IV
SOMETHING LIKE CLOVES
As a matter of fact, I found no difficulty at all. Little Winstanley was pleased with my murder specials, and fixed up an interview over the 'phone in no time.
"You're getting rather heavy metal for this, Prentice," he said, puffing out his cheeks and regarding me with the benevolence a man keeps for the work of his own hands; "but toddle along and see what you make of her." One of Winstanley's illusions is that he has "formed" me.
Fenella had a very pretty little doll's house in the tiny square that is tucked away near Knightsbridge Barracks, whose gardens back upon the Park. The brickwork was very neatly pointed, and the window boxes were full of chrysanthemums, and a red door with brass appointments flew open to my rather timid ring with a disconcerting suddenness. But I was not prepossessed with the stunted little maid who opened it. Neither in manner nor appearance was she "up to" the house. There was a latent hostility, too, in the way she scanned me.
"Noospapers?" she queried over her shoulder, as she closed the door.
I admitted it.
"Come in 'ere and wait."
I was precipitated rather than ushered into a fireless dining-room, a little cold and uncheery for all its graceful furnishings of dark scrolled wood and striped mulberry velvet cushions. There was a hanging lamp over the oval table, of liver-colored bronze; mistletoe leaves stuck over with little electric berries, which budded into light as the girl left the room. The sideboard was covered with silver toys. I remember a jointed crab and lobster, and a ship on wheels with all its sails set, and a coach and six, whose driver, his calves in the air, waved a long whiplash over six curled, trampling stallions. I know there are more striking contrasts in the world if one goes seeking them, but for me the injustice of life always stands pictured now by a shelf full of useless beaten silver toys on the one hand, and on the other by a coat buttoned across a naked throat.
I wonder would I have known my pale little girl with the frightened eyes, whose heart I had been so strangely commissioned to break, eighteen months ago? Then I had only been able to guess at the probable grace of the body which a rough travelling coat so thoroughly covered, and though, even in the strained, anxious face and disordered hair, beauty had been apparent, it had been beauty seen through a mist of tears, its harmonies disordered by the tortured questioning soul.
Since that time I suppose her figure had attained its full graciousness of line and had reached the limit of development which modern standards of bodily beauty, forced to take a fashion into consideration, would consider compatible with elegance for a woman of her height. She was still in half-mourning, and wore a trained dress of some soft gray material embroidered in black on the breast and sleeves. I am a child in such matters, but imagine her dressmaker, or the builder of garments more intimate still, must have been something of an artist, for, seen thus, there was absolutely nothing to recall the boyishsans gêneof figure and manner which was her great asset—her trump card upon the stage, and which, from the moment she kissed her hands across the footlights, never failed to bring rapturous applause about her ears. Her dark hair, "fine as the finest silk" (after all, there is no bettering the robust descriptiveness of fairy-tale), was dressed rather fashionably than prettily—wide across her forehead in front, and rather far beyond her head at the back. I thought she wore too many rings, and diamonds glittered in the soft shadow of her throat.
She did not recognize me, but gave me her hand to shake without condescension, which was all in her favor. I will make a further confession: At the first frank, interested glance of her eyes I consigned old Smeaton and his hateful friend who didn't often make mistakes to the eternal fellowship of Ananias. The impossibility simply began and ended with those eyes. It was not the glamour of a lovely face and a gracious welcome, for, as I took her hand, I remember feeling indignant that so little shadow of the wrong my friend had done her crossed the bright well-being of her life. It was too evident that she forgave and forgot with equal completeness. Poor, logical-minded Paul, carrying about with him night and day the image of this lost mistress. Did I blame him that food and raiment were hateful to him?
"Why," she said, "poor man! you're shivering. This room is a bit cold, isn't it? I'm afraid Frances doesn't like the press. I've noticed she always shows them into whichever room hasn't a fire in it. She's rather a tyrant, Frances is. But it's nice isn't it, to have some one left who cares enough for you to bully you. Druce, the housekeeper, was my nurse once. Come across to the drawing-room. It's much prettier, and there's a fire in it. Twenty minutes now"—lifting a warning finger—"not an instant longer."
I followed her across the ridiculous little hall into a drawing-room whose size surprised me. It was low but very long, and the bottom was filled in by a curved window of leaded glass looking out over the sodden Park, where a belated rider or two still walked a steaming horse and probably dreamed of a hot bath and dinner. The room, with its lacquered "dancing dado," and walls hung with Chinese silk, has been often paragraphed. It smelt of sandalwood and roses, and had a fire of old whale-ship logs burning in a steel casket upon the hearth, with little spurts of flame, all manner of unexpected tints—violet and bottle-green and strawberry red. How fond she was of color and glitter! A frightful old bull-terrier—reared, I should say, from his appearance, in the bosom of some knacker's family, and whose head something, prosperity perhaps, had turned violently on one side—got up from the hearth-rug and came limping and sniffing across the room. Fenella got down on her knees and put her soft cheek to the repulsive pink nose.
"Didhewant to be interviewed then? And so he shall. Do you know"—looking up at me—"you're the first one that's seenhim? I generally show two small ones like pen-wipers; but they're away at a show." She turned to the dog again. "Is he vezzy old then, and vezzy blind, and vezzy much chewed and bitten, poor old man! and is the world just one big, dark smell to him? Well if 'oowillchew my whiskers, dear, oftourse'oo'll sneeze!" She jumped up as though some thought suddenly checked her playful mood. "Puthimdown, please!" she said, pointing in a business-like manner to my open note-book. "Name? Roquelaure—Rock for short. Eighteen years old—two years less than me. Fancythat—younger than me! No tricks—only habits. We were puppies together—at least, I mean—Yes, yes. Put it down that way. It sounds ratherdear, I think. Sit down, please. Now, what else do you want to hear about? My dancing? Oh! I've always danced. Used to do it instead of flying into a rage."
"Wait one minute, please," I said. "'The usefulness of dancing as an outlet for the emotion is probably a discovery as old as the world itself.' Um—um——When did you begin to take regular lessons, and how far——?"
I looked up. She had recognized me. Forgetfulness? Oh! I was as bad as the others.
"Wait a moment!" She rose, and left the room as quickly as her tight silk underskirt would let her. She was back again in a minute, holding my card in her hand.
"Are youhisMr. Prentice?"
I bowed my head, and laid note-book and pencil aside. What a fool I had been to come!
"Where is he? Do you see him? Oh,howI've tried and tried to remember your name!"
"I don't know where he is."
"But you've seen him? I know you have. Answer, please. Why do you look so queer?"
"I saw him last week."
"Was he well? Was he happy?"
"He was—starving, I think."
"O-oh!" I had seen tragedy in the girl's face, now I saw it in the woman's. I told her as much as I dared. I hope I was merciful.
"Why didn't you hold him?" she cried, at one point of the story. "Oh, my God! Why did you let him go? Don't you know the sort of man he is?"
"I thought I was doing my best. I had only gone to get him some warm clothes. It was such a raw, foggy morning. That seemed the first thing."
"Some warm clothes!" she repeated, under her breath, looking round at the silk and silver and roses. Then she broke down, and cried and cried. Poor soul! I had to stop her at last. I was afraid she'd be ill.
She was very docile, dried her eyes, and begged my pardon for what she'd just said.
"You're his friend, aren't you?" she pleaded, "his real, true friend? You won't give him up?"
"What can I do? I'd even bear it for him if I could."
"No you couldn't," she said, tightening her lips and shaking her head decisively. "Nobody can bear anything for him. Do you think I didn't try?"
She rolled her handkerchief up into a ball, and tucked it away, with a resolute little gesture.
"I'm not going to despair," she said bravely, with a kind of gulp and a tremor of her throat that set the diamonds streaming blue fire. "I think things will come all right. I've had a kind of a—kind of sign. Shall I tell you?"—timidly.
I'm foolishly impulsive, and I kissed her hand. After all, the dog does it.
"Listen, then! Thursday week"—I started, but she didn't notice it—"Thursday week I was feeling simplyawfulall day. I can't explain it. Imagine some one you love is being tried for something that means death—or more awful still, if it goes against him. It got worse and worse. I've never missed a night I was billed for, but I shouldn't have been able to go on as I was. Still, I went down to the theatre—just on chance, you know. It was half-past seven or quarter to eight. I had an hour, but I dressed early to be safe. Suddenly something seemed to say inside of me, 'Now! now! down on your knees, quick. This is the dangerous time.' My dresser had gone out. I locked the door, and fell on my knees in a kind of faint. I prayed, and prayed as well as I could. I don't remember much what. I think I asked God, if Paul was never, never to be happy again, to take him the best way to some place where nothing could hurt him any more, and where he would see me and know what I was feeling for him. And then, Mr. Prentice—and then——Oh! it was wonderful. Something all warm and comfortable, like—oh! likecloves—why do you laugh? I'm trying to tell you the best way I can—seemed to come round my heart. I got up from my knees. It was eight-fifteen, and my dresser was banging on the door and asking if I was ill. I opened it and hugged her. She must have thought me crazy. All the sadness was gone—every bit. I knew they'd done trying him, and he—and he——" She struggled with her emotion, and, then, covering her face with her hands, rocked backward and forward, moaning and sobbing—"he's Not Guilty. No! my love's Not Guilty."
There was a knock at the door. She turned her head quickly into the shadow.
"Come in!"
"It's Sir Bryan, madam."
"Tell him to wait in the dining-room.... Now, Mr. Prentice, we must try again. What are the best papers to advertise in? Papers that—that quite poor people read most?"
I gave two or three an unsolicited testimonial.
"Write your address—your private address—on this card. I'll put an advert."—she said it this way—"in three for a year. Just your initial. The moment you hear, telegraph—no, telephone me! I'll say you're to be always given my address. I don't go to New York for nearly a year. Good-bye. I'll send you something for your paper to-night."
I did not see the sporting baronet, but I smelt his cigar in the hall, and I saw his damned motor-car outside the door. And as I walked out of the little square, I wondered whether perhaps it wouldn't be to every one's advantage, and his own, if Paul Ingram should never be heard of on this earth again.