Part 7

"A nice household!" he said meaningly.

The sedate servant bowed.

VI

"How to describe the meeting between Alicia and the Duke!" the painstaking author would think. Should she rise with heightened colour, her fingers convulsively clutching that portion of the anatomy under which, as it is popularly believed, a fluttering heart thrills at the familiar footstep? Should she run to him hysterically, falling upon his neck and sobbing for very joy? It is a style which has exponents amongst the very best authors.

Happy am I, that I am not called upon to invent so difficult a scene. It is the glorious privilege of the reporter that he need not invent. Unless he draws a very high salary indeed, to record events, not as they happened, but as they ought to have happened.

In truth she rose with a heightened colour when the Duke was announced, but she offered him her hand conventionally, and--when the door had closed behind the reluctant servant--he took her in his arms and kissed her again and again.

I do not know how many times because I was not present, but I should say quite six times.

(Six of course is merely an estimate covering their first greeting.)

"So you're back?" she smiled.

He held her hands in his.

(It would be absurd and presumptuous in me to pretend to give anything that professed to be an exact account of this meeting. I repeat that I was not present.)

"I was so horribly afraid," she said earnestly, "I thought when that dreadful man disappeared that possibly he might have followed you, and...."

Let us, as the mid-Victorian novelists said, when they found their powers of description failed, draw a veil over that happy meeting, far too sacred ... and too difficult...

VII

Sir Harry called a Council of War.

His Man of Affairs--Smith by name--attended, as also did the Editor of the _Lewisham and Lee Mail_.

Mr. R. B. Rake (Member of the Institute of Journalists, as his visiting card testified) was and is, one of the most remarkable personages in Catford.

A literateur of no indifferent quality, an authority on postage stamps (I find on referring to Webster's _Dictionary_ that such an expert is called a philatelist), a vegetarian and a gentleman with pronounced views. Mr. R. B. Rake can be described in one word--tremendous.

He had a tremendous voice and a tremendous style, and he quoted the ancient classics inaccurately. He had some Greek, thus he referred to Sir Harry, as of the [Greek: demioergoi], and the Duke as a [Greek: metoikoi]. I have my doubts as to the latter description, and I more than suspect that Mr. Rake, in referring to his grace, thus misapplied the phrase of "privileged alien."

Mr. Smith, whose duty it was to supervise Sir Harry's "rents," was a deferential little man, with a garbled knowledge of the law relating to property.

"Now, gentlemen," said Sir Harry briskly, "we've got to do something about this Duke man."

"Quite so," said Rake, "it is perhaps unparalleled in the constitutional history----"

"One moment, Rake," interrupted the knight testily, "let me talk. I want to make it very clear to you why it is absolutely necessary for the Duke to be cleared out--did you speak, Smith?"

Mr. Smith did speak: he had an important statement to make and saw his opportunity. Unfortunately his introduction was not happily framed. "I said the lore--if a man acts cont'ry to the lore he's done himself," said Mr. Smith solemnly, "you can't take liberties with the lore, duke or no duke. If you catch hold of the lore by the collar it'll turn round and bite you. Now it happens----"

"Be good enough to withhold your comments until I have completed my remarks," said Sir Harry with asperity, "I know all that it is necessary to know concerning the legal situation: I did not," he added pointedly, "ask you to meet me to discuss an aspect of the situation upon which I have been already advised--by competent authorities."

"Now that is very true," commented Mr. R. B. Rake in a tone of wondering surprise, as though Sir Harry's remark had come in the light of a revelation.

"I know," said Sir Harry, "that I cannot eject this person without complicated legal proceedings, and I had thought that by the aid of our good friend Rake we might have shamed him out of the district--but he is meeting us on our own grounds. He is starting a newspaper."

"I give it a month," said Mr. Rake with conviction, "I've seen these mushroom growths: there was the _Blackheath Eagle_--run by a man named Titty--lasted two issues; there was the _Brockley Buzzard_--lasted one; _Catford and Eltham Indicator_--never came out at all!"

He smiled a tired smile.

"You may be sure that this new paper will last just as long as the Duke desires it to last," said Sir Harry, "but that is beside the question; you know the exact position; you are men of affairs acquainted with the complexities of suburban life, I desire to rid Brockley of this person. How am I to do it?"

Mr. R. B. Rake pinched his thick lips thoughtfully.

"I think a leader on Democratic ideals, bringing in the Duke as an oppressor of the people--"

"You can't do that," said Sir Harry brusquely, "he subscribes to the football club."

"How about an imaginary interview. 'A talk with the D---- de Mont----r?" suggested Rake.

"Or a little parody on Julius Caesar, satirically reminding the people of their ingratitude: like this:

"You hard hearts, you cruel men of Lee, Knew ye not Tanneur! Many a time and oft Have you climbed up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney pots To see great Tanneur pass----"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Sir Harry wrathfully. "Nobody has ever climbed up a chimney to see me; nobody knows me in Lewisham."

Mr. Rake protested.

"Nobody knows me I tell you: I've addressed meetings there on Free Trade and all that sort of thing, but I haven't a single acquaintance, except my wretched sister-in-law and her annoying daughter--and what the dooce does Shakespeare say about Tanneur?"

"A pardonable interposition," murmured Mr. Rake noisily. "It is 'Pompey' in the text--you see how admirably it fits the Duke:

"And do you now strew flowers In his (the Duke's) way? Who comes in triumph over Pompey's (that's you) blood?"

"I--will--not--be--referred--to--as--Pompey," said Sir Harry deliberately and slowly, and thumped the table at each word, "I am not going to give that brute a nickname to hang round my neck."

"And look here, Rake," broke in Hal impatiently, "what the devil's the good of you thinking that any muck you write is likely to shift this Duke fellow. I'll bet if it comes to writing he could write your head off. An' there's nothing funny about the Duke fellow coming in triumph over the governor's blood. Its a beastly tactless thing to say."

Mr. Rake looked at him unfavourably.

"Mr. Hal," he said, in his best editorial manner, "you must allow a journalist and a gentleman----"

"Journalist my grandmother," said Hal, without reverence, "this is a council of war--don't let us raise any debatable question. We've got to think out a way of making this Duke pack up his traps. It doesn't matter what sort of way, so long as it's an effective way. The governor doesn't want him there, and I don't want him--he's taken a low down advantage of me an' probably messed up my whole life----" He tangented abruptly (the accent on the penultimate.)

"Now whilst you two chaps have been arguing," Hal went on, "I've thought out a dozen schemes. We might cut off his water----"

"The lore," said Mr. Smith becoming cheerful as the discussion took a turn into his province, "the lore doesn't allow anybody but the water-rates to turn----"

"Or the gas," said Hal, silencing the law-abiding Smith with a gesture; "we could cut the gas off--we can't get him on the rent question because----"

Mr. Smith's great opportunity came.

"The rent question does him," he said wisely cutting out all preamble, "because he ain't paid his rent, an' won't pay his rent, and what's more, he'll see you (accordin' to the American gent who lives with him) to the--I forget the name of the place--before he pays you."

Sir Harry was dumb with astonishment.

"Here's the letter," said Mr. Smith tremulous with importance, "from the Duke himself."

He read--

"DEAR SIR,--

"On my return from America I found a notice to quit served on behalf of your employer. My lease being well defined, I regard the service of such a notice as constituting a breach of contract, and must respectfully decline to pay any further rental for the premises I now occupy, until my position in regard to this property is determined.

"Yours truly, "DE MONTVILLIER."

"Outrageous!" blazed the knight.

"Monstrous!" echoed the faithful Rake.

"What a rotten piece of cheek!" said Hal.

Mr. Smith wagged a fat forefinger.

"The lore is," he said, "that the question of lease is between Sir Harry and the tenant. No tenant's got a right to take the lore into his own hands. If there's a breach of contract the tenant may take action through the lore: if he won't pay his rent----"

"Smith," said Sir Harry impressively. "We will humiliate this fellow; we will show these foolish people of Brockley, who have no conception of true nobility, how this trickster may be treated."

"Governor," said Hal suddenly and excitedly, "why not show 'em the genuine article."

"Eh?"

"What about Tuppy? He's under an obligation to you? Why not bring him here. You've got an empty house--62, by jove! Next to the Duke's; the tenants left yesterday...."

"An excellent idea--a most worthy idea," said Sir Harry.

VIII

It is no extravagance to state that everybody knows Tuppy. The station inspector at Vine Street knows him; Isaac Monstein (trading as Grahame & Ferguson, Financiers) knows him, tradesmen of every degree know him, and there is not a debt collecting agency from Stubbs to the Tradesmen's Protection Association that is unacquainted with his name and style.

The doorkeeper at the House of Lords knows him, and nods a greeting in which reproof and deference are strangely intermingled.

For Tuppy is George Calander Tupping, Ninth Baron Tupping of Clarilaw in the county of Wigsmouth.

He is a youngish man with fair hair and light blue eyes. He typifies in his person the influence of hereditary vices, for he wears a monocle as his father did before him. His attitude towards life is one of perpetual surprise. It earned for him at Eton, a nickname, which he carried to Oxford. He was "The Startled Fawn" to all and sundry, but it was a little too cumbersome to stick, and it is as "Tuppy" that he is best known....

The story of Tuppy is a volume in itself. He began life in the illustrated newspapers, as "Young Heir to a Peerage: Baby Honourable in his Perambulator." He progressed steadily to fame by way of Sandown Park and Carey Street.

At twenty-one he filed his petition; at twenty-two he was editing a weekly newspaper; at twenty-four he appeared in "The Whirling Globe of Time," a comedy in four acts written by himself and (after the first night) acted by himself; at twenty-five he went to America in search of a wealthy bride.

One can only speculate upon the possible results of his guest, for on the voyage over, he fell madly in love with Miss Cora Delean, that famous strong woman and weight lifter.

He married her in New York.

Three days after the marriage the lady threw him over. This is literally the truth, and I have too great a respect for Tuppy to endeavour to make capital out of his misfortune. She threw him over the balustrade of the hotel in which they were staying, and poor Tuppy was taken to hospital.

In justice to the lady it may be said that she called at the hospital regularly every day and left violets for the sufferer. She penned a tearful apology in which she begged Tuppy's forgiveness, appealing to him as a man of the world to realize that a person in drink is not responsible for her actions. Providentially, about this time, the lady's first husband initiated proceedings for divorce on the grounds of incompatability of temperament, and Tuppy, reading the account with his one unbandaged eye, was fervently grateful that the case had not been heard before his marriage.

He returned to England a pronounced misogynist with a slight limp.

Of his other ventures the Sea Gold Extraction Syndicate is the most notorious; his attempt to break the bank at Monte Carlo; his adventures as correspondent in the Balkans, these events are too recent to need particularizing.

Summing up his life, one might say that he had indeed a great future behind him.

As Tuppy himself would say, with a suspicion of tears in his eyes--

"My dear old bird! I never had a chance. I was saddled with rank an' bridled by circumstance. I'm a rumbustious error of judgment, a livin' mark of interrogation against the Wisdom of Providence!"

Let no man think that Tuppy was a fool; he was a poet. His play was in blank verse. Nor accuse him of improvidence: he was a philosopher who scorned the conventional obligations of life. He never paid his bills because he never had the money to pay. If he had possessed the means, he would have discharged his liabilities, for he was an honest man. It has been argued that in his circumstances it was wholly wrong to contract such liabilities, but Tuppy had an answer to such a twiddling splitting of hairs.

"Dear old feller," he was wont to say, "you talk like a foolish one. Must I forgo my last shreds of faith in human nature and the mysterious workin's of providence? Must I, because of temp'ray misfortune, refuse to recognize the illimitable possibilities of the future? I have three cousins each with pots of money, and one at least coopered up with asthma--it runs in the family--who might pop off at any minute."

Thus Tuppy justified his optimism.

If Tuppy had a failing it was his antipathy to his father's second wife. To the dowager he ascribed all his misfortunes, in every piece of bad luck he saw the dowager's hand.

She, poor soul, was a mild colourless lady with a weakness for bridge, who spent her life in a vain attempt to restrict her requirements to the circumscribed limits of a small annuity payable quarterly.

Tuppy rented a flat in Charles Street, W. He was at breakfast when Hal's letter arrived, and the young man's interesting communication might well have gone unread, for Tuppy's man was handling the morning post.

"Bill from Roderer's, m'lord."

"Chuck it in the fire."

"Letter from the lawyers about Colgate's account."

"Chuck it in the fire."

"Letter E.C.--no name on the back."

"Let me look at that, Bolt--um--typewritten--posted at 6.30 p.m. That's the time all bills are posted; chuck it in the fire."

"Better open it, m'lord--might be a director's fee."

Tuppy shook his head sadly.

"Not likely--still open it."

So Hal's proposal came before his lordship.

"Dear Tuppy," read the man.

"Who the devil 'Tuppies' me on a typewriter?" demanded the peer.

The servant turned to the signature.

"Hal Tailor," he read.

"Tanneur," corrected Tuppy, "he's the sort of cove who _would_ Tuppy me on a typewriter--go on."

"DEAR TUPPY,--

"I've got a great scheme for you. The governor will let you have a house rent free--"

"I'll bet there's something wrong with the house," said Tuppy uncharitably.

"--if you don't mind living in Suburbia."

Tuppy sat bolt upright.

"Where," he asked.

"In Suburbia," repeated Bolt.

Tuppy rose and pushed back his chair.

"Bolt," he said solemnly, "it's a shade of odds on this being a scheme of dowager's to get me out of the country. Bolt--I'll not go. I'll see this Tanner man to the devil before I expatriate myself!"

"Beg pardon m'lord----"

But Tuppy stopped him with an uncompromising hand.

"It's no bet, Bolt. Here we are and here we'll stay. Blessed gracious!" he swore fiercely. "I would sooner pay my rent _here_!"

"I was going to say, m'lord," said the patient Bolt, "that he means the suburbs. Brixton an' Clapham an' Tootin' Bec an' that sort of thing."

Tuppy looked at him suspiciously.

"Where is Tooting Bec and that sort of thing?" he demanded.

"Near Wandsworth Prison," began Bolt.

"What! Then I won't go--I _won't_ go, Bolt." Tuppy was considerably agitated. "It's a rotten idea; a house rent free, d'ye see, Bolt? it's this demmed Tanneur person's gentle hint ... a paltry matter of three hundred pounds"--he paced the room furiously--"that's the scheme--the dowager is behind all this--oh woman, woman!"

He apostrophized the ceiling.

"Better finish the letter, m'lord."

"Chuck it in the fire, Bolt; chuck it in!"

Bolt quickly skimmed the letter and mastered its contents.

"It's in Brockley, m'lord," he said quickly.

"Chuck it in the fire--where's Brockley."

"On the main road to Folkestone," said the diplomatic Bolt.

"Main road to Folkestone is half-way to the Continent," said Tuppy explosively, "chuck it in the fire!"

"He said he'll allow you L500 for upkeep, m'lord."

"Eh."

Tuppy stopped in his stride.

"Five hundred," he hesitated, "that's a lot of money--there'll be some shootin'."

"Certain to be, m'lord."

"An' people?"

"Yes, m'lord."

Tuppy shook his head doubtingly.

"I've never heard of anybody livin' at Brockley--I knew a chap who lived at Harrogate, poor chap with one lung."

Tuppy thought.

"Five hundred _and_ shooting--any fishin'?"

"The river's close by, m'lord--there's Greenwich----" Tuppy brightened up.

"Greenwich! of course, whitebait. Must be devilish amusin' fishin' for whitebait: you eat 'em with brown bread, you know, like oysters----"

He wrote to Hal that day, tentatively accepting the offer. Hal made an appointment for his lordly tenant, and fumed for three hours in his city office until Tuppy turned up.

"I say!" said the aggrieved Hal ostentatiously displaying his watch; "I say, Tuppy, old man, dash it! You said eleven and it's two! Hang it all!"

"Don't be peevish," begged the peer, "if I'd said two it would have been five."

"Time is money," complained Hal.

"Wise old bird," said Tuppy earnestly, "your interestin' and perfectly original apothegm merely elucidates my position. It's the habit of years to overdraw my account."

Hal who had no soul for subtle reasoning, plunged into the object of the meeting.

"The fact is, Tuppy," he said, leaning back in his padded chair, and cocking one leg on to the desk before him, "the fact is," he repeated, "there's a man, a Duke man, that the governor's anxious to run out of Brockley."

"Dear, dear!" commented Tuppy with polite interest.

"He's not one of our dukes: he's a French Duke from America, and he's been acting the goat and getting upsides with the governor and blithering generally--do you understand."

"Very pithily put," murmured Tuppy, "the whole situation is revealed in one illuminatin' flash."

"Very good," said Hal complacently. "Well, being in the suburbs--the Duke--and the suburbs being----"

"In the suburbs," suggested the helpful Tuppy as Hal paused for an illustration.

"Exactly .... It stands to reason that a lot of these bounders have gone in for a sort of hero-worship. See?" Tuppy nodded slowly.

"The fact being," explained Hal, "that these suburban people are such absolute rotters and--and----"

"Pifflers?" suggested Tuppy.

"And pifflers and outsiders--that was the word I wanted--that they really don't know the genuine article from the spurious."

"Very natural," Tuppy agreed.

"So the governor and I (it was really my idea but you know what sort of chap the governor is for adopting other people's ideas as his own), we thought a good idea would be, to plant one of the genuine article right in their midst, so that they could see for themselves the sort of Johnny the other chap was."

"I see," said Tuppy thoughtfully, "sort of look on this picture-an'-look-on-that, compare the genuine goods before patronizin' rival establishments?"

"Tuppy," said Hal with solemn admiration, "you've got the whole thing in a nut-shell."

Tuppy picked up his hat and examined it intently.

"No bet," he said.

"Eh?"

Hal could hardly believe his ears.

"No bet," said Tuppy with decision, "awfully obliged to you for the offer and all that; but no bet."

"Why not--you get a house rent free; the governor furnishes it from Baring's, you get five hundred----"

"The five hundred is badly wanted," admitted Tuppy sadly, "an' if anything would tempt me, it would be five hundred of the brightest and best, but, Tanny, old chick, it can't be done."

"But why not?" protested Hal.

Tuppy was still examining his hat.

"Dignity, old friend," said Tuppy categorically. "House of Lords, family traditions, pride of birth, ancient lineage--the whole damn thing's wrong. Besides, it would get into the papers, 'Noble Lord caretaker in the suburbs: Tuppy's latest!' ugh!"

He shuddered.

"An' again," he went on. "Where is Brockley, what is Brockley, who has ever lived in Brockley: what part has Brockley played in the stirrin' story of our national life? Is there a Lord Brockley, or a Bishop of Brockley or a Lord of the Manor. Yes, there is a 'Lord of the Manor,'" he amended bitterly. "It's the name of a public-house. It's no go, dear old boy, it can't be done. I've looked it up, found it on a map, an' read about it in the _A.B.C. Time Table_. It's all back-gardens an' workman's trains, an' stipendiary magistrates, an' within walkin' distance of the County Court."

He shook his head so vigorously that his eyeglass fell out.

He replaced it carefully and pulled on his gloves.

"Now look here, Tuppy," said Hal impatiently, "for heaven's sake, don't be a raving ass!"

"Neatly put," commended Tuppy.

"You get this house free; you get the money--cash down; you get what you haven't got now--unlimited credit."

"Pardon, pardon," corrected Tuppy carefully, "my credit is exceptionally good, if the tradesmen only knew it; it's the rotten conservatism of English business methods that is paralysin' my budget, an' the socialistic tendencies of the tradin' classes that is interferin' with my economic adjustments. Tanny, old sparrow, it's no go."

He shook his head.

"No shootin' except cats; no fishin' except with worms--I particularly loath worms and spiders--no society."

"There is the Duke."

Tuppy had forgotten the Duke, and Hal's sarcasm was effective. "Duke?" Tuppy frowned. "The Duke--of course."

"Now what on earth is the Duke doin' there?" he burst forth in a tone of extreme annoyance, "an' what duke is it?"

"I've told you a dozen times," said the exasperated Hal, "he's an obscure foreign duke--"

"Name?"

"De Montvillier--quite an unknown----"

"Steady the Buffs," warned Tuppy, "de Montvillier? Best house in France. Tanny, my impulsive soul, the Montvilliers are devils of chaps. Obscure! Phew."

He looked at Hal reproachfully.

Then he shook his head for the fourteenth time.

"Five hundred pounds an' a back garden," he considered, "an' the Duke. He's pretty sure to play _picquet_. By the blessed shades of the original Smith, I've a good mind----"

He pondered sucking his index finger.

"I dare say we'd get on well together----"

"Look here, Tuppy!"

Hal was pardonably indignant.

"You don't think we want you to go down to Brockley to keep the Duke amused, do you? We want you to cut him out, make him look like a tallow candle by the side of a searchlight.

"Oh, I'll cut him out all right," said Tuppy with confidence, "there are few chaps who can beat me at piquet."

Hal protesting, Tuppy serenely indifferent to the requirement of the other contracting parties, but obligingly agreeing with all their conditions, it was arranged that from September 16 No. 62. should be for the nonce the London house of Baron Tupping of Clarilaw in the county of Wigsmouth.

IX