MRS3 The Velvet Hand (30 page)

The inside of the house was in keeping. You know the plan of such houses: a wide and lofty hall running through the centre, with two drawing rooms on one side, dining room, pantry, and kitchen on the other. The hall was cluttered with the stuff that was considered stylish thirty-five years ago: hall rack, "cosy-corner," statuettes and jardinières. I suppose all this had been expensive in the beginning, but it had never been in good taste and was now shabby and dilapidated to a degree. The air contrived to be both stuffy and chilly. I noticed that the only means of heating the house was an old-fashioned hot-air furnace. From the amount of heat issuing through the register, it must have been kept on short rations of coal. How strange that an old woman as rich as Mrs. Brager should not even permit herself the creature comforts!

A maid, neat enough, and polite, admitted us and, indicating that we were to enter the drawing room on our left, disappeared at the rear. From the drawing room came a thin babble of talk. I shall never forget my first glimpse of that room. It was like an ugly old picture; like a second-hand salesroom. The two rooms together, I suppose, were nearly sixty feet long, yet they were so filled with stuff it was difficult to make one's way. There were fancy chairs and useless tables; what-nots, tabourets, stools, screens, ottomans, and big pictures on easels; and everything was encumbered with "drapes."

At the front of the room with her back to the windows sat a caricature of an old woman with carmined cheeks; and ranged at each side of her were half a dozen of as scoundrelly looking "guests" as I ever expect to see, all dressed up, drinking tea, and going through the motions of fashionable conversation. While the tongues of the six dripped honey, their eyes were fixed on the wasted little woman with an expression which I can only describe as murderous; and in her eyes, while she twittered and simpered, dwelt a look of plain terror. I thought to myself we had not come any too soon.

Can you conceive the effect of my mistress's entrance into that room? The beautiful and serene figure seemed to emphasize the second-rateness of it all. The six guests, as one, recognized an enemy in her and turned looks of fear and hostility in her direction. Their thought was—one could read it clearly: If such a one as this enters the chase, where will we be? Mrs. Brager herself looked at Mme Storey in a strained and confused way. It is likely that the old woman's sight was failing and she was too vain to admit it. Mr. Riordan hastened forward. He said:

"Allow me to introduce Mrs. Pomeroy and Miss Hastings, whom I telephoned you I should bring this afternoon. They have long wished to make your acquaintance."

The old woman put her head on one side and simpered. "Pleased to meet you.... Pleased to meet you," she quavered, extending to each of us, in turn, a claw of a hand covered with glittering old-fashioned rings. "You will find my house very out of date, I am afraid. We are plain people. Sit down, ladies. Signor Oneto, the bell, please. We will have fresh tea."

False teeth, dyed brown hair, rouged cheeks, and those killing airs and graces. And all the time the faded old eyes looking at you so wistfully. One felt ashamed for her, and deeply sorry, as for a silly posturing child. She was wearing a very smart blue silk costume which hung strangely on her wasted frame; around her shoulders she had a little scalloped crocheted shawl of gray wool, which went better with the furnishings of the room. She was continually fidgeting with her draperies, putting her handkerchief to her nose, twisting her rings, or shoving the heavy bracelets up her skinny arms; and the simpering smile came and went without any meaning.

Whenever she simpered, a reflection of the same simper promptly appeared in the six hard faces that surrounded her; whenever she spoke, the six voices murmured in agreement. Four women and two men: an incredible exhibition. They had placed their chairs as close as they could get to Mrs. Brager, and all held themselves as if brooding solicitously over her. The two women who had succeeded in getting places on either side of her were continually arranging the little shawl, patting her hand, and so on. When she dropped one of the rings the two men scrambled for it, all but bumping their heads together. Yet none of the six pairs of eyes ever lost what I called their murderous look. It was clear, too, that they hated each other poisonously. Oh, it was a sweet household.

Fresh tea was brought by the maid. Mrs. Brager was obviously too shaky to manipulate the tea things, and it was poured by a fat blonde woman in a scanty pink slip, who had ex-manicure and beauty culturist written all over her. One expected her to address Mrs. Brager as "Dearie," and one was not disappointed. She handed us our cups with an expression in her glassy blue eyes that said she hoped it might poison us. And such a to-do about sugar and cream! For all her fatness she had a face that, as Mme Storey said later, you could have broken rocks on.

Mrs. Brager introduced her to us. "My dear friend, Madame Rose La France, ladies."

It was a full-blown rose, indeed!

"Mr. Chew, will you pass the cake... The Honourable Shep Chew, ladies."

I looked at him with strong curiosity. He was a big man dressed in a braided cutaway and striped trousers. The fashionable garments accorded ill with his coarse face. In his youth he may have been handsome, but it could not have done him much good, for nobody would ever have trusted those false and greedy black eyes. Now his features had taken on the flabby smoothness of the glib hypocrite. His loose, thick lips emitted a stream of sticky platitudes in a gobbling sort of voice; but his eyes always gave him away. He permitted himself a proprietary air in Mrs. Brager's drawing room which was no doubt due to his knowledge of the latest will.

"Charmed, ladies, charmed. It gives me the greatest pleasure to welcome you to our little circle here. Mrs. Brager does not care for general society but prefers to gather a few choice spirits around her in her own home...." Gobble, gobble, gobble.

"Oh, Mr. Chew, how can you!" protested Mrs. Brager, simpering. "An old woman like me is not interesting."

All six raised a chorus of indignant denials. "Old! ...
You!
... Oh, Mrs. Brager, how can you! ... Nobody would ever think of you as being old! ... You're the youngest among us!" etc., etc.

When the chorus had died down the younger man, who had left the circle for the moment to get a cigarette, added in a languorous drawl: "You are not old, Genevieve."

The poor old soul gave him a killing glance. "Perhaps not to you, Raymondo."

He was of the type which nowadays is variously termed cake eater, lounge lizard, sheik. You can picture the slick black hair, the incipient side whiskers encroaching on his cheeks, the big, shallow black eyes. Though handsome in its way, he had, I think, the worst face of any there: slinking, mean, and cruel. But not so dangerous, perhaps, as the Honourable Chew's, because it was weak.

"Signor Oneto and I are engaged," added Mrs. Brager, for our benefit, with her silly, tragic simper.

You would have thought that even a lounge lizard must have blushed thus to have his shame exposed before a beautiful woman like my mistress; but not a bit of it; with perfect effrontery Oneto continued to grin at the old woman in the same cruel, die-away fashion. It was like a comic opera or a nightmare, whichever you prefer.

I have forgotten the names of the other three women present. It doesn't signify, since they played no part in the tragic events which followed. They were all Stanfield wives in shoddy finery, a type which is common in every fashionable suburb; desperate hangers-on who will go to tea with anybody who does not expect to be asked in return.

In the beginning Mme Storey and I had seated ourselves opposite the semicircle formed by Mrs. Brager and her admirers. This did not suit the old lady, and after a while she bounced the woman on either side of her and established us in their places. Thereafter she addressed her conversation to us, while the others darted little looks of suspicion and hostility in our direction and stretched their ears to hear what was said. Mme Storey, with her kind smile, and a word or two, friendly without being fulsome, had already established herself in the old lady's good graces.

She asked with a curious eagerness: "Do you live in Stanfield, my dear?"

"No," said Mme Storey, "but I have many friends here."

"Whom do you know in Stanfield?" asked Mrs. Brager breathlessly.

"Well, there are the Braithwaites, the Eckfords, the Bryans," said my mistress carelessly; "the Van Loars, the Teagues, the Dilwyns..."

These were the most prominent families of the place. I silently commended my clever mistress's line of attack.

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Brager. "Do you really know all these people?"

"Why, yes," said Mme Storey casually; "don't you?"

"Oh, of course, of course," she said hurriedly, "but we do not exactly visit. I go out so little."

"I am sure they would all like to know you better," said Mme Storey. "I have heard them speak about you so nicely."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Brager excitedly, "do you think—do you really think ... how is one to make the first move? After all these years I couldn't be the first to call—and they couldn't be the first. Oh, dear!"

"But a woman in your position," said Mme Storey, "why not write to these ladies and ask them to come see you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't have the face! What! Mrs. Bryan! ... Do you think it would be proper?"

"Certainly! Everybody knows Mrs. Brager."

"Oh! Oh!" she gasped in a perfect flutter. "Do you think they'd come?"

"I am sure of it."

"I'll do it! I'll do it!" She broke off and looked around the circle. "Er—perhaps——"

Mme Storey whispered: "Yes, I think perhaps it would be better to have them here by themselves the first time."

"And will you come that day?" asked Mrs. Brager like a little girl. "I shall be so nervous."

"I should love to," said my mistress.

After this, of course, Mme Storey was first and the rest nowhere. Mrs. Brager patted my mistress's hand, saying:

"Do throw off your wraps, dearie, or you won't feel the good of them when you go outside."

"Thanks," said Mme Storey drily, "but I think I had better keep my coat around me."

"Oh, do you find it cold in this room?" said Mrs. Brager with a horrified look. She glanced around the circle for confirmation, and instantly the chorus was raised.

"Oh, no, Mrs. Brager.... It is just right for me! ... Most pleasant, I say.... Indeed, I am if anything too warm.... If there is anything I detest it is these overheated rooms!" And so on. Every face among them was pinched with cold.

Mme Storey was not to be shouted down by this crew. When she could make herself heard, she said with a good-humoured smile: "I am afraid I am spoiled. I do like to have it warm indoors."

Mrs. Brager looked at me. "And you, dearie?"

"It is a little cold," I said.

A visible struggle took place in the old woman's face between avarice and the desire to stand well with my mistress. The better feeling prevailed, but not easily. "Oh, dear!" she said despairingly. "Mr. Chew, please touch the bell."

The maid was instructed to ask Mrs. Marlin to step in. The person who came in response to this summons, and whom I took to be the housekeeper, astonished me, she was so different from the other inmates of that weird household. A handsome young woman of thirty, say, with a businesslike, self-controlled air. She was very neatly and trimly dressed, and everything about her bespoke character, resolution, and decency. In fact, she seemed to bring a ray of clean sunlight into the slightly foetid atmosphere. I took to her instantly, and so, as I learned later, did my mistress.

"Mrs. Marlin," said Mrs. Brager in her affected way, "could we have a little more heat, if you please?"

In the housekeeper's quick glance at her mistress there was a hint of amused surprise. "Why, certainly, Mrs. Brager. The fire box is only half full." She turned to leave immediately.

"Just a
little
more heat," said Mrs. Brager anxiously. "A shovelful of coal."

Mrs. Marlin, with a bow of acquiescence, continued toward the door; but the struggle was still going on in the old lady. "How is the coal holding out?" she asked.

"I will order more to-morrow," said the housekeeper quietly.

At that the ruling passion had its way. "Nothing of the sort!" cried Mrs. Brager in the querulous voice of the very old. "You must make what we bought this month last out, do you hear? I won't have any more coal ordered! They are all robbers. I won't submit to it!"

Mrs. Marlin, bowing again, went on out without speaking. What a difficult role was hers, I thought. She carried it off with dignity. Mrs. Brager turned her pathetic, faded old eyes on us, still mumbling her grievance as if scarcely aware of what she was saying.

"Robbers—swindlers—all of them! I've already ordered two tons this month. Soon be in the poorhouse if I didn't make a stand...."

She did not lack for sympathy from her faithful chorus. "It's simply scandalous, the prices they charge! ... I'm sure I don't know what we're coming to! Where is it going to end? ... My husband says..."

Mme La France said with a hateful glitter in the glassy blue eyes: "It is Mrs. Marlin's fault. She shows no management."

The Honourable Chew affected to be good-humoured about it, but the thick lips curled in an ugly sneer. "That young person thinks to put us all in our places, I fancy."

"I don't see how you can be willing to put up with her, Genevieve," drawled Oneto. "I would undertake to furnish you with a better person to-morrow."

No doubt! No doubt! I was glad to see that the old lady did not rise to this suggestion. I felt that Mrs. Marlin was honoured by the hatred of such people.

Mme Storey sought to pour oil on the troubled waters by saying, as one might to a child: "What a pretty dress, Mrs. Brager!"

Instantly the old lady was all smiles and simpers again. "Oh, do you think so, dearie? I've got a much prettier one upstairs. I'm afraid it is a weakness of mine!"

"I'd like to see it," said my mistress. "I love pretty clothes."