The Bandbox, Page 2

  II

  THE BANDBOX

  In the playhouses of France, a hammering on the stage alone heralds therising of the curtain to disclose illusory realms of romance. Preciselyso with Mr. Staff, upon the door of whose lodging, at nine o'clock thenext morning, a knocking announced the first overt move against hispeace of mind.

  At that time, Staff, all unconscious of his honourable peril, wasstanding in the middle of the floor of the inner room (his lodgingscomprised two) and likewise in the approximate geographical centre of achaotic assemblage of assorted wearing apparel and other personalimpedimenta.

  He was wondering, confusedly, how in thunderation he was to manage tocram all that confounded truck into the limited amount of trunk space athis command. He was also wondering, resentfully in the names of a dozenfamiliar spirits, where he had put his pipe: it's simply maddening, theway a fellow's pipe will persist in getting lost at such critical timesas when he's packing up to catch a train with not a minute to spare....In short, so preoccupied was Staff that the knocking had to be repeatedbefore he became objectively alive to it.

  Then, confidentially, he said: "What the devil _now_?"

  In louder tones calculated to convey an impression of intenseimpatience, he cried: "Come _in_!"

  He heard the outer door open, and immediately, upon an impulse esotericeven in his own understanding, he chose to pretend to be extravagantlybusy--as busy as by rights he should have been. For a minute or longerhe acted most vividly the part of a man madly bent on catching his trainthough he were to perish of the attempt. And this despite a suspicionthat he played to a limited audience of one, and that one unappreciativeof the finer phases of everyday histrionic impersonation: an audienceanswering to the name of Milly, whose lowly station of life was that ofhousemaid-in-lodgings and whose imagination was as ill-nourished andsluggish as might be expected of one whose wages were two-and-six aweek.

  Remembering this in time, the novelty of make-believe palled on Staff.Not that alone, but he could hear Milly insisting in accents not in theleast apologetic: "Beg pardon, sir ..."

  He paused in well-feigned surprise and looked enquiringly over hisshoulder, as though to verify a surmise that somebody had spoken. Suchproving to be the case, he turned round to confront Milly--Milly true totype, wearing a grimy matutinal apron, an expression half sleepy, halfsullen, and a horrid soot smudge on her ripe, red, right cheek.

  In this guise (so sedulously does life itself ape the conventions of itsliterature and drama) Milly looked as lifelike as though viewed throughthe illusion of footlights. Otherwise, as Staff never failed to begratified to observe, she differed radically from the stock article ofour stage. For one thing, she refrained from dropping her _aitches_ andstumbling over them on her first entrance in order merely to win a laughand so lift her little role from the common rut of "lines" to thedignity of "a bit." For another, she seldom if ever brandished thatage-honoured wand of her office, a bedraggled feather-duster. Nor wasshe by any means in love with the tenant of the fust-floor-front.

  But though Staff was grateful for Milly because of this strong andunconventional individuality of hers, he wasn't at all pleased to beinterrupted, and he made nothing whatever of the ostensible excuse forthe interruption; the latter being a very large and brilliantlyilluminated bandbox, which Milly was offering him in pantomime.

  "It have just come," said Milly calmly, in response to his enquiringstare. "Where would you wish me to put it, sir?"

  "Put what?"

  Milly gesticulated eloquently with the bandbox.

  "That thing?" said Staff with scorn.

  "Yessir."

  "I don't want you to put it anywhere. Take it away."

  "But it's for you, sir."

  "Impossible. Some mistake. Please don't bother--just take it away.There's a good girl."

  Milly's disdain of this blandishment was plainly visible in the addedelevation of her already sufficiently tucked-up nose.

  "Beg pardon, sir," she persisted coldly, "but it's got your nime on it,and the boy as left it just now asked if you lived here."

  Staff's frown portrayed indignation, incredulity and impatience.

  "Mistake, I tell you. I haven't been buying any millinery. Absurd!"

  "Beg pardon, sir, but you can see as it's addressed to you."

  It was: the box being held out for examination, Staff saw plainly thatit was tagged with a card inscribed in fashionably slapdash femininehandwriting with what was unquestionably the name and local address ofBenjamin Staff, Esq.

  Because of this, he felt called upon to subject the box to more minuteinspection.

  It was nothing more nor less than the everyday milliners' hat-box ofcommerce: a capacious edifice of stout pasteboard neatly plastered withwall-paper in whose design narrow stripes of white alternated withaggressive stripes of brown, the whole effectively setting off anabundance of purple blossoms counterfeiting no flower known tobotanists. And one gibbous side was further decorated with bold blackscript advertising the establishment of its origin.

  "_Maison Lucille, New Bond Street, West_," Staff read aloud, completelybewildered. "But I never heard of the d---- the place!"

  Helplessly he sought Milly's eyes, and helpfully Milly rose to theoccasion.

  "Nossir," said she; and that was all.

  "I know nothing whatever about the thing," Staff declared severely."It's all a mistake. Take it away--it'll be sent for as soon as theerror's discovered."

  A glimmer of intelligence shone luminous in Milly's eyes. "Mebbe," shesuggested under inspiration of curiosity--"Mebbe if you was to open it,you'd find a note or--or something."

  "Bright girl!" applauded Staff. "You open it. I'm too busy--packingup--no time--"

  And realising how swiftly the golden minutes were fleeting beyondrecall, he cast desperately about for his pipe.

  By some miracle he chanced to find it, and so resumed packing.

  Behind him, Milly made noises with tissue-paper.

  Presently he heard a smothered "O sir!" and looked round to discover thehousemaid in an attitude of unmitigated adoration before what he couldnot deny was a perfect dream of a hat--the sort of a hat that only awoman or a society reporter could do justice to. In his vision it bore astriking resemblance to a Gainsborough with all modern improvements--asmost big hats do to most men. Briefly, it was big and black and trimmedwith an atmosphere of costly simplicity, a monstrous white "willow"plume and a huge buckle of brilliants. It impressed him, hazily, as justthe very hat to look ripping on an ash-blonde. Aside from this he wasaware of no sensation other than one of aggravated annoyance.

  Milly, to the reverse extreme, was charmed to distraction, thrilled tothe core of her and breathless--though by no means dumb. Women arenever dumb with admiration.

  "O sir!" she breathed in ecstasy--"it's a real creashun!"

  "Daresay," Staff conceded sourly. "Did you find a note?"

  "And the price-tag, sir--it says _twen_-ty five pounds!"

  "I hope there's a receipted bill, then.... Do you see anything remotelyresembling a note--or something?"

  With difficulty subduing her transports--"I'll see, sir," said Milly.

  Grunting with exasperation, Staff bent over a trunk and stuffed thingsinto it until Milly committed herself to the definite announcement: "Idon't seem to find nothing, sir."

  "Look again, please."

  Again Milly pawed the tissue-paper.

  "There ain't nothing at all, sir," she declared finally.

  Staff stood up, thrust his hands into his pockets and champed the stemof his pipe--scowling.

  "It is a bit odd, sir, isn't it?--having this sent to you like this andyou knowing nothing at all about it!"

  Staff said something indistinguishable because of the obstructingpipe-stem.

  "It's perfectly beautiful, sir--a won'erful hat, really."

  "The devil fly away with it!"

  "Beg pardon, sir?"

  "I said, I'm simply crazy about it, myself."

  "Oh
, did you, sir?"

  "Please put it back and tie it up."

  "Yessir." Reluctantly Milly restored the creation to its tissue-papernest. "And what would you wish me to do with it now, sir?" she resumedwhen at length the ravishing vision was hidden away.

  "Do with it?" stormed the vexed gentleman. "I don't care what thed--ickens you do with it. It isn't my hat. Take it away. Throw it intothe street. Send it back to the place it came from. Give it ... or,wait!"

  Pausing for breath and thought, he changed his mind. The hat was toovaluable to be treated with disrespect, no matter who was responsiblefor the mistake. Staff felt morally obligated to secure its return tothe Maison Lucille.

  "Look here, Milly ..."

  "Yessir?"

  "I'll just telephone ... No! Half a minute!"

  He checked, on the verge of yielding to an insane impulse. Being anative of New York, it had been his instinctive thought to call up thehat-shop and demand the return of its delivery-boy. Fortunately theinstinct of a true dramatist moved him to sketch hastily the ground-plotof the suggested tragedy.

  In _Act I_ (_Time: the Present_) he saw himself bearding the telephonein its lair--that is, in the darkest and least accessible recess of theground-floor hallway. In firm, manful accents, befitting an intrepidsoul, he details a number to the central operator--and meekly submits toan acidulated correction of his Amurrikin accent.

  _Act II_ (_fifteen minutes have elapsed_): He is clinging desperately tothe receiver, sustained by hope alone while he attends sympatheticallyto the sufferings of an English lady trying to get in communication withthe Army and Navy Stores.

  _Act III_ (_ten minutes later_): He has exhausted himself grinding awayat an obsolete rotary bell-call. Abruptly his ears are enchanted by afar, thin, frigid moan. It says: "_Are_ you theah?" Responding savagely"NO!" he dashes the receiver back into its hook and flings away todiscover that he has lost both train and steamer. Tag line: For this isLondon in the Twentieth Century. _Curtain: End of the Play._...

  Disenchanted by consideration of this tentative synopsis, the playwrightconsulted his watch. Already the incident of the condemnable bandboxhad eaten up much invaluable time. He would see himself doomed tounending perdition if he would submit to further hindrance on itsbehalf.

  "Milly," said he with decision, "take that ... thing down-stairs, andtell Mrs. Gigg to telephone the hat-shop to call for it."

  "Yessir."

  "And after that, call me a taxi. Tell it to wait. I'll be ready by tenor know--"

  Promptly retiring, Milly took with her, in addition to the bandbox, aconfused impression of a room whose atmosphere was thick with flyinggarments, in the wild swirl of which a lanky lunatic danced weirdly,muttering uncouth incantations....

  Forty minutes later (on the stroke of ten) Mr. Staff, beautifullygroomed after his habit, his manner (superbly nonchalant) denying thathe had ever known reason why he should take a single step in haste,followed his trunks down to the sidewalk and, graciously bidding hislandlady adieu, presented Milly with a keepsake in the shape of a goldencoin of the realm.

  A taxicab, heavy-laden with his things, fretted before the door. Staffnodded to the driver.

  "Euston," said he; "and a shilling extra if you drive like sin."

  "Right you are, sir."

  In the act of entering the cab, Staff started back with bitterimprecations.

  Mrs. Gigg, who had not quite closed the front door, opened it wide tohis remonstrant voice.

  "I say, what's this bandbox doing in my cab? I thought I told Milly--"

  "Sorry, sir; I forgot," Mrs. Gigg interposed--"bein' that flustered--"

  "Well?"

  "The woman what keeps the 'at-shop said as 'ow the 'at wasn't to comeback, sir. She said a young lidy bought it yestiddy ahfternoon andawsked to 'ave it sent you this mornin' before nine o'clock."

  "The deuce she did!" said Staff blankly.

  "An' the young lidy said as 'ow she'd write you a note explynin'. So Itells Milly not to bother you no more abaht it, but put the 'at-box inthe keb, sir--wishin' not to 'inder you."

  "Thoughtful of you, I'm sure. But didn't the--ah--woman who keeps thehat-shop mention the name of the--ah--person who purchased the hat?"

  By the deepening of its corrugations, the forehead of Mrs. Gigg betrayedthe intensity of her mental strain. Her eyes wore a far-away look andher lips moved, at first silently. Then--"I ain't sure, sir, as she didnime the lidy, but _if_ she did, it was somethin' like Burnside, Ifancy--or else Postlethwayt."

  "Nor Jones nor Brown? Perhaps Robinson? Think, Mrs. Gigg! Not Robinson?"

  "I'm sure it may 'ave been eyether of them, sir, now you puts it to mepl'in."

  "That makes everything perfectly clear. Thank you so much."

  With this, Staff turned hastily away, nodded to his driver to cut along,and with groans and lamentations squeezed himself into what space thebandbox did not demand of the interior of the vehicle.