Ричард Марш
Confessions of a Young Lady: Her Doings and Misdoings
VIII
THE PRINCESS MARGARETTA
She was not only charming-quite common women are sometimes charming- but there was about her an air of dignity which-I had almost written which was indescribable. She made you feel what an altogether superior person she was, and what an altogether inferior person you were, and yet she did it in a way which really almost made you feel as if she flattered you; paid you a delicate compliment, in fact. I recognised this peculiarity about her from the first.
She made her first appearance on the pier. And an extraordinary sensation she made. Nobody knew who she was, and yet anybody could see that she was somebody. There was, even about the way in which she carried her parasol-my wife noticed it at the time-an indefinable something which marked her out as not being one of the rank and file.
It was one morning when the band was playing that she first appeared. That same night she was at the entertainment in the pavilion. The "Caledonian Opera Company" were there that week, and even the shilling seats were crowded. She was in the second row among the shillings. And by the greatest chance in the world Grimshaw happened to make her acquaintance. He sat in the next seat to her. She dropped her programme; he picked it up; and so the acquaintance was made.
Her behaviour towards him was instinct with the greatest condescension. Grimshaw assured me that he was almost overwhelmed. She really treated him as if he had been her equal; as if he had been an acquaintance of some standing. She allowed him to escort her to her hotel. And she told him all about herself; and, of course, it all came out.
This divinely beautiful woman-I have never heard a word whispered against her beauty, even by the women-was the Princess Margaretta. She had taken a suite of rooms at the hotel-quite a palatial suite, considering-and she had come to stay at Beachington for the season.
I suppose there is no place anywhere where people of rank and position may expect to receive a warmer welcome than at Beachington.
When it was known that the Princess Margaretta was staying at the "Parade Hotel," all the inhabitants of Beachington called upon her, one might say, within five minutes. The inhabitants of Beachington do not, as a rule, call upon visitors. They are rather a higgledy-piggledy lot, are visitors. In general, they are only welcomed by the hotel proprietors, and lodging-house keepers, and the tradesmen and that class of person. But, in the case of a Princess, Beachington society felt that, as a society it had its duties to fulfil, and it fulfilled them. In that statement you have the situation.
The Princess received everybody. I must own that, for my part, I was a little surprised. She received the Pattens, for instance. And the Pattens are nothing and nobody. It was like their impudence to call on a Princess. Patten was only in the Custom House. And as for his wife-we never even speak of his wife. Then she received the Jacksons. It is the belief, at Beachington, that old Jackson used to keep a public-house. It is not only that he suffers from a chronic thirst, but he looks like it. And there were other people. But then, of course, she could not be expected to be able to discriminate at first. She wanted an adviser. I am bound to say that, ere long, she had more advisers than perhaps she cared for. Some people are so pushing.
I assure you that I have never known Beachington livelier than it was that season. The Princess was a widow. There is something pathetic even in the mere state of widowhood. In the case of a young and beautiful woman the pathos is heightened. And the Princess was rich. She owned it with a most charming frankness. It seemed her husband had been an American, and he had added his fortune to her fortune, and the result was a mountain of wealth which weighed the Princess down. She spoke of handing it over to the starving millions, and being free again. As I have said, I had never imagined that Beachington could have been so lively.
I confess that I was taken aback when, one day, Grimshaw dragged me along the parade, past the asphalt, on to the rough ground, where there were no people, and put to me this question, -
"Beamish, do you think it would be impossible for a man to fight a duel nowadays?"
I stared at him. I asked him what he meant. Then it all came out.
Grimshaw was actually making eyes at the Princess Margaretta: Grimshaw is three years younger than I am, and I am fifty-five. He is short and stout, not to say puffy. He is balder than I am, and my wife says that for me to brush my hair is a farce. He lives in unfurnished rooms, for which he pays twenty pounds a year with attendance, and he has nothing but his half pay to live upon.
"Do you think that if I were to fix a public insult upon Crookshanks I could force him to call me out?"
Crookshanks-he calls himself "Surgeon-General" upon his cards; he is a retired army doctor-is about sixty. He has been a widower nearly twenty years. His eldest daughter is herself a widow. She has two children. Mother and children all live with him. He has two other daughters, both unmarried. Between them poor Crookshanks hardly dare call his soul his own. And yet Crookshanks was not only making up to the Princess, but, in Grimshaw's judgment, he was proving himself a dangerous rival.
I told Grimshaw that it was only because Crookshanks was a greater idiot than himself that he was not the greatest idiot in Beachington. I don't stand on ceremony with Grimshaw-I never have done.
"I don't know." Grimshaw mopped his brow. The slightest exertion makes him painfully warm. "If I could only get Crookshanks out of the way, I have reason to believe she cares for me."
I asked him what his reason was. He hesitated. When he spoke his tone was doubtful. I detected it, although he tried to disguise the thing.
"I lent her fifteen pounds. I don't think that a woman would borrow money from a man unless she cared for him. What do you think-eh, Beamish?"
I did not know what to think. I happen to know that Grimshaw's daily expenditure is measured out with mathematical exactness. I wanted to know where he got his fifteen pounds from. This time his tone was unmistakably rueful.
"I had to borrow it myself; and I had to pay a stiff price for it, too. She wanted it for flowers."
Wanted it for flowers! I told him that I thought he had more sense. Russian women are notoriously careless in money matters. Fifteen pounds were nothing to her, while to him-they were fifteen pounds. I promised that he would never see his money again. I left Grimshaw with his heart in his boots. He made no further reference to fighting Crookshanks.
But, the fact is, I soon found out that everybody was making love to the Princess Margaretta. Not only all the unmarried men but, unless rumour lied, some of the married men as well, There were some pretty scandals! Rouse, the curate of St Giles', had a tête-à-tête dinner with her in her private sitting-room, and stayed so late that the landlord of the "Parade Hotel" had to tell him it was time to go. I charged Rouse with it to his face. He had the grace to blush.
"The Princess is a member of the Greek Church-a most interesting subject." That is what he said. "I have hopes, Admiral, of winning her to the faith we hold so dear. It is only a passage in one of the Articles which keeps her back. I do not understand exactly how-it seems to be almost a question of grammar-yet so it is. But it would, indeed, be a triumph to win her from the Greeks."
What I objected to most was the conduct of young Marchmont. It was only shortly before that he had asked my permission to pay his attentions to our Daisy. And he had paid his attentions with a vengeance. Yet here he was dangling about the Princess's skirts as though he were tied to her apron-strings. I did not wish to have a discussion with him, for Daisy's sake; but I made up my mind to say a word to the Princess.
My chance came before I expected. She stopped me one afternoon on the Front. I was walking, she was in a carriage. She asked me to get in, so I got in, and away we drove.
"Do you know, Admiral," she began, "yesterday I made such a silly mistake. I called at your house, and I left the wrong card."
"The servant told me something about it. She said that you left a card with the name of 'Dowsett' on it."
"That is so-Dowsett." She leaned back in the carriage. She shaded herself with her parasol in such a way that, while her face must have been invisible to the people on the front, it was visible enough to me. She looked supremely lovely. No wonder all the men were after her-the beggars. "Do you know, Admiral, that, at one time, I had almost made up my mind to enter Beachington under false colours."
I asked her to explain. She did explain.
"You know that we, who, so to speak, are born in the purple, have moments in our lives in which we are conscious that title and honours are-what shall I say? – mere fripperies. One longs, now and then, to step down from the pedestal on which chance, rather than our desert, has placed us, and become-what shall I say again? – one of the masses. I don't know how it may be with others in my position, but it is often so with me. And to such an extent, that at one time I even thought of coming to Beachington as plain Mrs Dowsett. I thought it would be such fun, so obviously ridiculous, you know. I even had cards printed with the name of Dowsett on them. Wasn't it a curious fancy? I suppose one of them got mixed up with my own cards, and, in my silly way, I left it at your house by mistake." She paused, then she added: "My husband's name was Dowsett. He was an American of the finest kind. He was what they call in America, One of the Four Hundred."
"Then, if your husband's name was Dowsett, I presume that your name is Dowsett, too. So that you are Mrs Dowsett after all."
"My dear Admiral! Once a Princess always a Princess. I do not cease to be the Princess Margaretta because, by accident, I chance to have had a husband who was a commoner."
She said this in a way which showed that I had wounded her sensibilities.
Then I tried to bring the subject round to young Charles Marchmont. I got there by degrees. She caught up the hints I dropped with a quickness which confounded me.
"Poor Mr Marchmont! He is so utterly in love with me!"
"In love with you-Charles Marchmont!"
I stared. I almost let out that the young scoundrel was, nominally, engaged to Daisy-my little girl. But I did not choose to give my child away even to the Princess Margaretta.
"He has given me a hundred pounds."
I almost sprang from the carriage seat.
"Charles Marchmont has given you a hundred pounds!"
"I have not told him so, but I have almost made up my mind to devote it to the Russian Jews. It makes one so sad to think of them-don't you think that it makes one sad? All the world knows how deeply I am interested in the sufferings of my unfortunate compatriots. Because they are Hebrews, is that a reason why we should give them stones instead of bread? Oh, no! Are they not my fellow-creatures? But every one in Beachington has made my sympathies his own. It is beautiful!" The lovely creature wiped her lovely eyes. "Every one has showered gifts upon me-gifts of money and of money's worth. Even Mr Rouse has given me five pounds and a ring which was his mother's."
Poor Rouse! I doubt if he had any private means to speak of, and I know that the income from his curacy was only sixty pounds a year.
It is incredible-I am ashamed of myself when I think of it-but before I got out of that carriage, I actually gave her all the money I had in my purse. To the relief of the Russian Jews, I understood that it was to be devoted at the time, though I am free to admit that she did not make an exact statement of the fact. I did not dare to tell Mrs Beamish what I had done. I have never dared to tell her to this hour.
Two nights after Douglas came up to me on the pier. He was beaming with something-possibly with rapture. When he saw me, in the dim light, he rubbed his hands together-in a way he has.
"Congratulate me, Beamish! Congratulate me, my dear Beamish."
Before I congratulate a man, I like to know what I am expected to congratulate him on. I told him so. He dropped his voice to a sort of confidential whisper.
"She has promised to make me happy."
"She? Who?"
"The Princess Margaretta." He drew himself up. Douglas is a tall, thin man, so perhaps he thought that he would make himself still taller. "The Princess Margaretta, Beamish, that august and most beautiful lady, has, scarcely an hour ago-most auspicious hour of my existence! – promised to be my wife."
I was dumbfounded. I could only stare. Douglas is an old Indian Civil. He was Resident of-somewhere or other, I forget the name of the place. The driest old stick I ever yet encountered. As much fitted to be the husband of a fair young creature like the Princess Margaretta as-as I am.
"Yes, Beamish, I am to be married at last."
And quite time, too, ancient imbecile. I felt inclined to kick him as he stood there, smirking and twiddling his watch-chain.
"I have been making matrimonial approaches towards the Princess Margaretta almost since the moment in which she arrived at Beachington. I felt that such a woman as that must be mine, though, at the same time, I scarcely dared to hope. But the Princess is a woman of the widest sympathies. I am inclined to the belief that it is because I have made her sympathies my own that I have made her heart mine also. I presented her this afternoon with a cheque for a thousand guineas to be devoted to a cause in which she is much interested-the relief of the Russian Jews. It was, perhaps, for a person in my circumstances, a rash thing to do. But I do not regret it, for I am persuaded that it was that spontaneous act upon my part which induced her to say 'yes' to my whispered prayers."
I moved away from him; I could not congratulate him-I could not! I fancy that he was so lifted up in the seventh heaven of his happiness that he never noticed the omission.
On the other side of the pier I came upon Macbride. Macbride is a Yankee-a New England man; as keen and cute, and yet as nice a fellow as you would care to meet. He spends three or four months of every year in England on business, and, during that time, he is continually in and out of Beachington.
He was leaning over the railings, looking down at the sea, when I came up to him.
"Macbride," I said, "did you ever hear anything in the States of a man named Dowsett?"
He knew what I was driving at immediately. That man knows everything!
"The Princess's Dowsett?"
"That's it. I see you know that her husband's name was Dowsett."
Macbride considered a moment before he spoke.
"It's my opinion that there never was a Dowsett."
"Macbride! Why, she told me so herself!"
"I imagine that she may have told you a good many things which belong to that order of fiction which is distinctly a stranger to truth." He was silent; although I could not see his face, I guessed, somehow, he was smiling. "It is my further opinion-I mention it to you, because I think that you are beginning to suspect as much yourself-that the Princess is no better than she ought to be."
I gasped. If she had been doing us! What would Mrs Beamish say? I had staked my reputation on the woman.
"Do you know that she has promised to marry Douglas?"
"I know she has. I also know-from her own lips, so the authority is an unquestionable one-that there is more than one man in Beachington who is under the pleasing impression that she has promised to marry him. For instance, she has more than half promised to marry me. And I, for my part, am more than half inclined to marry her."
"Macbride! when you say that you think she is no better than she ought to be!"
"If you consider, how many women are there who are any better than they ought to be? Where shall you find a perfect woman? And Heaven protect us from her when she's found. Possibly you misconstrue my meaning. When I state that I believe her to be no better than she ought to be, I make a statement which, in my judgment, applies to all the women I ever met, not to speak of all the men. I think-I am not sure, but I think-that I understand the Princess Margaretta. I think, also, that she understands me. There is one advantage gained-a common understanding-especially as I am myself, in some respects, a rather peculiar person." For the first time he stood up, turned, and faced me. "Beamish, the Princess Margaretta is a clever woman. What she wants is a clever man. With a clever man she might be happy, and she might make him happy. Her misfortune has been that, up to now, the men she has encountered have been, generally speaking, fools."
I could not make him out. And I not only could not make him out, but I did not know what to say to him. What can you say to a man who tells you that he thinks a woman is no better than she ought to be, and then, in the very same breath, that he is more than half inclined to marry her? And that when he knows that she has not only promised to marry another man, but, as he more than hints, half a dozen other men besides.
The following morning, just as I was going to start for my morning stroll, the servant came and said that a "gentleman" wished to see me. She hesitated as she said "gentleman," as if she were doubtful if that word exactly applied.
"Admiral Beamish?" enquired the visitor as I entered the room into which the maid had shown him. I told him that I was that individual. "Can you tell me what is my wife's present address? She appears to have changed her lodging. I am Mr Dowsett."
I stared. The visitor was a small, insignificant, sandy-haired, mild-looking individual of about forty years of age. No wonder the servant had hesitated to call him a "gentleman." He carried "small shopkeeper" on him, written large.
"I don't understand you. I fancy there is some mistake," I said.
The stranger eyed me as though the mere tone of my voice filled him with alarm.
"Perhaps so. But my wife told me that she had the honour of your acquaintance, She mentioned your name in her last letter."
"Your wife? Who is your wife?"
"My wife is Mrs Dowsett."
"Dowsett?" A cold shiver went down my back. I had heard the name before. "Is it possible that you are referring to the Princess Margaretta?"
"The-who?"
"The Princess Margaretta-who, as all the world knows, is staying at the 'Parade Hotel'?"
"I hope not-I do hope not. I hope she's not gone so far as the Princess Margaretta."
The little man wrung his hands together as if he were positively suffering pain.
"The Princess did say that her late husband's name was Dowsett. Perhaps you are a relation of his?"
"Her late husband! I'm her present husband, if it's Mrs Dowsett. But perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me what kind of party the Princess Margaretta is-I mean to look at."
I told him. I described the Princess's many charms. I spoke of her glorious hair, her great blue eyes, her irresistible smile, her exquisite figure, her bearing of great lady. I did not do her justice-who can do a beautiful woman justice by a mere description? – but I apparently did her sufficient justice to enable him to recognise the picture I had drawn. When I had finished, that little man dropped into a chair with what sounded to me very like a cry of anguish.
"It's Eliza!" That is how he referred to the Princess Margaretta-the, as she had given me to understand, near relation to the Romanoffs, the reigning Russian family. "She's done it again! And worse than ever! – After all she promised!"
When I understood what his broken exclamations might mean, I began to perspire.
"I fear that you and I, sir, are at cross purposes. May I ask you to explain! And, first of all, be so good as to tell me who you are."
"That's me." He took from his pocket a card, a common tradesman's card, on which was printed "James Dowsett. Grocer and General Provision Merchant," with an address at Islington. "That's me," he repeated with an air of positive pride, "that's who I am. And I'll do you as good a tea at one and ten as you'll get anywhere in London, though I say it."
"And do you mean to tell me," I gasped, "that the Princess Margaretta is not a widow, not-not a relation of the Romanoffs, but-but a small grocer's actual wife?"
"Not such a small grocer's as you might think. I could give you a banker's reference which perhaps would startle you. It isn't always them, you know, who carry things off with the biggest air who are the biggest."
"But," I cried, "are you aware, sir, that the person whom you assert to be your wife, has, here in Beachington, laid claim to Royal rank?"
The little man's air of modest pride disappeared with even comic suddenness.
"Not to Royal rank? Not quite to Royal rank, I hope?"
"But I say yes-I say yes. She told me with her own lips that she was a near relation to the Russian Czar."
Mr Dowsett began again to wring his hands.
"Oh, Eliza, what have you done?"
"If the person you refer to as 'Eliza'-great powers, what a name! – is the person who calls herself the Princess Margaretta, then she has been guilty of the most impudent fraud of which I ever heard, and proved herself to be a swindler of the purest water."
Mr Dowsett stared, or, rather, glared at me. He drew himself to his full height-five foot three inches. He turned pale with rage; he actually shook his fist in my face.
"Don't you call my wife a swindler, you-you old villain!"
I was astounded.
"May I ask, Mr Dowsett, what language you would apply to a person who, being a grocer's wife, calls herself a widow, in possession of a large fortune, a Princess in her own right, and a near relative of the reigning Czar?"
Mr Dowsett looked at me, as if he were at a loss for words. Then, to my surprise and my disgust, he began to cry. Mr Dowsett appeared to be a man of variable moods.
"You sha'n't call her a swindler, you sha'n't! She's no more a swindler than you are. It's all them-them dratted books."
"Dratted books, Mr Dowsett? What do you mean?"
"It's them penny novelettes and the stories in the fashion papers, and that stuff. She gets reading about things, and then she thinks she's the things she reads about. I'll tell you what she said to me not very long ago. 'Jimmy,' she said-I'm Jimmy-'let's pretend that I'm a duchess. I've been reading about such a beautiful duchess. Let's pretend I'm her.' So we did, just her and me. I called her 'Your Grace,' and all. We kept it up for nearly a month. Then she said, 'Jimmy, I'm tired of being a duchess. I've been reading such a lovely story about a lone, lorn orphan. Let's pretend I'm a lone, lorn orphan, whom you picked up out of the streets, for a change.' So we pretended that she was a lone, lorn orphan who'd gone through enough to make your hair go grey. But, there! I don't know what we haven't pretended she was."
That any man could be capable of such childish imbecility seemed to me almost incredible. But then man's capacity of imbecility is incredible. Consider how a man of my standing had been induced to receive a grocer's wife as a Royal Princess!
"May I ask, Mr Dowsett, how you came to allow your wife to come to Beachington unaccompanied by her husband?"
"Well, sir, it was this way. I was more than usually busy this year, and Eliza was anxious for a change, and she begged me to let her go, so I let her go."
"And do you mean to tell me that she has given you no hint of what she has been doing since she came?"
"Lor' bless you, she's written to me every day, regular. The best letters ever you saw-that funny! How I have laughed at them, oh lor'!" Mr Dowsett seemed inclined to laugh even at the recollection. "But, to tell you the truth, I didn't know what was true in them and what was make-believe. She did say that she told every one that she was a Princess, and that every one took her for one; but I never thought for a moment she was in earnest. Though goodness knows that she's clever enough, and beautiful enough for one, isn't she, sir?" I didn't tell him what I thought; though I felt that in the truth of that lay my excuse. "She wouldn't give me her address. She said it would spoil the fun. So I sent my letters to the post-office."
"Did you, indeed? There appear to be some curious husbands and wives in existence nowadays, but scarcely a more curious couple, I apprehend, Mr Dowsett, than you and the-lady whom I know as the Princess Margaretta. Although you do not know her address, I do. So, with your permission, we will pay an immediate visit to the Princess Margaretta."
When we pulled up in front of the "Parade Hotel," the little man gave a little start.
"My gracious! Is she staying here? She did mention once that she was stopping at the biggest hotel in the place. But I thought that was her fun. Oh, Eliza, what have you done?"
As he went into the hotel Grimshaw was coming out. He seemed to be in a state of considerable agitation. He addressed me almost at the top of his voice.
"Beamish, you will find Crookshanks lying senseless on the landing. When he comes to, tell him that I shall be perfectly ready to give him the satisfaction of a gentleman."
He went striding off, without giving me a chance to request him to be a little more explicit. We did not find Crookshanks lying senseless on the landing. We met him coming down the stairs, with his handkerchief to his nose. He looked at us askance.
"Is Major Grimshaw downstairs?"
He put the question to me in a sort of anxious whisper.
"Grimshaw's just gone out."
"You are quite sure he's gone?
"Certainly. He just now passed me."
"Thank you. I-I was afraid he might be waiting down below."
He continued sneaking down the stairs, as if a weight had been taken off his mind. I had expected better things of Crookshanks. But perhaps those three girls of his have knocked the heart all out of him.
Unannounced I entered the Princess Margaretta's sitting-room. I wanted to take her unawares. I took her unawares. Quite a dramatic little scene seemed to be taking place within. Old Douglas and Mr Macbride appeared to be indulging in that kind of conversation in which one does not care to indulge in the presence of a lady.
When the Princess saw who had come in with me, she came dashing forward. She gave a little cry of joy.
"Oh, Jimmy!" She actually threw herself upon his breast in the presence of us all. "You dear, I'm so glad you've come. I'm tired to death of being the Princess Margaretta."
The little grocer seemed to be as happy as a king when he had her in his arms, as though he asked for nothing more.
Macbride declared that he had suspected something of the truth all through. But I doubt it. She had been "playing" at being the Princess Margaretta-to think of that minx's brazen impudence! Every one got back his own again. I even got back the contents of my purse. But when he was presented with the bill at the hotel that grocer must have stared.
To my mind Beachington has never been the same since the incident of the Princess Margaretta.
