The Lunatic at Large

J >> J. Storer Clouston >> The Lunatic at Large

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"Thank you, my friend," he interrupted, tenderly.

"Don't," she began, hastily. "You mustn't talk like----"

"Francis Beveridge?" he interrupted. "The trouble is, this rascal Bunker
bears an unconscionably awkward resemblance to our old friend."

"You must see that it is quite--ridiculous."

"Absurd," he agreed,--"perfectly preposterous. I laugh whenever I think of
it!"

Poor Lady Alicia felt like a man at a telephone who has been connected
with the wrong person. Again she made a desperate shift to fall back on a
becoming pride.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"If I mean anything at all, which is always rather doubtful," he replied,
candidly, "I mean that Beveridge and his humbug were creatures of an
occasion, just as Bunker and his are of another. The one occasion is
passed, and with it the first entertaining gentleman has vanished into
space. The second gentleman will doubtless follow when his time is up. In
fact, I may be said to be a series of dissolving views."

"Then isn't what you said true?"

"I'm afraid you must be more specific; you see I've talked so much."

"What you said about yourself--and your work."

He shook his head humorously. "I have no means of checking my statements."

She looked at him in a troubled way, and then her eyes fell.

"At least," she said, "you won't--you mustn't treat me as--as you did."

"As Beveridge did? Certainly not; Bunker is the soul of circumspection.
Besides, he doesn't require to get out of an asylum."

"Then it was only to get away?" she cried, turning scarlet.

"Let us call it so," he replied, looking pensively out to sea.

It seemed wiser to Lady Alicia to change the subject.

"Who is the friend you are staying with?" she asked, suddenly.

"My old friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, and your own most recent
admirer," he replied. "I am at present living with, in fact I may say
upon, him."

"Does he know?"

"If you meet him, you had perhaps better not inquire into my past
history."

"I meant, does he know about--about your knowing me?"

"Bless them!" thought Mr Bunker; "one forgets they're not _always_
thinking about us!"

"My noble friend has no idea that I have been so fortunate," he replied.

Lady Alicia looked relieved. "Who is he?" she asked.

"A German nobleman of great wealth, long descent, and the most
accommodating disposition. He is at present exploring England under my
guidance, and I flatter myself that he has already seen and done a number
of things that are not on most programmes."

Lady Alicia was silent for a minute. Then she said with a little
hesitation, "Didn't you get a letter from me?"

"A letter? No," he replied, in some surprise.

"I wrote twice--because you asked me to, and I thought--I wondered if you
were safe."

"To what address did you write?"

"The address you gave me."

"And what was that?" he asked, still evidently puzzled.

"You said care of the Archbishop of York would find you."

Mr Bunker abruptly looked the other way.

"By Jove!" he said, as if lost in speculation, "I must find out what the
matter was. I can't imagine why they haven't been forwarded."

Lady Alicia appeared a little dissatisfied.

"Was that a _real_ address?" she asked, suddenly.

"Perfectly," he replied; "as real as Pentonville Jail or the House of
Commons." ("And as likely to find me," he added to himself.)

Lady Alicia seemed to hesitate whether to pursue the subject further, but
in the middle of her debate Mr Bunker asked, "By the way, has Lady
Grillyer any recollection of having seen me before?"

"No, she doesn't remember you at all."

"Then we shall meet as strangers?"

"Yes, I think it would be better; don't you?"

"It will save our imaginations certainly."

Lady Alicia looked at him as though she expected something more; but as
nothing came, she said, "I think it's time I went back."

"For the present then _au revoir_, my dear Alicia. I beg your pardon, Lady
Alicia; it was that rascal Beveridge who made the slip. It now remains to
make your formal acquaintance."

"You--you mustn't try!"

"The deuce is in these people beginning with B!" he laughed. "They seem to
do things without trying."

He pressed her hand, raised his hat, and started back to the town. She, on
her part, lingered to let him get a clear start of her, and her blue eyes
looked as though a breeze had blown across and ruffled them.

Mr Bunker had reached the esplanade, and was sauntering easily back
towards the hotel, looking at the people and smiling now and then to
himself, when he observed with considerable astonishment two familiar
figures strolling towards him. They were none other than the Baron and the
Countess, engaged in animated conversation, and apparently on the very
best terms with each other. At the sight of him the Baron beamed joyfully.

"Aha, Bonker, so you haf returned!" he cried. "In ze meanvile I haf had
vun great good fortune. Let me present my friend Mr Bonker, ze Lady
Grillyer."

The Countess bowed most graciously, and raising a pair of
tortoise-shell-rimmed eye-glasses mounted on a stem of the same material,
looked at Mr Bunker through these with a by no means disapproving glance.

At first sight it was evident that Lady Alicia must "take after" her noble
father. The Countess was aquiline of nose, large of person, and emphatic
in her voice and manner.

"You are the 'showman,' Mr Bunker, are you not?" she said, with a smile
for which many of her acquaintances would have given a tolerable
percentage of their incomes.

"It seems," replied Mr Bunker, smiling back agreeably, "that the Baron is
now the showman, and I must congratulate him on his first venture."

For an instant the Countess seemed a trifle taken aback. It was a
considerable number of years since she had been addressed in precisely
this strain, and in fact at no time had her admirers ventured quite so
dashingly to the attack. But there was something entirely irresistible in
Mr Bunker's manner, partly perhaps because he never made the mistake of
heeding a first rebuff. The Countess coughed, then smiled a little again,
and said to the Baron, "You didn't tell me that your showman supplied the
little speeches as well."

"I could not know it; zere has not before been ze reason for a pretty
speech," responded the Baron, gallantly.

If Lady Grillyer had been anybody else, one would have said that she
actually giggled. Certainly a little wave of scandalised satisfaction
rippled all over her.

"Oh, really!" she cried, "I don't know which of you is the worst
offender."

All this time, as may be imagined, Mr Bunker had been in a state of high
mystification at his friend's unusual adroitness.

"How the deuce did he get hold of her?" he said to himself.

In the next pause the Baron solved the riddle.

"You vil vunder, Bonker," he said, "how I did gom to know ze Lady
Grillyer."

"I envied, certainly," replied his friend, with a side glance at the now
purring Countess.

"She vas of my introdogtions, bot till after you vent out zis morning I
did not lairn her name. Zen I said to myself, 'Ze sun shines, Himmel is
kind! Here now is ze fair Lady Grillyer--my introdogtion!' and zo zat is
how, you see."

"To think of the Baron being here and our only finding each other out by
chance!" said the Countess.

"By a fortunate providence for me!" exclaimed the Baron, fervently.

"Baron," said the Countess, trying hard to look severe, "you must really
keep some of these nice speeches for my daughter. Which reminds me, I
wonder where she can be?"

"Ach, here she goms!" cried the Baron.

"Why, how did you know her?" asked the Countess.

"I--I did see her last night at dinnair," explained the Baron, turning red.

"Ah, of course, I remember," replied the Countess, in a matter-of-fact
tone; but her motherly eye was sharp, and already it began to look on the
highly eligible Rudolph with more approval than ever.

"My daughter Alicia, the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, Mr Bunker," she
said the next moment.

The Baron went nearly double as he bowed, and the flourish of his hat
stirred the dust on the esplanade. Mr Bunker's salutation was less
profound, but his face expressed an almost equal degree of interested
respect. Her mother thought that when one of the gentlemen was a nobleman
with an indefinite number of thousands a-year and the other a person of so
much discrimination, Lady Alicia's own bow might have been a trifle less
reserved. But then even the most astute mother cannot know the reasons for
everything.

CHAPTER III.

"Alicia," said the Countess, "it was really a most fortunate coincidence
our meeting the Baron at St Egbert's."

She paused for a reply and looked expectantly at her daughter. It was not
the first time in the course of the morning that Lady Alicia had listened
to similar observations, and perhaps that was why she answered somewhat
listlessly, "Yes, wasn't it?"

The Countess frowned, and continued with emphasis, "I consider him one of
the most agreeable and best informed young men I have ever met."

"Is he?" said Lady Alicia, absently.

"I wonder, Alicia, you hadn't noticed it," her mother observed, severely;
"you talked with him most of the afternoon. I should have thought that no
observant, well-bred girl would have failed to have been struck with his
air and conversation."

"I--I thought him very pleasant, mamma."

"I am glad you had so much sense. He is _extremely_ pleasant."

As Lady Alicia made no reply, the Countess felt obliged to continue his
list of virtues herself.

"He is of most excellent family, Alicia, one of the oldest in Bavaria. I
don't remember what I heard his income was in pfennigs, or whatever they
measure money by in Germany, but I know that it is more than L20,000
a-year in English money. A very large sum nowadays," she added, as if
L20,000 had grown since she was a girl.

"Yes, mamma."

"He is considered, besides, an unusually promising and intelligent young
nobleman, and in Germany, where noblemen are still constantly used, that
says a great deal for him."

"Does it, mamma?"

"Certainly it does. Education there is so severe that young Englishmen are
beginning to know less than they ever did, and in most cases that isn't
saying much. Compare the Baron with the young men you meet here!"

She looked at her daughter triumphantly, and Alicia could only reply,
"Yes, mamma?"

"Compare them and see the difference. Look at the Baron's friend, Mr
Bunker, who is a very agreeable and amusing man, I admit, but look at the
difference!"

"What is it?" Alicia could not help asking.

"_What_ is it, Alicia! It is--ah--it's--er--it is, in short, the effect of a
carefully cultivated mind and good blood."

"But don't you think Mr Bunker cultivated, mamma--and--and--well-bred?"

"He has an amusing way of saying things,--but then you must remember that
the Baron is doubtless equally entertaining in his native language,--and
possibly a superficial knowledge of a few of the leading questions of the
day; but the Baron talked to me for half an hour on the relations of
something or other in Germany to--er--something else--a very important point,
I assure you."

"I always thought him very clever," said Lady Alicia with a touch of
warmth, and then instantly changed colour at the horrible slip.

"You always," said the Countess in alarmed astonishment; "you hardly spoke
to him yesterday, and--had you met him before?"

"I--I meant the Baron, mamma."

"But I have just been saying that he was _unusually_ clever."

"But I thought, I mean it seemed as though you considered him only well
informed."

Lady Alicia's blushes and confusion deepened. Her mother looked at her
with a softening eye. Suddenly she rose, kissed her affectionately, and
said with the tenderness of triumph, "My _dear_ girl! Of course he is;
clever, well informed, and a most _desirable_ young man. My Alicia could
not do----"

She stopped, as if she thought this was perhaps a little premature (though
the Countess's methods inclined to the summary and decisive), and again
kissing her daughter affectionately, remarked gaily, "Let me see, why,
it's almost time we went for our little walk! We mustn't really disappoint
those young men. I am in the middle of such an amusing discussion with Mr
Bunker, who is really a very sensible man and quite worthy of the Baron's
judgment."

Poor Lady Alicia hardly knew whether to feel more relieved at her escape
or dismayed at the construction put upon her explanation. She went out to
meet the Baron, determined to give no further colour to her mother's
unlucky misconception. The Countess was far too experienced and determined
a general to leave it at all doubtful who should walk by whose side, and
who should have the opportunity of appreciating whose merits, but Lady
Alicia was quite resolved that the Baron's blandishments should fall on
stony ground.

But a soft heart and an undecided mouth are treacherous companions. The
Baron was so amiable and so gallant, that at the end of half an hour she
was obliged to abate the strictness of her resolution. She should treat
him with the friendliness of a brother. She learned that he had no
sisters: her decision was confirmed.

The enamoured and delighted Baron was in the seventh heaven of happy
loquacity. He poured out particulars of his travels, his more recordable
adventures, his opinions on various social and political matters, and at
last even of the family ghost, the hereditary carpet-beatership, and the
glories of Bavaria. And Lady Alicia listened with what he could not doubt
was an interest touched with tenderness.

"I wonder," she said, artlessly, "that you find anything to admire in
England--compared with Bavaria, I mean."

"Two zings I haf not zere," replied the Baron, waving his hand round
towards the horizon. "Vun is ze vet sheet of flowing sea--says not your
poet so? Ze ozzer" (laying his hand on his heart) "is ze Lady Alicia a
Fyre."

There are some people who catch sentiment whenever it happens to be in the
air, just as others almost equally unfortunate regularly take hay-fever.

Lady Alicia's reply was much softer than she intended, especially as she
could have told anybody that the Baron's compliment was the merest figure
of speech.

"You needn't have included me: I'm sure _I'm_ not a great attraction."

"Ze sea is less, so zat leaves none," the Baron smiled.

"Didn't you see anybody--I mean, anything in London that attracted you--that
you liked?"

"Zat I liked, yes, zat pairhaps for the moment attracted me; but not zat
shall still attract me ven I am gone avay."

The Baron sighed this time, and she felt impelled to reply, with the most
sisterly kindness, "I--we should, of course, like to think that you didn't
forget us _altogether_."

"You need not fear."

Then Lady Alicia began to realise that this was more like a second cousin
than a brother, and with sudden sprightliness she cried, "I wonder where
that steamer's going!"

The Baron turned his eyes towards his first-named attraction, but for a
professed lover of the ocean his interest appeared slight. He only replied
absently, "Ach, zo?"

A little way behind them walked Mr Bunker and the Countess. The attention
of Lady Grillyer was divided between the agreeable conversation of her
companion and the pleasant spectacle of a fabulous number of pfennigs
a-year bending its titled head over her daughter. In the middle of one of
Mr Bunker's most amusing stories she could not forbear interrupting with a
complacent "they _do_ make a very handsome couple!"

Mr Bunker politely stopped his narrative, and looked critically from his
friend's gaily checked back to Lady Alicia's trim figure.

"Pray go on with your story, Mr Bunker," said the Countess, hastily,
realising that she had thought a little too loudly.

"They are like," responded Mr Bunker, replying to her first remark--"they
are like a pair of gloves."

The Countess raised her brows and looked at him sharply.

"I mean, of course, the best quality."

"I think," said the Countess, suspiciously, "that you spoke a little
carelessly."

"My simile was a little premature?"

"I think so," said the Countess, decisively.

"Let us call them then an odd pair," smiled Mr Bunker, unruffled; "and
only hope that they'll turn out to be the same size and different hands."

The Countess actually condescended to smile back.

"She is a _dear_ child," she murmured.

"His income, I think, is sufficient," he answered.

Humour was not conspicuous in the Grillyer family. The Countess replied
seriously, "I am one of those out-of-date people, Mr Bunker, who consider
some things come before money, but the Baron's birth and position are
fortunately unimpeachable."

"While his mental qualities," said Mr Bunker, "are, in my experience,
almost unique."

The Countess was confirmed in her opinion of Mr Bunker's discrimination.

Late that night, after they had parted with their friends, the Baron
smoked in the most unwonted silence while Mr Bunker dozed on the sofa.
Several times Rudolph threw restive glances at his friend, as if he had
something on his mind that he needed a helping hand to unburden himself
of. At last the silence grew so intolerable that he screwed up his courage
and with desperate resolution exclaimed, "Bonker!"

Mr Bunker opened his eyes and sat up.

"Bonker, I am in loff!"

Mr Bunker smiled and stretched himself out again.

"I have also been in love," he replied.

"You are not now?"

"Alas! no."

"Vy alas?"

"Because follies _without_ illusions get so infernally dull, Baron."

The Baron smiled a little foolishly.

"I haf ze illusions, I fear." Then he broke out enthusiastically, "Ach,
bot is she not lofly, Bonker? If she will bot lof me back I shall be ze
happiest man out of heaven!"

"You have wasted no time, Baron."

The Baron shook his head in melancholy pleasure.

"You are quite sure it is really love this time?" his friend pursued.

"Qvite!" said the Baron, with the firmness of a martyr.

"There are so many imitations."

"Not so close zat zey can deceive!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr Bunker. "These first symptoms are common to them
all, and yet the varieties of the disease are almost beyond counting. I
myself have suffered from it in eight different forms. There was the
virulent, spotted-all-over variety, known as calf-love; there was the kind
that accompanied itself by a course of the Restoration dramatists; another
form I may call the strayed-Platonic, and that may be subdivided into at
least two; then there was----"

"Schtop! schtop!" cried the Baron. "Ha, ha, ha! Zat will do! Teufel! I
most examine my heart strictly. And yet, Bonker, I zink my loff is anozzer
kind--ze _real!_"

"They are all that, Baron; but have it your own way. Anything I can do to
make you worse shall be done."

"Zanks, my best of friends," said the Baron, warmly, seizing his hand; "I
knew you would stand by me!"

Mr Bunker gave a little laugh, and returning the pressure, replied, "My
dear fellow, I'd do anything to oblige a friend in such an interesting
condition."

CHAPTER IV.

The Baron was a few minutes late in joining the party at lunch, and when
he appeared he held an open letter in his hand. It was only the middle of
the next day, and yet he could have sworn that last night he was
comparatively whole-hearted, he felt so very much more in love already.

"Yet anozzer introdogtion has found me out," he said as he took his seat.
"I have here a letter of invitation vich I do not zink I shall accept."

He threw an amorous glance at Lady Alicia, which her watchful mother
rightly interpreted as indicating the cause of his intended refusal.

"Who is it this time?" asked Mr Bunker.

"Sir Richard Brierley of Brierley Park, Dampshire. Is zat how you
pronounce it?"

"Sir Richard Brierley!" exclaimed the Countess; "why, Alicia and I are
going to visit some relatives of ours who live only six miles from
Brierley Park! When has he asked you, Baron?"

"Ze end of next week."

"How odd! We are going down to Dampshire at the end of next week too. You
must accept, Baron!"

"I shall!" exclaimed the overjoyed Baron. "Shall ve go, Bonker?"

"I'm not asked, I'm afraid."

"Ach, bot zat is nozzing. I shall tell him."

"As you please, Baron," replied Mr Bunker, with a half glance at Lady
Alicia.

The infatuated Baron had already begun to dread the inevitable hour of
separation, and this piece of good fortune put him into the highest
spirits. He felt so amiable towards the whole world that when the four
went out for a stroll in the afternoon he lingered for a minute by Lady
Grillyer's side, and in that minute Mr Bunker and Lady Alicia were out of
hail ahead. The Baron's face fell.

"Shall I come down to this place?" said Mr Bunker.

"Would you like to?"

"I should be sorry," he replied, "to part with--the Baron."

Lady Alicia had expected a slightly different ending to this sentence, and
so, to tell the truth, Mr Bunker had intended.

"Oh, if you can't stay away from the Baron, you had better go."

"It is certainly very hard to tear myself away from so charming a person
as the Baron; perhaps you can feel for me?"

"I think he is very--nice."

"He thinks you very nice."

"Does he?" said Lady Alicia, with great indifference, and a moment later
changed the subject.

Meanwhile the Baron was growing very uneasy. Of course it was quite
natural that Mr Bunker should find it pleasant to walk for a few minutes
by the side of the fairest creature on earth, and very possibly he was
artfully pleading his friend's cause. Yet the Baron felt uneasy. He
remembered Mr Bunker's invariable success with the gentler sex, his wit,
his happy smile, and his good looks; and he began to wish most sincerely
that these fascinations were being exercised on the now somewhat
breathless Countess, for his efforts to overtake the pair in front had
both annoyed and exhausted Lady Grillyer.

"Need we walk quite so fast, Baron?" she suggested; and Lady Grillyer's
suggestions were of the kind that are evidently meant to be acted upon.

"Ach, I did forged," said the Baron, absently, and without further remark
he slackened his pace for a few yards and then was off again.

"You were telling me," gasped the Countess, "of something you thought
of--doing when--you went--home."

"Zo? Oh yes, it vas--Teufel! I do not remember."

"Really, Baron," said the Countess, decidedly, "I cannot go any farther at
this rate. Let us turn. The others will be turning too, in a minute."

In fact the unlucky Baron had clean run Lady Grillyer's maternal instincts
off their feet, and he suffered for it by seeing nothing of either his
friend or his charmer for an hour and a half.

That night he accepted Sir Richard's invitation, but said nothing whatever
about bringing a friend.

For the next week Rudolph was in as many states of mind as there were
hours in each day. He walked and rode and drove with Lady Alicia through
the most romantic spots he could find. He purchased a large assortment of
golf-clubs, and under her tuition essayed to play that most dangerous of
games for mixed couples. In turn he broke every club in his set; the
cavities he hewed in the links are still pointed out to the curious; but
the heart of the Lady Alicia alone he seemed unable to damage. There was
always a moment at which his courage failed him, and in that fatal pause
she invariably changed the subject with the most innocent air in the
world.

Every now and then the greenest spasms of jealousy would seize him. Why
did she elect to disappear with Mr Bunker on the very morning that he had
resolved should settle his fate? It is true he had made the same
resolution every morning, but on this particular one he had no doubt he
would have put his fate to the touch. And why on a certain moonlight
evening was he left to the unsentimental company of the Countess?

He made no further reference to the visit to Brierley Park; in fact he
shunned discussion of any kind with his quondam bosom friend.

The time slipped past, till the visit to St Egbert's was almost at an end.
On the day after to-morrow all four were going to leave (where Mr Bunker
was going, his friend never troubled to inquire).

They sat together latish in the evening in the Baron's room. That very
afternoon Lady Alicia had spent more time in Mr Bunker's society than in
his, and the Baron felt that the hour had come for an explanation.

"Bonker, I haf a suspection!" he exclaimed, suddenly. "It is not I, bot
you, who are ze friend to ze beautiful Lady Alicia. You are not doing me
fair!"

"My dear Baron!"

"It is so: you are not doing me fair," the Baron reiterated.

"My dear fellow," replied Mr Bunker, "it is you are so much in love that
you have lost your wonted courage. You don't use your chances."

"I do not get zem."

"Nonsense, Baron! I haven't spent one hour in Lady Alicia's company to
your twenty-four, and yet if I'd been matrimonially inclined I could have
proposed twice over. You've had the chance of being accepted fifty times."

"I haf not been accepted vunce," said the Baron, moodily.

"Have you put the question?"

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