The Girl Who Had Nothing

"I do not understand what you are talking about," he said.

"I dare say I haven't made my meaning clear," answered Joan, half rising. "Perhaps I'd better explain to my solicitor, and get him to write a letter-"

"You are nothing more nor less than a common blackmailer," Lord Northmuir exclaimed, bringing down his white hand on the arm of his chair.

"I may be nothing less, but I am a good deal more than a common one," retorted Joan, surer of her ground. "I will prove that, if you force me to do it."

"Who are you?" he broke out abruptly.

"I am a Woman Who Knows," she replied. "There was another Woman Who Knew. She called herself Gone. She is dead, and I have come. I have come to stay."

"Don't you understand that I can hand you over to the police?" demanded Lord Northmuir, with difficulty controlling his voice so that it could not be heard by possible listeners outside the door.

"Yes; and I understand that I can hand your secret over to the police. They would know how to use it."

He flushed again, and Joan saw that her daring shot had told. For the instant he had no answer ready, and she seized the opportunity to speak once more. "You can do better for yourself than hand me over to the police. There need be no trouble, if you will realise that I am not a common person, and not to be treated as such."

"Again I ask: Who are you?" he cried.

Joan risked another shot in the dark. "Can't you make a guess?" she asked, with a malicious suggestion of hidden meaning in her tone.

An expression of horror and surprise passed over Lord Northmuir's handsome face, devastating it as a marching tornado devastates a landscape. It was evident that he had "made a guess," and been thunderstruck by its answer. Joan's curiosity was so strongly roused that it touched physical pain. Almost, she would have been ready to give one of her pretty fingers to know the secret.

"Do you still wish to ask questions?" she inquired.

"Heaven help me, no! What is it that you want?"

"I have told you already. If I insisted on all I have a right to claim, you would not be where you are."

She watched him. He grew deathly and bowed his white head. Joan felt sorry for the man now that he was at her mercy; but her imagination played with the secret, as a child plays with a prism in the sunshine. Its flashing colours allured her. "Oh! if I only knew something," she thought, "something which would hold in law, and could go through the courts, where might I not stand? I might reach one of the highest places a woman can fill. But it's no use; I must take what I can get, and be thankful; and, anyway, I can't help pitying him a little, though I'm sure he doesn't deserve it. He's old and tired, and I won't make him suffer more than is necessary for the game."

Joan again named her terms, this time with much ornamental detail. She was to be a newly discovered orphan cousin. Her name was to be, as it had been in Cornwall, Mercy Milton. She was to be invited to visit, for an indefinite length of time, at Northmuir House. Her noble relative was to exert himself to the extent of giving entertainments to introduce her to his most influential and highly placed friends. He was also to make her an allowance of a thousand pounds a year.

"Don't think, if you gamble away as-as the other did, that I will go beyond this bargain, for I will not!" cried Lord Northmuir, with a testy desire to assert himself and show that he was not wholly to be cowed.

"I don't gamble, except with Fate," said Joan.

This exclamation of his explained one or two things which had been dark. She guessed now why Mrs. Gone, evidently used to luxuries, had been reduced to living on the charity of a boarding-house keeper, and why it had been necessary to wait until she should be well enough to go out before she could obtain "remittances."

Having concluded her arrangement with Lord Northmuir, and settled to become his relative and guest, Joan went back in her brougham to Woburn Place. She told Miss Witt that she had been called away, packed her things, left such as she would not want in Belgrave Square in boxes at the boarding-house, delighted the housekeeper with many gifts, and the following morning drove off with a pile of luggage on a cab. Turning the corner of Woburn Place into the next street, she also turned a corner in her career, and for the third time ceased to be Joan Carthew.

She had chosen to take up her lately laid down part of Mercy Milton for two reasons. One was, that in this character as she had played it in Cornwall, with meekly parted hair, soft, downcast eyes, simple manners and simple frocks, she was not likely to be recognised by any one who had known the dashing and magnificent Miss Jenny Mordaunt; while if she should come across Cornish acquaintances, there was nothing in her new position which need invalidate the story of Lady Pendered's gentle sister.

If Lord Northmuir had looked forward with dread to the intrusion of the adventuress whom he was forced to receive, he soon found that, beyond the galling knowledge of his bondage, he had nothing disagreeable to fear. The young cousin did not attempt to interfere with his habits after he had provided her with acquaintances, who increased after the manner of a "snowball" stamp competition. The two usually lunched and dined together, and-at first-that was all. But Miss Mercy Milton made herself charming at table, never referred by word or look to the loathed secret, and was so tactful that, to his extreme surprise, almost horror, the man found himself looking forward to the hours of meeting. Joan was not slow to see this; indeed, she had been working up to it. When the right time came, she volunteered to help Lord Northmuir with his letters (he had no secretary) and to read aloud. At the end of six months she had become indispensable, and he would have wondered how existence had been possible without his treasure had he dwelt upon the dangerous subject at all. If, however, the blackmailer's instalment in the household had turned out an agreeable disappointment to the blackmailed, it was a disappointment of another kind to the author of the plot. Joan Carthew did not find life in Belgrave Square half as amusing as she had pictured it, and though she was surrounded by luxury which might be hers as long as Lord Northmuir lived, each day she grew more restless and discontented.

She had found society on the Riviera delightful, but the butterfly crowd which fluttered between Nice and Monte Carlo had little resemblance to that with which she came in contact as Lord Northmuir's cousin. Jenny Mordaunt could do much as she pleased-at worst she was put down as a "mad American, my dear"; but Mercy Milton had the family dignity to live up to. Lord Northmuir's adopted relative could not afford to be "cut" by the primmest dowager; and being an ideal, conventional English girl in the best society did not suit Joan's roaming fancies.

It was supposed that she would be Lord Northmuir's heiress; consequently mothers of eligible young men were charming to her, which would have been convenient if Joan had happened to want one of their sons. But not one of the men who sent her flowers and begged for "extras" at dances would she have married if he had been the last existing specimen of his sex. This was annoying, for in planning her campaign, Joan had resolved to marry well and settle satisfactorily for life. Now, however, she found that it was simpler to decide upon a mercenary marriage in the abstract than when it became a personal question.

At the close of a year with Lord Northmuir she had saved seven hundred pounds, and at last, after a sleepless night, she made up her mind to take a step which was, in a way, a confession of failure.

She went to Lord Northmuir's study as usual in the morning, but this time it was not to act as reader or amanuensis.

"It's a year to-day since I came," she said abruptly, with a purposeful look on her face which the man felt was ominous.

"Yes," he answered. "A strange year, but not an unhappy one. What I regarded as a curse has turned out a blessing. I should miss the albatross now if it were to be taken off my neck."

"I'm sorry for that," said Joan, "for the albatross has revived and intends to fly away."

"What! You will marry?"

"No. I'm tired of being conventional. I've decided to relieve you of my presence here; and you can forget me, except when, each quarter, you sign a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds."

Lord Northmuir's handsome face grew almost as white as when she had first announced her claim upon him. "I don't want to forget you. I can't forget you!" he stammered. "If I could, I would publish the whole truth; but that is impossible, for the honour of the name. You have made me fond of you-made me depend upon you. Why did you do that, if you meant to leave me alone?"

"I didn't mean it at first," replied Joan frankly. "I thought I should be 'in clover' here, and so I have been; but too much clover upsets the digestion. I must go, Lord Northmuir. I can't stand it any longer. I'm pining for adventures."

"Have you fallen in love?"

"No. I wish I had. I've been trying in vain."

"A year ago I would not have believed it possible that I should make you such an offer, but you have wrought a miracle. You came to blackmail, you remained to bless. Stay with me, my girl, till I die, and not only shall you be remembered in my will, but I will increase your allowance from one thousand to two thousand a year. I can afford to do this, since you have become the one luxury I can't live without."

"I was just beginning to say that, if you would let me go without a fuss, I would take five hundred instead of a thousand a year."

"But now I have shown you my heart, you see that offer does not appeal to me."

Joan broke out laughing; this upsetting of the whole situation was so humorous. A sudden reckless impulse seized her. She could not resist it.

"Lord Northmuir, you will change your mind when I have told you something," she said. "I have played a trick on you. I have no connection with your family, and know no more about your secret than I know what will be in to-morrow's papers. Mrs. Gone, in dying, mentioned a secret and your name. I put two and two together, and they matched so well that I've lived on you for a year, bought lots of dresses, made crowds of friends, had heaps of proposals, and kept seven hundred pounds in hand. Now I think you will be willing to let me go; and you can lie easy and live happy for ever after."

Having launched the thunderbolt, she would have left the room, but Lord Northmuir, old and invalided as he was, sprang from his chair like an ardent youth and caught her arm.

"By Jove! you shan't leave me like that!" he cried. "You have made your first mistake, my dear. Instead of being in your power, you have put yourself in mine. I need fear you no longer. But as a trickster I love you no less than I did as a blackmailer. Indeed, I love you the more for your diabolical cleverness, you beautiful wretch! Stay with me, not as the little adopted cousin, living on charity, but as my wife, and mistress of this house. Or, if you will not, I shall denounce you to the police."

For once, Joan was dumfounded. The tables had been turned upon her with a vengeance. She gasped, and could not answer.

"You see, it is my turn to dictate terms now," said Lord Northmuir.

Joan's breath had come back. "You are right," she returned, in a meek voice. "I have given you the reins. But-well, it would be something to be Countess of Northmuir."

"Don't hope to be a widowed Countess," chuckled the old man. "I am only sixty-nine, and for the last ten years I have taken good care of myself."

"I count on nothing after this," said Joan.

"You consent, then?"

"How can I do otherwise?"

Lord Northmuir laughed out in his triumph over her. "The notice of the engagement will go to the Morning Post immediately," he said. "To-morrow, some of our friends will be surprised."

But it was he who was surprised; for, when to-morrow came, Joan had run away.

CHAPTER IX-A Journalistic Mission

It is like stating that the world is round to say that London is the best of hiding-places. It is the best, because there are many Londons, and one London knows practically nothing about any of the other Londons. When, therefore, Mercy Milton disappeared from Northmuir House, Belgrave Square, Joan Carthew promptly appeared at her old camping-ground, the boarding-house in Woburn Place.

Joan was no longer penniless, and as far as Lord Northmuir was concerned, she was easy in her mind. A man of his stamp was unlikely to risk the much-prized "honour of his name" to seek her with detectives; while, unassisted, he would have to shrug his weary old shoulders and resign himself to loss and loneliness.

But ambition kindled restlessness. She grudged wasting a moment when her fortune had to be made, her permanent place in life fixed. Besides, she was dissatisfied with her adventure in the house of Lord Northmuir. She had not come off badly, yet it galled her to remember that in self-defence she had been driven to confess her scheme to its victim, and that-this expedient not proving efficacious-she had eventually been forced to run away like the coward she was not. On the whole, she had to admit that if Lord Northmuir had not in the end got the better of her, he had come near to doing so. The sharp taste of failure was in her mouth, and the only way to be rid of it was to get the better of somebody else-somebody disagreeable, so that the sweets of success might be unmixed with bitterness.

Existence as Lord Northmuir's adopted relative had been deadly dull; existence as his wife would have been worse; and the remembrance of boredom was too vivid still for Joan to regret what she had sacrificed. Nevertheless, she realised that it had been a sacrifice which she would not a little while ago have believed herself fool enough, or wise enough, to be capable of making. She wanted her reward, and that reward must mean new excitements, difficulties, and dangers.

"I should like to do something big on a great London paper," she said to herself on the first night of her return to Woburn Place. "What fun to undertake a thrilling journalistic mission, and succeed better than any man! I wonder whether Mr. Mainbridge, who was a reporter on The Planet, is here still. He wasn't at dinner, but then he used often to be away. I must ask in the morning."

Joan went to sleep with this resolve in her mind, and before breakfast she had carried it out. Mr. Mainbridge was still one of Miss Witt's boarders, and had often inquired after Miss Carthew. He had come in late last night, was now asleep, but would be down to luncheon, and there was no doubt that he would be delighted to see the object of his solicitude.

All turned out as Miss Witt prophesied, and Joan was even nicer to the reporter than she had been before. He invited her to dine that evening at an Italian restaurant, and she consented. When they had come to the sweets, Mr. Mainbridge could control his pent-up feelings no longer, and was about to propose when Joan stopped him.

"We are too poor to indulge in the luxury of being in love," said she, with a sweet frankness which took the sting from the rebuff and dimly implied hope for the future. "I shall not marry until I am earning as much money as-as the man I love. I could not be happy unless I were independent. Oh, Mr. Mainbridge! if you do care to please me, prove it by introducing me to the editor of your paper! I want to ask him for work."

The stricken young man felt his throat suddenly dry. In his first acquaintance with Joan he had boasted of his "influence" with the powers that were upon that new and phenomenally successful daily, The Planet. As a matter of fact, the influence existed in Mainbridge's dreams, and there only. Sir Edmund Foster, the proprietor and editor, hardly knew him by sight, and probably would not recognise him out of Fleet Street. To ask such a favour as an introduction for a strange young girl, however attractive, was almost as much as the poor fellow's place was worth, but he could not bear to refuse Joan.

"Tell Sir Edmund that I have information, important to the paper, for his private ear," added the girl, reading her admirer's mind as if it had been a book.

"But-but if-er-you haven't really anything which he-" stammered Mainbridge.

"Oh, I have! I guarantee he shall be satisfied with me and not angry with you. Only I must see him alone. Tell him I come from" – Joan hesitated for an instant, but only for an instant-"from the Earl of Northmuir."

Mainbridge was impressed by the name and her air of self-confidence. Encouraged, he promised to use every effort to bring about the introduction, if possible the very next day. If he succeeded, he would telegraph Joan the time of the appointment, which would certainly not be earlier than three in the afternoon, as Sir Edmund never appeared at the office until that hour.

"Then I won't stop for the telegram and give him a chance to change his mind before I can drive from Woburn Place to Fleet Street," said Joan. "I will be at the office at three in the afternoon, and wait until something is settled, if I have to wait till three in the morning."

The next day, after luncheon, Joan chose her costume with extreme care, as she invariably did when it was necessary to arm herself for conquest. Radiant in pale blue cloth edged with sable, she presented herself at the offices of The Planet. There was a waiting-room at the end of a long corridor, and there she was bidden to sit; but instead of remaining behind a closed door, as soon as her guide was out of sight she began walking up and down near the stairway where Sir Edmund Foster must sooner or later pass. She had never seen the famous man, but she remembered his photograph in one of the illustrated papers.

Presently a tall, smooth-shaven, sallow man, with eagle features and bags under his keen eyes, came rapidly along the corridor, accompanied by a much younger, less impressive man, who might have been a secretary. Joan advanced, pretending to be absorbed in thought, then stood aside with a start of shy surprise and a look nicely calculated to express reverence of greatness. Sir Edmund Foster glanced at the apparition and let his eyes linger for a few seconds as his companion rang the bell of the lift, close to the wide stone stairway.

"When he hears that there is a young woman waiting to see him, he will remember me, and the recollection may influence his decision," thought Joan, who did not under-value her beauty as an asset.

Perhaps it fell out as she hoped (things often did), for she had not read more than three or four back numbers of The Planet, which lay on the waiting-room table, when Ralph Mainbridge, flushed and almost tremulous with excitement, came to say that Sir Edmund had consented to see her at once.

Without seeming as much overpowered as he expected, the girl prepared to enter the presence of greatness. But she was not in reality as calm as she appeared. The thunderous whirr of the printing-machines had almost bereft her of the capacity for thought, just at the moment when she wished to think clearly. Her nerves were twanging like the strings of a violin which is out of tune, and it was an intense relief to be shot up in the alarmingly rapid lift to a quieter region. The rumbling roar was deadened on Sir Edmund's floor, and as the door of his private office closed on her, it was shut out altogether.

"Miss Carthew, from Lord Northmuir," the famous editor-proprietor said. "I believe you have some interesting information for me." He smiled with a certain dry benignity, for Joan was very pretty, and he was, after all, a man. "I think I saw you downstairs."

"I saw you, Sir Edmund." Joan's manner was dignified now, rather than shy. "I trust you will not be angry, but within the last two hours everything has changed for me. Lord Northmuir, whom I know well through my cousin, Miss Mercy Milton, his ward (you may have heard of her; we are said to resemble each other), has now changed his mind about allowing the piece of information I meant for you to be published. He has forbidden his name to be used, but it was too late to stop that. I can only beg, for my cousin Miss Milton's sake more than my own, that you will not let the fact come to his ears; if it should, she will suffer."

"You need not fear that," Sir Edmund reassured her; "but if you have no information to give me, Miss-er-"

"I had to come and explain why I hadn't," Joan cut in. "I hope you won't blame poor Mr. Mainbridge for putting you to this trouble. It isn't his fault, and he doesn't even know."

"Who is Mr. Mainbridge? Oh, ah! yes, of course. Pray don't regard it as a trouble. Quite the contrary. But unfortunately, I-"

"You would say you are a very busy man," Joan threw into the editor's suggestive pause. "I won't take up much more of your time. But I want to say that, although I have nothing of value, as I hoped, to tell, I shall have later, if you will consent to engage me on your staff."

Sir Edmund laughed. He evidently considered Joan a spoiled darling of Society with a new whim. "My dear young lady!" he exclaimed, "in what capacity, pray? We do not devote space to fashions, even in a Saturday edition. Would you come to us as a reporter, like your friend Mr. Mainbridge?"

"As a special reporter," amended Joan. "I would undertake any mission of importance-"

"There are none going begging on The Planet. But" (this soothingly by way of sugaring a dismissal) "you have only to get hold of something good and bring it to me. For instance, some nice, spicy little item as to the truth of the rumoured alliance between Russia and Japan. We would pay you quite well for that, you know, provided you gave it to us in time to publish ahead of any other paper."

"How much would you pay me?" asked Joan, nettled at this chaffing tone of the famous man.

"Enough to buy a new frock and perhaps a few hairpins; say a hundred pounds."

"That isn't enough," said Joan; "I should want a thousand."

Sir Edmund turned a sudden, keen gaze upon the girl; then his face relaxed. "We might rise to that. At all events, I'm safe in promising it."

"It is a promise, then?"

"Oh, certainly."

"Thank you. Let me see if I understand clearly. I'm not quite the baby you think, Sir Edmund. I read the papers-yours especially-and take, I trust, an intelligent interest in the political situation. Now, the latest rumour is that Russia is secretly planning an understanding with Japan and China. What you would like to know is whether there is truth in the rumour, and what, in that event, England would do."

"Exactly. That is what all the papers are dying to find out."

"If you could get the official news before any of them, you would give the person who obtained it for you a thousand pounds. If, in addition, they, or one of them-let us say The Daily Beacon-got the wrong news on the same day, you would no doubt add five hundred to the original thousand; for revenge is sweet, even to an editor, I suppose, and The Beacon has, I have heard, contrived to be first in the field on one or two important occasions within the last few years."

This allusion was a pin-prick in a sensitive place, for Joan was aware that The Daily Beacon and The Planet were deadly rivals as well as political opponents. Mainbridge had told her the tale of The Planet'shumiliation by the enemy, and she had not forgotten.The Beacon had been able, at the very time when The Planet was arguing against their probability, to assert that certain political events would take place, and in time these statements had been justified, to the discomfiture of The Planet.

Sir Edmund frowned slightly. "The Daily Beacon possesses exceptional advantages," he sneered. "It is difficult for less favoured journals to compete with it for political information."

"I believe I can guess what you refer to," answered Joan. "I hear things, you know, from my cousin, Miss Milton." (This to shield Mainbridge.) "Lord Henry Borrowdaile, an Under Secretary of State, is a distant relative of Mr. Portheous, the proprietor of The Daily Beacon, and it is said that there has been a curious leakage of diplomatic secrets, once or twice, by whichThe Beacon profited."