Her Ladyship's Elephant
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"How so?" asked the Consul.
"Why, you don't imagine that I shall ever dare to show my face at Melton Court again. Just picture to yourself her ladyship and your elephant! She will never forgive us, and will cut poor Harold off with a shilling."
"That won't hurt him much, from all I've heard of her ladyship's finances," he replied.
"I think," she resumed, "that I ought to be very angry with you; but I can't help laughing, it is so absurd. A bull in a china-shop would be tame compared with an elephant at Melton Court. What do you think she will do with the beast?"
"Pasture it on the front lawn to keep away objectionable relatives," retorted the Consul. "But, seriously speaking, have you any definite plan of campaign?"
"Certainly not. What do you suppose I carry you round for, if it is not to plan campaigns?"
"Which you generally alter. You will please remember that the visit to Melton Court was entirely owing to you."
"Quite, and I shall probably upset this one; but proceed."
"Well, in the first place, as soon as we reach Southampton I think we had better have a good breakfast."
"That is no news. You are a man; therefore you eat. Go on."
"Do you object?"
"Not at all. I expected it; I'll even eat with you."
"Well said. After this necessary duty, I propose to go to the station and thoroughly investigate the matter of the arrival and departure of my wife and your husband."
"If they were at Basingstoke we should have heard from them before this," she said; "and even if they were not, they should have telegraphed."
"Very probably they did," he replied; "but, as you ought to know, there is nothing more obliging and more generally dense than an English minor official. I dare say that the key to the whole mystery is at this moment reposing, neatly done up in red tape, at the office of that disgusting little junction. But here we are at Southampton. Now for breakfast; and then the American Sherlock Holmes will sift this matter to the bottom." And the Consul, in excellent spirits, assisted her to alight.
Indeed, now that the elephant had been left behind, he felt that, actually as well as metaphorically, a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
"Evidently," remarked Allingford, as they were finishing a breakfast in one of the cosy principal hotels – "evidently the loss of your husband has not included the loss of your appetite."
"Of course it hasn't," replied Mrs. Scarsdale. "Why shouldn't I eat a good breakfast? I have no use for conventions which make one do disagreeable things just because one happens to feel miserable."
"Do you feel very miserable? I thought you seemed rather cheerful on the whole," he commented.
"Well, you are not to think anything so unpleasant or personal. I'm utterly wretched; and if you don't believe it I won't eat a mouthful."
"I'm sure," he returned, "that your husband would be much put out if he knew you contemplated doing anything so foolish."
"Do you know," she said, "that I'm beginning to have serious doubts that I ever had a husband? Do you think he's a myth, and that you and I will have to go through life together in an endless pursuit of what doesn't exist?"
"Good Lord, I hope not!" he exclaimed.
"That is very uncomplimentary to me," she retorted.
"In the face of that remark," he replied, pushing back his chair, "I am silent."
"Do you know," said his companion after a moment, as she folded her napkin, "that the keen sense of humour with which we Americans are endowed saves a large percentage of us from going mad or committing suicide?"
"Are you thinking of doing either?" he asked anxiously.
"I am thinking," she replied, "that we have had two exceedingly amusing days, and I am almost sorry they are over."
"Don't you want to find your husband?" he exclaimed.
"Of course I do; but it has been a sort of breathing-space before settling down to the seriousness of married life, and that elephant episode was funny. I think it was worth two days of any husband; don't you?"
"I don't know," returned the Consul, somewhat ruefully. "I'd just as lief that Scarsdale had had the beast."
"Oh, I wouldn't!" she cried. "He would have spoiled all the fun. He'd have done some stupid, rational thing. Donated it to the 'Zoo' in London, I should think; wasted the elephant, in fact. It took the spirit of American humour to play your colossal, practical joke. I wonder if it has arrived at the Court yet. I can fancy it sticking its head, trunk and all, through the great window in Lady Melton's dining-room."
"She called me a consular person," remarked that official stiffly.
"Hence the elephant," laughed his fair companion. "Cause and effect. But, joking apart, there is a pitiful side to our adventure. When I think of those two matter-of-fact, serious British things, your better half and my – my husband, and of what a miserable time they have been having, unrelieved by any spark of humour, it almost makes me cry."
"Hold on!" cried Allingford, "You are just as bad as your great-aunt. She calls me a consular person, and you call my wife a British thing! I wish I had another elephant."
"I beg your pardon, I do really," she replied. "I classed my husband in the same category. But don't you agree with me that it's sad? I'm sure your poor wife has cried her eyes out; and as for my husband, I doubt if he's eaten anything, and I'm certain he's worn his most unbecoming clothes."
"You are wrong there," interrupted Allingford; "he packed all the worst specimens, and I rescued them at Salisbury. I tried them on yesterday, and there wasn't a suit I'd have had the face to wear in public."
"There, run along and turn the station upside down; you've talked enough," she said, laughing, and drove him playfully out of the room.
It was about half-past nine that the Consul meditatively mopped his head, as he reached the top step of the hotel porch. He was heated by his exertions, but exceedingly complacent. He had interviewed sixteen porters, five guards, the station agent, three char-women, four policemen, and the barmaid – the latter twice, once on business and once on pleasure; and he had discovered from the thirtieth individual, and after twenty-nine failures and a drink, the simple fact that those he sought had gone to Winchester. He did not think he could have faced Mrs. Scarsdale if he had failed. As it was, he returned triumphant, and, as he approached their private parlour, he mentally pictured in advance the scene which would await him: her radiant smile, her voluble expression of thanks, their joyful journey to Winchester; in short, success. He pushed open the door, and this is what really happened: an angry woman with a flushed, tear-stained face rushed across the room, shoved a newspaper at him, and cried:
"You brute!"
The Consul dropped into the nearest chair. He looked at the infuriated Mrs. Scarsdale, he looked at the crumpled newspaper, he heard the last echo of that opprobrious monosyllable, and he said:
"Well I'm jiggered!"
Then, recollecting his news, he continued:
"Oh, I forgot. I've found out where they have gone; it's Winchester."
"Is that all you've got to tell me?" she cried. "All, in the face of this?" And she again shoved the newspaper towards him. He looked to where her finger pointed. He was hopelessly bewildered, and wondered if her native humour had inopportunely failed her and she had gone mad.
"Read!" she commanded.
His wandering eye followed the direction of her finger, and he read slowly, with open mouth, a short account of the arrest and partial trial at Winchester of one Richard Allingford, who claimed to be Harold Scarsdale.
"Tell me," she thundered, "is that my husband?"
"Well," he said, slowly, "I guess it is," and he re-read the last sentence of the paragraph in the newspaper:
"The prisoner insisted that he was Harold Scarsdale, and could prove his identity. He was accompanied by a woman who claimed to be Mrs. Robert Allingford, wife of the well-known United States Consul at Christchurch. The prisoner was remanded till this morning."
"Have you a brother?"
"Yes."
"Has he ever been arrested?"
"Arrested! Why, I've spent most of my time for the past twenty years in bailing him out."
"But why has my husband taken his name?" she demanded.
"That is a matter you'll have to settle with Scarsdale; and if you look as you do now, I'm real sorry for him," he replied.
"You don't care a bit!" she cried.
"Oh, yes I do; but I want you to see it from its humorous side," he answered.
At this remark Mrs. Scarsdale burst into a flood of tears, and Allingford gave a sigh of relief, and, strolling to the window, was soon lost in admiration of the view.
Suddenly a voice said, in the sweetness of its accustomed tones:
"Why were you so pleased when I began to cry?" And Mrs. Scarsdale, calm and composed, stood beside him.
"Hard storm is a good thing to clear the atmosphere after a thunder-shower," replied the Consul laconically.
"I was real mad with you," she admitted.
"Great Scott! don't you suppose I knew that?" he cried.
They both laughed, and peace was restored.
"Do you really think it is poor Harold?"
"I suppose he doesn't get called St. Hubart when he's in 'quod'?"
"Be sensible and answer my question. Is it my husband or your brother who is on trial at Winchester?"
"I don't know," he replied.
"What are you going to do about it?" she asked.
"Go and see."
"When is the next train?"
The Consul pulled out his watch.
"In twelve and a half minutes," he said. "I've paid the hotel bill. Here, hold on! You turn to the left for the elevator!" But Mrs. Scarsdale was half-way downstairs on her way to the station.
An hour later, as the Consul and his fair companion emerged at the station at Winchester, the first person they saw was Carrington.
"We've been found at last!" cried the Consul, advancing towards Jack with outstretched hand, exclaiming: "Well, Columbus Carrington, if ever I get lost again, I'll telegraph you first thing."
In a minute questions and answers were flying between them. Where had they been? Where had they come from? Why was Carrington here? Why had Scarsdale been arrested?
Jack bore up manfully, answering as best he could.
"Perhaps you can tell me the whereabouts of my wife and this lady's husband?" said the Consul.
"They have been staying here," he replied, "but they have gone."
"Gone!" cried Allingford in blank amazement. "Gone! Where? When?"
"Why, to Salisbury," replied Jack. "I sent them over there early this morning."
"You did, did you?" spluttered the Consul. "What right had you to send them anywhere?"
"Why, to join you at Lady Diana's."
"Join us!" screamed Allingford. "Why, we left Melton Court at half-past four this morning, and have been on the road ever since trying to join them."
"It seems to be a typical example of cross-purposes," replied Carrington.
"It's pure cussedness!" said the Consul.
"But I thought my husband was – in prison," chimed in Mrs. Scarsdale; "the paper said so."
"Merely a case of mistaken identity," Jack hastened to assure her. "I had him set free in no time. And that reminds me: I ran across your brother here last evening, Allingford. It is he who has caused all the trouble. Frankly, I am almost sorry I did not give him over to the police."
"I wish you had," replied the Consul; "I wouldn't have bailed him out till my honeymoon was over. Where is he now?"
"I'm inclined to believe," replied Carrington, "that he has gone to Melton Court in search of you, in company with a man who talked some nonsense about your having stolen an elephant from him."
Allingford and Mrs. Scarsdale both began to laugh.
"I don't see anything funny about that," said Jack.
"Oh, don't you?" returned the Consul. "Well, you would if you knew the rest of the story." And in a few brief words he explained about the elephant's arrival and their subsequent flight.
"Heavens, man!" cried Carrington, "you don't seem to realise what you have let Scarsdale and your wife in for!"
"Great Scott!" exclaimed the Consul, "I never thought of that. Why, I reckon it's rampaging all over the place by this time, and the old lady must be in a perfect fury. When's the next train back? We can't get there too quickly."
"One goes in five minutes," said Jack.
"If I'd ever suspected," gasped Mrs. Scarsdale to Allingford as they rushed down the platform, "that you were laying such a trap for my poor husband – "
"I'm sure I didn't do it on purpose," he replied; "but if they happen to meet the catawampus after she's met the elephant, they'll be in for a pretty hot time."
"Your brother was bad enough," she groaned as the train pulled out; "but as for your elephant – ! It's worse than being arrested!"
CHAPTER X
IN WHICH LADY MELTON RECEIVES A STRANGE VISITOR
However harassing and disturbing the events of the past few days had been to the people particularly interested in them, to the mind of one the proceedings of all those with whom he had come in contact had been characterised by an ignorance, not only of the necessities of life, but even of the very etiquette that lends a becoming dignity to existence, which seemed almost pitiful. Not since the elephant left his native shore had he received what he considered to be proper, or even intelligent, attention. On the voyage, indeed, though his quarters were crowded, and denied by the proximity of low-caste beasts, his material wants had been considered; but since yesterday, when he had landed in the midst of a howling wilderness of iron monsters, who could neither see nor hear and were no respecters of persons, there had been a scarcity even of food and water. All night he had been dragged about the country at a speed unbecoming the dignity of a ruler of the jungle (without even the company of his mahout, who had lost the train at Southampton); and, now that the earth had ceased to move past him and was once more still, he expressed his opinion of the ignorant and degraded people of this wretched country in no uncertain voice. Then, finding that the pen in which he was confined was cramped and dirty, and wholly unfitted for one of his exalted position, he exerted himself to be free, and in a short time reduced his car to kindling-wood. Being now at liberty, he naturally desired his breakfast; but what was one to do when men disfigured the earth with bars of steel over which one tripped, and stored the fruits of the land in squat yellow bungalows, with fluted iron roofs which were difficult to tear off? Therefore the elephant lifted up his voice in rage, whereat many things happened, and a high-caste man, clad in the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun, ran up and down upon the earth, and declared that he should forthwith be taken to the "Court" and delivered to the "Damconsul."
What a "Damconsul" was the elephant did not know; but concluded that it was the title these barbarous people bestowed on the Maharajah of that district. Since he lived at a Court, it seemed certain that he would know how to appreciate and fittingly entertain him. The elephant therefore consented to follow his attendant slaves, though they understood not the noble art of riding him, but were fain to lead him like a beast of burden. On the way he found a spring of sweet water, of which he drank his fill, despite the protestations of his leaders and the outcries of the inhabitants of the bungalow of the well, whose lamentations showed them to be of low caste and little sensible of the honour done them.
The procession at length reached the gate of the Court; and while the attendants were in the lodge explaining matters to the astonished keeper, the elephant, realising that "drink was good but food better," determined to do a little foraging on his own account, and so moved softly off, taking along the stake to which his keepers fondly imagined he was tethered.
He judged that he was now in the park of the Court of the "Damconsul"; and the fact that there were many clumps of familiar plants scattered over the grass increased his belief that this was the case. He tried a few coleus and ate a croton or two; but found them insipid and lacking the freshness of those which bloomed in his native land. Then turning to a grove of young palms, he tore a number up by the roots; which he found required no expenditure of strength, and so gave him little satisfaction. Moreover, they grew in green tubs, which rolled about between his feet and were pitfalls for the unwary. He lay down on a few of the beds; but the foliage was pitifully thin and afforded him no comfortable resting-place; moreover, there were curious rows of slanting things which glistened in the sunlight, and which he much wished to investigate. On examination he found them quite brittle, and easily smashed a number of them with his trunk. Nor was this all, for in the wreckage he discovered a large quantity of most excellent fruit – grapes and nectarines and some very passable plums. Evidently the "Damconsul" was an enlightened person, who knew how to live; and, indeed, it is not fitting for even an elephant to turn up his trunk at espalier peaches at a guinea apiece.
Certainly, thought the elephant, things might be worse. And after a bath in a neighbouring fountain, which cost the lives of some two score of goldfish, he really felt refreshed, and approached the palace, which he considered rather dingy, in order to pay his respects to its owner. Coming round to the front of the building he discovered a marble terrace, gleaming white in the sunshine, and flanked by two groups of statuary – Hercules with his club, and Diana with her bow: though, being unacquainted with Greek mythology, he did not recognise them as such. On the terrace itself was set a breakfast-table resplendent with silver and chaste with fair linen; and by it sat a houri, holding a sunshade over her golden head. The elephant, wishing to conciliate this vision of beauty, advanced towards her, trumpeting gently; but his friendly overtures were evidently misinterpreted, for the houri, giving a wild scream, dropped her sunshade, and fled for safety to the shoulders of Hercules, from which vantage-point she called loudly for help.
Feeling that such conduct was indecorous in the extreme, he ignored her with a lofty contempt; and, having tested the quality of the masonry, ventured upon the terrace and inspected the feast. There were more nectarines – but he had had enough of those – and something steaming in a silver vessel, the like of which he remembered to have encountered once before in the bungalow of a sahib. Moreover, he had not forgotten how it spouted a boiling liquid when one took it up in one's trunk. At this moment a shameless female slave appeared at a window, in response to the cries of the houri, and abused him. He could not, it is true, understand her barbarous language; but the tone implied abuse. Such an insult from the scum of the earth could not be allowed to pass unnoticed. He filled his trunk with water from a marble basin near at hand, and squirted it at her with all his force, and the scum of the earth departed quickly.
"It would be well," thought the elephant, "to find the 'Damconsul' before further untoward incidents could occur"; and with this end in view, he turned himself about, preparatory to leaving the terrace. He forgot, however, that marble may be slippery; his hind legs suddenly slid from under him, and he sat hurriedly down on the breakfast-table. It was at this singularly inopportune moment that Lady Diana appeared upon the scene.
Her ladyship awoke that morning to what was destined to be the most eventful and disturbing day of her peaceful and well-ordered life, with a feeling of irritation and regret that it had dawned, which, in the light of subsequent events, would seem to have been almost a premonition of coming evil. She was, though at this early hour she little knew it, destined to receive a series of shocks of volcanic force and suddenness, between sunrise and sunset, any one of which would have served to overthrow her preconceived notions of what life, and especially life at Melton Court, ought to be.
As yet she knew nothing of all this; but she did know that, though it was long after the hour appointed, she had heard no sound of her great-niece's departing footsteps. She waited till she must have missed the train, and then rang her bedroom bell sharply to learn why her orders had been disobeyed.
"If you please, my lady," replied her maid in answer to her mistress's questions, "Bright did not go because we could not find Mrs. Scarsdale."
"Could not find my niece! And why not, pray?" demanded her ladyship angrily.
"She was not in her room, my lady, or anywhere about the Court; only this note, directed to your ladyship, on her dressing-table."
"Why didn't you say so to begin with, then?" cried her mistress testily. "Open the window, that I may see what this means."
The note was short and painstakingly polite; but its perusal did not seem to please Lady Diana, for she frowned and set her thin lips as she re-read it. The missive ran as follows:
"Dear Lady Melton,
"I write to apologise for the somewhat unconventional manner in which I am leaving your house; but as your plans for my disposal to-day did not accord with my own ideas of what is fitting, I have thought it best to leave thus early, and so avoid any awkwardness which might arise from conflicting arrangements. I wish you to know that I shall be with friends by this evening, so that you need feel no anxiety about my position. Pray accept my thanks for your hospitality, which I am sure my husband will much appreciate, and believe me,
"Yours respectfully,"Mabel Scarsdale."This communication her ladyship tore up into small fragments, and then snapped out:
"Is there anything more?"
"Yes, if you please, my lady," replied the maid; "a note for you from Mr. Allingford, left in his room."
Lady Melton took it as gingerly as if it were fresh from some infected district, and, spreading it out on the bed before her, read it with a contemptuous smile.
"Your Ladyship," wrote the Consul, "I have the honour to inform you that I am leaving at the earliest possible moment, not wishing to impose my company longer than is absolutely necessary where it is so evidently undesired. That there may be no burden of obligation between us, I beg you to accept a trunk belonging to me, which will arrive this morning, as compensation for my board and lodging.
"I remain"Your Ladyship's Obedient Servant,"Robert Allingford,"U.S. Consul, Christchurch, England."P.S. – I mail you to-day a deed of gift of the property in question, legally attested, so that there may be no question of ownership.
"R. A.""Insolence!" gasped Lady Melton, when she comprehended the contents of this astonishing communication. Then turning to her maid, she commanded:
"If this person's trunk arrives here, have it sent back to him instantly." And she fumed with rage at the thought.
"How dare he suppose that I would for a moment accept a gratuity!"
Indeed, so wrought up was she that it was with difficulty that she controlled herself sufficiently to breakfast on the terrace. Moreover, her interview with Bright, the butler, whom she encountered on her way downstairs and who announced the arrival of her great-nephew and a strange lady, was hardly soothing; for it forced her to believe that that faithful servant, after years of probity, had at last strayed from the temperate paths of virtue. Seeing him dishevelled and bewildered, she had sternly rebuked him for his appearance, and from his disjointed replies had only gathered that his astounding state was in some way due to the Consul.
"Has that insolent person's trunk arrived?" she inquired; when, to her astonishment, her old retainer, who had always observed in her presence a respectful and highly deferential demeanour, actually tittered.
"Bright!" she said sternly.
"Beg pardon, my lady," giggled Bright, his face still wreathed in smiles; "but the way you put it."
"What have you done with this person's belongings? Have my orders been carried out?"
"You mean in regard to the – the – "
"Trunk. Yes, let it be put off the place immediately."
"Please, your ladyship," he replied, with difficulty restraining his laughter, "it won't go."