The Disentanglers

‘Thanks, old cock,’ said Scremerston. ‘Sorry to have bored you, but I had to speak to somebody.’

* * * * * *

‘Best thing you could do,’ said Logan. ‘You’ll feel ever so much better. That kind of worry comes of keeping things to oneself, till molehills look mountains. If you like I’ll go with you to Norway myself.’

‘Thanks, awfully,’ said Scremerston, but he did not seem very keen. Poor little Scremerston!

Logan ‘breasted the brae’ from the riverside to the house. His wading-boots were heavy, for he had twice got in over the tops thereof; heavy was his basket that Fenwick carried behind him, but light was Logan’s heart, for the bustard had slain its dozens of good trout. He and the keeper emerged from the wood on the level of the lawn. All the great mass of the house lay dark before them. Logan was to let himself in by the locked French window; for it was very late – about two in the morning. He had the key of the window-door in his pocket. A light moved through the long gallery: he saw it pass each window and vanish. There was dead silence: not a leaf stirred. Then there rang out a pistol-shot, or was it two pistol-shots? Logan ran for the window, his rod, which he had taken down after fishing, in his hand.

‘Hurry to the back door, Fenwick!’ he said; and Fenwick, throwing down the creel, but grasping the long landing-net, flew to the back way. Logan opened the drawing-room window, took out his matchbox, with trembling ringers lit a candle, and, with the candle in one hand, the rod in the other, sped through the hall, and along a back passage leading to the gunroom. He had caught a glimpse of the Earl running down the main staircase, and had guessed that the trouble was on the ground floor. As he reached the end of the long dark passage, Fenwick leaped in by the back entrance, of which the door was open. What Logan saw was a writhing group – the Prince of Scalastro struggling in the arms of three men: a long white heap lay crumpled in a corner. Fenwick, at this moment, threw the landing-net over the head of one of the Prince’s assailants, and with a twist, held the man half choked and powerless. Fenwick went on twisting, and, with the leverage of the long shaft of the net, dragged the wretch off the Prince, and threw him down. Another of the men turned on Logan with a loud guttural oath, and was raising a pistol. Logan knew the voice at last – knew the Jesuit now. ‘Rien ne va plus!’ he cried, and lunged, with all the force and speed of an expert fencer, at the fellow’s face with the point of the rod. The metal joints clicked and crashed through the man’s mouth, his pistol dropped, and he staggered, cursing through his blood, against the wall. Logan picked up the revolver as the Prince, whose hands were now free, floored the third of his assailants with an upper cut. Logan thrust the revolver into the Prince’s hand. ‘Keep them quiet with that,’ he said, and ran to where the Earl, who had entered unseen in the struggle, was kneeling above the long, white, crumpled heap.

It was Scremerston, dead, in his night dress: poor plucky little Scremerston.

* * * * * *

Afterwards, before the trial, the Prince told Logan how matters had befallen. ‘I was wakened,’ he said – ‘you were very late, you know, and we had all gone to bed – I was wakened by a banging door. If you remember, I told you all, on the night of your arrival at Rookchester, how I hated that sound. I tried not to think of it, and was falling asleep when it banged again – a double knock. I was nearly asleep, when it clashed again. There was no wind, my window was open and I looked out: I only heard the river murmuring and the whistle of a passing train. The stillness made the abominable recurrent noise more extraordinary. I dressed in a moment in my smoking-clothes, lit a candle, and went out of my room, listening. I walked along the gallery – ’

‘It was your candle that I saw as I crossed the lawn,’ said Logan.

‘When a door opened,’ the Prince went on – ‘the door of one of the rooms on the landing – and a figure, all in white, – it was Scremerston, – emerged and disappeared down the stairs. I followed at the top of my speed. I heard a shot, or rather two pistols that rang out together like one. I ran through the hall into the long back passage at right-angles to it, down the passage to the glimmer of light through the partly glazed door at the end of it. Then my candle was blown out and three men set on me. They had nearly pinioned me when you and Fenwick took them on both flanks. You know the rest. They had the boat unmoored, a light cart ready on the other side, and a steam-yacht lying off Warkworth. The object, of course, was to kidnap me, and coerce or torture me into renewing the lease of the tables at Scalastro. Poor Scremerston, who was a few seconds ahead of me, not carrying a candle, had fired in the dark, and missed. The answering fire, which was simultaneous, killed him. The shots saved me, for they brought you and Fenwick to the rescue. Two of the fellows whom we damaged were – ’

‘The Genoese pipers, of course,’ said Logan.

‘And you guessed, from the cry you gave, who my confessor (he banged the door, of course to draw me) turned out to be?’

‘Yes, the head croupier at Scalastro years ago; but he wore a beard and blue spectacles in the old time, when he raked in a good deal of my patrimony,’ said Logan. ‘But how was he planted on you?’

‘My old friend, Father Costa, had died, and it is too long a tale of forgery and fraud to tell you how this wretch was forced on me. He had been a Jesuit, but was unfrocked and expelled from Society for all sorts of namable and unnamable offences. His community believed that he was dead. So he fell to the profession in which you saw him, and, when the gambling company saw that I was disinclined to let that hell burn any longer on my rock, ingenious treachery did the rest.’

‘By Jove!’ said Logan.

* * * * *

The Prince of Scalastro, impoverished by his own generous impulse, now holds high rank in the Japanese service. His beautiful wife is much admired in Yokohama.

The Earl was nursed through the long and dangerous illness which followed the shock of that dreadful July night, by the unwearying assiduity of his kinswoman, Miss Willoughby. On his recovery, the bride (for the Earl won her heart and hand) who stood by him at the altar looked fainter and more ghostly than the bridegroom. But her dark hour of levity was passed and over. There is no more affectionate pair than the Earl and Countess of Embleton. Lady Mary, who lives with them, is once more an aunt, and spoils, it is to be feared, the young Viscount Scremerston, a fine but mischievous little boy. On the fate of the ex-Jesuit we do not dwell: enough to say that his punishment was decreed by the laws of our country, not of that which he had disgraced.

The manuscripts of the Earl have been edited by him and the Countess for the Roxburghe Club.

VIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LADY PATRONESS

‘I cannot bring myself to refuse my assent. It would break the dear child’s heart. She has never cared for anyone else, and, oh, she is quite wrapped up in him. I have heard of your wonderful cures, Mr. Merton, I mean successes, in cases which everyone has given up, and though it seems a very strange step to me, I thought that I ought to shrink from no remedy’ —

‘However unconventional,’ said Merton, smiling. He felt rather as if he were being treated like a quack doctor, to whom people (if foolish enough) appeal only as the last desperate resource.

The lady who filled, and amply filled, the client’s chair, Mrs. Malory, of Upwold in Yorkshire, was a widow, obviously, a widow indeed. ‘In weed’ was an unworthy calembour which flashed through Merton’s mind, since Mrs. Malory’s undying regret for her lord (a most estimable man for a coal owner) was explicitly declared, or rather was blazoned abroad, in her costume. Mrs. Mallory, in fact, was what is derisively styled ‘Early Victorian’ – ‘Middle’ would have been, historically, more accurate. Her religion was mildly Evangelical; she had been brought up on the Memoirs of the Fairchild Family, by Mrs. Sherwood, tempered by Miss Yonge and the Waverley Novels. On these principles she had trained her family. The result was that her sons had not yet brought the family library, and the family Romneys and Hoppners, to Christie’s. Not one of them was a director of any company, and the name of Malory had not yet been distinguished by decorating the annals of the Courts of Bankruptcy or of Divorce. In short, a family more deplorably not ‘up to date,’ and more ‘out of the swim’ could scarcely be found in England.

Such, and of such connections, was the lady, fair, faded, with mildly aquiline features, and an aspect at once distinguished and dowdy, who appealed to Merton. She sought him in what she, at least, regarded as the interests of her eldest daughter, an heiress under the will of a maternal uncle. Merton had met the young lady, who looked like a portrait of her mother in youth. He knew that Miss Malory, now ‘wrapped up in’ her betrothed lover, would, in a few years, be equally absorbed in ‘her boys.’ She was pretty, blonde, dull, good, and cast by Providence for the part of one of the best of mothers, and the despair of what man soever happened to sit next her at a dinner party. Such women are the safeguards of society – though sneered at by the frivolous as ‘British Matrons.’

‘I have laid the case before the – where I always take my troubles,’ said Mrs. Malory, ‘and I have not felt restrained from coming to consult you. When I permitted my daughter’s engagement (of course after carefully examining the young man’s worldly position) I was not aware of what I know now. Matilda met him at a visit to some neighbours – he really is very attractive, and very attentive – and it was not till we came to London for the season that I heard the stories about him. Some of them have been pointed out to me, in print, in the dreadful French newspapers, others came to me in anonymous letters. As far as a mother may, I tried to warn Matilda, but there are subjects on which one can hardly speak to a girl. The Vidame, in fact,’ said Mrs. Malory, blushing, ‘is celebrated – I should say infamous – both in France and Italy, Poland too, as what they call un homme aux bonnes fortunes. He has caused the break-up of several families. Mr. Merton, he is a rake,’ whispered the lady, in some confusion.

‘He is still young; he may reform,’ said Merton, ‘and no doubt a pure affection will be the saving of him.’

‘So Matilda believes, but, though a Protestant – his ancestors having left France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nancy – Nantes I mean – I am certain that he is not under conviction.’

‘Why does he call himself Vidame, “the Vidame de la Lain”?’ asked Merton.

‘It is an affectation,’ said Mrs. Malory. ‘None of his family used the title in England, but he has been much on the Continent, and has lands in France; and, I suppose, has romantic ideas. He is as much French as English, more I am afraid. The wickedness of that country! And I fear it has affected ours. Even now – I am not a scandal-monger, and I hope for the best – but even last winter he was talked about,’ Mrs. Malory dropped her voice, ‘with a lady whose husband is in America, Mrs. Brown-Smith.’

‘A lady for whom I have the very highest esteem,’ said Merton, for, indeed, Mrs. Brown-Smith was one of his references or Lady Patronesses; he knew her well, and had a respect for her character, au fond, as well as an admiration for her charms.

‘You console me indeed,’ said Mrs. Malory. ‘I had heard – ’

‘People talk a great deal of ill-natured nonsense,’ said Merton warmly. ‘Do you know Mrs. Brown-Smith?’

‘We have met, but we are not in the same set; we have exchanged visits, but that is all.’

‘Ah!’ said Merton thoughtfully. He remembered that when his enterprise was founded Mrs. Brown-Smith had kindly offered her practical services, and that he had declined them for the moment. ‘Mrs. Malory,’ he went on, after thinking awhile, ‘may I take your case into my consideration – the marriage is not till October, you say, we are in June – and I may ask for a later interview? Of course you shall be made fully aware of every detail, and nothing shall be done without your approval. In fact all will depend on your own co-operation. I don’t deny that there may be distasteful things, but if you are quite sure about this gentleman’s – ’

‘Character?’ said Mrs. Malory. ‘I am so sure that it has cost me many a wakeful hour. You will earn my warmest gratitude if you can do anything.’

‘Almost everything will depend on your own energy, and tolerance of our measures.’

‘But we must not do evil that good may come,’ said Mrs. Malory nervously.

‘No evil is contemplated,’ said Merton. But Mrs. Malory, while consenting, so far, did not seem quite certain that her estimate of ‘evil’ and Merton’s would be identical.

She had suffered poignantly, as may be supposed, before she set the training of a lifetime aside, and consulted a professional expert. But the urbanity and patience of Merton, with the high and unblemished reputation of his Association, consoled her. ‘We must yield where we innocently may,’ she assured herself, ‘to the changes of the times. Lest one good order’ (and ah, how good the Early Victorian order had been!) ‘should corrupt the world.’ Mrs. Malory knew that line of poetry. Then she remembered that Mrs. Brown-Smith was on the list of Merton’s references, and that reassured her, more or less.

As for Merton, he evolved a plan in his mind, and consulted Bradshaw’s invaluable Railway Guide.

On the following night Merton was fortunate or adroit enough to find himself seated beside Mrs. Brown-Smith in a conservatory at a party given by the Montenegrin Ambassador. Other occupants of the fairy-like bower of blossoms, musical with all the singing of the innumerable fountains, could not but know (however preoccupied) that Mrs. Brown-Smith was being amused. Her laughter ‘rang merry and loud,’ as the poet says, though not a word of her whispered conversation was audible. Conservatories (in novels) are dangerous places for confidences, but the pale and angry face of Miss Malory did not suddenly emerge from behind a grove of gardenias, and startle the conspirators. Indeed, Miss Malory was not present; she and her sister had no great share in the elegant frivolities of the metropolis.

‘It all fits in beautifully,’ said Mrs. Brown-Smith. ‘Just let me look at the page of Bradshaw again.’ Merton handed to her a page of closely printed matter. ‘9.17 P.M., 9.50 P.M.’ read Mrs. Brown-Smith aloud; ‘it gives plenty of time in case of delays. Oh, this is too delicious! You are sure that these trains won’t be altered. It might be awkward.’

‘I consulted Anson,’ said Merton. Anson was famous for his mastery of time-tables, and his prescience as to railway arrangements.

‘Of course it depends on the widow,’ said Mrs. Brown-Smith, ‘I shall see that Johnnie is up to time. He hopes to undersell the opposition soap’ (Mr. Brown-Smith was absent in America, in the interests of that soap of his which is familiar to all), ‘and he is in the best of humours. Then their grouse! We have disease on our moors in Perthshire; I was in despair. But the widow needs delicate handling.’

‘You won’t forget – I know how busy you are – her cards for your party?’

‘They shall be posted before I sleep the sleep of conscious innocence.’

‘And real benevolence,’ said Merton.

‘And revenge,’ added Mrs. Brown-Smith. ‘I have heard of his bragging, the monster. He has talked about me. And I remember how he treated Violet Lebas.’

At this moment the Vidame de la Lain, a tall, fair young man, vastly too elegant, appeared, and claimed Mrs. Brown-Smith for a dance. With a look at Merton, and a sound which, from less perfect lips, might have been described as a suppressed giggle, Mrs. Brown-Smith rose, then turning, ‘Post the page to me, Mr. Merton,’ she said. Merton bowed, and, folding up the page of the time-table, he consigned it to his cigarette case.

* * * * * *

Mrs. Malory received, with a blending of emotions, the invitation to the party of Mrs. Brown-Smith. The social popularity and the wealth of the hostess made such invitations acceptable. But the wealth arose from trade, in soap, not in coal, and coal (like the colza bean) is ‘a product of the soil,’ the result of creative forces which, in the geological past, have worked together for the good of landed families. Soap, on the other hand, is the result of human artifice, and is certainly advertised with more of emphasis and of ingenuity than of delicacy. But, by her own line of descent, Mrs. Brown-Smith came from a Scottish house of ancient standing, historically renowned for its assassins, traitors, and time-servers. This partly washed out the stain of soap. Again, Mrs. Malory had heard the name of Mrs. Brown-Smith taken in vain, and that in a matter nearly affecting her Matilda’s happiness. On the other side, Merton had given the lady a valuable testimonial to character. Moreover, the Vidame would be at her party, and Mrs. Malory told herself that she could study the ground. Above all, the girls were so anxious to go: they seldom had such a chance. Therefore, while the Early Victorian moralist hesitated, the mother accepted.

They were all glad that they went. Susan, the younger Miss Malory, enjoyed herself extremely. Matilda danced with the Vidame as often as her mother approved. The conduct of Mrs. Brown-Smith was correctness itself. She endeared herself to the girls: invited them to her place in Perthshire, and warmly congratulated Mrs. Malory on the event approaching in her family. The eye of maternal suspicion could detect nothing amiss. Thanks mainly to Mrs. Brown-Smith, the girls found the season an earthly Paradise: and Mrs. Malory saw much more of the world than she had ever done before. But she remained vigilant, and on the alert. Before the end of July she had even conceived the idea of inviting Mrs. Brown-Smith, fatigued by her toils, to inhale the bracing air of Upwold in the moors. But she first consulted Merton, who expressed his warm approval.

‘It is dangerous, though she has been so kind,’ sighed Mrs. Malory. ‘I have observed nothing to justify the talk which I have heard, but I am in doubt.’

‘Dangerous! it is safety,’ said Merton.

‘How?’

Merton braced himself for the most delicate and perilous part of his enterprise.

‘The Vidame de la Lain will be staying with you?’

‘Naturally,’ said Mrs. Malory. ‘And if there is any truth in what was whispered – ’

‘He will be subject to temptation,’ said Merton.

‘Mrs. Brown-Smith is so pretty and so amusing, and dear Matilda; she takes after my dear husband’s family, though the best of girls, Matilda has not that flashing manner.’

‘But surely no such thing as temptation should exist for a man so fortunate as de la Lain! And if it did, would his conduct not confirm what you have heard, and open the eyes of Miss Malory?’

‘It seems so odd to be discussing such things with – so young a man as you – not even a relation,’ sighed Mrs. Malory.

‘I can withdraw at once,’ said Merton.

‘Oh no, please don’t speak of that! I am not really at all happy yet about my daughter’s future.’

‘Well, suppose the worst by way of argument; suppose that you saw, that Miss Malory saw – ’

‘Matilda has always refused to see or to listen, and has spoken of the reforming effects of a pure affection. She would be hard, indeed, to convince that anything was wrong, but, once certain – I know Matilda’s character – she would never forgive the insult, never.’

‘And you would rather that she suffered some present distress?’

‘Than that she was tied for life to a man who could cause it? Certainly I would.’

‘Then, Mrs. Malory, as it is awkward to discuss these intimate matters with me, might I suggest that you should have an interview with Mrs. Brown-Smith herself? I assure you that you can trust her, and I happen to know that her view of the man about whom we are talking is exactly your own. More I could say as to her reasons and motives, but we entirely decline to touch on the past or to offer any opinion about the characters of our patients – the persons about whose engagements we are consulted. He might have murdered his grandmother or robbed a church, but my lips would be sealed.’

‘Do you not think that Mrs. Brown-Smith would be very much surprised if I consulted her?’

‘I know that she takes a sincere interest in Miss Malory, and that her advice would be excellent – though perhaps rather startling,’ said Merton.

‘I dislike it very much. The world has altered terribly since I was Matilda’s age,’ said Mrs. Malory; ‘but I should never forgive myself if I neglected any precaution, and I shall take your advice. I shall consult Mrs. Brown-Smith.’

Merton thus retreated from what even he regarded as a difficult and delicate affair. He fell back on his reserves; and Mrs. Brown-Smith later gave an account of what passed between herself and the representative of an earlier age:

‘She first, when she had invited me to her dreary place, explained that we ought not, she feared, to lead others into temptation. “If you think that man, de la Lain’s temptation is to drag my father’s name, and my husband’s, in the dust,” I answered, “let me tell you that I have a temptation also.”

‘“Dear Mrs. Brown-Smith,” she answered, “this is indeed honourable candour. Not for the world would I be the occasion – ”

‘I interrupted her, “My temptation is to make him the laughing stock of his acquaintance, and, if he has the impudence to give me the opportunity, I will!” And then I told her, without names, of course, that story about this Vidame Potter and Violet Lebas.’

‘I did not,’ said Merton. ‘But why Vidame Potter?’

‘His father was a Mr. Potter; his grandfather married a Miss Lalain – I know all about it – and this creature has wormed out, or invented, some story of a Vidameship, or whatever it is, hereditary in the female line, and has taken the title. And this is the man who has had the impertinence to talk about me, a Ker of Graden.’

‘But did not the story you speak of make her see that she must break off her daughter’s engagement?’

‘No. She was very much distressed, but said that her daughter Matilda would never believe it.’

‘And so you are to go to Upwold?’

‘Yes, it is a mournful place; I never did anything so good-natured. And, with the widow’s knowledge, I am to do as I please till the girl’s eyes are opened. I think it will need that stratagem we spoke of to open them.’

‘You are sure that you will be in no danger from evil tongues?’

‘They say, What say they? Let them say,’ answered Mrs. Brown-Smith, quoting the motto of the Keiths.

The end of July found Mrs. Brown-Smith at Upwold, where it is to be hoped that the bracing qualities of the atmosphere made up for the want of congenial society. Susan Malory had been discreetly sent away on a visit. None of the men of the family had arrived. There was a party of local neighbours, who did not feel the want of anything to do, but lived in dread of flushing the Vidame and Matilda out of a window seat whenever they entered a room.

As for the Vidame, being destitute of all other entertainment, he made love in a devoted manner.

But at dinner, after Mrs. Brown-Smith’s arrival, though he sat next Matilda, Mrs. Malory saw that his eyes were mainly bent on the lady opposite. The ping-pong of conversation, even, was played between him and Mrs. Brown-Smith across the table: the county neighbours were quite lost in their endeavours to follow the flight of the ball. Though the drawing-room window, after dinner, was open on the fragrant lawn, though Matilda sat close by it, in her wonted place, the Vidame was hanging over the chair of the visitor, and later, played billiards with her, a game at which Matilda did not excel. At family prayers next morning (the service was conducted by Mrs. Malory) the Vidame appeared with a white rosebud in his buttonhole, Mrs. Brown-Smith wearing its twin sister. He took her to the stream in the park where she fished, Matilda following in a drooping manner. The Vidame was much occupied in extracting the flies from the hair of Mrs. Brown-Smith, in which they were frequently entangled. After luncheon he drove with the two ladies and Mrs. Malory to the country town, the usual resource of ladies in the country, and though he sat next Matilda, Mrs. Brown-Smith was beaming opposite, and the pair did most of the talking. While Mrs. Malory and her daughter shopped, it was the Vidame who took Mrs. Brown-Smith to inspect the ruins of the Abbey. The county neighbours had left in the morning, a new set arrived, and while Matilda had to entertain them, it was Mrs Brown-Smith whom the Vidame entertained.