Blindfold (24 page)

Flossie opened the door, and it was perfectly plain that she had been crying. Her eyelids were swollen and pink, and so was her pretty little nose. As Miles walked in, she sniffed a most woe-begone sniff and said,

“Mrs Gilmore's out, Mr Miles.”

“Good Lord, Flossie—what's the matter?”

Flossie shut the door and burst into tears.

“I'm sure I wish I was dead!” she said, and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief already sodden.

Miles took her by the arm and marched her into the dining-room.

“You'd better tell me all about it. Mrs Gilmore won't mind. What's been happening?”

Flossie sat down on one of the dining-room chairs and looked up at him through her long, drenched eyelashes.

“I don't care if I never see Ernie again!” she declared.

Not a very tactful fellow Ernie. A bit class-conscious too. He had probably been renouncing the Macintyre heiress with plain-spoken scorn. From Flossie's rather incoherent remarks this appeared to be the case, and it had naturally incensed her very much. If there was any breaking off to be done, she was the one to do it. Furthermore it would have been one thing to be nobly renounced in the humble adoring manner so popular on the stage and in romantic fiction, and quite another to be scornfully discarded as belonging to a class detested by the true Marxian. Ernie, it seemed, was Red, and though not averse from a partnership in a garage with the giddy height of proprietorship in view, yet drew the line quite firmly at everything else of a capitalist nature.

“Him to have the neck to talk about blood-suckers, and exploiting wage-slaves, and all the rest of it! And to say he wouldn't demean himself to marry a girl out of a capitalist family! Which I said to him, ‘Ernie Bowden,' I said, ‘you may think yourself lucky if you ever get married at all,' I said. ‘And it won't be me,' I said, ‘not if it was ever so,' I said, ‘and not if you went down on your bended knees and begged and beseeched me till you was black in the face,' I said. ‘And I'm sure whoever she is, I'm sorry for her, pore thing—I am reelly—for she won't know what a bargain she's getting till it's too late! And I'm sure I've reason to be thankful as I've found you out in time, for a more miserable girl there won't never be than the one that's got to call herself Mrs Ernest Bowden—which it isn't me and never will be!' I said.” The words came pouring out, accompanied but not impeded by dabbings, and sniffs, and gulps.

When she stopped for breath, Miles said,

“Poor Ernie! But you wouldn't have married him if you'd been an heiress, would you, Flossie?”

Flossie was sharp. Flossie was uncommon sharp. The handkerchief dropped from her eyes, and her first angry stare gave place to a look which combined intelligence and relief.

“What do you mean, Mr Miles?”

“Well, you wouldn't—would you?”

Flossie brushed that away. It wasn't any of his business anyhow—not whether she married Ernie it wasn't.

“You said if, Mr Miles. And I'd like to know what you mean by that.”

Miles told her. He took another of Lila Gilmore's backless glass chairs and sat down upon its scarlet velvet cushion. Then he told Flossie all about his visit to Mrs Gossington, and about half way through she got so interested that she stopped sniffing and put her handkerchief away.

“So I'm afraid you're not Miss Macintyre after all,” he finished up.

Flossie heaved a sigh.

“Well, I don't think that I was all that struck on it,” she said. “You see, Mr Miles, it's this way. I didn't sleep last night—not what you might call sleep. And when you can't sleep, you do a bit of thinking, and it come over me pretty strong that a bit more than what you've got is what everybody'd like to have. There's things I've planned to do and things I thought I'd save up for, and got a lot of fun out of it. But when it isn't just a little more, but an awful lot that you hardly know what you'd do with, why it makes all the things you've been planning for look kind of silly, don't you think? And then look how it's upset Ernie—right down made him forget himself. And what Aunt would have said if she'd heard him, I
don't
know.”

Miles felt a good deal of admiration and respect for Miss Flossie Palmer. He said,

“I think Ernie's a very lucky young man.”

The colour came into Flosie's cheeks. She tossed her head.

“Oh—
Ernie
—” she said. “If he thinks he can treat me the way he done and not hear no more about it, he's got to hurry up and think again!”

Miles laughed.

“Don't be too fierce with him!”

Flossie stuck her chin in the air, and then spoilt the effect by giggling.

“Fact is, Ernie's got a temper, and so've I, and when he goes all on about capitalists and that Marx that you can't understand a word of it feeds me up—it does reelly. And when it comes to saying as how he wouldn't marry a capitalist's daughter, well, I did think it was the limit and no mistake. And mind you, Mr Miles, he's right down fond of me Ernie is, so how he'd the nerve, I don't know. And look what a sight he's made me make of myself!” She tossed her head again. “Pore Ernie indeed! If he's half as miserable as what he's made me, it's no more than what he deserves—and I only hope he is!”

Miles waited until the Gilmores came in, and informed them that Flossie wasn't Miss Macintyre after all.

“She's done nothing but cry her eyes out ever since you told her she
was,”
said Lila plaintively. “I can't think why, but she has. You know, Miles darling, if you were to tell
me
that I was a simply enormous heiress, and that those divine black pearls were really mine, I shouldn't cry. But Flossie's done nothing but cry. It's too unbalanced of her—isn't it?”

“Ah, but then you see her young man cut up rough, and she thought she'd lost him.”

Lila hung on Freddy's arm.

“Freddy
darling
, you wouldn't leave me if I was an heiress, would you?”

“I don't know,” said Freddy. “If you began to come it over me, I might.”

“But, darling, I
shouldn't
, and I'd simply
love
to be an heiress. Fitz says he's got
the
most marvellous investment if I've got any spare cash—and of
course
I haven't, but it would be simply
bound
to make my fortune if I had. And I do think, Freddy might listen about it even if he
won't
do anything—don't you, Miles? It's either a gold mine or a coal mine, and I can't remember whether the name of the place is Yukon or Yucatan, but I'm practically certain it begins with a Y. And Fitz says it's the most wonderful offer that's ever been made and he's putting his shirt on it, and Freddy simply won't
listen.”

Freddy looked up from Mrs Gossington's statement, which he had been reading.

“So you've got to start all over again and look for this Mrs Moore.”

“She's dead,” said Miles.

“Oh, you know that? Well then, you've got to find her niece. I suppose if she passed off her niece as the Macintyre child, she's probably just changed them over and said the Macintyre child was her niece.”

“Freddy
darling
, I don't see that at all.”

“Well, as a matter of fact—” said Miles.

“Miles darling, you're blushing!” said Lila. “He
is
, Freddy—
isn't
he? I didn't know anyone could—especially not anyone who's been to America. I believe he's found her! Have you really, Miles?”

“Yes, I've found her,” said Miles. “Her name is Kay Moore, but I think she really is Kay Macintyre. If you don't mind, I think I had better begin at the beginning and tell you all about it, because there's more in it than meets the eye, and I want your help.”

The telling took a little time, and Miles found it a great relief. All the time that he was talking Lila sat leaning forward in one of her gold chairs. She remained quite silent, and sometimes she looked at him, and sometimes she looked at Freddy, with a small puzzled frown between her eyes.

When Miles had finished telling them about Kay, Freddy said, “You'd better bring her here—hadn't he, Lila?” and Lila gave a start and said,

“Oh yes, Miles darling.”

But presently, when Miles had gone away and she still sat on and didn't speak, Freddy came and put his arm round her and said,

“What's the matter, darling?”

“I don't know. When he said that girl's name, I thought—” She broke off and looked up at him. “Freddy, I didn't like it.”

“Silly old goose! What didn't you like?”

“I don't know, Freddy, say it again.”

“Say what?”

“What you said—‘Silly old goose!' It makes me feel safe.”

Freddy hugged her heartily.

“Oh, Lila—you mug! You—you silly old goose! What's it all about? Why have I got to make you feel safe?”

She had one of his hands, and was holding it very hard.

“Because I
didn't.”

“Didn't feel safe?”

“No. Freddy, it was
horrid
. Freddy, I don't think I want that girl to come here.”

“Oh rubbish, darling!”

She held him harder still.

“Freddy, it was when he said her name—I
didn't
like it. I thought I was going to remember something, and then I
didn't.”

Freddy said, “Kay Moore?” and she gave a little cry.

“Oh, Freddy—
don't!”

“But, my darling idiot—”

“Yes, I am, aren't I? Freddy,
say
I'm an idiot!”

“My darling, you are.”

She snuggled up to him.

“Freddy, you're a very comfortable person. You do love me, don't you?”

Freddy said, “Yes.”

Lila put up her face to be kissed.

“Then I don't mind about Kay Moore,” she said.

CHAPTER XXXI

Miles came back to no. 16 Varley Street at half past four. Mrs Green took a long time to answer the door, and when she saw him she looked very much surprised and not best pleased.

“Back again, are you?”

“Yes,” said Miles. “Mrs Green, I really must see her at once.”

Mrs Green stared.

“Must?”
she said, and then she gave a little angry laugh. “You and your
must!
Well, you can't see her, and if you don't know that already, well, you've been sold a pup same as what I was, and I'd be sorry for you if I wasn't a deal too taken up being sorry for myself, for I come 'ere as a cook and not a general servant, and if they can't keep their girls more nor a week, well, they won't keep me, and so I took and told Nurse Long! And she says, ‘Oh, Mrs Green, I'll be sure and get someone in to-morrow,' she says. And what I felt like saying was, ‘What's the good of getting 'em if you can't keep 'em?'”

Miles felt a cold horror. If words meant anything, then Mrs Green's words meant that Kay had gone away. But when—and why—and where? He said,

“Mrs Green!”

His voice sounded loud and strange. He saw her take a step back as if it frightened her, and when he saw that, he was afraid that she was going to shut the door, so he put his foot across the threshold and kept it there.

“What do you mean? You must tell me what you mean!”

And all the time he knew very well what her meaning was. She meant that Kay was gone.

Mrs Green went back another step.

“'ere, what d'you think you're doing, coming pushing in like this? Come now, young man—you take your foot out of that and be off! If she's let you down, she's let you down, and talking won't mend it.”

Miles stayed where he was.

“Do you mean she's gone?”

“Acourse she's gone. And what girls are a-coming to I'm sure I don't know.”

“Why did she go?”

“Just took and went, and no rhyme nor reason.”

“But you said she was upstairs with Miss Rowland.”

“And so she was. I don't tell lies, young man.”

“Mrs Green—when did she go?”

Mrs Green relaxed a little.

“Well, she was up with the old lady like I told you, and by-and-by Nurse Long come down the stairs. I 'eard her go along the passage to Kay's room, and I thought, ‘What's up?' And she couldn't 'ave done no more than look inside the door, for she come straight back to the kitchen and she said angry-like, ‘I see she's got her box all ready packed. I s'pose you know she's going?' Well, I didn't know nothing of the sort and I up and says so, and she shrugs her shoulders the way she's got, and she says, ‘Cab'll be here in five minutes', and she goes back into the room and she comes along with Kay's 'at and costume over 'er arm. Well, I was clean bowled over as you might say, but I wasn't going to let 'er go like that. ‘Here, Nurse,' I says, ‘what's all this? The girl's just had 'er dinner, and not a word said about leaving.' And she shrugs 'er shoulders again and ‘Take a look into 'er room,' she says. ‘There's 'er box packed and locked, and 'er coat and 'at laid ready, so she'd got it all planned. She's upset Miss Rowland something dreadful,' she says—‘waiting till my back was turned and telling the pore old lady as she was going to leave without notice! It's a shame!' she says, and she goes on up with Kay's things. And then the taxi come, and the man fetched out 'er box and off she went.”

Miles tried to collect his thoughts. What could have happened to make Kay go off like that? She must have known that he would come back. What could possibly have happened to make her go off without waiting for him, and why had Nurse Long come down for her things? Why hadn't she come down for them herself? Flossie Palmer's story came back to him. Had Kay seen something that she wasn't meant to see, and had they just turned her out of the house then and there so that she shouldn't have any chance of talking to Mrs Green? That was what it looked like to him. It looked like that, but the cold, horrible thought went through his mind—if Flossie's story was true—if Kay had seen what Flossie had seen—would they dare to let her go? He thought Mrs Green was honest. He said,