Mrs. Fitz Part 36

"Tell Peac.o.c.k to give you the _Sporting Times_ and a cigar and a whisky-and-soda, my dear boy," he said.

"Thanks," said I, "but I am afraid you cannot be allowed more than twenty minutes for your interview. It is imperative that Mrs.

Fitzwaren should catch the 5.28 from the Grand Central."

"The 5.28 from the Grand Central." He repeated the words as though an importance was attached to them that they had no reason to claim. Then he added musingly, "I am not so clear as I should like to be that you will be wise to catch it. It would be better, I think, if Mrs.

Fitzwaren could arrange to travel to-morrow."

"Impossible, my dear Theodore. Mrs. Fitzwaren is staying with us, and we must certainly be back to dinner."

The Princess nodded her concurrence.

"Well, well, if you really must. And perhaps I exceed my prerogative."

The singular creature proceeded to lead the way to his study. I was left to meditate alone for twenty minutes upon this latest expression of his personality. Never before had I realised so fully that he was the possessor of gifts the nature of which was as a sealed book to the common mortal. There had been occasions when we "in the family" had been tempted to believe that there was a strong infusion of the charlatan in his pretension to occult knowledge. A prophet is not without honour save in his own country.

But as I sat this January evening in his house in Bryanston Square, I realised more fully than I had ever done before that the last word has yet to be uttered in regard to the things around us. It was as though all at once my cranky relation in his carpet slippers, his velvet coat and his red tie had brought me into a more intimate contact with the Unseen.

Somehow, and for no specific reason that I was able to discover, my unruly nerves began to tick like a clock. The temperature of the room was not high, but a perspiration broke out all over me. A full five minutes I sat in the silence of the gathering darkness not quite knowing what to do and not caring particularly. It was as though the enervating atmosphere of my uncle's nearness had taken from me the power of volition.

It never occurred to me to ring the bell, and yet I had merely to press the b.u.t.ton at my elbow. Nevertheless, when a servant entered with a lamp it was a real relief.

"Hullo, Peac.o.c.k!" said I, issuing with a little s.h.i.+ver from my reverie.

Somehow it seemed that that retainer, trusted, elderly, responsible, looked singularly pale and meagre in the lamp-light.

"Are you very well, Peac.o.c.k?"

"Thank you, sir, not very." The old servant sighed heavily.

"Why, what's the matter?"

The old fellow proceeded to draw the curtains and then turned to face me with a kind of nervous defiance.

"Fact is, Mr. Odo," he said, "this place is getting too much for me. I am afraid I shan't be able to go on much longer. Fact is, Mr.

Odo"--the old man lowered his voice to a whisper of painful solemnity--"it is contrary to the will of G.o.d."

"What is contrary to the will of G.o.d?"

"The goings on, sir, of Mr. Theodore. My private opinion is--and I say to you, Mr. Odo, what I wouldn't say to another"--the voice of the old fellow grew lower and lower--"that Mr. Theodore is getting to know a bit more than any man ought to: in fact, sir, more than the Almighty intended any man should."

"What do you mean, Peac.o.c.k? You are not growing superst.i.tious in your old age, are you?"

I strove to speak in a light tone. But in my own ears my voice sounded curiously high and thin.

"I mean this, sir. The line ought to be drawn somewhere. And Mr.

Theodore doesn't know where to draw it. The people he has here, sir--it's--well, it's appalling! Clairvoyants, mediums, mahatmas, Indian fakirs, table-turners, spirit-rappers, and I can't say what.

Communion with spirits is all very well, sir, but it is contrary to the will of G.o.d. The Almighty never intended, sir, that we should pry into all the secrets of existence."

"How do you know that, Peac.o.c.k?"

"I know by this, sir." The old fellow tapped the centre of his forehead solemnly. "The thing that lies behind this."

To my surprise the old servant wrung his hands and burst into tears.

"It can't go on, sir--at least, as far as I am concerned. Either Mr.

Theodore will have to mend his ways or I shall have to leave him. I have been a long time with Mr. Theodore, and of course I was with his father before him, and I daresay I am getting old, but do you know what we have got in the attic, sir?"

"What have you got in the attic, Peac.o.c.k?"

"An Egyptian mummy, sir. It is several thousand years old, and I am convinced that a curse is on it. I wouldn't enter that attic, sir, not me, not for all the wealth of the Rothschilds."

"I was not aware that you were superst.i.tious, Peac.o.c.k," said I, with a very ineffectual a.s.sumption of the formal tone of the married man, the father of the family, and the county member.

"It is not superst.i.tion, sir, but I know what I know. That mummy has got to leave this house, or I shall leave it."

"Is that the fiat of the True Believer?"

"I don't fear G.o.d the less, sir, because I fear an Egyptian mummy, if that is what you mean."

"But you are inclined to think there are more things in earth and heaven than it is well for the average man to be concerned with?"

"I am convinced of that, sir; and if Mr. Theodore doesn't get rid of that mummy and amend his goings on, I shall be compelled to give notice."

Stated baldly, the old fellow's words may seem ridiculous. But as he uttered them his distress was so sincere that it was impossible to deny him a meed of sympathy.

"Quite right, if you do, Peac.o.c.k," I agreed. "And you can lay it to that honest conscience of which you are rightly proud that you have served the family long and faithfully, and that no one will question your right to an annuity."

"Oh, that will be all right, sir," said the old retainer; "even if Mr.

Theodore does act contrary to the will of G.o.d, n.o.body can deny that he is a perfect gentleman."

"Is not that rather a confirmation of the ancient, theory that the Devil was the first perfect gentleman?"

"I have not thought of that before, sir, but now you mention it, it is certainly worth thinking about."

Having lent sanction to this profound truth, the old fellow went out of the room. But I recalled him from the threshold.

"By the way, Peac.o.c.k, Mr. Theodore told me to ask for the _Sporting Times_, a cigar and a whisky-and-soda."

"Very good, sir." The old fellow withdrew.

"And thank G.o.d for them!" I muttered devoutly to the bare walls.

CHAPTER XXIII

PROVIDES AN ILl.u.s.tRATION OF THE THEORY THAT THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM