Laid up in Lavender

But Burton Smith objected to May. "He will talk about nothing but India," he protested, "and the superiority of Calcutta to London. A little of these Bombay ducks goes a long way, my dear."

"Well, James," Mrs. Burton Smith replied placidly-the Hon. Vereker May is a son of Lord Hawthorn-"he will take me in, and I do not mind. Only I must have Mr. Wibberley on the other side to make conversation and keep me alive. Let me see-that will be three. And Joanna Burton-she comes that afternoon-four. Do you know, James, when we were at Rothley for Christmas I thought there was something between your cousin and Mr. Wibberley?"

"Then, for goodness' sake, do not let them sit together!" Burton Smith cried, "or they will talk to one another and to no one else."

"Very well," Mrs. Smith assented. "They shall sit facing one another, and Mr. Wibberley shall take in Mrs. Galantine. She will be sure to flirt with him, and we can watch Joanna's face. I shall soon see if there is anything between them."

Mr. Wibberley was a young man of some importance, if only in his capacity of private secretary to a Minister. He had a thousand acquaintances, and two friends-perhaps three. He might be something some day-was bound to be. He dressed well, looked well, and talked well. He was a little presumptuous, perhaps a trifle conceited; but women like these things in young men, and he had tact. At any rate, he had never yet found himself in a place too strait for him.

This evening as he dressed for dinner-as he brushed his hair, or paused to smile at some reflection-his own, but not in the glass-he was in his happiest mood. Everything seemed to be going well with him. He had no presentiment of evil. He was going to a house where he was appreciated. Mrs. Burton Smith was a great ally of his. And then there would be, as we know, some one else. Happy man!

"Lady Linacre," said his hostess, as she introduced him to a stout personage with white hair, a double chin, and diamonds. Wibberley bowed, making up his mind that the dowager was one of those ladies with strong prejudices, who drag their skirts together if you prove to be a Home Ruler, and leave the room if you mention Sir Charles Dilke. "Mr. May, you have met before," Mrs. Smith continued; "and you know Miss Burton, I think?"

He murmured assent, while she-Joanna-shook hands with him frankly and with the ghost of a smile, perhaps. He played his part well, for a moment; but halted in his sentence as it flashed across his mind that this was their first meeting since she had said "Yes." He recovered from his momentary embarrassment, however, before even Mrs. Burton Smith could note it, and promptly offered Mrs. Galantine his arm.

She was an old friend of his-as friends go in society. He had taken her in to dinner half a dozen times. "Who is that girl?" she asked, when they were seated; and she raised her glasses and stared through them at her vis-à-vis. "I declare she would be pretty if her nose were not so short."

He seized the excuse to put up his glass too, and take a long look. "It is rather short," he admitted, gazing with a whimsical sense of propriety at the deficient organ. "But some people like short noses, you know, Mrs. Galantine."

"Ah! And theatres in August!" she replied incredulously. "And drawing-room games! But, seriously, she would be pretty if it were not for that."

"Would she?" he questioned. "Well, I think she would, do you know?"

And certainly Joanna was pretty, though her forehead was too large, and her nose too small, and her lips too full. For her eyes were bright and her complexion perfect, and her face told of wit, and good temper, and freshness. She had beautiful arms, too, for a chit of nineteen. Mrs. Galantine said nothing about the arms-not out of modesty, but because her own did not form one of her strong points. Wibberley, however, was thinking of them, and whether a bracelet he had by him would fit them. He saw Joanna wore a bracelet-a sketchy gold thing. He considered whether he should take it for a pattern, or whether it might not be more pleasant to measure the wrist for himself.

But Mrs. Galantine returned to the charge. "She is a cousin, is she not?" she asked, speaking so loudly that Joanna looked across and smiled. "I have never met her before. Tell me all about her."

Tell her all about her! Wibberley gasped. He saw a difficulty in telling "all about her," the more as the general conversation was not brisk, and Joanna must bear a part. For an instant, indeed, his presence of mind failed him, and he cast an appalled glance round the table. Then he bent to his task. "Mrs. Galantine," he murmured sweetly, "pray-pray beware of becoming a potato!"

The lady dropped her knife and fork with a clatter. "A potato, Mr. Wibberley? What do you mean?"

"What I say," he answered simply. "You see my plate? It is a picture. You have there the manly beef, and the feminine peas, so young, so tender! And the potato! The potato is the confidante. It is insipid. Do you not agree with me?"

"Bravo, Mr. Wibberley! But am I to apply your parable?" she spoke sharply, glancing across the table, with her fork uplifted, and a pea upon it. "Am I to be the potato?"

"The choice is with you," he replied gallantly. "Shall it be the potato? or the peas?"

Mrs. Burton Smith, seeing him absorbed in his companion, was puzzled. Look as she might at Joanna, she saw no sign of jealousy or self-consciousness. Joanna seemed to be getting on perfectly with her partner; to be enjoying herself to the full, and to be as much interested as any one at table. Mrs. Burton Smith sighed. She had the instinct of matchmaking. And she saw clearly now that there was nothing between the two; that if there had been any philandering at Rothley neither of the young people had put out a hand-or a heart-beyond recovery.

But this success of Wibberley's with Mrs. Galantine had its consequences. After the ladies had withdrawn he grew a trifle presumptuous. By ill-luck, the Hon. Vereker May had reached that period of the evening when India-as seen through the glasses of his memory-was accustomed to put on its rosiest tints; and the two facing one another fell to debating on a subject of which the returned Civilian had seen much and thought little, and the private secretary had read more and thought not at all. They were therefore on a par as to information, and what the younger man lacked in obstinacy he made up in readiness. It was in vain the Nabob blustered, asserted, contradicted-finally grew sulky, silent, stertorous. Wibberley pushed his triumph, and soon paid dearly for it.

It happened that he was the last to enter the drawing-room. The evening was chilly, and the ladies had grouped themselves about the fire, protected from assault, by a couple of gipsy-tables bearing shaded lamps. The incomers, one by one, passed through these outworks-all but Wibberley. He cast a glance of comic despair at Joanna, who was by the fireplace in the heart of the citadel; then, resigning himself to separation, he took a low chair by one of the tables, and began to turn over the books which lay on the latter. There were but half a dozen. He scanned them all, and then his eyes fell on a bracelet which lay beside them; a sketchy gold bracelet, with one big boss-Joanna's.

He looked at the party-himself sitting a little aside, as we have said. They were none of them facing his way. They were discussing a photograph on the overmantel, a photograph of children. He extended his hand and covered the bracelet. He would take it for a pattern, and to-morrow Joanna should ransom it. He tried, as his fingers closed on it, to catch her eye. He would fain have seen her face change and her colour rise. It would have added to the charm which the boyish, foolish act had for him, if she had been privy to it-yet unable to prevent it.

But she would not look; and he was obliged to be content with his plunder. He slid the gold trifle deftly under the fringe of the table, and clasped it round his arm-not a lusty arm-thrusting it as high as it would go that no movement of his shirt-cuff might disclose it. He had a keen sense of the ridiculous, and he would not for the world that any besides Joanna should see the act: that doddering old fossil May, for instance, who, however, was safe enough-standing on the rug with his back turned, and his slow mind forming an opinion on the photograph.

Then-or within a few minutes, at any rate-Wibberley began to find the party dull. He saw no chance of a private word with Joanna. Lady Linacre, his nearest neighbour, was prosing on to Mrs. Burton Smith, his next nearest. And he himself, after shining at dinner, had fallen into the background. Hang it, he would go! It was ten o'clock.

He rose, and was stooping across the table, murmuring his excuses to Mrs. Burton Smith, when Lady Linacre uttered an exclamation. He was leaning across her between her head and the lamp, and he fancied he had touched her head-dress. "Pray pardon me, Lady Linacre!" he cried gaily. "I am just going-I have to leave early. So the encroachment will be but for a moment."

"It is not that," the old lady replied. "But where is my bracelet?" She was feeling about the table as she spoke, shifting with her white, podgy hands the volumes that lay on it.

No one on the instant took in the situation. Mrs. Burton Smith had risen, and was listening to Wibberley. The others were talking. But Lady Linacre was used to attention; and when she spoke again her voice was shrill, and almost indecently loud. "Where is my bracelet?" she repeated. "The one with the Agra diamond that I was showing you, Mrs. Burton Smith. It was here a moment ago, and it is gone! It is gone!"

Wibberley was still speaking to his hostess. He heard the old lady's words, but did not at once apply them. He finished his leave-taking at his leisure, and only as he turned recollected himself, and said, with polite solicitude, "What is it, Lady Linacre? Have you dropped something? Can I find it for you?"

He stooped as he spoke; and she drew her skirt aside, and both peered at the floor, while there was a chorus from those sitting nearest of, "What is it, Lady Linacre? Dear Lady Linacre, what have you lost?"

"My Agra diamond!" she replied, her head quivering, her fingers groping about her dress.

"No?" some one said in surprise. "Why, it was here a moment ago. I saw it in your hand."

The old lady held up her wrists. "See!" she said fussily, "I have not got it!"

"But are you sure it is not in your lap?" Burton Smith suggested. Lady Linacre had rather an ample lap. By this time the attention of the whole party had been drawn to the loss, and one or two of the most prudent were looking uncomfortable.

"No," she answered; "I am quite sure that I placed it on the table by my side. I am sure I saw it there. I was going to put it on when the gentlemen came in, and I laid it down for a minute, and-it is gone!"

She was quite clear about it, and looked at Wibberley for confirmation. The table stood between them. She thought he must have seen it; Mrs. Burton Smith being the only other person close to the table.

Burton Smith saw the look. "I say, Wibberley," he said, appealing to him, half in fun, half in earnest, "you have not hidden it for a joke, have you?"

"I? Certainly not!"

To this day Ernest Wibberley wonders when he made the disagreeable discovery of what he had done-that he had taken the wrong bracelet! It was not at once. It was not until the aggrieved owner had twice proclaimed her loss that he felt himself redden, and awoke to the consciousness that the bracelet was on his arm. Even then, if he had had presence of mind, he might have extricated himself. He might have said, "By Jove! I think I slipped it on my wrist in pure absence of mind," or, he might have made some other excuse for his possession of it-an excuse which would have passed muster, though one or two might have thought him odd. But time was everything; and he hesitated. He hated to seem odd, even to one or two; he thought that presently he might find some chance of restoring the bracelet. So he hesitated, peering at the carpet, and the golden opportunity passed. Then each moment made the avowal more difficult, and less ordinary; until, when his host appealed to him-"If you have hidden it for a joke, old fellow, out with it!" – madness overcame him, and he answered as he did.

He looked up, indeed, with well acted surprise, and said his "I? Certainly not!" somewhat peremptorily.

Half a dozen of the guests were peering stupidly about as if they expected to find the lost article in a flower-vase, or within the globe of a lamp. Presently their hostess stayed these explorations. "Wait a moment!" she said abruptly, raising her head. "I have it!"

"Well?"

"John must have moved it when he brought in the tea. That must be it. Ring the bell, James, and we will ask him."

It was done. John came in, and the question was put to him.

"Yes, sir," he said readily; "I saw a bracelet. On the table by the lamp." He indicated the table near Lady Linacre.

"Did you move it?"

"Move it, sir?" the man repeated, surprised by the question, the silence, and the strained faces turned to him. "No, sir; certainly not. I saw it when I was handing the tea to-to Mr. Wibberley, I think it was."

"Ah, very well," his master answered. "That is all. You may go."

It was not possible to doubt the man's face and manner. But when he had left the room, an uncomfortable silence ensued. "It is very strange," Burton Smith said, looking from one to another, and then, for the twentieth time, he groped under the table.

"It is very strange," Wibberley murmured. He felt bound to say something. He could not free himself from an idea that the others, and particularly the Indian Civilian, were casting odd looks at him. He appeared calm enough, but he could not be sure of this. He felt as if he were each instant changing colour, and betraying himself. His very voice sounded forced to his ear as he repeated fussily, "It is very odd-very odd! Where can it be?"

"It cost," Lady Linacre quavered-irrelevantly, but by no means impertinently-"it cost fourteen thousand out there. Indeed it did. And that was before it was set."

A hush as of awe fell upon the room. "Fourteen thousand pounds!" Burton Smith said softly, his hair rising on end.

"No, no," said the old lady, who had not intended to mystify them. "Not pounds; rupees."

"I understand," he replied, rubbing, his head. "But that is a good sum."

"It is over a thousand pounds," the Indian Civilian put in stonily, "at the present rate of exchange."

"But, good gracious, James!" Mrs. Burton Smith said impatiently, "why are you valuing Lady Linacre's jewellery-instead of finding it for her? The question is, 'Where is it?' It must be here. It was on this table fifteen minutes ago. It cannot have been spirited away."

"If any one," her husband began seriously, "is doing this for a joke, I do hope-"

"For a joke!" the hostess cried sharply. "Impossible! No one would be so foolish!"

"I say, my dear," he persisted, "if any one is doing this for a joke, I hope he will own up. It seems to me that it has been carried far enough." There was a chorus of assent, half-indignant, half-exculpatory. But no one owned to the joke. No one produced the bracelet.

"Well!" Mrs. Burton Smith exclaimed. And as the company looked at one another, it seemed as if they also had never known anything quite so extraordinary as this.

"Really, Lady Linacre, I think that it must be somewhere about you," the host said at last. "Would you mind giving yourself a good shake?"

She rose, and was solemnly preparing to agitate her skirts, when a guest interfered. It was the Hon. Vereker May. "You need not trouble yourself, Lady Linacre," he said, with a curious dryness. He was still standing by the fireplace. "It is not about you."

"Then where in the world is it?" retorted Mrs. Galantine. "Do you know?"

"If you do, for goodness' sake speak out," Mrs. Burton Smith added indignantly. Every one turned and stared at the Civilian.

"You had better," he said, "ask Mr. Wibberley!"

That was all. But something in his tone produced an electrical effect. Joanna, in her corner-remote, like the Indian, from the centre of the disturbance-turned red and pale, and flashed angry glances round her. For the rest, they wished themselves away. It was impossible to overlook the insinuation. The words, simple as they were, in a moment put a graver complexion on the matter. Even Mrs. Burton Smith was silent, looking to her husband. He looked furtively at Wibberley.

And Wibberley? So far he had merely thought himself in an unpleasant fix, from which he must escape as best he could, at the expense of a little embarrassment and a slight loss of self-respect. Even the latter he might regain to-morrow, if he saw fit, by telling the truth to Mrs. Burton Smith; and in time the whole thing would become a subject for laughter, a stock dinner-party anecdote. But now, at the first sound of the Indian's voice, he recognised his danger; and saw in the hundredth part of a second that ruin, social damnation, perhaps worse, threatened him. His presence of mind seemed to fail him at sight of the pit opening at his feet. He felt himself reeling, choking, his head surcharged with blood. The room, the expectant faces all turned to him, all with that strange expression on them, swam round before him. He had to lay his hand on a chair to steady himself.

But he did steady himself; to such an extent that those who marked his agitation did not know whether it proceeded from anger or fear. He drew himself up and looked at his accuser, holding the chair suspended in his hands. "What do you mean?" he said hoarsely.

"I should not have spoken," the Civilian answered, returning his gaze, and speaking in measured accents, "if Mr. Burton Smith had not twice appealed to us to confess the joke, if a joke it was."

"Well?"

"Well, only this," the other replied. "I saw you take Lady Linacre's bracelet from that table a few moments before it was missed, Mr. Wibberley."

"You saw me?" Wibberley cried. This time there was the ring of honest defiance, of indignant innocence, in his tone. For if he felt certain of one thing it was that no one had been looking at him when the unlucky deed was done.

"I did," the Civilian replied dispassionately. "My back was towards you. But my eyes were on this mirror" – he touched an oval glass in a Venetian frame which stood on the mantelpiece-"and I saw quite clearly. I am bound to say that, judging from the expression of your face, I was assured that it was a trick you were playing."

Ernest Wibberley tried to frame the words, "And now?" – tried to force a smile. But he could not. The perspiration stood in great beads on his face. He shook all over. He felt himself-and this time it was no fancy-growing livid.

"To the best of my belief," the Civilian added quietly, "the bracelet is on your left arm now."

Wibberley tried to master, but could not, the impulse-the traitor impulse? – which urged him to glance at his wrist. The idea that the bracelet might be visible-that the damning evidence might be plain to every eye-overcame him. He looked down. Of course there was nothing to be seen; he might have known it, for he felt the hot grip of the horrible thing burning his arm inches higher. But when he looked up again-fleeting as had been his glance-he found that something had happened. He faltered, and the chair dropped from his hands. He read in every face save one suspicion or condemnation. Thief and liar! He read the words in their eyes. Yet he would, he must, brazen it out. And though he could not utter a word he looked from them to-Joanna.

The girl's face was pale. But her eyes answered his eagerly, and they were ablaze with indignation. They held doubt, no suspicion. The moment his look fell on her, she spoke. "Show them your arm!" she cried impulsively. "Show them that you have not got it, Ernest!" she repeated with such scorn, such generous passion that it did not need the tell-tale name which fell from her lips to betray the secret to every woman in the room.

"Show them your arm!" Ah, but that was just what he could not do! And as he comprehended this he gnashed his teeth. He saw himself entrapped, and his misery was so plainly written in his face that the best and most merciful of those about him turned from him in pity. Even the girl who loved him shrank back, clutching the mantelpiece in the first spasm of doubt, and fear, and anguish. Her words, her suggestion, had taken from him his last chance. He saw that it was so. He felt the Nemesis the more bitterly on that account; and with a wild gesture, and some reckless word of defiance, he turned blindly and hurried from the room, seized his hat, and went down to the street.

His feelings when he found himself outside were such as it is impossible to describe in passionless sentences. He had wrecked his honour and happiness in an hour. He had lost his place among men through a thoughtless word. We talk and read of a thunderbolt from the blue; still the thing is to us unnatural. Some law-abiding citizen whom a moment's passion has made a murderer, some strong man whom a stunning blow has left writhing on the ground, a twisted cripple-only these could fitly describe his misery and despair as he passed through the streets. It was misery he had brought on himself; and yet how far the punishment exceeded the offence! How immensely the shame exceeded the guilt! He had lied in careless will, with no evil intent; and the lie had made him a thief!

He went up to his rooms like one in a dream, and, scarcely knowing what he did, he tore the bauble from his arm and flung it on the mantel-shelf. By his last act-by bringing it away-he had made his position a hundred times more serious. But he did not at once remember this. After he had sat a while, however, with his head between his hands, wondering if this really were himself-if this really had happened to himself, this irrevocable thing! – he began to see things more clearly. But he could not at once make up his mind what to do. Beyond a hazy idea of returning the bracelet by the first post, and going on the Continent-of course, he must resign his employment-he had settled nothing, when a step mounting the staircase made him start to his feet. Some one knocked at the door of his chambers. He stood pallid and listened, struck by a sudden fear.

"The police!" he said to himself.

A moment's thought satisfied him that it was improbable, if not impossible, that they could be on his track so soon; and he went to the door listlessly and threw it open. On the mat stood Burton Smith, in a soft slouched hat, his hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat. Wibberley glanced at him, and saw that he was alone; then leaving him to shut the door, he returned to his chair, and sat down in his old attitude, with his head between his hands. He looked already a broken man.

Burton Smith followed him in, and stood a moment looking at him uncomfortably enough. It is bad to have had such a scene as has been described in your house; it is worse, if a man be a man, to face a fellow-creature in his hour of shame. At any rate, Burton Smith felt it so. "Look here, Wibberley," he said at length, as much embarrassed as if he had been the thief. "Look here, it will be better to hush this up. Give me the d-d bracelet to hand back to Lady Linacre, and the thing shall go no farther."

His tone was suggestive both of old friendship and of present pity. But when he had to repeat his question, when Wibberley gave him no answer, his voice grew more harsh. Even then the man with the hidden face did not speak, but pointed with an impatient gesture to the mantel-shelf.

Burton Smith stepped to the fire-place and looked. He was anxious to spare the culprit as far as possible. Yes, there was the bracelet. He took possession of it, anxious to escape from the place with all speed. But he laid it down the next instant as quickly as he had taken it up; and his brows came together as he turned upon his companion.

"This is not the bracelet!" he said. There was no smack of affection in his tone now; it was wholly hostile. His patience was exhausted. "Lady Linacre's was a diamond bracelet of great value, as you know," he said. "This is a plain gold thing worth two or three pounds. For Heaven's sake, man!" he added with sudden vehemence, "for your own sake, don't play the fool now! Where is the bracelet?"