This House to Let

She spoke with the deepest emotion, her bosom heaving, her voice broken by the catchings of the breath.

“He was such a good little man, he was always so kind to me,” she went on. “And last night those awful happenings. Branded a cheat, he and his friend, and they could not deny it. They had to slink out. I have hardly closed my eyes during the night, Mr Spencer; my poor cousin is prostrated.” She added with a shudder: “My girlhood was passed amidst a gambling set, but I never had an experience like this.”

She collected herself, and rang for tea. “You will sit down,” she said. “You can understand I should have denied myself to anybody but you, I am so terribly upset. It is still like a nightmare.”

Spencer sat down as he was bidden. “I had a visit from Esmond last night,” he said briefly. “He came straight on from Elsinore Gardens. He told me what had happened, he told me the whole history of the terrible thing, how he has been making his living by cheating at cards, since he was a young man.” Miss Keane raised her hands in mute deprecation. “How awful! That, of course, I did not know. I had a letter from him this morning, apologising, if one can apologise for such a thing, telling me he was going to live abroad under an assumed name. It was a very short letter. His chief concern seemed to be that he had, incidentally, made it unpleasant for Mrs L’Estrange.”

“How does Mrs L’Estrange take it?”

Miss Keane shrugged her shoulders. “She is a little bit hysterical, you know. One moment, she vows she will shut up the flat and go abroad, for fear of the nasty things that people will say. The next moment, she says that, confident in her perfect innocence, she will stay and face the music, and give her parties as usual.”

“Has she asked your advice?” queried Spencer.

“She has, and my advice is to go on as usual. It is not her fault that blacklegs have crept into her circle. They creep into the best houses, the best clubs. So long as this curséd gambling goes on, there will be sharpers.”

“That’s true,” remarked Spencer, remembering a few episodes that had occurred in his time. “And, I suppose, you will still cast in your lot with her?”

The look on the beautiful face grew more pathetic than ever.

“What can I do, Mr Spencer? I have told you my position. I wish my cousin were a different woman altogether, I wish she were not so infatuated with this horrible gambling. But I cannot influence her. She is too old and set to turn over a new leaf.”

Every moment the girl’s fascination took a deeper hold of him. She was so very beautiful, so very seductive. But he still kept himself in check.

“Tell me what actually happened last night. How were Esmond and his partner found out?”

There was a little interruption by the solemn-faced butler who brought in tea. Miss Keane busied herself amongst the cups before she replied.

“It is, as I told you, all a nightmare to me. I was wandering aimlessly about; as I have told you before, I never play, I loathe cards too much. Suddenly there was a scene at the table where Mr Esmond and his partner were playing. Three men were standing watching the game, they had come here often, I knew their names.”

“They were friends of Mrs L’Estrange?” queried Spencer.

Just a faint shade of hesitation crept into the low voice.

“Oh yes, friends of my cousin.”

“Straight sort of chaps, of course.”

“I have no doubt of that. They accused Mr Esmond and his partner, Major Golightly, of cheating. Of course the charge was denied, but very half-heartedly. These three men were backed by others who had seen something suspicious. It seems Mr Esmond and his partner had aroused suspicion before. Finally they confessed, and slunk out of the house.”

She paused a moment, and then laid her hand impulsively on his arm.

“That first night you came to our house, you lost. Did you play at the same table with Tommy Esmond? I forget.”

The answer came straight. “No, I lost something, what was it? – something about a hundred and fifty. But Tommy Esmond did not rook me that time, he was playing at another table. I remember he was very cock-a-hoop, he was winning hand over fist. I say, I know I am putting a very impertinent question, but were Tommy Esmond and his partner, this Major Golightly, the only sharpers who came to this flat? Did I lose my hundred and fifty, or whatever it was, quite honestly?”

Miss Keane covered her face with her hands for a few seconds, and when she took them away, he could see that tears were slowly trickling down her cheeks.

“Heaven knows, Mr Spencer, I don’t. My cousin is a strange woman. She is fond of gaiety, of excitement. She asks people about whom she knows nothing to her flat, I think,” she added with an hysterical laugh; “she fancies she is making herself a queen of Society. If she can get her rooms full that is all she wants. When she does that, she fancies herself the Duchess.”

“I think I understand,” said Spencer gravely. “And I take it you would give heaven and earth to get out of this environment?”

“If you only knew how I loathe it,” she cried, in a fervent tone. “Sometimes I think I would rather run away and be a shopgirl or a waitress, to get rid of this horrible atmosphere.”

Guy Spencer was very perturbed. He rose and walked up and down the room – it was his habit to walk about, even in confined spaces, when he was in an emotional mood.

At length he turned, and faced her squarely. “Look here, Miss Keane. It’s rather nonsense talking about being a waitress or a shopgirl. You told me you had a small income saved from the wreck. How much is it? I am asking in no spirit of impertinent curiosity. I have a reason for asking.”

She hesitated for a moment before she replied: “Something like a hundred a year – paid to me quarterly by my cousin, Mr Dutton, who is my trustee.”

“Then you are not exactly a pauper. Shopgirls and waitresses don’t earn that.”

“But it would help,” said Miss Keane, in a stifled voice. “A hundred a year does not go far; with clothes and everything.”

He longed to take her in his arms there and then and ask her to be his wife, so far was he subjugated by her subtle fascination. But certain things occurred to him. He thought of his old ancestry, his uncle whose heir he would be, even a faint idea of his cousin Nina flashed through his mind. What would his relatives say to a marriage like that, the marriage with a girl, however beautiful, picked up in a flat, owned by a woman of good family but doubtful reputation?

But he could not afford to lose her. He was rich, he could indulge any passing whim. Out of his new-born ideas he spoke.

“Miss Keane, I am very interested in you. Will you agree to look upon me as a friend?”

She looked up at him from under downcast eyes.

“Mr Spencer, somehow I have always looked upon you as a friend, as something different from the ordinary man I meet in a place like this.”

“You want to get out of this atmosphere, away from your card-playing cousin, who cannot keep her parties free from disgraceful scandals.”

“I have told you how fervently I long to say good-bye to it all.”

Spencer had made up his mind as to what he was going to do. It was quixotic, but then he was a quixotic person. And, anyway, he was marking time. He would ask her to marry him in the end, but, at the moment, he did not clearly see his way to do so.

“Suppose a woman friend offered to lend you five hundred pounds, to enable you to get clear of this stifling atmosphere, what would you say? You could go and live where you like and look around.”

“If a woman friend asked me that I think I should say, yes.”

“You have agreed that I am your friend, true, a man friend,” said Guy. “Suppose I made you the same offer, what is your answer?”

“From a man friend I fear my answer must be an unhesitating ‘no,’ even to you.”

He admired her answer. He could gather from it that she respected herself too much to snatch at any offer that came along.

But he would play with her still. “Why?” he asked.

The beautiful eyes, still a little clouded with her tears, met his unfalteringly.

“You know as well as I do,” was her answer. “I am poor, Mr Spencer, but I am very proud.”

He sat down beside her, and took her hand in his.

“I admire you for that answer, Stella. I may call you Stella, may I not? But I am not quite the ordinary type of man. I am going to speak quite plainly to you. If you accept that five hundred pounds, I am not going to ask you for any return. I want you to understand that.”