My dear, he is decidedly handsome (I mean our delightful Amelius); his face has a bright, eager look, indescribably refreshing as a contrast to the stolid composure of the ordinary young Englishman. His smile is charming; he moves as gracefully--with as little self-consciousness--as my Italian greyhound. He has been brought up among the strangest people in America; and (would you believe it?) he is actually a Socialist.
Don"t be alarmed. He shocked us all dreadfully by declaring that his Socialism was entirely learnt out of the New Testament. I have looked at the New Testament, since he mentioned some of his principles to me; and, do you know, I declare it is true!
Oh, I forgot--the young Socialist plays and sings! When we asked him to go to the piano, he got up and began directly. "I don"t do it well enough," he said, "to want a great deal of pressing." He sang old English songs, with great taste and sweetness. One of the gentlemen of our party, evidently disliking him, spoke rather rudely, I thought.
"A Socialist who sings and plays," he said, "is a harmless Socialist indeed. I begin to feel that my balance is safe at my banker"s, and that London won"t be set on fire with petroleum this time." He got his answer, I can tell you. "Why should we set London on fire? London takes a regular percentage of your income from you, sir, whether you like it or not, on sound Socialist principles. You are the man who has got the money, and Socialism says:--You must and shall help the man who has got none. That is exactly what your own Poor Law says to you, every time the collector leaves the paper at your house." Wasn"t it clever?--and it was doubly severe, because it was good-humouredly said.
Between ourselves, Cecilia, I think he is struck with me. When I walked about the room, his bright eyes followed me everywhere. And, when I took a chair by somebody else, not feeling it quite right to keep him all to myself, he invariably contrived to find a seat on the other side of me.
His voice, too, had a certain tone, addressed to me, and to no other person in the room. Judge for yourself when you come here; but don"t jump to conclusions, if you please. Oh no--I am not going to fall in love with him! It isn"t in me to fall in love with anybody. Do you remember what the last man whom I refused said of me? "She has a machine on the left side of her that pumps blood through her body, but she has no heart." I pity the woman who marries _that_ man!
One thing more, my dear. This curious Amelius seems to notice trifles which escape men in general, just as _we_ do. Towards the close of the evening, poor Mamma Farnaby fell into one of her vacant states; half asleep and half awake on the sofa in the back drawing-room. "Your aunt interests me," he whispered. "She must have suffered some terrible sorrow, at some past time in her life." Fancy a man seeing that! He dropped some hints, which showed that he was puzzling his brains to discover how I got on with her, and whether I was in her confidence or not: he even went the length of asking what sort of life I led with the uncle and aunt who have adopted me. My dear, it was done so delicately, with such irresistible sympathy and such a charming air of respect, that I was quite startled when I remembered, in the wakeful hours of the night, how freely I had spoken to him. Not that I have betrayed any secrets; for, as you know, I am as ignorant as everybody else of what the early troubles of my poor dear aunt may have been. But I did tell him how I came into the house a helpless little orphan girl; and how generously these two good relatives adopted me; and how happy it made me to find that I could really do something to cheer their sad childless lives. "I wish I was half as good as you are," he said. "I can"t understand how you became fond of Mrs. Farnaby. Perhaps it began in sympathy and compa.s.sion?" Just think of that, from a young Englishman!
He went on confessing his perplexities, as if we had known one another from childhood. "I am a little surprised to see Mrs. Farnaby present at parties of this sort; I should have thought she would have stayed in her own room." "That"s just what she objects to do," I answered; "She says people will report that her husband is ashamed of her, or that she is not fit to be seen in society, if she doesn"t appear at the parties--and she is determined not to be misrepresented in that way." Can you understand my talking to him with so little reserve? It is a specimen, Cecilia, of the odd manner in which my impulses carry me away, in this man"s company. He is so nice and gentle--and yet so manly. I shall be curious to see if you can resist him, with your superior firmness and knowledge of the world.
But the strangest incident of all I have not told you yet--feeling some hesitation about the best way of describing it, so as to interest you in what has deeply interested me. I must tell it as plainly as I can, and leave it to speak for itself.
Who do you think has invited Amelius Goldenheart to luncheon? Not Papa Farnaby, who only invites him to dinner. Not I, it is needless to say.
Who is it, then? Mamma Farnaby herself. He has actually so interested her that she has been thinking of him, and dreaming of him, in his absence!
I heard her last night, poor thing, talking and grinding her teeth in her sleep; and I went into her room to try if I could quiet her, in the usual way, by putting my cool hand on her forehead, and pressing it gently. (The old doctor says it"s magnetism, which is ridiculous.) Well, it didn"t succeed this time; she went on muttering, and making that dreadful sound with her teeth. Occasionally a word was spoken clearly enough to be intelligible. I could make no connected sense of what I heard; but I could positively discover this--that she was dreaming of our guest from America!
I said nothing about it, of course, when I went upstairs with her cup of tea this morning. What do you think was the first thing she asked for? Pen, ink, and paper. Her next request was that I would write Mr.
Goldenheart"s address on an envelope. "Are you going to write to him?"
I asked. "Yes," she said, "I want to speak to him, while John is out of the way at business," "Secrets?" I said, turning it off with a laugh.
She answered, speaking gravely and earnestly. "Yes; secrets." The letter was written, and sent to his hotel, inviting him to lunch with us on the first day when he was disengaged. He has replied, appointing the day after tomorrow. By way of trying to penetrate the mystery, I inquired if she wished me to appear at the luncheon. She considered with herself, before she answered that. "I want him to be amused, and put in a good humour," she said, "before I speak to him. You must lunch with us--and ask Cecilia." She stopped, and considered once more. "Mind one thing,"
she went on. "Your uncle is to know nothing about it. If you tell him, I will never speak to you again."
Is this not extraordinary? Whatever her dream may have been, it has evidently produced a strong impression on her. I firmly believe she means to take him away with her to her own room, when the luncheon is over. Dearest Cecilia, you must help me to stop this! I have never been trusted with her secrets; they may, for all I know, be innocent secrets enough, poor soul! But it is surely in the highest degree undesirable that she should take into her confidence a young man who is only an acquaintance of ours: she will either make herself ridiculous, or do something worse. If Mr. Farnaby finds it out, I really tremble for what may happen.
For the sake of old friendship, don"t leave me to face this difficulty by myself. A line, only one line, dearest, to say that you will not fail me.
BOOK THE THIRD. MRS. FARNABY"S FOOT
CHAPTER 1
It is an afternoon concert; and modern German music was largely represented on the programme. The patient English people sat in closely-packed rows, listening to the pretentious instrumental noises which were impudently offered to them as a subst.i.tute for melody. While these docile victims of the worst of all quackeries (musical quackery) were still toiling through their first hour of endurance, a pa.s.sing ripple of interest stirred the stagnant surface of the audience caused by the sudden rising of a lady overcome by the heat. She was quickly led out of the concert-room (after whispering a word of explanation to two young ladies seated at her side) by a gentleman who made a fourth member of the party. Left by themselves, the young ladies looked at each other, whispered to each other, half rose from their places, became confusedly conscious that the wandering attention of the audience was fixed on them, and decided at last on following their companions out of the hall.
But the lady who had preceded them had some reason of her own for not waiting to recover herself in the vestibule. When the gentleman in charge of her asked if he should get a gla.s.s of water, she answered sharply, "Get a cab--and be quick about it."
The cab was found in a moment; the gentleman got in after her, by the lady"s invitation. "Are you better now?" he asked.
"I have never had anything the matter with me," she replied, quietly; "tell the man to drive faster."
Having obeyed his instructions, the gentleman (otherwise Amelius) began to look a little puzzled. The lady (Mrs. Farnaby herself) perceived his condition of mind, and favoured him with an explanation.
"I had my own motive for asking you to luncheon today," she began, in that steady downright way of speaking that was peculiar to her. "I wanted to have a word with you privately. My niece Regina--don"t be surprised at my calling her my niece, when you have heard Mr. Farnaby call her his daughter. She _is_ my niece. Adopting her is a mere phrase.
It doesn"t alter facts; it doesn"t make her Mr. Farnaby"s child or mine, does it?"
She had ended with a question, but she seemed to want no answer to it.
Her face was turned towards the cab-window, instead of towards Amelius.
He was one of those rare people who are capable of remaining silent when they have nothing to say. Mrs. Farnaby went on.
"My niece Regina is a good creature in her way; but she suspects people.
She has some reason of her own for trying to prevent me from taking you into my confidence; and her friend Cecilia is helping her. Yes, yes; the concert was the obstacle which they had arranged to put in my way. You were obliged to go, after telling them you wanted to hear the music; and I couldn"t complain, because they had got a fourth ticket for me. I made up my mind what to do; and I have done it. Nothing wonderful in my being taken ill with the heat; nothing wonderful in your doing your duty as a gentleman and looking after me--and what is the consequence? Here we are together, on our way to my room, in spite of them. Not so bad for a poor helpless creature like me, is it?"
Inwardly wondering what it all meant, and what she could possibly want with him, Amelius suggested that the young ladies might leave the concert-room, and, not finding them in the vestibule, might follow them back to the house.
Mrs. Farnaby turned her head from the window, and looked him in the face for the first time. "I have been a match for them so far," she said; "leave it to me, and you will find I can be a match for them still."
After saying this, she watched the puzzled face of Amelius with a moment"s steady scrutiny. Her full lips relaxed into a faint smile; her head sank slowly on her bosom. "I wonder whether he thinks I am a little crazy?" she said quietly to herself. "Some women in my place would have gone mad years ago. Perhaps it might have been better for _me?"_ She looked up again at Amelius. "I believe you are a good-tempered fellow,"
she went on. "Are you in your usual temper now? Did you enjoy your lunch? Has the lively company of the young ladies put you in a good humour with women generally? I want you to be in a particularly good humour with me."
She spoke quite gravely. Amelius, a little to his own astonishment, found himself answering gravely on his side; a.s.suring her, in the most conventional terms, that he was entirely at her service. Something in her manner affected him disagreeably. If he had followed his impulse, he would have jumped out of the cab, and have recovered his liberty and his light-heartedness at one and the same moment, by running away at the top of his speed.
The driver turned into the street in which Mr. Farnaby"s house was situated. Mrs. Farnaby stopped him, and got out at some little distance from the door. "You think the young ones will follow us back," she said to Amelius. "It doesn"t matter, the servants will have nothing to tell them if they do." She checked him in the act of knocking, when they reached the house door. "It"s tea-time downstairs," she whispered, looking at her watch. "You and I are going into the house, without letting the servants know anything about it. _Now_ do you understand?"
She produced from her pocket a steel ring, with several keys attached to it. "A duplicate of Mr. Farnaby"s key," she explained, as she chose one, and opened the street door. "Sometimes, when I find myself waking in the small hours of the morning, I can"t endure my bed; I must go out and walk. My key lets me in again, just as it lets us in now, without disturbing anybody. You had better say nothing about it to Mr. Farnaby.
Not that it matters much; for I should refuse to give up my key if he asked me. But you"re a good-natured fellow--and you don"t want to make bad blood between man and wife, do you? Step softly, and follow me."
Amelius hesitated. There was something repellent to him in entering another man"s house under these clandestine conditions. "All right!"
whispered Mrs. Farnaby, perfectly understanding him. "Consult your dignity; go out again, and knock at the door, and ask if I am at home.
I only wanted to prevent a fuss and an interruption when Regina comes back. If the servants don"t know we are here, they will tell her we haven"t returned--don"t you see?"
It would have been absurd to contest the matter, after this. Amelius followed her submissively to the farther end of the hall. There, she opened the door of a long narrow room, built out at the back of the house.
"This is my den," she said, signing to Amelius to pa.s.s in. "While we are here, n.o.body will disturb us." She laid aside her bonnet and shawl, and pointed to a box of cigars on the table. "Take one," she resumed. "I smoke too, when n.o.body sees me. That"s one of the reasons, I dare say, why Regina wished to keep you out of my room. I find smoking composes me. What do _you_ say?"
She lit a cigar, and handed the matches to Amelius. Finding that he stood fairly committed to the adventure, he resigned himself to circ.u.mstances with his customary facility. He too lit a cigar, and took a chair by the fire, and looked about him with an impenetrable composure worthy of Rufus Dingwell himself.
The room bore no sort of resemblance to a boudoir. A faded old turkey carpet was spread on the floor. The common mahogany table had no covering; the chintz on the chairs was of a truly venerable age. Some of the furniture made the place look like a room occupied by a man.
Dumb-bells and clubs of the sort used in athletic exercises hung over the bare mantelpiece; a large ugly oaken structure with closed doors, something between a cabinet and a wardrobe, rose on one side to the ceiling; a turning lathe stood against the opposite wall. Above the lathe were hung in a row four prints, in dingy old frames of black wood, which especially attracted the attention of Amelius. Mostly foreign prints, they were all discoloured by time, and they all strangely represented different aspects of the same subject--infants parted from their parents by desertion or robbery. The young Moses was there, in his ark of bulrushes, on the river bank. Good St. Francis appeared next, roaming the streets, and rescuing forsaken children in the wintry night.
A third print showed the foundling hospital of old Paris, with the turning cage in the wall, and the bell to ring when the infant was placed in it. The next and last subject was the stealing of a child from the lap of its slumbering nurse by a gipsy woman. These sadly suggestive subjects were the only ornaments on the walls. No traces of books or music were visible; no needlework of any sort was to be seen; no elegant trifles; no china or flowers or delicate lacework or sparkling jewelry--nothing, absolutely nothing, suggestive of a woman"s presence appeared in any part of Mrs. Farnaby"s room.
"I have got several things to say to you," she began; "but one thing must be settled first. Give me your sacred word of honour that you will not repeat to any mortal creature what I am going to tell you now." She reclined in her chair, and drew in a mouthful of smoke and puffed it out again, and waited for his reply.
Young and unsuspicious as he was, this unscrupulous method of taking his confidence by storm startled Amelius. His natural tact and good sense told him plainly that Mrs. Farnaby was asking too much.
"Don"t be angry with me, ma"am," he said; "I must remind you that you are going to tell me your secrets, without any wish to intrude on them on my part--"
She interrupted him there. "What does that matter?" she asked coolly.
Amelius was obstinate; he went on with what he had to say. "I should like to know," he proceeded, "that I am doing no wrong to anybody, before I give you my promise?"
"You will be doing a kindness to a miserable creature," she answered, as quietly as ever; "and you will be doing no wrong to yourself or to anybody else, if you promise. That is all I can say. Your cigar is out.
Take a light."
Amelius took a light, with the dog-like docility of a man in a state of blank amazement. She waited, watching him composedly until his cigar was in working order again.