England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; English fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, English
“Do you think that we can find a hansom cab?” asked the young lady a
little anxiously. “You see, my aunt----”
“Precisely,” said the Duke, and he quickened his pace.
They soon reached the boundary of the Heath, and, having walked a little
way along the road, were so fortunate as to find a cab. The young lady
held out her left hand to the Duke: in her right she still grasped
firmly the Queen Bess flagon.
“Good-bye,” she said. “Thank you for the beautiful present.”
The Duke took her hand and allowed his glance to rest for a moment on
her face. She appeared to see a question in his eyes.
“Yes, and for rescuing me from that man,” she added with a little
shudder.
The Duke’s glance still rested on her face.
“Yes, and for lots of fun,” she whispered with a blush.
The Duke looked away, sighed, released her hand, helped her into the
cab, and retired to a distance of some yards. The young lady spoke a few
words to the cabman, took her seat, waved a small hand, held up the
Queen Bess flagon, kissed it, and drove away.
“If,” observed the Duke with a sigh, “I were not a well-bred man, I
should have asked her name,” and he made his way back to his house in a
somewhat pensive mood.
On reaching home, however, he perceived the brougham standing before his
door. A new direction was thus given to his meditations. He opened the
gate of his stable-yard, and, taking the horse’s head, led it in. Having
unharnessed it, he put it in the stable and fed and watered it; the
brougham he drew into the coach-house. Then he went indoors, partook of
some brandy mixed with water, and went to bed.
At eleven o’clock the next morning Frank, the Duke’s man, came up to
Hampstead to attend to his Grace’s wants. The Duke was still in bed,
but, on breakfast being ready, he rose and came downstairs in his
dressing-gown and a pair of large and very easy slippers.
“I hope your Grace slept well?” said Frank.
“I never passed a better night, thank you, Frank,” said the Duke as he
chipped the top off his egg.
“Half-an-hour ago, your Grace,” Frank continued, “a man called.”
“To see me?”
“It was about--about a brougham, your Grace.”
“Ah! What did you say to him?”
“I said I had no orders about a brougham from your Grace.”
“Quite right, Frank, quite right,” said the Duke with a smile. “What did
he say to that?”
“He appeared to be put out, but said that he would call again, your
Grace.”
“Very good,” said the Duke, rising and lighting a cigarette.
Frank lingered uneasily near the door.
“Is anything the matter, Frank?” asked the Duke kindly.
“Well, your Grace, in--in point of fact, there is--there is a strange
brougham and a strange horse in the stables, your Grace.”
“In what respect,” asked the Duke, “are the brougham and the horse
strange, Frank?”
“I--I should say, your Grace, a brougham and a horse that I have not
seen before in your Grace’s stables.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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