Colour streamed over her pale face. "Yes, Princess, we have," she said.
"At least, we didn"t exactly _meet_. It couldn"t be called that."
"What was it then, if not a meeting?" I encouraged her.
"I was in my first job as secretary. I was with Miss Opal Fawcett. When it was Ben Ali"s day out--Ben Ali was her Arab butler, you know--I used to open the door. I opened it for you and--and Lady June Dana when you came. I remember quite well, though I never thought _you_ would."
Why did the girl blush so? I wondered. Could it be that she was ashamed of having been with Opal Fawcett, or--was it something to do with the mention of June? Miss Arnold had evidently just left her place with Robert Lorillard and probably the name of his wife had been "taboo"
between them, for I couldn"t fancy Robert talking of June with any one--unless with some old friend who had known her well.
"Ah, that"s it!" I exclaimed. "Now I do remember. June and I spoke of you afterward, as we were going away. We said, "What an interesting girl!" Nearly five years ago! It seems a hundred."
Miss Arnold didn"t speak, and again my thoughts flew back.
Opal Fawcett suddenly sprang into fame with the breaking out of the war, when all the sweethearts and wives of England yearned to give "mascots"
to their loved men who fought, or to get news from beyond the veil, of those who had "gone west." Opal had, however, been making her weird way to success for several years before. She had a strange history--as strange as her own personality.
A man named Fawcett edited a Spiritualistic paper, called the _Gleam_.
One foggy October night (it was All Hallow E"en) he heard a shrill, wailing cry outside his old house in Westminster. (Naturally it was a _haunted_ house, or he wouldn"t have cared to live in it!) Someone had left a tiny baby girl in a basket at his door, and with it a letter in a woman"s handwriting. This said that the child had been born in October, so its name must be Opal.
Fawcett was a bachelor; but he imagined that spirit influences had turned the unknown mother"s thoughts to him. For this reason he kept the baby, obligingly named it Opal, and brought it up in his own religious beliefs.
Opal was extremely proud of her romantic debut in life, and when she had decided upon a career for herself, she wrote her autobiography up to date. As she was quite young at the time--not more than twenty-five--the book was short. She had a certain number of copies bound in specially dyed silk supposed to be of an opal tint, changeable from blue to pinkish purple, and these she gave to her friends or sold to her clients.
I say "clients," because, after being a celebrated "child medium" during her foster father"s life, and then failing on the stage as an actress, she discovered that palmistry was her forte. At least it was one among several others. You told her the date when you were born, and she "did"
your horoscope. She advised people also what colours they ought to wear to "suit their aura," and what jewels were lucky or unlucky. Later, when the war came, she took to crystal gazing. Perhaps she had begun it before, but it was then that she suddenly "caught on." One heard all one"s friends talking about her, saying, "Have you ever been to Opal Fawcett? She"s _absolutely wonderful_! You must go!" Accordingly we went.
When June and Lorillard were waiting in secret suspense for their special license, June implored Robert to let Opal look into the crystal for him, and read his hand. He tried to beg off, because he had met Miss Fawcett during her disastrous year on the stage. In a play of ancient Rome in which he was the star, Opal Fawcett had been a sort of walking-on martyr, and he had a scene with her in the arena, defending her from a doped, milk-fed lion. Opal had acted, clung, and twined so much more than necessary that Robert had disliked the scene intensely, always fearing that the audience might "queer" it by laughing. He would not complain to the management, because the girl had been given the part through official friendship, and was already marked down as prey by the critics. He hadn"t wished to do her harm; but neither did he care to have his future foretold by her.
June was so keen, however, that he consented to be led like a lamb to the sacrifice. I heard from her how they went together to the old house which the spiritualist had left to his adopted daughter; and I heard what happened at the interview. June was vexed because Opal _would_ see Robert alone. She had wanted to be in the room, and listen to everything! Opal was most ungrateful, June said, because she (June) had sent lots of people to have their "hands read," and get special jewels prescribed for them, like medicines. Robert had laughed to June about what Opal claimed to see for him in her crystal, but had pretended to forget most of the "silly stuff," and be unable to repeat it. June had worried, fearing lest misfortunes had appeared in the crystal, and that Robert wished to hide the fact from her.
"I"ll get it all out of Opal myself!" she exclaimed to me, and took me with her to Miss Fawcett"s next day.
The excuse for this visit was to have my hand "told," and to order a mascot for Robert, to take with him to the front: his own lucky jewel set in a design made to fit his horoscope!
I was delighted to go, for I"d never seen a fortune teller; but June was too eager to talk about Robert to spare me much time with the seeress.
My hand-telling was rather perfunctory, for Miss Fawcett didn"t feel the same need to see me alone which she had felt with Lorillard, and June was very much on the spot, sighing, fussing, and looking at her wrist-watch.
Opal was as reticent about the interview with Lorillard as Robert had been, though, unlike him, she didn"t laugh. So poor June got little for her pains, and I learned nothing about my character that Grandmother hadn"t told me when she was cross. Still, it was an experience. I"d never forgotten the tall, white, angular young woman wearing amethysts and a purple robe, in a purple room: a creature who looked as if she"d founded herself on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and overshot the mark. It seemed, also, that I"d never forgotten her secretary, though perhaps I"d not thought of the girl from that day to this.
"Do tell me how you happened to be with Opal Fawcett," I couldn"t help blurting out from the depths of my curiosity. "You seem so--so--absolutely _alien_ from her and her "atmosphere"."
"Oh, it"s quite simple," said Joyce Arnold, not betraying herself if she considered me intrusive or rude. "An aunt of mine--a dear old maid--was a great disciple of Mr. Fawcett. She thought Opal the wonder of the world, at about ten or twelve, as "the child medium," and she used to take me often to the house. I was five or six years younger than Opal, and Aunt Jenny hoped it would "spiritualize" me to play with her. We never quite lost sight of each other after that, Opal and I. When she went into business--I mean, when she became a hand-reader and so on--I was beginning what I called my "profession." She engaged me as her secretary, and I stayed on till I left her to "do my bit" in the war, as a V. A. D. That"s the way I met Captain Lorillard, you know. It was the most splendid thing that ever happened, when he asked me to work for him after he was invalided back from the Front. You see, I was dead tired after four years without a rest. We"d had a lot of air raids at my hospital, and I suppose it was rather a strain. I was ordered home. And oh, it"s been Paradise at that heavenly place on the river, helping to put down in black and white the beautiful thoughts of such a man!"
As she spoke, an expression of rapture, that was like light, illumined the girl"s face for an instant, bright as a flash of sunshine on a white bird"s wing. But it pa.s.sed, and her eyes darkened with some quick memory of pain. She looked down, thick black lashes shadowing her cheeks.
"By Jove!" I thought. "There"s a _story_ here!"
Robert Lorillard wrote that Miss Arnold was "perfect." Yet he had sent her away. He said he was going away himself. But I felt sure he wasn"t.
Or else, he was going on purpose. He had _searched the newspapers to find a place for her_. If he hadn"t done that deliberately, he would never have seen my advertis.e.m.e.nt.
And she? The girl was breaking her heart at the loss of her "Paradise."
What did it mean?
CHAPTER II
THE HERMIT
Joyce Arnold was ready to begin work at once.
She had, it seemed, already given up her lodgings in the village near Robert Lorillard"s cottage. Opal Fawcett had offered the hospitality of her house for a fortnight, and while there Joyce would pay her way by writing Opal"s letters in spare hours, the newest secretary being absent on holiday. In the meantime, now that it was decided she should come to me, Miss Arnold would look for rooms somewhere in my neighbourhood.
I let it go at this for a few days. But when just half a week had pa.s.sed I realized that Joyce Arnold wasn"t merely a perfect secretary, she was a perfect companion as well. Not perfect in a horrid, "high-brow" way, but simply adorable to have in the house.
It was on a Wednesday that she brought me Lorillard"s letter. On the following Sat.u.r.day, at luncheon, I suddenly said, "Look here, Miss Arnold, how would you like to live with me instead of in lodgings?"
She blushed with surprise. (She blushed easily and beautifully.)
"Why, I--should love it, of course," she stammered, "if you"re really sure that you----"
"Of course I"m sure," I cut her short. "What I"m beginning to wonder is, how I ever got on without you!"
She laughed.
"You"ve known me only three days and a half! And----"
"Long enough to be sure that you"re absolutely IT," said I. "If already you seem to me indispensable, how _could_ Robert Lorillard have made up his mind to part with you, after _months_?"
I didn"t mean to be cruel or inquisitorial. The words sprang out--spoke themselves. But I could have boxed my own ears when I saw their effect on the girl. She grew red, then white, and tears gushed to her eyes.
They didn"t fall, because she was afraid to wink, and stared me steadily in the face, hoping the salt lake might safely soak back. All the same I saw that I"d struck a hard blow.
"Captain Lorillard was very nice, and really sorry in a way to lose me, I think," she replied, rather primly. "But he told you, didn"t he, that he was going away?"
"Oh, of course! Stupid of me to forget for a minute," I mumbled, earnestly peeling a plum, so that she might have time to dispose of those tears without absorbing them. I was more certain than ever that here was a "story" in the broken connection between Joyce Arnold and Robert Lorillard: that if he were really leaving home it was for a reason which concerned _her_.
It wasn"t all curiosity which made me rack my brain with mental questions. It was partly old admiration for Robert and new affection for his late secretary. "Why should he want to get rid of such a girl?" I asked myself, as at last I ate the plum.
The fruit was more easily swallowed than the idea that he hadn"t _wanted_ Joyce Arnold to go on working for him. It wouldn"t be human for man or woman--especially man--_not_ to want her. But--well--I tried to put the thought aside for the moment, in order to wrestle with it when those eyes of hers could no longer read my mind.
I turned the subject to Opal Fawcett.
"Could you leave Miss Fawcett at once, and come to me?" I asked. "Would she be vexed? Or would you rather stay with her over Sunday?"
"I could come this afternoon," Joyce said. "I"d be glad to. And I don"t think Opal would mind. She wanted me at first. But--but----Well, I"m beginning to bore her now; or anyhow, we"re getting on each other"s nerves."