AN INTERLUDE IN PICCADILLY
Alban had been fifteen days out of England when Anna Gessner met Willy
Forrest one afternoon as she was driving a pair of chestnut ponies down
Piccadilly towards the Circus. He, amiable creature, had just left a
club and a bridge table which had been worth fifteen pounds to him. The
gray frock suit he wore suited him admirably. He certainly looked very
smart and wide-awake.
"Anna, by Jupiter," he cried, as he stepped from the pavement at the
very corner of Dover Street--"well, if my luck don't beat cock-fighting.
Where are you off to, Anna--what have you done with the shoving-machine?
I thought you never aired the gee-gees now. Something new for you, isn't
it? May I get in and have a pawt? We shall be fined forty bob and costs
at Marlborough Street if we hold up the traffic. Say, you look ripping
in this char a bancs, upon my soul you're killing."
She had not meant to stop for him, and half against her wish she now
reined the ponies in and made room for him. There never had been a day
in her life since she had known him when she was able to resist
altogether the blandishments of this pleasant rogue, who made so many
appeals to her interest. To-day sheer curiosity conquered her. She
wished above all things to hear what he had done with the extravagant
cheque her father had sent him.
"I drove the ponies for a change," she said coldly, "we must not be
unkind to dumb creatures. Do you know, it is most improper that you
should be seen with me in this carriage, Willy. Just think what my
father would say if he heard of it."
Willy Forest, to give him his due, rarely devoted much time to
unpleasant thoughts.
"What's the good of dragging your father in, Anna?" he asked her sagely.
"I want to have a talk to you and you want to have a talk to me. Where
shall we go, now? We can't blow the loud trumpet at a tea-shop and a
hotel is inquisitive. Why not come round to my rooms? There's an old
charwoman there who will do very well when rumors arise--and she'll make
us a cup of tea. Why not come, Anna?"
"It's out of the question, Willy. You know that it is. Besides, I am
never going to speak to you again."
"Oh, that's all right--that's what you used to say when you came over to
the cottage. We're getting too old for that kind of nonsense, you and I,
Anna. Suppose I tell your man to wait for us in Berkeley Square. I'll
say that we are going into the Arcade to look at the motor-cars--and
they won't let you keep a carriage waiting in Bond Street now. I can
tell you what I've heard about your friend Alban Kennedy while you're
cutting me the bread and butter."
Her attention was arrested in an instant.
"What can you know about Mr. Kennedy?" she asked quickly, while her face
betrayed her interest.
"Oh, I know a lot more than most. I've struck more than one friend of
his these later days, and a fine time he seems having with the girls out
yonder. Come over to my rooms and I'll tell you about it. I'm just
fitting up a bit of a place in the Albany since your good father began
to encourage virtue. I say, Anna,--he should never have sent me that
cheque, you know he shouldn't."
It was a masterpiece of impudence, but it won upon her favor none the
less. She had made up her mind a week ago that Willy Forrest was a
rogue, a thief, and a charlatan. Yet here she was--for such is
woman--tolerating his conversation and not unwilling to hear his
explanations. Upon it all came his insinuation that he had news of
Alban. Certainly, she did not know how to refuse him.
"You are sure that there is some one in your rooms--I will leave them
instantly if there is not," she exclaimed, surprised at scruples which
never had troubled her hitherto. Forrest protested by all the gods that
the very doubt was an outrage.
"There's a hag about fit to knock down a policeman," he rejoined, with a
feigned indignation fine to see. "Now be sensible, Anna, and let's get
out. Are we babes and sucklings or what? Don't make a scene about it. I
don't want you to come if you'd rather not."
She turned the ponies round almost at the door of the Albany, which they
had just passed while they talked, and drove up to the door of that
somewhat dismal abode. A word to her groom to be in Berkeley Square in
half-an-hour did not astonish that worthy, who was quite accustomed to
"Miss Hanna's" vagaries. In the corridor before the chambers, Willy laid
stress upon the point about the charwoman and made much of her.
"I'll ring the old girl up and you can cross-question her if you like.
She's a regular beauty. Don't you think that I'd deceive you, Anna. Have
I ever done it in all my miserable life--eh, what?" he said at the door.
"Now walk right in and I'll order tea. It seems like old times to have
you about, upon my word it does."
She followed him into the chambers, her anxiety about the charwoman
absolutely at rest. The rooms themselves were in some little confusion,
but promised to be splendidly furnished presently. Fine suites of
furniture were all huddled together like policemen at a scene of public
rejoicing. The rich curtains, unhung, were neatly folded upon chairs and
sofas--a few sporting prints relieved the cold monotony of tinted
walls--the library boasted Ruff and Wisdom for its chief masterpieces.
Nothing, however, disconcerted Willy Forrest. He had produced that
charwoman before you could count five.
"Make us a cup of tea, Mrs. Smiggs, will you?" he asked her
boisterously. "Here's my cousin come to tell me how to plant the
furniture. We shan't trouble you long--just make love to the kettle and
say we're in a hurry, will you now, there's a good soul."
Mrs. Smiggs took a sidelong glance at the lady, and tossing a proud but
tousled head assented to the proposition in far from becoming terms.
"I'm sure, sir, that I'm always willing to oblige," she said
condescendingly, "if as the young lady wouldn't like me to step out and
get no cakes nor nothing--"
"No, no, no cakes, thank you, Mrs. Smiggs--just a cup of tea as you can
make it and that's all. My cousin's carriage is waiting--she won't be
here ten minutes--eh, what?"
The good woman left them, carrying a retrousse nose at an angle of
suspicion. Willy Forrest drew an arm-chair towards the window of that
which would presently be his dining-room, and having persuaded Anna to
take it, he poised himself elegantly upon the arm of a sofa near by and
at once invited her confidence.
"Say, Anna, now, what's the good of nonsense? Why did you let the old
man send me that cheque?"
She began to pull off her gloves, slowly and with contemplative
deliberation.
"I let him send it because I did not wish to marry you."
"That's just what I thought. You got in a huff about a lot of fool's
talk on the course and turned it round upon me. Just like a woman--eh,
what? As if I could prevent your horse going dotty. That was Farrier's
business, not mine."
"But you let me back the horse."
"Of course I did. He might have won. I was just backing my luck against
yours. Of course I didn't mean you to lose anything. We were just two
good pals together, and what I took out of the ring would have been
yours if you'd asked me. Good Lord, what a mess your father's made of
it! Me with his five thou in my pocket and you calling me a blackguard.
You did call me a blackguard--now didn't you, Anna?"
It was very droll to see him sitting there and for a wonder telling her
something very like the truth. This, however, had been the keystone of a
moderately successful life. He had always told people that he was a
scamp--a kind of admission the world is very fond of. In Anna's case he
found the practice quite useful. It rarely failed to win her over.
"What was I to think?" she exclaimed almost as though her perplexity
distressed her. "The people say that I have cheated them and you win my
money. If I don't pay you, you say that I must marry you. Will you deny
that it is the truth? You won this money from me to compel me to marry
you?"
Captain Willy Forrest slapped his thigh as though she had told him an
excellent joke.
"That's the best thing I've heard for a twelvemonth," cried he; "as if
you were the sort to be caught that way, Anna--by an impostor too, as
your Little Boy Blue told you at Henley. He said I was an impostor,
didn't he? Well, he's about right there--I'm not the son of old Sir
James Forrest--never was, my dear. He was my father's employer, and a
devilish good servant he had. But I've some claims on his memory all the
same--and why shouldn't I call myself Forrest if I want to? Now, Anna,
I'll be as plain with you as a parson at a pigeon match. I do want to
marry you--I've wanted to marry you ever since I knew you--but if you
think I'm such a fool as to go about it in the way you say I've done,
well, then, I'll put right in for the Balmy Stakes and win 'em sure and
certain. Don't you see that the boot's just on the other leg right
along? I win your money because I want you to think I'm a decent sort of
chap when I don't take it. As for the bookies who hissed the horse on
the course--who's to pity them? Didn't they see the old gee in the
paddock--eh, what! Hadn't they as good a chance as any of us to spot
that dotty leg. If I'd a been born with a little white choker round my
swan's-down, I'd have shouted the news from the mulberry tree. But I
wasn't, my dear--I'm just one of the ruck on the lookout to make a
bit--and who'll grease my wheels if I leave my can at home? No, don't
you think it--I wanted to marry you right enough, but that wasn't the
road. What your father's paid me, he's going to have back again and
pretty soon about. Let him give it to the kid who's playing Peep-bo with
the Polish Venus--I shan't take it, no, not if I come down to a
porcelain bath in the Poplar Union--and what's more, you know I won't,
Anna."
His keen eyes searched her face earnestly, much more earnestly than
their wont, as he asked her this pointed question. Anna, upon her part,
knew that he had juggled cleverly with the admitted facts of the case
and yet her interest in his confession waxed stronger every moment. What
an odd fascination this man exercised upon her. She felt drawn toward
him as to some destiny she could not possibly escape. And when he spoke
of Alban, then he had her finally enmeshed.
"What do you know of Mr. Kennedy?" she asked, sitting up very straight
and turning flashing eyes upon him. "He certainly wouldn't write to
you. How do you know what he is doing?"
"A little fat bird in a black coat living down Whitechapel way. Oh, I
don't make any secret of it. I know a man who used to be a parson. He
began to stick needles into himself, and the Bishop said--what ho! They
took off his pinafore and he is now teaching Latin outside Aldgate
Station. He's in with the Polish crowd--I beg your pardon, the gentlemen
refugees from Poland--who are sewing the buttons on our shirts not far
from the Commercial Road. Those people knew more about your friend than
he knows about himself. Ask 'em straight and they'll tell you that he is
in Warsaw and the girl Lois Boriskoff with him. Whether they've begun to
keep house, I don't pretend to say. But it's as true as the east wind
and that's gospel. You ask your father to make his own inquiries. I
don't want to take it on myself. If he can tell you that Master Alban
Kennedy is not something like the husband of the Polish lady Lois
Boriskoff, then I'll give a penny to a hospital. Now go and ask him,
Anna--don't you wait a minute, you go and ask him."
"Not until I've had that cup of tea, Willy."
She turned round as the charwoman entered and so hid her face from him.
Light laughter cloaked at once the deep affront her pride had received,
and the personal sense of shame his words had left. Not for a moment did
she question the truth of his story or seek to prove it. As women all
the world over, she accepted instantly the hint at a man's faithlessness
and determined that it must be true. And this was to say that her
passion for Alban Kennedy had never been anything but a phase of
girlish romance acceptable for the moment and to be made permanent only
by persistence. The Eastern blood, flowing warm in her veins, would
never have left her long satisfied with the precise and strenuous
Englishman and the restraint his nationality put upon him. She hungered
for the warm passionate caress which the East had taught her to desire.
She was drawn insensibly toward the man who had awakened this instinct
within her and ministered to it whenever he approached her.
They drank their tea in silence, each perhaps afraid to admit the hazard
of their task. When the moment came, she had recovered her self-control
sufficiently to refer again to the question of the cheque and to do so
adroitly.
"Are you going to return that money to my father, Willy?"
"That's just as you like. When you come here for good, we could send it
back together."
"What makes you think that I will come here for good, Willy?"
"Because when I kiss you--like this--you tremble, Anna."
He caught her instantly in his arms and covered her face with passionate
kisses. Struggling for a moment in his embrace, she lay there presently
acquiescent as he had known even before his hands touched her. An hour
had passed before Anna quitted the flat--and then she knew beyond any
possibility of question that she was about to become Willy Forrest's
wife.