Our Friend the Charlatan

"Dyce, have you seen to-day's Times? There's a most interesting article on the probable duration of Parliament. Take it up to your room with you, and read it before you sleep."

CHAPTER XIX

"There's a letter for you, Dyce; forwarded from Rivenoak, I see."

It lay beside his plate on the breakfast table, and Dyce eyed it with curiosity. The backward-sloping hand was quite unknown to him. He tapped at an egg, and still scrutinised the writing on the envelope; it was Constance who had crossed out the Rivenoak address, and had written beside it "The Vicarage, Alverholme."

"Have you slept well?" asked his mother, who treated him with much more consideration than at his last visit.

"Very well indeed," he replied mechanically, taking up his letter and cutting it open with a table-knife.

"HAVE MORE COURAGE. AIM HIGHER. IT IS NOT TOO LATE."

Dyce stared at the oracular message, written in capitals on a sheet of paper which contained nothing else. He again examined the envelope, but the post-mark in no way helped him. He glanced at his mother, and, finding her eye upon him, folded the sheet carelessly. He glanced at his father, who had just laid down a letter which evidently worried him. The meal passed with very little conversation. Dyce puzzled over the anonymous counsel so mysteriously conveyed to him, and presently went apart to muse unobserved.

He thought of Iris Woolstan. Of course a woman had done this thing, and Iris he could well believe capable of it. But what did she mean? Did she really imagine that, but for lack of courage, he would have made suit to her? Did she really regard herself as socially his superior? There was no telling. Women had the oddest notions on such subjects, and perhaps the fact of his engaging himself to Constance Bride, a mere secretary, struck her as deplorable. "Aim higher." The exhortation was amusing enough. One would have supposed it came at least from some great heiress—

He stopped in his pacing about the garden. An heiress?—May Tomalin?

Shaking of the head dismissed this fancy. Miss Tomalin was a matter-of-fact young person; he could not see her doing such a thing as this. And yet—and yet—when he remembered their last talk, was it not conceivable that he had made a deeper impression upon her than, in his modesty, he allowed himself to suppose? Had she not spoken, with a certain enthusiasm, of working on his behalf at Hollingford? The disturbing event which immediately followed had put Miss Tomalin into the distance; his mind had busied itself continuously with surmises as to the nature of the benefit he might expect if he married Constance. After all, Lady Ogram's niece might have had recourse to this expedient. She, at all events, knew that he was staying at Rivenoak, and might easily not have heard on what day he would leave. Or, perhaps, knowing that he left yesterday, she had calculated that the letter would reach him before his departure; it had possibly been delivered at Rivenoak by the mid-day post.

Amusing, the thought that Constance had herself re-addressed this communication!

Another possibility occurred to him. What if the writer were indeed Iris Woolstan, and her motive quite disinterested? What if she did not allude to herself at all, but was really pained at the thought of his making an insignificant marriage, when, by waiting a little, he was sure to win a wife suitable to his ambition? Of this, too, Iris might well be capable. Her last letter to him had had some dignity, and, all things considered, she had always shown herself a devoted, unexacting friend. It seemed more likely, it seemed much more likely, than the other conjecture.

Nevertheless, suppose Miss Tomalin had taken this romantic step? The supposition involved such weighty issues that he liked to harbour it, to play with it. He pictured himself calling in Pont Street; he entered the drawing-room, and his eyes fell at once upon Miss Tomalin, in whose manner he remarked something unusual a constraint, a nervousness. Saluting, he looked her fixedly in the face; she could not meet his regard; she blushed a little—

Why, it was very easy to determine whether or not she had sent that letter. In the case of Iris Woolstan, observation would have no certain results, for she must needs meet him with embarrassment. But Miss Tomalin would be superhuman if she did not somehow betray a nervous conscience.

Dyce strode into the house. His father and mother stood talking at the foot of the stairs, the vicar ready to go out.

"I must leave you at once," he exclaimed, looking at his watch. "Something I had forgotten—an engagement absurdly dropt out of mind. I must catch the next train—10.14, isn't it?"

Mrs. Lashmar sang out protest, but, on being assured that the engagement was political, urged him to make haste. The vicar all but silently pressed his hand, and with head bent, walked away.

He just caught the train. It would bring him to town by mid-day, in comfortable time to lunch and adorn himself before the permissible hour of calling in Pont Street. Rapid movement excited his imagination; he clung now to the hypothesis which at first seemed untenable; he built hopes upon it. Could he win a confession from May Tomalin, why should it be hopeless to sway the mind of Lady Ogram? If that were deemed impossible, they had but to wait. Lady Ogram would not live till the autumn. To be sure, she looked better since her return to Rivenoak, but she was frail, oh very frail, and sure to go off at a moment's notice. As for Constance—oh, Constance!

At his lodgings he found unimportant letters. Every letter would have seemed unimportant, compared with that he carried in his pocket. Roach, M. P., invited him to dine. The man at the Home Office wanted him to go to a smoking concert. Lady Susan Harrop sent a beggarly card for an evening ten days hence. Like the woman's impudence! And yet, as it had been posted since her receipt of his mother's recent letter, it proved that Lady Susan had a sense of his growing dignity, which was good in its way. He smiled at a recollection of the time when a seat at those people's table had seemed a desirable and agitating thing.

Before half-past three he found himself walking in Sloane Street. After consulting his watch several times in the course of a few minutes, he decided that, early as it was, he would go on at once to Mrs. Toplady's. Was he not privileged? Moreover, light rain began to fall, with muttering of thunder: he must seek shelter.

At a door in Pont Street stood two vehicles, a brougham and a cab. Was it at Mrs. Toplady's? Yes, so it proved; and, just as Dyce went up to the house, the door opened. Out came a servant, carrying luggage; behind the servant came Mrs. Toplady, and, behind her, Miss Tomalin. Hat in hand, Lashmar faced the familiar smile, at this moment undisguisedly mischievous.

"Mr. Lashmar!" exclaimed the lady, in high good humour. "We are just going to St. Pancras. Miss Tomalin leaves me to-day.—Why, it is raining! Can't we take you with us? Yes, yes, come into the carriage, and we'll drop you where you like."

Lashmar's eye was on the heiress. She said nothing as she shook hands, and, unless he mistook, there was a tremour about her lips, her eyelids, an unwonted suggestion of shyness in her bearing. The ladies being seated, he took his place opposite to them, and again perused Miss Tomalin's countenance. Decidedly, she was unlike herself; manifestly, she avoided his look. Mrs. Toplady talked away, in the gayest spirits; and the rain came down heavily, and thunder rolled. Half the distance to St. Pancras was covered before May had uttered anything more than a trivial word or two. Of a sudden she addressed Lashmar, as if about to speak of something serious.

"You left all well at Rivenoak?"

"Quite well."

"When did you come away?"

"Early yesterday morning," Dyce replied.

May's eyebrows twitched; her look fell.

"I went to Alverholme," Dyce continued, "to see my people."

May turned her eyes to the window. Uneasiness appeared in her face. "She wants to know"—said Dyce to himself—"whether I have received that letter."

"Do you stay in town?" inquired Mrs. Toplady.

"For a week or two, I think." He added, carelessly, "A letter this morning, forwarded from Rivenoak, brought me back."

May made a nervous movement, and at once exclaimed:

"I suppose your correspondence is enormous, Mr. Lashmar?"

"Enormous—why no. But interesting, especially of late."

"Of course—a public man—"

Impossible to get assurance. The signs he noticed might mean nothing at all; on the other hand, they were perhaps decisive. More about the letter of this morning he durst not say, lest, if this girl had really written it, she should think him lacking in delicacy, in discretion.

"Very kind of you, to come to me at once," said Mrs. Toplady. "Is there good news of the campaign? Come and see me to-morrow, can you? This afternoon I have an engagement. I shall only just have time to see Miss Tomalin safe in the railway carriage."

Dyce made no request to be set down. After this remark of Mrs. Toplady's, a project formed itself in his mind. When the carriage entered Euston Road, rain was still falling.

"This'll do good," he remarked. "The country wants it."

His thoughts returned to the morning, a week ago, when Constance and he had been balked of their ride by a heavy shower. He saw the summer-house among the trees; he saw Constance's face, and heard her accents.

They reached the station. As a matter of course, Dyce accompanied his friends on to the platform, where the train was already standing. Miss Tomalin selected her scat. There was leave-taking. Dyce walked away with Mrs. Toplady, who suddenly became hurried.

"I shall only just have time," she said, looking at the clock. "I'm afraid my direction—northward—would only take you more out of your way."

Dyce saw her to the brougham, watched it drive off. There remained three minutes before the departure of Miss Tomalin's train. He turned back into the station; he walked rapidly, and on the platform almost collided with a heavy old gentleman whom an official was piloting to a carriage. This warm-faced, pompous-looking person he well knew by sight. Another moment, and he stood on the step of the compartment where May had her place. At sight of him, she half rose.

"What is it? Have I forgotten something?"

The compartment was full. Impossible to speak before these listening people. In ready response to his embarrassed look, May alighted.

"I'm so sorry to have troubled you," said Dyce, with laughing contrition. "I thought it might amuse you to know that Mr. Robb is in the train!"

"Really? How I should have liked to be in the same carriage. Perhaps I should have heard the creature talk. Oh, and this compartment is so full, so hot! Is it impossible to find a better?"

Dyce rushed at a passing guard. He learnt that, if Miss Tomalin were willing to change half way on her journey, she could travel at ease; only the through carriages for Hollingford were packed. To this May at once consented. Dyce seized her dressing-bag, her umbrella; they sped to another part of the train, and sprang, both of them, into an empty first-class.