The Pauper of Park Lane

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?

Chapter Thirty Four.

The Mysterious Mademoiselle

The future, nay, the very life, of Samuel Statham depended, according to his own admission to his secretary, upon the honour of Maud Petrovitch.

The position was, to say the least, strangely incongruous. Here was a man whose power and wealth were world-famous, a man whom kings and princes sought to conciliate and load with honours, which he steadfastly refused to accept, dependent for his life upon a woman, little more than a child.

Charlie Rolfe had thought over his master’s strange, enigmatical words many times. Maud – his Maud whom he loved so dearly, and who had so suddenly and mysteriously gone out of his life – was to be sacrificed. Why? What did old Sam mean when he uttered those words, each of which had burnt indelibly into his soul.

“You have promised to save me; you have sworn to assist me, and the sacrifice is imperative?” Statham had said. “It is her honour – or my death!”

Each time he entered the grim portals of the silent house in Park Lane those fateful words recurred to him. The house of mystery seemed dark and chilly, even on those sunny days of early September, and old Levi seemed more sphinx-like and solemn. A dozen times had he been on the point of referring again to the matter, but each time he had refrained, for the millionaire’s manner had now changed. He was less anxious, and far more bright and hopeful. The discovery of Duncan Macgregor seemed to have wrought a great change in him, for the old Scot frequently spent the evening there, being telegraphed for from Glasgow, ostensibly to discuss business matters.

On the day following Marion’s visit to Park Lane Charlie was in Paris, having been sent there overnight upon a pressing message to the branch house in the Avenue de l’Opéra, for Statham Brothers were as well-known for their stability in France as in England.

Just before twelve o’clock, as he was issuing from the fine offices of the firm into the street, he stumbled against a rather short but well-dressed girl of about twenty-four. He raised his hat, and in English asked her pardon, whereupon, with a light laugh, she replied in the same tongue.

“Oh, really no apology is needed, Mr Rolfe.”

He glanced at her inquiringly.

“I – I really haven’t the pleasure of your name,” he said, still upon the doorstep of the office. At all events, she was rather good-looking and well-bred, even if her stature was a trifle diminutive. Her gown was in excellent taste, too.

“My name really doesn’t matter,” she laughed. “I know you quite well. You are Mr Charles Rolfe, old Mr Statham’s secretary.”

Then, in an instant, the troth flashed across his mind. This girl must be one of old Sam’s friends – one of his secret agents controlled and paid from the office in Old Broad Street.

“You wish to speak to me – eh?” he asked, in a quick, businesslike way.

“Yes; I do. Let us stroll somewhere where we can talk.” Then after a moment’s reflection she added: “The Tuileries Gardens would be a good place. We might avoid eavesdroppers there.”

“Certainly,” he said, and, rather interested in the adventure, he strolled along at her side. She put up her pale blue sunshade, for it was a hot day, and at that hour the Avenue was deserted, for the work-girls were not yet out from the numerous ateliers in the neighbourhood, and half Paris was away at the spas or at the sea.

Rolfe knew many of old Sam’s spies, but had never seen this English girl before. That she was a lady seemed evident by her manner and speech, and that she had something of importance to tell him was plain. She had, no doubt, learned of his flying visit to Paris – for he meant to leave for London at four o’clock – and had come to the office in order that he could not escape her.

As he walked beside her, a well-set-up figure in dark grey flannel, he cast a furtive glance at the pretty, dark-complexioned face beneath the turquoise sunshade. She looked younger than she was, for her skirts only reached to her ankles, displaying a neat brown shoe tied with large bows. Across her brow was just a tiny wisp of stray hair, reminding him forcibly of the sweet countenance of his lost love. He recollected how he used to tease her about that unruly little lock, and how often he used to tenderly brush it back from her eyes.

“You live in Paris?” he asked as they walked together.

“Sometimes,” was her rather vague reply. “I’m always fond of it, for it is so bright and pleasant after – ” and she was on the point of giving him a clue to her place of abode, but stopped her words in time.

“After what?” he asked.

“After other places,” she answered evasively.

He glanced at her again, wondering whom she might be. A girl of her age could scarcely act as secret agent in financial matters. Her white gown perhaps gave her a more girlish appearance than she otherwise possessed, but there could be no two opinions that she was really good-looking.

She had approached him with timidity and modesty, yet in those few minutes of their acquaintance she had already become quite friendly, and they were already laughing together as they crossed the Rue de Rivoli.

“I knew you were in Paris, and came here specially to meet you, Mr Rolfe,” she said at last. “I’m afraid you must think me very dreadful to purposely compel you to apologise and speak to me.”

“Not at all. Only – well, I think you know you have a rather unfair advantage of me. You ought to give me your name,” he urged.

“I have my own reasons for not doing so,” she laughed. “It is sufficient for you to know that I am your friend.”

“And a very charming little friend, too,” he laughed. “I only wish all my friends were so dainty as yourself.”

“Ah! so you are a flatterer – eh?” she said, reproving him with a smile.

“Not flattery – but the truth,” he declared, filled with curiosity as to whom she might be. Why, he wondered, had she sought him? Perhaps if he described her at the office they had just left, she might be known there.

Though out of the season, there was still life and movement in the Rue de Rivoli, as there always is between the Magasins du Louvre and the Rue Castiglione. The tweeds and blouses of the Cook’s tourists were in evidence as usual, and the little midinette tripped gaily through the throng.

At last they entered the gate of the public gardens, which in the afternoons are given over to nurses in white caps and children with air-balls, and, walking some distance, still chatting, presently found a seat in full view of the Quai with its traffic and the sluggish Seine beyond.

Then as he seated himself beside her she, with her sunshade held behind her head, threw herself back slightly and laughed saucily in his face, displaying her red lips and even, pearly teeth.

“Isn’t this a rather amusing meeting?” she asked, with tantalising air. “I know you are dying to know who I am. Just think. Have you never seen me before?”

Charlie was puzzled – sorely puzzled. He tried to think, but to his knowledge he had never previously set eyes upon the dark-haired little witch before in all his life.

“I – well I really don’t recollect. You’ve asked me a riddle, and I’ve given it up.”

“But think. Have you never seen me before?”

“In London?”

“No; somewhere else – a long way from here.”

He shook his head. She was a complete enigma this girl not yet out of her teens.

“I must apologise to you, but I do not recollect,” he said. “If you refuse to tell me who you are, you can surely give me your Christian name.”

“Why?”

“Well, because – ”

“Because of your natural curiosity!” she declared. “Men are always curious. They always want to get at hard facts. Half the romance of life is taken away by their desire to go straight to the truth of things. Women are fond of a little imagination.”

Was she merely carrying on a mild flirtation with him because of a sheer love of romance? He had heard of girls of her age, overfed upon romantic novels and filled with daydreams, starting out upon adventures similarly perilous. He looked into her eyes, and saw that they danced with tantalising merriment. She was making fun of him!

“My curiosity is certainly natural,” he said, a little severely, piqued by her superiority. “You have told me that you wish to speak with me in confidence. How can I repose equal confidence in you if you refuse me your name?”

“I do not ask you to repose confidence in me, Mr Rolfe,” was her quick response, opening her eyes widely. “I have brought you here to tell you something – something which I know will greatly interest you, more so, indeed, than the question of whom and what I am.”

“Then tell me your Christian name, so that I may address you by that.”

For a moment she did not reply. Her gaze was fixed straight before her. The wind stirred the dusty leaves above them, causing them to sigh slightly, while before them along the Quai a big cream-coloured automobile sped swiftly, trumpeting loudly.

At last she turned to him, and with a smile upon her fresh dimpled cheeks, she said:

“My name is a rather unusual one – Lorena.”

“Lorena!” he echoed. “What a very pretty name! Almost as charming as its owner!”

She moved with a gesture of mock impatience, declaring: “You are really too bad, Mr Rolfe! Why do you say these things?”

“I only speak the truth. I feel flattered that you should deign to take notice of such an unimportant person as myself.”

“Unimportant!” she cried, again opening her eyes and making a quick gesture which showed foreign residence. “Is Mr Statham’s secretary an unimportant man?”

“Certainly.”

“But he is of importance to one person at least.”

“To whom?”

For a moment she did not answer. Then, she turned her dark eyes full upon his, and replied:

“To the woman who loves him!”

Charlie started perceptibly. What could the girl mean? Did she mean that she herself entertained affection for him, or was she merely hinting at what she believed might possibly be the case – that he was beloved.

He was more than ever dumbfounded by her attitude. There was something very mysterious about her – a mystery increased by her own sweet, piquante and unconventional manner. In his whole career he had never met with a similar adventure. At one moment he doubted her genuineness, but at the next he reflected how, at the first moment of their meeting, she had been extremely anxious to speak with him alone. Her attitude was of one who had some confidential information to impart – something no doubt in the interests of the world-renowned firm of Statham Brothers.

Other secret agents of Sam Statham whom he had seen on their visits to Park Lane had been mostly men and women advanced in age, for the most part wearing an outward aspect of severe respectability. Some were, however, the reverse. One was a well-known dancer at the music-halls of Paris and Vienna, whose pretty face looked out from postcards in almost every shop on the Continent.

But the question was, who could be this dainty girl who called herself Lorena?

“What do you mean by the woman who loves me?” he asked her presently, after a pause. “I don’t quite follow you. Who does me the great honour of entertaining any affection for me?”

“Who? Can you really ask that?” she said. “Ask yourself?”

“I have asked myself,” he laughed, rather uneasily, meeting her glance and wavering beneath it.

“Ah! you will not admit the truth, I see,” she remarked, raising her finger in shy reproof.

“Of what?”

“That you are beloved – that you are the lover of Maud Petrovitch!”

“Maud Petrovitch!” he gasped. “You know her? Tell me,” he cried quickly.

“I have told you,” she answered. “I have stirred your memory of a fact which you have apparently forgotten, Mr Rolfe.”

“Forgotten – forgotten Maud!” he exclaimed. “I have never for a moment forgotten her. She is lost to me – and you know it. Tell me the truth. Where is she? Where can I see her?”

But the girl only shook her head slowly in sadness. Over her bright, merry face had fallen a sudden gloom, a look of deep regret and dark despair.