The Unfortunate Lover.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 4, 22 January 1913, Page 51

The Unfortunate Lover.

Being Some Incidents in the Amorous Career of Mr. Horace Bennerton.

By

F. MORTON HOWARD, in "London Opinion."

IV—IN THE MATTER OF MARJORIE.

y yT ITII all the outward appearance f| I of a perfectly-equipped man-about-town, and with all the

inward sensations of an early Christian martyr about to figure in the star ’ animal turn on the arena programme, Mr Horace Bennerton was ushered into the study of Colonel Scafforth (retired). “Good afternoon, BennertonSit down. What can I do for you, eh ?” rasped the colonel in the voice which, in former years, he had reserved exclusively for courts-martial. He stood staring grimly at his caller, awaiting a reply. Under his scrutiny Bennerton became limply apologetic in expression. “You see, colonel, the fact is— ”he began. “I mean” He stopped uneasily. His bearing had much in common with that of a small boy discovered in the larder. "Well, sir?” prompted the colonel explosively. Bennerton’s nerves resented the sudden exclamation. He started back, and the single glass, dropping from his eye, rolled away and tinkled ridiculously to a standstill under a distant chair. Bennerton vaguely wondered, as he gazed unhappily at the colonel, whether there could be any more ludicrous sight in all the world than U well-dressed young man on his knees, wildly groping for a monocle under a chair.

“You see,- colonel, the faet is— ” stammered Bennerton. “I mean

“My time is valuable, if yours isn’t,” the colonel reminded him. "Come, what do you wish to speak to me about?” “Well, then, if you insist on knowing,” replied Bennerton desperately, “I want to marry Marjorie.”

For a moment there was an unpropitious silence. The colonel appeared to be having some difficulty with his breath. “Oh, you want to marry my daughter, do you?” he said at length. "Well, you can put the idea right out of your head at once. Of all the audacity, the presumption, the —the ”

“But we’ve fallen in love with each other.”

“Then fall out again!” “But, I say!” pleaded Bennerton. "I mean ”

"Don’t argue with me, sir. The idea’s preposterous, I tell you! 1 wouldn’t dream of it for a moment! Good afternoon, sir!” “But why do you object to me, colonel?” “For about fifty reasons—each of ’em fatal!”

The colonel sat down and picked up a newspaper, and Bennerton judged accurately that the interview was at an end. Dejectedly he rose and walked from the room.

"Bennerton!” called the colonel just before the door closed.

“He’s relented!” thought the young man, and joyously skipped back into the

study. “Your eyeglass is still under that chair.” “Oh- —er —thanks!” said Bennerton flabbily, and was about to stoop to retrieve his property when a sudden suspicion assailed him. “Er—promise you won’t move!” he stipulated. With the colonel watching him in scornful silence, he lapsed into an undignified attitude on hands and knees, and hunted round till he found his monocle. Then he quitted the room again. “Well, dear?” queried a tense little voice in the hall outside. , .

“If he wern’t your father ” whispered Bennerton. ■ • “Oh!” The monosyllable was replete with comprehension. "Never mind, little girl. Never despair —what? It’ll all roll out flat yet.” "If only we could get on the right side of mother,” she sighed, “she could manage U for ua.”

"Marjorie!” roared the colonel’s voice from the study. "Au revoir!” said Bennerton swiftly, and the front door shut very, very quietly.

For the next week or two Mr Bennerton gave his whole mind to making strategical moves towards obtaining the goodwill of Mrs Seafforth. Whenever that lady expressed an intention of attending any place of friendly meeting, Marjorie duly apprised him of it over the telephone, and he bobbed up there accordingly. Mrs Seafforth, either with or without Marjorie, was always encountering him at concerts and receptions; the marked attention he paid her caused several of her dearest friends to take it upon themselves to contradict sinister rumours of which no one else had heard.

Bennerton realised the value of gaining Mrs >Scafforth’s favour. If only he could secure her as an ally, the colonel became as a bursted drum. She, after all, was the master of the house, ruling her husband not so much with a rod of iron as a jar of vinegar. However assertive he might be when she was absent, in her presence ho figuratively gave up the conductor’s baton and took his place in the second violin’s seat.

Nor was she the only person who held him in subjection. Her brother, the rector of Upper Brentleyford, Cambs, and his wife, also domineered him. The brother was a man whose austerity, yoked with the acidity of the rectoress, did much to make the colonel regret the irresponsible days of his bachelorhood. Fortunately it was but rarely that the rector and his wife came up from Upper Brentleyford to London, but when they did they always seemed to bring with them an appreciable fall of the temperature. However, Mrs Seafforth was an industrious letter-writer, and she kept them well-informed of the colonel’s doings. In short, the triumvirate ruled the retired warrior relentlessly, and to escape their condemnations, criticisms, and advice was always a source of the keenest anxiety to him. Although Bennerton did his best to gain Mrs. iScafl'orth’s regard, he was entirely unsuccessful. (Seeing that she was a firm believer in everybody being non-everytbing-really-en joyable, his failure is not surprising. Though he temporarily became a non-smoker and a non-drinker in his efforts to curry favour with her, she still looked upon him with the hard eye of suspicion. , For once she agreed with her henpecked husband in the matter of Marjorie. On Bennerton venturing into the open, after his prolonged course of conciliation, and explaining to her exactly why he was soliciting her vote and interest, she immediately took up the same uncompromising attitude as the Colonel. ‘After a spirited lecture to Bennerton on his more glaring disqualifications for the post of son-in-law, she rewarded his persistence by dispatching Marjorie to stay for six months with some old friends in Dusseldorf.

At first Marjorie wrote frequently to the bereaved Bennerton, but gradually her letters grew fewer. Finally, after six weeks, they ceased altogether. It seemed that she had belatedly remembered that she had promised her mother not to write to him.

But still Bennerton declined to lose all hope. Still, by adopting an expression of stern melancholy, he strove to inticaught sight of her, that be was attainmate to Mrs. Seafforth, whenever he ing great heights of morality. Still he ventured to falter out respectful greetings to the Colonel whenever he encountered him, in the hope that his spirit of patient forgiveness might touch the Colonel's heart.

But’ the Colonel, beyond snorting nt tlx- horizon, took no heed of Mr. Hennerton's greetings; and Mrs. Seafforth con-

tinued to regard that misguided young man as a brand too far consumed to be worth snatching from the burning. It was about three months after Marjorie’s translation to the Fatherland had been effected that Mr. Bennerton, turning into the club late one evening, found the Colonel there, surrounded by a

genial group. The Colonel, it seemed, had been doing himself well that evening. He had dined at Frascati’s, met some old friends, and gone with them to a music-hall. The fact that he had not stayed till the end of the programme was solely due to the arbitrary behaviour of the management. Whatever annoyance the incident may have caused him at the moment, it was clear that the Colonel had now already forgotten it. He was in an eminently jovial, mood, and was doing his best, in his capacity of host to his old friends, to set an example of hilarious conviviality. Indeed, so genial was the Colonel that not only dill he respond to Bennerton’s greeting, but, further, he insisted on that young man joining in the festivities. With some alacrity Bennerton accepted the invitation.

“Sec what I mean?” laughed the Colonel. “We're all joll’ pals here. Join in! No need to rake up the beas’ly past. That’s all over and done with. Forgive and forget. See? 1 had my duty to do, and I did it. Start fresh—goo’ friends again; simply that and nothing more.”

Delighted at this opportunity for a new start. Bennerton concurred heartily in the sentiment. The guests, applauding the Colonel's magnanimity, drank to the rapprochement. It was a feat for which they encored themselves several times, and when the excuse had worn a bit threadbare, the company toasted each other in the same unstinted manner. But just about 2 o’clock the Colonel’s mood suddenly veered round to one of extreme acerbity. Alfter professing an earnest desire to combat each of his guests, either individually or in a lump, the Colonel rose unsteadily from his chair, and, sitting down on a remote sofa, took no further interest in the gathering. One by one his guests approached him, said “Good night,” and went off, till only Bennerton was left. .

"I’d better keep an eye on the old sport,” reflected Bennerton sagely. “I’ll do the Good Samaritan act, if necessary, and see him home. Nothing like putting a man under an obligation-to you if you want a favour from him.” So Bennerton sat down and watched the Colonel.- After -20 minutes the' Colonel suddenly woke up and wanted to know where all the others were. Bennerton explained. “More fools them!” laughed the Colonel gleefully. " It’s their loss, not ours. I’m making a regular night of it. I don't get the chance often.” So reckless did he seem that Benner-, ton risked a word of warning.

“Oh, she’s all right!” smiled the Colonel. “ When the old cat's away, the mice have a devil of a time, you know. And the cat's in Cambridgeshire just at present.”

“ Oh, Mrs Seafforth’s not at home, then?” said Bennerton, relieved. " Can’t you see she isn’t?” retorted the Colonel, winking. “ She’s down at the Rectory, Upper Beastley Brentleyford.”

" Quite sure? She won’t come back unexpectedly, or anything like that?”

“ She’s safe as houses. Fact is. she’s in bed down there with a bad cold. No, my boy, she’s fixed up there —and jolly good job, too. Here, let’s drink to her enjoying herself! We haven't used that yet, have we?”

Fully, they did the toast honour. In the middle of the fourth repetition the Colonel suddenly rose with the intention of showing Bennerton how they danced the cancan. Instead, he sat down again anil incontinently went off to sleep once moire.

With the assistance of the porter, Bennerton got the slumbersome Colonel into a cab, and, 20 minutes later, woke him tenderly.

“ I'vp brought you home. Colonel,” said Bennerton. “ All you've got to do now is get out and go upstairs to bed.? The Colonel, after his brief nap, was in the best of humours.

“ Devilish good o-f you, Bennerton !” he declared. " What’s the time?”

Learujpg that it was a quarter to three, the Colonel evinced a desire to go for a. walk, saying that it scarcely •eemed worth while going to bed. Bennerton, however, persuaded 'him to get out of the cab, and, on the pavement, the gallant warrior insisted on doing a few steps of a breakdown just to prove bow well be felt.

“Got your latchkey?” asked Bennerton. . flhe Colonel, after a prolonged search, shook his head. It was, he said vaguely, the best joke he’d heard for a long time. Fortunately Bennerton found one of the dining-room windows unlatched. Pushing it up, he hurried round to open the front door for the Colonel. His particular reason for haste lay in the factthat the Colonel was standing ou the doorstep, serenading the neighbours in tones that were effective more on account of their power than their music. Bennerton lit the gas in the hall and coaxed the Colonel indoors. “ Sure you can find the way upstairs all right?” he asked. “Rather!” affirmed the Colonel. “Good ni’, my dear old boy.” Resuming his interrupted song, the Colonel laboriously mounted the stairs. With each upward step his voice swelled louder in triumph. Several times he stumbled noisily, and then he ceased his chant for a few moments to chuckle amusedly. He -passed round the landing out of Bennerton’s sight. Then there was a long pause, and a hat, a boot, and a collar rolled down the stairs. At last the song broke out afresh with extreme gusto. Hearing him open a door upstairs, Bennerton left the house. At noon next morning the Colonel visited Bennerton in his rooms. Thq veteran had a haggard, drawn face, and seemed ill at ease. “ I’ve got a sort of vague idea, you saw me home last night.,” he said to Bennerton. “ I did. But surely a little thing like that ” “It wasn’t so little,” said the Colonel. “You don't mean to say your wife had returned?” queried Bennerton anxiously, caught by something in the Colonel’s look. "No, she hadn’t returned. She knows nothing of this—yet.” “Good!” “Oh, you don't deceive me! Do you mean to say you didn’t know that I was up in London on business, and hail booked a room at an hotel for last night?” “At an hotel?” asked Bennerton, puzzled. “Oh, it’s no use pretending! You did it on. purpose,” roared the Colonel. “ You toojt advantage of my—you took advantage of me to pay me out for refusing Marjorie to you.” "Really, Colonel, I don’t understand!” “ Y ou blithering idiot, do you mean to say you didn't know, that we've .swopped -houses wit.h the Rectory people for a' month? You interfering meddler, can’t you see what's happened now? We’re, stopping at Upper Brentleyford, and they’re staying in our house in London!) And of course they were there last night! ”