Читать книгу The Lady of Ascot - Edgar Wallace - Страница 8

Table of Contents

JOHN MORLAY, the day following that on which he had received his appointment, came to the shop after business hours, and would have turned away, but that he saw a gleam of light through a gap in the blinds. His ring was answered immediately, and, in the surprise of his arrival, Mrs. Carawood did not put away the book from which she had been reading. He remembered only then Julian Lester's contemptuous reference to her weakness, and a glance at the title confirmed in part the story of her literary taste.

In some confusion she snatched the book from the table and thrust it among the papers on the shelf.

"You're a great reader, Mrs. Carawood?"

"Why, yes, I am," she said, "but not the kind of books you'd read, Mr. Morlay."

"I don't know that I'm any wiser for that," he smiled. "There was a time when I was rather keen on blood-curdling romances."

"Did you grow out of it?" she asked, so naively that he could have laughed.

"I don't think one ever grows out of a love of adventure," he said.

He had come on no particular errand, unless it was (and this he would never confess to himself) a desire to hear more about Marie. But he was diffident of raising the subject, nor did she help him. Herman disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a tea-tray. Mrs. Carawood drank tea at all hours, she said apologetically, and this was one of John's pet weaknesses also. Presently he arrived, rather directly, at the real object of his visit.

"I've been wondering, Mrs. Carawood, if you have any plans for your young lady's future?"

She shook her head, and at that moment her face became troubled.

"No—it is worrying me a little," she said. "I suppose m'lady ought to do something. It isn't good to be idle. She's a wonderful writer; perhaps she'll make a book."

"I sincerely trust she won't," he laughed. "You mean write a book?"

She flushed and nodded, and he hated himself for the joke that had brought a little hurt to her. She was very sensitive about her lack of education—a small but natural vanity that was a little pathetic. It took a long time before he could lure her to talk about the girl, and then he learned of Marie's childhood, of her phenomenal intelligence, and of the beauty that had made old ladies and gentlemen turn in the street and ask whose child she was.

"She had a perambulator that cost twenty pounds," said Mrs. Carawood proudly, "all lined with real Russian leather, with a little hood over the top. It was lined with pink because she was a girl and because..."

She talked on and on and on, and John listened without any slackening of interest. He felt that he could not know too much about this radiant creature who had come into his life with such dramatic unexpectedness.

"Are you married, Mr. Morlay?" she asked suddenly.

"No, I'm not. Is that a disadvantage?"

She was looking at him steadily.

"You're a gentleman, of course—I trust you," she said. "Perhaps people will say I'm foolish to bring Marie into the company of a young man like you, but she's very young, and you are a gentleman."

"That's the danger," he said flippantly.

This challenge of hers brought him face to face with a truth which he had studiously avoided looking upon.

"I suppose you mean, Mrs. Carawood, that you don't want me to fall in love with the Countess Fioli?" He put the question jestingly, yet, try as he did, he could not find any amusement in the idea. "Well, I promise you this: if I do, I shall come along and tell you about it before I tell her."

"It's natural people should fall in love with her," she nodded. "I don't mind that a bit. Only—"

"Only you have a big responsibility. I quite appreciate that, and I'll promise you that, even if I fall head over heels in love, I shall remember that she is—um—a client."

Mrs. Carawood sighed deeply. This was the one thing she had intended saying when she had come to him, the one thing she did not have the courage to put into words lest she offended the man who, she felt, was best qualified to stand as Marie's friend in the hour of her need.

John Morlay went back to his rooms uneasy in mind. In the space of a few days the whole tenor of his life had been changed, his directions re-angled. He felt that Fate had spun the wheel a little unfairly without consulting him, and this he resented, but not for long. For his prow was set to the bright light on the rim of the horizon, which was Marie Fioli.