Duplicate Death (2 page)

This extremely trying paragon now said, with the air of one recounting a humorous anecdote: "Yes, Mummy, That Florrie hasn't come this morning, which doesn't surprise me in the least, her being paid by the week like she is, and it being Monday and all. No loss, is what I say, for really, if I was to tell you some of the things she did, but the least said the soonest mended, and no good crying over spilt milk! So I thought I would just pop Bill in his pram presently and walk down to the village to see if Mrs. Formby would oblige till you get suited, Mummy, though why Oblige is more than I can tell, considering what you pay her, but what I say is, it won't do if Cook, was to get Upset, and Susan will like to go down to the village, won't you, ducky? Oh, dear, dear, look at those sticky handy-pandys, and every drop of hot water to be boiled on account of Jackson forgetting to stoke the boiler before he went off home last night! Really, one doesn't hardly like to say what the world is coming to! Yes, Mummy, Mrs. Formby it must be, but if I was you I would put an advertisement in the Glasgow Herald, because, say what you like, those Scotch girls are clean, which is more than we can say about some others, whose names we won't mention, not in present company, will we, my ducks?"

Unable to bear any more of this excellent creature's discourse, Mr. James Kane rose from the table, with the slight awkwardness peculiar to those who had left the better parts of their left legs to be decently interred in enemy soil. What Mr. James Kane secretly thought of his loss he had divulged to none, his only recorded utterance on the subject being a pious thanksgiving to Providence that he had an artificial leg to raise him, in the eyes of his progeny, above the spurious claims to distinction of their Uncle Timothy. But Mrs. James Kane, to whom the sight of Daddy Putting on his Leg was not a Treat of the first order, could never see this slight awkwardness without suffering a contraction of the heart, and she now said, quickly, and quite irrationally: "Never mind about Timothy! Must you go to town next week?"

Mr. James Kane, perfectly appreciating the cause of this sudden volteface, grinned affectionately at her, limped round the table to bestow a chaste salute upon her cheek, said, Goop! in a fond voice, and departed to pursue his avocation in the neighbouring metropolis. From which Mrs. Kane gathered that the loss of a limb was troubling him neither mentally nor physically, that he had every intention of visiting London in the immediate future, and that he would use his best endeavours to dissuade his young half-brother from contracting an undesirable alliance. She was thus able to devote her mind to the domestic problem confronting her, for whatever Jim might say he possessed great influence over Timothy, and would no doubt contrive at least to avert disaster.

In these comfortable conclusions Mrs. James Kane aright have been proved to have been right if Lady Harte lead enlisted her help rather earlier, or had Mr. Kane put forward his journey to London. In the event, Mr. James Kane reached London in time only to take part in proceedings of which, as he vulgarly informed his wife, he had already, during the course of a singularly blameless life, had a bellyful.

Chapter Two

"Have an eclair!" suggested young Mr. Harte encouragingly. "Probably made with egg substitute, certainly filled with synthetic cream, guaranteed rather to atrophy than to increase the figure."

His companion, who had been sitting in brooding silence for several minutes, looked up, smiled, and shook her head. "No, thanks. I'm not afraid of getting fat."

"Well, that's something," said Timothy. "What a repellent joint this is!"

"What do you mean?" she asked quickly.

"That which repels. A table which is not only too small, but which stands on unequal legs; rout chairs, than which there is nothing less conducive to habits of easy social intercourse; a general atmosphere of mobcappery; and -"

"Not that. Why is it something that I'm not afraid of getting fat?"

"Oh, merely that it's the only thing I've discovered, to date, which you're not afraid of!"

For a moment her rather stormy grey eyes lifted to his in a wide, startled look; then they were lowered, and she said in a hard voice: "Don't be absurd!"

"Of course, I don't mean that there is nothing else you're not afraid of," said Timothy conversationally. "Only that I haven't yet discovered what these things are. Have some more tea!"

"I'm not going to marry you," said Beulah abruptly.

"Announcements like that," said Mr. Harte, not noticeably abashed, "should never be made in crowded tea-shops. Besides, it isn't true."

"It is true! I can't possibly marry you! I ought to have seen that at the start!"

"Why? Have you got a husband who's an RC and won't give you a divorce, or any little thing like that?" enquired Timothy, interested.

"No, of course not!"

"Oh, well, then we needn't worry!"

"That's what you think!" said Beulah crudely. "Look here, I - the thing is - There are things in my life you don't know anything about!"

"Good God, I should hope there were!" retorted Timothy. "I've only known you a month!"

"And some of them you wouldn't like!"

"I daresay. Come to think of it, I can tell you of one thing in your young life I don't like right now, and that's Mr. Daniel Seaton-Carew."

She flushed. "He's not a thing in my life: you needn't worry!"

"That's fine. Dissuade him from putting his arm round you, and calling you his little protegee."

Her colour was still heightened; she kept her eyes on her plate. "It's only his way. He's old enough to be my father!" "Yes, that's what makes it all the more objectionable," said Timothy.

She bit her lip, but said in a sulky voice: "Anyway, it's got nothing to do with you."

"It has everything to do with me. You have plighted your troth to me, my girl."

"It's no use. I can't marry you."

"Then I shall sue you for breach of promise. Why, by the way, have you had this sudden change of heart?"

"It isn't possible. I must have been crazy! I can't think why you want to marry me!"

"Good lord, didn't I tell you? I love you!"

She muttered: "Yes, you told me. That's what I - what I don't understand! Why should you?"

"Oh, I shouldn't worry over that, if I were you!" said Timothy kindly. "Of course, if you insist, I'll enumerate the various things which attract me to you, but they really haven't got much to do with it. To be thoroughly vulgar, we just clicked. Or didn't we?"

Her face quivered; she gave a rather convulsive nod. "Yes, but -"

"There you are, then. You know, for an intelligent girl, you say some remarkably stupid things. You'd be properly stymied if I asked you what you saw in me to fall in love with, wouldn't you?"

A flicker of humour shone in her eyes. "No, I shouldn't," she replied. "Anyone can see what I fell for at a glance! Exactly what about fifty other girls have fallen for!"

"You are exaggerating," said Mr. Harte, preserving his sang-froid. "Not much, of course, but slightly. Forty three is the correct number, and that includes my niece. I'm afraid she may not take very kindly to our marriage, by the way. She says she is going to marry me herself, but of course that's impossible. If we had only lived in medieval times I could have got a dispensation, I expect. As it is —'

"You are a fool!" interrupted Miss Birtley, laughing in spite of herself. "Nor do I think that your niece is the only member of your family who wouldn't take kindly to our marriage."

"You never know. It's within the bounds of possibility that your family may not take kindly to me."

"I have no family," she said harshly.

"What, none at all?"

"I have an uncle, and his wife. I don't have anything to do with them."

"What a bit of luck for me!" said Mr. Harte. "I was rather funking being shown to a clutter of aunts and cousins. My half-brother says it's hell. He had to go through the mill. Said his hands and feet seemed too large suddenly, and whenever he thought out a classy line to utter it turned out to be the one thing he oughtn't to have said."

"Like me with your mother."

"Not in the least like that. I distinctly recall that you said how-do-you-do to Mamma, and I seem to remember that you made one unprompted and, I am bound to say, innocuous remark about the evils of progress as exemplified by pneumatic-drills. The rest of your conversation was monosyllabic."

There was an awful pause. "Well, there you are!" said Miss Birtley defiantly. "I have no conversation!"

"I have no wish to appear boastful," returned young Mr. Harte, "but from my earliest days it has been said of me by all who know me best that I talk enough for two, or even more."

"Your mother," said Miss Birtley, giving him a straight look, "wrote me down as an adventuress, and that is exactly what I am! So now you know! My aim is to marry a man of good social standing, independent means, and a background. That's why I encouraged you to propose to me."

"Is it really?" said Mr. Harte. "Then why on earth did you waste your time on me, instead of gunning for our newest and most socialistic peer?"

Miss Birtley's air of slightly belligerent gravity was momentarily impaired. "Are you talking about Lance Guisborough? Well, if he ever cleaned his nails, or got his hair cut -"

"My good girl," said Mr. Harte severely, "if you are going to let little things like that weigh with you, you will never get anywhere! Tut-tut, I thought better of you! What were you thinking about to waste your time entrapping me into matrimony when there was a whole, live baron waiting to be picked up? Or have you been misinformed? I shall, at what I trust may be some far distant date, inherit a baronetcy; but when you talk of independent means, you are speaking outside the book. Lawyers and clients being what they are, I am at this present very happy to appear in the dingiest of police courts for the modest fee of three-and-one, or even less; my well-groomed air of affluence being due to the generosity of my Papa, who makes me a handsome allowance. This is what comes of judging by appearances. I don't say that Guisborough is a rich man, but you should remember that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; and many a promising Communist has been persuaded by a good woman's influence to cut his hair, and abstain from wearing fancy ties."

"Oh, Timothy, do shut up!" begged Beulah. "Besides, he's one of Cynthia Haddington's admirers!"

"Well, considering the number of times you've cast it in my teeth that I too was one of her admirers, I can't see what that's got to do with it."

"So you were!" said Beulah, with a touch of spirit. "If you hadn't been pursuing her, we should never have met!"

Mr. Harte sighed. "If dancing three times with a girl to whom one had been presented at a private party, subsequently accepting an invitation to a ball given by her mother, and following this up with a civil call to return thanks, constitutes pursuit, I plead guilty," he said.

"At all events," said Beulah somewhat viciously, "Mrs. Haddington regards you as the best of the eligibles! And if she knew I was having tea with you now she would probably give me the sack!"

"In that case, you trot straight back to Charles Street, ducky, and tell her!" recommended Mr. Harte. "Pausing only to pay the bill here, I will burst off to procure a special licence so that we can be married tomorrow. You shall beguile some long winter's evening for me by recounting to me the circumstances which induced you to take a job as dog's body to that well-preserved corncrake."

"If you want to know," responded Miss Birtley, "Dan Seaton-Carew got me the job! Now how do you feel about marrying me?"

"Shaken but staunch. Seriously, how did that woman muscle on to the fringe of decent society?"

"I don't know, but I think she was sort of sponsored by Lady Nest Poulton," said Beulah. "They're very thick, that I do know."

"What times we do live in, to be sure! Poor old Greystoke has had to sell his place, of course, but I shouldn't have thought an Ellerbeck would have stooped quite as low."

"That must be a thoroughly unfair remark!" said Beulah. "I know nothing about Lord Greystoke's circumstances, but everyone knows that Lady Nest's husband is rolling!"

Just what I was thinking," agreed Timothy. "So what's the tie-up?"

"Why should there be a tie-up?"

"Because, my sweet, feather-headed nit-wit though she may be, and indeed is, the Lady Nest doesn't make a bosom-friend of a brassy-haired widow on the up-and-up without having some strong inducement so to do."

"And they say women are spiteful!" exclaimed Beulah scornfully. "Do you also imagine there's a tie-up between her and Dan Seaton-Carew? She's a friend of his as well."

"Good God!" said Timothy. "I wonder if there's any insanity in the Ellerbecks?"

"Seaton-Carew is considered to be rather an attractive type."

"What does he attract? Pond-life?"

"Apparently, Lady Nest Poulton - if you call her a form of pond-life."

"No, but an unsteady type. Sort of woman who used to go to Limehouse for a thrill in the wicked twenties. That may be it, of course - though I should rather describe your Charles Street set-up as a menagerie."

"Really, Timothy!" she expostulated. "Lots of perfectly respectable people come to the house!"

"I will grant you a sprinkling of fairly harmless types, who probably feel that if Lady Nest knows Mrs. Haddington she must be all right -"

"You don't suppose that Colonel Cartmel or Sir Roderick Vickerstown would be influenced by that, do you?"

"No, my love, I don't. It is well-known that both these aged crocodiles will lend the cachet of their presence to almost any house where the food and the wines are firstclass. Does your respected employer buy exclusively on the black market?"

"If I knew I shouldn't tell you. After all, she does employ me!"

"So she does. What, by the way, is your precise status in the house? Yes, I know she calls you her secretary, but you appear to me to spend half your time chasing round London with a shopping-list."

"Well, I do do her secretarial work, only, of course, there isn't a great deal of it, so I shop for her as well, and see that things are all right when she gives a party, and - oh, anything that crops up!"

"And what," enquired Mr. Harte politely, "are your hours?"

"I don't have regular hours. I'm supposed to leave at six but Mrs. Haddington likes me to be on tap."