Part 9

And then one day something serious happened. It was on a Sunday, and on Sundays the post came in at half-past ten, just at the time they were all having breakfast before going to church. They were just about as happy as they could ever hope to be till Penelope married one or all of them. Bob, who was especially greedy that morning, was eating against time and winning. Only Ethel was sad, for Goby seemed quite cheerful. When he was mournful she was happier always. Titania flowed wonderfully. Augustin was saying the kind of thing he could say when sitting down. Goring himself was eating as if he was in rivalry with Bob. He never said anything, but looked like a duke, which is a very fine thing when a man is a duke, and can afford it with care. Gordon was eating bacon as if he had no great appetite for it.

"Oh, here's the post," said Titania. Augustin took Saturday's _Times_ and opened it.

"I wonder whether dear Penelope has written to me," said Titania. The "horde" looked up; they hoped even yet that Penelope would give in and come at last.

"Any news?" grunted Goring.

"I don't see any," replied Augustin.

"What are Jack Sheppard's United?" asked Gordon, slipping a piece of bacon into his pocket.

And Augustin made his celebrated speech over again, his single speech in the House of Lords.

"Good God!" said Augustin, and he turned almost as white as the _Times_ paper before it went through the machines. Every one stared at him.

"What is it?" screamed Titania. Bob jumped up and deserted a pig's cheek just as it was showing signs of utter defeat.

"It's--it's--" said Augustin, and he stammered vainly.

"I say, let's look," cried Bob. "Granny, it's something in the Births, Marriages, and Deaths!"

"Good heavens, speak, Augustin!" implored Titania.

The band of lovers went as white as Augustin; they stood up simultaneously.

"I see it, I see it," said Bob, and he actually snatched the paper from Lord Bradstock's hand.

"Is she married? Is she dead?" asked Titania.

"No, no," said Bob, sputtering and aflame with wild excitement; "it's 'Brading--Lady Penelope Brading on the 18th of a son!'"

*CHAPTER XIV.*

There are blows which stun; this was, of course, one of them. Titania did not shriek or faint at the awful intelligence conveyed by the Thunderer of Printing House Square. She nodded her head as if she was partially paralyzed, and at last murmured in a dry whisper:

"Of a son! Of a son!"

Bradstock's eyebrows were as high as they would go, and he stared at Titania, and then look around on the circle of men and women. Ethel squeaked a little squeak, like a mouse behind the wainscot and was silent.

"Oh--of a son," said Goby, sighing and looking at the floor.

"Of a son!" said Plant, eyeing the ceiling.

"_Un fils!_" shrieked Rivaulx.

Gordon said "Damnation;" De Vere shook like a stranded jelly-fish; Bramber went as scarlet as a lobster, and then as white as cotton; Carteret Williams looked blue, and Carew looked green, and Bob said: "My eye!"

There is something organic in any given number of people acting under the same shock or the same impulse. What one thinks another thinks; and now all the room fixed their eyes on Titania, whose lips moved in silence.

"This is dreadful!" said Titania to herself. "I don't believe she's married at all. One of these men is a scoundrel, a ruffian, a seducer!"

No one heard what she said, but as she thought it the men looked at each other with awful suspicions. And then Titania, whose mind was whirling, said feebly:

"We--we must hush it up!"

And there lay the _Times_! Hush it up indeed! And Bradstock recovered some of his equanimity.

"Nonsense! She's married, as she says," he remarked, with comparative coolness.

But no one believed it. The men drew apart from each other. De Vere moved his chair, because Goby was looking at him like a demon. Carew shrank from Carteret Williams. Gordon went livid under Plant's eyes. Bramber looked at them all as if he would die on the spot. Rivaulx rose up and waltzed around the room. It was a happy chance that he did so; it is possible that he saved immediate bloodshed. Bradstock and Bob caught the Frenchman in their arms, and led him outside to the lawn, where there was ample room for a frantic _pas seul_.

"Steady, old chap!" said Bradstock, "steady! Her husband _must_ acknowledge now who he is!"

"Oh, no," said Bob, in immense delight, "not much! If she's married at all, she's sworn him not to. She told me she'd swear him not to! And she said if he broke his oath she'd never see him again!"

"Great heavens!" said Bradstock, "so she did. I remember now, she _did_ speak of oaths, dreadful oaths!"

Rivaulx danced over a flower-bed, came in contact with a fence, fell over it, and uttered a howl which brought every one into the garden. He tumbled into a ditch, fortunately a comparatively dry one, and lay there, using the very worst French language.

The gloomy crowd lined the ditch and listened, and wished they understood. As a matter of fact, only Bradstock and Bramber knew sufficient decent French to guess what Rivaulx said, and they shivered. In the background Titania and Ethel hung to each other and wept; old Goring remained inside sucking at an unlighted cigar.

"The terrible, terrible disgrace!" said Titania. She believed the very worst at once. "Is it the marquis? Is he smitten with remorse?"

Rivaulx got out of the ditch on the wrong side, and walked out into the park, where he addressed a commination service to a nice little herd of Jersey cows. After five minutes of this exercise, he returned toward the house and climbed the fence. Then he shook his fist at the others.

"One of you is a _scelerat_," he howled, "a scoundrrrel! I challenge you all to fight! Ha, ha!"

Bradstock took him by the arm and led him away.

"One of us is a hound!" said Goby.

"Yes," said the others, "yes!"

They glared at each other horribly, and clenched their fists. Bob ran around them in the wildest excitement.

"Look here, I say, Captain Goby. Oh, Mr. de Vere! I say, Mr. Plant, if you want to fight, come into the stables. Granny says you mustn't fight here."

He grabbed several of them, and was hurled into space at once. He finally laid hold of De Vere, who wasn't capable of hurling a ladybird off his finger.

"You shall fight Goby if you want to," he roared.

"But I don't want to," shrieked the poet. "What shall I do? My heart is broken!"

"Oh, what rot!" said Bob. "I don't understand what the row is about. Pen said she married, and she's got a kid. It will make her happy, for she always loved kids."

But then the notice in her maiden name! Was it not awful, horrible, brazen, peculiar, anti-social, against all law? It was wicked, immoral, indecent. Behind it there must be a dreadful story.

"By God!" said Bradstock, speaking at large to all but Rivaulx, who was breaking up a cane chair at a short distance, "I do think, oaths or none, that the man who is married to her should tell the duchess in confidence."

But Rivaulx heard in the intervals of destruction, and stayed his hand.

"Ha, ha!" he said aloud, "I love her! I am a man! I love her! What shall I do?"

He threw the fragments of the chair into a fountain, kicked over a flower-pot, and ran again into the park, taking the fence in his stride.

"I believe it's remorse," said Titania. "I begin to suspect the marquis!"

But everybody suspected everybody, and yet at the very height of their rage what Bradstock said sank into their hearts. Pen had selected them with care for their inherent nobility. They said to themselves that they would show how noble they were. With one accord they straightened themselves up, and an air of desperate resolve was upon every man's face.

"I will think it out and make up my mind this afternoon," said each of them. They walked away in different directions, and in five minutes not one of them was in sight but the marquis, who was knocking his head against a sapling in a way that caused the herd of Jerseys to revise their estimate of humanity. Even he gave up at last, and went off into the distance with great strides.

"I say," said Bob, "I don't know what to make of this. Where are they going, and what are they going to do? I wish I knew where Pen is; I'd send her a telegram."

The rest of the party said nothing. Titania wept. Old Goring asked Bradstock for a light, and at last got his cigar going. He said nothing whatsoever. Ethel Mytton was in a fearful state of nervousness, and shook with it. Bradstock walked up and down whistling. The men who were not in it gathered in the billiard-room, and said they thought they had better have urgent calls to town. They wanted to discuss the scandal in their clubs. They knew that there wasn't a house in England that would not consider their presence in the light of a tremendous favour, considering all that had occurred at Goring while they were there. They went, and regretted it afterward, for much occurred that very afternoon that no man could have foreseen.

Not a soul came in to lunch but Bob and Bradstock and the old duke.

"Augustin, my boy," said Goring, "these are surprising events, very surprising events. I thought I understood something about women, but I find I'm as ignorant as a two-year-old. What the devil does Penelope mean?"

Bob intervened.

"I believe, grandfather, that she wants to make you all sit up," he said, eagerly.

"Shut up, Bob," said the duke. "Eat pie and hold your tongue. Augustin, is she married, or isn't she?"

"I'm sure of it," said Bradstock, "but--"

"I think it's a damn silly business," said the duke. "I can't remember any parallel except when Miss Wimple, who was a devilish pretty girl fifty years ago, married Prince Scharfskopf morganatically, and kept it dark in spite of twins. There was a devil of a fuss, but it was kept quiet, no announcements in papers, and so on. The emperor boxed Scharfskopf's ears in court when it came out, for it upset his diplomatic apple-cart, as Scharfskopf was to have married Princess Hedwig of Wigstein. She was virtuous and particular, and made trouble, being thirty-five. Do you think Penelope has married any damn prince, for instance?"

Bradstock didn't think so.

"Was any prince sneaking about, eh?"

"Oh, I say," cried Bob, who was listening eagerly, "there was the Rajah of Jugpore!"

"Good heavens!" said Goring, "so there was. I say, Bradstock, what have you to say to that? I'd like to have a look at the infant. Damme, it's a wonderful world!"

And this bore its fruit afterward in scandal and conjecture, for Bob threw out hints about it. But in the meantime they could only talk, and presently they saw the marquis coming across the lawn. He kept on stopping and looking up at the sky, as if for help or a balloon, and he smote his breast repeatedly in a very peculiar fashion.

"Queer cuss, Rivaulx," said Goring. "Takes it hard. Give me a light, Bob. Look at the Johnny smiting himself in the chest. What's he thinking of now? Looks as if he was bound upon a desperate deed. Dear me, I hope there will be no bloodshed, Bradstock! I'm too old for bloodshed now. I won't have duels in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, Bradstock, mind that."

"All right," said Augustin, still looking at Rivaulx gesticulating violently in front of a large laurestinus. "Bob, give me those glasses."

Through the glass Rivaulx's face was plain to see.

"Damn!" said Augustin to himself, "what's up? He's going to do something, something desperate. He is looking like a hero on a scaffold. He has an air of sad nobility. Oh, Pen, Pen!"

Rivaulx advanced on the house with his head up. He came in and sent word to the collapsed duchess that he desired most humbly an audience with her. Bob listened.

"He wanted to see granny," said Bob.

"Let him," said the duke. "I don't; I want peace."

Titania sent down word that she would see him.

"Poor sad Penelope, poor mournful Penelope!" said Rivaulx. "Ha, but I will save her from further woe!"

He found Titania on a sofa, and he kissed her hand. This pleased poor Titania; it reminded her of her youth.

"Oh, marquis, I am in despair!" she cried.

"Despair not," said Rivaulx, as he stood up and smote his forehead, "despair not. All is not lost. But for me, I stand between two dreadful alternatives, and I have resolved to do my duty."

There was an air of tragedy about him that covered him like a robe. Titania shivered.

"What is it? What have you to tell me?"

"Ah, what!" cried Rivaulx. "But I shall do it. I shall do it at once, immediately, if not sooner, as your poet says."

"You won't kill any one, at least not here," shrieked Titania.

"Far from it," replied the marquis. "Oh, but it is terrible, for I have to smash, to break an oath. I swore not to reveal what I am about to reveal."

"Good heavens!" said Titania. "Oh, what? Is it--can it be--no--"

"Yes, yes," cried Rivaulx, "it is true; I own it!"

"Own what, marquis?"

He smote his breast and looked above her.

"I am the man!"

"Oh, what man?" squealed the duchess.

"I am the husband--and--and--the father," said Rivaulx, with a gulp, as if he were swallowing an apple whole.

"Of my Penelope?"

"Yes, yes," said the marquis. "Say nothing. It is a secret, full of oaths. Why, I know not, but she, the dear, insists, and what am I?"

Titania lay and gasped. The relief was tremendous. Three hours ago she would have refused to think of Rivaulx as Pen's husband. Now she welcomed the notion; she sighed and almost fainted. Rivaulx muttered strange things to himself.

"Can I announce it?"

"No," said the marquis, "it is a secret. But it is all right. I go."

"Take my blessing," said Titania. "Go to her quickly, poor dear, and implore her to let me come to her, and bid her tell all the world. What is her address?"

"I cannot give it," said Rivaulx, pallidly. "It is a secret. But I go, I hasten. Adieu, duchess; I am distracted. Oh, my mother and my country!"

He fled from the room, and, leaving his man to bring on his things, went away at an illegal speed toward London.

"Well, well," said Titania, with a gasp, "I cannot understand anything. But, after all, the marquis is a fine man and of a good family. I could almost sleep a little."

But just as she was composing herself to rest, Mr. Plant sent up word that he wished to see her for a few moments on urgent business before he went back to town.

"Let him come up," said the duchess. When Plant entered, he stood bolt upright in front of her, with a strange air of determination.

"I shall surprise you, I reckon," he said, in an American accent as thick as petrol fumes. "I know I shall."

"No, you won't," said Titania. "Nothing can surprise me now, I assure you."

"I shall surprise you, ma'am," said Plant, "and you'll have to own it. Prepare yourself and remember that what I tell you is in the nature of a secret. I can stand it no longer. I have to let it out. To hear Lady Penelope, whom I adore, spoken of as I do, makes my blood boil. She may have made some mistakes, but I've made some, too. I am going to surprise you--"

"No, you are not, Mr. Plant," said Titania.

"I--I am Lady Penelope's husband," said Plant, desperately, fixing his eyes on space.

"You are _what_?" shrieked Titania.

"Her husband--and--the parent of the announcement in the _Times_," said Plant, firmly.

"Am I mad?" asked Titania.

"No, but I am," said Plant, who was as pale as a traditional ghost. "I'm mad both ways. I want to kill."

"You mustn't," cried Titania, feebly. "I don't know where I am. What did you say? Oh, say it again!"

He said it again, and before she could say anything further, he rushed from the room and bounded down-stairs. She heard him turn his motor-car loose, and knew that in twenty seconds he was a mile away.

"What's wrong with everything, and me, and them?" asked Titania. "I wish I was a dairy-maid in a quiet farm, and had no relations. Am I mad? Did the marquis say it? Or did I dream it?"

Lord Bramber was announced.

"Oh, oh, oh!" said Titania. "Yes, I'll see him."

Bramber came in fuming, and, like the others, fixed his eyes over her head. He was nervous and abrupt.

"I can't stand any more, duchess," he began.

"I can't stand much," said Titania.

"It's a secret of course," said Bramber, "and I'm breaking my word!"

"Are you the husband of Penelope?" asked Titania.

"I--I am," replied Bramber, "and the cause, so to speak, of the notice in the _Times_."

"I thought so," said Titania. "Look at me, Ronald. Do I look mad? does my hair stand on end? do I seem wild and wandering?"

"No, of course not," said Bramber. "I'm telling you this because I feel I ought to. Now I'm going to her at once. This last news was rather unexpected, of course. Good-bye--"

"Stay!" shrieked Titania, but she was too late. Bramber was down-stairs and bounded into his motor-car and let her rip.

"What's the matter with everybody?" wailed Titania. "The marquis made me happy, but now I'm confused, very sadly confused, and I can't think she's married them all."

Gordon was announced, and in about three sentences he told her that, though the affair was a secret, he was Penelope's husband.

"I knew you were," said Titania. "When I heard you wanted to see me, I knew you were coming to say so. Oh, good-bye. Ask Lord Bradstock to send for a doctor. Good-bye, Mr. Gordon. Go now."

And Gordon went, just as De Vere came in.

"You have come to say you have married Penelope, I _know_," said Titania. "I feel sure you have."

"I have a heart for sorrow, for disgrace, for all things lovely. I--I am responsible for everything, even the _Times_," said De Vere, who was as pale as plaster.

"Leave me," said Titania. "Go and see her at once. Settle who it is. Go!"

And when he had gone, Carteret Williams and Carew came one after the other with the same confession. And she received them sadly, and appeared to wander. When the house was empty, she sent for Bradstock.

"Augustin, dear Augustin," she said, "you won't let them put me in an asylum. Have me taken care of at home, won't you? Don't let Goring give me cruel keepers. I am quite gentle and broken down!"

"I won't let anything beastly be done," said Bradstock. "But, my dear child, what's the matter?"

And Titania told him:

"By the Lord," said Bradstock, "they are damned good chaps! but where the devil are we?"

He went down-stairs when the doctor came and told everything to Goring. And Goring told Bob. For Titania forgot to mention to Augustin that all the husbands had insisted it was a dead secret.

"I say," said Bob, "of all the larks I've ever heard of, this takes the cake! I wonder what I ought to do. I think I'll ask Baker."

And he asked Baker. And in less than twenty-four hours the world knew all about it.

*CHAPTER XV.*

But when it is said that all the world knew of it, Penelope herself must be excepted. She knew nothing for some time, and, whoever her husband was, he certainly never acquainted her with the horrible details of all the good men who sacrificed their honour in the noble attempt to save her from the results of the terrible misfortune they believed had happened to her. It was, indeed, Miss Mackarness who told her about it, and Miss Mackarness was the old governess whom Penelope had once sacked and sent away. The poor woman was in a terrible state of mind about the affair, and in that was no different from all the rest of the world. To her went Timothy Bunting with the strange story.

"If you please, ma'am, Geordie Smith 'as just brought in a paper wiv a true and pertic'ler account of 'ow all the gents that was courtin' our lady told the Duchess of Goring as 'ow they 'as married 'er!"

"What!" said Miss Mackarness.

"A true and perticuler account as 'ow they 'ad hall married our lady, sayin' as they 'ad concealed it till they could no longer!" repeated Timothy more loudly.

"Good heavens!" said Miss Mackarness, trembling very much, "I fear it will upset Lady Penelope, to say nothing of the infant. Do they all claim the infant, Bunting?"

"I presume so, ma'am," said Bunting. "It looks likely."

"Under these circumstances, Bunting," cried Miss Mackarness, "I feel it is my duty to communicate the facts to our lady. Give me the paper, Bunting!"

Bunting said he would get it, and came back with a hatful of fragments.

"If you please, ma'am, this is hall I can rescue of the details. The cook and the parlour-maid and the two 'ousemaids 'ave fought over it in the servants' 'all, and are now in tears, not 'aving read a word."

And Miss Mackarness took the hatful up to Penelope, who sat with her nurse and the cause of all the trouble in a south room overlooking the moat.

"In the name of all that is wonderful, what's in that hat?" asked Penelope.

"It is Timothy Bunting's hat, my lady," replied the Mackarness.

"So I perceive," said Penelope. "Is a bird in it?"

"Oh, no, my lady. It's the bits of a newspaper," replied the housekeeper, as if she served up the _Times_ in a groom's hat every day. "It's Timothy's hat, but a clean new one."

"But why do you bring it, and why do you put newspaper in it?" asked Penelope.

"If you please, my lady, I cannot help it. The cook and the parlour-maid and the two housemaids fought over it in the servants' hall, and are now in tears, not having read a word of it."

To all appearance the housekeeper had lost her senses. Though this was no wonder, Penelope wondered at it.

"Well," she said at last, "I see what's in the hat, but what's in the newspaper?"

"If you please, my lady, according to Timothy Bunting and Smith, who appear to have read it, it contains the true account of what happened at Goring House the other day, when all the gentlemen staying there, hearing from the _Times_ that your ladyship had a fine boy on the eighteenth, and no husband named by your ladyship's particular directions, all got up one after the other, and, requesting private interviews with her upset Grace, the duchess, declared upon their oaths, though in secret, that they had married you themselves!"

She recited this in a strange, mechanical way, which would have been extremely effective upon the stage, as a picture of hopeless conventionality wounded to death, and at last dying in sheer indifference to all things.

"Dear me!" said Penelope, "dear me!"

"It furthermore appears, my lady, begging your pardon for mentioning it, and I have reproved Bunting bitterly for daring to do so, though I haven't read the fragments in the hat, that no one believes your ladyship's word at all as to your being married."

"Oh, how shameful!" said Penelope. "Why, here's baby!"

The nurse coughed and hid her mouth with her hand.

"Yes, my lady, so he is," said Miss Mackarness. "There doesn't seem any doubt whatsoever about that, but--"

And Penelope sighed. Suddenly her face lighted up.

"Ah!" she said, "I see why they said it to aunty. How very, very noble of them! I knew they were all splendid men; men of the highest character and attainments and possibilities. Will you have telegrams written out to all of them, saying, 'Your conduct is noble, and I am deeply grateful'?"

"Yes, my lady," replied the housekeeper, "and how will you sign it?"

"Sign it Penelope Brading," said Penelope. "And tell Smith to take his car as quickly as he can to Spilsborough, and send them from there."

She lay back in her pillows.