Jennie Baxter reached her hotel as quickly as a fast pair of horses
could take her. She had succeeded; yet a few rebellious tears of
disappointment trickled down her cheeks now that she was alone in the
semi-darkness of the carriage. She thought of the eager young man left
standing disconsolately on the kerb, with her glove dangling in his
hand, and she bitterly regretted that unkind fortune had made it
possible for her to meet him only under false pretences. One consolation
was that he had no clue to her identity, and she was resolved never,
never to see him again; yet, such is the contrariness of human nature,
no sooner was she refreshed by this determination than her tears flowed
more freely than ever.
She knew that she was as capable of enjoying scenes like the function
she had just left as any who were there; as fitted for them by
education, by personal appearance, or by natural gifts of the mind, as
the most welcome of the Duchess’s guests; yet she was barred out from
them as effectually as was the lost Peri at the closed gate. Why had
capricious fate selected two girls of probably equal merit, and made one
a princess, while the other had to work hard night and day for the mere
right to live? Nothing is so ineffectual as the little word “why”; it
asks, but never answers.
With a deep sigh Jennie dried her tears as the carriage pulled up at
the portal of the hotel. The sigh dismissed all frivolities, all futile
“whys”; the girl was now face to face with the realities of life, and
the events she had so recently taken part in would soon blend themselves
into a dream.
Dismissing the carriage, and walking briskly through the hall, she said
to the night porter,--
“Have a hansom at the door for me in fifteen minutes.”
“A hansom, my lady?” gasped the astonished man.
“Yes.” She slipped a sovereign into his hand and ran lightly up the
stairs. The porter was well accustomed to the vagaries of great ladies,
although a hansom at midnight was rather beyond his experience. But if
all womankind tipped so generously, they might order an omnibus, and
welcome; so the hansom was speedily at the door.
Jennie roused the drowsy maid who was sitting up for her.
“Come,” she said, “you must get everything packed at once. Lay out my
ordinary dress and help me off with this.”
“Where is your other glove, my lady?” asked the maid, busily unhooking,
and untying.
“Lost. Don’t trouble about it. When everything is packed, get some
sleep, and leave word to be called in time for the eight o’clock express
for Paris. Here is money to pay the bill and your fare. It is likely I
shall join you at the station; but if I do not, go to our hotel in Paris
and wait for me there. Say nothing of our destination to anyone, and
answer no questions regarding me, should inquiries be made. Are you sure
you understand?”
“Yes, my lady.” A few moments later Jennie was in the cab, driving
through the nearly deserted streets. She dismissed her vehicle at
Charing Cross, walked down the Strand until she got another, then
proceeded direct to the office of the _Daily Bugle_, whose upper windows
formed a row of lights, all the more brilliant because of the intense
darkness below.
She found the shorthand writers waiting for her. The editor met her at
the door of the room reserved for her, and said, with visible anxiety on
his brow, “Well, what success?”
“Complete success,” she answered shortly.
“Good!” he replied emphatically. “Now I propose to read the typewritten
sheets as they come from the machine, correct them for obvious clerical
errors, and send them right away to the compositors. You can, perhaps,
glance over the final proofs, which will be ready almost as soon as you
have finished.”
“Very well. Look closely to the spelling of proper names and verify
titles. There won’t be much time for me to go carefully over the last
proofs.”
“All right. You furnish the material, and I’ll see that it’s used to the
best advantage.”
Jennie entered the room, and there at a desk sat the waiting
stenographer; over his head hung the bulb of an electric light, its
green circular shade throwing the white rays directly down on his open
notebook. The girl was once more in the working world, and its bracing
air acted as a tonic to her overwrought nerves. All longings and regrets
had been put off with the Paris-made gown which the maid at that moment
was carefully packing away. The order of nature seemed reversed; the
butterfly had abandoned its gorgeous wings of gauze, and was habited in
the sombre working garb of the grub. With her hands clasped behind her,
the girl paced up and down the room, pouring forth words, two hundred to
the minute, and sometimes more. Silently one stenographer, tiptoeing in,
replaced another, who as silently departed; and from the adjoining room,
the subdued, nervous, rapid click, click, click of the typewriting
machine invaded, without disturbing, her consciousness. Towards three
o’clock the low drone of the rotaries in the cellar made itself felt
rather than heard; the early edition for the country was being run off.
Time was flying--danced away by nimble feet in the West End, worked away
by nimble fingers in Fleet Street (well-named thoroughfare); play and
work, work and play, each supplementing the other; the acts of the
frivolous recorded by the industrious.
When a little more than three hours’ dictating was finished, the voice
of the girl, now as hoarse as formerly it had been musical, ceased; she
dropped into a chair and rested her tired head on the deserted desk,
closing her wearied eyes. She knew she had spoken between 15,000 and
20,000 words, a number almost equal in quantity to that contained in
many a book which had made an author’s fame and fortune. And all for the
ephemeral reading of a day--of a forenoon, more likely--to be forgotten
when the evening journals came out!
Shortly after the typewriter gave its final click the editor came in.
“I didn’t like to disturb you while you were at work, and so I kept at
my own task, which was no light one, and thus I appreciate the enormous
strain that has rested on you. Your account is magnificent, Miss Baxter;
just what I wanted, and never hoped to get.”
“I am glad you liked it,” said the girl, laughing somewhat dismally at
the croaking sound of her own voice.
“I need not ask you if you were there, for no person but one who was
present, and one who knew how to describe, could have produced such a
vivid account of it all. How did you get in?”
“In where?” murmured Jennie drowsily. She found difficulty in keeping
her mind on what he was saying.
“To the Duchess of Chiselhurst’s ball.”
“Oh, getting in was easy enough; it was the getting out that was the
trouble.”
“Like prison, eh?” suggested the editor. “Now, will you have a little
wine, or something stronger?”
“No, no. All I need is rest.”
“Then let me call a cab; I will see you home, if you will permit me.”
“I am too tired to go home; I shall remain here until morning.”
“Nonsense. You must go home and sleep for a week if you want to. Rouse
up; I believe you are talking in your sleep now.”
“I understand perfectly what you are saying and what I am doing. I have
work that must be attended to at eight. Please leave orders that someone
is to call me at seven and bring a cup of coffee and biscuits, or rolls,
or anything that is to be had at that hour. And please don’t trouble
further. I am very thankful to you, but will express myself better later
on.”
With this the editor had to be content, and was shortly on his way to
his own well-earned rest. To Jennie it seemed but a moment after he had
gone, that the porter placed coffee and rolls on the desk beside her
saying, “Seven o’clock, miss!”
The coffee refreshed the girl, and as she passed through the editorial
rooms she noted their forlorn, dishevelled appearance, which all places
show when seen at an unaccustomed hour, their time of activity and
bustle past. The rooms were littered with torn papers; waste-baskets
overflowing; looking silent, scrappy, and abandoned in the grey morning
light which seemed intrusive, usurping the place of the usual artificial
illumination, and betraying a bareness which the other concealed. Jennie
recognized a relationship between her own up-all-night feeling and the
spirit of the deserted rooms.
At the railway station she found her maid waiting for her, surrounded by
luggage.
“Have you got your ticket?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“I have changed my mind, and will not go to Paris just now. Ask a porter
to put those trunks in the left-luggage office, and bring me the keys
and the receipt.”
When this was done and money matters had been adjusted between them,
Jennie gave the girl five pounds more than was due to her, and saw
her into the railway carriage, well pleased with the reward. A hansom
brought Jennie to her flat, and so ended the exhausting episode of the
Duchess of Chiselhurst’s ball.
Yet an event, like a malady, leaves numerous consequences in its train,
extending, who shall say, how far into the future? The first symptom of
these consequences was a correspondence, and, as there is no reading
more dreary than a series of letters, merely their substance is given
here. When Jennie was herself again, she wrote a long letter to
the Princess von Steinheimer, detailing the particulars of her
impersonation, and begging pardon for what she had done, while giving
her reasons for doing it; but, perhaps because it did not occur to her,
she made not the slightest reference to Lord Donal Stirling. Two answers
came to this--one a registered packet containing the diamonds which the
Princess had previously offered to her; the other a letter from the
Princess’s own hand. The glitter of the diamonds showed Jennie that she
had been speedily forgiven, and the letter corroborated this. In fact,
the Princess upbraided her for not letting her into the secret earlier.
“It is just the jolly kind of thing I should have delighted in,” wrote
her Highness. “And then, if I had known, I should not have sent that
unlucky telegram. It serves you right for not taking me into your
confidence, and I am glad you had a fright. Think of it coming in at
that inopportune moment, just as telegrams do at a play! But, Jennie,
are you sure you told me everything? A letter came from London the day
before yours arrived, and it bewildered me dreadfully at first. Don
Stirling, whom I used to know at Washington (a conceited young fellow he
was then--I hope he has improved since), wrote to say that he had met a
girl at the Duchess of Chiselhurst’s ball who had a letter inviting the
Princess von Steinheimer to the festivity. He thought at first she was
the Princess (which is very complimentary to each of us), but found
later that she wasn’t. Now he wants to know, you know, and thinks, quite
reasonably, that I must have some inkling who that girl was, and he begs
me, by our old friendship, etc., etc., etc. He is a nice young man, if a
trifle confident (these young diplomatists think they hold the reins of
the universe in their hands), and I should like to oblige him, but I
thought first I would hear what you had to say about it. I am to address
him care of the Embassy at St. Petersburg; so I suppose he’s stationed
there now. By the way, how did he get your glove, or is that merely brag
on his part? He says that it is the only clue he has, and he is going to
trace you from that, it seems, if I do not tell him who you are and
send him your address. Now, what am _I_ to say when I write to St.
Petersburg?”
In reply to this, Jennie sent a somewhat incoherent letter, very
different from her usual style of writing. She had not mentioned the
young man in her former communication, she said, because she had been
trying to forget the incident in which he was the central figure. In no
circumstances could she meet him again, and she implored the Princess
not to disclose her identity to him even by a hint. She explained the
glove episode exactly as it happened; she was compelled to sacrifice
the glove to release her hand. He had been very kind in helping her to
escape from a false position, but it would be too humiliating for her
ever to see him or speak with him again.
When this letter reached the Schloss at Meran, the Princess telegraphed
to London, “Send me the other glove,” and Jennie sent it. A few days
later came a further communication from the Princess.
“I have puzzled our young man quite effectually, I think, clever as
he imagines himself to be. I wrote him a semi-indignant letter to St.
Petersburg, and said I thought all along he had not really recognized
me at the ball, in spite of his protestations at first. Then I saw how
easily he was deluded into the belief that I was some other woman, and
so the temptation to cozen him further was irresistible. Am I not a good
actress? I asked him. I went on to say, with some show of anger, that a
quiet flirtation in the gallery was all very well in its way, but when
it came to a young man rushing in a frenzy bare-headed into the street
after a respectable married woman who had just got into her carriage and
was about to drive away, it was too much altogether, and thus he came
into possession of the glove. As the remaining glove was of no use to
me, I had great pleasure in sending it to him, but warned him that if
the story of the gloves ever came to the ears of my husband, I should
deny having either owned or worn them. I should like to see Don’s amazed
look when the other glove drops out of my letter, which was a bulky
package and cost ever so much in postage. I think the sending of the
glove was an inspiration. I fancy his lordship will be now completely
deluded, and that you need have no further fear of his finding you.”
Jennie read this letter over once or twice, and in spite of her friendly
feeling for the Princess, there was something in the epistle that jarred
on her. Nevertheless she wrote and thanked the Princess for what she had
done, and then she tried to forget all about everything pertaining to
the ball. However, she was not allowed to erase all thought of Lord
Donal from her mind, even if she could have accomplished this task
unimpeded. There shortly arrived a brief note from the Princess
enclosing a letter the young diplomatist at St. Petersburg had written.
“DEAR PRINCESS” (it ran),--“I am very much obliged to you for the
companion glove, as I am thus enabled to keep one and use the other as a
clue. I see you not only know who the mysterious young lady is, but that
you have since met her, or at least have been in correspondence with
her. If the glove does not lead me to the hand, I shall pay a visit to
you in the hope that you will atone for your present cruelty by telling
me where to find the owner of both glove and hand.”
With regard to this note the Princess had written, “Don is not such a
fool as I took him to be. He must have improved during the last few
years. I wish you would write and tell me exactly what he said to you
that evening.”
But with this wish Jennie did not comply. She merely again urged the
Princess never to divulge the secret.
For many days Jennie heard nothing more from any of the actors in the
little comedy, and the episode began to take on in her thoughts that air
of unreality which remote events seem to gather round them. She went
on with her daily work to the satisfaction of her employers and the
augmentation of her own banking account, although no experience worthy
of record occurred in her routine for several weeks. But a lull in a
newspaper office is seldom of long duration.
One afternoon Mr. Hardwick came to the desk at which Jennie was at work,
and said to her,--
“Cadbury Taylor called here yesterday, and was very anxious to see you.
Has he been in again this afternoon?”
“You mean the detective? No, I haven’t seen him since that day at the
Schloss Steinheimer. What did he want with me?”
“As far as I was able to understand, he has a very important case
on hand--a sort of romance in high life; and I think he wants your
assistance to unravel it; it seems to be baffling him.”
“It is not very difficult to baffle Mr. Cadbury Taylor,” said the girl,
looking up at her employer with a merry twinkle in her eye.
“Well, he appears to be in a fog now, and he expressed himself to me
as being very much taken with the neat way in which you unravelled the
diamond mystery at Meran, so he thinks you may be of great assistance
to him in his present difficulty, and is willing to pay in cash or in
kind.”
“Cash payment I understand,” said the girl, “but what does he mean by
payment in kind?”
“Oh, he is willing that you should make a sensational article out of the
episode. It deals entirely, he says, with persons in high life--titled
persons--and so it might make an interesting column or two for the
paper.”
“I see--providing, of course, that the tangled skein was unravelled by
the transcendent genius of Mr. Cadbury Taylor,” said the girl cynically.
“I don’t think he wants his name mentioned,” continued the editor; “in
fact, he said that it wouldn’t do to refer to him at all, for if people
discovered that he made public any of the cases intrusted to him, he
would lose his business. He has been working on this problem for several
weeks, and I believe has made little progress towards its solution. His
client is growing impatient, so it occurred to the detective that you
might consent to help him. He said, with a good deal of complacency,
that he did not know you were connected with the _Bugle_, but he put his
wits at work and has traced you to this office.”
“How clever he is!” said Jennie, laughing; “I am sure I made no secret
of the fact that I work for the _Daily Bugle_.”
“I think Mr. Taylor will have no hesitation in agreeing with you that
he is clever; nevertheless, it might be worth while to see him and to
assist him if you can, because nothing so takes the public as a romance
in high life. Here is his address; would you mind calling on him?”
“Not at all,” replied the young woman, copying the street and number in
her note-book.