THE DAY OF THE PARTY
TO-DAY'S the day!
At four o'clock those two young men are coming to the Hotel Cecil, where
for the first time it will be a case of "Miss Million at home."
And to begin with Miss Million and her maid have had quite a fierce
argument.
I knew it was coming. I scented it afar off as soon as Million had sent
off her formal little note (dictated by me) to the Hon. James Burke at
this hotel.
As soon as we had settled which of all her new gowns the little hostess
was going to wear for this event she turned to me. Obviously suppressing
the "Miss Beatrice," which still lingers on the tip of her tongue,
Million asked: "And what are you goin' to put on?"
"Put on?" I echoed with well-simulated surprise, for I knew perfectly
what she meant. I braced myself to be firm, and took the bull by the
horns.
"I shan't have to 'put on' anything, you see," I explained. "I shall
always be just as I am in this black frock and this darling little
frilly apron, and the cap that I really love myself in. You can't say it
doesn't suit me, Mill----, Miss Million."
The scandalised Million stared at me as we stood there in her hotel
bedroom; a sturdy, trim little dark-haired figure in her new princesse
petticoat that showed her firmly developed, short arms, helping me to
put away the drifts of superfluous tissue-paper that had enwrapped her
trousseau. I myself had never been so well dressed as in this dainty
black-and-white livery.
She exclaimed in tones of horror: "But you can't sit down to afternoon
tea with two young gentlemen in your cap and apron!"
"Of course not. I shan't be sitting down with them at all."
"What?"
"I shan't be having tea with you in the drawing-room," I explained.
"Naturally I shall not appear this afternoon."
"Wha--what'll you do, then?"
"What does a good lady's-maid do? Sit in her bedroom, sorting her
mistress's new lingerie and sewing name-tapes on to her mistress's silk
stockings----"
"What! And leave me alone, here?" remonstrated my mistress shrilly. "Me
sit here by myself with those two young gentlemen, one of them a
Honourable and a perfect stranger to me, and me too nervous to so much
as ask them if they like one lump or two in their cups of tea? Oh, no! I
couldn't do it----"
"You'll have to," I said. "Ladies'-maids do not entertain visitors with
their employers."
"But----'Tisn't as if I was an ordinary employer! 'Tisn't as if you was
an ordinary lady's-maid!"
"Yes, it is, exactly."
"But--they'll know you aren't. Why, that young Mr. Reginald Brace, him
from the bank, he knows as well as you do who you are at home!"
"That has nothing to do with him, or with your tea-party."
"I don't want no tea-party if I'm goin' to be left all on me own, and
nobody to help me talk to that Honourable," Million protested almost
tearfully. "Lor'! If I'd a known, I'd never have said the gentlemen
could come!"
"Nonsense," I laughed. "You'll enjoy it."
"'Enjoy!' Oh, Miss--Smith! Enjoyment and me looks as if we was going to
be strangers," declared Million bitterly. "I don't see why you couldn't
oblige a friend, and come in to keep the ball a-rollin', you that know
the go of Society, and that!"
"I'm sure it's not the go of Society to have in the lady's-maid to help
amuse the visitors. Not in the drawing-room, at all events."
"But if I ask you----"
"If you ask me to do things that are 'not my place,' Miss Million," I
said firmly, "I shall give you notice. I mean it."
This awful threat had its effect.
Million heaved one more gusty sigh, cast one more reproachful glance at
her rebellious maid, and dropped the subject.
Thank goodness!
I shall miss this weird and unparalleled party, but I shall hear all
about it at second-hand after that amazingly contrasted couple of young
men has departed.
It's ten minutes to four now.
I have "set the scene" perfectly for this afternoon's festivity. A
hotel sitting-room can never look like a home room. But I've done my
best with flowers, and new cushions, and a few pretty fashion journals
littered about; also several new novels that I made Million buy, because
I simply must read them. Yes, I've arranged the room. I've arranged the
carnations. (I hope Mr. Burke will think they look nice.) I've arranged
the tea; dainty Nile-green cakes from Gunter's, and chocolates and
cigarettes. I've arranged the trembling little hostess.
"Good-bye, Miss Million," I said firmly, as I prepared to depart. "You
needn't be nervous; you look very nice in the white French muslin with
the broad grey-blue ribbon to match your best feature, your eyes. Very
successful."
"Looks so plain, to me," objected little Million unhappily. "You might
have let me put on something more elabyrinth. Nobody'd ever believe I'd
been and gone and given as much as fifteen guineas for this thing."
"Anybody would know, who knew anything," I consoled her. "And I'll tell
you one thing. A man like Mr. Burke knows everything. Give him my
love--no. Mind you don't!"
"I shall be too scared to say a word to him," began Million, whimpering.
"You might----" I shut the door.
I went into my room across the corridor and prepared to spend a quiet,
useful, self-effacing afternoon with my work-basket and my employer's
new "pretties."
LATER.
What a different afternoon it has turned out to be!
I suppose it was about twenty minutes later, but scarcely had I
embroidered the first white silken "M" on Million's new crêpe-de-chine
"nightie" than there was a light tap at my door. I thought it was my own
tea.
"Come in," I called.
Enter the sandy-haired, middle-aged chamber-maid. She stood, looking
mightily perplexed.
Well, I suppose we are rather a perplexing proposition! Two girls of
twenty-three, turning up at the Hotel Cecil with highly
luxurious-looking but empty baggage, and clad as it were off a stall at
some country rectory jumble sale! Blossoming forth the next day into
attire of the most chic and costly! One girl, with a voice and accent of
what Aunt Anastasia still calls "the governing class," acting as maid to
the other, whose accent is--well, different. I wonder what the
chamber-maid thinks?
She said: "Oh, if you please--"
(No "madam" this time, though she was obviously on the verge of putting
it in!)
"--if you please, Miss Million sent me to tell you that she wished her
maid to come to her at once."
Good gracious! This was an unexpected move.
An "S O S" signal, I supposed, from Million in distress! My employer,
utterly unable to cope with the situation and the "strange young
gentlemen alone," had ordered up reinforcements! An order! Yes, it was
an order from mistress to maid!
My first impulse was frankly to refuse. I wonder how many maids have
felt it in their time over an unbargained-for order?
"Tell her I'm not coming." This was what I nearly said to the
chamber-maid.
Then I remembered that one couldn't possibly say things like that.
I sat for another second in disconcerted silence, my needle, threaded
with white silk, poised above the nightie.
Then I said: "Tell Miss Million, please, that I will be with her in a
moment."
At the time I didn't mean to go. I meant to sit on, quietly sewing,
where I was until the visitors had gone. Then I could "have it out" with
Million herself afterwards....
But before I put in three more stitches my heart misgave me again.
Poor little Million! In agonies of nervousness! What a shame to let her
down! And supposing that she, in her desperation, came out to fetch me
in!
I put aside my work and hastened across the corridor to my employer's
sitting-room. As I opened the door I heard an unexpected sound. That
sound seemed to take me right back to our tiny kitchen in Putney, when
Aunt Anastasia was out, and Million and I were gossiping together.
Million's laugh!
Surely she couldn't be laughing now, in the middle of her nervousness!
I went in.
A charming picture met me; a picture that might have hung at the Academy
under the title of "Two Strings to Her Bow" or "The Eternal Trio," or
something else appropriate to the grouping of two young men and a pretty
girl.
The girl (Million), black-haired, white-frocked, and smiling, was
sitting on a pink-covered couch, close to one of the young men--the
bigger, more gorgeously dressed one. This was, of course, Mr. James
Burke. He looked quite as effective as he had done in his coaching
get-up. For now he wore a faultless morning-coat and the most
George-Alexandrian of perfectly creased trousers. His head was as
smoothily and glossily black as his own patent-leather boots. "Seen
close to," as Million puts it, he was showily good-looking, especially
about the eyes, with which he was gazing into the little heiress's
flushed face. They were of that death-dealing compound, deep blue, with
thick, black lashes. What a pity that those eyes shouldn't have been
bestowed by Providence upon some deserving woman, like myself, instead
of being wasted upon a mere man. But possibly the Honourable James
didn't consider them waste. He'd made good use of them and of his
persuasive voice, and of his time generally, with Miss Million, the
Sausage King's niece!
They were sitting there, leaving the other poor young man looking quite
out of it, talking as if they were the greatest friends. As to Million's
nervous terror, I can only say, in her own phrase, that "nervousness and
she were strangers!" That Irishman had worked a miracle; he'd put
Million at ease in his presence! I came right in and stood looking as
indescribably meek as I knew how.
My employer looked up at me with an odd expression on her small face.
For the first time there was in it a dash of
"I-don't-care-what-you-think-I-shall-do-what-I-like!" And for the first
time she addressed me without any hesitation by the name that I,
Beatrice Lovelace, have taken as my _nom de guerre_.
"Oh, Smith," said Million--Miss Million, "I sent for you because I want
you to pour out the tea for us. Pourin' out is a thing I always did
'ate--hate."
"Yes, Miss," I said.
And I turned to obey orders at the tea-table.
As meekly as if I'd been put into the world for that purpose alone, I
began to pour out tea for Miss Million and her guests.
The tea-table was set in the alcove of the big window, so that I had to
turn my back upon the trio. But I could feel eyes upon my back. Well! I
didn't mind. It was a gracefully fitted back at last, in that perfectly
cut, thin black gown, with white muslin apron-strings tied in an
impertinent little bow.
There was a silence in the room where the hostess had been laughing and
the principal guest--I suppose she looked upon this Mr. Burke as the
principal guest--had been purring away to her in that soft Irish voice
of his.
I filled the cups and turned--to meet the honest sunburnt face of the
other visitor, Mr. Reginald Brace. He'd got up and taken a quick step
towards me. I never saw anything quite so blankly bewildered as his
expression as he tried hard not to stare at that little white muslin
butterfly cap in my hair.
Of course! This was his first intimation that I, who had been Million's
mistress, was now Miss Million's maid!
In a dazed voice he spoke to me: "Can't I----Do let me help you----"
"Oh, thank you," I said quietly and businesslikely. "Will you take this
to Miss Million, please?"
He handed the cups to the others, and I followed and handed the cream,
milk, and sugar. It felt like acting in a scene out of some musical
comedy, at the Gaiety, say. And I daresay it looked like it, what with
the pretty, flower-filled sitting-room, and Million's French white
muslin with the grey-blue sash, and my stage-soubrette livery, and the
glossily groomed Mr. Burke as the young hero! I surprised a very
summing-up glance from those black-lashed blue eyes of his as I waited
on him. How is it that every syllable spoken in a certain kind of Irish
voice seems to mean a compliment, even if it's only "thank you" for the
sugar? I went back and stood as silent and self-effacing as a statue, or
a really well-trained servant, by the tea-things, while the Honourable
James Burke went on improving the shining hour with his millionaire
hostess.
This was the sort of conversation that had been going on, evidently,
from the start:
"Isn't it an extraordinary thing, now, that I should be sitting here,
cosily talking to you like this, when just at this same time last year,
my dear Miss Million, I was sitting and talking to that dear old uncle
of yours in Chicago?" he said. "Every afternoon I used to go and sit by
his bedside----"
"A year ago, was it?" put in Million. "Why, Mr. Burke, I never knew
uncle had been poorly so long as that; I thought he was taken ill quite
sudden."
"Oh, yes, of course. So he was," Mr. Burke put in quickly. "But you know
he had an awful bad doing a good time before that. Sprained his ankle,
poor old boy, and had to lie up for weeks. Awfully tedious for him; he
used to get so ratty, if you don't mind my saying so, Miss Million. He
used to flare up in his tempers like a match, dear old fellow!"
"Well, I never. I'm rather that way myself," from the delighted Million,
who was obviously hanging on every word that fell from the young
fortune-hunter's improvising lips. "Must be in the family!"
"Ah, yes; it always goes with that generous, frank, natural disposition.
Always hasty as well! So much better than sulking, I always think," from
the Irishman. "When it's over, it's over. Why, as your dear old uncle
used to say to me, 'Jim,' he'd say--he always called me Jim----"
"Did he really, now?" from Million. "Fancy!"
Yes, it was all "fancy," I thought.
As I stood there listening to that glib West of Ireland accent piling
detail on detail to the account of the Honourable Jim's friendship with
the old Chicago millionaire a queer conviction strengthened in my mind.
I didn't believe a word of it!
"One of the best old chaps I ever knew. Hard and crusty on the
outside--a rough diamond, if you know what I mean--but one of Nature's
own gentlemen. I'm proud to think he had a good opinion of me----"
All a make-up for the benefit of the ingenuous, ignorant little heiress
to whom he was talking! He was brazenly "pulling" Miss Million's
unsophisticated leg! Honourable or not, he was an unscrupulous
adventurer, this Jim Burke! And the other young man--the young bank
manager, who sat there balancing a cup of tea in one hand and one of the
pale-green Gunter's cakes in the other? He hadn't a word to say. There
he sat. I glanced at him. He looked wooden. But behind the woodenness
there was disapproval, I could see. Disapproval of the whole situation.
Ah! I shouldn't have to ask him what he thought of the Honourable Jim
Burke. I could read Mr. Brace's opinion of him written in every line of
Mr. Brace's clean-shaven, honest face that somehow didn't look so
handsome this afternoon. Showiness such as that of the big,
black-haired, blue-eyed Irishman is enough to "put out" the light of any
one else! Why, why did I allow Million to meet him? He'd take care that
this was not the only time! He was taking care of that.
I heard him saying something about taking Miss Million on the coach
somewhere. I saw Miss Million clap her hands that are still rather red
and rough from housework, manicure them as I will.
"What, me! On a coach? What, with all them lovely white horses and that
trumpeter?" cried Million gleefully. "Would I like it? Oh, Mr. Burke!"
Mr. Burke immediately began arranging dates and times for this
expedition. He said, I think, "the day after to-morrow----"
Oh, dear! What am I going to do about this? Forbid her to go? Up to now
everything that I have said has had such an immense influence upon
little Million. But now? What about that quite new gleam of defiance in
her grey eyes? Alas! the influence of one girl upon the actions of
another girl may be as "immense" as you please, but wait until it is
countermined by some newly appeared, attractive young scoundrel of a
man! (I am sure he is a scoundrel.)
I foresee heated arguments between my young mistress and myself, with
many struggles ahead.
Meanwhile, I feel that my only hope lies in Mr. Brace. Without a word
passing between us, I felt that he understood something of my anxiety in
this situation. He might be able to help me, though I think I should
have thought more of him if he had tried to talk a little this afternoon
instead of allowing the conversation to consist of a monologue by that
Irishman, punctuated by rapturous little Cockney comments from Miss
Million.
He, Mr. Brace, left first.
I glided away from my station at the table to open the door for him.
"Thank you," he said. "Good afternoon, Miss Lovelace." I must see him
again, or write to him, to ask for his help, I think!
The Honourable Jim tore himself from Million's side about five minutes
later.
"Good-bye, Miss Million. I wish I could tell you how much it's meant to
me, meeting my old friend's niece in this way," purred the golden voice,
while the Honourable Jim held Million's little hand in his and gazed
down upon the enraptured face of her. One sees faces like that sometimes
outlining the gallery railing at a theatre, while below the orchestra
drawls out a phrase of some dreamy waltz and, on the stage, the matinée
hero turns his best profile to the audience and murmurs thrillingly:
"Little girl! Do you dream how different my life could be--with you?"
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the Honourable Jim had made up
his mind to say something of the sort to Million, quite soon!
Of course, his life would be "different" if he had heaps of money.
Somehow I can't help feeling that, in spite of his clothes and the dash
he cuts, he hasn't a penny to his name.
"Good-bye. _A bientôt_," he said to Million.
Oh, why did I ever bring her to the Cecil? As the door closed behind her
visitor Million breathed a heavy sigh and said, just as those
theatre-going girls say at the drop of a curtain: "Wasn't he lovely?"
Then she threw herself down on to the couch, which bounced. Something
fell from it on to the floor.
"There, if he hasn't left his walkin'-stick be'ind him!" exclaimed
Million, picking up a heavy ebony cane with a handsome gold top to it. I
realised that here was an excuse, hatched up by that conscienceless
young Celt, to return shortly.
Million didn't see that. She exclaimed: "Now I've got to run after him
with it, I s'pose----"
"No, you haven't, Miss Million. I will take it. It's the maid's place,"
I interposed. And quickly I took the cane and slipped out into the
corridor with it.
I caught up with the tall visitor just as he reached the lift.
"You left your cane in Miss Million's room, sir," I said to him in a
tone as stiff as that of a lady's-maid turned into a pillar of ice.
The big Irishman turned. But he did not put out his hand for the cane at
once.
He just said, "That's very kind of you," and smiled at me. Smiled with
all those bold blue eyes of his. Then he said in a voice lower and more
flattering even than he had used to the heiress herself: "I wanted a
word with you, Miss Lovelace, I think they call you. It's just this----"
He paused, smiled more broadly all over his handsome face, and added
these surprising words:
"What's your game, you two?"
"Game!--I beg your pardon!" I said haughtily. (I hope I didn't show how
startled and confused I was. What could he mean by "our game"?)
I gazed up at him, and he gave a short laugh. Then he said: "Is it
because nothing suits a pretty woman better than that kit? Is it just
because you know the man's not born that can resist ye in a cap and
apron?"
I was too utterly taken aback to think of any answer. I thrust the cane
into his hands, and fled back, down the corridor, into my mistress's
room. And, as I went in, I think I heard the Honourable Jim still
laughing.