Chapter Thirty Two.
Man’s Broken Promises
“I know very little of the details,” replied the girl. “Max could, of course, tell you everything. He introduced me one night to Mr Adam, who seemed a very polite man.”
“All bows and smiles, like the average Frenchman – eh? Oh, yes. I happen to know him. Well?”
“He seems a most intimate friend of Max’s.”
“Is he really?” remarked the millionaire. “Then Max doesn’t know as much about him as I do.”
“What?” asked Marion in quick alarm. “Isn’t he all that he pretends to be?”
“No, he isn’t. I must see Barclay to-morrow – the first thing to-morrow. I wonder if he’s put any money into the venture?”
“Of that I don’t know. He only told me that it would mean a big fortune.”
“So it would – if it were genuine.”
“Then isn’t it genuine?” she asked anxiously.
“Genuine! Why, of course not! Nothing that Jean Adam has anything to do with, my dear young lady, is ever genuine. Depend upon it that his Majesty the Sultan will never grant any such concession. He fears Bulgaria far too much. If it could have been had, I may tell you at once I should already have had it. There is, as you say, a big thing to be made out of it – a very big thing. But while the Sultan lives the line will never be constructed. Pachitch, the Prime Minister of Servia, told me so the last time I was in Belgrade, and I’m entirely of his opinion.”
“But what you tell me regarding Mr Adam surprises me.”
“Ah! you are still young, Miss Rolfe! You have many surprises yet in store for you,” he replied with a light laugh. “Do you know Adam personally?”
“Yes.”
“Then beware of him, my girl – beware of him!” he snapped, his grey face darkening in remembrance of certain ugly facts, and in recollection of the sinister face of the shabby lounger against the park railings.
“Is he such a bad man, then?”
Sam Statham pressed his thin lips together.
“He is one of those men without conscience, and without compunction; a man whose plausible tongue would deceive even Satan himself.”
“Then he has deceived Max – I mean Mr Barclay,” she exclaimed, quickly correcting her slip of the tongue, her cheeks slightly crimsoning at the same time.
“Without doubt,” was the millionaire’s reply. “I must see Barclay to-morrow, and ascertain what are Adam’s plans.”
“He is persuading Mr Barclay to go to Constantinople. I know that because he asked me to use my influence upon him in that direction.”
“Oh, so he has approached you, also, has he? Then there is some strong motive for this journey, without a doubt! Barclay will be ill-advised if he accepts the invitation. The bait held out is a very tempting one; but when I’ve seen your gentleman friend he will not be so credulous.”
“I’m very surprised at what you told me. I thought Mr Adam quite a nice person – for a foreigner.”
“No doubt he was nice to you, for he wished to enlist your services to induce your lover to go out to Turkey. For what reason?”
“How can I tell?” asked the girl. “Mr Barclay mentioned that the railway concession would mean the commercial development of the Balkan States, and that it would be one of the most paying enterprises in Europe.”
“That is admitted on all hands. But as the concession is not granted, and never will be granted, I cannot see what object Adam has in inducing your friend to visit Constantinople. Was he asked to put money into the scheme, do you know?”
“Mr Adam did not wish him to put up any money until he had thoroughly satisfied himself regarding the truth of his statements.”
Statham was silent.
“That’s distinctly curious,” he remarked at last, apparently much puzzled by her statement. “Underlying it all is some sinister motive, depend upon it.”
“You alarm me, Mr Statham,” the girl said, apprehensive of some unexpected evil befalling the man she loved.
“It is as well to be forearmed in dealing with Jean Adam,” was the old man’s response. “More than one good man owes the ruin of his life’s happiness, nay his death, to the craft and cunning of that man, who, under a dozen different aliases, is known in a dozen different capitals of the world.”
“Then he’s an adventurer?”
“Most certainly. Tell Barclay to come and see me. Or better, I will write to him myself. It is well that you’ve told me this, otherwise – ” and he broke off short, without concluding his sentence.
The pretty clock chimed the half-hour musically, reminding Marion of the unusual hour, and she stirred as if anxious to leave. Her handkerchief dropped upon the floor. The old man noticed it, but did not direct her attention to it.
“Then if you wish it, Mr Statham, I will say nothing to Mr Barclay,” she remarked.
“No. You need say nothing. I will send him a message in the morning. But,” he added, looking straight into the girl’s beautiful face, “will you not reconsider your decision, Miss Rolfe?”
“My decision! Of what?” she asked.
“Regarding the statement made to you by Maud Petrovitch. She told you something. What was it? Come, tell me. Some very great financial interests are involved in the ex-Minister’s disappearance. Your information may save me from very heavy losses. Will you not assist me?”
“I regret that it is impossible.”
“Have I not even to-night been your friend?” he pointed out. “Have I not warned you against the man who is Max Barclay’s secret enemy – and yours – the man Jean Adam?”
“I am very grateful indeed to you,” she answered; “and if it were in my power, I would tell you what she told me.”
“In your power!” he laughed. “Why, of course, it is in your power to speak, if you wish?”
“Maud made a confession to me,” she declared, “and I hold it sacred.”
“A confession!” he exclaimed, regarding her in surprise. “Regarding her father, I suppose?”
“No; regarding herself.”
“Ah! A confession of a woman’s weakness – eh?”
“Its nature is immaterial,” she responded in a firm tone. “I was her most intimate friend, and she confided in me.”
“And because it concerns her personally, you refuse to divulge it?”
“I am a woman, Mr Statham, and I will not betray anything that reflects upon another woman’s honour.”
“Women are not usually so loyal to each other!” he remarked, not without a touch of sarcasm. “You appear to be unlike all the others I have known.”
“I am no better than anybody else, I suppose,” she replied. “Every woman must surely possess a sense of what is right and just.”
“Very few of them do,” the old man snarled, for woman was a subject upon which he always became bitterly sarcastic. In his younger days he had been essentially a ladies’ man, but the closed page in his history had surely been sufficient to sour him against the other sex.
The world, had it but known the truth, would not have pondered at Sam Statham’s hatred of society, and more especially the feminine element of it. But, like many another man, he was misjudged because he was compelled to conceal the truth, and was condemned unjustly because it was not permitted to him to make self-defence.
How many men – and women, too – live their lives in social ostracism, and perhaps disgrace, because for family or other reasons they are unable to exhibit to the world the truth. Many a man, and many a woman, who read these lines, are as grossly misjudged by their fellows as was Samuel Statham, the millionaire who was a pauper, the man who lived that sad and lonely life in his Park Lane mansion, daily gathering gold until he became crushed beneath the weight of its awful responsibility, his sole aim and relaxation being the mixing with the submerged workers of the city, and relieving them by secret philanthropy.
The sinner assumes the cloak of piety, while too often the denounced and maligned suffer in silence. It was so in Samuel Statham’s case; it is so in more than one case which has come under my own personal observation during the inquiries I made before writing this present narrative of east and west.
The old millionaire was surprised at the girl’s admission that what the Doctor’s daughter had told her was a confession. He realised how, in face of the fact that her brother loved Maud Petrovitch, it was not likely that she would betray her. Still, his curiosity was excited. The girl before him knew the truth of the ex-Minister’s strange disappearance – knew, most probably, his whereabouts.
“Was the confession made to you by the Doctor’s daughter of such a private nature that you really cannot divulge it to me?” he asked her, appealingly. “Remember, I am not seeking to probe the secrets of a young girl’s life, Miss Rolfe. On the contrary, I am anxious – most anxious – to clear up what is at present a most mysterious and unaccountable occurrence. Doctor Petrovitch disappeared from London just at a moment when his presence here was, in his own interests, as well as in mine, most required. I need not go into the details,” he went on, fixing her with his sunken eyes. “It is sufficient to explain to you that he and I had certain secret negotiations. He came here on many occasions, always in secret – at about this hour. He preferred to visit me in that manner, because of the spies who always haunted him and who reported all his doings to Belgrade.”
“I was not aware that you were on friendly terms,” Marion remarked. “Maud never told me that her father visited you.”
“Because she was in ignorance,” Statham replied. “The Doctor was a diplomatist, remember, and could keep a secret, even from his own daughter. From what I’ve told you, you can surely gather how extremely anxious I am to know the truth.”
Marion was silent. She realised to the full that financial interests of the millionaire were at stake – that her statement might save huge losses if she betrayed Maud, and told this man the truth. He was her friend and benefactor. To him both she and Charlie owed everything. Without him they would be compelled to face the world, she friendless and practically penniless. The penalty of her silence he had already indicated. By refraining from assisting her, he could to-morrow cast her out of her employment, discredited and disgraced!
What would Max think? What would he believe?
If she remained silent she would preserve Maud’s honour and Charlie’s peace of mind. He was devoted to the sweet-faced, half-foreign girl with the stray little wisp of hair across her brow. Yet if he knew what she had told him he would hate her – he must hate her. Ah! the mere thought of it drove her to a frenzy of despair.
She set her teeth, and, with her face pale as death, she rose slowly to go. Her brows were knit, her countenance determined.
Come what might, she would be loyal to her friend. Charlie should never know the truth. Rather than that she would sacrifice herself – sacrifice her love for Max Barclay, which was to her the sweetest and most treasured sentiment in all the world.
“I have asked you to assist me, Miss Rolfe,” the old man said, in a low, impressive voice, leaning his arm upon the edge of his writing-table and bending towards her. “Surely when you know all that it means to me, you will not refuse?”
“I refuse to betray my friend,” was her firm response, her face white to the lips. “You may act as you think proper, Mr Statham. You may allow my friends to think ill of me; you may stand aside and see me cast to-morrow at a moment’s notice out of Cunnington’s employ because of my absence to-night, but my lips are closed regarding the confession made to me in confidence. In anything else I am ready to serve you. You have asked me to go upon a journey in your interests – in a motor car that is awaiting me. This I am willing and anxious to do. You are my benefactor, and it is my duty to do what you wish.”
“It is your duty, Miss Rolfe, to tell me what I desire to know.”
“No!” she cried, facing him boldly, her bright eyes flashing defiantly upon him. “It is not my duty to betray my friend – even to you!”
“Very well,” he answered, with a smile upon his thin lips. “It is getting late. They may be wondering at Cunnington’s. I will see you to the door.”
And the expression upon his face showed her, alas! too plainly that for her there was no future.
The present was already dead, the future – ?
Chapter Thirty Three.
Against the Rules
“Miss Rolfe, Mr Cunnington wants you in the counting-house,” exclaimed a youth approaching Marion just after ten o’clock the following morning. She had been in the department early, and was busy re-arranging an autumn costume upon a stand, with a ticket bearing the words, “Paris model, 49 shillings, 11 pence.”
The dread words that broke upon her ear caused her young heart to sink within her. As she feared, she was “carpeted.”
To be absent at night without leave was the “sack” at a moment’s notice to any of Cunnington’s girls. There was no leniency in that respect as in certain other large stores in London which I could name, where the girls are so very badly paid that it is a scandal and disgrace to the smug, church-going shareholders who grow fat upon their dividends. But who among those who bold shares in the big drapery concerns of London, or who among the millions of customers on the look-out for bargains at sales, care a jot for the poor girl-assistant, the drudgery she has to undergo, or the evils she suffers by the iniquitous system of “living-in?”
It is a dull, drab life indeed, the life of the London shop, with its fortnight’s holiday each year and its constant strain of the telling of untruths in order to sell goods. But the supply of shop labour is always greater than the demand. Girls and youths are always coming up from the country in constant streams, “cribbing,” as it is called – or on the lookout for a berth – and as soon as a girl loses her freshness, or a man’s hair begins to show silver threads, he is thrown out in favour of a youth – from Scotland or Wales by preference.
London, alas! little dreams of the callous heartlessness of employers in the drapery trade.
Marion knew this. Since she had been at Cunnington’s her eyes had been opened to the scant consideration she need expect. Girls who had worked in her department had been discharged merely because, suffering from a cold or from the stress of overwork, they had been absent a couple of days. And all the information vouchsafed them was that the firm could not afford to support invalids. Once, indeed, she had sat beside a dying girl in the Brompton Hospital – a girl to whom the close, vitiated atmosphere of the shop had brought consumption, and she had been sent forth, at a moment’s notice, homeless, and to die.
And so, when the youth made the announcement, she knit her brows, brushed the hair from her brow, placed down the pincushion in her hand, and followed him through the several shops into another building where Mr Cunnington’s private room was situated.
In the outer office of the counting-house several persons, buyers, callers, and others, were waiting audience with the chief.
One girl, a saucy, dark-haired assistant in the ribbons, exclaimed:
“Hullo, Rolfe! What are you up for?”
Marion flushed slightly, and answered:
“I – I hardly know.”
“Well, I’m going in for a rise, and if the guv’nor don’t give it to me I’m going to Westoby’s to-morrow. I’ve got a good crib there. My young man is shop-walker, so I’ll get on like a house on fire.”
“Westoby’s is a lot better than here,” remarked a pale-faced male assistant. “I was there for a sale once. I only wish they’d have kept me.”
“I’ve heard that the food is wretched,” remarked Marion, for the sake of something to say.
“It isn’t good,” declared the young man, “but the girls get lots more freedom. They do as they like almost. Old Westoby don’t care, as long as the business pays. It’s a public company, like this, but they do a bit lower-class trade, which means more ‘spiffs.’”
“I haven’t made a quid this last three months out of ‘spiffs’,” declared the ribbon-girl. “That’s why I want a rise.”
Marion smiled within herself, for beyond the glass partition were quite a dozen girls, all of them young, several quite good-looking, waiting to see if any berths were vacant, and ready that very hour to take the ribbon-girl’s place – and hers.
Every girl who came up to London went first to Cunnington’s, for the assistants there were declared to be of better class than those of the other drapery houses that jostle each other on the north side of Oxford Street.
Marion waited, full of deep anxiety. Every detail of that midnight interview with the man who held controlling interest in the huge concern came back to her – his clever attempt to ingratiate himself with her in order to learn Maud’s secret, and her curt dismissal when she had met his request with point-blank refusal.
One by one the applicants for a hearing were received by Mr Cunnington, again emerging from his room, some dark and angry, and others smiling and happy. At last her turn came, and she walked into the small office with the severe-looking writing-table and the dark blue carpet.
The dark-bearded man, by whose enterprise that big business had been built up, turned in his chair and faced her.
“Miss Rolfe!” he exclaimed. “Ah! yes,” and he referred to a memorandum upon his desk. “You were absent without leave last night, the housekeeper reports. You are aware of rule seventy-three – eh?”
“Most certainly, sir,” was the trembling girl’s reply, for this meant to her all her future, and more. It meant Max’s love. “But I think I ought to explain that – ”
“I have no time, miss, for explanations. You know the rule. When you were engaged here you signed it, and therefore I suppose you’ve read it. It states as follows: ‘Any assistant absent after eleven o’clock without previously obtaining signed leave from Mr Hemmingway or myself will be discharged on the following day.’ The firm have, therefore, dispensed with your services. As regards character, Miss Rolfe, please understand that the firm is silent.”
“But, Mr Cunnington,” cried the girl, “I was absent at the express request of Mr Statham. He wished to see me.” The head of the firm frowned slightly, answering:
“I have no desire to enter into the reasons of your absence. You could easily have asked for leave. If Mr Statham had wished to see you, he would have sent me a note, no doubt. It was at his request I engaged you, I recollect. Therefore, I think that the least said regarding last night the better.”
“But Mr Statham promised me he would send you a message this morning,” the girl declared in her distress.
“Parker, has Mr Statham been on the ’phone this morning?” asked Mr Cunnington of the young man seated near him.
“No, sir,” was the prompt reply.
“But will you not ask him?” cried the girl. “He promised me he would communicate with you.”
Mr Cunnington hesitated for a moment. He reflected that the girl was a protégée of the millionaire. Therefore he gave Parker orders to ring up the man whose millions controlled the concern.
Marion waited in breathless anxiousness. The secretary asked for Mr Statham, and spoke to him, inquiring if he knew anything of Miss Rolfe’s absence from the firm’s dormitory on the previous night. “Mr Statham says, sir,” said Parker at last, “that he is too busy to be troubled with the affaire of any of Cunnington’s shop-assistants.”
The reply filled Mr Cunnington with suspicion. It showed him plainly that Statham had at least no further interest in the girl, and that her discharge would be gratifying.
“You hear the reply,” he said to her. “That is enough.” And he scribbled something upon a piece of paper. “Take it to the cashier, and he will pay your wages up to date.”
“Then I am discharged!” asked the girl, crimsoning – “sent out from your establishment without a character?”
“By reason of your own action,” was the rough reply. “You know the rules. Please leave. I am far too busy to argue.”
“But Mr Statham wrote asking me to call and see him. I have his letter here.”
“I have no desire or inclination to enter into Mr Statham’s affairs,” Cunnington replied. “You are discharged for being absent at night without leave. Will you go, Miss Rolfe?” he asked angrily.
“Mr Cunnington,” she said, quite quietly, “you misjudge me entirely. Mr Statham asked me to call upon him in secret, because he desired me to give him some private information. He promised at the same time to send you word, so that my absence should not be mentioned. You are a man of honour, with daughters of your own,” she went on appealingly. “Because I refused to betray a friend of mine, a woman, he has refused to stretch forth a hand to save me from the disgrace of this discharge,” and tears welled in her fine eyes as she spoke.
“It is a matter that does not concern me in the least, Miss Rolfe, Mr Statham put you here, and if he wishes for your discharge I have nothing to say in the matter. Good morning.”
And he turned from her and busied himself with the heap of papers on his desk.
She did not move. She stood as one turned to stone. Therefore he touched the electric button beneath the arm of his chair, and a clerk appeared.
“Send in Mortimer,” he said coldly, disregarding the girl’s presence. Then Marion, seeing that all appeal was in vain, turned upon her heel and went out – broken and bitter – a changed woman.
Mr Cunnington turned and watched her disappearing. Suddenly, as though half uncertain whether his action might not be criticised by Statham, he exclaimed:
“Call that young lady back!”
Marion returned, her face full of anger and dignity.
“Do I really understand you that Mr Statham invited you to his house?” he asked her. “I mean that you received letters from him?”
“Yes.”
The dark-bearded man, alert and businesslike, eyed her critically, and asked:
“You have those letters, I presume.”
“Certainly. I have them here,” was her reply, as she fumbled in the pocket of her black skirt. “I refused to call upon him, but he pressed me so much that I felt it imperative. He has been so very good to me that I feared to displease him.”
And she placed several letters upon Mr Cunnington’s desk.
“I see they are marked ‘private,’” he said, with a good deal of curiosity. “Have I your permission to glance at them?”
“Certainly,” was the cool reply. “You refuse to hear me, therefore I am compelled to give you proof.”
The man opened them one after the other, scanned them, and placed them aside. Statham’s refusal to answer the query upon the telephone was for him all-sufficient.
“You had better leave these letters with me, Miss Rolfe,” he said decisively, for he saw that at all hazards he must obtain that correspondence and hand it back to the writer.
“But – ”
“There are no buts,” he exclaimed, quickly interrupting her. “Had Mr Statham desired you to remain in our service he would have replied to that effect. Come, you are wasting my time. Good morning.”
And a moment later, almost before she was aware of it, Marion found herself outside the room, with the door closed behind her.
She was no longer in the service of Cunnington’s. She had been discharged in disgrace.
What would Charlie say? What explanation could she offer to Max?