1
Enter An Old Chip Hat
The ground-floor front of Mr Buxleigh’s commodious lodging house was a choice set of rooms but, as several generations of his theatrical guests had discovered, somewhat noisy, being exposed to all the hubbub of the street, in addition to the not infrequent clamour that was inclined to float up from the area. Not to say, inconveniently situated for those who did not positively desire to be accessible to all who might call at the front door. A generation of theatrical lodgers consisting at the most of around three years, word had swiftly enough got around in the profession which “Beau” Buxleigh had once himself adorned; and having failed for some period to get a let for them, Mr Buxleigh was now occupying the rooms himself. There was a certain advantage to the position: one had a fine view, provided that one did not mind having to flatten one’s cheek to the pane and peer sideways, of the front door. The prudent Mr Buxleigh was doing this now, rather than rush to admit what might be a bailiff, an injured husband or, worse, an injured mother. There was also the odd injured damsel, of course, but Mr Buxleigh was more than capable of handling those on his tenants’ behalf.
“Well?” demanded Mrs Hetty Pontifex, patting her substantial chest and coughing slightly. –Not an illness: a judicious admixture of port and seedy-cake. It was a chilly afternoon and Mrs Hetty, being momentarily in the unfortunate position known in the profession as “resting”, did not have an evening engagement.
“Chip hat. Crushed. Possibly once intended to have been worn bergère,” owned her landlord judiciously.
“Hey?”
“Chip hat—”
“I ’eard yer! ’Oose?” she demanded, coughing again and taking a curative sip of the port.
Perfectly understanding the enquiry to refer to the possessor not of the chip hat but of the damsel underneath it, Mr Buxleigh replied: “Dunno. Never seen her before. Red hair. -Ish,” he amended judiciously. –Mr Buxleigh’s manner was normally somewhat judicious, not to say weighty, in keeping with the essential gravitas of his large person; but in this instance, it must be admitted, a certain amount of the judiciousness was due to the port.
Mrs Hetty had not herself taken enough to have become immune to its effect in her landlord, and so retorted smartly: “Don’t be ridiculous, Beau! She’ll be one of Sid’s. Bound to be.”
The personage to whom she was referring was better known to the wider population, or at least to London’s theatre-goers, as Mr Roland Lefayne; but Mr Buxleigh replied readily: “Not his type. Not these last ten years, at any rate.”
“Pooh! Bound to be! –’Ow old is she?” she demanded with somewhat belated caution.
“Young.”
“—Ish,” agreed Mrs Hetty drily.
“No-o. Shabby-looking, though. I’ll eat me ’at if she is one of Sid’s.”
“Girl lookin’ for a place. Tell ’er we’re full up,” she advised, taking the last slice of the seedy-cake.
“No-o… Well, she could be,” he said as the caller gave another rat-tat upon the knocker. “Don’t strike me as no theatrical.”
Beau Buxleigh’s instinct was undoubtedly to be relied upon in such matters. Eyebrows raised slightly, the plump Mrs Hetty came to flatten her cheek upon the pane. “No, you’re right. Never seen a lass make less of ’er looks,” she agreed.
“Quite.” Mr Buxleigh breathed heavily upon the pane. “Well, ’oo is there? That Reggie Grantleigh? –No, too shabby for ’im. Young Tony?”
“’Im!” replied Mrs Hetty with immeasurable depths of scorn in her tone.
Mr Buxleigh pulled his ear slowly. “Can’t be Geoffrey Mainwaring—”
“I’d agree with that!” she said with feeling.
“No, acos in the first place he learned his lesson after that Mrs Whatserface, and in the second place, he went orf to Ireland over ten month since.”
Mrs Hetty breathed heavily under the strain of the consequent mental arithmetic. “You’re right. Unless she’s ’ad it?”
They peered.
“Don’t look the type, some’ow,” she concluded.
“No, well, you’d have to be desperate for it or even more of a noddy than what ’e is: and she don’t look like a noddy.”
“No, I’d say you’re right. Which means she can’t be David Darlinghurst’s, neither. If I was you,” she said drily, “I’d answer the door, Beau. Acos otherwise, we’ll never know. And any man may make a slip, but Daniel Deane, he’s got more sense than to get mixed up with a thing of that age; nor Vic, neither. And Bert Runcorn wouldn’t soil ’is ’ands with a hat that shabby.”
“You ought to know,” conceded Mr Buxleigh tolerantly. Since, however, this list had concluded the sum of his present male lodgers, he moved slowly towards the door.
“If she’s after a job in the kitchen or some such, tell ’er nothing doing!” cried Mrs Hetty as he went out into the hall. “Reddish or not! Acos unless you gets a let for that second-floor back, you can’t afford it, Beau Buxleigh!”
Mr Buxleigh did not demean himself so far as to reply in kind to this, and opened the front door looking his most judicious.
“Good afternoon,” said the damsel in the shabby chip hat. “I was beginning to wonder if you were all dead in there! –Though most corpses are not commonly found propping up front parlour curtains. Is this Mr Buxleigh’s house?”
Although she spoke with the accents of a lady, Mr Buxleigh, who could himself produce almost any accent one might care to name, was not particularly impressed; and replied cautiously: “It may be. And who might you be?”
“I suppose I might be almost anyone,” said the caller with almost as judicious a manner as the Beau’s own: so much so, indeed, that Mr Buxleigh began mentally to tell over certain incidents, or slips, of his own past career. “But actually, I am Cressida Martin. Miss.”
Mr Buxleigh in his time had been acquaint with ladies who called themselves “Georgian Purdew”, “Fever Falconrigg” and “Lucinda Lovelace”, to name but three of many, and so did not blink at the “Cressida”. Though he did say: “Ah. Shakespearean.”
Miss Cressida Martin replied calmly: “My father certainly claimed to be addicted to him. But as he spent very little of his latter life in England and in fact cannot have seen a performance in over ten years, except for a very odd version of Othello in Paris the year after Waterloo, I suppose one may believe or reject the claim as one pleases.”
Mr Buxleigh had not been able to recall any past slips of his own with reddish hair at around the period in question, so he was not so relieved at this casual mention of a male parent as he might otherwise have been; sufficiently, however, to unbend so far as to say: “Ah. Of the theatrical profession, was he?”
“No, just an admirer. Are you Mr Buxleigh?”
“That would depend what your business is, Miss Martin.”
“Well, if you would stop being so coy and admit you are he,” she replied cheerfully, “I would admit that I have a paper here for you. –For him,” she amended drily.
Silently Mr Buxleigh held out a large hand.
It was a very clean hand; and, though the odour of port hung around him, he presented a very clean and respectable appearance indeed; the waistcoat, in fact, being positively splendid, and the great folds of linen shrouding his several chins of an irreproachable whiteness. And the street in which his house was situate was respectable enough. So the young woman who had introduced herself as Miss Martin, though remaining very much on the alert for sudden darts into the house, snatches at the purse, or snatches at the person, etcetera, handed him the paper.
It had possibly once been sealed by a wafer, but this was certainly broken now. Even though possibly it should not have been, as the superscription contained Mr Buxleigh’s own name. He unfolded it slowly, and slowly perused the contents.
“Ah,” he said, slowly scratching his chins.
“If you are he, Papa remembered you quite well,” said Miss Martin cheerfully. “Don’t you remember him? Major Martin. But he might have been only a captain back then, I suppose.”
“Hm.” Mr Buxleigh looked her up and down. In addition to the aforementioned chip hat, decidedly the worse for wear and tied under her pointed chin by a faded riband which was even more the worse for wear, Miss Martin wore a faded cotton print gown and a shabby grey woollen shawl, crossed in front and tied tightly behind. She had been carrying a bundle tied in a cloth, which she had now set down, and a large square wicker basket, lidded, which she was still holding. This basket now rustled and emitted a whine.
“What’s in the basket?” asked the prudent Mr Buxleigh.
“A dog. Quite a small dog. Do you let out rooms?”
“Not generally to dogs, no.”
“He is house-trained and very well behaved.”
“Any dog what isn’t, don’t get house-room here, I can tell you,” replied Mr Buxleigh without heat. “So, supposing as you are this Major Martin’s daughter, and supposing as I remembers him, which I ain’t admitting as I do, what would you be a-wanting of me?”
Miss Martin’s large, limpid amber eyes twinkled, but she replied calmly: “Supposing you are Mr Buxleigh, that is? Well, board and lodging, please. At least, lodging. I am quite willing to work for my keep.”
“Doing what, pray?”
“Anything that needs doing about the house. I can do plain cooking, plain sewing, and dust, sweep and clean,” replied Miss Martin cheerfully.
“Can you, indeed? –Major Martin, he’ll have had reddish hair like yours, I suppose,” he noted by the by.
“Kind persons would claim it is chestnut-coloured,” replied Miss Martin dulcetly. “No, it wasn’t. Black, when he was a young man. It silvered in a very dashing way, of which I have to admit he made the most.”
“Gawd, you sound just like ’im!” gulped Mr Buxleigh. “Well, I suppose you are, if you say so, and I can’t think why you’d want to make up a lie like that, not if you knew ’im, so you'd best come in, and we’ll talk it over.”
“Thank you. –This is Troilus,” said Miss Cressida Martin with the utmost composure, indicating the basket.
Mr Buxleigh gulped, but managed a pale smile, and waved her in.
Looking astonishingly prim, the girl in the old chip hat went into Mr Buxleigh’s lodging house.
“You was hungry,” allowed Mrs Hetty Pontifex as the visitor swallowed the last of a plate of beef sandwiches which the plump actress had forced Mr Buxleigh to order up.
Miss Martin replied frankly: “Yes, very. I haven’t much money, you see. I did eat a pie at Dover and then I had to pay out so much for the London stage that I thought I had best not spend any more. A kind woman on the stage gave me an apple, and I had a glass of porter about halfway to London, because Papa was used to say it was strengthening, if unpalatable.”
“No, well, whatever he had, went straight into the pockets of the gambling hells!” replied Mrs Hetty on a grim note. Mrs Hetty remembered the late Major Martin quite well, as she had immediately disclosed upon Mr Buxleigh’s introducing the visitor. Though she did not disclose the precise capacity in which she had known him.
“Can a hell have pockets?” asked Mr Buxleigh weightily.
“You know what I mean!” she retorted fiercely.
“Yes, well, I suppose he couldn’t help it,” said Major Martin’s daughter on a dry note. “Though it was very hard to live with.”
“So your late ma couldn’t keep him in order either?” asked Mrs Hetty sympathetically.
Miss Martin smiled, and shook the auburn-tinged chestnut curls. “Marguérite? Not in the least! But then, she was not concerned to: she spent money even faster than he did. Though fortunately she had quite a lot: her father was a prosperous draper and even though she ran off with Papa he left her quite a large amount. But they got through it between them, of course. She was a Belgian lady. She made me call her Marguérite or Petite Maman. She was very pretty and very silly,” she added calmly.
“Lucinda Lovelace to the life!” cried Mrs Hetty, throwing up her plump hands.
“Aye, I was thinking the same thing. Don’t think she were ever one of the Major’s, however,” said Mr Buxleigh, pouring from a large jug.
“No, he didn’t never have much of an eye for a fair woman. So, your Ma was chestnut-headed like you, eh?” said Mrs Hetty.
“Oh, very much redder, ma’am. Coppery: you know? And very, very pretty. I’m not like her at all,” said Miss Martin cheerfully, accepting an enormous glassful of an unidentified liquid from Mr Buxleigh. “Thank you, sir.”
“Drink it slow. A mixture of my own,” he advised, handing Mrs Hetty a glass and sipping his own.
Mrs Hetty was sizing up Miss Cressida Martin with a practised eye. “You ain’t done nothing with your hair, needs to be cut and curled proper. Side-curls would suit, I think. -Good face, though; don’t you think, Beau?”
Mr Buxleigh looked judiciously at Miss Martin’s dainty oval face with its pointed chin and huge amber eyes. “Aye, she would make up not bad. Though in general, somewhat bolder features are required, in order to have an effect across the footlights. But the balance of the features is commendable.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Miss Martin primly.
“Not to say, a somewhat bolder manner,” noted Mrs Hetty with a slight sniff.
At this an astounding metamorphosis overtook the ladylike, if shabby Miss Martin: the eyes flashed and rolled, the shoulders went back and the chest went out, there was a pettish toss of the head, and she trilled: “Oh, am I not bold enough, ma’am? Well, bold is as bold does, is what I say!” Ending with a horrid pout.
“Lawks,” gulped Mrs Hetty.
Mr Buxleigh, however, maintained the judicious manner, and enquired: “Who’d you get that orf?”
“Well,” said Miss Martin with a twinkle, becoming herself again, “as to the accent and the turn of phrase, off a Miss Kitty Baxter, who was on the London coach. But I knew several girls in Holland who were just like that. Some of them from very respectable families, too.”
“It don’t seem to stop ’em,” owned Mrs Hetty. “Well, for an amateur, that was not half bad,” she conceded kindly. She sipped, patted her chest genteelly, belched, patted the chest again, and said: “Pardon me. So was you an only, lovey?”
“Oh, no, Mrs Pontifex: I have an older brother.”
“‘Antonio’,” suggested Mr Buxleigh sepulchrally.
Miss Martin emitted a giggle and shook her chestnut head, so Mrs Hetty was emboldened to suggest: “‘Prospero’.”
Miss Martin giggled again, but shook her head again.
“‘Lear’?” said Mr Buxleigh on a note of foreboding.
“No!” she gasped, giggling helplessly.
Mrs Hetty took a revivifying draught. “Not one of the great heroes, Beau, or I'm misremembering the Major—gent though ’e were,” she allowed, graciously inclining her head to his daughter. “’Ow’s about ‘Florizel’?”
“Eh?” said Mr Buxleigh, lowering his glass. “–Drink it slow, girl, I said!” he adjured Miss Martin on a testy note. “We ain’t talking about Prinny, Lord love a duck! –And they were a-calling ’im that ten year and more before the lass’s brother would have been born. –His Majesty, I should say,” he amended solemnly. “Here’s to ’im!” He raised his glass and, disregarding his own advice, drank deep.
“His Majesty. Long life to ’im, what ’e’s got left, poor old soak,” agreed Mrs Hetty. “No, you noddy; not ’im: in Shakespeare.”
Miss Martin had been under the impression that English persons rose when they toasted their Monarch: she looked uncertainly at these examples, but as they had not done so, did not rise herself. “His Majesty King George,” she agreed, drinking. “This has a very warming effect, sir: I congratulate you upon it,” she said earnestly. “I know, Mrs Pontifex: The Winter’s Tale. The inept princeling who falls in love with Perdita.”
“Aye. S’pose he knowed enough to—hic! Pardon,” she said, patting her chest severely. “—Go for a good thing when he seen it. About all you can say of any of ’em, when all’s said and done.”
“Not wholly an unalloyed admirer of the stronger sex, Miss Martin,” Mr Buxleigh explained earnestly.
“No!” she agreed with a giggle. “Well, my brother's name is Richard, which I suppose is plain English enough. If also Shakespearean! But we mostly called him Ricky. Well, Marguérite’s version was Richard, with the French soft ‘sh’ sound, which drove Papa mad.”
“’S pretty,” allowed Mrs Hetty, nodding solemnly.
“Aye, very. And where, may one enquire, is this pretty-named feller as we speak?—Stop nodding, Hetty!” said Mr Buxleigh testily. “Anybody would think you had liquor took.”
Shaking all over her plump frame, Mrs Hetty adjured Miss Martin not to take no notice of him.
“No,” she agreed, looking dubiously at the remains of the liquid in her own glass.
“Strengthening,” pronounced Mr Buxleigh solemnly, refilling his. “Well?”
“What? Oh—Ricky, sir! Well, goodness knows. He had the most tremendous quarrel with Papa about three years since, and flung out in a rage, and we have not heard from him since.”
“What about?” asked Mrs Hetty with unaffected interest.
“Er, well, about joining the British Army, ma’am,” she said on an apologetic note.
“Din’ ’e want to?’ she asked hazily.
“No: on the contrary, he wanted to, but Papa didn’t wish for it. He said it would do him no good and not on any account to apply to his old regiment.”
“Noddy,” said Mr Buxleigh tolerantly to his old friend. “Not that they absolute tore orf all the Major’s buttons and took his sword, leastwise, ’e ’ad his sword when I knowed him. But that Colonel feller, he told him to his face, if everybody had their just desserts he'd be cashiered. Laughed his head orf when he told me that, did the Major. Dare say the gentler sex would not see it, but figure apart, ’e was as like to nothing as the hero of the Windsor play, and dare I say it, Mr Harold Hartington himself modelled ’is great performance of the same upon his acquaintanceship with Major Martin.—Hic!—Retired.”
“We never thought of him,” said Mrs Hetty lamely.
“What? Oh: Harold! Never! Not his type,” said Mr Buxleigh firmly.
“I must say, you are thin, deary,” said Mrs Hetty.
“What? Oh. I suppose I am. Well, Ricky may have joined the army, or not.”
“How old would he be?” asked the sympathetic actress.
“Twenty-three. He is five years older then me: I am eighteen. Well, almost.”
Mrs Hetty threw her hands in the air. “Seventeen! And come all the way from that heathenish Holland by yourself? I declare, it’s a shame and a disgrace!”
“I am very used to travelling, and actually, Holland is quite a Christian country. Well, I came down through Belgium because I thought that my mother’s brothers might have softened towards me, but they would not see me. So as I had Papa’s pieces of paper I thought I had best come to England. I was almost sure,” said Miss Martin, smiling her sunny smile at them, “that it would be much, much better to approach you, Mr Buxleigh, rather than this Captain person, and you see, I was right!”
“Out of course, my dear Miss Martin. Well, owed the Major one, and then some,” he admitted, grimacing.
“So he did save your life? It weren’t no hum?” gasped Mrs Hetty.
“Why would I claim he had saved me life if he had not? –Some say as it's breathing in all that limelight, and the constant paint, for the poisons are held to mount to the brain,” said Mr Buxleigh solemnly to the puzzled Miss Martin, “but for myself, I maintain it’s the gin. Hic!—Pardon.—Not to mention the flesh-and-blood.”
“Flesh-and-blood yourself!” cried Mrs Hetty indignantly, very flushed.
“We was a-coming from the general direction of the playhouse, having had no luck in—well, never mind that,” said Mr Buxleigh to Miss Martin, ignoring Mrs Hetty. “Arm-in-arm, for the Major never did make no play of being too good for his company. When we was attacked by three scoundrelly mountebanks, armed to the teeth. Well, one had a pistol, dunno if it was loaded. But t’other two come at us with cudgels. I don’t mind telling you I was that took aback I could barely move. But the Major, he outs with his sword-stick, and before you can say ‘knife’ has spitted the fellow with the pistol right through the arm! One of the others rushes us and I thinks it is all up with us, he is going to take his revenge, but I ups with my fists and land him a good ’un, though he gives me an almighty crack on the shoulder, just about finishes me. Then he’s raising his blamed cudgel again, and there’s me thinking this is it, Beau, and the Major, he turns on him like a whirlwind and sticks him right to the heart! You never saw such a thing! The fellow drops like a stone. And t’other one, he vanishes into the night. And the Major, cool as a cucumber, he wipes his sword on his evening cloak and says: ‘Come along, Beau, I am for a warm bed, and we had best get that shoulder looked at.’ And he puts his arm round me, acos I’m staggering, some, and orf we goes. –’E never looked behind once,” he said in a sort of awe, shaking his head.
“That certainly agrees with Papa’s version, sir,” agreed the Major’s daughter, smiling at him.
“So—so were the fellow dead?” quavered Mrs Hetty.
“Dead as mutton," said Mr Buxleigh. “T’other one was groaning and carrying on, but as they wasn’t going to mete out no quality of mercy to us, s’pose they deserved to be left in their blood. –May I, Miss Martin?”
“What? Oh, the paper for the Captain? Of course, Mr Buxleigh.”
Mr Buxleigh read slowly through Miss Martin’s other paper, while Mrs Hetty expressed concern at the way Troilus was snoring before the fire. Not to say, at the shortness of Troilus’s little legs. And his mistress, smiling, explained that he was snoring because he was so full of the beef that Mrs Hetty had so very kindly offered him, and that he was a German breed of dog which she did not think they had in England: a badger-hound. The legs being so short because he was bred to go into their burrows.
“Sets, my dear: badger sets, we say in England,” said Mr Buxleigh genially, looking up from the paper. “Well, now, the best way to find this Captain would be to go to the Horse Guards.”
“What?” she replied blankly.
“There, now! Lived abroad all ’er life, junketing round the Continong with them as was old enough to know a damn’ sight better, ’ardly even speaking a Christian language, ’ow would she know what’s what in London?” cried Mrs Hetty on an aggrieved note.
“That is why I am advising her, my dear Mrs Pontifex,” said Mr Buxleigh at his weightiest, “to seek out the Horse Guards. –It’s where they have the offices, so to speak, of the British Army, Miss Martin.”
“Ye-es… But they must have very many captains. And what if this Captain Luton be not a captain any more? I mean, Papa left the Army back in… ” She counted on her fingers. “It was before he met Petite Maman, certainly.”
“If your brother is twenty-three, it would ’a’ been twenty-four year since, at the least,” said the brilliant Mrs Hetty.
“Lord. Turn of the century?” croaked Mr Buxleigh.
“Time flies, Beau,” she said with a sigh.
“Well, was we not fighting Boney, back when we knew the Major?” he said foggily.
“No, you could not have been, because he—” The Major’s daughter broke off, looking embarrassed.
“Never tell us the Major went and fought against England!” cried Mrs Hetty in horror. –Mr Buxleigh muttered something, but in consideration of Miss Martin’s feelings, under his breath.
“Er, well, not exactly, no. I suppose it would be true to say he flirted with the idea. Then he decided to offer his—um—services to the Austrians.”
“Spying. Would of suited ’im down to the ground,” noted Mr Buxleigh.
Mrs Hetty began to object but thought better of it as clearer memories of Major Martin began to surface.
“Something like that, yes,” agreed his daughter calmly. “We lived in Vienna for some time when I was a little girl. We had a very pretty house and Petite Maman had many acquaintances. We did not see much of Papa: he was travelling a lot.”
“One sees it all,” Mr Buxleigh assured her.
“So, how did you end up in Holland, deary?” asked Mrs Hetty. “Near to this Vienna place, is it?”
“Er—not terribly near,” she replied somewhat limply. “We moved there when I was six.”
The company counted on its fingers, muttering. “End of the Peninsula War: ’12 or ’13,” concluded Mr Buxleigh. “Would of been when they bunged Boney on Elba. Given that it’s full of Hollanders, and I never ’eard that the Major thought much of them, what in Gawd’s name did ’e do there?”
“I was wondering that, meself,” agreed Mrs Hetty.
“He ran a gaming house,” explained Miss Martin placidly. “He decided that as he always lost to the house at play, it must be the better part.”
“Got it. Sunk the last of your ma’s capital in it, hey?” said the sapient Mr Buxleigh.
“Yes, quite. For a while it did quite well: the town we were in was a large port and there were many English persons there, after the Peace. It became known as the place to go, amongst the English. Then the Emp— Boney escaped from Elba and they all vanished.”
“Yes, but what about after Waterloo?” asked Mr Buxleigh.
“There were floods of English persons on the Continent, and of course the Army of Occupation, and the house did very well, up until about three years back. Then Petite Maman died: she caught a fluxion de poitrine, having ignored Papa’s injunction not to go out to a party on a very cold, wet night. She had never been very strong, and the doctor had advised her to take care of herself, but she took no notice. Well,” she said frankly, “I don’t think she ever took notice of a thing anyone said to her in her whole life. Papa had not been the model husband by any means, but her death was quite a shock to him, and he lost interest in the gaming house.”
“’E would,” said Mrs Hetty on a sour note.
“No stickum,” agreed Mr Buxleigh. “I beg your pardon, me dear. That is an English expression what means ’e never stuck at nothing in ’is life.”
“That certainly was Papa,” agreed Miss Martin, unmoved.
Mrs Hetty had been doing laborious arithmetic. “So it was after your Ma died that that brother of yours up and left? I never heard of such a thing!”
“I suppose he concluded that I had Papa to look to me. And in fact he had always taken very good care of me,” she said placidly. “He sent me to a strict girls’ day school—it was run by nuns but they didn’t mind that I was not a Roman Catholic. Well, they did try to convert me,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. Sure enough, the English persons held up their hands and exclaimed in horror, so at least one of the things Papa had told them about England was true. No, two, there was the story of his saving Beau Buxleigh’s life, also. “Ricky and Papa had never got on very well, and perhaps he saw no reason to stay after Petite Maman died—he was very fond of her, and very like her in both looks and temperament. I have to say we did not particularly miss him; it was quite a relief to have no rows in the house.”
“So your pa didn’t set you to work in the gaming house, me dear?” asked Mrs Hetty.
“Er… that is very hard to answer, ma’am! Not as a girl of fourteen, no,” said Miss Martin, looking impossibly prim.
The two theatricals thought about it.
“It would of been a breeches part, Beau,” concluded Mrs Hetty, nodding wisely. “She’s got the figure for it.”
“Yes! How clever of you, Mrs Hetty!” she cried, laughing. “I was even skinnier back when I was but fourteen, and it saved hiring a boy, you see. At first I merely ran errands, fetched new packs of cards, and offered drinks—that sort of thing. But by the time I was fifteen I was allowed to run a faro table. It was great fun. Though as the hours were very late, my schoolwork suffered somewhat.”
“You speaks very good English, dear, in despite of it,” said Mrs Hetty kindly.
“Thank you, ma’am. I have an ear for languages, but the credit is all Papa’s: he made us speak it at home, and of course it stood us in good stead when we opened the house.”
“So he made the boy work in it too, hey?” asked Mr Buxleigh.
“Ricky? Yes, of course. Well, that was one of the bones of contention between them. Ricky had aspirations to be a gentleman. But there is no point in being a gentleman when one has not the wherewithal to support the title, is there? But Ricky could never see that. He would never listen to what he did not want to hear; just like Marguérite.”
Shuddering slightly, Mrs Hetty owned that it were not unlike the Major, neither, and Mr Buxleigh, nodding weightily, concurred. After a moment he enquired thoughtfully what accents Miss Martin could “do.” She blinked, but replied composedly enough that she did not know many English accents as yet, but she could certainly speak Dutch with a strong French accent, the which in certain circles was almost guaranteed to start a riot, and French with a strong Dutch or Austrian ditto, the which ditto. “And very, very broken English with a strong Franco-Belgian accent!” she ended with a laugh.
“That’ll be like her Ma,” explained Mr Buxleigh. “Go on, then, me dear.”
“Ay know not vhat to say, zhis ees a vairy ’orreed teungue, monsieur,” she replied with a pout and a languishing look.
Mrs Hetty clapped her hands, and cried: “So that was her!”
“Not bad,” allowed Mr Buxleigh judiciously. “A bit strong for the average English audience, perhaps. Try it with less of the accent.”
Favouring the Beau with the same pout and even more of the languishing look, with considerable fluttering of the lashes to boot, she produced: “I know not what to say, zhis ees a vairy ’orrid tongue, monsieur.”
“And if that ain’t Lucinda Lovelace in foreign, I dunno what is!” noted Mrs Hetty triumphantly.
“Ah. Well, I ain’t saying as you’ll do, though mind you, there is some as would take Beau Buxleigh’s recommendation, and no questions asked; but you weren’t born to the profession. But with the right sort of coaching, you might make a fist of it. And it ain’t a bad sort of life, providing as a girl can keep her head.”
“Or providing as what she has a head to keep, in the first place,” explained Mrs Hetty clearly.
“I have always been able to keep my head,” replied the Major’s daughter primly.
“Aye, we can see that!” approved Mr Buxleigh.
“Dunno where she got it from,” he concluded as, Miss Martin and Troilus having been shown by Mrs Hetty into a little room about the size of a cupboard which formed an adjunct, at the moment unused, to her own apartment, and having there gone out like lights, the friends adjourned to the Beau’s sitting-room again.
“No, indeed! The Major never had a sensible bone in his body, and the little ma sounds worse! Well—Lucinda Lovelace, and foreign as well?”
“Right. Mind you, them Belgian uncles sound all too sensible, maybe it’s in the blood after all,” he noted drily.
“Yes.” Miss Martin had deposited her pieces of paper in Mr Buxleigh’s care; Mrs Hetty took up the letter to Captain Luton from the side-table and perused it carefully.
“’E might or might not ’ave been a bosom friend of the Major’s but I never ’eard the name,” noted Mr Buxleigh neutrally.
“Hang on, it do ring a bell. Luton… ’Ere, there was a Percy Luton!” she cried.
“You’re right. Hung around Lily Cornish back in— Gawd. Well, that would have been in the Major’s day,” he allowed. “’Ere, no: didn’t he hand in ’is final accounts?”
“Lor’, that’s right, acos Lily was a-bawling over it that day last—when was it? February: aye, it were St. Valentine’s Day, and ’e were just gorn. She reckoned it brung it all back. Well, think ’e were generous enough, for a nob. But she hadn't laid eyes on ’im these last twenty year—more. But that were him, all right: Percy Luton. Well, he’d have been the Major’s age and more.”
“Ye-es… Well, the Major weren’t no spring chicken.” Without disclosing his own precise age to the disappointed Mrs Hetty, Mr Buxleigh worked out that at the time of his death Major Martin must have been very much past sixty. Noting that that didn’t prove this Percy Luton was no relation to the Captain.
Mrs Hetty’s face fell. “Oh. No, yer right. Well, drat it!”
“This needs thinking about, Hetty,” he pronounced solemnly.
“Rats. Get on round to them Horse Guards, see if they got this Captain Luton’s direction. No thinking involved,” replied Mrs Hetty huffily.
Irritatingly, Mr Buxleigh replied: “Ah,” and appeared to plunge deep into cogitation.
Mrs Hetty gave him a glare but he ignored her. She sighed, and took up some sewing.
Before very long the sewing dropped to the floor and Mrs Hetty’s head nodded. Mr Buxleigh, in his big chair at the opposite side of the fireplace, still appeared deep in weighty cogitation, but a close observer might have seen that his eyes remained closed and his breathing was suspiciously regular…
“Theatricals,” said Mrs Hetty kindly as an apologetic Miss Martin appeared very late the next morning in Mr Buxleigh’s kitchen, “don’t never rise early, me love. No apology necessary. Now, this is Mrs Harmon, what we calls Cook, she’s done for Mr Buxleigh for I dunnamany years.”—Miss Martin bobbed politely. Mrs Harmon, a tall, broad-shouldered, bony woman in an enormous cap and gigantic, grimy apron, gave her a hard look and produced a grunting noise which might possibly have signified modified approval.—“And this here’s Bessy Hinks, you don’t need to pay her no mind.”—Miss Martin smiled, nonetheless, at the red-cheeked, round-faced Bessy Hinks, and greeted her politely.—“And this is Fred Hinks, you got to keep yer eye on him, sharp as a tack, he is. Boot-boy, nominal,” she allowed, giving Master Hinks a hard look.
“Hullo, Fred. So, you are Bessy’s little brother?” said the Major’s daughter kindly to the sharp-faced, gap-toothed, wiry little boy.
“Well, the relationship be one of aunt and nephew, if you was to get strictly precise about it, but ’e might as well be, acos that Sally, she were only thirteen when she ’ad ’im,” allowed Mrs Hetty with no evidence of condemnation in her voice. “But a well-growed lass for her age, and no-one can’t say as she didn’t ask for it. Not that we ever knew for sure ’oo the father was.”
“’E was a grand lord, Miss,” Master Hinks informed Miss Martin. “Wiv a carriage an’ six!”
“Rubbish,” said Mrs Hetty calmly.
“You get about your business, Fred ’Inks!” Mrs Harmon adjured him in a startling basso profundo.
Winking at Miss Martin, Master Hinks retired to a corner where he began working on a pile of boots and shoes.
“And put some elbow-grease into it!” boomed Mrs Harmon.
Master Hinks, as far the observing eye could discern, ignored this injunction.
“Acos if yer don’t, Mr Lefayne won’t give yer no sixpence, that’s for sure!” noted Mrs Hetty with considerable satisfaction.
“What is elbow grease, please?” asked the Major’s daughter.
“Lumme, don’t yer know?” squeaked Miss Hinks.
“Shut yer face, Bessy, and get on with them veggies!” ordered Mrs Harmon.
Bessy had been washing potatoes in a large bowl on the huge old kitchen table. She got on with it.
“Elbow grease is like hard work, deary,” explained Mrs Hetty kindly. “–Been brung up foreign, poor little thing,” she explained to the company at large.
“Aye, you said,” grunted Mrs Harmon. “Well, you won’t get no fancy forring breakfasts ’ere, Miss. Mr Buxleigh, he sometimes ’as a sausage—partial to a sausage, is Mr B. Or it might be, a bit of bacon. No fancy buns unless yer pays special. But that Bob Tooley, ’e does a decent plain loaf, I’ll say that much for ’im.”
“Yuh-yes, I see. I certainly cannot afford fancy buns, Mrs Harmon!” she gasped.
“Right, sausage, then. And I dare say as I could fry a bit of the bread up for yer. Mrs Pontifex, Mrs Deane and Mrs Mayhew, they ’as a pot of tea to their breakfasts, and Mr Lefayne, ’e pays for his own coffee. Likewise Mr Hartington, when ’e’s in, only ’e’s gorn orf. Up north, or so ’e said.”
“A travelling company, dear, as in the days of the Bard himself,” explained Mrs Hetty. “Give her some tea, Cook, deary, for the Lord’s sake; it won’t break none of us!”
“Um—oh, I see! You—you all put in for the tea, is that it?” gasped Miss Martin in confusion. “In that case, I could contribute—”
“Rubbish. When you’re working, is more than enough time to think about that. We can spare it. Lilian Deane, she’s got a real good engagement. And Marjory Mayhew, she worked all winter. And could of gone orf with Mr H., only she didn't fancy being on the road.”
“At ’er time of life, I should think not,” rumbled Cook. “Right. Tea. And lodgers doesn’t eat in my kitchen, Miss, not but what if the ’ouse is empty I can make an erseption.”
“Out of course you can, and does!” agreed Mrs Hetty, beaming at her.
Cook merely responded with a grunt, but Mrs Hetty nodded and beamed, and, taking Miss Martin’s arm, steered her out of the kitchen, explaining: “Bessy will bring a tray, dear. She ain’t no parlourmaid, that’s for sure, and any half-trained ingénue what you cared to name would be a thousand times better in the part, but she is willing, I’ll say that for her.”
“Yes, I see. Should I not have come into the kitchen after all?” she asked, very flushed, as Mrs Hetty propelled her in the direction of Mr Buxleigh’s rooms.
“No, bless you, me love! Cook were right-down pleased! Acos there has been some in this house,” she said darkly, shaking her curly grey head, this morning adorned with a very much frilled and goffered cap, “what behaved as if they was too good for a decent kitchen! Which considering their backgrounds, they didn’t never ought! Now, we usual eats in ’ere, dear,” she explained, propelling her into a narrow dining-room, crowded with large, dark pieces of furniture, “which at breakfast-time is quite free and easy, only if they wants Cook to cook their dinners for ’em, they has to make an arrangement. Which the usual times is, dear,” she said, going over to the long, dark red curtains and hauling at them, panting a little: “sharp two in the afternoon, which if you ain’t got a matinée is convenient, and supper any time after eleven, only if you wants it hot you has to stir your stumps, because Cook gets to bed at eleven-fifteen by the kitchen clock. –And don’t never try to wind it, dear, it’s her pride and joy. And if you spots that Fred having a go at it, give him a good telling orf!” She panted and beamed.
The Major’s daughter was rather dazed. What with the flood of information and the flood of light that Mrs Pontifex had just admitted. “Yes, I see. So, this room must be behind Mr Buxleigh’s sitting-room, is that right?”
“Aye, and looks into next-door’s garden, like what we ain’t got; only don’t imaginate,” she said heatedly, “that theatricals never gets asked to sit out there and sun themselves, acos we don’t! Niffy-naffy, they is, and too good for the likes of us, which considering ’is origins, is a damned cheek! –Saving your presence, Miss Martin, dear.”
Miss Martin perceived that this must be a long-standing grudge. “I see. What are his origins?” –She was not too sure of the plural, in this context, but it must have been all right, because Mrs Hetty responded readily that he had been a painter and plasterer, called himself a master craftsman (with a sniff) and born and bred in Whitechapel, poor as a church mouse!
“I see: so he was a guildsman? Well, that is very respectable and I suppose he is to be commended for having worked at his trade and risen to be successful in it.”
“Huh! Successful is as successful does!” she produced darkly, rapidly laying out silverware on the table.
Miss Martin came hurriedly to help her and was duly initiated into the rules pertaining to Mr Buxleigh’s good cutlery as opposed to the kitchen cutlery. Likewise the china, which they never used the good for breakfast, only for special suppers or dinners with invited guests. She looked in some awe at the massed ranks of it on Mr Buxleigh’s towering sideboard, and nodded obediently.
Mrs Hetty, explaining that she had errands this morning, and that Miss Martin would be quite all right, had bustled off, and Miss Martin, not altogether sure that she would be all right, was eating fried bread and strange-tasting sausage in solitary splendour, when the dining-room door opened and a deep, extremely pleasant voice said: “Am I still asleep, or is this sausage not one of Ma Harmon’s and, when permitted to range free, ambulatory?”
And a handsome man of middle height and middle years came in, cradling— Oh, dear! The Major’s daughter sprang to her feet with a gasp.
“It was scratching and whining at my door,” explained the gentleman, who was clad in a dressing-gown. “A sausage of matutinal habits, one perceives. Either that or I am still asleep,” he allowed somewhat pointedly.
“Y— No— Um, I’m so sorry, sir!” she gasped, scarlet-faced. “It’s Troilus!”
“Ah. Then you must be Cressida,” he said smoothly.
“Yes, I am; please, let me take him. –Mauvais chien!” she said sharply to Troilus, taking his warm, sturdy little body from the stranger.
The stranger’s shoulders had shaken slightly at the damsel’s agreeing that her name matched the dog’s, though his long, mobile mouth had not quivered. “Thought they was German sausages rather than the French variety?” he drawled.
“Y— Um, yes, he is a badger-hound—du bist ein Dachshund, ja? Mauvais chien!” she said severely to the little brown dog as he panted eagerly and licked her chin.
“Ah. A bilingual sausage, then.”
“Yes, um, well, I had him from a French lady living in The Hague. I’m so very sorry that he disturbed you, sir. I did take him out, as soon as I woke up, and I thought he was securely shut in.”
“Mm. Shut in where?”
“Oh! I’m suh-sorry, sir! My name is Cressida Martin and I have just come to stay, and Mrs Pontifex has very kindly let me share her lodgings.”
“That explains it: the latch on her door don’t catch too well. Delighted to meet you, Miss Martin. Roland Lefayne, very much at your service,” he said, bowing gracefully.
The owner of the old chip hat was not usually at a loss in any social situation. As it was, however, what with the dressing-gown and Troilus’s misbehaviour and the fact that Mr Lefayne, in need of a shave or not, was very, very handsome indeed, she made an extremely limp bob and produced merely a limp: “How do you do, sir?”
“I may be quite well, Miss Martin, after a cup of coffee,” he said, yawning and sitting down. “Do it eat?”
“Troilus, sir? Yes, he is very greedy. Oh—I see. Um, well, I thought I might go out in a little and purchase a bone or some such for him,” she returned feebly.
“Rubbish. BESSY!” called Mr Lefayne at the top of his lungs.
Miss Martin jumped and gasped, although the sound, if very loud, had also been very mellifluous.
“One is trained in the profession to pitch one’s voice to the back of the—HOUSE! BESSY!” he called. “Just as well, given old Beau’s domestic arrangements. Met him, have you?”
“Yes, I met him yesterday. My father used to know him.”
“I see. –There you are, girl; are you deaf?” he said mildly as Bessy hurried in looking very flustered.
“Nossir! Does you want yer breakfast down ’ere, Mr Sid, sir?” she gasped.
“As you see, my good Bessy. And please bring a large bone, or a piece of meat, on a platter that Mrs Harmon does not normally use for the household, if you would.”
“Oh, Gawdelpus!” she gasped, catching sight of Troilus by his mistress’s feet and retreating precipitately.
“It’s a dog, Bessy, and quite harmless,” said Mr Lefayne—or possibly Mr Sid—calmly. “The bone or piece of meat is for him, you see.”
“Cook won’t like it, Mr Sid!” she gasped, keeping a prudent distance.
“He is very friendly, Bessy. He will not bite, and he would like it if you would pat him,” ventured his mistress.
“Where’s ’is legs, Miss?” she gasped as Troilus rose to his full stature and wagged his neat little tail.
“Er, well, he is short, Bessy,” she said limply.
Mr Lefayne gave a shout of laughter but explained kindly: “He is meant to be like that, girl. Come and pat him.”
Timidly Bessy came to pat Troilus.
“His name,” said Roland Lefayne with superb control: “is Troilus. That is a foreign name, of course. Now, ask Cook for a large bone or piece of meat for him, please, and breakfast for me. And if she is worried about it, put it on my account.”
“No, sir!” gasped Miss Martin, very red.
“I have had,” said Roland Lefayne, smiling at her, “some excellent parts in some splendid runs these last four years and am in amazing funds.”
“Yus, acos Mr Sid, ’e don’t ’ardly never gamble, not like some,” agreed Bessy, cheering up. “’Ere, look, he likes me!” –Troilus was wagging his tail hard and had licked her hand.
“Either that or he is—er—plus rusé qu’il n’en a l’apparence,” agreed Mr Lefayne smoothly.
Bessy had jumped but she explained: “That’s forring talk, Miss. Mr Sid, ’e ain’t ’alf clever. You should see ’im on the stage, Miss! Why, you wouldn’t ’ardly know it was ’im, more’n ’alf the time!”
“Er—yes,” said Miss Martin, very weakly indeed.
Perceiving that Miss Martin was about to lose her gravity, Mr Lefayne then dispatched Bessy very firmly to the kitchen. “Go on laugh,” he invited.
She did laugh, though somewhat weakly.
“He is only the second German badger-dog that I have ever seen, and my experience is fairly wide,” he murmured. “I don’t think you could have expected the good Bessy to recognise the breed.”
“No, of course. –Her English is very hard to understand,” she said on a weak note.
“Yes, she was born and bred in the slums of London. Not quite the silver-tongued accents which one associates with the land of Shakespeare and Milton, hey?”
“No, well, I haven’t read much of Milton, and what I did read I did not like, but— No. Though I suppose the canaille of the Paris streets do not speak the language of Racine or Molière, come to that.”
Roland Lefayne looked at Miss Martin with considerable interest. “No, quite. You know Paris quite well, then?”
“I have been there several times. My father had friends there.”
“I see. I think you said he was a friend of old Beau’s?”
“Yes, well, an old acquaintance.” Miss Martin eyed Mr Lefayne dubiously. The thick, dark locks, at the moment wildly ruffled, showed a glint of silver at the temples: he was not a young man—but scarcely of Papa’s generation. “He was a Major Martin, sir. He and Mr Buxleigh had rooms in the same house, at one stage. That would have been about thirty years ago, I think.”
“Ah. I did know Beau slightly back then. Well, not thirty years ago. Twenty-odd. I was naught but a stripling. Let me think…”
“Papa left England in about 1800, I think,” she ventured.
“You don’t seem too sure,” murmured Mr Lefayne.
“No, well, he was always rather coy with his facts.”
“Ah. Had a lot of enemies, did he?”
“Hundreds,” replied his daughter frankly.
Roland Lefayne’s long, mobile mouth at this twitched just a little. “Yes, I think I do recall him. Tallish, well set-up fellow—very dark? –Mm. Dashed useful in a fight. Very well-spoken, and I think, though I may be confusing him with another fellow, had in his time been kicked out of two schools for the sons of the gentry.”
“That’s right. Papa maintained that he was the innocent victim in at least one of the cases,” said Miss Martin smoothly.
He laughed suddenly. “By God, now I do remember him! That tone just brought him back! Hell of a care-for-nobody, was he not? Damned intelligent, but a gambler and—er—not—”
“No stickum, was Mr Buxleigh’s expression.”
“Yes, he most certainly gave that impression. Not much of an example for an innocent young lad from the country,” said Mr Lefayne with a yokel’s burr in his lovely voice, “what had run orf from his loving family and come up to Lunnon to seek fame and fortune upon the stage, loike!”
“No, indeed!” she agreed, laughing. “So that was what you did, sir?”
“Aye; though I suppose I was never completely starry-eyed. Just wanted something with a bit more life and fun to it than my father’s business as a country-town shopkeeper offered. I have achieved a certain modest fame, Miss Martin,” he explained primly, as Bessy staggered in under a laden tray, “but most certainly not the fortune which my stay-at-home brother built out of that country-town shop!”
“Yus!” panted Bessy, lowering the tray. “Mr Sid’s bruvver, ’e’s a warm man! Cook’s done yer bubble an’ squeak, wiv bacon. And not to let that Mr Daniel ’ave none of the jam, ’e ain’t paid ’is slate. Only she can!”
“Good. –It is damson, Miss Martin, with which you may not be acquainted. Like a small plum, and makes an excellent jam.”
“See, the tree,” said Bessy in a hoarse hiss, coming up very close to Miss Martin, “it ’angs over our wall. And what ’angs in our place is ours, geddit? And Fred an’ me, we picks ’em when Madam and ’im, they’re still snorink in their beds!” She laughed hoarsely.
“Next-door. Niffy-Naffy and spouse,” explained Mr Lefayne, setting out the dishes.
Miss Martin collapsed in delighted giggles, shaking the curls.
“Ah!” said Bessy, terrifically pleased. She picked up the tray. “Cook says as that there dish, it can be for Trellis, acos it’s got a great crack in it, but still useable. And don’t you go for to give ’im no bacon, Mr Sid!” With that she took herself and the tray off.
“Trellis?” gulped Miss Martin eventually, blowing her nose.
Mr Lefayne had put a large piece of the boiled bacon on the cracked platter with the large meaty bone. He now set the platter before Troilus. “Come along—good boy! That’s it! –No, well, she has approximated the name to something which is within her sphere of cognisance.”
She eyed him warily. “Oh?”
Mr Lefayne reseated himself gracefully. “Our niffy-naffy neighbours have a trellis, a great source of pride, on which he has trained a damned peach. –Espaliered, I think you will grasp the term? Yes. It has never borne a thing,” he said mildly, pouring coffee.
Miss Martin collapsed in another fit of helpless giggles.
Mr Lefayne eyed her tolerantly, and sipped coffee.
As they breakfasted Roland Lefayne—or Sid Bottomley, his rather more legal name, the actor explained tranquilly—obtained somewhat more information about the innocent Miss Martin, her background and antecedents than, it was clear, she was aware she was imparting. For her part, Major Martin’s daughter learned about as much as Sid wished her to know. Though also perhaps one or two things—for she was very far from stupid—that the actor did not impart voluntarily. Such as, that he looked upon life with a somewhat disillusioned eye, but yet retained his sense of humour. And that he was no despoiler of young maidens. And that he was a man with more than a smattering of education, about which he was entirely modest. It was undoubtedly picked up here and there, but nonetheless sufficiently wide. He was clearly better read than any of Major Martin’s children and, though admitting with a laugh to having small Latin and less Greek, appeared to know as much of Classical literature as her late Papa had ever absorbed at his two public schools. He was, too, clearly a man of very great charm; but the owner of the old chip hat, though she had very quickly realised this, did not realise that Sid Bottomley was quite deliberately refraining from turning it upon herself.
“Gawd,” concluded Mr Buxleigh, mopping his brow. “Well, at least you held orf.”
“I should think so!” returned Sid with a laugh. “Seventeen? And, whatever opinion one might have of the unlamented Martin, a daughter of the gentry, to boot.”
“And skinny with it,” noted Mrs Hetty somewhat drily.
Sid’s clear grey eye met her quizzical brown one. “Not over-endowed, true,” he said airily. Mrs Hetty began to glare and he laughed a little and said: “No, well, we must feed her up!”
“We already thought of that; your trouble is, you think no-one else hasn’t any brains,” Mr Buxleigh informed him testily.
“I stand corrected,” he said solemnly. “Er, well, shall we exchange facts? –She is walking the dog with young Fred as her guide, I doubt they will be back for some time; he doubtless intends to show Troilus off to the neighbourhood.”
“Go on, then,” said Mr Buxleigh tolerantly. “Tell us what yer winkled out of ’er, poor innocent young gal.”
“She is not as innocent as all that,” he drawled.
“Sid Bottomley!” cried Mrs Hetty, incensed. “Your mouth did ought to be washed out with soap!”
“I did not mean it in that sense, Hetty. Only, she has seen a good deal of the less pleasant side of the human character, in that gaming house of damned Martin’s. Not to say on those jaunts around the Continent on which he apparently hauled his family along. But I agree that she is an unspoiled virgin.”
“Unspoiled virgin? I should think so! Never even been kissed!” she cried, still indignant.
“On the contrary, ma’am: she was kissed at fifteen by a Signor Antonini, who in the past had been some sort of cicisbeo of the mother’s, in the belief—mistaken—that it would flatter her.”
“What she do?” asked Mrs Hetty eagerly.
Roland Lefayne’s speaking grey eyes twinkled. “Kneed him in the privates.”
“There! Said I not she was a girl of spirit?” she cried pleasedly.
“Not actual, no, but we’ll take it as read,” said Mr Buxleigh tolerantly. “Well, good for ’er. Any more?”
“A young Dutchman, think he lived in their street. She let him off with a tongue-lashing, on account of extreme youth and nothing between the ears but a pretty face. Then there was the slightly more serious case—rather more recent—of a Mr Blundell. Yes, English, sad to relate. Mr Blundell was owed considerable sums by the late unlamented Major,” said Sid with a very odd look on his face, “which the late unlamented, admittedly driven to it, proposed to pay off by way of Miss Martin.”
There was a moment’s silence in Beau Buxleigh’s warm, shabby sitting-room.
“What?” said Mrs Hetty in a coldly dangerous tone that belied her comfortable face and figure.
Sid gave her a mocking look. He knew most of the details of Mrs Hetty Pontifex’s sufficiently hard life, and was aware that it was the Major’s good fortune that he was not at this moment within striking distance of the choice little blade that the prudent Mrs Hetty kept in her sleeve. For she would not hesitate for an instant to use it.
“Mm. Mr Blundell was made of sterner stuff than the young Dutchman, and besides, considered he had a right to the privilege. However, Miss Martin had learned to keep a pistol in her cloak, and shot him in the foot.”
“Ho! Foot? I'd foot him!” cried Mrs Hetty fiercely. “Well, good for her,” she admitted.
“I thought so, yes. That was about the sum of it. Well, she gave the father a tongue-lashing, but he was at the maudlin stage and merely sobbed into his brandy.”
“Ah; so it was the drink as took him orf in the end?” asked Mr Buxleigh with a certain satisfaction.
“Did you not get that out of her? Goodness, she was quite willing to tell me,” he drawled.
“You can drop that, Sid,” Mr Buxleigh informed him kindly. “Well?”
“That and the complication of a knife in the back from an enraged husband.”
“Lord, at ’is age?” cried Mrs Hetty.
“I did not say he succeeded with the wife in question, Hetty.”
“You mean the husband walked in upon him when he was about to!” she retorted.
“I think it was probably something very like that, yes. It was not much of a wound, but the doctor apparently told Miss Martin that he had weakened his constitution.”
“Oh, well, poor old Major: he were not all bad,” said Mr Buxleigh with a sigh.
“Beau Buxleigh! ’Ow can yer?” cried Mrs Hetty. “Selling his innocent little daughter?”
“Er—well, there is that. But near the end of his life, and desperate— No, well, I ain’t saying as he ought to be forgiven. But he was not all bad, that’s all!”
“Saved your miserable hide: yes,” acknowledged Sid. “No, well, he could have done worse by the girl. Seems to have seen to it she had a decent upbringing and went to a good convent school. And at least he didn’t parade her in the gaming house in her petticoats for half of the Captain Sharps of the Continent to ogle, if he did put her into breeches.”
“Yes, well, they was a protection, Sid,” allowed Mr Buxleigh.
“Against some, yes,” he said drily. “There were one or two that thought she made a damned pretty boy, but she used the knee in those cases, too. As I say, she is not a complete innocent.”
“It is just as well she does know a bit about life, and knows how to protect herself,” pronounced Mr Buxleigh judiciously.
“Mm. What, precisely, are you going to do about her, Beau?”
“Uh—well, get on round to the Horse Guards, we thought, Sid,” he said somewhat lamely. Mr Buxleigh would not have admitted it for the world, but he was aware that Roland Lefayne’s intellect was far keener than his own.
“Mm. Well, it may serve. If you do your impersonation of a fatherly solicitor, Beau.”
After a moment Mr Buxleigh replied: “You mean they won’t give out no information? But she has got a paper, Sid!”
“It might have been writ by anybody. An enemy of this Luton, possibly. –Not that that category need necessarily exclude Martin,” he murmured.
“According to ’im,” pointed out Mrs Hetty dubiously, “he was practically a brother to this young Luton feller, back in the old regiment days.”
“Personally I would prefer almost any creature under the sun as my sibling, but let us take that as read, Hetty,” he said lightly. “Well, provided you strike the right official, you may get the last known direction for this Luton. Or the information that he is deceased—well, there’s been considerable water under the bridge, not to say the Peninsula War, since Major Martin was last in England,” he pointed out. His friends glared but Sid Bottomley continued, unmoved: “Take it for all in all, the most likely contingency seems to me that you will not get a current address of a living Luton.”
They continued to glare.
“Well, do you have an alternative plan?”
Manifestly they did not. After a moment the Beau suggested on a sour note: “All right, you think of one.”
“Ask yer brother,” suggested Mrs Hetty, even sourer.
Sid smiled a little. “Yes, Joe would think of a plan in an instant. We-ell… It did occur to me that it might not be a bad idea to trace the Martin family. The Major’s dead, it appears he legitimately married the Belgian female: they may have no objection to receiving his daughter back into the fold.”
“Then she can be a lady!” cried Mrs Hetty, beaming.
“Aye, and be married orf to a witless country squire or worthless Bond Street beau,” Mr Buxleigh agreed on a sour note. “Um, well, where do we start? It’s a terrible common name.”
“Mercy Martin,” agreed Mrs Hetty. “You wouldn’t of known her,” she said to Sid. “Her speciality was the fluttering débutante type; though she did a not half decent Mrs Margery in a revival of The Country Wife, too. Forty-five if she were a day, and as slim as the little thing herself! –’Course, they wore more hair in those days.”
“Be that as it may,” said Sid on a firm note—he was aware that when these ageing troupers fell into a reminiscent vein it was very hard to winkle them out of it—“we had best start somewhere. Miss Martin seems to think that her father’s people came from Kent.” He looked hard at Mr Buxleigh.
“Can’t say as I remember ’im speaking of it. Well, it were a fair bit back, Sid.”
“Yes. Think.”
Mr Buxleigh thought. “We went to Brighton once.”
“That is in Sussex,” said Mr Lefayne clearly.
“Is it? Took longer than what ’e said it would, and we broke the journey at some damned inn what he insisted on, where they would not offer so much as a half-pint of porter for a recitation of—” Mrs Hetty and Mr Lefayne were looking at him with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “All right, I’m thinking! …Kent. No. Um, said ’e ’ad a great-aunt in Bath what might leave him ’er nest-egg,” he offered feebly.
“The gentry all have great-aunts in Bath. And as this were thirty year ago,” began Sid sweetly, “can we reasonably hope that she—”
“All right! …’Ang on. Orpington,” he said slowly.
“Go on, Beau,” prompted Sid.
“I remember it because we had intentioned to call on a Mrs Robina Stewart, very much in the vogue at the time for her delightful portrayal of— I’m getting to it!” he said testily as Mrs Hetty glared and opened her mouth. “—Portia,” he said quickly. “At one time a possible rival to Mrs Siddons herself. Then she went and married a fellow what owned a tavern down Marylebone way. Well, Martin had definite hopes, is why I remember it. Then he turns up on his horse, looking furious, and says he has received a parental—think it was. Um, parental summons; no, was it fraternal?”
“Get ON with it!” shouted the driven Mrs Hetty.
“A summons,” said Mr Buxleigh, glaring, “to get on down to Orpington. And if I had any thoughts of cutting him out with Mrs Stewart to think again, acos he would cut orf my— Never mind. Well, there you are, Sid: Orpington. Don’t s’pose that would be anywhere near Kent, would it?” He looked at him hopefully.
Sid had to swallow. “Er—yes, Beau, it is in Kent. Well done!”
“Huzza!” cried Mrs Hetty.
Very gratified, Mr Buxleigh gave a slight bow.
“I think it is quite a small place. If there are any gentry named Martin in the district, it should not be difficult to find them,” said Sid.
“The garden of England, don’t they call it?” said Mr Buxleigh on a glum note. He did not care for the country.
“Kent? So I believe. Shall we consult Harold’s map?”
“Didn’t he take it with him?” asked Mrs Hetty.
Mrs Pontifex, though she had known the actor-manager Harold Hartington for many years, had until very recently been a member of the rival company, Mr Brentwood’s, and so was not very well acquaint with Mr Hartington’s habits. Sid therefore replied solemnly: “No, his practice is to study up the intended route and then draw himself a little sketch of it. Maps ain’t cheap, you know: it would never do to lose it on the road.”
“That’s sensible,” she approved.
Sid then producing a key, the company adjourned forthwith to the actor-manager’s set of rooms on the second floor. The apartment’s walls were hidden by innumerable painted canvas sheets stretched upon timber frames, and it was crowded with cupboards, trunks, bulging hampers, wardrobes and armoires of all varieties, but Mr Hartington’s neighbours had expected these and did not remark upon them: they were the tools of Mr Hartington’s trade and, indeed, composed the most of his capital. The map of Britain was found in a large chest of drawers. Sid spread it solemnly out upon Mr Hartington’s dining table, first removing several hatboxes and a selection of large vase-like shapes which close inspection might have revealed to have been of plaster of Paris, painted. Much consultation resulted in Mr Lefayne’s deciding that it was not above five mile from Greenwich—well, possibly as much as ten—and in Mr Buxleigh’s pronouncing that if they took a stage what went down the Old Kent Road, they could not go wrong. Mrs Pontifex maintained that that smudge did not say “Orpington” and very probably it was hidden under this mark or blotch, down here, on the coast, what looked to her like a two day’s journey at the very least—if this was Kent—but the two gentlemen, sad to relate, ignored her.
“Go as ourselves?” said the Beau cautiously as they retreated to his sitting-room and Sid generously urged a pot of his own coffee upon the company.
“Aye, walk up to the country house of these Martins and announce: “You don't know us, but we’re a pack of unemployed theatricals what’s got a shabby little girl we’re trying to fob orf as your granddaughter!” said Mrs Hetty with feeling.
“Aye, but we can’t send her alone, Hetty!” he protested.
Mrs Hetty gave him a kindly look. “No. We’ll work out a stratagem.”
“Strategy?” murmured Sid.
“Stratagem. We already got a Beau,” retorted the brilliant Mrs Hetty swiftly.
Mr Roland Lefayne, not being a man who was above his company at any time, promptly collapsed in hysterics, Beau Buxleigh, taking the compliment unto himself, smirked, and Mrs Hetty gave a gratified snigger.
Bessy then bringing in the coffee, there was a short hiatus as Sid poured and Mrs Hetty forced Mr Buxleigh to disgorge a few meagre drops of his own brandy from the sacred cupboard to “brighten the cups”—her expression.
Possibly it was the brightness of the resultant mixture which then prompted Sid to decide that Mr Buxleigh might, for the purpose of getting Miss Martin a hearing at her relatives’ home, impersonate a travelling gentleman that had befriended her in Holland, that Mrs Hetty, for the purpose of satisfying the relatives’ anxieties as to the propriety of the proceedings, might impersonate his wife, a kindly, grandmotherly person, one black ostrich feather to the bonnet at the very most, and that he himself would be a lawyer’s clerk.
“The solicitor, Sid,” objected Mr Buxleigh. “Carries more weight.”
“No, he wouldn’t travel with them from London unless they were real nobs. And don’t say you play a nob to the life: we all know that; but if these Martins are nobs themselves they’ll wonder why they never heard of you.”
“Ah. A sufficiently obscure country squire?” he said, at his fruitiest.
“What if they has relatives all up and down the country?” objected Mrs Hetty.
“A pleasant merchant that has long since made his pile and retired from anything smacking faintly of trade,” said Sid firmly.
Mr Buxleigh sniggered slightly, but nodded.
“But can you do a solicitor’s clerk, Sid?” asked Mrs Hetty baldly.
Roland Lefayne was not in the least offended by this enquiry. His parts were generally those of Romantick lovers or dashing heroes, with a slight excursion into your chilling Richard Crookback, the which had recently paid marvellous dividends but which the wily Sid did not intend should set a precedent: he knew that the most of his devoted audience were adoring females whose appreciation, largely focused on the outward person, not to mention the lower limbs of such, could comprehend the eerily chilling but did not extend to the downright Thespian—not when its definition incorporated the shrouding of the manly form in robes and the well-modelled face in hairy beards. He did, not, in short, aspire to your Lear, your Macbeth, or any of the great tragic or character rôles. And had no ambition at all to rival Mr Kean.
“Why, yes, madam,” he replied meekly, his well-set shoulders seeming to shrink into themselves and his chest to take on a cavernous, yet not quite stooped appearance as he spoke. “I think I may venture to suggest that I may sustain the rôle with a certink appearance of what, in the law, we calls very simmy-litude.”
Mrs Hetty laughed and clapped her hands and Mr Buxleigh opined: “You’ll do. Only don’t go talking about no rôles, that’ll make ’em suspicious.”
“Of course not, sir,” he said respectfully. “I shall, with your permission, venture a word or two on the subject of wills and deeds.”
“Yes, well, just make sure you gets ’em right, and don’t go for to imply that the Major might have left a will. Or anything.”
“Er—no,” agreed Sid, ceasing to be a solicitor’s clerk. “I suppose he might have left a will.”
“He didn’t,” said Mr Buxleigh flatly.
After a moment Mrs Hetty ventured: “What about the brother?”
“Forget ’im,” advised Mr Buxleigh brutally.
“I’d like to, but can we ask the girl to do that?” replied Sid.
Mrs Hetty admitted regretfully: “Think she is too honest for that.”
“Aye, but she ain’t thick!” protested the Beau.
“Ye-es… Shall we advise her not to mention him until the relatives ask?” suggested Sid.
They agreed fervently. After a minute Mrs Hetty ventured: “What if they ain’t decent folks?”
“That is a point,” allowed Sid. “Martin certainly did not fall within the definition.”
“’E fell often enough,” noted Mr Buxleigh. “Well, we takes yer point. But we’ll be with her: think between the three of us we’ll be capable of sizing up any blamed gentry. And if they is rotten, she comes straight back to London with us!”
“Ye-es… She has no fortune, so they won’t want to grab her for that sort of reason… There could be a question of legal guardianship, I suppose,” murmured Sid.
“No!” cried Mrs Hetty brilliantly. “That’ll be the brother: he’s older ’n her, remember!”
“True. Good,” he said, smiling at her. “That’s settled, then. And I tell you what, we shall try out the rôles at the Horse Guards first!”
His fellow Thespians saw no incongruity in this suggestion and agreed to it happily. Not perceiving that possibly Mr Lefayne’s eagerness to participate in their stratagem might be due to the fact that his present piece was not occupying enough of his extremely fertile brain to prevent the onset of boredom, rather than to any real belief that the plan might succeed.
Next chapter:
https://theoldchiphat.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-cast-assembled.html
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