Frivolities Part 13

The Duke's advice remained unuttered. Just at that moment the door was opened. A servant ushered in a new-comer.

"Sir Tristram Triggs."

The Duke, striding forward, held out both his hands. "Sir Tristram!

And how long is it to be Sir Tristram?"

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"For a few hours, more or less, I suppose. I don't know much about this kind of thing. I daresay I shall know more about it when I've done."

"When you've done? May that not be for many and many a year! Allow me to introduce to you a friend of mine--Mr. Thomas Stanham."

Sir Tristram turned. For the first time he appeared to notice Mr.

Stanham.

Physically the new great man was short, and inclined to ponderosity.

The entire absence of hair upon his face served to accentuate its peculiar characteristics. It was a square face--and, in particular, the jaw was square. His big eyes looked from under a penthouse formed by his overhanging brows. As one looked at him one instinctively felt that this was a man whom it would be safer to have as a friend than an enemy. As he turned a faint smile seemed to be struggling into existence about the corners of his great mouth. But directly his glance alighted upon Mr. Stanham that smile vanished into the _ewigkeit_. He looked at him very much as a bull-terrier might look at a rat. And he said, in a tone of voice which seemed fraught with curious significance--

"I have had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman before."

On his part Mr. Stanham regarded Sir Tristram with a supercilious air which, perhaps unconsciously to himself, was only too frequently seen upon his face--as if Sir Tristram were an inferior thing.

"I'd no idea that your name was Triggs."

The Duke, standing behind Sir Tristram, clenched his fists, and glared at Mr. Stanham as if he would like to have knocked him down.

It happened, shortly afterwards, that Miss Cullen left her bedroom to come downstairs. As she went along the corridor she met a gentleman who was being conducted by a servant, probably to his own apartment.

The gentleman was Sir Tristram Triggs. When Sir Tristram saw Miss Cullen, and Miss Cullen saw Sir Tristram, they both of them stopped short. The great man's complexion was, normally, of a ruddy hue. At sight of the lady he turned the colour of a beetroot, boiled. She drew herself up to the full capacity of her inches. And she uttered a single monosyllable.

"You!"

That was all she said--then went sweeping on.

"That horrid man!--He here!--To think of it!--If I'd only known that he was coming I do believe, in spite of Tommy, that I'd have stayed away."

At the foot of the stairs Miss Cullen encountered Mr. Stanham. That gentleman had, as he was wont to have, his hands in his pockets. Also, as he was not wont to have, he had a face as long as his arm.

"I say, Frank, old man, isn't there somewhere where I can have a word or two with you on the strict Q.T.?"

"Certainly--the library. There's never a soul in there."

One would not like to libel Tuttenham so far as to say, with Miss Cullen, that the only tenants the library ever had were the books.

But, on that occasion, it did chance that the pair had the whole place to themselves. Mr. Stanham perched himself on a corner of the table, still with his hands in his pockets.

"There's going to be a pretty kettle of fish, dear boy."

That was what the gentleman observed.

"My dear child, what do you mean? What is the matter?"

"The Lord Chancellor's here."

"No!--How do you know?"

"Datchet just introduced me to him."

"Oh, Tommy, I say, what fun!"

With a little laugh the lady clapped her hands. She appeared to be gifted with a keener eye for comedy than Mr. Stanham.

"I don't know what you call fun. It happens that the new Lord Chancellor is a man who, I have good reason to believe, would give a tidy trifle for a chance of getting his knife into me."

"Whatever for?"

"I'll tell you the story. Last year, when I was at Canterstone for the shooting, I was placed next to a man whom I had never seen in my life, and whom I never wanted to see in my life again. What Charlie asked him for beats me. I believe, if he knew one end of a gun from the other, it was as much as he did know. I doubt if there ever was his ditto as a shot. I wiped his eye over and over again. I kept on doing it. I couldn't help it--I had to. He never hit a bird. But he didn't like it any the more for that. We had something like a row before the day was over. I fancy that I said something about a barber's clerk.

Anyhow, I know I walked off there and then."

"You nice, agreeable child! It's my opinion that all you men are the same when you are shooting--missing links. And, pray, what has this pleasant little sidelight on the sweetness of your disposition got to do with the new Lord Chancellor?"

"Only this--the new Lord Chancellor's the man I called a barber's clerk."

"Tommy! How horrible!"

"It does seem pretty lively. You should have seen how he looked at me when Datchet just now introduced us. Unless I am mistaken in the gentleman, when this little affair of ours leaks out, and I'm brought up in front of him and he sees who I am, he'll straightway consign me to the deepest dungeon, and keep me there, at any rate as long as he's Lord Chancellor. It's only a cheerful little prophecy of mine. But you mark my words, and see."

"My poor dear boy! Whatever shall we do?"

"There's one thing I should like to do, and chance it; I should like to kick Sir Tristram Triggs!"

"Kick who? Sir Tristram Triggs! Tommy! Why would you like to kick Sir Tristram Triggs?"

"That's the beggar's name."

"The beggar's name? Can it be that Sir Tristram Triggs is the new Lord Chancellor?" She threw out her arms with a gesture of burlesque melodrama. "Tommy! Kiss me! Quick. Before I faint!"

"I never saw a chap like you for kissing."

"That's a pretty thing to say! Although we may be married, sir, we have not yet been upon our honeymoon."

"I'll kiss you, if you like."

"Thank you kindly, gentle sir!" She favoured him with a sweeping curtsey. "Tommy, even you have no idea of the ramifications and complications of our peculiar situation." Mr. Stanham had removed his hands from his pockets. They occupied a more agreeable position round the lady's waist. "See if I don't s.n.a.t.c.h you from the lion's jaws."

"Does that mean that you will help me to escape from Holloway?"

"It means that you will never get as far as Holloway!"

"Am I to die upon the road then?"