Devastating though it be to the well-ordered quietude of my life, I must adopt Carlotta.
There is no way out of it.
CHAPTER IV
May 25th.
Shall I be accused of harbouring a bevy of odalisques at No. 20 Lingfield Terrace? Calumny and Exaggeration walk abroad, arm in arm, even on the north side of Regent"s Park. If they had spied Carlotta at my window this morning, they would have looked in for afternoon tea at my Aunt Jessica"s and have waylaid Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne outside the Oratory. The question is: Shall Truth antic.i.p.ate them? I think not.
Every family has its irrepressible, impossible, unpractical member, its _enfant terrible_, who is forever doing the wrong thing with the best intentions. Truth is the _enfant terrible_ of the Virtues. Some times it puts them to the blush and throws them into confusion; at others it bl.u.s.ters like a blatant liar; at others, again, it stutters and stammers like a detected thief. There is no knowing how Truth may behave, so I shall not let it visit my relations.
I must confess, however, that I feared the possible pa.s.sing by of the two decrepit cronies, when Carlotta stood at my open French window this morning. She is really indecently beautiful. She was wearing a deep red silk peignoir, open at the throat, unashamedly Parisian, which clung to every salient curve of her figure. I wondered where, in the name of morality, she had procured the garment. I learned later that it was the joy and pride of Antoinette"s existence; for once, in the days long ago, when she was _femme de chambre_ to a luminary of the cafes concerts, it had met around her waist. She had treasured the cast-off finery of this burned-out star--she beamed in the seventies--for all these years, and now its immortal devilry transfigured Carlotta. She was also washed specklessly clean. An aroma that no soap or artificial perfume could give disengaged itself from her as she moved. Her gold-bronze hair was superbly ordered. I noticed her arms which the sleeves of the gay garment left bare to the elbows; the skin was like satin. "_Et sa peau!
On dirait du satin._" Confound Antoinette! She had the audacity, too, to come down with bare feet. It was a revelation of pink, undreamed-of loveliness in tus.
I repeat she is indecently beautiful. A chit of a girl of eighteen (for that I learn is her age) has no right to flaunt the beauty that should be the appanage of the woman of seven and twenty. She should be modestly well-favoured, as becomes her childish stage of development. She looked incongruous among my sober books, and I regarded her with some resentment. I dislike the exotic. I prefer geraniums to orchids. I have a row of pots of the former on my balcony, and the united efforts of Stenson, Antoinette, and myself have not yet succeeded in making them bloom; but I love the una.s.suming velvety leaves. Carlotta is a flaring orchid and produces on my retina a sensation of disquiet.
I broke the tidings of the tragedy as gently as I could. I had news of Harry, I said, gravely. She merely looked interested and asked me when he was coming.
"I"m afraid he will never come," said I.
"If he does not come, then I can stay here with you?"
Her eyes betrayed a quiver of anxiety. For the life of me I could not avoid the ironical.
"If you will condescend to dwell as a member of my family beneath my humble roof."
The irony was lost on her. She uttered a joyous little cry and held out both her hands to me. Her eyes danced.
"Oh, I am glad he is not coming. I don"t like him any more. I love to stay here with you."
I took both the hands in mine. Mortal man could not have done otherwise.
"Have you thought why it is that you will never see Harry again?"
She shook her beautiful head and held it to one side and puckered up her brows, like a wistful terrier.
"Is he dead?"
"Would it grieve you, if he were?"
"No-o," she replied, thoughtfully.
"Then," said I, dropping her hands and turning away, "Harry is dead."
She stood silent for a couple of minutes, regarding the row of pink toes that protruded beneath the peignoir. At last her bosom shook with a sigh. She glanced up at me sweetly.
"I am so glad," she said.
That is all she has vouchsafed to say with regard to the unhappy young man. "She was so glad!" She has not even asked how he met his death. She has simply accepted my statement. Harry is dead. He has gone out of her life like yesterday"s sunshine or yesterday"s frippery. If I had told her that yesterday"s cab-horse had broken his neck, she could not be more unconcerned. Nay, she is glad. Harry had not treated her nicely. He had boxed her up in a cabin where she had been sick, and had subjected her to various other discomforts. I, on the contrary, had surrounded her with luxuries and dressed her in red silk. She rather dreaded Harry"s coming. When she learned that this was improbable she was relieved. His death had turned the improbable into the impossible. It was the end of the matter. She was so glad!
Yet there must have been some tender pa.s.sage in their brief intercourse.
He must have kissed her during their flight from home to steamer. Her young pulses must have throbbed a little faster at the sight of his comely face.
What kind of a mythological being am I housing? Did she come at all out of Hamdi Effendi"s harem? Is she not rather some strange sea-creature that clambered on board the vessel and bewitched the miserable boy, sucked the soul out of him, and drove him to destruction? Or is she a Vampire? Or a Succubus? Or a Hamadryad? Or a Salamander?
One thing, I vow she is not human.
If only Judith were here to advise me! And yet I have an uneasy feeling that Judith will suggest, with a certain violence that is characteristic of her, the one course which I cannot follow: to send Carlotta back to Hamdi Effendi. But I cannot break my word. I would rather, far rather, break Carlotta"s beautiful neck. I have not written to Judith. Nor, by the way, have I received a letter from her. Delphine has been whirling her off her legs, and she is ashamed to confess the delusion of the sequestered life. I wish I were enjoying myself half as much as Judith.
"I have adopted Mademoiselle," said I to Antoinette this morning. "If she returned to Asia Minor they would put a string round her neck, tie her up in a sack, and throw her into the sea."
"That would be a pity," said Antoinette, warmly.
"_Cela depend_," said I. "Anyhow she is here, and here she remains."
"In that case," said Antoinette, "has Monsieur considered that the poor angel will need clothes and articles of toilette--and this and that and the other?"
"And shoes to hide her shameless tus," I said.
"They are the most beautiful toes I have ever seen!" cried Antoinette in imbecile admiration. She has bewitched that old woman already.
I put on my hat and went to Wellington Road to consult Mrs. McMurray.
Heaven be thanked, thought I, for letting me take her little boy the day before yesterday to see the other animals, and thus winning a mother"s heart. She will help me out of my dilemma. Unfortunately she was not alone. Her husband, who is on the staff of a morning newspaper, was breakfasting when I arrived. He is a great ruddy bearded giant with a rumbling thunder of a laugh like the ba.s.s notes of an organ. His a.s.sertion of the masculine principle in brawn and beard and ba.s.s somewhat overpowers a non-muscular, clean-shaven, and tenor person like myself. Mrs. McMurray, on the contrary, is a small, bright bird of a woman.
I told my amazing story from beginning to end, interrupted by many Hoo-oo-oo-oo"s from McMurray.
"You may laugh," said I, "but to have a mythical being out of Olympiodorus quartered on you for life is no jesting matter."
"Olymp--?" began McMurray.
"Yes," I snapped.
"Bring her this afternoon, Sir Marcus, when this unsympathetic wretch has gone to his club," said his wife, "and I"ll take her out shopping."
"But, dear lady," I cried in despair, "she has but one garment--and that a silk dressing-gown of horrible depravity that belonged to a dancer of the second Empire! She is also barefoot."
"Then I"ll come round myself and see what can be done."
"And by Jove, so will I!" cried McMurray.
"You"ll do such thing," said his wife