“not a word to your mother,” mr. sheerug had warned ruddy after his first interview with duke nineveh. “she wouldn’t understand—not yet. um! um!”
what he had meant was she would have understood too well. ruddy communicated this urgent need for secrecy to teddy. “can’t make it out—what he’s up to.”
they watched carefully, feeling that whatever mr. sheerug was up to, it was something in which they also were concerned.
the first thing they noticed was that a proud-boy look was creeping over him—what ruddy called an i-ate-the-canary look. for all his fatness he began to bustle. he began to make fusses if the meals weren’t punctual, to insist on his boots being properly blacked and to behave himself in general as though he were head of his household. he spoke vaguely of meetings in the city—meetings which it was vital that he should attend “punkchully.”
“if i’m not punkchull,” he said, “everything may go up the spout.” he didn’t explain what everything was; he was inviting his wife to ask a question.
she knew it—sensible woman. “meetings in the city,” she thought to herself; “meetings in the city, indeed. pooh! men are all babies. if he thinks that he’s going to get me worked up——”
she had shared too many of his ups and downs to allow her excitement to show itself. she denied to herself that she was excited. these little flares of good fortune had deceived her faith too many times. so she treated her alonzo like a big spoilt child, humoring his whims and feigning to be discreetly unobserving. she forbade the display of curiosity on the part of any of her family. “if you go asking questions,” she said, “you’ll drive him to it.”
she had seen him driven to it before—it was the moment when the dam of piled-up ambitions burst and they scrambled to save what they could from the whirlpool of collapsed speculations. the end of it had usually been a hasty retreat to a less expensive house.
every day brought some new improvement in his dress. within a fortnight he was looking exceedingly plump in a frock-coat and top-hat he hadn’t been so gorgeous in a dozen years—not since he had kept a carriage in kensington. each morning, shortly after nine, he left orchid lodge and marched down eden row, swinging his cane with a mammon-like air of prosperity. when he came back in the evening, as frequently as not he had a flower blazing in his button-hole.
there were times when he strove to revive husbandly gallantries—little acts of forethought and gestures of tenderness. he had grown too fat and had been too long out of practice to do it graciously, and mrs. sheerug—she blinked at him with a happiness which tried in vain to conceal itself. they were rip van winkles waking up to an altered world—a world in which a husband need no longer fear his wife, and in which there were more important occupations than talking cockney to mr. ooze as an escape from dullness.
it took just three months for the suppressed expectations of orchid lodge to reach their climax. it was reached when alonzo, of his own accord, without a helping hint or the least sign of necessity, offered his wife money. it happened one september evening, in the room with the french windows which opened into the garden. it was impossible for a natively inquisitive woman to refuse this bait to her curiosity.
“a hund—a hundred pounds! why, alonzo!”
teddy and ruddy were seated on the steps. at the sound of her gasping cry, they turned to gaze into the shabby comfort of the room. she stood tiptoeing against him, clinging to his hand and scanning his face with her faded eyes. her gray hair straggled across her wrinkled forehead; her lips trembled. her weary, worn-out, kindly appearance made her strangely pathetic in the presence of his plump self-assertiveness.
“struck it,” he said gruffly, almost defiantly. “going to do a splash. all of us. um! um! those boys helped.”
“ah!” she shuddered. “ah, my dear, my splashing days are ended. even if it’s true, i’m too old for that.”
“too old!” for the first time that ruddy could remember, his father took the withered face between his hands. “too old! not a bit of it! going to make a splash, i tell you. going to be lord mayor of london. going to be a duke, maybe an earl. beauty forever. appeals to women’s vanity. going up like a rocket till i bust. only i shan’t bust um! um! going up this time never to come down.”
“never to come down,” she whispered, “never.” the words seemed the sweetest music. she laughed softly to make him think that she did not take him seriously.
they strolled out into the evening redness and sat beside the boys on the steps. sparrows were rustling in the ivy. the drone of london, like a mill-wheel turning, came to them across the walls. in the garden there was a sense of rest mr. sheerug’s portly glory looked out of place and disturbing in its old-fashioned quiet he must have felt that, for he stood up and removed his frock-coat, loosened his waistcoat buttons, and sat down in his shirt-sleeves. he looked less like mr. sheerug, the conqueror, who had eaten the canary, and more like the pigeon-flying mr. sheerug now.
with unwieldly awkwardness he put his arm about her shoulder and drew her gray head nearer. “don’t mind, do you?” his voice was husky. “can’t do it, somehow—never could unless i was making money. oughtn’t to have married you. uml um! often thought it dragged you down. well——”
and then he told them. he began with duke nineveh. “he’s a chap who introduces outsiders to something that he says is society. tells ’em where to buy their clothes and all that. gets tipped for it. calls himself a black-and-white artist. maybe he is—i don’t know: but he’s a man of ideas. his great idea is madame josephine—she’s in love with him.”
at mention of madame josephine mrs. sheerug fluttered. “but alonzo, she can’t be the same madame josephine——”
“the same,” he said.
“the woman who used to dance at——?”
he nodded. “a long time ago.”
“who caused such a scandal with the marquis of —————?” she whispered behind her hand. “and was the mistress of——————?” again she whispered.
“that’s who she is,” he acknowledged. “but don’t you see that all that helps? it’s an advertisement. she’s the best preserved woman of seventy in london.”
“she’s a notorious character,” mrs. sheerug said firmly. “alonzo, you’ll have nothing to do with her.”
his arm slipped from her shoulder. she stood up and reentered the window. before she vanished, she came back and patted him kindly. “you won’t, alonzo. you know you won’t.”
the mill-wheel of london droned on, turning and always turning. the sparrows grew silent in the ivy; shadows stole out soon a light sprang up in the spare-room. they could hear the harp fingered gently; it brought memories of the ghost-bird of romance, beating its wings against the panes, struggling vainly to get out.
“too righteous,” mr. sheerug muttered. “not a business woman.” and then, as though stoking up his courage, “won’t i? i shall.”
he heaved him up from the steps and wandered off in the direction of the shrubbery to find comfort with his pigeons.
it was duke nineveh, with his knowledge of human vanity, who won mrs. sheerug. he spoke to her as an artist to an artist, and asked permission to see her tapestries. he spent an entire afternoon, peering at them through his monocle. next day he returned.
“colossal! a shame the world shouldn’t know about them! it’s genius—a lost art recovered. now, when we’ve built our beauty palace, if we could give an exhibition——”
so beauty incorporated was launched without mrs. sheerug’s opposition. almost over night the slender white turrets of the beauty palace floated up. madame josephine began to appear in the west end, looking no more than twenty as seen through the traffic. she drove in a white coach, drawn by white horses, with a powdered coachman and lackeys. the street stopped to watch her. people went to st. james’s to catch a glimpse of her as she flashed down the mall. she became one of the sights of london and was talked about.
hints concerning her romantic career crept into the press. old scandals were remembered, always followed by accounts of her beauty discoveries. her discoveries, with her portrait for trade-mark, became a part of the stock-in-trade of every chemist: madame josephine’s hair restorer; madame josephine’s face cream; madame josephine’s nail polish. at breakfast when you glanced through your paper, her face gazed out at you, saying, “you can be always young.” it was on the hoardings, on the buses, in your theatre program. it was as impossible to escape as conscience. from morning till night it followed you, always saying, “you can be always young.” the world became self-conscious. it took to examining its complexion. it went to the beauty palace out of curiosity, and stayed to spend money. madame josephine became the rage: a theme for dinner conversations—a personage.
