Kitabı oku: «The Mandarin's Fan», sayfa 2

Rupert laughed. "Oh you are afraid," he said smiling.

"Of you, not of myself. I know what the Chinese are, and have studied the race for years. I know how to deal with them; but you will get into trouble if you meddle with this fan business."

"And so I say," cried Tidman emphatically.

"Why, what do you know of the Chinese, Major?" asked Rupert.

"More than I like to think of," said the little man wiping his bald head. "I went out to China for a trip seven years ago and met with an adventure in Canton – ugh!"

"What sort of an adventure?"

"Ugh!" grunted the Major again, "don't talk about it. It makes me cold to think of it. The Chinese are demons. Forge got me out of the trouble and I left China never to set foot in it again I hope. Ainsleigh, if you want that curse of yours to be realised, meddle with the fan. But if you want to keep your life and your skin, leave the matter alone."

"I'm going to get that five thousand pounds," said Rupert, obstinately, "as soon as I can recollect where I saw that fan. The memory will come back to me. I am sure it will. Doctor you won't help me."

"No," said Forge decisively. "I advise you to leave the matter alone."

"In that case I must search it out myself. Good-day," and Ainsleigh strolled out of the room, lightheartedly enough, as he whistled a gay tune. Major Tidman looked grimly at the closed door, and then still more grimly at the doctor, who was paring his nails.

"Our young friend is ambitious," he said.

Forge laughed gently. "You can hardly blame him. He wants to marry Miss Rayner and save his ancestral home, so I am quite sure he will search for the fan."

"He won't find it then," said the Major petulantly.

"Won't he?" questioned Forge sweetly, "well, perhaps not. By the way you want to see me Major. Mrs. Bressy tells me you called at least twice yesterday."

"Yes. She didn't know when you would be back."

"I never tell her. I like to take the old lady unawares. She is a Dickens' character, with a fondness for drink, and for taking things which don't belong to her. I always go away and come back unexpectedly. Yesterday I was in Paris. Now I am at Marport. Well?"

The Major had contained himself with difficulty all this time, and had grown very red in the face. The colour changed to a lively purple, as he burst out. "See here Forge what's the use of talking to me in this way. You have that fan."

"Have I," said Forge smiling gently.

"Yes. You know well enough that the very fan – the jade fan with the five beads, was the cause of my getting into trouble in Canton. You got me out of the trouble and you asked me to give you the fan, when I thanked you."

"And you refused," said Forge still smiling.

"Well I did at first," said Tidman sulkily. "I risked my life over the beastly thing, and – "

Forge raised a thin hand. "Spare yourself the recital. I know."

"Well then," went on Tidman excitedly. "You asked again for it when you came home, and I gave it to you. Ainsleigh is quite right. He did see the fan. I showed it to him one day before you arrived. I see he has forgotten, but any stray thought may revive his memory. I don't want him to have the fan."

"Why not?" asked Forge shutting his knife with a click.

"Because I want the five thousand pounds for myself. I'm not so well off as people think, and I want – "

"You forget," said Forge gently, "you gave me the fan."

"And have you got it?"

"I have," he nodded towards a cabinet of Chinese work adorned with quaint figures, "it's in there."

"Give it to me back."

"No. I think I'll keep it."

"What do you want to do with it?" asked Tidman angrily.

Forge rose and looked stern, "I want to keep it from Lo-Keong," he said savagely, "there's some secret connected with that fan. I can't understand what the secret is or what the fan has to do with it: but it means life and death to this Mandarin. He'd give ten thousand, – twenty thousand to get that fan back. But he shan't."

"Oh," groaned the Major, "why did I give it to you. To think that such a lot of money should go begging. If I had only known what the fan was worth."

"You knew nothing about it save as a curiosity."

"How do you know," demanded the Major.

Forge who had turned towards the cabinet wheeled round and looked more like a hawk than ever as he pounced on the stout man. "What do you know?" and he clawed Tidman's plump shoulders.

"Let me go confound you," blustered the Major, "what do you mean by assaulting a gentleman – "

"A gentleman." Forge suddenly released the Major and laughed softly, "does Benjamin Tidman, old Farmer Tidman's son call himself so. Why I remember you – "

"Yes I know you do, and so does that infernal Pewsey cat."

Forge suddenly became attentive. "Miss Pewsey if you please. She is my friend. I may – " Forge halted and swallowed something. "I may even marry her some day."

"What," shouted Tidman backing to the wall, "that old – old – "

"Gently my good Benjamin, gently."

"But – but you're not a marrying man."

"We never know what we are till we die," said Forge turning again towards the black cabinet, "but you needn't mention what I have said. If you do," Forge snarled like an angry cat and shot one glance from his gray eyes that made Tidman shiver: then he resumed his gentle tone. "About this fan. I'll make a bargain with you."

"What's that?" asked the Major avariciously.

"I'll show you the fan, and if you can guess it's secret, I'll let you give it to this Tung-yu or Hwei or Kan-su or whatever he likes to call himself."

"But you don't want Lo-Keong to have the fan," said the Major doubtfully.

Forge opened the cabinet slowly. "So long as I learn the secret he can have the fan. I want to ruin him. He's a devil and – ah – " he started back. "The fan – the fan – "

"What is it?" asked Tidman, craning over Forge's shoulder at an empty drawer, "where is the fan?"

"Lost," cried Forge furiously, and looked like a dangerous grey rat.

"Five thousand pounds gone," moaned the Major.

"My life you fool – my life," cried the doctor, "it is at stake."

CHAPTER III
Miss Wharf at Home

The best houses in Marport were situated on the Cliffs. They stood a considerable way back and had small plots of ground before them cultivated or not, according to the taste of those who owned them. Some of these gardens were brilliant with flowers, others had nothing but shrubs in them, presenting rather a sombre appearance, and a few were bare sun-burnt grass plots, with no adornment whatsoever. A broad road divided the gardens from the grassy undulations of the cliffs, and along this thoroughfare, rolled carriages, bicycles, and motor-cars all day during the season. Then came the grass on the cliff-tops which stretched for a long distance, and which was dotted with shelters for nervous invalids. At one end there was a round bandstand where red-coated musicians played lively airs from the latest musical comedy. Round the stand were rows of chairs hired out at twopence an afternoon, and indeed, all over the lawns, seats of various kinds were scattered. At the end of the grass, the cliffs sloped gradually and were intersected with winding paths, which led downward to the asphalt Esplanade which ran along the water's edge, when the tide was high, and beside evil-smelling mud when the tide was out. And on what was known as the beach – a somewhat gritty strand, – were many bathing machines. Such was the general appearance of Marport which the Essex people looked on as a kind of Brighton, only much better.

Miss Sophia Wharf owned a cosy little house at the far end of the cliffs, and just at the point where Marport begins to melt into the country. It was a modern house comfortably furnished and brilliant with electric lights. The garden in front of it was well taken care of, there were scarlet and white shades to the windows and flower boxes filled with blossoms on the sills. Everyone who passed remarked on the beauty of the house, and Miss Wharf was always pleased when she heard them envy her possessions. She liked to possess a Naboth's Vineyard of her own, and appreciated it the more, when others would have liked to take it. She had an income of one thousand a year and therefore could live very comfortably. The house (Ivy Lodge was it's highly original name) was her own, bought in the days when Marport was nothing but a fishing village. She knew everyone in the neighbourhood, was a staunch friend to the vicar who was high church and quite after her own heart in the use of banners, incense, candles and side-altars, and on the whole was one of the leading ladies of the place. She had the reputation of being charitable, but this was owing to Miss Pewsey who constantly trumpeted the bestowal of any stray shilling being by her patroness.

Miss Wharf was a lady of good family, but had quarrelled with her relatives. She was a tall, cold, blonde woman who had once been handsome and still retained a certain portion of good looks, in spite of her forty and more years. She lived with her niece Olivia the child of a sister long since dead, and with Miss Pewsey, to whom she gave a home as a companion. But Miss Wharf well knew, that Lavinia Pewsey was worth her weight in gold owing to the way she praised up her good, kind, devoted, loving, sweet, friend. The adjectives are Miss Pewsey's own, but some people said that Sophia Wharf did not deserve to have them attached to her. The lady had her enemies, and these openly declared, as the Major had done, that she was a mass of granite. Other people, less prejudiced, urged that Miss Wharf looked after Olivia, who was a penniless orphan. To which the grumblers retorted that Miss Wharf liked someone to vent her temper on, and that the poor girl, being too pretty, did duty as a whipping boy. This was possibly true, for Olivia and her aunt did not get on well together. In her own way the girl looked as cold as Miss Wharf, but this coldness was merely a mask to hide a warm and loving nature, while Miss Wharf was an ice-berg through and through. However, on the whole, Sophia Wharf was well liked, and took care to make the most of her looks and her moderate income and her reputation as a charitable lady. And Miss Pewsey was the show-woman who displayed her patroness's points to their best advantage.

The drawing-room of Ivy Lodge was a flimsy, pretty, feminine, room, furnished in a gim-crack fashion, of the high art style. The floor was waxed, and covered with Persian praying mats, the chairs were gilt and had spindle legs, the settee was Empire, the piano was encased in green wood and adorned with much brass, the sofa was Louis Quinze and covered with brocade, and there were many tables of rose-wood, dainty and light, heaped high with useless nick-knacks.

The walls of pale green were adorned with watercolour pictures, and many mirrors draped with Liberty silk. Everywhere were large bowls of flowers, miniatures of Miss Wharf at various times of her life, curiosities from China and Japan and the near East, and all sorts of odds and ends which Miss Wharf had collected on her travels. Not that she had been to the East, for the evidences of civilisation in those lands came from Dr. Forge and Major Tidman, but Miss Wharf had explored Germany, Switzerland and Italy and consequently had brought home cuckoo-clocks, quaint carvings, pictures of the Madonna, Etruscan idols and such like things with which every tourist loads himself or herself. The result was, that the drawing-room looked like a curiosity shop, but it was considered to be one of the prettiest drawing-rooms in Essex.

Miss Wharf looked too large and too substantial for the frail furniture of the room. She had a double chin and was certainly very stout. Very wisely she had a special arm-chair placed in the window – from which she could see all that was going on, – and here she sat working most of the day. She was great on doing fancy articles for bazaars, and silk ties for such gentlemen as she admired, for Miss Wharf, old maid as she was, liked male society. The Major was her great admirer, so was young Walker, Lady Jabe's nephew. Sophia was not very sure of this last gentleman, as she shrewdly suspected – prompted by Miss Pewsey – that he admired Olivia. Rupert also admired Olivia and wanted to marry her, a proceeding which Miss Wharf objected to. Miss Pewsey supported her in this, for both women were envious of the youth which had passed from them for ever. But Miss Wharf had also another reason, which Miss Pewsey knew, but of which Olivia was ignorant. Hitherto Sophia had kept it from the girl but this afternoon in a fit of rage she let it out. The explosion did not come at once, for Lady Jabe was in the room drinking tea, and Miss Pewsey was flitting about, filling odd vases with flowers. Olivia sat on the settee very straight and very cold, looking dark and handsome, and altogether too splendid a woman for her aunt to tolerate.

"Can't you do something?" said Miss Wharf turning her jealous eyes on the girl. "I should think you must be tired, twiddling your thumbs all day."

"I'll do whatever you wish me to do," said Olivia coldly.

"Then help Lavinia with the flowers."

Olivia rose to do so, but Miss Pewsey refused her assistance in a shrill speech spoken as usual between her teeth and with an emphasis on every other word. "Oh no dear, dear, Sophia," cried Miss Pewsey, "I have just finished, and I may say that my eye for colour is better than Olivia's – you don't mind my saying so, darling," she added to the girl.

"Not at all," replied Miss Rayner who detested the sycophant. "I never give the matter a thought."

"You should think," said Lady Jabe joining in heavily. She was a tall masculine-looking woman with grey hair and bushy grey eyebrows, and with an expression of face that suggested she should have worn a wig and sat on the bench. She dressed in rather a manly way, and far too young for her fifty years. On the present occasion she wore a yachting-cap, a shirt with a stand-up, all round, collar and a neat bow; a leather belt and a bicycling skirt of blue serge. Her boots and shoes were of tanned brown leather, and she carried a bamboo cane instead of a sunshade. No one could have been more gentlemanly. "You should think," added she once more, "for instance you should think of marriage."

Miss Wharf drew herself up in her cold way. "I fancy that Olivia, few brains as she has, is yet wise enough not to think of marriage at twenty."

"It would not be much good if I did," said Olivia calmly. "I have no money, and young men want a rich wife."

"Not all," said Lady Jabe, "there's Chris – "

"Chris is out of the question," said Miss Rayner quickly.

"And pray why is he?" asked Sophia in arms at once. She never liked Olivia to have an opinion of her own.

"Because I don't love him."

"But Chris loves you," said Lady Jabe, "and really he's getting a very good salary in that Tea-merchant's office. Chris, as you are aware, Olivia, is foreign corresponding clerk to Kum-gum Li & Co. He knows Chinese," finished Lady Jabe, with tremendous emphasis.

"Oh," Miss Pewsey threw up her claws, "how delicious to be made love to in Chinese. I must really ask Mr. Walker what is the Chinese for 'I love you.'"

"Olivia prefers to hear it in English," said Miss Wharf, spitefully.

"Quite so, aunt," retorted her niece, her colour rising, "but don't you think we might change the subject. It really isn't very interesting."

"But indeed I think it is," said Lady Jabe smartly, "I come here to plead the cause of poor Chris. His heart is breaking. Your aunt is willing to – "

"But I am not," said Miss Rayner quickly, "so please let us say no more about the matter. Mr. Walker can marry Lotty Dean."

"But she's a grocer's daughter," said Lady Jabe, who was herself the widow of an oil-merchant, "and remember my title."

"Lotty isn't going to marry you, Lady Jabe."

"Nor Chris, if I can help it," said the other grimly.

Miss Wharf was just about to crush Olivia with a particularly disagreeable remark, when the door opened and two gentlemen entered. One was Christopher Walker, a slim, boyish-looking young fellow, in that callow stage of manhood which sees beauty in every woman. The other, who followed, was Miss Pewsey's nephew.

There was nothing immature about him, although he was but twenty eight years of age. Clarence Burgh was tall, thin, dark and had the appearance of a swashbuckler as he swaggered into the room. His black eyes snapped with an unholy light and his speech smacked too much of the Lands at the Back of Beyond, where he had passed the most part of his life. He was an expert rider, and daily rode a bucking squealing, kicking stallion up and down the road, or took long gallops into the country to reduce the fire of the unruly beast. Burgh was bad all through, daring, free, bold, and had a good deal of the untamed savage about him; but he was emphatically a man, and it was this virile atmosphere about him, which caused his withered aunt to adore him. And indeed Miss Wharf admired him also, as did many of the women in Marport. Clarence looked like a buccaneer who would carry a woman off, and knock her down if she objected to his love-making. Women like that sort of dominating lord of the world, and accordingly Mr. Burgh had nothing to complain of, so far as feminine admiration went, during his sojourn in Marport. But he had set his affections on Olivia, and hitherto she had shrunk from him. All the same, brute as he was, she admired him more than she did effeminate Chris Walker, who smacked of the city and of a feather-bed-four-meals-a-day existence.

"Oh," squeaked Miss Pewsey, flying to the hero and clasping him round the neck, "how very, very sweet of you to come."

"Hadn't anything else to do," said Clarence gracefully, casting himself into a chair. All his movements were graceful like those of a panther. "How are you Miss Wharf – Miss Rayner – Lady Jabe. I guess you all look like a garden of spring flowers this day."

"But flowers we may not pluck," sighed Chris prettily.

Burgh looked at him with contempt. "I reckon a man can pick what he has a mind to," said he drily, and then shifted his gaze to see how Olivia took this speech. To his secret annoyance, she did not let on she heard him.

"Will you have some tea, Mr. Burgh," asked Miss Wharf.

"Thanks. It seems to be the sort of thing one must drink here."

"You drank it in China didn't you?" asked Lady Jabe.

Burgh turned quickly. "Who told you I had been in China?" he asked.

"My nephew Chris. He heard you talking Chinese to someone."

The dark young man looked distinctly annoyed. "When was that?" he asked Chris.

"Two weeks ago," replied the other, "you were standing at the corner of the Mansion House talking to a Chinaman. I only caught a word or two in passing."

"And I guess you didn't understand," said Clarence derisively.

"There you are wrong. I am in a Chinese firm, and know the language. As a matter of fact I write their foreign letters for them."

"The deuce you do," murmured Burgh looking rather disturbed; but he said no more on the subject, and merely enquired if the ladies were prepared for the ball at the Bristol which was to take place in six days. "I hear it's going to be a bully affair."

"Oh charming – charming," said Miss Pewsey. "Major Tidman is one of the stewards. I asked him for a ticket for you Clarence dear."

"I'll go, if Miss Rayner will dance with me."

"I don't know that I am going myself," said Olivia quietly.

"Nonsense," said her aunt sharply, "of course you are going. Everyone is going – the best ball of the season."

"Even poor little me," said Miss Pewsey, with her elderly head on one side.

"Huh," said the irreverent Clarence, "ain't you past hoppin' aunt?"

"I can look on and admire the younger generation dear."

"It will be a splendid ball," prattled Chris sipping his tea and devouring very crumbly cake, "the Glorious Golfers are going to spend a lot of money in decorating the rooms. I met Mr. Ainsleigh. He is going – a rare thing for him. He goes nowhere as a rule."

Miss Wharf glanced sharply at her niece, but beyond a faint flush, she could detect no sign of emotion. "People who are as poor as young Ainsleigh, can't afford to go out," she said deliberately. "I think the wisest thing that young man could do, would be to marry a rich girl," and she again looked at Olivia.

"He is certainly very handsome," said Lady Jabe pensively, "very much like his mother. She was a fine-looking woman, one of the Vanes of Heathersham."

"I remember her," said Miss Wharf, her colour rising, "and I never thought she was good-looking myself."

"Not to compare to you dear," said the sycophant.

But this time Miss Pewsey made a mistake. The remark did not seem to please Miss Wharf. "I don't care for comparisons," she said sharply, "its bad taste to make them. I like Mr. Ainsleigh, but I don't approve of his idling."

"He has never been brought up to do anything," said Lady Jabe.

"Then he ought to turn his hands to making money in some way. That place is mortgaged and at any time may be sold. Then he won't have a roof over his head."

"I have never met Ainsleigh," said Burgh musingly, "I guess I'd like to have a jaw along o' him. Wasn't his father murdered in China?"

Miss Wharf became suddenly pale. "It is said that he was, but I don't believe it."

"Then he's alive," said Clarence pertinaciously, and looking at her.

"No. He's dead, but he died of dysentery, according to Dr. Forge who was with him when he died – somewhere in the north I believe."

Burgh evidently stored this in his memory and looked keenly at the woman whose bosom rose and fell and whose colour came and went under his steady gaze. Miss Pewsey saw that the persistent look was annoying her patroness, and touched her nephew's arm gently. The touch recalled Burgh to his senses and he looked away. This time his eyes rested on Olivia. Her colour was high and apparently she had been listening with interest to the conversation. "Huh," thought the swashbuckler, "and it was about young Ainsleigh," and he stored this in his memory also.

To make a sensation, which he dearly loved to do, Chris Walker announced that he would bring a distinguished visitor to the ball of the Glorious Golfers. "He's a Chinaman," said he pompously, "and was mixed up in the Boxer rebellion."

None of the ladies seemed impressed, as none of them knew anything about the Boxers, or their rebellion. But Burgh looked up. "Who is he anyhow?" he demanded, compressing his lips.

"A Chinese gentleman called Tung-yu."

"What a very extraordinary name," said Miss Pewsey, and suddenly began to take a deep interest in matters Chinese. While she chatted with Chris who was willing to afford her all information, Burgh folded his arms and leaned back apparently thinking deeply. His face was not pleasant to behold. Olivia saw the evil look and shivered. Then she rose and was about to steal from the room, when her aunt called to her sharply. "Don't go Olivia I want to speak with you."

"And I want to take my usual walk," said Lady Jabe rising and settling her collar, "Chris?"

A tap on the shoulder brought the slim young man to his feet, and giving his arm to his masculine aunt the two departed. Burgh rose also. "I guess I'll make tracks also?" he said smartly. "Walker, you and I can have a yarn together, later."

Miss Pewsey followed her nephew to the door. "Do you wish to ask young Mr. Walker more about Tung-yu?" she asked.

Clarence wheeled round quickly. "What do you know of him aunt?"

"It's such a strange name," simpered Miss Pewsey, looking very innocent, "and I am interested in China. You were out there a long time Clarence."

"Amongst other places, yes. I hung round a bit."

"Then you must tell me all about the natives," said Miss Pewsey, "I want to know of their robes and their fans and – "

"Fans," said Burgh starting: but Miss Pewsey with an artificial laugh flitted back into the room, leaving him uneasy and non-plussed. He walked away frowning darkly.

Olivia would have walked away also frowning, as she was indignant at the way in which her aunt had spoken of Rupert. But Miss Wharf gave her no chance of leaving the room or the house. Olivia had never seen her aunt so pale or upset. She looked as white as chalk, and controlled her emotion with difficulty. Lavinia Pewsey glanced at the two, guessed there was about to be a row, and glided away. She always kept out of trouble.

"Now," said Miss Wharf when they were alone, "I want an explanation."