The Second E.F. Benson Megapack. E.F. Benson
asked Lady Hampshire, beginning to attend violently.
“Practically every afternoon. I always find I have forgotten something I meant to buy the day before. Also, it is a sort of retreat. One never meets there anybody one knows, which is such a rest. I don’t have to grin and talk.”
Lunch was soon over, and instead of having coffee and cigarettes served at the table, Colonel Ascot got up.
“I do hope, Lady Hampshire,” he said, “that you and the others will not hurry away, and that you will excuse me, as I have a most important engagement at a quarter-past three, which I cannot miss. It is very annoying, and the worst of it is that I made the appointment myself, quite forgetting that I was to have the pleasure of seeing you at lunch.”
“Am I to take your place as hostess?” she asked, as she sat down with him for a moment in a corner of the drawing-room.
“If you will, both now and always,” said he.
She laughed; he had proposed to her so often that a repetition was not in the least embarrassing. But somehow, today, he looked unusually attractive and handsome, and she was more serious with him than was her wont. Also the thought of doing business for Agatha was in her mind.
“Ah, my dear friend,” she said, “I should have to know so much more about you first. For instance, that appointment of your own making seems to me to need inquiry. Now be truthful, Colonel Ascot, and tell me if it is not a woman you are going to see?”
“Well, it is.”
“I knew it,” she said.
“But you must let me tell you more,” said he. “She is an old governess of my sister’s, whom I—I want to be kind to. Such a good old soul. The sort of helpless old lady with whom one couldn’t break an appointment that one had made.”
Lady Hampshire laughed again.
“Your details are admirable,” she said. “And detail is of such prime importance in any artistic production.”
“Artistic production?” said he. “Surely you don’t suspect me of—”
“I suspect everybody of everything,” she interrupted lightly, “owing to my extensive knowledge of myself. But go on; I want more details. What is the name and address of this helpless old governess?”
“Miss Agatha Ainslie,” said he. “She lives in Whitstaple Street, just off the Square.”
Lady Hampshire had nerves of steel. If they had been of any other material they must have snapped like the strings of the lyre of Hope in Mr. Watts’s picture. Only in this case there would not have been a single one left. Colonel Ascot going to see Agatha at a quarter-past three.… How on earth did he know of Agatha’s existence? What was Agatha to him, or he to Agatha? And surely it was at a quarter-past three that the messenger of the ruthless M. S. was going to call at Whitstaple Street, where he would find the packet of bank-notes for £250 that Lady Hampshire had made ready before she came out to lunch. Would they meet on the doorstep? What did it all mean?
Her head whirled, but she managed to command her voice.
“What a delightful name!” she said. “I’m sure Miss Ainslie must be a delightful old lady with ringlets and a vinaigrette and a mourning-brooch.”
“I haven’t seen her for years,” said Colonel Ascot. “I will tell you about her when we meet again. Do let it be soon!”
“Perhaps you would drop in for tea today?” she suggested, expunging from her mind several other engagements. “I shall be alone.”
“That will make up for my curtailed luncheon-party,” said he.
He made his excuses to his guests, and after allowing him a liberal time in which he could leave the house, Lady Hampshire rose also.
“You are not going yet, dear Cynthia?” asked the Duchess. “I wanted to talk to you about the advantage of doing your shopping at Mason’s. And the danger of it,” she added, catching Lady Hampshire’s kind understanding eye.
Lady Hampshire felt torn between conflicting interests. Here, she unerringly conjectured, there was fish to fry for Agatha, and yet other fish, so to speak, who perhaps wanted to fry. Agatha demanded a more immediate attention.
The duchess’s complication must wait: she was dining with her tomorrow. Colonel Ascot was going to see Agatha: nothing must prevent Lady Hampshire from hearing what his business was.
She went across the Square, and let herself into her own house. There were half a dozen telegrams lying on the hall table, but without dreaming of opening any, she went straight to her bedroom and locked the door. Someone—probably the second footman—was being funny at the servants’ dinner, for shrieks of laughter ascended from the basement. As a rule, she loved to know that her household was enjoying itself, but today that merriment left her cold, and next moment she was in Agatha’s house and pursing her lips into the shrill whistle with which she always summoned Magsby.
“I left a note addressed to M. S.,” she said; “I want it.”
The words were yet in her mouth, when the bell of Agatha’s front door rang in an imperious manner, and Lady Hampshire peeped cautiously out through the yellow muslin blinds. On the doorstep was standing an old, old man with a long white beard. He leaned heavily on a stick, and wore a frayed overcoat.
She tiptoed back from the window.
“Give me the note,” she said, “and wait till I get upstairs. Then answer the door, and tell Methuselah that Miss Ainslie will be down in a moment.”
Lady Hampshire stole up to Agatha’s room, and hastily assumed her grey wig, her spectacles, her rouge, her large elastic-sided boots, her lip-salve, her creaking alpaca gown, and with the envelope containing bank-notes for £250, addressed in Agatha’s dramatic sloping handwriting to the messenger of M. S., descended again to her sitting-room. Methuselah rose as she entered, and she made him her ordinary prim Agatha bow, and spoke in Miss Ainslie’s husky treble voice.
“The messenger of M. S.,” she observed. “Quite so.”
“That is my name for the present,” said the old man in a fruity tenor.
“I received your master’s note, sir,” said Agatha, “and you cannot be expected to know what pain and surprise it caused me. But what does he suppose he is going to get by it?”
Lady Hampshire was not used to spectacles, and they dimmed her natural acuteness of vision, besides making her eyes ache. Before her was a sordid old ruin of humanity, red-eyed, white-bearded, a prey, it would seem, to lumbago, nasal catarrh, and other senile ailments. Probably in a few minutes—for it was scarcely a quarter past three yet—Colonel Ascot would arrive; and again her head whirled at the thought of the possible nightmares that Providence still had in store for her.
Methuselah blew his nose.
“I fancy my master rather expected to get £250 in notes or gold,” he said. “He knows a good deal about Miss Ainslie, he does. He is quite willing to share his knowledge with others, he is.”
Lady Hampshire raised her head proudly, so that she could get a glimpse of this old ruffian under her spectacles. The ways of genius are past finding out, and she could never give a firm reason for what she said next. A brilliant unconscious intuition led her to say it.
“There is nothing the world may not know,” she said; “in England it is no crime to be poor, and though I have been in a humble position all my life, my life has been an honest one. There is no disgrace inherent in the profession of a governess. For many years I was governess to Colonel Ascot’s sister.
“Good God!” said Methuselah.
That was sufficient for Lady Hampshire. She took off her spectacles altogether and closely scrutinized that astonished rheumy face. And then her kindly soul was all aflame with indignation at this dastardly attempt to blackmail poor Agatha.
“In