The Sack of Monte Carlo 10
We got back safely to Ryde, thoroughly satisfied with our outing and the
behavior of the _Amaranth_, and caught the six-o’clock train back to
Victoria.
Mr. Brentin had unfortunately taken a strong dislike to Miss Rybot, and
imitated her cold, haughty “Really! you don’t say so!” and other
stand-offish little speeches, most of the way up. The imitation was not
in the least like, of course, but served to show me the scornful bent of
his mind towards her. When I told him I had secured Masters on the
condition she came too, he grew quite angry, and declared that whatever
route she took he should most certainly take the other, rather than be
frozen in her society. He added, as a further ground of dislike, she was
“pop-eyed”—a somewhat unjust description of her slightly prominent,
large, cold, gray optics.
As for Captain Evans and his little game of using the yacht for
excursions on his own account, the captain had given the, to me, rather
lame explanation that yachts left idle came to no good, and should, in
short, be taken out for exercise just like horses. Questioned why he
didn’t go out without company, he averred he must have ballast or the
yacht would throb her sides out, and that he thought he might as well
make the ballast pay. Also that he had kept a most careful record of
receipts, and was prepared to account for every farthing to the rightful
owners, whoever they should turn out to be.
In short, as is so often the case, Captain Evans had managed to prove
quite conclusively that Mr. Brentin was entirely in the wrong in
suspecting his proceedings, and that he was a much injured and wholly
innocent British sailor.
“That, sir,” said Mr. Brentin, chewing his cigar as we rattled along in
the train, “has happened to me more than once with your lower orders. I
go into my tailor’s with my noo coat bulging at the back, bursting with
ay sense of injury at the misfit considering the price I have paid. And
that tailor keeps cool while I stamp around; he surveys me with ay
pitying smile, he calls up his assistants to admire the fit, and he
proves to me con-clusively that the best part of that coat is precisely
the bulge in the back, and that I shall injure his reputation and ruin
the coat if I have it touched. I enter that store, sir, like ay raging
lion, and I leave it ay teething lamb, my mouth overflowing with
apologies, which the damn tailor will scarcely accept. And I know he
thinks, ‘What infernal fools these Yankees are!’ and is laafing at me in
his sleeve as the bulge and I disappear in the crowd of his other
misfits, and are lost in the night of his paid accounts.”
That same evening the purchase of the yacht was concluded by Mr.
Brentin, as he wrote me in the morning; directing me, further, to go
right ahead and get the rest of my desperadoes together for a dash on
the tables in January. He added in a postscript that, for his part, he
was going into the city early next morning to buy three fair-sized
cannon, capable of throwing three fair-sized shells; for, in case
anything went wrong and we were captured, it would be just as well to
leave orders with Captain Evans to shell the Casino, and so continue
till we were released and replaced on board the _Amaranth_, with a
guarantee for our expenses, and an undertaking for no further
molestation.
Bold as I am, owing in some measure to my militia training, the rapidity
of the American mind was again causing me some considerable qualms.
CHAPTER IX
MY SISTER’S SUSPICIONS—HEROES OF _THE ARGO_—MY SISTER DETERMINES
TO COME WITH US AS CHAPERON TO MISS RYBOT
FROM now right on to Christmas I lived in a constant hurry and ferment
of excitement; for not only was I full of every sort of preparation for
our adventure, but every day brought me nearer “The French Horn” and my
seeing dear Lucy once more. By the second week in December I had at last
got our party of six together; to which number, for the present, at any
rate, by Mr. Brentin’s advice, it was determined to limit it. If it were
to be done at all, he said, six could easily do it, and by adding more
we were only increasing the danger of the affair leaking out and the
people at the tables being forewarned and forearmed; neither of which,
though more particularly the latter, did we at all desire.
Directly the party was complete, I informed Mr. Brentin, and by his
directions gave them all a rendezvous at “The French Horn” for
Christmas. He wished to see us all together he said, and take our
measure; not that he doubted I had chosen the right sort, but rather
that he might consider what post should be assigned to each—who should
lead the van and who should guard the rear, and who, if necessary,
should form the reserve and direct the shell-throwing on the Casino in
case of our capture.
Meantime I had been so busy running over the country, interviewing and
persuading, and by many being point-blank refused, that I had quite
neglected my sister, Mrs Rivers, and Medworth Square; and whether it was
she suspected something from my continued absence, or something had
leaked out through Parker White, I never could quite discover; but, at
any rate, she one day sent for me to come to tea, and attacked me at
once to know what I was doing and why I never came to the house.
From very early days my sister Muriel has been my confidante in
everything. My father I scarcely remember, beyond the fact that he
always wore a white waistcoat and smelt of sherry when he kissed me, and
my dear mother died in Jubilee year—a very sad year, notwithstanding
the universal illuminations and rejoicings, for me; so to Muriel I have
always carried all my troubles and griefs, and no better sister for that
sort of work could any man wish for.
Particularly has she always been the sympathetic recipient of my
love-affairs, with the single exception of my affair with Lucy; for
though Muriel isn’t in the least a snob, yet I don’t suppose she would
have been best pleased to learn of her only brother’s attachment to an
innkeeper’s daughter, of however old a family. So all she knew was that
the Mabel Harker business was at an end, and was naturally wondering how
my vagrant heart was being employed meantime; questions on which
subject, however, I had always managed to shirk.
Directly we were alone in the Medworth Square morning-room, she opened
fire on me.
“Frank has been asking what has become of you lately, Vincent,” she
said—“what have you been doing with yourself?”
“I’ve been seeing a good deal of some Americans at the ‘Victoria,’ and a
good deal in and out of town.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing of any importance. How’s Mollie?”
“You can go and see Mollie afterwards. Now, look here, Vincent, you’re
up to something, and I mean to know what it is. I can’t have my only
brother drifting into a scrape, without doing my best to keep him out of
it. You’d better make a clean breast. I shall be sure to find out.”
I’d half a mind to tell her a downright fib and stop her importunities
that way; but I’d the instinct she knew something of the fact, and was
well aware that, if she weren’t told all, would set her prig of a
husband to work; and then our enterprise would as likely as not be
nipped in the bud by being made public property.
So, on the whole, I judged it best to tell her exactly what we were
doing and were going to do, taking care only to bind her over to the
completest secrecy, which, once she had given her word, I knew she would
die sooner than break.
She was half amused, half frightened, and at first wholly incredulous.
“But who on earth have you found to join you in such a cracked scheme?”
she asked. “I didn’t know you’d so many desperate lunatics among your
acquaintances.”
“Well, there’s Arthur Masters and Bob Hines, to begin with; you know
them.”
“I don’t think I know Mr. Hines, do I? Who is he?”
“Oh, he was at Marlborough with me, and now keeps a boys’ school at
Folkestone.”
“A nice instructor of youth, to go on an expedition of this kind,”
laughed my sister.
“That’s exactly what he’s afraid of; he says if he’s caught, it’ll be
the end of his business and he’ll have to break stones.”
“Then why does he go?”
“Well, you see, he’s very much in want of a gymnasium for his boys, and
I’ve promised to build him one out of the swag, if he’ll join us.”
“Tempted and fallen!” said my sister. “Really, Vincent, you’re a
Mephistopheles. And who else?”
“Harold Forsyth, of the Devon Borderers.”
“Is that the little man who always looks as if he was bursting out of
his clothes with overeating?”
“I dare say.”
“But I thought he was engaged to be married. What’s the young lady
about, to let him go?”
“Well, the fact is,” said I, “the young lady turns out to be a wrong un,
and is now chasing him about with a writ for breach of promise in her
glove, like a cab-fare.”
“So he’s off to escape that?” said my sister. “You’re a nice lot. Any one else?”
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