Jessie, the neat and pretty parlour-maid, opened the door with a smile of welcome which Horace found reassuring. No girl, he thought, whose master had suddenly been transformed into a mule could possibly smile like that. The Professor, she told him, was not at home, which again was comforting. For a savant, however careless about his personal appearance, would scarcely venture to brave public opinion in the semblance of a quadruped.
"Is the Professor out?" he inquired, to make sure.
"Not exactly out, sir," said the maid, "but particularly engaged, working hard in his study, and not to be disturbed on no account."
This was encouraging, too, since a mule could hardly engage in literary labour of any kind. Evidently the Jinnee must either have overrated his supernatural powers, or else have been deliberately amusing himself at Horace's expense.
"Then I will see Miss Futvoye," he said.
"Miss Sylvia is with the master, sir," said the girl; "but if you'll come into the drawing-room I'll let Mrs. Futvoye know you are here."
He had not been in the drawing-room long before Mrs. Futvoye appeared, and one glance at her face confirmed Ventimore's worst fears. Outwardly she was calm enough, but it was only too obvious that her calmness was the result of severe self-repression; her eyes, usually so shrewdly and placidly observant, had a haggard and hunted look; her ears seemed on the strain to catch some distant sound.
"I hardly thought we should see you to-day," she began, in a tone of studied reserve; "but perhaps you came to offer some explanation of the extraordinary manner in which you thought fit to entertain us last night? If so----"
"The fact is," said Horace, looking into his hat, "I came because I was rather anxious about the Professor.
"About my husband?" said the poor lady, with a really heroic effort to appear surprised. "He is--as well as could be expected. Why should you suppose otherwise?" she asked, with a flash of suspicion.
"I fancied perhaps that--that he mightn't be quite himself to-day," said Horace, with his eyes on the carpet.
"I see," said Mrs. Futvoye, regaining her composure; "you were afraid that all those foreign dishes might not have agreed with him. But--except that he is a little irritable this afternoon--he is much as usual."
"I'm delighted to hear it," said Horace, with reviving hope. "Do you think he would see me for a moment?"
"Great heavens, no!" cried Mrs. Futvoye, with an irrepressible start; "I mean," she explained, "that, after what took place last night, Anthony--my husband--very properly feels that an interview would be too painful."
"But when we parted he was perfectly friendly."
"I can only say," replied the courageous woman, "that you would find him considerably altered now."
Horace had no difficulty in believing it.
"At least, I may see Sylvia?" he pleaded.
"No," said Mrs. Futvoye; "I really can't have Sylvia disturbed just now. She is very busy, helping her father. Anthony has to read a paper at one of his societies to-morrow night, and she is writing it out from his dictation."
If any departure from strict truth can ever be excusable, this surely was one; unfortunately, just then Sylvia herself burst into the room.
"Mother," she cried, without seeing Horace in her agitation, "do come to papa, quick! He has just begun kicking again, and I can't manage him alone.... Oh, you here?" she broke off, as she saw who was in the room. "Why do you come here now, Horace? Please, please go away! Papa is rather unwell--nothing serious, only--oh, do go away!"
"Darling!" said Horace, going to her and taking both her hands, "I know all--do you understand?--all!"
"Mamma!" cried Sylvia, reproachfully, "have you told him--already? When we settled that even Horace wasn't to know till--till papa recovers!"
"I have told him nothing, my dear," replied her mother. "He can't possibly know, unless--but no, that isn't possible. And, after all," she added, with a warning glance at her daughter, "I don't know why we should make any mystery about a mere attack of gout. But I had better go and see if your father wants anything." And she hurried out of the room.
Sylvia sat down and gazed silently into the fire. "I dare say you don't know how dreadfully people kick when they've got gout," she remarked presently.
"Oh yes, I do," said Horace, sympathetically; "at least, I can guess."
"Especially when it's in both legs," continued Sylvia.
"Or," said Horace gently, "in all four."
"Ah, you do know!" cried Sylvia. "Then it's all the more horrid of you to come!"
"Dearest," said Horace, "is not this just the time when my place should be near you--and him?"
"Not near papa, Horace!" she put in anxiously; "it wouldn't be at all safe."
"Do you really think I have any fear for myself?"
"Are you sure you quite know--what he is like now?"
"I understand," said Horace, trying to put it as considerately as possible, "that a casual observer, who didn't know your father, might mistake him, at first sight, for--for some sort of quadruped."
"He's a mule," sobbed Sylvia, breaking down entirely. "I could bear it better if he had been a nice mule.... B--but he isn't!"
"Whatever he may be," declared Horace, as he knelt by her chair endeavouring to comfort her, "nothing can alter my profound respect for him. And you must let me see him, Sylvia; because I fully believe I shall be able to cheer him up."
"If you imagine you can persuade him to--to laugh it off!" said Sylvia, tearfully.
"I wasn't proposing to try to make him see the humorous side of his situation," Horace mildly explained. "I trust I have more tact than that. But he may be glad to know that, at the worst, it is only a temporary inconvenience. I'll take care that he's all right again before very long."
She started up and looked at him, her eyes widened with dawning dread and mistrust.
"If you can speak like that," she said, "it must have been you who--no, I can't believe it--that would be too horrible!"
"I who did what, Sylvia? Weren't you there when--when it happened?"
"No," she replied. "I was only told of it afterwards. Mother heard papa talking loudly in his study this morning, as if he was angry with somebody, and at last she grew so uneasy she couldn't bear it any longer, and went in to see what was the matter with him. Dad was quite alone and looked as usual, only a little excited; and then, without the slightest warning, just as she entered the room, he--he changed slowly into a mule before her eyes! Anybody but mamma would have lost her head and roused the whole house."
"Thank Heaven she didn't!" said Horace, fervently. "That was what I was most afraid of."
"Then--oh, Horace, it was you! It's no use denying it. I feel more certain of it every moment!"
"Now, Sylvia!" he protested, still anxious, if possible, to keep the worst from her, "what could have put such an idea as that into your head?"
"I don't know," she said slowly. "Several things last night. No one who was really nice, and like everybody else, would live in such queer rooms like those, and dine on cushions, with dreadful black slaves, and--and dancing-girls and things. You pretended you were quite poor."
"So I am, darling. And as for my rooms, and--and the rest, they're all gone, Sylvia. If you went to Vincent Square to-day, you wouldn't find a trace of them!"
"That only shows!" said Sylvia. "But why should you play such a cruel, and--and ungentlemanly trick on poor dad? If you had ever really loved me----!"
"But I do, Sylvia, you can't really believe me capable of such an outrage! Look at me and tell me so."
"No, Horace," said Sylvia frankly. "I don't believe you did it. But I believe you know who did. And you had better tell me at once!"
"If you're quite sure you can stand it," he replied, "I'll tell you everything." And, as briefly as possible, he told her how he had unsealed the brass bottle, and all that had come of it.
She bore it, on the whole, better than he had expected; perhaps, being a woman, it was some consolation to her to remind him that she had foretold something of this kind from the very first.
"But, of course, I never really thought it would be so awful as this!" she said. "Horace, how could you be so careless as to let a great wicked thing like that escape out of its bottle?"
"I had a notion it was a manuscript," said Horace--"till he came out. But he isn't a great wicked thing, Sylvia. He's an amiable old Jinnee enough. And he'd do anything for me. Nobody could be more grateful and generous than he has been."
"Do you call it generous to change the poor, dear dad into a mule?" inquired Sylvia, with a little curl of her upper lip.
"That was an oversight," said Horace; "he meant no harm by it. In Arabia they do these things--or used to in his day. Not that that's much excuse for him. Still, he's not so young as he was, and besides, being bottled up for all those centuries must have narrowed him rather. You must try and make allowances for him, darling."
"I shan't," said Sylvia, "unless he apologises to poor father, and puts him right at once."
"Why, of course, he'll do that," Horace answered confidently. "I'll see that he does. I don't mean to stand any more of his nonsense. I'm afraid I've been just a little too slack for fear of hurting his feelings; but this time he's gone too far, and I shall talk to him like a Dutch uncle. He's always ready to do the right thing when he's once shown where he has gone wrong--only he takes such a lot of showing, poor old chap!"
"But when do you think he'll--do the right thing?"
"Oh, as soon as I see him again."
"Yes; but when will you see him again?"
"That's more than I can say. He's away just now--in China, or Peru, or somewhere."
"Horace! Then he won't be back for months and months!"
"Oh yes, he will. He can do the whole trip, aller et retour, you know, in a few hours. He's an active old beggar for his age. In the meantime, dearest, the chief thing is to keep up your father's spirits. So I think I'd better---- I was just telling Sylvia, Mrs. Futvoye," he said, as that lady re-entered the room, "that I should like to see the Professor at once."
"It's quite, quite impossible!" was the nervous reply. "He's in such a state that he's unable to see any one. You don't know how fractious gout makes him!"
"Dear Mrs. Futvoye," said Horace, "believe me, I know more than you suppose."
"Yes, mother, dear," put in Sylvia, "he knows everything--really everything. And perhaps it might do dad good to see him."
Mrs. Futvoye sank helplessly down on a settee. "Oh, dear me!" she said. "I don't know what to say. I really don't. If you had seen him plunge at the mere suggestion of a doctor!"
Privately, though naturally he could not say so, Horace thought a vet. might be more appropriate, but eventually he persuaded Mrs. Futvoye to conduct him to her husband's study.
"Anthony, love," she said, as she knocked gently at the door, "I've brought Horace Ventimore to see you for a few moments, if he may."
It seemed from the sounds of furious snorting and stamping within, that the Professor resented this intrusion on his privacy. "My dear Anthony," said his devoted wife, as she unlocked the door and turned the key on the inside after admitting Horace, "try to be calm. Think of the servants downstairs. Horace is so anxious to help."
As for Ventimore, he was speechless--so inexpressibly shocked was he by the alteration in the Professor's appearance. He had never seen a mule in sorrier condition or in so vicious a temper. Most of the lighter furniture had been already reduced to matchwood; the glass doors of the bookcase were starred or shivered; precious Egyptian pottery and glass were strewn in fragments on the carpets, and even the mummy, though it still smiled with the same enigmatic cheerfulness, seemed to have suffered severely from the Professorial hoofs.
Horace instinctively felt that any words of conventional sympathy would jar here; indeed, the Professor's attitude and expression reminded him irresistibly of a certain "Blondin Donkey" he had seen enacted by music-hall artists, at the point where it becomes sullen and defiant. Only, he had laughed helplessly at the Blondin Donkey, and somehow he felt no inclination to laugh now.
"Believe me, sir," he began, "I would not disturb you like this unless--steady there, for Heaven's sake Professor, don't kick till you've heard me out!" For, the mule, in a clumsy, shambling way which betrayed the novice, was slowly revolving on his own axis so as to bring his hind-quarters into action, while still keeping his only serviceable eye upon his unwelcome visitor.
"Listen to me, sir," said Horace, manoeuvring in his turn. "I'm not to blame for this, and if you brain me, as you seem to be endeavouring to do, you'll simply destroy the only living man who can get you out of this."
The mule appeared impressed by this, and backed cumbrously into a corner, from which he regarded Horace with a mistrustful, but attentive, eye. "If, as I imagine, sir," continued Horace, "you are, though temporarily deprived of speech, perfectly capable of following an argument, will you kindly signify it by raising your right ear?" The mule's right ear rose with a sharp twitch.
"Now we can get on," said Horace. "First let me tell you that I repudiate all responsibility for the proceedings of that infernal Jinnee.... I wouldn't stamp like that--you might go through the floor, you know.... Now, if you will only exercise a little patience----"
At this the exasperated animal made a sudden run at him with his mouth open, which obliged Horace to shelter himself behind a large leather arm-chair. "You really must keep cool, sir," he remonstrated; "your nerves are naturally upset. If I might suggest a little champagne--you could manage it in--in a bucket, and it would help you to pull yourself together. A whisk of your--er--tail would imply consent." The Professor's tail instantly swept some rare Arabian glass lamps and vases from a shelf at his rear, whereupon Mrs. Futvoye went out, and returned presently with a bottle of champagne and a large china jardiniere, as the best substitute she could find for a bucket.
When the mule had drained the flower-pot greedily and appeared refreshed, Horace proceeded: "I have every hope, sir," he said, "that before many hours you will be smiling--pray don't prance like that, I mean what I say--smiling over what now seems to you, very justly, a most annoying and serious catastrophe. I shall speak seriously to Fakrash (the Jinnee, you know), and I am sure that, as soon as he realises what a frightful blunder he has made, he will be the first to offer you every reparation in his power. For, old foozle as he is, he's thoroughly good-hearted."
The Professor drooped his ears at this, and shook his head with a doleful incredulity that made him look more like the Pantomime Donkey than ever.
"I think I understand him fairly well by this time, sir," said Horace, "and I'll answer for it that there's no real harm in him. I give you my word of honour that, if you'll only remain quiet and leave everything to me, you shall very soon be released from this absurd position. That's all I came to tell you, and now I won't trouble you any longer. If you could bring yourself, as a sign that you bear me no ill-feeling, to give me your--your off-foreleg at parting, I----"
But the Professor turned his back in so pointed and ominous a manner that Horace judged it better to withdraw without insisting further. "I'm afraid," he said to Mrs. Futvoye, after they had rejoined Sylvia in the drawing-room--"I'm afraid your husband is still a little sore with me about this miserable business."
"I don't know what else you can expect," replied the lady, rather tartly; "he can't help feeling--as we all must and do, after what you said just now--that, but for you, this would never have happened!"
"If you mean it was all through my attending that sale," said Horace, "you might remember that I only went there at the Professor's request. You know that, Sylvia."
"Yes, Horace," said Sylvia; "but papa never asked you to buy a hideous brass bottle with a nasty Genius in it. And any one with ordinary common sense would have kept it properly corked!"
"What, you against me too, Sylvia!" cried Horace, cut to the quick.
"No, Horace, never against you. I didn't mean to say what I did. Only it is such a relief to put the blame on somebody. I know, I know you feel it almost as much as we do. But so long as poor, dear papa remains as he is, we can never be anything to one another. You must see that, Horace!"
"Yes, I see that," he said; "but trust me, Sylvia, he shall not remain as he is. I swear he shall not. In another day or two, at the outside, you will see him his own self once more. And then--oh, darling, darling, you won't let anything or anybody separate us? Promise me that!"
He would have held her in his arms, but she kept him at a distance. "When papa is himself again," she said, "I shall know better what to say. I can't promise anything now, Horace."
Horace recognised that no appeal would draw a more definite answer from her just then; so he took his leave, with the feeling that, after all, matters must improve before very long, and in the meantime he must bear the suspense with patience.
He got through dinner as well as he could in his own rooms, for he did not like to go to his club lest the Jinnee should suddenly return during his absence.
"If he wants me he'd be quite equal to coming on to the club after me," he reflected, "for he has about as much sense of the fitness of things as Mary's lamb. I shouldn't care about seeing him suddenly bursting through the floor of the smoking-room. Nor would the committee."
He sat up late, in the hope that Fakrash would appear; but the Jinnee made no sign, and Horace began to get uneasy. "I wish there was some way of ringing him up," he thought. "If he were only the slave of a ring or a lamp, I'd rub it; but it wouldn't be any use to rub that bottle--and, besides, he isn't a slave. Probably he has a suspicion that he has not exactly distinguished himself over his latest feat, and thinks it prudent to keep out of my way for the present. But if he fancies he'll make things any better for himself by that he'll find himself mistaken."
It was maddening to think of the unhappy Professor still fretting away hour after hour in the uncongenial form of a mule, waiting impatiently for the relief that never came. If it lingered much longer, he might actually starve, unless his family thought of getting in some oats for him, and he could be prevailed upon to touch them. And how much longer could they succeed in concealing the nature of his affliction? How long before all Kensington, and the whole civilised world, would know that one of the leading Orientalists in Europe was restlessly prancing on four legs around his study in Cottesmore Gardens?
Racked by speculations such as these, Ventimore lay awake till well into the small hours, when he dropped off into troubled dreams that, wild as they were, could not be more grotesquely fantastic than the realities to which they were the alternative.
