A SORCERESS.
Max was standing on the other side of the lamp, and Carrie did not see
him. She announced her errand at once in a straightforward and
matter-of-fact manner.
"Dick Barker's been nabbed for stealing a watch. You've got to get him
off."
"What do you mean? I've got to get him off?" cried Dudley, indignantly.
Carrie laughed.
"It's the message I was told to give you; that's all."
"Well, take this message back: that I refuse to have anything to do with
your pickpocket."
Carrie turned to the door.
"All right. I'm to say that to Mrs. Higgs?"
"Stop!" thundered Dudley.
Carrie paused, with her hand on the door.
"Did Mrs. Higgs send you?"
"Yes."
"Then wait a minute."
All the indignation, all the defiance, had gone from his tone. He looked
anxious, haggard.
Carrie sat down like an automaton in the chair nearest to the door.
There was a silence of some minutes' duration when Carrie announced
herself as a messenger from Mrs. Higgs.
Dudley, who had either forgotten the presence of Max or was past caring
how much his friend learned, since he already knew so much, walked up
and down between the fireplace and the bookcase on the opposite wall,
evidently debating what he should do. Carrie never once raised her eyes
from the carpet, but sat like a statue beside the door, apparently as
indifferent as possible as to the message she should take back.
Max had risen from his seat and was standing where he could get a full
view of her over the lamp on the dinner-table between them. Perhaps it
was the yellow paper shade around the light which made the young girl's
face look so ghastly, or the rusty black clothes she wore. A plain
skirt, the same that she had worn when he saw her first, a black stuff
cape of home-made pattern, and a big black straw hat which had evidently
done duty throughout the summer; all were neatly brushed and clean, but
well-worn and lusterless, and they heightened the appearance of deadly
pallor which, struck Max so much.
Her eyes he could not see; her scarlet lips were tightly closed, and her
face seemed to him to wear an air of dogged determination which helped
him to understand how it was that she had escaped the perils of her
unprotected girlhood. Certainly it would have taken a good deal of
courage, impudence or alcoholic excitement to make a man address to this
statuesque and cold-faced creature a flippant word.
She did not see Max, who kept so quiet that it was easy for her to
overlook the presence of a third person in the room. He watched her
intently, taking even more interest in her under these new conditions
than he had done before. Would she retain her cold look and manner when
he made his presence known to her, as he intended presently to do? The
question was full of interest to him.
Presently Dudley stopped short in his walk, right in front of Carrie,
who seemed, however, unconscious of or indifferent to the fact.
"Who are you?" he asked, abruptly.
Carrie looked up and surveyed him as if from a great distance.
"I don't know," she answered, rather quaintly, but evidently unconscious
of the oddity of her own answer. There was a moment's pause, and then
she asked, briskly:
"However, that doesn't matter to you, does it?"
"Well, yes, it does. You come here as a messenger. Now, I want to know
your credentials."
"I don't know what you mean. I live with Mrs. Higgs. She makes me call
her 'Granny.'"
Dudley at once became strongly interested.
"Live with her, do you, and call her Granny? I've never seen you when I
have visited Mrs. Higgs."
"I've seen you, though. I've seen--"
She stopped.
Dudley's hand, the one Max could see from where he stood, moved
convulsively. After another short pause, Carrie raised her head, and
their eyes met. Each evidently saw something oddly interesting in the
face of the other.
"I shall have to make some inquiries about you," said he at last.
"Very well. You can go and make them."
Her tone was matter-of-fact, but neither impudent nor defiant. She did
not seem to care.
"This Dick Barker, who has been nabbed, as you elegantly express it, is
some sweetheart of yours, I suppose? And you have persuaded Mrs. Higgs
to send me this absurd message, asking me to appear for him?"
"No. He's nothing to me. Mrs. Higgs wants him got off, because if he's
convicted he'll tell all he knows, or at least enough to set the police
on."
"And what is that to me?"
Another pause, during which she looked down. Then Carrie raised her eyes
again, and looked at him steadily.
"Oh, well, you know best."
Dudley turned away, muttering something under his breath. But the next
moment he faced her again.
"And you are waiting to take my answer back?"
"Mrs. Higgs said there would be no answer."
"Then what are you waiting for?"
"To see whether there is one or not."
"And you're going straight back with it to your granny, whatever it is?"
asked Dudley, with the same sharp tone of cross-examination.
"No. I am not going back to her. But I shall give the message to some
one who is."
There was another pause, longer than any of the previous ones. Then
Dudley said, shortly:
"You need not wait here any longer. I am going to see her myself."
Carrie had got upon her feet in the automatic manner she had maintained
throughout the interview.
"Going to the wharf, are you?" she said, with the first sign of human
interest she had shown. "Oh, very well."
There was something noticeable in her tone, something which made Max
suspicious and anxious on his friend's account. He came round the table
with rapid steps, touched Dudley's shoulder, and said, in a low voice:
"I'll go with you!"
At the sound of his voice Carrie started violently, and looked up at
Max, staring with eyes full of wonder and something very like delight.
The rigidity with which she had held herself, the automatic manner, the
hard, off-hand tone, all disappeared at once; and it was a new, a
transformed Carrie, the fascinating, wayward, irresistible girl he had
remembered, who gave him a smile and a nod, as she said, in a voice full
of the old charm he remembered:
"You! Is it you?" Then, breathlessly, with a change to anxiety in her
voice: "And are you going, too?"
"Yes. I'm going with my friend," said Max, as he came forward and held
out a hand, into which she put hers very shyly; "from what I remember of
my visit to your place, I think two visitors are better than one."
"I don't know whether granny will think so," said Carrie, still in the
same altered voice.
She was shy, modest, charming. All her femininity had returned, and both
the young men felt the influence of the change.
Dudley, who had instinctively stepped back to make way for his friend,
was watching them both with surprise and uneasiness.
"We must risk Mrs. Higgs's displeasure," said Max, dryly, "unless,
indeed, Dudley," and he turned to his friend, "you will give up this
expedition altogether, as I strongly advise."
But Dudley had made up his mind. He did not want Max to go with him, but
he was resolved to go to the wharf. And his friend's heart failed within
him at the news.
"Don't you think it would be advisable to get a policeman to accompany
you?" he hazarded in a low voice.
But Dudley started violently at the suggestion.
"Policeman!" repeated he in a louder tone than Max had used. "Good
heavens, no!"
Max, looking round, saw that Carrie had overheard; but she betrayed no
emotion at the suggestion, even if she felt any.
Dudley pulled out his watch.
"I have an appointment for this evening," said he; "I must get out of
it. Max, if you persist in going with me to the wharf, you're a fool.
When your friends are doing well, you should stick to them; when they
have got into a mess, you should have appointments elsewhere." Although
he spoke cynically, there was underneath his scoffing tone a strain of
tenderness. He turned quickly to the girl at this point, as if afraid of
betraying more feeling than he had intended to do. "You've delivered
your message," said he, sharply, "now you can go."
But Carrie lingered. Looking shyly at Max, she said in a low voice:
"Have you made up your mind that you will go with him?"
"Yes," said Max.
"All right," nodded Carrie. "Then I'll go, too."
Dudley looked down at the girl with an impatient frown on his face.
"Supposing we don't want you?" said he, dryly.
"You will," she answered briefly, without even looking at him.
Dudley considered for a moment, and then said shortly:
"All right. We may as well keep an eye on you."
Carrie laughed, and then remained silent. As for Max, he was struck with
an odd likeness between the girl's dry, short manner of speaking to
Dudley and Dudley's manner of speaking to her.
At that moment there was an interruption in the shape of the waiter from
a neighboring restaurant, who came in with the dinner Dudley had ordered
for himself.
"I shan't want it now," said Dudley, as the man put down the covered
dishes on the table.
"Why, surely you're not in such a hurry that you haven't time to dine?"
said Max.
Dudley made an impatient gesture.
"I can get a biscuit somewhere, if I want it. I can't eat just now."
"Let me eat your dinner for you, then," said Max. "I've had none. And if
I'm to go rambling all over the town to look after you, I shall want
something to keep me going."
"All right," said Dudley. "I'm to come back here for you, then?"
And he took up his overcoat. Max began to help him on with it.
"Come in here a moment," said Dudley, in the same dry, abrupt manner as
before; "I want to speak to you."
Max followed him into the ante-room, and Dudley shut the sitting-room
door.
"That girl," said he, with, a frown--"where did you pick her up? At the
wharf?"
"I met her there. She was walking about outside, afraid to go in. The
old woman had left her there alone, with a--a--dead body in the place."
At these words a change came over Dudley's face.
"You had better have left her alone," said he, sharply. "I wonder you
hadn't more sense than to take up with a girl like that."
Max fired up indignantly.
"Like what? There's nothing wrong with the girl--nothing whatever.
Surely her behavior to-night showed you that."
"Her behavior!" said Dudley, mockingly. "Do you mean her behavior to me,
or to you?"
"Both. It was that of a modest, straightforward girl."
"Very straightforward--to me. Very modest to you. But I would not waste
too much time over her virtues if I were you."
"I don't want to waste any," replied Max, shortly. "I don't see how we
can shake her off, since she has offered to go back to the wharf with
us. But I shall only be alone with her for the few minutes you leave us
here. Or, better still, I'll go with you, and wait while you see your
friend."
"What friend?"
"I thought you said you had an appointment with some one, and were going
to put him off."
"Oh, yes. Well, let us go to him now."
And Dudley softly opened the outer door.
Max perceived that what he proposed was to give Carrie the slip. He drew
back a step.
"We can't go without telling her, at least _I_ can't. The girl's
quite right. It would be safer for her to go with us. For it's an awful
place, not fit to trust oneself in."
"And you think it would be the safer for the presence with us of one of
the gang?"
"She is not one of the gang!" cried Max, involuntarily raising his
voice. "I'd stake my life on there being no harm in her!"
The door of the sitting-room was opened behind them, and Carrie came
out.
"I couldn't help hearing what you said," she said, quietly. "But you
needn't quarrel about me. One of you says there's no harm in me; the
other says there is. I dare say you're both right. If you don't want me
to go to the wharf with you, Mr. Horne, why, I won't go, of course. Good
evening."
She wanted to go out, but Dudley stood in the way, preventing her.
"You're quite wrong, I assure you," said he, quickly. "There has been a
little discussion about it, certainly; but I think you and my friend are
quite right, and it would be much better if you would go with us--much
better. Pray don't be annoyed at anything I've said. Remember, I have
never seen you before, while my friend, who knows you better, naturally
appreciates you more."
Carrie maintained an attitude of cold stolidity while Dudley spoke.
"Am I to go with you now, then?" she asked, coldly, when he had finished
speaking.
"Well, no, I think not. It will only take me ten minutes to go down into
the Strand and put off the fellow I was going to the theatre with. I'll
come back here, and we'll all go on together."
Carrie looked at him steadfastly while he spoke, and he returned her
gaze. For a few moments there was silence, and then it was broken by an
exclamation from Max. He was staring first at one and then at the other
with a face full of perplexity.
"Do you know," cried he at last, "that when you both look like that, and
I turn from one to the other, it is as if I were looking all the time
_at the same face_?"
Both Dudley and Carrie looked startled as they withdrew their eyes from
each other's face. Then each sought the eyes of the other again as if it
were furtively. Dudley seemed, of the two, the more impressed by his
friend's words. He laughed with some constraint.
"Fanciful, very fanciful," said he, mockingly. "What likeness can there
be between a girl with a white face, fair hair and blue eyes," and he
gave a glance at Carrie which had in it something of fear, "and a man of
my type?"
Max looked at him, and then said slowly:
"It's not in the features, I know; it's not in the coloring; but it is
there, for all that."
"The young lady will not feel flattered," said Dudley, ironically. "I
will leave you to make your peace with her, and when I come back, in ten
minutes, I expect to find you both ready to start."
He had his hand on the door, when some thought seemed to strike him, and
he hesitated and turned to put his hand on the shoulder of Max. Then he
swung the young man round in such a way that his own back was turned to
Carrie. Looking steadily and with a certain look of affectionate regard
into his friend's face, he formed with his lips and eyes a final warning
against the girl. Then, with a nod, he went out, closing the door behind
him.