British Murder Mysteries – 10 Novels in One Volume. Charles Norris Williamson
the marquise?"
"She's a bran new one. I fancied I'd heard that the wife died. This one has the air of a bride, and I should say she's an American."
"Yes. She is. The maid who showed me my room told me. The other girl who came out of doors, is her sister. They're fearfully rich, it seems, and that young brute wants to marry her."
"Thank you for the descriptive adjective, my little partizan, but you're troubling yourself for me more than you need. I don't mind, really. It's all in a life-time, and I knew when I went in for this business, that I should have to take the rough with the smooth. I was down on my luck, and glad to get anything. What I have got is honest, and something that I know I can do well—something I enjoy, too; and I'm not going to let a vulgar young snob like that make me ashamed of myself, when I've nothing to be ashamed of."
"You ought to be proud of yourself, not ashamed!" I cried to him, trying to keep my eyes cold.
"Heaven knows there's little enough to be proud of. You'd see that, if I bored you with my history—and perhaps I will some day. But anyhow, I've nothing which I need to hide."
"As if I didn't know that! But Bertie hates you."
"I don't much blame him for that. In a way, the position in which we stand to each other is a kind of poetical justice. I don't blame myself, either, for I always did loathe a cad and Stokes is a cad par excellence. He visited, more or less on suffrance, at two or three houses where I used to go a good deal, in my palmy days. How he got asked, originally, I don't exactly know, for the people weren't a bit his sort; but money does a lot for a man in these days; and once in, he wasn't easy to get rid of. He had a crawling way with any one he hoped to squeeze any advantage out of—"
"I suppose he crawled to you then," I broke in.
"He did try it on, a bit, because I knew people he wanted to know; but it didn't work. I rather put myself out to be rude to him, for I resented a fellow like that worming himself into places where he had no earthly right to be—no right of brains, or heart, or breeding. I must admit, now I think of it, that he has several scores to wipe off; and judging from the way he begins, he will wipe hard. Let him!"
"No, no," I protested. "You mustn't let him. It's too much. You will have to tell Sir Samuel that he must find a new chauffeur at once. It hurts me like a blow to think of such a creature humiliating you. I couldn't see it done."
He looked at me very kindly, with quite all a brother's tenderness. "My dear little pal," he said, "you won't have to see it."
"You mean—you will go?" Of course, I wanted him to take my advice, or I wouldn't have offered it, yet it gave me a heartache to think he was ready to take it so easily.
"I mean that I'm not the man to let myself be humiliated by a Bertie Stokes. Possibly he may persuade his stepfather to sack me, but I don't think he'll succeed in doing that, even if he tries. Sir Samuel, I suppose, has given him every thing he has; sent him to Oxford (I know he was there, and scraped through by the skin of his teeth), and allows him thousands enough to mix with a set where he doesn't belong; but though the old boy is weak in some ways, he has a strong sense of justice, and where he likes he is loyal. I think he does like me, and I don't believe he'd discharge me to please his stepson. Not only that, I should be surprised if the promising Bertie wanted me discharged. It would be more in his line to want me kept on, so that he might take it out of me."
I shuddered; but Jack smiled, showing his white teeth almost merrily. "You may see some fun," he said, "but it shan't be death to the frogs; not so bad as that. And I shall have you to be kind to me."
"Kind to you!" I echoed, rather tremulously. (If he only knew how kind I should like to be!) "Yes, I will be kind. But I can't do anything to make up for what you'll have to bear. You had better go."
"Perhaps I would, if I could take you away with me, but that can't be. And, no, even in that case, I should prefer to stick it out. I shouldn't like to let that young bounder drive me from a place, whether I wanted to go or not. And do you think I would clear out, and leave him to worry you?"
"He can't," I said.
"I wish I were sure of that. When the beast sees you without your veil—oh, hang it, you mustn't let him come near you, you know."
"He isn't likely to take the slightest notice of his stepfather's wife's maid," said I, "especially as he's dying to marry the American heiress here."
"Anyhow, be careful."
"I shan't look at him if I can help it. And we shall be gone before long. I believe the Turnours' invitation, which their Bertie was bribed to ask for, is only for two or three days. How you must have been feeling when you were told to drive here! But you showed nothing."
"I had a qualm or two when I was sure of the place; but then it was over. It's far worse for you than for me. And I told you I've been learning from you a lesson of cheerfulness. I was merely a Stoic before."
"It's nothing for me, comparatively," I said, and by this time, I was quite sincere; but I didn't know then what the next twenty-four hours were to bring.
We were not left alone for long, but in ten minutes we had had our talk out, while we played at eating the meal we had looked forward to with eagerness before our appetites were crowded into the background. A fat sous chef flitted about; maids and valets glanced in; nevertheless, we found time for a heart-warming hand pressure before we parted for the night. Altogether, I had not had more than fifteen minutes in the dining-room; yet when I left I felt a hundred times braver and more cheerful.
Already I had been to my mistress's quarters. The maid who took charge of me on my arrival showed me that room before she showed me mine, and explained the way from one to the other. My "bump of locality" was tested, however, in getting back to her ladyship's part of the house, for the castle has its intricacies.
The word "château," in France, covers a multitude of comfortable, unpretentious family mansions, as I had not to find out now, for the first time; and the dwelling of the Roquemartines, though a fine old house of the seventeenth century, is no more imposing, under its high, slate roof, than many another. It is Lady Turnour's first experience, though, as a visitor in the "mansions of the great," and when I had been briskly unpacking for half an hour or so, she came in, somewhat subdued by her new emotions. I think that she was rather glad to see a familiar face, to have someone to talk to of whom she did not feel in awe, with whom she need not be afraid of making some mistake; and she seemed quite human to me, for the first time.
Never had I seen her in such an expansive mood, not even when she gave me the blouse. Instead of the cross words I had braced myself to expect, she was almost friendly. She had felt a fool, she said, not being able to dress for dinner, but then no one else could touch her, for jewels; and didn't every one just stare, at the table, though, of course, she hadn't put on her tiara, as that wouldn't have been suitable with a blouse and short skirt! Sir Samuel's stepson had been quite nasty and superior about the jewels, when he got at her, afterward, and she believed would have been rude if he'd dared, but luckily he didn't know her well enough for that; and he'd better be careful how far he went, or he'd find things very different from what they'd been with him, since his mother married Sir Samuel. As if men knew when women ought to wear their jewels, and when not! But he was green with jealousy of the things his stepfather had given her; wanted everything himself.
She went on to describe the other members of the house party, and mouthed their titles with delight, though she had only her own maid to impress. Everyone had a title, it seemed, except Bertie, and the American girl he wanted to marry, Miss Nelson, a sister of the young marquise. Some of the titles were very high ones, too. There were princes and princesses, and dukes and duchesses all over the place, mostly French and Italian, though one of the duchesses was American, like the marquise and her sister.
"Not the Duchesse de Melun!" I exclaimed, before I stopped to think.
"Yes, that's the name," said her ladyship, twisting round to look up at me, as I wound her back hair in curling-pins. "What do you know about her?"
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