The Complete Novellas & Short Stories. Bennett Arnold
Station, with three night-cabs drawn up to the kerb, and a red van of W.H. Smith and Son disappearing into the station. The Strand was quite empty. It was a strange world of sleep and grayness and disillusion. Within a couple of hundred yards or so of her thousands of people lay asleep, and they would all soon wake into the disillusion, and the Strand would wake, and the first omnibus of all the omnibuses would come along....
Never had simple Nina felt so sad and weary. She was determined to give up her father. She was bound to tell the manager of her discovery, for Nina was an honest servant, and she was piqued in her honesty. No one should know that Lionel Belmont was her father.... She saw before her the task of forgetting him and forgetting the rich dreams of which he had been the origin. She was once more a book-keeper with no prospects.
At eight she saw the manager in the managerial room. Mr. Reuben was a young Jew, aged about thirty-four, with a cold but indestructibly polite manner. He was a great man, and knew it; he had almost invented the Majestic.
She told him her news; it was impossible for foolish Nina to conceal her righteousness and her sense of her importance.
'Whom did you say, Miss Malpas?' asked Mr. Reuben.
'Mr. Lionel Belmont—at least, that's what he calls himself.'
'Calls himself, Miss Malpas?'
'Here's one of the telegrams.'
Mr. Reuben read it, looked at little Nina, and smiled; he never laughed.
'Is it possible, Miss Malpas,' said he, 'that you don't know who Mr. Belmont and Mr. Pank are?' And then, as she shook her head, he continued in his impassive, precise way: 'Mr. Belmont is one of the principal theatrical managers in the United States. Mr. Pank is one of the principal playwrights in the United States. Mr. Pank's melodrama 'Nebraska' is now being played at the Regency by Mr. Belmont's own American company. Another of Mr. Belmont's companies starts shortly for a tour in the provinces with the musical comedy 'The Dolmenico Doll.' I believe that Mr. Pank and Mr. Belmont are now writing a new melodrama, and as they have both been travelling, but not together, I expect that these telegrams relate to that melodrama. Did you suppose that safe-burglars wire their plans to each other like this?' He waved the telegram with a gesture of fatigue.
Silly, ruined Nina made no answer.
'Do you ever read the papers—the Telegraph or the Mail, Miss Malpas?'
'N-no, sir.'
'You ought to, then you wouldn't be so ignorant and silly. A hotel-clerk can't know too much. And, by-the-way, what were you doing in Mr. Belmont's room last night, when you found these wonderful telegrams?'
'I went there—I went there—to——'
'Don't cry, please, it won't help you. You must leave here to-day. You've been here three weeks, I think. I'll tell Mr. Smith to pay you your month's wages. You don't know enough for the Majestic, Miss Malpas. Or perhaps you know too much. I'm sorry. I had thought you would suit us. Keep straight, that's all I have to say to you. Go back to Doncaster, or wherever it is you came from. Leave before five o'clock. That will do.'
With a godlike air, Mr. Reuben swung round his office-chair and faced his desk. He tried not to perceive that there was a mysterious quality about this case which he had not quite understood. Nina tripped piteously out.
In the whole of London Nina had one acquaintance, and an hour or so later, after drinking some tea, she set forth to visit this acquaintance. The weight of her own foolishness, fatuity, silliness, and ignorance was heavy upon her. And, moreover, she had been told that Mr. Lionel Belmont had already departed back to America, his luggage being marked for the American Transport Line.
She was primly walking, the superlative of the miserable, past the façade of the hotel, when someone sprang out of a cab and spoke to her. And it was Mr. Lionel Belmont.
'Get right into this hansom, Miss Malpas,' he said kindly, 'and I guess we'll talk it out.'
'Talk what out?' she thought.
But she got in.
'Marble Arch, and go up Regent Street, and don't hurry,' said Mr. Belmont to the cabman.
'How did he know my name?' she asked herself.
'A hansom's the most private place in London,' he said after a pause.
It certainly did seem to her very cosy and private, and her nearness to one of the principal theatrical managers in America was almost startling. Her white frock, with the black velvet decorations, touched his gray suit.
'Now,' he said, 'I do wish you'd tell me why you were in my parlour last night. Honest.'
'What for?' she parried, to gain time.
Should she begin to disclose her identity?
'Because—well, because—oh, look here, my girl, I want to be on very peculiar terms with you. I want to straighten out everything. You'll be sort of struck, but I'll be bound to tell you I'm your father. Now, don't faint or anything.'
'Oh, I knew that!' she gasped. 'I saw the moles on your wrist when your were registering—mother told me about them. Oh, if I had only known you knew!'
They looked at one another.
'It was only the day before yesterday I found out I possessed such a thing as a daughter. I had a kind of fancy to go around to the old spot. This notion of me having a daughter struck me considerable, and I concluded to trace her and size her up at once.' Nina was bound to smile. 'So your poor mother's been dead three years?'
'Yes,' said Nina.
'Ah! don't let us talk about that. I feel I can't say just the right thing.... And so you knew me by those pips.' He pulled up his right sleeve. 'Was that why you came up to my parlour?'
Nina nodded, and Lionel Belmont sighed with relief.
'Why didn't you tell me at once, my dear, who you where?'
'I didn't dare,' she smiled; 'I was afraid. I thought you wouldn't——'
'Listen,' he said; 'I've wanted someone like you for years, years, and years. I've got no one to look after——'
'Then why didn't you tell me at once who you were?' she questioned with adorable pertness.
'Oh!' he laughed; 'how could I—plump like that? When I saw you first, in the bureau, the stricken image of your mother at your age, I was nearly down. But I came up all right, didn't I, my dear? I acted it out well, didn't I?'
* * * * *
The hansom was rolling through Hyde Park, and the sunshiny hour was eleven in June. Nina looked forth on the gay and brilliant scene: rhododendrons, duchesses, horses, dandies—the incomparable wealth and splendour of the capital. She took a long breath, and began to be happy for the rest of her life. She felt that, despite her plain frock, she was in this picture. Her father had told her that his income was rising on a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and he would thank her to spend it. Her father had told her, when she had confessed the scene with Mr. Reuben and what led to it, that she had grit, and that the mistake was excusable, and that a girl as pretty as she was didn't want to be as fly as Mr. Reuben had said. Her father had told her that he was proud of her, and he had not been so rude as to laugh at her blunder.
She felt that she was about to enter upon the true and only vocation of a dainty little morsel—namely, to spend money earned by other people. She thought less homicidally now of the thirteen chorus-girls of the previous night.
'Say,' said her father, 'I sail this afternoon for New York, Nina.'
'They said you'd gone, at the hotel.'
'Only my baggage. The Minnehaha clears at five. I guess I want you to come along too. On the voyage we'll get acquainted, and tell each other things.'
'Suppose I say I won't?'
She spoke despotically,