The Prophet of Berkeley Square Part 29

"What sort of strangers."

"The sort of strangers who--who live beside a river, and who--who mix princ.i.p.ally with--well, in fact, with architects and their wives."

"Rum sort of strangers?"

"They are decidedly."

"Oh, then, you know 'em?"

"That's not the point," exclaimed the Prophet, hastily. "The point is which promise is to be kept."

"I should say the one made to the relative. Wait a bit, though! Yes, I should say that."

The Prophet breathed a sigh of relief. But some dreadful sense of honesty within him compelled him to add,--

"I forgot to say that he'd pledged his honour to the architects--that is, to the strangers who lived beside a river."

"What--and not pledged it to the relative?"

"Well, no."

"Then he ought to stick to the promise he'd pledged his honour over, of course. Nice for the relative! The man's a d.a.m.ned fool, Hen. Do have a drink, old chap."

Thus did Mr. Robert Green drive the Prophet to take the first decisive step that was to lead to so many complications,--the step towards Mr.

Ferdinand's pantry.

At precisely a quarter to eleven p.m. the Prophet stood upon his doorstep and, very gently indeed, inserted his latchkey into the door.

A shaded lamp was burning in the deserted hall, where profound silence reigned. Clear was the night and starry. As the Prophet turned to close the door he perceived the busy crab, and the thought of his beloved grandmother, sinking now to rest on the second floor all unconscious of the propinquity of the scorpion, the contiguity of the serpent, filled his expressive eyes with tears. He shut the door, stood in the hall and listened. He heard a chair crack, the ticking of a clock. There was no other sound, and he felt certain that Mr. Ferdinand and Gustavus had heeded his anxious medical directions and gone entirely to bed betimes, leaving the butler's pantry free for the nocturnal operations of the victim of Madame. For he recognised that she was the guiding spirit of the family that dwelt beside the Mouse. He might have escaped out of the snare of Mr. Sagittarius, but Madame was a fowler who would hold him fast till she had satisfied herself once and for all whether it were indeed possible to dwell in the central districts, within reach of the Army and Navy heaven in Victoria Street, and yet remain a prophet. Yes, he must now work for the information of her ambitious soul. He sighed deeply and went softly up the stairs. His chamber was on the same floor as Mrs. Merillia's, and, as he neared her door, he rose instinctively upon his toes and, grasping the tails of his evening coat firmly with his left hand, to prevent any chance rustling of their satin lining, and bearing his George the Third silver candlestick steadily to control any clattering of its extinguisher, he moved on rather like a thief who was also a trained ballerina, holding his breath and pressing his lips together in a supreme agony of dumbness.

Unluckily he tripped in the raised pattern of the carpet, the candlestick uttered a silver note, his pent-in breath escaped with a loud gulp, and Mrs. Merillia's delicate voice cried out from behind her shut door,--

"Hennessey! Hennessey!"

The Prophet bit his lip and went at once into her room.

Mrs. Merillia looked simply charming in bed, with her long and elegant head shaded by a beautiful muslin helmet trimmed with lace, and a delicious embroidered wrapper round her shoulders. The Prophet stood beside her, shading the candle-flame with his hand.

"Well, grannie, dear," he said, "what is it? You ought to be asleep."

"I never sleep before twelve. Have you had a pleasant dinner?"

"Very. Stanyer Phelps, the American, was there and very witty. And we had a marvellous _supreme de volaille_. Everybody asked after you."

Mrs. Merillia nodded, like an accustomed queen who receives her due. She knew very well that she was the most popular old woman in London, knew it too well to think about it.

"Well, good-night, grannie."

The Prophet bent to kiss her, his heart filled with compunction at the thought of the promise he was about to break. It seemed to him almost more than sacrilegious to make of this dear and honoured ornament of old age a vehicle for the satisfaction of the vulgar ambitions and disagreeable curiosity of the couple who dwelt beside the Mouse.

"Good-night, my dear boy."

She kissed him, then added,--

"You like Lady Enid, don't you?"

"Very much."

"So does Robert Green. He thinks her such a thoroughly sensible girl."

"Bob! Does he?" said the Prophet, concealing a slight smile.

"Yes. If you want her to get on with you, Hennessey, you should come up to tea when she is here."

"I couldn't to-day, grannie."

"You were really busy?"

"Very busy indeed."

"I suppose you only saw her for a moment on the stairs?"

"That was all."

It was true, for Lady Enid had scarcely stayed to speak to the Prophet, having hurried out in the hope of discovering who were the "two parties"

he had been entertaining on the ground floor.

Mrs. Merillia dropped the subject.

"Good-night, Hennessey," she said. "Go to bed at once. You look quite tired. I am so thankful you have given up that horrible astronomy."

The Prophet did not reply, but, as he went out of the room, he knew, for the first time, what criminals with consciences feel like when they are engaged in following their dread profession.

As he walked across the landing he heard a clock strike eleven. He started, hastened into his room, tore off his coat, replaced it with a quilted smoking-jacket, sprang lightly to his table, seized a planisphere, or star-map, which he had succeeded in obtaining that night from a small working astronomer's shop in the Edgeware Road, and, mindful of the terms of his oath and the decided opinion of Robert Green, scurried hastily, but very gingerly, down the stairs. This time Mrs. Merillia did not hear him. She had indeed become absorbed in a new romance, written by a very rising young Montenegrin who was just then making some stir in the literary circles of the elect.

Very surrept.i.tiously the Prophet tripped across the hall and reached the stout door which gave access to the servants' quarters. But here he paused. Although he had lived in Mrs. Merillia's most comfortable home for at least fifteen years, he had actually never once penetrated beyond this door. It had never occurred to him to do so. Often he had approached it. Quite recently, when Mrs. Fancy Quinglet had broken into tears on the refusal of Sir Tiglath b.u.t.t to burst according to her prediction, he had handed her to this very portal. But he had never pa.s.sed through it, nor did he know what lay beyond. No doubt there was a kitchen, very probably the mysterious region of watery activities commonly known as a scullery, quite certainly a butler's pantry. But where each separate sanctum lay, and what should be the physiognomy of each one the Prophet had not the vaguest idea. As he turned the handle of the door he felt like Sir Henry Stanley, when that intrepid explorer first set foot among the leafy habitations of the dwarfs.

As the door opened the Prophet found himself in a large apartment whose walls were decorated with the efforts of those great painters who feed the sentimental imaginations of the ma.s.ses in the beautiful Christmas numbers of our artistic day. Enchanting little girls and exceedingly human dogs observed his entrance from every hand, while such penetrating and suggestive legends as "Don't bite!" "Mustn't!" "Naughty!" "Would 'ums?" and the like, filled his mind with the lofty thoughts so suitable to the Christmas season. Over the mantelpiece was a _Cook's Almanac for the Home_, decorated in bright colours, a _Butler's own book_, bound in claret-coloured linen, and a large framed photograph of Francatelli, that immortal _chef_ whose memory is kept green in so many kitchens, and whose recipes are still followed as are followed the footprints of the great ones in the Everlasting Sands of Time. One corner of the room Gustavus had made his own, and here might be seen his tasteful what-not and his little library--neatly arranged unabridged farthing editions of Drummond's _Ascent of Man_, Mill's _Liberty_, Crampton's _Origin of Self-Respect_, Barlow's _A Philosophical Examination into the Art and Practice of Tipping and Receiving Tips_, and other volumes suitable for an intellectual footman's reading. An eight-day clock, which was carefully and lovingly wound up by the prudent Mrs. Fancy Quinglet every morning and evening, snored peacefully in a recess by the hearth, and, from a crevice near the window, the bright, intelligent eyes of a couple of well-developed black-beetles--mother and son--contentedly surveyed the cheerful scene.

The Prophet, after a moment's pause of contemplation, pa.s.sed on through a swing door, covered with green baize, and down some stairs to the inner courts of this interesting region. This time he came to anchor in a room which, he thought, might well have been a butler's pantry had it contained a large-sized telescope. It was in fact the parlour set apart for the use of the kitchen and scullery maids, and was brightly fitted up with a dresser, a cupboard for skewers, a rolling-pin, a basting machine, and other similar adjuncts. It gave on to the kitchen, in which the cat of the house was enjoying well-earned slumber in the att.i.tude of a black ball. So far his exploring tour had quite fulfilled the rather vague expectations of the Prophet, but he now began to feel anxious.

Time was pa.s.sing on and he had sworn to be at the telescope by eleven sharp. He had, therefore, already slightly fractured his oath, and he had no desire to earn the anathema of all such men as Robert Green by breaking it into small pieces. Where was the butler's pantry? He glanced eagerly round the kitchen, perceived a door, pa.s.sed through it, and found himself confronted by a sink. He had gained the scullery, but not his goal. To the right of the sink was yet another door through which the Prophet, who carried the planisphere in one hand, the George the Third candlestick in the other, rather excitedly debouched into a good-sized pa.s.sage. As he did so he heard the m.u.f.fled alto voice of the eight-day clock proclaim that it was a quarter-past eleven. Feeling that he was now upon the point of breaking both the promises of the d.a.m.ned fool, the Prophet hastened along the pa.s.sage, darted through the first outlet, and found himself abruptly face to back with what appeared at first glance to be an enormously broad and bow-legged dwarf, with a bald head and a black tail coat, which, in an att.i.tude of savage curiosity, was gazing through a gigantic instrument, whose muzzle projected from an open window into a s.p.a.cious area. So great was the Prophet's surprise, so supreme the shock to his whole nervous system occasioned by this unexpected encounter, that he did not utter a cry. His amazement carried him into that terrible region which lies beyond the realms of speech.

He simply stood quite still and gazed at the bow-legged dwarf, which, in its turn, continued to gaze savagely through the gigantic instrument into the area. Not for perhaps three or four minutes did the Prophet realise that this dwarf was merely an ingeniously shortened form of Mr.

Ferdinand, who, with his legs very wide apart, and making two accurate right angles at their respective knee-joints, his head thrown well back, and his arms arranged in two perfect capital V's, with the elbows pointing directly at the walls on either side of him, had been busily engaged for the last hour and a quarter in trying to focus firstly the Lord Chancellor's house on the opposite side of the square, and secondly the pleasant-looking second-cook in it. That his chivalrous efforts had not yet been crowned with complete success will be understood when we say that he had seen during his first half-hour of contemplation nothing at all, during his second half-hour the left-hand top star of the Great Bear, and finally the fourth spike from the end of the iron railing which enclosed the square garden, at which he had been gazing closely for precisely fifteen minutes and a half when the Prophet darted into the pantry.

Having at length recovered from his shock of surprise sufficiently to realise that the enormous and immobile dwarf was Mr. Ferdinand, and that Mr. Ferdinand was not yet aware of his presence, the Prophet resolved to beat a rapid and noiseless retreat. He carried this resolve into execution by turning sharply round, knocking his head against a plate chest, firing the George the Third candlestick into the pa.s.sage, and letting the planisphere go into the china jar of "Butler's own special pomade" which Mr. Ferdinand kept always open for use upon the pantry table.

To say that Mr. Ferdinand ceased from looking through the telescope for the Lord Chancellor's second-cook at this juncture would, perhaps, not convey quite a fair idea of the activity which he could on occasion display even at his somewhat advanced age. It might be more just to state that, without wasting any precious time in useless elongation, he described an exceedingly rapid circular movement, still preserving the shortened form of himself which had so deceived and startled his master, and brought his eye from the orifice of the telescope to a level with the Prophet's knees exactly at the moment when the Prophet rebounded from the plate chest into the centre of the apartment.

"Oh, is it you, Mr. Ferdinand?" said the Prophet, controlling every symptom of anguish, with the exception of a rapid flutter of the eyelids. "I was looking for--for a bradawl."