A female servant at No. 35, a much larger house, was seeking to engage him in conversation. This was not the first, the second, nor the third time that she had sought to gain the friendship and—who knows—perhaps, the hand of the ‘gentleman ‘valet in the mysterious house.
‘No, we’re not puffed up with pride,’ answered Reggie, ‘but we don’t converse with menials.’
‘Not when we’ve got our white waistcoat on, eh?’ the girl replied. ‘My word, you are a toff! You’re a deal toffier than your gov’nor. You’re too good for your guv, that’s what you are.’
‘Look here, Ada, we don’t need to go into that.’
The maid was not even pretty. She had a face of the colour and texture of pink blotting-paper. It was of the tint often to be seen on a hard-working hand, unbecoming on the hand, unpleasant on the face. He had no use for her.
‘Not so much of your Ada! My name ain’t Ada,’ she said, tilting up her nose.
‘I thought all scullery-maids were called Ada,’ answered Reggie.
‘That shows what little you know about scullery-maids, mister, and you don’t know anything at all about me. I’m not a scullery-maid. I’m an under-housemaid. £16 a year and beer money. That’s what I am. Scullery-maid, indeed!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ replied Reggie, who had no desire to prolong the conversation. He was on the point of shutting the door, but the girl was agog for a chat. ‘Next door’ was the great topic of conversation in the servants’ hall. ‘Next door’ was a mystery, and the valet of ‘Next door’ was the most glorious valet there had ever been. Apparently he had a position which for lack of labour was the ideal that all gentlemen’s valets strove to find. If his remuneration were in proportion to the comfort of his place, he would make a most desirable husband. That was the universal opinion in the servants’ hall of No. 35.
‘Don’t go in, mister,’ she pleaded.
‘Why not, miss?’ he answered.
‘Don’t call me miss: it’s so stiff like. Call me Nellie.’
‘I decline to call anyone Nellie. It’s a most repulsive name. I regret that your name is Nellie, but,’ he added judicially, ‘I am afraid you deserve it.’
‘Oh, don’t start chipping me, and don’t you go in, neither. Your guv. will be pleased to meet you when he comes back. It will be a great help for him to find you standing there.’
‘What do you mean?’ he inquired in surprise.
‘Well, if he don’t sober-up before he gets home, it will be a difficult job to get him indoors. He was that drunk! And I know something about drunkenness myself, Mr Man. I once had to give notice to one of my guvs for intemperitude. And he never was what you might call rolling drunk: he merely got cursing and fault-finding drunk. But I gave him some of my lip, I can tell you. A nice example to set the other servants!’
‘Who are you talking about?’ persisted Reggie.
‘Who should I be talking about but your guv.’
‘Well, then…Nellie, you’re not talking sense. Sir Clifford is a teetotaller.’
The words had slipped from him in his surprise.
‘Oh, he is a Sir Clifford, is he? Well, that’s something to know. Sir Clifford what, pray?’
But he would go no further.
‘Well, it’s something to know he is Sir Clifford. I don’t suppose there’s so many Sir Cliffords kicking about that I shan’t be able to find out what his full name is. Lor’, he was that drunk I thought he would never get into the cab. I thought I should have died of laughing. Oh, he’s a bad hat, your Sir Clifford is…to go about with a creature like that: a drab I call her.’
‘Look here,’ interjected Reggie, sternly, ‘what are you talking about?’
‘Oh, you want to know, do you? I’ve interested you at last, have I?’
She placed a value on her information.
‘Give me a kiss, mister, and I’ll tell you.’
She coquettishly put up her rough red face and he paid the price. He did not like paying it, and she did not regard his payment as liberal.
‘Why, our Buttons kisses better than that,’ she said. ‘Being kissed by you is like catching a cold. It’s a pity, isn’t it, that gentlemen’s servants aren’t allowed to grow moustaches? That’s where postmen have a pull. When I was living in Westbourne Terrace, I once walked out with a postman…he was proper, I can tell you…’
But Reggie stemmed the tide of amorous recollection. He insisted on knowing what she had seen.
Very deliberately, and in a manner entirely convincing, she said:
‘Just about a quarter past eleven I happened to be standing here; never you mind what for, old inquisitive, but my folks were at the theatre and I do what I like and no questions asked. I should like to see anybody ask ’em. They wouldn’t get any answer, not much…only a month’s warning. Suddenly your door opened and a sort of untidy middle-class woman comes out with your guv. He was so drunk he couldn’t stand. I thought she would have dropped ’im. She must have been a strong woman! But she got him into a four-wheeler as was waiting. Then she comes back and shuts the door, says something to the driver, jumps in, and off they goes. Such goings-on! And not the sort of woman a gentleman should keep company with, to my way o’ thinking; but when the drink takes ’em, you never know. I had a uncle—a Uncle Robert—who was just the same; he was an oil and colourman, too, in a fair way of business. Oh, dash, there’s our rubbish coming back. Must be going. So long!’
And she disappeared down the area as a motor-brougham, with the servants in conspicuous semi-military grey uniforms, dashed up.
Reggie, completely mystified, entered the house. A great weight was taken off his mind.
‘It is much better,’ he reflected, ‘to be drunk than dead…not so dignified, perhaps, but on the whole better…infinitely better.… Besides, I shan’t lose my job.’
ENGROSSED in thought, Harding scarcely noticed where he was going. His mind was full of the extraordinary circumstances that had occurred.
Automatically he stopped in front of his house. But he hesitated to go in. The December night was clear and crisp. It seemed to him improbable that were he to go to bed, he would sleep.
Therefore he walked on to Piccadilly, and eastwards past the Circus.
Suddenly he felt a hand clapped upon his shoulder, and a hearty voice inquired:
‘Are you on your way to the Gridiron?’
He turned round to find himself in the presence of Lampson Lake, a jovial, middle-aged man whose chief characteristic was his extraordinary versatility in failure. He had failed at everything, and on that account, perhaps, was universally popular with successful men.
At the mention of the club’s name Harding realised that he was hungry and the two turned into the Gridiron.
The single long room which constituted the famous club was desolate except for two men, Sir Algernon Spiers, the famous architect, and Frederick Robinson, a somewhat obscure novelist, who were seated together at the table.
The newcomers took two seats next them.
Robinson, a wisp of a man with a figure like a note of interrogation and hair brushed straight