II
Next day was (not unnaturally) Sunday. At half-past ten in the
morning, according to his wont, Philip Christy was seated in the
drawing-room at his sister's house, smooth silk hat in gloved hand,
waiting for Frida and her husband, Robert Monteith, to go to church
with him. As he sat there, twiddling his thumbs, or beating the
devil's tattoo on the red Japanese table, the housemaid entered.
"A gentleman to see you, sir," she said, handing Philip a card.
The young man glanced at it curiously. A visitor to call at such
an early hour!--and on Sunday morning too! How extremely odd!
This was really most irregular!
So he looked down at the card with a certain vague sense of
inarticulate disapproval. But he noticed at the same time it was
finer and clearer and more delicately engraved than any other card
he had ever yet come across. It bore in simple unobtrusive letters
the unknown name, "Mr. Bertram Ingledew."
Though he had never heard it before, name and engraving both tended
to mollify Philip's nascent dislike. "Show the gentleman in,
Martha," he said in his most grandiose tone; and the gentleman
entered.
Philip started at sight of him. It was his friend the Alien. Philip
was quite surprised to see his madman of last night; and what was
more disconcerting still, in the self-same grey tweed home-spun
suit he had worn last evening. Now, nothing can be more
gentlemanly, don't you know, than a grey home-spun, IN its proper
place; but its proper place Philip Christy felt was certainly NOT
in a respectable suburb on a Sunday morning.
"I beg your pardon," he said frigidly, rising from his seat with
his sternest official air--the air he was wont to assume in the
anteroom at the office when outsiders called and wished to
interview his chief "on important public business." "To what may I
owe the honour of this visit?" For he did not care to be hunted up
in his sister's house at a moment's notice by a most casual
acquaintance, whom he suspected of being an escaped lunatic.
Bertram Ingledew, for his part, however, advanced towards his
companion of last night with the frank smile and easy bearing of a
cultivated gentleman. He was blissfully unaware of the slight he
was putting upon the respectability of Brackenhurst by appearing on
Sunday in his grey tweed suit; so he only held out his hand as to
an ordinary friend, with the simple words, "You were so extremely
kind to me last night, Mr. Christy, that as I happen to know nobody
here in England, I ventured to come round and ask your advice in
unexpected circumstances that have since arisen."
When Bertram Ingledew looked at him, Philip once more relented. The
man's eye was so captivating. To say the truth, there was something
taking about the mysterious stranger--a curious air of unconscious
superiority--so that, the moment he came near, Philip felt himself
fascinated. He only answered, therefore, in as polite a tone as he
could easily muster, "Why, how did you get to know my name, or to
trace me to my sister's?"
"Oh, Miss Blake told me who you were and where you lived," Bertram
replied most innocently: his tone was pure candour; "and when I
went round to your lodgings just now, they explained that you were
out, but that I should probably find you at Mrs. Monteith's; so of
course I came on here."
Philip denied the applicability of that naive "of course" in his
inmost soul: but it was no use being angry with Mr. Bertram
Ingledew. So much he saw at once; the man was so simple-minded, so
transparently natural, one could not be angry with him. One could
only smile at him, a superior cynical London-bred smile, for an
unsophisticated foreigner. So the Civil Servant asked with a
condescending air, "Well, what's your difficulty? I'll see if
peradventure I can help you out of it." For he reflected to himself
in a flash that as Ingledew had apparently a good round sum in gold
and notes in his pocket yesterday, he was not likely to come
borrowing money this morning.
"It's like this, you see," the Alien answered with charming
simplicity, "I haven't got any luggage."
"Not got any luggage!" Philip repeated, awestruck, letting his jaw
fall short, and stroking his clean-shaven chin with one hand. He
was more doubtful than ever now as to the man's sanity or
respectability. If he was not a lunatic, then surely he must be
this celebrated Perpignan murderer, whom everybody was talking
about, and whom the French police were just then engaged in hunting
down for extradition.
"No; I brought none with me on purpose," Mr. Ingledew replied, as
innocently as ever. "I didn't feel quite sure about the ways, or
the customs, or the taboos of England. So I had just this one suit
of clothes made, after an English pattern of the present fashion,
which I was lucky enough to secure from a collector at home; and I
thought I'd buy everything else I wanted when I got to London. I
brought nothing at all in the way of luggage with me."
"Not even brush and comb?" Philip interposed, horrified.
"Oh, yes, naturally, just the few things one always takes in a
vade-mecum," Bertram Ingledew answered, with a gracefully
deprecatory wave of the hand, which Philip thought pretty enough,
but extremely foreign. "Beyond that, nothing. I felt it would be
best, you see, to set oneself up in things of the country in the
country itself. One's surer then of getting exactly what's worn in
the society one mixes in."
For the first and only time, as he said those words, the stranger
struck a chord that was familiar to Philip. "Oh, of course," the
Civil Servant answered, with brisk acquiescence, "if you want to be
really up to date in your dress, you must go to first-rate houses
in London for everything. Nobody anywhere can cut like a good
London tailor."
Bertram Ingledew bowed his head. It was the acquiescent bow of the
utter outsider who gives no opinion at all on the subject under
discussion, because he does not possess any. As he probably came,
in spite of his disclaimer, from America or the colonies, which are
belated places, toiling in vain far in the rear of Bond Street,
Philip thought this an exceedingly proper display of bashfulness,
especially in a man who had only landed in England yesterday. But
Bertram went on half-musingly. "And you had told me," he said, "I'm
sure not meaning to mislead me, there were no formalities or taboos
of any kind on entering into lodgings. However, I found, as soon as
I'd arranged to take the rooms and pay four guineas a week for
them, which was a guinea more than she asked me, Miss Blake would
hardly let me come in at all unless I could at once produce my
luggage." He looked comically puzzled. "I thought at first," he
continued, gazing earnestly at Philip, "the good lady was afraid I
wouldn't pay her what I'd agreed, and would go away and leave her
in the lurch without a penny,--which was naturally a very painful
imputation. But when I offered to let her have three weeks' rent
in advance, I saw that wasn't all: there was a taboo as well; she
couldn't let me in without luggage, she said, because it would
imperil some luck or talisman to which she frequently alluded as
the Respectability of her Lodgings. This Respectability seems a
very great fetich. I was obliged at last, in order to ensure a
night's lodging of any sort, to appease it by promising I'd go up
to London by the first train to-day, and fetch down my luggage."
"Then you've things at Charing Cross, in the cloak-room perhaps?"
Philip suggested, somewhat relieved; for he felt sure Bertram
Ingledew must have told Miss Blake it was HE who had recommended
him to Heathercliff House for furnished apartments.
"Oh, dear, no; nothing," Bertram responded cheerfully. "Not a sack
to my back. I've only what I stand up in. And I called this
morning just to ask as I passed if you could kindly direct me to an
emporium in London where I could set myself up in all that's
necessary."
"A WHAT?" Philip interposed, catching quick at the unfamiliar word
with blank English astonishment, and more than ever convinced, in
spite of denial, that the stranger was an American.
"An emporium," Bertram answered, in the most matter-of-fact voice:
"a magazine, don't you know; a place where they supply things in
return for money. I want to go up to London at once this morning
and buy what I require there."
"Oh, A SHOP, you mean," Philip replied, putting on at once his most
respectable British sabbatarian air. "I can tell you of the very
best tailor in London, whose cut is perfect; a fine flower of
tailors: but NOT to-day. You forget you're in England, and this is
Sunday. On the Continent, it's different: but you'll find no decent
shops here open to-day in town or country."
Bertram Ingledew drew one hand over his high white brow with a
strangely puzzled air. "No more I will," he said slowly, like one
who by degrees half recalls with an effort some forgotten fact from
dim depths of his memory. "I ought to have remembered, of course.
Why, I knew that, long ago. I read it in a book on the habits and
manners of the English people. But somehow, one never recollects
these taboo days, wherever one may be, till one's pulled up short
by them in the course of one's travels. Now, what on earth am I to
do? A box, it seems, is the Open, Sesame of the situation. Some
mystic value is attached to it as a moral amulet. I don't believe
that excellent Miss Blake would consent to take me in for a second
night without the guarantee of a portmanteau to respectablise me."
We all have moments of weakness, even the most irreproachable
Philistine among us; and as Bertram said those words in rather a
piteous voice, it occurred to Philip Christy that the loan of a
portmanteau would be a Christian act which might perhaps simplify
matters for the handsome and engaging stranger. Besides, he was
sure, after all--mystery or no mystery--Bertram Ingledew was
Somebody. That nameless charm of dignity and distinction impressed
him more and more the longer he talked with the Alien. "Well, I
think, perhaps, I could help you," he hazarded after a moment, in
a dubious tone; though to be sure, if he lent the portmanteau, it
would be like cementing the friendship for good or for evil; which
Philip, being a prudent young man, felt to be in some ways a trifle
dangerous; for who borrows a portmanteau must needs bring it back
again--which opens the door to endless contingencies. "I MIGHT be
able--"
At that moment, their colloquy was suddenly interrupted by the
entry of a lady who immediately riveted Bertram Ingledew's
attention. She was tall and dark, a beautiful woman, of that riper
and truer beauty in face and form that only declares itself as
character develops. Her features were clear cut, rather delicate
than regular; her eyes were large and lustrous; her lips not too
thin, but rich and tempting; her brow was high, and surmounted by a
luscious wealth of glossy black hair which Bertram never remembered
to have seen equalled before for its silkiness of texture and its
strange blue sheen, like a plate of steel, or the grass of the
prairies. Gliding grace distinguished her when she walked. Her
motion was equable. As once the sons of God saw the daughters of
men that they were fair, and straightway coveted them, even so
Bertram Ingledew looked on Frida Monteith, and saw at the first
glance she was a woman to be desired, a soul high-throned, very
calm and beautiful.
She stood there for a moment and faced him, half in doubt, in her
flowing Oriental or Mauresque robe (for she dressed, as Philip
would have said, "artistically"), waiting to be introduced the
while, and taking good heed, as she waited, of the handsome
stranger. As for Philip, he hesitated, not quite certain in his own
mind on the point of etiquette--say rather of morals--whether one
ought or ought not to introduce "the ladies of one's family" to a
casual stranger picked up in the street, who confesses he has come
on a visit to England without a letter of introduction or even that
irreducible minimum of respectability--a portmanteau. Frida,
however, had no such scruples. She saw the young man was good-
looking and gentlemanly, and she turned to Philip with the hasty
sort of glance that says as plainly as words could say it, "Now,
then! introduce me."
Thus mutely exhorted, though with a visible effort, Philip murmured
half inarticulately, in a stifled undertone, "My sister, Mrs.
Monteith--Mr. Bertram Ingledew," and then trembled inwardly.
It was a surprise to Bertram that the beautiful woman with the
soul in her eyes should turn out to be the sister of the very
commonplace young man with the boiled-fish expression he had met
by the corner; but he disguised his astonishment, and only
interjected, as if it were the most natural remark in the world:
"I'm pleased to meet you. What a lovely gown! and how admirably it
becomes you!"
Philip opened his eyes aghast. But Frida glanced down at the dress
with a glance of approbation. The stranger's frankness, though
quaint, was really refreshing.
"I'm so glad you like it," she said, taking the compliment with
quiet dignity, as simply as it was intended. "It's all my own
taste; I chose the stuff and designed the make of it. And I know
who this is, Phil, without your troubling to tell me; it's the
gentleman you met in the street last night, and were talking about
at dinner."
"You're quite right," Philip answered, with a deprecating look (as
who should say, aside, "I really couldn't help it"). "He--he's
rather in a difficulty." And then he went on to explain in a few
hurried words to Frida, with sundry shrugs and nods of profoundest
import, that the supposed lunatic or murderer or foreigner or fool
had gone to Miss Blake's without luggage of any sort; and that,
"Perhaps"--very dubitatively--"a portmanteau or bag might help him
out of his temporary difficulties."
"Why, of course," Frida cried impulsively, with prompt decision;
"Robert's Gladstone bag and my little brown trunk would be the very
things for him. I could lend them to him at once, if only we can
get a Sunday cab to take them."
"NOT before service, surely," Philip interposed, scandalised.
"If he were to take them now, you know, he'd meet all the church-
people."
"Is it taboo, then, to face the clergy with a Gladstone bag?"
Bertram asked quite seriously, in that childlike tone of simple
inquiry that Philip had noticed more than once before in him. "Your
bonzes object to meet a man with luggage? They think it unlucky?"
Frida and Philip looked at one another with quick glances, and
laughed.
"Well, it's not exactly tabooed," Frida answered gently; "and it's
not so much the rector himself, you know, as the feelings of one's
neighbours. This is a very respectable neighbourhood--oh, quite
dreadfully respectable--and people in the houses about might make a
talk of it if a cab drove away from the door as they were passing.
I think, Phil, you're right. He'd better wait till the church-
people are finished."
"Respectability seems to be a very great object of worship in your
village," Bertram suggested in perfect good faith. "Is it a local
cult, or is it general in England?"
Frida glanced at him, half puzzled. "Oh, I think it's pretty
general," she answered, with a happy smile. "But perhaps the
disease is a little more epidemic about here than elsewhere. It
affects the suburbs: and my brother's got it just as badly as any
one."
"As badly as any one!" Bertram repeated with a puzzled air. "Then
you don't belong to that creed yourself? You don't bend the knee to
this embodied abstraction?--it's your brother who worships her, I
suppose, for the family?"
"Yes; he's more of a devotee than I am," Frida went on, quite
frankly, but not a little surprised at so much freedom in a
stranger. "Though we're all of us tarred with the same brush, no
doubt. It's a catching complaint, I suppose, respectability."
Bertram gazed at her dubiously. A complaint, did she say? Was
she serious or joking? He hardly understood her. But further
discussion was cut short for the moment by Frida good-humouredly
running upstairs to see after the Gladstone bag and brown
portmanteau, into which she crammed a few useless books and other
heavy things, to serve as make-weights for Miss Blake's injured
feelings.
"You'd better wait a quarter of an hour after we go to church," she
said, as the servant brought these necessaries into the room where
Bertram and Philip were seated. "By that time nearly all the
church-people will be safe in their seats; and Phil's conscience
will be satisfied. You can tell Miss Blake you've brought a little
of your luggage to do for to-day, and the rest will follow from
town to-morrow morning."
"Oh, how very kind you are!" Bertram exclaimed, looking down at her
gratefully. "I'm sure I don't know what I should ever have done in
this crisis without you."
He said it with a warmth which was certainly unconventional. Frida
coloured and looked embarrassed. There was no denying he was
certainly a most strange and untrammelled person.
"And if I might venture on a hint," Philip put in, with a hasty
glance at his companion's extremely unsabbatical costume, "it would
be that you shouldn't try to go out much to-day in that suit you're
wearing; it looks peculiar, don't you know, and might attract
attention."
"Oh, is that a taboo too?" the stranger put in quickly, with an
anxious air. "Now, that's awfully kind of you. But it's curious,
as well; for two or three people passed my window last night, all
Englishmen, as I judged, and all with suits almost exactly like
this one--which was copied, as I told you, from an English model."
"Last night; oh, yes," Philip answered. "Last night was Saturday;
that makes all the difference. The suit's right enough in its way,
of course,--very neat and gentlemanly; but NOT for Sunday. You're
expected on Sundays to put on a black coat and waistcoat, you know,
like the ones I'm wearing."
Bertram's countenance fell. "And if I'm seen in the street like
this," he asked, "will they do anything to me? Will the guardians
of the peace--the police, I mean--arrest me?"
Frida laughed a bright little laugh of genuine amusement.
"Oh, dear, no," she said merrily; "it isn't an affair of police at
all; not so serious as that: it's only a matter of respectability."
"I see," Bertram answered. "Respectability's a religious or
popular, not an official or governmental, taboo. I quite understand
you. But those are often the most dangerous sort. Will the people
in the street, who adore Respectability, be likely to attack me or
mob me for disrespect to their fetich?"
"Certainly not," Frida replied, flushing up. He seemed to be
carrying a joke too far. "This is a free country. Everybody wears
and eats and drinks just what he pleases."
"Well, that's all very interesting to me," the Alien went on with a
charming smile, that disarmed her indignation; "for I've come here
on purpose to collect facts and notes about English taboos and
similar observances. I'm Secretary of a Nomological Society at
home, which is interested in pagodas, topes, and joss-houses; and
I've been travelling in Africa and in the South Sea Islands for a
long time past, working at materials for a History of Taboo, from
its earliest beginnings in the savage stage to its fully developed
European complexity; so of course all you say comes home to me
greatly. Your taboos, I foresee, will prove a most valuable and
illustrative study."
"I beg your pardon," Philip interposed stiffly, now put upon his
mettle. "We have NO taboos at all in England. You're misled, no
doubt, by a mere playful facon de parler, which society indulges
in. England, you must remember, is a civilised country, and taboos
are institutions that belong to the lowest and most degraded
savages."
But Bertram Ingledew gazed at him in the blankest astonishment. "No
taboos!" he exclaimed, taken aback. "Why, I've read of hundreds.
Among nomological students, England has always been regarded with
the greatest interest as the home and centre of the highest and
most evolved taboo development. And you yourself," he added with a
courteous little bow, "have already supplied me with quite half a
dozen. But perhaps you call them by some other name among
yourselves; though in origin and essence, of course, they're
precisely the same as the other taboos I've been examining so long
in Asia and Africa. However, I'm afraid I'm detaining you from the
function of your joss-house. You wish, no doubt, to make your
genuflexions in the Temple of Respectability."
And he reflected silently on the curious fact that the English give
themselves by law fifty-two weekly holidays a year, and compel
themselves by custom to waste them entirely in ceremonial
observances.
