Of course Aunt Anne could not refuse, but oh! how Maggie saw that she wanted to! The battle that followed was silent. Uncle Mathew's eyes narrowed themselves to fiery malicious points; he dropped them and moved his feet restlessly on the soft carpet.
"Quite respectable!" he repeated.
Aunt Anne smiled gently. "Why, of course, Mathew. I know you'll look after Maggie. It will be a change for her. She's been having rather a dull time here, I'm afraid."
Then there was silence. Maggie wanted to speak, but the words would not come, and she had the curious sensation that even if she did find them no one would hear them.
Then Uncle Mathew suddenly said good-bye, stumbled over his boots by the door, shot out, "Seven o'clock, Maggie"--and was gone.
"Well, that will be nice for you, Maggie," said Anne, looking at her.
"Yes," said Maggie. "You don't mind, do you?"
"No dear, of course not."
"What do you want me to do?" Maggie broke out desperately. "I know I'm not satisfying you and yet you won't say anything. Do tell me-- and I'll try--anything--almost anything . . ."
Then the sudden memory of her own posted letter silenced her. Was that readiness to do "anything"? Had that not been rebellion? And had she not asked Uncle Mathew to help her to escape? The consciousness of her dishonesty coloured her cheek with crimson. Then Aunt Anne, very tenderly, put her hand on her shoulder.
"Will you really do anything--for me, Maggie--for me?" Her voice was gentle and her eyes had tears in them. "If you will--there are things very close to my heart--"
Maggie turned away, trembling. She hung her head, then with a sudden movement walked to the door.
"You must tell me," she said, "what you want. I'll try--I don't understand."
Then as though she was aware that she was fighting the whole room which had already almost entrapped her and that the fight was too much for her, she went.
When she came to her own room and thought about her invitation she wished, with a sudden change of mood, that she had a pretty frock or two. She would have loved to have been grand to-night, and now the best that she could do was to add her coral necklace and a little gold brooch that years ago her father had given her, to the black dress that she was already wearing. She realised, with a strange little pang of loneliness, that she had not had one evening's fun since her arrival in London--no, not one--and she would not have captured to-night had Aunt Anne been able to prevent it.
Then as her mind returned back to her uncle she felt with a throb of excited anticipation that perhaps after all this evening was to prove the turning-point of her life. Her little escape into the streets, her posting of the letter, had been followed so immediately by Uncle Mathew's visit, and now this invitation!
"No one can keep me if I want to go," and the old cuckoo-clock outside seemed to tick in reply:
"Can no one keep her if she wants to go?"
She finished her preparations; as she fastened the coral necklace round her neck the face of Martin Warlock was suddenly before her. He had been perhaps at her elbow all day.
"I like him and I think he likes me," she said to the mirror. "I've got one friend," and her thought still further was that even if he didn't like her he couldn't prevent her liking him.
She went down to the drawing-room and found Uncle Mathew, alone, waiting for her.
"Here I am, Maggie," he said. "And let's get out of this as quick as we can."
"I must go and say good-night to the aunts," she said.
She went upstairs to Aunt Anne's bedroom. Entering it was always to her like passing into a shadowed church after the hot sunshine--the long, thin room with high slender windows, the long hard bed, of the most perfect whiteness and neatness, the heavy black-framed picture of "The Ascension" over the bed, and the utter stillness broken by no sound of clock or bell--even the fire seemed frozen into a glassy purity in the grate.
Her aunt was sitting, as so often Maggie found her, in a stiff- backed chair, her hands folded on her lap, staring in front of her. Her eyes were like the open eyes of a dead woman; it was as though, with a great effort of almost desperate concentration, she were driving her vision against some obstinate world of opposition, and the whole of life had meanwhile stayed to watch the issue.
A thin pale light from some street lamp lay, a faintly golden shadow, across the white ceiling.
Maggie stood by the door.
"I've come to say good-night, aunt."
"Ah, Maggie dear, is that you?" The pale oval face turned towards her.
"You won't be very late, will you?"
"Hadn't I better have a key, not to bother Martha?"
"Oh, Martha won't have gone to bed."
Maggie felt as though her whole evening would be spoilt did she know that Martha was waiting for her at the end of it.
"Oh, but it will be such a pity--"
"Martha will let you in, dear. Come and kiss me; I hope that you'll enjoy yourself."
And then the strangest thing happened. Maggie bent down. She felt a tear upon her cheek and then the thin strong arms held her, for an instant, in an almost threatening embrace.
"Good-night, dear aunt," she said; but, outside the room, she had to stand for a moment in the dark passage to regain her control; her heart was beating with wild unreasoning terror. Although she had brushed her cheek with her hand the cold touch of the tears still lingered there.
Outside the house they were free. It looked so close and dark behind them that Maggie shivered a little and put her arm through her uncle's.
"That's all right," he said, patting her hand. "We're going to enjoy ourselves."
She looked up and saw Martin Warlock facing her. The unexpected meeting held both of them silent for a moment. To her it seemed that he had risen out of the very stones of the pavement, at her bidding, to make her evening wonderful. He looked so strong, so square, so solid after the phantom imaginations of the house that she had left, that the sight of him was a step straight into the heart of comfort and reassurance.
"I was just coming," he said, looking at her, "to leave a note for Miss Cardinal--from my father--"
"She's in," Maggie said.
"Oh, it wasn't to bother her--only to leave the note. About some meeting, I think."
"We're just going out. This is my uncle--Mr. Warlock."
The two men shook hands.
Mathew Cardinal smiled. His eyes closed, his greeting had an urgency in it as though he had suddenly made some discovery that gratified and amused him. "Very glad to meet you--very glad, indeed, sir. Any friend of my niece's. I know your father, sir; know him and admire him."
They all turned down the street together. Uncle Mathew talked, and then, quite suddenly, stopping under a lamp-post as though within the circle of light his charm were stronger, he said:
"I suppose, Mr. Warlock, you wouldn't do me the great, the extreme, honour of dining with myself and my niece at my humble little inn to-night? A little sudden--I hope you'll forgive the discourtesy-- but knowing your father--"
Martin looked straight into Maggie's eyes.
"Oh, please do!" she said, her heart beating, as it seemed, against her eyes so that she dropped them.
"Well--" he hesitated. "It's very good of you, Mr. Cardinal--very kind. As a matter of fact I was going to dine alone to-night--just a chop, you know, somewhere--if it's really not inconvenient I'll be delighted--"
They walked on together.
As they passed into Garrick Street, she knew that she had never in all her life been so glad to be with any one, that she had never so completely trusted any one, that she would like to be with him often, to look after him, perhaps, and to be looked after by him.
Her feeling for him was almost sexless, because she had never thought, as most girls do, of love and the intrigue and coquetry of love. She was so simple as to be shameless, and at once, if he had asked her then in the street to marry him she would have said yes without hesitation or fear, or any analysis. She would like to look after him as well as herself--there were things she was sure that she could do for him--and she would be no burden to him because she intended, in any case, to lead her own life. She would simply lead it with a companion instead of without one.
He must have felt as he walked with her this trust and simplicity. She was certainly the most extraordinary girl whom he had ever met, and he'd met a number . . .
He could believe every word she said; he had never known any one so direct and simple and honest, and yet with that she was not a fool, as most honest girls were. No, she was not a fool. He would have given anything to be as sure of himself . . .
She was plain--but then was she? As they passed beneath the light of a street lamp his heart gave a sudden beat. Her face was so GOOD, her eyes so true, her mouth so strong. She was like a boy, rather-- and, of course, she was dressed badly. But he wanted to look after her. He was sure that she knew so little of the world and would be so easily deceived . . .But who was he to look after any one?
He knew that she would trust him utterly, and trust him not only because she was ignorant of the world, but also because she was herself so true. At the thought of this trust his heart suddenly warmed, partly with shame and partly with pride.
They walked very happily along laughing and talking. They turned into Henrietta Street, misty with lamps that were dim in a thin evening fog, and at the corner of the street, facing the Square, was Uncle Mathew's hotel. It was a place for the use, in the main, of commercial gentlemen, and it was said by eager searchers after local colour, to have retained a great deal of the Dickens spirit. In the hall there was a stout gentleman with a red nose, a soiled waiter, a desolate palm and a large-bosomed lady all rings and black silk, in a kind of wooden cage. Down the stairs came a dim vapour that smelt of beef, whisky and tobacco, and in the distance was the regular click of billiard-balls and the brazen muffled tones of a gramophone. Uncle Mathew seemed perfectly at home here, and it was strange to Maggie that he should be so nervous with Aunt Anne, his own sister, when he could be so happily familiar with the powdered lady in the black silk.
"We're to have dinner in a private room upstairs," said Uncle Mathew in a voice that was casual and at the same time important. He led the way up the stairs.
Maggie had read in some old bound volume at home a very gruesome account of the "Life and Misdeeds of Mr. Palmer, the Rugeley Poisoner." The impression that still remained with her was of a man standing in the shadowy hall of just such an hotel as this, and pouring poison into a glass which he held up against the light. This picture had been vividly with her during her childhood, and she felt that this must have been the very hotel where those fearful deeds occurred, and that the ghost of Mr. Palmer's friend must, at this very moment, be writhing in an upstairs bedroom--"writhing," as she so fearfully remembered, bent "like a hoop."
However, these reminiscences did not in the least terrify her; she welcomed their definite outlines in contrast with the shadowy possibilities of her aunts' house. And she had Martin Warlock . . . She had never been so happy in all her life.
A dismal little waiter with a very soiled shirt and a black tie under his ear, guided them down into a dark passage and flung open the door of a sitting-room. This room was dark and sizzling with strange noises; a gas-jet burning low was hissing, some papers rustled in the breeze from the half-opened window, and a fire, overburdened with the weight of black coal, made frantic little spurts of resistance.
A white cloth was laid on the table, and there were glasses and knives and forks. A highly-coloured portrait of her late Majesty Queen Victoria confronted a long-legged horse desperately winning a race in which he had apparently no competitors. There was a wall- paper of imitation marble and a broken-down book-case with some torn paper editions languishing upon it. Beyond the open window there was a purple haze and a yellow mist--also a bell rang and carts rattled over the cobbles. The waiter shut out these sights and sounds, gave the tablecloth a stroke with his dirty hand, and left the room.
They continued their cheerful conversation, Martin laughing at nothing at all, and Maggie smiling, and Uncle Mathew stroking his mouth and sharpening his eyes and standing, in his uneasy fashion, first on one leg and then on the other. Maggie realised that her uncle was trying to be most especially pleasant to young Warlock. She wondered why; she also remembered what he had said to her about Martin's father . . . No, he had changed. She could not follow his motives as she had once been able to do. Then he had simply been a foolish, drunken, but kindly-intentioned old man.
Then Mr. Warlock on his side seemed to like her uncle. That was an extraordinary thing. Or was he only being friendly because he was happy? No, she remembered his face as he had joined them that evening. He had not been happy then. She liked him the more because she knew that he needed help . . . The meal, produced at last by the poor little waiter, was very merry. The food was not wonderful--the thick pea-soup was cold, the sole bones and skin, the roast beef tepid and the apple-tart heavy. The men drank whiskies and sodas, and Maggie noticed that her uncle drank very little. And then (with apologies to Maggie) they smoked cigars, and she sat before the dismal fire in an old armchair with a hole in it.
Martin Warlock talked in a most delightful way about his travels, and Uncle Mathew asked him questions that were not, after all, so stupid. What had happened to him? Had Maggie always undervalued him, or was it that he was sober now and clear-headed? His fat round thighs seemed stronger, his hands seemed cleaner, the veins in his face were not so purple. She remembered the night when he had come into her room. She had been able to manage him then. Would she be able to manage him now?
After dinner he grew very restless. His eyes wandered to the door, then to his watch, then to his companions; he smiled uneasily, pulling his moustache; then--jumping to his feet, tried to speak with an easy self-confidence.
