A WORD OF WARNING
AND as the door shut behind my mistress I took that "something to read"
out of its hiding-place behind my belt and my frilly apron-bib.
It's the letter that was waiting for me when I came in. I've hardly had
time to grasp the contents of it yet. It's addressed in a small,
precise, masculine hand:
"To MISS SMITH,
"c/o Miss Million,
"Hotel Cecil."
But inside it begins:
"My Dear Miss Lovelace:--"
And then it goes on:
"I am putting another name on the envelope, because I think
that this is how you wish to be addressed for business
purposes. I hope you will not be offended, or consider that I
am impertinent in what I am going to say."
It sounds like the beginning of some scathing rebuke to the recipient of
the letter, doesn't it? But I don't think it's that. The letter goes on:
"Am writing to ask you whether you will allow me the privilege
of seeing you somewhere for a few minutes' private
conversation? It is on a matter that is of importance."
The last sentence is underlined, and looks most curiosity-rousing in
consequence:
"If you would allow me to know when I might see you, and where,
I should be very greatly obliged. Believe me,
"Yours very truly,
Reginald Brace."
That's the young manager, of course. That's the fair-haired young man
who lives next door to us--to where we used to live in Putney; the young
man of the garden-hose and of the "rows" with my Aunt Anastasia, and of
the bank that looks after Miss Million's money!
Is it about Miss Million's money matters that he wishes to have this
"few minutes' private conversation"? Scarcely. He wouldn't come to Miss
Million's maid about that.
But what can he want to see me about? "A matter of importance." What can
this be?
I can't guess.... For an hour now I have been sitting in Miss Million's
room, with Miss Million's new possessions scattered about me, and the
scent still heavy in the air of those red carnations sent in by the
Honourable--the Disgraceful Jim Burke.
Opposite to the sofa on which I am sitting there hangs an oval mirror in
a very twiggly-wiggly gilt frame, wreathed with golden foliage held by a
little Cupid, who laughs at me over a plump golden shoulder, and seems
to point at my picture in the glass.
It shows a small, rather prettily built girl in a delicious black frock
and white apron, with her white butterfly-cap poised pertly on her
chestnut hair, and on her face a look of puzzled amusement.
It's really mysterious; but I can't make out the mystery. I shall have
to wait until I can ask that young man himself what he means by it all.
Now, as to "when and where" I am to see him.
Not here. I am not Miss Million. I can't invite my acquaintances to tea
and rattlesnake cocktails and gimlets and things in the Cecil lounge.
And I can scarcely ask her to let me have her own sitting-room for the
occasion.
Outside the hotel, then. When? For at any moment I am, by rights, at
Miss Million's beck and call. Her hair and hands to do; herself to dress
three times a day; her new trousseau of lovely garments to organise and
to keep dainty and creaseless as if they still shimmered in Bond Street.
I don't like the idea of "slipping out" in the evenings, even if my
mistress is going to keep dissipated hours with cobras and
sulphur-crested cockatoos. So--one thing remains to me.
It's all that remains to so many girls as young and as pretty as I am,
and as fond of their own way, but in the thrall of domestic service. Oh,
sacred right of the British maid-servant! Oh, one oasis in the desert of
subjection to another woman's wishes! The "Afternoon Off"!
Next Friday I shall be free again. I must write to Mr. Brace. I must
tell him that the "important matter" must wait until then....
But apparently it can't wait.
For even as I was taking up my--or Miss Million's--pen, one of those
little chocolate-liveried page-boys tapped at Miss Million's
sitting-room door and handed in a card "for Miss Smith."
I took it.... His card?
Mr. Brace's card?
And on it is written in pencil: "May I see you at once? It is urgent!"
Extraordinary!
Well, "urgent" messages can't wait a week! I shall have to see him.
I said to the page-boy: "Show the gentleman up."
I don't know what can be said for a maid who, in her mistress's absence,
uses her mistress's own pretty sitting-room to receive her--the
maid's--own visitors.
Well, I couldn't help it. Here the situation was forced upon me--I, in
my cap and apron, standing on Miss Million's pink hearthrug in front of
the fern-filled fireplace, and facing Mr. Brace, very blonde and
grave-looking, in his "bank" clothes.
"Will you sit down?" I said, standing myself as if I never meant to
depart from that attitude. He didn't sit down.
"I won't keep you, Miss Lovelace," said the young bank manager, in a
much more formal tone than I had heard from him before. "But I was
obliged to call because, after I had sent off my note to you, I found I
was required to leave town on business to-morrow morning early.
Consequently I should only be able to speak to you about the matter
which I mentioned in my note if I came at once."
"Oh, yes," I said. "And the important matter was----"
"It's about your friend, Miss Million."
"My mistress," I reminded him, fingering my apron.
The young man looked very uncomfortable.
Being so fair, he reddens easily. He looks much less grown-up and
reliable than he had seemed that first morning at the bank. I wonder how
this is.
He looked at the apron and said: "Well, if you must call her your
mistress--I don't think it's at all--but, never mind that now--about
Miss Million."
"Don't tell me all her money's suddenly lost!" I cried in a quick
fright.
The manager shook his fair head. "Oh, nothing of that kind. No.
Something almost as difficult to tell you, though. But I felt I had to
do it, Miss Lovelace."
His fair face set itself into a sort of conscientious mask. "I turned to
you instead of to her because--well, because for obvious reasons you
were the one to turn to.
"Miss Million is a young--a young lady who seems at present to have more
money than friends. It is natural that, just now, she should be making a
number of new acquaintances. It is also natural that she should not
always know which of these acquaintances are a wise choice----"
"Oh, I know what you mean," I interposed, for I thought he was going on
in that rather sermony style until Million came home. "You're going to
warn me that Mr. Burke, whom you met here, isn't a fit person for
Mill--for Miss Million to know."
Mr. Brace looked relieved, yet uncomfortable and a little annoyed all at
once.
He said: "I don't know that I should have put it in exactly those words,
Miss Lovelace."
"No, but that's the gist of it all," I said rather shortly. Men are so
roundabout. They take ages hinting at things that can be put into one
short sentence. Then they're angry because some woman takes a short cut
and translates.
"Isn't that what you mean, Mr. Brace?"
"If I had a young sister," said this roundabout Mr. Brace, "I certainly
do not think that I should care to allow her to associate with a man
like that."
"Like what?" I said.
"Like this Mr. Burke."
"Why?" I asked.
"I don't think he is a very desirable acquaintance for a young and
inexperienced girl."
"How well do you know him?" I asked.
"Oh! I don't know him at all. I don't wish to know him," said Mr. Brace
rather stiffly. "I had only seen him once before I met him in Miss
Million's room here the other day. I was really annoyed to find him
here."
I persisted. "Why?"
"Because the man's not--well, not the sort of man your brother (if you
have one) would be too pleased to find you making friends with, Miss
Lovelace."
"Never mind all these brothers and sisters. They aren't here," I said
rather impatiently. "What sort of man d'you mean you think Mr. Burke is
that you want Miss Million warned against him?"
"I think any man would guess at the kind of man he was--shady."
"D'you mean," I said, "that he cheats at cards; that sort of thing?"
"Oh! I don't know that he'd do that----"
"What does he do, then?"
"Ah! that's what one would like to know," said the young bank manager,
frowning down at me. "What does he do? How does he live? Apparently in
one room in Jermyn Street, over a hairdresser's.
"But he's never there. He's always about in the most expensive haunts in
London, always with people who have money. Pigeons to pluck. I don't
believe the fellow has a penny of his own, Miss Lovelace."
"Is that a crime?" I said. "I haven't a penny myself."
Then I felt absolutely amazed with myself. Here I was positively
defending that young scamp and fortune-hunter who had this very
afternoon admitted to me that he'd told Million fibs, and that he got
what he could out of everybody.
Another thing. Here I was feeling quite annoyed with Mr. Brace for
coming here with these warnings about this other man! Yet it was only
the other day that I'd made up my mind to ask Mr. Brace for his candid
opinion on the subject of Miss Million's new friend!
And now I said almost coldly: "Have you anything at all definite to tell
me against Mr. Burke's character?"
"Yes. As it happens, I have," said Mr. Brace quickly, standing there
even more stiffly. "I told you that I had met the man once before. I'll
tell you where it was, Miss Lovelace. It was at my own bank. He came to
me with a sort of an introduction from a client of ours, a young cavalry
officer. He, Mr. Burke, told me he'd be glad to open an account with
us."
"Yes? So did Miss Million."
"Hardly in the same way," said Mr. Brace. "After a few preliminaries
this man Burke told me that at the moment he was not prepared to pay
anything in to his account, but----"
"--But what?" I took up as my visitor paused impressively, as if before
the announcement of something almost unspeakably wicked.
"This man Burke actually had the assurance," said the young bank manager
in outraged tones, "the assurance to suggest to me that the bank should
thereupon advance to him, as a loan out of his 'account,' fifty pounds
down!"
"Yes?" I said a little doubtfully, for I wasn't quite sure where the
point of this came in. "And then what happened?"
"What happened? Why! I showed the new 'client' out without wasting any
more words," returned my visitor severely.
"Don't you see, Miss Lovelace? He'd made use of his introduction to try
to 'rush' me into letting him have ready-money to the tune of fifty
pounds! Do you suppose I should ever have seen them again? That," said
the young bank manager impressively, "is the sort of man he is----" He
broke off to demand: "Why do you laugh?"
It certainly was unjustifiable. But I couldn't help it.
I saw it all! The room at the bank where Million and I had interviewed
the manager. The manager himself, with the formal manner that he "wears"
like a new and not very comfortable suit of clothes, asking the visitor
to sit down.
Then the Honourable Jim, in his gorgeously cut coat, with his daring yet
wary blue eyes, smiling down at the other man (Mr. Brace is a couple of
inches shorter). The Honourable Jim, calmly demanding fifty pounds "on
account" (of what) in that insinuating, flattering, insidious, softly
pitched Celtic voice of his ..."
"Common robbery. I see no difference between that and picking a man's
pocket!" declared the young manager.
Perfectly true, of course. If you come to think of it, the younger son
of Lord Ballyneck is no better than a sort of Twentieth-century
Highwayman. There's really nothing to be said for him. Only why should
Mr. Brace speak so rebukefully to me? It wasn't I who had tried to pick
the pocket of his precious bank!
"And yet you don't see," persisted the manager, "why a fellow of that
stamp should not be admitted to friendly terms with you!"
"With me? We're not talking about me at all!" I reminded this young man.
And to drive this home I turned to the mirror and gave a touch or two to
the white muslin butterfly of the cap that marked my place. "We're
talking about my mistress. I am only Miss Million's maid----"
"Pshaw!"
"I can't pretend to dictate to my mistress what friends she is to
receive----"
"Oh!" said the young man impatiently. "That's in your own hands. You
know it is. This maid business--well, if I were your brother I should
soon put a stop to it, but, anyhow, you know who's really at the head of
affairs. You know that you must have a tremendous influence over
this--this other girl. She naturally makes you her mentor; models
herself, or tries to, on you. If she thought that you considered
anything or any one undesirable, she would very soon 'drop' it. What you
say goes, Miss Lovelace."
"Does it, indeed!" I retorted. "Nothing of the kind. It did once,
perhaps. But this evening--do you know what? Miss Million has gone out
in a frock that I positively forbade her to buy. A cerise horror that's
not only 'undesirable,' as you call it, but makes her look----"
"Oh, a frock! Why is it a woman can never keep to the point?" demanded
this young Mr. Brace. "What's it got to do with the matter in hand what
frock Miss Million chooses to go out in?"
"Why, everything! Doesn't it just show what's happening," I explained
patiently. "It means that Miss Million doesn't make an oracle of me any
more. She'd rather model herself on some of the people she's going to
supper with tonight. Miss Vi Vassity, say----"
"What! That awful woman on the halls?" broke in Mr. Brace, with as much
disapproval in his voice and tone as there could have been in my Aunt
Anastasia's if she had been told that any girl she knew was hobnobbing
with "London's Love," the music-hall artiste.
"Who introduced her to Miss Million, may I ask?" he went on. "No, I
needn't ask; I can guess. That's this man Burke. That's his crowd.
Music-hall women, German Jews, disreputable racing men, young gilded
idiots like the man in the cavalry who sent him to me."
Then (furiously): "That's the set of people he'll bring in to associate
with you two inexperienced girls," said Mr. Brace.
And now his face was very angry--quite pale with temper. He looked
rather fine, I thought. He might have posed for a picture of one of
Cromwell's young Ironsides, straight-lipped, uncompromisingly sincere,
and "square," and shocked at everything.
I simply couldn't help rather enjoying the mild excitement of seeing him
so wrathful.
Surely he must be really _épris_ with Million to be so roused over her
knowing a few unconventional people. I've read somewhere that the
typical young Englishman may be considered to be truly in love as soon
as he begins to resent some girl's other amusements.
Mr. Brace went on: "And where has he taken Miss Million to this evening,
may I ask?"
I moved to put the cushions straight on the couch as I gave him the
evening's programme. "They were dining at the Carlton with a party, I
think. Then they were going on to see Miss Vi Vassity's turn at the
Palace. Then they were all to have supper at a place called the Thousand
and One----"
"Where?" put in Mr. Brace, in a voice so horrified that it made his
remarks up till then sound quite pleased and approving. "The Thousand
and One Club? He's taken Miss Million there? Of all places on earth! You
let her go there?"
He spoke as if nothing more terrible could have happened....