Marie Belloc Lowndes - THE HEART OF PENELOPE (Murder Mystery)

Thus it was that Mr. Gumberg was seldom without the company of at least one friend old enough to enjoy the real answers to long-forgotten social riddles, while the more thoughtful of his younger acquaintances recognized that some of his old stories were better worth hearing than those which they in their turn came to tell.

When Sir George Downing, after having returned from his excursion into the past, sought out his host in the book-lined octagon room, looking out on the Italian garden, where Mr. Julius Gumberg had established himself for the evening, it was not because he expected to learn much of interest unknown to him before, but because, though he felt half ashamed of it, he longed intensely both to speak and to hear spoken a certain name. With an abruptness which took the old man by surprise, Downing asked him: 'Among your many charming friends, I wonder if you number a certain Mrs. Robinson, the daughter, I believe, of the late Lord Wantley?'

Mr. Gumberg's reply was not long in coming.

'Perdita,' he said briskly, 'is on the whole the most beautiful young woman I know; I don't say, mind you, the most beautiful creature I have ever known, but at the present time I cannot call to mind any of my friends with whom I can compare her.' He tucked the rug in which he was muffled up more tightly across his knees, and continued, with manifest enjoyment: 'Doubtless you have noticed, George, even in the short time you have been at home, that nowadays all our women claim to be beauties—and the remarkable thing about it is that they succeed, the hussies!'

He gave a loud, discordant chuckle, and the pause enabled the other to throw in the words:

'Mrs. Robinson's name is, I believe, Penelope.'

He spoke quickly, fearing a full biography of the fair stranger by whose beauty Mr. Gumberg set so much store.

'They succeed, and yet they fail,' continued the old man, ignoring the interruption. 'They aim—it's odd they should do so—at being as like one another as peas in a pod. Our beauties don't give each other room. Ah! you should have seen, George, the women of my youth. The plain ones kept their places—and very good places they were, too—but the others! Now scarce a week goes by but some kind lady comes to me with, "Oh, Mr. Gumberg, I'm going to bring you the new beauty. I'm sure you will be charmed!" But I've given up expecting anything out of the common. When I was a young man a new beauty was something to look at: she had hair, teeth, eyes—not always mind , I grant you: but she was there to be looked at, not talked at! I'm told that now a pretty woman hasn't a chance unless she's clever. And that's the mischief, for the clever ones can always make us believe that they're the pretty ones, too. Give me the yellow-haired, pink-cheeked kind, out of which one could shake the sawdust, eh?' Then he sighed a little ghostly sigh, and added: 'Yes, her name's Penelope, of course—I was going to tell you so—but she's Perdita, too, obviously.'

'And has there been a Florizel?' Downing's question challenged a reply, and Mr. Gumberg looked at him inquiringly as well as thoughtfully, as he answered in rather a softer tone:

'God bless my soul, no! That's to say, a dozen, more or less! But I don't see, and I doubt if Perdita sees, a Prince Charming among 'em. As for Robinson, poor fellow!'—Mr. Gumberg hesitated; words sometimes failed him, but never for long—'all I can say is he was the first of those I was the first to dub the Sisyphians. I used to feel quite honoured when he came to breakfast. People enjoyed meeting him. I never could see why; but you know how they all—especially the women—run after any man that is extraordinarily ordinary. Melancthon Wesley Robinson—what a handicap, eh? And yet I'm bound to say one felt inclined to forgive him even his name, even his good looks, even his marriage to Penelope Wantley, for he had the supreme and now rare charm of youth. You had it once, George; that was why we were all so fond of you.'

Mr. Gumberg got up from his chair, pushed the rug off his shrunken legs, and slowly walked round the room till he reached one of the two cupboards which filled up the recess on either side of the fireplace. From its depths he brought out a small portfolio. Downing had started up, but his host motioned him back to his seat with a certain irritation, and then, as he made his way again to his own blue leather armchair, he went on:

'Those for whom I invented the name of Sisyphians—there are plenty of 'em about now—well, I divide 'em into two sets, both, I need hardly say, equally distasteful to me. The one kind cultivates platonic friendships with the women'—Mr. Gumberg made a slight grimace. 'Their arguments appeal to feminine sensibility; "Make yourself happier by making others happy," that's the notion, and I understand that they're fairly successful as regards the primary object, but there seems some doubt as to how far they succeed in the other—eh? I should hate to be made happy myself. That sort of fellow is the husband's best friend. Not only does he keep the wife out of mischief, but he will act as special constable on occasion, and when everything else fails he's always there, ready to put his arm round the dear erring creature's waist and implore her to remember her duties! The other set undertake a more difficult task, and they don't find it so easy. That sort don't put their arms round even their own wives' waists; their dream is to embrace Humanity. She's a jealous mistress, and, from all I hear, I doubt if she's as grateful as some of 'em make out!'

The old man sat down again. He drew the rug over his knees, and propped up the small portfolio on a sloping mahogany desk which always stood at his elbow. With a certain eagerness he turned over its contents, still talking the while.

'Young Robinson was their founder, their leader. He built the first of the palaces in the slums. I'm told they call the place the Melancthon Settlement. I'm bound to say that he took it—and himself—quite seriously, lived down there, and, what was much more strange, persuaded Penelope to live there, too. Oh, not for long. She would soon have tired of the whole business!' He added in a lower tone, his head bent over the open portfolio: 'I don't find things as easily as I used to do. Yet I know it's here.' Then he cried eagerly, 'I've found it!' and held up triumphantly a rudely-coloured print of which the reverse side was covered with much close writing.

Downing put out his hand with a certain excitement; he knew that what the old man was about to show him had a bearing on the story he was being told.

The print, obviously a caricature, represented a horsewoman sitting a huge roan and clad in the long riding-habit, almost touching the ground, which women wore in the twenties and thirties of last century. A large black hat shaded, and almost entirely concealed, the oval face beneath. In one hand the horsewoman held a hunting crop, with the other she reined in her horse, presenting a dauntless front to some twenty couple of yelping and snarling foxhounds. The colour was crude, but the drawing clear, and full of rough power.

Downing suddenly realized that each hound had the face of a man; also that the countenance of the foremost dog was oddly familiar: he seemed to have seen it looking down on him from innumerable engravings, in particular from one which had hung in the hall of his parents' town house. This dog, almost alone clean-shaven among its companions, held between its paws the baton of a field-marshal. Below the print was engraved in faded gilt letters the words 'The Lady and her Pack.'

'A valuable and very rare family portrait,' said Mr. Gumberg grimly. 'The lady is Penelope's grandmother, Lady Wantley's mother, and the Pack——' He checked himself, surprised at the look which passed over the other's face.