"We are glad you came at this moment. We have just been deserted by my husband and his business colleague.”
"Indeed, Ma'am. You are very kind to welcome me thus.”
"You take sugar in your tea?" asked Carolan.
She watched him help himself; his fingers were short and stubby; unlike Marcus's, which she had noticed were long and delicate.
Kitty lay back in her chair. Her mind was still in a rosy dream of the future; the only difference was that she had substituted Jonathan for Marcus. Marcus certainly had an air of breeding which Jonathan lacked, but Jonathan flattered her more. Jonathan, she felt, would if he had such intentions offer Carolan marriage; Marcus might not. Jonathan was safer. Yes, Jonathan certainly fitted into her future very satisfactorily, even if he would not bring the Prince of Wales to dine under her roof.
"So comfortable you are here," said Jonathan.
"I often think of the cosiness of this little parlour behind the shop.”
"Do you?" said Kitty.
"And might I ask, sir, if it is only of the parlour you think, or do you sometimes spare a thought for its inhabitants?”
Now his eyes were on Kitty, turned away from Carolan; they smiled straight into Kitty's eyes, glittering oddly.
"You know the answer to that. Ma'am," he said slowly, and coldly it seemed to Carolan, who could not see his eyes. The Prince, thought Kitty, was not the only man who liked a little maturity in women and found the youthful very tame.
"Indeed," he turned to Carolan now, 'this is a most interesting house.
I often think that the property in these parts is very interesting... drab as it may sometimes seem.”
Ah! thought Kitty. He is interested in property; perhaps that is his business, and the clerkship he talks of is just a blind. Men who own property are rich men, though they may lack the polish of gentlemen of fashion.
"Perhaps, sir," said Kitty archly, 'you know more of such matters than do two ignorant females.”
"I will not allow you to call yourself and your daughter ignorant, Ma'am. But these properties must be nigh on two hundred years old; think of that, Ma'am!”
"That takes us back to the dark ages.”
"It does indeed. I am interested in property; perhaps one day you would be kind enough to show me the house.”
"You would be bored to tears," said Kitty.
"You would certainly find it rather dull," said Carolan.
"The matters that interest never bore us. I am interested in old houses. Will you please show me this place ... one day? Those narrow windows in your upper rooms have always intrigued me from the street.
Tell me, do the ceilings slope right to the floor?”
"In the attics, yes," said Carolan.
"Ah, my dear," cried Kitty, "I see that our miserable house interests him far more than we do! Let us show him it.”
"Not more, Ma'am... not more!" he insisted.
"Come along," said Kitty.
"Now.”
Carolan piled the crockery on to a tray and carried it to the kitchen.
As she washed the cups she heard the footsteps of her mother and Mr.
Crew mounting the stairs, and she ceased to think of them, for she was telling herself that it was high time she received a reply from Everard.
When she had dried and put away the cups she busied herself with some preparation for the evening meal before going back to the parlour, and she had sat there some time before she realized quite suddenly that the house seemed very quiet. What on earth were her mother and Mr. Crew doing all this .time They were probably in the attics, she thought, and went upstairs to find them. They were not there, and she came down again; she explored the lower part of the house, and they were not there. She peeped into the shop, and stared; for she saw at once that the door, which her father had taken such pains to conceal with those old coats, was open; in its lock was a key. She thought quickly that he must have left the key .there this afternoon when he went out with Marcus, and that her mother and Mr. Crew must have slipped through the parlour to the shop while she was in the kitchen.
She took four strides across the shop, went through the door and shut it carefully behind her.
"Mamma!" she called.
"Mamma!”
The door of the basement-room was open. She looked in. The room was small and dark; there was no window, but a grating high in the wall.
There were a good many trunks and boxes in the place, and over one of these bent her mother and Mr. Crew.
Kitty turned and laughed at her.
"Your door was open, Carolan!”
"Oh ..." stammered Carolan.
"But this is ... Father's storeroom. He always keeps it locked. He...”
Kitty wagged a finger.
"Now, Carolan, you reprimanded me the other day for a lack of curiosity; now you would reproach me with being too curious. You see what an exacting daughter I have, Mr. Crew.”
Jonathan Crew turned, and in the dimness of the room Carolan noticed particularly the white flash of his teeth. He was holding a silver ornament in his hands.
"Mamma!" said Carolan.
"Have you a key then?”
"Oh, no. Your father left the door of his room unlocked and the key in the door at the top of the stairs when he went out Careless man! He must have gone in a hurry. Mr. Crew found the door; he said he saw it when he helped you clear up the Shop.”
"Why, Miss Carolan," said Jonathan Crew, 'you seem put out. I hope I do not intrude here-' "No, no!" cried Carolan.
"It is of no importance; merely that my mother and I have never been down here before ... and my father has always kept the doors locked and...”
"I can understand that! With such articles as these about,..”
Carolan went into the room towards them, and looked at the ornament in Jonathan's hands. She watched him as he caressed the polished surface.
They were ugly hands, red, and cold-looking.
"Ah, yes," he added, 'handling articles like this in such a neighbourhood, he would need to be careful. I am sure he is quite unaware that he left the doors unlocked.”
"Both keys were in the doors!" said Kitty.
"I shall tease him about this ... Naughty man!”
"And did you find the house interesting, Mr. Crew?" asked Carolan.
"Enormously! Beyond my wildest expectations." They went back to the parlour, and shortly afterwards Jonathan Crew took his leave.
Kitty said: "Darling! Tighten my stays. There now, I have put on flesh. Darling, do you think with Therese that it is in the right places? And how thin you are, child! I do wish you could take some of mine; you could do with it and I should not miss it. It was a great idea to add the niching to the neck, do you not think so, Carolan?”
Kitty regarded her daughter from under lowered lids. Quiet, secretive, brooding almost. Was she, like her mother, wondering whether the life of a parson's wife was the best she could choose? London did strange things to you; it had done them to Kitty, so why not to Carolan? It was not a town so much as a personality; it intrigued while it repelled. It had fascinated her from the first, and oh, the squalor of those rooms she had shared with Darrell! Lousy lodging-houses and the people in their rags, and the smell of the river and the back streets, and the empty feeling inside, which was hunger, and the lightness in the head which was part of it too. She had been something of a prophetess.
"Darrell," she had said, 'we never know what is waiting for us round the corner!" And how right she had been! She, whom they thought just a frivolous woman. For, one day he had come in full of excitement, and told her he had met a friend; she did not know who that friend was, but now she had come to believe that he was Marcus, for from that time Marcus had come to the house frequently enough. A good business proposition had been made to him, Darrell had said, and he was going to take it. It would mean saving hard at first; it would mean living simply, but there was money in it, and after a while they would come out of business and be rich, free from want for the rest of their days.