Kitabı oku: «A Duel», sayfa 13

CHAPTER XXIV
THE INTERIOR

Rather a curious state of things prevailed in Mrs. Lamb's residence in Connaught Square. The largest and best regulated establishments are apt to be disorganised when festival has been kept the night before-that is true enough. But in this case the disorganisation was something altogether out of the common. Mr. Lamb, who never attended his wife's receptions, and so pleased himself and the lady, had come home with the milk, just sober enough to wonder why the place was in such a state of singular confusion. The servants seemed to be occupying the reception rooms, enjoying themselves in a fashion in which servants are not supposed to do. He had a vague recollection of having a drink with a footman or some such menial while endeavouring to ascertain what was the meaning of the proceedings, and of pledging a housemaid's health in what he was convinced was a glass of his wife's champagne. But as, later, he was only too glad to be assisted upstairs by any one and every one, his memory of what took place was scarcely to be relied upon.

His wife had shut herself in her room, constraining her guests to take their departure without affording them an opportunity of saying good-bye to their hostess, and offering her their thanks for a very pleasant evening. Exactly what occurred behind that locked door she alone knew. When her senses returned she was still in her splendour of the previous night. She half lay, half sat, upon her boudoir floor, with her head upon a couch. A broken wine-glass was at her side. A decanter which had held ether was overturned on a buhl table. The day streamed through the windows.

It was some seconds before she recognised these facts. Then she rose to her feet and looked about her. The first thing she did was to go to the boudoir door and try if it was locked. When she found that it was, and that the key was nicely adjusted in the keyhole, so as to prevent any one peeping in from without, she strode through another door, which stood ajar, into her bedroom, which adjoined. She tried the outer door of that, to find that it also was locked. She glanced at a silver clock which stood upon the mantelpiece. According to it the time was twenty minutes to one, so that more than half of the day had already gone. Then she went to a cheval glass, which mirrored her from head to foot, and glanced at herself.

What she saw seemed to afford her a grim sort of amusement. Her hair was all in disorder, one long tress trailed down her neck. Her eyes were dull and heavy. Her cheeks were smeared; such "aids to beauty" as she patronised had become misplaced. Her gown was all creased and crumpled; a stain straggled right across the bodice. In a few curt words she recognised the situation so far as the dress was concerned.

"That's done for."

It looked as if it were, it might have been worn twenty times instead of only once. She removed her jewels-her bracelets from her wrists, rings from her fingers, her necklace, ornaments from her hair. When they were all off she took them in her hands and stared at them.

"At any rate, you're worth money. I daresay I could get something on you if I tried, though perhaps not so much as some might think."

She tossed them on to the dressing-table with a mirthless laugh. Disrobing herself, donning her nightdress, she ensconced herself between the sheets. There she tossed and tumbled about in such a fashion that one was almost disposed to suspect her of indulging in some new form of physical exercise. When she had got the bed into a condition which suggested that it had been occupied throughout the entire night by some peculiarly restless person, ceasing to turn and twist, for some minutes she lay quite still, as if she listened.

"Those servants of mine don't seem to be making much noise; there aren't many sounds of their moving about the house. I should like to know where Stephanie is; she ought to have woke me long before this."

Stretching out her arm she pressed the electric button which was by her bedside-once, twice, thrice, indeed half-a-dozen times, on each occasion for an unusual length of time, and with a fair interval between each pressure. Nothing, however, transpired to show that she had rung at all, certainly no one answered her summons. As she began to realise that apparently she was not meeting with attention of any sort or kind, her temper did not improve. She kept up a continuous ringing; still no one answered, nor was there aught to show that there was any that heard. She began to be concerned.

"Has every one taken French leave, and am I alone in the house? What's it mean?"

She kept her finger on the button for another good five minutes, then she decided that the moment had arrived when it would probably be desirable that she should make some inquiries on her own account. Rising, she put on some clothes, over them a dressing-gown. Then, unlocking the bedroom door, she went out on to the landing. Nothing could be heard. She descended to the floor below, on which were the drawing-rooms. No attempt to tidy them had been made since the guests departed; they were in a state of almost picturesque confusion. Not even the electric lights had been turned off; they were blazing away as merrily as if it were still the middle of the night. The apartments contained certain articles which, as refreshments were provided in the dining-room, could scarcely have been there when the guests retired. Bottles and glasses were everywhere-all kinds of bottles and all kinds of glasses, indeed Mrs. Lamb had nearly stumbled over what looked like an empty brandy bottle as she came out of her bedroom door. To Mrs. Lamb the sight of those various empty receptacles was pregnant with meaning.

"The beauties! I suppose they're sleeping it off. They shall smart for this, every one of them."

She turned towards the staircase which led to the servants' quarters, with the intention, no doubt, of making them smart, when she encountered one of them. An unkempt, untidy figure, clad in a nondescript costume, consisting of checked tweed trousers, carpet slippers, dress-coat and waistcoat, crumpled shirt and collar and no necktie, came strolling leisurely down the stairs as Mrs. Lamb was about to ascend them. It was James Cottrell, the butler, in general, so far as appearances went, the most immaculate of beings. His mistress stared at him in not unnatural surprise.

"Cottrell! – you! – in that state! – at this time of day! – why, you're not even dressed."

So far from showing any signs of being ashamed or disconcerted, Mr. Cottrell's manner was not only self-possessed, it was affability itself. Thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, he tilted himself on his heels, till his legs touched the stair behind, and he smiled.

"No, Mrs. Lamb, I am not dressed-that is, my costume is not in that perfect state of completeness which I prefer. It is not my habit to make personal remarks, but since we are on the subject, I may observe that you're not dressed either. I shouldn't call that dressing-gown full dress-would you? Your hair don't look-to me-as if it had been done for days, and you really must excuse my mentioning that your complexion seems to have got itself all mixed up anyhow."

"Cottrell, you're drunk; how dare you speak to me like that?"

"No, Mrs. Lamb, I am not drunk; I do assure you that I am at least as sober as you are. If you want to know what drink can do for a man, I recommend you to go and look at your husband-there is a drunkard, if you like; he's like a perambulating sponge. Last night it took six of us to get him upstairs; that man ought to be black-listed. As for daring to speak to you, Mrs. Lamb, there may be some folks whom you inspire with awe, but you don't inspire me with any."

"Don't you think I'll let you speak to me like that, although you are a man and I'm a woman. You'll leave my service at once-and without a character."

"As for a character, any character which you might give me, Mrs. Lamb, would, in all human probability, do me more harm than good. It will be my constant endeavour to conceal the fact that I ever occupied a position in your establishment; it might do me a serious injury were it to become known. As to leaving your service, I shall be only too glad to do so inside sixty seconds; only there's a little formality which I should like to have completed before I go. I should like to have my overdue wages, Mrs. Lamb. They are more than three months overdue, and I should like to see the colour of my money, Mrs. Lamb."

"You shall have your wages; you needn't be afraid."

"Thank you; that is good news. Because, to be quite frank, I was beginning to be afraid-in fact, we all were."

"You impertinent brute! Where are those other creatures?"

"Other creatures? You refer to my colleagues, male and female? We are all of us creatures, Mrs. Lamb-including you. I believe that two or three of them have already quitted your service, including the young Frenchwoman who was supposed to be your own particular maid. She said that she never bargained to wait on a woman of your class, so she's gone. I noticed two young women in the kitchen when I was down there just now. They seemed to be in a more or less tearful condition. Poor wretches! perhaps they never expected to find themselves in such a place as this. As for the rest of my colleagues, I fancy they are still in bed. I do not doubt that if you take them their overdue wages they'll get up, and get out of the house also, as quickly as you like. I imagine they'll be only too glad of the chance."

Mrs. Lamb looked at Mr. Cottrell as if she were meditating measures of a distinctly active kind. Although he might not have been conscious of it, for some seconds he stood in imminent peril of realising that, at least physically, his mistress was more than a match for the average man. But, apparently, after thinking things over she changed her mind and postponed hostilities.

"You shall be paid for this, my man-they all shall-just wait a bit." She moved, as if to return to her bedroom, then paused. "There's some one at the door."

There did seem to be some one at the front door, some one who saluted with equal vigour both the bell and the knocker. Mr. Cottrell was philosophical.

"Ah! there's been one or two already this morning. You've perhaps been in such a queer state yourself that you didn't hear them, though they made noise enough; but there have been several visitors. Jones the fishmonger wants his little account, and Franks the butcher wants his, and Murphy the greengrocer, and the baker, and the grocer, and the milkman, and, I think, the laundry, and three or four more besides. They all want their little accounts-good big ones some of them are. I peeped through the dining-room window, but I didn't notice just who was there, and I didn't open to them either. I've had about enough of opening to those kind of people; they won't go round to the side entrance, and it's no use asking them to. But that sounds as if it was the landlord come to put the brokers in for rent. A landlord always thinks himself entitled to make as much noise as he likes at his own front door."

Some one seemed to consider himself at liberty to make as much clatter as he liked.

"Cottrell, go down at once and see who is at the door."

"Wouldn't you like to go and see yourself, Mrs. Lamb?"

"If you don't obey my orders and go at once I'll throw you out of the house with my own hands, and you shall whistle for your wages."

"Like this? Do I look as if I were in a fit state of attire to open the door of even such a lady as yourself, Mrs. Lamb?"

"Are you going?"

The lady mounted two or three steps; there was something so significant in her manner that Mr. Cottrell temporised.

"I shall be only too happy to open the door as I am! – if you will allow me to pass." She allowed him, and he passed, firing a passing shot as he went. "You must understand that I intend to be perfectly frank with whoever's there-perfectly frank, and truthful. I have had more than sufficient of telling lies on your account, Mrs. Lamb." At this point, throwing the hall-door wide open, he addressed some unseen individuals who were without in tones which were perhaps unnecessarily loud. "If any of you people want money-and by the look of you I can see you do-it's no use your asking me, and so I may tell you at once, because I want money too, and from the same person, and that's Mrs. Lamb; and as Mrs. Lamb happens to be standing at this moment at the top of the staircase, in her dressing-gown and with her hair all over the place, perhaps you'll step in right away, and just say to her what you've got to say. Well, sir, and what might you happen to be wanting? Oh, it's Mr. Luker, is it? May I ask, sir, what you mean by pushing me about as if I was a mechanical toy?"

It was indeed Mr. Isaac Luker, who had come into the hall with complete disregard of the fact that Mr. Cottrell was standing in the doorway. Being in, the visitor regarded the voluble butler with characteristic impassivity. Then, stretching out the forefinger of his right hand, he tapped at the centre of Mr. Cottrell's crumpled shirt-front, and he delivered himself thus: -

"My advice to you is to put your head under the pump if there is one, and under the tap if there isn't, and let the water run for a good half-hour, for a complaint like yours it's the best medicine you can possibly have".

It seemed that Mr. Cottrell was so taken aback by the proffer of this very handsome advice that for a moment or two he was at a loss for a retort; before he found one his mistress had interposed.

"Luker, come up here!"

Mr. Luker looked at the lady at the head of the staircase, at Mr. Cottrell, at the invisible persons who still remained without. He seemed to hesitate, as if in doubt whether or not to take a hand in the game just where he was; then, arriving at a sudden resolution, he did as the lady requested: he went upstairs, followed by the retort which Mr. Cottrell had found at last.

"Perhaps if you were to try a little of that medicine you recommend on your own account it mightn't do you any harm."

The observation went unheeded. Mr. Luker was captured by the lady the moment he reached the topmost stair. She pointed to the flight in front.

"Up you go!" Up he went, with her at his heels. On the next landing she called his attention to the open bedroom door. "In you go." Perceiving what the apartment was he favoured her with what he perhaps meant for a whimsical glance, and in he went. "Go straight through into the next room-that's my boudoir." He went straight through, and she also. Closing the door of her bedroom she stood with her back to it, putting to him a question almost as if she were aiming a pistol at his head. "Have you brought that money?"

Mr. Luker did not at once give her the answer she so imperatively demanded. Instead, holding his ancient top-hat in front of him as if it were some precious possession, he ventured on a remark of his own.

"Things seem a little at sixes and sevens; they almost suggest that domestic relations are a trifle strained. That man who calls himself a butler is not behaving as if he were a butler; and I regret to notice something about the establishment which one hardly expects to find in a lady's high-class mansion."

"Cottrell's going-at once. All the servants are going-lot of drunken brutes! I'm only waiting for the money to pay them their wages."

"Oh, I see. And-those other persons on the doorstep, do they want money also?"

"I don't know who's there, and I don't care; but I daresay every one wants money. I do! Did you hear me ask if you've brought that money I told you to bring?"

"To what money are you alluding?"

"You know very well! None of your fooling! Have you brought that ten thousand pounds?"

"Ten thousand pounds!" He held up his hands, with his top-hat between them. "Ten thousand pounds! She speaks of that great sum as if it were a mere nothing!"

"Have you brought it?"

"I certainly have not."

"Then what have you brought?"

"I have brought-nothing."

"Look here, Luker, I'm in an ugly temper. You ought to know the signs of it as well as any man, so I advise you to take care. I told you you were to bring me ten thousand pounds. When I said it I meant it; why haven't you brought it?"

"My dear Isabel-"

"Haven't I told you not to call me that?"

"Very well; it's a matter of utter indifference to me what I call you-utter! I was merely about to remark that I have laid your proposition before my friend, and, as I anticipated, he has decided that he doesn't care to lend money except on adequate security."

"Adequate security! Don't you call a quarter of a million adequate security?"

"Certainly, if you had it, but you haven't. And you have nothing tangible to show that you ever will have, or any part of it."

"There are those Hardwood Company shares-ten thousand of them."

"You tell me that you are in an ugly temper, and I can perceive for myself that you are not so calm as I should wish, otherwise I should ask for permission to be quite frank with you."

"You had better be frank! Never you mind about my temper; it won't be improved by your shuffling. Out with what you've got to say!"

"Remember, it will only be said at your express invitation."

"Do you hear? Out with it!"

"Then briefly and plainly it's this: If you were anybody else it's possible that money-some money-might be got on your expectation of the Hardwood Company's shares, but, as things are, it's out of the question."

"Why? What's the matter with my being me?"

"A good deal, as you're as well aware as I am. In a matter of this sort it's character which tells, and, unfortunately-I say it with deep sorrow! – your character's against you."

"What's my character got to do with a thing of this kind?"

"Everything. Suppose my friend were to advance you money upon your expectation of these shares, from your point of view you'd have him between your finger and thumb, and you'd keep him there."

"How do you make that out?"

"The process of extracting compensation from Messrs. McTavish & Brown would be, at best, both a lengthy and a tiresome one, one, moreover, in which not a step could be taken without your active assistance. You'd find that out, and you'd say, 'If you won't let me have so much more I won't move a finger, then you'll lose all that you've advanced already'. And you'd mould your conduct on those lines to the bitter end-my friend might find it a very bitter end. That would not suit him at all."

"You-! I've half a mind to kill you!"

"Keep it at half a mind; many of my friends and clients have found it wiser to stop right there."

"Then do you mean to tell me that I can't get money out of any one-anyhow?"

"Not at all; money can always be obtained upon security. You have personal property-the furniture of this house, jewels, and so on."

"What I might get out of that sort of thing would be gone before I got it."

"Then you might get money out of Messrs. McTavish & Brown."

"You've told me over and over again that it would take no end of a time to do that. I can't wait; I want money-a lot of it! – now."

"There's such a thing as compromise."

"Compromise? What do you mean?"

"If you insist on receiving the full amount of your demand, no doubt Messrs. McTavish & Brown will keep you waiting as long as they can-if you ever succeed in getting it at all. But, supposing you agree to accept half-"

"Or three-quarters."

"Or three-quarters. The major sum might be mentioned first; but, if time is of importance, I should advise you to allow yourself to be persuaded to accept half, or even a trifle less, and to give a full quittance for all claims, on condition, say, that the amount agreed upon is paid within four-and-twenty hours."

"They shall pay it! – I'll see to that! And then when I've got it I'll go at 'em for the rest."

"Ahem! I cannot allow myself to be associated with any such scheme as that."

"Can't you? We'll see! You stop where you are. I'll dress, and then you shall go with me to Messrs. McTavish & Brown as my legal adviser! and when I leave them I'll be richer than when I started, or they'll be sorry!" Mrs. Lamb passed into her bedroom, through the partially open door of which her voice proceeded: "Don't you go meddling with any of the things in there; I know exactly what there is, so don't you think I don't. If I suspected you of taking so much as a paper-knife, I'd have it out of you if I had to strip every rag of clothing off you to get at it."