The Lunatic at Large Part 3

Mr Francis Beveridge, for such it appeared was his name, was distinguished even for Clankwood. Though his antecedents were involved in mystery, so much confidence was placed in Dr Congleton's discrimination that the unknown stranger was at once received on the most friendly terms by every one; and, to tell the truth, it would have been hard to repulse him for long. His manner was perfect, his conversation witty to the extremest verge of propriety, and his clothes, fas.h.i.+onable in cut and of unquestionable fit, bore on such of the b.u.t.tons as were made of metal the hall mark of a leading London firm. He wore the longest and most silky moustaches ever seen, and beneath them a short well-tended beard completed his resemblance-so the ladies declared-to King Charles of unhappy memory.

The melancholic Mr Jones (quondam author of 'Sunflowers-A Lyrical Medley') declared, indeed, that for Mr Beveridge shaving was prohibited, and darkly whispered "suicidal," but his opinion was held of little account.

It was upon a morning about a week after his arrival that Dr Escott, alone in the billiard-room, saw him enter. Escott had by this time made his acquaintance, and, like almost everybody else, had already succ.u.mbed to the fascination of his address.

"Good morning, doctor," he said; "I wish you to do me a trifling favour, a mere bending of your eyes."

Escott laughed.

"I shall be delighted. What is it?"

Mr Beveridge unb.u.t.toned his waistcoat and displayed his s.h.i.+rt-front.

"I only want you to be good enough to read the inscription written here."

The doctor bent down.

" 'Francis Beveridge,' " he said. "That's all I see."

"And that's all I see," said Mr Beveridge. "Now what can you read here? I am not troubling you?"

He held out his handkerchief as he spoke.

"Not a bit," laughed the doctor, "but I only see 'Francis Beveridge' here too, I'm afraid."

"Everything has got it," said Mr Beveridge, shaking his head, it would be hard to say whether humorously or sadly. " 'Francis Beveridge' on everything. It follows, I suppose, that I am Francis Beveridge?"

"What else?" asked Escott, who was much amused.

"That's just it. What else?" said the other. He smiled a peculiarly charming smile, thanked the doctor with exaggerated grat.i.tude, and strolled out again.

"He is a rum chap," reflected Escott.

And indeed in the outside world he might safely have been termed rather rum, but here in this backwater, so full of the oddest flotsam, his waywardness was rather less than the average. He had, for instance, a diverting habit of modifying the time, and even the tune, of the hymns on Sunday, and he confessed to having kissed all the nurses and housemaids except three. But both Escott and Sherlaw declared they had never met a more congenial spirit. Mr Beveridge's game of billiards was quite remarkable even for Clankwood, where the enforced leisure of many of the n.o.blemen and gentlemen had made them highly proficient on the spot; he showed every promise, on his rare opportunities, of being an unusually entertaining small hour, whisky-and-soda _raconteur_; in fact, he was evidently a man whose previous career, whatever it might have been (and his own statements merely served to increase the mystery round this point), had led him through many humorous by-paths, and left him with few restrictive prejudices.

November became December, and to all appearances he had settled down in his new residence with complete resignation, when that unknowable factor that upsets so many calculations came upon the scene,-the factor, I mean, that wears a petticoat.

Mr Beveridge strolled into Escott's room one morning to find the doctor inspecting a mixed a.s.sortment of white kid gloves.

"Do these mean past or future conquests?" he asked with his smile.

"Both," laughed the doctor. "I'm trying to pick out a clean pair for the dance to-night."

"You go a-dancing, then?"

"Don't you know it's our own monthly ball here?"

"Of course," said Mr Beveridge, pa.s.sing his hand quickly across his brow.

"I must have heard, but things pa.s.s so quickly through my head nowadays."

He laughed a little conventional laugh, and gazed at the gloves.

"You are coming, of course?" said Escott.

"If you can lend me a pair of these. Can you spare one?"

"Help yourself," replied the doctor.

Mr Beveridge selected a pair with the care of a man who is particular in such matters, put them in his pocket, thanked the doctor, and went out.

"Hope he doesn't play the fool," thought Escott.

Invitations to the b.a.l.l.s at Clankwood were naturally in great demand throughout the county, for nowhere were n.o.blemen so numerous and divinities so tangible. Carriages and pairs rolled up one after another, the mansion glittered with lights, the strains of the band could be heard loud and stirring or low and faintly all through the house.

"Who is that man dancing opposite my daughter?" asked the Countess of Grillyer.

"A Mr Beveridge," replied Dr Congleton.

Mr Beveridge, in fact, the mark of all eyes, was dancing in a set of lancers. The couple opposite to him consisted of a stout elderly gentleman who, doubtless for the best reasons, styled himself the Emperor of the two Americas, and a charming little pink and flaxen partner-the Lady Alicia a Fyre, as everybody who was anybody could have told you. The handsome stranger moved, as might be expected, with his accustomed grace and air of distinction, and, probably to convince his admirers that there was nothing meretricious in his performance, he carried his hands in his pockets the whole time. This certainly caused a little inconvenience to his partner, but to be characteristic in Clankwood one had to step very far out of the beaten track.

For two figures the Emperor snorted disapproval, but at the end of the third, when Mr Beveridge had been skipping round the outskirts of the set, his hands still thrust out of sight, somewhat to the derangement of the customary procedure, he could contain himself no longer.

"Hey, young man!" he asked in his most stentorian voice, as the music ceased, "are you afraid of having your pockets picked?"

"Alas!" replied Mr Beveridge, "it would take two men to do that."

"Huh!" snorted the Emperor, "you are so d-d strong, are you?"

"I mean," answered his _vis-a-vis_ with his polite smile, "that it would take one man to put something in and another to take it out."

This remark not only turned the laugh entirely on Mr Beveridge's side, but it introduced the upsetting factor.

CHAPTER III.

The Lady Alicia a Fyre, though of the outer everyday world herself, had, in common with most families of any pretensions to ancient dignity, a creditable sprinkling of uncles and cousins domiciled in Clankwood, and so she frequently attended these dances.

To-night her eye had been caught by a tall, graceful figure executing a _pas seul_ in the middle of the room with its hands in its pockets. The face of this gentleman was so composed and handsome, and he seemed so oblivious to the presence of everybody else, that her interest was immediately excited. During the set of lancers in which he was her _vis-a-vis_ she watched him furtively with a growing feeling of admiration. She had never heard him say a word, and it was with a sensation of the liveliest interest that she listened to his brief pa.s.sage with her partner. At his final retort her tender heart was overcome with pity. He was poor, then, or at least he was allowed the use of no money.

And all of him that was outside his pockets seemed so sane and so gentlemanly; it seemed a pity to let him lack a little sympathy.

The Lady Alicia might be described as a becoming frock stuffed with sentiment. Through a pair of large blue eyes she drank in romance, and with the reddest and most undecided of lips she felt a vague desire to kiss something. At the end of the dance she managed by a series of little manuvres to find herself standing close to his elbow. She sighed twice, but he still seemed absorbed in his thoughts. Then with a heroic effort she summed up her courage, and said in a low and rather shaky voice, "You-you-you are unha-appy."

Mr Beveridge turned and looked down on her with great interest. Her eyes met his for a moment and straightway sought the floor. Thus she saw nothing of a smile that came and went like the shadow of a puff of smoke.

He took his hands out of his pockets, folded his arms, and, with an air of the deepest dejection, sighed heavily. She took courage and looked up again, and then, as he only gazed into s.p.a.ce in the most romantically melancholy fas.h.i.+on and made no answer, she asked again very timidly, "Wh-what is the matter?"

Without saying a word Mr Beveridge bent courteously and offered her his right arm. She took it with the most delicious trepidation, glancing round hurriedly to see whether the Countess noticed her. Another dance was just beginning, and in the general movement her mysterious acquaintance led her without observation to a seat in the window of a corridor. There he pressed her hand gently, stroked his long moustaches for a minute, and then said, with an air of reflection: "There are three ways of making a woman like one. I am slightly out of practice. Would you be kind enough to suggest a method of procedure?"