The Black Cabinet (5 page)

He rose as he spoke, and Chloe got up too. She found that she was trembling a little.

“I work,” she said. “I'm not free to pay visits—you know that.”

“Would you like to come? I think it could be arranged very easily.”

Chloe did not know whether she could say truthfully that she would like to come. She felt an unreasoning desire to run away. She felt as if she were really Cinderella, and as if the shining dress which had made her so happy had turned to rags; she wanted to take it off and never see it again. And all the time her conscience told her how ungrateful it was to have such thoughts as these. She walked silently down the gallery stairs, and was sad for her vanished fairy tale.

Chapter VIII

Chloe danced again with Tim Renton, a cheerful youth with a free tongue and a good conceit of himself.

“What's happened to you?” he said. “No chit-chat, no light and airy badinage—in fact, no anything! Make a remark about the weather, there's a good soul, or the whole of Maxton will say that I've proposed to you and been turned down. I should hate that.”

“Which part of it?”

Tim Renton grinned.

“Being turned down, of course. What on earth did the old buffer who looks as if he'd just come out of cold storage say or do to cast such a horrid blight?”

“I'm not in the least blighted,” said Chloe.

“Well, you look it. Did he say, ‘Fly with me, and with all my worldly millions I will thee endow,' or words to that effect?”

Chloe tried to look very severe.

“Tim, you haven't any manners at all. I don't know why I dance with you.”

“I expect it's because I'm so beautiful,” said Tim. He had the kind of ugly, flat face that goes with green eyes, freckles, and a grin.

Chloe laughed, and felt more cheerful.

“If he
was
proposing that you should fly with him, I wouldn't go—I don't believe even the millions would make it worth while. Lady Gresson says he is going to adopt you; but, personally, I should hate to be adopted by a sort of survival from the ice age. Now you go right ahead and tell me just what kind of a neck I've got to butt in on your affairs. You'll do it awfully well, and I shan't mind a bit, so we'll both be quite happy. Your lead, partner!”

The bright, angry colour ran up into Chloe's cheeks.

“How dare Lady Gresson go about talking like that! It's not her business. I should think Mr. Dane would be furious.” Then, with a sudden change of manner, “Tim, why did you say that?”

“Say what?”

“You know—about Mr. Dane. If he did want to adopt me, why shouldn't I say ‘Yes'?”

For once in his life Tim Renton looked serious. The ugly face showed a promise of strength and sense.

“I don't know. I was chaffing.”

“But you meant something.”

“I don't know what I meant. At least—”

“Tell me!” said Chloe imperiously.

“My dear girl, there's nothing to tell. I like you; and I don't like him—that's all.”

The words kept coming back to Chloe then and later. As nearly as possible they defined the definable. There are people you like, and people you don't like. You don't always know why you like people; and you don't always know why you dislike them.”

Chloe did not let her other partners find her silent; but the bloom had gone from the evening. She did not dance again with Martin Fossetter. Of course, as Chloe put it quite firmly to herself, she did not care in the very, very least whether Martin Fossetter asked her to dance with him or not. It vexed her to think how intimately she had talked to him that afternoon at Ranbourne; and of course it would have been pleasant to have had the opportunity of snubbing him a little. She had, in point of fact, made up her mind to be very distant to Mr. Fossetter, and it was annoying not to have been able to put this good resolution to the proof.

Towards the end of the evening Bernard Austin succeeded in producing his rather well-worn proposal.

“You can't say there are eight hundred people looking on now, Chloe, and I must have it out with you.”

“I wish you wouldn't,” said Chloe crossly. “It's not the slightest use. I can't think why you
want
to when you know it isn't the slightest use.”

Chloe had been sitting out an interval with Jack Renton. She made a movement to rise, but Bernard dropped into the empty chair beside her.

“It's this way,” he began. “You say it's no good; but as long as I go on seeing you I have the feeling that in the end you'll listen to me. Why shouldn't you? I'm making enough to give you a comfortable home; and a schoolmaster like a doctor—he's bound to get married. Indeed he's much more bound to get married than a doctor is. As a matter of fact, and quite apart from being in love with you, I'm
bound
to get married.” He brought an acquisitive gaze to bear upon Chloe and said firmly, “I
need
a wife.”

When Bernard Austin talked like that Chloe always wanted to box his ears. Having received a refined education at the hands of Miss Tankerville, she restrained herself; but the tips of her fingers tingled badly.

“I
need
a wife,” repeated Bernard Austin. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “As a bachelor, I am at a distinct disadvantage. Parents expect one to have a wife. Mrs. Methven Smith told me only yesterday that she would send her six boys to me if I were only married. The eldest is eight. She said she couldn't feel any confidence that their underclothing would be changed at the proper times in the spring and autumn unless I had a wife that she could write to about it. I told her the school matron was most efficient; but she said that a wife would take more interest. I
must
have a wife.”

“You can have twenty so long as I'm not one of them,” said Chloe sharply.

“I only want you,” said Bernard. “Mrs. Methven Smith—”

“My good Bernard,” said Chloe, “I haven't the slightest intention of marrying anyone for ages. And when I do get married, it won't be because I've got a passionate desire to talk about vests and pyjamas to Mrs. Methven Smith.”

Bernard looked pained.

“A wife should identify herself with her husband's work. She should throw her whole heart into it. She—”

“Good gracious, Bernard, do stop!” said Chloe in an exasperated voice. “When you've got a wife, she can do all those things; but they don't interest me. Do you hear?—they simply don't interest me. I'm not your wife; and I'm not going to be your wife.” She sprang up as she spoke. “I don't want to be anybody's wife; I want to dance.” She laughed over her shoulder at him. “You dance a heap better than you make love, Bernard. Look here, I'll give you a really good tip,” she added as he got up and gave her his arm. “It won't work with me, but it might with some one else. Next time you propose to a girl—no, don't interrupt; it's rude—next time, you try telling her what a lot of interest you're going to take in her and how you're going to put your whole heart into making her happy. And—don't talk so much about yourself.”

Chloe got home before Rose because Lady Gresson did not stay to the end of the ball, and Edward Anderson did. Chloe was sitting up in bed when Rose came in, pretty and glowing in the pink frock that she had made herself. She flung off her coat, and sank down on the bed with an, “Oh, Chloe, such heaps to tell you!”

“So have I,” said Chloe.

“And you mustn't mind—Chloe darling, you must promise not to mind, or it will spoil everything.”

Chloe roused herself from her own thoughts and plans. Something must have happened to make Rose look like this, so flushed and tremulous.

“What is it?” she asked. “Tell me at once, ducky!”

Rose came nearer, flung an arm about Chloe's shoulders, and hid her face in Chloe's neck.

“You mustn't mind—you must promise not to mind,” she whispered.

“What is it?”

“Edward has to go out a month earlier, and—and—oh, Chloe, we'll have to be married next week; and I do so hate leaving you.”

Chloe felt a hot tear go trickling down the back her neck. She put motherly arms about Rose and hugged her.

Danesborough seemed nearer.

Chapter IX

Chloe stood on the terrace at Danesborough, and watched the sun go down into a band of mist. Rose was married and gone, and Maxton seemed very far away. She had been at Danesborough for nearly a week. After a short interview with Mr. Dane, Ally had fairly pressed holiday upon her, and she had gone off with the Gressons in a mood between shrinking and excitement.

Chloe saw the sun grow redder and rounder in the fog. The air was very still; the sky a faint, dusky blue, fast changing into grey; mist rising everywhere. From where she stood, the ground fell away in five terraces. The mist was rising against them like a tide. Away to the right, the great mass of leafless woods curtained by the dusk. To the left, a hazy gleam from the lake in the hollow.

Chloe remembered it all so green and smiling in the sunshine. With that child's memory which crowds all its happy recollections upon a single canvas she had pictured Danesborough as the old folk-tales picture Avalon, a place always green and always sunny, where roses, lilies, daffodils, and irises bloomed for ever, and the rosy apple-blossoms broke from boughs weighed down with ruddy apples—a Danesborough that never was; a child's imagining; a child's dream. But Chloe missed her dream and was sad for it. The real Danesborough gave her nothing to take its place. The woods were leafless, and the gardens slept.

She turned and went into the lighted house, and in the house met again that something that had driven her out upon the terrace. Chloe did not know what this something was; but it met her at
every
turn.

Mrs. Wroughton, the secretary's wife, crossed the hall as Chloe came in—a little faded woman with hair like straw, and a mouth that was always slightly open. Chloe never saw her without wondering how the red-faced, jovial Mr. Wroughton had ever come to marry such a frightened wisp of a creature.

“Oh, Miss Dane, you've been out.”

“Yes,” said Chloe.

“It's—it's getting quite dark.”

“Yes.”

Emily Wroughton's trick of making banal and self-evident remarks had become almost as irritating to Chloe as it obviously was to Emily's husband.

“But milder—I really think it is milder—only foggy—there seems to be quite a fog—so autumnal! I believe Mr. Dane was asking for you just now. Have you seen him?”

Mr. Dane himself opened the drawing-room door as she spoke. He stood back when he saw Chloe, with a gesture that invited her to join him. When she had come into the drawing-room, he shut the door.

“Aren't you cold?” he asked. “You should have had a coat.”

“I'm never cold. Rose used to get quite angry about it. She said it was dreadfully aggravating.”

“Yes, I can understand that. I am a cold person myself.” He paused, and then said with some abruptness, “Do you remember this room all? I've changed it as little as possible.”

“I don't know,” said Chloe. “It's funny, but I remember all the outside things so much better than I do the house.”

“If you come to live here, you can do anything you like with it.” There was no expression Mitchell Dane's voice.

Chloe was looking about her. She had hardly been into the drawing-room at all—they had used the library and the morning-room. This room with its fine proportions and long windows open upon the terrace, had the bleak, formal effect of a place unlived in; its atmosphere was rather that of a museum or public institution; everything about it was formal. The pale Aubusson carpet had a chilly look which the delicate brocade curtains repeated. The whole room was colourless without any stronger tint than the faint pastel hues afford. Old gilding; old damask; the faded water-colours of some half forgotten grandmother—everything, as it were, keyed to the lowest possible tone—everything except the black cabinet

“Oh!” said Chloe. “I remember that.” She pointed at it and ran forward.

It stood out in the room, as it stood out in her recollection—a Chinese cabinet of black lacquer decorated in gold. She had not seen it at first because it was set in the recess beside the fireplace and she had turned towards the windows.

Mitchell Dane smiled.

“Oh! You remember that.”

Chloe was all glow and sparkle.

“I remember it frightfully well. But isn't it? I didn't remember that I remembered it this minute; and now—it's just like a curtain going up. I—I can see myself standing on a chair, trying to find out where the river came from.”

She had come close to the cabinet as she spoke. It was very large. It towered over Chloe's head even now; to the child it had seemed unbelievably tall. The river began in the left-hand top corner. It was a golden river, winding its way amongst mountains and trees. Sometimes there was a boat upon it; sometimes tiny golden men stood amongst the rushes on its banks. Chloe gazed at it, fascinated.

“I remember it more and more. I always med it.”

The river wound upon its golden way. They reared themselves upon the bank. Chloe put out her finger and touched the little shining waves that lapped against the rushes. She was little Chloe Dane again, escaped from the nursery and looking into a Chinese fairy-land. Three little men in the rushes. One had a hat; and one had a basket; and one had speared a fish. Their names back with a rush, the ridiculous, make-believe names which she had given them. Timmy Jimmy, that was the one with the hat; and the fisherman was Henry Planty; and the man with basket was Mr. Dark. The child Chloe had loved Timmy Jimmy and Henry Planty, but she had always been a little bit afraid of Mr. Dark.

Mitchell Dane saw her touch two of the little men and draw her finger back from the third. He saw the colour come with a rush to her cheeks, and watched her with interest. He was always interested in people; but it was years since that interest had come so near a normal human feeling as it had during the past week. He wondered what Chloe was thinking of.

Chloe was not in the drawing-room at Danesborough at all. There was a black, muddy marsh under her feet, and tall rushes that rose between her and a night-black sky. All the light came from the golden river. Chloe stood amongst the rushes, and heard people moving. She knew who the people were. They were Timmy Jimmy, and Henry Planty, and Mr. Dark. The child Chloe had made rhymes about them. Each little man had his own rhyme, and the ridiculous jingling words said themselves over to Chloe across the forgotten years:

“Timmy Jimmy has a hat,

Very wide and very flat.

Oh, how I wish I had a hat

Just like Timmy Jimmy's hat!”

That was the first rhyme. And then there was one about Henry Planty:

“Henry Planty caught a fish,

And put it on a golden dish.

Henry Planty's golden fish

Gives a golden wish.”

That was a perfectly thrilling rhyme. Chloe could see the golden wishes there in the dark. They were little bright things like fire-flies, and if you caught one, you could have your wish. Only they were just terribly difficult to catch. The third rhyme rose up in her mind:

“The dogs all bark

At Mr. Dark.

I would not like to have to touch

The basket he has got,

I'd say loud out, ‘I'd rather not,

Because I do not like you very much,

And if I was a dog, I'd bark,

Mr. Dark.'”

Chloe came back to the drawing-room at Danesborough with a start. Why, that was really just what she felt about Mitchell Dane. It came straight out of the silly rhyme—“I'd rather not, 'cause I do not like you very much.”

Mitchell Dane's voice sounded suddenly in her ears:

“I'll give you more than a penny for your thoughts, Chloe. What are they?”

Chloe looked over her shoulder; she had a listening, remembering look.

“I gave them names,” she said very low. “I gav
e
them names. But I never told anyone; it was a tremendous secret.”

Mitchell Dane smiled.

“A secret—and you kept it?”

“Oh, yes, I kept it always. I never told anyone. I—I had forgotten; but it's all come back.”

“Secrets are safest when they are forgotten. Unfortunately they have a way of coming back,” said Mitchell Dane, his voice very cool and matter of fact. Then, after a little pause, “Do you suppose you could keep a secret?”

She turned towards him with a confident nod. The abstracted fit was passing.

“Of course I can.”

“You're very sure. Why that ‘of course'?”

Just for a moment Chloe looked rather like an impudent boy.

“Why, because I'm a woman, and women are
very
good at keeping secrets—didn't you know that?”

“That's not the general opinion, but—”

The atmosphere changed suddenly. Chloe was aware of being searched through and through, dissected. She felt extraordinarily small and extraordinarily helpless, like a fly on a pin. The impudence went out of her, and she heard herself say with a gasp, “Don't! Don't!” The sensation passed as suddenly as it had come.

“So you can keep a secret?”

This time Chloe did not laugh. She met his eyes steadily, and said,

“Yes, I can.”

Mitchell Dane turned round towards the fire, and began to warm first one foot and then the other, “When I retired from business two years ago,”—his quiet, level voice seemed to continue rather than begin a statement—“when I retired from business two years ago, I had a good deal of my stock-in-trade left on my hands. It was, and is very valuable. It needs extremely expert handling. I should never advise you to attempt to handle it. I do not suppose for a moment that you would desire to do so; but, in any case, it ‘a matter for the expert, and I couldn't advise you to touch it. On the other hand—”

“Mr. Dane, stop!” said Chloe. She had stood still until this moment, but now she made a quick pep forward. “Mr. Dane, don't! Don't tell me anything!”

“And why not?”

Chloe was rather pale.

“Because, Mr. Dane, at Maxton you asked me—I mean, you told me—”

“I told you that I wished to adopt you. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes,” said Chloe, her eyes wide and imploring.

“And to make you my heiress.”

She nodded, biting her lip.

“Well,” said Mitchell Dane, “what about it? Why did you stop me?”

“Because—because I can't,” said Chloe from her heart.

“You don't want to be adopted?” Mr. Dane's voice was as expressionless as his face.

“No, I can't!”

“Or to be my heiress?” A spice of malice crept in.

“No, I can't—really.” She put out her hand with a troubled gesture, her eyes searched his face. “It sounds dreadfully ungrateful, but I can't.”

“Why?” His voice was rather amused. “I'm not the least bit offended. But it would really interest me to know why you
can't
take Danesborough and half a million—I think I told you it was half a million.”

Chloe had an impulse of anger, an impulse of pity.

“I don't know you,” she said. “I shouldn't even know you. I should feel—yes, always—that I was taking things from a stranger. You can't be a daughter to someone whom you don't know.” In the end pity came uppermost with a rush. “I'm—I'm so dreadfully sorry, Mr. Dane,” she said.

There was a pause. Mitchell Dane shifted from his right foot to his left, held the right foot to the fire, and said nothing. If he felt any disappointment or hurt feeling, no sign of it appeared. He seemed to be lost in thought and unaware of Chloe. She had time to find the silence oppressive before he said,

“When you interrupted me just now I was about to tell you that there are various people who would be quite pleased to have the handling of my stock-in-trade. Some of these have been associated with me in business, and I dare say they think themselves quite competent to carry on without me. Now, Chloe, this is what I want to impress upon you—”

“Why are you telling me this?” said Chloe.

“Because I choose,” said Mitchell Dane. “I ask nothing of you except that you should listen and remember what I am saying. I do not wish any of these persons to have the handling of my stock-in-trade. I trust you to see that they do not have the opportunity of doing so.”

“What have I got to do with it? I can't, indeed I can't!”

“You're too fond of that word, I think. I'm really only asking you to remember what I'm saying. I won't keep you much longer. But I wish to tell you something—something rather important. When I came here two years ago, I had a safe built into the wall behind that cabinet. It's a very special safe. I had the cabinet adapted in order to accommodate and conceal it. As the cabinet has stood in this place for at least a hundred years, it would not, I think, occur to anyone that there was a safe behind it.”

“But the men, the men who did the work—they would talk,” said Chloe.

“Wroughton and I did the work,” said Mitchell Dane. “And the cabinet is clamped to the wall; and to the floor—for greater security.”

“Then Mr. Wroughton knows?”

“Yes.”

With the one short word Mitchell Dane left the hearth, went to the cabinet, and unlocked the doors. The cabinet was in two parts. It was the upper doors that he flung open, disclosing a number of small drawers ornamented with fishes, dragon-flies, and birds. The gold on the drawers was much fresher and brighter than the gold on the outside of the cabinet.

Chloe remembered these drawers very well. One of the uncles had collected butterflies when he was a boy, and his collection had occupied the whole top of the cabinet.

“Are the butterflies still there?” she asked.

He pulled out a drawer and showed her a slightly damaged peacock butterfly, rather jostled by a large stag-beetle.

“Yes, they're here—a little the worse for wear. That's time, not me; I haven't disturbed them.” He looked at the draggled peacock wings with something that just fell short of being a smile.