The City of Masks/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
IN THE FOG
MISS EMSDALE did not ask Mrs. Smith-Parvis for a "reference." She dreaded the interview that was set for seven o'clock that evening. The butler had informed her on her return to the house shortly after five that Mrs. Smith-Parvis would see her at seven in the library, after all, instead of in her boudoir, and she was to look sharp about being prompt.
The young lady smiled. "It's all one to me, Rogers,—the library or the boudoir."
"First it was the boudoir, Miss, and then it was the library, and then the boudoir again,—and now the library. It seems to be quite settled, however. It's been nearly 'arf an hour since the last change was made. Shouldn't surprise me if it sticks."
"It gives me an hour and a half to get my things together," said she, much more brightly than he thought possible in one about to be "sacked." "Will you be good enough to order a taxi for me at half-past seven, Rogers?"
Rogers stiffened. This was not the tone or the manner of a governess. He had a feeling that he ought to resent it, and yet he suddenly found himself powerless to do so. No one had spoken to him in just that way in fifteen years.
"Very good, Miss Emsdale. Seven-thirty." He went away strangely puzzled, and not a little disgusted with himself.
She expected to find that Stuyvesant had carried out his threat to vilify her, and was prepared for a bitter ten minutes with the outraged mistress of the house, who would hardly let her escape without a severe lacing. She would be dismissed without a "character."
She packed her boxes and the two or three hand-bags that had come over from London with her. A heightened colour was in her cheeks, and there was a repelling gleam in her blue eyes. She was wondering whether she could keep herself in hand during the tirade. Her temper was a hot one.
A not distant Irish ancestor occasionally got loose in her blood and played havoc with the strain inherited from a whole regiment of English forebears. On such occasions, she flared up in a fine Celtic rage, and then for days afterwards was in a penitential mood that shamed the poor old Irish ghost into complete and grovelling subjection.
What she saw in the mirror over her dressing-table warned her that if she did not keep a pretty firm grip tonight on the throat of that wild Irishman who had got into the family-tree ages before the twig represented by herself appeared, Mrs. Smith-Parvis was reasonably certain to hear from him. A less captious observer, leaning over her shoulder, would have taken an entirely different view of the reflection. He (obviously he) would have pronounced it ravishing.
Promptly at seven she entered the library. To her dismay, Mrs. Smith-Parvis was not alone. Her husband was there, and also Stuyvesant. If her life had depended on it, she could not have conquered the impulse to favour the latter's nose with a rather penetrating stare. A slight thrill of satisfaction shot through her. It did seem to be a trifle red and enlarged.
Mr. Smith-Parvis, senior, was nervous. Otherwise he would not have risen from his comfortable chair.
"Good evening, Miss Emsdale," he said, in a palliative tone. "Have this chair. Ahem!" Catching a look from his wife, he sat down again, and laughed quite loudly and mirthlessly, no doubt actuated by a desire to put the governess at her ease,—an effort that left him rather flat and wholly non-essential, it may be said.
His wife lifted her lorgnon. She seemed a bit surprised and nonplussed on beholding Miss Emsdale.
"Oh, I remember. It is you, of course."
Miss Emsdale had the effrontery to smile. "Yes, Mrs. Smith-Parvis."
Stuyvesant felt of his nose. He did it without thinking, and instantly muttered something under his breath.
"We owe you, according to my calculations, fifty-five dollars and eighty-two cents," said Mrs. Smith-Parvis, abruptly consulting a tablet. "Seventeen days in this month. Will you be good enough to go over it for yourself? I do not wish to take advantage of you."
"I sha'n't be exacting," said Miss Emsdale, a wave of red rushing to her brow. "I am content to accept your—"
"Be good enough to figure it up, Miss Emsdale," insisted the other coldly. "We must have no future recriminations. Thirty-one days in this month. Thirty-one into one hundred goes how many times?"
"I beg pardon," said the girl, puzzled. "Thirty-one into one hundred?"
"Can't you do sums? It's perfectly simple. Any school child could do it in a—in a jiffy."
"Quite simple," murmured her husband. "I worked it out for Mrs. Smith-Parvis in no time at all. Three dollars and twenty-two and a half cents a day. Perfectly easy, if you—"
"I am sure it is quite satisfactory," said Miss Emsdale coldly.
"Very well. Here is a check for the amount," said Mrs. Smith-Parvis, laying the slip of paper on the end of the library table. "And now. Miss Emsdale, I feel constrained to tell you how gravely disappointed I am in you. For half-a-year I have laboured under the delusion that you were a lady, and qualified to have charge of two young and innocent—"
"Oh, Lord," groaned Stuyvesant, fidgeting in his chair.
"—young and innocent girls. I find, however, that you haven't the first instincts of a lady. I daresay it is too much to expect." She sighed profoundly. "I know something about the lower classes in London, having been at one time interested in settlement work there in connection with Lady Bannistell's committee, and I am aware that too much should not be expected of them. That is to say, too much in the way of—er—delicacy. Still, I thought you might prove to be an exception. I have learned my lesson. I shall in the future engage only German governesses. From time to time I have observed little things in you that disquieted me, but I overlooked them because you appeared to be earnestly striving to overcome the handicap placed upon you at birth. For example, I have found cigarette stubs in your room when I—"
"Oh, I say, mother," broke in Stuyvesant; "cut it out."
"My dear!"
"You'd smoke 'em yourself if father didn't put up such a roar about it. Lot of guff about your grand-mothers turning over in their graves. I don't see anything wrong in a woman smoking cigarettes. Besides, you may be accusing Miss Emsdale unjustly. What proof have you that the stubs were hers?"
"I distinctly said that I found them in her room," said Mrs. Smith-Parvis icily. "I don't know how they got there."
"Circumstantial evidence," retorted Stuyvie, an evil twist at one corner of his mouth. "Doesn't prove that she smoked 'em, does it?" He met Miss Emsdale's burning gaze for an instant, and then looked away. "Might have been the housekeeper. She smokes."
"It was not the housekeeper," said Jane quietly. "I smoke."
"We are digressing," said Mrs. Smith-Parvis sternly. "There are other instances of your lack of refinement, Miss Emsdale, but I shall not recite them. Suffice to say, I deeply deplore the fact that my children have been subject to contamination for so long. I am afraid they have acquired—"
Jane had drawn herself up haughtily. She interrupted her employer.
"Be good enough, Mrs. Smith-Parvis, to come to the point," she said. "Have you nothing more serious to charge me with than smoking? Out with it! Let's have the worst."
"How dare you speak to me in that— My goodness!" She half started up from her chair. "What have you been up to? Drinking? Or some low affair with the butler? Good heavens, have I been harbouring a—"
"Don't get so excited, momsey," broke in Stuyvesant, trying to transmit a message of encouragement to Miss Emsdale by means of sundry winks and frowns and cautious head-shakings. "Keep your hair on."
"My—my hair?" gasped his mother.
Mr. Smith-Parvis got up. "Stuyvesant, you'd better retire," he said, noisily. "Remember, sir, that you are speaking to your mother. It came out at the time of her illness,—when we were so near to losing her,—and you—"
"Keep still. Philander," snapped Mrs. Smith-Parvis, very red in the face. "It came in again, thicker than before," she could not help explaining. "And don't be absurd, Stuyvesant. This is my affair. Please do not interfere again. I— What was I saying?"
"Something about drinking and the butler, Mrs. Smith-Parvis," said Jane, drily. It was evident that Stuyvesant had not carried tales to his mother. She would not have to defend herself against a threatened charge. Her sense of humour was at once restored.
"Naturally I cannot descend to the discussion of anything so perfectly vile. Your conduct this afternoon is sufficient—ah,—sufficient unto the day. I am forced to dismiss you without a reference. Furthermore, I consider it my duty to protect other women as unsuspecting as I have been. You are in no way qualified to have charge of young and well-bred girls. No apology is desired," she hastily declared, observing symptoms of protest in the face of the delinquent; "so please restrain yourself. I do not care to hear a single word of apology, or any appeal to be retained. You may go now, my girl. Spare us the tears. I am not turning you out into the streets tonight. You may remain until tomorrow morning."
"I am going tonight," said Jane, quite white,—with suppressed anger.
"It isn't necessary," said the other, loftily.
"Where are you going?" inquired Mr. Smith-Parvis, senior, fumbling with his nose-glasses. "Have you any friends in the city?"
Miss Emsdale ignored the question. She picked up the check and folded it carefully.
"I should like to say good-bye to the—to Eudora and Lucille," she said, with an effort.
"That is out of the question," said Mrs. Smith-Parvis.
Jane deliberately turned her back upon Mrs. Smith-Parvis and moved toward the door. It was an eloquent back. Mrs. Smith-Parvis considered it positively insulting.
"Stop!" she cried out. "Is that the way to leave a room. Miss Emsdale? Please remember who and what you are. I can not permit a servant to be insolent to me."
"Oh, come now, Angela, dear," began Mr. Smith-Parvis, uncomfortably. "Seems to me she walks properly enough. What's the matter with her— There, she's gone! I can't see what—"
"You would think the hussy imagines herself to be the Queen of England," sputtered Mrs. Smith-Parvis angrily. "I've never seen such airs."
The object of her derision mounted the stairs and entered her bed-chamber on the fourth floor. Her steamer-trunk and her bags were nowhere in sight. A wry little smile trembled on her lips.
"Must you be going?" she said to herself, whimsically, as she adjusted her hat in front of the mirror.
There was no one to say good-bye to her, except Peasley, the footman. He opened the big front door for her, and she passed out into the foggy March night. A fine mist blew upon her hot face.
"Good-bye, Miss," said Peasley, following her to the top of the steps.
"Good-bye, Peasley. Thank you for taking down my things."
"You'll find 'em in the taxi," said he. He peered hard ahead and sniffed. "A bit thick, ain't it? Reminds one of London, Miss." He referred to the fog.
At the bottom of the steps she encountered the irrepressible and somewhat jubilant scion of the house. His soft hat was pulled well down over his eyes, and the collar of his overcoat was turned up about his ears. He promptly accosted her, his voice lowered to an eager, confident undertone.
"Don't cry, little girl," he said. "It isn't going to be bad at all. I— Oh, I say, now, listen to me!"
She tried to pass, but he placed himself directly in her path. The taxi-cab loomed up vaguely through the screen of fog. At the corner below an electric street lamp produced the effect of a huge, circular vignette in the white mist. The raucous barking of automobile horns, and the whir of engines came out of the street, and shadowy will-o'-the-wisp lights scuttled through the yielding, opaque wall.
"Be good enough to let me pass," she cried, suddenly possessed of a strange fear.
"Everything is all right," he said. "I'm not going to see you turned out like this without a place to go—"
"Will you compel me to call for help?" she said, backing away from him.
"Help? Why, hang it all, can't you see that I'm trying to help you? It was a rotten thing for mother to do. Poor little girl, you sha'n't go wandering around the streets looking for— Why, I'd never forgive myself if I didn't do something to offset the cruel thing she's done to you tonight. Haven't I told you all along you could depend on me? Trust me, little girl. I'll—"
Suddenly she blazed out at him.
"I see it all! That is your taxi, not mine! So that is your game, is it? You beast!"
"Don't be a damn' fool," he grated. "I ought to be sore as a crab at you, but I'm not. You need me now, and I'm going to stand by you. I'll forgive all that happened today, but you've got to—"
She struck his hand from her arm, and dashed out to the curb.
"Driver!" she cried out. "If you are a man you will protect me from this—"
"Hop in, Miss," interrupted the driver from his seat. "I've got all your bags and things up but,— What's that you're saying?"
"I shall not enter this cab," she said resolutely. "If you are in the pay of this man—"
"I was sent here in answer to a telephone call half an hour ago. That's all I know about it. What's the row?"
"There is no row," said Stuyvesant, coming up. "Get in. Miss Emsdale. I'm through. I've done my best to help you."
But she was now thoroughly alarmed. She sensed abduction.
"No! Stay on your box, my man! Don't get down. I shall walk to my—"
"Go ahead, driver. Take those things to the address I just gave you," said Stuyvesant. "We'll be along later."
"I knew! I knew!" she cried out. In a flash she was running down the sidewalk toward the comer.
He followed her a few paces and then stopped, cursing softly.
"Hey!" called out the driver, springing to the sidewalk. "What's all this? Getting me in wrong, huh? That's what the little roll of bills was for, eh? Well, guess again! Get out of the way, you, or I'll bat you one over the bean."
In less time than it takes to tell it, he had whisked the trunk from the platform of the taxi and the three bags from the interior.
"I ought to beat you up anyhow," he grunted. "The Parkingham Hotel, eh? Fine little place, that! How much did you say was in this roll?"
"Never mind. Give it back to me at once or I'll—I'll call the police."
"Go ahead! Call your head off. Good night!"
Ten seconds later, Stuyvesant alone stood guard over the scattered effects on the curb. A tail-light winked blearily at him for an additional second or two, the taxi chortled disdainfully, and seemed to grind its teeth as it joined the down-town ghosts.
"Blighter!" shouted Stuyvesant, and urged by a sudden sense of alarm, strode rapidly away,—not in the wake of Miss Emsdale nor toward the house from which she had been banished, but diagonally across the street. A glance in the direction she had taken revealed no sign of her, but the sound of excited voices reached his ear. On the opposite sidewalk he slowed down to a walk, and peering intently into the fog, listened with all his ears for the return of the incomprehensible governess, accompanied by a patrolman!
A most amazing thing had happened to Lady Jane. At the corner below she bumped squarely into a pedestrian hurrying northward.
"I'm sorry," exclaimed the pedestrian. He did not say "excuse me" or "I beg pardon."
Jane gasped. "Tom—Mr. Trotter!"
"Jane!" cried the man in surprise. "I say, what's up? 'Gad, you're trembling like a leaf."
She tried to tell him.
"Take a long breath," he suggested gently, as the words came swiftly and disjointedly from her lips.
She did so, and started all over again. This time he was able to understand her.
"Wait! Tell me the rest later on," he interrupted. "Come along! This looks pretty ugly to me. By gad, I—I believe he was planning to abduct you or something as—"
"I must have a policeman," she protested, holding back. "I was looking for one when you came up."
"Nonsense! We don't need a bobby. I can take care of—"
"But that man will make off with my bags."
"We'll see," he cried, and she was swept along up the street, running to keep pace with his prodigious strides. He had linked his arm through hers.
They found her effects scattered along the edge of the sidewalk. Trotter laughed, but it was not a good-humoured laugh.
"Skipped!" he grated. "I might have known it. Now, let me think. What is the next, the best thing to do? Go up there and ring that doorbell and—"
"No! You are not to do that. Sit down here beside me. My—my knees are frightfully shaky. So silly of them. But I—I—really it was quite a shock I had, Mr. Trotter."
"Better call me Tom,—for the present at least," he suggested, sitting down beside her on the trunk.
"What a strange coincidence," she murmured. There was not much room on the trunk for two. He sat quite on one end of it.
"You mean,—sitting there?" he inquired, blankly.
"No. Your turning up as you did,—out of a clear sky."
"I shouldn't call it clear," said he, suddenly diffident. "Thick as a blanket."
"It was queer, though, wasn't it?"
"Not a bit. I've been walking up and down past this house for twenty minutes at least. We were bound to meet. Sit still. I'll keep an eye out for an empty taxi. The first thing to do is to see that you get safely down to Mrs. Sparflight's."
"How did you know I was to go there?" she demanded.
"She told me," said he bluntly.
"She wasn't to tell any one—at present." She peered closely,—at the side of his face.
He abruptly changed the subject. "And then I'll come back here and wait till he ventures out. I'm off till nine o'clock. I sha'n't pull his nose this time."
"Please explain," she insisted, clutching at his arm as he started to arise. "Did she send you up here, Mr. Trotter?"
"No, she didn't," said he, almost gruffly, and stood up to hail an approaching automobile. "Can't see a thing," he went on. "We'll just have to stop 'em till we catch one that isn't engaged. Taxi?" he shouted.
"No!" roared a voice from the shroud of mist.
"The butler telephoned for one, I am sure," said she. "He must have been sent away before I came downstairs."
"Don't think about it. You'll get yourself all wrought up and—and— Everything's all right, now. Lady Jane,—I should say Miss—"
"Call me Jane," said she softly.
"You—you don't mind?" he cried, and sat down beside her again. The trunk seemed to have increased in size. At any rate there was room to spare at the end.
"Not—not in the least," she murmured.
He was silent for a long time. "Would you mind calling me Eric,—just once?" he said at last, wistfully. His voice was very low. "I—I'm rather homesick for the sound of my own name, uttered by one of my own people."
"Oh, you poor dear boy!"
"Say 'Eric,'" he pleaded.
"Eric," she half-whispered, suddenly shy.
He drew a long, deep breath, and again was silent for a long time. Both of them appeared to have completely forgotten her plight.
"We're both a long, long way from home, Jane," he said.
"Yes, Eric."
"Odd that we should be sitting here like this, on a trunk, on the sidewalk,—in a fog."
"The 'two orphans,'" she said, with feeble attempt at sprightliness.
"People passing by within a few yards of us and yet we—we're quite invisible." There was a thrill in his voice.
"Almost as if we were in London, Eric,—lovely black old London."
Footsteps went by in the fog in front of them, automobiles slid by behind them, tooting their unheard horns.
"Oh, Jane, I—I can't help it," he whispered in her ear, and his arm went round her shoulders. "I—I love you so."
She put her hand up to his cheek and held it there.
"I—I know it, Eric," she said, ever so softly.
It may have been five minutes, or ten minutes—even so long as half an hour. There is no way to determine the actual lapse of time, or consciousness, that followed her declaration. The patrolman who came up and stopped in front of them, peering hard at the dense, immobile mass that had attracted his attention for the simple reason that it wasn't there when he passed on his uptown round, couldn't have thrown any light on the question. He had no means of knowing just when it began.
"Well, what's all this?" he demanded suspiciously.
Jane sighed, and disengaged herself. Trotter stood up, confronting the questioner.
"We're waiting for a taxi," he said.
"What's this? A trunk?" inquired the officer, tapping the object with his night-stick.
"It is," said Trotter.
"Out of one of these houses along here?" He described a half-circle with his night-stick.
"Right in front of you."
"That's the Smith-Parvis house. They've got a couple of cars, my bucko. What you givin' me? Whadda you mean taxi?"
"She happens not to be one of the family. The courtesy of the port is not extended to her, you see."
"Hired girl?"
"In a way. I say, officer, be a good fellow. Keep your eye peeled for a taxi as you go along and send it up for us. She had one ordered, but—well, you can see for yourself. It isn't here."
"That's as plain as the nose on your face. I guess I'll just step up to the door and see if it's all right. Stay where you are. Looks queer to me."
"Oh, it isn't necessary to inquire, officer," broke in Jane nervously. "You have my word for it that it's all right."
"Oh, I have, have I? Fine! And what if them bags and things is filled with silver and God knows what? You don't—"
"Go ahead and inquire," said Trotter, pressing her arm encouragingly. "Ask the butler if he didn't call a cab for Miss Emsdale,—and also ask him why in thunder it isn't here."
The patrolman hesitated. "Who are you," he asked, stepping a little closer to Trotter.
"I am this young lady's fiancé," said Trotter, with dignity.
"Her what?"
"Her steady," said Trotter.
The policeman laughed,—good-naturedly, to their relief.
"Oh, well, that being the case," said he, and started away. "Excuse me for buttin' in."
"Sure," said Trotter amiably. "If you see a taxi, old man."
"Leave it to me," came back from the fog.
Jane nestled close to her tall young man. His arm was about her.
"Wasn't he perfectly lovely?" she murmured.
"Everything is perfectly lovely," said he, vastly reassured. He had taken considerable risk with the word "fiancé."