“I request — I — I implore you not to trifle with me in this matter,” said the gentleman, slowly taking out his card case. “It would be a — a heartless thing to do. Here is my card. If you have any information, or can acquire any, it shall be liberally paid for — most liberally paid.
Jack, offended afresh, looked at him with scorn; snatched the card, and turned on his heel. The gentleman looked wistfully after him, sighed, shivered, and got into the cab.
The card was inscribed, “Mr. Sigismund Brailsford, Kensington Palace Gardens.”
CHAPTER V
A fortnight later the Sutherlands, accompanied by Mrs Beatty, were again in London, on their way to the Isle of Wight. It had been settled that Herbert should go to Ventnor for a month with his mother, so that Mary and he might sketch the scenery of the island together. He had resisted this arrangement at first on the ground that Mrs Herbert’s presence would interfere with his enjoyment; but Mary, who had lost her own mother when an infant, had ideas of maternal affection which made Adrian’s unfilial feeling shocking to her. She entreated him to come to Ventnor; and he yielded, tempted by the prospect of working beside her, and foreseeing that he could easily avoid his mother’s company whenever it became irksome to him.
One day, whilst they were still in London at the hotel in Onslow Gardens, Mr Sutherland, seeing his daughter with her hat and cloak on, asked whither she was going.
“I am going to the Brailsfords’, to see Madge,” she replied.
“Now what do you want to go there for?” grumbled Mr. Sutherland. “I do not like your associating with that girl.”
“Why, papa? Are you afraid that she will make me run away and go on the stage?”
“I didn’t say anything of the kind. But she can’t be a very rightminded young woman, or she wouldn’t have done so herself. However, I have no objection to your calling on the family. They are very nice people — well connected; and Mr. Brailsford is a clever man. But don’t go making a companion of Madge.”
“I shall not have the opportunity, I am sorry to say. Poor Madge! Nobody has a good word for her.”
Mr. Sutherland muttered a string t>f uncomplimentary epithets; but Mary went out without heeding him. At Kensington Palace Gardens she found Magdalen Brailsford alone.
“They are all out,” said Magdalen when Mary had done kissing her. “They are visiting, or shopping, or doing something else equally intellectual.I am supposed to be in disgrace; so I am never asked to go with them. As I would not go if they begged me on their knees, I bear the punishment with fortitude.”
“But what have you done, Madge? Won’t you tell me? Aunt Jane said that her conscience would not permit her to pour such a story into my young ears; and then, of course, I refused to hear it from anybody but yourself, much to Aunt Jane’s disgust; for she was burning to tell me. Except that you ran away and went on the stage, I know nothing.
“There is nothing else to know; for that is all that happened.”
“But how did it come about?”
“Will you promise not to tell?”
“I promise faithfully.”
“You must keep your promise; for I have accomplices who are not suspected, and who will help me when I repeat the exploit, as I fully intend to do the very instant I see my way to success. Do you know where we lived before we came to this house?”
“No. You have lived here ever since I knew you.”
“We had lodgings in Gower Street. Mary, did you ever ride in an omnibus?”
“No. But I should not be in the least ashamed to do so if I had occasion.”
“How would you like to have to make five pounds worth of clothes last you for two years?”
“I should not like that.”
“Lots of people have to do it. We had, when we lived in Gower Street. Father wrote for the papers; and we never had any money, and were always in debt. But we went to the theatres — with orders, of course — much oftener than we do now; and we either walked home or took our carriage, the omnibus. We were recklessly extravagant, and thought nothing of throwing away a shilling on flowers and paper fans to decorate the rooms. I am sure we spent a fortune on three-penny cretonne, to cover the furniture when its shabbiness became downright indecent. We were very fond of dwelling on the lavish way we would spend money if father ever came into the Brailsford property, which seemed the most unlikely thing in the world. But it happened, as unlikely things often do. All the rest of the family — I mean all of it that concerned us — were drowned in the Solent in a yacht accident; and we found ourselves suddenly very rich, and, as I suppose you have remarked — especially in Myra — very stingy. Poor father, whom we used to revile as a miser in Gower Street, is the only one of us who spends money as if he was above caring about it. But the worst of it is that we have got respectable, and taken to society — at least, society has taken to us; — and we have returned the compliment. I haven’t, though. I can’t stand these Kensington people with their dances and athomes. It’s not what I call living really. In Grower Street we used to know a set that had some brains. We gave ourselves airs even then; hut still on Sunday evenings we used to have plenty of people with us to supper whom you are not likely to meet here. One of them was a man named Tarleton, who made money as a theatrical agent and lost it as a manager alternately.”
“And you fell in love with him, of course,” said Mary.
“Bosh! Fell in love with old Tommy Tarleton! This is not a romance, but a prosaic Gower Street narrative. I never thought about him after we came here until a month ago, when I saw that he was taking a company to Windsor. I always wanted to go on the stage, because nowadays a woman must be either an actress or nothing. So I wrote to him for an engagement, and sent him my photograph.”
“Oh, Madge!”
“Why not? His company was playing opera boufTe; and I knew he wanted good looks as much as talent. You don’t suppose I sent it as a love token. He wrote back that he had no part open that I could take, but that if I wished to accustom myself to the stage and would find my own dresses, he would let me walk on every night in the chorus, and perhaps find me a small part to understudy.”
“Very kind, indeed. And what did you say to his noble offer?”
“I accepted it, and was very glad to get it. It was better than sitting here quarreling with the girls, and going over the same weary argument with father about disgracing the family. I managed it easily enough, after all. There is a woman who keeps a lodging house in Church Street here, who is a sister of the landlady at Gower Street, and knows all about us. She has a second sister whose daughter is a ballet girl, and who is used to theatres. I ran away to Church Street — five minutes’ walk; told Polly what I had done; and made her send for Mrs Wilkins, the other sister, whom I carried off to Windsor as chaperon that evening. But the company turned out to be a thirdrate one; and I wasn’t comfortable with them: they were rather rowdy. However, I did not stay long. I was recognized on the very first night by someone — I don’t know whom — who told Colonel Beatty. He wrote to my father; and I was captured on the third day. You can imagine the scene when the poor old governor walked suddenly into our lodging. He tried to be shocked and stern, and of course only succeeded in being furious. I was stubborn — I can be very mulish when I like; but I was getting tired of walking on in the chorus at night and spending the day with Mrs Wilkins; so I consented to go back with him. He took my purse, which I was foolish enough to leave within his reach whilst I was putting on my bonnet,