Taught by Experience—and Lady Isobel

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 77, 2 April 1910, Page 10

Taught by Experience— and Lady Isobel

By WELHAM FREEMAN. (All Rights Reserved.)

Ahtoi»ghsA^ise-n»an«luLStobserved that "whosoever deligirbeth in solitude is either a wild beasi. or a god," Jimmy Clifford was neither, in spite of the fact that the ten years \vbkh followed his father's death had been cpent wander ing, with few aims and jk> companions, in the remoter panes o€ the- globe. His return to England had been chiefly a matter of accidenv. It was from a dilapidated copy of The Times whkh he came- across at an Engfish restaurant in Calcutta that he learnt that the market quotation oi a bundle of mining shares, hitherto regarded as waste-paper, had obligingly jumped to about three times their face vahie He sold them, and a month later invested the proceeds in a concession which a "London syndicate was afterwards extremely glad to secure for forty-five thousand pounds. After which Cl ; ftoxd re-invested the money, and came homeIt was about twelve months later thao Perrington, who had been one of the directors of Clifford's Syndicate, cam*, upon him standing dejectedly on the kerb-edge near tho Law Courts. He would, in all probability, have passed him in ignorance, bat for the instinctive movement of recognition "which Clifford made: Pemngton stopped abruptly, aghast. Clifford's clothes, his indescribable air of destitution in triumphant conflict with respectability, were incredibly different from the man he had entertained at luncheon a year ago. Clifford hesitatingly held out his hand. Perrington took it, a little doubtful, and made some' incoherent remark about the weather. "Hang the weather!" said Clifford, and J*i» voice had lost every trace of its former' buoyancy. "Perriiigton — I'm broken Perrington, with mental reservations, had already realised the fact, but felt it no more than decent to express astonishment and a certain amount of sympathy. "Putting it plainly," said Clifford, "I backed the wrong horse. It's useless to go into details here, but I can give you all the facts at my diggings at Ciren-cester-street if you care to run round and see me." Perrington, who happened to know Ciltncester-street, remembered Clifford's former rooms at the Bitz, and shuddered slightly. "Ne time-"to spare, old man, though, of course,' Tin -de ySigh sorry .to hear you've'/come a cropper, and all that." "Then can you give me a job — clerk, messenger— l don't care what!" Perrrngton's manner, when he answered, hVd changed perceptibly. " TFraid not. Things are rather slack* just now—" "You made twenty thousand out of the syndicate, so .the pampers told me." "There was certainly a profit, but such things' are always grossly exaggerated. No, I' can't say .that, 1 know of any job that I could oiler you. But if half-a-sovereign would — !" "I&TJ&S^dn't: 4 I want- eomothing that, will ke«p~m« going- for more tfeax. three d»y s TTT T ''In that case — " Perrington had no intention of being brutal, but he had a good many calls upon his time, and he had never, he reflected, known Clifford very intimately — "you'll have to accept my assurance that Pm sorry, and let it end there. Luck's bound to ckange, you know. Good-bye." He turned away with * nod. And when he thought" of tho matter afterwards, 3T was simply to ..wonder at .ihe incredible stupidity* of people who, with a fortune actually within their grasp, deliberately. sacrificed it in wjrd speculations. • "■ Clifford watched him go on his pros.perous way, and wondered whether it would have been wiser for him to hare accepted the -money. Froui the.Liw Courts one may travel a confiderabtetfetance for a penny. But Cii3«*d had lilt 'Cheeacester-street that irfitooiog^lJKith • exactly sixpence in his pocket — » enm already hypothecated for a -.mid-day meal. Consequently, he walked — up Chancery Lane into Holborn, and from there to a huge building in Newgate-street. "H© sent his name in to the principal by a supercilious youth in uniform. The latter -returned almost immediately. "Mr. Daniels says that he is extremely busy /-ft present, but that he will be delighted if you will dine with him at seven this evening." Clifford smiled. For a moment the wild idea of accepting- this invitation to Queen Anne's Gate suggested itself, until he perceived, as in a vision, the horror which would fall upon that aspiring and stately household upon receiving a guest id a state of sach shabby poverty. "I fear," he said, "that I have another engagement. But please coilvey to your master my thanks for the invitation, and this message." Ho .went to a desk, and scribbled on a slip of paper— "Dear Daniels, — I want employment of some sort • ■ quickly: You have doubtless seen in . the paper thai' the international Bonds Association has gone hopelessly to smash, and that the secretary has belted with all the available cash. As a matter of fact, they've paid nothing in diyidends , since May, when I put my money in . the concern? .Hence you can draw wour own conclusions. — Yours, J. Clifford." The man took the note. When he returned ihe second time his manner was fiankly contemptuous. *_ l 'Mr Daniels finds it quite impossible v) see you, and has no other message." '."Thank you," said Clifford gravely "A;nd as to my calling- upon him — ?" ''He asked me to say that he will be occupied eveiy evening tor some time," said the man, with a suggestive glance towards the door. 'So Clifford emerged into the street again And without unduly prolonging the chronicle of his wanderings, it may be said of the remaining acquaintances upon whom he called that they were singularly at one in their desire to be rid of him, and pleasantly at variance in their methods of saying so. Clifford, upon turning out his pockets in the horrible little room, in Cireucester-street that evening, smiledi at .what the smoky lamp revealed. was a letter to the Secretary* of "a charitable organisation four miles a*ay calculated to improve his chances •f balf-a-crown by chopping firewood, a printed form authorising 1-im to obtain goods at half-price at Goodwin's Emporium — (the Goodwin who had won fifteen pounds of Clifford at poker)— a iree railway-ticket to a remote spot in Kssex Where there were rumours of scarcity of labour, and a handsomely-pro-duced booklet enlarging on the advantage? of emigration. "And Fswcett offered me a sovereign and Perrington ten bob," said Clifford to himself. "The day has been weH spent!" He sat down on the untidy bed, and Epent ten, minutes trying to look the situation squarely in the face. Then he slipped the papers back into his pocket, and read Bacon — "On Friendship," until I)'* Landlady knocked at the door to ask if he would like a couple of bloaters for ropper. . » » • Clifford, to do him justioO, did not tntirely neglect the opportunities offered him- He tried the wood-chopping for a

day and a half, -and tpent a shilling of what he earned on remedies for his lacerated Lauds, lie also read the volume ou emigration, but decided to utilise the railway-ticket first. Which done, ho returned with the conviction that emigration was the lesser evil. The week and his search for employment ended together. What would ha\o followed if Clifford had not suddenly recollected Tuberfield is uncertain. What actually happened was that he set out to interview that gentleman on the first opportunity, and was lucky enough to meet him returning from a mellowing lunch. Mr. Tuberfield, of the firm of Tuberfield, Peploe, and Gurrage, solicitors, was an .elderly gentleman possessing tho appearance of a country squire, an extensive practice, and a still more extensive knowledge of human nature. He had acted for Clifford in connection with the syndicate, remembered him immediately, and listened to the story of the ill-invested capital without comments. "I won't waste time being sarcastic," he said, when Clifford had ended. "Nor will 1 offer to lend you money, which would be against my principles. But I'll give you a letter to Lady Isobel Porchester, whose affairs, for my siiis, I have to manage. She's in search of some one who can write letters, overhaul her charity accounts, and make himself generally useful in an unobtrusive fashion. She imagines herself to be an invalid, and lives at Lower Carlton-terrace with a niece — a Miss Wayne." "Thanks," said Clifford cheerfully, "1 think, if you'll give me the introduction, I'll go there at once." He waited for it to be typed, and departed, to spend an extravagant proportion of his reserve capital in improving his wardrobe. When, under the encouraging' influence of a new outfit, he eventually called, it was to leave half-an-hour later under a definite contract to come to Lady Isobel's for a month on trial. All his life he had had a passion for dabbling in fresh experiences, bheer interest in his surroundings had helped to make the grimmest incidents in it tolerable. Now, in the capacity of a sort of superior man-servant dancing attendance on an irritable invalid, he found an existence so utterly and refreshingly different from any phase of his past life, and withal so easily terminable, that he was in no immediate hurry to bring it to an end. ■> The experimental month passed, at the I. end of which period Clifford, viewing the I matter critically, discovered that he ought to have grown weary of sucn a benumbing experience, but was not. The act impelled him to s.eek the reason, and it was revealed to him when Mus Patience Wayne announced her intention of spending a week with friends in the North of England. For the first time in his life, he had fallen effectively in love, and hia thoughts when ho fully realised what had happened were tumultuous. One fixed determination emerged from his mental chaos. "I shal l ask her when she comes back," he told himself, not very hopefully, because, in spite of the continual meetings between them, and of the pleasant familiarity in which social position played no part, Clifford had the inexperience of a boy of twenty in judging how the land lay with his divinity In the meantime, he waited, and studied Lady Isobel diligently as one looming largely in his future schemes. She was a middle-aged, sharptongued, clever woman, occasionally lapsing into unexpected generosity, but more generally exhibiting a manner which, even from the daughter of a .marquis, needed a good deal of tolerating. Clifford wondered whether she had any inkling of how matters stood, if so, whether she had spoken to Patience, and what Patience had said in reply. He thought and did :n short, precisely what every other normal man has thought and done under the circumstances, and — also strictly according to precedent — honestly believed the circumstances of his wooing unique in the history of Creation. The crucial week passed — to one person, at any rate, with extraordinary slowness. Ihe weather was too unpleasant for even Lady Isobel's bath-chair exercise, hei Ladyship was unusually irritable and bored, and Clifford grew to hate the big stuffy rooms with extreme heartiness. He was engaged in dealing with a mass of begging-letters when the carriage which had been sent to meet Patience drew up at the door, and his heart jumped absurdly as he heard her step cross the hall, and saw her enter the room. The fact that she looked tired with the journey only added a delicacy to what, in Clifford's eyes, was the sheer incarnation of beauty, and his glance, unconsciously and perhaps unwisely, showed it. In point of fact Miss Wayne was simply an unspoils girl of nineteen, with a fine akin, honest blue eyes, and a trick of blushing on small provocation for the cure ;of which she would many times have given half the fortune which Lady Isobel held in trust. • • She nodded brightly to Clifford, and 'then crossed the room to kiss her aunt, who was lying, swathed in shawls, on a couch near the fire. "Glad" to see you back again," said her Ladyship gruffly, "though travelling appears to have made your face disgustingly red !" Miss Wayne hastily rubbed her cnesk with her glove. "The room seems rather warm after the carriage," she said. "Well — weii — tell Edmund to get you some tea, and don't bother me again before dinner. Please continue, Mr. Clifford, 'Cannot help considering that the Society's last report conveys an impression of gross mismanagement.' " Patience vanished. Clifford typed distractedly for a further twenty minutes, at the end of which Lady Isobel was verging on hysteria, and the waste-paper basket filled with spoilt writing-paper Then, with a few but very pointed criticisms of his mental abilities ringing in his ears, he found himself released from duly for the remainder of the day. He retreated to the library — presumably for meditation — to find one other person already there, for Patience had come to return a couple of volumes that she had borrowed. Dusk had fallen, but the lights had not been switched on, and her profile showed dietractingiy against the dull blur of the window. A man who has shot big game and has been attacked three or fout times by chocolate-coloured cannibals, necessarily knows the value of seizing an opportunity. Clifford walked straight across the room, took the book which Miss Wayne had selected from her hands, carefully dusted it, and then, appropriating the hands themselves, asked her to marry him. "Ccr — certainly not !" said Miss Wayne, with indignation — none the less natural because she had happened to be thinking of him. "But you must !" said Mr. Clifford desperately, holding tho fluttering fingers more tightly than ever. "Life will be absolutely unenudrable if you don't! If you'd any idea of how I v« wanted you during the past week, in this Godforsaken hole — " "I — I think — I'm sure I ought not to listen, to you *»y longer," Mid Mlm

\Vayne breathlessly "It's all wrong!" "Not if I love you so much that I'd endure fifty years of Lady Isobel to be near you! Not if you cared even a little in return I" ".But you've no right whatever to assume anything of the sort," said Patience, with a fervent prayer that the darkness might be hiding the shameless glow in her cheeks. Clifford suddenly released her hands, mid moved so that he could look directly into the blue depths of her eyes. She made an attempt to turn away, and succeeded — the hundredth part of a second too late. He stooped and kissed her — agaiu before she could divine his purpose. Afterwards, with inexplicable tears on cheeks that were burning more than ever, and a still more inexplicable and delicious throbbing in her own heart, she allowed the enormity to be repeated. "I haven't the least idea of what Aunt will sny," she murmured, after an indefinite interval. "I haven't either," said Clifford. serenely, "but it's quite immaterial." •"But I've no money — yet. And you — " Clifford laughed. "Dear, I'll confess that I've been a fraud and delusion from the first! I've been playing the part of a poor beggar who'd lost everything, instead of a pound or two, in a fraudulent company, because I wanted to find out who were my friends, and what I was worth on the open market. And in the meantime, there are still a couple of big farms in Australia — to pay nothing ot property in the towns adjoining — which will bring us in enough to . make life very well worth living.'^ "Oh-h-h ! said Patience, and lapsed into rapturous silence until the gong called them to dinner. It was a delirious meal, and Clifford was thankful when it was over, and he had an opportunity of escaping to his own room to meditate upon his exceeding good fortune. True, he had suffered as well as learnt many things during the time of his deception, but the worst hardships had been robbed of their sting in the knowledge that they were voluntary. And they had brought him to Patience ! He chuckled at the thought of what Perrington and the rent of them would say when they knew the truth. He was still chuckling '-when a cable, banded in at some unfamiliar Australian township, arrived. "Have to inform you — " it ran, "that Home. Farm, Western Farm, and town* of Melton and Cliffordville totally destroyed by bush fires. Value of property saved almost nil, but no live* lost. Flames under control, but still smouldering." Clifford sat with the envelope crushed in his hand, storing ut the strip of paper as if hypnotised. The blood had drained away trom his face, leaving it grey and rigid. This message, signed by Morgan, his manager, spelt unmitigated ruin. His elaborate lie had been rendered a tait accompli by a still greater jest of Fate, that came very near to tragedy. A flush of hope momentarily lightened tho gloom. Ho hurried out ot the house, hatless, and made his way to the nearest post office, to wire to the place named on the cable — "State fuU amount covered by insurance." Then he went back to spend a lonely evening, and a night in which sleep had no part. Patience wondered a little at nis desertion. She wondered still more when he passed without even seeing her, and she ended the day with v dead weight of misgiving and dejection burdening her Bouf. The morning came, and Clifford's haggard face and distraoted manner intensified her misery. She was too young, and their intimacy too recent, for her to understand that the man was literally suffering tortures. The tension did not lessen as -the day wore on, and only Lady Isobel, informed by a diplomatic young doctor that she hud developed symptoms both baffling and unique, ex hibited anything resembling ordinary cheerfulness. A second cablegram arrived in the course of the afternoon — "Deeply regret to btate that through oversight all insurances lapsed. Was on way to renew vthen fires broke out and delayed journey. ' Clifford read the mintage, and the* made his way utraight to her Ladyship. liis stammering apologies for interrupting her siesta were so incoherent that she shortly told him to talk sense, or not bother h eP a t a n. Her Ladyship, it neemcd, had had he* eye upon him for some time, and had drawn her own conclusions. If he had anything to say in connection with Miss .Wayne— ? Hs writhed under the agony of the situation, but it had to be faced. "I understand, from a personal interview with Mr Tuberfield,^ Lady laobel continued, "that you have previously been in better circumstances." .. b " Yes .'." saitl Cliff °rd, desperately, "And you are doubtless acquainted with the fact that upon her coming ot age my niece will receive an income of about nine hundred a year?" "Yes- that I know!" said Clifford, utterly at bay "But, if your Lady ship will behove me, your assumption m to the reuson of this interview is incorrect. I have no right— no intention of claiming any such position as you surgest towards Miss Wayne." "What!" Lady Lsobel's voice rose sharply. "What » ' Her hand flew to the electric bell. Her maid appeared. "Tell Miss Wayne that I wish to see her, urgently and immediately!" Clifford stumbled info a chair. The direotiou of affairs had been taken out of his hands. Their settlement was beyond him. He was conscious simply of a wild and unmanly desire to fling himself out of the house— until he remembered Patience. She came almost at once, her eyes showing traces of lately-shed tears, her pretty lips still quivering. "Sit down, Patience, Lady Isobel commanded, "and auswer me one or two questions. Were you, or were you not, in the library with this young man yesterday eveuing ! Did yon, or did you not, permit him to seize your hands, etare into your eyes as if he was examining a gat-meter, and then proceed to kist you in a most outrageous manner! And did he, or did be not, express his willingness to endure my society for fifty years in this God-forsaken hole for your sake?" Clifford sprang to his feet. "Be quiet, sir," said Lady Isobel, before he couW speak. "Patience, are these things true or not?" Patience, with such agonised confusion and distress in her face that even her ladyship softened a little, made a slight movement of her head. She realised dimly that the library door had been left ajar, and remembered meeting Suzanne, her aunt's maid, when they had left. Suzanne, who disliked Clifford, had probably spent one of the most interesting halfhouif of her life. "Then, how comes it," continued her 'adyship after a terrible pause, "that when I ask Mr. Clifford for an explanation, he tells me that he has none to offer— that, in short — he wishes to carry the matter no further?" Patience gave a low, sobbing cry, and put out her hands blindly as Clifford took two swift steps forward and canght her to him. She would have torn herself away, but he held her fast. "Lady Isobel," he said. "Yesterday 1 asked Miss Wayne to be my wife, and she consented. At the time I believed myself to be a rich nun, although it had amused me to pretend differently. To-day I have heard that

all my property has been destroyed, and that what was fiction has become a fact. 1 am literally penniless." He stopped, and kissed the girl on the forehead. She was crying quietly in nis arms. Lady Isobel stamped her foot. "Patience, will you remember what is duo to yourself, and me, and 6end this — this impossible person about his bussines !" "No-o-o !" said Miss Wayne, in a faint, mnftled voice. Lady Isobel gasped, and then rose> 3lowly from her couch. She shifted her glare from Patience to Clifford, bat neither of them was even looking at her. Then something in the situation appeared to divert her, for sh© iobßidctf witii . a laugh. " Act three of a new domestic drama !' " she observed. "Mr. Clifford, . you have certain qualities which entitleeven a fool to 'respect. Patience, ytm'silly child, come here. 1 am going to-, kiss you !" The girl, still sobbing, obeyed, leaving Clifford standing for a moment ian< the centre of the room. Lady Isobel, with a gesture fittingly dramatic, poioted to the door. "Oblige me by going to your room, . sir," she said, and added incon&equeotly, "I shall not expect to see you agsia , before dinner." Clifford, his brain a-whiml, departed. It was nearly on hour afterwards that a note was brought him by one of the servants. "From her ladyship," said tho man. Clifford opened it hastily, and read :— "Lady Isobel Porchestor presents her compliments to Mr. Clifford, and begs to tender her apologies for any pain that she may have caused him through the despatch of two telegrams from an agent in Australia. She cannot, however, think that the punishment was wholly undeserved. "The 'bush fires/ and the 'lapsed policies' nre both non-existent. Mr. Clifford's property is still in a flourish ing condition. But when Mr. Tubeifleld, being sceptical concerning the story of the lost fortune, cnused enquiries to be made which proved it to bo a fabrication, and acquainted Lady Isobel with the fact, her ladyship took upon herself to teach Mr. Clifford that to submit his friends to such an ordeal was both unfair and unnecessary— though possibly diverting to himself. "Since then, howover, she has discovered that, with all his orrors of judgment, he has succeeded in making at least one person believe in him. "Dinner will be served ia her ladyship's room at seven o'clock, and covers laid for three persons." Clifford, who had already dressed, glanced at the clock. The hands stood at ten minutes to the hour. Ho readied her ladyship's room with exactly nine minutes to spare.