The City of Masks/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
THE FOUNDATION OF THE PLOT
MR. BRAMBLE had never been quite able to resign himself to a definitely impersonal attitude toward Lord Eric Temple. He seemed to cling, despite himself, to a privilege long since outlawed by time and circumstance and the inevitable outgrowing of knickerbockers by the aforesaid Lord Eric. Back in the good old days it had been his pleasant,—and sometimes unpleasant,—duty to direct a very small Eric in matters not merely educational but of deportment as well. In short, Eric, at the age of five, fell into the capable, kindly and more or less resolute hands of a well-recommended tutor, and that tutor was no other than J. Bramble.
At the age of twelve, the boy went off to school in a little high hat and an Eton suit, and J. Bramble was at once, you might say, out of the frying pan into the fire. In other words, he was promoted by his lordship, the boy's grandfather, to the honourable though somewhat onerous positions of secretary, librarian and cataloguer, all in one. He had been able to teach Eric a great many things he didn't know, but there was nothing he could impart to his lordship.
That irascible old gentleman knew everything. After thrice informing his lordship that Sir Walter Scott was the author of Guy Mannering, and being thrice informed that he was nothing of the sort, the desolate Mr. Bramble realized that he was no longer a tutor,—and that he ought to be rather thankful for it. It exasperated him considerably, however, to have the authorship of Guy Mannering arbitrarily ascribed to three different writers, on three separate occasions, when any schoolboy could have told the old gentleman that Fielding and Sterne and Addison had no more to do with the book than William Shakespeare himself. His lordship maintained that no one could tell him anything about Scott; he had him on his shelves and he had read him from A to Izzard. And he was rather severe with Mr. Bramble for acccepting a position as librarian when he didn't know any more than that about books.
And from this you may be able to derive some sort of an opinion concerning the cantankerous, bull-headed old party (Bramble's appellation behind the hand) who ruled Fenlew Hall, the place where Tom Trotter was reared and afterwards disowned.
Also you may be able to account in a measure for Mr. J. Bramble's attitude toward the tall young man, an attitude brought on no doubt by the revival, or more properly speaking the survival, of an authority exercised with rare futility but great satisfaction at a time when Eric was being trained in the way he should go. If at times Mr. Bramble appears to be mildly dictatorial, or gently critical, or sadly reproachful, you will understand that it is habit with him, and not the captiousness of old age. It was his custom to shake his head reprovingly, or to frown in a pained sort of way, or to purse his lips, or even to verbally take Mr. Trotter to task when that young man deviated,—not always accidentally,—from certain rules of deportment laid down for him to follow in his earliest efforts to be a "little gentleman."
For example, when the two of them, after a rather impatient half-hour, observed Miss Emsdale step down from the trolley car at the corner above and head for the doorway through which they were peering, Mr. Bramble peremptorily said to Mr. Trotter:
"Go and brush your hair. You will find a brush at the back of the shop. Look sharp, now. She will be here in a jiffy."
And you will perhaps understand why Mr. Trotter paid absolutely no attention to him.
Miss Emsdale and the little violinist came in together. The latter's teeth were chattering, his cheeks were blue with the cold.
"God bless my soul!" said Mr. Bramble, blinking at de Bosky. Here was an unforeseen complication.
Miss Emsdale was resourceful. "I stopped in to inquire, Mr. Bramble,—this is Mr. Bramble, isn't it?—if you have a copy of—"
"Please close the door, Trotter, there's a good fellow," interrupted Mr. Bramble, frowning significantly at the young man.
"It is closed," said Mr. Trotter, tactlessly. He was lookingly intently, inquiringly into the blue eyes of Miss Emsdale.
"I closed it as I came in," chattered de Bosky.
"Oh, did you?" said Mr. Bramble. "People always leave it open. I am so in the habit of having people leave the door open that I never notice when they close it. I—ahem! Step right this way, please, Miss Ems—ahem! I think we have just the book you want."
"I am not in any haste, Mr. Bramble," said she, regarding de Bosky with pitying eyes. "Let us all go back to the stove and—and—" She hesitated, biting her lip. The poor chap undoubtedly was sensitive. They always are.
"Good!" said Mr. Bramble eagerly. "And we'll have some tea. Bless my soul, how fortunate! I always have it at five o'clock. Trotter and I were just on the point of—so glad you happened in just at the right moment, Miss Emsdale. Ahem! And you too, de Bosky. Most extraordinary. You may leave your pipe on that shelf. Trotter. It smells dreadfully. No, no,—I wouldn't even put it in my pocket if I were you. Er—ahem! You have met Mr. Trotter, haven't you. Miss Emsdale?"
"You poor old boob," said Trotter, laying his arm over Bramble's shoulder in the most affectionate way. "Isn't he a boob, Miss Emsdale?"
"Not at all," said she severely. "He is a dear."
"Bless my soul!" murmured Mr. Bramble, doing as well as could be expected. He blessed it again before he could catch himself up.
"Sit here by the stove, Mr. de Bosky," said Miss Emsdale, a moment later. "Just as close as you can get to it."
"I have but a moment to stay," said de Bosky, a wistful look in his dark eyes.
"You'll have tea, de Bosky," said Mr. Bramble firmly. "Is the water boiling, Trotter?"
A few minutes later, warmed by the cup of tea and a second slice of toast, de Bosky turned to Trotter.
"Thanks again, my dear fellow, for speaking to your employer about my playing. This little affair tonight may be the beginning of an era of good fortune for me. I shall never forget your interest—"
"Oh, that's off," said Trotter carelessly.
"Off? You mean?" cried de Bosky.
"I'm fired, and he has gone to Atlantic City for the week-end."
"He—he isn't going to have his party in the private dining-room at,—you said it was to be a private dining-room, didn't you, with a few choice spirits—"
"He has gone to Atlantic City with a few choice spirits," said Trotter, and then stared hard at the musician's face. "Oh, by Jove! I'm sorry," he cried, struck by the look of dismay, almost of desperation, in de Bosky's eyes. "I didn't realize it meant so much to—"
"It is really of no consequence," said de Bosky, lifting his chin once more and straightening his back. The tea-cup rattled ominously in the saucer he was clutching with tense fingers.
"Never mind," said Mr. Bramble, anticipating a crash and inspired by the kindliest of motives; "between us we've smashed half a dozen of them, so don't feel the least bit uncomfortable if you do drop—"
"What are you talking about, Bramby?" demanded Trotter, scowling at the unfortunate bookseller. "Have some more tea, de Bosky. Hand up your cup. Little hot water, eh?"
Mr. Bramble was perspiring. Any one with half an eye could see that it was of consequence to de Bosky. The old bookseller's heart was very tender.
"Don't drink too much of it," he warned, his face suddenly beaming. "You'll spoil your appetite for dinner." To the others: "Mr. de Bosky honours my humble board with his presence this evening. The finest porterhouse steak in New York— Eh, what?"
"It is I," came a crisp voice from the bottom of the narrow stairway that led up to the living-quarters above. Monsieur Mirabeau, his whiskers neatly brushed and twisted to a point, his velvet lounging jacket adorned with a smart little boutonnière, his shoes polished till they glistened, approached the circle and, bending his gaunt frame with gallant disdain for the crick in his back, kissed the hand of the young lady. "I observed your approach, my dear Miss Emsdale. We have been expecting you for ages. Indeed, it has been the longest afternoon that any of us has ever experienced."
Mr. Bramble frowned. "Ahem!" he coughed.
"I am sorry if I have intruded," began de Bosky, starting to arise.
"Sit still," said Thomas Trotter. He glanced at Miss Emsdale. "You're not in the way, old chap."
"You mentioned a book, Miss Emsdale," murmured Mr. Bramble. "When you came in, you'll remember."
She looked searchingly into Trotter's eyes, and finding her answer there, remarked:
"Ample time for that, Mr. Bramble. Mr. de Bosky is my good friend. And as for dear M. Mirabeau,—ah, what shall I say of him?" She smiled divinely upon the grey old Frenchman.
"I commend your modesty," said M. Mirabeau. "It prevents your saying what every one knows,—that I am your adorer!"
Tom Trotter was pacing the floor. He stopped in front of her, a scowl on his handsome face.
"Now, tell us just what the infernal dog said to you," he said.
She started. "You—you have already heard something?" she cried, wonderingly.
"Ah, what did I tell you?" cried M. Mirabeau triumphantly, glancing first at Trotter and then at Bramble. "He is in love with her, and this is what comes of it. He resorts to—"
"Is this magic?" she exclaimed.
"Not a bit of it," said Trotter. "We've been putting two and two together, the three of us. Begin at the beginning," he went on, encouragingly. "Don't hold back a syllable of it."
"You must promise to be governed by my advice," she warned him. "You must be careful,—oh, so very careful."
"He will be good at any rate," said Mr. Bramble, fixing the young man with a look. Trotter's face went crimson.
"Ahem!" came guardedly from M. Mirabeau. "Proceed, my dear. We are most impatient."
The old Frenchman's deductions were not far from right. Young Mr. Smith-Parvis, unaccustomed to opposition and believing himself to be entitled to everything he set his heart on having, being by nature predatory, sustained an incredible shock when the pretty and desirable governess failed utterly to come up to expectations. Not only did she fail to come up to expectations but she took the wind completely out of his sails, leaving him adrift in a void so strange and unusual that it was hours before he got his bearings again. Some of the things she said to him got under a skin so thick and unsensitive that nothing had ever been sharp enough to penetrate it before.
The smarting of the pain from these surprising jabs at his egotism put him into a state of fury that knew no bounds. He went so far as to accuse her of deliberately trying to be a lady,—a most ridiculous assumption that didn't fool him for an instant. She couldn't come that sort of thing with him! The sooner she got off her high-horse the better off she'd be. It had never entered the head of Smith-Parvis Jr. that a wage-earning woman could be a lady, any more than a wage-earning man could be a gentleman.
The spirited encounter took place on the afternoon following her midnight adventure with Thomas Trotter. Stuyvesant lay in wait for her when she went out at five o'clock for her daily walk in the Park. Overtaking her in one of the narrow, remote little paths, he suggested that they cross over to Bustanoby's and have tea and a bite of something sweet. He was quite out of breath. She had given him a long chase, this long-limbed girl with her free English stride.
"It's a nice quiet place," he said, "and we won't see a soul we know."
Primed by assurance, he had the hardihood to grasp her arm with a sort of possessive familiarity. Whereupon, according to the narrator, he sustained his first disheartening shock. She jerked her arm away and faced him with blazing eyes.
"Don't do that!" she said. "What do you mean by following me like this?"
"Oh, come now," he exclaimed blankly; "don't be so damned uppish. I didn't sleep a wink last night, thinking about you. You—"
"Nor did I sleep a wink, Mr. Smith-Parvis, thinking about you," she retorted, looking straight into his eyes. "I am afraid you don't know me as well as you think you do. Will you be good enough to permit me to continue my walk unmolested?"
He laughed in her face. "Out here to meet the pretty chauffeur, are you? I thought so. Well, I'll stick around and make the crowd. Is he likely to pop up out of the bushes and try to bite me, my dear? Better give him the signal to lay low, unless you want to see him nicely booted."
("My God!" fell from Thomas Trotter's compressed lips.)
"Then I made a grievous mistake," she explained to the quartette. "It is all my fault, Mr. Trotter. I brought disaster upon you when I only intended to sound your praises. I told him that nothing could suit me better than to have you pop up out of the bushes, just for the pleasure it would give me to see him run for home as fast as he could go. It made him furious."
Smith-Parvis Jr. proceeded to give her "what for," to use his own words. In sheer amazement, she listened to his vile insinuations. She was speechless.
"And here am I," he had said, toward the end of the indictment, "a gentleman, born and bred, offering you what this scurvy bounder cannot possibly give you, and you pretend to turn up your nose at me. I am gentleman enough to overlook all that has transpired between you and that loafer, and I am gentleman enough to keep my mouth shut at home, where a word from me would pack you off in two seconds. And I'd like to see you get another fat job in New York after that. You ought to be jolly grateful to me."
"If I am the sort of person you say I am," she had replied, trembling with fury, "how can you justify your conscience in letting me remain for a second longer in charge of your little sisters?"
"What the devil do I care about them? I'm only thinking of you. I'm mad about you, can't you understand? And I'd like to know what conscience has to do with that."
Then he had coolly, deliberately, announced his plan of action to her.
"You are to stay on at the house as long as you like, getting your nice little pay check every month, and something from me besides. Ah, I'm no piker! Leave it all to me. As for this friend of yours, he has to go. He'll be out of a job tomorrow. I know Carpenter. He will do anything I ask. He'll have to, confound him. I've got him where he can't even squeak. And what's more, if this Trotter is not out of New York inside of three days, I'll land him in jail. Oh, don't think I can't do it, my dear. There's a way to get these renegade foreigners,—every one of 'em,—so you'd better keep clear of him if you don't want to be mixed up in the business. I am doing all this for your own good. Some day you'll thank me. You are the first girl I've ever really loved, and—I—I just can't stand by and let you go to the devil with my eyes shut. I am going to save you, whether you like it or not. I am going to do the right thing by you, and you will never regret chucking this rotter for me. We will have to be a little careful at home, that's all. It would never do to let the old folks see that I am more than ordinarily interested in you, or you in me. Once, when I was a good deal younger and didn't have much sense, I spoiled a—but you wouldn't care to hear about it."
She declared to them that she would never forget the significant grin he permitted himself in addition to the wink.
"The dog!" grated Thomas Trotter, his knuckles white.
M. Mirabeau straightened himself to his full height,—and a fine figure of a man was he!
"Mr. Trotter," he said, with grave dignity, "it will afford me the greatest pleasure and honour to represent you in this crisis. Pray command me. No doubt the scoundrel will refuse to meet you, but at any rate a challenge may be—"
Miss Emsdale broke in quickly. "Don't,—for heaven's sake, dear M. Mirabeau,—don't put such notions into his head! It is bad enough as it is. I beg of you—"
"Besides," said Mr. Bramble, "one doesn't fight duels in this country, any more than one does in England. It's quite against the law."
"I sha'n't need any one to represent me when it comes to punching his head," said Mr. Trotter.
"It's against the law, strictly speaking, to punch a person's head," began Mr. Bramble nervously.
"But it's not against the law, confound you, Bramby, to provide a legal excuse for going to jail, is it? He says he's going to put me there. Well, I intend to make it legal and—"
"Oh, goodness!" cried Miss Emsdale, in dismay.
"—And I'm not going to jail for nothing, you can stake your life on that."
"Do you think, Mr. Trotter, that it will add to my happiness if you are lodged in jail on my account?" said she. "Haven't I done you sufficient injury—"
"Now, you are not to talk like that," he interrupted, reddening.
"But I shall talk like that," she said firmly. "I have not come here to ask you to take up my battles for me but to warn you of danger. Please do not interrupt me. I know you would enjoy it, and all that sort of thing, but it isn't to be considered. Hear me out."
She went on with her story. Young Mr. Smith-Parvis, still contending that he was a gentleman and a friend as well as an abject adorer, made it very plain to her that he would stand no foolishness. He told her precisely what he would do unless she eased up a bit and acted like a good, sensible girl. He would have her dismissed without character and he would see to it that no respectable house would be open to her after she left the service of the Smith-Parvises.
"But couldn't you put the true situation before his parents and tell 'em what sort of a rotten bounder he is?" demanded Trotter.
"You do not know them, Mr. Trotter," she said forlornly.
"And they'd kick you out without giving you a chance to prove to them that he is a filthy liar and—"
"Just as Mr. Carpenter kicked you out," she said.
"By gad, I—I wouldn't stay in their house another day if I were you," he exclaimed wrathfully. "I'd quit so quickly they wouldn't have time to—"
"And then what?" she asked bitterly. "Am I so rich and independent as all that? You forget that I must have a 'character,' Mr. Trotter. That, you see, would be denied me. I could not obtain employment. Even Mrs. Sparflight would be powerless to help me after the character they would give me."
"But, good Lord, you—you're not going to stay on in the house with that da—that nasty brute, are you?" he cried, aghast.
"I must have time to think, Mr. Trotter," she said quietly. "Now, don't say anything more,—please! I shall take good care of myself, never fear. My woes are small compared to yours, I am afraid. The next morning after our little scene in the park, he came down to breakfast, smiling and triumphant. He said he had news for me. Mr. Carpenter was to dismiss you that morning, but had agreed not to prefer charges against you,—at least, not for the present." She paused to moisten her lips. There was a harassed look in her eyes.
"Charges?" said Trotter, after a moment. The other men leaned forward, fresh interest in their faces.
"Did you say charges. Miss Emsdale?" asked Mr. Bramble, putting his hand to his ear.
"He told me that Mr. Carpenter was at first determined to turn you over to the police, but that he had begged him to give you a chance. He—he says that Mr. Carpenter has had a private detective watching you for a fortnight, and—and—oh, I cannot say it!"
"Go on," said Trotter harshly; "say it!"
"Well, of course, I know and you understand it is simply part of his outrageous plan, but he says your late employer has positive proof that you took—that you took some marked bank notes out of his overcoat pocket a few days ago. He had been missing money and had provided himself with marked—"
Trotter leaped to his feet with a cry of rage.
"Sit down!" commanded Mr. Bramble. "Sit down! Where are you going?"
"Great God! Do you suppose I can sit still and let him get away with anything like that?" roared Trotter. "I'm going to jam those words down Carpenter's craven throat. I'm—"
"You forget he is in Atlantic City," said de Bosky, as if suddenly coming out of a dream.
"Oh, Lord!" groaned Trotter, very white in the face.
There were tears in Miss Emsdale's eyes. "They—he means to drive you out of town," she murmured brokenly.
"Fine chance of that!" cried Trotter violently.
"Let us be calm," said M. Mirabeau, gently taking the young man's arm and leading him back to the box on which he had been sitting. "You must not play into their hands, and that is what you would be doing if you went to him in a rage. As long as you remain passive, nothing will come of all this. If you show your teeth, they will stop at nothing. Take my word for it, Trotter, before many hours have passed you will be interviewed by a detective,—a genuine detective, by the way, for some of them can be hired to do anything, my boy,—and you will be given your choice of going to prison or to some far distant city. You—"
"But how in thunder is he going to prove that I took any marked bills from him? You've got to prove those things, you know. The courts would not—"
"Just a moment! Did he pay you by check or with bank notes this morning?"
"He gave me a check for thirty dollars, and three ten-dollar bills and a five."
"Have you them on your person at present?"
"Not all of them. I have—wait a second! We'll see." He fumbled in his pocket for the bill-folder.
"What did you do with the rest?"
"Paid my landlady for—good Lord! I see what you mean! He paid me with marked bills! The—the damned scoundrel!"
"He not only did that, my boy, but he put a man on your trail to recover them as fast as you disposed of them," said M. Mirabeau calmly.