Читать книгу Miss Brown of X. Y. O - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 9

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At half-past twelve on the following morning, Miss Brown walked up Shaftesbury Avenue on the way to keep her luncheon engagement. At twenty minutes to one she had found the place—a tiny building painted white in a back street off Soho, with green blinds, the sign of an eagle hanging outside, and underneath a few words in an unintelligible language. She pushed open the door and stood for a moment looking in. The restaurant consisted of a small room with a dozen tables or so around the walls, one or two in the centre and a space large enough for at the most three musicians upon a raised dais at the further end. The tables were innocent of linen cloths but they were spotlessly clean with a fresh supply of paper napkins and brightly polished glass tastefully arranged. There were a few flowers in the centre of each and a menu written by hand. Already half a dozen people were lunching, and as Miss Brown stood doubtfully upon the threshold, her companion of the night before came hurrying through a door carrying a brown pot of steaming soup. Without any sign of embarrassment he set it down for a moment whilst he came to greet her. She fancied that she caught a shadow of disappointment in his face as he looked over her shoulder.

“I am so glad that you could come,” he said, “but your friend—I do not see her.”

“She had to go back to her chickens,” Miss Brown regretted. “I was not at all sure whether I should come alone.”

“It was very foolish of you to hesitate,” he assured her severely. “Will you please sit there,” he added, indicating a table. “I will come directly and ask you what you would like to eat.”

Miss Brown seated herself a little shyly at a corner table. Mr. Paul caught up the pot of soup again and carried it to a table where three men, each with a pale coloured apéritif in front of him, were smoking cigarettes and waiting. A tall, grey-haired lady who was seated at the desk, descended and crossed the floor.

“It is Miss Brown, I am sure,” she said, smiling graciously. “My son has spoken of you. I do not speak English well, but I wish to bid you welcome.”

Miss Brown had risen to her feet. She accepted the hand which was offered to her and resisted an insane desire to effect some sort of reverence.

“You will understand,” Madame continued, “that we are a little family party here, just our friends and a few relatives. It is my husband there at the end of the room, talking with the General—General Dovolitz—who lunches here every day. And my daughter, when she has finished helping in the kitchen, will play the piano. You must dine with us one night. It is perhaps gayer. The place seems more warm when the lights are lit, but we are glad always to see our friends.”

Madame departed with a smile, and Miss Brown sat down. Presently Paul appeared with a menu which he presented with a bow.

“You will understand,” he explained, “that you are to-day the guest of the house. Afterwards you can patronize us if you will. You are one of those whom we shall always be glad to welcome. For this morning I recommend a few sardines of a mark which is a specialty of ours, some goulash—that is really a Hungarian dish, but served in the Russian fashion—and some fruit. It will do?”

“It sounds delightful.”

“For wine I shall give you a little carafe of vin rosé. Wine is where we Russians are at fault. We understand food so well, but in drinking we have only the taste for spirits. You will excuse?”

He hurried off to speak to an impatient customer, cast a watchful eye around the room and presently reappeared with the sardines.

“Your mother has spoken to me,” Miss Brown told him. “I think she is delightful.”

He bowed gravely.

“Presently my father will pay his respects,” he announced. “He lunches always with an old friend. They are at the bottom of the room there. And my sister, too, you must meet. As soon as she is free from the kitchen she plays the piano. At night we sometimes have much music——”

Miss Brown started a little in surprise at the sudden change in his expression, the fiercely muttered exclamation, obviously in his own language. She looked around. A man had entered the place, hung his hat upon a peg and, crossing the room, had seated himself with much assurance at the next table. He had the closely shaven head and bristling moustache of the foreigner, but he had also an air of prosperity which most of them lacked. Paul, with a couple of strides, stood by the table of this evidently unwelcome visitor. He addressed him first in a language which she judged to be Russian, then, failing to elicit a response, in English.

“I am sorry, sir, but that table is engaged.”

The man folded up his newspaper and rose.

“Very well,” he conceded, “I will sit at another.”

“I regret, sir,” was the curt rejoinder, “that every table is engaged.”

They looked at one another: the newcomer expressionless, with a certain sarcastic smile at the corners of his lips; Paul, with less restraint, showing signs of violent anger.

“It is against the law,” the former remarked, “for you to keep a restaurant and refuse to supply food and drink.”

“Then I will break the law,” Paul declared with his hand already upon the other’s chair. “Every table here is promised. There is no room for you, no place under this roof. Eat elsewhere—and may your food choke you! In the meantime be so good as to leave.”

The man shrugged his shoulders.

“You are foolish,” he expostulated. “I am a fellow countryman. I might become a good client.”

“You cannot be a fellow countryman,” Paul retorted, “because I have no country. You will save trouble, I hope.”

The man rose to his feet, folded up his paper once more, took down his hat with a final glance around, during which his eyes rested for a second or two upon Miss Brown, and passed out into the street. Miss Brown looked after him curiously.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

Paul seemed short of breath.

“He was a spy. A Russian truly enough, but a Russian of to-day. Forgive me if I say no more. These are business hours and one must work. The luxury of feeling is for another time.”

He hurried off. During the course of her luncheon—a plain but very excellent one—Miss Brown watched him exchanging greetings with practically every one in the room. The clients of the place seemed all habitués. Most of them were a little shabby, most of them had a more or less poverty-stricken air. There was very little wine drunk and fewer liqueurs. Occasionally there was a whispered consultation with Madame at the desk and a note was made of an amount to be paid some time in the future. On each of these occasions, Paul seemed to become more depressed. Towards two o’clock, when the place was nearly empty, a pale-faced girl with beautiful light-coloured eyes, not very tall, with broad shoulders and hips, and a very graceful presence, came through the side door, looked into the room and approached Edith.

“You are Miss Brown, I am sure,” she said. “May I sit down for a moment? I am Paul’s sister.”

“Please do,” Miss Brown begged with some diffidence. “I hoped you were going to play.”

“I do sometimes,” the girl replied. “To-day—forgive me—I am really too tired. Our kitchen maid could not come. It has been hard work. You are pleased with your luncheon, I hope?”

“It was quite wonderful!”

“We serve only simple things. If only every one would pay it would be all right with us, but my mother can resist no one, and my father is hopeless. They are all our friends who come, you see, our people who know about us, and we would like very much to earn a living by serving no others. My brother has spoken to me of you. Colonel Dessiter was a great friend. You will be always welcome.”

“Your brother has been very kind,” Miss Brown acknowledged. “I do not altogether know why, I am sure. It was only chance which made me acquainted with Colonel Dessiter. May I know your name, please?”

“My name is Naida,” the girl confided. “I have no other. We lost our other names when we lost our country. If ever we regain it we shall remember them again. Tell me why Paul was so angry when he came into the kitchen a few minutes ago? He would answer no questions but he was muttering to himself all the time.”

“Some guest came in whom he ordered out again. A Russian too, I believe, but evidently some one of whom your brother did not approve.”

The girl sighed.

“They spy on us all the time,” she said. “They pretend that they are safe, that the country is prosperous, that they are going to bring the whole world to their way of thinking, they spend our money establishing international centres and secret service branches in every capital, and yet they fear us, they fear that sanity may come back once more to the people.”

Paul, temporarily free, came across to them, bearing a dish of fruit.

“I remember that you do not smoke,” he said to Miss Brown. “Perhaps you will try a tangerine. I went to the market to search for them this morning before five o’clock. It is very hard to get fruit which is agreeable and that one can afford to give. I am glad that my sister has found you out.”

The latter rose to her feet.

“I must go and see if Mother needs help,” she announced with a kindly little nod of farewell.

“Won’t you sit down, please, Mr. Paul?” Miss Brown invited timidly. “You look so tired.”

“I am tired,” he admitted. “It is a terrible confession for one so big and strong as I, isn’t it? But then, you see, I danced until one o’clock after a busy day here, and I was in the market at dawn to see if I could save a little on the things we buy. Will you forgive me if I drink a small glass of brandy?”

“Please do,” she begged.

He went to a narrow counter upon which was ranged an array of bottles, helped himself and returned.

“Miss Brown,” he said earnestly, “I should like you to understand all about us. I tried to tell you a little last night but it was difficult. I am sure that when you have confidence we can be of service to one another. You must know,” he went on thoughtfully, “more than any other person breathing, more than the English Home Secretary or any of his agents, far more than Scotland Yard, of this terrible conspiracy. Dessiter had picked up the threads—that I know—from China and Australia to Rome. Yours will need to be a charmed life, Miss Brown.”

“I am not afraid,” she assured him, without a tremor in her voice. “Only I do not understand, Mr. Paul, of what service I could ever be to you. Even if I knew all that you say, you know quite well that no word, no single word, could I or would I ever utter even to you who have been kind, even to you whom I might trust—that would make any difference.”

He nodded.

“That is just how I would have you feel,” he approved. “Yet you may find, as I said, as time goes on, that we can help one another.”

“What I must confess that I should like to understand,” practical Miss Brown confided, “is how you knew about me.”

He smiled.

“I can afford to be much more frank with you than you can with me,” he declared. “I was at Lombertson Square after you had left it. I saw Dessiter for a moment or two before the doctor came. He told me—everything.”

“So that was why you were in Shepherd’s Market yesterday morning!” she exclaimed. “I thought I recognised you when you spoke to me last night. It was you who knocked down that brute who nearly got the satchel. Why did you hurry off when the policeman came?”

“I had done all that was necessary,” he answered. “I did not wish to be recognised there.”

“If you had not been so quick,” she said gratefully, “I think that man would have wrenched my arm out.”

“Then I am very glad, because it is a very nice arm. Now you know why I recognised you last night. I was watching to see you come out so that I should know you whenever we met. If Dessiter had lived through the night I am certain that he would have sent you word that I was to be treated as a friend. However, in time I shall convince you of that.”

“I think of you as one already,” Miss Brown assured him. “I was very interested in the little you told me about yourself. Have you time to go on?”

“It is a very simple story,” he said. “To begin by repeating what I told you last night—my family, my sister, my father, my mother and myself and some others of us are not content to do what so many of our exiled Russians have done. They are living in luxury, many of them; on the Riviera, in Paris, even in New York, living on their titles, on their prestige, upon the charity and sympathy of the world. That does not suit us. We have lost our country, and there is much blame to be attached to us for that. When we lost our country, we lost our names, we lost everything except our souls. Those we have kept. The flame of our will still burns, and I tell you even now that that poisonous race of men, who are attempting to corrupt the world, fear us. They have a secret service which costs them millions. We, just a few of us, have a secret service which costs us nothing, but when we move they are panic-stricken. There is not one of them who could not be bought. There is not one of us whose life would not be freely and joyously given rather than a single one of our plans or our secrets should be disclosed. I risk nothing in making you my confidant to this extent, Miss Brown, even if I did not trust you, because this much they know themselves. We are of those few who do not accept things as they stand. We are the Russians of Russia, far removed from that floating scum of the world who live on our lands and in our cities. There is no drifting down the tide of easy ways for us. We fight for the damnation of those who have brought about this holocaust.”

“You have hope?” she asked eagerly.

“Why not? When, in the world’s history, did a régime, a scheme of government, founded upon mud, built over a cesspool, endure? Given long enough time that present country which calls itself Russia must collapse of its own accord. It is our wish to hasten that time so that it may come before we are too old to taste the joy of feeling the soil of our homeland once more beneath our feet. It is for that we work, hour after hour, and week after week, work for our livings in the daylight, work for our country in the hours of quiet.”

He finished his brandy and stood up.

“I have work now in the kitchen,” he announced. “We have not a great quantity of china or cutlery, and everything must be prepared for the service of dinner this evening.”

“And afterwards you dance?” she asked wonderingly.

“And afterwards I dance,” he assented. “Sometimes perhaps my footsteps are a little heavy, but they do their business all the same. I want you to know, Miss Brown, that whilst you are now, and will be until you can be released of your trust, surrounded by enemies, you have also friends. Listen. I will give you a proof that I have told you the truth, that I was at Lombertson Square last night. Behind the screen——”

He leaned forward and whispered. Miss Brown was back again amidst the horrors.

“You saw the paragraph in the paper this morning?” he went on. “That was all. There will be no more than that. It was I who helped to move him—and the fog, which made it easy. There will be no outcry, no word of complaint to the police, but they know over there at Moscow that they have lost the best man who ever enlisted under their secret service, and they know well that Dessiter killed him. And over here—a man unknown! Perhaps. But even your police, though dull, are not fools; even your Home Department, though fettered by conventions, have learned how to muzzle the press at times. The name of that man was known in every city of the world. In Barcelona, in Moscow, Rome and Paris, Bucharest and Shanghai, they wear mourning for him. There will be a black edge round their paper, but his name will never be mentioned. That is how these men slip out of the world.”

“It doesn’t sound like real life,” Miss Brown mused.

“There is a great deal in life,” Paul told her, “of which the multitudes never dream. And now, I must go. Please come here when you can to eat. You are of our circle. You will be welcome.”

Miss Brown held out her hand, a little startled at feeling it raised to his lips. Afterwards she went timidly with her purse in her hand to the desk where Madame presided, but Madame shook her head.

“To-day you are my son’s guest,” she said. “I hope you have enjoyed your luncheon? Whenever you care to come back we shall be glad to see you. At another time you must meet my husband. To-day he is a little excited. He talks politics with General Dovolitz—and that often upsets him.”

Miss Brown took her leave, feeling somehow or other as though she had left the presence of royalty, instead of having been bidden farewell by a lady with a cash register from behind the desk of a small eating house. Upon the threshold, to her surprise, she met Paul. A black overcoat covered his conventional waiter’s garb and he held a bowler hat in his hand.

“A friend who has a spare afternoon,” he confided—“he is a cousin really, who was in my regiment during the war—has come in to wash the dishes. I am free therefore. You will permit that I accompany you home?”

“Wouldn’t it do you more good to lie down?” she suggested. “You look so tired.”

“I would like,” he confessed, “to ride on the top of a ’bus with you.”

She laughed softly. The enterprise appealed to her.

“For an hour,” she agreed. “We will go to Hammersmith and back.”

They found an omnibus, climbed on to the top and seated themselves side by side. They were in no respect an unusual-looking couple. They seemed indeed very much a part of the world which passes daily backwards and forwards from the travail of the City to the sporadic rest of the suburbs. Miss Brown was wearing her rather dingy mackintosh, a small black hat of some shiny material, suitable for wet weather, and gloves which she had intended to replace during an afternoon’s shopping. Paul’s overcoat had been bought ready-made in Holborn and he was by no means of stock size. His laced boots had been purchased with an idea of wear and his hat, with its thin nap and streaky edges, betrayed the spirit of economy in which it had been acquired. Nevertheless, Miss Brown’s eyes shone blue with the spirit of enterprise, and Paul, as he removed his hat for a moment, showed the fine shape of his head, the strength of his jaw notwithstanding his rather prominent cheek bones, and the visionary light in his clear, strong eyes. For November there were fewer clouds about than usual, and a breeze that was almost soft.

“Well,” he enquired abruptly, as they started on their way, “you have seen how we live—what do you think of us?”

“I think it is very wonderful,” she declared, “and I think that you are all very brave.”

“For one thing,” he admitted soberly, “I am thankful. We have kept our spirit. There are those of our own family who would say that we had become outcasts. To them I reply that we have kept the gold of life. We shall keep it to the end. Those others, they are terrible. They who should be working made themselves only a few months ago an object of ridicule in the face of the world. They elected a tzar. My God, what mockery! There will never be another tzar of the Russians. There will be a ruler, but he will be one whom the people, when they have shaken themselves free from the loathsome yoke of the Soviet, shall choose for themselves. Now, we shall speak no more of politics. I would like you to tell me more about your friend.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” Miss Brown confided. “She and I have both the same dull history. She was the daughter of a small country doctor, and I was the daughter of a struggling lawyer. Both suffered through the war, died and left no money. Frances tried living with relatives, but gave it up. She attempted a tea shop, but that became impossible. Now she has a small chicken farm, but I think that she is very miserable. She is too bright and clever to be buried in the country.”

“And too beautiful,” Paul murmured.

She saw a momentary wistfulness in his eyes, and sighed. Poor Mr. Paul, with a father and a mother and a sister to keep—a maître d’hôtel by day and a professional dancer by night! She struggled against a wave of melancholy.

“A holiday,” she begged. “Just for a short time let us forget every one who is unhappy and think only of joyful things.”

His smile was a little sad but he entered into her spirit.

“Tell me instead then,” he begged, “just where you were brought up. Tell me under what sun you were born where the eyes are painted such a colour.”

She laughed softly.

“That’s better,” she approved. “All my history, all that has happened to me up till last night, I could tell you before we reached the next lamp post.”

“Your loves?”

“I have had none.”

“Your ambitions?”

“I am much too practical to be a dreamer,” she assured him.

He shook his head.

“You may have always thought so,” he said, “but you were made for romance, and I think that romance has you now fairly in its grip. You will live through wonderful days, Miss Brown, before you go back again to the life you led before you sat upon the steps of Dessiter’s house.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“It was very damp there,” she murmured, “and the fog was horrible, and what followed terrified me more than I should like to confess, and yet I suppose you are right. I think I shall be glad all my life that I lost my way.”