The Secret Six of Septimus Brope

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　"Who and what is Mr. Brope?" demanded the aunt of Clovis suddenly.Mrs. Riversedge, who had been snipping off the heads of defunctroses, and thinking of nothing in particular, sprang hurriedly tomental attention. She was one of those old-fashioned hostesseswho consider that one ought to know something about one's guests,and that the something ought to be to their credit."I believe he comes from Leighton Buzzard," she observed by way ofpreliminary explanation."In these days of rapid and convenient travel," said Clovis, whowas dispersing a colony of green-fly with visitations of cigarettesmoke, "to come from Leighton Buzzard does not necessarily denoteany great strength of character. It might only mean mererestlessness. Now if he had left it under a cloud, or as aprotest against the incurable and heartless frivolity of itsinhabitants, that would tell us something about the man and hismission in life.""What does he do?" pursued Mrs. Troyle magisterially."He edits the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY," said her hostess, "and he'senormously learned about memorial brasses and transepts and theinfluence of Byzantine worship on modern liturgy, and all thosesort of things. Perhaps he is just a little bit heavy andimmersed in one range of subjects, but it takes all sorts to makea good house-party, you know. You don't find him TOO dull, doyou?""Dullness I could overlook," said the aunt of Clovis; "what Icannot forgive is his making love to my maid.""My dear Mrs. Troyle," gasped the hostess, "what an extraordinaryidea! I assure you Mr. Brope would not dream of doing such athing.""His dreams are a matter of indifference to me; for all I care hisslumbers may be one long indiscretion of unsuitable eroticadvances, in which the entire servants' hall may be involved. Butin his waking hours he shall not make love to my maid. It's nouse arguing about it, I'm firm on the point.""But you must be mistaken," persisted Mrs. Riversedge; "Mr. Bropewould be the last person to do such a thing.""He is the first person to do such a thing, as far as myinformation goes, and if I have any voice in the matter hecertainly shall be the last. Of course, I am not referring torespectably-intentioned lovers.""I simply cannot think that a man who writes so charmingly andinformingly about transepts and Byzantine influences would behavein such an unprincipled manner," said Mrs. Riversedge; "whatevidence have you that he's doing anything of the sort? I don'twant to doubt your word, of course, but we mustn't he too ready tocondemn him unheard, must we?""Whether we condemn him or not, he has certainly not been unheard.He has the room next to my dressing-room, and on two occasions,when I dare say he thought I was absent, I have plainly heard himannouncing through the wall, 'I love you, Florrie.' Thosepartition walls upstairs are very thin; one can almost hear awatch ticking in the next room.""Is your maid called Florence?""Her name is Florinda.""What an extraordinary name to give a maid!""I did not give it to her; she arrived in my service alreadychristened.""What I mean is," said Mrs. Riversedge, "that when I get maidswith unsuitable names I call them Jane; they soon get used to it.""An excellent plan," said the aunt of Clovis coldly;"unfortunately I have got used to being called Jane myself. Ithappens to be my name."She cut short Mrs. Riversedge's flood of apologies by abruptlyremarking:"The question is not whether I'm to call my maid Florinda, butwhether Mr. Brope is to be permitted to call her Florrie. I amstrongly of opinion than he shall not.""He may have been repeating the words of some song," said Mrs.Riversedge hopefully; "there are lots of those sorts of sillyrefrains with girls' names," she continued, turning to Clovis as apossible authority on the subject. "'You mustn't call me Mary--'""I shouldn't think of doing so," Clovis assured her; "in the firstplace, I've always understood that your name was Henrietta; andthen I hardly know you well enough to take such a liberty.""I mean there's a SONG with that refrain," hurriedly explainedMrs. Riversedge, "and there's 'Rhoda, Rhoda kept a pagoda,' and'Maisie is a daisy,' and heaps of others. Certainly it doesn'tsound like Mr. Brope to be singing such songs, but I think weought to give him the benefit of the doubt.""I had already done so," said Mrs. Troyle, "until further evidencecame my way."She shut her lips with the resolute finality of one who enjoys theblessed certainty of being implored to open them again."Further evidence!" exclaimed her hostess; "do tell me!""As I was coming upstairs after breakfast Mr. Brope was justpassing my room. In the most natural way in the world a piece ofpaper dropped out of a packet that he held in his hand andfluttered to the ground just at my door. I was going to call outto him 'You've dropped something,' and then for some reason I heldback and didn't show myself till he was safely in his room. Yousee it occurred to me that I was very seldom in my room just atthat hour, and that Florinda was almost always there tidying upthings about that time. So I picked up that innocent-lookingpiece of paper."Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one whohas detected an asp lurking in an apple-charlotte.Mrs. Riversedge snipped vigorously at the nearest rose bush,incidentally decapitating a Viscountess Folkestone that was justcoming into bloom."What was on the paper?" she asked."Just the words in pencil, 'I love you, Florrie,' and thenunderneath, crossed out with a faint line, but perfectly plain toread, 'Meet me in the garden by the yew.'""There IS a yew tree at the bottom of the garden," admitted Mrs.Riversedge."At any rate he appears to be truthful," commented Clovis."To think that a scandal of this sort should be going on under myroof!" said Mrs. Riversedge indignantly."I wonder why it is that scandal seems so much worse under aroof," observed Clovis; "I've always regarded it as a proof of thesuperior delicacy of the cat tribe that it conducts most of itsscandals above the slates.""Now I come to think of it," resumed Mrs. Riversedge, "there arethings about Mr. Brope that I've never been able to account for.His income, for instance: he only gets two hundred a year aseditor of the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY, and I know that his people arequite poor, and he hasn't any private means. Yet he manages toafford a flat somewhere in Westminster, and he goes abroad toBruges and those sorts of places every year, and always dresseswell, and gives quite nice luncheon-parties in the season. Youcan't do all that on two hundred a year, can you?""Does he write for any other papers?" queried Mrs. Troyle."No, you see he specializes so entirely on liturgy andecclesiastical architecture that his field is rather restricted.He once tried the SPORTING AND DRAMATIC with an article on churchedifices in famous fox-hunting centres, but it wasn't consideredof sufficient general interest to be accepted. No, I don't seehow he can support himself in his present style merely by what hewrites.""Perhaps he sells spurious transepts to American enthusiasts,"suggested Clovis."How could you sell a transept?" said Mrs. Riversedge; "such athing would be impossible.""Whatever he may do to eke out his income," interrupted Mrs.Troyle, "he is certainly not going to fill in his leisure momentsby making love to my maid.""Of course not," agreed her hostess; "that must be put a stop toat once. But I don't quite know what we ought to do.""You might put a barbed wire entanglement round the yew tree as aprecautionary measure," said Clovis."I don't think that the disagreeable situation that has arisen isimproved by flippancy," said Mrs. Riversedge; "a good maid is atreasure--""I am sure I don't know what I should do without Florinda,"admitted Mrs. Troyle; "she understands my hair. I've long agogiven up trying to do anything with it myself. I regard one'shair as I regard husbands: as long as one is seen together inpublic one's private divergences don't matter. Surely that wasthe luncheon gong."Septimus Brope and Clovis had the smoking-room to themselves afterlunch. The former seemed restless and preoccupied, the latterquietly observant."What is a lorry?" asked Septimus suddenly; "I don't mean thething on wheels, of course I know what that is, but isn't there abird with a name like that, the larger form of a lorikeet?""I fancy it's a lory, with one 'r,'" said Clovis lazily, "in whichcase it's no good to you."Septimus Brope stared in some astonishment."How do you mean, no good to me?" he asked, with more than a traceof uneasiness in his voice."Won't rhyme with Florrie," explained Clovis briefly.Septimus sat upright in his chair, with unmistakable alarm on hisface."How did you find out? I mean how did you know I was trying toget a rhyme to Florrie?" he asked sharply."I didn't know," said Clovis, "I only guessed. When you wanted toturn the prosaic lorry of commerce into a feathered poem flittingthrough the verdure of a tropical forest, I knew you must beworking up a sonnet, and Florrie was the only female name thatsuggested itself as rhyming with lorry."Septimus still looked uneasy."I believe you know more," he said.Clovis laughed quietly, but said nothing."How much do you know?" Septimus asked desperately."The yew tree in the garden," said Clovis."There! I felt certain I'd dropped it somewhere. But you musthave guessed something before. Look here, you have surprised mysecret. You won't give me away, will you? It is nothing to heashamed of, but it wouldn't do for the editor of the CATHEDRALMONTHLY to go in openly for that sort of thing, would it?""Well, I suppose not," admitted Clovis."You see," continued Septimus, "I get quite a decent lot of moneyout of it. I could never live in the style I do on what I get aseditor of the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY."Clovis was even more startled than Septimus had been earlier inthe conversation, but he was better skilled in repressingsurprise."Do you mean to say you get money out of--Florrie?" he asked."Not out of Florrie, as yet," said Septimus; "in fact, I don'tmind saying that I'm having a good deal of trouble over Florrie.But there are a lot of others."Clovis's cigarette went out."This is VERY interesting," he said slowly. And then, withSeptimus Brope's next words, illumination dawned on him."There are heaps of others; for instance: 'Cora with the lips of coral, You and I will never quarrel.' That was one of my earliest successes, and it still brings me inroyalties. And then there is--'Esmeralda, when I first beheldher,' and 'Fair Teresa, how I love to please her,' both of thosehave been fairly popular. And there is one rather dreadful one,"continued Septimus, flushing deep carmine, "which has brought mein more money than any of the others: 'Lively little Lucie With her naughty nez retrouss.' Of course, I loathe the whole lot of them; in fact, I'm rapidlybecoming something of a woman-hater under their influence, but Ican't afford to disregard the financial aspect of the matter. Andat the same time you can understand that my position as anauthority on ecclesiastical architecture and liturgical subjectswould be weakened, if not altogether ruined, if it once got aboutthat I was the author of 'Cora with the lips of coral' and all therest of them."Clovis had recovered sufficiently to ask in a sympathetic, ifrather unsteady, voice what was the special trouble with"Florrie.""I can't get her into lyric shape, try as I will," said Septimusmournfully. "You see, one has to work in a lot of sentimental,sugary compliment with a catchy rhyme, and a certain amount ofpersonal biography or prophecy. They've all of them got to have along string of past successes recorded about them, or else you'vegot to foretell blissful things about them and yourself in thefuture. For instance, there is: 'Dainty little girlie Mavis, She is such a rara avis, All the money I can save is All to be for Mavis mine.' It goes to a sickening namby-pamby waltz tune, and for monthsnothing else was sung and hummed in Blackpool and other popularcentres."This time Clovis's self-control broke down badly."Please excuse me," he gurgled, "but I can't help it when Iremember the awful solemnity of that article of yours that you sokindly read us last night, on the Coptic Church in its relation toearly Christian worship."Septimus groaned."You see how it would be," he said; "as soon as people knew me tobe the author of that miserable sentimental twaddle, all respectfor the serious labours of my life would be gone. I dare say Iknow more about memorial brasses than anyone living, in fact Ihope one day to publish a monograph on the subject, but I shouldbe pointed out everywhere as the man whose ditties were in themouths of nigger minstrels along the entire coast-line of ourIsland home. Can you wonder that I positively hate Florrie allthe time that I'm trying to grind out sugar-coated rhapsodiesabout her.""Why not give free play to your emotions, and be brutally abusive?An uncomplimentary refrain would have an instant success as anovelty if you were sufficiently outspoken.""I've never thought of that," said Septimus, "and I'm afraid Icouldn't break away from the habit of fulsome adulation andsuddenly change my style.""You needn't change your style in the least," said Clovis; "merelyreverse the sentiment and keep to the inane phraseology of thething. If you'll do the body of the 'song I'll knock off therefrain, which is the thing that principally matters, I believe.I shall charge half-shares in the royalties, and throw in mysilence as to your guilty secret. In the eyes of the world youshall still be the man who has devoted his life to the study oftransepts and Byzantine ritual; only sometimes, in the long winterevenings, when the wind howls drearily down the chimney and therain beats against the windows, I shall think of you as the authorof 'Cora with the lips of coral.' Of course, if in sheergratitude at my silence you like to take me for a much-neededholiday to the Adriatic or somewhere equally interesting, payingall expenses, I shouldn't dream of refusing."Later in the afternoon Clovis found his aunt and Mrs. Riversedgeindulging in gentle exercise in the Jacobean garden."I've spoken to Mr. Brope about F.," he announced."How splendid of you! What did he say?" came in a quick chorusfrom the two ladies."He was quite frank and straightforward with me when he saw that Iknew his secret," said Clovis, "and it seems that his intentionswere quite serious, if slightly unsuitable. I tried to show himthe impracticability of the course that he was following. He saidhe wanted to be understood, and he seemed to think that Florindawould excel in that requirement, but I pointed out that there wereprobably dozens of delicately nurtured, pure-hearted young Englishgirls who would be capable of understanding him, while Florindawas the only person in the world who understood my aunt's hair.That rather weighed with him, for he's not really a selfishanimal, if you take him in the right way, and when I appealed tothe memory of his happy childish days, spent amid the daisiedfields of Leighton Buzzard (I suppose daisies do grow there), hewas obviously affected. Anyhow, he gave me his word that he wouldput Florinda absolutely out of his mind, and he has agreed to gofor a short trip abroad as the best distraction for his thoughts.I am going with him as far as Ragusa. If my aunt should wish togive me a really nice scarf-pin (to be chosen by myself), as asmall recognition of the very considerable service I have doneher, I shouldn't dream of refusing. I'm not one of those whothink that because one is abroad one can go about dressed anyhow."A few weeks later in Blackpool and places where they sing, thefollowing refrain held undisputed sway: "How you bore me, Florrie, With those eyes of vacant blue; You'll be very sorry, Florrie, If I marry you. Though I'm easygoin', Florrie, This I swear is true, I'll throw you down a quarry, Florrie, If I marry you."