Читать книгу Miss Brown of X. Y. O - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 7

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They dined at a large and popular restaurant where, before the war, the sight of two young women at a table alone would have caused a great deal of remark. An epicure might have found fault with the somewhat stereotyped meal with which they were served, but to the two girls, whose evening repast consisted generally of scrambled eggs with tea, or some kindred variation, everything seemed delicious. When the coffee was brought, and Frances had lit her cigarette—Miss Brown never smoked—they were in a state of post-prandial content almost masculine. Frances’ feet were beating time to the music.

“I warn you, dear little mother propriety,” she said, “that if any one comes who looks in any way decent and asks me to dance, I shall accept.”

Miss Brown’s expression was grave.

“It’s hard luck not knowing any men here, Frances,” she sighed, “and you dance so beautifully, but I don’t think I’d do that. You can’t tell what sort of person you might get mixed up with.”

Frances smiled a little bitterly across the table.

“What does it matter?” she demanded scornfully. “What does it matter what one does? I’m nearly thirty years old, and half the good times I might have had in life I haven’t had because there have been things connected with them which one shouldn’t do, or isn’t supposed to do. I’m fed up with it, Edith. You come and look after my chickens for a time and see how you’d feel.”

“It’s out of doors,” Miss Brown argued, “it’s a healthy life and a beautiful country.”

“Oh, shut up!” was the curt rejoinder. “Don’t be grandmotherly, Edith. You live much more intensively than I do—you could even have a secret and keep it,” she added, with a note of aggrieved meaning in her tone—“but we’re made of the same stuff really. We’re neither of us content—at least I know I’m not, and I don’t think you are, although you’re too modest to ask yourself why. I’ve made a conquest, and I’m going to be asked to dance. I’m not quite sure about him, but there doesn’t seem to be any one else.”

Miss Brown looked critically across at the opposite table, and permitted herself a slight frown of disapproval. Two men had been dining there alone, and the one to whom Frances had evidently alluded was already upon his feet, straightening his tie with obvious self-consciousness. He was a big man with a florid complexion and unruly hair. His evening clothes fitted him badly, and he had the air of being in ill accord with his surroundings. Nevertheless, notwithstanding his coarseness of feature and somewhat pompous carriage, there was power of a sort in his face, in his straight, full mouth, shaggy eyebrows, and firm jaw. His companion was of an altogether different type. He was much younger; he wore tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, and he presented a thoughtful, almost a scholarly appearance. His connection with the other man was hard to divine.

“I don’t care much for your admirer,” Miss Brown confessed.

“Neither do I particularly,” Frances agreed. “He doesn’t look as though he could dance very well either. However, he seems to be my fate.”

He was already indeed approaching their table. He concealed his lack of poise by a casualness of manner which bordered upon familiarity.

“Young lady care to dance?” he suggested, standing in front of Frances and looking down at her.

She rose to her feet after a moment’s genuine hesitation. Miss Brown followed them with curious eyes. The man danced well enough in somewhat lumbering fashion, and was apparently ready of speech now the ice was broken.

Then Miss Brown’s attention was called to her own affairs. The younger man had risen from his place and approached her. There was no awkwardness about his manner—rather a charming smile as he bowed slightly.

“I am so sorry,” he said, “that I cannot follow my friend’s example. I unfortunately do not dance. I wondered whether you would permit me to sit with you for a moment whilst you are alone?”

Even Miss Brown could find nothing to object to in the suggestion. She rather liked the young man’s tone and manner too.

“Please do,” she begged. “I am so glad for my friend to be able to dance. I suppose it is the custom in these places nowadays,” she went on tentatively, “to dance without an introduction?”

The young man smiled gravely.

“I imagine so,” he agreed. “To tell you the truth I do not frequent this type of restaurant very much. It was necessary for me to have a talk upon affairs with my friend, and as he has to go to Manchester early to-morrow morning we decided to dine together. I am afraid if the choice had been left to me I should have taken him to my club. He had a different idea, however. Is this a favourite place of yours?”

“I have been here twice before, when my friend has been up from the country,” Miss Brown replied. “We have never danced though.”

“Hard luck on you that I’m such a duffer,” the young man remarked. “A great deal of my work has to be done at night. I have to be down at the House of Commons with my Chief.”

“That sounds very interesting.”

“My work is interesting,” he admitted. “I’m private secretary to Abel Deane.”

Miss Brown’s forehead was slightly puckered. She looked across at him doubtfully.

“Isn’t Mr. Deane the leader of the Communist Party?” she enquired.

He nodded assent.

“And a very excellent leader, too,” he declared, “although I say it who am his secretary. I suppose you think communism sounds very terrible?”

“I don’t like what I have heard about it,” Miss Brown confessed.

“Naturally. Yet the principles of communism appeal to some even amongst the most intelligent. I was at Oxford and I was fortunate enough to take quite an exceptional degree. I was certainly reckoned amongst the intellectuals, and although of course no creed of life can be altogether satisfactory, I am content to call myself a Communist. I know every one is frightened of the name, but ten years ago it was the same if one ventured to call oneself a Socialist. Yet the Socialists have had their turn at governing the country, and haven’t done so badly.”

“They only governed on sufferance,” Miss Brown ventured. “One doesn’t know what they would have done with a free hand.”

“The restraint imposed by an opposition is one excellent feature of our system of government,” the young man pointed out. “By the bye, my name is Greatson—Eric Greatson. And yours?”

“Brown.”

“Just Miss Brown?”

“Miss Edith Brown.”

“We can now consider ourselves introduced,” the young man declared. “As I presume your friend and my companion, Frankland, are in the same happy position, I wonder whether you would allow us to have our chairs moved here? It would be a great kindness to me. Frankland and I have arrived at an impasse in our conversation, and we shall probably fall out if we go further.”

“We shall be very glad to have you join us,” Miss Brown acquiesced.

The young man gave the waiter the necessary order.

“You spoke of your friend as Mr. Frankland,” Miss Brown went on. “Is he also a Communist?”

Her companion nodded.

“Secretary to the Miners’ Federation,” he confided, “and M. P. for Middleton, a very important person in his own districts. He is one of those few people who know exactly what to say to men of his own class. He can get an audience all worked up quicker than any one I know.”

“And is he honest?”

The young man smiled dubiously.

“Well,” he pointed out, “as Mr. Frankland is a member of my political party I could scarcely answer a question like that, could I? I wonder what made you ask it?”

Miss Brown knew very well why she had asked it, but her blue eyes had never looked more guileless.

“I wondered about his expression,” she said. “Here they come!”

Mr. Frankland, and apparently Frances, approved of the new arrangement, and, although Miss Brown refused, Frances accepted a liqueur. At close quarters, her late partner was a little overpowering.

“Fine dancer, your young lady friend!” he remarked to Miss Brown, as he sipped his brandy. “I’m a trifle on the energetic side myself, want a little toning down. Pity you don’t dance, young fellow,” he went on, turning to Greatson in a patronizing manner.

“I shall have lessons some day,” the latter replied. “If I could get Miss Brown to teach me now——”

“You would never learn anything at all,” she assured him. “I have no idea of dancing like my friend. She is supposed to be very good indeed.”

“So good,” Frances scoffed, “that I dance about once a month, and sometimes then to the gramophone with Mollie.”

“That country life that you’ve been telling me about’s no good to you,” Mr. Frankland declared vigorously. “I bet we’d find you something better to do than that up in London. Chickens! Why, the whole world’s trying to run chicken farms nowadays. Can’t imagine why people aren’t a little more original.”

“We can’t all be Communist Members of Parliament, and plan revolutions,” Frances observed.

“Who said anything about revolutions?” Frankland demanded brusquely. “That isn’t our way of thinking at all, and if I had to rely upon my salary as an M. P., I should be in a pretty mess. What about it once more, Miss Frances, eh?” he added, laying down his cigarette.

Frances rose to her feet.

“Yes, we’ll dance if you like,” she consented, “but my name is Austin—Miss Austin.”

Frankland chuckled but his protest died away at the sight of something in his companion’s expression.

“All right,” he conceded, a little sulkily. “It’s going to be ‘Miss Frances’ though before very long. And afterwards ‘Frances’.”

“You may be a prophet,” she acknowledged, “but I prefer intimacies to be arrived at by stages, and I am going to ask you not to hold me quite so tightly,” she added.

He whispered a clumsy compliment in her ear as they moved away. Miss Brown fancied that she caught an expression of distaste in the face of her vis-à-vis.

“I suppose your friend Mr. Frankland is a very clever man,” she remarked. “I am afraid I do not like him much.”

“He is scarcely to be judged from a social point of view,” was Greatson’s apologetic comment.

“I suppose he has a great deal of power,” Miss Brown reflected. “Isn’t it he who will decide whether this terrible series of strikes comes off?”

“Not he alone. There are the Trades Unions to be considered, you know. There are grave differences of opinion between them and some of the Communist leaders. It depends entirely upon whether they come together or not what happens.”

“And will they come together?”

The young man shook his head reproachfully.

“I cannot answer a question like that, Miss Brown,” he replied. “It is very seldom indeed that I discuss politics with any one.”

“But surely it doesn’t matter with me?” she protested.

He took off his spectacles and wiped them. Then he looked at her earnestly.

“There are members of my party,” he assured her, “who would think that I was doing a very indiscreet thing by even sitting at a table with Miss Edith Brown of Shepherd’s Market.”

Miss Brown was genuinely astonished.

“Good gracious, why?” she exclaimed, her blue eyes wide open. “What can you or any member of your party know about me?”

The young man smiled—not at all a displeasing smile.

“Even the cult of espionage,” he observed cryptically, “has profited during the last few years by all these scientific discoveries. It is difficult nowadays to avoid knowledge.”

Miss Brown on the whole stood the shock well. She had become at once very much on her guard.

“But I am only a typist,” she protested. “I count for nothing. I know nothing whatever about politics. I seldom even read the papers.”

He smiled at her once more.

“Let me make a guess,” he said. “I would surmise that up till an early hour yesterday afternoon your statement would have been unreservedly true. Since then you have fulfilled other functions.”

“What do you mean?” Miss Brown demanded, her heart beating a little more quickly.

“You have associated yourself definitely with a certain cause,” he continued, “and at considerable personal risk and with a certain amount of ingenuity you have carried out a difficult commission. Having gone so far who knows how much further you may go?”

“So you belong to those people who have set spies to watch an insignificant person like me,” Miss Brown scoffed.

“That is all outside my province,” the young man assured her. “There is no institution in the world to-day which has not its secret service in one form or another. Naturally there is one attached to my political party, but it is only by the merest chance that I happened to know anything about their present activities. As I do, however,” he went on, twisting his fingers nervously, “may I give you a word of advice?”

“It certainly seems to me,” Miss Brown declared ingenuously, “that I shall need advice from some one or other soon.”

“You have accomplished your mission, and you have no doubt—I hope you have—been well paid for it. Let it go at that. If those people want to make use of you again, don’t let them. Our own people are pretty clever, or they wouldn’t have known all about you, but they are also, I am afraid, terribly unscrupulous, and though we seem to be living in law-abiding times, the whole world is bristling underneath. Keep out of it all, Miss Brown. Stick to your typing, and mind you this is very serious advice, put a seal upon your lips—forget.”

He rose to his feet.

“Are you going?”

“I am afraid I must ask you to excuse me,” he regretted. “I am due down at the House of Commons in ten minutes, and one of the first duties of a secretary, you know, is punctuality. Will you remember my advice, Miss Brown?”

“I will try,” she promised.

“And those dancing lessons?”

She shook her head.

“It would be a case of the blind leading the blind.”

“Nevertheless,” he threatened, “I fear that you are going to find me a somewhat persistent person.”

He took his leave gracefully, with even a touch of wistfulness in his farewell smile. Miss Brown sat alone and wondered about many things. In the lounge, beyond the little crowd of dancers, she caught a glimpse of Frances’ pale profile. Mr. Frankland, redder than ever, obviously eloquent, was leaning forward from a chair by her side, engaged in earnest conversation.