The Sailor Part 57

"Allow me to introduce Mr. Harper--Mr. Mortimer--and you can prepare to speak out of the depths of your wisdom after the ancient manner."

"Certainly," said Mr. Mortimer, with the air of one very well able to do so. "Won't you sit down?" He placed two chairs with innate and almost oriental magnificence. "We are now at your service." It was less a trick of speech than sheer pressure of human character which caused Mr. Mortimer always to refer to himself in the plural.

"I think you had better tell the story, Henry," said Edward Ambrose.

"Tell it to Mortimer exactly as you have told it to me."

That gentleman a.s.sumed his armchair of state, and for the second time that morning Henry Harper told his strange story.

"And you never guessed!" was the solicitor's brief comment when it had been told.

"I can't think why I didn't," said the young man.

Mr. Mortimer frowned tremendously. He then took up a pencil and began with great freedom of style to draw on his blotting pad a portrait of no one in particular.

"Edward," he said, after he had continued to do this for several minutes, "I am afraid this is a difficult business."

"I am afraid so," said Edward Ambrose gravely. "And we have come to a very wise man to set it right for us. It oughtn't to be beyond your powers, ought it, having regard to the acknowledged character of the lady?"

"I fear," said Mr. Mortimer, "the character of the lady is too much acknowledged if the question of a divorce is running in your mind."

"Well, of course it is," said Edward Ambrose, with an air of deep disappointment as he looked at Henry Harper.

"I'll have a divorce if I can possibly get one," said the young man.

"And I don't care what trouble I take or what it costs."

Mr. Mortimer continued to draw very spirited pictures on his blotting pad.

"Don't you advise it?" asked Edward Ambrose.

"Yes, I do, if we can get one. But in the special circ.u.mstances, it is going to prove uncommonly difficult, in fact, one might say impossible."

"You don't mean that, sir," said Henry Harper.

"It is only my opinion." Mr. Mortimer spoke as if there could be no other. "But let me be quite candid, as I am sure you want me to be. I am perfectly certain you will never get a British jury to believe the first part of your story."

"But you believe it?" said Henry Harper, with wild eyes.

"I most certainly believe it, I believe every word you tell me. But we have to deal with a British jury, and in any question affecting what it calls 'morality,' a British jury is a very difficult proposition. At least, that's my experience."

Both Henry Harper and his friend were so dismayed by the force of Mr.

Mortimer's conviction, that at first they did not say anything. Soon, however, Edward Ambrose, who was looking particularly unhappy, remarked: "Then you don't advise him to fight it?"

"I don't. I am sorry to say I don't. There is not a dog's chance without very strong direction from the Bench, and there is little hope of that in a case of this kind. His Majesty's judges are quite as bad as a British jury when they are out on the 'morality' racket."

"The good bourgeois, in fact, without a spark of imagination?"

"Quite so. Of course, we might try, but really one doesn't advise it.

There would be unwarrantable expense, and even if we were lucky enough to get a verdict, it would still be a very serious matter for a young and rising man. At least, that's my view."

"I don't doubt you are right," said Edward Ambrose, with a groan of sheer vexation.

"You mean, sir, I can't get free of her?" said the Sailor.

"Only with great difficulty, I am afraid. And in any event, the issue is uncertain. As I understand, you are in a position to prove very little. Conjecture will not satisfy a jury, and even that must be based on a set of circ.u.mstances that will not help your case."

"Well, what do you advise?" asked Edward Ambrose.

"I should be inclined to let matters take their course for the present.

As she appears to be drinking heavily, it is not unreasonable to hope that in time things may adjust themselves automatically."

"But in the meantime how can she be kept from making herself objectionable?"

"If you care to leave that to us, I think a way may be found."

"By paying her a sum weekly?" suggested Edward Ambrose. "And by threatening to withdraw it if she doesn't behave herself?"

"I don't think it will be necessary to do that."

However, the young man felt it to be his duty to keep her from the gutter, which seemed to be her present destination.

"That is for you to consider," said Mr. Mortimer. "In my judgment, you are under no obligation to provide for her, but if on grounds of humanity you wish to do so, let no one dissuade you."

Edward Ambrose agreed.

The upshot of a painful matter was that it was left in Mr. Mortimer's hands. He undertook to deal in such a way with Mrs. Henry Harper that there should be no fear of molestation from her. Also, he would have inquiries made into her past history and her present mode of life; and if a subsequent reconsideration of the case should make a final appeal to the law seem in any wise expedient, then would be the time to invoke it. In the meantime a sum would be paid to her weekly. Mr. Mortimer undertook to send a clerk to the flat in order to collect Henry Harper's papers and other belongings.

It was an unhappy state of affairs, but the young man realized that for the present it would be the part of wisdom to leave the matter in the prudent hands of Mr. Mortimer.

VI

The Sailor found sanctuary at Bury Street until late in the afternoon.

By that time a member of Mr. Mortimer's staff had retrieved his chattels from King John's Mansions; also the admirable Portman had returned from his quest "for lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man." Moreover, success had crowned it, as Edward Ambrose had been confident that it would.

Portman, it appeared, had found very nice rooms for a single gentleman in Brinkworth Street, Chelsea. They were kept by a friend of his who had been butler in the service of the Honorable Lady Price, relict of the late Sir O'Gorman Price, K.C.M.G., a former governor of the Bowerman Islands, who had given him an excellent character. It was also fortified by the fact that he had married the cook lately in the service of that lady. Portman was sure that Mr. Harper would find everything very comfortable.

Half an hour later, Henry Harper was on his way to Brinkworth Street with his few belongings. Before taking leave of Portman, he presented him with half a sovereign. This was a princely emolument in the eyes of the Sailor, but he felt that nothing less could meet the case.

On his arrival at Brinkworth Street, the young man knew at once that he would be in good hands. The air of respectability which hovered round his rooms was a little portentous, perhaps, but at least it was in welcome and vivid contrast to the cheap and dismal tawdriness of King John's Mansions. Mr. Emerson Paley, the proprietor of No. 14, and Mrs.

Paley also, had something of Portman's impressiveness. It was clear that they had their own standard of taste and conduct. Moreover, Henry Harper welcomed it. To him it meant a fixing of social values. The atmosphere of No. 14, Brinkworth Street, was wholly different from that which had enveloped any home he had ever known before.

The Sailor found a stimulus in these new surroundings. Brinkworth Street, its outlook and its ideals, was a cosmos he had yet to traverse and explore. Mr. Paley was in his own way surprisingly a gentleman, as Mrs. Paley in hers was surprisingly a lady; not, of course, in the way that Edward Ambrose and his new friend, Mary Pridmore, were, but still they undoubtedly stood for something--a curious, indefinable something wholly beyond the _menage_ he had lately left, with its air of make-believe refinement which was not refinement at all.

Mr. Paley and also Mrs. Paley treated him with great consideration.

And it was no second-hand or spurious emotion. It seemed to be their nature to pay respect, they seemed to have a craving to pay it, just as a person there was no need to name and that person's friends had a craving to be always what they called "pulling your leg." Not only was Mr. Harper treated with deference, but solid comfort, well cooked food and punctual attention were lavished upon him, so that for his own part he was bound to honor the source whence these blessings sprang. The august shade of the relict of Sir O'Gorman Price, K.C.M.G., might have been a little too much in evidence now and again for the plain and unvarnished taste of a sailor, but an ever deepening perception showed him that the very things he was inclined to despise and to laugh at--as most of the people with whom his life had been pa.s.sed would undoubtedly have done--were of real importance if you were able to look at them from the right point of view.