"Not she! My mother doesn't tire so easily. And as for me, I shall never be tired of you--never!"

The lady was of a different opinion, but she did not say so.

When they parted it was on the understanding that Sir Frank Pickard was to go and prepare his mother's mind for the coming of his lady love upon the morrow; and the lady was left in the possession of more valuable property than she had previously owned, if all that she had ever had in her life had been lumped together.

As she contemplated her new belongings, and reread what was written on the sheet of paper which she took out of her bodice, she made certain inward comments.

"Some girls would marry him straight off, perhaps most girls, and forget that there ever was a Joe. And if I did marry him he should never have cause to regret it, nor to be ashamed of me; nor his mother either; nor his friends. If I liked, I could make as good a Lady Pickard as anyone. But, fortunately or unfortunately, I don't happen to be that particular kind of girl. I'd rather be Mrs Joe Lamb, with five thousand pounds in my pocket, than Lady Frank Pickard, with fifty thousand pounds a year."

She smiled a very peculiar smile, which, if anything, rather enhanced her charms. She made a very pretty picture as she turned Sir Frank's promise of marriage over and over between her fingers.

CHAPTER III

It is not on record how exactly Lady Pickard received her son's communication. It may be taken for granted that it was not with feelings of ecstatic delight. To hear that he proposed to present her with a daughter-in-law to whom he had spoken only once in his life could hardly have filled her breast with the proud consciousness of his peculiar wisdom. Nor, probably, was her estimate of his character heightened when she learned that the lady in question was a chorus girl at the Frivolity Theatre. It is within the range of possibility that the reception of the news was followed by what, for her, was a very bad half-hour. There is even reason to suspect that she then and there retired to her own apartment, and, for a time at least, was the unhappiest woman in England. No mother likes, unexpectedly, to discover that the son whom she has idolised has suddenly shown signs of being a hopeless idiot.

But Lady Pickard was a cleverer woman than her boy, at that time, imagined. When, after a few dreadful minutes, the first stress of the shock began to fade away, she commenced to perceive, however dimly, that the situation might not, after all, be so terrible as it actually appeared. She realised, also, that there were two or three facts which she would have to bear in mind.

In the first place, her son was his own master. Whom he would wed, he could wed; no one might say him nay. In the second, considering his position, and his s.e.x, he had been on the whole a tolerably fair specimen of his kind; he was not, at bottom, such an absolute idiot as his own conduct had so uncomfortably suggested. She felt sure that there was something to be said about the girl, or he would not have chosen her. She had reason to know that his taste, as regards women, was fastidiousness itself. If he had asked her to his home she entertained a pleasant conviction that, superficially at anyrate, she need not fear any shocking scandal. He would bring no woman there of whose conduct, appearance, or manners there was any serious risk of his being ashamed. Of so much she felt persuaded. In her heart she was still persuaded that, where women were concerned, his judgment might, in the long run, be implicitly relied upon. Since there was positively no means of postponing the lady's threatened visit, she was far too wise to risk a public rupture with her son, with the accompanying scandal. It was just as well that she had such an a.s.surance.

As for the future--well, her son was not yet married to Miss Ailsa Lorraine. All sorts of little accidents might intervene. Some one or other of them might yet induce him to change his point of view. It was conceivable that she might never quarrel with her boy at all, and still be rid of the lady.

She, of course, had not the dimmest notion of the fact that, for reasons of which she could not have the faintest inkling, there was not the slightest danger of Miss Ailsa Lorraine ever becoming Lady Pickard.

Various friends of her own were coming to stay with her during the week of the flower-show--that great event of the village year. On the Tuesday, carriage after carriage brought visitors from the station to the house. As the afternoon drew on nearly every bedroom in the big, old place had its occupant. It was glorious weather. Tea was being served out of doors. The people were, for the most part, in the best of tempers, and the highest spirits. Frank Pickard was very far from being the most miserable person there. On the contrary he was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with health and happiness. So happy, indeed, was he, that, boy-like, he seemed quite incapable of concealing from anyone the cause of his contentment. Not altogether to his mother's satisfaction, he blurted out to everyone who cared to listen to the tale of his good fortune in being able to persuade a feminine paragon to promise to be his wife. Soon all were aware that, shortly, the lady was to be presented to them in person. Frank would have liked her to have come by an earlier train--indeed the earliest. But, instead, the lady had chosen to travel by what was almost the latest, one so late, in fact, that it necessitated putting off the already late dinner to permit of her being among the other guests at table.

"I'm frightfully sorry," he explained. "But, of course, if she couldn't come any earlier, she couldn't; we shall have to make the best of it. Hullo!--who's this?"

The drive to the house wound along one side of the lawn on which the guests were a.s.sembled for tea. As he spoke, there appeared on the drive a waggonette--a village waggonette--an ancient, dilapidated vehicle, which was the property of Mr Goshawk, the local flyman. On the box were two figures--a man and a woman. As Sir Frank spoke, the conveyance stopped. The woman climbed down from the box to the body of the vehicle, from which she presently emerged, carrying, as best she could, several brown-paper parcels, and a cardboard hatbox. The driver appeared to remonstrate.

"Don't you trouble about those, miss," he was heard to remark. "I'll take them up to the house."

The woman's reply was still more audible. "There aren't any flies on me; not much you don't. The odds are that if I once lose sight of my belongings I shall never see them again. I know you cabmen. Thank you very much; but if it's all the same to you, what's mine I'll stick to."

Hampered by her various possessions, she scrambled as best she could over the wire fencing on to the lawn. With one or other of her miscellaneous properties b.u.mping against her at every step, she came striding towards the tea-drinkers. It chanced that young Brock was the first person she came to. He was engaged in a _tete-a-tete_ with Florence Stacey of such an engrossing kind that he was not even aware of the advent of the waggonette. His first intimation of the stranger's approach was obtained from Miss Stacey.

"I do believe she's coming to you," she cried. Rising from his seat, Brock turned to see what was meant, and almost in the same instant found himself in the stranger's arms, that dexterous person managing to throw them about him without shedding a single parcel.

"Hullo, Frank, old boy," she exclaimed. "You're looking a bit of all right, upon my word. Catch hold of some of these, there's a good chap; I've had about enough of them."

Before the astounded Brock--who, at that stage of his existence, would not have been seen carrying even so much as a pair of gloves!--could realise what was happening, he found himself in possession of half-a-dozen large and untidy brown-paper parcels of different shades, and a shabby, old cardboard box, tied round with what looked like a clothes-line. It is true that, so soon as he had them he dropped them, but, as he was often told afterwards, that was the moment of his life at which he ought to have been photographed. He would have made a striking picture. So soon as his feelings permitted, he demanded an explanation.

"What do you mean by going on like this? Who are you? I don't know you. And my name's not Frank."

The newcomer remained unabashed.

"All right, old man; no harm done; keep your hair on."

She regarded him fixedly, as if he were some strange specimen which she was endeavouring to place, the unfortunate Brock showing a marked disposition to retreat from her immediate neighbourhood. At last it seemed she arrived at the conclusion that there had been some slight misunderstanding.

"Well, if I wasn't mistaking you for somebody else! It's lucky I didn't kiss you in front of the crowd, wasn't it?" Stanley Brock's inflamed countenance hinted that he thought it was. The lady only smiled. She proceeded to explain still further. "You're a nice-looking boy, especially in those nice white calico clothes"--the "calico"

clothes in question were of linen duck--"but you're not my boy; now that I look at you right in front I see that you're not my boy. My boy's as nice-looking as you are, and perhaps a little nicer; no offence, my rosy lad." This was possibly a delicate allusion to Brock's complexion, which was becoming momentarily more ensanguined.

"My boy's Sir Frank Pickard. You see, although I'm going to be his wife I've only seen him once; and then I scarcely had what you might call a real good look at him. Seems queer, doesn't it? Ours is a romance, ours is--one of the good old-fashioned sort. I'm Miss Ailsa Lorraine, and I was, up to yesterday, in the chorus at the Frivolity.

He fell in love with me from the front row of stalls; that's how it is, you see. They tell me Sir Frank Pickard lives here. You don't happen to know if he's anywhere about just now?"

Frank Pickard's sensations during this scene were of a kind which, although they were never forgotten, he never cared--or dared--to recall. He would have found it difficult to diagnose them, either then or at any other time. When, in after years his thoughts recurred--as they sometimes would--to that moment, what he remembered chiefly was the burning desire which seized him that the ground might open, and he sink into it and be hidden from the sight of all for evermore.

The whole thing was such a bolt from the blue. A moment before he had been telling everyone what a charming person he had won for his wife--how she combined in her person all those attributes which go to make up the perfect woman. With his mother he had dwelt upon the fact of her refinement; had specially pointed out that, though she was only a chorus girl, she was still a high-bred lady. On questions of refinement and breeding he was conscious that his mother esteemed his judgment.

And now, all at once, he found himself confronted by a young woman who was attired in a costume which suggested, more than anything else, a caricature of the tasteless vulgarity to which a certain sort of female could attain. She wore--on that blazing summer's day--a fantastically-cut, ill-fitting dress of scarlet satin--very long behind and very short in front--which was edged and trimmed with some weird material in light green. A black silk petticoat--with ragged edges--was more than visible; as also were her openwork light blue silk stockings, terminated by a pair of cheap, brand-new mustard-coloured shoes. On her bedizened hair was a monstrous picture hat, which bade fair to take the earliest opportunity of toppling forward over her eyes. The fingers of her ungloved hands were covered with gaudy--but worthless--rings; half a dozen bracelets and bangles of silver, and more than dubious gold, were on either wrist; a preposterous chatelaine dangled from a still more ridiculous belt; while her neck was imprisoned by a two-inch-high collar of imitation pearls. To complete the picture, her cheeks were rouged and powdered; her eyebrows pencilled, and her eyes kohled; her lips carmined. In spite of all her efforts she had been unable to conceal the fact that she was pretty; but, under the circ.u.mstances, her prettiness seemed to make the matter worse.

Frank Pickard stared at her as if she were some creature born of a nightmare. Was this the dainty damsel whom he had been worshipping from a distance and who had seemed still daintier when he had been brought into close neighbourhood with her yesterday? What hideous metamorphosis had taken place in her between this and then? If he could only have taken to his heels and run!

He was not to escape so easily. Having received no answer from Stanley Brock, she repeated her inquiry.

"I say, old man, look lively! Didn't you hear me ask you if Sir Frank Pickard was anywhere about?"

Mr Brock moved his hand in a sort of vague half-circle, which comprised the spot on which the gentleman in question was standing as if rooted to the ground.

"There is Sir Frank Pickard."

With that genius for blundering which Miss Lorraine seemed to have all at once developed, swinging round, she grasped by both her hands the nearest gentleman, who happened to be General Taylor, one of Lady Pickard's oldest and most particular friends.

"Why, Frankie, I don't take it to be very kind of you not to be taking any notice of me at all. Scotland Yard! you're not Frankie! You're old enough to be his grandpa!" She returned to Stanley Brock; as if the fault were his. "What are you giving us? This isn't my Frank! I'm not collecting fossils just yet, if it's all the same to you."

What the General felt--and his friend the hostess--history does not recount. Silence had settled down on the a.s.sembly which was more eloquent than any ribald laughter could possibly have been; it was the silence of stupefaction. It meant that everyone was on tenterhooks as to what was the next thing which this extraordinary person--who had dropped from the clouds--would do or say. s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his courage to the sticking point, Frank did his best to rescue his friends from an impossible situation. Advancing towards the dreadful stranger, he addressed her with what one is bound to admit was a voice which trembled.

"Good afternoon, Miss Lorraine."

She looked at him with a glance which was both impudent and mischievous.

"Miss Lorraine! What ho! So you've turned up at last; and now you have turned up you don't seem over hearty. I say, Frankie dear, I wish you'd give me a hand with my baggage. These brown-paper parcels contain pretty nearly everything I've got in the world; my evening dress is in this one. Such a oner! you wait till you see it, you'll stare! Being tumbled about anyhow on the gra.s.s won't do it any good.

Help me to put the whole lot of it straight, there's a dear."

She was stooping over her collection of miscellaneous rubbish with the apparent intention of piling it into something like a symmetrical heap. Frank showed commendable presence of mind.

"If you will walk with me up to the house, we will send a servant down, and have it all placed in your room."

Miss Lorraine showed no desire to a.s.sociate herself with his plan to remove her, at anyrate, temporarily, from the scene.

"I'm not going to walk up to the house with you, not much I'm not.

Where I am I'll stay. Look here, Frank, if these people are your friends you introduce them to your future wife; I don't like being among a lot of folks and not know who's who. It don't seem sociable.

And where's your mother? You promised to introduce me to the old lady the very first chance you had."

The "old lady" thus delicately referred to--who was herself of opinion that she was still very far from being old--cast at her son such a glance that he became immediately conscious that compliance with Miss Lorraine's request was altogether out of the question. He ingeniously shirked it.

"Won't you have some tea? You must be tired--you came by an earlier train than we expected."