Читать книгу The Battle of Basinghall Street - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 8

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At eight o'clock on the same evening Martin Sandbrook was standing in his library with his back to the fire, smoking a cigarette and reading the evening paper. At half-past eight he had thrown the latter down and was walking restlessly up and down the little apartment. At twenty minutes to nine he was staring savagely at the clock. Thirty seconds later the front doorbell rang. He listened to the voices in the hall and his expression relaxed. From the bottles prepared for that purpose upon a side table he mixed a cunning decoction and poured it upon the ice, which was already in the shaker. He was wielding the latter vigorously when the door opened and his butler announced Miss Moore.

"What a lovely sound," she exclaimed. "And don't I need one!"

They shook hands with a touch of formality, then he wheeled an easy chair to the fire.

"I have more congratulations to offer you," he confided, as he poured out the cocktails.

"You'll turn my head," she murmured.

"I could never have believed," he continued emphatically, "that an incident like the destruction of the Lunt machine up at Tottenham, which was certainly a most melodramatic affair, could have taken a back place in the newspapers within twenty-four hours, as it has done."

"The advertisement columns supply the explanation," she pointed out a trifle cynically.

"Yours is practically a new profession in this country," he reflected, "but I should say that your vogue would soon spread."

She shrugged her shoulders—a slightly weary gesture. Apparently she was, at the moment, disinclined for general conversation. He refilled the glasses and stood on the rug, looking down at her. In her plain evening dress, the severe but beautifully fitting lines of which he was too experienced not to appreciate, her hair rather low at the back and plainly brushed away from her forehead, without a trace of artificial colouring on her lips or cheeks, he felt that, notwithstanding the slight hardness of her mouth and those telltale little lines at the corners of her eyes, she was sufficiently unusual to satisfy a person of even his somewhat exacting taste. What she lacked in the softer graces she seemed to make up for in dependability.

She raised her eyes suddenly.

"Aren't you rather staring at me?" she asked.

"I'm the rudest person in the world, I know," he admitted. "I didn't expect to see you looking so nice."

"Am I dressed above my station?" she enquired. "You see, we don't look at things in quite the same way over in New York as you do here. I suppose a secretary should do her shopping in Oxford Street or in one of the huge stores! On the other hand, I earn a very considerable salary and I have nobody to spend it on except myself."

"I'm sorry about that large salary," he said, "because I suppose I shall have to give you a raise when you come to me."

"I shall never come to you," she assured him.

"Why not?"

"Because I can't see the slightest possibility," she replied, "of your ever offering me any work as interesting as the work I'm doing."

He indulged in a little grimace and at that moment the butler announced dinner. They crossed the hall into the dining room. The rather formidable, long table had been dispensed with, and a small round one was drawn up to the fire, with shaded lights and a great bowl of red roses in the centre, substituted for the more formal decorations. It was attractive enough to justify her exclamation of pleasure.

"It does look cosy, doesn't it?" he assented, "On the whole, I think dining at home is good. I don't know a restaurant in London where the chairs are really comfortable or the music, at some time or another, isn't too loud. Besides, we can talk seriously here, if we want to."

"Have we anything serious to talk about?" she asked, as she helped herself to caviar.

"That depends on your outlook," he replied. "I think myself that there is something peculiarly attractive in the first real tête-à-tête between two people, one of whom at least is interested in the other."

"Very nicely put," she murmured.

"You must remember that I scarcely know a thing about you or your life."

"There I have the advantage," she observed. "Debrett is eloquent about you. There is, fortunately, no volume published that you can buy, in which you can read about my parentage and doings in the world."

"Perhaps, on the whole, I am glad," he confided. "I like to come to my own conclusions in my own time—concerning the things that matter."

"If you ever find it worth while."

They dined pleasantly and exceedingly well. Frances Moore showed adequate appreciation of her host's really excellent cook, and she also approved of the old Hock and single glass of champagne she was offered. All the time, however, both were conscious of the fact that there was a certain element of fencing in their conversation. It was a conversation of tongues rather than of hearts, or even of intelligence. Sandbrook was relieved when she acquiesced so easily in his suggestion that they should take their coffee in the other room.

"This," he decided, when their chairs were wheeled up to the fire, the table with coffee and liqueurs was between them, and their cigarettes were lit, "is the hour for confidences."

"Give me yours, then," she suggested.

His smile had almost the guilelessness of a child's.

"But I have no secrets," he assured her blandly. "My life is an open book. The volume you speak of will even tell you where I was educated, what job I had during the War, in what countries I have been travelling—in fact, it brings me almost up-to-date. About you, on the other hand, there is all the time the aura of mystery. Why do you work for that brave old scoundrel—Marsom? Why do you work at all?"

She reflected for a moment.

"The Woolito job is the most interesting one I have ever had," she declared. "I work because my income is too small for me to exist comfortably without working. But frankly—I enjoy it. I enjoy my independence and I enjoy my independent life. There is no mystery about me at all. My father is a government official at Washington, and my mother keeps house for him and entertains his friends. I have a sister who likes that sort of life and she lives with them. So there we are. If your life is really as colourless as you say, you might at least give me your opinion about something that is worrying me."

"Of course I will, if you think it worth having. I warn you—I'm a terribly prejudiced person."

"About people, perhaps, but not about events, I am sure. I should like your honest opinion about that queer communication which was sent to Lord Marsom after the destruction of the machine."

"Well, I should say," he replied, flicking the ash from his cigarette, "that it came either from a lunatic or a wag letting himself go."

"Or someone in deadly earnest."

"I wish I could feel more interested in this misfortune which has assailed your firm," he observed. "I must confess, however, that I can't. I don't really care. What I do care about is your position as publicity secretary to a firm which seems to me to be likely to come in for more than a spot of trouble."

"You would not suggest," she protested, "that I should leave the firm because they have met with a quite insignificant reverse?"

"Yes, I would," he declared cheerfully. "I've had a look at that board and I know what I think of them. They're wrong 'uns, Miss Frances. They've got the evil eye, and they'll have it on you, if you don't mind. I hate the thought of your working for such a lot of bounders. I don't believe I will ever bring myself to become their associate."

She laughed almost naturally.

"But, my dear Lord Sandbrook," she exclaimed, "I get a thousand a year salary and allowances, a private office in Basinghall Street and a room in the Park Lane mansion! I have twice been invited to lunch with the family. I am not responsible for the character of my employers. I consider my position a most enviable one."

"What's a thousand a year?" he smiled across at her. "Turn me up in Debrett again and see how many thousand acres I own. I can't remember. Think—if you became my secretary, all those might be yours some day. I am very susceptible, and I have never seen anyone in my life look so charming as you do to-night."

"You're too flippant," she complained. "As a rule, I like a certain amount of flippancy—it gives a sauce to conversation—but yours is too obvious and a trifle too personal. You are the only man I have ever met who would dare to say such things to me! Why do you think that I should ever want to marry you?"

"Because of those acres," he answered. "Much better than a thousand a year and luncheon once a week off the crumbs from the Marsom table! How did you leave the old boy this evening, by the way? I'll leave off talking rot and be serious, if you like."

"I have never known him more full of life," she said slowly. "He seems absolutely dynamic. And yet, do you know, I have a queer idea about him? I believe that underneath that overweening pride of his, he has had, ever since he received that strange communication, an uneasy presentiment that someone with brains connected with those Nottinghamshire firms which he has just driven out of business, is working on some scheme of revenge. He doesn't know what fear is but he is angry because he is up against something which he does not understand."

"There's nothing for him to be afraid of, anyhow," Sandbrook observed. "You don't get pushed off in this country for getting the better of your neighbour if you can. You generally get a step up in the peerage. I wish they would give it to old Marsom. A baron's is the most unsatisfactory title there is. A man takes his own daughter about and every one of the uninitiated thinks he is on the loose. Lord Marsom and Miss Julia Pontifex! Why, I doubt if they'd give him rooms at the Metropole at Brighton!"

"I'm afraid I don't understand these English side shows," she reflected, with a smile.

"By-the-by, I met Miss Julia Pontifex this morning. She came in from riding just as you left me."

"Lucky I had left you!"

"Why?"

Frances shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, I don't know. She is a very vivid and fascinating person, but she is a little old-fashioned in some of her ideas. I do not think that women secretaries meet with her entire approval."

"You mean that she is a snob?" Sandbrook asked.

Frances shook her head.

"I should not call her that. She is too intelligent. She simply does not understand why we exist. I honestly believe that if I met her in the street, she would not recognise me."

"That's quaint," he observed.

"She is an interesting study," Frances went on. "She is so terribly keen and alive to the surroundings and people she affects that outside them the world does not exist. Did you see her picture in last year's Academy?"

"I was not in London," he reminded her.

"It was by a great artist and it was a marvellous piece of work. I never could have believed that anyone could have thrown on to canvas that intense inner vitality, that almost throbbing sensuousness which she undoubtedly possesses. Yet there they are. Julia Pontifex is a very attractive personality, Lord Sandbrook. I know at least half a dozen men who would marry her, if they could."

"I'm not surprised," he observed. "You used a good word just now. She is vital. You can almost feel the life throbbing in her when she talks to you. She reminds me of one of the great Biblical heroines—almost too colourful for this generation."

There was a brief silence. Sandbrook was haunted for a moment by that vision of the slender girl with the proud lips and the mocking eyes, with their partially revealed depths. He tapped another cigarette upon the table and lit it.

"Miss Frances Moore," he said, "I am going to talk seriously to you."

"This is very sudden," she complained. "I don't feel that I have had sufficient preparation."

"I am not going to ask you to be my wife, but if I dared offer you a piece of advice, it would be this. Chuck that job. It's as plain as a pikestaff that someone has got their knife into Woolito, Limited—someone who means business. It's all very well for us men who are likely to get something out of it to stick to our guns, but you will only get yourself into trouble fighting an unpopular cause all the time."

"I shall do my duty," she declared. "I have been well treated there and if I don't altogether approve of their methods, I have come across nothing which I think directly dishonourable. Would you mind asking your man to fetch me a taxicab?"

"Already?" he protested.

"It's ten minutes to eleven," she pointed out. "We loitered over dinner. I ought to be round at Park Lane at eight-thirty to-morrow morning. I have appointments with newspaper men practically the whole of the day."

"What a job!" he scoffed. "You promise them so much advertising and they tone down their news for you. You call that an honest woman's career in life!"

She laughed gaily.

"My dear host," she assured him, "it is most amusing."

The servant answered the bell.

"A taxi and my coat and hat, Groves," Sandbrook ordered.

"Unless," she said, as the door closed, "you are going to that mysterious place which Englishmen call their club, you won't want your coat and hat."

"Mayn't I see you home?" he begged.

She shook her head.

"I live in the most respectable Mews in London," she confided. "Even to go back in a taxi gives cause for scandal."

"But if I don't get out?"

"The white of your shirt would be seen glistening. These idiots of taxicab men always stop under a lamp. Do you mind? It is quite a warm evening and I feel like leaning back, pulling my fur up around my neck, having both windows down and resting for a time. I have had rather a rotten day."

"Why, of course, I don't mind," he replied. "I've bored you as it is, I'm afraid."

She gave him both her hands with a delightful little gesture.

"You are the nicest man I've met in England," she said. "You are very nearly the nicest man I have ever met in my life. It is just bad luck that for the moment you present rather a problem to me. Never mind—I like you."

"And for all my chaff, and I indulge in it too often," he rejoined, "I like you. You have read enough of your country's fiction, I am sure, to know that an English earl is bound to be an ass. Perhaps I am, but I have seen enough to approve of you. I may tell you so again some day."

"And this," she remarked, turning back as he stood upon the doorstep, "is where you intrigue me. I cannot make up my mind whether you are one of the pleasantest idiots in the world or a very clever and determined person, who means having his own way and is getting it."

He smiled.

"Pull both windows down," he advised, "wrap the fur closely around you, lean back in the corner and smooth the hair off your forehead, think hard and you may solve your own conundrum."