Prince Charlie Part 12

The wisdom of keeping his foot on the brake was known to him. He was wise enough, too, to grasp the fact that a man in a temper weakens his armour. There was battle to be done; he meant having it out before the woman left his room.

"Is that altogether correct?" he inquired. "Surely you must, living in this place, have heard?"

"Oh!"

Exclamation with a vinegary shake of her head. She was standing now with her mittened hands crossed, prepared evidently for a long talk; continued:

"We hear plenty about them, sir!"

"You know the master of the house?"

"Not the present one, sir--if there is one just now!"

In shaping the deep lines round her mouth his satanic majesty had surely held the graver! Masters thought the meaning smile with which she let loose the innuendo positively hideous in its suggestiveness. His inflammable emotions rendered it difficult for him to get proper control of his voice as he enquired:

"The mistress, then?"

Impatience in the tone of his voice. He had hoped to elicit replies without this direct inquiry. Felt ashamed of himself the while he probed. It was not a feeling the woman shared. She answered:

"Oh, yes, sir."

The readiness of her answer was apparent. She was the kind of woman to whom slander was a dainty morsel to be tongue-rolled. Her own tongue became as the pen of a ready writer. It sickened the questioner, but he continued:

"And the governess?"

Vigorous shaking of the woman's head again. In the same redolent-of-sourness style, too, as she answered:

"There is no governess there, sir. The only servints is the cook and 'ousemaid and the odd boy."

He knew that to be a lie! Hope, that he had thought entombed, rose again. One thing incorrect, why not all? He said sharply:

"You are mistaken!"

"I don't think so, sir."

Again that hideous smile. Accompanied this time by a pitying expression; pity for his simplicity! He was like the generality of men--writhed under pity. It acted on him with the irritation of a rasp. He, however, controlled himself sufficiently to enquire:

"A tall, fair, blue-eyed young lady?"

The description elicited a second edition of the pity--third of the head shaking--as the woman answered:

"That's the mistress, sir."

It is difficult to keep a watchful eye ever on the safety valve. The indignation within him was seething to boiling point. He was getting up steam so rapidly as to create the impression that his emotions were arranged on the principle of the tubular boiler. He blurted out:

"I tell you, you are wrong! Her name is Miss Mivvins!"

Combination of every unpleasant wrinkle that the human face is capable of a.s.suming, as she replied, with the incisiveness of a knife cut:

"Very likely that's one of her names, sir! Now I come to remember, I did once in a shop 'ear her called so--called so by her own child."

That was the last straw! the safety valve was discarded. He blurted out:

"Her--own--child!"

"Yes. The little girl who's always with her. The one with the carity 'air as some people calls orebin."

Amazement! Consternation! Disappointment! A combination of these feelings, and many other indescribable ones, made him break out with:

"Then--then she is married?"

All the subtle devilish suggestions in her came to the surface. To emphasize the point of her answer, slow head-shaking was necessary:

"I couldn't say as to that, sir."

She smiled too that horrible smile again! The desire to speak evil of others a.s.sails some natures irresistibly. She really could not resist--October lodger or no lodger.

"Thank you. That will do."

He managed to dismiss her so, and the landlady left the room. She was fearful of having gone a little too far; yet was filled with the complacency with which such utterances--to such natures--is fruitful.

Yes, he was alone--but such a loneliness!

CHAPTER X

THE LITTLE WINGED G.o.d

The closing of the door behind his landlady was unheard by Masters. He did not move from the position in which the woman had left him for many, very many minutes.

When at last he rose, lifting his head, he caught sight of his own reflection in the mirror. Started back, almost cried out: there was such a deathly pallor covering his face.

His mouth felt as parched as Sahara. Mechanically he mixed a whisky and soda: drank it off. Then laughed. Not a pleasant mirth; one of those built up on a sob.

Then self-raillery: the old, old, ever sought useless salve. What a fool! What a fool he was to care! A woman! Just as he had always pictured them--always till the book he was now engaged on. When he thought how chaste and good and pure his last heroine was, on paper, he laughed again. The same laugh; with the same choking painful little catch-in-the-throat in it too.

He thought he had lost his ideals long ago; we are apt to flatter ourselves so. But their death is hard; they live on--unknown even to ourselves--to appear before us like some new star of whose existence we know nothing. Make it our guiding star, and we are--when it sinks below the horizon of fate--as children crying in the night.

The mantel clock chimed seven times. Masters' attention was thereby drawn to the fact that it was half-past that hour. Lodging-house clocks are not without their peculiarities; the fulfilled ambition of this particular one was to be half-an-hour behind time.

Masters started, too, at the sound. Memory of his neglected work came to him. Lying on his desk was a bundle of corrected galley proofs, which should have been posted to his publisher. Now it was too late: the post bag would be made up.

He was annoyed that he had allowed the incident--he was miserably failing in trying to label it so to himself--to interrupt the routine of his work. Another glance at the clock and he kicked off his slippers and horned on his shoes.

Putting on a cap, fastening his greatcoat as he went, he hurried railway stationwards. For all the thickness of his coat he was not warm. There was a coldness around his heart as if it were icebound.