Part 3

Elfreda was not in a mood for “buts.” The wicked Genie now had her firmly in its grip. So simple, yet so radiant was the idea that already it was glowing with the colors of destiny. There were obstacles, of course, but a dynamic will could remove them.

“In size we are much of a muchness, aren’t we? So you can take my things and I’ll take yours.”

“Oh, but----” faltered Miss Cass.

“You might have quite an amusing fortnight”--Pikey, who had been traveling all through the long night was sleeping very comfortably now--“One hears the place will be full of new people. With a bit of luck ... if you really play up ... you might even....” ... Get one of them to marry you!--was the thought in the mind of the abandoned Elfreda. But the Bottle Imp had not quite bereft her of a sense of shame, therefore she did not complete her sentence by mere words. She had recourse to wireless telegraphy, which, however, was just as effective.

Miss Cass felt herself to be growing dizzy.

“That’s what happens in the play, you know. The son of the house falls in love with the governess----”

“Oh--but,” gasped Miss Cass. And yet if the truth must be told the wicked Genie was now beginning to stir in her, also. A voice was heard in the subliminal self of Miss Cass. _There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune._

“It needs a little pluck, of course.” The light in the blue eyes was almost sinister. “But it might be rather amusing, don’t you think?”

Miss Cass was bewildered. But it seemed to come upon her all at once that she was now in the toils of a female Napoleon. Moreover, she was faced by a proposition which exceeded her wildest dreams. Of course, it would not bear any sort of analysis, but when one is possessed by a perfectly heavenly feeling all things seem possible. Such a sense of “uplift” was quite new in Miss Cass’s experience and she felt unable just now to adjust her mind to a phase which although delicious was yet without a parallel.

The train sped on through a country which grew steadily richer and more pastoral. Lady Elfreda looked again at the watch on her wrist. It was after three. Already the light of the brief November day had begun to wane. Pikey was snoring now with slow, deep, reassuring regularity. Somehow all things, even the motions of the train itself, seemed to be conspiring to fix and determine the mad project which had been born in that wicked and rebellious mind.

Every mile that brought them nearer to their journey’s end was carefully registered in the acute brain of Elfreda. The train stopped at Yeovil and there was a further examination of the tickets, not by a truculent male inspector on this occasion, but by a rustic maid in spectacles, who willingly accepted the assurance that the ticket of Miss Cass was quite in order. After that the train passed over the borders of Wessex into the famed county of Devon; and then with but a few embers of daylight remaining the Evil Genius suddenly insisted that the time had come for action.

V

LADY ELFREDA gave Pikey a shrewd glance to make sure that the snores were _bona fide_. Then she got up and with perfectly amazing _sang froid_ took off her fur coat.

“Give me your ulster, please.” Napoleon--Bismarck--Caesar--Hannibal were in that pregnant whisper.

The pencil dropped from the trembling fingers of Miss Cass. Her heart took a great leap. Was this a serious demand? Could this amazing girl mean what her words implied?

“Your hat as well, please.”

In the growing dusk, now as ever a true friend of conspiracy, she saw the girl opposite withdraw a couple of pins and remove her hat. Was it conceivable that she was in earnest!

The urgency of the whisper laid that doubt at rest. A thrill quickened the soul of Girlie Cass. Her bewildered mind began to spin with a new and strange idea. It was madness ... it was lunacy ... and yet ... if only ... one could screw up one’s courage....

“You will have Mrs. Pike to look after you. She is very experienced. If you hold your tongue you can’t go wrong.” Incredible words, incredible girl, incredible proposition! “You will have all my clothes, of course. I will see that my trunks are put in the luggage cart. And”--the whisper was dæmonic--“Mrs. Pike has some money.”

Girlie Cass could hardly breathe for excitement. _The Patrician_ followed the pencil on to the floor. “There is a tide, etc.” Her heart began to hit her ribs violently.

“Give me your ulster, please.”

If only one’s head would not spin so!

“You’ll find this coat warmer and it’s very comfortable. It’ll be quite an amusing fortnight. Nobody will know--except Mrs. Pike, of course, who can be trusted implicitly. I quite think you’ll like it.”

The brain of Miss Cass was whirling helplessly. And yet there was a demon in hers also. What an opportunity, what a golden opportunity for first-hand experience! What a chance to see the great world from the inside. To be, for one whole fortnight, a real authentic daughter of a marquis ... if only one had courage!

Miss Cass never really knew how it happened, but a mile or so farther on she awoke to the momentous fact that she was wearing a sealskin coat with a skunk collar and a velour hat with a twist of skunk round it, while immediately opposite was a girl in a green ulster with a hat also trimmed with green.

“Please give me your ticket. This is mine.”

By the aid of some power not herself Miss Cass exchanged tickets with the Force that was luring her to glory and destruction.

Finally, as an afterthought, a typewritten abstract of “The Lady of Laxton” was handed to Miss Cass.

“You mustn’t forget your part in the play. For any one with a good memory it will be quite easy to learn. And you’ll find the acting rather fun, I think.”

Miss Cass was living in a dream which could not envisage details, but she submitted to the play being pressed into her hand. Without so much as a glance at the brown paper cover she placed it mechanically in the pocket of the fur coat.

The next thing to happen in the bewildered consciousness of Miss Cass was the stopping of the train. Lady Elfreda let down the window to disclose a lighted station lamp with the name “Clavering St. Mary’s” painted thereon. Somehow at the moment this legend meant nothing to Miss Cass; the land she was living in now was east of the sun, west of the moon. But a voice amazingly dominant said: “Here we are. Pikey, wake up.” And then the owner of the voice put her head out of the window and summoned a porter.

A leisurely functionary came up to the carriage door and opened it. As he did so the lady of the green ulster said with an air of quiet competence which in the circumstances was almost uncanny, “There are two trunks in the luggage van. Or is it three, Pikey? Do wake up.”

Pikey somnolently grunted the word “three” and then with a supreme effort stepped, or rather lurched, out onto the platform, while the porter collected the flotsam of the compartment and bore them to an adjacent trolley.

“Three trunks in the luggage van, porter.”

“Very good, miss.

“They are labeled ‘Clavering Park’--aren’t they, Pikey?”

The reply was a drowsy affirmative.

“You have one, too, haven’t you?” said Elfreda in a bold aside, with one eye upon her maid.

Girlie confessed a small tin one labeled “Cass.”

“Very good, miss,” said the porter again.

The Lady of the Green Ulster stepped with calm audacity onto the platform. In a kind of trance Miss Fur Coat followed her.

The porter had no difficulty in retrieving three important looking trunks from the luggage van. Nor did the small tin one present any obstacle. When all the luggage had been duly collected, Elfreda marshaled Pikey and Miss Cass through the booking office and past the ticket collector into the station yard.

Several vehicles were waiting. Foremost of these was a stylish motor omnibus. Elfreda instinctively made a bee-line for it.

“Are you from Clavering Park?” she said to the smart footman with a wound stripe on his sleeve who stood by the open door.

The man said that he was from Clavering Park, whereon Miss Green Ulster pointed to the Fur Coat and informed him that its occupant was Lady Elfreda Catkin; whereon she was informed that there was a cart for the luggage, but owing to the shortage of petrol there was only the omnibus for everybody.

Miss Fur Coat, standing helpless and mazed in her borrowed plumes beside the omnibus door was hustled, literally hustled, into the interior of the vehicle, and Pikey, still far too drowsy even to begin to grapple with the situation in its strange complexity, was hustled in after her. While the porter put in rugs and umbrellas and a couple of the smaller cases under the competent direction of the lady who stood by the door of the omnibus, Pikey at the same time was adjured by her mistress in a stern whisper to play the game, to hold her tongue, and not to give anything away.

These instructions were Greek to the unfortunate Pikey in her present extremely somnolent condition. She made one feeble, rather despairing effort to come to grips with a matter that was frankly beyond her, but before she could rouse her will to any real activity the footman had been ordered to start.

“I am to wait, ma’am, for another guest.”

Elfreda bit her lip sharply. For the moment she had forgotten the existence of the little baronet. Almost immediately, however, she received a forcible reminder of it. Sir Toby, who had traveled lower down the long train, was to be seen emerging from the booking office.

For the last time Elfreda thrust her head into the omnibus interior. “Mind you play up, Pikey. I will write to you in a day or two.”

Poor bewildered Pikey was only able to emit a grunt of hopeless defeat before Sir Toby Philpot, in the company of his faithful body servant, Mr. O’Toole, converged upon the omnibus door. After a brief exchange of remarks with the tall footman who stood thereby, the small baronet took his seat gracefully beside the lady of the fur coat, and Mr. O’Toole hoisted his respectful bulk alongside Pikey, who was already verging once more upon the comatose.

At the same moment Elfreda felt in the very marrow of her wicked bones that the tremendous risk she was taking must end all too soon in disaster. But she was still in the thrall of the demon. The fun would be gorgeous while it lasted; it would enable certain people to realize that the times had changed; moreover, having definitely burnt her boats, this was not a moment for human weakness. Therefore she said in the private ear of the tall footman, “Don’t wait for me. I am not coming with you.” And then she turned discreetly away from the door of the omnibus, saw the right trunks put into the luggage cart and accompanied the porter with the modest residue to a dogcart twenty yards away.

Brief colloquy with a bewhiskered Jehu in a faded snuff-colored livery and a battered furry topper proved this vehicle to be from The Laurels and that it was awaiting the arrival of the London train.

“Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson?”

Jehu, who combined the functions of groom, gardener and general factotum, said gruffly that he was Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson and that Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson hoped they would be able to squeeze the box of the new governess into the back of the cart without chipping the fresh paint. It took but a minute or two for the porter to dispose of the very modest luggage labeled “Cass” and to accept for his general services a fee considerably in excess of what he had reason to expect; and then the groom-gardener, one John Small by name, said curtly, “Jump in, miss. We can’t keep this ’orse standin’ here all night.”

Without showing the slightest intention to obey the order, the new governess looked at the horse in critical fashion. “I hope,” she said impersonally, “he won’t take it into his head to sit down.”

The reply, although sweetly given, did not make at all a favorable impression on Mr. Small, who was a great autocrat within his sphere; the porter, however, his heart warmed by half a crown, smiled broadly. The horse pawed impatiently and Mr. Small coughed in a hostile manner, but nothing would induce the new governess to ascend to the vacant seat by his side until the Clavering Park omnibus had actually quitted the station yard.

VI

IN the process of time the omnibus started for Clavering Park, and in almost the same instant a darker thrall was cast upon the soul of Pikey. Right up till that final moment the maid struggling with might and main against honorable fatigue, the Genius of the Bottle and the weight of five and sixty years, had cherished the hope that her mistress--who apparently had changed her clothes, although Pikey was hardly prepared to swear to the fact--would come aboard the omnibus. But the vehicle started without that consummation coming to pass.

Even then the duenna, no longer able to keep her eyes open, still pinned her faith to the bare chance that her wayward charge--the Little Wretch had always given more trouble than all the rest together!--was up in front beside the chauffeur. The old woman knew that such a conjecture belonged to the region of fantasy, yet it might be so. Elfreda was as full of tricks as a monkey and always had been.

The omnibus passed a lamp at the entrance to the station yard and, as Pikey’s eyes flickered open for the last time, she caught a hazy glimpse of the fur coat and the velour hat opposite. The maid drew a long sigh of relief. Why, there she was, after all! Something or somebody was playing tricks, though. Pikey could have taken an oath that five minutes ago her mistress was standing outside the door in a green ulster. But the delicious sensation of warmth, comfort and extreme somnolence was too much for her now. Yes ... of course ... it must be quite all right. Elfreda was seated opposite. Besides ... what did it matter?... what did anything ... mat ... ter ...?

In a measure these feelings were shared by Miss Cass. She, it is true, was very far from somnolence just now. Her state bordered upon ecstasy. The Genius of the Bottle and the many famous novels she had read must share the responsibility for her frame of mind. Was she not fully launched now upon the most wonderful, amazing, wholly preposterous adventure! She was a living romance and it was equal to anything in the “New Arabian Nights.” Was she really awake? Or did she dream? In the humid interior of the smooth-gliding bus she too was lulled into false security by a delicious sense of comfort. The wheels were going round in her head with an ease, an abandon she had not experienced before. Yet over and beyond all else was the feeling that as she was under the personal ægis of a marquis’ daughter everything was bound to turn out for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The extraordinarily charming and clever little Lady Elfreda Catkin, who in every detail was so absolutely the Real Right Thing, as Mr. James Henry would have said--or was it Mr. H. G. Wennett?--whose father was the Marquis of Carabbas, could be trusted to see to that.

Yes, everything was bound to be all right. There was a very experienced maid to look after her. She would have fine clothes and plenty of money; she might even be provided with jewels. It would all be part of a delightful joke, a little daring no doubt to a humdrum bourgeoise mind, but then in High Society they had a different standard, as all the best writers insisted, from Thackeray down. And this really was High Society and she had really entered it. Besides taking the matter at its lowest, here was a dazzling opportunity for one who desired to write as well as Mrs. Humphry Ward or Mrs. Elinor Glyn. The secret door of aristocratic life had been opened to her so miraculously that it was enough to make the Brontë Sisters turn in their green graves with envy.

Girlie Cass was not by nature brave. But as she snuggled her chin lower amid the delicious warmth of the skunk collar and she reviewed an incredible situation to the best of her rather impaired ability, for a few epic moments she never felt so brave in all her life. Somehow with that rich fur round her ears and her very own maid seated opposite she felt almost equal to anything. Two things only were required of her, according to her entirely amazing mentor and all powerful protectress. The first was never to let go of the fact that she was Lady Elfreda Catkin; the second was “to play up.”

Alas, the feeling of courage passed all too soon for the comfort of Miss Cass. The presence of others slowly percolated to her. Impressive looking male figures were seated each side the door. They did not speak, but this very quality of silence seemed to render her sense of insecurity greater. And then to her horror almost the man by her side turned his head and addressed her.

“Aren’t you Lady Elfreda Catkin? My name is Philpot. Our hostess wrote to me at Newbury to say you might be coming by this train.” He was quite a friendly little man, a chronic sufferer from a rush of words to the head, who seldom waited for the second party to any conversation to catch up with his ideas. Nothing could have served Girlie better at this nerve-racking moment than the little man’s habit of amiable loquacity. She was just able to make some kind of wholly unintelligible murmur, but it sufficed for Sir Toby to go on. “I sometimes meet your father at the Buck Club. I do hope you like your part. What do you think of my big scene in the third act? Monty Jupp says it is quite equal to anything that Oscar Wilde ever wrote. I think it better myself, though that is between ourselves. I wouldn’t say that to everybody, but it really is a nailin’ good comedy, and your part of the Little Guv is absolutely the best thing I’ve done. Of course, it wants playin’ on rather broad lines, but it’s sure to be a go.”

The little Catkin lady was not very forthcoming. Throughout the whole of the baronet’s discourse she sat in her corner as solemn as a mouse. But Sir Toby was much encouraged by the passing glimpses of her an occasional street lamp afforded him. She had absolutely no conversation, but she was a pretty little Puss.

Meanwhile a chill of paralysis was settling upon Miss Cass. She must really make an effort to say something. It wouldn’t do to appear odd. At that moment, however, it seemed quite impossible for her to devise any form of words to meet the occasion. What ought she to say? What would a daughter of a marquis say in such circumstances? Above all, the student of _The Patrician_ asked herself, how would the daughter of a marquis say whatever she had to say?

Girlie took the line of least resistance. She said nothing. It was the obvious, in fact, the only possible course, because her will was inert, her mind was a blank, her tongue was petrified. Happily Sir Toby was extraordinarily insensitive, even for a baronet. “I knew several of your sisters. I am always meetin’ your father. I hear you absolutely knocked ’em in Yorkshire as Lady Henrietta in the Duke of Killiecrankie, but of course this is a very much better play than poor Bob Marshall could ever have written. Don’t you think so? But you do, of course.”

No, not exactly forthcoming, but she was a pretty little thing and obviously very shy.

“I haven’t seen you act myself, but Monty Jupp says when he’s coached you a bit more you’ll be able to play the ingénues out of all the London theatres. He thinks you ought to go into the business. If your father will give his consent he will produce a big contract for you; and if all goes well down here Monty says he can find the money to put you up as the Little Guv at the Imperial.”

The reserve of Lady Elfreda lasted all the way to Clavering Park. Happily Sir Toby was less concerned by it than less gifted people might have been. For he had a real love of the sound of his own voice, and somehow it had never sounded better than in this cozy tête-a-tête with the youngest of the Catkin girls. A shy little puss, but she was as pretty as pretty.

Under her fur coat, however, Miss Cass had begun to shiver with dread fear and dire remorse. But emotions of that sort were simply no use now. Things had gone much too far. Whatever happened now she must play up. Therein lay her only hope of salvation.

It seemed as if this journey would never end. The sense of impending disaster was getting on the nerves of Miss Cass. Luckily they had not far to go. It was but a couple of miles or so to Clavering Park.

VII

ALL the same, Miss Cass was by no means ready to welcome the end of the journey even when it came. The first rather abrupt intimation that her destination had been reached was a brief stopping at the lodge gates of Clavering Park, followed a few minutes later by a flare of lights from a large, wide-fronted house. Then came the epic moment of the tall footman opening the omnibus door, the descent of her traveling companions and the obvious need for her own.

Immense courage was called for to quit that comfortable corner, but with an effort which in the circumstances seemed superhuman Girlie took the plunge. After being gracefully assisted from the omnibus by Sir Toby she moved without apparent impulse or volition of her own into a wide zone of light. The next thing she realized was that she had arrived in a large, bright inner hall that was terrifyingly full of people. For the most part these were seated on chairs and sofas in groups of two and three, consuming afternoon tea and talking at what seemed to be the top of very loud voices.

A large, fair-haired woman of forty or so, with the look of a rather overblown yellow chrysanthemum, suddenly detached herself from the center of the throng, literally sprang at Miss Cass and welcomed her with the greatest effusion.

“So nice of you to come! Such a pleasure to see you! So good of you to come all the way down here!”

Girlie realized that she was in the grip of the voluble and demonstrative mistress of Clavering Park.

“You have made friends with Sir Toby already, of course?”

The little man answered brightly that they had made friends already. Other brief and swift introductions followed, but Miss Cass made no effort to catch the names and she shyly avoided the eyes of these favored ones. And then said the hostess with delightful urgency, “Do let me give you some tea.”

Almost as if by magic a passage was found to a table in the middle of the hall. As the important guest moved forward with the hostess the conversation abruptly stopped. Girlie felt that every eye was upon her fur coat, yet somehow the sensation was not unpleasant. There were more brief introductions en route. And then at last she was safely anchored in a very seductive low chair and the conversation had begun again with a redoubled violence.

“So sporting of you to come and help us!”

Girlie was soon aware that there was no immediate need for her to say anything; the hostess and those around her were abundantly equipped with small talk.

“This tea is quite fresh. Milk and sugar?”

Girlie’s tongue declined to act, but somehow she was able to muster a hoarse whisper which the hostess interpreted as “Yes, please.”

Tea gave Girlie a little courage. A spasmodic warmth began to flicker in her gray eyes.

“Do have some more.” The voice was kindness itself. “And then if you would like to rest a little after your long and tiresome journey you shall go up to your room.”

Nothing could have been nicer, easier or more amiable. For all her excitement, which seemed to be breaking in burning waves round her head and ears, Girlie was able to do ample justice to her tea and cake; she even continued to listen with a kind of gratitude to the prattle of the yellow chrysanthemum lady, who was obviously a very good sort.