I
Angelica was very nervous about having dinner with Mr. Eddie. He was
obviously fastidious and hard to please, and she hadn’t the vaguest idea
what his standards might be. She did what she could with her appearance;
she washed her hands and face and brushed her hair, and then, having no
watch or clock to advise her, went down-stairs.
She hadn’t been in the dining-room before, and she stopped, profoundly
impressed, in the doorway. It was so exactly the dining-room she had
expected--the grand, stately dining-room of the cinema drama, with
paneled walls and sideboard loaded with plate, the opulently set table,
the high-backed chairs, the flowers all about, the very air of dignity
and richness.
There was the essential butler, too. She felt sure that the man bending
over the sideboard was a butler; busy, no doubt, with work about which
she was quite ignorant. She drew near to ask him the time, and was
surprised to see him stuffing cigars into his pocket from three or four
boxes that lay in a drawer. She didn’t know whether this was proper,
whether it was part of a butler’s proper functions; but when she saw the
man’s face, and observed his stealthy and hurried manner, she grew
certain that he was stealing. One of those society thieves of whom she
had read!
He was in evening dress, and he had some sort of perfume about him. He
was a slender little man with neat, snow-white hair and a dapper white
mustache. His face was bland, with a long upper lip that gave it a
humorous look, and intelligent blue eyes.
He turned suddenly and saw her.
"Well!" he cried. "Upon my word! And who are _you_?"
"That’s my business," said Angelica.
This was her idea of a non-committal answer. She could not decide
whether he was a servant, a member of the family, or merely an outside
thief who had dropped in, and she was anxious to make no avoidable
mistakes.
"Of course it is!" he replied, cheerfully. "No doubt I’ll learn in the
course of time. But perhaps you’ll enlighten me as to your status?"
She didn’t understand him, and she scowled.
"Perhaps you’ll tell me what you’re doing here?" he inquired.
"Well, what are _you_ doing here?" she returned.
"Waiting," he answered imperturbably. "Waiting for dinner and Mr.
Eddie."
"Oh, him! Well, he’s in. I saw him up-stairs."
"But do, for pity’s sake, tell me who you are! We don’t take pretty
girls wandering about this house as a matter of course. You’re quite a
startling vision, you know."
She didn’t like his airy gallantry; but she was sure now that he wasn’t
an outside thief or a servant, and that he must therefore be a member of
the family, entitled to answers for questions.
"I’m _her_ companion," she said.
"Aha! And what is your name, if you please?"
"It’s Kennedy."
"Oh! Scotch, are you? You don’t look Scotch. You look like a French
girl, I should say--one of these dark, passionate creatures...."
"All right!" she interrupted, scowling more heavily. "That’ll do about
me. What’s the time?"
He pulled out his watch.
"Six-thirty. Do you dine with us, Miss Kennedy? I hope so. I feel----”
Just then Eddie came in, also in a dinner-jacket and incredibly
neat--the very model of a correct young man. He bowed ceremoniously, if
somewhat severely, to Angelica.
"Good evening, doctor!" he said to the white-haired man.
He touched an electric bell with his foot. The parlour maid came
hastening in.
"I said half-past six!" said Mr. Eddie.
"Yes, sir, I know; but cook----”
"No excuses! You can certainly get some sort of dinner ready for me when
I ask for it. Now hurry up! Never mind about what’s ready and what
isn’t; just bring me _something_ at once."
He pulled out a chair for Angelica, and they all sat down in silence.
"Good Lord!" said Eddie suddenly. "What a life! I’m tired as a dog, and
I’ve got to work all evening."
"Too bad!" said the doctor. "Anything I could do, my boy?"
"No, thanks."
There was silence again. The soup had come in, and Mr. Eddie gave it his
undivided attention. He ate with amazing rapidity, one course after the
other, and he expected to be served without an instant’s delay. Neither
the doctor nor Angelica had ever finished when he had, and their plates
were always whisked away with choice and coveted morsels on them. There
was no sort of conversation--nothing more than Mr. Eddie muttering, with
his mouth full, "All right, Annie!" and having one plate replaced by
another.
But this was as Angelica liked it. She didn’t wish to talk or to be
talked to; she wanted to sit at that table, with two men in evening
dress, to contemplate the silver and china and linen, and to reflect
with amazed delight upon her situation. A dream fulfilled!
Cautiously she surveyed her two companions--Mr. Eddie, looking rather
harassed, and as oblivious of her as if she were invisible to him, and
the dapper little white-haired man, whose eye often met hers with a
glance stealthy and curious. She decided that he must be Polly’s
physician, and a man who must be given no leeway. She had seen his kind,
standing outside stage entrances, with walking-stick and boutonnière and
a smirk, or on corners where working girls passed on their way home.
Instantly he had finished, Mr. Eddie got up and went over to the
sideboard, from the drawer of which he took the three rifled boxes. He
didn’t seem to notice that they had been tampered with, but passed two
to the doctor.
"Help yourself," he said. "I got these from a chap who imports them for
private consumption. Put a couple in your pocket. They’re good."
The doctor helped himself modestly from both boxes, and sniffed at them.
"Ah!" he said. "I can tell! My boy, you can afford to indulge yourself;
you’re one of the lucky ones."
"Yes," said Eddie. "Nothing but luck, of course!"
"I didn’t mean to disparage you," cried the doctor. "No one appreciates
what you’ve done, and how hard you’ve worked, better than I. Just a
little joke, Eddie!" He pushed back his chair and rose. "I’ll have to
run out and fetch your mother home from the club," he said. "_Au
revoir!_"
Mr. Eddie followed him so quickly that before she knew it Angelica found
herself left alone at the table. She, too, hastened out of the room and
up-stairs, and in a sort of panic knocked at Polly’s door.
"Who is it?" inquired Polly’s voice, languidly.
"Angelica!" she answered, forgetting, and hastily added: "Kennedy."
"I don’t need anything this evening, thank you. Good night!"
She turned away, completely at a loss. It was only half-past seven,
hours before bedtime. What was she to do?
She went into her room. It was as charming and comfortable as she had
remembered it, but it offered no prospect of amusement. She didn’t know
whether she ought to go into the library or any of the rooms
down-stairs. She wanted to, but she had a dread of being spoken to by a
servant.
"Well, I’ll take a walk, then," she said. "No one can say a word against
that!"
She put on her jacket and her rakish big black hat, and went sauntering
down the hall. She had to pass the open door of a room, and in it she
saw Mr. Eddie, writing. He saw her, too.
"Hello!" he cried. "Where are you going?"
"Out for a walk."
"Better not. It’s dark and lonely around here."
Angelica had paused.
"I’ve got to do something," she said.
"Sit down and read," he said, rather impatiently.
"I don’t like to read."
"Nonsense! Here, come in! Sit down! I’ll give you something you’ll
like."
But she hesitated. His bedroom! Surely he didn’t expect her to go in
there?
He did, though.
"Come in! Come in!" he cried, and she obeyed.
She couldn’t really believe that there was anything evil or dangerous
about this worried young man sitting before a desk covered with papers.
He tapped the back of a big armchair.
"Better take off your hat," he said. "It keeps off all the light."
She turned over the pages of the book he gave her, pleased to see that
it had a great many pictures, and began dutifully to read. In spite of
herself she became interested.
It was the third volume of a series, "Magnificent Women of the Past,"
and it contained sketches of the lives of the Empress Josephine, Mme. du
Barry, Mme. de Montespan, Mary Stuart, Lady Hamilton, and many others.
It was sensational, impossible stuff; but Angelica was neither a
well-informed nor a discriminating reader. She was enthralled by this
description of courts, of gallantry, of balls, fêtes, and levées, of
kings, emperors, and princes; above all, by the radiant women who ruled
over this amazing world.
She went on, page after page, stopping only to study the portraits of
the dazzling beauties. She had never imagined anything like this. Of
course, she had studied what was called history in the public school,
but that was entirely concerned with battles and treaties; not a word of
woman, except, very rarely, an entirely respectable heroine. She had
thought of kings and queens as rather dull and solemn persons, also
concerned with battles and treaties. She had never conceived of such a
passionate and colourful and exciting life as was revealed in this book.
It was a life unfortunately impossible in this actual world.
She came to the end of the life of Mme. de Montespan as imagined by the
author, and closed the book, the better to reflect upon it. She sighed;
she was disturbed by dim longings for an existence of this sort. She was
full of dissatisfaction and preposterous ambitions. She was so immersed
in the scenes of court life and in the pictures her imagination created
that it was almost a shock to see Mr. Eddie sitting there in front of
her, still working.
She stared at him thoughtfully. A nice-looking boy--perhaps something
more than that. His face was boyish, but in no way weak; the features
were all good, fine, firm, regular. She fancied--still dreaming of what
she had been reading--that he looked like a young prince, that there was
something in his brow, in his presence, that was noble.
Her glance wandered round his room. It was austere, handsome,
immaculately neat. She liked it; it was manly.
Her roving attention had distracted Mr. Eddie. He looked up, frowned,
and leaned back in his chair.
"Well?" he asked.
"It’s a nice book. I like it."
"That’s right. I’m very glad. Take it with you and finish it. It’ll do
you good."
"How can it?"
He ran his fingers through his hair and surveyed her thoughtfully.
"In the first place," he said, "it’s a very good thing to read history.
I read a great deal of it--lives of famous men, and so on. In the second
place, it’ll give you some idea of what a woman can do."
"Yes, I know; only they’re all bad women," said Angelica, with
simplicity.
Eddie flushed.
"Yes, but--everything was different in those days. They didn’t have our
opportunities. Anyway, in some of the other volumes there are plenty of
women who weren’t bad--Romans, and so on. What I meant is that it shows
you what an influence a woman can have if she tries."
"I guess they didn’t have to try."
"Of course they did. They wanted to be powerful. They wanted to be
magnificent. There aren’t any women like that now--no more magnificent
women."
He fell silent, to think for a time of his mother, of Polly, of the
clerks in his office, of girls he had danced with, of girls on the
stage, of all his limited feminine acquaintance. Not a vestige of
magnificence!