"Come on--I didn"t catch your boy"s name, Miss Smith--yours, I mean,"
tapping the arm of Mr. Reginald Brace, who looked very nearly as frozen as my aunt herself. "Still, you"ll come. And you, dear?"
This to no less a person than Miss Anastasia Lovelace.
"This is my aunt, Miss Lovelace," I put in hurriedly. "Aunt Anastasia, this is Miss Va.s.sity, who, as you said, was kind enough to--to go bail for us just now in court----"
The bend of my aunt"s neck and frumpy hat towards Miss Vi Va.s.sity was something more crushingly frigid than the cut direct would have been.
Still London"s Love took it all in good part; holding out that plump white paw of hers, and taking my aunt"s untendered hand warmly into her own.
"Pleased to meet you," she said heartily. "Your little niece here is a great pal o" mine. I was sorry to see her in a mess. Shockin" naughty girl, though, isn"t she? Nickin" rubies. Tut, tut. Why didn"t you bring her up better, eh?" suggested England"s Premier Comedienne.
There are absolutely no words to describe the deepening of the horror on poor Aunt Anastasia"s face as she looked and listened and "took in"
generally the society in which her only niece found herself!
Miss Vi Va.s.sity"s loud, gay tones seemed to permeate that group and that situation just as a racing wave ripples over pebbles and seaweed and sand-castles alike.
"Girls will be girls! I never intend to be anything else myself,"
announced the artiste joyously. "You"re coming along with her, Miss--Lovelace, is it? Pretty stage name that "ud make, boys. "Miss Love Lace," eh? Look dandy on the bills. You"ll sit next your young niece here, and see she don"t go slipping any of the spoons off the table inside her camisole. You never know what"s going to go next with these kleptomaniacs. Er--hur!"
She gave a little exaggerated cough. "I"ll have to keep my own eye on the other jewel thief, Nellie Million--d"you know her?"
Here I saw my aunt"s cold, grey eye seeming to go straight through the face and form of the girl who used to be her maid-of-all-work.
Miss Million, in her rather crushed but very "good"-looking pink linen gown, held her small head high and glared back defiantly at the woman who used to take her to task for having failed to keep a wet clean handkerchief over the b.u.t.ter-dish. She (my mistress) seemed to gain confidence and poise as soon as she stood near the large, grey-clad figure of her American cousin.
All through this the voice of Miss Vi Va.s.sity rippled on. "I"d better introduce the gentleman. This is Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, the inventor. I don"t mean "liar." One o" those is enough in a party, eh, Jim? This is the Honourable Mr. James Burke, of Ballyneck Castle. This is Mr. Brace.
Now we"re all here; come along----"
"Thank you very much, but I think I will say "Good morning,"" broke in my aunt"s most destructively polite tones. "Come, Beatrice. I am taking my niece with me."
Here there occurred that of which I am sure Miss Million has often dreamed, both when she was a little, twenty-pound-a-year maid-of-all-work and lately, since she"s been the heiress of a fortune.
She struck!
She, once dependent upon every order from those thin, aristocratic lips of Miss Anastasia Lovelace"s, gave her own order to her own ex-mistress.
"Very sorry, Miss Lovelace, but I can"t spare your niece to go with you just now," she announced, in her "that-settles-it" sounding c.o.c.kney accent. "I want her to change me for luncheon.
"Friday is her afternoon out," enlarged Miss Million, encouraging herself with an upward glance into the grave, boyish, American face of her cousin, and speaking more authoritatively still. "I can"t have her gallivanting off to you nor to any one else just this minute. It"s not convenient. She"s my maid now, you see----"
My aunt"s glance was that of a basilisk, her tone like the cut of a whip, as she retorted coldly: "My niece has nothing more to do with you.
She will leave you at once. She is no longer in your--your grotesque service."
"My service is as good as yours was, and a fat lot better, I can tell you, Miss Lovelace," riposted my mistress, becoming suddenly shrill and flushed. "I give the girl sixty pounds a year, and take her about with me to all my own friends, same as if she was my sister.
"Yes. You needn"t look like that because I do. Ask her. The first time in her life she"s ever had a good time is now, since she"s been working for some one that does realise that a girl"s got to have her bit of fun and liberty same as everybody else, be she d.u.c.h.ess or be she lady"s-maid!"
"She is a lady"s-maid no longer," said my Aunt Anastasia, in a voice that shook. The others looked fearfully uncomfortable, all except Miss Vi Va.s.sity, who seemed to be hanging with the keenest enjoyment upon every syllable that fell from the lips of the two "opposing parties."
"My niece is no longer a lady"s-maid," repeated Aunt Anastasia. "She leaves your service here and now."
"Not without notice," said the stubborn Million, in a voice that brought the whole of our inconvenient little Putney kitchen before my mental gaze. Verily she had recovered from her bad attack of stage-fright in court just before.
"A girl"s got to give her month"s notice or to give up a month"s wages,"
said my Aunt Anastasia with a curling lip. "That is easily settled. My niece is in no need of a month"s wages from some one who is--charged with common theft----"
"Why, she"s "charged" herself, as far as that goes!" Million gave back quickly. "If I"ve taken that old ruby, my maid knows all about it, and she"s in it with me! You heard for yourself, Miss Lovelace, what that old Rattenheimer said in there just now. It"s her he suspects--your niece! It"s her he didn"t want to let go, bail or no bail!"
What a wrangle!
It was a most inappropriate place for a wrangle, I know. But there they still stood and wrangled in the open street outside the police-station, ex-mistress and ex-maid, while pa.s.sers-by stared curiously at them, and I and the three young men stood by, wondering what in the world would be said next.
"A month"s wages, too!" repeated my young mistress, with the snorting laugh with which she used to rout the butcher-boys of Putney.
"It"s a fat lot more than a month"s wages that"s doo from your niece to me, Miss Lovelace, and so I tell you! Two quarters" salary. That"s what I"ve advanced my maid, so"s she could get herself the sort of rig-out that she fancied. First time in her life the girl"s been turned out like a young lady."
Here Miss Million waved a hand towards my perfectly cut black, taking in every detail from the small hat to the delight-giving silk stockings and suede shoes.
"Yes, for all her aristocratic relations they never done that for her--why, you know what a pretty girl you said she was, Vi"--turning upon London"s Love, who nodded appreciatively.
"Well, you wouldn"t ha" known her if you"d seen her in any old duds like she used to have to wear when she was only "my niece""--here a vindictive and quite good imitation of my Aunt Anastasia"s voice.
"Now there"s some shape in her"--this is good, from Million, who"s picked up everything about clothes from me!--"and who"s she got to thank for it? Me, and my good wages," concluded my mistress, with unction.
"Me, and my thirty pounds that I advanced her in the first week. She can"t go----"
"I don"t want to!" I put in, but Miss Million grimaced me into silence.
She meant to have her say, her own, long-deferred say, out.
"She can"t go without she pays up what"s owing to me first," declared my mistress triumphantly. "So what"s she going to do?"
This certainly was a "poser" to poor Aunt Anastasia.
Full well I knew that she had not thirty pounds in the world that she could produce at a moment"s or even at a month"s notice.
Her tiny income is so tied up that she cannot touch the capital. And I know that, careful as she is, there is never more than twelve pounds between herself and a pauper"s grave, so to speak.
I saw her turn a little whiter where she stood. She darted at me a glance of the deadliest reproach. I had brought her to this! To being worsted by a little jumped-up maid-servant!
Million, I must say, made the most of the situation. "There y"are, you see," she exulted. "Your niece has gone and spent all that money. And you haven"t got it to reimburse it. You can"t pay up! Ar! Those that give "emselves the airs of being the Prince of Wales and all the Royal Family, and there"s nothing they can"t do--they ought to make sure that they have something to back it up with before they start!"
So true! So horribly true--poor Aunt Anastasia!
She said in her controlled voice: "The money shall certainly be paid. I will write."
I saw her face a mask of worry, and then she turned away.
As she walked down the street towards the Strand again, I saw her sway once, a little.