THE LAMB
It was characteristic of Mr. John Carsdale, and of Mrs. Walsingham,
that at the first sound of the opening door their faces assumed that
curiously indifferent and expressionless look which has come to be
associated with the term business. Carsdale glanced at the office-boy
as if that youthful functionary had been some machine which had
just executed its purely mechanical message: his companion remained
apparently absorbed in the reading of the letter.
“Where is Mr. Shrewsbury, Griffkin?” asked Carsdale.
“In the waiting-room, sir,” answered the boy.
“Did you tell him that Mr. Leverton was not here?”
“No, sir--told him nothing. Your orders, sir.”
“Quite right. Bring him in, Griffkin. You needn’t go, Mrs. Walsingham,”
said Carsdale, as the secretary made a professional movement towards
the door. “I think I shall want you. At once, Griffkin--straight in!”
The boy vanished, leaving the door ajar; a moment later, he reappeared,
to throw it wide open, and to admit a young gentleman who advanced
into the room with an air of shy expectation. And as he crossed the
threshold the man and woman who rose to greet him looked at him with
a curiosity which was all the greater because it was so carefully
concealed, and each, after one sharp glance at the caller, thought the
same thought--that Mr. Richard Shrewsbury was not at all what they
had expected him to be, and both looked at him again, with different
motives.
It was very evident that Mr. Shrewsbury, ignorant of England though
he might be, was English from head to foot. He was certainly bronzed
and tanned to a degree quite unusual in Europe, but there was nothing
in his whole six feet of height that did not bespeak the English
blood, pure and unmixed for generations. Tall, slim, athletic, broad
of shoulder, slender of flank, he was of the type that one sees
nowhere in the world but in English hunting-fields and on English
cricket-grounds--except when it is wanted for the sterner games of war
and needful adventure. If he had lived in England all his life, said
Mrs. Walsingham to herself, his hair would have been a light brown;
the fierce suns of the West Indies had deepened it to a rich chestnut
which was well in keeping with the dark tint of his cheeks. And being
a judge of manly beauty, she decided that here was a youngster who was
handsome as the youthful Greek gods are supposed to have been, and who
was at the same time utterly unconscious that all women would admire
the strength and grace of his figure, his square chin, his firm mouth,
almost innocent of moustache, the direct gaze of his grey-blue eyes,
and the untrammelled freedom of his gait. She felt a quick leaping of
her pulses as she looked at him, and it was with difficulty that she
kept admiration out of the eyes which she so vigorously schooled to
instant obedience.
As for Carsdale, he looked at the visitor with a growing consciousness
that this was not exactly what he had expected to meet. There was
something in the young man’s appearance which showed that he was no
fool; he might be inexperienced even to greenness, but he looked to
have a will of his own. And Carsdale, stepping forward to meet him with
outstretched hand, assumed his most serious air.
Young Richard Shrewsbury took the offered hand in a grip which made
Carsdale think of giants and blacksmiths.
Mrs. Walsingham smiled as she saw Carsdale wince beneath the
unconscious strength; she smiled again as she saw the youngster’s face
flush under its tan.
“Mr. Leverton?” said Richard, eagerly. “This is kind, sir--you will
think me a very early caller, but----”
Carsdale lifted a hand.
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Shrewsbury,” he said, motioning Richard to a
chair, “but I am not Mr. Leverton. I am Mr. John Carsdale, his partner.
This lady is Mrs. Walsingham, our confidential secretary. The fact is
Mr. Shrewsbury, Mr. Leverton has been ill for some time, and as I open
all letters that come here, I opened yours this morning, so we were
expecting you. In fact, we were just talking of you.”
Richard Shrewsbury heard all this with growing wonder and
interest; he was already speculative and inquisitive about this
obviously-man-of-the-world Carsdale, and boyishly conscious of Mrs.
Walsingham’s charm and pretty face. He shyly offered her his hand,
and gripped hers as mightily as he had grasped Carsdale’s. But Mrs.
Walsingham was of the sort that would have picked up a white-hot iron
if need be without uttering a sound or winking an eyelash, and she let
her hand rest in the young giant’s as long as he, from sheer confusion
and shyness, cared to hold it, and meanwhile favoured him with the full
battery of her eyes, whereat he blushed up to his own--after which he
somehow managed to get into the easy chair which Carsdale had motioned
him to take.
“I--I’m awfully sorry to hear about Mr. Leverton,” he found himself
saying, when he had taken another look at his companions and his
surroundings. “I hope it is not a serious illness?”
Carsdale looked at Mrs. Walsingham; Mrs. Walsingham looked at the floor.
“Well--er, it’s very serious, Mr. Shrewsbury,” replied Carsdale. “Ver-y
serious indeed. I--ah, well, I don’t know that there’s any need to beat
about the bush. The fact is, Mr. Leverton is dead.”
“Dead!” exclaimed Richard, staring blankly at his informant. “Dead? Ah,
I see!--I suppose he has been dead for some time? Of course, I didn’t
know.”
“He has been dead just about half an hour,” answered Carsdale, coolly
glancing at the clock. “I had just received the news of his death over
the telephone when you were announced. We were not exactly surprised,
for he has been very ill, but the end came quite suddenly at last.”
Richard looked from one to the other with a puzzled expression. He made
as if to drag his long limbs out of the very low chair into which they
had been consigned.
“I’m most awfully sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know Mr. Leverton, of
course, but I’d like to have seen him for my father’s sake--he often
spoke of him. I--perhaps I’d better go, Mr. Carsdale.”
But Carsdale waved him back into the chair.
“Not at all, not at all!” he said “As I told you, I am--was,
rather--Leverton’s partner, and I know that nothing would please him
better than that I should do for you what he would have done. So please
command me in any way, Mr. Shrewsbury--I dare say I can give you the
same services and advice that he would have given.”
The lad’s face flushed with pleasure at the warmth and kindliness of
Carsdale’s tone.
“That’s very kind of you, sir,” he said. “I’m awfully obliged. Of
course, I’ll come to you, as soon as I get settled down.”
Carsdale laughed--an indulgent and fatherly laugh.
“You’d much better come to me before you get settled down,” he said,
smiling benignantly. “Otherwise, you may be settling down in the wrong
place. I learnt from your letter to poor Leverton that you are quite a
stranger in London.”
“I am a stranger to England--I never saw English soil before yesterday
morning. Oh, yes, it’s all strange--very!” replied Richard.
“Well, then, remember the old adage,” said Carsdale, who had a vague
and much mixed notion that he had some Scriptural warrant for what
he was saying, “and bear in mind that strangers are often taken in.
If Leverton had been here, the first thing he would have done would
have been to see that you were comfortably established in this howling
wilderness. He, no doubt, would have carried you off to his own
house--I can’t, for I’m a bachelor, and live in rooms in which I can
only just turn around. But I can help you to find a proper corner for
yourself--no man better for, as Mrs. Walsingham there will assure you,
I know London as well as I know this room.”
Mrs. Walsingham turned her eyes once more on Mr. Shrewsbury, and again
smiled on him.
“Mr. Carsdale has an extensive and peculiar knowledge of London,” she
said. “You would find him a wonderful guide, Mr. Shrewsbury.”
“It’s awfully kind of you,” said the caller. “I--yes, I do find it
rather--immense.”
“And you have been in it--an hour or two, eh?” laughed Carsdale. “Wait
until you see it. Now, seriously, to what hotel have you gone?”
Richard blushed once more, boyishly.
“I’m afraid it’s not up to much,” he said, apologetically. “It’s one I
heard my father mention, but perhaps things are changed since his day.”
He gave the name of an old-fashioned hotel that had been famous in
certain circles thirty years before, and Carsdale threw up his hands.
“Oh, that’ll never do!” he said. “The glory has vanished from that
establishment long since. Now, let me advise you. What you ought to
have is a suite of rooms of your own in the West End, and a good
man-servant of your own, and I can put my finger on the very place, and
on the very man, to-day. That’s much better than living in a hotel,
and you can dine out whenever you like. I can show you the rooms I’m
speaking of this afternoon.”
“It’s very good to take so much trouble,” said Richard. “I should like
that--I hate hotels. But your time?”
Carsdale waved his hand.
“Oh, we manufacture time here in London!” he said airily. “Besides, I
want to do for you just what Leverton would have done. Yes, we’ll see
those rooms this afternoon. Then I suppose you’ll want a good tailor,
and a good bootmaker, and all the rest of it--leave all that to me, and
I’ll see that you are properly attended to. This man-servant that I can
get for you is an excellent creature--thoroughly experienced, and so
on--but it is never wise to ask a valet as to what tradesmen you should
patronize--never!”
“Isn’t it?” asked Richard innocently. “Why?”
“Because they care to feather their own nests,” replied Carsdale,
solemnly, shaking his head. “When you want any advice about buying
anything in London, trust to a disinterested friend, or to your
business man, or you’ll be cheated. That is of course until you gain
some experience of the town, as you soon will do.”
Richard ventured to smile at Mrs. Walsingham--he scarcely knew why.
“Then I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble you at first, Mr. Carsdale,” he
said, “for I have no friends in London. When I got here this morning
and saw how big it was I--well, I began to feel a bit lonely and
frightened.”
Carsdale’s face became sympathetic. He shook his head and glanced at
Mrs. Walsingham.
“Yes,” he said, gravely. “A man may be as lonely as a hermit in London.
But you won’t be lonely--you’re young, and you’ll soon make friends. We
must see to it that they’re the right sort. Well, now,” he continued,
rising from his chair and glancing at the clock, “I’m afraid I must
turn to business. But I can give you this afternoon, Mr. Shrewsbury,
with pleasure. I’ll call for you at your hotel at three o’clock. Until
then--don’t lose yourself in our wilderness!”
Richard felt himself dismissed, and made his bow to Mrs. Walsingham.
Carsdale let him out by a side door, and took him to the elevator.
“Don’t be afraid to command my services in any way,” he said, as he
shook his visitor’s hand. “I want you to feel that you can get from me
what you’d have got from my late partner.”
“It’s very kind of you,” said Richard. He hesitated a moment at the
door of the elevator. “I should like to send my sympathy to Mr.
Leverton’s family,” he said shyly. “Perhaps you’ll tell me what to do?”
“Oh, to be sure, to be sure!” replied Carsdale. “This afternoon, then.”
He waved his hand, and gave Richard another of his friendly and
brilliant smiles as the elevator dropped, but the smile had vanished,
and his face was perplexed, when he re-entered his room to rejoin Mrs.
Walsingham. And Mrs. Walsingham, also re-entering at the same moment,
but from another door, showed him an equally perplexed countenance.
Carsdale stopped, staring at her. She came straight towards him, biting
her upper lip, and she inclined her head in the direction of the room
from which she had just come.
“Jack!” she whispered. “There’s Frances Leverton in her father’s
private room; she came some time ago, Griffkin says. And, I say,
Jack--Winch, the solicitor, is with her!”