The Rustle of Silk Part 25

He was about to leave the street in which the Fallaray house had now a.s.sumed the appearance of a morgue to him when Simpkins came up from the area, with a dull face. After a moment of irresolution he followed and caught the valet up. "Where's Miss Breezy?" he asked abruptly.

Simpkins was all the more astonished at the question for the trouble on that young cub's face. He looked him over sharply,-the cheap cap, the too long hair, the big nose, the faulty teeth, the pasty face, the un-athletic body, the awkward feet. Lola was in love. He knew that well enough. But not with this lout, that was certain, poet or no poet. "I don't know as 'ow I've got to answer that question," he said, just to put him in his place.

"Yes, you have. Where is she?"

"You ought ter know." He himself knew and as there was no accounting for tastes and Lola had made a friend of this anaemic hooligan, why didn't _he_? He lived round the corner from the shop, anyhow.

"But I don't know. Neither do her father and mother."

"What's that?" Simpkins drew up short. "You don't know what you're talkin' about. She went 'ome last Thursday to get a little rest until to-morrer,-Tuesday."

Treadwell would have cried out, "It isn't true," but he loved Lola and was loyal. He had met Simpkins in Queen's Road, Bayswater, and had seen him on familiar terms with Mr. Breezy, but he was a member of the Fallaray household and as such was not to be let into this-_this_ trouble. Not even the Breezys must be told before Lola had been seen and had given an explanation. They didn't love her as much as he did,-nor any one else in the world. And so he said, loyalty overmastering his jealousy and fear, "Oh, is that so? I haven't had time to look in lately. I didn't know." And seeing a huge unbelief in Simpkins's pale eyes, he hurried on to explain. "Being in the neighborhood and having some personal news for Lola, I called at your house. Was surprised to hear that she was away. That's all. Good night." And away he went, head forward, left foot turning in, long arms swinging loose.

But he had touched the spring in Simpkins to a jealousy and a fear that were precisely similar to his own. Lola was _not_ at home. Treadwell knew it and had called at Dover Street, expecting to find her there.

They had all been told lies because she was doing something of which she was ashamed. The night that she had come in, weeping, dressed like a lady.-The words that had burned into his soul the evening of his proposal,-"so awfully in love with somebody else and it's a difficult world.-Perhaps I shall never be married and that's the truth, Simpky.

It's a difficult world."

"Hi," he called out. "Hi," and started after Treadwell, full stride.

But rather than face those searching eyes again, at the back of which there was a curious blaze, Treadwell took to his heels, and followed hard by Simpkins, whose fanatical spirit of protection was stirred to its depths, dodged from one street into another. The curious chase would have ended in Treadwell's escape but for the sudden intervention, in Vigo Street, of a policeman who slipped out of the entrance to the Albany and caught the boy in his arms.

"Now then, now then," he said. "What's all this 'ere?"

And up came Simpkins, blowing badly, with his tie under his left ear.

"It's-it's alri, Saunders. A friendly race, that's all. He's-he's a paller mine. Well run, Ernie!" And he put his arm round Treadwell's shoulders, laughing.

And the policeman, whose wind was good, laughed, too, at the sight of those panting men. "Mind wot yer do, Mr. Simpkins," he said, to the nice little fellow with whom he sometimes took a drink at the bottom of the area steps. "Set up 'eart trouble if yer not careful."

Set up heart trouble? Simpkins looked with a sudden irony at the boy who also would give his life to Lola. And the look was met and understood.

It put them on another footing, they could see.

After a few more words of badinage the policeman mooched off to finish his talk with the tall-hatted keeper of the Albany doorway. And Simpkins said gravely and quietly, "Treadwell, we've got to go into this, you and me. We're in the same boat and Lola's got ter be-looked after, by both of us."

Treadwell nodded. "I'm frightened," he said, without camouflage.

"So am I," said Simpkins.

And they went off together, slowly, brought into confidence by a mutual heart trouble that had already set up.

VI

But there was no uneasiness in Queen's Road, Bayswater. John Breezy and his good wife were happy in the belief that their little girl was enjoying the air and scents of the country with her ladys.h.i.+p. They had neither the time nor the desire to dig deeply into the daily papers. To read of the weatherc.o.c.k policy of the overburdened Prime Minister, traditionally, nationally, and mentally unable to deal with the great problems that followed upon each other's heels, made Breezy blasphemous and brought on an incapacity to sit still. And so he merely glanced at the front page, hoping against hope for a new government headed by such men as Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Derby, Lord Grey and Edmund Fallaray, and for the ignominious downfall of all professional scavengers, t.i.tled newspaper owners and mountebanks who were playing ducks and drakes with the honor and the traditions of Parliament. He had no wish to be under the despotism of a Labor Government, having seen that loyalty to leaders was unknown among Trades Unionists and that principles were things which they never had had and never would have the courage to avow.

As for Mrs. Breezy, she never had time for the papers. She didn't know and didn't care which party was in power, or the difference between them, and when she heard her husband discuss politics with his friends, burst into a tirade and get red in the face, as every self-respecting man has the right to do, she just folded her hands in her lap, smiled, and said to herself, "Dear old John, what would he do in the millennium, with no government to condemn!" Therefore, these people had not seen in the daily "Chit Chat about Society" the fact that Lady Feo had not left town. They never read those luscious morsels. Because Lady Feo had not left town Aunt Breezy had been too busy to come round on her usual evening, when she would have discovered immediately that Lola was up to something and put the fat in the fire. And so they were happy in their ignorance,-which is, pretty often, the only state in which it is achieved.

Over dinner that night-a sc.r.a.ppy meal, because whenever any one entered the shop Mrs. Breezy ran out to do her best to sell something-the conversation turned to the question of Lola's marriage, as it frequently did. That public house on the river, with its kitchen garden, still rankled. "You know, John," said Mrs. Breezy suddenly, "I've been thinking it all over. We were wrong to suppose that Lola would ever have married a man like Simpkins."

"Why? He's a good fellow, respectable, clean-minded, thinks a good deal of himself and has a nice bit of money stowed away. You don't want her to become engaged to one of these young fly-by-nights round here, do you,-little clerks who spend all their spare money on clothes, have no ambition, no education and want to get as much as they can for nothing?"

"No," said Mrs. Breezy. "I certainly do not, though I don't think it matters what you and I want, my dear. I've come to the conclusion that Lola knows what she's going to do, and we couldn't make her alter her mind if we went down on our knees to her."

Breezy was profoundly interested. Many times he had discovered that the little woman who professed to be nothing but a housewife, and very rarely gave forth any definite opinions of her own, said things from time to time which almost blew the roof off the shop. She was possessed of an uncanny intuition, what he regarded almost as second sight, and when she was in that mood he squashed his own egotism and listened to her with his mouth open.

So she went on undisturbed. "What I think is that Lola means to aim high. I've worked it out in my mind that she got into the house in Dover Street to learn enough to rise above such men as Simpkins and Ernest Treadwell, so that she could fit herself to marry a gentleman. And I think she's right. Look at her. Look at those little ankles and wrists and the daintiness of her in every way. She's not Queen's Road, Bayswater, and never was. She's Mayfair from head to foot, mind and body. We're just accidents in her life, you and I, John, my dear. She will be a great lady, you mark my words."

Breezy didn't altogether like being called an accident. He took a good deal of credit for the fact that Lola was Mayfair, as Emily called it, rather well. And he said so, and added, "How about the old de Breze blood? You forget that, my being a little jeweler in a small shop. She's thrown back, that's what she's done, and I'll tell you what it is, missus. She won't be ashamed of us, whoever she marries. _She_ doesn't look upon us as accidents, whatever you may do, and if some man who's A 1 at Lloyd's falls in love with her and makes her his wife, her old father and mother will be drawn up the ladder after her, if I know anything about Lola. But it's a dream, just a dream," hoping that it wasn't, and only saying so as a sort of insurance against bad luck. It was a new idea and an exciting one, which put that place on the Thames into the discard. Personally he had hitherto regarded the Simpkins proposal in a very favorable light. That little man had more money than he himself could ever make, and, after all, a highly respectable public house on the upper Thames, patronized by really nice people, had been, in his estimation, something not to be sneezed at, by any means.

"Well," said Mrs. Breezy, "you may call it a dream. I don't. Lola thinks things out. She's always thought things out. She became a lady's maid for a purpose. When she's finished with that, she'll move on to something else. I don't know what, because she keeps things to herself.

But she knows more than you and I will ever know. I've noticed that often. And when she was here on Sunday, and we walked about the streets, she was no more Lola Breezy than Lady Feo is, and there was something in the way she laid the dinner and insisted on waiting on us which showed me that she knew she wasn't. She was what country people call 'fey' that night. Her body was with us, but her brain and heart and spirit were far out of our reach. I'm certain of that, John, and I'm certain of something else, too. She's in love, and she knows her man, and he's a big man, and very soon she'll have a surprise for us, and it will _be_ a surprise. You mark my words."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]

And when she got up to answer the tinkle of the bell on the shop door, she left the fat John Breezy quivering with excitement and a sort of awe. Emily was not much of a talker, but when she started she said more in two minutes than other women say in a week. And after he had told himself how good it would be for his little girl to win great happiness, he put both his pale hands on the table, and heaved a tremendous sigh.

"Oh, my G.o.d," he said. "And if she could help us to get out of this shop, never to see a watch again, to be no longer the slave of that d.a.m.ned little bell, to go away and live in the country, and grow things, and listen to the birds, and watch the sunsets."

VII

At that moment George Lytham drove his car through the gates of Chilton Park and up to the old house. He asked for Mr. Fallaray, was shown into the library and paced up and down the room with his hands deep in his pockets, but with his chin high, his eyes gleaming and a curious smile about his mouth.

The moment had come for which he had been waiting since the Armistice, for which he had been working with all his energy since he had got back into civilian clothes. He had left London and driven down to Whitecross on a wave of exhilaration. There had been a meeting at his office at which all the men of his party had been present,-young men, ex-soldiers and sailors temporarily commissioned, who had come out of the great catastrophe to look things straight in the face. "Fallaray is our man,"

they had all said unanimously. "Where is he?" And Lytham, who was his friend, had been sent to fetch him and bring him back to London that night. The time was ripe for action.

But when the door opened and Fallaray strolled in-he had never seen him stroll before-George drew up short, amazed.-But this was not Fallaray.

This was not the man he had seen the previous Friday with rounded shoulders, haggard face and eyes in the back of his head. Here was one who looked like a younger brother of Fallaray, a care-free younger brother, sun-tanned, irresponsible, playing with life.

"My dear Fallaray," he said, hardly knowing what to say, "what have you done to yourself?"

And Fallaray sent out a ringing laugh and clapped young Lochinvar on the shoulder. "You notice the change, eh? It's wonderful, wonderful. I say to myself all day long how wonderful it is." And he flung his hands up and laughed again and threw himself into a chair and stuck his long legs out. "But what the devil do you want?" he asked lightly, enjoying the opportunity of showing the serious man who came out of a future that he himself had forgotten that he was beginning to revel in his past. "I said that some one would jolly soon see the wreckage on the sh.o.r.e of my Eden and send out a rescue party, and here you are."

Lytham didn't understand. The words were Greek to him and the att.i.tude so surprising that it awakened in him a sort of irritation. Good G.o.d, hadn't this man, who meant so much to them, read the papers? Wasn't he aware of the fact that the time had arrived in the history of politics when a strong concerted effort might put a new face upon everything?

"Look here, Fallaray," he said, "let's talk sense."

"My dear chap," said Fallaray, "you've come to the wrong man for that. I know nothing about sense, and what's more, I don't want to. Talk romance to me, quote poetry, tell me your dreams, turn somersaults, but don't come here and expect any sense from me. I've given it up."

But Lytham was not to be put off. He said to himself, "The air of this place has gone to Fallaray's head. He needed a holiday. The reaction has played a trick upon him. He's pulling my leg." He drew up a chair and leaned forward eagerly and put his hand on Fallaray's knee. "All right, old boy," he said. "Have your joke, but come down from the ether in which you're floating and listen to facts. The wily little P. M. who's been between the devil and the deep sea for a couple of years is getting rattled. With the capitalists pus.h.i.+ng him one way and the labor leaders shouldering him the other, he's losing his feet. The by-elections show the way the wind's blowing in the country and they've made a draught in Downing Street. Trust a Celt as a political barometer."

"There's been no wind here, George," said Fallaray, putting his hands behind his head. "Golden days, my dear fellow, golden days, with the gentlest of breezes."

But Lytham ignored the interruption. In five minutes, if he knew his man, he would have Fallaray sitting up straight. "Our anti-waste men are winning every seat they stand for," he went on, "and this means the nucleus of a new party, our party. The country is behind us, Fallaray, and if we keep our heads and get down to work, the next general election will not be a walk-over for the labor men but for us. Lloyd George is on his last legs, in spite of his newspapers, and with him the Coalitionists disappear to a man. As for Trades-Unionism, the coal strike has proved that it oscillates between communism and socialism, the nationalizing of everything-mines, railways, land, capital-and the country doesn't like it and isn't ready for it. The way, therefore, is easy if we organize at once under a leader who has won the reputation for honesty, and that leader is yourself. But there is not a moment to waste. My car is outside. Drive up with me now and meet us to-morrow morning. Unanimously we look to you." He sprang to his feet and made a gesture towards the door.

But Fallaray settled more comfortably into his chair and crossed one long leg over the other. "Do you know your Hood?" he asked.