The House by the Lock/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I
THE LADY IN THE STAGE BOX
Hullo, old chap! Who would ever have thought of seeing you here to-night? What's brought you back to civilisation again?"
I turned suddenly, surprised by the sound of a familiar voice in my ear. It was the night of Christmas Eve, and I was just entering the lobby of the St. James's, the first time, as it happened, I had seen the inside of a theatre for two years.
For the fraction of a moment I could not remember where I had known the man who addressed me so jovially. My way of knocking about the world brought me into contact with so many people that it was difficult to sort my gallery of faces, and keep each one mentally ticketed. But after a second or two of staring through that convenient medium, my monocle, I was able to place the man who had accosted me. He was a rich mining king from Colorado, by the name of Harvey Farnham, whom I had met in Denver, when I had been dawdling through America three or four years ago.
I pronounced his name with a certain self-satisfaction in having so readily recalled it, and we shook each other by the hand.
"What's brought me back to civilisation?" I echoed, lazily. "I really don't know–unless it was because I'd got tired of the other thing. Adventure–change–that's what I am in search of, my dear Farnham."
"And you come back here from service as war correspondent in Egypt (where I last read of you in the papers as having been carried down a cataract for twenty-six miles before a launch ran out and saved you) in the hope of finding 'adventure' in this workaday close of the nineteenth century? That's too good."
I laughed and shrugged my shoulders. "Yes; why not? Why should there not be as great a possibility of obtaining new sensations, or at least old ones in different form, in London as anywhere else?"
It did not occur to me, as I idly spoke the words, that I was uttering a prophecy.
"How is it," I went on rather curiously, "that you remembered me, 'honouring my draft on sight,' so to speak? It must be four years since that very jolly supper you gave me in Denver one night, and I fancy I have changed considerably since then."
Farnham smiled in his comical American way, which was a humorous sentence in itself.
"Well, I guess it's not so easy to forget a face like yours. You are a little browner, your eyes rather keener perhaps, your head held a bit higher, your shoulders broader and drawn back more like a soldier's than ever; but, so far as I can see, those are the only changes. You might easily have forgotten me, and I'm immensely flattered that you haven't. But the fact is, my dear boy, you are simply the most interesting man I ever came across, in my own country or any other. You've always seemed like a sort of hero of a tale of adventure to me; and, you see, one don't let a chap like that drop out of one's recollection. I've always eagerly followed your doings, so far as one could follow them in the newspapers, and I read your African book with the greatest interest; but somehow I never got to hear much personal gossip about you. Say, are you married or anything?"
"Many things, but not married," I returned. "I haven't had time to think of women. Besides, if I had, who would take me? No money, no prospects, a man who can't be happy for a fortnight in one place! What a life I should lead a woman!"
"Ah, that's one side of the picture, of course; but here's the other, as the world sees it. You're a sort of popular hero–African traveller, war correspondent, writer of books. Polar explorer, and I don't know what besides, though you can't yet be anywhere near thirty-five. You've got the figure of a soldier, and just the sort of dark, unreadable face that women rave about. What does money matter with a chap like that? Nothing. I wonder you've managed to escape the matchmaking mammas so long. They're quite as keen on a celebrity, in my country at least, as they are on a millionaire."
"Nevertheless, they have not given me much trouble," I said, smiling a little, however, at the remembrance of one or two amusing episodes which I had not the slightest intention of relating. "There, the way to the box-office is clear at last. Once that fat old man is out of the way, it will be my turn. Shall I get your stall for you, and so save time?"
"Yes, by all means, thank you. Are you alone, Stanton?"
"Quite alone. I'd almost forgotten what the theatre was like, and determined to come and refresh my memory."
"I'm by myself, too. Say, old man, would it be a liberty if I asked you to try and get stalls for us together?"
"Delighted, I'm sure," I answered, though, as a matter of fact, I was not quite certain whether I was telling the truth or not. Farnham had been well enough in Denver, but I did not know whether I should care to pass in his society a whole evening, which I had meant to be one of solitary enjoyment. However, he had left me nothing else to say, and I responded with what alacrity I could, little dreaming that my whole future was hanging on my words, and the result of my confab with the man in the box-office.
The play was a popular one, and perhaps on no night of the year, save Christmas Eve or some Lenten fast, could we have obtained two stalls side by side a few minutes before the ringing-up of the curtain. As it was, we were successful, and I walked into the theatre by the side of the tall, thin, smooth-faced American.
We sat down, in the third or fourth row of the stalls, and, as the orchestra had not yet come in, began to talk.
Farnham explained to me that he had "run over" to England on business, intending to sell a certain mine of his, which, though vastly profitable, was the one thing in which he had lost interest. The other mines in which he was part owner were situated in his own state, Colorado, while this particular one, the "Miss Cunningham," was in California, and he was tired of journeying to and fro.
"I've had a good offer," he said; "indeed, I'm visiting in the house of the man who has made it–a wonderful fellow, only one degree less interesting, perhaps, than you. His name is Carson Wildred. Did you ever hear of him?"
"No," I answered, though possibly not to know Mr. Carson Wildred was to argue myself unknown.
"He seems to have plenty of money," explained Farnham, "and though he's a newcomer in London, has got in with a number of good people. He has two houses, one in Sloane Street and one up the Thames, a queer, lonely old place, near Purley Lock, if you know where that is. I'm staying out there with him now, as it happens, though I can't say I'm as fond of the river as he is at this season. But when a few papers and a good round sum of money have changed hands, a couple of days or so from now, I shall bid Wildred and England au revoir. I expect to sail for America at the end of the week, and jolly lucky I think myself to have run up against you to-night."
Somehow, as he rattled on about his own affairs, my heart began to warm towards Farnham. He was not a particularly brilliant fellow, though a good business man; but he had such a whimsical face, with its bright eyes, its good-natured mouth, and its laughable, upturned nose! He was so frankly interested in life, so enthusiastic, so outspoken, so boyish in many of his ways, despite his forty years! I found myself almost inclined to be sorry that he was leaving England so soon.
"I should like you to meet Wildred," he went on. "I don't know whether you'd fancy him, but you couldn't help thinking his a remarkable personality. It would be interesting to see you two chaps together. He's at the theatre to-night, by the way, with some friends of his–rather swells. It was an old engagement, made before I went out to his house, but he had to keep it, of course. They'll be in that stage box over there, and as Wildred has been industriously raising my curiosity about the beauty of one of the ladies for the past few days, I concluded to drop in and take the only chance I was likely to get of a look at her. And mighty glad I am that I did so make up my mind, or I should have left England without clapping eyes on someone I'd rather see than all the professional beauties in London."
As he finished speaking the overture, which had now been on for some time, ceased, and the curtain went up on a very pretty bit of stage setting.
There was no curtain-raiser, and the first act was well constructed and interesting from the commencement. It was delightful to me to feel, as I did, that I was no longer blasé of town life, or the mimic life of the theatre, and I was inclined to resent the interruption when Farnham nudged me, whispering–
"There's Wildred and his friends just coming into the stage box. By Jove! what a pretty girl!"
I looked up, because I was sure the volatile American would give me no peace until I had done so; and then, having looked up, I promptly forgot the play and its dramatis personæ.
Two years I had spent in Africa and Egypt, and I had not seen many fair faces during that time of travel and campaigning. I was in a mood, therefore, to appreciate the delicate loveliness of English women; but, even had I been surfeited with beauty, my eyes would have lingered in a species of wonder on the girl just seating herself in a corner of the stage box. It is possible that I have seen other women as beautiful, many more classically perfect of feature, but never have I looked upon a face so radiant, so bewildering.
For the moment I scarcely glanced at the girl's companions, though I was vaguely conscious that there was an older woman, and that two men were taking chairs in the darker background of the box.
All the other figures on the stage and in the auditorium became meaningless for me. There was the dazzling girl in white, and, so far as I was concerned, no one else in the theatre.
The simple, snowy frock, without jewels or ornamentation of any kind, was the most becoming frame which could have been chosen for the picture. The oval face, with its pearly skin, its curved red lips, its starry, long-lashed eyes (which might have been brown or violet, so far as I could tell), and the aureole of waving, ruddy gold hair were all so vivid in their marvelous effect of colour, that the dead white gown set them off far more artistically than the most carefully-chosen tints could have done.
The girl could not, I thought, have been more than twenty, and every turn of the beautifully-poised little head, every dimpling smile, told that she was full of the joy of life.
"What do you think of Wildred?" whispered Farnham, his lazy American drawl waking me out of a dream.
I did not wish him to see how completely I had been absorbed, how foolishly I had lost my head, and therefore I turned my attention to the two men in the back of the box.