The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne Part 10

"From a paper of pins to an opera-cloak," she continued.

"I'm afraid, dear Mrs. McMurray, an opera-cloak is not the superior limit of a woman's needs," said I. "I wish it were."

She called me a cynic and went.

This morning Carlotta interrupted me in my work.

"Will Seer Marcous come to my room and see my pretty things?"

In summer blouse and plain skirt she looked as demure as any damsel in St. John's Wood. She hung her head a little to one side. For the moment I felt paternal, and indulgently consented. Words of man cannot describe the ma.s.s of millinery and chiffonery in that chamber. The s.p.a.ces that were not piled high with vesture gave resting spots for cardboard boxes and packing-paper. Antoinette stood in a corner gazing at the spoil with a smile of beatific idiocy. I strode through the cardboard boxes which crackled like bracken, and remained dumb as a fish before these mysteries. Carlotta tried on hats. She shewed me patent leather shoes.

She exhibited blouses and petticoats until my eyes ached. She brandished something in her hand.

"Tell me if I must wear it" (I believe the sophisticated call it "them"). "Mrs. McMurray says all ladies do. But we never wear it in Alexandretta, and it hurts."

She clasped herself pathetically and turned her great imploring eyes on me.

"_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle_," I said.

"But with the figure of Mademoiselle, it is stupid!" cried Antoinette.

"It is outrageous that I should be called upon to express an opinion on such matters," I said, loftily. And so it was. My a.s.sertion of dignity impressed them.

Then, with characteristic frankness, my young lady shakes out before me things all frills, embroidery, ribbons, diaphaneity, which the ordinary man only examines through shop-front windows when a philosophic mood induces him to speculate on the unfathomable vanity of woman.

"_Les beaux dessous!_" breathed Antoinette.

"The same e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n," I murmured, "was doubtless uttered by an enraptured waiting-maid, when she beheld the stout linen smocks of the ladies of the Heptameron."

I reflected on the relativity of things mundane. The waiting-maid no doubt wore some horror made of hemp against her skin. If Carlotta's gossamer follies had been thrown into the vagabond court of the Queen of Navarre, I wonder whether those delectable stories would have been written?

As Antoinette does not understand literary English, and as Carlotta did not know what in the world I was talking about, I was master of the conversational situation. Carlotta went to the mantel-piece and returned with a glutinous ma.s.s of sweet stuff between her fingers.

"Will Seer Marcous have some? It is nougat." I declined. "Oh!" she said, tragically disappointed. "It is good."

There is something in that silly creature's eyes that I cannot resist.

She put the abominable morsel into my mouth--it was far too sticky for me to hold--and laughingly licked her own fingers.

I went down to work again with an uneasy feeling of imperilled dignity.

May 29th.

I sent her word that I would take her for a drive this afternoon. She was to be ready at three o'clock. It will be wholesome for her to regard her outings with me as rare occurrences to be highly valued. Ordinarily she will go out with Antoinette--for the present at least--as she did yesterday.

At three o'clock Stenson informed me that the cab was at the door.

"Go up and call Mademoiselle," said I.

In two or three minutes she came down. I have not had such a shock in my life. I uttered exclamations of amazement in several languages. I have never seen on the stage or off such a figure as she presented. Her cheeks were white with powder, her lips dyed a pomegranate scarlet, her eyebrows and lashes blackened. In her ears she wore large silver-gilt earrings. She entered the room with an air of triumph, as who should say: "See how captivatingly beautiful I am!"

At my stare of horror her face fell. At my command to go upstairs and wash herself clean, she wept.

"For heaven's sake, don't cry," I exclaimed, "or you will look like a rainbow."

"I did it to please you," she sobbed.

"It is only the lowest cla.s.s of dancing-women who paint their faces in England," said I, _splendide mendax._ "And you know what they are in Alexandretta."

"They came to Aziza-Zaza's wedding," said Carlotta, behind her handkerchief. "But all our ladies do this when they want to make themselves look nice. And I have put on this nasty thing that hurts me, just to please Seer Marcous."

I felt I had been brutal. She must have spent hours over her adornment.

Yet I could not have taken her out into the street. She looked like Jezebel, who without her paint must have been, like Carlotta, a remarkably handsome person.

"It strikes me, Carlotta," said I, "that you will find England is Alexandretta upside down. What is wrong there is right here, and vice versa. Now if you want to please me run away and clean yourself and take off those barbaric and Brummagem earrings."

She went and was absent a short while. She returned in dismay. Water would not get it off. I rang for Antoinette, but Antoinette had gone out. It being too delicate a matter for Stenson, I fetched a pot of vaseline from my own room, and as Carlotta did not know what to make of it, I with my own hands cleansed Carlotta. She screamed with delight, thinking it vastly amusing. Her emotions are facile. I cannot deny that it amused me too. But I am in a responsible position, and I am wondering what the deuce I shall be doing next.

I enjoyed the drive to Richmond, where I gave her tea at the Star and Garter and was relieved to see her drink normally from the cup, instead of lapping from the saucer like a kitten. She was much more intelligent than during our first drive on Tuesday. The streets have grown more familiar, and the traffic does not make her head ache. She asks me the ingenuous questions of a child of ten. The tall guardsmen we pa.s.sed particularly aroused her enthusiasm. She had never seen anything so beautiful. I asked her if she would like me to buy one and give it her to play with.

"Oh, would you, Seer Marcous?" she exclaimed, seizing my hand rapturously. I verily believe she thought I was in earnest, for when I turned aside my jest, she pouted in disappointment and declared that it was wrong to tell lies.

"I am glad you have some elementary notions of ethics," said I. It was during our drive that it occurred to me to ask her where she had procured the paint and earrings. She explained, cheerfully, that Antoinette had supplied the funds. I must talk seriously to Antoinette. Her att.i.tude towards Carlotta savours too much of idolatry.

Demoralisation will soon set in, and the utter ruin of Carlotta and my digestion will be the result. I must also make Carlotta a small allowance.

During tea she said to me, suddenly:

"Seer Marcous is not married?"

I said, no. She asked, why not? The devil seems to be driving all womankind to ask me that question.

"Because wives are an unmitigated nuisance," said I.

A curious smile came over Carlotta's face. It was as knowing as Dame Quickly's.

"Then-"

"Have one of these cakes," said I, hurriedly. "There is chocolate outside and the inside is chock-full of custard."

She bit, smiled in a different and beatific way, and forgot my matrimonial affairs. I was relieved. With her oriental training there is no telling what Carlotta might have said.

May 31st.

To-day I have had a curious interview. Who should call on me but the father of the hapless Harry Robinson. My first question was a natural one. How on earth did he connect me with the death of his son? How did he contrive to identify me as the befriender of the young Turkish girl whose interests, he declared, were the object of his visit? It appeared that the police had given him the necessary information, my adventures at Waterloo having rendered their tracing of Carlotta an easy matter.

I had been wondering somewhat at the meagre newspaper reports of the inquest. No mention was made, as I had nervously antic.i.p.ated, of the mysterious lady for whom the deceased had bought a ticket at Alexandretta, and with whom he had come ash.o.r.e. Very little evidence appeared to have been taken, and the jury contented themselves with giving the usual verdict of temporary insanity. I touched on this as delicately as I could. "We succeeded in hushing things up," said my visitor, an old man with iron-grey whiskers and a careworn sensitive face. "I have some influence myself, and his wife's relations--"

"His wife!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. The ways of men are further than ever from interpretation. The fellow was actually married!