Chapter IX

The postponement of a concert is a very serious matter. There are pretty certain to be amongst the audience, those who could come on Tuesday but find Wednesday impossible, or Wednesday agreeable and Thursday obnoxious. Similarly with artistes, some of whom cannot fix in the altered date, and some, the more amateurish, who have screwed their courage up for Tuesday's ordeal and find it a physical and mental impossibility to sustain the tension for another twenty-four hours. In this latter case we find Mr. Roderick Nape, who, with the added mental burden of his tremendous discovery, found no pleasure in the fictitious trials of the hero of "The Murder at Fairleigh Grange."

It was written in the book of fate that he should be relieved of one half of his care. On the day eventually fixed for the concert the duke was "at home."

I pass over the propriety of a bachelor being "at home." There was no precedent for the function, but then there was no precedent for a duke living in Kymott Crescent. What the response would have been in ordinary circumstances, need not be discussed. As it happened, the grave man-servant was kept busy the whole of the afternoon announcing new arrivals, and the two waiters, hired for the day from Whiteley's, distributed tea, thin bread and butter, and ladylike sandwiches from 4 till 6.30.

The neighbourhood accepted the invitation because it gave the neighbourhood an opportunity of meeting and abusing the vicar for postponing the soiree--and then of course there was the Duke.

"Come?" said Hank answering that gentleman's doubts, "of course they'll come: you're a two headed donkey, an ancient ruin, a _cause celebre_ and the scene of a tragedy."

"I take you, sir," said the Duke gratefully; "in other words----"

"They will come out of morbid curiosity," said Hank. "They'll come to the concert to-night, but that's different. You'll be removed from most of 'em. Here they can get near you, prod you and guess what your weight is, look at your teeth an' tell your age; they'll come all right!"

Amongst those present, as the junior reporter hath it, was Mr. Roderick Nape in his private clothes, in other words without disguise. Yet in a sense he was there on business. He wanted to see how these men behaved in public.

He pushed his way through the crowded little room, little knowing that he stalked to his professional doom.

"How do you do?" asked the Duke in his most engaging manner, then he gave a dramatic start and stepped back.

He looked at Hank, then again at Mr. Nape.

"Why, Mr. Nape," stammered the Duke, "you quite startled me."

All eyes were riveted on Mr. Nape, and he enjoyed it.

"What have you been doing to your face!" asked the Duke. It was a rude question, but Mr. Nape saw nothing more significant in the query than a hint of smut, and searched for his handkerchief.

"What have you done with your moustache," asked the Duke reprovingly.

Mr. Nape looked his astonishment.

"I have never had a moustache," he said haughtily, for he had heard a little titter.

"Strange," mused the Duke, "and yet I could have sworn that the last time we met--forgive me, I must have been mistaken."

"By the way, Mr. Nape," drawled the tired voice of Hank, "that electric battery you repaired don't work worth a cent."

The great and appalling truth came to Mr. Nape slowly. In a dazed way he managed to reached the outskirts of the throng about his host and sank into a chair.

His moustache! the electric battery! he groaned in spirit.

"Say, Mr. Nape,"--Hank was by his side--"you'll keep the matter dark--you know. What you heard this morning--we'll split the tiara or I'll toss you for the diamond necklace."

Roderick rose with dignity.

"Mr. Hankey, you are an American and you cannot understand my feelings, but I consider I have been treated most----"

"Mrs. and Miss Terrill," announced the grave man-servant, and Hank lost all interest in Mr. Roderick Nape.

He gave a quick glance at the Duke and grinned, for the scarlet-faced young man for the first and last time in his life lost his head and grew incoherent.

"Oh, yes, America is a lovely country--close to New York you know, beautiful sunsets every night at 10. I mean fireworks in Madison Square Gardens. Yes, I knew President Lincoln intimately. How do you do, Miss Terrill? this is very pluc--kind of you."

Mrs. Terrill has been treated with scant courtesy in these pages, but the part she played in this story is analogous to the part she played in life. She was one of those women who live in the everlasting background--none the worse for that, but no better. The Duke had looked forward to the meeting with a vague dread. When he saw her he experienced a great relief, when she spoke he was grateful. He found an opportunity to speak with her alone.

"My daughter has told me," she said simply. "I'm afraid I ought to be more prejudiced against you than I am, and I'm sure you were not looking forward with any eagerness to meet me."

His smiling denial she waved aside. She was a pretty woman of fifty. She looked no less, yet she was pretty. For beauty is not of any age, any more than it is of any colour. The Duke with his quick sympathies saw behind the laughter in her eyes the shadow of suffering. He had lived too near to sorrow to mistake its evidence. Secretly, he wondered why this woman with her ready wit and her unquestionable charm had played no greater part in life--for unerringly and instinctively he had estimated her place in the world.

She had an embarrassing way of reading one's thoughts.

"You are wondering why I am the Shadowy Lady," she asked with a glint of amusement in her eyes, "yet you must remember a time--did I not overhear you claiming acquaintance with Lincoln?--when it was woman's prerogative to retire: when her virtues were concomitant with her obscurity. Some women rebelled and reached fame by way of the law courts, some women rebelled and died, some acquiesced, waiting for the fashion to change. I was one of those, and when the fashion changed I was satisfied with the old order and remained behind the curtain, peaceably."

He looked at her and nodded.

"I understand," he said, for there was sufficient of the woman in his heart to understand sacrifice. She walked away and sent him Alicia.

They were exchanging banalities for the benefit of the surrounding audience when Hank came looking preternaturally solemn. "That custard, Duke."

His friend stared.

"What about it?"

"She's gone."

The Duke waited.

"That custard," said Hank impressively, "we made her, boiled her, stuck eggs all over her, and put her outside on the window-ledge to cool off."

The Duke said nothing, but his lips quivered.

"That custard was surely great," Hank went on, growing melancholy, "we copied her out of an evenin' paper, and whisked her and frisked her till she sizzled--and she's gone."

There was a solemn pause; the spectators held their breath, out of respect for Hank's grief.

"Whilst there was a sound of revelry downstairs, there came a thief," said Hank oracularly, "she clomb up the rare-old-ivy-green and started in to sample that custard."

The Duke leant forward.

"Not Tibs?" he asked breathlessly.

"Oh, not Tibs?" pleaded the girl.

"Tibs, it was surely," said Hank bitterly, "I saw that kinky tail of hers goin' over the wall."