“I don’t care how many cards you’ve got!” said Mr. Bennett with heat. “That damned dog of yours is sniffing at my ankles!”

He looked malignantly at a fine bulldog which now emerged from its cover and, sitting down, beamed at the company. He was a sweet-tempered dog, handicapped by the outward appearance of a canine plug-ugly. Murder seemed the mildest of the desires that lay behind that rugged countenance. As a matter of fact, what he wanted was cake. His name was Smith, and Mr. Mortimer had bought him just before leaving London to serve the establishment as a watch-dog.

“He won’t hurt you,” said Mr. Mortimer carelessly.

“You keep saying that!” replied Mr. Bennett pettishly. “How do you know? He’s a dangerous beast, and if I had had any notion that you were buying him, I would have had something to say about it!”

“Whatever you might have said would have made no difference. I believe I am within my legal rights in purchasing a dog. You have a dog. At least, Wilhelmina has.”

“Yes, and Pinky-Boodles gets on splendidly with Smith,” said Billie. “I’ve seen them playing together.”

“Bulldogs are always good-tempered,” said Bream helpfully.

Mr. Bennett subsided again, and dealt the cards for the third time. That he was successful in doing so at this last attempt brought no sunshine into his mood. He was feeling thoroughly misanthropic. He disliked everybody, with perhaps the exception of Billie, for whom a faint paternal fondness still lingered. Towards the bulldog Smith his emotion was stronger than dislike. It was a blend of fear and loathing. Three days of incessant rain had brought the certainty that Mr. Mortimer only kept the brute to annoy and terrify him.

He disliked Mr. Mortimer. He disliked Bream and regretted that Billie had become engaged to him, though for years such an engagement had been his dearest desire. He disliked Jane Hubbard, now out walking in the rain with Eustace Hignett. And he disliked Eustace. The only things he liked were his meals, of which he ate largely.

Eustace, he told himself, he disliked rather more than any of the others. He resented the young man’s presence in the house; and he resented the fact that, being in the house, he should go about, pale and haggard, as though he were sickening for something. Mr. Bennett had the most violent objection to associating with people who looked as though they were sickening for something.

Black care having kept him awake into the small hours, Mr. Bennett slept late on the following morning. He looked at his watch on the dressing-table, and found that it was nearly ten. Taking a second look to assure himself that he had really slumbered to this unusual hour, he suddenly became aware of something bright and yellow resting beside the watch, and paused, transfixed; it seemed incredible to him that the sun could really be shining. It was not till he had pulled up the shades and was looking out on a garden full of brightness and warmth and singing birds that he definitely permitted himself to accept the situation.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Morning, Webster,” said Mr. Bennett heartily. “Rather late, eh?”

“It is,” replied Webster precisely, “a little late, sir. I would have awakened you at the customary hour, but Miss Bennett expressed a desire that I should permit you to sleep on. It was Miss Bennett’s opinion that the rest would do you good.”

Mr. Bennett’s sense of well-being deepened. What more could a man want in this world than fine weather and a dutiful daughter?

“She did, eh?”

“Yes, sir. She intercepted me as I was approaching your door. She desired me to give you her love and to inform you that having already breakfasted, she proposed to drive Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Bream Mortimer into Southampton in the car, as the weather was so favourable and Mr. Mortimer senior had expressed a wish to buy a panama hat.”

“A panama hat!”

“A panama hat, sir.”

Mr. Bennett’s feeling of satisfaction grew still greater. It was a fine day; he had a dutiful daughter; and he was going to see Henry Mortimer in a panama hat. Providence was spoiling him.

“Thank you, sir.” The valet withdrew like a duke and Mr. Bennett, having decanted the mug of water into the basin, began to shave himself.

Having finished shaving, he opened the drawer in the bureau where lay those white flannel trousers to which his thoughts had turned so often and so longingly. Here at last was a day worthy of them. He drew them out, and as he did so something gleamed pinkly up at him from a corner of the drawer. It was his salmon-coloured bathing-suit.

Mr. Bennett started. He had not contemplated such a thing, but, after all, why not? There was the lake, shining through the trees, a mere fifty yards away, equipped, as he remembered from his first visit to the house, not only with a diving-board but with wooden steps for the unadventurous. He would have a swim before breakfast. What could be more refreshing? It gave you an appetite and doctors recommended it. He shed his pyjamas, and climbed into the bathing-suit. And presently, looking like the sun on a foggy day, he emerged from the house and picked his way with gingerly steps across the smooth surface of the lawn.

“This,” thought Mr. Bennett, wriggling his toes luxuriously, “is the life!”

At this moment, from behind a bush where he had been thriftily burying a yesterday’s bone, Smith the bulldog waddled out on to the lawn. He drank in the exhilarating air through an upturned nose which his recent excavations had rendered somewhat muddy. Then he observed Mr. Bennett and moved gladly towards him. At first he had mistaken Mr. Bennett for some bright coloured shrub, for he was an astigmatic dog, and the discovery that he was human was a welcome one. Smith was never happy for long away from human society, and this morning an apparent conspiracy on the part of the men and women of his little world to leave him to himself had made him lonely. Here at last was a man. Smith did not recognise him, for a salmon-coloured bathing-suit is a disguise which might well baffle any dog; but that was all right. Smith remembered his friends principally by their respective bouquets. Obviously the first move was to go up and smell him. He cantered silently across the turf with this end in view. He was half-way across the lawn when some of the mud which he had inhaled when burying the bone tickled his lungs and he paused to cough.

Mr. Bennett whirled round; and just then Smith coughed again. It was a deep, rumbling cough, and to Mr. Bennett’s horrified ears it sounded like a hymn before action. He did not hesitate. With a sharp exclamation, he picked up his pink feet from the velvet turf and began to run. Smith, after a momentary pause of surprise, lumbered after him, wheezing contentedly. This man, he felt, was evidently one of the right sort, a merry playfellow.

Mr. Bennett continued to run; but, even after the first few strides, it was borne in upon him that this could not continue indefinitely. Already he had begun to pant and falter, when he perceived looming up on his left the ruins of that ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that occasion it had made merely an æsthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he saw in a flash that its practical merits also were of a sterling order. The hopelessness, for a man of his build, of trying to climb a tree had weighed upon him from the first; but this ruined castle was another matter. Mr. Bennett swerved sharply to the left, took the base of the edifice in his stride, clutched at a jutting stone, flung his foot at another, and, just as his pursuer arrived and sat panting below, pulled himself on to a ledge, where he sat with his feet hanging down well out of reach. The bulldog, Smith, gazed up at him expectantly. The game was a new one to Smith, but it seemed to have possibilities. Moreover, he was a dog who was always perfectly willing to try anything once.

Mr. Bennett, who, at the sound of that dreadful bark, had curled himself up convulsively into a ball, now began to address himself in earnest to the task of calling for assistance. A cold despair had seized him. His physical discomfort, also, was acute. All ruined castles are hard and nobbly, but it seemed to him that this particular ruined castle must be the hardest and nobbliest in the United Kingdom. However often he shifted his position, his sensitive person encountered something sharp and jagged. Insects, moreover, some large, some small, some winged, some without wings but—through Nature’s wonderful law of compensation—equipped with a number of extra pairs of legs, began to fit out exploring expeditions over his body. Mr. Bennett wriggled and swatted and roared for help, but no help came. Windles might have been a Palace of Sleep.

And then something happened which even Mr. Bennett, confirmed pessimist though he had now become, had not anticipated. The sun, which for some time had been shining in a fitful and half-hearted way, now retired permanently behind a black bank of clouds. A chill wind played about Mr Bennett’s bare ankles; and finally, first dropping like the gentle dew upon the place beneath, then swishing down in a steady flood, the rain began to fall.

Smith, the bulldog, who, like most short-necked dogs, had been feeling the heat, spread himself out gratefully and luxuriated in the wet. He had had half a mind, as things seemed to be a bit quiet out here, to retire to some shady spot and snatch an hour’s sleep; but the rain decided him to remain where he was.

It was at this point that Mr. Bennett’s manly spirit broke and time ceased to exist for him. He leaned back against the mouldering wall and let the centuries slip by him.

Æons later, a voice spoke from below.

“Hullo!” said the voice. “Having a game with the dog?”

Mr. Bennett looked down. The stalwart form of Jane Hubbard was standing beneath him, gazing up from under a tam-o’-shanter cap. The rain glistened on her upturned face, and she was plainly soaked to the skin; but she appeared as calm and unmoved as if she were chatting with cannibals on a fine afternoon beside the Congo. Smith, the bulldog, gambolled about her shapely feet.

Miss Hubbard burst into hearty, wholesome laughter. “You aren’t afraid of poor old Smith! Why, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. I say, do you know if the car has come back?”

“What in heaven’s name . . ! No, it has not!”

“I’ve got to go to the doctor’s,” said Jane. “Poor little Mr. Hignett is ill. Oh, well, I’ll have to walk. Come along, Smith!” She turned towards the drive, Smith caracoling at her side.

Mr. Bennett, though free to move, remained where he was, transfixed. That sinister word “ill” held him like a spell. Eustace Hignett was ill! He had thought all along that the fellow was sickening for something, confound him! What right had he to be ill! What right had he in the house at all when he had let it to other people?

“What’s the matter with him?” bellowed Mr. Bennett after Jane Hubbard’s retreating back.

“Eh?” queried Jane, stopping.

“What’s the matter with Hignett?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it infectious?”

“I expect so.”

“Great heavens!” cried Mr. Bennett, and sat palsied while Jane, accompanied by the bulldog, passed out of sight round the bend of the drive, the rain sluicing from her well-knit shoulder. Meantime Mr. Bennett lowered himself cautiously to the ground and squelched across the dripping grass.

In the hall, Webster, the valet, dry and dignified, was tapping the barometer with the wrist action of an ambassador knocking on the door of a friendly monarch. A lesser man would have shown surprise at the spectacle of his employer in what appeared to be some species of exotic fancy dress; but Webster’s code of behaviour ruled out all the obvious emotions.

“A sharp downpour, sir,” he remarked. “Miss Trimlett and I were compelled to postpone our ramble in the woods.”

“What! Have you been in the house all the time?” demanded Mr. Bennett.

“Fortunately, yes, sir. It would have been unpleasant to have been caught in this sharp downpour.”

“Well, I’m . . . didn’t you hear me shouting?”

“We did fancy we heard something, sir.”

“Then why the devil didn’t you come to me?”

“We supposed it to be the owls, sir, a bird very frequent in this locality, Miss Trimlett informs me. They make a sort of harsh, hooting howl, sir. I have sometimes wondered,” said Webster, pursuing a not uninteresting train of thought, “whether that might be the reason of the name.”

Before Mr. Bennett could join him in the region of speculation into which he had penetrated, there was a grinding of brakes on the gravel outside, and the wettest automobile in England drew up at the front door.

Chapter XII

From Windles to Southampton is a distance of about twenty miles; and the rain had started to fall when the car, an open one lacking even the poor protection of a cape hood, had accomplished half the homeward journey. Thereafter, the emotions of Mr. Mortimer had oscillated between a dumb misery and violent terror. Each time that the penetrating chill of the storm had convinced him that he no longer wished to live, the car, with a sudden playful slide in the direction of the ditch, would remind him that he did. For the last ten miles he had been nursing a sullen hatred for all created things: and, when entering the house, he came upon Mr. Bennett hopping about in the hall, endeavouring to detain him and tell him some long and uninteresting story, his venom concentrated itself upon his erstwhile friend. He told himself that he disliked everything else in the world but that he hated Mr. Bennett.

“Oh, get out of the way!” he snapped, shaking off the other’s hand. “Can’t you see I’m wet?”

“Wet! Wet!” Mr. Bennett’s voice quivered with self-pity. “So am I wet!”

“Father, dear,” said Billie reprovingly, “you really oughtn’t to have come into the house after bathing without drying yourself. You’ll spoil the carpet.”

“I’ve not been bathing! I’m trying to tell you . . .”

“Hullo!” said Bream, with amiable innocence, coming in at the tail-end of the party. “Been having a jolly bathe?”

Mr. Bennett danced with silent irritation, and, striking a bare toe against the leg of a chair, seized his left foot and staggered into the arms of Webster, who had been preparing to drift off to the servants’ hall. Linked together, the two proceeded across the carpet in a movement which suggested in equal parts the careless vigour of the cake-walk and the grace of the old-fashioned mazurka.

“What the devil are you doing, you fool?” cried Mr. Bennett.

“Nothing, sir. And I should be glad if you would accept my week’s notice,” replied Webster calmly.

“What’s that?”

“My notice, sir, to take effect at the expiration of the current week. I cannot acquiesce in being cursed and sworn at.”

“Oh, go to blazes!”

“Very good, sir.” Webster withdrew like a plenipotentiary who has been handed his papers on the declaration of war; and Mr. Bennett sprang to intercept Mr. Mortimer, who had slipped by and was making for the stairs.

“Mortimer!”

“Oh, what is it?”

“That infernal dog of yours. I insist on your destroying it.”

“What’s it been doing?”

“The savage brute chased me all over the garden and kept me sitting up on that damned castle the whole morning!”

“Nonsense!”

“I tell you he chased me from one end of the garden to the other! I had to run like a hare!”

The unfortunate Bream, whose sense of the humorous was simple and childlike, was not proof against the picture thus conjured up.

“C’k!” giggled Bream helplessly. “C’k, c’k, c’k!”

Mr. Bennett turned on him like a salmon-coloured fury. “Oh, it strikes you as funny, does it! It—it amuses you! Well, let me tell you that you’re altogether too light-hearted, young man, for my taste. If you think you can laugh at me with—with—er—with one hand and—and—marry my daughter with the other, you’re wrong! You can now consider your engagement at an end. Do you understand?”

“Oh, I say!” ejaculated Bream, abruptly sobered.

“I mean it! Insolent young hound. Mortimer!” bawled Mr. Bennett, once more arresting the other as he was about to mount the stairs.

“I insist on your destroying the animal! He is a menace.”

“He is nothing of the kind. A perfectly peaceable, good-tempered dog. He didn’t even bite you once.”

“Simply because I was too quick for him.”

“And every dog is allowed one bite by law. The case of Wilberforce v. Bayliss covers that point thoroughly.”

“I don’t care about the case of Wilberforce and Bayliss . . .”

“You will find that you have to. It is a legal precedent.”

There is something about a legal precedent which gives pause to the angriest man. Mr. Bennett felt, as every layman feels when arguing with a lawyer, as if he were in the coil of a python.

“Oh, it does, does it!” was all he could find to say: and it is to be doubted whether anyone ever thought of anything feebler in the shape of repartee.

“Say, Mr. Bennett . . .” began Bream at his elbow. Bream, having about as much natural intelligence as a clam, had chosen this moment to plead for a revision of sentence.

“Get out!” snarled Mr. Bennett.

“Yes, but, say . . . !”

The green baize door at the end of the hall opened and Webster appeared, looking if possible even more respectable than when he had departed. His finely chiselled-face gave no indication of the fact that he had been listening for the last ten minutes with one ear to the keyhole in company with Miss Trimlett, whose ecstasy had just brought on a severe attack of hiccoughs. The cook had put the cellar key down Miss Trimlett’s back, and the scullery maid was now fanning her with a dish-cloth.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Webster, “but cook desired me to inform you that luncheon would be served within the next few minutes. It occurred to me that you might possibly wish to make some change of costume.”

The word luncheon was one which never failed to touch a chord in Mr. Bennett’s being. Despite himself it brought a certain balm. On the other hand, he revolted at the thought of sitting down to table with a gang of thugs like the Mortimer family. The food would choke him. His digestion would not stand it.

“Bring me my lunch on a tray in my room,” he said. “I am going to bed.”

“Very good, sir.”

“But, say, Mr. Bennett . . .” resumed Bream.

“Grrh!” replied his ex-prospective father-in-law, and bounded up the stairs like a portion of the sunset which had become detached from the main body.

 

Chapter XIII

Even into the blackest days there generally creeps an occasional ray of sunshine, and there are few crises of human gloom which are not lightened by a bit of luck. It was so with Mr. Bennett in his hour of travail. There were lobsters for lunch, and his passion for lobsters had made him the talk of three New York Clubs. He ate all that had been brought to him, and sent down for more. Then, feeling for the first time since his encounter with Smith in the garden, almost happy, he lay back on his pillow and meditated on a plan of action.

“Hullo, father!” said Billie coming in to see how he was getting on. “Had a nice lunch?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Bennett, cheering up a little at the recollection. “There was nothing wrong with the lunch.”

How little we fallible mortals know! Even as he spoke a tiny fragment of lobster shell, which had been working its way silently into the tip of his tongue, was settling down under the skin and getting ready to cause him the most acute mental distress which he had ever known.

“The lunch,” said Mr. Bennett, “was excellent. Lobsters!” He licked his lips appreciatively. “And, talking of lobsters,” he went on, “I suppose that boy Bream has told you that I have broken off your engagement?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t seem very upset,” said Mr. Bennett, who was in the mood for a dramatic scene and felt a little disappointed.

“Oh, I’ve become a fatalist on the subject of my engagements.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Well, I mean, they never seem to come to anything.” Billie gazed wistfully at the counterpane. “Do you know, father, I’m beginning to think that I’m rather impulsive. I wish I didn’t do silly things in such a hurry.”

“I don’t see where the hurry comes in as regards that Mortimer boy. You took ten years to make up your mind.”

“I was not thinking of Bream. Another man.”

“Great heavens! Are you still imagining yourself in love with young Hignett?”

“Oh, no! I can see now that I was never in love with poor Eustace. I was thinking of a man I got engaged to on the boat!”