The Lunatic at Large
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J. Storer Clouston >> The Lunatic at Large
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"Do these mean past or future conquests?" he asked with his smile.
"Both," laughed the doctor. "I'm trying to pick out a clean pair for the
dance to-night."
"You go a-dancing, then?"
"Don't you know it's our own monthly ball here?"
"Of course," said Mr Beveridge, passing his hand quickly across his brow.
"I must have heard, but things pass so quickly through my head nowadays."
He laughed a little conventional laugh, and gazed at the gloves.
"You are coming, of course?" said Escott.
"If you can lend me a pair of these. Can you spare one?"
"Help yourself," replied the doctor.
Mr Beveridge selected a pair with the care of a man who is particular in
such matters, put them in his pocket, thanked the doctor, and went out.
"Hope he doesn't play the fool," thought Escott.
Invitations to the balls at Clankwood were naturally in great demand
throughout the county, for nowhere were noblemen so numerous and
divinities so tangible. Carriages and pairs rolled up one after another,
the mansion glittered with lights, the strains of the band could be heard
loud and stirring or low and faintly all through the house.
"Who is that man dancing opposite my daughter?" asked the Countess of
Grillyer.
"A Mr Beveridge," replied Dr Congleton.
Mr Beveridge, in fact, the mark of all eyes, was dancing in a set of
lancers. The couple opposite to him consisted of a stout elderly gentleman
who, doubtless for the best reasons, styled himself the Emperor of the two
Americas, and a charming little pink and flaxen partner--the Lady Alicia a
Fyre, as everybody who was anybody could have told you. The handsome
stranger moved, as might be expected, with his accustomed grace and air of
distinction, and, probably to convince his admirers that there was nothing
meretricious in his performance, he carried his hands in his pockets the
whole time. This certainly caused a little inconvenience to his partner,
but to be characteristic in Clankwood one had to step very far out of the
beaten track.
For two figures the Emperor snorted disapproval, but at the end of the
third, when Mr Beveridge had been skipping round the outskirts of the set,
his hands still thrust out of sight, somewhat to the derangement of the
customary procedure, he could contain himself no longer.
"Hey, young man!" he asked in his most stentorian voice, as the music
ceased, "are you afraid of having your pockets picked?"
"Alas!" replied Mr Beveridge, "it would take two men to do that."
"Huh!" snorted the Emperor, "you are so d--d strong, are you?"
"I mean," answered his _vis-a-vis_ with his polite smile, "that it would
take one man to put something in and another to take it out."
This remark not only turned the laugh entirely on Mr Beveridge's side, but
it introduced the upsetting factor.
CHAPTER III.
The Lady Alicia a Fyre, though of the outer everyday world herself, had,
in common with most families of any pretensions to ancient dignity, a
creditable sprinkling of uncles and cousins domiciled in Clankwood, and so
she frequently attended these dances.
To-night her eye had been caught by a tall, graceful figure executing a
_pas seul_ in the middle of the room with its hands in its pockets. The
face of this gentleman was so composed and handsome, and he seemed so
oblivious to the presence of everybody else, that her interest was
immediately excited. During the set of lancers in which he was her
_vis-a-vis_ she watched him furtively with a growing feeling of
admiration. She had never heard him say a word, and it was with a
sensation of the liveliest interest that she listened to his brief passage
with her partner. At his final retort her tender heart was overcome with
pity. He was poor, then, or at least he was allowed the use of no money.
And all of him that was outside his pockets seemed so sane and so
gentlemanly; it seemed a pity to let him lack a little sympathy.
The Lady Alicia might be described as a becoming frock stuffed with
sentiment. Through a pair of large blue eyes she drank in romance, and
with the reddest and most undecided of lips she felt a vague desire to
kiss something. At the end of the dance she managed by a series of little
manoeuvres to find herself standing close to his elbow. She sighed twice,
but he still seemed absorbed in his thoughts. Then with a heroic effort
she summed up her courage, and said in a low and rather shaky voice,
"You--you--you are unha--appy."
Mr Beveridge turned and looked down on her with great interest. Her eyes
met his for a moment and straightway sought the floor. Thus she saw
nothing of a smile that came and went like the shadow of a puff of smoke.
He took his hands out of his pockets, folded his arms, and, with an air of
the deepest dejection, sighed heavily. She took courage and looked up
again, and then, as he only gazed into space in the most romantically
melancholy fashion and made no answer, she asked again very timidly,
"Wh--what is the matter?"
Without saying a word Mr Beveridge bent courteously and offered her his
right arm. She took it with the most delicious trepidation, glancing round
hurriedly to see whether the Countess noticed her. Another dance was just
beginning, and in the general movement her mysterious acquaintance led her
without observation to a seat in the window of a corridor. There he
pressed her hand gently, stroked his long moustaches for a minute, and
then said, with an air of reflection: "There are three ways of making a
woman like one. I am slightly out of practice. Would you be kind enough to
suggest a method of procedure?"
Such a beginning was so wholly unexpected that Lady Alicia could only give
a little gasp of consternation. Her companion, after pausing an instant
for a reply, went on in the same tone, "I am aware that I have begun well.
I attracted your attention, I elicited your sympathy, and I pressed your
hand; but for the life of me I can't remember what I generally do next."
Poor Lady Alicia, who had come with a bucketful of sympathy ready to be
gulped down by this unfortunate gentleman, was only able to stammer, "I--I
really don't know, Mr----"
"Hamilton," said Mr Beveridge, unblushingly. "At least that name belongs
to me as much as anything can be said to in a world where my creditors
claim my money and Dr Congleton my person."
"You are confined and poor, you mean?" asked Lady Alicia, beginning to see
her way again.
"Poor and confined, to put them in their proper order, for if I had the
wherewithal to purchase a balloon I should certainly cease to be
confined."
His admirer found it hard to reply adequately to this, and Mr Beveridge
continued, "To return to the delicate subject from which we strayed, what
would you like me to do,--put my arm round your waist, relate my troubles,
or turn my back on you?"
"Are--are those the three ways you spoke of--to make women like you, I
mean?" Lady Alicia ventured to ask, though she was beginning to wish the
sofa was larger.
"They are examples of the three classical methods: cuddling, humbugging,
and piquing. Which do you prefer?"
"Tell me about your--your troubles," she answered, gaining courage a
little.
"You belong to the sex which makes no mention of figs and spades," he
rejoined; "but I understand you to mean that you prefer humbugging."
He drew a long face, sighed twice, and looking tenderly into Lady Alicia's
blue eyes, began in a gentle, reminiscent voice, "My boyhood was troubled
and unhappy: no kind words, no caresses. I was beaten by a cruel
stepfather, ignored and insulted for my physical deformities by a
heartless stepmother."
He stopped to sigh again, and Lady Alicia, with a boldness that surprised
herself, and a perspicacity that would have surprised her friends, asked,
"How could they--I mean, were they _both_ step?"
"Several steps," he replied; "in fact, quite a long journey."
With this explanation Lady Alicia was forced to remain satisfied; but as
he had paused a second time, and seemed to be immersed in the study of his
shoes, she inquired again, "You spoke of physical infirmities; do you
mean----?"
"Deformities," he corrected; "up to the age of fourteen years I could only
walk sideways, and my hair parted in the middle."
He spoke so seriously that these unusual maladies seemed to her the most
touching misfortunes she had ever heard of. She murmured gently, "Yes?"
"As the years advanced," Mr Beveridge continued, "and I became more nearly
the same weight as my stepfather, my life grew happier. It was decided to
send me to college, so I was provided with an insufficient cheque, a
complete set of plated forks, and three bath-towels, and despatched to the
University of Oxford. At least I think that was the name of the
corporation which took my money and endeavoured to restrict my habits,
though, to confess the truth, my memory is not what it used to be. There I
learned wisdom by the practice of folly--the most amusing and effective
method. My tutor used to tell me I had some originality. I apologised for
its presence in such a respectable institution, and undertook to pass an
examination instead. I believe I succeeded: I certainly remember giving a
dinner to celebrate something. Thereupon at my own expense the University
inflicted a degree upon me, but I was shortly afterwards compensated by
the death of my uncle and my accession to his estates. Having enjoyed a
university education, and accordingly possessing a corrected and regulated
sentiment, I was naturally inconsolable at the decease of this venerable
relative, who for so long had shown a kindly interest in the poor orphan
lad."
He stopped to sigh again, and Lady Alicia asked with great interest, "But
your step-parents, you always had them, hadn't you?"
"Never!" he replied, sadly.
"Never?" she exclaimed in some bewilderment.
"Certainly not often," he answered, "and oftener than not, never. If you
had told me beforehand you wished to hear my history, I should have pruned
my family tree into a more presentable shape. But if you will kindly tell
me as I go along which of my relatives you disapprove of, and who you
would like to be introduced, I shall arrange the plot to suit you."
"I only wish to hear the true story, Mr Hamilton."
"Fortescue," he corrected. "I certainly prefer to be called by one name at
a time, but never by the same twice running."
He smiled so agreeably as he said this that Lady Alicia, though puzzled
and a little hurt, could not refrain from smiling back.
"Let me hear the rest," she said.
"It is no truer than the first part, but quite as entertaining. So, if you
like, I shall endeavour to recall the series of painful episodes that
brought me to Clankwood," he answered, very seriously.
Lady Alicia settled herself comfortably into one corner of the sofa and
prepared to feel affected. But at that moment the portly form of Dr
Congleton appeared from the direction of the ballroom with a still more
portly dowager on his arm.
"My mother!" exclaimed Lady Alicia, rising quickly to her feet.
"Indeed?" said Mr Beveridge, who still kept his seat. "She certainly looks
handsome enough."
This speech made Lady Alicia blush very becomingly, and the Countess
looked at her sharply.
"Where have you been, Alicia?"
"The room was rather warm, mamma, and----"
"In short, madam," interrupted Mr Beveridge, rising and bowing, "your
charming daughter wished to study a lunatic at close quarters. I am mad,
and I obligingly raved. Thus----" He ran one hand through his hair so as to
make it fall over his eyes, blew out his cheeks, and uttering a yell,
sprang high into the air, and descended in a sitting posture on the floor.
"That, madam, is a very common symptom," he explained, with a smile,
smoothing down his hair again, "as our friend Dr Congleton will tell you."
Both the doctor and the Countess were too astonished to make any reply, so
he turned again to Lady Alicia, and offering his arm, said, "Let me lead
you back to our fellow-fools."
"Is he safe?" whispered the Countess.
"I--I believe so," replied Dr Congleton in some confusion; "but I shall
have him watched more carefully."
As they entered the room Mr Beveridge whispered, "Will you meet a poor
lunatic again?" And the Lady Alicia pressed his arm.
CHAPTER IV.
On the morning after the dance Dr Congleton summoned Dr Escott to his
room.
"Escott," he began, "we must keep a little sharper eye on Mr Beveridge."
"Indeed, sir?" said Escott; "he seems to me harmless enough."
"Nevertheless, he must be watched. Lady Grillyer was considerably alarmed
by his conduct last night, and a client who has confided so many of her
relatives to my care must be treated with the greatest regard. I receive
pheasants at Christmas from no fewer than fourteen families of title, and
my reputation for discretion is too valuable to be risked. When Mr
Beveridge is not under your own eyes you must see that Moggridge always
keeps him in sight."
Accordingly Moggridge, a burly and seasoned attendant on refractory
patients, was told off to keep an unobtrusive eye on that accomplished
gentleman. His duties appeared light enough, for, as I have said, Mr
Beveridge's eccentricities had hitherto been merely of the most playful
nature.
After luncheon on this same day he gave Escott twelve breaks and a beating
at billiards, and then having borrowed and approved of one of his cigars,
he strolled into the park. If he intended to escape observation, he
certainly showed the most skilful strategy, for he dodged deviously
through the largest trees, and at last, after a roundabout ramble, struck
a sheltered walk that ran underneath the high, glass-decked outer wall. It
was a sunny winter afternoon. The boughs were stripped, and the leaves lay
littered on the walk or flickered and stirred through the grass. In this
spot the high trees stood so close and the bare branches were so thick
that there was still an air of quiet and seclusion where he paced and
smoked. Every now and then he stopped and listened and looked at his
watch, and as he walked backwards and forwards an amused smile would come
and go.
All at once he heard something move on the far side of the wall: he paused
to make sure, and then he whistled, the sounds outside ceased, and in a
moment something fell softly behind him. He turned quickly and snatched up
a little buttonhole of flowers with a still smaller note tied to the
stems.
"An uncommonly happy idea," he said to himself, looking at the missive
with the air of one versed in these matters. Then he leisurely proceeded
to unfold and read the note.
"To my friend," he read, "if I may call you a friend, since I have known
you only _such a short time_--may I? This is just to express my sympathy,
and although I cannot express it well, still perhaps you will forgive my
feeble effort!!"
At this point, just as he was regarding the double mark of exclamation
with reminiscent entertainment, a plaintive voice from the other side of
the wall cried in a stage whisper, "Have you got it?"
Mr Beveridge composed his face, and heaving his shoulders to his ears in
the effort, gave vent to a prodigious sigh.
"A million thanks, my fairest and kindest of friends," he answered in the
same tone. "I read it now: I drink it in, I----"
He kissed the back of his hand loudly two or three times, sighed again,
and continued his reading.
"I wish I could help you," it ran, "but I am afraid I cannot, as the world
is _so censorious_, is it not? So you must accept a friend's sympathy if
it does not seem to you too bold and forward of her!!! Perhaps we may meet
again, as I sometimes go to Clankwood. _Au revoir._--Your sympathetic
well-wisher. A. A. F."
He folded it up and put it in his waistcoat-pocket, then he exclaimed in
an audible aside, his voice shaking with the most affecting thrill,
"_Perhaps_ we may meet again! Only _perhaps!_ O Alicia!" And then dropping
again into a stage whisper, he asked, "Are you still there, Lady Alicia?"
A timorous voice replied, "Yes, Mr Fortescue. But I really _must_ go now!"
"Now? So soon?"
"I have stayed too long already."
"'Tis better to have stayed too long than never to wear stays at all,"
replied Mr Beveridge.
There was no response for a moment. Then a low voice, a little hurt and a
good deal puzzled, asked with evident hesitation, "What--what did you say,
Mr Fortescue?"
"I said that Lady Alicia's stay cannot be too long," he answered, softly.
"But--but what good can I be?"
"The good you cannot help being."
There was another moment's pause, then the voice whispered, "I don't quite
understand you."
"My Alicia understands me not!" Mr Beveridge soliloquised in another
audible aside. Aloud, or rather in a little lower tone, he answered, "I am
friendless, poor, and imprisoned. What is the good in your staying? Ah,
Lady Alicia! But why should I detain you? Go, fair friend! Go and forget
poor Francis Beveridge!"
There came a soft, surprised answer, "Francis Beveridge?"
"Alas! you have guessed my secret. Yes, that is the name of the unhappiest
of mortals."
As he spoke these melancholy words he threw away the stump of his cigar,
took another from his case, and bit off the end.
The voice replied, "I shall remember it--among my friends."
Mr Beveridge struck a match.
"H'sh! Whatever is that?" cried the voice in alarm.
"A heart breaking," he replied, lighting his cigar.
"Don't talk like that," said the voice. "It--it distresses me." There was a
break in the voice.
"And, alas! between distress and consolation there are fifteen
perpendicular feet of stone and mortar and the relics of twelve hundred
bottles of Bass," he replied.
"Perhaps,"--the voice hesitated--"perhaps we may see each other some day."
"Say to-morrow at four o'clock," he suggested, pertinently. "If you could
manage to be passing up the drive at that hour."
There was another pause.
"Perhaps----" the voice began.
At that moment he heard the sharp crack of a branch behind him, and
turning instantly he spied the uncompromising countenance of Moggridge
peering round a tree about twenty paces distant. Lack of presence of mind
and quick decision were not amongst Mr Beveridge's failings. He struck a
theatrical attitude at once, and began in a loud voice, gazing up at the
tops of the trees, "He comes! A stranger comes! Yes, my fair friend, we
may meet again. _Au revoir_, but only for a while! Ah, that a breaking
heart should be lit for a moment and then the lamp be put out!"
Meanwhile Moggridge was walking towards him.
"Ha, Moggridge!" he cried. "Good day."
"Time you was goin' in, sir," said Moggridge, stolidly; and to himself he
muttered, "He's crackeder than I thought, a-shoutin' and a-ravin' to
hisself. Just as well I kept a heye on 'im."
Like most clever people, Mr Beveridge generally followed the line of least
resistance. He slipped his arm through his attendant's, shouted a farewell
apparently to some imaginary divinity overhead, and turned towards the
house.
"This is an unexpected pleasure," he remarked.
"Yes, sir," replied Moggridge.
"Funny thing your turning up. Out for a walk, I suppose?"
"For a stroll, sir--that's to say----" he stopped.
"That on these chilly afternoons the dear good doctor is afraid of my
health?"
"That's kind o' it, sir."
"But of course I'm not supposed to notice anything, eh?"
Moggridge looked a trifle uncomfortable and was discreetly silent. Mr
Beveridge smiled at his own perspicacity, and then began in the most
friendly tone, "Well, I feel flattered that so stout a man has been told
off to take care of me. What an arm you've got, man."
"Pretty fair, sir," said Moggridge, complacently.
"And I am thankful, too," continued Mr Beveridge, "that you're a man of
some sense. There are a lot of fools in the world, Moggridge, and I'm
somewhat of an epicure in the matter of heads."
"Mine 'as been considered pretty sharp," Moggridge admitted, with a
gratified relaxation of his wooden countenance.
"Have a cigar?" his patient asked, taking out his case.
"Thank you, sir, I don't mind if I do."
"You will find it a capital smoke. I don't throw them away on every one."
Moggridge, completely thawed, lit his cigar and slackened his pace, for
such frank appreciation of his merits was rare in a critical world.
"You can perhaps believe, Moggridge," said Mr Beveridge, reflectively,
"that one doesn't often have the chance of talking confidentially to a man
of sense in Clankwood."
"No, sir, I should himagine not."
"And so one has sometimes to talk to oneself."
This was said so sadly that Moggridge began to feel uncomfortably
affected.
"Ah, Moggridge, one cannot always keep silence, even when one least wants
to be overheard. Have you ever been in love, Moggridge?"
The burly keeper changed countenance a little at this embarrassingly
direct question, and answered diffidently, "Well, sir, to be sure men is
men and woming will be woming."
"The deuce, they will!" replied Mr Beveridge, cordially; "and it's rather
hard to forget 'em, eh?"
"Hindeed it is, sir."
"I remembered this afternoon, but I should like you as a good chap to
forget. You won't mention my moment of weakness, Moggridge?"
"No, sir," said Moggridge, stoutly. "I suppose I hought to report what I
sees, but I won't this time."
"Thank you," said Mr Beveridge, pressing his arm. "I had, you know, a
touch of the sun in India, and I sometimes talk when I shouldn't. Though,
after all, that isn't a very uncommon complaint."
And so it happened that no rumour prejudicial either to his sanity or to
the progress of his friendship with the Lady Alicia reached the ears of
the authorities.
CHAPTER V.
Towards four o'clock on the following afternoon Mr Beveridge and Moggridge
were walking leisurely down the long drive leading from the mansion of
Clankwood to the gate that opened on the humdrum outer world. Finding that
an inelastic matter of yards was all the tether he could hope for, Mr
Beveridge thought it best to take the bull by the horns, and make a
companion of this necessity. So he kept his attendant by his side, and
regaled him for some time with a series of improbable reminiscences and
tolerable cigars, till at last, round a bend of the avenue, a lady on
horseback came into view. As she drew a little nearer he stopped with an
air of great surprise and pleasure.
"I believe, Moggridge, that must be Lady Alicia a Fyre!" he exclaimed.
"It looks huncommon like her, sir," replied Moggridge.
"I must really speak to her. She was"--and Mr Beveridge assumed his
inimitable air of manly sentiment--"she was one of my poor mother's dearest
friends. Do you mind, Moggridge, falling behind a little? In fact, if you
could step behind a tree and wait here for me, it would be pleasanter for
us both. We used to meet under happier circumstances, and, don't you know,
it might distress her to be reminded of my misfortunes."
Such a reasonable request, beseechingly put by so fine a gentleman, could
scarcely be refused. Moggridge retired behind the trees that lined the
avenue, and Mr Beveridge advanced alone to meet the Lady Alicia. She
blushed very becomingly as he raised his hat.
"I hardly expected to see you to-day, Mr Beveridge," she began.
"I, on the other hand, have been thinking of nothing else," he replied.
She blushed still deeper, but responded a little reprovingly, "It's very
polite of you to say so, but----"
"Not a bit," said he. "I have a dozen equally well-turned sentences at my
disposal, and, they tell me, a most deluding way of saying them."
Suddenly out of her depth again, poor Lady Alicia could only strike out at
random.
"Who tell you?" she managed to say.
"First, so far as my poor memory goes, my mother's lady's-maid informed me
of the fact; then I think my sister's governess," he replied, ticking off
his informants on his fingers with a half-abstracted air. "After that came
a number of more or less reliable individuals, and lastly the Lady Alicia
a Fyre."
"Me? I'm sure I never said----"
"None of them ever _said_," he interrupted.
"But what have I done, then?" she asked, tightening her reins, and making
her horse fidget a foot or two farther away.
"You have begun to be a most adorable friend to a most unfortunate man."
Still Lady Alicia looked at him a little dubiously, and only said, "I--I
hope I'm not too friendly."
"There are no degrees in friendly," he replied. "There are only aloofly,
friendly, and more than friendly."
"I--I think I ought to be going on, Mr Beveridge."
That experienced diplomatist perceived that it was necessary to further
embellish himself.
"Are you fond of soldiers?" he asked, abruptly.
"I beg your pardon?" she said in considerable bewilderment.
"Does a red coat, a medal, and a brass band appeal to you? Are you apt to
be interested in her Majesty's army?"
"I generally like soldiers," she admitted, still much surprised at the
turn the conversation had taken.
"Then I was a soldier."
"But--really?"
"I held a commission in one of the crackest cavalry regiments," he began
dramatically, and yet with a great air of sincerity. "I was considered one
of the most promising officers in the mess. It nearly broke my heart to
leave the service."
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