The Lady of the Basement Flat Part 32

"What?" She looked at me sharply. "Ah! You agree? You feel the same?

You think I dare?"

"I do. I go a step further, and say it's your duty. He is a bully, and probably no one has ever dared to show him how he appears to other people, but for the time being you are in command; while he is here, he is supposed to obey. Give it to him hot and strong! Tell him that he is injuring himself, and is a misery to every one else--that you are only keeping him, because it would do him harm to be removed."

"It's true!" she cried. "It's every word true. The man is a miasma."

She stared at me in sudden amaze. "Why do you laugh?"

"Oh, I was just thinking! Thinking of a man whom I used to denounce as bad-tempered! A dear, kind, thoughtful, unselfish Englishman with a--a bl.u.s.ter! I can never call it temper again, after knowing Mr Travers!

He has taught me a lesson."

She laughed, too, and shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, that! I like a man with a will of his own, and the pluck to speak out. A 'bl.u.s.ter,' as you call it, clears the air, and is quite a healthful influence; but this other!--Well, Miss Harding, you have given the casting vote. When are you coming again?"

"Thursday afternoon, I think. Mrs Travers is busy then. Has to go out of town."

"That's all right! Then I'll have it out with him before lunch, and leave you to calm him down in the afternoon."

"Oh--_mean_!" I cried, but she only laughed, opened the door, and hustled me into the hall. Evidently her mind was made up.

When Thursday afternoon arrived, it found Miss Harding entering the ogre's bedroom with a smile tightly glued on her lips, and a heart beating uncomfortably fast beneath her ugly flannel blouse. From the bed a pair of gimlet-like eyes surveyed her sharply, pale lips twisted, and showed a snarl of teeth. He volunteered no remark, however, and I wasted not a second in opening my book, and beginning to read as a refuge against conversation. I could feel the scrutiny of his eyes on my face, but I read on steadily, never looking up for nearly an hour, when the story came to an end.

"Have you had enough reading for to-day, or would you care to hear one of the articles in this review?"

He glared at me, and said coldly:--

"So you are in the conspiracy, too! Women are all alike! Sitting here, all smiles and flummery to my face, and then going away to abuse me behind my back!"

"That's not true!"

I cried hotly. "At least, it's a very unfair representation. There was no necessity for me to come here at all. I have done it because you were a neighbour, and ill, and I wanted to help you--and even more to help your wife. As for 'smiles and flummery,' as you express it, there has been no chance of anything so friendly. You have allowed no chance!"

"You don't deny, I suppose, that you joined with matron in abusing me as a monster of wickedness?"

"I said you had the worst temper I had ever met. So you have. I said I believed that you poisoned yourself, as well as every one near you. So I do. All the more credit to me for giving you so much of my time."

He lay silent, staring into my face. It was plain that the man had received a shock. For once in his life he had been shown a picture of himself as others saw him, and in the seeing _something_ had been hurt-- conscience, vanity, _amour-propre_--it was impossible to say which, and now his brain was at work, trying to a.s.similate the new thought. All the time I had been reading, he had been pondering and raging. Probably he had not heard a single word.

"You women," he began again. "You women! Talk of ministering angels-- all very fine for a few days, while the novelty lasts--after that a poor beggar can suffer tortures, and get nothing but revilings for bad temper. Would you be an angel of meekness if you had to go through what I am bearing now?"

"I should probably be exceedingly difficult and fretful. At times!

There would be other times--especially when I was getting better--when I should feel overflowing with grat.i.tude, and should say so, to the people who had been patient with me through the bad times!"

"Words! Words!" he snarled scornfully. "Men judge by deeds. If you want my character, you can hear it from the men with whom I have had to do. I am a Churchman. I go to church every Sunday of my life. I was once Vicar's churchwarden for three years."

Poor Vicar! What those three years must have been! I have known whole parishes "set by the ears" by just one warped, self-opinionated man, who put his own pet theories before anything else, and went about sowing dissension--splitting up a hitherto united people into two opposing camps. I said, with an air of polite inquiry:--

"And--did you part good friends?"

He did not answer, but the expression on his face was eloquent enough.

I _knew_, without being told. Suddenly he broke out at a fresh tangent.

"I suppose my wife--"

I held up my hand authoritatively.

"No, please! Don't blame your wife. She has never _mentioned_ you, except to pity and sympathise. Her one thought has been for you--how to help, how to please. Of course, Mr Travers, the people here and myself have only known you lately, and this illness must have been coming on for some time. Probably it has--well, it has made you bad-tempered, hasn't it? But your wife knew you before, when you were loving and gentle, so her judgment must be more true."

With my usual "softness" I was beginning to pity the poor wretch, and to try to let him down gently; but once again his face was eloquent. At the words "loving and gentle," an involuntary grimace twisted the grim features. Memory refused to reproduce the picture. He said abruptly:--

"My wife is a good woman. That virago of a matron told me this morning that if she'd been in her place, she'd have run away years ago. Well, Mary has stuck to me. She doesn't want to go! It's not always the softest-spoken men who make the best husbands. That Hallett fellow, whom Thorold is so thick with--he belongs to my club; I knew something about him when I lived in America long ago. How do you suppose _he_ treated his wife?"

"His wife? He hasn't got a wife!"

"Oh, hasn't he? Not now, perhaps. But he had! A little of him went a long way. She ran away from him on her honeymoon. What do you think of that? What kind of a man can he have been to make a woman leave him in a month?"

Something happened inside my head. There was a shock, a whirl, a blinding darkness, followed by a flash of light. Mr Travers had said "America," and the word had a terrible significance. I sat stunned into silence, and Mr Travers obviously gloated over my discomfiture.

"Pretty condemning, eh? She was an heiress--pots of money.

Fine-looking girl, too. I saw her once. Too pale and washed out for my taste, but with an air. Forget her name--something high-flown and romantic, like herself. Well, she left him, and that was the end of it.

Never heard a word of her since."

Romantic name--an heiress--fine-looking--pale. One by one the clues acc.u.mulated--step by step the evidence mounted up. I said faintly:--

"Has he tried?"

"Tried to find her? Searched the world! Almost went off his head, I believe. He'd made a mess of it, of course, but he was crazy about her--broken his heart ever since. You can see it in his face. My wife has no patience with her. She'd married for better or worse. Whatever happened, she was a poor thing to throw up the sponge in a month.

What's the matter? You look faint."

"I--I am! I must go. Some other day," I gasped vaguely. I went out into the pa.s.sage, and sat down on an oak chest. The world seemed rocking around me. I was so stunned that I could _not feel_!

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

IT'S A QUEER WORLD.

Edward Hallett and--Charmion! Charmion and--Edward Hallett! The combination of those two names struck me dumb. Oh, it was madness--the most inconceivable, the most preposterous madness. And yet, and yet-- the more I thought, the more the links seemed to "fit in". He was of the right age, the right nationality: the few words of description which had fallen from her lips applied accurately to his appearance.

I went home, and sat in stunned silence, staring into s.p.a.ce. I went to bed and lay awake for hours, still pondering, still puzzling. I rose in the morning, and wandered about the flat like a lost dog, unable to work, unable to rest, unable to eat. By evening I was in such a state of nerves that it seemed impossible to endure the suspense a moment longer. The prospect of another wakeful night gave the final touch to my impatience. I scribbled a note to Mr Thorold, begging him to come down at once, and sent the orphan upstairs to deliver it.

He came at once; quite anxious and perturbed. Was I ill? Had I had bad news? Was there anything he could do? I motioned him to a chair, and began vaguely:--

"Not bad news--at least--a shock! I've had a shock! It has distressed me terribly! I couldn't sleep. It was Mr Travers. I was reading to him again yesterday, and he said something about Mr Hallett. It appears that he knew him years ago."

Mr Thorold's face hardened. I had seen him in almost every phase of sadness and anxiety, but never with that flash in the eye, that sternness of the lips. His voice was cold and sharp.

"Travers? Indeed! And what had Travers to say? Nothing good, if I know the man."