Barnaby Part 8

"What shocking writing!" said Lady Henrietta, "and how blotted! Who's your illiterate correspondent?"

Barnaby had stuffed his letter into his breast-pocket as he walked across the room.

"Julia," he said shortly.

As if upon second thoughts, he felt for it again, pulled it out, and tossed it into the fire. Its agitated, irregular lines started out black on the burning pages. Susan, who was sitting on the velvet curb, turned away her face that she might not read.

Lady Henrietta, frail but indomitable, throned upon her sofa, eyed her son jealously.

"How did she know so quickly?" she asked.

"She heard it from somebody, I suppose," said Barnaby. "Why, mother, do you imagine a real live ghost can visit Leicestershire without the whole county hearing? ... She wants me to go over and show myself."

"You're not going?"--her tone was sharp.

"No," he said. "I'll tell her I am under contract to exhibit myself exclusively at a music-hall.--And besides, I have to run up to London.

I want to give old Dawson the fright he deserves. He must have been in a frantic hurry to wipe me out of his books. What on earth made you choose him to hunt for me?"

"Take Susan with you," said Lady Henrietta. "Go with him, my child, and don't let him out of your sight."

"I don't think she would like it," said Barnaby, doubtfully, but his mother was not to be gainsaid. It was almost as if the mention of Julia had revived a vague apprehension in her, as if she were afraid to let him go by himself. He submitted, laughing.

"Well," he said, "if you'll lend her your fur coat I'll wrap her in that and take her. We'll go up in the morning and come down at five;--and she can amuse herself getting clothes."

He bent down to Susan.

"If you don't mind," he said, half in a whisper; his tone was apologetic. "I think you had better come."

And so they went up together.

In the train he supplied her with an armful of picture papers, and she studied them gravely, hidden from him behind their outstretched pages, till they reached London, when she had to put down her screen. Once only he interrupted her.

"Look at that," he said.

The train was swinging on, making up time between Kettering and Luton; the letters danced as he held out his open newspaper, with a finger on the place. Its heading stared at her--"A LEICESTERSHIRE ROMANCE."

"That," said Barnaby, and his eyes twinkled--he had put away seriousness--"is all about you and me."

She did not see any more pictures after that, only bits of what she had read before he took back his paper and, turning over the crackling sheet, settled into his corner. Whatever she tried to look at, she saw only the printed column proclaiming the dramatic return of a well-known sportsman supposed to be dead; and at the bottom, where his thumb had pressed the paper, a touching reference to the subject's beautiful American wife....

At St. Pancras he put her carefully into a hansom and got in beside her.

"Now," he said, "this is our dress rehearsal. First, we must see about your theatrical wardrobe; that's the expression, isn't it? I'm going to take you to the woman my mother goes to, and while she is rigging you out I'll cut away to my lawyers, and see my own tailor; and then I shall fetch you and we'll have lunch. We shall have to get accustomed to each other."

Driving through the streets with him was curiously exhilarating.

Perhaps her spirit was responsive to a reaction. After all, she was young.... If Barnaby knew, and did not condemn her, might she not for a short while dare to be light-hearted--leave the weight of it on his shoulders?

London had become a city of enchantment. She had pa.s.sed through in the care of Lady Henrietta's messenger, at the end of her journey over the sea; and then she had felt tired and frightened, and she had looked listlessly out of the cab windows, thinking that if Fate betrayed her, she might find herself wandering friendless in these very streets. Now the dark ways were gilded....

"Here we are," said Barnaby, jumping out. "_Melisande_. She's a great friend of ours, but she ruined herself racing, and started the shop as a different kind of gamble. Let's go up."

In the show-room upstairs two or three haughty ladies were trailing up and down, on view. The customers were not allowed to touch them; these sat round the room on the sun-faded yellow cushions, gazing at the models as if they were made of wax.

"Melisande is uncommonly sharp," said Barnaby. He had walked in boldly and given his name to the presiding genius, who had simply glanced and vanished. "Do you see these creatures sweeping to and fro?"

"Yes," said the girl. "Poor things; they look very cross. I suppose they are dreadfully ill paid?"

Barnaby smothered an irreverent laugh.

"Paid?" he said. "Not a farthing. She introduces them in the season, and, in return, they have to act as dummies. They hate it; but she knows how to drive a bargain. It's a fine advertis.e.m.e.nt. Half the world comes to stare at the beauties--it's funnier than a picture gallery. And, of course, the pull of being taken up by Melisande in her society capacity is enormous."

"Who are they?" asked Susan, puzzled.

"Oh, heiresses, of sorts, They used to be whisked away in their own motors at six o'clock. I daresay they are still," said Barnaby. "Here she is."

An inner door flew open, and a stout woman with dark hair and clever, tired eyes, artistically blacked, appeared. She ran up to Barnaby and shook him, then let him go, and inspected him at all angles, with her head on one side as if he were a Paris model.

"Barnaby!" she screamed. "It is really Barnaby. You lunatic, I thought you were dead and buried."

"They all thought that," said Barnaby. "It's a bit rough on me."

"Let me pinch you again!" she said. "I can't have you in here if you're not alive. It's against all my rules, and customers are so timid. Of course, as a ghost you might be very useful. Make the brutes pay up!"

"What an eye to business!" he said, enduring her inspection.

"My dear man, I am in the workhouse! My friends insist on patronizing me, and ordering all kinds of magnificence, and then they go away imagining they have done me a kindness. I never dine out without meeting at least one frock that's a bad debt, and you can't be brilliant when you are being eclipsed by a wretch opposite out of your own pocket. But what do you want? I can't come out to lunch. I am rushed to death. There's an awful old Russian princess in there I can't get rid of. She says she wants to learn the trade, and I daren't leave her with my designs. I can't make out whether she's only a Nihilist or a kleptomaniac."

"I want to put my wife in your hands," said Barnaby. "I'll come for her at two. Can you burn all that c.r.a.pe, and dress her in something sensible?"

Melisande screamed again, fixing her eyes for the first time on Susan.

"Is it a joke," she said, "or have you been playing fast and loose with other people?"

"I don't know what you mean," said Barnaby, but his eyes hardened. She glanced at his face, subduing her voice a little.

"I have never been paid," she said, "for an outfit of the most expensive mourning. The day after we read of your--departure in the papers, Julia Kelly came in here and asked what was the proper thing to wear when you lost your--love. I told her it varied. If the man hadn't proposed black would look like an affectation. I suggested mauve as harmlessly sentimental. And she said, 'But if he were practically your husband?' and I said, of course, practically widow's mourning, but not a cap. And she wore it...."

He moved restlessly under her detaining hand on his sleeve. "I'm betraying no confidences," she said. "It's a matter of common knowledge.--How long, in the name of goodness, have you been married?

Who is she?"

"Two or three years," he said. She was still holding on to his coat.

"Wait," she said. "Wait. Oh, you are as mad as ever. How do you want her dressed? She looks awfully young, poor child."

But Barnaby had made his escape.