Roden's Corner Part 8

"You will probably receive applications from malgamite workers in different parts of the world for permission to enter our works. Accept them all, and arrange for their enlistment as soon as possible.

"Yours in haste,

"P.R."

Percy Roden was usually in haste, and wrote a bad letter in a beautiful handwriting.

Cornish turned to the telegrams. They were one and all applications from malgamite makers--from Venice to Valparaiso--to be enrolled in the Scheveningen group. He was still reading them when Lord Ferriby came into the little office. His lords.h.i.+p was wearing a new fancy waistcoat.

It was the month of April--the month a.s.suredly of fancy waistcoats throughout all nature. Lord Ferriby was, as usual, rather pleased with himself. He had walked down Piccadilly with great effect, and a bishop had bowed to him, recognizing, in a sense, a lay bishop.

"What have you got there, Tony?" he asked, affably, laying his smart walking-stick on an inlaid bureau, which was supposed to be his, and was always closed, and had nothing in it.

"Telegrams," answered Cornish, "from malgamite makers, who want to join the works at Scheveningen. Seventy-six of them. I don't quite understand this business."

"Neither do I," admitted Lord Ferriby, in a voice which clearly indicated that if he only took the trouble he could understand anything. "But I fancy it is one of the biggest things in charity that has ever been started."

In the company of men, and especially of young men, Lord Ferriby allowed himself a little license in speech. He at times almost verged on the slangy, which is, of course, quite correct and _de haut ton_, and he did not want to be taken for an old buffer, as were his contemporaries. Therefore he called himself an old buffer whenever he could. _Qui s'excuse s'accuse._

"Of course," he added, "we must take the poor fellows."

Without comment, Cornish handed him Roden's letter, and while Lord Ferriby read it, employed himself in making out a list of the names and addresses of the applicants. Cornish was, in fact, rising to the occasion. In other circ.u.mstances Anthony Cornish might with favourable influence--say that of a Scottish head clerk--have been made into what is called a good business man. Without any training whatever, and with an education which consisted only of a smattering of the cla.s.sics and a rigid code of honour, he usually perceived what it was wise to do. Some people call this genius; others, luck.

"I see," said Lord Ferriby, "that Roden is of the same opinion as myself. A shrewd fellow, Roden." And he pulled down his fancy waistcoat.

"Then I may write, or telegraph, to these men, and tell them to come?"

asked Cornish.

"Most certainly, my dear Anthony. We will collect them, or muster them, as White calls it, in London, and then send them to Scheveningen, as before, when Roden and Herr von Holzen are ready for them. Send a note to White, whose department this mustering is. As a soldier he understands the handling of a body of men. You and I are more competent to deal with a sum of money."

Lord Ferriby glanced towards the door to make sure that it was open, so that the German clerk in the outer office should lose nothing that could only be for his good--might, in fact, pick up a few crumbs from the richly stored table of a great man's mind.

Lord Ferriby leisurely withdrew his gloves and laid them on the inlaid bureau. He had the physique of a director of public companies, and the grave manner that impresses shareholders. He talked of the weather, drew Cornish's attention to a blot of ink on the high-art wallpaper, and then put on his gloves again, well pleased with himself and his morning's work.

"Everything appears to be in order, my dear Anthony," he said.

"So there is nothing to keep me here any longer."

"Nothing," replied Cornish; and his lords.h.i.+p departed.

Cornish remained until it was time to go across St. James's Park to his club to lunch. He answered a certain number of letters himself, the others he handed over to the German clerk--a man with all the virtues, smooth, upright hair, and a dreamy eye. The malgamite makers were bidden to come as soon as they liked. After luncheon Cornish had to hurry back to Great George Street. This was one of his busy days. At four o'clock there was to be a meeting of the floor committee of the approaching ball, and Cornish remembered that he had been specially told to get a new ba.s.s string for the banjo. The Hon. Rupert Dalkyn had promised to come, but had vowed that he would not touch the banjo again unless it had new strings. So Cornish bought the ba.s.s string at the Army and Navy Stores, and the first preparation for the meeting of the floor committee was the tuning of the banjo by the German clerk.

There were, of course, flowers to be bought and arranged _tant bien que mal_ in empty ink-stands, a conceit of Joan's, who refused to spend the fund money in any ornament less serious, while she quite recognized the necessity for flowers on the table of a mixed committee.

The Hon. Rupert was the first to arrive. He was very small and neat and rather effeminate. The experienced could tell at a glance that he came from a fighting stock. He wore a grave and rather preoccupied air. He sat down on the arm of a chair and looked sadly into the fire, while his lips moved.

"Got something on your mind?" asked Cornish, who was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to the arrangement of the room.

"Yes, a new song composed for the occasion 'The Maudlin Malgamite'; like to hear it?"

"Well, I would rather wait. I think I hear a carriage at the door,"

said Cornish, hastily.

Rupert Dalkyn had to be elected to the floor committee because he was Mrs. Courteville's brother, and Mrs. Courteville was the best chaperon in London. She was not only a widow, but her husband had been killed in rather painful circ.u.mstances.

"Poor dear," the people said when she had done something perhaps a little unusual--"poor dear; you know her husband was killed."

So the late Courteville, in his lone grave by the banks of the Ogowe River, watched over his wife's welfare, and made quite a nice place for her in London society.

Rupert himself had been intended for the Church, but had at Cambridge developed such an exquisite sense of humour and so killing a power of mimicry that no one of the dons was safe, and his friends told him that he really mustn't. So he didn't. Since then Rupert had, to tell the truth, done nothing. The exquisite sense of humour had also slightly evaporated. People said, "Oh yes, very funny," than which nothing is more fatal to humour; and elderly ladies smiled a pinched smile at one side of their lips. It is so difficult to see a joke through those long-handled eye-gla.s.ses.

Cornish was quite right when he said that he had heard a carriage, for presently the door opened, and Mrs. Courteville came in. She was small and slight--"a girlish figure," her maid told her--and well dressed.

She was just at that age when she did not look it--at an age, moreover, when some women seem to combine a maximum of experience with a minimum of thought. But who are we to pick holes in our neighbours' garments?

If any of us is quite sure that he is not doing more harm than good in the world, let him by all means throw stones at Mrs. Courteville.

Joan arrived next, accompanied by Lady Ferriby, who knew that if she stayed at home she would only have to give tea to a number of people towards whom she did not feel kindly enough disposed to reconcile herself to the expense. Joan glanced hastily from Mrs. Courteville to Tony. She had noticed that Mrs. Courteville always arrived early at the floor committee meetings when these were held at the Malgamite office or in Cornish's rooms. Joan wondered, while Mrs. Courteville was kissing her, whether the widow had come with her brother or before him.

"Has he not made the room look pretty with that mimosa?" asked Mrs.

Courteville, vivaciously. People did not know how matters stood between Joan Ferriby and Tony Cornish, and always wanted to know.

That is why Mrs. Courteville said "he" only when she drew Joan's attention to the flowers.

The meeting may best be described as lively. We belong, however, to an eminently practical generation, and some business was really transacted. The night for the Malgamite ball was fixed, and a list of stewards drawn up; and then the Hon. Rupert played the banjo.

Lady Ferriby had some calls to pay, so Cornish volunteered to walk across the park with Joan, who had a healthy love of exercise. They talked of various matters, and of course returned again and again to the Malgamite affairs.

"By the way," said Joan, at the corner of Cambridge Terrace, "I had a letter this morning from Dorothy Roden. I was at school with her, you know, and never dreamt that Mr. Roden was her brother. In fact, I had nearly forgotten her existence. She is coming across for the ball. She says she saw you when you were at The Hague. You never mentioned her, Tony."

"Didn't I? She is not interested in the Malgamite scheme, you know. And n.o.body who is not interested in that is worth mentioning."

They walked on in silence for a few minutes. Then Cornish asked a question.

"What sort of person was she at school?"

"Oh, she was a frivolous sort of girl--never took anything seriously, you know. That is why she is not interested in the Malgamite, I suppose."

"I suppose so," said Tony Cornish.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SEAMY SIDE.

"For this is death, and the sole death, When a man's loss comes to him from his gain."

Mrs. Vansittart told Roden that her house was in Park Street in The Hague. But she did not mention that it was at the corner of Orange Street, which makes all the difference. For Park Street is long, and the further end of it--the extremity furthest removed from the Royal Palace--is less desirable than the neighbourhood of the Vyverberg. Mrs.

Vansittart's house was in the most desirable part of a most desirable little city. She was surrounded with houses inhabited by people bearing names well known in history. These people are, moreover, of a fascinating cosmopolitanism. They come from all parts of the world, in an ancestral sense. There are, for instance, Dutch people living here whose names are Scottish. There are others of French extraction, others again whose forefathers came to Holland with the Don Juan of the religious wars whose history reads like a romance.