The Simpkins Plot Read online

  THE SIMPKINS PLOT

  by

  G. A. Birmingham

  [Frontispiece: "No thanks. No tea for me."]

  T. Nelson & SonsLondon and EdinburghParis: 189, rue Saint-JacquesLeipzig: 35-37 Koeningstrasse

  TO

  R. H.

  IN MEMORY OF MANY SUMMER EVENINGS WHEN WE DRIFTED HOME, UNTROUBLED BYTHE LOVE AFFAIRS OF SIMPKINS.

  THE SIMPKINS PLOT.

  CHAPTER I.

  The platform at Euston was crowded, and the porters' barrows piled highwith luggage. During the last week in July the Irish mail carries aheavy load of passengers, and for the twenty minutes before itsdeparture people are busy endeavouring to secure their own comfort andthe safety of their belongings. There are schoolboys, withportmanteaux, play-boxes, and hand-bags, escaping home for the summerholidays. There are sportsmen, eager members of the Stock Exchange orkeen lawyers, on their way to Donegal or Clare for fishing. There aretourists, the holders of tickets which promise them a round of visitsto famous beauty spots. There are members of the House of Lords, whohave accomplished their labours as legislators--and their wives,peeresses, who have done their duty by the London season--on their wayback to stately mansions in the land from which they draw theirincomes. Great people these in drawing-rooms or clubs; greater stillin the remote Irish villages which their names still dominate; but notparticularly great on the Euston platform, for there is little respectof persons there as the time of the train's departure draws near. Aporter pushed his barrow, heavy with trunks and crowned with gun-cases,against the legs of an earl, who swore. A burly man, red faced andbroad shouldered, elbowed a marchioness who, not knowing how to sweareffectively, tried to wither him with a glance. She failed. The manwho had jostled her had small reverence for rank or title. He was,besides, in a hurry, and had no time to spend in apologising to greatladies.

  Sir Gilbert Hawkesby was one of his Majesty's judges. He had won hisposition by sheer hard work and commanding ability. He had not stoppedin his career to soothe the outraged dignity of those whom he pushedaside; and he had no intention now of delaying his progress along therailway platform to explain to a marchioness why he had jostled her.It was only by a vigorous use of his elbows that he could make his way;and it ought to have been evident, even to a peeress, that he meant togo from one end of the train to the other. His eyes glanced sharplyright and left as he pushed on. He peered through the windows of thecarriages. He scanned each figure in the crowd. At last he caughtsight of a lady standing beside the bookstall. She wore a long greycloak and a dark travelling-hat. She stooped over the books and paperson the stall before her; and her face, in profile as Sir Gilbert sawit, was lit by the flaring gas above her head. Having caught sight ofher, the judge pushed on even more vigorously than before.

  "Here I am, Milly," he said. "I said I'd be in time to see you off,and I am; but owing to--"

  The lady at the bookstall turned and looked at him. She flushedsuddenly, and then as suddenly grew pale. She raised her handhurriedly and pulled her veil over her face. Sir Gilbert stared at herin amazement. Then his face, too, changed colour.

  "I--I beg your pardon," he said; "I mistook you for my niece. It'squite inconceivable to me how I--a most remarkable likeness. I'mastonished that I didn't notice it before. The fact is--under thecircumstances--"

  Sir Gilbert was acutely uncomfortable. Never in the course of a longcareer at the bar had he felt so hopelessly embarrassed. On nooccasion in his life, so far as he could remember, had he been reducedto stammering incoherences. It had not occurred to him to apologise tothe jostled marchioness a few minutes before. He was now anxious toabase himself before the lady at the bookstall.

  "I sincerely beg your pardon," he said. "I should not have dreamed fora moment of intruding myself on you if I had known. I ought to haverecognised you. I can't understand--"

  The lady laid down the book she held in her hand, and turned her backon Sir Gilbert. She crossed the platform, and entered a carriagewithout looking back. Sir Gilbert stood stiff and awkward beside thebookstall.

  "It's a most extraordinary likeness," he muttered. "I can't understandwhy I didn't notice it before. I can't have ever really looked at her."

  Then, avoiding the carriage which the lady had entered, he walkedfurther along the platform. He was much less self-assertive in hisprogress. He threaded his way instead of elbowing it through thecrowd. The most fragile peeress might have jostled him, and he wouldnot have resented it.

  "Uncle Gilbert! Is that you? I was afraid you were going to be late."

  The judge turned quickly. A lady, another lady, leaned out of thewindow of a first-class compartment and greeted him. He stared at her.The likeness was less striking now when he looked at his niece's fullface; but it was there, quite unmistakable; a sufficient excuse for theblunder he had made.

  "Ah, Milly," he said; "you really are Milly, aren't you? I've just hada most extraordinary encounter with your double. It's a mostremarkable coincidence; quite the thing for one of your novels. By theway, how's the new one getting on?"

  "Which one? I'm just correcting a set of proofs, and I'm deep in theplot of another. That's what's taking me over to Ireland. I thoughtI'd told you."

  "Yes, yes; local colour you said in your letter. Studying the wildHibernian on his native soil; but really, Milly, when you've heard mystory you won't want to go to Ireland for wild improbabilities.But I can't tell you now. There isn't time. We'll meet inBally-what-do-you-call-it next week."

  "And you'll stay with me, Uncle Gilbert, won't you? The house I'vetaken appears to be a perfect barrack. According to the agent, thereare any amount of spare bedrooms."

  "No," said the judge; "I've taken rooms at the hotel. The fact is,Milly, when I'm fishing I like to rough it a bit. Besides, I shouldonly be in your way. You'll be working tremendously hard."

  Neither excuse expressed Sir Gilbert's real reason for refusing hisniece's invitation. He did not like roughing it, and he did not thinkit the least likely that his presence in the house would interfere withher work. On the contrary, her work was likely to interfere with hiscomfort. He was fond of his niece, but he disliked her habit ofreading passages from her MSS. aloud in the evenings. She was verymuch absorbed in her novel-writing, and took her work with aseriousness which struck the judge as ridiculous.

  "I'll dine with you occasionally," he said, "but I shall put up at thehotel. By the way, Milly, am I your tenant or are you mine? I leftall the arrangements in your hands."

  "I took the house and the fishing," she said. "The agent man wouldn'tlet one without the other; but you have to pay most of the rent. Thesalmon are the really valuable part of the property, it appears."

  "All right," said Sir Gilbert; "so long as the fishing is good I won'tquarrel with you over my share of the rent. The house would only havebeen a nuisance to me. I should have had to bring over servants, andthat would have worried your aunt. Ah! Your time's up, I see.Good-bye, Milly, good-bye. Take care of yourself, and don't get mixedup with shady people in your search for originality. I'll start thisday week as soon as ever I get your aunt settled down at Bournemouth."

  Millicent King, Sir Gilbert Hawkesby's niece, was a young woman of somelittle importance in the world. The patrons of the circulatinglibraries knew her as Ena Dunkeld, and shook their heads over her. Thegentlemen who add to the meagre salaries they earn in Governmentoffices by writing reviews knew her under both her names, for noliterary secrets are hid from them. They praised her novels publicly,and in private yawned over her morality. Many people, her aunt LadyHawkesby among them, very strongly disapproved of her novels. Certainproblems, so these ladies maintained, ought to be discussed only inscientific books, labell
ed "poison" for the safety of the public, andought never to be discussed at all by young women. Millicent King,rendered obstinate by these criticisms, plunged deeper and deeper intoa kind of mire which, after a time, she began to dislike very much.She had in reality simple tastes of a domestic kind, and might havebeen very happy sewing baby clothes if she had married a peaceable manand kept out of literary society. Fortunately, or unfortunately--thechoice of the adverb depends upon the views taken of the value ofdetailed analysis of marriage problems--Miss King had not come acrossany man of a suitable kind who wanted to marry her. She had, on theother hand, met a large number of people who praised, and a few whoabused her. She liked the flattery, and was pleased to be pointed outas a person of importance. She regarded the abuse as a tribute to thevalue of her work, knowing that all true prophets suffer under the evilspeaking of a censorious world. Latterly she had begun to considerwhether she might not secure the praise, without incurring the blame,by writing novels of a different kind. With a view to perfecting a newstory of adventure and perfectly respectable love, she determined toisolate herself for a couple of months. As certain Irishmen played apart in her story, she fixed upon Connacht as the place of herretirement, intending to study the romantic Celt on his native soil. Ahouse advertised in the columns of _The Field_ seemed to offer her theopportunity she desired. She took it and the fishing attached to it;having bargained with her uncle, Sir Gilbert Hawkesby, that she was tobe relieved of the duty of catching salmon, and that he should pay aconsiderable part of the heavy rent demanded by the local agent.