military band, her sensibleness, “Mr. Vivian consulted me as to what to do; whether to give the whole thing up, or to make an appeal to you at the risk of disturbing you and taking up a little of your precious time. When he had explained the affair to me, however, I at once felt certain that you would wish to know of it. Didn’t I, Mr. Vivian? Didn’t I say, only this afternoon, that we must at once take a four-wheeler to Sir Tiglath’s?”
“Yes, you did,” said the Prophet, in a muffled voice.
“For I knew that no investigation, no serious, reverent investigation into heavenly, that is starry, conditions could be indifferent to you, Sir Tiglath.”
The astronomer, who had been in the act of lifting the last morsel of the muffin to his mouth, put it down again, and Lady Enid, thus vehemently encouraged, went on more rapidly.
“You know of Mr. Vivian’s interest, almost more than interest, in the planets. This interest is shared, was indeed prompted by Mrs. Bridgeman, a woman of serious attainments and a cultivated mind. Isn’t she, Mr. Vivian?”
The Prophet heard a voice reply, “Oh, yes, she is.” He often wondered afterwards whether it was his own.
“It seems that she, during certain researches, hit upon an idea with regard to–well, shall I say with regard to certain stars?–which she communicated to Mr. Vivian in the hope that he would carry it further, and in fact clear it up. Didn’t she, Mr. Vivian?”
“Oh, yes, she did,” said a voice, to which the Prophet again listened with strained attention.
“It was in connection with this idea that Mr. Vivian developed his enthusiasm for the telescope–which led him, perhaps, a little too far, Sir Tiglath, but I’m sure Mrs. Merillia and you have quite forgotten that!”
Here Lady Enid paused, and the astronomer achieved the final conquest of the muffin.
“He and Mrs. Bridgeman have been, in fact, working together, she being the brain, as it were, and Mr. Vivian the eye. You’ve been the eye, Mr. Vivian?”
“I’ve been the eye.”
“But, despite all their ardour and assiduity, they have come to a sort of deadlock. In these circumstances they come to you, making me–as your, may I say intimate, friend?–their mouthpiece.”
Here Lady Enid paused rather definitely, and cast a glance of apparently violent invitation at the Prophet, as if suggesting that he must now amplify and fill in her story. As he did not do so, a heavy silence fell in the room. Sir Tiglath had returned to his measuring, and Lady Enid, for the first time, began to look slightly embarrassed. Sending her eyes vaguely about the apartment, as people do on such occasions, she chanced to see a newspaper lying on the floor near to her. She bent down towards it, then raising herself up she said,–
“Mrs. Bridgeman some time ago came to the conclusion that there was probably oxygen in certain stars, and not only in the fixed stars.”
At this remark the astronomer’s countenance completely changed. He swung round in his revolving chair, wagged his huge head from side to side, and finally roared at the Prophet,–
“Is she telling the truth?”
“I beg your pardon,” said the Prophet, bounding on the instruments.
“Get off those precious tools, young man, far more valuable than your finite carcase! Get off them this moment and answer me–is this young female speaking the truth?”
The Prophet got off the instruments and, in answer to a firm, Scottish gesture from Lady Enid, nodded his head twice.
“What!” continued Sir Tiglath, puffing out his cheeks, “a woman be a pioneer among the Heavenly Bodies!”
The Prophet nodded again, as mechanically as a penny toy.
“The old astronomer is exercised,” bawled Sir Tiglath, with every symptom of acute perturbation. “He is greatly exercised by the narrative of the young female!”
So saying, he heaved himself up out of his chair and began to roll rapidly up and down the room, alternately distending his cheeks and permitting them to collapse.
“I should tell you also, Sir Tiglath,” interposed Lady Enid, as if struck by a sudden idea, “that Mrs. Bridgeman’s original adviser and assistant in her astronomical researches was a certain Mr. Sagittarius, who is also an intimate friend of Mr. Vivian’s.”
The Prophet sat down again upon the instruments with a thud.
“Get off those precious tools, young man!” roared the astronomer furiously. “Would you impose your vile body upon the henchmen of the stars?”
The Prophet got up again and leaned against the wall.
“I feel unwell,” he said in a low voice. “Exceedingly unwell. I regret that I must really be going.”
Lady Enid did not seem to regret this abrupt indisposition. Perhaps she thought that she had already accomplished her purpose. At any rate she got up too, and prepared to take leave. The astronomer was still in great excitement.
“Who is this Mr. Sagittarius?” he bellowed.
“A man of science. Isn’t he, Mr. Vivian?”
“Yes.”
“An astronomer of remarkable attainments, Mr. Vivian?”
“Yes.”
“One knows not his abnormal name,” cried the astronomer.
“He is very modest, very retiring. Mrs. Bridgeman’s is really the only house in London at which you can meet him. Isn’t that so, Mr. Vivian?”
“Yes.”
“You say he has made investigation into the possibility of there being oxygen in many of the holy stars?”
“Mr. Vivian!”
“Yes.”
“The old astronomer must encounter him!” exclaimed Sir Tiglath, puffing furiously as he rolled about the room.
“Mr. Vivian will arrange it,” Lady Enid said, with sparkling eyes, “at Mrs. Bridgeman’s. That’s a bargain. Come, Mr. Vivian!”
And almost before the Prophet knew what she was doing, she had maneuvered him out into Kensington Square, and was pioneering him swiftly towards the High street.
“We’ll take a hansom home,” she said gaily, “and the man can drive as fast as ever he likes.”
In half a minute the Prophet found himself in a hansom, bowling along towards Mayfair. The first words he said, when he was able to speak, were,–
“Why–Mr. Sagittarius–oh, why?”
Lady Enid smiled happily.
“It just struck me while I was talking to Sir Tiglath that I would introduce Mr. Sagittarius into the affair.”
“Oh, why?”
“Why–because it seemed such an utterly silly thing to do,” she answered. “Didn’t it?”
The Prophet was silent.
“Didn’t it?” she repeated. “A thing worthy of Miss Minerva.”
It seemed to the Prophet just then as if Miss Minerva were going to wreck his life and prepare him accurately for a future in Bedlam.
“And besides you wouldn’t tell me who Mr. Sagittarius was,” she added.
The Prophet began to realise that it is very dangerous indeed to deny the curiosity of a woman.
“What a mercy it is,” Lady Enid continued lightly, “that Malkiel is a syndicate, instead of a man. If he wasn’t, and Sir Tiglath ever got to know him, he would try to murder him, and how foolish that would be! It would be rather amusing, though, to see Sir Tiglath do a thoroughly foolish thing, wouldn’t it!”
The Prophet’s blood ran cold in the cab, as he began, for the first time, to see clearly into the elaborate mind of Miss Minerva, into the curiously deliberate complications of a definite and determined folly. He perceived the danger that threatened the prophet who dwelt beside the Mouse, but he had recovered himself by this time sufficiently to meet craft with craft. And he therefore answered carelessly,–
“Yes, it is lucky that Malkiel’s a syndicate.”
When they reached Hill street Lady Enid said,–
“I’m so much obliged to you, Mr. Vivian, for all you’ve done for Miss Minerva.”
“Not at all.”
“The next step is to introduce you to Mrs. Bridgeman, and you can introduce her to Mr. Sagittarius. Then I’ll introduce Sir Tiglath to her and she will introduce Mr. Sagittarius to him. It all works out so beautifully! Thank you a thousand times. You’ll hear from me. Probably I’ll give you your directions how to act to-morrow. Good-night.”
The Prophet drove on to Berkeley Square, feeling that, between Mr. and Madame Sagittarius and Miss Minerva, he was being rapidly directed to his doom.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PROPHET IS INTERVIEWED BY TWO KIDS
Mr. Ferdinand met the Prophet in the hall.
“I have done as you directed, sir,” he said respectfully.
“As I directed, Mr. Ferdinand? I was not aware that I ever directed anybody,” replied the Prophet, suspecting irony.
“I understood you to say, sir, that if any more telegrams was to arrive, I was to burn them, sir.”
“Telegrams! Good Heavens! You don’t mean to say that–“
“There has been some seventeen or eighteen, sir. I have burnt them, sir, to ashes, according to your orders.”
“Quite right, Mr. Ferdinand,” said the Prophet, putting his hand up to his hair, to feel if it were turning grey. “Quite right. How is–how, I say, is Mrs. Merillia?”
“Well, Master Hennessey, she’s not dead yet.”
And Mr. Ferdinand, with a contorted countenance moved towards the servants’ hall.
The Prophet stood quite still with his hat and coat on for several minutes. An amazing self-possession had come to him, the unnatural self-possession of despair. He felt quite calm, as the statue of a dead alderman feels on the embankment of its native city. Nothing seemed to matter at all. He might have been Marcus Aurelius–till a loud double knock came to the front door. Then he might have been any dangerous lunatic, ripe for a strait waistcoat. Mr. Ferdinand approached. The Prophet faced him.
“Kindly retire, Mr. Ferdinand,” he said in a very quiet voice. “I will answer that knock.”
Mr. Ferdinand retired rather rapidly. The knock was repeated. The Prophet opened the door. A telegraph boy, about two and a half feet high, stood outside upon the step.
“Telegram, sir,” he said in a thin voice.
“Give it to me, my lad,” replied the Prophet.
The small boy handed the telegram and turned to depart.
“Wait a moment, my lad,” said the Prophet, very gently.
The small boy waited.
“Do you wish to be strangled, my lad?” asked the Prophet.
The small boy tried to recoil, but his terror rooted him firmly to the spot.
“Do all the other boys at the office wish to be strangled?” continued the Prophet. “Come, my lad, why don’t you answer me?”
“No, sir,” whispered the small boy, passing his little tongue over his pale lips.
“Very well, my lad, the next boy who brings a telegram to this house will be strangled, do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir,” sighed the small boy, like a terror-stricken Zephyr.
“That’s right. Good-night, my lad.”
The Prophet closed the street door very softly, and the small boy dropped fainting on the pavement and was carried to the nearest hospital on a stretcher by two dutiful policemen.
Meanwhile the Prophet opened the telegram and read as follows:–
“Insufferable insolence. How dare you; shall pay dearly; with you to-morrow first ‘bus.
“JUPITER AND MADAME SAGITTARIUS.”
“Mr. Ferdinand!” called the Prophet.
“Yes, sir.”
“I am about to write a telegram. Gustavus will take it to the office.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Prophet went into the library and wrote these words on a telegraph form:–
“Jupiter Sagittarius, Sagittarius Lodge, Crampton St. Peter, N. Your life is in danger; keep where you are; another telegram may destroy you. Grave news.
“VIVIAN.”
The Prophet gave this telegram to Gustavus and then prepared to go upstairs to his grandmother. As he mounted towards the drawing-room he murmured to himself over and over again,–
“Sir Tiglath–Malkiel! Malkiel–Sir Tiglath!”
He found Mrs. Merillia very prostrate. It seemed that the telegraph boys had very soon worn through the cotton-wool with which the knocker had been shrouded, and that the incessant noise of their efforts to attract attention at the door had quite unnerved the gallant old lady. Nevertheless, her own condition was the last thing she thought of.
“I don’t mind for myself, Hennessey,” she said. “But it is very sad after all these years of respect and even, I think, a certain popularity, to be considered a nuisance by one’s square. We are hopelessly embroiled with the Duchess of Camberwell, and the Lord Chancellor has sent over five times to explain the different laws and regulations that we are breaking. I don’t see how you can go to his Reception to-night, really.”
“I am not going, grannie,” said the Prophet, overwhelmed with contrition. “I cannot go in any case.”
“Why not?”
“I–I have some work to do at home.”
He avoided the glance of her bright eyes, and continued.
“Grannie, I am deeply grieved at all you have gone through to-day. Believe me it has not been my fault–at least not entirely. I may have been injudicious, but I never–never–“
He paused, quite overcome with emotion.
“I don’t know what will happen if the telegrams go on till midnight,” said Mrs. Merillia. “The Duke of Camberwell is a very violent man, since he had that sunstroke at the last Jubilee, and I shouldn’t wonder if he–“
“Grannie, there will not be any more telegrams.”
“But you said that before, Hennessey.”
“And I say it again. There will not be any more. I have just informed the messenger that the next boy who knocks will certainly be–well, destroyed.”
Mrs. Merillia breathed a sigh of relief.
“I am so thankful, Hennessey. Are you dining out to-night?”
“No, grannie. I don’t feel very well. I have a headache. I shall go and lie down for a little.”
“Yes, do. Everybody is lying down; Fancy, the upper housemaid, the cook. Even Gustavus, they tell me, is trying to snatch a little uneasy repose on his what-not. It has been a terrible day.”
Mrs. Merillia lay back and closed her eyes, and the Prophet, overwhelmed with remorse, retired to his room, lay down and stared desperately at nothing for half an hour. He then ate, with a very poor appetite, a morsel of dinner and prepared to take, if possible, a short nap before starting on the labours of the night. As he got up from the dining table to go upstairs he said to Mr. Ferdinand,–
“By the way, Mr. Ferdinand, if I should come into the pantry again to- night, don’t be alarmed. I may chance to require a bradawl as I did last night. Kindly leave one out, in case I should. But you need not sit up.”
As the Prophet said the last words he looked Mr. Ferdinand full in the face. The butler’s eyes fell.
“Thank you, Master Hennessey, I shall be glad to get to bed–entirely to bed–in good time. We are all a bit upset in the kit–that is the hall to-day.”
“Just so. Retire to rest at once if you like.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Gustavus,” said Mr. Ferdinand, a moment later in the servants’ hall, “you are a man of the world, I believe.”
Gustavus roused himself on his what-not.
“I am, Mr. Ferdinand,” he replied, in a pale and exhausted manner.
“Then tell me, Gustavus, have you ever lived in service with a gentleman who was partial to a bradawl–of a night, you understand?”
“No, never, Mr. Ferdinand. The nearest to it ever I got was the Bishop of Clapham.”
“Explain yourself, Gustavus, I beg.”
“He used to ask for a nip sometimes before retiring, Mr. Ferdinand.”
“A nip, Gustavus?”
“Warm water, with a slice of toast in it. But he was only what they call a suburban bishop, Mr. Ferdinand.”
“Ah! a nip is hardly on all fours with a bradawl, Gustavus.”
“P’r’aps not, Mr. Ferdinand, but it’s the nearest ever I got to it.”
Mr. Ferdinand said no more, but when he retired to rest that night he double-locked his door, and dreamt of bradawls till he woke, unrefreshed, the next morning to find the area full of telegrams.
Meanwhile the Prophet was conscientiously fulfilling his promise and keeping the oath he had pledged his honour over, although he had to work under a grave disadvantage in the total loss of his planisphere, or star-map.
He entered the butler’s pantry precisely on the stroke of eleven, and found it, to his great relief, untenanted. The dwarf was no longer at the telescope, and the silence in the region dedicated to Mrs. Merillia’s menials was profound. The night, too, was clear and starry, propitious for prophetic labours, and as the Prophet gazed out upon the deserted square through the open window a strange peace descended upon his fevered soul. Nature, with all her shining mysteries, her distant reticences and revelations, calmed the turmoil within him. He looked upon the area railings and upon the sky, and smiled.
Then he looked for the star-map. He perceived in a very prominent position upon a silver salver, the bradawl laid out, according to order, by the obedient Mr. Ferdinand. He perceived also the open pot of “Butler’s Own Special Pomade,” but the planisphere had been removed from it. Where could it have been bestowed? The Prophet instituted a careful search. He explored cupboards, drawers–such at least as were unlocked–in vain. He glanced into a silver teapot reposing on a shelf, between the pages of an almanac hanging on the wall, among some back numbers of the /Butler’s Gazette/, which were lying in a corner. But the planisphere was nowhere to be found, and at last in despair he resolved to do without it, and to trust to his fairly accurate knowledge of the heavens. He, therefore, took up his station by the window and proceeded to extract from the pocket of his smoking-jacket the account-book in which he had dotted down the directions of “Madame and self.” They were very vague, for his dots had been agitated. Still, by the help of the George the Third candlestick, in which was a lighted taper, the Prophet was able to make out enough to refresh his memory. He was to begin by placing his beloved grandmother in the claws of the crab. Leaning upon the sill of the window he found the crab and– breathing a short prayer for forgiveness–committed his dear relation to its offices. He then retreated and, assuming very much the position of Mr. Ferdinand, applied his right eye to the telescope, at the same time holding his left eye firmly shut with the forefinger of his left hand. At once the majesty of the starry heavens burst upon him in all its glory.
Exactly at half-past one o’clock, two hours and a half later, the enthralled Prophet heard a low whistle which seemed to reach him from the square. He withdrew his fascinated right eye from the telescope and endeavoured to use it in an ordinary manner, but he could at first see nothing. The low whistle was repeated. It certainly did come from the square, and the Prophet approached the open window and once more tried to compel the eye that had looked so long upon the stars to gaze with understanding upon the earth. This time he perceived a black thing, like a blot, about six feet high, beyond the area railings. From this blot came a third whistle. The Prophet, who was still dazed by the fascination of star-gazing, mechanically whistled in reply, whereupon the blot whispered at him huskily,–
“At it again, are you?”
“Yes,” whispered the Prophet, also huskily, for the night air was cold. “But how should you know?”
Indeed he wondered; and it seemed to him as if the blot were some strange night thing that must have companioned him, invisibly, when he kept his nocturnal watches in the drawing-room, and that now partially revealed itself to him in the, perhaps, more acutely occult region of the basement.
“How should I know!” rejoined the blot with obvious, though very hoarse, irony. “Whatever d’you take me for?”
The Prophet began to wonder, but before he had gone on wondering for more than about half a minute, the blot continued,–
“She’s gone to bed.”
“I know she has,” said the Prophet, presuming that the blot, which seemed instinct with all knowledge, was referring to his grandmother.
“But she knows you’re at it again,” continued the blot.
The Prophet started violently and leaned upon the window-sill.
“No! How can that be?” he ejaculated.
“Ho! Them girls knows everything, especially the old uns,” said the blot, with an audible chuckle.
“Good gracious!” gasped the Prophet, overwhelmed at this mysterious visitant’s familiar description of his revered grandmother.
“Have you seen her to-night?” inquired the blot, controlling its merriment.
“Yes,” said the Prophet. “With the Crab.”
“What!” cried the blot, in obvious astonishment. “Them instruments must be wonderful sight-carriers.”
“They are,” exclaimed the Prophet, with almost mystic enthusiasm. “Wonderful. I have seen her with the Crab distinctly.”
“Ah! well, I told her she ought to keep away from it,” continued the blot.
“Did you?” said the Prophet, with increasing surprise. “But how could she?”
“Ah! that’s just it! She couldn’t.”
“No, of course not.”
“She was drawn right to it.”
“She was. It wasn’t her fault. It was the Crab’s.”
“A pity it was dressed.”
“What?”
“I say it’s a pity ’twas dressed.”
“What was dressed?”
“What! why, the Crab!”
“The Crab–dressed!”
“Ay. They’re a deal safer not dressed.”
“Are they?”
“She knows it too.”
“Does she?”
“But there–them women likes a spice of danger. She’s in a nice state now, you bet. Not much sleep for her, I’ll lay. Well, I tried to keep her from it, so you needn’t blame me.”
“I won’t,” said the Prophet, feeling completely dazed.
“Well, go’-night. I’m off round the square.”
“Good-night,” said the Prophet.
Suddenly a blinding flash of light dazzled his eyes. He covered them with his hands. When he could see again the blot was gone.
Although he was retired to rest that night when the clock struck three, the Prophet did not sleep. His nervous system was in a condition of acute excitement. His brain felt like a burning ball, and the palms of his hands were hot with fever. For the spirit of prophecy was upon him once more, and he was bound fast in the golden magic of the stars. Like the morphia maniac who, after valiant fasting, returning to his drug, feels its influence the stronger for his abstinence from it, the Prophet was conscious that the heavens held more power, more meaning for him because, for a while, he had intended to neglect them. He was ravaged by their mystery, their majesty and revelation.
When he came down in the morning pale, dishevelled, but informed by a curious dignity, he was met at once by Mr. Ferdinand.
“I have cleared the area, sir,” said the functionary.
“The area, Mr. Ferdinand. What of?”
“Telegrams, sir. The boys must have thrown ’em down without knocking.”
“Very probably,” replied the Prophet. “Their comrade was right. They did not wish to be strangled.”
“No, sir. And I have placed them in a basket on the breakfast table, sir, while awaiting your orders.”
“Quite right, Mr. Ferdinand. By the way, here is the bradawl. Leave it out again to-night in case I have need of it.”
So saying, the Prophet handed the bradawl, which he had craftily conveyed from the pantry on the previous night, to the astonished butler and walked swiftly into the breakfast-room. The basket of telegrams was set outside beside a fried sole and the “equipage” which Madame had so much admired, and, while he sipped his tea, the Prophet opened the wires one by one. They were fraught with terror and dismay. Evidently his mysterious warning had thrown the worthies who dwelt beside the Mouse into a condition of the very gravest amazement and alarm, and they had, despite the Prophet’s final injunction, spent the remaining telegraphic hours of the day in despatching wires of frantic inquiry to the square. Madame, in particular, was evidently much upset, and expressed her angry agitation in a dead language that seemed positively to live again in fear and novelty of grammatical construction. Sir Tiglath had been a brilliant card to play in the prophetic game, although he had not achieved the Prophet’s purpose of stopping the telegraphic flood.
While the Prophet was simultaneously finishing the fried sole and the perusal of the final wire Mr. Ferdinand entered, in a condition of obvious astonishment that might well have cost him his place.
“If you please, sir,” he said, in an up-and-down voice, “if you please there are two–two–two–“
“Two what? Be more explicit, Mr. Ferdinand.”
“Two–well, sir, kids at the door waiting for you to see them, sir.”
“Two kids! What–from the goat show that’s going on at the Westminster Aquarium!” cried the Prophet in great surprise.
“Maybe, sir. I can’t say, indeed, sir. Am I to show them in, sir?”
“Show them in! Are you gone mad, Mr. Ferdinand? They must be driven out at once. If Mrs. Merillia were to see them, she might be greatly alarmed. I’ll–I’ll–follow me, Mr. Ferdinand, closely.”
So saying the Prophet stepped valiantly into the hall. There, by the umbrella stand, stood two small children, boy and girl, very neatly dressed in a sailor suit and a grey merino. The little boy held in his hand a large round straw hat, on the blue riband of which was inscribed in letters of gold, “H.M.S. Hercules.” The little girl wore a pleasant pigtail tied with a riband of the same hue.
The meaning of Mr. Ferdinand’s vulgar and misleading slang suddenly dawned on the Prophet. He cast a look of very grave rebuke on Mr. Ferdinand, then, walking up to the little boy and girl he said in his most ingratiating manner,–
“Well, my little ones, what can I do for you?”
“Not so little, if you please, Mr. Vivian,” replied the boy in a piping, but very self-possessed voice. “Can we see you in private for a moment?”
“If you please, Mr. Vivian,” added the little girl. “Si sit prudentium.”
“Dentia, Corona,” corrected the little boy.
The Prophet turned white to the very lips.
“Certainly, certainly,” he said in a violently furtive manner. “Come this way, my children. Mr. Ferdinand, if Mrs. Merillia should inquire for me, you will say that I’m busy writing–no, no, just busy–very busy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m not to be disturbed. This way, my little ones.”
“Not so little, Mr. Vivian,” piped again the small boy, trotting obediently, with his sister, into the Prophet’s library, the door of which was immediately closed behind them.
“Well, I’m–” said Mr. Ferdinand. “Kids in the library! I am– Gustavus!”
He rushed frenetically towards the servants’ hall to confer upon the situation with his intellectual subordinate.
Meanwhile the Prophet was closeted with the two kids.
“Pray sit down,” he said, very nervously, and smiling forcibly. “Pray sit down, my dears.”
The kids obeyed with aplomb, keeping their large and strained eyes fixed upon the Prophet.
“Is it Coronus and Capricorna?” continued the Prophet, with an effort after blithe familiarity. “Is it?”
“No,” piped the little boy. “It isn’t Coronus and Capricorna.”
A marvellous sensation of relief invaded the Prophet.
“Thank Heaven!” he ejaculated in a sigh. “I thought it must be.”
“It’s Corona and Capricornus,” continued the little boy. “And we’ve brought you a letter from pater familias.”
“And mater familiaris,” added the little girl.
“Milias, Corona,” corrected the little boy. “Here it is, Mr. Vivian,” he added, drawing a large missive from the breast of his blue-and-white sailor’s blouse. “Pater and mater familias couldn’t bring it themselves, because he said it wasn’t safe for him to come, and she’s lying down ill at what you sent to her. It wasn’t kind of you, was it?”
So saying, he handed the missive to the Prophet, who took it anxiously.
“Would you like some cake, my lit–I mean, my dears, while I read this?”
“No, thank you. Cake is bad for us in the morning,” replied the little boy. “You shouldn’t eat it so early.”
The Prophet was about to reply that he never did when it struck him that argument would probably be useless. He, therefore, hastened to open the letter, which proved to be from Mr. Sagittarius, and which ran as follows:–
“SIR,–Your terrible and mysterious wire, coming after your equally terrible and mysterious silence, has caused devastation in a hitherto peaceful and happy family. To what peril do you allude? What creature can there be so base as to wish to take my life merely on account of my sending you telegrams? Madame has been driven to despair by your announcement, and I, myself, although no ordinary man, am, very rightly and properly, going about in fear of my life since receipt of your last telegram. Under these circs, and being unable to wait upon you ourselves for a full explanation, we are sending our very life-blood to you–per rail and ‘bus–with strict orders to bring you at once to the banks of the Mouse, there to confer with Madame and self and arrange such measures of precaution as are suited to the requirements of the situation as indicated by you.
“JUPITER SAGITTARIUS.
“P.S.–You are to bring with you, according to solemn oath, all prophecy concerning grandmother, Crab, etc., gathered up to date, together with full details of same’s removal from the bottle, cutting of her first tooth, short-coating, going into skirts, putting of hair up, day of marriage and widowhood, illnesses– especially rashes–and so forth. /Ab origino/.
“MADAME SAGITTARIUS.”
On reading this communication the Prophet felt that all further struggle was useless. Fate–cruel and remorseless Fate–had him in her grasp. He could only bow his head and submit to her horrible decrees. He could only go upstairs and at once prepare for the journey to the Mouse.
He laid the letter down and got up, fixing his eyes upon the kids, who sat solemnly awaiting his further procedure.
“You–I suppose you know, my little ones, what this–what you have to do?” he said.
“Not so little, if you please, Mr. Vivian,” returned the boy. “Yes, we’ve got to take you with us to see pater familias.”
“And mater familiar–familias,” added the little girl.
“I see–you know,” said the Prophet, in a despairing voice. “Very well. Wait here quietly–very quietly, while I go and get ready.”
“And please don’t forget the Crab and grandmother, rashes, et ceterus,” said the little girl.
“Tera Corona,” piped her brother.
“I won’t,” said the Prophet. “I will not.”
And he tottered out of the room, carrying the Sagittarius letter in his hand.
In the hall he paused for a moment, holding on to the balusters and re- reading his directions. Then he crawled slowly up the stairs and sought his grandmother’s room.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PROPHET JOURNEYS TO THE MOUSE
Mrs. Merillia was just beginning to recover from the prostration of the preceding day when the Prophet came into the room where she was seated with Mrs. Fancy Quinglet. She looked up at him almost brightly, but started when she saw how agitated he seemed.
“Grannie,” said the Prophet, abruptly, “you would tell me anything, wouldn’t you?”
“Why, of course, my dear boy. But what about?”
“About–about yourself?”
Mrs. Merillia looked very much astonished.
“There is nothing to hide, Hennessey,” she said with gentle dignity. “You know that.”
“I do, I do,” cried the Prophet, passionately. “Yours has been the best, the sweetest life the world has ever known!”
“Well, I don’t wish to imply–“
“But I do, grannie, I do. Can Fancy leave us for a moment?”
“Certainly. Fancy, you can go to your tatting.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Mr Hennessey has something to explain to me.”
“Oh, ma’am, the houses that have been broke up by explainings!”
And with this, as the Prophet thought, appallingly appropriate exclamation, Mrs. Fancy hurried feverishly from the room.
“Now what is the question you wish to ask me, Hennessey?” said Mrs. Merillia, with a soft dignity.
“There are–one moment–there are eight questions, grannie,” responded the Prophet, shrinking visibly before the dread necessity by which he found himself confronted.
“Eight! So many?”
“Yes, oh, indeed, yes.”
“Well, my dear, and what are they?”
“The first is–is–grannie, when were you removed from–from the bottle?”
A very delicate flush crept into Mrs. Merillia’s charming cheeks.
“The bottle, Hennessey! Never, never!” she said, with a sort of pathetic indignation. “How could you suppose–I–the bottle–“
Her pretty old voice died away.
“Answered, darling grannie, answered!” ejaculated the Prophet. Please–please don’t!” And now–your first tooth?”
“My first what!” cried Mrs. Merillia in almost terrified amazement.
“Tooth–when did you cut it?”
“I have no idea. Surely, Hennessey–“
“Answered, dearest grannie!” cried the Prophet, with gathering agitation. “Did you ever wear a short coat?”
“I–I’m not a man!”
“You didn’t! Always a skirt?”
“Of course! Why–“
“And you’re sixty-eight on the twentieth. So for sixty-eight years you’ve always worn a skirt. That’s four.”
“Four what? Are you–?”
“When did you put your hair up, grannie, darling?”
“My hair–never. You know I’ve always had a maid to do these things for me. Fancy–“
“Of course. You’ve never put your hair up. I might have known. You were married very young, weren’t you?”
“Ah, yes. On my seventeenth birthday, and was left a widow in exactly two years’ time. Your poor dear granf–“
“Thank you, grannie, thank you! Seven!”
“Seven what, Hennessey? One would th–“
“And now, dear grannie, tell me one thing, only one little thing more. About–that is, talking of rashes–“
“Rashers!”
“No, grannie, rashes–illnesses, you know, that take an epidemic form.”
“Well, what about them? Surely there isn’t an epidemic in the square?”
“How many have you had, grannie?”
“Where? Had what?”
“Here, anywhere in the square, grannie.”
“Had what in the square?”
“Rashes.”
“I! Have a rash in the square!”
“Exactly. Have you ever–an epidemic, you know?”
“I have an epidemic in Berkeley Square? You must be crazy, Hennessey!”
“Probably, very likely, grannie. But have you? Tell me quickly! Have you?”
“Certainly not! As if any gentlewoman–“
“Answered, grannie, answered! Eight!”
“Eight what?”
“Questions. Thank you, dearest grannie. I knew you’d tell me, I knew you would!”
And the Prophet rushed from the room, leaving Mrs. Merillia in a condition that cannot be described and that not all the subsequent ministrations of Mrs. Fancy Quinglet were able to alleviate.
Having reached the hall, the Prophet hastily put on his coat and hat and called Mr. Ferdinand to him.
“Mr. Ferdinand,” he said, assuming a fixed and stony dignity to conceal his agitation and dismay, “I am leaving the house at once with the–the lady and gentleman who are in the library.”
At this description of the kids Mr. Ferdinand was very nearly seized with convulsions. However, as he said nothing and merely wrung his large hands, the Prophet, after a slight pause, continued,–
“I may be away some time, so if Mrs. Merillia should make any inquiry, you will say that I have left to pay a visit to some friends.”
“Yes, sir. Shall I tell Gustavus to pack your things?”
“Certainly not.”
The Prophet was turning towards the library when Mr. Ferdinand added,–
“When shall we expect you back, sir? Am I to forward your letters?”
“No, no. I shall return in a few hours.”
“Oh, I beg pardon, sir. And if any telegrams–“
“There will not be any. I am now going to answer the telegrams in person.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come along, my children,” cried the Prophet, putting his head into the library.
“Not your children, if you please, Mr. Vivian,” replied the little boy. “Corona, come on.”
“How do we go, my dears?” asked the Prophet, with an attempt at gaiety, and endeavouring to ignore the prostrated demeanour of Mr. Ferdinand, who was in waiting to open the hall door.
“By the purple ‘bus as far as the Pork Butcher’s Rest,” piped the little boy–(at this point Mr. Ferdinand could not refrain from a slight exclamation)–“then we take the train to the Mouse, Mouse, Mouse.”
“Mus, Mus, Mus,” chanted the little girl.
As Mr. Ferdinand was unable to open the door, paralysis having apparently supervened, the Prophet did so, and the cheerful little party emerged upon the step to find Lady Enid Thistle in the very act of pressing the electric bell. When she beheld the vivacious trio, all agog for their morning’s expedition, come thus suddenly upon her, she cried out musically,–
“Why, where are you off to?”
The Prophet was much embarrassed by the encounter.
“I am taking these lit”–he caught the staring eye of Capricornus– “these friends of mine for a little walk,” he said.
“I’ll come with you,” said Lady Enid, with an almost Highland decision. “I’ve got something to say to you, and we can talk as we go.”
She glanced very inquisitively indeed at the two children, who had begun to frisk at sight of the square all bathed in winter sunshine. The Prophet was very much upset.
“Don’t you think–” he began.
“It will be delightful to have some exercise,” she interrupted firmly. “Which way are you going?”
“Which way! Oh, to–towards–“
The Prophet stopped. He did not know from what point the purple ‘bus started to gain the Pork Butcher’s Rest. Capricornus hastened to inform him.
“We take the purple ‘bus at the corner of Air Street,” he piped.
“The purple ‘bus!” cried Lady Enid. “The purple bus!”
She glanced searchingly at the Prophet.
“Ah!” she murmured, “so you are taking a purple ‘bus to your double life!”
He could not deny it. They were now all walking forward in the sun and as the little Corona and Capricornus became speedily intent upon the wonders of this central district, Lady Enid and the Prophet were able to have a quiet word or two together.
“I came to tell you,” she said, “that Mrs. Vane Bridgeman will expect you to-night at–“
“I am engaged at eleven,” cried the Prophet, in despair at the imposition of this fresh burden upon his weary shoulders.
“I know. To the Lord Chancellor, but–“
“No. I have an engagement which I dare not break, at home.”
“Really!”
She gazed at him with her large, handsome grey eyes, and added,–
“I do believe you’re silly enough to live your double life at home sometimes. How splendid!”
“No, no! I assure you–“
“Of course you do! You dear foolish thing! You’re ever so much sillier than I am. You’re my master.”
“No, indeed, no, no!”
“But you can go to Mrs. Bridgeman’s for an hour easily. She expects you and I’ve promised that you will go.”
“It’s very kind of you, but really–“
“So that’s settled. You’ll meet me there, but don’t forget I’m Miss Minerva Partridge. The address is Zoological House, Regent’s Park, that big house in a garden just outside the Zoo.”
“The big house in the Zoological Gardens,” said the Prophet, feebly. “Thank you very much.”
“No, no, outside the Zoo. And then we can arrange to-night about your introducing her to Mr. Sagittarius.”
“Hush! Hush!” whispered the Prophet.
But he was too late. The long ears of the little pitchers had caught the well-known word.
“Why, thats pater familias,” piped the little Capricornus.
“And mater familiaris,” added the little Corona.
“You don’t mean to say,” cried Lady Enid to the Prophet, “that these are the children of Mr. Sagittarius?”
The Prophet bent his head.
“How very interesting!” said Lady Enid. “Everything is working out most beautifully. I must get them some chocolates.”
And she immediately stepped into a confectioner’s and came out with a beautiful box of bon-bons, tied with amethyst ribbon, which she gave to the delighted children.
“I know your dear father,” she said. “At least I know who he is.”
And she looked firmly at the Prophet, who dropped his eyes. They were now at the corner of Air Street, and the purple ‘bus could be seen looming brilliantly in the distance.
“Good-bye, Lady Enid,” said the Prophet.
“Oh, I’ll see you off,” she replied, evidently resolved to satisfy some further, unexpressed curiosity.
“There it is!” cried Capricornus. “It’s coming! There it is!”
“Isn’t it pretty?” shrieked the little Corona, who was evidently growing much excited by the chocolates and the centralness of the whole thing. “Let’s go on the top! Let’s go on the top!”
She began to jump on the pavement, and her brother was just about to follow her example when some sudden idea struck him into gravity. He turned to the Prophet and exclaimed solemnly,–
“Oh, if you please, Mr. Vivian, have you got the crab with you?”
“The crab!” cried Lady Enid, with much vivacity.
“Yes, yes, my boy, it’s all right!” said the Prophet, hastily.
“Not your boy, if you please, Mr. Vivian,” returned the little inquisitor. “And have you got the fist tooth?”
“Yes, yes!”
“And the rashes, and the honoured grandmother, and–“
“I’ve got everything,” cried the Prophet, “every single thing!”
“Because mater familias said I was to make you bring them if I stayed for them all day.”
“Yes, yes, they’re all here–every one.”
Lady Enid was gazing at the Prophet’s slim form with almost passionate curiosity. It was evidently a problem to her how he had managed to conceal so many various commodities about his person without altering his shape. However, she had no time to study the matter, for at this moment the purple ‘bus jerked along the kerb, and the voice of the conductor was heard crying,–
“Pork Butcher’s Rest! All the way one penny! Pork–penny–all the way– Butcher’s–Rest–one–Pork–all–Pork–penny–Pork–Butcher’s–Pork– Rest–Pork–penny!”
With a hasty farewell the Prophet, accompanied, and indeed closely clutched, by the little Corona and Capricornus, scrambled fanatically, and not without two or three heavy falls, to the summit of the ‘bus, while Lady Enid read the legend printed on it with a smile, ere she turned to walk home, putting two and two together, and thinking, with keen feminine satisfaction, how useless in the long run are all the negatives of man.
In later years, though many memories intervene, the Prophet will never forget his journey to the banks of the Mouse. Always it seemed very strange to him and dream-like, that everlasting journey upon the purple ‘bus, complicated by the chatter of the younger scions of the Malkiel dynasty, and by the shrill cries of the conductor summoning the passers-by to hasten to that place of repose consecrated to the worthy and hard-working individuals who drew their modest incomes from the pig. The character of the streets changed as the central districts were left behind, and a curious scent, the scent of Suburbia, seemed to float between the tall chimneys in the morose atmosphere. The purple chariot, which rolled on and on like the chariot of Fate, drew gradually away from the large thoroughfares into mean streets, whose air of dull gentility was for ever autumnal, and the Prophet, on passing some gigantic gasworks, mechanically wondered whether it might not, perhaps, be that monument to whose shadow Malkiel the First had lived and died. Once, looking up at the black sky, he remarked to the little Capricornus that it was evidently going to rain.
“No, Mr. Vivian,” replied the boy. “It won’t rain hard this week. January’s a fine month, but there’ll be heavy floods in March, especially along the banks of the Thames.”
“And in February there’ll be such a lot of scarlet fever in the southern portions of England,” added the little Corona. “Oh, Corney, just look at that kitty on the airey railings!”
“Area, Corona,” corrected her brother. “Oh, my! ain’t it funny?”
The Prophet remembered that he was travelling with the scions of a prophetic house.
It seemed many years before the ‘bus stopped before a brick building full of quart pots, situated upon a gentle eminence sloping to a coal- yard, and the voice of the conductor proclaimed that the place of repose was reached. The Prophet and his diminutive guides descended from the roof and were shortly in a train puffing between the hunched backs of abominable little houses, sooty as street cats and alive with crying babies. Then bits of waste land appeared, bald wildernesses in which fragments of broken crockery hibernated with old tin cans and kettles yellow as dying leaves. A furtive brown rivulet wandered here and there like a thing endeavouring to conceal itself and unable to find a hiding-place.
“That’s the Mouse, Mr. Vivian,” remarked Capricornus, proudly. “We shall soon be there.”
“Ridiculum mus,” rejoined his sister, who evidently took after her learned mother.
“Culus, Corona; and you’re not to say that. Pater familias says that the Mouse is a noble stream. We get out here, Mr. Vivian.”
Here proved to be a wayside station on the very bank of the noble stream, and on the edge of a piece of waste ground so large that it might almost have been called country.
The Prophet and the two kids set off across this earth, which was named by the inhabitants “the Common.” In the distance rose a fringe of detached brick and stone villas towards which Capricornus now pointed a forefinger that trembled with pride.
“That’s where we live,” he said, in a voice that was grown squeaky from conceit.
“Dulce domus,” piped his sister, clutching the skirt of the Prophet’s coat, and, thus supported, performing several very elaborate dancing steps upon the clayey soil over which he was feebly staggering. “Dulce dulce, dulce domus. Look at that rat, Corney!”
A large, raking rodent, indeed, at that instant emerged from the wreckage of what had once been a copper cauldron near by, and walked slowly away towards a slope of dust garnished with broken bottles and abandoned cabbage stalks. The Prophet shuddered and longed to flee, but the two kids, as if divining his thought, now clasped his hands and led him firmly forward to a yellow villa, fringed with white Bath stone and garnished plentifully with griffins. From its flat front shot ostentatiously forth a porch adorned with Roman columns which commanded a near view of the Mouse, and before the porch was a small garden in which several healthy-looking nettles had made their home.
As the Prophet and the two kids approached this delightful abode, a white face appeared, gluing itself to the pane of an upper window.
“There’s pater familias!” piped Capricornus. “Don’t he look ill?”
As they mounted the flight of imitation marble steps the face disappeared abruptly.
“He’s coming to let us in,” said Capricornus. “You’re sure you’ve brought the crab and all the rashes?”
“Quite sure.”
“Because, if you haven’t, I don’t know whatever mater familias’ll–“
At this moment the portal of the lodge was furtively opened about half an inch, and a very small segment of ashen-coloured human face, containing a large and apprehensive eye, was shown in the aperture.
“Are you alone?” said the hollow voice of Mr. Sagittarius.
“Quite, quite alone,” said the Prophet, reassuringly.
“It’s all right, pater familias!” cried Capricornus. “He’s brought all the rashes and the first tooth and everything. I made him.”
“I don’t think he wanted to,” added the little Corona, suddenly developing malice.
“I’ve taken this long journey, Mr. Sagittarius,” said the Prophet, with a remnant of self-respect, “at your special request. Am I to be permitted to come in?”
“If you’re sure you’re quite alone,” returned the sage, showing a slightly enlarged segment of face.
“I am quite sure–positive!”
At this the door was opened just sufficiently to admit the passage of one thin person at a time, and, in single file, the Prophet, Corona and Capricornus passed into the lodge.
CHAPTER XV
THE PROPHET CREATES A DIVERSION AT HIS OWN EXPENSE
On stepping into a small vestibule, paved with black and white lozenges, and fitted up with an iron umbrella stand, a Moorish lamp and a large yellow china pug dog, the Prophet found himself at once faced by Mr. Sagittarius, whose pallid countenance, nervous eye and suspicious demeanour plainly proclaimed him to be, as he had stated, very rightly and properly going about in fear of his life.
“Go to the schoolroom, my darlings,” he whispered to his children. “Why, what have you there?”
“Choclets,” said Capricornus.
“From the pretty lady, mulius pulchrum,” added the little Corona.
“Who is a mulibus pulchrum, my love?” asked Mr. Sagittarius, before Capricornus had time to correct his sister’s Latin.
“It was Miss Minerva,” said the Prophet. “We happened to meet her.”
“Indeed, sir. Run away, my pretties, and don’t eat more than one each, or mater familias will not approve.
Then, as the little ones disappeared into the shadows of the region above, he added to the Prophet,–
“You’ve nearly been the death of Madame, sir.”
“I’m sure I’m very sorry,” said the Prophet.
“Sorrow is no salve, sir, no salve at all. Were it not for her books I fear we might have lost her.”
“Good gracious!”
“Mercifully her books have comforted her. She is resting among them now. Madame is possessed of a magnificent library, sir, encyclopaedic in its scope and cosmopolitan in its point of view. In it are represented every age and every race since the dawn of letters; thousands upon thousands of authors, sir, Rabelais and Dean Farrar, Lamb and the Hindoos, Mettlelink and the pith of the great philosophers such as John Oliver Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Earl Spencer; the biting sarcasm of Hiny, the pathos of Peps, the oratorical master-strokes of such men as Gladstone, Demosthenes and Keir Hardie; the romance of Kipling, sir, of Bret Harte and Danty Rossini; the poetry of Kempis a Browning and of Elizabeth Thomas Barrett–all, all are there bound in Persian calf. Among these she seeks for solace. To these she flies in hours of anguish.”
“Does she indeed?” said the Prophet, feeling thoroughly overwhelmed.
“She desires me to take you to her at once, sir, there to confer and”– he lowered his voice and trembled visibly–“to arrange measures for the protection of my life.”
The Prophet found himself wishing that he had been less precipitate in covertly alluding to Sir Tiglath’s long desire of assault and battery, but before he had time to wish anything for more than half a minute, Mr. Sagittarius had guided him ceremoniously across the hall and was turning the handle of a door that was decorated with black and scarlet paint.
“Here, sir,” he whispered, “you will find Madame surrounded by the authors whom she loves, by their portraits, their biographies and their writings. Here she communes with the great philosophers, sir, the poets, the historians and the humourists of the entire world, from the earliest days down to this very moment–in Persian calf, sir.”
He gazed awfully at the Prophet, and gently opened the door of this temple of the intellect.
The Prophet expected to find himself ushered into a gigantic chamber, lined from floor to ceiling with shelves that groaned beneath their burden of the literature of genius. Indeed he had, in fancy, beheld even the chairs and couches covered with stacks of volumes, the very floor littered with the choicest productions of the brains of the dead and living. His surprise was, therefore, very great when, on passing through the door, he beheld Madame Sagittarius reposing at full length upon a maroon sofa in a small apartment, whose bare walls, were entirely innocent of book-shelves. Indeed the only thing of the sort which was visible was a dwarf revolving bookcase which stood beside the sofa, and contained some twenty volumes bound, as Mr. Sagittarius had stated, in Persian calf, each of these volumes being numbered and adorned with a label on which was printed in letters of gold, “The Library of Famous Literature: Edited by Dr. Carter. Tasty Tit-bits from all Times.”
“Madame, sir, in her library,” whispered Mr. Sagittarius by the door. “She is absorbed, sir, and does not notice us.”
In truth Madame Sagittarius did appear to be absorbed in thought, or something else, for her eyes were closed, her mouth was open, and a sound of regular breathing filled the little room.
“She is thinking out some problem, sir,” continued Mr. Sagittarius. “She is communing with the mighty dead. Sophronia, my love, Sophronia, Capricornus has brought the gentleman according to your orders. Sophy! Sophy!”
His final utterances, which were somewhat strident caused Madame Sagittarius to come away from her communion with the mighty dead with a loud ejaculation of the nature of a snort combined with a hissing whistle, to kick up her indoor kid boots into the air, turn upon her right elbow, and present a countenance marked with patches of red and white, and a pair of goggling, and yet hazy, eyes to the intruders upon her intellectual exertions.
“Mr. Vivian has come, Sophronia, according to your directions.”
Madame uttered a second snort, brought her feet to the floor, arranged her face in a dignified expression with one fair hand, breathed heavily, and finally bowed to the Prophet with majestic reserve and remarked, with the professional click,–
“I was immersed in thought and did not perceive your entrance. /Mens invictus manetur/. Be seated, I beg.”
Here certain very elaborate contortions and swellings of her interesting countenance suggested that she was repressing a good-sized yawn, and she was obliged to rearrange her features with both hands before she could continue.
“Thought conquers matter, as Plauto–I should say as Platus very rightly obesrved.”
“Quite so,” assented the Prophet, trying to live up to the library, but scarcely succeeding.
“Even in the days of the great Juvenile,” proceeded Madame, “to whose satires I owe much”–here she laid a loving hand upon Vol. 2 of the “Library of Famous Literature.”–“Long ere the days when Lord Lytton and his Caxtons introduced us to the blessings of the printing press there were doubtless ladies who, like myself, could forget the treachery and the lies of men in silent communion with the brains of the departed. Far better to be Milton’s ‘Il Penserosero’ than Lord Byron’s ‘L’Allegra!’ “
To this pronounciamento, which was interrupted several times by more alarming contortions of the brain-worker’s face, the Prophet replied with a vague affirmative, while Mr. Sagittarius whispered,–
“Her whole knowledge, sir, comes straight from there”–pointing towards the dwarf bookcase. “She brought it on the instalment system. Dr. Carter has made her what she is! That man, sir, deserves to be canonised. Eight guineas and a half, sir, and such a result!”
“Such a result!” the Prophet whispered back.
By this time Madame Sagittarius had apparently ceased to commune with the dead, for her striking face assumed a more normal expression of feminine bitterness as she realised who was before her, and she exclaimed sharply,–
“Oh, so you’ve come at last, Mr. Vivian! And pray what have you to say? What about the rashes? And what is this danger that threatens Mr. Sagittarius?”
“We’d better take the danger first, my dear,” said Mr. Sagittarius, with grave anxiety.
“Very well. Not that it should be the most important to one who wears the /toga virilibus/!”
“True, my love. Still, to take it first will clear the ground, I think, and set me more at ease. Well, sir?”
Thus adjured, the Prophet resolved to make a clean breast of Sir Tiglath’s declarations, and he therefore replied,–
“I thought it only right to wire to you as I did, having learnt that there is in London a gentleman, an eminent man, who has for five-and- forty years been seeking for Malkiel with the avowed intention of– of–“
“Oh what, sir, of what?” said Mr. Sagittarius with trembling lips.
“Of doing him violence,” replied the Prophet, impressively.
“What is the gent’s name?” said Mr. Sagittarius, in great agitation.
“His name! /Nomen volens/!” added Madame.
“That,” said the Prophet, “I prefer not to say at present.”
“But why should he desire to–?”
“Because you are a prophet.”
“There, Jupiter!” cried Madame, with flushed spitefulness. “What have I always said! All prophets are what they call outsiders–/hors d’oeuvres/, neither more nor less.”
“I know, my love, I know. But how should this gent recognise me for a prophet? I’m sure my dress, my manner, are those of an outside broker, as I have often told you, Sophy. How–“
“The gentleman has not yet recognised you,” said the Prophet. “At the moment he believes you to be an American syndicate.”
“Thank mercy!” ejaculated Mr. Sagittarius.
“But one can never tell,” added the Prophet. “He might find out.”
“Nonsense!” cried Madame at this juncture. “We might quite well have gone to the square yesterday as I always suspected. But you are so timid, Jupiter. /Timeo Dan–Dan/–well, /Dan/ something or other, as Virgil so truly says.”
“Cautious, Sophronia, only cautious, for your and the children’s sakes!”
“I call a man who’s afraid even when he’s passing everywhere as an American syndicate a cowardly custard,” rejoined Madame, who appeared to be suffering under that peculiar form of flushed irritability which is apt to follow on heavy thought, indulged in to excess in a recumbent position during the daytime. “There, that’s settled. So now let us get to business. Kindly hand me your prophecy of last night, Mr. Vivian.”
The Prophet drew from a breast pocket a sheet or two of notepaper, on which he had dotted down, in prophetic form, the events of the night before. Madame received it and continued,–
“Before perusing this report, Mr. Vivian, I should wish to be made acquainted with those particulars.”
“Which ones?” said the Prophet.
“Of your grandmother’s career.”
“Oh, I–“
“Let us take them in order, please, and proceed /parri passo/. When was the old lady removed from the bottle?”
“Never,” replied the Prophet, firmly. “Never.”
An expression of incredulous amazement decorated the obstreperous features of Madame.
“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Vivian, that she sucks it still?” she inquired.
“I mean what I say, that she has never been removed from it,” returned the Prophet, with energy.
“Well, sir, she must be very partial to milk and Indian rubber, very partial indeed!” said Mr. Sagittarius. “Go on, my darling.”
“Her first tooth, Mr. Vivian–when did she cut it?”
“She has no idea.”
Madame began to look decidedly grim.
“Date of short-coating?” she rapped out.
“There was no date. She never wore a short-coat.”
“Do you desire me to believe, Mr. Vivian, that the old lady has been going about in long clothes ever since she was born?” inquired Madame, with incredulous sarcasm.
“Most certainly I do,” replied the Prophet.
“Then how does she get along, pray? Come! Come!”
“She has always worn long clothes,” cried the Prophet, boldly standing up for his beloved relative, “and always will. You can take that from me, Madame Sagittarius. I know my grandmother, and I am ready to pledge my honour to it.”
“Oh, very well. She must be a very remarkable lady. That’s all I can say. When did she put her hair up?”
“Never. She has never put it up.”
“She has never put her hair up!”
“No, never.”
“You mean to say that your grandmother goes about in long clothes with her hair down in the central districts?” cried Madame in blank amazement.
“She has never put her hair up,” answered the Prophet, with almost obstinate determination.
“Oh, well–if she prefers! But I wonder what the police are about!” retorted Madame. “And now the rashes?”
“There are none.”
But at this Madame’s temper–already somewhat upset by her prolonged communion with the mighty dead–showed symptoms of giving way altogether.
“Rubbish, Mr. Vivian!” she said, clicking loudly and passing with an almost upheaving jerk to her upper register! “I’m a mother and was once a child. Rubbish! I must insist upon knowing the number of the rashes.”
“I assure you there are none.”
“D’you wish me to believe that the old lady has gone about all her life in the Berkeley Square in long clothes and her hair down, with her lips to the bottle and never had a rash? Do you wish me to believe that, Mr. Vivian?”
“Yes, sir, do you wish Madame, a lady of deep education, sir, to believe that?” cried Mr. Sagittarius.
“I can only adhere to what I have said,” answered the Prophet. “My grandmother has never been removed from the bottle, has never worn a short coat, has never put her hair up and has never had an epidemic in Berkeley Square.”
“Then all I can say is that she’s an unnatural old lady,” cried Madame, with obvious temper, tossing her head and kicking out the kid boots, as if seized with the sudden desire to use them upon a human football. “And there’s not many like her.”
“There is no one like her, no one at all,” said the Prophet with fervour.
“So I should suppose,” cried Madame, forgetting the other questions as to the day of marriage, etc., in the vexation of the moment. “She must certainly be the bird of whom Phoenix wrote that rose from ashes in the days of the classics. /Rarum avis/ indeed! Eh, Jupiter?”
“Very rarum, my dear, very indeed!” responded her husband, with imitative sarcasm. “An avis indeed, not a doubt of it.”
“De Queechy should have known her,” continued Madame. “He always loved everything out of the common. Well, and now for the prophecy. What is all this, Mr. Vivian?”
“The result of last night’s observation,” said the Prophet.
“Do you call that a cycloidal curve?” asked Madame, with a contralto laugh that shook the library. “Look, Jupiter!”
Mr. Sagittarius glanced over his wife’s heaving shoulder.
“Very poor, my dear, very irregular indeed.”
“It’s the best I could do,” said the Prophet, still politely.
“I daresay,” replied Mr. Sagittarius. “I daresay. Where’s your star- map?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” answered the Prophet. “I left it in the pomade.”
“The pomade!”
“Yes, the butler’s own special pomade, and it seems to have disappeared.”
“Very careless, very careless indeed. Let’s see–prophecy first, then how arrived at. ‘Grandmother apparently threatened with some danger at night in immediate future. Great turmoil in the house during dark hours.’ H’m! ‘Some stranger, or strangers, coming into her life and causing great trouble and confusion, almost resulting in despair, and perhaps actually inducing illness.’ H’m! H’m! We didn’t arrive at any of this by our observations, did we, Sophronia?”
“Decidedly not,” snapped Madame, haughtily.
“And now let’s see how arrived at. H’m! H’m! Grandmother–ingress of Crab–conjunction of Scorpio with Serpens–moon in eleventh house. Yes, that’s so. Jupiter in trine with Saturn–What’s this? ‘Crab dressed implies danger–undressed Crab much safer–attempted intervention failure–she’s in a nice state now–it tried to keep her from it, but she was drawn right to it.’ Right to what?”
“The Crab?”
“Of course she was drawn to it. She depends on the Crab these nights. But what does the rest mean?”
“The Crab was dressed.”
“Dressed–what in?”
“I don’t know,” said the Prophet. “It didnt tell me.”
Mr. Sagittarius and Madame exchanged glances.
“Explain yourself, Mr. Vivian, I beg,” cried Madame in a somewhat excited manner. “How could the Crab be dressed?”
“I have wondered,” said the Prophet, gazing at the couple before him with shining eyes. “But it was dressed last night, and that made it exceptionally dangerous in some way. Something seemed to tell me so. Something did tell me so.”
“What told you?” inquired Madame, with more excitement and a certain respect which had been quite absent from her manner before.
“Something that came in the night. I don’t know what it was. Light flashed from it.”
“It sounds like a sort of comet, my darling,” said Mr. Sagittarius, considerably perturbed. “We didn’t observe that the Crab was specially dressed, did we?”
“It had nothing on at all when we saw it,” said Madame with growing agitation. “But whatever was this comet that flashed light? That’s what I want to get at.”
“It was a dark thing that told me the Crab was dressed, that my grandmother had been with it and that its influence was inimical to her.”
“A dark thing! That’s not a comet!” said Mr. Sagittarius.
“It vanished with a flash of light into the square.”
“At what time did you observe it, sir?” asked Mr. Sagittarius, while Madame leaned forward, gazing with goggling eyes at the Prophet.
“At exactly half-past one.”
“Did it stay long?”
“A few minutes only–but it made an impression upon me that I can never forget.”
It had apparently also made a very great impression upon Mr. and Madame Sagittarius, who remained for some seconds staring fixedly at the Prophet without uttering a word. At last Mr. Sagittarius turned to Madame and said in a voice that shook with seriousness,–
“Can it be, Sophronia, that prophets ought to live in the central districts? Can it really be that the nearer they are to the Circus, and even to the Stores–“
“/O beatus illa/!” interjected Madame upon the pinions of a sigh.
“Yes, Sophronia, the Stores, the more clearly is the knowledge of the future vouchsafed to them? If it should prove to be so!”
Madame stared again upon the Prophet with a fixity and strained inquiry which made him shift in his seat.
“If it should!” she repeated, upon the lowest note of her lower register, which sounded, at that solemn moment, like the keynote of a dreamer. Then, with a sudden change of manner, she cried sharply,–
“Jupiter, you must accompany this gentleman back to the square to-day.”
The Prophet started. So did Mr. Sagittarius.
“But–” they cried simultaneously.
“And you must share his night watch.”
“But, my darling–“
“Or I will,” cried Madame. “Which is it to be?”
“Mr. Sagittarius!” exclaimed the Prophet.
“Very well,” said Madame. “Let mine be the weary task to wait and watch at home. /Fata feminus/. The mystery of the dressed Crab must be unveiled. Should this mysterious visitant again vouchsafe a prophetic message, a practical prophet must be at hand to receive it. Jupiter, this gentleman is not practical. This report”–she struck the paper on which the Prophet had dotted down his notes–“is badly written. The cycloidal curve might have been made by a Board School child. The deductions drawn–/deductio ad absurdibus/–reveal no talent, none of the prophetic /feu de joie/ at all. But this mystery of the dressed Crab may mean much. Jupiter, you will accompany this gentleman back to London and you will assist him practically at the telescope to-night.”
“Very well, my love. I will risk the personal danger, for your and the children’s–“
“But–but really–” began the Prophet. “I am very sorry, but–“
“Madame has spoken, sir,” said Mr. Sagittarius, very solemnly.
“I know she has. But–yes, I know there are no buts in your dictionary, Madame, I know there aren’t–but I have an engagement to-night that I have sworn–“
“What engagement, sir?” said Mr. Sagittarius, sternly. “You have sworn to us. You must know that.”
“I have sworn to almost everyone,” cried the distracted Prophet. “But this swear–I mean this oath must be kept before yours.”
“Before ours, sir?”
“It comes on before eleven. I keep my oath to you after it. I manage the two, don’t you see?”
“He will see that you manage the two, Mr. Vivian, I can assure you,” said Madame, viciously. “Won’t you, Jupiter?”
“Certainly, my dear. What is the oath, sir, that you place before ours?”
“An oath to Miss Minerva,” returned the Prophet, beginning to feel reckless, firm in the conviction that it was henceforth his destiny to be the very sport of Fate.
“Ha!” cried Mr. Sagittarius. “The double life!”
“Who is Miss Minerva, pray?” said Madame, shooting a very penetrating glance upon her husband.
“Your husband can tell you that,” replied the Prophet, by no means without guile.
“Jupiter,” cried Madame, “what is the meaning of this? Who is this person?”
Mr. Sagittarius looked exceedingly uncomfortable.
“My dear,” he began, “she is a young fe–that is, a young wo–I should say–“
“A fe! A wo! Explain yourself, Jupiter!”
“She is a lady, my love.”
“A lady! Do I know her?”
“I believe not, my dear.”
“And do you?”
“No, my darling. That is–that is–“
“Yes, I suppose!” said Madame, with a very violent click.
“I can hardly say, Sophronia, that, I can’t indeed. I have met her, by accident, quite by accident I assure you, once or twice.”
“Where?”
“At Jellybrand’s. She goes there to fetch letters on the same day as I do.”
Madame’s very intellectual brow was over-clouded with storm. She turned upon the Prophet.
“And what of this person, Mr. Vivian?” she cried. “What of her and this oath?”
The Prophet, who was secretly very delighted with the diversion he had so cleverly created, hastened to reply,–
“I have promised most solemnly to meet her to-night at a house in the Zoological Gardens!”
“A house in the Zoological Gardens!”
“I mean at the Zoological House, the residence of Mrs. Vane Bridgeman, who is–“
But, at this point in his explanation, the Prophet was interrupted by both his hearers.
“The Jellybrand one!” cried Mr. Sagittarius.
“The prophets’ patron!” vociferated Madame.
CHAPTER XVI
THE PROPHET RETURNS FROM THE MOUSE WITH TWO OLD AND VALUED FRIENDS
At these exclamations the Prophet started in some surprise.
“You know this lady?” he asked.
“By repute, sir,” replied Mr. Sagittarius.
“Who does not?” cried Madame. “She built the ‘Prophets’ Rest’ at Birchington.”
“And the Mediums’ Almshouses at Sunnington.”
“And the ‘Palmists’ Retreat’ at Millaby Bay.”
“And the–“
“I see you know all about her,” interposed the Prophet. “Well, she is giving a reception to-night at Zoological House and I have sworn to be there. But I shall get home by eleven. You will understand, however, that I cannot have the pleasure of entertaining Mr. Sagittarius during the evening under my own roof. I regret this extremely, but you see it is unavoidable.”
To the Prophet’s great surprise this lucid explanation was received by his hearers with a strange silence and a combined meditative, and even moony, staring which was to him inexplicable. Both Madame and Mr. Sagittarius seemed suddenly immersed in contemplation. They began, he thought, to look like Buddhists, or like those devoted persons who, in the times of the desert monks, remained for long periods posed upon pillows in sandy wastes musing upon Eternity. At first, as he met their fixed eyes, he fancied that they were, perhaps, falling into a trance, but presently the conviction seized him that they must be, on the contrary, busily thinking out some problem. He hoped fervently that he did not form part of it. At length the quivering silence was broken by Mr. Sagittarius.
“I might accompany you to Mrs. Bridgeman’s, sir,” he said to the Prophet. “Might I not, Sophronia?”
“Oh, but–” began the Prophet, very hastily.
“The lady has frequently pressed me to accept of her hospitality.”
“Indeed!”
“For years she has been writing to me at Jellybrand’s, under my real name of Malkiel the Second, you understand. She addresses me simply as the master.’ “
“But do the postal authorities–“
“Not upon the envelope, sir, not upon the envelope.”
“I see.”
“Hitherto, true to myself, true to the principles of Malkiel the First, and to the instincts of Madame, I have declined her personal acquaintance. But there is no reason why you should not introduce me to the house as Mr. Sagittarius, no reason at all.”
The Prophet knew only too well that there was not, but before he had time to go on trying to wriggle out of the complication, Madame struck in.
“Miss Minerva is to be present at this reception, I believe,” she said sharply.
“Yes, she is,” answered the Prophet, illumined by a ray of hope.
“Jupiter,” said Madame, “I will accompany you and Mr. Vivian to the Zoological Gardens to-night. It is my sacred duty.”
The Prophet groaned.
“But, my darling–“
“The reception over, I will assist you and Mr. Vivian at the telescope in the Berkeley Square. In your presence I can do so without departing from my principles, /salvo pudoribus/. Do not interrupt me, Jupiter, if you please. I have thought the matter out. The crisis in our fate is at hand. Upon the events of the next three nights depends our future. These mysterious messages of which Mr. Vivian speaks must be examined into by us upon the spot. This mystery of the dressed Crab must be made clear. A woman’s intellect is needed. A woman’s intellect shall not be wanting. Ill as I am, worn down by the occurrences of yesterday and by this gentleman’s incessant telegrams, I will leave my books”–here she waved one hand towards the dwarf bookcase–“I will assume an appropriate /neglige/ and my outdoor boots, a fichu and bonnet, and will accompany you at once to the Berkeley Square, there to confer and arrange the programme of the evening. Mrs. Bridgeman would fall down before us in worship could she know who we really are. As it is, Mr. Vivian will introduce us modestly as two old and valued friends. The time may be at hand when we need no longer hide ourselves beneath an /alibi/. Till then we must possess ourselves, and Mr. Vivian must possess us, in patience. Ill as I am, I will accompany you. To-night shall see me in the Zoological Gardens at my husband’s side.”
Before the prospect of this sublime self-sacrifice both Mr. Sagittarius and the Prophet were as men dumb. They said not a word. They only gazed–with a sort of strange idiotcy–at Madame as she rose, with an elaborate and studied feebleness, from the maroon couch and prepared to go upstairs to assume the appropriate /neglige/. Only when she was at her full height did the Prophet, rendered desperate by the terrible results of his own ingenuity, nerve himself to utter one last protest.
“I really do not think it would be quite according to the rules of etiquette which prevail in the central districts,” he cried, “for a lady to spend the night in the butler’s pantry of a comparative stranger, even when accompanied by her husband. It might give rise to talk in the square, and–“
“The butler’s pantry, sir!” exclaimed Mr. Sagittarius. “Explain yourself, I beg.”
“The telescope is there, and–“
“I have passed beyond the reach of etiquette,” said Madame, looking considerably like Joan of Arc and other well-known heroines. “My duty lies plain before me. Of myself I should not have selected the Zoological Gardens and the butler’s pantry of a comparative stranger as places in which to pass the night, even when accompanied by my husband. But my conscience–/mens conscium recto/–guides me and I will not resist it. I will assume my /neglige/ and bonnet and will be with you in a moment.”
So saying she majestically quitted the apartment.
The Prophet fell down upon the maroon sofa like a man smitten with paralysis. He felt suddenly old, and very weak. He tried to think, to consider how he could explain Madame Sagittarius to his grandmother– for she must surely now become aware of the presence of strangers in her pretty home–how he could arrange matters with Mr. Ferdinand, how he could apologise to a lady whom he had never yet seen for appearing at her house with two uninvited guests, how he could get rid of the Sagittariuses when the horrible night watch should be at an end and the frigid winter dawn be near. But his mind refused to work. His brain was a blank, containing nothing except, perhaps, a vague desire for sudden death. Mr. Sagittarius did not disturb his contemplation of the inevitable. Indeed, that gentleman also seemed meditative, and the silence lasted until the reappearance of Madame, in a brown robe–of a slightly tea-gown type–trimmed with green chiffon and coffee-coloured lace, a black bonnet adorned with about a score of imitation plums made in some highly-glazed material, a heavy cloak lined with priceless rabbit-skins, and the outdoor boots.
If the Prophet had found the journey to the Mouse a painful experience, what can be said of his feelings during the journey from that noble stream? Long afterwards he recalled his state of mind during the tramp across the Common among the broken crockery, the dust-heaps, the decaying vegetables and the occasional lurking rats, the journey in the train, the reembarkment upon the purple ‘bus from the gentle eminence sloping towards the coal-yard, the long pilgrimage towards the central districts with his very outlying companions. He recalled the peculiar numbness that strove against the desperation of his thoughts, his feeble efforts to lay plans frustrated by a perpetual buzzing in his brain, his flitting visions of that gentle grandmother round whose venerable age and dignity he was about to group such peculiar personalities, and beneath whose roof he was about to indulge in such