The Autobiography of a Slander Part 4

"How wearisome is society!" reflected Mrs. Selldon. "It is hard that we must spend so much money in giving dinners and have so much trouble for so little enjoyment."

"One pays dearly for fame," reflected the author. "What a confounded nuisance it is to waste all this time when there are the last proofs of 'What Caste?' to be done for the nine-o'clock post to-morrow morning!

Goodness knows what time I shall get to bed to-night!"

Then Mrs. Selldon thought regretfully of the comfortable easy chair that she usually enjoyed after dinner, and the ten minutes' nap, and the congenial needle-work. And Mark Shrewsbury thought of his chambers in Pump Court, and longed for his type-writer, and his books, and his swivel chair, and his favourite meerschaum.

"I should be less afraid to talk if there were not always the horrible idea that he may take down what one says," thought Mrs. Selldon.

"I should be less bored if she would only be her natural self," reflected the author. "And would not talk prim plat.i.tudes." (This was hard, for he had talked nothing else himself.) "Does she think she is so interesting that I am likely to study her for my next book?"

"Have you been abroad this summer?" inquired Mrs. Selldon, making another spasmodic attempt at conversation.

"No, I detest travelling," replied Mark Shrewsbury. "When I need change I just settle down in some quiet country district for a few months--somewhere near Windsor, or Reigate, or Muddleton. There is nothing to my mind like our English scenery."

"Oh, do you know Muddleton?" exclaimed Mrs. Selldon. "Is it not a charming little place? I often stay in the neighbourhood with the Milton- Cleaves."

"I know Milton-Cleave well," said the author. "A capital fellow, quite the typical country gentleman."

"Is he not?" said Mrs. Selldon, much relieved to have found this subject in common. "His wife is a great friend of mine; she is full of life and energy, and does an immense amount of good. Did you say you had stayed with them?"

"No, but last year I took a house in that neighbourhood for a few months; a most charming little place it was, just fit for a lonely bachelor. I dare say you remember it--Ivy Cottage, on the Newton Road."

"Did you stay there? Now what a curious coincidence! Only this morning I heard from Mrs. Milton-Cleave that Ivy Cottage has been taken this summer by a Mr. Sigismund Zaluski, a Polish merchant, who is doing untold harm in the neighbourhood. He is a very clever, unscrupulous man, and has managed to take in almost every one."

"Why, what is he? A swindler? Or a burglar in disguise, like the _House on the Marsh_ fellow?" asked the author, with a little twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt in his face.

"Oh, much worse than that," said Mrs. Selldon, lowering her voice. "I a.s.sure you, Mr. Shrewsbury, you would hardly credit the story if I were to tell it you, it is really stranger than fiction." Mark Shrewsbury p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, he no longer felt bored, he began to think that, after all, there might be some compensation for this wearisome dinner- party. He was always glad to seize upon material for future plots, and somehow the notion of a mysterious Pole suddenly making his appearance in that quiet country neighbourhood and winning undeserved popularity rather took his fancy. He thought he might make something of it. However, he knew human nature too well to ask a direct question.

"I am sorry to hear that," he said, becoming all at once quite sympathetic and approachable. "I don't like the thought of those simple, unsophisticated people being hoodwinked by a scoundrel."

"No; is it not sad?" said Mrs. Selldon. "Such pleasant, hospitable people as they are! Do you remember the Morleys?"

"Oh yes! There was a pretty daughter who played tennis well."

"Quite so--Gertrude Morley. Well, would you believe it, this miserable fortune-hunter is actually either engaged to her or on the eve of being engaged! Poor Mrs. Milton-Cleave is so unhappy about it, for she knows, on the best authority, that Mr. Zaluski is unfit to enter a respectable house."

"Perhaps he is really some escaped criminal?" suggested Mr. Shrewsbury, tentatively.

Mrs. Selldon hesitated. Then, under the cover of the general roar of conversation, she said in a low voice:--

"You have guessed quite rightly. He is one of the Nihilists who were concerned in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the late Czar."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mark Shrewsbury, much startled. "Is it possible?"

"Indeed, it is only too true," said Mrs. Selldon. "I heard it only the other morning, and on the very best authority. Poor Gertrude Morley! My heart bleeds for her."

Now I can't help observing here that this must have been the merest figure of speech, for just then there was a comfortable little glow of satisfaction about Mrs. Selldon's heart. She was so delighted to have "got on well," as she expressed it, with the literary lion, and by this time dessert was on the table, and soon the tedious ceremony would be happily over.

"But how did he escape?" asked Mark Shrewsbury, still with the thought of "copy" in his mind.

"I don't know the details," said Mrs. Selldon. "Probably they are only known to himself. But he managed to escape somehow in the month of March 1881, and to reach England safely. I fear it is only too often the case in this world--wickedness is apt to be successful."

"To flourish like a green bay tree," said Mark Shrewsbury, congratulating himself on the aptness of the quotation, and its suitability to the Archediaconal dinner-table. "It is the strangest story I have heard for a long time." Just then there was a pause in the general conversation, and Mrs. Selldon took advantage of it to make the sign for rising, so that no more pa.s.sed with regard to Zaluski.

Shrewsbury, flattering himself that he had left a good impression by his last remark, thought better not to efface it later in the evening by any other conversation with his hostess. But in the small hours of the night, when he had finished his bundle of proofs, he took up his notebook and, strangling his yawns, made two or three brief, pithy notes of the story Mrs. Selldon had told him, adding a further development which occurred to him, and wondering to himself whether "Like a Green Bay Tree"

would be a selling t.i.tle.

After this he went to bed, and slept the sleep of the just, or the unbroken sleep which goes by that name.

MY SIXTH STAGE

But whispering tongues can poison truth.

COLERIDGE.

London in early September is a somewhat trying place. Mark Shrewsbury found it less pleasing in reality than in his visions during the dinner- party at Dulminster. True, his chambers were comfortable, and his type- writer was as invaluable a machine as ever, and his novel was drawing to a successful conclusion; but though all these things were calculated to cheer him, he was nevertheless depressed. Town was dull, the heat was trying, and he had never in his life found it so difficult to settle down to work. He began to agree with the Preacher, that "of making many books there is no end," and that, in spite of his favourite "Remington's perfected No. 2," novel-writing was a weariness to the flesh. Soon he drifted into a sort of vague idleness, which was not a good, honest holiday, but just a lazy waste of time and brains. I was pleased to observe this, and was not slow to take advantage of it. Had he stayed in Pump Court he might have forgotten me altogether in his work, but in the soft luxury of his Club life I found that I had a very fair chance of being pa.s.sed on to some one else.

One hot afternoon, on waking from a comfortable nap in the depths of an armchair at the Club, Shrewsbury was greeted by one of his friends.

"I thought you were in Switzerland, old fellow!" he exclaimed, yawning and stretching himself.

"Came back yesterday--awfully bad season--confoundedly dull," returned the other. "Where have you been?"

"Down with Warren near Dulminster. Deathly dull hole."

"Do for your next novel. Eh?" said the other with a laugh.

Mark Shrewsbury smiled good-naturedly.

"Talking of novels," he observed, with another yawn, "I heard such a story down there!"

"Did you? Let's hear it. A nice little scandal would do instead of a pick-me-up."

"It's not a scandal. Don't raise your expectations. It's the story of a successful scoundrel."

And then I came out again in full vigour--nay, with vastly increased powers; for though Mark Shrewsbury did not add very much to me, or alter my appearance, yet his graphic words made me much more impressive than I had been under the management of Mrs. Selldon.

"H'm! that's a queer story," said the limp-looking young man from Switzerland. "I say, have a game of billiards, will you?"

Shrewsbury, with prodigious yawn, dragged himself up out of his chair, and the two went off together. As they left the room the only other man present looked up from his newspaper, following them with his eyes.

"Shrewsbury the novelist," he thought to himself. "A sterling fellow!

And he heard it from an Archdeacon's wife. Confound it all! the thing must be true then. I'll write and make full inquiries about this Zaluski before consenting to the engagement."

And, being a prompt, business-like man, Gertrude Morley's uncle sat down and wrote the following letter to a Russian friend of his who lived at St. Petersburg, and who might very likely be able to give some account of Zaluski:--