# The Romantic Lodger

Extracted from The Green Book magazine, Sept 1918, pp. 457–472. Accompanying illustrations by R. L. Lambdin may be omitted. [The Adventures of Mrs. Middleton's Husband #2]
THE second of “The Adventures of Mrs. Middleton's Husband.” Peter Middleton, you remember, rebelled against being a mere rich woman's husband and charity-distributor; and though he loved the really adorable Mrs. Middleton, he set out to find fortune “on his own.”
The Romantic Lodger
By I. A. R. Wylie Author of “Toward Morning,” etc.
Illustrated by R. L. Lambdin
“BROWNING, indeed!”—said Mrs. Jones severely. “Browning!” She turned the little book over and opened it with profound disapproval. It was one of these artistic suède-bound volumes which look like short-haired dogs with their coats brushed the wrong way. They cost anything from a shilling upward and set the teeth on edge, and if the donor is thoughtful and does not write on the flyleaf, they can be sent back to him next Christmas. But the fate of this particular volume had been made irrevocable. Mrs. Jones read the inscription aloud with a long-drawn-out solemnity that suggested the heading of a tombstone.
“Miss Martha Jones from Percy Bingham.
““One idea that, starlike, lures him on To its exclusive purpose.”
“Now, my dear, what does that mean, pray?”
“It's poetry, Mother,” said the girl from the other side of the fireplace. She was leaning forward with her chin in her hand, staring into the red embers, her thin, intent face brightened by a momentary flood of color. “Browning was a poet, Mother.”
“Thank you, my dear. I gathered that much. But that doesn't explain 'luring him on.' Does it? I don't think it sounds nice—I don't really. It's no use smiling like that, Martha. People always smile when they don't know what they're talking about. I don't believe you know yourself what it means.”
“Oh, yes, I do. Mr. Bingham explained—”
“Well, tell Mr. Bingham from me that he'd much better be saving up for a new overcoat instead of buying nasty sticky little books—”
“I did tell him, Mother, but he said he knew how I loved that—that sort of thing. One ought to improve one's mind, and Browning is so improving. He makes me feel beautiful—”
“Well, as long as you feel it, I suppose it doesn't matter what you look like. Your hair is coming down. And put your father's slippers before the fire, child. Really, you forget everything. Good gracious, there's the postman!”
It was as though she had announced an event of terrific if incalculable possibilities. The red felt slippers with the embroidered toes clattered onto the fender. The color deepened in the girl's cheeks.
“I'll go—I'll go and see what it is,” she stammered. She slipped out into the hall, and in a minute was back again, her tall meager figure in the black serge dress looking like one of the shadows which hung dismally about the dingy little room.
“It's a letter—for you, Mother.”
“Well, don't stand there like that. I didn't suppose it was an elephant. Who is it from?”
“I don't know, Mother.”
Mrs. Jones composed herself with an effort.
“My dear, I dreamed last night of a sea-serpent. Sea-serpents mean legacies—or is it flamingoes? Martha, get my dream-book—no, open the letter. We shall know at once. But remember, I told you—”
“It's from Dr. Murphy, Mother,” the girl interrupted wearily. “Ten pounds ten, for medical attendance.”
MRS. JONES lay back in her chair with a sigh. Her large, care-worn face resumed its normal expression of gentle resignation.
“Then it couldn't have been a sea-serpent, after all. I do wonder now where we are going to find ten pounds ten. I don't know, I'm sure.”
The girl remained silent for a moment, her pale, wistful eyes turned to the fire again as though seeking there some solution to the riddle.
“We ought to explain to Dr. Murphy,” she said at last. “He might make a little difference for us. I believe doctors do sometimes.”
“Beg, indeed! Thank you, Martha. From the way you talk, we might belong to the lower classes.”
“Sometimes I wish we did.” The girl threw back her head with a flash of energy. “Then we shouldn't have to pay Dr. Murphy, and people would give us coal and blankets and hot soup—as though we didn't want it all every bit as much.”
Mrs. Jones interrupted with a stately gesture.
“Hush, Martha. You have no pride, my dear. Dr. Murphy must be paid. No doubt we shall let our spare room—”
“We never shall—not as long as we advertise in The Morning Post and don't put a notice in the window. I don't believe anybody who reads The Morning Post ever wants to live in Ranleigh Crescent.”
“And why not, pray? If it's good enough for the vicar, it's good enough for most people, I should hope. No, I wont have a notice in the window. I dislike reminding you, my dear, “but your grandfather on my side was a town councilor, and one owes something to one's family. 'Noblesse oblige,' as the French used to say in my schooldays.” And she settled herself back with an air of gentle finality which dwarfed doctors' bills and such vulgarities into insignificance.
Martha Jones remained unresponsive. The highly ornamental clock on the chimney-piece coughed five times in announcement of the hour. Some one outside whistled a bar of his own particular version of the latest waltz, and another deeper wave of color covered the girl's pale cheeks.
“I'll go and see about Father's tea,” she said with a quiver of excitement in her voice. “He'll be in soon.”
SHE slipped noiselessly from the room, but she did not go to the kitchen. Instead she ran down the narrow, dingy hall and snatching an old rain-coat from the hatrack, opened the front door. The prospect was not cheerful. It had been raining, and Ranleigh Crescent had become a melancholy vista of pools and dripping, leafless trees—planted very wide apart in accordance with the dictates of economy. At the bottom of the absurd garden a masculine form was distinctly visible, and Martha Jones, regardless of wet gravel and thin shoes, started to run.
“Mr. Bingham! Mr. Bingham!”
She spoke breathlessly, as though he had been hurrying past, whereas he gave the impression of having been planted on the other side of the garden gate for good and all. He raised his bowler hat in respectful greeting.
“I had almost given up hope, Miss Martha. Indeed I didn't expect you. It's been raining in torrents.”
“And you in that thin coat too!” Her voice rang with gentle reproach. “Mr. Bingham, you don't take care of yourself. I shall tell your mother. I'm sure the cough must be worse.”
He gave a little uneasy laugh like a pleased schoolboy. Indeed, as far as appearance went, he did not look much more. At a stretch he might have measured five feet three, but the slightness of his build, the sloping shoulders under the covert coat of sporting cut and shiny seams made him seem even smaller. Added to these dimensions there was a white, thin face with a pair of pale blue eyes behind glasses—at that moment bright with gratification.
“Oh, it's all right, Miss Martha,” he said, splendidly indifferent. “The doctor says I ought to get out of the office, but of course that's impossible. Doctors don't seem to think, do they? Thirty-five bob a week isn't to be sneezed at, and then of course there's a chance of a rise if one sticks to it.” He patted a parcel of books under his arm. “Extra work!” he said proudly. “I'm doing it on my own. One day the chief may notice and make it forty. One never knows one's luck.”
And then he coughed and apologized, and then coughed again. Martha Jones studied him with troubled eyes.
“You oughtn't to do it,” she said, “all that work, I mean. You're not strong, Mr. Bingham.”
“Oh, yes, I am. I don't look much, but I'm wiry—wiry all through. Richardson of ours felt my muscle this morning and said he'd never known anything like it.” He threw out his narrow chest. “I can stand a lot, and when a man has a goal ahead, he jolly well has to work for it, you know.”
The thin streak of color which had mounted his cheeks seemed to reflect itself in hers. She looked away.
“Mr. Bingham, if—if anybody who was a friend of yours,—a great friend,—asked you for her—his—their sake to be careful, would you do it?”
“Oh, Miss Martha, if she—if anyone cared enough—”
“Would you?”
“I'd—I'd want to work the harder.”
And when they looked at each other again, they found that a miracle had been performed. On either side of a golden gate were two lovely human beings—handsomer and nobler than anything before created—and all around them palaces and wonderful trees just breaking out into blossom. And the sun was shining—a new sun in a new sky above a new world.
Martha Jones had her hand on the gate. Her eyes were bright with tears.
“I want to thank you for the book,” she said softly. “It was very beautiful.”
“Life is very beautiful,” said the little man with the cough and the coat of sporting cut.
NOW, the worst of miraculous transformations like the one recently described is that they have a nasty trick of twisting themselves back into their original form—especially on provocation. The provocation in this instance was a stranger with a hand-bag. He had been hesitating for some time on the other side of the road, evidently undesirous of interrupting, but he now crossed and lifted his hat. Instantly palace, trees and sunshine vanished, and Ranleigh Crescent was itself again—a rather dismal self, composed of minute semi-detached residences with absurd gardens and a general air of dejected respectability.
“I beg your pardon,” the stranger said, “but could you tell me if this is Villa Blenheim?”
Martha Jones looked up shyly and then crimsoned. She had never seen anyone quite like this young man before. It was not merely his height or the good-looking face with the pleasant eyes or the well-cut clothes; it was all this and something else which she could not define, something not found in Ranleigh Crescent. Perhaps it was his pallor and the suggestion of sadness behind the smile. To her own alarm she felt her heart beating with unreasoned sympathy.
“This is Villa Blenheim,” she stammered.
“Thank you. I saw a notice in The Morning Post about a paying guest. I wonder if I'd do.”
She gave a little gasp. In a confused vision the little spare room with its plush sofa and cheap oleographs arranged itself along side of Dr. Murphy's receipted bill and finally dissolved, leaving her with her eyes fixed blankly on the stranger's half-questioning, half-laughing face. She pulled herself together.
“Oh, I'm sure—if it's only good enough. I'll just ask Mother.”
“Wait a minute, though.” He held out a detaining hand. “I wont bother you for nothing. Couldn't you tell me your terms first? You see, I have to consider the point. I'm hard up.”
For her the information, delivered with the same unfailing good-humor, was like a blow. First of all, it took the receipt off Dr. Murphy's bill, and secondly it left her with an ache somewhere in the region of the heart. To be hard up was in itself commonplace, but that this handsome, noble-looking stranger should be hard up was the nearest approach to genuine romantic tragedy that she had ever met.
“We thought of asking twenty-five shillings a week,” she said faintly.
He laughed.
“Oh, I dare say I could run to that for a week or two. Perhaps by that time I shall have found work.”
“What's your line?” asked Mr. Bingham rather suddenly. For the first few minutes he had suffered an eclipse, but the mention of financial straits restored him to his self-possession. To make up for any physical differences, his manner had become pompous—a trifle patronizing. The stranger turned.
“I beg your pardon—I didn't see you before. My line? Oh, sort of secretary to rich ladies.”
Mr. Bingham pursed his lips.
“Oh,” he said with polite disapprobation. “A sort of gentleman's job?”
“You mean a rotten job—and quite right too. I chucked it, or rather it chucked me. And now I wonder if I might see my room?”
“Of course—if you'd come this way.”
She spoke nervously, and she ignored Mr. Bingham. She was sure he had hurt the stranger's feelings with his air of superiority. And after all, what right had he to be superior—a little clerk with thirty-five shillings a week? For the first time she felt vaguely aggravated. As the stranger followed her up. the path, she glanced back at him and—yes, he looked sadder, paler.
“If you would give me your name,” she said gently, “I'll tell mother.”
“My name?” he said. “Oh—Peter Middleton.”
“Then will you come in, Mr. Middleton?”
She stood aside for him to pass. Some one waved frantically from the gate, but she took no notice, and a minute later the door banged.
Mr. Percy Bingham drifted away into the fog like a small, pathetic shadow.
“MARK my words,” said Mrs. Jones portentously, “there's more in that young man than meets the eye. Anyone brought up in genteel surroundings would see it at once. Compare him to the other young men about here—Mr. Bingham, for instance—very respectable, of course, but bourgeois, as the French say, very bourgeois—”
“Mother!” her daughter interrupted with a faint accent of reproach.
“Well, isn't he? Reginald, I appeal to you—no, it's no good appealing to you. You haven't any feeling for that sort of thing. But if anything extraordinary happens, remember what I said.”
Mr. Jones glanced up over the top of his newspaper. He had not yet discarded his city clothes, and from a distance he suggested prosperity.
“Your mother is right, Martha,” he said. “There's something in him; I have noticed it myself. Mr. Middleton is a gentleman who has got into trouble—through no fault of his, as I believe. My methods of arriving at this conclusion may be different from yours, my dear, but I hope no less accurate. I put two and two together and make my plans in accordance.”
He got up and placed himself before the fire. “I intend being of some assistance to Mr. Middleton,” he said. “It was Martha who put the idea into my head, and 'pon my soul, it wasn't a bad one.”
His daughter stopped short in her careful arrangement of the table. Evidently a flood of eager questions trembled on the tip of her tongue, but at that moment the door opened and the object of their discussion entered in person. It happened that their eyes met, and he advanced smiling.
“I'm sorry I'm late,” he said. “I missed my bus. You wont turn me out!”
“Oh, no,” she answered quickly. “Supper is cold anyhow, so it doesn't matter.” And then for no obvious reason she blushed. Blushing became her, lending her tired, anemic face a fleeting youthfulness which Middleton unfortunately missed. He appeared anyhow to be an unobservant person who accepted cold mutton and subsequent résumés in the form of shepherd's pie with an unalterable resignation. The fact caused Mrs. Jones' economic-maternal heart alternate satisfaction and alarm.
“You don't take enough interest in what you eat, Mr. Middleton,” she said, helping him to boiled potato. “When a man doesn't complain about his food, he's ill. You're ill.”
“Yes, I believe I am,” Middleton agreed, and then encountered a pair of wistful, infinitely sympathetic blue eyes. This time he blushed. “At least, not seriously, you know,” he said hastily. “Only, the doctor told me I ought to have a change, and that sort of thing.”
Mr. Jones snorted and looked up from the double occupation of devouring cold mutton and the evening news.
“Doctors indeed! A nice lot! Always suggesting rest-cures and trips to the South, and then making it twice as impossible by sending in their account! Now, if one was rolling in money like the fellow I'm reading about! Just listen to this: 'Multimillionaire goes lion-shooting! Mr. Middleton, the husband of the New York millionairess, is at present suffering from a nervous breakdown and has been ordered abroad.'” Mr. Jones glanced up over his spectacles. “Same name as yours, sir, by the way. No relation, I suppose?”
“Oh, dear, no—at least—well, yes, in a sort of way. Really, I don't know.”
HE was crimson, Even a violent assault upon a pallid-looking potato could not disguise the fact. Mr. Jones frowned significantly across the table.
“Wouldn't lend you a helping hand, I suppose?”
“Good gracious, I should say not. He never did me a good turn in his whole life.”
The frown having been intelligently reciprocated, Mr. Jones returned to his paper.
“Rich relations are all like that,” he said, gruffly sympathetic, “—stingy, selfish and uncharitable. Nervous breakdown, indeed! Overeating, I'll wager.”
“Yes,” said Peter, and his knife dropped from his nerveless fingers. “No, Mrs. Jones, I wont have any more, thank you.”
There was a little silence. Martha was leaning forward in her favorite attitude, with her chin in her hand, her large eyes fixed intently on nothing in particular.
“I've often wondered what it feels like to be rich,” she said at last. “It must be splendid!”
“It's beastly,” said Peter, and then added with haste: “At least, I should say so. What is one to do with such a lot?”
“Make other people happy.”
“Oh, ye gods, as though that were so easy! If you only knew—” Feeling that he had suddenly become conspicuous, he made a hurried counter-attack. “Now, what would you do with a million, I wonder?” he asked with the air of a man setting a puzzle of national importance. The ruse succeeded. The whole family Jones sank into simultaneous happy contemplation.
“The first thing I'd do would be to settle with old Murphy,” growled the head from the ramparts of his air-castles. “Then with a bit of money to back me, I might get a rise out of Hawkins. Money's respect in this world of ours.”
“And I'd buy some new curtains for the best bedroom,” murmured his partner, “and a new black dress and a silk hat for you, my dear, not to mention stair carpets and table linen. Oh, dear me, so many things!”
“And I'd do something for the people who aren't destitute and don't beg,” Martha said softly. “I'd give Mr. Bingham a new coat and better work where he'd get well and strong. And if ever I met a brave, good man, nobly trying to win back fortune, I'd help him too!” And she looked at Peter Middleton with shining eyes.
Peter Middleton got up.
“You'll excuse me, wont you?” he said. “I've had a rotten day, and my head feels like a dried-out sponge. Good night, everyone.”
But he had to shake hands all round. Mrs. Jones patted him with motherly solicitude and looked wise.
“My poor boy!” she whispered. “But you're not to worry. It'll all come right in the end—you see. Sleep well and forget everything.”
And Mr. Jones nodded a ponderous approval.
“There's always room for an honest worker,” he said.
“But perhaps I'm not an honest worker,” Peter said wryly but sotto voce.
ONCE in his own narrow little room, Mr. Middleton lighted his candle and sat by the table with his face buried in his hands. It was the attitude of a man too weary and listless even to think, and for half an hour he did not move. Then he shook himself impatiently, and as though overcome by a sudden impulse, took out a photograph from his breast pocket. As he stared at it with hot, miserable eyes, some one knocked, and opened the door.
“May I come in, Mr. Middleton?”
He sprang up.
“Oh, Miss Jones, of course! Is there anything—”
“I only wanted to speak to you a moment—if I might,” she said shyly. “May I?”
“Why, certainly.” He laughed. “Have you come to tell me you have found a more satisfactory lodger? You mustn't mind saying so. I shall understand only too well.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Middleton! How could you! We're not like that. We're so proud and pleased to have you. It's something else. Father sent me. He thought you were in such low spirits, and—and—” She hesitated, and he offered her the one and only chair.
“Wont you sit down?”
“Thank you.” She accepted mechanically, her hands tightly clasped before her, and her downcast eyes fell on the photograph. “Oh,” she said softly, and then in deeper awe-struck bewilderment: “Oh, may I—might I look?”
He hesitated.
“Yes, of course.”
She took the photograph reverently in both hands.
“How beautiful, how lovely! Like a queen! Is she—is she your young lady, Mr. Middleton?” There was a new note in her thin voice which he did not notice. He shook his head, smiling grimly.
“Not any more, Miss Jones.”
“Mr. Bingham says we have all our own bundle to carry and that if we knew what was inside our neighbor's, we wouldn't grumble.”
“Mr. Bingham is a wise young man,” said Mr. Middleton.
SHE looked up at him, and he saw that her eyes were full of tears. Tears did not become her. There was something half ridiculous, half pathetic in their sudden overflow, and all that was chivalrous and tender in his nature rose up in answer. He laid his hand gently on hers.
“Why, Miss Jones, you aren't unhappy too?”
A tear trickled down the sharp and slightly reddened nose.
“Oh, Mr. Middleton, don't bother about me. I'm only a silly girl. I can't think why I'm so stupid. It was the photograph and—and the thought of how sad you must be which upset me. That's all.”
“There's something else. If I could help—”
“You're awfully good, Mr. Middleton. It's just like you to bother about others. It's only—only Mr. Bingham. He worries me so. You know, he gave me that pretty book I lent you. I just loved it. I didn't always understand everything, but it gave me such beautiful thoughts, and often comforted me. And—and I'm afraid I made him think—well, you know. He's always been so fond of me, and there was a time when I liked him too. But then something happened,—I don't know what,—and I began to see that he wasn't quite what I dreamed of—and I'm so afraid of hurting him.”
“I wouldn't, if I were you,” said Middleton gravely. “He's a decent little fellow, and it does hurt like the devil to be chucked, you know.”
“Yes, I feel how cruel it is. But I can't help it, can I? He's not my ideal, Mr. Middleton—not big and strong and brave. And we ought to stick to our ideals, oughtn't we?”
“Yes,” he said between tightly compressed lips.
She rose suddenly with a little sniff and wiped the tears from her cheek.
“How horrid I am! I wanted to help you, and instead I've worried you with my own bothers. Now I'll tell you something grand: Father's going to get a job for you!”
He sprang up from his perch on the table.
“You don't mean it really?”
“Yes!”—with a triumphant nod. “He spoke to Mr. Hawkins this morning, and he said you were to come along. And it's almost sure you'll get it. Thirty bob a week, and a chance of a rise in two years.”
“Thirty bob!” A little twinge passed over his features. Then he burst out laughing and caught hold of both her hands. “Why, it's just splendid! I haven't earned as much money for years. What a brick you are! How can I thank you?”
“Oh, Mr. Middleton, I don't want thanks.”
“Yes, but I want to thank you. I'll tell you what: The very first time I get my pay, we'll go to the theater together and to a nice litle restaurant and make a regular evening of it—shall we? Just to celebrate! And you can bring Mr. Bingham along too—or would you rather not?”
“I—I think I'd rather not.”
“Very well. It's settled then? The very first evening!”
“Yes, Mr. Middleton—and thank you!”
She did not look at him again. She hung her mouse-colored head and crept softly to the door, her thin red fingers still tightly interlocked.
“Good night, Mr. Middleton.”
“Good night. And look here, call me Peter,—everybody does,—will you? Mr. Middleton is so formal—especially between such good friends. Will you?”
“Oh!” It was like a little catch in her breath. “Oh yes, thank you. I—I—Good night—Peter.”
“Good night, Miss Martha.”
He closed the door. When the creak of her footsteps on the stairs had quite died away, he went back to the table and picking up the photograph, kissed it savagely.
AT the corner of Ranleigh Crescent; Peter Middleton stopped to examine the contents of his pockets. The desire to do so had been on him ever since he had left the box-office of the Gaiety Theater, but neither in the corner of his tube compartment nor in the lofty solitude of a motorbus had he summoned up courage to face the truth. Now, there it was—two upper box tickets and forty shillings—all that remained of his wages and a once princely fortune. He calculated rapidly. Twenty-five shillings for his board, left five shillings for his fares, lunches and laundry, and ten shillings for a nice little supper after the theater. The latter item seemed out of proportion. Well, he was going to bring a few hours' sunshine into a drab life, and for once in a way the laundry would have to suffer retrenchments.
“A clean handkerchief every other day, Peter.” he muttered in solemn abjuration. “I can't allow you more, and it's no use shuddering. It's the first sacrifice you've brought anyone, so look cheerful. Now, I wonder—”
He was interrupted in his reflections by a sound which warned him that he was no longer alone. It was a cough—a hollow graveyard cough with a top note of apology in it. Peter turned quickly.
“Oh, it's you, Bingham. Hullo—how are you?”
He extended a friendly hand. Bingham lifted his hat formally.
“Excuse me, Mr. Middleton,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I've been trying to catch you up for the last five minutes, but—but I'm rather out of training, as you might say. Might I speak with you a moment?”
“By all means. But wont you come in? It's damp and raw out here, and I'm sure Miss Martha will be delighted.”
“Thank you, Mr. Middleton. I know where I'm wanted and where I'm not. Besides, it is of Miss Martha I wish to speak, and the matter is serious.”
“Oh!” said Peter rather blankly.
Mr. Bingham drew himself up to his full height. He threw out his chest in a vain endeavor to fill out the cavities ef the sporting-coat.
“I want to know your intentions, Mr. Middleton,” he said.
“My what?” said Peter, his thoughts flying inconsequently enough to the question of the handkerchiefs.
“Your intentions, sir.”
“Really, I don't know—”
“You mean that you think I've no right to ask that question?” The rough thin voice cracked in the effort to attain sonority. “Well, I have. It's true there wasn't anything spoken out between us, but we read Browning together, and she'd come out and see me in the evenings when I was on my way home, and her folk were always very kind and friendly. If all that doesn't give me a right to know—”
Peter shook his head, utterly at a loss.
“But, my dear Mr. Bingham—”
“Don't 'dear Mr. Bingham' me, sir! I tell you it was as good as settled. I was only going to wait till I got rid of this cold of mine and had my rise before speaking out. And now—now I don't care whether I get well or my rise either. It's all over, and you've done it—you've done it.” His voice broke again, but he straightened up heroically. “You don't need to say 'dear Mr. Bingham.' I haven't come for your sympathy, I can tell you. I'm a man and I can carry my own bundle, but it's her I'm thinking of. If it's for her happiness, I'll—I'll stand aside, but I wont have her heart broken as well as mine. I must and will know your intentions, sir.”
PETER MIDDLETON stared down doubfounded at the fragile, rather ridiculous but wholly resolute figure. The pale blue eyes behind the glasses met his unflinchingly.
“Now, look here,” Peter said quietly, “Just tell me what you're driving at, will you? My intentions about what?”
“About Miss Martha.”
“Well, if you want to know, I'm taking her to the theater to-night and to supper afterwards. You're very welcome if you'll come too—”
Mr. Bingham laughed bitterly.
“Oh, you don't get me that way. I know I'm no good at fencing with a man like you. I'll put it to you straight from the shoulder, sir. When a man gets a girl to call him by his Christian name and takes her to the theater, what's one to think? Either he's an out-and-outer or he means to marry her.”
“What!” said Peter, recoiling as though the blow 'straight from the shoulder' had not been merely figurative. “I marry Miss Martha! Why, good Lord, I am—” He stopped. Mr. Bingham's face darkened.
“So—you're an out-and-outer!” he said fiercely.
“I'm nothing of the sort—at least not like that. I never thought of such a thing, and if you do— Well, look here, take these infernal tickets; I don't want them, I'll go straight home and pack my trunks and never set eyes on the girl again. Does that satisfy you?”
To his utter amazement, Mr. Bingham's face twitched with a moment's uncontrollable agony.
“It's too late,” he said desperately. “It's too late, I'll—I'll believe you didn't mean it if you like, but you've done for me all the same. I was good enough till she saw you; then when you came with your fine clothes and fine manners and—and all that, then she saw what a miserable twopenny-halfpenny scalawag I was. I'm done. You're her ideal, her Sir Galahad, and I'm—” The wavering voice broke utterly. Mr. Bingham pulled out his handkerchief and cried. Peter, who had suppressed a laugh, felt his own eyes moisten.
“Mr. Bingham,” he stammered, “if what you say is true, I am an out-and-outer and I—apologize—I do really. I'm most awfully sorry. I can't say how sorry. I didn't mean it; I only wanted to be friendly—I swear to you. You do believe me, don't you?”
Mr. Bingham nodded.
“I—accept your statement, sir,” he said huskily. “I—I apologize myself. I take back the out-and-outer. She's right. You're a gentleman and I'm not. But I love her, and you don't, Mr. Middleton; and at the bottom it's that she wants. But she's got such a wonderful poetic mind, and I can't keep pace with it, though I've tried desperately. I used to read Browning all through my lunch-hour, but it didn't help much. One's bound to be commonplace on thirty-five a week.”
Peter Middleton laid his hand on the quivering shoulder.
“Look here, Mr. Bingham,” he said solemnly. “As usual, I've made a mess of things but I'm going to try and put them straight. If—if I succeed and Miss Martha gets to see that you're worth twice my sort, will you call quits?”
“But I tell you it's done; it'll never be the same again.”
“It's got to be. I don't know how, but I know somebody who'll think out something. There must be a way, and it's going to be found. Mr. Bingham, take these tickets, will you? Tell Miss Martha I've been unavoidably detained.”
“I can't—I can't!”
“Yes you must—for her sake. And Mr. Bingham, wont you shake hands?”
Mr. Bingham groped wildly. Their hands met.
“You're—you're a gentleman, Mr. Middleton.”
“You're another, Mr. Bingham.”
Mr. Peter Middleton turned and strode back the way he had come.
“IF you please, ma'am, Number 3086.” Mrs. Middleton rumpled up her pretty hair with a distracted hand.
“For goodness' sake, what does he want?”
“I don't know, ma'am. He's a queer-looking customer but he's got his appointment, right enough.”
“Show him in, then, but tell the rest I've had a fit and am foaming at the mouth. I guess that ought to keep them off for an hour or two!”
“Yes ma'am.”
The butler withdrew. Mrs. Middleton dabbed herself recklessly with Cotan's latest perfume and drew a sigh of exquisite relief. Within the last two hours she had interviewed no less than thirty representatives of deserving charities, and the atmosphere, in spite of open windows, had become stuffy with righteousness.
“Well, the next time I have a look at this globe, I'll come as a crossing-sweeper,” she philosophized. “I reckon the millionaire-job is a trifle too wearing.” She sighed again and then added for no apparent reason: “Poor fellow!”
The door opened.
“If you please, ma'am—Number 3086.”
Mrs. Middleton looked up. Number 3086 appeared as a tall, broad-shouldered individual, badly dressed, with a dirty old Hamburg pulled over his brows.
“Take your hat off,” said Mrs. Middleton, and reached for her check-book. “How much do you want, and what's it for? I don't really want to know, but one has to keep some sort of order.”
There was no answer. Mrs. Middleton looked up again. The man had removed his hat.
“Peter!” she gasped.
He nodded gloomily.
“Yes, it's Peter,” he said.
“Oh, my dear!” The color had rushed to her cheeks, and she made a little movement with her hands which might have meant a great many things. “I'm—I'm so glad to see you!”
“Are you? Well, there isn't much to be glad about.”
Her eyes twinkled maliciously.
“When we parted, you said you wouldn't see me again until you had done something wonderful—worthy of the privilege, in fact. Have you?”
“I've got myself in a wonderful mess.” She made an instinctive grab at her check-book, and he brought his clenched fist down on the table with such violence that she jumped. “I don't want your money. I've told you I wouldn't touch it until I had earned enough—off my own bet—to buy you up twice over. It's not that. It's—it's a woman!”
MRS. MIDDLETON sat down, her face as white as her absurd cambric handkerchief.
“A woman? Peter!”
“Yes, I wouldn't have come if it had been anything less awful. As it was, I didn't know how to see you. What am I supposed to be doing? Lion-shooting?”
“I said elephants. It's all the same, isn't it?”
“I suppose so. Anyhow, I had to be careful, I thought—” He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “I thought Harrison might recognize me.”
“Harrison's gone.”
“Why on earth? He was the most conscientious secretary I ever had.”
“He was a bit too conscientious, Peter; he worried me. He wanted me to go into all the different cases—the way you did. I couldn't stand it; at least, my complexion wouldn't. A woman never forgets her complexion even in a shipwreck.” She frowned. “And now, Peter, perhaps you'll explain how you came to fall in love.”
“Susan! How dare you! Do you think—” He stopped, biting his lips. Mrs. Middleton put the scented handkerchief to the tip of her nose. The color had come back to her cheeks, and her eyes danced.
“My good Peter, when a man suggests that he is in trouble and the trouble turns out to be a woman, what is one to suppose?”
“Does it necessarily mean that I'm the culprit?” he retorted sulkily.
“Oh!” Mrs. Middleton got up and arranged her hair in the looking-glass. She had on what she called her “charity gown,” a dream in black and white from Worth's, and Peter scowled. “So it's the lady?” she said. “The lady has fallen a victim to your charms? Well, I suppose I should be the last to throw the stone.”
“Don't laugh, Susan! It's a most absurd, tragic business. Her name is Jones—Martha Jones—if that conveys anything to your mind.”
“It relieves it, considerably.”
“And I lodge with her people—and she's engaged to a poor wretch of a clerk with a cough and thirty-five shillings a week, and now she wont look at him, and he's heartbroken and says I'm her ideal and Heaven knows what else—and I've got to put things right or he'll go straight into consumption.”
Mrs. Middleton put her hands to her ears.
“Peter, what fluency! And what can I do in this terrible business?”
“You might do a lot.” He straightened up with a sudden enthusiasm. “Susan, since I've had to do for myself, I've found out such a number of things. I've begun to understand what a muddle I've made of it when I tried to do good with your money. It was all wrong. Real hardship doesn't beg. It lives in semidetached villas with grand-sounding names and lace curtains in the windows. It is respectable, and respectability sucks the life out of it.”
Mrs. Middleton took up her pen.
“Peter, you're the biggest hustler in the charity line I've met to-day, and I've met a good many. You touch even my case-hardened heart. Now for the items: The clerk with the cough first, please. What's his address?”
“Percy Bingham, Oaklands, Ranleigh Crescent, clerk at Hawkins and Hawkins.”
“My lawyers, by the way. Needs—”
“A new overcoat and a decent job.”
“Next. The head of the house of Jones, please.”
“Villa Blenheim. Under-manager at same firm. Wants post as manager but can't get it because he hasn't the money to put in the business. Curtains, new stair-carpets, a silk hat, black dress for wife—”
“That will do, Peter. Next—your victim.”
Peter blushed miserably. Mrs. Middleton nibbled delicately at the end of her penholder.
“I think I know what she wants, Peter. She wants a little disillusion, carefully administered. It's the easiest thing in the world.”
“I dare say. You ought to know.”
“Don't get personal and injured. It's beside the point. Peter, you've got to put yourself unreservedly into my hands—that is, if I'm to help to repair the awful damage you've done. Do you consent?”
“Susan! I sha'n't know how to thank you.” He made a movement as though to take her hand, but drew back hastily. His eyes sparkled.
“You'd better hurry,” she said maliciously. “The butler has orders to throw out anybody who stays more than five minutes. You've got one minute left to pour our your gratitude while I tidy up my ideas. Now, be as quiet as you can, will you?”
He obeyed, uncomfortably conscious that her meditative eyes were still fixed on his face. There was a moment's thoughtful silence.
“Peter,” she said abruptly, “you've improved. What have you been doing?”
“Working!”—sulkily.
“Dear me! I wonder whoever gave you work! Have you seen Dr. Gregory lately? And how is the liver?”
“I haven't had time to think.”
“Dear me! Well, I have; and I've got the cutest idea on earth. Peter, if Miss Jones looks at you again after I've done with you, I'm not an American citizen.”
“You're not, anyhow!"—very viciously. “You're my wife.”
“You don't say? Have you mentioned that to Miss Martha? No? Well, perhaps some one else will.” She rang the bell. “James, show Number 3086 out.”
Peter got up. For some unknown reason he was very angry.
“Mrs. Middleton—”
She smiled graciously. He had never seen her so aggravatingly fascinating.
“That's all, I think, Mr.—dear me, I've forgotten your name again. But you shall hear from me to-morrow. Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon!” said Peter, with his hat over his eyes and his teeth clenched.
THERE was tragedy in the parlor of the Villa Blenheim, Ranleigh Crescent. Mrs. Jones sat by the fire and wept, quietly but resolutely. Her lord paced the room with the stride of an angry tiger. Mr. Bingham, very white and shaky, stared through his glasses at the girl by the window.
“I thought I had better tell you all,” he said in his weedy gentle voice. “I've got these two offers. The chief says the secretaryship is the chance of a lifetime. The lady is awfully rich, and I'm to get four pounds a week and do nothing but attend to her begging letters. I'd—I'd snatch at it,” went on Mr. Bingham, “if—well, you know what. Miss Martha, if you wont, I'll just clear out—I'll take the job in Canada.”
“The awful climate!” groaned Mrs. Jones. “You'll die.”
“I don't care if I do,” said Mr. Bingham gloomily.
Martha lifted a tear-stained face from her handkerchief.
“Mr. Bingham, I'm so dreadfully sorry. I can't help it, can I? It's better I should tell you the truth.”
“Don't tell me I'm not your ideal again.”
“Browning says—”
“Damn Browning.”
“Mr. Bingham!”
He gasped at his own crime.
“Mrs. Jones,—Miss Martha,—I—I apologize. I can't think how it came out—never said it before. On my honor, I am not a violent man. But at the present moment I am feeling very desperate. I feel—”
What he felt was drowned. in the snort and rattle of a motorcar outside. The family glanced at each other. A motorcar in Ranleigh Crescent! A live ostrich would have scarcely created more sensation. Martha pushed back the curtains with a trembling hand.
“It's a private one!” she gasped. “Such a beauty! And it's stopped here. There's a lady getting out,—a lady with a real fur coat,—and she's coming up the path!”
“My dear child,” growled Mrs. Jones. “One would think we lived in Surbiton.”
Nevertheless there was an awestruck silence, and when a minute later the doorbell rang, even Mr. Jones condescended to start nervously. The appearance of the little maid-of-all-work, more than usually disheveled, put an end to the suspense if it increased the excitement.
“It's a lidy,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “It's a lidy wot wants to see Mr. Bingham. She says as 'ow she's been round to 'is place and they sent 'er 'ere. It's about a sekertary's ship, she said.”
“Show her in,” said Mrs. Jones majestically. “Your client, no doubt, Mr. Bingham.”
POSSIBLY because the hall was only four feet long, the visitor dispensed with the formality of being shown in. She appeared in person, a vision of costly prettiness which made the little room gloomier and dingier by contrast. Martha sprang up with a smothered exclamation of recognition.
“Oh!” she said. “It's Mr. Middleton's—”
The visitor smiled sweetly.
“I'm afraid I must seem very rude,” she said. “But I do wonder if I might speak to Mr. Bingham for a moment?”
She looked from one to the other, and “Mrs. Jones waved an introductory hand.
“This is Mr. Bingham, madam.”
“Ah, thank you. And you're Mr. Jones, are you not? You see, I have heard your name so often from Mr. Hawkins. Mrs. Jones, please don't move! If I feel I am disturbing, I shall take flight at once. Thank you—thank you. How kind you are!”
She accepted the chair which Mr. Jones pushed toward her with an overwhelming graciousness. Her entry had been like a whirlwind, and they were still open-mouthed and breathless.
“I've come about the secretaryship,” the visitor explained.
Mr. Bingham bowed, pale but resolute.
“My chief told me of your kind offer, madam.”
“And you accept? You see, I want to settle up at once. My last secretary, a dreadful man, left me two weeks ago, and I've been writing my own letters. I have two gray hairs already, so it's an urgent case. I've had such glowing accounts of you, Mr. Bingham. You'll come at once, wont you?”
“Madam, I regret, but—” Mr. Bingham cast a glance of profound gloom in the direction of the window. “I have decided to leave England,” he finished.
“Oh, no—nonsense! I've set my heart on you, and I wont be thwarted. Shall we say two hundred and fifty pounds a year? Here's my card. Mrs. Middleton, Eaton Square..... Why, what's the matter, everyone?”
Mr. Jones coughed.
“Your name, Mrs. Middleton, surprises us,” he said. “You see, we have a gentleman staying with us, and his name is Middleton too. A curious coincidence—”
“I only know one other person of that name, and he was called Peter.”
“That's right. It's the same. Why, is anything wrong?”
The gayety had died out of Mrs. Middleton's pretty face.
“It's more than a coincidence,” she said sepulchrally. “I only hope that I have come in time.”
No one spoke for a moment. The atmosphere had become surcharged with apprehension. Mr. Jones coughed.
“Mrs. Middleton, your words suggest—really, I am seriously alarmed.”
“Mr. Peter Middleton acted as my secretary,” she said. “The similarity in our names was even then a source of annoyance to me. Goodness knows, it's not my wish to injure anyone's career. I must only say, for your sake, that this house is no place for him.”
“Good heavens!” Mr. Jones exclaimed.
His daughter took a step forward. Her pale face was flushed, her eyes bright with scorn and anger.
“I don't believe it,” she said tremblingly. “It's a mean, spiteful thing for you to have done, Mrs. Middleton, and I don't believe you. I'm going to fetch him. He shall answer you for himself, and he shall see how basely and falsely his faith has been abused.”
“Quite right!” Mrs. Middleton's expression was full of pitying solicitude. “That was nobly spoken, my dear. This sweet girlish confidence is beautiful.”
But at that moment Peter entered.
THEY looked at each other. If ever a face betrayed guilt, that face was Peter Middleton's. Panic was written in every feature. He turned as though to flee, but Mr. Bingham had carefully cut off the retreat. The two men eyed each other. Martha ran to Peter's side and clung to his arm.
“Peter, I am so glad you've come. She's been saying dreadful things about you, and I wont believe them. You've got to say they aren't true, Peter.”
“What has she been saying?” he interrupted gloomily.
Mrs. Middleton drew herself up. Her eyes shone behind her long lashes.
“Mr. Peter Middleton will no doubt corroborate my statements,” she said. “Mr. Middleton, I have just said that you acted as my secretary. I suppose you will agree to that much?”
He bowed.
“You were—unsatisfactory?”
“Of that there is no question.”
“You used my money as your own?”
“Sus—Mrs. Middleton!”
“Isn't it true?”
He ground his teeth together.
“Yes.”
“Good heavens!” said Mr. Jones again, and collapsed weakly into the nearest chair. “And to think I got him into the office!”
“You are a married man?” went on the pitiless cross-examination.
“Yes.”
“You lived on your wife's money?”
“Sus—Mrs. Middleton, it isn't fair.”
“Isn't it true?”
He flinched under the mockery of her lovely eyes.
“Yes,”
“And you deserted her?”
“I—yes.”
A low moan broke from Martha's corner of the room.
“And he said—he said you—you were his young lady, Mrs. Middleton. I shall never believe in anyone again.” She turned, and Mr. Bingham's shoulder being the nearest and most convenient place, she wept upon it. Mrs. Middleton regarded the culprit severely.
“What impertinence! Mr. Jones, surely you need no further evidence!”
Mr. Jones threw open the door.
“Certainly not,” he said pompously. “You are a self-convicted cheat and humbug, sir, and you can be grateful to this lady that she has had the great generosity not to prosecute. You can go!”
Mrs. Middleton rose gracefully.
“Really, such an unpleasant thing for me to have to do!” she murmured. “But it was my duty, wasn't it? My poor child!” She laid her beautifully gloved hand on Martha's shaking shoulder. “My poor child, this has been a shock to you, I know, but believe me, there are many other good and noble men in the world—men, who carry their treasures within them.” And she beamed upon the little clerk. “May I expect you to-morrow, Mr. Bingham? Or are you still thinking of leaving England?”
“Not now,” said Mr. Bingham.
Outside, Mrs. Middleton collided first with the postman and afterward with Peter. He held the door of the limousine open for her. He had his hat pulled over his eyes and looked sufficiently disreputable to justify her offer of a penny.
“I could prosecute you for libel,” he whispered as he arranged the rug over her knees. “You're a little—”
“Yes, I know I am. But say it quietly if you must say it, Peter. It's so rude, and the chauffeur might think it unusual. But I saved you, didn't I? She's thinking all sorts of horrors about you, my poor boy, and Mr. Bingham played up splendidly, a regular bespectacled Lohengrin. They're going to be happy for life, Peter.”
“Well, my berth's gone, anyhow,” he observed bitterly.
She laid her hand gently on his.
“I suppose you're not inclined to come back to your old place, are you? It's always kept open for you, you know, dear.”
“Not till I've earned it.”
She leaned back sighing.
“Very well!—Home, John!”
The limousine flashed away.
Peter stared after it with gloomy eyes. Then he tossed his penny reflectively, slipped it into the breast pocket to keep company with the photograph and crept back the garden path. As he passed the parlor door, he heard Mr. Jones' voice raised in triumphant declamation. Instinctively he listened.
“'Mr. Hawkins presents his compliments to Mr. R. Jones and suggests that he should take over the management of the new branch office. Should Mr. Jones decide to accept the position, a client, who desires to remain incognito, has promised to invest in the business on Mr. Jones' behalf—'” Mr. Jones coughed. “A most extraordinary but gentlemanly offer. Really, this has been a day of wonders!”
“It must have been a sea-serpent, after all,” Mrs. Jones murmured.
“Life is very beautiful,” said Mr. Bingham.
He felt under the table, and a small hand with a very wet pocket handkerchief clasped his.
This Peter did not see, but it is almost certain that he divined it.
“The Road to Fortune,” another delightful episode in “The Adventures of Mrs. Middleton's Husband,” will appear in the next—the October—issue of The Green Book Magazine.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1959, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 64 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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