Royal Amethyst/Chapter 1
I
When the door finally opened, there was vouchsafed to me a vision of my landlady, unnaturally tall, stout, and unpleasant. She filled the doorway and appeared to be occupying most of the passage that stretched away behind her. Her expression reminded me of Horatius at the bridge. I gazed at her admiringly.
“Not in 'ere you don't come, Mr. 'Anmer,” said she. “Not in 'ere, sir. Sorry I am to take steps which is unpleasant, but when a gentleman don't pay 'is rent, and a poor woman as 'as 'er living to make gets a chance of lettin' to better advantage, what can be expected? An' them's your property, such as they are, Mr. 'Anmer, and good day to you!”
She suddenly whipped from behind her bag which showed marks of hasty packing, thrust it into my hand, and closed the door in my face. I was turned out.
I stood a full minute on the doorstep, Then, dragging the sack at my heels, I walked out of the four square yards of garden into the street. My late landlady and her daughter watched me from behind the blinds of the first floor.
What to do with the bag? It was a cheap affair which had once, apparently, contained potatoes. It trailed dismally behind me, and people looked at it and then at me; and at last, having walked a hundred yards with the thing trailing, it dawned upon me that the situation was somewhat unusual. Only once in a century, perhaps, is a well-dressed man seen trailing a potato sack in the streets of London.
All that I possessed in the world was in the bag and on me. I had a good suit of clothes, good boots, a smart necktie, and good linen. Although there was not even one penny in my pockets, I was as trim and well groomed as any man in London. In the sack was another suit, a little more linen, toilet requisites, a few books, some manuscripts, and two pairs of shoes.
The bag began to bore me. I felt at last that it and I must part company; and, seeing a secondhand shop, I marched in and dropped it on the counter. A man behind the counter glanced at me and at the sack.
I opened it, and fished out my books and manuscripts. These I placed aside; the rest of the contents I shook out on the counter.
“How much?” I asked.
The man pulled the things about and examined the texture of the cloth and the shape of the shoes.
“Give yer eight bob for the lot,” he said.
“Ten shillings,” I insisted.
He hesitated for a moment; then he counted out the money. I placed it in my pocket and gathered up my books and papers.
At a secondhand bookshop I sold the books for seven shillings and sixpence. The manuscripts I made up into a neat parcel and addressed it to myself, Meredith Cosmo Gordon Hanmer, at the Buckingham Palace Hotel. Thither I carried it, and there, presumably, it still awaits my coming.
At last I was free—and I had seventeen shillings and threepence halfpenny.
It was half an hour after midday. I strolled leisurely toward Frascati's. That had always been a favorite resort of mine ere evil days came, and I went back to it naturally. Moreover, by good luck, I found the table at which I always sat in the old days unoccupied. The place was full. People were eating, chatting, laughing.
I had scarce eaten a mouthful when a girl, fair, stately, gracious, paused near me, looking about her in some apparent embarrassment. Then she caught sight of a vacant chair at my table. She was sitting opposite me before I realized that she had come.
As soon as I saw her, I wanted to talk to her. There was rare sympathy in her face; common sense, too; and a suspicion of fun, of roguishness. She was a beautiful woman, rich in color, in shape, in femininity. As she dismissed the waiter, she raised her face and looked at me. I think we stared at each other for quite two seconds.
I was profoundly interested in my table companion, and was secretly conscious of her every action as she ate. Her eyes were like lakes of unfathomable depth.
At last I saw her hand steal around to her pocket. Then, with a sudden rising of color, she looked at me involuntarily.
“Oh!” she breathed. “Somebody has stolen my purse!”
“Madam,” I said, leaning forward, “you may have the loan of mine.”
“I am obliged to you,” she replied. “I accept your offer—rather than suffer the indignity of telling the waiter what he might not choose to believe.”
“Of two evils,” I said, “it is always well to avoid the greater.”
“Then—your purse,” she said.
“'Tis but poorly filled,” I confessed, passing it over.
She took it in her ungloved hands, opened it, abstracted a half crown and a shilling, and returned it to me.
“I owe you three shillings and sixpence,” she said. “Your address, please, so that I may return it to you.”
I gave her my card. She called the waiter, paid him, and then began to draw on her gloves slowly. She stirred a little.
“It seems a poor return for your kindness to say a mere 'good afternoon,'” she said in a low voice.
“It is sufficient reward, madam, to have been permitted to serve you,” I responded.
“I will send you three shillings and sixpence at once,” she said. “I—suppose I may shake hands with you?”
But before she had stretched out her hand I stopped her.
“Don't, please!” I protested. “I—look here, that's been a bit of pretty comedy; don't let's spoil it. You knew I was acting all the time.”
“Ah!” she said, drawing a long breath. “Well? What else?”
“Absolutely nothing else,” I replied. “Hadn't you better go?”
She put her elbows on the table and looked at me until my eyes sought my plate.
“I believe you are in trouble,” she said at last.
“No,” I told her. “I assure you that I am brilliantly happy. Don't I look so?”
“A woman,” she responded, “can see things. Ah, yes—I am quite sure of it! Please tell me.”
I sat staring at her; and then something made me tell her everything. She said never a word. When I had told her all, she sat for some moments staring at me.
“And so,” she said at last, “with seventeen shillings as your all, and no prospect of anything to come, you eat and drink expensive things, and offer your purse to persons who have lost their own!”
“Does it make any difference? After all, I saved you the annoyance of having to tell the waiter that—”
“I had not forgotten,” she said. “And now—what comes now?”
“Nothing but leave-taking,” I answered rising.
“Sit down,” she said. I obeyed mechanically. “What do you intend to do when you walk out of this place?” she inquired.
“I do not know,” I admitted.
“Call the waiter and pay your bill,” she said. “Will you walk a little way with me? There is something I would like to say to you.”
“All ways are his who has no way at all,” I said laughingly.
She looked me up and down as we walked out together into the street.
“You are strong?” she asked, after we had walked some way.
“As a horse,” I made answer.
“And you are not afraid—”
“Of anything.”
She nodded her head. For a long while we walked on in silence. When she began to talk again, it was of things foreign to the recent situation. We had covered some distance when I suddenly paused and began to laugh at the curious incongruity of the situation.