SMITHS AND SMITHS
Annesley glanced up, her face aflame, like a fanned coal. The man was
tall, dark, lean, square-jawed, handsome in just that thrilling way which
magazine illustrators and women love; the ideal story-hero to look at,
even to the clothes which any female serial writer would certainly have
described as "immaculate evening dress."
It was too good--oh, far too wonderfully good!--to be true that this
man should be Mr. Smith. Yet if he were not Mr. Smith why should
he----Annesley got no farther in the thought, though it flashed through
her mind quick as light. Before she had time to seek an answer for her
question the man--who was young, or youngish, not more than thirty-three
or four--had bent over her as if greeting a friend, and had begun to
speak in a low voice blurred by haste or some excitement.
"You will do me an immense service," he said, "if you'll pretend to know
me and let me sit down here. You sha'n't regret it, and it may save my
life."
"Sit down," answered something in Annesley that was newly awake. She
found her hand being warmly shaken. Then the man took the chair reserved
for Mr. Smith, just as she realized fully that he wasn't Mr. Smith. Her
heart was beating fast, her eyes--fixed on the man's face, waiting for
some explanation--were dilated.
"Thank you," he said, leaning toward her, in his hand a menu which the
waiter had placed before the girl while she was still alone. She noticed
that the hand was brown and nervous-looking, the hand of a man who might
be a musician or an artist. He was pretending to read the menu, and to
consult her about it. "You're a true woman, the right sort--brave. I
swear I'm not here for any impertinence. Now, will you go on helping me?
Can you keep your wits and not give me away, whatever happens?"
"I think so," answered the new Annesley. "What do you want me to do?" She
took the pitch of her tone from his, speaking quietly, and wondering if
she would not wake up in her ugly brown bedroom at Mrs. Ellsworth's, as
she had done a dozen times when dreaming in advance of her rendezvous at
the Savoy.
"It will be a shock when I tell you," he answered. "But for Heaven's
sake, don't misunderstand. I shouldn't ask this if it weren't absolutely
necessary. In case a man comes to this table and questions you, you must
let him suppose that you are my wife."
"Oh!" gasped Annesley. Her eyes met the eyes that seemed to have been
waiting for her look, and they answered with an appeal which she could
not refuse.
She did not stop to think that if the dark eyes had not been so handsome
they might have been easier to resist. She--the suppressed and timid
girl, never allowed to make up her mind--let herself go with the wave
of strong emotion carrying her along, and reached a resolve.
"It means trusting you a great deal," she answered. "But you say you're
in danger, so I'll do what you ask. I think you can't be wicked enough to
pay me back by trying to hurt me."
"You think right," the man said, and it struck her that his accent was
not quite English. She wondered if he were Canadian or American. Not that
she knew much about either. "A woman like you _would_ think right!" he
went on. "Only one woman out of ten thousand would have the nerve and
presence of mind and the humanity to do what you're doing. When I came
into this room and saw your face I counted on you."
Annesley blushed again in a rush of happiness. She had always longed to
do something which would really matter to another soul. She had even
prayed for it. Now the moment seemed to have come. God would not let her
be the victim of an ignoble trick!
"I'm glad," she said, her face lit by a light from within. And at that
moment, bending toward each other, they were a beautiful couple. A seeker
of romance would have taken them for lovers.
"Tell me what you want me to do," Annesley said once more.
"The worst of it is, I can't tell you exactly. Two men may come into this
restaurant looking for me. One or both will speak to me. They'll call me
a certain name, and I shall say they've made a mistake. You must say so,
too. You must tell them I'm your husband, and stick to that no matter
what the man, or men, may tell you about me. The principal thing now is
to choose a name. But--by Jove--I forgot it in my hurry! Are you
expecting any one to join you? If you are, it's awkward."
"I was expecting someone, but I've given him up."
"Was this table taken in his name or yours? Or, perhaps--but no, I'm sure
you're _not_!"
"Sure I'm not what?"
"Married. You're a girl. Your eyes haven't got any experience of life in
them."
Annesley looked down; and when she looked down her face was very sweet.
She had long, curved brown lashes a shade or two darker than her hair.
"I'm not married," she said, rather stiffly. "I thought a table had been
engaged in the name of Mr. Smith, but there was a misunderstanding. The
head waiter put me at this table in case Mr. Smith should come. I've
given him up now, and was going away when----"
"When you took pity on a nameless man. But it seems indicated that he
should be Mr. Smith, unless you have any objection!"
"No, I have none. You'd better take the name, as I mentioned it to the
waiter."
"And the first name?"
"I don't know. The initial I gave was N."
"Very well, I choose Nelson. Where do we live?"
Annesley stared, frightened.
"Forgive me," the man said. "I ought to have explained what I meant
before asking you that, or put the question another way. Will you go on
as you've begun, and trust me farther, by letting me drive with you to
your home, if necessary, in case of being followed? At worst, I'll need
to beg no more than to stand inside your front door for a few minutes if
we're watched, and--but I see that this time I have passed the limit. I'm
expecting too much! How do you know but I may be a thief or a murderer?"
"I hadn't thought of such a thing," Annesley stammered. "I was only
thinking--it isn't _my_ house. It doesn't even belong to my people. I
live with an old lady, Mrs. Ellsworth. I hope she'll be in bed when I get
back, and the servants, too. I have a key because--because I told a fib
about the place where I was going, and consequently Mrs. Ellsworth
approved. If she hadn't approved, I shouldn't have been allowed out. I
could let you stand inside the door. But if any one followed us to the
house, and saw the number, he could look in the directory, and find out
that it belonged to Mrs. Ellsworth, not Mr. Smith."
"He couldn't have a directory in his pocket! By the time he got hold of
one and could make any use of his knowledge, I'd be far away."
"Yes, I suppose you would," Annesley thought aloud, and a little voice
seemed to add sharply in her ear: "Far away out of my life."
This brought to her memory what she had in her excitement forgotten:
the adventure she had come out to meet had faded into thin air! The
unexpected one which had so startlingly taken its place would end
to-night, and she would be left to the dreary existence from which she
had tried to break free.
She was like a pebble that had succeeded in riding out to sea on a wave,
only to be washed back into its old place on the shore. The thought that,
after all, she had no change to look forward to, gave the girl a
passionate desire to make the most of this one living hour among many
that were born dead.
"Mrs. Ellsworth's house," she said, "is 22-A, Torrington Square."
"Thank you." Only these two words he spoke, but the eager dark eyes
seemed to add praise and blessings for her confidence.
"My name is Annesley Grayle," she volunteered, as if to prove to the man
and to herself how far she trusted him; also perhaps as a bid for his
name in payment of that trust. So at least he must have understood, for
he said: "If I don't tell you mine, it's for your own protection. I'm not
ashamed of it; but it's better that you shouldn't know--that if you heard
it suddenly, it should be strange to you, just like any other name. Don't
you see I'm right?"
"I dare say you are."
"Then we'll leave it at that. But we can't go on pretending to study
this menu for ever! You came to dine with Mr. Smith. You'll dine with
his understudy instead. You'll let me order dinner? It's part of the
programme."
"Very well," Annesley agreed.
The man nodded to the head-waiter, who had been interested in the little
drama indirectly stage-managed by him. Instead of sending a subordinate,
he came himself to take the order. With wonderful promptness, considering
that Mr. Smith's thoughts had not been near the menu under his eyes,
several dishes were chosen and a wine selected.
"Madame is glad now that I persuaded her not to go?" the waiter could not
resist, and Annesley replied that she was glad. As the man turned away,
"Mr. Smith" raised his eyebrows with rather a wistful smile.
"I'm afraid you're sorry, really," he said. "If I'd come a minute later
than I did, you'd have been safe and happy at home by this time."
"Not happy," amended the girl. "Because it isn't home. If it were, I
shouldn't have told fibs to Mrs. Ellsworth to-night."
"That sounds interesting," remarked her companion.
"It's _not_ interesting!" she assured him. "Nothing in my life is. I
don't want to bore you by talking about my affairs, but if you think we
may be--interrupted, perhaps, I'd better explain one or two things while
there's time. I wanted to come here this evening to keep an engagement
I'd made, but it's difficult for me to get out alone. Mrs. Ellsworth
doesn't like to be left, and she never lets me go anywhere without her
except to the house of some friends of mine, the only real friends I
have. It's odd, but _their_ name is Smith, and that saved my telling
a direct lie. Not that a half-lie isn't worse, it's so cowardly!
"Mrs. Ellsworth likes me to go to Archdeacon and Mrs. Smith's
because--I'm afraid because she thinks they're 'swells.' Mrs. Smith has a
duke for an uncle! Mrs. Ellsworth said 'yes' at once, when I asked, and
gave me her key and permission to stop out till half-past ten, though
everyone in the house is supposed to be in bed by ten. She's almost sure
to be in bed herself, but if she gets interested in one of the books I
brought from the library to-day, it's possible she may be sitting up to
read, and to ask about my evening.
"Our bedrooms are on the ground floor at the back of an addition to the
house. What if she should hear the latchkey (it's old fashioned and hard
to work), and what if she should come to the swing door at the end of the
corridor where she'd see you with me? What would you say or do?"
"H'm! It would be awkward. But--isn't there a _young_ Smith in your
Archdeacon's family?"
"There is one, but I haven't seen him since I was a little girl. He's a
sailor. He's away now on an Arctic expedition."
"Then it wasn't _that_ Mr. Smith you came to meet at the Savoy?"
"No. They're not related." As Annesley returned in thought to the Mr.
Smith who had thrown her over, she took from her bodice the white rose
which was to have identified her for him, and found it a place in the
vase with the other white roses. She had a special reason for doing this.
The real Mr. Smith, if by any chance he appeared now, would be a
complication. Without the rose he could not claim her acquaintance.
"Why do you do that?" her companion broke the thread of his questioning
to ask.
The girl was tempted to tell some easy fib that the rose was faded, or
too fragrant; but somehow she could not. They both seemed so close to the
deep-down things of life at this moment that to speak the truth was the
one possible thing.
"I arranged to wear a white rose for Mr. Smith to recognize me. We--have
never seen each other," she confessed.
"Yet you say there's nothing interesting in your life!"
"It's true! _This_ thing was--was dreadful. It could happen only to a
girl whose life was not interesting."
"Now I understand why you put away the rose--for my sake, in case
Mr. Smith should turn up, after all. Will you give it to me? I won't
flaunt it in my buttonhole. I'll hide it sacredly, in memory of this
evening--and of you. Not that I shall need to be reminded of anything
which concerns this night--you especially, and your generosity, your
courage. But it may be that the men I spoke of won't find me here. If
they don't, the worst of your ordeal is over. It will only be to finish
dinner, and let me put you into a taxi. To-morrow you can think that you
dreamed the wretch who appealed to you, and be glad that you will never
see him again."
Annesley selected her white rose from its fellows, dried its stem
daintily with her napkin, and gave the flower to "Mr. Smith." Already it
looked refreshed, as she herself felt refreshed, after five years of
"stuffiness," by these few throbbing moments.
Their hands touched, and through Annesley's darted a little tingle of
electricity that flashed up her arm to her heart, where it caught like a
hooked wire. She was surprised, almost frightened by the sensation, and
ashamed because she didn't find it disagreeable.
"It must be that people who're really _alive_, as he is, give out
magnetism," she thought. And the thrill lingered as the man thanked her
with eyes and voice.
When he had looked at the rose curiously, as if expecting to learn from
it the secret of its wearer, he put the flower away in a letter-case in
an inner breast pocket of his coat.
For once Annesley was face to face with romance, and even though she
would presently go back to the old round (since the adventure she came
out to meet had failed), she was stirred to a wild gladness in this
other adventure. The _hors d'oeuvres_ appeared; then soup, and wine,
which Mr. Smith begged her to taste.
"Drink luck for me," he insisted. "You and you alone can bring it."
Annesley drank. And the champagne filliped colour to her cheeks.
"Now we'll go on and think out the problem of what may happen at your
door--if Fate takes me there," the man said. "Your old friend's sailor
son is no use to me. He can't be whisked back from the North Pole to
London for my benefit. Perhaps I may be an acquaintance of Archdeacon
Smith's, mayn't I, if worst comes to worst? I've been dining there, and
brought you back in a taxi. Will that do? If there are fibs to tell, I'll
tell them myself and spare you if possible."
"After all I've told to-night, one or two more can't matter," said
Annesley. "They won't hurt Mrs. Ellsworth. It's the other danger that's
more worrying--the danger from those men. I've thought of something that
may help if they follow us to Torrington Square. They may ask a policeman
whose house we've gone into, and find out it's Mrs. Ellsworth's, before
you can get away. So it will be better not to tell them it's _yours_. You
can be visiting. There is a Mr. Smith who comes sometimes from America,
where he lives, though he's not American. Even the policemen who have
that beat may have heard of him from Mrs. Ellsworth's servants. There's
a room kept always ready for him, and called 'Mr. Smith's room.'"
"That does help," said the man. "It's clever and kind of you to rack your
brains for me. A Mr. Smith from America! It's easy for me to play that
part, I'm from America. Perhaps you've guessed that?"
"But you're very different from Mrs. Ellsworth's Mr. Smith," Annesley
warned him, hastily. "He's middle-aged, eccentric, and not good-looking.
He comes to England for his 'nerves' when he has worked too hard and
tired himself out. I think he's rich; and once he was robbed in some big
hotel, so he likes to stay at a plain sort of house where there's no
danger. He has a horror of burglars, and won't even stop at the
Archdeacon's since they had a burglary a few years ago. He pays Mrs.
Ellsworth for his room, I believe. A funny arrangement!--it came about
through me. But that's not of importance to you."
"It may be. We can't tell. Better let me know as much as possible about
these Smiths. There's Mrs. Ellsworth's Smith, and the Smith you came to
meet----"
"We needn't talk of _him_, anyway!"
There was a hint of anger in the girl's protest; but her resentment was
for the man who had humiliated her by breaking his appointment--_such_ an
appointment!
She hurried on, trying to hide all signs of agitation. "You see, Mrs.
Ellsworth once hoped to have Archdeacon Smith and his wife for friends.
They didn't care for her, but they loved my father--oh, long ago in the
country, where we lived. When he died and I hadn't any money or training
for work, they were nice to Mrs. Ellsworth for my sake--or, rather, for
my father's sake--and persuaded her to take me as her companion. She was
glad to do it to please them; but soon she realized that they didn't mean
to reward her by being intimate.
"Poor woman, I was almost sorry for her disappointment! You see, she's
a snob at heart, and though 'Smith' sounds a common name, both the
Archdeacon and his wife have titled relations. So have I--and that was
another reason for taking me. She adores a title. Doesn't that sound
pitiful? But she has few interests and no real friends, so she's never
given up hope of 'collecting' the Smiths.
"That's why she lets me visit them. And when I happened to mention, for
something to say, that the Archdeacon had an eccentric cousin in America
who was afraid of hotels and even of visiting at their house because of a
fad about burglars, she offered to give him the better of her two spare
rooms whenever he came to England. I never thought he'd accept, but he
did, only he would insist on paying.
"That's the story, if you can call it a story, for Mr. Ruthven Smith
isn't a bit exciting nor interesting. When he appears--generally quite
suddenly--he finds his room ready. He has his breakfast sent up, and
lunches out at his club or somewhere. He mostly dines out, too, but he
has a standing invitation to dine with Mrs. Ellsworth, and we always have
good dinners when he is staying, to be ready in case of the worst."
The man smiled, rather a charming smile, Annesley could not help
noticing.
"In case of the worst!" he repeated. "He must be deadly if his
society bores you more than that of an old lady on whom, I suppose,
you dance attendance morning, noon, and night. Now, my situation is
so--er--peculiar that I ought to be thankful to exchange identities
with any man. But I wouldn't with Mr. Ruthven Smith for all his money
and jewels."
Annesley opened her eyes. "Did I say anything about jewels?" she asked.
"No, you didn't," the man assured her, "except in mentioning the name of
Ruthven Smith. Anybody who has lived in America as long as I have,
associates jewels with the name of Ruthven Smith. His 'Ruthven' lifts him
far above the ruck of a _mere_ Smith--like myself, for instance"; and he
smiled again.
Annesley began curiously to feel as if she knew him well. This made her
more anxious to give him help--for it would not be helping a stranger: it
would be helping a friend.
"I've heard, of course, that he's something--I'm not sure what--in a firm
of jewellers," she said. "But I'd no idea of his being so important."
"He's third partner with Van Vreck & Co.," her companion explained. "I've
heard he joined at first because of his great knowledge of jewels and
because he's been able to revive the lost art of making certain
transparent enamels. The Van Vrecks sent for him from England years ago.
He buys jewels for the firm now, I believe. No doubt that's why he's in
such a funk about burglars."
"Fancy your knowing more about Mr. Smith than I know! Perhaps more than
Mrs. Ellsworth knows!" exclaimed Annesley, forgetting the strain of
expectation--the dread that a pair of mysterious, nightmare men might
break up the dreamlike dinner-party for two.
"I don't know more about him than half America and Europe knows," laughed
the man. "It's lucky I _do_ know something, though, as I may have to be
mistaken for Ruthven Smith, and add an 'N' to his initials. I suppose
he's not in England now by any chance?"
"No. It must be six or seven months since he was here last," said
Annesley. "I don't think Mrs. Ellsworth has heard from him. She hardly
ever does until a day or two before he's due to arrive; neither do his
cousins."
"A peculiar fellow, it would seem," remarked her companion. And then, out
of a plunge into thought, "You say you've never seen the Mr. Smith you
came to meet at the Savoy? How can you be sure it isn't old 'R. S.' as
they call him at Van Vreck's, wanting to play you a trick--give you a
surprise?"
Annesley shook her head. "If you knew Mr. Ruthven Smith, you'd know that
would be impossible. Why, I don't believe he remembers when I'm out of
sight that I exist."
"Still more peculiar! Miss Grayle, I haven't any right to ask you
questions. But I shouldn't be a man if I weren't forgetting my own
affairs--in--in curiosity, if you want to call it that (I don't!), about
yours. No! I won't let it pass for ordinary curiosity. Can't you
understand you're doing for me more than any woman ever has done, or any
man would do? That does make a bond between us. You can't deny it. Tell
me about this Mr. Smith whom you don't know and never saw, yet came to
the Savoy Hotel to meet."