"And on the other hand," continued the bishop, "the gentleman from across the Atlantic wished to go to bed."

"Then why the--why doesn't he?" asked the dean.

"It seemed to me that the gentleman from across the water wanted to go to bed upon your grass," said the bishop. "I pointed out to him that there was a very old and strict rule dating from the time beyond record which forbade this. Was I not right?"

"You were," said the dean. "I never go to bed on the grass myself, and do not permit others to do so. I never fight duels there, either, and do not allow it."

"You see, gentlemen," said the bishop, but before he could add another word Bob rushed right upon the group outside the dean's windows, and saw that Plant made one of them. He saw the swords also, and then recognized Rivaulx.

"Oh, I say," said Bob, "you were going to fight a duel about Pen! I've come in time! It's no good. She has married Timothy Bunting, her groom!"

*CHAPTER XVII.*

It was such an awful shock to Plant and Rivaulx, and, for the matter of that, to his lordship the Bishop of Spilsborough, that they all gasped dreadfully. Plant took the bishop by the sleeve. Rivaulx lay down upon the grass under the dean's window, and howled as he tore at the turf. The dean said:

"I'll come out! This is becoming serious!"

He came out, and, as he opened the door, the light of the hall lamp fell upon Bob's face.

"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "I thought I knew the voice. Is that you, Robert Goring?"

Bob said it was, but added that he didn't know the bishop.

"Boy, I christened you," said the bishop. "Is all this trouble about Penelope Brading, whom I also christened?"

"Yes," replied Bob; "shall I tell you about it?"

"Let us retire a few paces, and you can tell me," said the bishop. "In the meantime, Mr. Dean, I beg you to exercise patience with the French nobleman on the grass. Come, Bob."

"Well, it's awful rot, you know," said Bob, speaking very rapidly. "We don't know where we are in the family, and grandmother is lying on a sofa screaming."

"Why, Bob?"

"You must have heard of it."

The bishop had heard a great deal, but not all.

"Pen says she's married and has a kid," said Bob, "and she won't say who it is. And all these jossers, including Plant, he's the American over there, and the marquis chewing the grass, said they had married her themselves. Do you see, sir,--my lord, I mean?"

"I see," said the bishop, putting his finger-tips together. "It was, I think, very noble of them."

"But granny said it was very trying, and it made her ill, for she wasn't any further than before, unless Pen had married them all. And grandfather, who kept cool, said that was unlikely."

"It certainly seems unlikely," said the bishop. "But when you came to us, you made some very astonishing remarks about a groom, one Bunting, I think. Now what is there to know about him?"

"Weekes said that, the beast!" cried Bob.

"Who is the beast Weekes?" asked the bishop.

Bob told him who Miss Harriet Weekes was.

"And not an hour after these had said they were married to Pen, this Weekes woman came in black and in a cab and said she must see granny. And granny saw her, and is now in fits, with the doctor feeling her pulse and giving her brandy. For Weekes was very solemn (I listened), and she said: 'Your Grace, I shall reveal the truth, which lies upon my bosom like a tombstone. Her ladyship treated me cruel, and gave me the sack moreover, and I've no call to be silent no more 'avin' diskivered the truth.' She talks like that. Weekes is an uneducated beast, and why Pen ever had her as a maid I can't tell. And granny was confused with the others, having said they were all married to Pen, and she waggled her head awfully. 'I shall surprise your Grace,' said Weekes, and granny said she wouldn't. And she said, 'I shall surprise your Grace, for I've to reveal that I know the man, the serpent, that her ladyship 'as married.' And granny smiled very curiously, and said, 'Weekes, who do you say it is?' And then Weekes cried, the crocodile, and she said that Penelope had married Timothy Bunting, the groom, and that Timothy had been engaged to her, and had as good as told her that he was looking high and despised a public-house at a corner. I don't know what she meant. And she was so solemn and furious that granny believed her, and went off into fit after fit most awful, my lord, and they sent for the doctor, and I came away, for I knew the others would fight when they learnt that all of them had said the same thing. And I believe it is Timothy myself."

"Dear, dear me!" said the bishop, "this is even more remarkable than I anticipated from the very strange reports in the papers. But I think you have done well, Robert, and I do not regret having christened you by any means, which is more than I can say for some of the aristocracy. Let us return to the dean, who is, I am afraid, having some trouble with the French marquis. He is not accustomed to foreign noblemen and to Americans, except when they come here to see his cathedral."

They turned toward the deanery, where Rivaulx was still rolling on the grass.

"Do you think it is Timothy?" asked Bob.

The bishop shook his head gently.

"I do not see what grounds we have to go on, Robert. Here we have an American who states, if I understand you rightly, that he has married my poor Penelope, and a French marquis of high repute who also states the same. And there are others--"

"Five or six!" said Bob.

"And there are five or six others who commit themselves to the same statement. And then a lady's maid says she knows that Penelope has married a groom. I do not see what logical grounds we have for concluding anything more than that some one has told a lie, or that Penelope has been breaking the law by marrying more than one man at a time. Speaking _a priori_, I think this latter alternative unlikely, and, as a matter of probability, I am forced to believe that only one at least out of seven (is it seven?) gentlemen of unblemished reputation has told the truth."

It was all very sad. But there were practical details to be attended to. Though the marquis had ceased to raise the echoes of the stilly night, to say nothing of the echoes of the cathedral's west front, he was still in a fearfully mournful condition. He was now weeping in the dean's arms, and the dean was endeavouring to soothe him as best he could. When the bishop came back, Mr. Dean seemed much relieved.

"Don't you think you could get them to go away, bishop?" he inquired, pathetically. "This kind of thing is beyond my experience, and I am extremely fatigued by it."

"I will do my best," replied the bishop.

Turning to the marquis, he said: