This House to Let

“Certainly. When I last peeped in, Amy looked the spirit of despair. I think she must have been losing heavily.”

She turned to lead the way, but at that instant the door bell rang, and she halted, in readiness to greet the visitor, whoever it might be; and there entered a florid-looking, stout man, who advanced towards her with effusion, and both hands outstretched.

“My dear Stella, I have been thinking of you ever since the raid began; I know how terribly you suffer when they are on. And I knew you were dining out to-night. I am rejoiced to see you safe and sound. I came round here the moment I could get away.” Miss Keane flushed slightly as he took her hands and wrung them impressively to show his gratitude at her escape from peril. Tommy Esmond had given him a cool nod. But she felt Spencer’s calm, critical gaze upon this ebullient expression of young English manhood.

It was not so much what he said, as his manner of saying it. Bounder was written all over him, in his appearance, his manners, his gestures.

She answered him very briefly, almost curtly, as if she were administering a cold douche. Then the flush deepened as she turned to Spencer.

“May I introduce my cousin, Mr Dutton?” The florid man bowed with an exaggerated air of cordiality. Spencer, who had taken a violent dislike to him from the first second he saw him, acknowledged the salutation with chilling gravity; and Stella Keane could almost read his thoughts, as his gaze travelled from one to the other.

How could this imperial-looking girl have such an unmitigated bounder for a relative? What was the mystery about her that could make a creature like this claim kinship with her?

Chapter Ten

Mrs L’Estrange was evidently a great believer in light: the electric bulbs glowed softly, but brilliantly, over the two rooms devoted to the service of the card-players.

On the sideboards were arranged decanters of whisky, and soda-water in bottles and syphons. Whether he lost or won, the gambler, triumphant or despairing, could quaff to his success, or solace his despair.

The elderly, youthfully-dressed woman advanced towards the new visitors, with a beaming expression of countenance.

“Mr Spencer, you will join us. What is your favourite game?”

“Bridge,” said Spencer, shortly. He was already a bit in love with Stella Keane, but he was by no means favourably inclined to her gushing, elderly cousin.

He soon formed a party of four, and became absorbed, for the moment, in the game. Tommy Esmond was playing the same game, at a table some distance from him. Tommy was not supposed to be wealthy, but he evidently had money enough to indulge in a quiet gamble now and then.

He remembered every incident of that night. His partner was a subordinate member of the Government, and a good sound player, lacking a little perhaps in the qualities of initiative and rapid decision. His opponents were a young man in the Foreign Office, and a slender, hawk-nosed young woman of about thirty.

All through he held abominable cards, but, truth to tell, he was not very interested in the game. Whether he won or lost a hundred pounds did not interest him very greatly.

But what did interest him, to every fibre of his being, was that Stella Keane hovered about his table. His eyes continually sought hers, and she did not seem to avoid his glance. At times he was sure he could detect a slight smile of intimacy. After all, had he not rescued her, half dead with fright, in the dining-room of the “Excelsior?”

Once she bent over him and whispered, her cool, fragrant breath fanning his cheek: “You are having shocking bad luck. You haven’t held a single decent card.”

He whispered back: “What did I tell you a little time ago? I flatter myself I am a fairly good bridge-player, but what could one do with those cards of mine?”

She fluttered away, with still the shadow of that intimate smile upon her beautiful mouth, the smile that seemed to say they had only known each other for a few hours, under romantic and dramatic circumstances, but there was between them an affinity of spirit.

He played on steadily for over an hour, and then a halt was cried. The young gentleman from the Foreign Office and the hawk-nosed young woman had scored. Guy Spencer rose from the table, the poorer by a hundred and fifty pounds. He wrote his cheque with a light heart. A hundred and fifty pounds was not a great price to pay for the introduction to Stella Keane.

Mrs L’Estrange came impressively towards him.

“Oh, Mr Spencer, I hope you have not lost. If so, I fear you will never come near me again.” His glance roved in the direction of Stella, talking, as it appeared earnestly, to that bounder of a cousin. There came a steely look into his clear, resolute eyes.

“If you will allow me, I shall be delighted to come here often to see you and Miss Keane. I suppose I had better pick up my old friend Tommy Esmond, if he is not too engrossed.” But when he approached Esmond, that little rotund gentleman waved him away, in most genial fashion.

“Run away, dear boy. It is Eclipse first, and the rest nowhere. I am winning hands down.” Certainly he bore the mien of a conqueror. And there, behind his chair, stood Stella Keane.

She welcomed Spencer with that faint, intimate smile which had already stirred his pulses.

“I fear I brought you bad luck,” she said, in her low, caressing voice. “But to Mr Esmond I have been the harbinger of good fortune. Are you really going?”

“I always go when I have won enough, or lost enough. You remember I gave you a little homily on gambling generally, not so long ago.”

She took her hand off Esmond’s chair. “Well, I will leave my good influence behind, and look after the parting guest.”

She walked leisurely with him in the direction of the hall. It was deserted, but the light was brilliant, as it was in every other corner of the flat.

She held out her hand impulsively. “Mr Spencer, I have not thanked you properly for your kindness to me to-night. Terror-stricken, paralysed with fear, I should have been clinging to that chair now, if you had not rescued me in time. How can I thank you?”

Spencer laughed lightly. “One would think from your excessive gratitude that you had not experienced a great deal of kindness in your life. And yet that would be impossible.” She flushed a little; his gaze was perhaps more full of admiration, of frank and open compliment than could be justified by the briefness of their acquaintance. And yet it only expressed what he was inwardly thinking.

Here was a girl who had only to look at her mirror to learn she was endowed with singular beauty. She must also know that she combined with her more than ordinary fairness an unusual charm of manner.

How had it come about that one with such striking qualifications should exhibit a certain underlying sadness, as if the world had already proved a very disappointing place? Youth and good looks usually secure for their owner a good time. Girls with half her attractions could find plenty of admirers. What evil fate dogged her that she had to regard a perfectly common act of kindness as something to be exceptionally grateful for?

“I have never been petted nor spoiled, even as a child,” she answered gravely. “My father and mother were ignorant of the duties, as they were of the instincts, of parenthood. And since my poor pretence of a home was broken up, I have been a derelict and a wanderer, sometimes a tolerated guest, rarely, I fear, a very welcome one in the houses of other people.”

“But you are happy here, surely?” he suggested. After saying so much, she could hardly regard the question as an impertinent one. He longed to hear her history. Well, if he came and cultivated her, and let her see how sympathetic he could be, one day she would tell him.

She shrugged her shoulders with an air of indifference.

“My cousin is peculiar in many ways, and her devotion to play is an obsession. We have very little in common; still, it would not be fair to say she was difficult to get on with. I have been with her now for more than eighteen months, and although we have often held totally different opinions, I cannot remember that we have ever had a real quarrel. And, anyway, it is a home and a shelter, and that is something.”

Not much enthusiasm here, certainly. Mrs L’Estrange had been dismissed with a very negative kind of faint praise. Her excellence seemed to lie rather in the absence of bad qualities than the possession of good ones.

And yet, he could not bring himself to believe that Miss Keane was an ill-natured girl, or of an unresponsive temperament. He had to admit that his impressions of his hostess were not too favourable.

She was outwardly genial, and at times gushing. Yet he fancied he could read behind this plausible exterior the signs of a hard, worldly nature. There was no softness in her glance, no tenderness in her rather hard, staccato tones.

A girl with those glorious eyes, and mobile face, with the delicate complexion that flushed and paled by turns, must surely be sweet and sympathetic, and responsive to affection. How her voice had thrilled with emotion when she thanked him. If she was disappointed in her cousin, it must be the fault of the elder woman, who could not give what was demanded by the younger and more ardent temperament.

He would have lingered longer, trying to pierce the riddle from these disjointed remarks, but they were interrupted by Tommy Esmond, who came bustling into the hall, flushed with victory.

“Never had such luck in my life. Just wiped the floor with them,” he explained excitedly. “You left your good influence behind, Miss Keane. A few minutes sufficed for victory.”

“I am very glad, but I think my powers for good must be very limited, for I brought bad luck to your friend,” was her smiling rejoinder.

He turned briskly to the young man. “It is a perfect night, Spencer. Shall we walk down to the Club to get a breath of fresh air, and turn in there for a quiet smoke?”

Spencer nodded assent, and held out his hand to Miss Keane.

“Well, good-bye for the present.”

“And I hope you will come and see us again soon. Don’t wait for Mr Esmond to bring you: after our thrilling experiences of to-night, we are more than ordinary acquaintances. We are at home nearly every night, if you want to gamble. And, if you would like a little rational chat instead, come in one afternoon to tea.”

“Thanks, I will. My card-playing fit has passed for a little time. Once again, good-bye.”

And, as soon as they were in the street, Esmond burst in with the question he was longing to ask.

“Well, what do you think of her? Did I exaggerate?”

“Not in the least,” answered Spencer, speaking less seriously than he felt, he did not quite know for what reason, unless it was that with a man of his friend’s calibre, he always had a tendency to discuss things lightly. “No, I don’t think you have exaggerated a bit this time; so many of your swans have been geese, but this is a real swan, at last. She is very lovely; even in her terror she looked beautiful, and she has a peculiar, elusive charm. She makes you want to know more of her, and penetrate the mystery which seems to hover around her.”

“I can’t say I see any mystery, myself.” Esmond spoke rather sharply, for such a good-natured little man.

“Perhaps it is too strong a word. But I take it, you know something of the ménage, and can enlighten me on one point. What is her position there: paid companion, a passing guest, or does she share the flat with her cousin on some sort of terms?”

It was a little time before Esmond answered. “I have never rightly got at that myself. Sometimes I have thought one thing, sometimes another. But I am pretty sure she is poor: in fact, she has admitted as much.”

“Poverty is relative after all, and it depends on how she was brought up. She seems to dress well, and that cannot be done without money.”

Yes, Esmond admitted that she was turned out well. But he either could not, or would not express any positive opinion upon the delicate subject of Miss Keane’s finances.

“Does she ever play? She didn’t touch a card while we were there, only flitted about from table to table.”

No, Esmond had never seen her play since he had frequented the house. It was clear, therefore, she did not make any pocket-money out of gambling. He had to admit that she seemed to act as deputy hostess, and, he believed, wrote most of her cousin’s notes; in other words, made herself useful.

All this information, such as it was, he imparted, as it seemed to Spencer, with some reluctance. Perhaps his keen admiration prompted him to hide anything that served to show her in a dependent position. And Spencer desisted from any further cross-examination on this head.

On one point, however, he was determined to elicit a positive expression of opinion from the cautious little man.

“What is the mystery of the bounder cousin? You must admit he has cad stamped all over him, his speech, his person, his gestures.”

Tommy could establish no defence for the gentleman in question. “No, he is past criticism, I allow. The result of some mésalliance, I suppose; his mother a very common person doubtless. But then, many highly respectable people have skeletons like that in their cupboards.”

“The mystery is that he finds his way, cousin as he may be, into any decent house. Mrs L’Estrange we know to be a woman of good family. You would think she would lock and bolt the door against a creature like that. What is he supposed to be, if he has any profession beyond that of his intense bounderism?”

“Something in the City, I am told,” replied Esmond shortly. “Something connected with finance; stockbroker or something.”

“It must be a shady kind of finance, if he has anything to do with it,” growled the young man. “To think of his claiming relationship with that exquisite girl.”

Chapter Eleven

It would be idle to assume that a man of Guy Spencer’s natural advantages had reached the age of thirty without experiencing a few affairs of the heart. But he had never been deeply touched, and his friend Tommy Esmond was right when he described him as not very susceptible to feminine influence.

The one feeling which had lasted for some years, was a pronounced affection for his cousin Nina. He felt as much at home with her as he would have done with a favourite sister, had he possessed one. But the regard had a warmth in it that is lacking in fraternal relations.

He knew that Lady Nina was not indifferent to him, that she allowed him to assume a certain air of proprietorship in the disposal of dances, in the claim to her society when he was disposed to enjoy it. He knew also that it was a match which would be warmly approved of by his invalid uncle.

Without being guilty of undue vanity, he felt pretty certain that if he proposed he would be accepted. And once or twice he had been very near to taking the decisive step. He never could quite understand what it was that made him hesitate.

The fact of his hesitation proved to himself, as well as to the young lady concerned, that much as he might like his cousin, he was certainly far from being deeply in love with her.

She was a pretty, winsome girl, possessing an upright, straightforward nature, and quite attractive in a simple, frank fashion. There was nothing subtle or mysterious about her, you could read her like an open book. She was a good daughter, she was the type of girl who could not help making a good wife.

Some day, no doubt, he would put the fateful question, and by her acceptance be made, in conventional parlance, the happiest of men. But although he would know he had chosen very wisely, and look forward to a placid kind of happiness, he was doubtful if Nina’s smiles and kisses would ever thrill him, if with her he would ever learn the meaning of real love.

He was not by any means sure that he was capable of very strong attachment. He had indulged in a few fancies, but they had only exercised a very small portion of his thoughts. Up to the present, he had certainly not experienced the wild ecstasies, the mingled joy and pain of the true lover.

For the first time in his life, he had been seriously perturbed by the advent of Stella Keane. He had not fashioned in his imagination any particular ideal, any special type of woman who would make to him an irresistible appeal. But, if she had been Lady Nina, if he had met her in his own world, he would have owned at once this was the girl for whom he had been waiting.

Her image pursued him persistently in his waking and his leisure hours. He could recall every word she had spoken during the short time they had spent together. He could see her a dozen times a day standing in the “Excelsior” dining-room, paralysed with terror.

He remembered the break in her voice, the mist in her beautiful eyes, when she had thanked him. And ever and again, he longed to fathom the mystery of her loneliness, the cause of that sadness that was always lurking underneath.

Was it wise to pursue the acquaintance, with the pretty certain result of intensifying the interest he already felt in her? He had no liking for Mrs L’Estrange, a woman merely on the fringe of his world, or her gambling circle. If he wanted to lose or win money, there were plenty of other houses where he could indulge his fancy.

And he knew nothing of Miss Keane’s antecedents. The only thing he did know was that she had a cousin who was obviously a bounder of the first water. Tommy Esmond knew nothing about her either, or, if he did know, would not tell.

For three days he wavered, one moment eager to rush off to the flat, the next determining that it would be better not to renew the brief acquaintance.

On the fourth day, his impulse conquered his prudence. He told himself soothingly that his visit was due to curiosity, that he merely wanted to penetrate the mystery of her loneliness, her unprotected position.

The bounder cousin was coming out as he entered. Mr Dutton nodded affably to him with a greasy and familiar smile. Spencer acknowledged him in the coolest fashion compatible with bare civility. Why were there people, he wondered, whom you instinctively wanted to kick, for no apparently sufficient reason?

Miss Keane was alone. Mrs L’Estrange, she explained, was in bed with a racking headache. She had lost heavily the night before, and this was the usual penalty she paid for losing.

“Hardly worth the candle, is it?” he said lightly, as he took his cup of tea from her. A slight frown crossed his brow as he observed the empty cup of “the bounder” on the table. Did he come here often? was his thought. Perhaps he was in love with her. But it was surely beyond the limits of possibility that she could ever return the affection of such a creature.

He would see what he could get out of her. “I met your cousin as I came in. I suppose he is a frequent visitor?”

She did not look in the least conscious or embarrassed by the question. “Oh yes, he comes very often. He is about the only one of my relatives I have any acquaintance with. My father’s mode of life estranged all the others.”

Spencer thought it would have been a good thing if Mr Dutton had been as sensitive to the disqualifications of the late Mr Keane as the rest of her connections. But, of course, he could not say so.

“He is not in the least like you.” Then, after a pause, he added boldly, and perhaps a little rudely: “I should never have dreamed you were related.”

She quite understood what he meant, and there was a lurking humour in her smile, as she answered:

“Poor old George, he is a good sort, but quite a rough diamond. His mother married a self-made man, of course, for his money. That may account for a great deal you have noticed.” Spencer had the grace to look confused. It was evident he had conveyed his private impression of Mr Dutton very distinctly to her clear young vision. But she did not seem offended, only slightly amused, at the poor figure cut by Cousin George in the estimation of a person in a superior world.

Anyway, that little mystery was explained. There was nothing unusual in poor gentlewomen marrying self-made men, for the sake of money. The noble family of Southleigh had many such mésalliances amongst its aristocratic records.

But it was a relief to find Stella herself under no delusions concerning the young man in question. He did not think it possible she could, but as diplomatically as was possible, she admitted that Mr Dutton was not what is, technically called, a gentleman.

“He is the only relative with whom I am on speaking terms,” she added, after a pause, “for reasons of which I have already given you a hint. And I think I have grown rather to look forward to his visits.”

Her observant eyes noticed a quick stiffening in his manner. She could guess his thoughts. How was it possible for a refined young woman to ever look forward to the visits of a person like Mr Dutton, cousin though he might be?

“You, of course, have heaps of relations; you can pick and choose,” she went on, as if eager to explain to his fastidious taste her toleration of a man, so obviously the denizen of an inferior world. “You cannot, I daresay, imagine the loneliness of a girl of my age, debarred, through no fault of her own, from the society of her own kith and kin.” Here was an opportunity to engage her in personal talk. He had not hoped she would take him into her confidence on his first visit.

He leaned forward, and there was an eager note in his voice. “I formed an idea of you in the first few moments of our acquaintance, that you were not happy, that you were, in a sense, isolated, and that you had known more of sorrow than joy in your short life.”

She mused a moment, and then answered him in grave tones:

“You were quite right. I feel it is the impression I must convey to either friend or stranger, an impression I shall always convey. For, if a great and overwhelming happiness were to come to me to-morrow, I could never forget the past years of sadness.”

“But, surely, you must have some happy memories? There were gleams of brightness in your childhood?”

“No,” she said, and there was a fierce vehemence in her voice. “They were the most miserable – an indifferent mother, a careless father, a roof and a shelter, food and clothing sufficient, if not in abundance, but no home, as it is understood by more fortunate children.”

“And when that home, or the wretched pretence of it, was broken up, you were thrown upon the mercy of the world,” he questioned, “with no kindred, no friends to stretch out a helping hand?”

“Our relatives had long before ceased to take any interest in the daughter of a ruined gambler. I was thrown, in a certain sense, on the mercy of the world. But for a small pittance, which my father could not deprive me of, I should have starved, for he left nothing behind him but debts.”

She was not, then, absolutely penniless. Something had been saved from the wreck. He wondered if Esmond knew this. And yet, if she told a comparative stranger this at their first real interview, she must have told him, who seemed to be on the footing of a friend of the house.

“I had no real friends,” she went on; “but in the course of a wandering life – when my father owed too much in one place he removed to another – I had picked up a few acquaintances. With these I made a home, on and off, for longer or shorter periods.”

“And you have come to anchor here with Mrs L’Estrange, who is your cousin, one of the few relatives who did not visit the sins of the fathers on the children.”

Her voice was a little scornful. “The cousinship is a very distant one. And, as she is an inveterate gambler herself, but more lucky than my father, she could hardly look upon gambling in another as a deadly sin.” He nodded his head in agreement. He did not want to talk himself, for fear he should interrupt the flow of her reminiscences; she was evidently in a confidential mood this afternoon.

“I saw her a few times when quite a child, and then she vanished like the others. A couple of years ago, we met in Devonshire at the house of a mutual acquaintance. She seemed to take a fancy to me. In the end, she proposed that I should, for the present, make my home with her. She has only one interest in life, play. She is a very lazy woman. She hates writing the briefest note, and housekeeping is abhorrent to her. I attend to her correspondence, I order the dinner and look after the servants. I am not exactly eating the bread of charity,” she concluded with a little mirthless laugh, “because I give some work in exchange for my food. My own little pittance provides me with clothes.”