Читать книгу Great Possessions - Mrs. Wilfrid Ward - Страница 18

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Mr. Murray had had no belief in Sir Edmund Grosse's doings, and he indulged in the provoking air of "I told you so," when the latter, who had not been in London for several months, appeared at the office, and owned to the futility of his visit to Florence. Meanwhile, Mr. Murray had also carried on a fruitless enquiry in a different direction.

"The General's two most intimate friends were killed about two months after his death, and his servant died in the same action—probably before Sir David himself. I have tried to find out if he had any talk on his own affairs with friends on board ship going out, but it seems not. I can show you the list of those who went out with him."

Sir Edmund knew something of most people and after studying the list he went to look up an old soldier friend at the Army and Navy Club. Indeed, for some weeks he was often to be seen there, and he was as attentive to Generals as an anxious parent seeking advancement in the Army for an only son. He soon became discouraged as to obtaining any information regarding David's later years, but some gossip on his younger days he did glean. Nothing could have been better than David's record; he seemed to have been a paragon of virtue.

"That's what made it all the more strange that he should have fallen into the hands of Mrs. Johnny Dexter," mused an old Colonel as he puffed at one of Grosse's most admirable cigars. "Poor old David; he was wax in her hands for a few weeks, then he got fever and recovered from her and from it at the same time—he went home soon after. He'd have done anything for her at one moment."

This Colonel might well have been flattered by Edmund's attentions; but he gave little in return for them except what he said that day.

"Mrs. Johnny Dexter! Why, I'm sure I have known Dexters," thought Edmund, as he strolled down Pall Mall after this conversation. He stopped to think, regardless of public observation. "Why, of course, that old bore Lady Dawning was a Miss Dexter. I'll go and see her this very day."

Lady Dawning was gratified at Sir Edmund's visit, and was nearly as much surprised at seeing him as he was at finding himself in the handsome, heavily-furnished room in Princes Gate. Stout, over fifty, and clumsily wigged, it rarely enough happened to Lady Dawning to find not only a sympathetic listener but an eager inquirer into those romantic days when love's young dream for her cousin Johnny Dexter was stifled by parental authority: "And it all ended in my becoming Lady Dawning." A sigh of satisfaction concluded the episode of romance, and led the way back to the present day.

When Lady Dawning had advised Mrs. Carteret to keep poor dear Johnny's girl quietly in the country, she had by no means intended to let any of her friends know anything about Molly. She had looked important and mysterious when people spoke of Sir David Bright's amazing will, but she made a real sacrifice to Johnny's memory by not divulging her knowledge of facts or her own conclusions from those facts. But the enjoyment of talking of her own romantic youth to Edmund had had a softening effect.

Sir Edmund appeared to be so very wise and safe.

"Of course, it is only to you," came first; and then, "It would be a relief to me to get the opinion of a man of the world; poor dear Anne Carteret consults me, and I really don't know what to advise. Fancy! that woman allows the girl £3000 a year, and Anne Carteret would probably have acted on my advice and kept her quiet so that no one need know anything of the wretched story, but the girl won't be quiet, and will come up to London, and it seems so unsafe, don't you know? They are looking for a chaperone, as nothing will make Anne come herself. And if it all comes out it will be so unpleasant for poor dear Rose Bright to meet this girl all dressed up with her money; don't you think so?"

Lady Dawning was now quite screaming with excitement, and very red in nose and chin. It would be a long time before she could be quite dull again. But Edmund was far too deeply interested to notice details.

They parted very cordially, and Lady Dawning promised to let him know if she heard from Anne Carteret, and, if possible, to pass on the name of the chaperone woman who was to take Molly into society.

"And so your protégée is to arrive to-night?" said Edmund Grosse.

"Yes, and I am so frightened;" and with a little laugh appreciative of herself in general, Mrs. Delaport Green held up a cup of China tea in a pretty little white hand belonging to an arm that curved and thickened from the wrist to the elbow in perfect lines.

Sir Edmund gave the arm the faintest glance of appreciation before it retreated into lace frills within its brown sleeve. Those lace frills were the only apparent extravagance in the simple frock in question, and simplicity was the chief note in this lady's charming appearance.

"I don't believe you are frightened, but probably she is frightened enough."

"I know nothing whatever about her," sighed the little woman, "and we are only doing it because we are so dreadfully hard up; my maid says that I shall soon not have a stitch to my back, and that would be so fearfully improper. At least"—she hesitated—"I am doing it because times are bad. Tim really knows nothing about it; I mean that he does not know that Miss Dexter is a 'paying guest', and it does sound horribly lower middle-class, doesn't it? But I'm so afraid Tim won't be able to go to Homburg this year, and he is eating and drinking so much already, and it's only the beginning of April. What will happen if he can't drink water and take exercise all this summer?"

"But I suppose you know her name?"

"I believe it is Molly Dexter. And do you think I should say 'Molly' at once—to-night, I mean?"

Sir Edmund did not answer this question.

"I used to know some Dexters years ago."

"Yes, it is quite a good name, and Molly is of good family: she is a cousin of Lady Dawning, but she is an orphan. I think I must call her Molly at once," and the little round eyes looked wistful and kindly.

Sir Edmund was able from this to conclude rightly that Mrs. Delaport Green was not aware of the existence of Madame Danterre, and would have no suspicions as to the sources of the fortune that supplied Molly's large allowance. It had, in fact, been thought wiser not to offer explanations which had not been called for.

"It will be very tiresome for you," said Grosse. "You will have to amuse her, you know, and is she worth while?"

"Quite; she will pay—let me see—she will pay for the new motor, and she will go to my dressmaker and keep her in a good temper. But, of course, I shall have to make sacrifices and find her partners. I must try and not let my poor people miss me. They would miss me dreadfully, though I know you don't think so."

"And you don't even know what she is like?"

"Oh, yes, I do; I have seen her once, and she is oh! so interesting: olive skin, black, or almost black, hair, almond-shaped grey eyes—no, I don't mean almond-shaped, but really very curiously-shaped eyes, full of—let me see if I can tell you what they are full of—something that, in fact, makes you shiver and feel quite excited. But, do you know, she hardly speaks, and then in such a low voice. I'll tell you now, I'll tell you exactly what she reminds me of: do you know a picture in a very big gallery in Florence of a woman who committed some crime? It's by one of the pupils of one of the great masters; just try and think if you don't know what I mean. Oh, must you go? But won't you come again, and see how we get on, and how I bear up?"

When Molly did arrive, her dainty little hostess petted and patted her and called her "Molly" because she "could not help it."

"Oh, we will do the most delightful things, now that you have come; we must, of course, do balls and plays, and then we will have quite a quiet day in the country in the new motor, and we will take some very nice men with us. And then you won't mind sometimes coming to see people who are ill or poor or old?"

The little voice rose higher and higher in a sort of wail.

"It does cheer them up so to look in and out with a few flowers, and it need not take long."

"I don't mind people when they are really ill," said Molly, in her low voice, "but I like them best unconscious."

Mrs. Delaport Green stared for a moment; then she jumped up and ran forward with extended hands to greet a lady in a plain coat and skirt and an uncompromising hat.

"Oh, how kind of you to come, and how are you getting on? Molly dear, this is the lady who lives in horrid Hoxton taking care of my poor people I told you about. Do tell her what you really mean about liking people best when they are unconscious, and you will both forgive me if I write one tiny little note meanwhile?"

Molly gave some tea to the newcomer as if she had lived in the house for years, and drew her into a talk which soon allayed her rising fears as to whether her own time would have to be devoted to horrid Hoxton. By calm and tranquil questions she elicited the fact that Mrs. Delaport Green had visited the settlement once during the winter.

"She comes as a sunbeam," said the resident with obviously genuine admiration, "and, of course, with all the claims on her time, and her anxiety as to her husband's health, we don't wish her to come often. She is just the inspiration we want."

The hostess having meanwhile asked four people to dinner, came rustling back, and, sitting on a low stool opposite the lady of the settlement, held one of her visitor's large hands in both her own and patted it and asked questions about a number of poor people by name, and made love to her in many ways, until the latter, cheered and refreshed by the sunbeam, went out to seek the first of a series of 'busses between Chelsea and Hoxton.

Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little sigh.

"I must order the motor. The dear thing needn't have come your very first night, need she? It makes me miserable to leave you, but I was engaged to this dinner before I knew that you existed even! Isn't it odd to think of that?" Her voice was full of feeling.

"And you must be longing to go to your room. You won't have to dine with Tim, because he is dining at his club. Promise me that you won't let Tim bore you: he likes horrid fat people, so I don't think he will; and are you sure you have got everything you want?"

Molly's impressions of her new surroundings were written a few weeks later in a letter to Miss Carew.

"My dear Carey—

"I have been here for three weeks, but I doubt if I shall stay three months.

"I am living with a very clever woman, and I am learning life fairly quickly and getting to know a number of people. But I am not sure if either of us thinks our bargain quite worth while, though we are too wise to decide in a hurry. There are great attractions: the house, the clothes, the food, the servants, are absolutely perfect; the only thing not quite up to the mark in taste is the husband. But she sees him very little, and I hardly exchange two words with him in the day, and his attitude towards us is that of a busy father towards his nursery. But I rather suspect that he gets his own way when he chooses. The servants work hard, and, I believe, honestly like her. The clergyman of the parish, a really striking person, is enthusiastic; so is her husband's doctor, so are one religious duchess and two mundane countesses. I believe that it is impossible to enumerate the number and variety of the men who like her. There are just one or two people who pose her, and Sir Edmund Grosse is one. He snubs her, and so she makes up to him hard. I must tell you that I have got quite intimate with Sir Edmund. He is of a different school from most of the men I have seen. He pays absurd compliments very naturally and cleverly, rather my idea of a Frenchman, but he is much more candid all the time. I shock people here if I simply say I don't like any one. If you want to say anything against anybody you must begin by saying—'Of course, he means awfully well,' and after that you may imply that he is the greatest scoundrel unhung. Sir Edmund is not at all ill-natured, and he can discuss people quite simply—not as if he wished to defend his own reputation for charity all the time. He won't allow that Adela Delaport Green is a humbug: he says she is simply a happy combination of extraordinary cleverness and stupidity, of simplicity and art. 'I believe she hardly ever has a consciously disingenuous moment,' he said to me last night. 'She likes clergymen and she likes great ladies, and she likes to make people like her. Of course, she is always designing; but she never stops to think, so that she doesn't know she is designing. She is an amazing mimic. Something in this room to-night made me think of Dorset House directly I came in, and I remembered that, of course, she was at the party there last night. She must have put the sofa and the palms in the middle of the room to-day. At dinner to-night she suddenly told me that she wished she had been born a Roman Catholic, and I could not think why until I remembered that a Princess had just become a Papist. She could never have liked the Inquisition, but she thought the Pope had such a dear, kind face. Now she will probably tremble on the verge of Rome until several Anglican bishops have asked their influential lady friends to keep her out of danger.'

"'And you don't call her a humbug?'

"'No; she is a child of nature, indulging her instincts without reflection. And please mark one thing, young lady; her models are all good women—very good women—and that's not a point to be overlooked.'

"I told him—I could not help it—how funny she had been yesterday, talking of going to early church. 'I do love the little birds quite early,' she said, 'and one can see the changes of the season even in London, going every day, you know, and one feels so full of hope walking in the early morning fasting, and hope is next to charity, isn't it?—though, of course, not so great.'

"And she has been out in the shut motor exactly once in the early morning since I came up, and she knew that I knew it.

"However, Sir Edmund maintained that, at the moment, Adela quite believed she went out early every day, and I am not sure he is not right. But then, you see, Carey, that with her power of believing what she likes, and of intriguing without knowing it, I am not quite sure that she will last very well. She might get tired of me—quite believe I had done something which I had not done at all! And then the innocent little intrigues might become less amusing to me than to other people. However, I believe I am useful for the present, and the life here suits me on the whole. But I will report again soon if the symptoms become more unfavourable, and ask your opinion as to my plans for the season if the Delaport Green alliance breaks down before then.

"Yours affectionately,

"Molly Dexter."