“Oh, he’s not really a lord. He’s the local coal merchant. They call him Lord George at Blackstable because he’s so grand. It’s just a joke.”
“The quiddity of bucolic humour is often a trifle obscure to the uninitiated,” said Allgood Newton.
“We must all help dear Edward in every way we can,” said Mrs. Barton Trafford. Her eyes rested on me thoughtfully. “If Kemp has run away with Rosie Driffield he must have left his wife.”
“I suppose so,” I replied.
“Will you do something very kind?”
“If I can.”
“Will you go down to Blackstable and find out exactly what has happened? I think we ought to get in touch with the wife.”
I have never been very fond of interfering in other people’s affairs.
“I don’t know how I could do that,” I answered.
“Couldn’t you see her?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
If Mrs. Barton Trafford thought my reply blunt she did not show it. She smiled a little.
“At all events that can be left over. The urgent thing is to go down and find out about Kemp. I shall try to see Edward this evening. I can’t bear the thought of his staying on in that odious house by himself. Barton and I have made up our minds to bring him here. We have a spare room and I’ll arrange it so that he can work there. Don’t you agree that that would be the best thing for him, Allgood?”
“Absolutely.”
“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t stay here indefinitely, at all events for a few weeks, and then he can come away with us in the summer. We’re going to Brittany. I’m sure he’d like that. It would be a thorough change for him.”
“The immediate question,” said Barton Trafford, fixing on me an eye nearly as kindly as his wife’s, “is whether this young sawbones will go to Blackstable and find out what he can. We must know where we are. That is essential.”
Barton Trafford excused his interest in archaeology by a hearty manner and a jocose, even slangy way of speech.
“He couldn’t refuse,” said his wife, giving me a soft, appealing glance. “You won’t refuse, will you? It’s so important and you’re the only person who can help us.”
Of course she did not know that I was as anxious to find out what had happened as she; she could not tell what a bitter jealous pain stabbed my heart.
“I couldn’t possibly get away from the hospital before Saturday,” I said.
“That’ll do. It’s very good of you. All Edward’s friends will be grateful to you. When shall you return?”
“I have to be back in London early on Monday morning.”
“Then come and have tea with me in the afternoon. I shall await you with impatience. Thank God, that’s settled. Now I must try and get hold of Edward.”
I understood that I was dismissed. Allgood Newton took his leave and came downstairs with me.
“Our Isabel has un petit air of Catherine of Aragon today that I find vastly becoming,” he murmured when the door was closed behind us. “This is a golden opportunity and I think we may safely trust our friend not to miss it. A charming woman with a heart of gold. Venus toute entière à sa proie attachée.”
I did not understand what he meant, for what I have already told the reader about Mrs. Barton Trafford I only learned much later, but I realized that he was saying something vaguely malicious about her, and probably amusing, so I sniggered.
“I suppose your youth inclines you to what my good Dizzy named in an unlucky moment the gondola of London.”
“I’m going to take a bus,” I answered.
“Oh? Had you proposed to go by hansom I was going to ask you to be good enough to drop me on your way, but if you are going to use the homely conveyance which I in my old-fashioned manner still prefer to call an omnibus, I shall hoist my unwieldy carcase into a four-wheeler.”
He signalled to one and gave me two flabby fingers to shake.
“I shall come on Monday to hear the result of what dear Henry would call your so exquisitely delicate mission.”
XX
But it was years before I saw Allgood Newton again, for when I got to Blackstable I found a letter from Mrs. Barton Trafford (who had taken the precaution to note my address) asking me, for reasons that she would explain when she saw me, not to come to her flat but to meet her at six o’clock in the first-class waiting room at Victoria Station. As soon then as I could get away from the hospital on Monday I made my way there, and after waiting for a while saw her come in. She came toward me with little tripping steps.
“Well, have you anything to tell me? Let us find a quiet corner and sit down.”
We sought a place and found it.
“I must explain why I asked you to come here,” she said. “Edward is staying with me. At first he did not want to come, but I persuaded him. But he’s nervous and ill and irritable. I did not want to run the risk of his seeing you.”
I told Mrs. Trafford the bare facts of my story and she listened attentively. Now and then she nodded her head. But I could not hope to make her understand the commotion I had found at Blackstable. The town was beside itself with excitement. Nothing so thrilling had happened there for years and no one could talk of anything else. Humpty Dumpty had had a great fall. Lord George Kemp had absconded. About a week before he had announced that he had to go up to London on business, and two days later a petition in bankruptcy was filed against him. It appeared that his building operations had not been successful, his attempt to make Blackstable into a frequented seaside resort meeting with no response, and he had been forced to raise money in every way he could. All kinds of
