"Anna!"
Anna kissed her sister and nodded to her aunt. Then she sat
down--uninvited--and looked from one to the other curiously. There was
something about their greeting and the tone of Annabel's exclamation
which puzzled her.
"I wish," she said, "that you would leave off looking at me as though
I were something grisly. I am your very dutiful niece, aunt, and your
most devoted sister, Annabel. I haven't murdered any one, or broken
the law in any way that I know of. Perhaps you will explain the state
of panic into which I seem to have thrown you."
Annabel, who was looking very well, and who was most becomingly
dressed, moved to a seat from which she could command a view of the
road outside. She was the first to recover herself. Her aunt, a faded,
anaemic-looking lady of somewhat too obtrusive gentility, was still
sitting with her hand pressed to her heart.
Annabel looked up and down the empty street, and then turned to her
sister.
"For one thing, Anna," she remarked, "we had not the slightest idea
that you had left, or were leaving Paris. You did not say a word about
it last week, nor have you written. It is quite a descent from the
clouds, isn't it?"
"I will accept that," Anna said, "as accounting for the surprise.
Perhaps you will now explain the alarm."
Miss Pellissier was beginning to recover herself. She too at once
developed an anxious interest in the street outside.
"I am sure, Anna," she said, "I do not see why we should conceal the
truth from you. We are expecting a visit from Sir John Ferringhall at
any moment. He is coming here to tea."
"Well?" Anna remarked calmly.
"Sir John," her aunt repeated, with thin emphasis, "is coming to see
your sister."
Anna drummed impatiently with her fingers against the arm of her
chair.
"Well!" she declared good-humouredly. "I shan't eat him."
Miss Pellissier stiffened visibly.
"This is not a matter altogether for levity, Anna," she said. "Your
sister's future is at stake. I imagine that even you must realize that
this is of some importance."
Anna glanced towards her sister, but the latter avoided her eyes.
"I have always," she admitted calmly, "taken a certain amount of
interest in Annabel's future. I should like to know how it is
concerned with Sir John Ferringhall, and how my presence intervenes."
"Sir John," Miss Pellissier said impressively, "has asked your sister
to be his wife. It is a most wonderful piece of good fortune, as I
suppose you will be prepared to admit. The Ferringhalls are of course
without any pretence at family, but Sir John is a very rich man, and
will be able to give Annabel a very enviable position in the world.
The settlements which he has spoken of, too, are most munificent. No
wonder we are anxious that nothing should happen to make him change
his mind."
"I still----"
Anna stopped short. Suddenly she understood. She grew perhaps a shade
paler, and she glanced out into the street, where her four-wheeler
cab, laden with luggage, was still waiting.
"Sir John of course disapproves of me," she remarked slowly.
"Sir John is a man of the world," her aunt answered coldly. "He
naturally does not wish for connexions which are--I do not wish to
hurt you feelings, Anna, but I must say it--not altogether desirable."
The irrepressible smile curved Anna's lips. She glanced towards her
sister, and curiously enough found in her face some faint reflection
of her own rather sombre mirth. She leaned back in her chair. It was
no use. The smile had become a laugh. She laughed till the tears stood
in her eyes.
"I had a visit from Sir John in my rooms," she said. "Did he tell you,
Annabel?"
"Yes."
"He mentioned the matter to me also," Miss Pellissier remarked
stiffly. "The visit seems to have made a most painful impression upon
him. To tell you the truth, he spoke to me very seriously upon the
subject."
Anna sprang up.
"I will be off," she declared. "My cab with all that luggage would
give the whole show away. Good-bye, aunt."
Miss Pellissier tried ineffectually to conceal her relief.
"I do not like to seem inhospitable, Anna," she said hesitatingly.
"And of course you are my niece just as Annabel is, although I am
sorry to learn that your conduct has been much less discreet than
hers. But at the same time, I must say plainly that I think your
presence here just now would be a great misfortune. I wish very much
that you had written before leaving Paris."
Anna nodded.
"Quite right," she said. "I ought to have done. Good-bye aunt. I'll
come and see you again later on. Annabel, come to the door with me,"
she added a little abruptly. "There is something which I must say to
you."
Annabel rose and followed her sister from the room. A maidservant held
the front door open. Anna sent her away.
"Annabel," she said brusquely. "Listen to me."
"Well?"
"Sir John came to me--that you know--and you can guess what I told
him. No, never mind about thanking me. I want to ask you a plain
question, and you must answer me faithfully. Is all that folly done
with--for ever?"
Annabel shivered ever so slightly.
"Of course it is, Anna. You ought to know that. I am going to make a
fresh start."
"Be very sure that you do," Anna said slowly. "If I thought for a
moment that there was any chance of a relapse, I should stop here and
tell him the truth even now."
Annabel looked at her with terrified eyes.
"Anna," she cried, "you must believe me. I am really in earnest. I
would not have him know--now--for the world."
"Very well," Anna said. "I will believe you. Remember that he's not at
all a bad sort, and to speak frankly, he's your salvation. Try and let
him never regret it. There's plenty to be got out of life in a decent
sort of way. Be a good wife to him. You can if you will."
"I promise," Annabel declared. "He is very kind, Anna, really, and not
half such a prig as he seems."
Anna moved towards the door, but her sister detained her.
"Won't you tell me why you have come to England?" she said. "It was
such a surprise to see you. I thought that you loved Paris and your
work so much."
A momentary bitterness crept into Anna's tone.
"I have made no progress with my work," she said slowly, "and the
money was gone. I had to ask Mr. Courtlaw for his true verdict, and he
gave it me. I have given up painting."
"Anna!"
"It is true, dear. After all there are other things. All that I regret
are the wasted years, and I am not sure that I regret them. Only of
course I must begin something else at once. That is why I came to
London."
"But what are you going to do--where are you going to live?" Annabel
asked. "Have you any money?"
"Lots," Anna answered laconically. "Never mind me. I always fall on my
feet, you know."
"You will let us hear from you--let us know where you are, very soon?"
Annabel called out from the step.
Anna nodded as she briskly crossed the pavement.
"Some day," she answered. "Run in now. There's a hansom coming round
the corner."
* * * * *
Anna sat back in her cab, but found it remain stationary.
"Gracious!" she exclaimed to herself. "I don't know where to go to."
The cabman, knocking with the butt end of his whip upon the window,
reminded her that he was in a similar predicament.
"Drive towards St. Pancras," she directed, promptly. "I will tell you
when to stop."
The cab rumbled off. Anna leaned forward, watching the people in the
streets. It was then for the first time she remembered that she had
said nothing to her sister of the man in the hospital.
_Chapter VIII_
"WHITE'S"
Northwards, away from the inhospitality of West Kensington, rumbled
the ancient four-wheel cab, laden with luggage and drawn by a wheezy
old horse rapidly approaching its last days. Inside was Anna, leaning
a little forward to watch the passers-by, bright-eyed, full to the
brim of the insatiable curiosity of youth--the desire to understand
and appreciate this new world in which she found herself. She was
practically an outcast, she had not even the ghost of a plan as to her
future, and she had something less than five pounds in her pocket. She
watched the people and hummed softly to herself.
Suddenly she thrust her head out of the window.
"Please stop, cabman," she ordered.
The man pulled up. It was not a difficult affair.
"Is this Montague Street, W.C.?" she asked.
The man looked as though he would have liked to deny it, but could
not.
"Stay where you are for a moment," she directed. "I want to find an
address."
The man contented himself with a nod. Anna rummaged about in her
dressing-case, and finally drew out a letter. On the envelope was
written--
Sydney Courtlaw, Esq.,
13, Montague St.
She put her head out of the window.
"Number 13, please, cabman."
"We've come past it, miss," the man answered, with a note of finality
in his gruff voice.
"Then turn round and go back there," she directed.
The man muttered something inaudible, and gathered up the reins. His
horse, which had apparently gone to sleep, preferred to remain where
he was. After a certain amount of manoeuvring, however, he was
induced to crawl around, and in a few minutes came to stop again
before a tall brightly-painted house, which seemed like an oasis of
colour and assertive prosperity in a long dingy row. This was number
13, Montague Street, familiarly spoken of in the neighbourhood as
"White's."
Anna promptly alighted with the letter in her hand. The door was
opened for her by a weary-looking youth in a striped jacket several
sizes too large for him. The rest of his attire was nondescript.
"Does Mr. Courtlaw, Mr. Sydney Courtlaw, live here, please?" Anna
asked him.
"Not home yet, miss," the young man replied. "Generally gets here
about seven."
Anna hesitated, and then held out the letter.
"I think that I will leave this letter for him," she said. "It is from
his brother in Paris. Say that I will call again or let him know my
address in London."
The young man accepted the letter and the message, and seemed about to
close the door when a lady issued from one of the front rooms and
intervened. She wore a black satin dress, a little shiny at the seams,
a purposeless bow of white tulle at the back of her neck, and a huge
chatelaine. She addressed Anna with a beaming smile and a very
creditable mixture of condescension and officiousness. Under the
somewhat trying incandescent light her cheeks pleaded guilty to a
recent use of the powder puff.
"I think that you were inquiring for Mr. Courtlaw," she remarked. "He
is one of our guests--perhaps I should say boarders here, but he
seldom returns before dinner-time. We dine at seven-thirty. Can I give
him any message for you?"
"Thank you," Anna answered. "I have a letter for him from his brother,
which I was just leaving."
"I will see that he gets it immediately on his return," the lady
promised. "You did not wish to see him particularly this evening,
then?"
Anna hesitated.
"Well, no," she answered. "To tell you the truth though, I am quite a
stranger in London, and it occurred to me that Mr. Courtlaw might have
been able to give me an idea where to stop."
The lady in black satin looked at the pile of luggage outside and
hesitated.
"Were you thinking of private apartments, a boarding-house or an
hotel?" she asked.
"I really had not thought about it at all," Anna answered smiling. "I
expected to stay with a relation, but I found that their arrangements
did not allow of it. I have been used to living in apartments in
Paris, but I suppose the system is different here."
The lady in black satin appeared undecided. She looked from Anna, who
was far too nice-looking to be travelling about alone, to that
reassuring pile of luggage, and wrinkled her brows thoughtfully.
"Of course," she said diffidently, "this is a boarding-house, although
we never take in promiscuous travellers. The class of guests we have
are all permanent, and I am obliged to be very careful indeed. But--if
you are a friend of Mr. Courtlaw's--I should like to oblige Mr.
Courtlaw."
"It is very nice of you to think of it," Anna said briskly. "I should
really like to find somewhere to stay, if it was only for a few
nights."
The lady stood away from the door.
"Will you come this way," she said, "into the drawing-room? There is
no one there just now. Most of my people are upstairs dressing for
dinner. The gentlemen are so particular now, and a good thing too, I
say. I was always used to it, and I think it gives quite a tone to an
establishment. Please sit down, Miss--dear me, I haven't asked you
your name yet."
"My name is Pellissier," Anna said, "Anna Pellissier."
"I am Mrs. White," the lady in black satin remarked. "It makes one
feel quite awkward to mention such a thing, but after all I think that
it is best for both parties. Could you give me any references?"
"There is Mr. Courtlaw," Anna said, "and my solicitors, Messrs. Le
Mercier and Stowe of St. Heliers. They are rather a long way off, but
you could write to them. I am sorry that I do not know any one in
London. But after all, Mrs. White, I am not sure that I could afford
to come to you. I am shockingly poor. Please tell me what your terms
are."
"Well," Mrs. White said slowly, "it depends a good deal upon what
rooms you have. Just now my best ones are all taken."
"So much the better," Anna declared cheerfully. "The smallest will do
for me quite well."
Mrs. White looked mysteriously about the room as though to be sure
that no one was listening.
"I should like you to come here," she said. "It's a great deal for a
young lady who's alone in the world, as I suppose you are at present,
to have a respectable home, and I do not think in such a case that
private apartments are at all desirable. We have a very nice set of
young people here too just at present, and you would soon make some
friends. I will take you for thirty-five shillings a week. Please
don't let any one know that."
"I have no idea what it costs to live in London," Anna said, "but I
should like very much to come for a short time if I might."
"Certainly," Mrs. White said. "Two days' notice shall be sufficient on
either side."
"And I may bring my luggage in and send that cabman away?" Anna asked.
"Dear me, what a relief! If I had had any nerves that man would have
trampled upon them long ago."
"Cabmen are so trying," Mrs. White assented. "You need have no further
trouble. The manservant shall bring your trunks in and pay the fare
too, if you like."
Anna drew out her purse at once.
"You are really a good Samaritan," she declared. "I am perfectly
certain that that man meant to be rude to me. He has been bottling it
up all the way from West Kensington."
Mrs. White rang the bell.
"Come upstairs," she said, "and I will show you your room. And would
you mind hurrying a little. You won't want to be late the first
evening, and it's ten minutes past seven now. Gracious, there's the
gong. This way, my dear--and--you'll excuse my mentioning it, but a
quiet blouse and a little chiffon, you know, will be quite sufficient.
It's your first evening, and early impressions do count for so much.
You understand me, I'm sure."
Anna was a little puzzled, but she only laughed.
"Perhaps, as I've only just arrived," she remarked, "I might be
forgiven if I do not change my skirt. I packed so hurriedly that it
will take me a long time to find my things."
"Certainly," Mrs. White assured her. "Certainly. I'll mention it.
You're tired, of course. This is your room. The gong will go at
seven-thirty. Don't be late if you can help it."
* * * * *
Anna was not late, but her heart sank within her when she entered the
drawing-room. It was not a hopeful looking group. Two or three
podgy-looking old men with wives to match, half-a-dozen overdressed
girls, and a couple of underdressed American ones, who still wore the
clothes in which they had been tramping half over London since
breakfast time. A sprinkling of callow youths, and a couple of
pronounced young Jews, who were talking loudly together in some
unintelligible jargon of the City. What had she to do with such as
these? She had hard work to keep a smiling face, as Mrs. White, who
had risen to greet her, proceeded with a formal, and from Anna's point
of view, a wholly unnecessary round of introductions. And then
suddenly--a relief. A young man--almost a boy, slight, dark, and with
his brother's deep grey eyes--came across the room to her.
"You must be the Miss Pellissier of whom David has told me so much,"
he said, shyly. "I am very glad that you have come here. I heard from
David about you only this morning."
"You are marvellously like your brother," Anna said, beaming upon him.
"I have a letter for you, and no end of messages. Where can we sit
down and talk?"
He led her across the room towards a window recess, in which a tall,
fair young man was seated with an evening paper in his hand.
"Let me introduce my friend to you," Courtlaw said. "Arthur, this is
Miss Pellissier--Mr. Brendon. Brendon and I are great chums," he went
on nervously. "We are clerks in the same bank. I don't think that the
rest of the people here like us very well, do they, Arthur, so we're
obliged to be friends."
Anna shook hands with Brendon--a young man also, but older and more
self-possessed than Sydney Courtlaw.
"Sydney is quite right, Miss Pellissier," he said. "He and I don't
seem to get on at all with our fellow-guests, as Mrs. White calls
them. You really ought not to stay here and talk to us. It is a most
inauspicious start for you."
"Dear me," Anna laughed, "how unfortunate! What ought I to do? Should
I be forgiven, do you think, if I were to go and hold that skein of
wool for the old lady in the yellow cap?"
"Don't speak of her irreverently," Brendon said, in an awed whisper.
"Her husband was a county councillor, and she has a niece who comes to
see her in a carriage. I wish she wouldn't look like that at us over
her glasses."
Horace, the manservant, transformed now into the semblance of a
correctly garbed waiter, threw open the door.
"Dinner is served, ma'am," he announced to Mrs. White.
There was no rush. Everything was done in a genteel and ordinary way,
but on the other hand, there was no lingering. Anna found herself next
Sydney Courtlaw, with his friend close at hand. Opposite to her was a
sallow-visaged young man, whose small tie seemed like a smudge of
obtusively shiny black across the front of a high close-drawn collar.
As a rule, Courtlaw told her softly, he talked right and left, and to
everybody throughout the whole of the meal--to-night he was almost
silent, and seemed to devote his whole attention to staring at Anna.
After the first courses however she scarcely noticed him. Her two new
friends did their best to entertain her.
"I can't imagine, Miss Pellissier," Brendon said, leaning towards her,
"whatever made you think of coming to stay if only for a week at a
Montague Street boarding-house. Are you going to write a novel?"
"Not I," she answered gaily. "I came to London unexpectedly, and my
friends could not take me in. I had a vague sort of idea that this was
the region where one finds apartments, so I told my cabman to drive in
this direction while I sat inside his vehicle and endeavoured to form
a plan of campaign. He brought me past this house, and I thought I
would call and leave your brother's letter. Then I saw Mrs. White----"
"No more," Sydney Courtlaw begged, laughingly. "You were booked of
course. An unexpected vacancy, wasn't it? Every one comes in on
unexpected vacancy."
"And they go?"
"When they get the chance. It really isn't so easy to go as it seems.
We have come to the conclusion, Brendon and I, that Mrs. White is
psychologically gifted. She throws a sort of spell over us all. We
struggle against it at first, but in the end we have to submit. She
calls us her guests, but in reality we are her prisoners. We simply
can't get away. There's that old gentleman at the end of the
table--Bullding his name is. He will tell you confidentially that he
simply hates the place. Yet he's been here for six years, and he's as
much a fixture as that sham mahogany sideboard. Everyone will grumble
to you confidentially--Miss Ellicot, she's our swagger young lady, you
know--up there, next to Miss White, she will tell you that it is so
out of the world here, so far away from everyone one knows. Old
Kesterton, choleric-looking individual nearly opposite, will curse the
cooking till he's black in the face, but he never misses a dinner.
The Semitic looking young man opposite, who seems to have been
committing you to memory piecemeal, will tell you that he was never so
bored in all his life as he has been here. Yet he stays. They all
stay!"
"And you yourself?"
Brendon laughed.
"Oh, we are also under the spell," he declared, "but I think that we
are here mainly because it is cheap. It is really cheap, you know. To
appreciate it you should try rooms."
"Is this a fair sample of the dinner?" Anna asked, who had the healthy
appetite of a strong young woman.
"It is, if anything, a little above the average," Brendon admitted.
Anna said nothing. The young man opposite was straining his ears to
listen to their conversation. Mrs. White caught her eye, and smiled
benignly down the table.
"I hope that Mr. Courtlaw is looking after you, Miss Pellissier," she
said.
"Admirably, thank you," Anna answered.
The young lady with frizzled hair, whom Brendon had pointed out to her
as Miss Ellicot, leaned forward from her hostess's side. She had very
frizzy hair indeed, very black eyebrows, a profusion of metallic
adornments about her neck and waist, and an engaging smile.
"We are so interested to hear, Miss Pellissier," she said, "that you
have been living in Paris. We shall expect you to tell us all what to
wear."
Anna smiled very faintly, and shook her head.
"I have come from a very unfashionable quarter," she said, "and I do
not think that I have been inside a milliner's shop for a year.
Besides, it is all reversed now, you know. Paris copies London."
Brendon leaned over confidentially.
"You are in luck, Miss Pellissier," he declared. "Your success here is
absolutely meteoric. Miss Ellicot has spoken to you, the great Mr.
Bullding is going to. For five minutes he has been trying to think of
something to say. I am not sure, but I believe that he has just
thought of something."
"May I be prepared?" Anna asked. "Which is Mr. Bullding?"
"Stout old gentleman four places down on the left. Look out, it's
coming."
Anna raised her eyes, and caught the earnest gaze of an elderly
gentleman with a double chin, a protuberant under lip, and a
snuff-stained coat.
"I was in Paris four years ago," Mr. Building announced solemnly. "It
rained the whole of the time, but we saw all the sights, and the place
never seemed dull."
"It takes a great deal of bad weather to depress the true Parisian,"
Anna admitted.
"A volatile temperament--yes, a volatile temperament," Mr. Bullding
repeated, rather struck with the phrase. "It is a pity that as nations
we are not more friendly."
Anna nodded and turned again to Courtlaw.
"I will not be drawn into a conversation with Mr. Bullding," she
declared. "I believe that he would bore me. Tell me, what are these
bananas and nuts for?"
"Dessert."
Anna laid down her serviette.
"Let us escape," she said. "Couldn't we three go out and have some
coffee somewhere? The thought of that drawing-room paralyses me."
Brendon laughed softly.
"We can," he said, "and we will. But it is only fair to warn you that
it isn't expected. Mrs. White is proud of her drawing-room evenings.
There is a musical programme, and we have the windows open and blinds
up, and a pink lamp shade over the piano lamp--a sort of advertisement
of the place, you know. Strangers look in and long, and neighbours are
moved to envy."
Anna hesitated no longer. She almost sprang to her feet. Conscious of
Mrs. White's surprise as she swung easily down the room, followed by
the two young men, she smiled a careless explanation at her.
"I am dying to renew my acquaintance with London, Mrs. White," she
remarked.
"You are not going out--this evening, I trust," that lady asked, a
trifle dismayed.
Anna did not pause, but she looked over her shoulder with slightly
lifted eyebrows.
"Why not? They tell me that London is impossible till after ten, and I
want my first impressions to be favourable."
"There will be some coffee and music in the drawing-room in a few
minutes," Mrs. White said.
"Thanks, I'm not very fond of coffee," Anna answered, "and I hate
music. Good night."
Mrs. White gasped, and then stiffened. Miss Ellicot, who sang ballads,
and liked Brendon to turn over the pages for her, tossed her head.
Anna passed serenely out.
_Chapter IX_