Part 18 (2/2)
”If you mean who is the lady singing,” said Carminow with sudden stiffness, ”she is Miss Grey, who has the room above this. She is a young lady about whom I think even you would not make your obscene jokes if you knew her.”
”Sits the wind in that quarter?...” thought Killigrew, highly amused.
”I'll roast him....” Aloud he said: ”And may I not know her, then, Carminow? If Miss Grey is a friend of yours, perhaps--”
”I am vewy particular about whom I intwoduce to Miss Grey,” said Carminow unflatteringly; ”that is to say, I should first have to find out whether she wished it. She is quite alone, poor girl.”
”Dear me! How is that? Is she some romantic governess out of a place or a lady who through no fault of her own has come down in the world?”
”Miss Grey is on the stage.”
Killigrew roared with laughter. ”You hear, Ishmael; here's your chance.
You were saying you didn't know any actresses, and now here's Carminow with one up his sleeve all ready for you. Tell us all about it, old chap!”
”I will, if only to stop your stupid little mind from wunning along its accustomed dirty gwoove,” answered Carminow sententiously. ”Miss Grey is the daughter of a clergyman--”
”They all are.”
”She is an orphan, that is to say, as good as one, for her mother is dead and her father too poor to support her. She works very hard when she can get any work, which I am sowwy to say is not often, and she is as good as she is clever. I should be vewy glad if I could put her in the way of more work when the play she is in is taken off, and I thought you, Killigrew, who know so many people--”
”Artful old bird! So that's what you'd got in your mind, is it? Well I can't do anything till I've seen the lady, can I? Even an angel in a poke--”
The singing had ceased, and in the little silence there came a knock at the sitting-room door. Carminow had called out ”Come in” automatically before a sudden idea sent him to his feet. He was too late; the door had opened and a young lady in grey stood hesitating on the threshold.
CHAPTER IX
HIDDEN SPRINGS
She stood still, dismayed, her hand still on the doork.n.o.b, obviously distressed at the unexpected company in which she found herself.
”Miss Grey ... do please come in ... is there anything I can do ...?”
mumbled Carminow in great agitation, pus.h.i.+ng a chair forward and then pulling it back again indeterminedly.
”I'm so sorry--” began the low full voice, richer in speech than in song. ”I'd no idea--I only wondered whether you could--but it's nothing.”
”Anything,” Carminow a.s.sured her distractedly; ”but please permit me to introduce my friends ... Mr. Killigrew, Mr. Ruan--Miss Grey.”
Everyone bowed, and then Miss Grey said simply: ”It was only that my lamp has gone out; you know there isn't any gas on my floor, and I remembered you had paraffin for your reading lamp.... I'm so afraid of the dark. I know it's very silly....”
”Not at all, very natural, I'm sure. You can have the whole lamp, Miss Grey, but you must let me clean it. It might smell. Yes, please, I insist. You must sit down here in the light while I do it. I'm afraid it's dweadfully smoky. Killigrew, do open the window--”
So he fussed, while Miss Grey, with a murmured thanks, sank into the chair Ishmael shyly offered her and waited very simply, her hands folded on her lap. There was a simplicity, a lack of any self-consciousness, in her whole manner, so Ishmael, used to Phoebe and Va.s.sie--neither of whom was the same in men's company that she was out of it--told himself. This girl seemed divinely unaware even of any strangeness in the position in which she now found herself--the unawareness of an angel.... When Killigrew talked to her she answered frankly and freely, almost with the confidence of a child. She could not be more than twenty, Ishmael decided, and with all her maturity of build had a childish air. The fas.h.i.+ons of the day were not conducive to youthfulness of appearance; but not even the long full skirts trimmed with bands of black velvet or the close-fitting bodice could make her seem other than a schoolgirl, while the hair worn brushed loosely back from the forehead instead of brought down in sleek waves gave her a look that reminded him of someone, though he could not remember whom. Then with a sudden flash he remembered it was Hilaria, little Hilaria Eliot--she too had that look which, being in the middle of the period himself, he did not recognise as alien to its stamp, but which was so conspicuously so that women might have called it dowdy and men individual. But this girl was feminine, that was obvious in the timid shyness even of her trusting att.i.tude.
Oddly enough--or oddly as if seemed to Ishmael, who was wont to be in the background when out with Killigrew--it was to him that she chiefly addressed herself. Killigrew sat watching as from general remarks of great propriety about the weather and Ishmael's opinions of London as a place to visit they pa.s.sed to her views on it as a place in which to live. These were, apparently, not over favourable.
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