'The best fellow in the world, among other things.'
'But what other things?'
'Ask Teddy!' I said unluckily.
'I have,' replied Miss Belsize. 'But Teddy doesn't know. He often wonders how Mr. Raffles can afford to play so much cricket without doing any work.'
'Does he, indeed!'
'Many people do.'
'And what do they say about him?'
Miss Belsize hesitated, watching me for a moment and the goldfish rather longer. The rain sounded louder, and the fountain as though it had been turned on again, before she answered:
'More than their prayers, no doubt!'
'Do you mean,' I almost gasped, 'as to the way Raffles gets his living?'
'Yes.'
'You might tell me the kind of things they say, Miss Belsize!'
'But if there's no truth in them?'
'I'll soon tell you if there is or not.'
'But suppose I don't care either way?' said Miss Belsize with a brilliant smile.
'Then I care so much that I should be extremely grateful to you.'
'Mind, I don't believe it myself, Mr. Manders.'
'You don't believe—'
'That Mr. Raffles lives by his wits and—his cricket!'
I jumped to my feet.
'Is that all they say about him?' I cried.
'Isn't it enough?' asked Miss Belsize, astonished in her turn at my demeanour.
'Oh, quite enough, quite enough!' said I. 'It's only the most scandalously unfair and utterly untrue report that ever got about—that's all!'
This heavy irony was, of course, intended to convey the impression that one's first explosion of relief had been equally ironical. But I was to discover that Camilla Belsize was never easily deceived; it was unpleasantly apparent in her bold eyes before she opened her firm mouth.
'Yet you seemed to expect something worse,' she said at length.
'What could be worse?' I asked, my back against the wall of my own indiscretion. 'Why, a man like A.J. Raffles would rather be any mortal thing than a paid amateur!'
'But you haven't told me what he
'And you haven't told me, Miss Belsize, why you're so interested in A. J. after all!' I retorted, getting home for once, and sitting down again on the strength of it.
But Miss Belsize was my superior to the last; in the single moment of my ascendency she made me blush for it and for myself. She would be quite frank with me: my friend Mr. Raffles did interest her rather more than she cared to say. It was because Teddy thought so much of him, that was the only reason, and her one excuse for all inquisitive questions and censorious remarks. I must have thought her very rude; but now I knew. Mr. Raffles had been such a friend to Teddy; sometimes she wondered whether he was quite a good friend; and there I had 'the whole thing in a nutshell.'
I had indeed! And I knew the nut, and had tasted its bitter kernel too often to make any mistake about it. Jealousy was its other name. But I did not care how jealous Miss Belsize became of Raffles as long as jealousy did not beget suspicion; and my mind was not entirely relieved on that point.
We dropped the whole subject, however, with some abruptness; and the rest of our conversation in the rockery, and in the steaming orchid-house and further vineries which we proceeded to explore together, was quite refreshingly tame. Yet I think it was on this desultory tour, to the still incessant accompaniment of rain on the glasshouses, that Camilla's mother took shape in my mind as the Lady Laura Belsize, an apparently impecunious widow reduced to 'semi-detachment down the river' and suburban neighbours whose manners and customs my companion hit off with vivacious intolerance. She told me how she had shocked them by smoking cigarettes in the back garden, and pronounced a gratuitous conviction that I of all people would have been no less scandalised! That was in the uttermost vinery, and in another minute two Sullivans were in full blast under the vines. I remember discovering that the great brand was not unfamiliar to Miss Belsize, and even gathering that it was Raffles himself who had made it known to her. Raffles, whom she did not 'know much about,' or consider 'quite a good friend' for Teddy Garland!
I was becoming curious to see this antagonistic pair together; but it was the middle of the afternoon before Raffles reappeared, though Mr. Garland told me he had received an optimistic note from him by special messenger earlier in the day. I felt I might have been told a little more, considering the intimate part I was already playing as a stranger in a strange house. But I was only too thankful to find that Raffles had so far infected our host with his confidence as to tide us through luncheon with far fewer embarrassments than before; nor did Mr. Garland desert us again until the butler with a visitor's card brought about his abrupt departure from the conservatory.
Then my troubles began afresh. It stopped raining at last; if Miss Belsize could have had her way we should all have started for Lord's that minute. I took her into the garden to show her the state of the lawns, coldly scintillant with standing water and rimmed by regular canals. Lord's would be like them, only fifty times worse; play had no doubt been abandoned on that quagmire for the day. Miss Belsize was not so sure about that; why should we not drive over and find out? I said that was the surest way of missing Teddy. She said a hansom would take us there and back in a half-an-hour. I gained time disputing that statement, but said if we went at all I was sure Mr. Garland would want to go with us, and that in his own brougham. All this on the crown of a sloppy path, and when Miss Belsize asked me how many more times I was going to change my ground, I could not help looking at her absurd shoes sinking into the softened gravel, and saying I thought it was for her to do that. Miss Belsize took my advice to the extent of turning upon a submerged heel, though with none too complimentary a smile; and then it was that I saw what I had been curious to see all day. Raffles was coming down the path towards us. And I saw Miss Belsize hesitate and stiffen before shaking hands with him.
'They've given it up as a bad job at last,' said he. 'I've just come from Lord's, and Teddy won't be very long.'
'Why didn't you bring him with you?' asked Miss Belsize pertinently.
'Well, I thought you ought to know the worst at once,' said Raffles, rather lamely for him; 'and then a man playing in a 'Varsity match is never quite his own master, you know. Still, he oughtn't to keep you waiting much longer.'
It was perhaps unfortunately put; at any rate Miss Belsize took it pretty plainly amiss, and I saw her colour rise as she declared she had been waiting in the hope of seeing some cricket. Since that was at an end she must be thinking of getting home, and would just say good-bye to Mr. Garland. This sudden decision took me as much by surprise as I believe it took Miss Belsize herself; but having announced her intention, however hot-headedly, she proceeded to action by way of the conservatory and the library door, while Raffles and I went through into the hall the other way.
'I'm afraid I've put my foot in it,' said he to me. 'But it's just as well, since I needn't tell you there's no sign of Teddy up at Lord's.'
'Have you been there all day?' I asked him under my breath.
'Except when I went to the office of this rag,' replied Raffles, brandishing an evening paper that ill deserved his epithet. 'See what they say about Teddy here.'
And I held my breath while Raffles showed me a stupendous statement in the stop-press column: it was to the effect that E.M. Garland (Eton and Trinity) might be unable to keep wicket for Cambridge after all, 'owing to the serious illness of his father.'
'His father!' I exclaimed. 'Why, his father's closeted with somebody or other at this very moment behind the door you're looking at!'
'I know, Bunny. I've seen him.'
'But what an extraordinary fabrication to get into a decent paper! I don't wonder you went to the office about it.'
'You'll wonder still less when I tell you I have an old pal on the staff.'
