Kitabı oku: «Lady Maude's Mania», sayfa 15

Chapter Thirty One.
Tom picks a Bone

“Stop a moment,” said Tom, who had slipped out and intercepted the French maid in the corridor. “Here, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

“No, no, Milor Thomas, nevaire now,” cried Justine, “pas de petites soupers. I am engage.”

“Engaged, are you? What, to be married?”

“Yes, milor, to be married.”

“Then good luck to you, ma’amselle. But I say, you are a nice one, you are.”

“I do you not understand, sir.”

“Not understand?” cried Tom, catching her by the wrist. “None of your nonsense. Come now, you were in the secret.”

“Sir, I will never divulge the secret of her ladyship; no, not even to milor.”

“Get out!”

“You loose my arm, milor. Her ladyship wait for me.”

“So do I,” said Tom. “Hang her ladyship’s hair-dye and all her other secrets; I mean about the organ – Mr Melton. Ah, you’re a nice one, Justine.”

“Milor, you think I know about that tair-rible affaire?” cried Justine very Frenchly.

“Yes, and so you did.”

“Faith of a woman, sir; it is not ter-r-rue,” cried Justine, excitedly.

“Gammon! Come, Justine, the game’s up, and I know you were at the bottom of it all.”

“Non – non – non – non – non – non,” cried Justine, shaking her head quite dangerously.

“Oui – oui – oui – oui – oui,” said Tom. “Now come, confess.”

“And you go tell her ladyship, you bad, weeked lil man.”

“Not I. I’m only too glad things have turned out so right.”

“You deed not like Sir Viltaire?”

“Like him!”

“You will not tell her ladyship, I confess,” said Justine in a mysterious, whisper. “You will not what you English call ze peach.”

“Peach? not I, old girl. Come, you did know?”

Justine screwed up her eyes, and made her mouth a tight line as she laughed silently.

“Then you put Mr Melton up to the dodge?”

“Parole d’honneur, no, Milor Tom. Ze plot was hatch by Monsieur Shairlie himself. I say noding about ze hair come out,” she added to herself.

“Well, all I can say is, that Charley Melton was a plucky one. And you knew this all the time?”

“Yes, milor.”

“You’re a deep one, Justine.”

“I love ze secret, monsieur, and I cannot bear to see Miladi Maude soffaire.”

“So you helped, eh?”

“Faith of a woman, no, sare; I only look on, and see and say noding at all.”

“By George, Justine, you’ve been a trump! and I’ll give you a ring for this.”

“Then give me dat one now, sare,” said Justine, sharply, as she pointed to the signet on Tom’s finger.

“But that’s too big and ugly for you, my girl. It is a gentleman’s ring.”

“Ma foi, Milor Thomas, do I not tell you I have a gentleman?”

“Then you’re going to marry old waxworks.”

“No, no, sare, I go to be Madame Launay when we return; and if Milor Tom do require my help – a thank you, ze ring is charmant– you shall say to me, ‘Justine, her ladyship go to marry la belle Ma’amselle Tryphie to Sir Viltaire,’ I am at your sairvice, for I am the guardian of her ladyship’s secret, but vive l’amour.”

“Vive l’amour, Justine,” cried Tom, giving her a kiss.

“Bad, weeked lil mans. But I forgive you. I go to her ladyship. Au revoir.”

“Charley, old fellow,” said Viscount Diphoos before they parted for the night, “hang me if I don’t stick to that organ, and have it on a stand in my room; and so long as I am at home, every time the old girl gets in one of her tantrums, I’ll go and turn the handle till she comes and makes a truce.”

Viscount Diphoos did not kep his word about that organ, being at the time in profound ignorance of the fact, that two days after he left town, and while the house was still in a state of turmoil, an Italian gentleman with very dark eyes, very black beard, and a smile that reached from one ear-ring to the other, called for the organ that had been left in the area; slinking down to the kitchen door, and wheedling the page a little. That young gentleman thought it rather fun to put the strap over his shoulder, and carry the instrument to the door, when it was borne off, and, in truth, entirely forgotten by all concerned.

But on the return to town her ladyship seemed to recover her elasticity somewhat, and Tom began to find that he was to have a fight yet to win his game.

“Seems precious hard,” he said, “and perhaps I shall have to make my plans, but no organ, thank you – the accordion, white mice, or guinea pigs would be more in my line.”

Just in the worst time of his trouble he called upon Monsieur Hector one morning, to have his weary brain relieved by a course of hair-cutting, and the refreshing shampoo.

Monsieur Hector was delicacy itself in his manipulations, and as delicate in his diplomacy.

“Ah bah!” he said, “what is cutting and shaving and dressing the hair? It is not by them that I must live and save for ma chère Justine. Why was I not in the bureau of the police? I am a great student of life – a very receptacle for the secrets of the aristocracy.”

“Monsieur suffers,” he said, softly, as he held Tom’s head, lathered all over with soap; “I am troubled to see monsieur look in such bad health.”

“Bother!” said Tom.

Monsieur Hector waited a few moments until the shampooing should begin to soften down some of the hard crystals of brain trouble from which Tom was suffering, and then he tried again.

“I trust milady recovers herself from the dreadful shock.”

Tom screwed his soapy head round, to stare in the bland, unruffled countenance of Monsieur Hector, who bowed, and gently returned his client’s head to its proper position.

“What the deuce do you know about my lady’s shock?” growled Tom.

“Monsieur forgets that I am the confidential attendant of the family,” said Monsieur Hector with dignity.

“So I did, and of Mademoiselle Justine too. But I smell a rat. You hatch plots here.”

“Aha, monsieur knows?”

“Yes,” said Tom, “I know. Could you manage me an organ if I wanted to go to play to a lady – say in Portland Place?”

Monsieur Hector smiled and tripped to a drawer, out of which he took a black wig and full beard to match.

“If monsieur will entrust himself to my care, I will in ten minutes change his complexion and his appearance so that her ladyship should not know him.”

“And find me an organ?”

“A thousand, if monsieur wishes,” said the Frenchman. “I am at his service when he say.”

“Then give me a clean towel;” said Tom, “my left ear is bunged up with soap.

“I’ll come if ever I want your help,” he added as he ran a covered finger through the intricate mazes of his ear.

“I am to monsieur,” said the Frenchman, bowing.

But Tom had no occasion to proceed to musical extremities, for as time went on, and no suitable match offered itself for Tryphie, her ladyship gave way.

“I never could have believed it, Tom, my boy,” said his lordship one night at the club, “you always do get the better of her ladyship. This is a doosed nice glass of port.”

“Yes, gov’nor, have another.”

“Eh? Well, I will just one, Tom, in honour of your wedding, Tom, and – damn the gout, eh?”

“To be sure, gov’nor.”

“Bless little Tryphie,” continued the old man; “she never had much money, but she lent me all she had when I was short, and she’s down for a thousand times as much in my will. Her ladyship can’t touch that; and – ”

Just then an organ sounded in the square, and his lordship stopped his ears.

“No, no, gov’nor, it’s only music, and I like that. Here’s Maude,” he said, filling his glass, “and may she never be more mad.”

“Yes, my dear boy, our darling Maude!”

“And never,” continued the viscount, “find a worse strait waistcoat than her husband’s arms.”