Two hours in the railway carriage tamed her unruly nerves into some sort of submission, and partially schooled her into accepting the inevitable. To make the best of it, to rob the new Duke shamelessly of money and the Curzon Street house, on the plea of disinheritance, were the results at which she arrived. By the time Firmingham appeared through the carriage windows she had ceased to kick against the pricks. The mask was on her face when the train stopped, and it was a quiet and demure lady who alighted at the station. Even the sister-in-law who entered the great house to console the Marchioness was as sympathetic as the most exacting could have required.
She suppressed a groan when she passed through the doors of the lordly mansion that was really and truly her own, but managed by a steady exercise of her strong will to greet Colley with great calmness. The butler intimated that Lady Frith wept incessantly in her boudoir, and that the Duke----
"What?" queried Leah, sharply, adding more grammatically, "Who?"
"His Grace the Duke, my lady. He is in the study."
"Mr. Lionel Kaimes?"
"As was, my lady. His Grace came down last night."
"Augh! Why wasn't there an accident on the line?" muttered she, who longed to announce herself as a genuine duchess and could not.
"I beg pardon, my lady!"
"Oh--er--I'll go to my room, Colley. Tell his Grace I shall see him in an hour."
When she had changed her dress for one heavier with crape, as a sign of additional grief, and had lain for a miserable forty minutes without closing an eye, and had swallowed a much-needed dose of sal volatile, and had relieved her feelings by scolding an unoffending maid, she went before the footlights to play her most difficult and unpalatable part. The former nobody, seated at his predecessor's desk, rose, looking pale and careworn.
"A terrible thing," said the new Duke, giving his hand gravely.
"Awful. I can scarcely believe it. Is it really true?" and she had a passing hope that it might not be, seeing she could not benefit.
"Only too true, unfortunately."
"For those two, I suppose you mean. You're all right."
"A square peg in a round hole, I fear," he sighed. "I would give much that both had survived."
"How unnatural!" commented Lady Jim, with a grimace. "But you always were eccentric. People won't mind that, now you are a duke. But I am sorry--really--for them, I mean. Such an awful thing to be cut off before you've made your arrangements for an agreeable reception in the next world. What a mercy they went together--for company, you know; and they say drowning is really quite nice after the first choking is over."
Lionel looked at her sternly, but felt helpless. She played with the solemn issues of life and death as a child with a bauble. Would nothing touch her heart? Would nothing make her serious? The flippancy jarred on his overstrung nerves. "Please do not talk like that," said he, harshly and emphatically. "Please do not."
"I am only trying to cheer you up," she answered, opening her eyes wide, and with a faint smile softening her hard mouth. "I really cried--you mustn't think me hard-hearted; really, I cried when I heard of the accident. I suppose it was an accident?"
"I should call it the act of God."
"Oh!" Leah could find no very pertinent reply, and glided dexterously into another subject, to prevent religious instruction. "I came down to see poor Hilda, as she wanted me so badly. But I thought it best to learn details from you first. We must spare the poor thing's feelings, you know, Lionel," ended Lady Jim, thoughtfully.
His face brightened. "I am glad you call me that," said he, earnestly, "for I confess it is difficult for me to respond to my title."
"You'll get used to it," she assured him. "I suppose you will drop the parson now?"
"Certainly not. I am still my Master's servant. He has merely raised me to a higher and more responsible position in His household."
"Raised your wages also," murmured Leah, shrugging. "I beg your pardon, Lionel, I should not have said that."
"You should not, indeed," was the pained response.
"It's a kind of hysteria," apologised Lady Jim, almost at a loss for an excuse, "like that man who botanised on his mother's grave, you know. Besides, people who really feel, laugh awfully when sorrow comes. And Jim's death took most of my tears--poor dear Jim! I daresay you think that I am unfeeling; but I'm not--really and truly, I'm not. What with these dear things dying so unexpectedly, and my own feeling of widowhood, and condolences from people who will say the wrong thing, I feel broken-hearted."
Lionel smiled grimly at this incoherent and wholly false explanation.
"You have a strange way of showing grief, Lady James."
"Don't be nasty, now that you are up in the world. I'll be quite different with Hilda, poor soul, though I must be natural with you. It is a compliment, if you only look at it in the right way, which of course, with your priggishness, you won't. And you needn't use that cheap title of mine, just to remind me how nearly I've missed being called by a more expensive one. I suppose Joan will be your duchess. Do you think she will fill the position!"
"Admirably."
"How curt! There is still a lot of the parson about you, Lionel."
"And ever will be."
"World without end, I suppose. Hysteria again, Duke, so don't look shocked. Give me details."
The young man looked again at this wonderful being. For many months he had known the impossibility of altering Leah's view of things seen and unseen. The most sacred subjects seemed to appeal to her sense of humour, and no solemnity could banish the ever-ready smile from her lips. In reality he was unjust in thinking thus. Lady Jim, considering her losses and the ironic position she occupied, only kept herself from shrieking out the truth by giving vent to ill-timed frivolities. Her greatest relief would have been to tell this prig that he was a supplanter. Hysteria, said she, was the excuse for unnatural merriment, and truly hysteria it was, although she could not swear to it. Unaware of all this turmoil in the mind of the mourner in motley, Lionel positively thought that troubles had rendered her distraught, and so passed over her incongruities.
"The yacht was on her homeward way," he explained, in the eminently laboured fashion of a landsman when dealing with ships. "During that storm a week ago she went down off Brest--Cape Brest."
"Struck on a reef?"
"No; she sprang a leak, and the boats were stove in, so no one could be saved in that way. By clinging to a spar the steward reached shore. He alone survived;" and Lionel covered his face to indulge in a silent prayer for those who had perished.
Lady Jim was more practical according to her lights. "Why did you only hear this week-old news yesterday?"
"The steward, the survivor, was ill with fever: also he was wounded in the head,--against the rock, I suppose. The yacht was seen to founder far off shore, but no one at Brest knew her name. When the steward came to himself the other day, he explained, and the news was telegraphed to the Duke's lawyers, who sent for me. I expect we shall not learn full details till this steward arrives. He is now on his way to London."
"And the Duke--Frith?"
"Their bodies are in the depths with the ship and those who formed her crew. Peace be to their souls!"
"You needn't worry about that," said Leah, tartly, and paying her tribute to the dead. "I am quite sure that the Duke and Frith have gone to that heaven you're always talking about. It is awful," she added pensively, and with a shudder; "but talking only makes it worse. I'll go and see Hilda, poor dear."
Lionel followed her to the door. "Lady James, let me beg of you to keep the--er--hysteria in check."
"Of course," she assured him, giving her hand frankly; "I always adapt my mood to my company. It would be useless for one woman to waste hysteria on another--both know too much about it. I'll be nice--oh, you can be sure of that. I'm not a bad sort, my good man."
"Sometimes I think you are a very decent sort, Lady James."
"And on other occasions?" she questioned, unmoved.
"Don't ask me."
"I won't. You can't explain, and will only fib. Parsons can't keep back an answer, whether they know anything of the matter in hand or not. But I'll be good to that poor baby-woman--indeed I will."
And indeed she was, swinging round to the opposite extreme, with the protean adaptability of her nature. Besides, after the interview with the new Duke she felt able to command her feelings better. It is only possible to act perfectly when the emotions are under control, as Lady Jim found; and if she said what she did not mean, and acted as she did not feel, well, that was the fault of the circumstances into which her treacherous fetish had thrown her. But at heart she really had some pity for this useless doll of a woman, who sobbed in her arms.
"Don't cry, dear," said Leah, ardently, beginning to console; "you know how I feel for you. I also have lost a husband." Owing to circumstances she rather choked over this lie, but it came out pretty readily.
"I shall never--never lift up my head again," sobbed the latest widow.
"Oh, yes, you will, dear," replied the earlier one, cheerfully: "look at me!"
Hilda shook her head and declined to look. "Frith wasn't Jim," said she.
"And he wasn't my husband, either. You feel Frith's death and I feel Jim's. We each have our own sorrow, and time alone will help us to forget the dear departed."
"Leah"--Hilda sobbed more violently than ever--"I shall never--never forget. Never--never--never--never!"
"I didn't mean forget exactly," murmured Leah, who had been more candid than she intended; "but time will soothe us, and we shall all meet on a happier shore."
"I hope so--I hope so;" the Marchioness clasped her hands devoutly and raised her eyes. "I can see our three dear ones meeting now."
"I wish I could," said Lady Jim, truthfully, and she felt that the meeting of the Kaimes family in heaven would be a sight worth witnessing. Of course Jim was alive, but even if he were dead, she did not think that Hilda's vision could possibly become fact. The Duke, who had turned angel in his old age, and Frith, who was always pious, had a chance certainly; but Jim, when his turn came, would probably not be of the party.
However, the business of consoling a sore heart had to be attended to, and Leah dosed Hilda with all the platitudes which the Marchioness had used during a similar and earlier event. And Lady Jim was so admirable an actress that she really deceived herself into thinking that her stage-play was real life. Her eloquence, her attentions, her hoverings like a guardian angel over Hilda, her bringing in the children--that was a master-stroke--and her general zeal in drying a mourner's tears, were truly wonderful. By the time she left the Marchioness, sitting up with "his children" on her lap, soothed and comforted, and grateful for Leah's kindness, poor Lady Jim felt quite exhausted.
"I do hope there will be a decent dinner," she soliloquised, in the seclusion of her own room. "I can't stand much more of this without food."
Through the troubles of death and the joys of birth, the worry of weak minds and the scheming of strong ones, ever moves the solid business of life connected with eating and sleeping. Therefore the Firmingham cook, being a hired servant, was sufficiently master of his emotions to send up a really tempting repast. The new Duke and the disinherited Duchess partook of this meal in a small room without attendance. Wishing to talk family matters, they did not desire eavesdropping footmen. Besides, Hilda remained in her own apartment, nourishing her emotions with red lavender, and calling at intervals for "Bunny" to come back. Lady Jim paid several visits to the poor little soul during the evening, and each time was successful in cheering her up; but it was trying work, as again and again she had to begin from the beginning. No wonder she looked harassed when seated opposite to her host. Lionel thanked her gratefully, and with reason, for Hilda had eulogised Leah and her work of mercy.
"I knew you would prove yourself a true woman," said he, pouring her out a glass of champagne.
"Oh, Lord!" said Lady Jim, sipping the wine, and wondered what he would say could he see into her mind. "Give me some of that vol-au-vent, Lionel. It is really very good."
The man felt slightly disappointed. "You can eat?"
"Do you require me to tell you that?" she asked lightly. "I have enjoyed every course. Eat--I should think so. You don't want me to faint, as Hilda has been doing."
"But your feelings"
"Oh, they are well under control, now. And after all"--Leah paused with a fork half-way to her mouth--"it's best to be sensible even when things smash. If I had come down to howl about the house, where would you have been?"
"I really cannot understand your nature."
Lady Jim nodded. "Same here. I never know what I shall do under given circumstances, save keep my poor wits about me. We're strange beasts, Lionel--strange beasts."
He disagreed, mindful of her Good Samaritan kindness. "You make yourself out to be worse than you are, Lady James."
"Don't you make any such mistake. I never seek cheap praise by crying down my virtues. Were you my father-confessor--which you are not--and I religious--which I have no inclination to be--I should shock you into Hilda's state. Poor little thing, what an undisciplined mind she has, and how she does work for those tyrants the emotions! I think you had better send for Joan: she is used to women who run wild."
"You put things unpleasantly," said he, uneasily.
"And truthfully. Answer my question, please."
"Joan arrives to-morrow with her mother."
"I am glad," Leah assured him fervently. "Too many female cooks can never spoil the funeral broth. The more women you have in a mourning house the better. We like to weep in company and to talk obituary notices. That is, other women do. I fancy I have a dash of the man in me, and this sort of undertaker rejoicing gives me the creeps."
Lionel secretly agreed with her, although he disapproved of the mode of expression. Ostentatious grief he disliked, as most men do, and discussing funeral emotions threadbare was not to his healthy liking. Therefore did he talk business with Lady Jim. It was necessary to distract his attention, she said, and so set about plundering the heir. By the time coffee arrived Lionel had promised her the Curzon Street house as a gift, and had agreed to pay all debts as the late Duke had arranged. Also, untruthfully assured by Leah that her temporal prosperity had suffered by the untimely demise of Jim, he promised to pay a quarterly thousand a year for the rest of her life.
"Yes," said Lionel, emphatically, "even if you marry, Lady James."
"I have no intention of marrying yet," said Leah, who was busy with Kümmel. She really felt that the consoling of a tearful widow required Kümmel.
"I thought that Mr. Askew admired you."
"He admires a new schooner he has bought, and some woman in South America. Oh, Mr. Askew has a catholic mind, I can tell you."
"Dr. Demetrius!"
"He has gone to Russia, I believe, on business connected with his pardon. Didn't Joan tell you how he was taken ill in Paris?"
"Yes; what a strange thing!"
"Oh, I don't know. He once told me that he inherited fits--mother's side. It was very rude of him to have one in my rooms, but some men are so inconsiderate."
"He loves you."
"Or loved me--which?"
"Present tense, I fancy. Will you marry him?"
"Will I marry the Emperor of China, you mean. No, thanks; I have no wish to live in a country of bounce and bombs. And I never could read those novels written by men with unpronounceable names. Besides, I can't bear dapper little men with waxed moustaches. I only tolerated Dr. Demetrius because he was useful to Jim."
"A great friend of your husband's, I believe."
"Do you? Does one generally make a friend of one's doctor?"
"The man was certainly credited with being your friend. And more, he talked openly of his love for you."
"What bad taste! I don't see how you can hold me responsible. He did love me, I believe--at least, he pestered me with attentions. It's a mercy he has gone to Si--I mean to Russia. I hope he'll stay there, and be eaten up by white bears like those poor brats Elisha was so spiteful to. As to marrying"--her eyes twinkled--"it won't be easy to replace poor Jim. He was such a good husband."
"You never said that when he was alive."
"Of course not: he would have taken advantage of the compliment. But Jim wasn't bad on the whole. He left me alone, at all events. Perhaps his successor will bother me to show public affection: as if I would--or could, for the matter of that."
"Lady James, do you love any one but yourself?"
"You and Joan--dear little innocent glass-case dolls that you are. Yes; you may blush and smile, but I am really in earnest. You were always so rude to me that I knew you to be genuine."
"Oh!" Lionel exhibited shocked surprise. "I hope I was never rude."
"Horribly, on all occasions. If you had not been, I never should have believed that you were genuine. When people mean what they say, and don't want anything from one, they are always rude; it's a kind of trademark. I am sure Socrates was a man you could always trust and would never have invited to dinner. You're something like him, only you don't ask questions and are better-looking. I always consider you the one honest man in a world of rogues, and if you were not engaged to Joan, I should marry you."
Lionel coloured still deeper and laughed in an embarrassed fashion. "I might have something to say to that."
"Not at all. Didn't you hear me say that I should have married you. What could you or any man do against me?" and she laughed with an insolent pride in her beauty and powers. "By the way," she added, "I have to run up to town to-morrow on business. Do you mind?"
"Not at all. Joan and her mother will be here. Do exactly what you please, Lady James."
"Call me Leah, now that you are the head of the family," she murmured, and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
He threw back his head and met her eyes, with a boyish blush. "Leah!" he breathed. "Very well, then--Leah."
Lady Jim tapped his smooth cheek indulgently. "You foolish thing," she said, kindly; "if it was worth my while, I could----" Leaving the sentence unfinished and Lionel furious, she left the room. That she--this hardened coquette of the world, should dare to think he would forget the sweetest and best of girls. Let her sing the song of the sirens as she might, he would never--no, never, prove false to Joan. But honest as were these thoughts, Lionel was but a man, when all was said and done, and the touch on his shoulder, the look in her eyes, the cooing murmur of her voice, made him wince, and not unpleasantly. Well was it for the young man that Leah did not choose to try her wiles, else he might have been lured towards that pit the edges of which are wreathed with roses. Had his future Duchess been any other than Joan the simple, a perverse spirit might have led Lady Jim to indulge in some perilous amusement; but she liked the girl, and honestly respected Lionel. Therefore did the lover scoff at her magic arts, strong only in escaping temptation. Had Leah put forth her powers---- "Silly little donkey," she thought, climbing the stairs, "as if I couldn't do what I liked. It would be a hard battle, but I could--I could--I could,--only I shan't," she finished. "Joan is a dear girl, and I am the most worried woman in the world."
She made the latter part of this final remark again, when she conned a brusque and somewhat imperative letter which had arrived by the evening post. It came from one Richard Strange, and purported to be written from a third-rate Strand hotel. This uncivilised communication intimated that the aforesaid Strange would be obliged--this underlined--if her ladyship would afford him an immediate interview.
"M'm," commented Leah, glancing suspiciously at the underlined word, "he isn't sure of his money, and means to be nasty if he doesn't get it. Well"--she heaved a sigh--"he must be paid, I suppose, the blackmailing beast. And the whole sum down, I expect. Time payments won't be acceptable to a man who writes in this fashion."
She wrote an artful letter, stating that Dr. Demetrius had spoken of his travels with a Captain Strange, and, solely because she wished to hear of poor Mr. Garth, who had been a protégé of her late father-in-law, she made an appointment at 10, Curzon Street, for five the next evening. This epistle, which did not recognise existing facts and could be shown to the whole world without betraying anything underhand, she sent off at once. If possible, she would have shirked meeting a man she more than suspected of being a brute. But to vanquish danger one must meet it, as she very well knew.
"And if he wants more than his thousand," thought Lady Jim, again on her way to the widowed Marchioness, "he'll find that I am quite equal to deal with him, and with a dozen like him, if need be. A thousand pounds! Oh, Lord! The greedy wretch!"
Then she spread her wings as a ministering angel.
"No!" rasped the lean man, and his eyes hardened like those of a cat with her claws out; "you figure it out, ma'am, in your own way very prettily, I don't deny. But my Pisgah-sight's got to be took, you bet. Guess we'll do th' view in a bunch, an' toss fur lots."
Leah smiled vaguely, because she was not sure of her ground, and required a translator badly. Jim had been abstruse on occasions, but this seafaring person spoke the shibboleth of a shifting population to excess. Never having met one of this breed before, she did not know how to handle him. Captain Strange was not a Muscovite diplomatist, who would call black white, or even grey, to please her; and, moreover, he appeared to be extraordinarily unsympathetic in the presence of lovely woman. The magic of sex had worked weakly hitherto, and this brusque visitor gave her to understand that he was not to be cajoled into make-believe conversation. He required, and declared emphatically that he did require, an unvarnished statement of facts, to be argued exhaustively, so that he might know--as he tersely put it--where he dropped anchor.
"You don't chuck orange-peel my way, ma'am," said the mariner, and intended to clinch his assertion by spitting. But the sight of the carpet pulled him back to civilisation.
The friend of Demetrius, owner and captain of theStormy Petrel, presented himself as a tall, small-boned man, with no superfluous flesh on his frame-work, and with a jaw as hard--from bullying underlings--and as blue--from close shaving--as were his eyes. The tint of these, added to the blackness of curling hair, combined with the racy vernacular which he flung fairly in her face, inclined Lady Jim to class him as an Irish-American. But from the discourteous way in which he spoke--as they never would have spoken in dear dirty Dublin--and from his habit of interjecting slang words chosen from the domestic speech of the Five Nations, she was puzzled to fix his nationality accurately. As a matter of private history, and this she discovered later, he was entirely cosmopolitan, and, out of sheer contrariety, owed allegiance to no particular flag. Not a bad-looking freebooter, Leah decided, with his regular features, and well-shaped head, and white teeth, and ruddy clean-shaven face; but dangerous, was her second and wiser thought. She was right. The man of many lands was also of many minds, but at the back of them all lay the unalterable determination to ride rough-shod over any one who would submit. As Lady Jim also held to the same theory of individualism, it was not unlikely that a brisk encounter might ensue, and for this she was quite prepared. Meantime, she decided that he was picturesque, and, in his rough blue clothes, with a red neck-tie and barbaric gold rings in his ears, and a general air of "you-be-damnedness," would have amused her as a new figure from the underworld, but that the large issues of the conversation induced seriousness.
"I don't understand you, and I am sure you do not understand me," was her observation, after digesting the orange-peel parable.
"Let it go at that, ma'am. But I reckon I kin make m'self as clear as any man, livin' or dead, when dollars are in th' pool. Now you"--he shook a large brown finger--"you, ma'am, give me taffy."
"What is taffy?"
"What you might call sugar--best brand, an' no sand in it, anyhow. I've struck heaps of the female in my time, and it's all taffy with them, till they annex the outfit, an' then y' kin go hang, I guess;" he fixed her with a true quarter-deck eye. "I surmise as you're tryin' t' play Sally Waters low down. Not much--oh, no. I should smile considerable to think as any gilded female got th' bulge on me. Go slow, ma'am. Make no haste when the fat's afire, ses Isaiah. Beckon he knew things, did thet prophet."
Leah smiled again at this Wild West outburst. "You are a free child of nature, Captain Strange."
"Taffy agin. I'm a man, you bet, same along as your husband."
"I should think you and he would get on together extremely well," said Lady Jim, dryly. "But don't you think you could contrive to be a little less rude?"
"Why, bless y', this is civil fur me."
"How your crew must love you!"
"I'd boot 'em round the ship if they didn't," snapped Strange, very ferociously. "They've got t' love me up t' the level of workin' their insides out, else I'd lay out every man jack in his little wooden overcoat."
"What a sweet nature you have! Are you married?"
"Got a wife o' sorts," said the mariner, indifferently, "an' two kids of th' best." His eyes softened. "Now, ma'am, you could talk t' me fur a millennium 'bout them little nippers."
The last word was pure Whitechapel, and Leah wondered if that parish could claim this buccaneer. But time was too valuable to go into his private history, so she replied gently, quick to perceive that there was a flaw in his armour, "On another occasion I shall be delighted to talk nursery, Captain Strange; but the millennium has not yet arrived in Curzon Street."