Читать книгу Lady Jim of Curzon Street - Fergus Hume - Страница 5

Lady Jim was not at all offended. She made every allowance for the querulous temper of old age, and still smiled.

"I rather like cats myself," she observed casually. "They know what they want."

"But they don't always get it, my dear," snapped Lady Canvey; adding inconsequently, "when the cat's in the dairy, she's after the cream."

"I don't think that's an original remark," said Leah, languidly, and loosening her furs, for the room really was heated like the conservatory, in which the lovers talked Chinese metaphysics. "Didn't George Eliot say something of the sort?"

"I never knew him," retorted Lady Canvey, wilfully dense. "You and your Chinese metaphysics indeed! I won't have it----"

"Have them," corrected Leah, gently, and unable to resist the opportunity.

Lady Canvey scowled like the fairy Caraboss, and continued, without heeding the impertinence, "Joan is the daughter of Lionel's vicar."

"I see, and he intends to be the vicar's son-in-law."

"What is that to you?"

"News!" expressed Lady Jim, serenely. "I never knew such a prig as Lionel could fall in love."

"His love is the love of an honest man," declared the old dame, striking her crutch on the carpet.

"I hope so, for the sake of his cloth."

"Chinese metaphysics indeed!" grumbled Lady Canvey. "The poor child did not know what you meant."

"She certainly seems to be somewhat dull."

"Dull yourself, Leah. She's a sweet-tempered, good, thoughtful girl."

"Oh, I didn't mean to say she was so dull as all those qualities imply," said Lady Jim, sweetly.

Lady Canvey looked wrathfully round for something to throw at her visitor's head. But the tea-table was too far away, and the old woman prized her cups and saucers. Finally she took refuge in a spiteful speech.

"She's an honest girl."

"I sincerely hope so, seeing she is your companion," replied Leah, not caring to take up so ridiculous a challenge. "When did you start her?"

"Leah!" Lady Canvey thumped the ground again. "Don't talk slang. If you wish to know, although I don't think it is any of your business, Joan Tallentire came to me two months ago, during which time you have not come to see me."

"I was abroad," apologised Lady Jim, stifling a yawn.

"Gambling at Monte Carlo, I'll be bound."

"I did meet Jim there. He lost heavily on the red. I won, and came home with enough to see me through the last month."

"Who were you living on abroad?" asked the old woman, contemptuously.

Lady Jim leaned back and placed her muff-chain between two very red lips.

"Let me think," she murmured, not put out in the least. "Oh, that little dowdy Australian woman, who is trying to get into society on her husband's money, asked me to stop at their villa."

"And you did?"

"For four weeks."

"And borrowed money, I'll be bound."

Lady Jim nodded blandly. "You can't expect me to live with pigs for nothing," she said, with the greatest coolness.

"You'd live with the devil and borrow from him, I believe," cried the exasperated Lady Canvey, glaring.

"I do live with one," assented her god-daughter; "but he's a stony-broke devil."

"More modern flowers of speech!"

"I didn't create the language."

"You can help using it."

"No. People wouldn't understand if I talked like Lady Jane Grey or Elizabeth Fry."

"They were good women."

"But so dull," objected Lady Jim. "Why is it good women are always dull and dowdy?"

"They are getting ready for the next world," mumbled Lady Canvey, solemnly.

"Their outfit can't cost much, then," declared Leah, flippantly; "but aren't we going to talk business? Think of that poor French, sitting in the motor-car all this time."

"You're sorry for him, I'm sure," said the old woman, ironically.

"Horribly," replied Lady Jim, calmly; "but at least the poor creature is cooler than I am. This room is stifling."

"Don't call your fellow-sinner a creature, Leah."

"Ah! Even had I not seen Lionel I could guess he had been with you, godmother. He loves the dirty and disreputable."

"And you love the rich and disreputable."

"That obvious speech is hardly worthy of your reputation," was Lady Jim's reply. Then she crossed her legs, rested her muff on her knee, and protested, "I can't wait here much longer----"

"On account of French?"

"No; but I'm going to dine at the Cecil to-night, with a boy in the Lancers. He's a nice boy."

"And a rich boy?"

"Of course! I don't like boys without money. But this business," she went on hurriedly. "Jim and I are in a hole."

"You ought to be in gaol," was the angry reply.

"That would be a hole," said Leah, good-humouredly; "but you don't want to see Jim and me in the bankruptcy court."

"Why should I bother? It's nothing to do with me!"

"I'm your god-daughter."

"You're a heartless cat," said Lady Canvey, angrily, and with her eyes scintillating like jewels. "It's no use, Leah. I've helped you and that rascal Jim over and over again. Apply to the Duke."

"Oh, we've done that. He won't give us a penny."

"Then ask some of those nice boys you talk of."

Lady Jim sat very upright in her chair, and a becoming colour heightened her beauty.

"I don't ask any men for money," she declared; "you know perfectly well, Lady Canvey, that I am any honest woman."

"And how dull that sounds," chuckled Lady Canvey, turning the tables; "you should be more original, Leah."

"I don't mind going out to dinner with a man," cried Lady Jim, feeling herself much aggrieved, "nor do I mind a box at the theatre, or some gloves or things of that sort, so long as Jim doesn't object.'

"Pooh! Much you care for Jim."

"I do. Jim's got a temper. He told me this very morning he'd screw my neck if I broke loose."

"Then I respect him for saying it," said Lady Canvey, energetically; "and I'd respect him still more if he did it."

"That's what I said to him," retorted Leah, grimly. "All the same, I am straight enough. No one can say a word against me."

"I'm glad to hear it. You have your good points, Leah," observed Lady Canvey, in a more kindly tone; "but you show your worst side to the world. Why not turn over a new leaf?"

"I'm just about to do so, and there's bankruptcy on the other side, unless you help us, dear godmother," she ended coaxingly.

"I won't," was the firm response. "It's like pouring water into a sieve. I've given you and Jim at least five thousand pounds. Where is it, I ask--where?"

"We must pay our bills."

"You ought to, but you don't."

"Money will go."

"In ways it shouldn't go," snapped the old woman, feeling herself mistress of the situation. "Don't talk nonsense to me, Leah. You and that rascal are a couple of spendthrifts. The Duke, bless him, started you both with a good home and a good income, and now----"

"Now we're on the rocks, as Jim cleverly puts it," said Leah, who could not help seeing the humour of the dilemma. "You didn't think Jim was so original, did you, godmother?"

"Leah, you're impossible!"

"I'm sure I don't know why you should say that," remonstrated Lady Jim. "I must keep up my position."

"It's not as if you had been expensively brought up," went on Lady Canvey, unheeding. "Your father was a wasteful pauper, for he got precious little off that estate of his in Buckinghamshire."

"And what he did get went into his own pocket," said Lady Jim, supplementing the family history; "but as my mother was dead, and I was his only daughter, he might have treated me better."

"Geoffrey Wain was like yourself, Leah--a hard-hearted, selfish----"

"Oh, spare me these adjectives," interrupted Lady Jim, rising. "My father is dead, so there's nothing more to say. If you can't help me, at least you needn't call me names."

"I beg your pardon," said Lady Canvey, very politely. "As I don't intend to give you a shilling, I have no right to tell you what I think of your doings. Will you ring the bell, please? I want Joan."

When Lady Canvey took this tone Leah knew well that the case was hopeless. In spite of senile weeping, it appeared that the old woman was not so easily beguiled as might have been expected. There seemed nothing for it but to leave in silence; but remembering how desperate was the position, Lady Jim refrained from ringing the bell and made a last appeal--this time on business grounds.

"If you will give me a thousand pounds for six months," she proposed, "my husband and I will pay it back with interest."

"And the security, my dear?"

"Our joint names," said Leah, with dignity.

"Ring the bell," was all the answer that Lady Canvey vouchsafed to this proposal; "and goodnight, my dear."

Lady Jim recognised that she was beaten, and nothing remained, but to retire with dignity. Pressing the button of the bell, she crossed to Lady Canvey and kissed her withered cheek with a caressing smile. "I am so pleased to see you looking so well," she said gently; "but I see signs of failing in your conversation."

"You won't see any signs of lending," was the grim response. "Oh, here you are, Joan," as that young lady entered the room with Lionel at her heels. "Send these people away, and read me a chapter out of that new novel which came yesterday."

"Goodnight," said Lionel, bending over the old lady, and kissing her hand with the tenderness of a son.

She twitched it away. "There--there--goodnight. Take Leah to that miserable creature who is perishing in her motor-car, and don't make love to her. She is one of those women who are a crown to their husbands."

Lady Jim did not wait to hear the old woman's chuckle as she fired this last shot, but swept out of the room, smiling kindly on Miss Tallentire. The curate followed her, and Leah began to consider what use she could make of him to farther her plans.

"Let me drive you to Lambeth," she said, while arranging her sables at the door.

Lionel laughed. "Lambeth would be shocked to see me arrive at my lodgings in such an up-to-date style," said he, pulling up the collar of his coat. "No, thank you, Lady James. I'll walk for a time, and then take a Westminster Bridge 'bus."

"No, you won't," she contradicted, in an imperious tone. "I wish to talk to you. Come, get in. French, you can go home."

"But the car, my lady?"

"I'll look to that. Do as you're told."

Looking rather apprehensively at the machine, which was humming and shaking in the bitter cold, French touched his cap and moved away. Leah stepped lightly in, and beckoned to Lionel with one hand, while she gripped the steering-wheel with the other.

"Come along."

The curate did not display much eagerness to come. "Is it safe?" he asked; "you've sent the man away."

"Because I want to talk privately with you. Safe!" she echoed in a tone of impatient scorn; "I'd drive a car against Edge himself."

"Oh, very well," said Kaimes, carelessly, and placed himself beside her. He was utterly devoid of fear, and if there was to be a smash, he was not unprepared to enter the next world. Lady Jim gave the wheel a twirl, and the car glided through the square under the grey muffling of the fog. Reckless as she was, Lady Jim had to steer carefully and move slowly, lest she should run into something, for the fog was a trifle thicker than it had been during the afternoon. All the same, her keen eyes could see clearly enough, and she was not at all afraid. Cool under all circumstances, Lady Jim would have hummed a ditty on the streaming bridge of a plunging, bucking tramp-steamer, going down in the bitter North Atlantic weather. Lionel marvelled at her composure, and wondered if even her dear intellect could grasp the meaning of death and its hereafter. But Lady Jim was thinking of this world rather than of the next, and talked of her troubles while steering the car down Piccadilly.

"Jim and I are in a hole about money," she announced abruptly, for there was no need to be diplomatic with this simpleton.

"That is not unusual," murmured Lionel.

She laughed and nodded. "No. We have both a wonderful capacity for getting through cash. Now we've got down to what an American girl called the bed-rock, and we want help."

"I never knew you when you did not want help," said the curate, wondering what was best to say; "and in some ways, your want is very dire."

"Don't preach, Lionel. Money is better than sermons."

"To such as you and Jim, no doubt. But setting aside the spiritual need, a sermon on your extravagance would do you good."

"I'm afraid not," rejoined Lady Jim, putting on the brake for the St. James's Street incline; "it would only go in at one ear and out of the other. When I want sermons I'll come and hear you preach in that dirty little church of yours. Meantime, you must help to get Jim and me out of this scrape."

Lionel was annoyed by her reference to his church, but from experience he knew it was worse than useless to argue with Lady Jim. "I cannot help you," he said stiffly; "you know my small means."

"Bless the man, I don't mean you to put your hand in your pocket. I am quite aware that the clergy are better at asking than at giving."

"You have no right to say that," remonstrated Kaimes, warmly. "We help the poor and needy."

"In that case you have now a chance of practising what you preach."

Lady Jim negotiated Cockspur Street and felt her way along Trafalgar Square in the hope of hitting Whitehall. Only when the car was buzzing down that thoroughfare did Lionel speak.

"I am sitting in a most expensive machine," he said, indignantly, "swathed in a costly rug, and beside a woman with a fortune on her back in the way of clothes."

"Then you ought to be very happy," said Leah, calmly; "but I'll drop you at Lambeth soon, and then you can get back to the mud and rags, which you seem to prefer."

"My meaning is, that if you were poor you could not afford these luxuries."

"Nonsense. It is only poor people who can afford them. The rich make their money by self-denial, and wearing clothes which don't fit, in houses furnished with the riff-raff of auction-rooms. Jim and I have been brought up to better things."

"To better worldly things," corrected Lionel, bitterly.