Читать книгу The Black Cabinet - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 6

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Chloe went to tea with Miss Tankerville next day.

“She always asks one such ages beforehand,” she complained to Rose; “and then it’s ten to one she forgets you’re coming. I’m bored stiff at having to go. I wonder if it’s true that she’s going to give the school up soon. I believe there are only about half a dozen girls left, so she might just as well.”

There was certainly an air of genteel decay about the house and grounds. Chloe remembered them, if not well kept, at least in decent order. Now the whole place had an under-staffed, neglected look, and the big house echoed emptily to the feet of Miss Tankerville’s few remaining pupils.

Chloe waited in the drawing-room, and thought how dreary the conservatory looked. Last winter there were still chrysanthemums there, but now a half-drawn curtain failed to conceal bare, discoloured staging, rusty pipes, and broken flower pots.

The door opened, and Miss Tankerville came in, rather flustered. She still wore the tight curled fringe and tight boned waist of the nineties, and affected a pince-nez on a thin gold chain which was always getting entangled in the old-fashioned watch-chain that clanked round her neck like a fetter.

“Chloe! Dear girl!” she exclaimed, and pecked at Chloe’s cheek. The pince-nez fell off, and had to be retrieved. “Dear girl, I’m always pleased to see you; but this afternoon it just happens—yes, it just happens—now, let me see, did I ask you for this afternoon?”

“You did,” said Chloe. “But it doesn’t matter a bit—if you were going out or anything of that sort—I can quite easily go home again.”

“Then I did ask you.” Miss Tankerville looked round vaguely, as if she expected some sort of corroborative evidence to fall from the ceiling. “I did ask you then. Dear girl, I begin to remember. I met you in the High Street, and I asked you to come and have tea with me—but surely, surely it was for last Sunday.”

“It doesn’t matter a bit,” Chloe repeated. She would have been quite pleased to go home. She wished very much that Miss Tankerville would stop holding her hand in the limp grasp that was so difficult to get away from.

“Last Sunday surely. I know I was expecting you then, for I know I was just a little bit hurt when you didn’t come. And this afternoon—now, this afternoon——”

“It really doesn’t matter, if you want to go out,” said Chloe for the third time.

Miss Tankerville pressed the hand which she still held.

“No, no, I’m not going out, dear girl. It’s just a little—just the least little bit awkward, that’s all. You see, a chauffeur is a chauffeur. And though, of course, he isn’t one really, I’m not even sure whether he’ll come here in plain clothes or not. And I thought that if I were on the look-out for him, I might just let him in myself—on account of Susan, you know. You see, he’d be sure to leave his cap in the hall, wouldn’t he? And I thought that perhaps, without his cap on, Susan would hardly notice anything when she brought in the tea. And if you don’t mind, dear girl, will you just come over to the window so that I can keep my eye on the drive? Maids do gossip so dreadfully—and I can’t explain to Susan that his mother is really Lady Enniston, can I?”

Chloe got her hand away at last, and said, “No, I suppose not.” Then she sat down on the window seat, looked with dancing eyes at Miss Tankerville’s harassed profile, and made an inward vow not to stir from the spot until she had seen the mysterious visitor who was going to make the tea-party “a little bit awkward.”

“If you can’t tell Susan, I think you might tell me,” she said. “Who is it that isn’t really a chauffeur?—and why is he coming to tea?—and do you really want me to go away? It all sounds most exciting.”

Miss Tankerville adjusted her pince-nez and peered into the mist. Chloe was a dear girl, a very dear girl; but of course she was working at Miss Allardyce’s; and would Maud Enniston really like dear Michael to be introduced to a girl as pretty as Chloe who was only a dressmaker’s hand? Then, conversely, Michael, dear Michael, might at any moment arrive in a chauffeur’s uniform and wearing that terrible cap. Chloe Dane was the grand-daughter of old Mr. Dane of Danesborough, such a very proud old man, and a regular patrician—a regular patrician. Now, how could one introduce a chauffeur in uniform to Miss Chloe Dane of Danesborough? Miss Tankerville turned from the window with nervous perplexity writ large on every feature.

“You see, dear girl,” she began in her most flustered voice, “your grandfather—perhaps you don’t remember him as I do, but I can never help feeling just a little bit responsible to him. And dear Michael—you see, it’s so awkward, and I find some difficulty in explaining. And of course, dear girl, if you had done as I wished, and had remained with me as one of the staff, it would certainly have made a difference to your position—not, of course, that I have the slightest wish to hurt your feelings or to reflect upon your present employment; but I feel a—a—well, a certain responsibility to Michael’s mother who was one of my earliest pupils—one of my very earliest pupils, and a most sweet girl. And, though I don’t as a rule approve of second marriages, she was, of course, very young indeed when Michael’s father died, and her marriage to Lord Enniston has been most satisfactory, most satisfactory. She was Maud Ashley-Hill, a daughter of Sir Condor Ashley-Hill’s,” concluded Miss Tankerville with the air of one who has now explained everything.

Chloe had begun to enjoy herself.

“Yes, that makes it quite clear, doesn’t it?” she said. “I mean all the fathers and mothers and grandfathers and people. There’s only one thing, dear Miss Tankerville, and that is, who is Michael?”

“Didn’t I explain? Dear girl, surely I did. I met him this morning after church; and when I asked him to come to tea, he seemed so grateful, and said he had the day off because the car was out of order. And I never thought of your coming; and indeed, dear girl, if you didn’t mind,—the position seems to me delicate—yes, delicate, and a little awkward. I am not used to these unconventional situations. But I feel responsible to his mother, and—and also, of course, to your grandfather.”

Chloe’s laugh rippled out, suddenly, irrepressibly.

“Dear Miss Tankerville, don’t worry. It’s quite easy, really. You can introduce the chauffeur to the dressmaker, and Lady Enniston’s son to my grandfather’s grand-daughter. There’s nothing unconventional about that. It’s only worrying when you get them mixed—I mean when I’m Miss Dane and he’s the chauffeur, or the other way round. Don’t send me away—I don’t want to go a bit. And by the bye, you’ve never told me his name.”

“Mr. Foster,” said Susan, opening the door.

Michael Foster came into the room, a big young man in the most ordinary blue serge in the world. Miss Tankerville heaved a sigh of relief as she shook hands and ordered tea.

“And Susan—the lights. Michael, dear boy, I’m pleased to see you, I’m very pleased to see you.” Then, as the room sprang suddenly into light, she turned fussily towards Chloe with a hurried, “Dear girl, this is Mr. Foster.—Michael, let me introduce you to Miss Dane, an old pupil of mine.”

“We have met before,” said Chloe. She put out her hand, and felt that Michael Foster’s hand was large and strong.

“Before! Dear girl, you never said. I didn’t know—I had no idea. Are you sure?”

“Well, it was hardly a meeting”—Chloe was perhaps a little sorry that she had spoken—“I just saw Mr. Foster yesterday when his car had broken down on the way to Ranbourne. Is she all right now?”

Michael Foster shook his head.

“I got her to Ranbourne, but she’s not right yet.”

Miss Tankerville broke in with a flood of questions about “Your dear mother.” A little later on, when they had had tea, she remembered a photograph album “with a charming picture of dear Maud in a group,” and departed to find it.

Michael Foster turned to Chloe.

“Did Toto bite you?” he inquired with much interest.

“He tried to. As soon as I got round the first corner I slapped him; then he didn’t try any more. He’s a little horror, but I give him full marks for brains. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind having Toto and training him. I believe he’d be rather fascinating if he wasn’t so insufferably spoilt. I prefer him to his mistress anyhow.”

Michael made a face.

“Pretty steep, isn’t she? I’ve never been called such names in my life. Thank goodness, I’ve only got another week of it.”

“Have you given notice?” asked Chloe demurely. “Or—or is it the other way round?”

His eyes twinkled. He had rather nice little creases round them. Chloe liked the way they crinkled up when he laughed.

“Oh, I don’t belong to her,” he said. “I’m driving my own car for a firm—just to get the hang of things whilst I’m marking time,—and she came in the other day, and said she’d got an impertinent nincompoop of a chauffeur who’d smashed her car and gone off at a moment’s notice. She wanted us to put it right and give her another car and ‘a really reliable man’ meanwhile, because she was just going off to pay a round of visits. I’m the really reliable man, worse luck. I don’t wonder the other poor chap got desperate and smashed the car.”

Miss Tankerville swept back into the room, bearing a heavy Victorian album with gilt clasps. She laid it on Michael’s knees, and sat down beside him.

“Dearest Maud at fourteen,” she said, breathlessly. “No, not that one: that’s Fanny Latimer who made that very sad marriage—but there, we won’t talk about it; it’s better not. And this is Judith Elliott who was your mother’s great friend. She went to Hong Kong, and married an American—a very accomplished girl, though too fond of reading novels. And this—now this is a really good photograph, a most excellent group of our croquet team, taken in the summer of 1897. No, your mother’s not in it, I’m afraid; but that girl in the middle is Emily Longwood who used to be quite a friend of hers; and the one next to her is Daisy Anderson—or is it Milly? Now, that’s really very stupid of me.” She turned the page to the light, and the pince-nez fell with a clatter. “Very stupid of me,” she murmured as she disentangled them from the watch-chain and replaced them on her nose, “very stupid indeed; but, d’you know, I can’t be sure which of the Anderson twins played in that croquet tournament. I think it was Daisy; but, on the other hand, it may have been Milly, because I think she really was the better player of the two.” She turned another page.

Chloe caught Michael’s eye for an instant. And a little spark of something seemed to dance between them. She looked away again at once. The interminable string of names flowed on.