The Sea Lady Read online

  CHAPTER THE THIRD

  THE EPISODE OF THE VARIOUS JOURNALISTS

  I

  The remarkable thing is that the Buntings really carried out theprogramme Mrs. Bunting laid down. For a time at least they positivelysucceeded in converting the Sea Lady into a credible human invalid, inspite of the galaxy of witnesses to the lady's landing and in spite ofthe severe internal dissensions that presently broke out. In spite,moreover, of the fact that one of the maids--they found out which onlylong after--told the whole story under vows to her very superior youngman who told it next Sunday to a rising journalist who was sitting abouton the Leas maturing a descriptive article. The rising journalist wasincredulous. But he went about enquiring. In the end he thought it goodenough to go upon. He found in several quarters a vague but sufficientrumour of a something; for the maid's young man was a conversationalistwhen he had anything to say.

  Finally the rising journalist went and sounded the people on the twochief Folkestone papers and found the thing had just got to them. Theywere inclined to pretend they hadn't heard of it, after the fashion oflocal papers when confronted by the abnormal, but the atmosphere ofenterprise that surrounded the rising journalist woke them up. Heperceived he had done so and that he had no time to lose. So while theyengaged in inventing representatives to enquire, he went off andtelephoned to the _Daily Gunfire_ and the _New Paper_. When theyanswered he was positive and earnest. He staked his reputation--thereputation of a rising journalist!

  "I swear there's something up," he said. "Get in first--that's all."

  He had some reputation, I say--and he had staked it. The _Daily Gunfire_was sceptical but precise, and the _New Paper_ sprang a headline "AMermaid at last!"

  You might well have thought the thing was out after that, but it wasn't.There are things one doesn't believe even if they are printed in ahalfpenny paper. To find the reporters hammering at their doors, so tospeak, and fended off only for a time by a proposal that they shouldcall again; to see their incredible secret glaringly in print, didindeed for a moment seem a hopeless exposure to both the Buntings andthe Sea Lady. Already they could see the story spreading, could imaginethe imminent rush of intimate enquiries, the tripod strides of amultitude of cameras, the crowds watching the windows, the horrors of agreat publicity. All the Buntings and Mabel were aghast, simply aghast.Adeline was not so much aghast as excessively annoyed at this imminentand, so far as she was concerned, absolutely irrelevant publicity. "Theywill never dare--" she said, and "Consider how it affects Harry!" and atthe earliest opportunity she retired to her own room. The others, with acertain disregard of her offence, sat around the Sea Lady's couch--shehad scarcely touched her breakfast--and canvassed the coming terror.

  "They will put our photographs in the papers," said the elder MissBunting.

  "Well, they won't put mine in," said her sister. "It's horrid. I shallgo right off now and have it taken again."

  "They'll interview the Ded!"

  "No, no," said Mr. Bunting terrified. "Your mother----"

  "It's your place, my dear," said Mrs. Bunting.

  "But the Ded--" said Fred.

  "I couldn't," said Mr. Bunting.

  "Well, some one'll have to tell 'em anyhow," said Mrs. Bunting. "Youknow, they will----"

  "But it isn't at all what I wanted," wailed the Sea Lady, with the_Daily Gunfire_ in her hand. "Can't it be stopped?"

  "You don't know our journalists," said Fred.

  The tact of my cousin Melville saved the situation. He had dabbled injournalism and talked with literary fellows like myself. And literaryfellows like myself are apt at times to be very free and outspoken aboutthe press. He heard of the Buntings' shrinking terror of publicity assoon as he arrived, a perfect clamour--an almost exultant clamourindeed, of shrinking terror, and he caught the Sea Lady's eye and tookhis line there and then.

  "It's not an occasion for sticking at trifles, Mrs. Bunting," he said."But I think we can save the situation all the same. You're toohopeless. We must put our foot down at once; that's all. Let _me_ seethese reporter fellows and write to the London dailies. I think I cantake a line that will settle them."

  "Eh?" said Fred.

  "I can take a line that will stop it, trust me."

  "What, altogether?"

  "Altogether."

  "How?" said Fred and Mrs. Bunting. "You're not going to bribe them!"

  "Bribe!" said Mr. Bunting. "We're not in France. You can't bribe aBritish paper."

  (A sort of subdued cheer went around from the assembled Buntings.)

  "You leave it to me," said Melville, in his element.

  And with earnestly expressed but not very confident wishes for hissuccess, they did.

  He managed the thing admirably.

  "What's this about a mermaid?" he demanded of the local journalists whenthey returned. They travelled together for company, being, so to speak,emergency journalists, compositors in their milder moments, andunaccustomed to these higher aspects of journalism. "What's this about amermaid?" repeated my cousin, while they waived precedence dumbly one toanother.

  "I believe some one's been letting you in," said my cousin Melville."Just imagine!--a mermaid!"

  "That's what we thought," said the younger of the two emergencyjournalists. "We knew it was some sort of hoax, you know. Only the _NewPaper_ giving it a headline----"

  "I'm amazed even Banghurst--" said my cousin Melville.

  "It's in the _Daily Gunfire_ as well," said the older of the twoemergency journalists.

  "What's one more or less of these ha'penny fever rags?" cried my cousinwith a ringing scorn. "Surely you're not going to take your Folkestonenews from mere London papers."

  "But how did the story come about?" began the older emergencyjournalist.

  "That's not my affair."

  The younger emergency journalist had an inspiration. He produced a notebook from his breast pocket. "Perhaps, sir, you wouldn't mind suggestingto us something we might say----"

  My cousin Melville complied.

  II

  The rising young journalist who had first got wind of the business--whomust not for a moment be confused with the two emergency journalistsheretofore described--came to Banghurst next night in a state of strangeexultation. "I've been through with it and I've seen her," he panted. "Iwaited about outside and saw her taken into the carriage. I've talked toone of the maids--I got into the house under pretence of being atelephone man to see their telephone--I spotted the wire--and it's afact. A positive fact--she's a mermaid with a tail--a proper mermaid'stail. I've got here----"

  He displayed sheets.

  "Whaddyer talking about?" said Banghurst from his littered desk, eyeingthe sheets with apprehensive animosity.

  "The mermaid--there really _is_ a mermaid. At Folkestone."

  Banghurst turned away from him and pawed at his pen tray. "Whad if thereis!" he said after a pause.

  "But it's proved. That note you printed----"

  "That note I printed was a mistake if there's anything of that sortgoing, young man." Banghurst remained an obstinate expansion of back.

  "How?"

  "We don't deal in mermaids here."

  "But you're not going to let it drop?"

  "I am."

  "But there she is!"

  "Stuff that the public won't believe aren't facts."]

  "Let her be." He turned on the rising young journalist, and his massiveface was unusually massive and his voice fine and full and fruity. "Doyou think we're going to make our public believe anything simply becauseit's true? They know perfectly well what they are going to believeand what they aren't going to believe, and they aren't going to believeanything about mermaids--you bet your hat. I don't care if the wholedamned beach was littered with mermaids--not the whole damned beach!We've got our reputation to keep up. See?... Look here!--you don't learnjournalism as I hoped you'd do. It was you what brought in all thatstuff about a discovery in chemistry----"

  "It's true."

  "Ugh!"
>
  "I had it from a Fellow of the Royal Society----"

  "I don't care if you had it from--anybody. Stuff that the public won'tbelieve aren't facts. Being true only makes 'em worse. They buy ourpaper to swallow it and it's got to go down easy. When I printed youthat note and headline I thought you was up to a lark. I thought youwas on to a mixed bathing scandal or something of that sort--with juicein it. The sort of thing that _all_ understand. You know when you wentdown to Folkestone you were going to describe what Salisbury and all therest of them wear upon the Leas. And start a discussion on theacclimatisation of the cafe. And all that. And then you get on to this(unprintable epithet) nonsense!"

  "But Lord Salisbury--he doesn't go to Folkestone."

  Banghurst shrugged his shoulders over a hopeless case. "What the deuce,"he said, addressing his inkpot in plaintive tones, "does _that_ matter?"

  The young man reflected. He addressed Banghurst's back after a pause.His voice had flattened a little. "I might go over this and do it up asa lark perhaps. Make it a comic dialogue sketch with a man who reallybelieved in it--or something like that. It's a beastly lot of copy toget slumped, you know."

  "Nohow," said Banghurst. "Not in any shape. No! Why! They'd think itclever. They'd think you was making game of them. They hate things theythink are clever!"

  The young man made as if to reply, but Banghurst's back expressed quiteclearly that the interview was at an end.

  "Nohow," repeated Banghurst just when it seemed he had finishedaltogether.

  "I may take it to the _Gunfire_ then?"

  Banghurst suggested an alternative.

  "Very well," said the young man, heated, "the _Gunfire_ it is."

  But in that he was reckoning without the editor of the _Gunfire_.

  III

  It must have been quite soon after that, that I myself heard the firstmention of the mermaid, little recking that at last it would fall to meto write her history. I was on one of my rare visits to London, andMicklethwaite was giving me lunch at the Penwiper Club, certainly one ofthe best dozen literary clubs in London. I noted the rising youngjournalist at a table near the door, lunching alone. All about himtables were vacant, though the other parts of the room were crowded. Hesat with his face towards the door, and he kept looking up whenever anyone came in, as if he expected some one who never came. Once distinctlyI saw him beckon to a man, but the man did not respond.

  "Look here, Micklethwaite," I said, "why is everybody avoiding that manover there? I noticed just now in the smoking-room that he seemed to betrying to get into conversation with some one and that a kind oftaboo----"

  Micklethwaite stared over his fork. "Ra-ther," he said.

  "But what's he done?"

  "He's a fool," said Micklethwaite with his mouth full, evidentlyannoyed. "Ugh," he said as soon as he was free to do so.

  I waited a little while.

  "What's he done?" I ventured.

  Micklethwaite did not answer for a moment and crammed things into hismouth vindictively, bread and all sorts of things. Then leaning towardsme in a confidential manner he made indignant noises which I could notclearly distinguish as words.

  "Oh!" I said, when he had done.

  "Yes," said Micklethwaite. He swallowed and then poured himselfwine--splashing the tablecloth.

  "He had _me_ for an hour very nearly the other day."

  "Yes?" I said.

  "Silly fool," said Micklethwaite.

  I was afraid it was all over, but luckily he gave me an opening againafter gulping down his wine.

  "He leads you on to argue," he said.

  "That----?"

  "That he can't prove it."

  "Yes?"

  "And then he shows you he can. Just showing off how damned ingenious heis."

  I was a little confused. "Prove what?" I asked.

  "Haven't I been telling you?" said Micklethwaite, growing very red."About this confounded mermaid of his at Folkestone."

  "He says there is one?"

  "Yes, he does," said Micklethwaite, going purple and staring at me veryhard. He seemed to ask mutely whether I of all people proposed to turnon him and back up this infamous scoundrel. I thought for a moment hewould have apoplexy, but happily he remembered his duty as my host. Sohe turned very suddenly on a meditative waiter for not removing ourplates.

  "Had any golf lately?" I said to Micklethwaite, when the plates and theremains of the waiter had gone away. Golf always does Micklethwaite goodexcept when he is actually playing. Then, I am told-- If I were Mrs.Bunting I should break off and raise my eyebrows and both hands at thispoint, to indicate how golf acts on Micklethwaite when he is playing.

  I turned my mind to feigning an interest in golf--a game that in truthI despise and hate as I despise and hate nothing else in this world.Imagine a great fat creature like Micklethwaite, a creature who ought towear a turban and a long black robe to hide his grossness, whacking alittle white ball for miles and miles with a perfect surgery ofinstruments, whacking it either with a babyish solemnity or a childishrage as luck may have decided, whacking away while his country goes tothe devil, and incidentally training an innocent-eyed little boy toswear and be a tip-hunting loafer. That's golf! However, I controlled myall too facile sneer and talked of golf and the relative merits of golflinks as I might talk to a child about buns or distract a puppy with thewhisper of "rats," and when at last I could look at the rising youngjournalist again our lunch had come to an end.

  I saw that he was talking with a greater air of freedom than it isusual to display to club waiters, to the man who held his coat. The manlooked incredulous but respectful, and was answering shortly butpolitely.

  When we went out this little conversation was still going on. The waiterwas holding the rising young journalist's soft felt hat and the risingyoung journalist was fumbling in his coat pocket with a thick mass ofpapers.

  "It's tremendous. I've got most of it here," he was saying as we wentby. "I don't know if you'd care----"

  "I get very little time for reading, sir," the waiter was replying.