Beggar’s Choice (10 page)

He pushed the whole thing away, carried his plate down to save Mrs. Bell the stairs, and went out.

He tramped five miles to answer an advertisement in Hampstead, found the post filled, and tramped back again. The sole of his boot still held.

He opened the street door upon Mrs. Bell and a girl.

“And here he is!” said Mrs. Bell. “In the nick of time, as you might say.”

What with the open door, and three people, the narrow passage seemed quite full. Mrs. Bell leaned on the door and breathed heavily. Her apron was a little dirtier than it had been three hours before, she had another smudge on her cheek, and her gray hair displayed more wispy ends and hairpins than one would have thought possible.

“The young lady come and asked for you not five minutes ago, and just going, only as you may say, before I could put my hand on the handle to let her out, in you come.”

Car looked past Mrs. Bell to the girl. The first thing he noticed about her was the interest with which she was regarding him. Her pretty, bright eyes were full of it. The parted lips, the tilt of her chin, the little hands in their gray suede gloves, all said, “Here's Mr. Fairfax!” She was in gray from head to foot; not gloomy gray, but the gray of her own eyes, and that was a very pretty color indeed. Her little hat framed her face so close that her hair might have been any color, or she might not have had any hair at all. It came down over her ears and then sprang out in two quaint wings. They gave her a Puckish look, and the way she tilted her head and looked up at him deepened the impression of something light, airy, elfin. She spoke in a sweet, high voice that had learnt its pitch on the other side of the Atlantic.

“Are you Mr. Fairfax?”

“Yes, I am.”

Instantly his hand was being shaken. The gray eyes were beaming with a delightful friendliness.

“Then I'm very pleased to meet you.” She went on shaking hands. “Well now, Mr. Fairfax, if this isn't delightful! And just when I had given you up. Well, you'll never know how disappointed I was, and I couldn't begin to tell you. No, it didn't seem
right
. And just as I was telling Mrs. Bell what I felt about it, the door opened, and I knew it was going to be you.”

She stopped shaking hands and stepped back. She had the quick, sure grace of a kitten. Yes, that was what she was like—a gray kitten, with wide-set, innocent eyes and an alert but friendly poise.

Car smiled at her because he couldn't help it; but he hadn't the ghost of a notion what to say, so he didn't say anything. She tilted her head and looked at him with her eyes very wide indeed.

“You don't say you don't know who I am!”

“There
now!” said Mrs. Bell.

“I—I'm afraid——” said Car.

“I'm Corinna Lee——” She stopped, gazed blankly at him, and clapped her hands together. “Gracious! Don't say you've never heard of me!”

“I—I'm afraid——”

“You haven't! You must be thinking I'm crazy then. Peter didn't tell you I was coming?”

“Peter——”

“Peter Lymington. You're not going to tell me you've never heard of
him
!”

She liked the way Car smiled.

“Yes, I've heard of Peter.”

“And Peter'll hear from me,” said Miss Lee firmly. “Letting me come here and act as if I was crazy, instead of writing to tell you to get ready to ring the joy-bells!”

“How am I to ring them?” said Car.

“By coming out to tea with me at my hotel. I'd been fixing it with Mrs. Bell before you came, but now you've come, we'll just go along together, and first I'll explain about me, and then I'll tell you all about Peter—and if he doesn't write, he's sent you a good few messages.”

Mrs. Bell let go of the door and stepped ponderously back. Fay was coming down the stairs. She was dressed in black, and she carried a scarlet bag. Her hat resembled Pierrot's cap, her face was powdered as white as his, her lips painted as startling a crimson. She swung her scarlet bag and came down slowly, looking neither to right nor left. When she reached the bottom step, she stopped and spoke to Car.

“Going out—or coming in?”

He said, “I've been out.”

She kept her shoulder turned to Corinna Lee.

“Come and have tea with me,” she said.

He thought she must have heard Corinna's invitation.

He said, “Thank you—I'm afraid I can't.” And then, “This is a friend of Peter's—Miss Lee. Miss Lee——” He hesitated for a moment. Fay's shoulder was a barrier. “Miss Fay Everitt.”

And then he had a doubt. Fay called herself Miss Everitt. She had never called herself Mrs. Lymington. But all the same——

If she acknowledged his introduction at all, it was with the very slightest movement of her head. She neither turned towards Corinna Lee nor looked at her. She looked at Car, and standing on the bottom step, opened her scarlet bag and extracted from it mirror and lipstick.

“Come and have tea with me, Car.”

“I'm afraid I'm engaged.”

She transferred her attention to the mirror, ran the lipstick over the painted curves of her mouth, and then very deliberately looked him up and down. Without a spoken word Car understood just how shabby he looked, and how impossible as an escort except by the indulgence of old friendship. Mirror and lipstick went back into the bag. Fay passed carelessly out. The tapping of her heels died away.

“
Well
!” said Miss Corinna Lee.

Car did not know what to say. Fay wanted shaking. If this pretty creature was a friend of Peter's, things were going to be awkward. If they were great friends, she probably knew about Peter's marriage. Perhaps he ought to have introduced Fay as Mrs. Lymington. He had never been able to see why there should be any secrecy. Well, it wasn't his business.

By the time he reached this conclusion he was walking down the street with Miss Lee, and she was telling him how polite English railway porters were (was there a spice of malice here?) and how surprised she was to see London bathed in sunshine and with a blue sky overhead.

“I thought there would be a fog. Now you're not going to tell me that London fogs are a myth?”

“We have them.”

“Now that's a great relief! Will there be one tomorrow?”

“I don't know. I hope not.”

“You
hope
not. But I
want
to see a fog!”

Car laughed at her.

“Do you get everything you want?”

She looked as if she did. There was something of the unspoilt darling child about her. She looked as if she had sunshine and love always. Perhaps she wanted a fog for a change.

“Most of the time,” she said, and cocked her chin at him. “I've wanted to meet you.”

“That's very nice of you.”

She went on as if he had not spoken.

“Because of Peter—and because of your name.”

“Fairfax?”

She shook her head.

“I'd have liked it to be the Fairfax part of your name, because that's romantic and historical, but I can't tell a lie any more than Washington could. It would be a pity if I hurt myself trying to—wouldn't it?”

“Rather!”

She looked at him with just a shade of anxiety in the round gray eyes.

“I guess I sound real crazy. But I'm not—I'm trying to break it to you that I'm a cousin.”

“It would have to be broken very gently.”

“I'm being as gentle as I can. You won't fall right down in a faint, will you?”

“I'll do my best.”

She stopped at a street corner and looked up at him.

“Well then, your name's Carthew, and it was your mother's name—wasn't it?”

Car nodded.

“And she came from a place called Linwood?”

“She did.”

“And so did my grandmother,” said Corinna. Her eyes, her face, her voice all held a sort of quivering blend of earnestness and mischief.

“How topping!” said Car.

“I'm glad Peter didn't tell you. I told him he wasn't to.”

“Perhaps that's why he didn't write,” said Car.

They shook hands earnestly. Her hand was very small and soft. For the moment mischief was subdued. It was evidently, an occasion—and an occasion ought to be celebrated. With a horrid sick feeling Car remembered that he couldn't ask her to celebrate it. Fay's look came back. His hand felt cold as it let go of Corinna's gray glove.

“What's the matter?” said Corinna.

“Nothing.” Why on earth had he let her carry him off like this?

“Didn't I break it gently enough?”

“You broke it beautifully.”

“Then come along.”

“I——”

“What is it? Don't you like me for a cousin?” The gray eyes were still mischievous, but the mischief was very faintly clouded over—mist over sparkling water.

Car felt himself getting hot.

“It isn't that. I—I'm not dressed for a tea-party.”

“Carthew Fairfax—if you don't come and have tea with me, I shall burst out crying, right here. Did you think I was asking a suit of clothes to tea? Because if you did, you've got to think again. Now, have I got to cry?”

Car's embarrassment left him. Gray kittens have no conventions. They do not look at the seams of your coat or the bulges in your boots.

Corinna produced a handkerchief four inches square and wrinkled her nose in a preparatory sniff.

“Thank you very much for inviting me,” said Car.

XII

Half an hour later they were talking as if they had known each other always. Miss Lee was staying at the Luxe, and they had a
tête-à-tête
tea in her own sitting-room, with her own cushions making bright, delightful spots of color, and a large photograph of Poppa in the middle of the mantelpiece, and a small snapshot of Peter on either side of it.

He had learned that Poppa was the head of the Lee-Mackintosh Corporation, and that he thought a heap of Peter. He thought Peter was a real fine boy, and he didn't mind his being English—at least, not much. Car gathered that continuous pressure was being brought to bear upon Poppa to think even more highly of Peter. He also gathered that Poppa had perfectly effete ideas about daughters traveling alone, and that Corinna was therefore saddled with a chaperone in the shape of Cousin Abby Palliser. She seemed quite capable of managing her however. Cousin Abby, having a passion for historical monuments, could always be sent to see St. Paul's, or Westminster Abbey, or the Houses of Parliament if Corinna wanted to get rid of her. This afternoon she was doing Westminster Abbey, and as she was an extremely conscientious sightseer, it would certainly take her several hours.

“And now,” said Corinna—“
now
I'm going to ask you questions.”

“All right.”

“You don't mind?”

“Not a bit.”

She was sitting behind the tea-table with her elbow on her knee and her little round chin in her hand.

“Sure?” she said.

Car wondered. He laughed and said,

“What are you going to ask?”

“Wait and see.” She waited herself for a moment, and then said, “Peter's told me a lot, and I've guessed some of the things he didn't tell me. If I've guessed wrong, you can put me wise. You know, Peter thinks the world of you, but he's considerably worried, because he doesn't think you're getting a fair show. Now if my grandmother was a Carthew, I suppose that lets me in so I can talk about the Carthews without offending you. And if that's so, well, the first thing I want to ask is why your Uncle John Carthew didn't rally round when things went wrong.”

“He helped my mother,” said Car.

“But not you.”

“No—not me.”

“Why?”

“Well, I don't know why he should.”

“Didn't he offer to help you at all?”

“Yes—on conditions.”

“And you couldn't take them?”

“No.”

She didn't ask what they were—that was a relief; she just sat and looked at him with perfectly round innocent eyes under a fluff of dark hair. The little gray hat lay on the floor beside her chair. Her hair was darker than he had expected. Its brown was the soft velvet brown of a bulrush. It increased her resemblance to a kitten, for it had the light, soft look of fur. It was very thick, and yet very light.

After a bit she said, “The job Peter got was offered to you first.”

Car flushed up to the roots of his hair and objurgated Peter in his heart.

“Oh well, it was for either of us. It—it wouldn't have suited me to leave England then.”

She nodded.

“You let Peter have it. How many jobs have you had since Peter went out?”

“I couldn't say.”

“Have you got a job now?”

“Not just at the moment.”

A look came over her face like a shadow passing quickly.

“You think I'm very inquisitive.
I'm not
. I've got to ask you something more, and I'm scared you'll be angry with me.”

She didn't look in the least scared; she looked as friendly as the friendliest importunate creature that does not know what it is to get no for an answer.

“I've got to ask you a very impertinent thing. If you've had a lot of jobs, what's the reason you haven't kept any of them?”

Just for a moment Car was angry.

“My own incompetence, I suppose,” he said.

“
Well
!” said Corinna. Her sparkling look accused him of mock humility. She sat up, dimpling. “Do you want me to believe that?”

“I'm afraid it's true.”

She went suddenly as grave as a judge.

“Carthew Fairfax—you've got to tell me the truth. Was it your opinion that you were being incompetent
before
you got fired from those jobs?”

After a moment he met her look squarely.