Mr. Brace went on: "And where has he taken Miss Million to this evening, may I ask?"
I moved to put the cushions straight on the couch as I gave him the evening"s programme. "They were dining at the Carlton with a party, I think. Then they were going on to see Miss Vi Va.s.sity"s turn at the Palace. Then they were all to have supper at a place called the Thousand and One----"
"Where?" put in Mr. Brace, in a voice so horrified that it made his remarks up till then sound quite pleased and approving. "The Thousand and One Club? He"s taken Miss Million there? Of all places on earth! You let her go there?"
He spoke as if nothing more terrible could have happened....
CHAPTER XVII
REVELRY BY NIGHT
BUT why am I writing all this, in view of the really serious and terrible thing that has happened after all?
Yes. The most terrible thing has happened. Miss Million has disappeared.
Gone! And no trace of her!
And I don"t know where to look for her.... But to go back to the beginning of it all--to that fatal evening when Mr. Reginald Brace stood there in her sitting-room, looking at me with that horrified face because I told him she"d gone to supper at the Thousand and One Club.
Five minutes after that young man"s appalled-sounding "What? You let her go there?" I was sitting in a taxi, with him, whirling towards Regent Street.
"Yes; that"s where she"s gone," I told him, with a queer mix-up of feelings. There was defiance among them. What right had he to come and bully me because I couldn"t keep Miss Million and her dollars and her new friends all under my thumb? There was anxiety.... Supposing this Thousand and One Club were such an appallingly awful place that no young girl ought to set foot in it? There was a queer excitement.... Well, anyhow, I might see and judge for myself. Then I should be in a position to lecture Miss Million about it, if necessary, afterwards!
So I said: "Not only that, but I"m going there, too. To-night. Now!"
"Impossible," said Mr. Brace. "Madness. Quite impossible. You go? To a night club? You? Alone?"
"No," I said on another impulse. "You"ll come with me. I"ve got to have a man with me, I suppose. You"ll take me, please."
"I shall do nothing of the sort, Miss Lovelace," said the young bank manager, standing there in my mistress"s sitting-room as if nothing would ever dislodge him from the spot. "Take you to that place--it"s not a place that I should ever let any sister of mine know by sight!"
By this time I"d heard so much of this (non-existent) sister of his that I almost felt as if I knew her well (poor girl). I felt as if I were she. Yes. Mr. Brace seemed to behave so exactly like the typical "nice"
big brother; the man who shows his respect for women by refusing to let his own sisters see or do anything except, say, the darning of his own socks. However, in some way or other I managed to drive it home (this was when we were already in the taxi) that he need not look upon this as an evening"s entertainment to which he was escorting either his own or anybody else"s sister.
This was part of the business of looking after Miss Million.
We were at Piccadilly Circus when the young man at my side protested: "But we can"t get in, you know! I"m not a member of this thing. I can"t take you in, Miss Lovelace----"
"I"m Smith, the lady"s-maid of one of the ladies who"s in the club, and I"ve come to wait for my mistress," I told him. "That"s perfectly simple. And I daresay it"ll allow me to see something of what"s going on!"
Here we drew up at a side street. It was half full of cars and taxis, half full with a rebuilding of scaffolding that made a tunnel over the bas.e.m.e.nt.
The door of the club was beyond the scaffolding and a tall commissionaire, with a breast glittering with medals, opened and closed it with the movements of a punkah-wallah. Inside was red carpet and a blaze of lights and an inner gla.s.s door.
In this vestibule there was a little knot of men in chauffeurs"
liveries, with wet gleaming on the shoulders of their coats, for an unexpected shower had just come on. I was glad of it. This gave me, too, my excuse for waiting there, when one of the attendants slipped up to me and looked inquiringly down at me in my correct, outdoor black things.
"I am to wait," I said, "for my mistress."
"Very good, Miss. Would you like a chair in the ladies" cloak-room?"
"No. I don"t think she will be very long, thank you," I said. And I heard Mr. Brace, behind me, saying in his embarra.s.sed, stiff, young voice: "I am waiting with this lady."
(The commissionaires and people must have thought that the little, chestnut-haired lady"s-maid in black had got hold of a most superior sort of young man!)
I stepped farther up the vestibule towards a long door with a bevelled, oval, gla.s.s-panelled top. Evidently the door of the supper-room. From beyond it came the m.u.f.fled crash and lilt of dance music that set my own foot tapping in time on the smooth floor. I looked through the gla.s.s panel that framed, as it were, the gayest of coloured moving pictures.
The big room was a sort of papier-mache Alhambra; all zigzaggy arches and gilded columns and decorations, towering above a spread of supper-tables. Silver and white napery were blushing to pink under the glow of rosy-shaded electric candles innumerable. Some chairs were turned up, waiting for parties. But there were plenty of people there already; a flower-bed of frocks, made more bright by the black-and-white border of the men"s evening kit.
The ladies were all sitting on the wall seats; their cavaliers sat with chairs slewed round, watching three or four couples one-stepping among the tables to the music of that string band, in cream-and-gold uniforms, who were packed away in a Moorish niche at the top of the room.
I got a burst of louder, madder music as a waiter with a tray pushed through the swung door; a waft of warmer air, made up of the smells of coffee, of cigarettes, of hot food, and of those perfumes of which you catch a whiff if you pa.s.s down the Burlington Arcade--oppoponax, lilac, Russian violet, Phul-nana--all blended together into one tepid, overpowering whole, and, most penetrating, most unmistakable of all the scents; the trefle incarnat.... It reminded me that Million would buy a great spray-bottle of mixed bouquet, and had drenched herself with it, heedless of my theory that a properly groomed woman needs very little added perfume.
But where was Miss Million, in the middle of the noise and feasting? Ah!
There! I caught, in a cl.u.s.ter of other colours--green, white, rose, and gold--the unmistakable metaphorical shriek of the frock I"d begged her not to wear. "Me cerise evening one." There it was; and there were Million"s st.u.r.dily built, rather square little shoulders, and her glossy black hair that I"ve learnt to do rather well. She was gazing about her with jewel-bright eyes and a flush on her cheeks that almost echoed the cherry-colour of her odious frock, and listening to the chatter of the golden-haired, sulphur-crested c.o.c.katoo, Vi Va.s.sity; there she was; and there was the Jew they called Leo, and Lady Golightly-Long in a fantastic Oriental robe of sorts, and a cl.u.s.ter of others. There, too, towering above them all as he came steering his way across the room, and looking more like a magazine ill.u.s.tration than ever in evening-dress, was the Honourable James Burke.
I saw Million"s mouth open widely to some lively greeting as he came up; they were all laughing and chattering together. But I didn"t hear a word, of course. All was blent into an indistinguishable hubbub against the music. The loudest part of all seemed to be at a table next to Miss Million and her new friends. This other table was entertained by a vacuous young man with an eyegla.s.s, who looked as if he"d already had quite as much Bubbley as was good for him. He laughed incessantly; wrangling with the waiter, calling to friends across the room.
As the Honourable Jim pa.s.sed, this eyegla.s.sed young man signalled wildly to him, and took up a paper "dart" into which he"d twisted his menu-card. He flung it--and missed.
It stuck in the hair of one of the girls who was dancing. And then there was a little gale of laughter and protests and calls, and the eyegla.s.sed young man put two fingers in his mouth and whistled piercingly to Mr.
Burke, who strode over to him, laughing, and cuffed him on the side of the head. Then they began a sort of mock fight, and a waiter came up and whispered and was pushed out of the way, and there was more laughter.
The attention of the room was caught by the two skirmishing, ragging young men. They were for the moment the centre of the whirl and swirl of colour and noise and rowdy laughter.
"There you are, Miss Lovelace. You see the kind of thing it is," said an austere voice behind me. I turned from the gay picture to a gloomy one--the face of Mr. Reginald Brace, more than ever that of a young Puritan soldier--a Roundhead, in fact--left over from the Reformation, and looking on at some feasting of the courtiers of Charles II. So far, I hadn"t see anything very terrible in the giddy scene before us; it was loud, it was rowdy, rather silly, perhaps, but quite amusing (I thought) to watch!
Mr. Brace evidently took it quite differently.
He said: "Will this convince you? By Jove! how disgusting." Mr. Burke had now got the other young man down on the carpet. His glossily shod feet waved wildly in the air. People from the tables farthest away stood up to see what was happening. A slim American flapper of sixteen, with the black hair-ribbons bobbing behind her, skipped up on her chair to look. The Honourable Jim Burke stepped back, showing his white teeth in his cheeriest grin, and one of the other youths at the table helped the eyegla.s.sed one to struggle to his feet.
"Who is that? Do you know?" I asked Mr. Brace.
He answered morosely: "Yes, I"m afraid I do. It was with his introduction that that fellow Burke came to me. That"s Lord Fourcastles."
The n.o.ble lord seemed to have quite a fancy for throwing things about--for first he made his table-napkin into a rabbit and slung it at the waiter"s head; and then he picked up a "Serpentine" of gay tinsel, and with a falsetto shout of "Play!" flung it across the supper-room.
Somebody there seemed to have a stock of the things. Lord Fourcastles was pelted back with them. Presently the brilliant strings of colour were looped right across food, and flowers, and diners in a gaudy, giant web. I saw the Honourable Jim"s merry face break through it as he caught at a scarlet streamer and pretended to use it as a lariat.
Then I saw him turn and take Lord Fourcastles by the arm and draw him towards his own table. Evidently he was going to introduce this young peer to Miss Million.
I caught a glimpse of Million"s excited little face, all aglow, turned towards the door through which I was peeping. If I"d gone a step nearer she might have seen me. I could have beckoned to her, made her come out to see what the matter was. Then I could have insisted that it was time for her to come home, or something ... something!
I believe I might have made her come!