The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK ™: 20 Modern and Classic Tales of Female Detectives

by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

  ‘Oh, Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst’

  Lady Georgina nodded. ‘Marmy’s a fool,’ she said, briefly; ‘but he knows which side of his bread is buttered.’

  ‘And Mr. Tillington is—his nephew?’

  ‘Bless the child, yes; have you never read your British Bible, the peerage? Astonishing, the ignorance of these Girton girls! They don’t even know the Leger’s run at Doncaster. The family name’s Ashurst. Kynaston’s an earl—I was Lady Georgina Ashurst before I took it into my head to marry and do for poor Evelyn Fawley. My younger brother’s the Honourable Marmaduke Ashurst—women get the best of it there—it’s about the only place where they do get the best of it: an earl’s daughter is Lady Betty; his son’s nothing more than the Honourable Tom. So one scores off one’s brothers. My younger sister, Lady Guinevere Ashurst, married Stanley Tillington of the Foreign Office. Harold’s their eldest son. Now, child, do you grasp it?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ I answered. ‘You speak like Debrett. Has issue, Harold.’

  ‘And Harold will inherit all Marmaduke’s money. What I’m always afraid of is that some fascinating adventuress will try to marry him out of hand. A pretty face, and over goes Harold! My business in life is to stand in the way and prevent it.’

  She looked me through and through again with her X-ray scrutiny.

  ‘I don’t think Mr. Tillington is quite the sort that falls a prey to adventuresses,’ I answered, boldly.

  ‘Ah, but there are faggots and faggots,’ the old lady said, wagging her head with profound meaning. ‘Never mind, though; I’d like to see an adventuress marry off Harold without my leave! I’d lead her a life! I’d turn her black hair gray for her!’

  ‘I should think,’ I assented, ‘you could do it, Lady Georgina, if you gave your attention seriously to it.’

  From that moment forth, I was aware that my Cantankerous Old Lady’s malign eye was inexorably fixed upon me every time I went within speaking distance of Mr. Tillington. She watched him like a lynx. She watched me like a dozen lynxes. Wherever we went, Lady Georgina was sure to turn up in the neighbourhood. She was perfectly ubiquitous: she seemed to possess a world-wide circulation. I don’t know whether it was this constant suggestion of hers that I was stalking her nephew which roused my latent human feeling of opposition; but in the end, I began to be aware that I rather liked the supercilious attaché than otherwise. He evidently liked me, and he tried to meet me. Whenever he spoke to me, indeed, it was without the superciliousness which marked his manner towards others; in point of fact, it was with graceful deference. He watched for me on the stairs, in the garden, by the terrace; whenever he got a chance, he sidled over and talked to me. Sometimes he stopped in to read me Heine: he also introduced me to select portions of Gabriele d’Annunzio. It is feminine to be touched by such obvious attention; I confess, before long, I grew to like Mr. Harold Tillington.

  The closer he followed me up, the more did I perceive that Lady Georgina threw out acrid hints with increasing spleen about the ways of adventuresses. They were hints of that acrimonious generalised kind, too, which one cannot answer back without seeming to admit that the cap has fitted. It was atrocious how middle-class young women nowadays ran after young men of birth and fortune. A girl would stoop to anything in order to catch five hundred thousand. Guileless youths should be thrown among their natural equals. It was a mistake to let them see too much of people of a lower rank who consider themselves good-looking. And the clever ones were the worst: they pretended to go in for intellectual companionship.

  I also noticed that though at first Lady Georgina had expressed the strongest disinclination to my leaving her after the time originally proposed, she now began to take for granted that I would go at the end of my week, as arranged in London, and she even went on to some overt steps towards securing the help of the blameless Gretchen.

  We had arrived at Schlangenbad on Tuesday. I was to stop with the Cantankerous Old Lady till the corresponding day of the following week. On the Sunday, I wandered out on the wooded hillside behind the village; and as I mounted the path I was dimly aware by a sort of instinct that Harold Tillington was following me.

  He came up with me at last near a ledge of rock. ‘How fast you walk!’ he exclaimed. ‘I gave you only a few minutes’ start, and yet even my long legs have had hard work to overtake you.’

  ‘I am a fairly good climber,’ I answered, sitting down on a little wooden bench. ‘You see, at Cambridge, I went on the river a great deal—I canoed and sculled: and then, besides, I’ve done a lot of bicycling.’

  ‘What a splendid birthright it is,’ he cried, ‘to be a wholesome athletic English girl! You can’t think how one admires English girls after living a year or two in Italy—where women are dolls, except for a brief period of intrigue, before they settle down to be contented frumps with an outline like a barrel.’

  ‘A little muscle and a little mind are no doubt advisable adjuncts for a housewife,’ I admitted.

  ‘You shall not say that word,’ he cried, seating himself at my side. ‘It is a word for Germans, “housewife.” Our English ideal is something immeasurably higher and better. A companion, a complement! Do you know, Miss Cayley, it always sickens me when I hear German students sentimentalising over their mädchen: their beautiful, pure, insipid, yellow-haired, blue-eyed mädchen; her, so fair, so innocent, so unapproachably vacuous—so like a wax doll—and then think of how they design her in days to come to cook sausages for their dinner, and knit them endless stockings through a placid middle age, till the needles drop from her paralysed fingers, and she retires into frilled caps and Teutonic senility.’

  ‘You seem to have almost as low an opinion of foreigners as your respected aunt!’ I exclaimed, looking quizzically at him.

  He drew back, surprised. ‘Oh, no; I’m not narrow-minded, like my aunt, I hope,’ he answered. ‘I am a good cosmopolitan. I allow Continental nations all their own good points, and each has many. But their women, Miss Cayley—and their point of view of their women—you will admit that there they can’t hold a candle to English women.’

  I drew a circle in the dust with the tip of my parasol.

  ‘On that issue, I may not be a wholly unprejudiced observer,’ I answered. ‘The fact of my being myself an Englishwoman may possibly to some extent influence my judgment.’

  ‘You are sarcastic,’ he cried, drawing away.

  ‘Not at all,’ I answered, making a wider circle. ‘I spoke a simple fact. But what is your ideal, then, as opposed to the German one?’

  He gazed at me and hesitated. His lips half parted. ‘My ideal?’ he said, after a pause. ‘Well, my ideal—do you happen to have such a thing as a pocket-mirror about you?’

  I laughed in spite of myself. ‘Now, Mr. Tillington,’ I said severely, ‘if you’re going to pay compliments, I shall have to return. If you want to stop here with me, you must remember that I am only Lady Georgina Fawley’s temporary lady’s-maid. Besides, I didn’t mean that. I meant, what is your ideal of a man’s right relation to his mädchen?’

  ‘Don’t say mädchen,’ he cried, petulantly. ‘It sounds as if you thought me one of those sentimental Germans. I hate sentiment.’

  ‘Then, towards the woman of his choice.’

  He glanced up through the trees at the light overhead, and spoke more slowly than ever. ‘I think,’ he said, fumbling his watch-chain nervously, ‘a man ought to wish the woman he loves to be a free agent, his equal in point of action, even as she is nobler and better than he in all spiritual matters. I think he ought to desire for her a life as high as she is capable of leading, with full scope for every faculty of her intellect or her emotional nature. She should be beautiful, with a vigorous, wholesome, many-sided beauty, moral, intellectual, physical; yet with soul in her, too; and with the soul and the mind lighting up her eyes, as it lights up—well, that is immaterial. And if
a man can discover such a woman as that, and can induce her to believe in him, to love him, to accept him—though how such a woman can be satisfied with any man at all is to me unfathomable—well, then, I think he should be happy in devoting his whole life to her, and should give himself up to repay her condescension in taking him.’

  ‘And you hate sentiment!’ I put in, smiling.

  He brought his eyes back from the sky suddenly. ‘Miss Cayley,’ he said, ‘this is cruel. I was in earnest. You are playing with me.’

  ‘I believe the chief characteristic of the English girl is supposed to be common sense,’ I answered, calmly, ‘and I trust I possess it.’ But indeed, as he spoke, my heart was beginning to make its beat felt; for he was a charming young man; he had a soft voice and lustrous eyes; it was a summer’s day; and alone in the woods with one other person, where the sunlight falls mellow in spots like a leopard’s skin, one is apt to remember that we are all human.

  That evening Lady Georgina managed to blurt out more malicious things than ever about the ways of adventuresses, and the duty of relations in saving young men from the clever clutches of designing creatures. She was ruthless in her rancour: her gibes stung me.

  On Monday at breakfast I asked her casually if she had yet found a Gretchen.

  ‘No,’ she answered, in a gloomy voice. ‘All slatterns, my dear; all slatterns! Brought up in pig-sties. I wouldn’t let one of them touch my hair for thousands.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate,’ I said, drily, ‘for you know I’m going to-morrow.’

  If I had dropped a bomb in their midst they couldn’t have looked more astonished. ‘To-morrow?’ Lady Georgina gasped, clutching my arm. ‘You don’t mean it, child; you don’t mean it?’

  I asserted my Ego. ‘Certainly,’ I answered, with my coolest air. ‘I said I thought I could manage you for a week; and I have managed you.’

  She almost burst into tears. ‘But, my child, my child, what shall I do without you?’

  ‘The unsophisticated Gretchen,’ I answered, trying not to look concerned; for in my heart of hearts, in spite of her innuendoes, I had really grown rather to like the Cantankerous Old Lady.

  She rose hastily from the table, and darted up to her own room. ‘Lois,’ she said, as she rose, in a curious voice of mingled regret and suspicion, ‘I will talk to you about this later.’ I could see she was not quite satisfied in her own mind whether Harold Tillington and I had not arranged this coup together.

  I put on my hat and strolled off into the garden, and then along the mossy hill path. In a minute more, Harold Tillington was beside me.

  He seated me, half against my will, on a rustic bench. ‘Look here, Miss Cayley,’ he said, with a very earnest face; ‘is this really true? Are you going to-morrow?’

  My voice trembled a little. ‘Yes,’ I answered, biting my lip. ‘I am going. I see several reasons why I should go, Mr. Tillington.’

  ‘But so soon?’

  ‘Yes, I think so; the sooner the better.’ My heart was racing now, and his eyes pleaded mutely.

  ‘Then where are you going?’

  I shrugged my shoulders, and pouted my lips a little. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘The world is all before me where to choose. I am an adventuress,’ I said it boldly, ‘and I am in quest of adventures. I really have not yet given a thought to my next place of sojourn.’

  ‘But you will let me know when you have decided?’

  It was time to speak out. ‘No, Mr. Tillington,’ I said, with decision. ‘I will not let you know. One of my reasons for going is, that I think I had better see no more of you.’

  He flung himself on the bench at my side, and folded his hands in a helpless attitude. ‘But, Miss Cayley,’ he cried, ‘this is so short a notice; you give a fellow no chance; I hoped I might have seen more of you—might have had some opportunity of—of letting you realise how deeply I admired and respected you—some opportunity of showing myself as I really am to you—before—before——’ he paused, and looked hard at me.

  I did not know what to say. I really liked him so much; and when he spoke in that voice, I could not bear to seem cruel to him. Indeed, I was aware at the moment how much I had grown to care for him in those six short days. But I knew it was impossible. ‘Don’t say it, Mr. Tillington,’ I murmured, turning my face away. ‘The less said, the sooner mended.’

  ‘But I must,’ he cried. ‘I must tell you now, if I am to have no chance afterwards. I wanted you to see more of me before I ventured to ask you if you could ever love me, if you could ever suffer me to go through life with you, to share my all with you.’ He seized my trembling hand. ‘Lois,’ he cried, in a pleading voice, ‘I must ask you; I can’t expect you to answer me now, but do say you will give me at least some other chance of seeing you, and then, in time, of pressing my suit upon you.’

  Tears stood in my eyes. He was so earnest, so charming. But I remembered Lady Georgina, and his prospective half-million. I moved his hand away gently. ‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘I cannot—I am a penniless girl—an adventuress. Your family, your uncle, would never forgive you if you married me. I will not stand in your way. I—I like you very much, though I have seen so little of you. But I feel it is impossible—and I am going to-morrow.’

  Then I rose of a sudden, and ran down the hill with all my might, lest I should break my resolve, never stopping once till I reached my own bedroom.

  An hour later, Lady Georgina burst in upon me in high dudgeon. ‘Why, Lois, my child,’ she cried. ‘What’s this? What on earth does it mean? Harold tells me he has proposed to you—proposed to you—and you’ve rejected him!’

  I dried my eyes and tried to look steadily at her. ‘Yes, Lady Georgina,’ I faltered. ‘You need not be afraid. I have refused him; and I mean it.’

  She looked at me, all aghast. ‘And you mean it!’ she repeated. ‘You mean to refuse him. Then, all I can say is, Lois Cayley, I call it pure cheek of you!’

  ‘What?’ I cried, drawing back.

  ‘Yes, cheek,’ she answered, volubly. ‘Forty thousand a year, and a good old family! Harold Tillington is my nephew; he’s an earl’s grandson; he’s an attaché at Rome; and he’s bound to be one of the richest commoners in England. Who are you, I’d like to know, miss, that you dare to reject him?’

  I stared at her, amazed. ‘But, Lady Georgina,’ I cried, ‘you said you wished to protect your nephew against bare-faced adventuresses who were setting their caps at him.’

  She fixed her eyes on me, half-angry, half-tremulous.

  ‘Of course,’ she answered, with withering scorn. ‘But, then, I thought you were trying to catch him. He tells me now you won’t have him, and you won’t tell him where you are going. I call it sheer insolence. Where do you hail from, girl, that you should refuse my nephew? A man that any woman in England would be proud to marry! Forty thousand a year, and an earl’s grandson! That’s what comes, I suppose, of going to Girton!’

  I drew myself up. ‘Lady Georgina,’ I said, coldly, ‘I cannot allow you to use such language to me. I promised to accompany you to Germany for a week; and I have kept my word. I like your nephew; I respect your nephew; he has behaved like a gentleman. But I will not marry him. Your own conduct showed me in the plainest way that you did not judge such a match desirable for him; and I have common sense enough to see that you were quite right. I am a lady by birth and education; I am an officer’s daughter; but I am not what society calls “a good match” for Mr. Tillington. He had better marry into a rich stockbroker’s family.’

  It was an unworthy taunt: the moment it escaped my lips I regretted it.

  To my intense surprise, however, Lady Georgina flung herself on my bed, and burst into tears. ‘My dear,’ she sobbed out, covering her face with her hands, ‘I thought you would be sure to set your cap at Harold; and after I had seen you for twenty-four hou
rs, I said to myself, “That’s just the sort of girl Harold ought to fall in love with.” I felt sure he would fall in love with you. I brought you here on purpose. I saw you had all the qualities that would strike Harold’s fancy. So I had made up my mind for a delightful regulation family quarrel. I was going to oppose you and Harold, tooth and nail; I was going to threaten that Marmy would leave his money to Kynaston’s eldest son; I was going to kick up, oh, a dickens of a row about it! Then, of course, in the end, we should all have been reconciled; we should have kissed and made friends: for you’re just the one girl in the world for Harold; indeed, I never met anybody so capable and so intelligent. And now you spoil all my sport by going and refusing him! It’s really most ill-timed of you. And Harold has sent me here—he’s trembling with anxiety—to see whether I can’t induce you to think better of your decision.’

  I made up my mind at once. ‘No, Lady Georgina,’ I said, in my gentlest voice—positively stooping down and kissing her. ‘I like Mr. Tillington very much. I dare not tell you how much I like him. He is a dear, good, kind fellow. But I cannot rest under the cruel imputation of being moved by his wealth and having tried to capture him. Even if you didn’t think so, his family would. I am sorry to go; for in a way I like you. But it is best to adhere to our original plan. If I changed my mind, you might change yours again. Let us say no more. I will go to-morrow.’

  ‘But you will see Harold again?’

  ‘Not alone. Only at dinner.’ For I feared lest, if he spoke to me alone, he might over-persuade me.

  ‘Then at least you will tell him where you are going?’