Kitabı oku: «"Chinkie's Flat"», sayfa 3
CHAPTER VI ~ “MAGNETIC VILLA”
“Magnetic Villa” was one of the “best” houses in the rising city of Townsville. It stood on the red, rocky, and treeless side of Melton Hill, overlooked the waters of Cleveland Bay, and faced the rather picturesque-looking island from whence it derived its name.
About ten months after the resurrection of the “Ever Victorious” and the concomitant reawakening to life of Chinkie’s Flat, three ladies arrived by steamer from Sydney to take possession of the villa—then untenanted. In a few hours it was generally known that the newcomers were Mrs. Trappème, Miss Trappème, and Miss Lilla Trappème. There was also a Master Trappème, a lanky, ill-looking, spotted-faced youth of fourteen, in exceedingly new and badly-fitting clothes much too large for him. By his mother and sisters he was addressed as “Mordaunt,” though until a year or so previously his name had been Jimmy.
A few weeks after the ladies had installed themselves in the villa there appeared a special advertisement in the Townsville Champion (over the leader) informing the public that “Mrs. Lee-Trappème is prepared to receive a limited number of paying guests at ‘Magnetic Villa.’ Elegant appointments, superior cuisine, and that comfort and hospitality which can Only be obtained in a Highly-refined Family Circle.”
“Hallo!” said Mallard, the editor of the Champion, to Flynn, his sub, who called his attention to the advertisement, “so ‘Magnetic Villa’ is turned into a hash house, eh? Wonder who they are? ‘Highly refined family circle’—sounds fishy, doesn’t it? Do you know anything about them?”
“No, but old Maclean, the Melbourne drummer who came up in the Barcoo from Sydney with them, does—at least he knew the old man, who died about a year and a half ago.”
“What was he?”
“Bank messenger in Sydney at thirty bob a week; used to lend money to the clerks at high interest, and did very well; for when he pegged out he left the old woman a couple of thousand. His name was Trappem—John Trappem, but he was better known as ‘Old Jack Trap.’ When they came on board the Barcoo they put on no end of side, and they were ‘Mrs., the Misses, and Master Lee-Trappème.’”
“Lord! what a joke! Did the drummer give the show away on board?”
“No, for a wonder. But he told me of it.”
“Daughters good looking?”
“Younger one is not too bad; elder’s a terror—thin, bony, long face, long nose, long feet, long conceit of herself, and pretty long age, walks mincingly, like a hen on a hot griddle, and–”
“Oh, stop it! The old woman?”
“Fat, ruddy-faced, pleasant-looking, white hair, talks of her ‘poor papaless girls,’ &c. She’s a pushing old geyser, however, and has already got the parsons and some of the other local nobility to call on her.”
“Wonder what sort of tucker they’d give one, Flynn? I’m tired of paying £6 a week at the beastly overcrowded dog-kennel, entitled the ‘Royal’ Hotel—save the mark!—and I’m game even to try a boarding-house, but,” and here he rubbed his chin, “this ‘refined family circle’ business, you know?”
“They all say that,” remarked the sub. “You couldn’t expect ‘em to tell the truth and say, ‘In Paradise Mansions Mrs. de Jones feeds her boarders on anything cheap and nasty; the toilet jugs have no handles, and the floors are as dirty as the kitchen slave, who does the cooking and waits at table, and the family generally are objectionable in their manners and appearance.’”
“Are you game to come with me this afternoon and inspect ‘Magnetic Villa’ and the ‘refined family circle’?”
“Yes. And, by Jove! if you take up your quarters there, I will do so as well. We could try it, anyway. I’m batching with Battray, the police inspector, and three other fellows. It was only going to cost us £3 a week each; it costs us more like £6.”
“Of course, too much liquor, and all that,” said the editor of the Champion, with a merry twinkle in his eye.
Scarcely had the sub-editor left when a knock announced another visitor, and Grainger, booted and spurred, entered the room.
Mallard jumped from his chair and shook hands warmly with him. “This is a surprise, Grainger. When did you get to town?”
“About an hour ago. Myra is with me; her six months’ visit has come to an end, and my mother and my elder sister want her back again; so she is leaving in the next steamer. But all the hotels are packed full, and as the steamer does not leave for a week, I don’t know how to manage. That’s why I came to see you, thinking you might know of some place where we could put up for a week.”
“I shall be only too delighted to do all I can. The town is very full of people just now, and the hotels are perfect pandemoniums, what with Chinkie’s Flat, the rush to the Haughton, Black Gully, and other places Townsville is off its head with bibulous prosperity, and lodgings of any kind fit for a lady are unobtainable. Ah, stop! I’ve forgotten something. I do know of a place which might suit Miss Grainger very well. Where is she now?”
“In the alleged sitting-room at the ‘Queen’s.’ I gave the head waiter a sovereign to let her have it to herself for a couple of hours whilst I went out and saw what I could do.”
Then Mallard told Grainger of “Magnetic Villa.”
“Let us go and see this refined family,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know them, but from what my sub tells me, I daresay Miss Grainger could manage with them for a week. I know the house, which has two advantages: it is large, and is away from this noisy, dirty, dusty, and sinful town.”
“Very well,” said Grainger» as he took out his pipe, “will three o’clock suit? My sister might come.”
“Of course. Now tell me about Chinkie’s Flat. Any fresh news?”
“Nothing fresh; same old thing.”
“‘Same old thing!’” and Mallard spread out his arms yearningly and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. “Just listen to the man, O ye gods! ‘The same old thing!’ That means you are making a fortune hand over fist, you and Jimmy Ah San.”
“We are certainly making a lot of money, Mallard,” replied Grainger quietly, as he lit his pipe and crossed his strong, sun-tanned hands over his knee. “My own whack, so far, out of Chinkie’s Flat, has come to more than £16,000.”
“Don’t say ‘whack,’ Grainger; it’s vulgar. Say ‘My own emolument, derived in less than one year from the auriferous wealth of Chinkie’s Flat, amounts to £16,000.’ You’ll be going to London soon, and floating the property for a million, and—”
Grainger, who knew the man well, and had a sincere liking and respect for him, laughed again, though his face flushed. “You know me better than that, Mallard; I’m not the man to do that sort of thing. I could float the concern and make perhaps a hundred thousand or so out of it if I was blackguard enough to do it. But, thank God, I’ve never done anything dirty in my life, and never will.”
“Don’t mind my idiotic attempt at a joke, Grainger,” and Mallard pat ont his hand. “I know you are the straightest man that ever lived. But I did really think that you would be going off to England soon, and that we—I mean the other real friends beside myself you have made in this God-forsaken colony—would know you no more except by reading of your ‘movements’ in London.”
“No, Mallard, Australia is my home. I know nothing of England, for I left there when I was a child. As I told you, my poor father was one of the biggest sheep men in Victoria, and died soon after the bank foreclosed on him. The old station, which he named ‘Melinda Downs,’ after my mother, who has the good old-fashioned name of Melinda, has gone through a lot of vicissitudes since then; but a few weeks ago my agent in Sydney bought it for £10,000, and now my mother and sisters are going back there.”
“And yourself?”
“Oh, a year or two more—perhaps three or four; and then, when Chinkie’s Flat is worked out, I too, will go south to the old home.”
Mallard sighed, and then, taking a cigar, lit it, and the two men smoked together in silence for a few minutes.
“Mallard!”
“Yes, old man.”
“This continual newspaper grind is pretty tough, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. But thanks to you—by putting me on to the ‘Day Dawn’ Reef at Chinkie’s Flat—I’ve made a thousand or two and can chuck it at any time.”
“Don’t say ‘chuck.’ It’s vulgar; and the editor of the ‘leading journal in North Queensland’ must not be vulgar,” and he smiled.
“Ah, Grainger my boy, you have been a good friend to me!”
“It’s the other way about, Mallard. You were the only man in the whole colony of Queensland who stood to me when I began to employ Chinese labour. That ruffian, Peter Finnerty, said in the House, only two months ago, that I deserved to be shot.”
“Well, you stuck to your guns, and I to mine. Fortunately the Champion is my own ‘rag,’ and not owned by a company. I stuck to you as a matter of principle.”
“And lost heavily by it.”
“For six months or so. A lot of people withdrew their advertisements; but they were a bit surprised when at the end of that time they came back to me, and I refused to insert their ads. at any price. I consider that you not only did wisely, but right, in employing the Chinamen. Are they going on satisfactorily?”
“Very; they do work for me at twenty-five shillings a week that white men would not do at all—no matter what you offered them: emptying sludge-pits, building dams, etc.”
“Exactly! And now all the people who rose up and howled at you for employing Chinamen, and the Champion for backing you up, are shouting themselves hoarse in your praise. And the revival of Chinkie’s Flat, and the new rushes all round about it, have added very materially to the wealth of this town.” After a little further conversation, Grainger went back to the Queen’s Hotel, where Mallard was to call at three o’clock.
Myra Grainger, a small, slenderly-built girl of nineteen, looked up as he entered the sitting-room.
“Any success, Ted?”
“Here, look at this advertisement. Mallard knows the place, but not the people. He’s coming here at three, and we’ll all go and interview Mrs. Trappème—‘which her real name is Trappem,’ I believe.”
“I shall be glad to see Mr. Mallard again. I like him—in fact, I liked him before I ever saw him for the way in which he fought for you.”
“And I’m strongly of the opinion that Mr. Thomas Mallard has a very strong liking for Miss Myra Grainger.”
“Then I like him still more for that.”
Grainger patted his sister’s cheek. “He is a good fellow, Myra. I think he will ask you to marry him.”
“I certainly expect it, Ted.”
CHAPTER VII ~ SHEILA CAROLAN
Although Mrs. Trappème had been so short a time in Townsville, she had contrived to learn a very good deal, not only about people in the town itself, but in the surrounding districts, and knew that Grainger was a wealthy mine-owner, had a sister staying with him on a visit—and was a bachelor. She also knew that Mallard was the editor of the Champion, and was likewise a bachelor—in fact, she had acquired pretty well all the information that could be acquired; her informant being the talkative, scandal-mongering wife of the Episcopalian curate.
She was therefore highly elated when at four o’clock in the afternoon Miss Grainger and her brother, and Mallard, after a brief inspection of the rooms—which were really handsomely furnished—took three of the largest and a private sitting-room, at an exorbitant figure, for a week, and promised to be at the Villa that evening for dinner.
“He’s immensely rich, Juliette,” she said to her daughter (she was speaking of Grainger after he had gone), “and you must do your best, your very best. Wear something very simple, as it is the first evening; and be particularly nice to his sister—I’m sure he’s very fond of her. She’ll only be here a week, but he and Mr. Mallard will probably be here a month. So now you have an excellent chance. Don’t throw it away by making a fool of yourself.”
Juliette (who had been christened Julia, and called “Judy” for thirty-two years of her life) set her thin lips and then replied acidly—
“It’s all very well for you to talk, but whenever I did have a chance—which was not often—you spoilt it by your interference. And if you allow Jimmy to sit at the same table with us to-night he’ll simply disgust these new people. When you call him ‘Mordaunt’ the hideous little wretch grins; and he grins too when you call me ‘Juliette’ and Lizzie ‘Lilla.’”
Mrs. Trappème’s fat face scowled at her daughter, and she was about to make an angry retort when the frontdoor bell rang.
“A lady wants to see yez, ma’am,” said the “new chum” Irish housemaid, who had answered the door.
“Did you show her into the reception room, Mary?”
“Sure, an’ is it the wee room wid the sthuffed burd in the fireplace, or is it the wan beyant wid the grane carpet on de flore; becos’ I’m after puttin’ her in the wan wid the sthuffed burd? Anny way it’s a lady she is, sure enough; an’ it’s little she’ll moind where she do be waitin’ on yez.”
“Did she send in her card, Mary?”
“Did she sind in her what?”
“Her card, you stupid girl.”
“Don’t you be after miscallin’ me, ma’am. Sure I can get forty shillings a wake annywhere an’ not be insulted by anny wan, instead av thirty here, which I do be thinkin’ is not the place to shuit me”—and the indignant daughter of the Emerald Isle, a fresh-complexioned, handsome young woman, tossed her pretty head and marched out.
So Mrs. Trappème went into the room “wid the sthuffed burd in it,” and there rose to meet her a fair-haired girl of about eighteen, with long-lashed, dark-grey eyes, and a somewhat worn and drawn expression about her small mouth, as if she were both mentally and physically tired. Her dress was of the simplest—a neatly fitting, dark-blue, tailor-made gown.
“I saw your advertisement in the Champion this morning,” she said, “and called to ascertain your terms.” Mrs. Trappème’s big, protruding, and offensive pale-blue eyes stared at and took in the girl’s modest attire and her quiet demeanour as a shark looks at an unsuspecting or disabled fish which cannot escape its maws.
“Please sit down,” she said with a mingled ponderous condescension and affability. “I did not advertise. I merely notified in the Champion that I would receive paying guests. But my terms are very exclusive.” “What are they?”
“Five guineas a week exclusive of extras, which, in this place, amount to quite a guinea more. You could not afford that, I suppose?”
The dark-grey eyes flashed, and then looked steadily at those of the fishy blue.
“Your terms are certainly very high, but I have no option. I find it impossible to get accommodation in Townsville. I only arrived from Sydney this morning in the Corea, and as I am very tired, I should like to rest in an hour or so—as soon as you can conveniently let me have my room,” and taking out her purse she placed a £5 note, a sovereign, and six shillings on the table.
“Will you allow me to pay you in advance?” she said, with a tinge of sarcasm in her clear voice. “I will send my luggage up presently.”
Mrs. Trappème at once became most affable. She had noticed that the purse the girl had produced was literally stuffed with new £5 notes.
“May I send for it?” she said beamingly, “and will you not stay and go to your room now?”
“No, thank you,” was the cold reply, “I have some business to attend to first. Can you tell me where Mr. Mallard, the editor of the Champion, lives? I know where the office is, but as it is a morning paper, I should not be likely to find him there at this early hour.”
Mrs. Trappème was at once devoured with curiosity. “How very extraordinary! Mr. Mallard was here only half an hour ago with a Mr. Grainger and Miss Grainger. They are coming here to stay for a few weeks.”
The girl’s fair face lit up. “Oh, indeed! I am sorry I was not here, as I particularly wish to see Mr. Grainger also. I had no idea that he was in Townsville, and was calling on Mr. Mallard—who, I know, is a friend of his—to ascertain when he was likely to be in town.”
“They will all be here for dinner, Miss–”
“My name is Carolan,” and taking out her cardcase she handed Mrs. Trappème a card on which was inscribed, “Miss Sheila Carolan.”
“Then Mr. Grainger is a friend of yours?” said Mrs. Trappème inquisitively, thinking of the poor chance Juliette would have with such a Richmond in the field as Miss Sheila Carolan.
“No, I have never even seen him,” said the girl stiffly, and then she rose.
“Then you will send for my luggage, Mrs. Trappème?”
“With pleasure, Miss Carolan. But will you not look at your room, and join my daughter and myself in our afternoon tea?”
“No, thank you, I think I shall first try and see either Mr. Mallard or Mr. Grainger. Do you know where Mr. Mallard lives?”
“At the Royal Hotel in Flinders Street. My daughter Lilla will be delighted to show you the way.”
But Miss Sheila Carolan was stubborn, and declined the kind offer, and Mrs. Trappème, whose curiosity was now at such a pitch that she was beginning to perspire, saw her visitor depart, and then called for Juliette.
“I wonder who she is and what she wants to see Mr. Grainger for?” she said excitedly, as she mopped her florid face: “doesn’t know him, and yet wants to see him particularly. There is something mysterious about her.”
“What is she like?” asked Miss Trappème eagerly. “I didn’t see her face, but her clothes are all right, I can tell you.” (She knew all about clothes, having been a forewoman in a Sydney drapery establishment for many years.)
“Oh, a little, common-looking thing, but uppish. I wonder what on earth she does want to see Mr. Grainger for?”
Half an hour later, when Miss Carolan’s luggage arrived, it was duly inspected and criticised by the whole Trappème family. Each trunk bore a painted address: “Miss Carolan, Minerva Downs, Dalrymple, North Queensland.”
“Now where in the world is Minerva Downs?” said Mrs. Trappème, “and why on earth is she going there? And her name too—Carolan—Sheila Carolan! I suppose she’s a Jewess.”
“Indade, an’ it’s not that she is, ma’am, whatever it manes,” indignantly broke in Mary, who had helped to carry in the luggage, and now stood erect with flaming face and angry eyes. “Sure an’ I tould yez she was a lady, an’ anny wan cud see she was a lady, an’ Carolan is wan av the best names in Ireland—indade it is.”
“You may leave the room, Mary,” said Miss Trappème loftily.
“Lave the room, is it, miss? Widout maning anny disrespect to yez, I might as well be telling yez that I’m ready to lave the place intirely, an’ so is the cook an’ stableman, an’ the gardener. Sure none av us—having been used to the gintry—want to sthay in a place where we do be getting talked at all day.”
The prospect of all her servants leaving simultaneously was too awful for Mrs. Trappème to contemplate. So she capitulated.
“Don’t be so hasty, Mary. I suppose, then, that Miss Carolan is an Irishwoman?”
“She is that, indade. Sore an’ her swate face toold me so before she spoke to me at all, at all.”
“Then you must look after her wants yery carefully, Mary. She will only be here for a few weeks.”
Mary’s angry eyes softened. “I will that ma’am. Sure she’s a sweet young lady wid the best blood in her, I’m thinkin’.”
Miss Trappème sniffed.
