Chapter 10: The Girl and the Boy

I

Archie Ferguson’s smoking-room. He and I its only occupants. We had been to a meeting of the Primrose League which had been held at the neighbouring county town. Knocking off the ash from his cigar, he broke an interval of silence by asking me a question.

“Did you notice a woman who, just as we were leaving the hall, came up and shook hands with me in rather an effusive way?”

“A good-looking, well-dressed woman, with rather an effusive smile? I wondered who she was.”

“She’s a Mrs Bennett-Lamb. The weight-carrying man who was standing at her side was Mr Bennett-Lamb. Perhaps you know the name. She and her husband have been the owners of a good deal of the public-house property in London which is worth owning. They’re the proud possessors of some of it still. They’ve made a heap of money. Some of it they’ve spent in buying a place near here--Oakdene. It’s on the cards that their daughter--they’ve only one, and she’s an uncommonly pretty girl--will make a first-rate match. In which case, no doubt, they’ll try to graduate for county honours.”

He flicked off another scrap of ash before he spoke again.

“It was Mrs Bennett-Lamb who found the money with which to start the firm. The way in which she found it was curious. It’s a queer story. I’ll tell it you, if you like. It’s a rather good one.”

I lit another cigar; and smoked it while Ferguson told his story.

At that time Mrs Bennett-Lamb was a chorus girl at the Frivolity Theatre. In those days only pretty girls were allowed to appear on the Frivolity stage. The management’s standard of beauty was a high one. It drew all London. And the prettiest of the whole crowd was Ailsa Lorraine. Whether Ailsa Lorraine was or was not her real name I am unable to tell you; I have reason to know that nowadays her husband calls her Peggy; but that was the name by which she was known on the programme. Miss Lorraine was engaged to be married--to Joe Lamb. Where the “Bennett” comes from Mr and Mrs Bennett-Lamb only know. It is certain that then the present J. Bennett-Lamb, Esquire, was plain Joe Lamb. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Joe Lamb was a grocer’s assistant--and not a flourishing specimen of his kind. In fact, the more he considered his position and future prospects the more despondent he became.

One Sunday afternoon he went to tea at Miss Lorraine’s. While they were enjoying the meal he gave utterance to the feelings which filled his bosom.

“We’ve been engaged for more than two years,” he began.

“Two years!” the tone in which she echoed his words were intended to indicate surprise. “It doesn’t seem anything like so long as that, does it, Joe?”

“It does to me. It seems every bit as long. In fact, I don’t mind telling you that it seems longer.”

Neither the words nor the manner in which they were spoken suggested a compliment, as the lady appeared to think. There was a rueful look upon her pretty face and a mist dimmed her eyes as she asked him a question in return.

“Does that mean that it has seemed so long because you’re tired of being engaged to me?”

“It does; that’s just exactly what it does mean.”

“Joe!”

“Now don’t jump up like that! You nearly upset the tray, and I’ve hardly touched my third cup of tea. What are you up to? Crying?”

“I’m sure, Mr Lamb, if you wish to release me you’re perfectly at liberty to do so at once; and you need never see nor speak to me again. There’s no fear of my bringing an action against you for breach of promise of marriage.”

“Whatever are you talking about?”

“I’m sure if you’d even dropped so much as the slightest hint you’d have seen the last of me long enough ago; and I certainly wouldn’t have worried you to come to tea.”

“What have I said or done to start you off like this?--just as I was beginning on a fresh round of toast!”

“How dare you say you were tired of being engaged to me!”

“So I am.”

“Joe--Joe Lamb!”

“It’s gospel truth. I want you for my wife; that’s what I want.”

The lady’s face perceptibly brightened. The tone of her voice was altered also.

“Joe! What extraordinary ways you have of expressing yourself. Will you kindly explain exactly what it is you mean?”

“I’ve been engaged to you more than two years, and you’re no nearer being my wife than you were at the beginning. If anything, you’re further off. And I’m sick and tired of waiting; that’s what I mean.”

“If you’d only said so at first.”

“I did; didn’t I?”

“I thought you meant something quite different.”

“I can’t help what you thought. I know what I meant.”

“Poor Joe! So you want us to be quick and get married, do you?”

“Of course I do; what else do you suppose I got engaged for? But we can’t marry on ten bob a week.”

“Hardly.”

“And that’s all I get, living in. I asked the governor yesterday to give me thirty bob and let me live out. He said all he’d give me was a week’s notice.”

“The wretch!”

“As for bettering myself; I dare say I’ve spent five shillings on paper, stamps and envelopes, and nothing’s come of it. We don’t want to get married and have you keep on the stage.”

“We certainly don’t. I have a voice in that matter. When I marry I leave the stage for good; I don’t marry until I do. I hate the theatre; that is, I don’t mind being in front of the curtain, looking on; but I hate being behind. I only go there because I don’t know any other way of earning two pounds a week. I’ve no delusions about the stage like some of the girls have. But, tell me, Joe, can’t you think of any way of earning more?”

“There’s one way.”

“What’s that?”

“Emigrating.”

As she repeated the word again the expression on the lady’s face grew rueful.

“Emigrating!”

“Going to Africa or Canada or one of those places where a fellow has a chance.”

“But you’d have to leave me behind.”

“That’s the worst of it.”

“We mightn’t see each other again for years.”

“We mightn’t.”

There was a pause. The lady had seated herself on the arm of the chair on which her lover sat, and was smoothing his hair with her dainty little hand.

“Joe, would you like to do that?”

“I’d sooner do anything--anything! I’d sooner sweep a crossing; I’d sooner be a shoeblack. I hear that some of them shoeblacks earn six and seven shillings a day when there’s plenty of mud about.”

“I don’t think I should care for you to be a shoeblack, even when there’s plenty of mud about. I’d almost rather you did anything than that.”

“But there’s nothing I can do.”

Another pause; this time a longer one. Joe Lamb sat with his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his Sunday trousers; a frown upon his brow. The lady continued to smooth his well-brushed hair.

“Joe, suppose I were to see my way to earn some money.”

“You! Are they going to raise you to fifty shillings, and give you a line to speak: ‘The carriage waits,’ or something of that sort?”

She suffered his ungraciousness to pass unheeded.

“Suppose I were to see my way to earn, say, five thousand pounds.”

Mr Lamb, withdrawing his head from the neighbourhood of the lady’s caressing hand, sat bolt upright in his chair with a start.

“Five--what?”

“I know a public-house which is to be bought cheap, if bought at once. Never mind how I know, but I do. We could get it for five thousand pounds and have plenty over to go on with. You and I might work the business up and in two years sell it for twice as much as we gave for it. Joe, what do you think?”

“I think--it’s no use my telling you what I think, because you wouldn’t like it. You might as well talk about buying the moon.”

“I’m not so sure of that. I believe I could earn the money if I liked.”

“You earn five thousand pounds! Well! I don’t want to say anything--not a word; but might I just ask how you propose to set about it?”

“By bringing an action for breach of promise of marriage.”

“What!”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if I got at least five thousand pounds by way of damages.”

Joe Lamb, who had risen from his seat, was staring at her with, on his countenance, an expression of increasing stupefaction.

“From whom?--from me?”

“The idea!” She laughed, as if the notion tickled her. “In the first place, I shouldn’t dream of suing you, even if you were to prove false; and you know very well that you’re not worth half as many farthings if I did. No; I propose to obtain my five thousand pounds from Sir Frank Pickard.”

“Who’s Sir Frank Pickard?”

“He’s a young gentleman--a very young gentleman, just turned twenty-one, who’s fallen head over heels in love with me.”

The lady was looking down at her skirt, as she smoothed it with the tips of her fingers, with an air of the most extreme demureness. Mr Lamb’s face, as he regarded her, was rapidly assuming the hue of a boiled lobster.

“So you’ve been encouraging him, have you?”

“I have been doing nothing of the kind. So far, I haven’t spoken to him a single word. I’ve declined to receive his presents--even his flowers.”

“So he’s been sending you presents, has he!--and flowers.”

The lady sighed, as if she found the gentleman a little trying.

“My dear Joe, all sorts of people fall in love with me to whom I have never spoken in my life, or they say they do. They send me flowers and presents, and all kinds of things, which I always refuse to accept, although some of the other girls call me a goose for my pains. I can’t help their falling in love with me, can I?”

She looked up at him with an air of innocence which was almost too perfect to be real. So far from it appeasing him, he began stamping up and down the room, clenching and unclenching his fists as he moved.

“A nice sort of thing for a man to be told by his young woman! You shall leave that confounded theatre this week!”

“To do so is part of my plan. I shall hand in my notice to-morrow--that is, if I am engaged to Sir Frank Pickard by then.”

“What?”

“Joe! don’t be silly! Why are you glaring at me like that? Won’t you understand? Already, in three separate and distinct letters Sir Frank has asked me to marry him.”

“Has he?”

“Though, of course, I’ve paid no sort of attention to his insane request.”

“I should think it was insane!”

“I don’t fancy I use the word in quite the same sense in which you do. However, I’ve been making inquiries about him. I find he’s of a very old family, and tremendously rich. His father is dead. He’s the only child of his mother; she can’t prevent his doing anything he chooses to do, and she wouldn’t if she could. She idolises him. During his minority the income has accumulated, until now he has at his command a perfectly enormous sum of ready money. Five thousand pounds is nothing to him, or ten either. My idea is to ask him to call on me to-morrow, and then to get him to repeat in person the proposal which he has already made by letter. Having accepted him, I shall see that he puts it all down in black and white, so that everything is quite ship-shape. And then I shall hand in my notice at the theatre.”

During the lady’s remarks Mr Lamb’s countenance was a panorama of disagreeable emotions.

“And where do you suppose I shall be while all this is going on?”

“You’ll be at the shop.”

“Not much I sha’n’t. I’ll keep on hanging about your front door until I catch sight of your fine gentleman; and then I’ll break his neck.”

“Don’t be silly. After we’re engaged and everything is signed and sealed and settled I shall begin to behave in a fashion which will soon make him as anxious to break his promise as he was to make it.”

“I bet he will! You wait till I get within reach of him, that’s all.”

“You will not appear upon the scene. You would spoil all if you did. I shall manage everything.”

“I fancy I see myself letting you do it! You’ve got some pretty ideas of your own!”

“You’ll find by the time I’ve finished that I’ve some very pretty ones indeed. You don’t know what a treasure you possess. When Sir Frank begins to show signs of wanting to back out of his promise I shall begin to talk about my injured feelings; to which, however, he’ll find it possible to apply a soothing plaster in the shape of--well, say five thousand pounds.”

“You’re a nice piece of goods, upon my word! I ask you again where do you suppose I shall be while all this is going on?”

“And I tell you again, you’ll be at the shop. You open so early and close so late, and get out so little on week-days, that you never get a chance of seeing me even after I leave the theatre. Possibly by next Sunday, when we shall have a chance of seeing each other again, it will all be settled.”

“By next Sunday?”

“Exactly. I mean to keep things moving. Possibly by next Sunday I shall be within reach of the money which will enable us to marry and ensure our future happiness. Think how delightful that will be! We can’t marry on ten shillings a week; after we’re married I don’t mean to stay on at the theatre, and so keep up a home for us both; and as for your emigrating--the chances are that we might never see each other again. And, anyhow, it might be years before you earned even a tenth part of five thousand pounds. So do be reasonable. I’m sure if you think it over you’ll see perfectly well that my way is by far the best.”

It was some time before Mr Lamb was reasonable--from the lady’s point of view. It is doubtful if to the end he saw as plainly as she would have liked him to, that her way was the best. But at that period of her career she had a way about her to which few men were capable of offering a prolonged resistance. Joe Lamb was distinctly not one of those few. By the time they parted she wrung from him what she told him plainly she intended to regard as his approbation of her nefarious schemes. So soon as his back was turned she wrote a stiff, formal note, in the third person, in which she informed Sir Frank Pickard that Miss Ailsa Lorraine would be at home to-morrow--Monday--afternoon at three o’clock and might be disposed to see him if he desired to call.

“It’s not exactly a nice sort of thing to do,” she admitted to herself, as she secured this epistle in an envelope. “But it’s the sort of opportunity which never may occur again; it seems wicked to throw it away. Especially as poor dear Joe never will be able to get the money by himself. I am convinced that he’s just the sort of man to take advantage of a chance if he has one. And I love him well enough to get him one. And that’s the whole truth in a nutshell.”

II

On the Monday afternoon a hansom drew up at the door of the by no means pretentious house in which Miss Lorraine had her quarters. Out of it stepped Sir Frank Pickard. He bore with him upstairs what seemed to be a by no means insignificant portion of the contents of a fair-sized shop. In one hand he carried a magnificent bouquet, a large basket of splendid fruit, a big box of bonbons and a mysterious case which, as a matter of fact, was filled with various kinds of gloves. In the other were unconsidered trifles in the shape of bottles of perfume, silver knickknacks, a writing case, and other odds and ends. His arms were filled with parcels of different shapes and sizes which contained he alone knew what. Under the circumstances it was not surprising that he found it a little difficult to know what to do with his hat. As he entered Miss Lorraine’s sitting-room he was in a state of some confusion. Plumping the contents of one of his arms on the nearest chair, whence they mostly proceeded to tumble on to the floor, he removed his hat in a fashion which was rather dexterous than elegant. As if conscious that he was not making his first appearance under the most propitious conditions, his cheeks were a beautiful peony red.