Beggar’s Choice Read online

  “I’m so sorry, Aunt Carrie.”

  “My dear,” said Mrs. Lester, “it’s no use your being sorry, or my being sorry, or any one else being sorry. Your Aunt Willy gets more and more unpunctual, and why she can’t be in to meals like other people I shall never understand. And Eliza is in one of her tempers—and I’m sure I don’t wonder, because if I was a cook and had everything dished up and then had to put it all back again and go on keeping it hot—and then in the end your Aunt Willy will either not come home at all, or as likely as not she’ll bring some one back with her—and though I hope I’m not inhospitable, one does have to consider one’s servants a little, and I must say that I think Eliza has grounds for complaint—though of course your Aunt Willy thinks I spoil her—but, as I always say, I’d rather have one spoilt cook and keep her than have thirteen cooks in a year like your Aunt Willy.”

  Mrs. Lester took a small lace-edged handkerchief out of a large gray silk bag and rubbed the tip of her nose with it until it was quite pink. Then she put the handkerchief back and shut the bag with a snap.

  Aunt Carrie always reminded Isobel of a white rabbit—her pretty white hair; her tendency to get pink about the eyes and nose; her air of timid antagonism. As she went upstairs with Isobel, she looked like a rabbit at bay over its last lettuce leaf.

  Just as they reached the top, the hall door burst open and Miss Willy Tarrant burst in. There was more to it than that, because actually a latchkey was introduced and withdrawn; but the effect was the effect invariably produced by Miss Willy’s arrival. She burst in accompanied by several other people, and her voice, deep, full, and resonant, instantly filled the small house.

  “Parker—I’m in. Where’s Mrs. Lester? Oh, and Parker—three more to lunch—perhaps you’d better tell Eliza.” She surged towards the stairs. “Come along, Janet. Carrie! Carrie! Here we are. I’ve brought Janet to lunch. And I don’t believe you know the Markhams—two of the very best. Bobby, this is my sister, though you wouldn’t think it—and this is my niece, Isobel, who lives with me. Cis, where have you got to?”

  Mrs. Lester remembered that she was a lady. She trembled with passion, but she shook hands with Janet Wimpole, who was a connection, with the fat bald-headed man who, most unsuitably, was Bobby, and with the thin dowdy girl, who appeared to be Cis.

  Miss Willy filled the drawing-room with her deep voice, her presence, and her overpowering self-possession. She was tall and stout, but she seemed to be taller and stouter than she really was. She was tightly molded into a bright black satin garment relieved with pink. Her face was red and sunburned above the pale pink of a tulle scarf. Her black hair crisped and waved like a wig and was only lightly touched with gray. She had removed a pink felt hat as she came in, and it lay, where she had tossed it, on a table devoted to framed photographs of Mrs. Lester’s grandchildren and a bowl of potpourri.

  The gong sounded, and they went down to the dining-room. Each guest received about a tablespoonful of soup, after which Parker set down in front of her mistress a Sheffield entrée dish containing the six small cutlets which had been intended for the three ladies. “And not another bite, nor drop, nor bit, nor sup goes out of this kitchen,” Eliza had declared as she dished them up.

  Miss Willy burst out laughing.

  “I told you it would be pot luck—you can’t say I didn’t! But there’s a ham. Parker, where’s the ham? Bring up the ham, and we shan’t starve.”

  Parker looked at her mistress.

  “The ham will do nicely,” said Mrs. Lester in a small pinched voice.

  Parker coughed and drew nearer.

  “If you please, ma’am, Eliza didn’t think the ham was fit to send up.”

  Mrs. Lester blenched visibly. She had lived for fifteen years with Eliza, and she recognized an ultimatum.

  Miss Willy sprang to her feet.

  “Oh, nonsense—nonsense! I’ll go and see Eliza myself. It was a very good ham, and plenty of it. Help the cutlets, Carrie—I shan’t be a moment—you and I and Isobel will have ham. You needn’t come, Parker—I’ll just go and speak to Eliza.”

  Janet Wimpole wanted to laugh. She was a fair, lovable creature, a childless widow of thirty-five, at the beck and call of every one who wanted a child looked after, a girl chaperoned, or an invalid amused. She looked at Isobel and wondered why she was so pale. And then Miss Willy came back in triumph with the ham on a lordly dish.

  It was when every one had been helped, to the accompaniment of loud-voiced instructions from Miss Willy, that Car’s name suddenly emerged from a buzz of talk. Janet was not quite sure how it came up. Bobby Markham, and the girl called Cis, and Miss Willy were all talking at once, whilst she herself was leaning across Isobel to try and catch a twice repeated remark of Carrie Lester’s. It was Bobby Markham, she thought, who said “Fairfax,” and as he said the word, Janet felt Isobel’s arm move against her own with a wincing movement as if she had been suddenly hurt. Miss Willy caught up the name and, turning, flung it at Isobel.

  “Car Fairfax—I was going to tell you—the most extraordinary thing—Bobby came across Car the other day. You know, we’ve always wondered what on earth had become of him.”

  “Oh, I hope he’s getting on,” said Janet. She leaned forward, screening Isobel.

  “Now, my dear Janet, was he likely to get on, after having to leave his regiment and being mixed up with that atrocious Lymington man, who was nothing but a common swindler—and if I hadn’t had the gumption to get my money out of his clutches just in the very nick of time, wouldn’t Isobel and I be in the workhouse this very minute?”

  “I hope not. But, Willy, you mustn’t say he had to leave his regiment like that—it sounds——”

  “Well, he did have to leave it,” said Miss Willy bluntly.

  “Only because he hadn’t enough money to stay in it. It wasn’t his fault that his father had been living above his income for years and left nothing but debts.”

  Miss Willy tossed her head.

  “Pride goes before a fall. Bobby met him in his brother’s office, standing in a queue on the chance of being taken on as twentieth clerk or something of that sort. Rather a come-down for Car Fairfax!” She laughed angrily and looked at Isobel. “He didn’t even get the job,” she added, with malice in her voice. “But there, it wouldn’t have helped him if he had. You can’t help people who won’t take help. He’s gone under, and he’s got his deserts.”

  “I thought Carthew Fairfax a very pleasant young man,” said Carrie Lester. “And a friend of Isobel’s—wasn’t he, my dear?”

  There was no color in Isobel’s cheeks. She smiled at Aunt Carrie with her eyes and said,

  “Yes, a very great friend.”

  “He wouldn’t be helped,” repeated Miss Willy. “John Carthew would have helped him—That’s his uncle, his mother’s brother,” she explained to the Markhams.

  Bobby Markham nodded.

  “I know—rolling. I wish I’d an uncle who wanted to help me. Little Bobby’s not proud!”

  “Car Fairfax is a fool,” said Miss Willy. “He offended John, and now, apparently, he’s gone to the dogs, and serve him right.”

  “It isn’t actually disreputable to be poor, is it, Willy?” said Janet in her charming voice.

  “Who’s talking about being poor? You’re poor—I’m poor—everybody’s poor. But Car’s gone under. First he had to leave his regiment, and then he went as secretary to that dreadful swindling Lymington man——”

  “Who had been at school with his father,” said Janet Wimpole firmly.

  Miss Willy’s bright, hard color rose.

  “And a pretty pair, I must say! Not a penny to choose between them really, though I suppose it’s better to swindle your own family than to ruin total strangers by the thousand—No, Isobel, don’t contradict me! I don’t care what any one says, a man who pretends to be rich, puts his son into an expensive regiment, spends money like water and lives like a prince, and then dies and doesn’t leave twopence halfpenny is a sw
indler. And as for that Lymington wretch, nobody knows how many people he ruined by going smash and blowing his brains out.”

  “What happened to the son?” said Bobby Markham.

  She stared at him.

  “Car Fairfax?”

  “No—Peter Lymington.”

  “He went abroad, I believe. You really can’t expect me to take any interest in what happened to him, but I do say this—if Carthew Fairfax had had an ounce of self-respect, he’d have gone too. I’m sure no one wanted him here.”

  “His mother did,” said Isobel. Her voice was quick and clear. “She was very ill, and he wouldn’t leave her——”

  “And she died at least two years ago. Why didn’t he go then?”

  “Why not ask him, Willy?” said Janet.

  Miss Willy rapped the table.

  “Because I don’t need to ask any one—I know. He’s mixed up in a discreditable entanglement, and he doesn’t want to. I forget who she is. Wasn’t it you who told me about it, Bobby?… No? Then it was Kitty Mason—no, Joan Connell—no, it wasn’t—but it doesn’t matter—some one told me. And if John Carthew wasn’t an old fool, he’d stop hankering after the boy and let him go his own way.”

  “Does he hanker?” asked Janet quickly.

  “More than Anna Lang cares about—his wife’s niece, you know. She lives with him, and I should say she’d take pretty good care it didn’t get beyond hankering.”

  Parker came in. She had a scarlet spot on either cheek. She placed a microscopic tart at one end of the table and half a plum cake at the other. Lunch proceeded.

  Isobel’s head ached more and more. Her heart ached too. When the others went upstairs, Janet kept her back.

  “Let them go on, and then we’ll go up to your room. I want to talk to you.”

  The little chintzy room was deliciously peaceful. Isobel took off her hat, smoothed her dark hair, and drew a breath of relief. She had very soft black hair, the white skin that does not burn, and eyes that were the color of dark blue water. Just now the waters were shadowed. Car told her once that her eyes were full of secrets. As he said it, he was wondering whether she would ever tell him her secrets.

  “What is it?” said Janet.

  “Car,” said Isobel, simply.

  “My darling child, you mustn’t mind what Willy says—it doesn’t mean much.”

  “I know—but——”

  “What?”

  “Oh, Jan, I saw him!”

  “Car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “In the street. Oh, Jan, he looks——” She put a finger up to her lips because they trembled.

  “How?”

  Isobel lifted her pretty chin.

  “Not what she said. He’s just the same—just Car, but—thin. Oh, Jan, he’s so dreadfully thin and so——” Her voice sank away. She couldn’t tell anyone that Car—Car was so shabby that it hurt.

  Janet walked to the dressing-table and stood fingering some of the pretty trifles that lay there—pretty ivory things with Isobel’s golden I on them. Everything in the room was delicately pretty. She wanted to comfort Isobel; but it might be cruel comfort to encourage her in an attachment to Car Fairfax, who had gone under. She wondered how much Willy guessed, and whether it was love for Isobel that had put the angry color into her cheeks and the edge on to her tongue when she spoke of Car.

  She said, “My dear——” in a puzzled, distressed voice; and then the door was bounced open and Miss Willy came in. She wore an air of triumph, and she fanned herself with the pink felt hat.

  “I’ve just been giving Eliza notice. Carrie would never dare, and she ought to be thankful she’s got some one to do it for her. You can’t think how impertinent she was when I went down for the ham.”

  III

  Car Fairfax got up with a sigh, stretched his hand, which was cramped with writing, and went down the narrow stairs to the next landing. He had heard Fay come in an hour ago, and he supposed he had better go and tell her that he hadn’t got the job, and that in all probability Mrs. Bell would be pushing him out to-morrow. Fay had been hipped for days, but it wasn’t much use not telling her. There really wasn’t any reason why she should mind particularly, except that she was used to having him handy.

  He knocked at the door and went in in response to an irritable “Oh, come in—come in!” The room was cloudy with cigarette smoke. A half made dress of bright green lace lay across the bed, and snippets and cotton ends littered the worn red carpet. Fay’s little black hat with the diamond dagger was thrown down by the door.

  Fay herself, in a short black frock, was lying back in the shapeless armchair smoking. She was a little creature, with the air of being so fragile that a touch might break her. She had reminded Car at first sight of one of those little transparent birds made of spun glass which you sometimes see in the window of a curiosity shop—small, artificial, delicate—a miniature bird of paradise, whose plumage would dissolve at the lightest touch. She had a transparent skin, large pale blue eyes, tiny hands and feet, and hair of the true spun glass texture and hue—the very pale straw-yellow which never darkens. It is possible that her lashes would have been of the same shade if they had been left to nature, but not since her fifteen year had nature been allowed its tactless way. The lashes were now as dark as Car’s own.

  Car Fairfax shut the door and almost trod on the hat. Fay looked up with a jerk.

  “Oh Lord, Car, do keep your clumsy feet off something!” She flung her cigarette across the room, and said “Damn!” when he went to pick it up.

  “It’s scorched your green lace. You’ll burn the house down one of these days.”

  “I’d like to,” she said. Then she laughed. “I’d love to burn the house down and go up in a puff of smoke! Wouldn’t you?”

  “Don’t be an ass, Fay! I say, what’s up?”

  “Up? Nothing’s up—everything’s down,” she said. “Down—down—down—down—DOWN!” Her voice went up into a sort of scream.

  Then she sat up, took out another cigarette and started to light it, spoilt three matches, and flung the box at the door. It hit the middle panel and bounced back.

  Fay jumped up.

  “How much money have you got, Car?”

  “Why, none.”

  “You must have some. Every one’s got some.” She came up close to him. “Car, how much money have you?”

  Car Fairfax laughed.

  “Four and sixpence halfpenny—or four and seven-pence halfpenny. Do you want me to count?”

  A curious flickering something showed in her eyes. It was there, and it was gone. He couldn’t have described it—it was too fleeting.

  Fay looked at him a little bleakly.

  “I’m quite serious.”

  “So am I. Money’s a very serious thing—especially when you haven’t got any.”

  He was still holding the cigarette end which he had picked up. A faint wraith of smoke curled up between them. Car frowned, but before he could speak her hand was on his arm.

  “You don’t mean that you’ve really only got a few shillings?” Then, as he nodded, “But you could get some more—I mean there must be some way—I mean—Car, don’t look like that!”

  “I’m not looking like anything,” said Car rather gravely. “My dear girl, you’ve always known I hadn’t a bean.”

  “I know—but”—she had drawn back a little, but now she pressed close to him—“you could ask some one—you could borrow—you could ask your uncle.”

  Car disengaged himself.

  “You’re talking nonsense. What’s the matter? What have you been up to? Getting into a mess?”

  “I suppose you’d say so.”

  “What sort of a mess?” He lifted the cigarette end to his nose, sniffed it, and tossed it into the fireplace. His eyes dwelt on her consideringly. “Where do you get those beastly things?”

  The flicker came again. It was fear—quite naked and unmistakable this time.

  “Have I g
ot to account to you for every cigarette I smoke?”

  “That one was doped,” said Car.

  “It wasn’t.”

  “It was—it is. Where did you get it? It’ll save a lot of time if you tell me at once.”

  Fay went back to her chair, sat down, produced another cigarette, struck a match, and bent to light it—all with her shoulder turned to Car. He watched her, and saw the match shake in a shaking hand.

  “It’s a mug’s game,” he said as she leaned back and sent up a little puff of smoke.

  “I wish I could blow rings,” said Fay. “I wish you’d teach me.”

  “It’s a mug’s game, Fay.”

  “Write and tell Peter,” said Fay. Then, as he didn’t answer, “That’s what you’ll do if I don’t go down on my knees and promise to be good—isn’t it?”

  “No,” said Car.

  He came over to the fireplace and stood with his back to the narrow gimcrack mantelpiece.

  “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know. Who’s been giving you doped cigarettes, Fay?”

  She blew a puff of smoke at him.

  “They’re not!”

  He stood up without another word and went to the door.

  “Car—you’re not going?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Why?”

  “What’s the good of my staying?”

  Fay dropped the cigarette and jumped up.

  “Car, come back! I told you—I told you I was in a mess—and I am—and if you won’t help me, I’m done.” She caught him by the arm and pulled him round. “Done—done—done! Do you hear? Finished! You don’t care—do you?”

  “I wish you’d talk sense. Of course I care!”

  “Because of me—or because of Peter?”

  “Because of both of you.”

  Fay pushed herself away from him and sprang back a yard.

  “And if there weren’t any Peter—if there were only me—you wouldn’t care a damn what happened—would you?”

  Car stood against the door and looked bored, but behind the boredom there wad distress and distaste. It didn’t suit with his friendship with Peter to be having this sort of scene with Peter’s wife. On the other hand, if she’d got herself into a hole, it was naturally up to him to get her out of it, since Peter Lymington, in New York, was too far away to take a hand. He frowned his heaviest frown, the one that deepened every line with which the last three years had marked him, and said, almost roughly,