So, when we had finished that wall, I popped on my best hat, and popped out by myself into Kensington Gardens.
I am told I ought to have been terribly alarmed at the straits in which I found myself—a girl of twenty-one, alone in the world, and only twopence short of penniless, without a friend to protect, a relation to counsel her. (I don’t count Aunt Susan, who lurked in ladylike indigence at Blackheath, and whose counsel, like her tracts, was given away too profusely to everybody to allow of one’s placing any very high value upon it.) But, as a matter of fact, I must admit I was not in the least alarmed. Nature had endowed me with a profusion of crisp black hair, and plenty of high spirits. If my eyes had been like Elsie’s—that liquid blue which looks out upon life with mingled pity and amazement—I might have felt as a girl ought to feel under such conditions; but having large dark eyes, with a bit of a twinkle in them, and being as well able to pilot a bicycle as any girl of my acquaintance, I have inherited or acquired an outlook on the world which distinctly leans rather towards cheeriness than despondency. I croak with difficulty. So I accepted my plight as an amusing experience, affording full scope for the congenial exercise of courage and ingenuity.
How boundless are the opportunities of Kensington Gardens—the Round Pond, the winding Serpentine, the mysterious seclusion of the Dutch brick Palace! Genii swarm there. One jostles possibilities. It is a land of romance, bounded on the north by the Abyss of Bayswater, and on the south by the Amphitheatre of the Albert Hall. But for a centre of adventure I choose the Long Walk; it beckoned me somewhat as the North-West Passage beckoned my seafaring ancestors—the buccaneering mariners of Elizabethan Devon. I sat down on a chair at the foot of an old elm with a poetic hollow, prosaically filled by a utilitarian plate of galvanised iron. Two ancient ladies were seated on the other side already—very grand-looking dames, with the haughty and exclusive ugliness of the English aristocracy in its later stages. For frank hideousness, commend me to the noble dowager. They were talking confidentially as I sat down; the trifling episode of my approach did not suffice to stem the full stream of their conversation. The great ignore the intrusion of their inferiors.
‘Yes, it’s a terrible nuisance,’ the eldest and ugliest of the two observed—she was a high-born lady, with a distinctly cantankerous cast of countenance. She had a Roman nose, and her skin was wrinkled like a wilted apple; she wore coffee-coloured point-lace in her bonnet, with a complexion to match. ‘But what could I do, my dear? I simply couldn’t put up with such insolence. So I looked her straight back in the face—oh, she quailed, I can tell you; and I said to her, in my iciest voice—you know how icy I can be when occasion demands it’—the second old lady nodded an ungrudging assent, as if perfectly prepared to admit her friend’s rare gift of iciness—‘I said to her, “Célestine, you can take your month’s wages, and half an hour to get out of this house.” And she dropped me a deep reverence, and she answered: “Oui, madame; merci beaucoup, madame; je ne desire pas mieux, madame.” And out she flounced. So there was the end of it.’
‘Still, you go to Schlangenbad on Monday?’
‘That’s the point. On Monday. If it weren’t for the journey, I should have been glad enough to be rid of the minx. I’m glad as it is, indeed; for a more insolent, upstanding, independent, answer-you-back-again young woman, with a sneer of her own, I never saw, Amelia—but I must get to Schlangenbad. Now, there the difficulty comes in. On the one hand, if I engage a maid in London, I have the choice of two evils. Either I must take a trapesing English girl—and I know by experience that an English girl on the Continent is a vast deal worse than no maid at all: you have to wait upon her, instead of her waiting upon you; she gets seasick on the crossing, and when she reaches France or Germany, she hates the meals, and she detests the hotel servants, and she can’t speak the language, so that she’s always calling you in to interpret for her in her private differences with the fille-de-chambre and the landlord; or else I must pick up a French maid in London, and I know equally by experience that the French maids one engages in London are invariably dishonest—more dishonest than the rest even; they’ve come here because they have no character to speak of elsewhere, and they think you aren’t likely to write and enquire of their last mistress in Toulouse or St. Petersburg. Then, again, on the other hand, I can’t wait to get a Gretchen, an unsophisticated little Gretchen of the Taunus at Schlangenbad—I suppose there are unsophisticated girls in Germany still—made in Germany—they don’t make ’em any longer in England, I’m sure—like everything else, the trade in rustic innocence has been driven from the country. I can’t wait to get a Gretchen, as I should like to do, of course, because I simply daren’t undertake to cross the Channel alone and go all that long journey by Ostend or Calais, Brussels and Cologne, to Schlangenbad.’
‘You could get a temporary maid,’ her friend suggested, in a lull of the tornado.
The Cantankerous Old Lady flared up. ‘Yes, and have my jewel-case stolen! Or find she was an English girl without one word of German. Or nurse her on the boat when I want to give my undivided attention to my own misfortunes. No, Amelia, I call it positively unkind of you to suggest such a thing. You’re so unsympathetic! I put my foot down there. I will not take any temporary person.’
I saw my chance. This was a delightful idea. Why not start for Schlangenbad with the Cantankerous Old Lady?
Of course, I had not the slightest intention of taking a lady’s-maid’s place for a permanency. Nor even, if it comes to that, as a passing expedient. But if I wanted to go round the world, how could I do better than set out by the Rhine country? The Rhine leads you on to the Danube, the Danube to the Black Sea, the Black Sea to Asia; and so, by way of India, China, and Japan, you reach the Pacific and San Francisco; whence one returns quite easily by New York and the White Star Liners. I began to feel like a globe-trotter already; the Cantankerous Old Lady was the thin end of the wedge—the first rung of the ladder! I proceeded to put my foot on it.
I leaned around the corner of the tree and spoke. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, in my suavest voice, ‘but I think I see a way out of your difficulty.’
My first impression was that the Cantankerous Old Lady would go off in a fit of apoplexy. She grew purple in the face with indignation and astonishment, that a casual outsider should venture to address her; so much so, indeed, that for a second I almost regretted my well-meant interposition. Then she scanned me up and down, as if I were a girl in a mantle shop, and she contemplated buying either me or the mantle. At last, catching my eye, she thought better of it, and burst out laughing.
‘What do you mean by this eavesdropping?’ she asked.
I flushed up in turn. ‘This is a public place,’ I replied, with dignity; ‘and you spoke in a tone which was hardly designed for the strictest privacy. If you don’t wish to be overheard, you oughtn’t to shout. Besides, I desired to do you a service.’
The Cantankerous Old Lady regarded me once more from head to foot. I did not quail. Then she turned to her companion. ‘The girl has spirit,’ she remarked, in an encouraging tone, as if she were discussing some absent person. ‘Upon my word, Amelia, I rather like the look of her. Well, my good woman, what do you want to suggest to me?’
‘Merely this,’ I replied, bridling up and crushing her. ‘I am a Girton girl, an officer’s daughter, no more a good woman than most others of my class; and I have nothing in particular to do for the moment. I don’t object to going to Schlangenbad. I would convoy you over, as companion, or lady-help, or anything else you choose to call it; I would remain with you there for a week, till you could arrange with your Gretchen, presumably unsophisticated; and then I would leave you. Salary is unimportant; my fare suffices. I accept the chance as a cheap opportunity of attaining Schlangenbad.’
The yellow-faced old lady put up her long-handled tortoise-shell eyeglasses and inspected me all over again. ‘Well, I declare,’ she murmured. ‘Wh
at are girls coming to, I wonder? Girton, you say; Girton! That place at Cambridge! You speak Greek, of course; but how about German?’
‘Like a native,’ I answered, with cheerful promptitude. ‘I was at school in Canton Berne; it is a mother tongue to me.’
‘No, no,’ the old lady went on, fixing her keen small eyes on my mouth. ‘Those little lips could never frame themselves to “schlecht” or “wunderschön”; they were not cut out for it.’
‘Pardon me,’ I answered, in German. ‘What I say, that I mean. The never-to-be-forgotten music of the Fatherland’s-speech has on my infant ear from the first-beginning impressed itself.’
The old lady laughed aloud.
‘Don’t jabber it to me, child,’ she cried. ‘I hate the lingo. It’s the one tongue on earth that even a pretty girl’s lips fail to render attractive. You yourself make faces over it. What’s your name, young woman?’
‘Lois Cayley.’
‘Lois! What a name! I never heard of any Lois in my life before, except Timothy’s grandmother. You’re not anybody’s grandmother, are you?’
‘Not to my knowledge,’ I answered, gravely.
She burst out laughing again.
‘Well, you’ll do, I think,’ she said, catching my arm. ‘That big mill down yonder hasn’t ground the originality altogether out of you. I adore originality. It was clever of you to catch at the suggestion of this arrangement. Lois Cayley, you say; any relation of a madcap Captain Cayley whom I used once to know, in the Forty-second Highlanders?’
‘His daughter,’ I answered, flushing. For I was proud of my father.
‘Ha! I remember; he died, poor fellow; he was a good soldier—and his’—I felt she was going to say ‘his fool of a widow,’ but a glance from me quelled her; ‘his widow went and married that good-looking scapegrace, Jack Watts-Morgan. Never marry a man, my dear, with a double-barrelled name and no visible means of subsistence; above all, if he’s generally known by a nickname. So you’re poor Tom Cayley’s daughter, are you? Well, well, we can settle this little matter between us. Mind, I’m a person who always expects to have my own way. If you come with me to Schlangenbad, you must do as I tell you.’
‘I think I could manage it—for a week,’ I answered, demurely.
She smiled at my audacity. We passed on to terms. They were quite satisfactory. She wanted no references. ‘Do I look like a woman who cares about a reference? What are called characters are usually essays in how not to say it. You take my fancy; that’s the point! And poor Tom Cayley! But, mind, I will not be contradicted.’
‘I will not contradict your wildest misstatement,’ I answered, smiling.
‘And your name and address?’ I asked, after we had settled preliminaries.
A faint red spot rose quaintly in the centre of the Cantankerous Old Lady’s sallow cheek. ‘My dear,’ she murmured, ‘my name is the one thing on earth I’m really ashamed of. My parents chose to inflict upon me the most odious label that human ingenuity ever devised for a Christian soul; and I’ve not had courage enough to burst out and change it.’
A gleam of intuition flashed across me, ‘You don’t mean to say,’ I exclaimed, ‘that you’re called Georgina?’
The Cantankerous Old Lady gripped my arm hard. ‘What an unusually intelligent girl!’ she broke in. ‘How on earth did you guess? It is Georgina.’
‘Fellow-feeling,’ I answered. ‘So is mine, Georgina Lois. But as I quite agree with you as to the atrocity of such conduct, I have suppressed the Georgina. It ought to be made penal to send innocent girls into the world so burdened.’
‘My opinion to a T! You are really an exceptionally sensible young woman. There’s my name and address; I start on Monday.’
I glanced at her card. The very copperplate was noisy. ‘Lady Georgina Fawley, 49 Fortescue Crescent, W.’
It had taken us twenty minutes to arrange our protocols. As I walked off, well pleased, Lady Georgina’s friend ran after me quickly.
‘You must take care,’ she said, in a warning voice. ‘You’ve caught a Tartar.’
‘So I suspect,’ I answered. ‘But a week in Tartary will be at least an experience.’
‘She has an awful temper.’
‘That’s nothing. So have I. Appalling, I assure you. And if it comes to blows, I’m bigger and younger and stronger than she is.’
‘Well, I wish you well out of it.’
‘Thank you. It is kind of you to give me this warning. But I think I can take care of myself. I come, you see, of a military family.’
I nodded my thanks, and strolled back to Elsie’s. Dear little Elsie was in transports of surprise when I related my adventure.
‘Will you really go? And what will you do, my dear, when you get there?’
‘I haven’t a notion,’ I answered; ‘that’s where the fun comes in. But, anyhow, I shall have got there.’
‘Oh, Brownie, you might starve!’
‘And I might starve in London. In either place, I have only two hands and one head to help me.’
‘But, then, here you are among friends. You might stop with me for ever.’
I kissed her fluffy forehead. ‘You good, generous little Elsie,’ I cried; ‘I won’t stop here one moment after I have finished the painting and papering. I came here to help you. I couldn’t go on eating your hard-earned bread and doing nothing. I know how sweet you are; but the last thing I want is to add to your burdens. Now let us roll up our sleeves again and hurry on with the dado.’
‘But, Brownie, you’ll want to be getting your own things ready. Remember, you’re off to Germany on Monday.’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Tis a foreign trick I picked up in Switzerland. ‘What have I got to get ready?’ I asked. ‘I can’t go out and buy a complete summer outfit in Bond Street for twopence. Now, don’t look at me like that: be practical, Elsie, and let me help you paint the dado.’ For unless I helped her, poor Elsie could never have finished it herself. I cut out half her clothes for her; her own ideas were almost entirely limited to differential calculus. And cutting out a blouse by differential calculus is weary, uphill work for a high-school teacher.
By Monday I had papered and furnished the rooms, and was ready to start on my voyage of exploration. I met the Cantankerous Old Lady at Charing Cross, by appointment, and proceeded to take charge of her luggage and tickets.
Oh my, how fussy she was! ‘You will drop that basket! I hope you have got through tickets, viâ Malines, not by Brussels—I won’t go by Brussels. You have to change there. Now, mind you notice how much the luggage weighs in English pounds, and make the man at the office give you a note of it to check those horrid Belgian porters. They’ll charge you for double the weight, unless you reduce it at once to kilogrammes. I know their ways. Foreigners have no consciences. They just go to the priest and confess, you know, and wipe it all out, and start fresh again on a career of crime next morning. I’m sure I don’t know why I ever go abroad. The only country in the world fit to live in is England. No mosquitoes, no passports, no—goodness gracious, child, don’t let that odious man bang about my hat-box! Have you no immortal soul, porter, that you crush other people’s property as if it was blackbeetles? No, I will not let you take this, Lois; this is my jewel-box—it contains all that remains of the Fawley family jewels. I positively decline to appear at Schlangenbad without a diamond to my back. This never leaves my hands. It’s hard enough nowadays to keep body and skirt together. Have you secured that coupé at Ostend?’
We got into our first-class carriage. It was clean and comfortable; but the Cantankerous Old Lady made the porter mop the floor, and fidgeted and worried till we slid out of the station. Fortunately, the only other occupant of the compartment was a most urbane and obliging Continental gentleman—I say Continental, because I couldn’t quite make out whether he was French, Germa
n, or Austrian—who was anxious in every way to meet Lady Georgina’s wishes. Did madame desire to have the window open? Oh, certainly, with pleasure; the day was so sultry. Closed a little more? Parfaitement, there was a current of air, il faut l’admettre. Madame would prefer the corner? No? Then perhaps she would like this valise for a footstool? Permettez—just thus. A cold draught runs so often along the floor in railway carriages. This is Kent that we traverse; ah, the garden of England! As a diplomat, he knew every nook of Europe, and he echoed the mot he had accidentally heard drop from madame’s lips on the platform: no country in the world so delightful as England!
‘Monsieur is attached to the Embassy in London?’ Lady Georgina inquired, growing affable.
He twirled his grey moustache: a waxed moustache of great distinction. ‘No, madame; I have quitted the diplomatic service; I inhabit London now pour mon agrément. Some of my compatriots call it triste; for me, I find it the most fascinating capital in Europe. What gaiety! What movement! What poetry! What mystery!’
‘If mystery means fog, it challenges the world,’ I interposed.
He gazed at me with fixed eyes. ‘Yes, mademoiselle,’ he answered, in quite a different and markedly chilly voice. ‘Whatever your great country attempts—were it only a fog—it achieves consummately.’
I have quick intuitions. I felt the foreign gentleman took an instinctive dislike to me.
To make up for it, he talked much, and with animation, to Lady Georgina. They ferreted out friends in common, and were as much surprised at it as people always are at that inevitable experience.
The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK ™: 20 Modern and Classic Tales of Female Detectives Page 133
