Chapter III: Negotiations with the Bun Emperor

When Mrs. Verulam was alone once more she fell into deep and earnest thought. She was a little pleased, a little vexed, a little agitated, a little excited, and a little perplexed. She found herself in a novel situation, that was also, in a degree, an awkward situation. An hour ago she had been sighing for a means of escape from society; she had even been yearning to be compromised, in order that she might be shunned, and, being shunned, might find that peace which she had so long desired. Now she was shut up with a divorced woman, whose story was told in the weekly issue of the best-known society paper of the day; and this divorced woman, innocent certainly, but guilty in the eyes of the world and of the law, was her intimate and old school friend, knew scarcely a soul in England except herself, and had arrived to make a long stay with her just as the season was beginning. Here was food for thought, indeed. That paragraph rendered it quite impossible for Mrs. Van Adam to obtain any footing whatever in society; that paragraph also rendered it quite impossible for Mrs. Verulam to introduce her to charming friends. If Mrs. Verulam stirred abroad with Chloe, the most awkward complications must ensue; if she stayed at home with her, people would call and introductions would be inevitable. As Mrs. Verulam sat there, it began to seem to her that Providence had at length heard her cry, and had made the necessary arrangements for her exit from society—at any rate, for one summer. If Chloe stayed on with her in Park Lane, she would—she could have no season at all. For even these dear friends who so clung to her, who rallied round her in her supposed poverty, who assumed pelerines and elastic-sided boots in her imitation, who even followed her into the wicked Wood, and there abode like disciples in the desert, even these would not be able to visit or to receive her when she had for close companion the now infamous, although so innocent, Mrs. Van Adam. Should she keep Chloe? That was the problem which Mrs. Verulam was now debating. The sacred duties of hospitality, the yet more sacred duties of friendship, ought surely to decide that question in the affirmative. And yet Mrs. Verulam could not hide from herself the fact that she had intended her exit from society—desired, certainly—to be made more gradually than was possible under the new circumstances so suddenly arisen. She had intended, as it were, to make an effective farewell speech, to see around her not a single dry eye while she made it, to hear the murmur of uncontrollable regret, and to note personally the devastation caused by her brilliant and unalterable decision, persisted in despite so many difficulties. She had, in fact, intended, like an actress, to have a good-bye season; but Fate seemed about to dispose matters otherwise. And so Mrs. Verulam bit her pretty lip and sighed a gentle sigh.

In the midst of these pathetic evolutions the drawing-room door opened, and James, the second footman, showed in a tall, thin, fiddle-faced man of about forty-two, whose rather plaintive eyes and agreeable expression quarrelled mildly with a sinister moustache of the tooth-brush persuasion, and whose neat black hair and soothing gait diffused around him an atmosphere of scented repose and aristocracy. This was Mr. Hyacinth Rodney, whose claim upon our notice is that he believes he loves Mrs. Verulam.

On seeing him Mrs. Verulam started, for she was "not at home," and to be forced by a careless flunkey to be what you are not, "doth work like madness in the brain." But James was gone, and Mr. Rodney was reposefully approaching. So Mrs. Verulam was true to her order and smiled at him.

"Thank you for your roses," she said, "a thousand times."

Mr. Rodney was seated. It would scarcely be true to say that he sat down, so imperceptibly, so noiselessly, so adroitly, was the manœuvre executed. He took Mrs. Verulam's hand into his as a botanist takes a wondrous orchid.

"Happy roses," he said, in a low voice full of music as soft as Berlioz's ballet of sylphs; "they came from Mitching Dean." Mitching Dean was Mr. Rodney's place in Hampshire. Almost everything he possessed, gave away, or thought much about, seemed to come from there. "But I did not come to be thanked for giving myself a pleasure," he added; "I came to bring glad tidings."

"I shall think of you as a herald angel."

"Flying ever to my heaven in Park Lane."

"Charming! But your tidings?"

"Are of Ascot, or, rather, of Sunninghill. My mission has been successful: the house is yours."

Mr. Rodney glanced at his long feet modestly. This was his way of concealing pride in his own resource and gratification at his own diplomacy.

"Ascot, Sunninghill!" Mrs. Verulam said, with an intonation of pretty bewilderment which was not assumed.

Mr. Rodney withdrew his eyes from his feet rather suddenly and looked at Mrs. Verulam.

"Surely you have not forgotten that in the early spring you commissioned me to get you Ribton Marches for the race week," he murmured, with a sort of soporific reproach.

"Oh! did I? Of course; now I remember."

"Only now?" He contrived a sigh that was an art product, and resumed: "I opened delicate negotiations about the matter on February the fourteenth, and have been proceeding carefully ever since. One false step would have been instant destruction."

"My dear Mr. Rodney——"

"Instant destruction," he repeated, with a slight sforzando, "owing to the temper of the owner, Mr. Lite, the Bun Emperor."

"The Bun Emperor!"

"He is universally named so by the children of the British Isles, for whom he—caters, I think they call it."

"Dear me! how many words there are in the dictionary that one never hears in society."

"Mercifully—most mercifully! Mr. Lite is a man of very peculiar proclivities. I have made a minute study of them in order to carry out your instructions successfully."

"It is most good and industrious of you."

"Oh, I shrink from nothing in such a cause. He is, I must tell you, a man of violent temper and enormous means, devoted to home life, and extremely suspicious of strangers."

"What a terrible combination of idiosyncrasies!"

"Precisely. My difficulty was to dislodge a man of such a character from his 'temple of domesticity,' as he calls it, even for one week. There were, I confess it, moments in which despair seized me, and I could have cried aloud, like an Eastern pilgrim, 'Allah has turned his face from me!'"

"I am quite ashamed to have given you so much trouble. Is that really what Eastern pilgrims say?"

"When the desert is waterless and the camels die like flies."

"Imitative even to the last. But, then, how did you ever persuade the—the Bun Emperor to leave his home? It sounds like the 'Arabian Nights.'"

Mr. Rodney looked at his feet again, and seemed to grow thin with self-appreciation, for he never swelled with pride, any rotund exhibition being against his nature.

"Well, after many attempts, I found that I could only manage the affair in one way. Mr. Lite is very susceptible to titles—for advertising purposes, you understand."

Mrs. Verulam's face was a mask of perplexity.

"In reference to his buns."

"In reference to his buns! I'm really afraid——"

"This was literally the only string I could play upon, the only hold I could obtain over his inordinate passion for what he calls 'the home.' As soon as I had made sure of the fact, I ventured"—his voice sank in a deprecatory diminuendo—"I ventured, I hope not unduly, to make a promise on your behalf."

"Indeed!"

"Indeed. I said that if Mr. Lite would consent to let 'the home' to you for the race week, I would persuade you to use your influence with Lady Sophia——"

"Mamma!"

"With regard to the—well, in fact, the buns. Did I go too far?"

"And what is poor mamma to do? I can't ask her to eat a bun, Mr. Rodney, I really can't do that."

Mr. Rodney's fiddle face reddened with horror at the idea.

"Pray, pray don't! Such a shocking notion would never have occurred to me. I trust that my natural delicacy could not go so far astray. No, I only pledged myself that you would persuade Lady Sophia to sign her name at the bottom of a word in praise—only a word—in praise of the buns. I have the form here with me."

Mr. Rodney took a silver case from his pocket, and extracted therefrom a sheet of note-paper.

"Mr. Lite drew this up under my supervision," he said. "It reads thus: 'I beg to say that I have every confidence in your buns. They look inviting on a counter, they should be nourishing, and they seem desirable in every respect. Your influence upon the digestions of our children is, I feel almost certain, such as will commend itself to all who have the desire ebullient within them to advance the cause of humanity.' Place for signature: 'Lady Sophia Tree.' I think Mr. Gladstone could scarcely improve upon that."

And Mr. Rodney again observed his boots.

"Mamma has only to sign that? She needn't eat anything?"

"Only to sign, I assure you."

"Then I am sure she will do it. She likes to see herself in print, and, as you know, has a fancy for authorship. You may have seen her name in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ and _The Lady's Realm_?"

Mr. Rodney bent his head.

"Often. Then that is happily arranged. I am dining with Mr. Lite to-night at the Crystal Palace to clinch the matter finally."

Mrs. Verulam's eyes filled with tears.

"You are dining at the Crystal Palace for me? Oh, Mr. Rodney!"

For a moment she was quite overcome. Nor was he entirely unmoved, although, manlike, he rigidly controlled the expression of a feeling that did him honour. He cleared his throat twice, it is true, but when he spoke again his voice was perfectly calm and natural.

"You will send this by messenger to Lady Sophia?"

"I will."

"And now as to your Ascot house-party."

At these words Mrs. Verulam was recalled to all her perplexities, and she involuntarily murmured:

"Chloe Van Adam!"

"Ah!" said Mr. Rodney, manifesting sudden animation, "did I hear you say Van Adam? Then you recognised my style? You read my little paragraph?"

"Your style? Your little what?"

"My little word in _The World_ this week with reference to that sad American matter."

"Oh, then it was you who put it in?"

"I have a friend in New York, Lord Bernard Roche, who sends me news of that world with which the White Star Line and the ties of brotherhood connect us. He wrote to me full of poor Huskinson's—as he calls him—matrimonial misfortunes."

"He calls him Huskinson, too?"

"Too! That is his name. In America they have names like that."

"And Bream?"

Mr. Rodney's face expressed a cultivated surprise.

"You know about Bream? Oh, but of course, in my paragraph I——"

"And Boswell? Oh!"

"You know about Bos—but I never mentioned its name in my——"

"Her Grace the Duchess of Southborough and the Lady Pearl McAndrew!" announced James.

Mrs. Verulam, whose mind was now fastened upon the presence of Chloe in the house, and her imminent advent into the room, rose up distractedly as two ladies slowly advanced, one smiling, and one on the contrary. The former was the Duchess, the latter was her only child. Her Grace was tall, elderly, large and respectable-looking. Lady Pearl was a trifle shorter, a trifle less elderly, a trifle narrower, and a trifle—but only a trifle—less respectable-looking. The family likeness was marked, and the Southborough family was not one in which a family likeness was an unmixed benefit.

"So glad to find you at home, dear Mrs. Verulam," the Duchess said suavely, greeting Mr. Rodney also with marked cordiality. "We quite thought you would have been out on such a lovely day. What do you say? What?"

This to James, who had suddenly returned into the room to whisper respectfully in the ducal ear.

"Not enough! An extra sixpence! Certainly not. Tell him to go."

Exit James.

"But I know," her Grace continued, "that you are quite independent of the weather. In that respect you are like Southborough. He always—— What? What do you say? He won't go?"

This to James, who had made a flushed re-entry accompanied by more emphatic whisperings.

"No, I sha'n't. Tell him so. Not another penny. We only took him from Whiteley's. He knows that. What?"

Whispers from James.

"It isn't more than two miles. No, no! Certainly not."

"Can I be of any service?" murmured Mr. Rodney, seeing the footman remaining blankly.

"Oh, thank you! It is only an extortionate cabman. If you will send him away."

"Certainly."

Mr. Rodney and James departed. The Duchess, the Lady Pearl and Mrs. Verulam sat down.

"Southborough always defies the weather. He is like—was it Ajax, Pearl? you ought to know."

"I quite forget," Lady Pearl said mournfully.

Mr. Rodney came in again.

"It is quite right. Lord Birchington has gone," he said.

"Birchington! You don't mean to tell me the fellow was my brother?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I fancied I knew his face. Then that quite accounts for the attempt at extortion. Birchington is always in difficulties, and I daresay cab-driving doesn't pay too well. I hope, Mr. Rodney, you didn't give in to his demands?"

"Well, really—he seemed so convinced, that I—just a sixpence, you know."

"Dear, dear! That's the way to become poor, Mr. Rodney. You ought to take more care of your money, and not let my worthless brother prey on you. It's only two miles—not a step more. I'm so glad you are back from St. John's Wood, Mrs. Verulam. You were so difficult to get at there—even by omnibus."

"It was rather far out."

"And then the neighbourhood is hardly—— However, the Duke likes it, so I mustn't say a word against it. I believe he had rooms there or something, when he was only an eldest son. And he's always going to see them, for 'auld lang syne,' you know. Yes, I will have some tea, thank you. No sugar! Gout, you know; gout! We all have it, even poor Pearl! That's what depresses her so much."

"No, mother, it is not the gout—it is the sorrows of life."

"We must all feel that at times, I am sure," said Mr. Rodney sympathetically.

"Not if we go to Carlsbad at regular intervals," said the Duchess, who was essentially a materialist. "But one can't always afford that."

"I would rather try a sisterhood," said the Lady Pearl.

"It would be cheaper," said the Duchess appraisingly.

"It would be more retired—most apart, mother. That is the point."

Mrs. Verulam glanced in an attracted manner at Lady Pearl.

"Ah," she said; "you, too, feel the hollowness of society?"

Mr. Rodney looked painfully shocked.

"Society hollow!" he almost whispered.

"As a drum," said Lady Pearl, in a sepulchral voice. "I envy the woman to whom its doors are closed. That Mrs. Van Adam, for instance, of whom everyone is talking."

Mrs. Verulam turned scarlet, and Mr. Rodney looked gratified.

"My little paragraph seems to have been read," he murmured.

"Pearl," said the Duchess severely, "what should you know about such a person? My dear, you forget yourself."

Mrs. Verulam gasped and looked towards the door, through which at every instant she expected to see Chloe enter the room.

"Oh, Duchess!" she said in agitated protest. "Perhaps, after all, there is something to be said on her side. Mr. Van Adam may have——"

"Huskinson Van Adam is a splendid fellow, from all I can gather," Mr. Rodney ventured to suggest, a little anxious lest Mrs. Verulam's unexpected charity should compromise her in the eyes of the Duchess. "I have been at some pains to learn the truth of the matter, and I am afraid that the evidence of the Crackers could leave no doubt in any unprejudiced mind."

"The Crackers, Mr. Rodney!" cried the Duchess in her loud voice. "What had the fifth of November to say to it?"

"Crackers, Duchess, answer to your Crofters in Florida, I believe."

"Really. How very absurd!"

"Oh, but," Mrs. Verulam interposed, losing her head in the agitation and apprehension of the moment, "it was Mr. Van Adam who set the Crackers, or Crofters, or whatever you call them, against his wife. Why, and even Boswell——"

She paused, confronted by faces of unutterable amazement. And in the pause the drawing-room door was flung open, the prim soprano voice of the faithful Marriner announced "Mr. Van Adam!" and in walked a dark young man in a tweed suit.

Mrs. Verulam half rose from her sofa, leaned one trembling hand upon the back of it, and, gasping quite audibly, stared at the figure in the doorway as a sceptic might stare when a ghost rises to convince him. The Duchess put up her eyeglasses with keen interest to take stock of the newcomer. The Lady Pearl looked decidedly less gouty than she had a moment before. And as for Mr. Rodney, he sat as if petrified with surprise at finding the veracity of his paragraph thus impugned in full publicity, and in his very presence. Meanwhile there was a sound of violent scrabbling upon the staircase as the faithful Marriner, for once entirely dismissed from composure, made haste to gain the seclusion of a back attic, in which she could go, without delay, into a supreme fit of hysterics. And the young gentleman in the tweed suit, his hands thrust into his pockets, surveyed the assembled multitude with eyes that seemed as if about to fall out of his head.