Part 11 (1/2)

In the second year of her widowhood in the month of November, whilst her hair was still golden and her colouring unpurchased, she had dined _a deux_ in one of those delectable, ghost-ridden, low-ceilinged sets of chambers which are tucked away in a certain Inn within the Fleet Street boundary.

Which is a silly thing to do if you do not own a car and a long-suffering discreet chauffeur.

The _diner a deux_ and a bit of a play had been the honest programme; but the inevitable had happened in an all-enveloping blanket of a fog, on account of which everything in the shape of a hackney carriage had gone home, and an excursion on foot to the nearest tube rendered hopeless by the simple fact that you could not see your hand before your face.

Which would not have mattered a bit if only, as the fog lifted and the clock of St Dunstan's chimed the hour of three a.m., she had emerged from the narrow opening into Fleet Street with the aplomb or _savoir-faire_, which are almost twins, necessary to the occasion.

She would then have beckoned to and smiled sweetly upon the young ruffian into whom she b.u.mped as he lounged on his way to Covent Garden Market, and promised him just enough to bring her a taxi or something on wheels, into which she would have got if it had materialised, and been whirled away to safety and bed after adieux to her host uttered with the nonchalance necessary to allay the young ruffian's suspicions.

Instead of this she had slunk from the opening with her host close behind, had b.u.mped into the young ruffian and with an exclamation of dismay had shrunk back into the shadows and her host's arms.

In consequence of which action the bare-footed ruffian had shadowed them until they had met a four-wheeler, had held the lady's dress from the wheel and overheard the address given to the driver for which he had received tuppence, and had disappeared into a doorway where he had spat on his unearned increment and made his plans.

The upshot of it all being the admittance a fortnight later of young Wal. Hickle, attired in his best and primed with her family history, into the presence of the terrified woman.

He had simply asked for twenty pounds on the nail in return for his silence.

And she, scared out of her wits, instead of threatening him with the law, had given him a cheque--yes! a cheque--and he, with a flash of that cunning which was to lead him eventually to a seat amongst the plutocrats, had pocketed it and grinned.

”I doan' wan' mor' 'en twenty uv the best, lidy, jus' to mike a start--an' I doan' wanter part wiv yer 'and-writin' niver. So jes' yer send two rustlers, wot means notes, of ten pun each, rigistered, to W.

'ickle spelt wiv a haitch, 2 H'apple Blossom Row, Coving Gardin, afore this toime ter-morrer. An' jes yer remember that h'as long as yer lives I've got yer bit of 'andwritin.' I ain't goin' ter use it, but some dye it might come in 'andy. 'Ardly loikly as 'ow yer'd buy twenty pun wurf of veg from Wal 'ickle eh, lidy?--it 'ud want _some_ h'explanation.”

Then this soul made in the image and likeness of his G.o.d and found good, but hidden under the civilising process of the twentieth century which had given him the morals of a jackal and the status of a pariah dog, sighed as he looked round the dainty room.

”S'welp me,” he said, as he touched a satin cus.h.i.+on with his coa.r.s.e, broken-nailed finger-tips, ”h'if oi h'understand wye a woman the loikes uv _you_, wiv h'everyfink she wants, cawn't run _strite_!”

”Oh! but,” whimpered the woman, ”it was all the fault of the fog, _really_ it was!”

”Garn!” replied the young ruffian as he opened the door and slammed it behind him.

CHAPTER XIV

”Surely I am more brutish than any man!”--_The Bible_.

And just about midsummer Fate tweaked the string to which was hobbled Susan Hetth.

A vulgar but resplendent bachelor middle-aged millionaire, sterling, not dollars, in order to set his gastronomic house in order, had taken a notion for the simple life for just as long as the notion should last, and a perfect bijou of a thatched cottage t'other side of Clovelly for a year.

With a notion of buying the cottage at Lee in which had dwelt the three historic maids, he had swept one day through the village in the latest thing in cars.

Baulked in his intent, and with time upon his podgy hands, he had rolled, minus the car, along the village path over the strippet of water and the sunbaked gra.s.s to the harbour.

There he had bent, with ardour and misgivings, to pick up Leonie's towel, just as the soft wind caught her bathing cloak as she stretched out her hand with a smile of thanks.

She had grabbed at the cloak and missed it by a bit, so that it had swept behind her, hanging from one shoulder like some Grecian drapery, and the rotund little man had trotted round her draped side, picked up the cloak by the big b.u.t.ton, and completed his trot, covering her up as he moved.

And as he trotted his little porcine eyes had glistened as they lingered upon the perfect figure, from the slim ankles to the confused face, and Leonie had blushed, though you could not have discerned it through the tan, pulled the cloak tighter and hurried across the road to the cottage gate.