"WHAT'S YOUR LITTLE GAME?"
Then she recognised me. Except for the fact that her face suddenly
flamed and then as suddenly hardened, her breeding stood her in good
stead, and with cold, clear eyes, which looked as indifferently into
mine as if I had been a stranger calling to solicit a subscription to
some charity, she pointed me to a chair.
"You bring me news of my father?" she inquired, with a composure which
was possibly assumed for my benefit, or, rather, for my discomfiture.
"That is why I am here," I answered, bowing gravely, and in my turn
assuming an indifference which I strove to make as studied as her own.
"He is safe and well," I went on. "Of that let me assure you
positively. He is detained only upon a matter of business, and but for
the fact that other people, as well as himself, are concerned in it, he
could return, if he chose, this very night."
This much I said to allay her anxiety. That it was a diplomatic rather
than an exact statement of the facts, I do not deny, but though I would
unhesitatingly have told a lie to spare her, I was at least within the
truth in saying that the moment of Mr. Carleton's return lay entirely
within his own choice, since, once he had consented to pay the ransom
demanded by the Dumpling--and the money, as well as the safety of his
kidnappers, was secured--Mr. Carleton would in all probability be set
at liberty, and could then return, as I had said. Into the question
whether he would or would not consent thus to be bled of a large sum
of money, I had no intention of entering. The business before me was
to break the bad news as gently and as gradually as possible; and in
breaking bad news it does not always do to blurt out the undiluted
truth.
"Thank you," she said stiffly. "I wonder, in that case, that my father
did not communicate with me himself. Am I to understand that you are
his messenger? And am I to content myself with the bare knowledge, and
only on your assurance, that my father is detained on business, and
may or may not return to-night?"
"That's as you choose, Miss Carleton," I made answer, somewhat
foolishly.
"You have the advantage of me, sir," she replied icily, "for, to the
best of my belief, you and I have never met before. Is that not so?"
It is a woman's prerogative to forget or to remember, as her instinct
or her inclinations dictates, and, in view of the somewhat unusual and
unconventional circumstances of our first meeting, I was by no means
sure that I did not like and admire her the more, rather than the
less, for the way in which she had met the situation. Unhesitatingly I
fathered the lie, and with similar hardihood.
"That is so," I replied coldly.
Rightly or wrongly, I fancied that she softened slightly, so feeling
that I should do myself more justice if I told my story while her
manner was less freezing, I came to the point at once.
"May I tell you what I know, and how I came to know, of the business
which has detained your father?" I inquired. "I shall not keep you many
minutes."
"I shall be curious to hear it," she answered, speaking more
graciously than hitherto, and, seating herself in a dark corner where I
could not see her face, she prepared to listen.
I told the thing well, better--though, of course, much more
briefly--than I have told it in these pages, for the excitement with
which she listened, suppressed and controlled though it was, seemed to
communicate itself to me. The only moment when she bristled, if I may
use so inapplicable a word about so lovely a woman, was at the start.
"All that I have to tell has happened within the last twenty-four
hours," I began, "for only yesterday I was taking a country holiday,
and, I fear, kicking up my heels like a mischievous colt who has broken
out of bounds, and is sadly in need of a sound whipping to teach him
to behave himself. But," I made haste to get on, for the air around
me seemed suddenly to turn chilly, "since then, short time ago as it
is, I have had a 'breaking in,' and been made to answer to lash and
spur, and to look death in the face, and to fight for my life, in so
extraordinary a way, that my only fear is you'll not believe my story
when you hear it."
Then I told of my recall to town, of my commission to visit the opium
den, and of the subsequent happenings up to the moment when I had
stepped out of the cab and into her house. As I brought my recital to a
close, the door opened, and a lumpy-figured, masculine-looking woman,
hard-faced, large-featured, entered the room. Her skin was rough,
red and grained like brick-dust, and on either cheek was a patch of
darker red--almost of purple--which might have been put on by means of
a stencil plate, so hard, so abrupt, and so definite were the lines
where it began or ended. An incipient moustache and a deep voice seemed
to enter a protest, less against the petticoats she was wearing than
against her small and well-formed hands and feet.
"Clara!" she exclaimed menacingly, "who is this?"
Knowing that Miss Carleton's name was Kate, I was somewhat astonished
to hear her thus addressed, for it was not until later that I learned
the facts. The elder lady, who was Miss Carleton's only aunt, had
felt not a little aggrieved that her niece had not been called after
herself. So, by way of entering a protest against the omission of
the compliment which she felt ought to have been paid to her, and
notwithstanding Mr. Carleton's annoyance, and the fact that everybody
else called the girl Kate, the elder lady insisted upon addressing her
niece as Clara, as though the girl were actually her namesake.
"Clara!" she repeated. "Who is this?"
The rising remonstrant inflexion which she placed upon her niece's
name, and the way in which she said "Who is this?" her deep voice
booming like a three-peal bell, sounding first a high, then a low, and
then a deep bass growling note, took me so by surprise that I stared at
her open-mouthed.
"This gentleman has brought me news of my father, aunt," replied Kate
tremulously. "He's afraid, I'm afraid, that father has been made a
prisoner by blackmailers, and that he won't be released until money has
been paid for ransom."
"How absurd!" said the other lady, and in spite of the seriousness of
the situation, it was as much as I could do to refrain from laughing,
so irresistibly, so ludicrously, did her voice remind me of Mr. Penley
in _Charley's Aunt_.
Then, like a bell which pauses for a moment between its chimes, she
boomed again, "How very absurd!"
Miss Carleton turned appealingly to me. "Will you please tell my aunt
what you have just told me?" she said.
Haltingly and half-heartedly I repeated my story, the elder lady
pursing up her fleshy lips, rolling her eyes, and indulging in
long-drawn sniffs, so plainly indicating an incredulity which was lost
in admiration and wonder at its own magnificent power of control, that
I bungled the thing sadly, and was not surprised when, at the end of
the narrative, she rose majestically from her chair, and rang a rich
peal of warning and command.
"Clara, leave the room. I will join you, shortly."
She spoke as before, on one note, until she came to the last few words,
when her voice suddenly dropped an entire octave, and then sank in
rumbling silence, by falling, first one, and then another, note. This,
I found, was her invariable way of speaking. In effect, it reminded me
of a person walking with even step along a corridor, until he reaches
a flight of stairs, down eight of which he suddenly falls, at one
flight, recovering himself sufficiently, at the ninth, to rise and
stalk majestically down the last two or three.
If, in the course of my story, I do not again allude to this
peculiarity, it will not be because she ever lost the mannerism
in question, but because, the mannerism having already been fully
described, a repeated description of it in detail would, I fear, soon
become wearisome. It is so much easier, so much cheaper, if I may use
the word, to caricature a mannerism than to indicate character--to
describe a personal eccentricity than to indicate a type--that I am not
a little shamefaced at having written at such length regarding this
peculiarity of one of my characters. So marked a feature could not,
however, be passed over in silence, for I do not recall one solitary
occasion when she failed to drop her voice in the way I have described
when coming to the end of what she had to say.
Miss Carleton gone, her aunt, regarding me majestically, rang the bell.
When the man-servant appeared, she pointed at me.
"I wish to confer with my niece, Metcalfe. Meanwhile, that person must
not leave the house or this room. If he attempts to do so, call up the
other men-servants, and secure him."
With a warning glance at Metcalfe, and a glare at me, the good lady
left the room.
She was away about twenty minutes. On returning she dismissed the
servant, and seating herself, wheeled round in her chair, to turn all
her batteries upon my unhappy self. Her voice was, I fancied, a shade
less stately, a shade sharper, a shade brisker, and more business-like:
"What's your little game?"