Horace was feeling particularly happy as he walked back the next evening to Vincent Square. He had the consciousness of having done a good day's work, for the sketch-plans for Mr. Wackerbath's mansion were actually completed and despatched to his business address, while Ventimore now felt a comfortable assurance that his designs would more than satisfy his client.
But it was not that which made him so light of heart. That night his rooms were to be honoured for the first time by Sylvia's presence. She would tread upon his carpet, sit in his chairs, comment upon, and perhaps even handle, his books and ornaments--and all of them would retain something of her charm for ever after. If she only came! For even now he could not quite believe that she really would; that some untoward event would not make a point of happening to prevent her, as he sometimes doubted whether his engagement was not too sweet and wonderful to be true--or, at all events, to last.
As to the dinner, his mind was tolerably easy, for he had settled the remaining details of the menu with his landlady that morning, and he could hope that without being so sumptuous as to excite the Professor's wrath, it would still be not altogether unworthy--and what goods could be rare and dainty enough?--to be set before Sylvia.
He would have liked to provide champagne, but he knew that wine would savour of ostentation in the Professor's judgment, so he had contented himself instead with claret, a sound vintage which he knew he could depend upon. Flowers, he thought, were clearly permissible, and he had called at a florist's on his way and got some chrysanthemums of palest yellow and deepest terra-cotta, the finest he could see. Some of them would look well on the centre of the table in an old Nankin blue-and-white bowl he had; the rest he could arrange about the room: there would just be time to see to all that before dressing.
Occupied with these thoughts, he turned into Vincent Square, which looked vaster than ever with the murky haze, enclosed by its high railings, and under a wide expanse of steel-blue sky, across which the clouds were driving fast like ships in full sail scudding for harbour before a storm. Against the mist below, the young and nearly leafless trees showed flat, black profiles as of pressed seaweed, and the sky immediately above the house-tops was tinged with a sullen red from miles of lighted streets; from the river came the long-drawn tooting of tugs, mingled with the more distant wail and hysterical shrieks of railway engines on the Lambeth lines.
And now he reached the old semi-detached house in which he lodged, and noticed for the first time how the trellis-work of the veranda made, with the bared creepers and hanging baskets, a kind of decorative pattern against the windows, which were suffused with a roseate glow that looked warm and comfortable and hospitable. He wondered whether Sylvia would notice it when she arrived.
He passed under the old wrought-iron arch that once held an oil-lamp, and up a short but rather steep flight of steps, which led to a brick porch built out at the side. Then he let himself in, and stood spellbound with perplexed amazement,--for he was in a strange house.
In place of the modest passage with the yellow marble wall-paper, the mahogany hat-stand, and the elderly barometer in a state of chronic depression which he knew so well, he found an arched octagonal entrance-hall with arabesques of blue, crimson, and gold, and richly-embroidered hangings; the floor was marble, and from a shallow basin of alabaster in the centre a perfumed fountain rose and fell with a lulling patter.
"I must have mistaken the number," he thought, quite forgetting that his latch-key had fitted, and he was just about to retreat before his intrusion was discovered, when the hangings parted, and Mrs. Rapkin presented herself, making so deplorably incongruous a figure in such surroundings, and looking so bewildered and woebegone, that Horace, in spite of his own increasing uneasiness, had some difficulty in keeping his gravity.
"Oh, Mr. Ventimore, sir," she lamented; "whatever will you go and do next, I wonder? To think of your going and having the whole place done up and altered out of knowledge like this, without a word of warning! If any halterations were required, I do think as me and Rapkin had the right to be consulted."
Horace let all his chrysanthemums drop unheeded into the fountain. He understood now: indeed, he seemed in some way to have understood almost from the first, only he would not admit it even to himself.
The irrepressible Jinnee was at the bottom of this, of course. He remembered now having made that unfortunate remark the day before about the limited accommodation his rooms afforded.
Clearly Fakrash must have taken a mental note of it, and, with that insatiable munificence which was one of his worst failings, had determined, by way of a pleasant surprise, to entirely refurnish and redecorate the apartments according to his own ideas.
It was extremely kind of him; it showed a truly grateful disposition--"but, oh!" as Horace thought, in the bitterness of his soul, "if he would only learn to let well alone and mind his own business!"
However, the thing was done now, and he must accept the responsibility for it, since he could hardly disclose the truth. "Didn't I mention I was having some alterations made?" he said carelessly. "They've got the work done rather sooner than I expected. Were--were they long over it?"
"I'm sure I can't tell you, sir, having stepped out to get some things I wanted in for to-night; and Rapkin, he was round the corner at his reading-room; and when I come back it was all done and the workmen gone 'ome; and how they could have finished such a job in the time beats me altogether, for when we 'ad the men in to do the back kitchen they took ten days over it."
"Well," said Horace, evading this point, "however they've done this, they've done it remarkably well--you'll admit that, Mrs. Rapkin?"
"That's as may be sir," said Mrs. Rapkin, with a sniff, "but it ain't my taste, nor yet I don't think it will be Rapkin's taste when he comes to see it."
It was not Ventimore's taste either, though he was not going to confess it. "Sorry for that, Mrs. Rapkin," he said, "but I've no time to talk about it now. I must rush upstairs and dress."
"Begging your pardon, sir, but that's a total unpossibility--for they've been and took away the staircase.'
"Taken away the staircase? Nonsense!" cried Horace.
"So I think, Mr. Ventimore--but it's what them men have done, and if you don't believe me, come and see for yourself!"
She drew the hangings aside, and revealed to Ventimore's astonished gaze a vast pillared hall with a lofty domed roof, from which hung several lamps, diffusing a subdued radiance. High up in the wall, on his left, were the two windows which he judged to have formerly belonged to his sitting-room (for either from delicacy or inability, or simply because it had not occurred to him, the Jinnee had not interfered with the external structure), but the windows were now masked by a perforated and gilded lattice, which accounted for the pattern Horace had noticed from without. The walls were covered with blue-and-white Oriental tiles, and a raised platform of alabaster on which were divans ran round two sides of the hall, while the side opposite to him was pierced with horseshoe-shaped arches, apparently leading to other apartments. The centre of the marble floor was spread with costly rugs and piles of cushions, their rich hues glowing through the gold with which they were intricately embroidered.
"Well," said the unhappy Horace, scarcely knowing what he was saying, "it--it all looks very cosy, Mrs. Rapkin."
"It's not for me to say, sir; but I should like to know where you thought of dining?"
"Where?" said Horace. "Why, here, of course. There's plenty of room."
"There isn't a table left in the house," said Mrs. Rapkin; "so, unless you'd wish the cloth laid on the floor----"
"Oh, there must be a table somewhere," said Horace, impatiently, "or you can borrow one. Don't make difficulties, Mrs. Rapkin. Rig up anything you like.... Now I must be off and dress."
He got rid of her, and, on entering one of the archways, discovered a smaller room, in cedar-wood encrusted with ivory and mother-o'-pearl, which was evidently his bedroom. A gorgeous robe, stiff with gold and glittering with ancient gems, was laid out for him--for the Jinnee had thought of everything--but Ventimore, naturally, preferred his own evening clothes.
"Mr. Rapkin!" he shouted, going to another arch that seemed to communicate with the basement.
"Sir?" replied his landlord, who had just returned from his "reading-room," and now appeared, without a tie and in his shirt-sleeves, looking pale and wild, as was, perhaps, intelligible in the circumstances. As he entered his unfamiliar marble halls he staggered, and his red eyes rolled and his mouth gaped in a cod-like fashion. "They've been at it 'ere, too, seemin'ly," he remarked huskily.
"There have been a few changes," said Horace, quietly, "as you can see. You don't happen to know where they've put my dress-clothes, do you?"
"I don't 'appen to know where they've put nothink. Your dress clothes? Why, I dunno where they've bin and put our little parler where me and Maria 'ave set of a hevenin' all these years regular. I dunno where they've put the pantry, nor yet the bath-room, with 'ot and cold water laid on at my own expense. And you arsk me to find your hevenin' soot! I consider, sir, I consider that a unwall--that a most unwarrant-terrible liberty have bin took at my expense."
"My good man, don't talk rubbish!" said Horace.
"I'm talking to you about what I know, and I assert that an Englishman's 'ome is his cashle, and nobody's got the right when his backsh turned to go and make a 'Ummums of it. Not nobody 'asn't!"
"Make a what of it?" cried Ventimore.
"A 'Ummums--that's English, ain't it? A bloomin' Turkish baths! Who do you suppose is goin' to take apartments furnished in this 'ere ridic'loush style? What am I goin' to say to my landlord? It'll about ruing me, this will; and after you bein' a lodger 'ere for five year and more, and regarded by me and Maria in the light of one of the family. It's 'ard--it's damned 'ard!"
"Now, look here," said Ventimore, sharply--for it was obvious that Mr. Rapkin's studies had been lightened by copious refreshment--"pull yourself together, man, and listen to me."
"I respeckfully decline to pull myshelf togerrer f'r anybody livin'," said Mr. Rapkin, with a noble air. "I shtan' 'ere upon my dignity as a man, sir. I shay, I shtand 'ere upon----" Here he waved his hand, and sat down suddenly upon the marble floor.
"You can stand on anything you like--or can," said Horace; "but hear what I've got to say. The--the people who made all these alterations went beyond my instructions. I never wanted the house interfered with like this. Still, if your landlord doesn't see that its value is immensely improved, he's a fool, that's all. Anyway, I'll take care you shan't suffer. If I have to put everything back in its former state, I will, at my own expense. So don't bother any more about that."
"You're a gen'l'man, Mr. Ventimore," said Rapkin, cautiously regaining his feet. "There's no mishtaking a gen'l'man. I'm a gen'l'man."
"Of course you are," said Horace genially, "and I'll tell you how you're going to show it. You're going straight downstairs to get your good wife to pour some cold water over your head; and then you will finish dressing, see what you can do to get a table of some sort and lay it for dinner, and be ready to announce my friends when they arrive, and wait afterwards. Do you see?"
"That will be all ri', Mr. Ventimore," said Rapkin, who was not far gone enough to be beyond understanding or obeying. "You leave it entirely to me. I'll unnertake that your friends shall be made comforrable, perfelly comforrable. I've lived as butler in the besht, the mosht ecxlu--most arishto--you know the sort o' fam'lies I'm tryin' to r'member--and--and everything was always all ri', and I shall be all ri' in a few minutes."
With this assurance he stumbled downstairs, leaving Horace relieved to some extent. Rapkin would be sober enough after his head had been under the tap for a few minutes, and in any case there would be the hired waiter to rely upon.
If he could only find out where his evening clothes were! He returned to his room and made another frantic search--but they were nowhere to be found; and as he could not bring himself to receive his guests in his ordinary morning costume--which the Professor would probably construe as a deliberate slight, and which would certainly seem a solecism in Mrs. Futvoye's eyes, if not in her daughter's--he decided to put on the Eastern robes, with the exception of a turban, which he could not manage to wind round his head.
Thus arrayed he re-entered the domed hall, where he was annoyed to find that no attempt had been made as yet to prepare a dinner-table, and he was just looking forlornly round for a bell when Rapkin appeared. He had apparently followed Horace's advice, for his hair looked wet and sleek, and he was comparatively sober.
"This is too bad!" cried Horace; "my friends may be here at any moment now--and nothing done. You don't propose to wait at table like that, do you?" he added, as he noted the man's overcoat and the comforter round his throat.
"I do not propose to wait in any garments whatsoever," said Rapkin; "I'm a-goin' out, I am."
"Very well," said Horace; "then send the waiter up--I suppose he's come?"
"He come--but he went away again--I told him as he wouldn't be required."
"You told him that!" Horace said angrily, and then controlled himself. "Come, Rapkin, be reasonable. You can't really mean to leave your wife to cook the dinner, and serve it too!"
"She ain't intending to do neither; she've left the house already."
"You must fetch her back," cried Horace. "Good heavens, man, can't you see what a fix you're leaving me in? My friends have started long ago--it's too late to wire to them, or make any other arrangements."
There was a knock, as he spoke, at the front door; and odd enough was the familiar sound of the cast-iron knocker in that Arabian hall.
"There they are!" he said, and the idea of meeting them at the door and proposing an instant adjournment to a restaurant occurred to him--till he suddenly recollected that he would have to change and try to find some money, even for that. "For the last time, Rapkin," he cried in despair, "do you mean to tell me there's no dinner ready?"
"Oh," said Rapkin, "there's dinner right enough, and a lot o' barbarious furriners downstairs a cookin' of it--that's what broke Maria's 'art--to see it all took out of her 'ands, after the trouble she'd gone to."
"But I must have somebody to wait," exclaimed Horace.
"You've got waiters enough, as far as that goes. But if you expect a hordinary Christian man to wait along of a lot o' narsty niggers, and be at their beck and call, you're mistook, sir, for I'm going to sleep the night at my brother-in-law's and take his advice, he bein' a doorkeeper at a solicitor's orfice and knowing the law, about this 'ere business, and so I wish you a good hevening, and 'oping your dinner will be to your liking and satisfaction."
He went out by the farther archway, while from the entrance-hall Horace could hear voices he knew only too well. The Futvoyes had come; well, at all events, it seemed that there would be something for them to eat, since Fakrash, in his anxiety to do the thing thoroughly, had furnished both the feast and attendance himself--but who was there to announce the guests? Where were these waiters Rapkin had spoken of? Ought he to go and bring in his visitors himself?
These questions answered themselves the next instant, for, as he stood there under the dome, the curtains of the central arch were drawn with a rattle, and disclosed a double line of tall slaves in rich raiment, their onyx eyes rolling and their teeth flashing in their chocolate-hued countenances, as they salaamed.
Between this double line stood Professor and Mrs. Futvoye and Sylvia, who had just removed their wraps and were gazing in undisguised astonishment on the splendours which met their view.
Horace advanced to receive them; he felt he was in for it now, and the only course left him was to put as good a face as he could on the matter, and trust to luck to pull him through without discovery or disaster.
