Charity Girl Read online

  Simon was engaged to join a party of friends at Brighton, and might well have gone there in advance of the rest of the party if he had not recollected that rooms at the Ship had been booked from the Saturday of that week. Only a greenhead would suppose that there was the smallest chance of obtaining any but the shabbiest of lodgings in Brighton, at the height of the season, if he had not booked accommodation there; so he was obliged to resign himself to several days spent in kicking his heels in London, which, in July, more nearly resembled a desert, to any member of the ton, than a fashionable metropolis. Not that London had nothing to offer for the entertainment of out of season visitors: it had several things, and Simon was considering, two days after his call in Arlington Street, whether the evening would be more amusingly spent at the Surrey Theatre, or at the Cockpit Royal, when the retired gentleman's gentleman who owned the house in Bury Street, and ministered to the three gentlemen at present lodging there, entered the room and presented him with a visitingcard, saying succinctly: 'Gentle-man to see you, sir.'

  The card bore, in florid script, an imposing legend: Baron Monte Toscana. Simon took one look at it, and handed it back. 'Never heard of the fellow!' he said. 'Tell him I'm not at home!'

  A mellifluous voice spoke from the doorway. 'I must beg a thousand pardons!' it said. 'Too late did I realize that I had inadvertently presented this good man with the wrong card! Have I the honour of addressing Mr Simon Carrington? But I need not ask! You bear a marked resemblance to your father – who, I do trust, still enjoys good health?'

  Considerably taken aback, Simon said: 'Yes, I'm Simon Carrington, sir, but – but I fear you have the advantage of me!'

  'Naturally!' said his visitor, smiling benignly at him. 'I daresay you never saw me before in your life – in fact, I am quite sure of it, for until this moment you have been but a name to me.' He paused to wave a dismissive hand at the retired gentleman's gentleman, saying graciously: 'Thank you, my good man! That will be all!'

  'The name, sir, is Diddlebury – if you have no objection!' said his good man, in a voice which clearly showed his contempt for Mr Carrington's visitor.

  'None at all, my man! A very good name, in its way!' said the visitor graciously.

  Diddlebury, having looked in vain for a sign from Mr Carrington, reluctantly withdrew from the room.

  'And now,' said the visitor, 'it behoves me to repair the foolish mistake I made, when I gave the wrong card to that fellow!' He drew out a fat card-case as he spoke, and searched in it, while Simon stared at him in amazement.

  He was a middle-aged man, dressed in clothes as florid as his countenance. When the highest kick of fashion was a severity of style which banished from every Tulip's wardrobe all the frilled evening shirts which had been the rage only six months before, not to mention such enormities as flowered waistcoats, brightly coloured coats, or any other jewelry than a ring and a tie-pin, he was wearing a tightly fitting coat of rich purple; a shirt whose starched frill made him look like a pouter pigeon; and a richly embroidered waistcoat. A somewhat ornate quizzing-glass hung round his neck; a number of seals and fobs dangled from his waist; a flashing tie-pin was stuck into the folds of his cravat; and several rings embellished his fingers. He had probably been a handsome man in his youth, for his features were good, but the unmistakable signs of dissipation had impaired his complexion, set pouches beneath his eyes, and rendered the eyes themselves a trifle bloodshot.

  'Ah, here we have it!' he said, selecting a card from his case. However, having taken the precaution of inspecting it through his quizzing-glass, he said: 'No, that's not it! Can it be that I forgot – No! Here it is at last!'

  Fascinated, Simon said: 'Do you – do you carry different cards, sir?'

  'Certainly! I find it convenient to use one card here, and another there, for you must know that I am domiciled abroad, and spend much of my time in travel. But this card,' he said, handing it to Simon with a flourish, 'bears my true name, and will doubtless explain to you why I have sought you out!'

  Simon took the card, and glanced at it with scant interest. But the name inscribed on it made him gasp: 'Wilfred Steane? Then you aren't dead!'

  'No, Mr Carrington, I am not dead,' said Mr Steane, disposing himself in a chair, 'I am very much alive. I may say that I am wholly at a loss to understand why anyone should have supposed me to have shuffled off this mortal coil. In the words of the poet. Shakespeare, I fancy.'

  'Yes, I know that,' said Simon. 'But I'm dashed if I know why you shouldn't understand why you was thought to have stuck your spoon in the wall! What else could anyone think when nothing was heard of you for years?'

  'Was it to be supposed, young man, that if I had done any such thing I should have neglected to inform my only child of the circumstance? Not to mention the Creature in whose charge I left her!' demanded Mr Steane, in throbbing accents of re proach.

  'You couldn't have,' said Simon prosaically.

  'I should have made arrangements,' said Mr Steane vaguely. 'In fact, I had made arrangements. But let that pass! I am not here to bandy idle words with you. I am here to discover where your brother is lying concealed, Mr Carrington!'

  Simon's hackles began to rise. 'I have two brothers, sir, and neither of them is lying concealed!'

  'I refer to your brother Desford. My concern is not with your other brother, of whose existence I was unaware. I must own that until this morning I was unaware of your existence too.' He heaved a deep sigh, and sadly shook his head. 'One grows out of touch! Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume – ! No doubt you can supply the rest of that moving passage.'

  'Well, of course I can! Anyone could!'

  'Labuntur anni,' murmured Mr Steane. 'How true! Alas, how true! Although you, standing as you do on the threshold of life, cannot be expected to appreciate it. How well I remember the heedless, carefree days of my own youth, when – '

  'Forgive me, sir!' said Simon, ruthlessly interrupting this rhetorical digression, 'but you're wandering from the point! I collect that you wish me to tell you where my brother Desford is to be found. If I knew, I'd be happy to tell you, because he'd be devilish glad to see you, but I don't know! What I do know is that he is not lying concealed anywhere! And also,' he added, with rising colour, and stammering a little, 'Th-that there's no reason why he should be! And, what's more, I'll thank you not to make such – such false accusations against him!'

  'All alike, you Carringtons!' said Mr Steane mournfully 'How vividly the past is recalled to my remembrance by your words! Your esteemed father, now – '

  'We'll leave my father out of this discussion!' snapped Simon, by this time thoroughly incensed.

  'Willingly, willingly, my dear boy! It is no pleasure to me to recollect how grievously he misjudged me. How little allowance he made for youth's indiscretions, how little he understood the straits to which a young man could be reduced by the harsh conduct of a parent who was – to put the matter in vulgar terms – a hog-grubber! I will go further: a flea-mint!'

  'Well, you're out there!' retorted Simon. 'I don't know much about what you did in your youth, sir, but I do know that my father gave yours the cut direct when he heard he'd disowned you!'

  'Did he so?' said Mr Steane, much interested. 'Then I have wronged him! I would I might have been present on the occasion! It would have supplied balm to my sorely wounded heart. But how, I ask myself, could I have guessed it? When I disclose to you that to me also he gave the cut direct you will realize that it was impossible for me to have done so.'

  'I daresay, but I shall be obliged to you, sir, if you will cut line, and tell me what your purpose is in coming to visit me! I've already told you that I don't know where Desford is, and I can only advise you to await his return to London! He has a house in Arlington Street, and his servants are – are in hourly expectation of his return to it!'

  'That he resides in Arlington Street I know,' said Mr Steane. 'Upon my arrival from Bath, I instantly made it my business to discover his direction – an easy task, his lordship