CHAPTER VII--KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
It was in the roomy dining-room of the Hotel Metropole at Brighton.
Maude and Frank were seated at the favourite small round table near
the window, where they always lunched. Their immediate view was a
snowy-white tablecloth with a shining centre dish of foppish little
cutlets, each with a wisp of ornamental paper, and a surrounding bank
of mashed potatoes. Beyond, from the very base of the window, as it
seemed, there stretched the huge expanse of the deep blue sea, its
soothing mass of colour broken only by a few white leaning sails upon
the furthest horizon. Along the sky-line the white clouds lay in
carelessly piled cumuli, like snow thrown up from a clearing. It was
restful and beautiful, that distant view, but just at the moment it
was the near one which interested them most. Though they lose from
this moment onwards the sympathy of every sentimental reader, the
truth must be told that they were thoroughly enjoying their lunch.
With the wonderful adaptability of women--a hereditary faculty, which
depends upon the fact that from the beginning of time the sex has
been continually employed in making the best of situations which were
not of their own choosing--Maude carried off her new character easily
and gracefully. In her trim blue serge dress and sailor hat, with
the warm tint of yesterday's sun upon her cheeks, she was the very
picture of happy and healthy womanhood. Frank was also in a blue
serge boating-suit, which was appropriate enough, for they spent most
of their time upon the water, as a glance at his hands would tell.
Their conversation was unhappily upon a very much lower plane than
when we overheard them last.
'I've got such an appetite!'
'So have I, Frank.'
'Capital. Have another cutlet.'
'Thank you, dear.'
'Potatoes?'
'Please.'
'I always thought that people on their honeymoon lived on love.'
'Yes, isn't it dreadful, Frank? We must be so material.'
'Good old mother Nature! Cling on to her skirt and you never lose
your way. One wants a healthy physical basis for a healthy spiritual
emotion. Might I trouble you for the pickles?'
'Are you happy, Frank?'
'Absolutely and completely.'
'Quite, QUITE sure?'
'I never was quite so sure of anything.'
'It makes me so happy to hear you say so.'
'And you?'
'O Frank, I am just floating upon golden clouds in a dream. But your
poor hands! Oh, how they must pain you!'
'Not a bit.'
'It was that heavy oar.'
'I get no practice at rowing. There is no place to row in at Woking,
unless one used the canal. But it was worth a blister or two. By
Jove, wasn't it splendid, coming back in the moonlight with that
silver lane flickering on the water in front of us? We were so
completely alone. We might have been up in the interstellar spaces,
you and I, travelling from Sirius to Arcturus in one of those
profound gulfs of the void which Hardy talks about. It was
overpowering.'
'I can never forget it.'
'We'll go again to-night.'
'But the blisters!'
'Hang the blisters! And we'll take some bait with us and try to
catch something.'
'What fun!'
'And we'll drive to Rottingdean this afternoon, if you feel inclined.
Have this last cutlet, dear!'
'No, thank you.'
'Well, it seems a pity to waste it. Here goes! By the way, Maude, I
must speak very severely to you. I can't if you look at me like
that. But really, joking apart, you must be more careful before the
waiters.'
'Why, dear?'
'Well, we have carried it off splendidly so far. No one has found us
out yet, and no one will if we are reasonably careful. The fat
waiter is convinced that we are veterans. But last night at dinner
you very nearly gave the thing away.'
'Did I, Frank?'
'Don't look so sweetly penitent, you blessing. The fact is that you
make a shocking bad conspirator. Now I have a kind of talent for
that, as I have for every other sort of depravity, so it will be
pretty safe in my hands. You are as straight as a line by nature,
and you can't be crooked when you try.'
'But what did I say? Oh, I AM so sorry! I tried to be so careful.'
'Well, about the curry, you know. It was an error of judgment to ask
if I took chutnee. And then . . . '
'Something else?'
'About the boots. Did I get them in London or Woking.'
'Oh dear, dear!'
'And then . . . '
'Not another! O Frank!'
'Well, the use of the word "my." You must give that word up. It
should be "our."'
'I know, I know. It was when I said that the salt water had taken
the curl out of the feather in my--no, in our--well, in THE hat.'
'That was all right. But it is OUR luggage, you know, and OUR room,
and so on.'
'Of course it is. How foolish I am! Then the waiter knows! O
Frank, what shall we do?'
'Not he. He knows nothing. I am sure of it. He is a dull sort of
person. I had my eye on him all the time. Besides, I threw in a few
remarks just to set the thing right.'
'That was when you spoke about our travels in the Tyrol?'
'Yes.'
'O Frank, how COULD you? And you said how lonely it was when we were
the only visitors at the Swiss hotel.'
'That was an inspiration. That finished him.'
'And about the closeness of the Atlantic staterooms. I blushed to
hear you.'
'But he listened eagerly to it all. I could see it.'
'I wonder if he really believed it. I have noticed that the maids
and the waiters seem to look at us with a certain interest.'
'My dear girlie, you will find as you go through life that every man
will always look at you with a certain interest.'
Maude smiled, but was unconvinced.
'Cheese, dear?'
'A little butter, please.'
'Some butter, waiter, and the Stilton. You know the real fact is,
that we make the mistake of being much too nice to each other in
public. Veterans don't do that. They take the small courtesies for
granted--which is all wrong, but it shows that they ARE veterans.
That is where we give ourselves away.'
'That never occurred to me.'
'If you want to settle that waiter for ever, and remove the last
lingering doubt from his mind, the thing is for you to be rude to
me.'
'Or you to me, Frank.'
'Sure you won't mind?'
'Not a bit.'
'Oh, hang it, I can't--not even for so good an object.'
'Well, then, I can't either.'
'But this is absurd. It is only acting.'
'Quite so. It is only fun.'
'Then why won't you do it?'
'Why won't you?'
'He'll be back before we settle it. Look here! I've a shilling
under my hand. Heads or tails, and the loser has to be rude. Do you
agree?'
'Very well.'
'Your call.'
'Heads.'
'It's tails.'
'Oh goodness!'
'You've got to be rude. Now mind you are. Here he comes.'
The waiter had come up the room bearing the pride of the hotel, the
grand green Stilton with the beautiful autumn leaf heart shading away
to rich plum-coloured cavities. He placed it on the table with a
solemn air.
'It's a beautiful Stilton,' Frank remarked.
Maude tried desperately to be rude.
'Well, dear, I don't think it is so very beautiful,' was the best
that she could do.
It was not much, but it had a surprising effect upon the waiter. He
turned and hurried away.
'There now, you've shocked him?' cried Frank.
'Where HAS he gone, Frank?'
'To complain to the management about your language.'
'No, Frank. Please tell me! Oh, I wish I hadn't been so rude. Here
he is again.'
'All right. Sit tight,' said Frank.
A sort of procession was streaming up the hall. There was their fat
waiter in front with a large covered cheese-dish. Behind him was
another with two smaller ones, and a third with some yellow powder
upon a plate was bringing up the rear.
'This is Gorgonzola, main,' said the waiter, with a severe manner.
'And there's Camembert and Gruyere behind, and powdered Parmesan as
well. I'm sorry that the Stilton don't give satisfaction.'
Maude helped herself to Gorgonzola and looked very guilty and
uncomfortable. Frank began to laugh.
'I meant you to be rude to ME, not to the cheese,' said he, when the
procession had withdrawn.
'I did my best, Frank. I contradicted you.'
'Oh, it was a shocking display of temper.'
'And I hurt the poor waiter's feelings.'
'Yes, you'll have to apologise to his Stilton before he will forgive
you.'
'And I don't believe he is a bit more convinced that we are veterans
than he was before.'
'All right, dear; leave him to me. Those reminiscences of mine must
have settled him. If they didn't, then I feel it is hopeless.'
It was as well for his peace of mind that Frank could not hear the
conversation between the fat waiter and their chambermaid, for whom
he nourished a plethoric attachment. They had half an hour off in
the afternoon, and were comparing notes.
'Nice-lookin' couple, ain't they, John?' said the maid, with the air
of an expert. 'I don't know as we've 'ad a better since the spring
weddin's.'
'I don't know as I'd go as far as that,' said the fat waiter
critically. ''E'd pass all right. 'E's an upstandin' young man with
a good sperrit in 'im.'
'What's wrong with 'er, then?'
'It's a matter of opinion,' said the waiter. 'I likes 'em a bit more
full-flavoured myself. And as to 'er taste, why there, if you 'ad
seen 'er turn up 'er nose at the Stilton at lunch.'
'Turn up 'er nose, did she? Well, she seemed to me a very soft-
spoken, obligin' young lady.'
'So she may be, but they're a queer couple, I tell you. It's as well
they are married at last.'
'Why?'
'Because they 'ave been goin' on most owdacious before'and. I 'ave
it from their own lips, and it fairly made me blush to listen to it.
Awful, it was, AWFUL!'
'You don't say that, John!'
'I tell you, Jane, I couldn't 'ardly believe my ears. They was
married on Tuesday last, as we know well, and to-day's Times to prove
it, and yet if you'll believe me, they was talkin' about 'ow they 'ad
travelled alone abroad--'
'Never, John!'
'And alone in a Swiss 'otel!'
'My goodness!'
'And a steamer too.'
'Well, there! I'll never trust any one again.'
'Oh, a perfec' pair of scorchers. But I'll let 'im see as I knows
it. I'll put that Times before 'im to-night at dinner as sure as my
name's John.'
'And a good lesson to them, too! If you didn't say you'd 'eard it
from their own lips, John, I never could 'ave believed it. It's
things like that as shakes your trust in 'uman nature.'
Maude and Frank were lingering at the table d'hote over their walnuts
and a glass of port wine, when their waiter came softly behind them.
'Beg pardon, sir, but did you see it in the Times?'
'See what?'
'THAT, sir. I thought that it might be of interest to you and to
your good lady to see it.'
He had laid one page of the paper before them, with his forefinger
upon an item in the left-hand top corner. Then he discreetly
withdrew. Frank stared at it in horror.
'Maude, your people have gone and put it in.'
'Our marriage!'
'Here it is! Listen! "Crosse--Selby. 30th June, at St. Monica's
Church, by the Rev. John Tudwell, M.A., Vicar of St. Monica's, Frank
Crosse, of Maybury Road, Woking, to Maude Selby, eldest daughter of
Robert Selby, Esq., of St. Albans." Great Scot, Maude! what shall we
do?'
'Well, dear, does it matter?'
'Matter! It's simply awful!'
'I don't mind much if they do know.'
'But my reminiscences, Maude! The travels in the Tyrol! The Swiss
Hotel! The Stateroom! Great goodness, how I have put my foot into
it.'
Maude burst out laughing.
'You old dear!' she cried, 'I don't believe you are a bit better as a
conspirator than I am. There's only one thing you can do. Give the
waiter half a crown, tell him the truth, and don't conspire any
more.'
And so ignominiously ended the attempt which so many have made, and
at which so many have failed. Take warning, gentle reader, and you
also, gentler reader still, when your own turn comes.
