The Sack of Monte Carlo 11

The Sack of Monte Carlo 11

“Teddy Parsons, in my militia.”

 

“He’s a poor creature,” my sister observed. “I shouldn’t take him; why,

all he can do is play the banjo and walk about Southport in breeches and

gaiters!”

 

“Yes, but he’s an old friend, and I want to do him a good turn.”

 

“You’ve odd notions of doing people a good turn,” Muriel laughed.

 

“The fact is,” I said, “he’s rather in a hole about a bill of his that’s

coming due. He’s gone shares with one of our fellows in the regiment in

a steeple-chaser and given him a bill to meet the expenses of training

and the purchase; and as the bill’s coming due and he’s mortally afraid

of his father—”

 

“You undertake to meet the bill, on the condition he joins you. I see.

And has that been the best you can do? Who’s the sixth?”

 

“Mr. Brentin, who’s bought the yacht; the American at the ‘Victoria.’”

 

“Well, all I can say is,” said my sister, after a pause, “you’re rather

a lame crew. Why, Teddy Parsons alone is enough to ruin anything!”

 

“Yes, I know,” I groaned, “but what is one to do? I’ve been all over the

country seeing men, but they’re all much too frightened. We’re an

utterly scratch lot, I know, but Brentin and I must do the best we can

with the material and trust to luck.”

 

“That you most certainly will have to do,” said my sister, with

conviction.

 

“Why can’t you come with us,” I urged, “and be the mascot of the party?

We must have some one of the kind, if only to chaperon Miss Rybot.”

 

“Dear me, who’s Miss Rybot?”

 

“Arthur Masters’s young woman, without whom he won’t stir.”

 

Now my sister Muriel is like a good many other highly respectable

Englishwomen: she is a most faithful wife and devoted mother, but she

doesn’t care in any particular degree about her husband, and is only too

glad to welcome anything in the way of honest excitement, if only to

break the monotony of home life. And here was excitement for her,

indeed, and, properly regarded, of the most irreproachably honest

description.

 

It flattered, too, her love of adventure, for which she had never had

much outlet in Medworth Square. Where we Blackers get our love of

adventure from, by-the-way, I don’t quite know, unless it be from my

mother’s father, who fought at Waterloo, and died a very old gentleman,

a Knight of Windsor; but we certainly both of us have it very strongly,

as all good English people should.

 

To cut a long story short, for I must really be getting on, my sister

finally agreed to come, if only as chaperon to Miss Rybot. Like the rest

of us, she had never been to Monte Carlo, having been hitherto forbidden

by her husband; but now she said she would insist, and allege as a

reason the necessity of her presence for keeping her only brother from

ruining himself at the tables.

 

So I was delighted to hear of her plucky resolve, particularly as it at

once got rid of the difficulty of Miss Rybot’s chaperon—since Brentin

had made up his mind not to take his wife, but send her down to

Rochester while he was away, and keep her fully employed there, in

Charles Dickens’s country.

 

I kissed my sister, promising to come back to dinner, and meantime went

up in the nursery, where I found my niece Mollie seated by the fire,

wrapped in a grimy little shawl, reading Grimm’s _Fairy Tales_.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER X

 

MR. BRENTIN’S INDISCRETION—LUCY AND I MAKE IT UP—BAILEY THOMPSON

APPEARS IN CHURCH—ON CHRISTMAS DAY WE HOLD A COUNCIL OF WAR

 

 

NOW it was the very day we went down to “The French Horn” together that

Mr. Brentin confessed to me how, in spite of our agreement as to keeping

the affair a profound secret, he had actually been so rash as to confide

our whole plan to a stranger—a stranger casually encountered, above all

places, in the smoking-room of the “Victoria”!

 

How incomprehensible, how weak and wavering is man! Here was Julius C.

Brentin, as shrewd an American as can be met with in Low’s Exchange,

deliberately pouring into a strange ear a secret he had hitherto rigidly

guarded even from his young and attractive wife.

 

Of course he had his excuses and defence; what man has not, when he does

wrong? But whatever the excuse, there still remained the unpleasant fact

that there was positively a man walking about (and from his description

one evidently not quite a gentleman) who knew all about our arrangements

and could at any moment communicate them to the authorities at Monte

Carlo.

 

When I asked him, somewhat sharply, how ever he had come to commit so

gross a blunder, he had really no explanation to give. He seemed to

think he had sufficiently safeguarded himself by exchanging cards with

the man, than which I could not conceive anything more childish—

 

_MR. BAILEY THOMPSON_

 

without an address or a club on it! What possible guarantee was there in

that? Brentin himself couldn’t quite say; only he seemed to fancy the

possession of his card gave him some sort of hold on the owner, and that

so long as he had it in his keeping we were safe against treachery.

 

How totally wrong he was, and how nearly his absurd confidence came to

absolutely ruining us all, will clearly appear as this work goes on and

readers are taken to Monte Carlo.

 

At last, as I continued to reproach him, he took refuge in saying,

“Well, it’s done, and there’s an end to it; give over talking through

your hat!” A vulgar Americanism which much offended me, and caused us to

drive up to “The French Horn” in somewhat sulky silence.

 

It was the 23d of December, and we found Mr. Thatcher ready for us. I at

once left him to show Brentin over the house, the great hall decorated

with holly and cotton-wool mottoes, and to his room, while I went in

immediate search of Lucy.

 

Over that tender meeting I draw the sacred veil of reticence. The dear

girl was soon in my arms, soft and palpitating, full of forgiveness and

love. We spent the afternoon together in a long walk across the links

and down to the coast-guards’ cottages, where we had tea; returning only

in time for dinner, through the dark and starry evening of that

singularly mild December.

 

The result of our walk was that we made up our minds to be married

shortly before Easter—so soon, in fact, as I could get back from abroad

and settle my affairs. About Monte Carlo, I told her nothing further

than that my sister was not well, and I had undertaken to escort her

there, and see after her for a time—a fib, which, knowing Lucy’s

apprehensive nature, I judged to be necessary, and for which I trust one

day to be forgiven.

 

Mr. Brentin and I dined together, partly in silence, partly snapping at

each other. On Christmas Eve our party was complete, with the exception

of Harold Forsyth, who came over next morning from Colchester. On

Christmas Day, “What’s the matter with our all going to Church?” said

Mr. Brentin.

 

“Nothing particularly the matter,” Bob Hines replied, rather gruffly,

“except that some of us are probably unaccustomed to it.”

 

However, Brentin insisted, and to Church, accordingly, we all went, as

meek as bleating lambs.

 

Now in the Wharton Park pew was sitting Mr. Crage. The pew is so

sheltered with its high partition and curtain-rods, I didn’t see him

till he stood up; nor did I know there was any one else there till the

parson glared down straight into the pew from the clerk’s ancient seat

under the pulpit, whence he read the lessons, and said he really must

beg chance members of the congregation to observe the proper reverential

attitude, and not be continually seated.

 

Whereupon a deep voice replied, amid considerable sensation, from the

bowels of the pew, “Sir, you are in error. I always rise as the rubric

directs, but having no advantage of height—” the rest of the speech

being lost in the irreverent titters of our party.

 

Brentin, who was next the pew, looked over the partition and added to

the sensation by audibly observing, “Sakes alive! It’s friend Bailey

Thompson.”

 

When the service was over and we all got outside, he whispered, “Wait a

minute, Blacker; send the others on, and I’ll present you to my friend.”

So the others went on back to “The French Horn,” while I remained behind

with some apprehension and curiosity to take this Mr. Bailey Thompson’s

measure. He came out alone, Mr. Crage remaining to have a few words with

the parson (with whom he was continually squabbling), and Brentin and

Bailey Thompson greeted each other with great warmth.

 

He turned out to be a short, dark, determined-looking little man, with a

square chin and old-fashioned, black, mutton-chop whiskers. No, he was

clearly not quite a gentleman, in the sense that he had evidently never

been at a public school.

 

“This,” said Mr. Brentin as he presented me, “is the originator of the

little scheme I was telling you of—Mr. Vincent Blacker.”

 

“Oh, indeed!” Mr. Bailey Thompson replied, looking me full in the face

with his penetrating black eyes, and politely lifting his small, tall

hat. “Oh, indeed! so you really meant it?”

 

“Meant it?” echoed Brentin. “Why, the band of brothers is here; they

were in the pew next you. Mr. Bailey Thompson, we are all here together

for the making of our final arrangements, and in two weeks we start.”

 

“Oh, indeed!” he smiled; “it’s a bold piece of work.”

 

“Sir, it is colossal, but it will succeed!”

 

“Let us hope so. I am sure I wish you every success.”

 

“Mr. Bailey Thompson,” said Brentin, evidently nettled at the way the

little man continued incredulously to smile, “if you care to join us

some time during the afternoon we shall be glad to lay details of our

plan before you. They will not only prove our _bona-fides_, but show how

complete and fully thought out all our preparations are.”

 

“If I can leave my friend Crage towards four o’clock, I will,” Mr.

Thompson replied. “I know Monte Carlo as well as most men, and may be

able to give you some useful hints.”

 

“We shall be glad to see you, for none of us have ever been there. But

not a word to your friend!”

 

“Not a word to a soul!” smiled the imperturbable little man; and he left

us to join the abandoned Crage, who was still inside the sacred edifice snarling at the parson.