IN WHICH LADY MELTON FEELS THAT HER AVERSION IS JUSTIFIED
From what has been said it may be
imagined that Mrs. Scarsdale, nee Vernon, was
an excellent hand at light and amusing conversation;
and so pleasantly did she receive the Consul, and
so amusingly rally him on the events of the day, that
he scarcely seemed to have been with her a minute,
when a slight jolt caused him to look up and out, only
to perceive the Basingstoke Station sliding rapidly
past the windows. Allingford’s first impulse
was to dash from the carriage, a dangerous experiment
when one remembers the rapidity with which a light
English train gets under way. In this, however,
he was forestalled by Mrs. Scarsdale, who clung to
his coat-tails, declaring that he should not desert
her; so that by the time he was able to free himself
the train had attained such speed as to preclude any
longer the question of escape. The sensations
which Mr. Allingford and Mrs. Scarsdale experienced
when they realised that they were being borne swiftly
away, the one from his wife and the other from her
husband, may be better imagined than described.
The deserted bride threw herself into the farthest
corner of the carriage and began to laugh hysterically,
while the Consul plunged his hands into his pockets
and gave vent to a monosyllabic expletive, of which
he meant every letter.
After the first moments of astonishment
and stupefaction both somewhat recovered their senses,
and mutual explanations and recriminations began forthwith.
“How has this dreadful thing
happened?” demanded Mrs. Scarsdale, in a voice
quavering with suppressed emotion.
“I’m afraid it’s
my fault,” said Allingford ruefully. “The
guard told me we had ten minutes.”
“That was for your division
of the train, stupid!” exclaimed the lady wrathfully.
“I didn’t know that,”
explained the Consul, “and so I told your husband
we had ten minutes, which probably accounts for his
being left.”
“Then I’ll never, never
forgive you,” she cried, and burst into tears,
murmuring between her sobs: “Poor, dear
Harold! what will he do?”
“Do!” exclaimed the Consul,
“I should think he had done enough, in all conscience.
Why, confound him, he’s gone off with my wife!”
“Don’t you call my husband names!”
sobbed Mrs. Scarsdale.
“Well, he certainly has enough of his own, that’s
a fact.”
“If you were a man,” retorted
the disconsolate bride, “you would do something,
instead of making stupid jokes about my poor Stanley.
I’m a distressed American citizen
“No, you’re not; you became
a British subject when you married Scarsdale,”
corrected Allingford.
“Well, I won’t be, so
there! I tell you I’m an American woman
in distress, and you are my Consul and you’ve
got to help me.”
“I’ll help you with the
greatest pleasure in the world. I’m quite
as anxious to recover my wife as you can be to find
your husband.”
“Then what do you advise?” she asked.
“We are going somewhere at a
rapid rate,” he replied. “When we
arrive, we will leave the train and return to Basingstoke
as soon as possible. Now do you happen to know
our next stop?”
“Yes: Salisbury.”
“How long before we get there?”
“About three quarters of an hour.”
“That will at least give us
time,” he said, “to consider what is best
to be done. Have you a railway guide?”
“I think there is a South Western
time-table in the pocket of dear Malcolm’s coat,”
she said, indicating a garment on the seat beside her.
“Why don’t you call him
St. Hubart and be done with it?” queried Allingford,
as he searched for and found the desired paper.
“You’ve given him all his other names.”
“I reserve that for important
occasions,” she replied; “it sounds so
impressive.”
Mabel Scarsdale, it will be noticed,
was fast regaining her composure, now that a definite
course of action had been determined upon. But
she could not help feeling depressed, for it must
be admitted that it is disheartening to lose your
husband before you have been married a day. What
would he do, she wondered, when he found that the train
had gone? Had he discovered its departure soon
enough to warn Mrs. Allingford to leave her carriage?
and if not, where had she gone, and had he accompanied
her? The event certainly afforded ample grounds
for speculation; but her reverie was interrupted by
the Consul, who had been deeply immersed in the time-table.
“There is no train back to Basingstoke
before ten to-night,” he said, “so we
must spend the evening in Salisbury and telegraph them
to await our return.”
“Possibly my husband may have
chased the train and caught the rear carriage.
I have seen people do that,” she ventured.
“The guard’s van, you
mean,” he explained. “In that case
he is travelling down with us and will put in an appearance
directly we reach Salisbury, though I don’t
think it’s likely. However, there’s
nothing to worry about, and I must beg you not to
do so, unless you wish to make me more miserable than
I already am for my share in this deplorable blunder.”
“You don’t think they would follow us
to Salisbury?”
“No; that is” and
he plunged into the intricacies of the time-table
once more “they couldn’t; besides,
they would receive our telegram before they could
leave Basingstoke.”
“Could they have gone off on the other train?”
“Impossible,” he replied.
“By Jove, they neither of them know where they
are bound for!”
“Quite true,” she said,
“they do not. We had tickets for Exeter;
but as a joke I never let my husband see them.”
“We were going to Bournemouth,
and here are my tickets,” he returned, holding
them up, “but my wife doesn’t know it.”
“You think there is no question
that they are waiting for us at Basingstoke?”
she asked.
“Not a doubt of it; and so we
have nothing to do but kill time till we can rejoin
them, which won’t be hard in your society,”
he replied.
“I’m sorry I can’t
be so polite,” she returned, “but I want
my husband, and if you talk to me much more I shall
probably cry.”
The Consul at this made a dive for
an adjacent newspaper, in which he remained buried
till the train slowed down for Salisbury.
“I suppose,” he said apologetically,
as they drew up at their destination, “that
you won’t object to my appropriating Scarsdale’s
coat and hat? I dare say he is sporting mine.”
A tearful sniff was the only reply
as he gathered up the various impedimenta with which
the carriage was littered, and assisted his fair though
doleful companion to alight. Returning a few moments
later from the arduous duty of rescuing her luggage,
which was, of course, labelled for Exeter, he found
her still alone, there being no sign of Scarsdale
in or out of the train, and no telegram for them from
Basingstoke a chance on which Allingford
had counted considerably, though he had not thought
it wise to mention it. Indeed, the fact that no
inquiry had been made for them puzzled and worried
him greatly, for it seemed almost certain that were
their deserted partners still at Basingstoke, their
first action would have been to telegraph to the fugitives.
However, he put the best face he could on the matter,
assured Mrs. Scarsdale that everything must be all
right, and despatched his telegram back to their point
of separation. Under the most favourable circumstances
they could not receive an answer under half an hour,
and with this information the Consul was forced to
return to the disconsolate bride.
“There is no use in loafing
around here,” he said. “Suppose we
go and see the cathedral? It will be something
to do, and may distract our thoughts.”
“I don’t think mine could
well be more distracted than they are now,”
replied she; “besides, we might miss the telegram.”
“Oh, I’ll fix that,”
he returned; “I’ll have it sent up after
us. Come, you had better go. You can’t
sit and look at that pea-green engine for thirty minutes;
it is enough to give you a fit of the blues.”
“Well, just as you please,”
she said, and they started up into the town, and made
their way to the cathedral.
It is not to the point of this narrative
to discourse on the beauties of that structure; the
finest shaft of Purbec marble it contains would prove
cold consolation to either a bride or a bridegroom
deserted on the wedding day. But the cool quiet
of the great building seemed unconsciously to soothe
their troubled spirits, though when they each revisited
the spot in after years they discovered that it was
entirely new to them, and that they possessed not
the faintest recollection of its appearance, within
or without.
At last, after having consulted their
watches for the hundredth time, they began to stroll
down the great central aisle, towards the main entrance.
Suddenly Mrs. Scarsdale clutched the Consul’s
arm, and pointed before her to where a messenger-boy,
with a look of expectancy on his face and an envelope
in his hand, stood framed in a Gothic doorway.
Then they made a wild, scrambling rush down the church,
the bride reaching the goal first, and snatching the
telegram from its astonished bearer.
“For Mr. Allingford,”
he began, but she had already torn open the envelope
and was devouring its contents.
For a moment the words seemed to swim
before her eyes, then, as their meaning became clear
to her, she gave a frightened gasp, dropped the message
on the floor, sat down hard on the tomb of a crusader,
and burst into tears.
Allingford gazed at her silently for
a moment, and meditatively scratched his head; then
he paid and dismissed the amazed boy, and finally
picked up the crumpled bit of paper. It was from
the station-master at Basingstoke, and read as follows:
“Parties mentioned
left in second division for Southampton and
South Coast Resorts.
Destination not known.”
It was incomprehensible, but he had
expected it. If Mr. Scarsdale had remained at
Basingstoke he would certainly have telegraphed them
from there at their first stop, Salisbury. Evidently
he, too, had been carried away on the train; but where?
It was some relief to know that his wife was not wholly
alone, but he did not at all like the idea of her
going off into space with another man, and the fact
that he had done the same thing himself was no consolation.
Then his mind reverted to Mrs. Scarsdale, who still
wept on the tomb of the crusader. What in thunder
was he going to do with her? To get her back to
her aunt in London at that time of night was out of
the question; but where else could he take her?
This point, however, was settled at
once, and in an unexpected manner, by the lady herself.
Drying her eyes, she remarked suddenly: “I’m
a little fool!”
“Not at all,” he replied;
“your emotion is quite natural under the circumstances.”
“But crying won’t get us out of this awful
predicament.”
“Unfortunately no, or we should have arrived
at a solution long ago.”
“That,” remarked the lady,
“is merely another way of making a statement
which you just now disputed. I am a little
fool, and I mean to dry my eyes and attend strictly
to business. Tell me exactly what this message
implies.”
“It means,” said the Consul,
“that it is impossible for you to rejoin your
husband to-night.”
Her lip quivered dangerously; but
she controlled herself sufficiently to exclaim:
“But what are we to do?”
“Well,” he replied, “I
should advise remaining here. There is a good
hotel.”
“But we can’t. Don’t
you see I must not remain with you?”
She spoke the last words with an effort.
“Yes,” he rejoined.
“It is awkward; but you can’t spend the
night in the streets; you must have somewhere to sleep.”
“Let us go back to Basingstoke, then.”
“I can’t see that that
would help matters,” he said gloomily; “we
would have to spend the night there just the same.
Besides, I think it is going to rain.”
They were standing outside the church by this time.
“No,” he continued, “our best course,
our only course, in fact, is to stay here to-night,
return to Basingstoke to-morrow morning, and wait
for them there. You may be sure they are having
quite as bad a time as we are. If I only knew
some one here
“Bravo!” she interrupted,
clapping her hands, “I believe you have solved
the problem. Look: do you see that carriage
over there? What coat of arms has it? Quick!
your eyes are better than mine.”
In the gathering twilight he saw driving
leisurely by, with coachman and footman on the box,
a handsome barouche, on the panels of which a coat
of arms was emblazoned.
“Well,” he said, gazing
hard at it, “there is a helmet with a plume,
balanced on a stick of peppermint candy
“Yes, yes!” she cried, “the crest.
Go on!”
“Down on the ground-storey,”
he continued, “there is a pink shield divided
in quarters, with the same helmet in the north-east
division, and a lot of silver ticket-punchers in the
one below it.”
“Spurs,” she interjected.
“Well, perhaps they are,”
he admitted. “Then there are a couple of
two-tailed blue lions swimming in a crimson lake
“The Melton arms!” she
cried. “I looked them up in ‘Burke’s
Peerage’ when that old catawampus refused to
come to our wedding. We will spend to-night with
Lady Diana!”
“But I thought”
began the Consul, when his companion interrupted him,
exclaiming:
“Chase that carriage as hard
as you know how, and bring it here!”
Allingford felt that this was a time
for action and not for speech. The days of his
collegiate triumphs, when he had put his best foot
foremost on the cinder-track, rose to his mind, and
he fled across the green and into the gathering gloom,
which had now swallowed up her ladyship’s chariot,
with a swiftness that caused his companion to murmur:
“Well, he can sprint!”
Presently the equipage was seen returning
with the heated and triumphant Consul inside.
It drew up before her, and the footman alighted and
approached questioningly.
“Is this Lady Melton’s carriage?”
she asked.
“Yes, madam.”
“Then you may drive this gentleman and me to
Melton Court.”
“But, madam
“I am Mrs. Scarsdale, Lady Diana’s
great-niece,” she said quietly. The footman
touched his hat.
“Was her ladyship expecting
you? We were sent to meet this next train, but
“No, we are here unexpectedly
ourselves; but I dare say there will be room for all,
as the carriage holds four.”
“There will only be Lord Cowbray,
madam, and his lordship may not arrive till the nine-thirty.
If you would not mind driving to the station?”
“It is just what we wish,”
she replied, and calmly stepped into the carriage
and seated herself by the Consul’s side, who
was so amazed at the turn affairs had taken that he
remained speechless.
“Shall I see to your luggage,
madam?” inquired the footman as they drew up
opposite the waiting-room door.
“No,” she replied, stepping
out on the platform. “We will attend to
it ourselves; it will only be necessary to take up
our hand-bags for to-night.”
Accompanied by the Consul she went
in search of their belongings, and at her suggestion
he took a Gladstone belonging to the absent Scarsdale,
and a dressing-case which she designated as her own
property.
“I was anxious to have a word
alone with you,” she said as they emerged once
more on the platform, “and we can’t talk
on personal matters during the drive to the Court.
You see my position is a little peculiar.”
“Excuse me for asking the question,”
he replied, “but are your relations with your
husband’s great-aunt quite cordial?”
“On the contrary, they are quite
the reverse. She detests all Americans, and was
very much put out at poor Harold for marrying me.
Her refusal to be present at our wedding was almost
an insult,” she returned.
“That doesn’t seem to
promise a pleasant reception at Melton Court,”
he said.
“Far from it; but any port is
acceptable in a storm, and she can hardly refuse us
shelter. After all I’ve done nothing to
be ashamed of in marrying my husband or being carried
off with you.”
“Oh, I’ll trust you to
hold your own with any dowager in the United Kingdom;
but where do I come in?”
“You are my Consul, and under
the circumstances my national protector; I can’t
do without you.”
“I am not at all sure that her
ladyship will see it in that light; but, as you say,
it is better than nothing, and our position can’t
be worse than it is at present.”
“Then it is agreed we stand
by each other through thick and thin?”
“Exactly,” he replied,
and shook her extended hand. At this moment the
train came in, and they returned to the carriage.
Lord Cowbray did not put in an appearance,
and they were soon under way for Melton Court, which
was some miles distant from the town. By the
time they entered the grounds it was quite dark, and
they could only see that the park was extensive, and
that the Court seemed large and gloomy and might have
dated from the Elizabethan period.
On entering the central hall they
at once saw evidences of a large house-party, whose
presence did not tend to put them more at their ease,
and Mrs. Scarsdale lost no time in sending a message
to Lady Melton, to the effect that her great-niece
had arrived unexpectedly and would much appreciate
a few words with her in private.
They were shown into a little reception-room,
and the footman returned shortly to say that her ladyship
would be with them soon. After what seemed an
endless time, but was in reality barely fifteen minutes,
their hostess entered. She was a fine-looking
woman of sixty or over, with a stern, hard face, and
a set expression about her thin lips, that boded little
good to offenders, whatever their age or sex.
She looked her guests over through her gold eye-glasses,
and, after waiting a moment for them to speak, said
coldly:
“I think there is some mistake.
I was told that my niece wished to see me.”
“I said your great-niece,” returned Mrs.
Scarsdale.
“Oh, my great-niece. Well? I do not
recognise you.”
“It would be strange if you
did, Lady Melton,” returned the bride, “as
you’ve never seen me. I am the wife of your
great-nephew, Harold Stanley Malcolm St. Hubart Scarsdale.”
“I do not see your husband present,”
said her ladyship, directing an icy glare at the unfortunate
Consul.
“No,” replied her niece, “I’ve
lost him.”
“Lost him!”
“Yes, at Basingstoke. He
went to speak to a lady in another part of the train.
I could make it clearer to you, I think, by saying
that she was Sir Peter Steele’s youngest daughter.”
“I never thought of knowing
the Steeles when I was in London,” commented
her hostess, “but St. Hubart was always liberal
in his tastes.” A remark which caused the
Consul to flush with pent-up wrath.
“Oh, he didn’t know her,”
interjected Mabel, hastening to correct the unfortunate
turn which the conversation had taken. “She
was this gentleman’s wife.”
Her ladyship bowed very, very slightly
in the Consul’s direction, to indicate that
his affairs, matrimonial or otherwise, could have for
her no possible interest.
“And that is the last we have
heard of them,” continued the bride, “except
for a telegram from the station-master at Basingstoke,
which says they went to Southampton
“Do I understand you to say,”
broke in their hostess, betraying the first sign of
interest she had so far evinced, “that my nephew
has eloped with?”
“No, no!” cried Mrs. Scarsdale,
“you do not in the least comprehend the true
state of affairs,” and she poured forth a voluble
if disconnected account of their adventures.
“Pardon me,” exclaimed
the old lady when she had finished, “but what
is all this rigmarole? A most surprising affair,
I must say, and quite worthy of your nationality.
I was averse to my nephew’s marrying you from
the first; but I hardly expected to be justified on
his wedding day.”
“In that case,” said Mrs.
Scarsdale, “the sooner we leave your house the
better.”
“You will do nothing of the
sort,” replied her great-aunt. “Your
coming to me is the only wise thing you have done.
Of course you will remain here till your husband can
be found. As for this person”
indicating Allingford.
“This gentleman,”
said his partner in misfortune, coming to his rescue,
“is Mr. Robert Allingford, United States Consul
at Christchurch. As my husband had gone off with
his wife, I thought the least I could do was to take
him with me.”
“I can hardly see the necessity
of that course,” commented her hostess.
“Now that I have seen Mrs. Scarsdale
in safe hands, I could not think of trespassing longer
upon your hospitality,” put in the Consul; but
his companion intervened.
“I am not going to be deserted
twice in a day!” she cried. “If you
go, I go with you!”
“About that,” said her
ladyship frigidly, “there can be no question,”
and she rang the bell.
“You will conduct this lady
and this gentleman,” she continued to the footman
who answered her summons, “to the green room
and the tower room respectively.” Then,
turning to her unwilling guests, she added: “As
my dinner-table is fully arranged for this evening,
and my guests are now awaiting me, you will pardon
it if I have your dinner served in my private sitting-room.
We will discuss your affairs at length to-morrow morning;
but now I must bid you good-night,” and with
an inclination of her head she dismissed them from
her presence.