MRS. DUMARESQ IN AN UNDIPLOMATIC CIRCLE.
When Prudence found herself in the street, she looked in a bewildered
fashion from right to left, not knowing which way to turn. The
good-natured young constable pointed out the direction of the workhouse,
telling her it was quite near, and thither she bent her steps. Knowing
nothing of the intricacies of the neighbourhood, she walked some
considerable way before realising that she was lost, and that her best
plan was to take a cab. Cabs, however, were few about there, and she
discovered one with difficulty. As she drove towards the workhouse she
had leisure to reflect on the bewildering incidents of the morning, and
speculate on the condition of mind and body in which she would probably
find Augusta.
“The poor dear,” she thought, “what she must have gone through! Oh! what
a misfortune to have come across that terrible woman. And she looked so
nice, so clean, so respectable. Thank Heaven, Augusta was not with her
very long.” She went over in her mind her conversation with the
Inspector.
“What a disagreeable man! He seemed quite to doubt my word that Augusta
was my sister. Perhaps I had better say in future that she is my
half-sister. She does look ridiculously young.”
Suddenly poor Prudence bounded from her seat. She had but just
remembered something the Inspector had said—something scarcely noticed
at the time amidst so many conflicting anxieties and emotions.
“We are trying to trace their parents, as several names and addresses
were found in the possession of Brown, and you would probably in any
case have been subpœnæd to give evidence at the trial.”
“Great Heaven!” she thought, “so there is to be a trial.”
The full meaning of the words burst suddenly upon her. It should all
come out—the whole story. She saw herself in court, heckled, badgered,
cross-examined, made perhaps to contradict herself at every turn,
surveyed critically by the boarders at Beaconsfield Gardens, who, of
course, would flock to hear the case. She would be flouted, disbelieved
if she told the truth, tripped up and convicted of falsehood if she
lied, accused no doubt of perjury, perhaps of murder, ordered to the
cells to undergo terrible and unknown penalties, while Augusta—the only
person who could prove her innocence and good faith—Augusta was a
helpless, speechless infant, unable to testify in her favour. Of law, of
legal procedure, of what a judge could or could not do, Prudence was
profoundly ignorant. All that was plain to her was, that she could not
produce her sister in the flesh as known to and recognisable by her
acquaintances, and that no one would credit her if she produced the baby
and said that was Augusta. Even at the best, if no question as to her
sister arose, no suspicion of murder, how bad it looked to have smuggled
a child away, and given it to such a person as Mrs. Brown to cruelly
use. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on the poor woman’s forehead.
No! she would not be mixed up in it; she would not go into court at all;
she would get back her sister and flee far away from London, and Mrs.
Brown, and the medical lady. In agonised haste she pulled the check
string, and bade the cabman drive back at once to the station. She would
tell the Inspector that she declined to give evidence under any
circumstances—surely they could not force her to if she refused—and
bitterly she reproached herself for her unpardonable stupidity in not
having done this at the time.
She tumbled out of the cab, and made her way like one distraught to the
little office where she had seen the Inspector. Alas! he had just gone
out. No one knew where he had gone to or when he would return. Prudence
had therefore to content herself with leaving a verbal message with a
subordinate, to the effect that nothing would induce her to appear
against Mrs. Brown or anyone else, or to enter a court of law under any
circumstances. This done, she returned to her cab with a mind rather
more at ease, and resumed her journey to the workhouse.
Workhouse porters are not usually chosen for their urbanity, and he of
St. Mark’s was no exception to the rule. “It is not visiting day,” he
said to her, “and you ought to know better than come bothering here.” He
was deaf to her appeals to see Augusta. “It can’t be done,” he said.
“You should come on Thursday between three and six. It’s no use your
making a disturbance.” As she still persisted, he lost his temper, and
told her she had better go, or he would have her turned out.
The frightened Prudence hurried back to her cab, and, sobbing miserably,
directed the driver to South Kensington. Worn out by the fatigues and
excitements of the day, she arrived at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, in time
for dinner.
She would have given anything not to be obliged to put in an appearance
at that meal, but she did not dare to remain in her room. Her fear of
attracting notice was morbid.
The boarders, for a wonder, were discussing Dickens as Prudence took her
place at table.
“Dickens is an author I have never read,” Mrs. Dumaresq was saying.
“Really!” responded Major Jones. “Why not?”
“My dear mother did not approve of his works when I was a girl,” said
Mrs. Dumaresq, “and, since then, what I have seen of his writings has
not induced me to form a different opinion.”
“But I never heard it said that Dickens had written anything
objectionable.”
“Oh, objectionable! Well, not exactly objectionable in the sense you
mean,” answered Mrs. Dumaresq; “that might not matter so much, but he
deals with people who are not in our set.”
“It says in to-day’s paper that the Princess drove over yesterday to see
the motor cars,” said Mrs. Whitley suddenly to Mrs. Dumaresq.
Now Mrs. Whitley spoke indistinctly, and with a lisp, which no doubt
accounted for Mrs. Dumaresq’s unexpected reply, for that lady said,
“Oh, yes, to be sure; so she did. They are dear old friends of ours.
Such charming people!”
Mrs. Whitley looked astonished. “I’m afraid you don’t quite understand
me,” she said; “I spoke of the motor cars.”
“Oh, ah! Yes, to be sure,” said Mrs. Dumaresq, slightly embarrassed.
“The motor cars—yes, I have seen them.”
There was a long pause, during which the lady regained her
self-possession.
“Have you heard from your sister, Miss Semaphore?” asked Mrs. Dumaresq,
after a time, as she ate her soup.
“Yes, thank you.”
“And how is she?”
“Not so well—at least, better. I mean she is not yet quite well, but is
better than she was.”
What further embarrassing questions the lady might have put Prudence
could only speculate, for, providentially, Mrs. Dumaresq was appealed to
by the medical woman for her opinion on some hotly-contested question of
Government policy. This was being discussed by Major Jones and Mr.
Lorimer, who, it has been said, like most gentlemen that live in
boarding-houses, were staunch Conservatives. A new boarder had just
given utterance to deplorably Radical sentiments.
Mrs. Dumaresq had not heard, and politely requested information as to
the point at issue.
“My husband,” said the wife of the new boarder, “remarked that, in
proportion to their means, the poor are taxed far more heavily than the
rich, and he advocates reversing this. What do you think?”
“Really,” said Mrs. Dumaresq with lofty sweetness, “I have no opinion on
the subject. I know absolutely nothing of politics.”
“Oh! Then you are a Conservative,” said the new boarder’s wife abruptly.
“I have always noticed that when a woman begins by telling me she knows
nothing of politics, it means that she is a Tory.”
Mrs. Dumaresq looked offended. “Well,” she said, after a brief pause,
“my sympathies are naturally with the aristocracy, amongst whom my life
has been passed. In military and diplomatic circles everyone is
Conservative, so if I have any bias, it is in favour of my friends.”
The wife of the new boarder happened, unfortunately, to be an earnest
woman, so she did not let the matter drop.
“But why,” she pursued, “should you, a member of the great English
middle-class, set yourself to uphold a system inimical to the interests
not only of the poor but of your equals.”
The listeners felt the position to be strained. No one had ever pressed
a point on Mrs. Dumaresq before, and all the ladies thought the new
boarder’s wife was audacious and ill-bred. She herself, however, was
quite at her ease, though eager and interested.
Mrs. Dumaresq smiled rather acidly. “I can scarcely claim the privilege
of belonging to what you call ‘the great English middle-class,’” she
said. “My relations have not been in that sphere.”
“But surely,” said the new boarder’s wife, “you do not consider that you
belong to the working class? That would be absurd. You are too modest.
Why, business people on such a very large scale as your relatives might
almost rank with professional men. My husband comes from Northampton,
and I have often heard your brother spoken of as one of the most
well-to-do men in the town. Does he keep on the pawnbroking business
still? There was some talk of his retiring from that after he was
elected Mayor.”
For a moment Mrs. Dumaresq looked as if she had received a blow. She
went white and red in rapid succession, then rallied, and smiled
artificially at the unconscious and unconcerned wife of the new boarder.
“I fancy you misunderstood the drift of my remarks,” she said. “And so
your husband knows Northampton. Busy town, is it not? Yes, my brother
does own—a—a—some business houses there, that were left to him as
portion of the vast estate of—um—a wealthy relative, and, I believe
that, finding them very profitable, he has allowed them to be kept on.
So many people nowadays do not shrink from trade as they used when I was
young. This is a democratic age, is it not?”
“Why, I thought it was your father who founded the business,” said the
new boarder’s wife; but Mrs. Dumaresq had just begun to tell Mrs.
Whitley of a sale of work that she had been to that afternoon, which had
been opened by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York, and she failed to
hear the observation.
There was an uncomfortable silence. The prestige of Mrs. Dumaresq was
rudely shaken. Then everyone began talking together, while the medical
lady meditated questioning the new boarder’s wife later, and finding out
all she had to tell about the family of Mrs. Dumaresq, whose superior
airs had more than once irritated her.