The Quaint Companions. Merrick Leonard
to everything but the passion that had sprung up in him – and he meant to show the woman whom he burned to marry the sort of thing he could bestow on his wife. The housemaid, accustomed to speculating whether the parting tip would be a half-crown or five shillings, was dumfounded by a sovereign almost as often as he rang the bell; the supply of roses in his room made it look like a flower-show; prize peaches were ordered, only that they might be left to rot on the sideboard, and he had two bottles of champagne opened daily for the effect of banishing them to the kitchen three-parts full.
He had not failed, either, to place a liberal interpretation upon "sweets." The rain of bonbons and bouquets that descended on the discontented blonde in rusty crape could hardly have been more persistent if she had been a prima donna, and his prodigality made the desired sensation in a household where the "drawing-rooms" usually took mental photographs of the joints before they were removed. Mrs. Tremlett it horrified, but to her daughter there was a strong fascination in it, a fascination even more potent than it exerted over the servants – a class who rejoice at extravagance, whether it be their own or other people's. She was not backward in deriving the moral; she, too, might enjoy this lavish life if she allowed him to ask her! The chance had befallen her so suddenly that it dizzied her. She felt strange to herself; she could not realise her point of view. His admiration for her had improved his appearance very much, but it could not quell the race prejudice entirely. She knew that if he had been a nonentity she would have found his homage preposterous; and ardently as she longed to embrace the life that he could open to her, she shrank from the thought of embracing the man.
She was aware, nevertheless, that she was precipitating a moment when it would be necessary for her to take a definite course, and she was not surprised to hear Mrs. Tremlett broach the subject to her one afternoon. The landlady was making out the dining-room bill, and Ownie had been sitting upstairs, in the twilight, while Lee sang to her at the grand piano that he had hired as soon as he was installed. In the morning he practised his cadenzas and phrases alone, but in the afternoon he sang, and had begged her to go up, assuring her that a vocalist needed someone present at such times; he had omitted to add that he needed a true musician. To sing to her intoxicated him. To listen to him stimulated her. When his fancy ran riot and he thought of falling at her feet (to fall at her feet was his mental picture), he always saw himself doing it in an hour like this – while the dusk befriended him, and his voice was pleading in her senses.
"Have you been in there again, Ownie?"
"Yes," she said, pulling the rocking-chair to the fire; "it wasn't very long, was it? He wants us to go to his concert next week at the Albert Hall; he'd like us to stay the night at an hotel. Of course we should be his guests, and it would be a nice change. I told him I'd speak to you about it."
"Sleep in town at an hotel? Oh no, dear, I shouldn't think of such a thing! Whatever for?"
"Because he has invited us, because he's going to sing. I said I didn't think you'd go for the night, but we might run away in time to catch the last train. I don't much care about going alone – though he wants me to do that, if you won't come."
"Wants you to go alone?" She made a blot, and put down the pen. "Wants you to go alone, as his guest?" she repeated.
"Yes; why shouldn't I? Still, if you'll come too – "
"How can I go and leave everything to look after itself? Besides, it wouldn't be right. As to your going alone, that would be worse still. I'm sure I don't see – "
"Don't see what?"
Mrs. Tremlett hesitated. "Don't you think the servants will begin to talk?" she murmured. "You know what I mean, dear; you're up there so much – and he's always sending you things. Of course I shouldn't like him to leave, but it's a pity he doesn't see that he oughtn't to – Well, I'm sure the servants are talking! When I wanted you just now about the deposit on the bottles, Ada said, 'Oh, she's with Mr. Lee, ma'am – I'd better not call her out.' I could see what she thought, though I pretended not to notice anything."
"What did she think?"
"Well, dear, she thought that – that he was paying you attentions. And so he is! The poor fellow… It's quite natural, I daresay, that he should take to you, but I should make him understand that he mustn't be foolish, before it goes any further, if I were you. Of course, with a man like that, it mayn't be serious, but you can't tell what ideas he may have in his head, can you?"
"You mean he might ask me to marry him?" said Ownie slowly; "is that it?"
"Well, my dear, I suppose that – ridiculous as it sounds, I suppose that is what it might come to; and of course it would make unpleasantness, and we should have the drawing-rooms empty at the worst time of the year. Much better to keep him in his place and to show him that it would be no good."
Ownie's abrupt little laugh sounded. She swung herself to and fro in the rocking-chair rather violently.
"If I did that, I think you'd have the drawing-rooms empty at once. His 'place'? 'His place' is funny! Why, sometimes he's paid as much as a thousand pounds for four nights, and I'm a pauper… You take it for granted, then, that if he asked me I should say 'No'?"
Mrs. Tremlett looked bewildered. Her gaze fell, and wandered helplessly. Her brow was puckered when she spoke.
"Wouldn't you say 'No'?" she faltered.
"Why should I?"
"Oh, of course if you could care for him – Of course in the sight of Heaven we're all equal; but it isn't as if he were a white man, is it? And you scarcely know him."
"I know who he is – I might do a good deal worse for myself than marry Elisha Lee. I should be a rich woman."
"I don't think you'd be very rich, dear; it seems to me he must spend every penny he makes, even if he does get a thousand pounds for four nights sometimes. Besides, if you mean to marry him just for what he can give you, I'm afraid you'd be very miserable. You're not a girl, I know, and you must judge for yourself in these things, but I don't think any amount of money would make you satisfied with what you'd done if you don't care for him – and I'm sure I don't see how you can! When I married your poor father – "
"When you married father he had nothing, I know. And you've had nothing ever since. The children of people who marry on nothing are seldom as sentimental as their parents were. You were brought up in a comfortable home, and so you were romantic, and said, 'Money's the least thing;' I was brought up in a lodging-house, and so I'm practical, and put money before everything else. I think," she exclaimed, "I think it's wicked that people who make improvident marriages should brag of the folly to their poor children afterwards!"
"I am not bragging, dear. But when a woman has loved her husband, she never admits that their marriage was a folly, even in her own thoughts. A man – " She sighed. "A man, I am afraid, sometimes does. As I say, you're not a girl, and you must know your own mind, but the idea seems awful to me; I would never have believed you could think of doing such a thing."
Ownie flushed, and her shoe tapped the floor irritably. "Just because he is black," she muttered. "Where is your religion? I thought you said just now that in the sight of Heaven all men were equal?"
"In Heaven, no doubt, he will be as white as the rest of us," returned Mrs. Tremlett, after a slight pause. "But in the meantime he's a nigger, and I can't think it would be right."
Her daughter did not reply; nor did the elder woman summon courage to recur to the matter. She was, however, relieved on the morrow and the next day to notice that her remonstrance had borne fruit and that Ownie's visits to the drawing-room were discontinued. Lee, who passed the two days in hourly expectation of them, was first restless, and then enraged. The besetting tendency of the negro in his intercourse with Europeans is to take affront, and he told himself that her neglect was an insult which she would never have dared to put upon an Englishman. He left Brighton this time without any adieu, and he was absent for longer than usual.
There were two reasons for his going back when he did. When women say of another woman – as they are often heard to say – that there is nothing in her to explain infatuation, they babble, for there is no young woman, however commonplace, who may not appear unique to some man. One of Lee's reasons was, that his desire to see Ownie