Fire, Burn! Page 4

  “Regent Street.” Cheviot pressed his hands to his forehead, and became casual. “Ah, yes. They’ve—they’ve finished it?”

  That was the point at which the carriage swung sharply to the left, into New Burlington Street off Upper Regent Street. That was the point at which he saw gaslight streaming out through windows only half curtained up four floors to the dormers.

  He heard fiddle-music sawing and jigging in a rapid whirl. He asked what the dance was. At long last Flora cowered back into the corner, terrified and uncertain. And, as the carriage stopped, Cheviot soundlessly cursed himself.

  Before anyone else, he was certain, he could control his speech. But Flora’s presence seemed so intimate, so familiar, in some way so right (why?), that he spoke to her and did not stop to think. Without her he was lost.

  “Flora,” he said, swallowing hard, “hear me again. I promised not to frighten you. I seem to have done little else.” Then all the sincerity, all the earnestness of which his dogged nature was capable, rang in his voice. “But that, so help me, is because you don’t yet understand. When I explain, as I’ve got to, you’ll understand and I think you’ll sympathize. Until then, my dear, can you possibly forgive me? Can you?”

  Flora’s expression altered as she looked at him. Hesitantly her hand stole out. Then he seized her, kissing her mouth hard, while the shadows of dancers grew and dwindled on the mist above them.

  “Can you?” he demanded presently. “Forgive me, I mean?”

  “Forgive?” she stammered in astonishment. “Oh, Jack, what is there to forgive? But don’t be a quiz. Please! I can’t endure it.”

  Then he became aware of the patient coachman, waiting outside to open the door, and he released her.

  Flora, too, played her part. She gave little touches to her hair, little touches to her gown, as though she were alone in the carriage. But her cheeks were pink, her eyelids lowered, as Cheviot jumped down and handed her out. Flora slipped the two cards of invitation into his hand.

  “You’re not in evening-dress,” she murmured, rather reproachfully. “But—there! Many gentlemen drink so much, before they go to a ball, that they forget to change.”

  “Then it won’t signify if I act a little drunk?”

  “Jack!” There was a curious new note in her voice.

  “Well, I only wondered.”

  Actually, he had been wondering how any intoxicated gentleman could carry a square-dance at that pace without taking a header and landing on his ear. The front door of number six remained uncompromisingly closed, despite the runner of red carpet across the pavement.

  But their arrival had not gone unobserved. As he and Flora went up one step, between the dingy pillars and the line of area-railings, the door was opened by a footman in orange-and-green livery. And, stupefying, another blast of noise smote out at them.

  They entered a rather narrow foyer, though with eighteenth-century panels painted by some imitator of Watteau or Boucher; a waxed and polished floor; and a rather fine staircase, under ugly carpeting, against the right-hand wall.

  Out of the foyer, left and right, doors opened on big empty rooms tonight laid out for a lavish buffet-supper. The noise came not alone from the music and the stamp of dancing, which made the ceiling shake and the gas-jet chandelier rattle. From somewhere invisible, probably a back parlour with a punch-bowl, more than a dozen male voices roared out in song.

  A frog he would a-wo-o-o-ing go,

  “Heigh-ho!” says Rooow-ley!

  Whether his lady would have him or no,

  Whether his lady would have him or no,

  With a roly-poly, gammon, and spinach—!

  “Heigh-ho!” says Anthony Rowley!

  “Ho!” shouted the owners of all the voices at once, and wildly began applauding themselves. A cork popped. Somebody smashed a glass.

  Flora handed her cashmere shawl to the impassive footman; though, rather to Cheviot’s surprise, she retained the large fur muff. She attempted to say, “We’re awfully late,” but stopped in the uproar. In any case, Cheviot might not have heard her.

  He had again, as usual, become the police-officer. He had a job to do. It didn’t matter in what strange age this occurred. He had a job to do; he would see it through, though he must make his speech sound like theirs or be betrayed in ten minutes.

  To the footman he handed his hat and the invitation-cards.

  “I—” he began.

  Abruptly the uproar ceased. With a flourish the fiddles and harp made an end, despite cries of protest. Overhead, footfalls merely shuffled. The singers in the back-parlour were silent. Only a few voices, beginning at a yell and then sinking to normal, set up a vague murmur. You were conscious of the odour of coal-gas; of a damp, stuffy smell even in this rich foyer.

  “I am not here,” Cheviot said to the footman, “altogether for the ball. Be good enough to take me to Lady Cork.”

  The footman, in orange-and-green livery, eyed him with very faint insolence.

  “I am afraid, sir, that her ladyship …”

  Cheviot, who had been looking for bird-cages and seeing none, wheeled round.

  “Take me to Lady Cork,” he said.

  To do him justice, he had no notion of the air of power and authority he carried as he stared the footman in the eyes. The footman moistened his lips.

  “Very good, sir. I will tell—”

  Then, simultaneously, two things happened.

  Out from under the staircase, where he had been put away to sit on a chair away from notice, emerged Alan Henley, with his knobbed cane in one hand and his case of writing-materials in the other.

  And, at the same time, a slender woman in a white gown came slowly down the stairs.

  “The matter has been arranged,” said the woman in a husky contralto voice. “Good evening, Mr. Cheviot.”

  Flora, who had been pulling and adjusting her elbow-length gloves so as to take only one hand at a time out of her muff, did not turn round. An expression of utter indifference went over her face. She spoke without moving her lips, in a whisper which Cheviot only just heard.

  Yet Flora, who in his estimation could conceal so little, did not try to conceal her bitter, intense scorn and dislike.

  “There’s your precious Miss Renfrew,” she said.

  4

  The Woman on the Stairs

  YES, MARGARET RENFREW was beautiful. Or almost so.

  She was a dark brunette, in contrast to a very fair complexion. There were half a dozen hair-styles fashionable in this year, as Cheviot was to learn. Miss Renfrew wore her hair in thick, glossy ringlets, just below ear-length, and parted in the middle. The fair complexion was perfect, with a tinge of red colour in the cheeks. Her eyebrows were straight and dark, above eyes almost too vivid a dark grey; the nose a trifle long, with wide nostrils, but redeemed by the chin and mouth, whose lips gleamed dark and glossy red.

  She smiled, a very little. Straight-backed she moved down the stairs, one white-gloved hand on the banister-rail. Her white, low-cut gown, tight at the waist but wide of skirt like Flora’s, carried across its bodice a design of vivid red roses edged out with black.

  That almost-beauty shone with its own power in the hot foyer, under fluttery gas-jets. And yet—Cheviot couldn’t for the life of him understand or analyze why—there was about it something wrong, something inharmonious or savage, almost repulsive.

  Margaret Renfrew reached the foot of the stairs. Her husky voice rang out again.

  “Ah. Lady Drayton.” And she dropped Flora a deep curtsey.

  Even Cheviot could see it was too deep a curtsey. It was as sarcastic, defiant. Flora, who had turned round, inclined her head coldly.

  Observed close at hand, Miss Renfrew’s gown was an old one, though carefully cleaned and mended. But she flaunted it, seemed proud of the fact, taunted you with it.

  “Forgive my boldness,” she said to Cheviot, with an edge of satire on the final word, “in presenting myself to you. But I have seen you ride in the park;
I am not unaware of your accomplishments, sir. Permit me: I am Margaret Renfrew.”

  This time she made a real curtsey. Under the straight dark brows her vivid eyes studied Cheviot and found him favourable. In the next second the eyes hardened and grew opaque.

  Cheviot bowed in reply.

  That word “accomplishments” brushed his mind with dread. Back flashed Colonel Rowan’s words, “Noted as a pistol-shot, wrestler, and singlestick-player.”

  He had a silver cup to prove he had been the best revolver-shot in the Metropolitan Police. How he might fare with an unrifled muzzle-loader, whose bullets were seldom perfectly moulded, might be another matter. He knew nothing of wrestling, except insofar as they had taught him judo. He was not even sure what a singlestick might be. No matter, no matter!

  “Your servant, Miss Renfrew. I have had the pleasure of seeing you too,” he lied with the best possible grace. “You are related to Lady Cork, I take it?”

  Margaret Renfrew’s voice went high.

  “Related? Alas! I am only the daughter of one of her old friends. I am merely a courtesy poor-relation, sir. I exist by Lady Cork’s bounty.”

  “As a companion, no doubt.”

  “What is a companion?” asked the woman, with extraordinary intensity. “I have never learned. You must define it for me, one day.”

  The rose-painted bodice of her gown rose and fell. Confound the woman! What was the meaning in that air of lurking mystery, of fierce repression, of mingled shame and pride? Miss Renfrew dragged away her eyes from him, and glanced at Mr. Henley.

  “This—this gentleman,” she added with a flick of the glossy dark curls, “has told us to expect you as Colonel Rowan’s representative. Very well; so be it! Follow me, if you will.”

  Her skirts swirled as she turned towards the stairs. Whereupon, with a combined whoop, the foyer was invaded.

  Half a dozen young men in evening dress, together with a scarlet-coated young Guards officer moustached as well as side-whiskered, raced and reeled out from the back-parlour in a fuming aroma of brandy-punch. Their tight-fitting black tailcoats, and very tight-fitting black trousers, against the white of frilled shirt or waistcoat, made them all appear horribly thin, spindly, unreal, like caricatures.

  But they were not caricatures at all.

  “Jack, old fellow!” cried a hearty voice Cheviot had never before heard.

  His hand was wrung, in an equally hearty grip, by a flushed young man who could not have been more than twenty-one or twenty-two. The newcomer’s snub nose, wide mouth, and blurred eyes were encircled in bright-brown hair and whiskers, rather like those of Mr. Richard Mayne.

  “Freddie!” exclaimed Flora with real pleasure, and extended her left hand.

  “Flora! D’lighted!” cried the young man called Freddie. He bent over her hand, making passionate gobbling noises like “M-mm-m!” as he kissed her glove, and straightened up with a graceful stagger.

  “By Jove!” he added with enthusiasm. “Must be—what? Fortnight? Yes! Fortnight at least, b’Jove, since I saw either of you.” He waggled a white-gloved finger at Cheviot, and laughed uproariously. “Sly dog, sly dog! Nem’mind. Envy you. I say,” he pointed upwards. “Dance?”

  “Not at the moment, Freddie.” Cheviot forced out the name. “The fact is—”

  “The fact is,” he was thinking, “that a man who begins asking himself ‘Who am I? What am I?’ is already on his way to a strait-jacket.”

  Fortunately or unfortunately, such morbidities were swept away. The young Guards officer, with the single epaulette of a captain, and a red stripe down his thin black trousers, lifted his chin to intervene.

  “Weally!” he said in a languid, bored, high-pitched voice, with a definite lisp. “I twust one can weach the ballwoom to dance?”

  The languid one was thin, but tall and powerful. Suddenly seizing one of his companions by the frilled shirt-front, he flung him aside and sauntered forward.

  Cheviot saw him coming, and all his hackles rose. He set his shoulders and braced himself. The Guards officer, who could not be troubled to alter his course for anyone, cannoned straight into him—and bounced off as though he had struck a rock.

  Freddie yelled with delight. The Guards officer did not.

  “Weally?” he said again, in a loud but even more bored voice. “Why don’t you look where you’re going, fellow? Who are you, fellow?”

  Cheviot ignored him.

  Margaret Renfrew had now gone four steps up the stairs, and was studying Cheviot sideways past her curls. He addressed her.

  “If you will lead the way, Miss Renfrew?”

  “I spoke to you, fellow!” snapped the Guards officer, and seized Cheviot’s left arm.

  “I didn’t speak to you,” said Cheviot, whirling round and flinging off the other’s hand. “I hope it won’t be necessary.”

  Captain Hogben’s long face, behind the black feathery moustache and whiskers, went as scarlet as his coat. Then it grew mottled-pale.

  “By God!” he whispered, beginning to swing back a white-gloved right hand. “By God!”

  Immediately, with a shout of laughter, four of his friends fastened on him and dragged him, writhing and struggling, up the stairs.

  “Keep your temper, Hogben!”

  “Wouldn’t call out the best shot in town. Now would you, Hogben?”

  “Isabelle’s waiting for you, Hogben! She’s pinin’ and dyin’ for you, Hell-fire!”

  The scrimmage bumped the wall past Miss Renfrew, who shrank back in fury; it staggered again, and pushed on up the stairs. Cheviot caught one glimpse of the Guards officer’s face, long and malevolent, with the feathery black hair waving above, as the face was thrust out.

  “I’ll wemember this,” it said.

  The young man called Freddie, after a broad beaming wink at Flora and Cheviot, scrambled after them. The tails of their tight-waisted coats flew out as they whooped after their quarry. In an instant they were gone.

  Margaret Renfrew lifted one shoulder.

  “What puppies they are,” she said without inflection. Then, with great intensity: “How little amusement they provide! Give me an older man, with experience.”

  Now she would not look at Cheviot. Her gaze, curious and cryptic, appeared to be fixed at a point past his shoulder. Afterwards she turned round, and delicately marched up the stairs.

  Flora, if she felt any anger at all, did not show it. Flora was only disturbed, nervous, even frightened, as she went up with Cheviot at her side.

  “You’ll never be warned,” she said in a low voice. “But I beg you to be warned of one thing!”

  “Oh?”

  “Don’t quarrel with Captain Hogben; pray don’t!”

  “Indeed.”

  “Don’t vex him or trifle with him. He’s notorious for not playing fair; I abhor to say it, but you’ll be hurt!”

  “How you terrify me.”

  “Jack!”

  “I said nothing except, ‘how you terrify me.’”

  Flora wrung her hands inside the fur muff. “And—and you weren’t very cordial to poor Freddie Debbitt, either.”

  Cheviot stopped nearly at the top of the stairs. Once more he pressed his hands hard to his forehead. But his voice was little louder than hers.

  “Flora, how many times must I ask your pardon? I am not myself this night.”

  “And do you imagine I don’t know that? I am trying but to help you!” She was silent again, timid after that soft outburst. Her thoughts seemed to dart away.

  “Freddie hasn’t a penny, poor fellow, even if he is Lord Lowestoft’s son. But he admires you tremendously; that’s why I like him. He may upset Lady Cork with his mimicking and his tales. …”

  “Tales? What tales?”

  “Oh, only vapourings! About thieves, since you’re so concerned with this wretched bird-seed.”

  “What about thieves, Flora? Tell me!”

  “Oh, that someone might steal Lady Cork’s adored macaw, the macaw that smokes c
igars, and carry it away perch and all. Or that he wouldn’t trouble to break the lock of her strongbox; he’d fetch away the whole strong-box.”

  “So!” muttered Cheviot, and snapped his fingers. “So!”

  They had come to the top of the stairs; they were in a broad passage, well illuminated. He broke off to study it with interest.

  It was decorated after the Chinese fashion, much admired forty years before, now a trifle musty. The wall panels, of black lacquer thinly patterned in gold dragons, glistened under the light of oil-lamps with fringed silk shades and painted but hollow porcelain bases. These lamps stood on small, low, black teakwood tables, with a carved teakwood chair between each, down both sides of the walls.

  Midway down the wall on his left, as Cheviot faced the rear of the passage, he saw closed double-doors painted a brilliant orange with gold arabesques. These led to the ballroom; beyond he could hear a murmur of voices, the plunk of tuning fiddles.

  All the doors, in fact, were painted orange with gold twinings. They stood out against the black-lacquer walls. A second set of double-doors, also closed, was at the end of the passage. In the right-hand wall were two more single doors set wide apart. The modern, dull-flowered carpet was stained with footmarks in mud and dust.

  “Mr. Cheviot!”

  But Cheviot was examining the bird-cages.

  “Mr. Cheviot!” repeated Miss Renfrew, who had reached the double-doors at the end of the passage facing him.

  There were eight bird-cages, four hanging from the ceiling on each side above the teakwood chairs against the walls. Each cage contained a canary, all restless, sometimes trilling song. Each case, gilded, was very large. He had hoped for that.

  He reached up and detached the white china seed-container from one cage. It was correspondingly large. The cage swung; the canary squawked and fluttered up; and Cheviot, as he gently replaced the seed-container, saw out of the corner of his eye that Margaret Renfrew was gripping her hands together hard.

  “Is it quite kind,” she called, “to keep Lady Cork waiting?”

  Then, unexpectedly, Flora spoke out.

  “I’m sure, Miss Renfrew,” she said in a clear voice, “Lady Cork won’t mind if I detain Mr. Cheviot for one moment more?”