MR. FITZHOWARD OPENS THE DOOR
They went; and my curse went with them. I would listen to nothing they
had to say; neither he nor she. For while she tried to whisper soft
words into my ears, and quiet me, and make me think the things she
wished that I should think, I knew that, the whole time, at the bottom
of her heart, she was all for him. I threw open the door, and I told
him to go, if he did not wish me to shriek out 'Murder!' in the
street. He did not need a second telling. He was glad, at any price,
to take himself away. His face was like an old man's--his knees shook
as he passed me. I had it in my mind to strike him as he slunk out
into the street. My word for it he'd have shivered if I had! But I
held my hand. Not in such fashion would I strike the man who'd killed
my James. When I did strike it should be once for all. From nothing
living should he ever feel another blow.
When he'd gone I packed her after him. She begged and prayed that I'd
be calm; that I'd hear what she called reason; that I'd do this, that,
and the other thing. But not I! not I! I'd see the back of her; and
that was all I would see. And I saw it. She went out as white as he
had been, with her heart as heavy. It was only her pride kept her from
crying.
I didn't cry. I couldn't. When they had gone, and I was alone with the
children, I felt as if I was going mad; but I couldn't cry. It was
only when I began to understand that the children were afraid of me
that I tried to keep a tight hold of the few senses I had left. I sat
down at the table and tried to think. There were the children, as far
off in the corner as they could get--holding each other by the hand.
They wouldn't come near me--their mother, because they were
frightened; too frightened even for tears.
What was I to do to calm their fear? I couldn't imagine. I wasn't the
same woman I had been. I knew that I was altogether different; that I
had changed in the twinkling of an eye. Still, I didn't want my
children to be afraid of me; not Pollie and Jimmy. I tried to think of
words with which to speak to them. But they wouldn't come. I sat there
like a thing turned stupid, knowing that they were growing more and
more afraid of me.
It was a strange thing which roused me at least a little; it was the
smell of burning. I couldn't think what it was, or where it came from.
Then I remembered. It was the rice which I had put into the oven to
soak. The milk had caught; it wanted stirring. I got up, and I went to
stir it. It was burnt badly; the rice was all stuck to the bottom; the
pudding was spoilt. We should never be able to eat it for dinner.
The thought of dinner made me look at the clock. It was dinner time.
No wonder the pudding was spoilt. It had been in the oven all that
time without being once stirred. What was I to do? There was nothing
cooked. The children must be hungry. Something made me look round.
There they were, standing at the door. They were evidently still
afraid, for they still were hand in hand, half in the room, half out.
I found my voice and words. Yet, somehow, it didn't sound as if it was
me who was speaking.
'If you children are hungry, you'll have to have a piece of bread and
butter or jam. Dinner isn't ready; and the fire's gone down.'
They said nothing, but looked at each other, as if they wondered if it
was I who spoke to them, and what it was I said. I had some difficulty
in keeping myself from being cross. It seemed stupid of them to be
standing there as if they couldn't make out who or what I was. It was
only my thinking that it might make them more afraid that kept me from
starting to scold. I went to the cupboard, and cut some bread and jam,
and sat them down at the table, and set them to make their dinner off
that. It was funny how they seemed to take it all as a matter of
course, and ate their bread and jam as if that was the sort of dinner
they were used to every day. They followed me with their eyes wherever
I went, and never said a word.
It was funny, too, how calm I felt. All the rage had gone clean out of
me. While they ate I made up the fire, and did odd jobs about the
room. Doing something seemed to clear my head. As it got clearer, I
grew quieter. That seemed funny too. Something in me seemed to be
dead. I felt more like a machine than a human being, and moved about,
feeling as if I had been wound up and had to go.
After a while there came a knock at the door. I had just got out a
pile of mending, and was sitting down to do the children's socks.
Jimmy and Pollie were quieter than I had ever known them. I was
conscious of their quietude in a curious, uninterested sort of way.
They were playing at some game in a corner, talking to each other in
whispers. They'd neither of them spoken to me since I'd been left
alone. When I went to see who was at the door, I found it was Mr.
FitzHoward. I showed him into the sitting-room, and sat down to my
mending again without a word. I dare say he thought my manner was
strange, for he took up his favourite position in front of the fire,
and, for a moment or two, was as silent as I was. At last he spoke.
'Well--and how are things?'
'James is dead.'
I had startled him back into silence. I don't know how long it was
before he spoke again. It seemed to me an age.
'Mrs. Merrett! What do you mean?'
'James is dead.'
'Dead! How--how do you know?'
By degrees, in reply to the questions which he put, I told him
all that there was to tell. He stood staring at me, biting his
finger-nails, as if he found it difficult to turn it into sense.
'Then am I to understand that Montagu Babbacombe is--or was--the
Marquis of Twickenham?'
'They say so.'
'But the Twickenham peerage is one of the richest in England?'
'Maybe.'
'Then if he was the Marquis, you, as his wife, are the Marchioness.'
'I dare say.'
'Dare say! But there's no dare say about it. It's a question of fact.
And, by George, that Jimmy of yours, he's a Marquis too.'
'So Miss Desmond says.'
'She does, does she? And Pollie, she's the Lady Pollie. Why, you've
got a room full of titles, and I'm the only common person in it. I'm
not accustomed to having intimate relations with the upper circles, so
you'll have to excuse me if my manners fall short of what they ought
to be. Talk of the romance of the stage. Nothing I ever heard of in
that line comes within shouting distance of this. To think of you
having been a Marchioness all these years and never knowing it! And
such a Marchioness too! None of your pauper peeresses who have to
introduce American young women to the Queen in order to make two ends
meet, but the real, gilt-edged, rolling-in-riches, house-in-Grosvenor
Square kind. Why, I have heard that the income of the Marquis
of Twickenham is over a hundred thousand pounds a year, all
profit--besides plenty of perquisites. That's better than being a Star
of the Halls.'
He was silent; I expect because he was turning things over in his
mind.
'I remember now reading about the Marquis of Twickenham's being rather
a funny lot, and I've a sort of notion that I did hear that no one
knew where he was. So Babbacombe was he! Well, tastes do differ. And
without wanting to know too much about what caused him to turn up,
being a Marquis, I can only say that it would have wanted a lot to
have made me take to the game of Wonderful Sleeping Man instead.
Between a real live Marquis and even a Marvel of the Age there is a
difference.'
Another pause. I seemed to hear him talking to me like a person in a
dream.
'Well, Marchioness--I don't know if that's the proper way in which to
address a lady in your position, but if it isn't you'll have to excuse
me till I do know--you are now one of the greatest ladies in the land,
and I shall have to behave to you as such. As for my lord the Marquis,
I shall have to mind my p's and q's with a vengeance when I'm talking
to him. I suppose he'll give up his taste for hardbake, and won't look
at anything under chocolate creams. Which is a pity--because I happen
to have some hardbake in my pocket at this very moment--My Lord
Marquis!' Spoken to like that, Jimmy wouldn't go. 'Pardon me if I'm
over familiar just this once, but--Jimmy!'
Jimmy went. Mr. FitzHoward was mistaken if he really did think
hardbake wasn't good enough; because Pollie and the boy began to get
rid of what he gave them in a style which I knew meant sticky fingers
and dirty faces.
'There is only one remark, my dear Marchioness--if you'll allow me to
make so bold as to call you so--which I wish to make, and that is that
it's a pretty sure thing that you'll do honour to the high position to
which you have so suddenly been called. You'll look the part just as
well as you will act it, And if there's any woman who's more worthy of
being the great lady than you are, I've yet to come across her. In a
man who's had such a varied experience of the profession as I have
had, that's saying something, as you know.'
'Mr. FitzHoward, you forget one thing.'
'What's that?'
'James is dead.'
'I don't forget it. I remember it all the time. But there are
visitations of Providence, Marchioness, which we must all put up with;
the lowly like me, as well as the great like you.'
'He was killed.'
'Killed! Mrs. Merrett! I mean, Marchioness!'
'Mr. Howarth killed him.'
'I say! My dear lady--if you'll pardon my dropping the title for just
this once--don't you go taking foolish words of mine as if they'd been
meant. As I explained to you yesterday, I've a professional way of
talking and an unprofessional; and when I'm talking professionally,
I'm not, between you and me, to be taken as meaning just exactly what
I say. Now this is an unprofessional moment, in which we're dealing
with the cold, dry truth; so let me take this opportunity to tell you
that what I was saying about Mr. Howarth, in my professional manner,
was just tommy rot, and nothing more. A man in Mr. Howarth's position
is no more likely to kill your husband, or any one else, than he is to
ride on a broomstick to the moon.'
'But he did kill him.'
'Now, my dear, my esteemed Marchioness, what grounds have you for
saying that? What tittle of evidence--outside my balderdash, which,
mind, was balderdash, and nothing else--have you which points that
way?'
'I haven't told you how they say he died.'
'Well, let's hear.'
'They say he died of heart disease.'
'Of what?'
'Of heart disease--on the day after he left home.'
'That he certainly never did. There's some mistake there. His heart
was sound as a bell. He had it examined by three doctors before the
Aquarium people would let him start upon that sleep of his. They were
unanimously of opinion that its condition was perfect. They gave their
certificate to that effect--I have it at home now. And the night he
woke he was overhauled by at least half-a-dozen. Every man Jack of
them said that his heart and lungs were flawless, and that his general
condition was altogether beyond their expectation.'
'Miss Desmond says he has suffered from a weak heart his whole life
long.'
'A mistake altogether. The truth is, your husband was as hard as
nails, and had a constitution like iron. I shouldn't have been mixed
up with him in a game like that if I hadn't known that was the case. I
remember his saying to the doctors that he'd never had a day's illness
in his life, and their replying that they rather fancied it would be a
good long time before he did have.'
'And yet his heart collapsed so that he was dead upon the Monday.'
'It does seem odd. I should like to have a look at that medical
certificate. I suppose there was one.'
'I can't tell.'
'There must have been. Where's he buried?'
'I don't know.'
'Don't know where your own husband's buried?'
'I didn't ask. All I wanted to do was to get them out of the house,
because I knew that his blood was on their hands.'
'Without going so far as that--and if I were you I shouldn't be quite
so, what I may call, virulent--I do think that there are circumstances
about the case which it would be as well to look into. The position,
so far as I understand, is this. Your husband's been away from his
family for--how long?'
'They said fifteen years.'
Fifteen years; we'll say, for reasons of his own. All that time he
never went near them, though he must have known exactly where they
were, and all about them; so that his reasons for keeping away must
have been tolerably strong. Suddenly a friend--who seems to have taken
an uncommon interest in him--sees him, we'll say, engaged in a
remarkable line of business. He's so conscious that your husband, if
he knows who he is, won't see him, that he bribes me to slip him in as
plain John Smith. On the Sunday there's an interview between them, at
which we don't know what took place; and on the Monday he returns to
his family. By the way, did he return to his family.'
'I don't know.'
'If he did, it seems--queer; his arriving at such a sudden resolution
after knowing for fifteen years just where they could be found. He
must have had strong reasons; it's only right that Mr. Howarth should
tell you clearly what those reasons were. On the day of his return, he
dies; of a disease he never had. His health seems to have had a quick
change for the worse directly he got back to the bosom of his family.
However you look at it, it's a queer start all the way along. I should
like to see that medical certificate. I've heard of some funny ones,
but that must have been an oddity worth looking at. I should also like
to have a peep at the man who gave it. Where did your husband die?'
'I never asked.'
'Then I'll tell you what we'll do. You and I will go together, and
we'll pay another call on Mr. Howarth, and we'll put to him, or to
some one else, one or two of those questions which you didn't ask.
This time I rather fancy that the Marchioness of Twickenham won't be
refused the information she requires. And if she is refused, her
humble friend and servant--meaning me--will soon show her how to get
it in one way if not in another. We're in a position to command; and
if Howarth and Co. don't see it, it won't take us long to compel due
and proper recognition. As we'll show them.'
I didn't altogether like the way he spoke. There was too much of the
Marchioness and not enough of James. It was ridiculous to speak to me
as if I was any one, or ever should be. But he meant well. And, after
all, he was a man. And he had known James. And I felt that in the
trouble which might be coming I should want to have a man upon my
side--one, too, who'd stand by me through thick and thin. And that I
believed Mr. FitzHoward would do. If he wouldn't, no one else would;
because, besides my James, he was the only man in the world I knew.
And in spite of the nonsensical way he had of talking he had got some
sense in his head, besides knowing as much of the world and its ways
in his little finger as I did in my whole body. I never knew how silly
I really was till I wanted to be wise.
So I decided that I'd go with him to pay another call, as he put it,
on Mr. Howarth; though I shrank, in a way I can't describe, from
seeing that smooth-voiced, false-tongued man again. But just as I was
going to send Mr. FitzHoward to ask Mrs. Ordish if she'd look after
the children, a hansom cab came rattling along the street, and pulled
up before the house.
'Hollo,' cried FitzHoward in that absurd way of his, 'here's another
member of the Upper Ten. All the British aristocracy are paying calls
in Little Olive Street to-day.'
There came a hammering at the knocker.
'You go and see who it is,' I said. 'And if it's Mr. Howarth----'
'I'll show him in; and, also, I'll show him up.'
But it wasn't Mr. Howarth. I could hear that the voice was different
directly Mr. FitzHoward opened the door. What was taking place I
didn't know. But it was quite two or three minutes before Mr.
FitzHoward returned. Then he threw open the door with a flourish.
'This gentleman wishes to speak to you--though he has not done me the
honour of mentioning his name.'
Some one came into the room.
'I'm the Marquis of Twickenham,' he said.
He was quite young, and not bad-looking, and carried himself as, to my
mind, only a gentleman can. He was very polite, though in quite a
different way to Mr. Howarth. What he said I felt he meant; and I
never had that feeling about the other man. I liked him, in spite of
all my trouble, directly I set eyes on him and heard him speak. Though
the idea of my mixing as an equal with the likes of him did strike me,
even then, as against nature. You can't make a silk purse out of a
sow's ear; and a sow's ear I am, so to speak, and shall be.
When he saw me he stared at me; not as if he wanted to, but as if he
couldn't help it.
'I beg your pardon, but are you the lady Miss Desmond saw this
morning?'
'This morning I did see Miss Desmond.'
'This,' said Mr. FitzHoward, stretching out his arm towards me as if
he was a sign-post, 'is the Marchioness of Twickenham.'
I could have shaken him. The young gentleman looked him up and down,
in that Who-on-earth-are-you kind-of-way which gentlemen do have;
sometimes, I have heard say, without their knowing it.
'Indeed.--And may I ask, sir, who are you?'
'You may. I'm not ashamed of my name, and never shall be. I'm Augustus
FitzHoward. For the last twenty years I have been connected with the
profession, acting in a managerial capacity for some of the greatest
stars who have ever illuminated the theatrical firmament. There, sir,
is my card.'
The young gentleman held it between his finger and thumb as if he was
afraid it would scorch him.
'Ah.' He turned to me. 'Is this gentleman a friend of yours?'
'He's a friend of my husband's.'
I said it pretty briskly--because I didn't mean to have Mr. FitzHoward
sat upon, even though he would talk silly.
'May I speak in front of him?'
'Certainly. I have no secrets from Mr. FitzHoward.
The absurd man must put in his word. He pulled up his shirt collar and
arranged his tie.
'Thank you, Marchioness, for this mark of your confidence; though,
knowing you as I do, I have no hesitation in saying that it's no more
than I expected. I may take this opportunity of informing the
gentleman that I was on the most intimate terms with the late Marquis,
both as regards business and friendship.'
'The late Marquis?'
'The late Marquis is what I said, and the late Marquis is what I
meant. He was known to the public, with whom he had a world-wide
reputation, as that Marvel of the Age--Montagu Babbacombe.'