Copyright, 1905, by Harper & Brothers
Henriette was visibly angry the other morning when I
took to her the early mail and she discovered that Mrs. Van Varick Shadd had
got ahead of her in the matter of Jockbinski, the monkey virtuoso. Society had been very much interested in the
reported arrival in America of this wonderfully talented simian who could play the
violin as well as Ysaye, and who as a performer on the piano was vastly the
superior of Paderewski, because, taken in his infancy and specially trained for
the purpose, he could play with his feet and tail as well as with his hands. It had been reported by Tommy Dare, the
leading Newport authority on monkeys, that he had heard him play Brahms
“Variations on Paganini” with his paws on a piano, “Hiawatha” on a xylophone
with his feet, and “Home, Sweet Home” with his tail on a harp simultaneously,
in Paris a year ago, and that alongside of Jockobinski all other musical
prodigies of the age became mere strummers.
“He’s a whole orchestra in himself,” said
Tommy enthusiastically, “and is the only living creature that I know of who can
tackle a whole symphony with the aid of a hired man.”
Of course society was on the qui vive
for a genius of so riotous an order as this, and all the wealthy families of
Newport vied with one another for the privilege of being first to welcome him
to our shores, not because he was a freak, mind you, but “for art’s sweet
sake.” Mrs. Gushington-Andrews offered
twenty-five hundred dollars for him as a week-end guest, and Mrs. Gaster
immediately went her bid a hundred per cent better. Henriette, in order to outdo every one else,
promptly put in a bid of ten thousand dollars for a single evening, and
had supposed the bargain closed when along came Mrs.
Shadd’s cards announcing that she would be pleased
to have Mrs. Van
Raffles at Onyx House on Friday evening, August 27th, to meet Herr
Jockobinski, the eminent virtuoso.
“It’s very annoying,” said Henriette, as
she opened and read the invitation. “I
had quite set my heart on having Jockobinski here. Not that I care particularly about the music
end of it, but because there is nothing that gives a woman so assured a social
position as being the hostess of an animal of his particular kind. You remember, Bunny, how completely Mrs.
Shadd wrested the leadership from Mrs. Gaster two seasons ago with her orang
outang dinner, don’t you?”
I confessed to having read something about
such an incident in high society.
“Well,” said Henriette,” this would
have thrown that little episode wholly in the shade. Of course Mrs. Shadd is doing this to return
her grip, but it irritates me more than I can say to have her get it just the same. Heaven knows I was willing
to pay for it if I had to abscond with a national bank to get the money.”
“It isn’t too late, is it?” I queried.
“No too late?” echoed Henriette. “Not too late with Mrs. Shadd’s cards out and
the whole thing published in the papers?”
“It’s never too late for a woman of your
resources to do anything she has a mind to do,” said I. “It seems to me that a person who could swipe
a Carnegie library the way you did should have little difficulty in lifting a
musicale. Of course I don’t know how you
could do it, but with your mind---well, I should be surprised and
disappointed if you couldn’t devise some plan to accomplish your desires.”
Henriette was silent for a moment, and
then her face lit up with one of her most charming smiles.
“Bunny, do you know that at times, in
spite of your supreme stupidity, you are a source of positive inspiration to
me?” she said, looking at me, fondly, I ventured to think.
“I am glad it is so,” said I. “Sometimes, dear Henriette, you will find the
most beautiful flowers growing out of the blackest mud. Perhaps hid in the dull residuum of my poor
but honest gray matter lies the seed of real genius that will sprout the
loveliest blossoms of achievement.”
“Well, anyhow, dear, you have started me
thinking, and maybe we’ll have Jockobinski at Bolivar Lodge yet,” she
murmured. “I want to have him first, of
course, or not at all. To be second in
doing a thing of that kind is worse than never doing it at all.”
Days went by and not another word was
spoken on the subject of Jockobinski and the musicale, and I began to feel that
at last Henriette had reached the end of her ingenuity---though for my own part
I could not blame her if she failed to find some plausible way out of her
disappointment. Wednesday night came,
and, consumed by curiosity to learn just how the matter stood, I attempted to
sound Henriette on the subject.
“I should like Friday evening off, Mrs.
Raffles,” said I. “If you are going to
Mrs. Shadd’s musicale you will have no use for me.”
“Shut up, Bunny,” she returned,
abruptly. “I shall need you Friday night
more than ever before. Just take this
note over to Mrs. Shadd this evening and leave it---mind you, don’t wait for an
answer but just leave it, that’s all.”
She arose from the table and handed me a
daintily scented missive addressed to Mrs. Shadd, and I faithfully executed her
errand. Bunderby, the Shadd’s butler,
endeavored to persuade me to wait for an answer, but assuring him that I wasn’t
aware that an answer was expected I returned to Bolivar Lodge. An hour later Bunderby appeared at the back
door and handed me a note addressed to my mistress, which I immediately delivered.
“Is Bunderby waiting?” asked Henriette as
she read the note.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Tell him to hand this to Mrs. Shadd the
very first thing upon her return to-morrow evening,” she said, hastily
scribbling off a note and putting it in an envelope, which by chance she left
unsealed, so that on my way back below-stairs I was able to read it. What it said was that she would be only too
happy to oblige Mrs. Shadd, and was very sorry indeed to hear that her son had
been injured in an automobile accident while running into Boston from Bar
Harbor. It closed with the line, “you
must know, my dear Pauline, that there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you,
come weal or come woe.”
This I handed to Bunderby and he made
off. On my return Henriette was dressed
for travel.
“I must take the first train for New
York,” she said, excitedly. “You will
have the music-room prepared at once, Bunny. Mrs. Shadd’s musicale will be
given here. I am going myself to make
all the necessary arrangements at the New York end. All you have to do is get things ready and
rely on your ignorance for everything else.
See?”
I could only reflect that if a successful
issue were independent upon my ignorance I had a plentiful supply of it to fall
back on. Henriette made off at once for
Providence by motorcar, and got the midnight train out of Boston for the city
where, from what I learned afterwards, she must have put in a strenuous day on
Thursday. At any rate, a great sensation
was sprung on Newport on Friday morning.
Every member of the smart set in the ten-o’clock mail received a little
engraved card stating that owing to sudden illness in the Shadd family the
Shadd musicale for that evening would be held at Bolivar Lodge instead of in
the Onyx House ballroom. Friday
afternoon Jocobinski’s private and particular piano arrived at the Lodge and
was set up promptly in the music-room, and later when the caterers arrived with
the supper for the four hundred odd guests bidden to the feast all was in
readiness for them. Everything was
running smoothly, and, although Henriette had not yet arrived, I felt easy and
secure of mind until nearing five-thirty o’clock when Mrs. Shadd herself drove
up to the front door. Her color was
unusually high, and had she been any but a lady of the grande monde I
should have said that she was flustered.
She demanded rather than asked to see my
mistress, with a hauteur born of the arctic snow.
“Mrs. Van Raffles went to New York
Wednesday evening,” said I, “and has not yet returned. I am expecting her every minute, madame. She must be here for the musicale. Won’t you wait?”
“Indeed I will,” said she, abruptly. “The musicale, indeed! Humph!”
And she plumped herself down in one of the drawing-room chairs so hard
that it was as much as I could do to keep from showing some very unbutlerian
concern for the safety of the furniture.
I must say I did not envy Henriette the
meeting that was in prospect, for it was quite evident that Mrs. Shadd was mad
all through. In spite of my stupidity I
rather thought I could divine the cause too.
She was not kept long in waiting, for ten minutes later the automobile,
with Henriette in it, came thundering up the drive. I tried as I let her in to give her a hint of
what awaited her, but Mrs. Shadd forestalled me, only however to be forestalled
herself.
“Oh, my dear Pauline!” Henriette cried, as
she espied her waiting visitor. “It is so
good of you to come over. I’m pretty
well fagged out with all the arrangements for the night and I do hope
your son is better.”
“My son is not ill, Mrs. Van Raffles,”
said Mrs. Shadd, coldly. “I have come to
ask you what---“
“Not, ill?” cried Henriette,
interrupting her. “Not ill,
Pauline? Why,” ---breathlessly---
“that’s the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of. Why am I giving the musicale to-night then,
instead of you?”
“That is precisely what I have come to
find out,” said Mrs. Shadd.
“Why---well, of all queer things,” said
Henriette, flopping down in a chair. “Surely,
you got my note saying that I would let Jockobinski play here to-night instead
of---”
“I did receive a very peculiar note from
you saying that you would gladly do as I wished,” said Mrs. Shadd, beginning
herself to look less angry and more puzzled.
“In reply to your note of Wednesday
evening,” said Henriette. “Certainly you
wrote to me Wednesday evening? It was
delivered by your own man, Blunderby I think his name is? About half-past seven o’clock it
was---Wednesday.”
“Yes, Bunderby, did carry a note to you
from me on Wednesday,” said Mrs. Shadd.
“But---“
“And in it you said that you were called
to Boston by an accident to your son Willie in his automobile; that you might
not be able to get back in time for to-night’s affair and wouldn’t I take it
over,” protested Mrs. Van Raffles, vehemently.
“I?” said Mrs. Shadd, showing more
surprise than was compatible with her high social position.
“And attend to all the details---your very
words, my dear Pauline, said Henriette, with an admirably timed break in her
voice. “And I did, and I told you I
would. I immediately put on my
traveling gown, motored to Providence, had an all-night ride to New York on a
very uncomfortable sleeper, went at once to Herr Jockobinsk’s agent and arranged
the change, notified Sherry to send the supper to my house instead of yours,
drove to Tiffany’s and had the cards rushed through and mailed to everybody on
your list---you know you kindly gave me your list when I first came to
Newport---and attended to the whole thing, and now I come back to find it all
a---er—a mistake! Why, Pauline, it’s
positively awful! What can we
do?”
Henriette was a perfect picture of
despair. “I don’t suppose we can do
anything now,” said Mrs. Shadd, ruefully.
“It’s too late. The cards have
gone to everybody. You have all the
supper---not a sandwich has come to my house---and I presume all of Mr.
Jokobinski’s instruments as well have come here.”
Henriette turned to me.
“All, madame,” said I, briefly.
“Well,” said Mrs. Shadd, tapping the floor
nervously with her toe. “I don’t
understand it. I never wrote that note.”
“Oh, but, Mrs. Shadd---I have it here,”
said Henriette, opening her purse and extracting the paper. “You can read it for yourself. What else could I do after that?”
Innocence on a monument could have
appeared no freer of guile than Henriette at that moment. She handed the note to Mrs. Shadd, who
perused it with growing amazement.
“Isn’t that your handwriting---and your
crest and your paper?” asked Henriette, appealingly.
“It certainly looks like it,” said Mrs.
Shadd. “If I didn’t know I hadn’t
written it I would have sworn I had.
Where could it have come from?”
“I suppose it came from Onyx House,” said
Henriette simply, glancing at the envelope.
“Well---it’s a very mysterious affair,”
said Mrs. Shadd, rising, “and I---oh, well, my dear woman, I---I can’t blame
you---indeed, after all you have done I ought to be---and really am---very much
obliged to you. Only---”
“Whom did you have at dinner Wednesday
night, dear?” asked Henriette.
“Only the Duke and Duchess of Snarleyow
and---mercy! I wonder if he could have
done it!”
“Who?” asked Henriette.
“Tommy Dare!” ejaculated Mrs.
Shadd, her eyes beginning to twinkle.
“Do you suppose this is one of Tommy Dare’s jokes?”
“H’m!” mused Henriette, and then she
laughed. “It wouldn’t be unlike him,
would it?”
“Not a bit, the naughty boy!” cried Mrs.
Shadd. “That’s it, Mrs. Van Raffles, as
certainly as we stand here. Suppose,
just to worry him, we never let on that anything out of the ordinary has
happened, eh?”
“Splendid!” said Henriette, with
enthusiasm. “Let’s act as if all turned
out just as we expected, and, best of all, never even mention it to him, or
to Bunderby his confederate, neither of us, eh?”
“Never!” said Mrs. Shadd, rising and
kissing Henriette good-bye. “That’s the
best way out of it. If we did we’d be
the laughing-stock of all Newport. But
some day in the distant future Tommy Dare would better look out for Pauline
Shadd, Mrs. Van Raffles.”
And so it was agreed, and Henriette
successfully landed Mrs. Shadd’s musicale.
Incidentally, Jockbinski was very affable
and the function went off well.
Everybody was there and no one would for a moment have thought that
there was anything strange in the transfer of the scene from Onyx House to
Bolivar Lodge.
“Who wrote that letter, Henriette?” I
asked late in the evening when the last guest had gone.
“Who do you suppose, Bunny, my boy?” she
asked with a grin. “Bunderby?”
“No,” said I.
“You’ve guessed right,” said Henriette.
As a postscript, let me say that until he
reads this I don’t believe Tommy Dare ever guessed what a successful joke he perpetrated
upon Mrs. Shadd and the fair Henriette.
Even then I doubt if he realizes what a good one it was on---everybody.