CHAPTER XVI.

MRS. DUMARESQ IN AN UNDIPLOMATIC CIRCLE.

When Prudence found herself in the street, she looked in a bewildered fashion from right to left, not knowing which way to turn. The good-natured young constable pointed out the direction of the workhouse, telling her it was quite near, and thither she bent her steps. Knowing nothing of the intricacies of the neighbourhood, she walked some considerable way before realising that she was lost, and that her best plan was to take a cab. Cabs, however, were few about there, and she discovered one with difficulty. As she drove towards the workhouse she had leisure to reflect on the bewildering incidents of the morning, and speculate on the condition of mind and body in which she would probably find Augusta.

“The poor dear,” she thought, “what she must have gone through! Oh! what a misfortune to have come across that terrible woman. And she looked so nice, so clean, so respectable. Thank Heaven, Augusta was not with her very long.” She went over in her mind her conversation with the Inspector.

“What a disagreeable man! He seemed quite to doubt my word that Augusta was my sister. Perhaps I had better say in future that she is my half-sister. She does look ridiculously young.”

Suddenly poor Prudence bounded from her seat. She had but just remembered something the Inspector had said—something scarcely noticed at the time amidst so many conflicting anxieties and emotions.

“We are trying to trace their parents, as several names and addresses were found in the possession of Brown, and you would probably in any case have been subpœnæd to give evidence at the trial.”

“Great Heaven!” she thought, “so there is to be a trial.”

The full meaning of the words burst suddenly upon her. It should all come out—the whole story. She saw herself in court, heckled, badgered, cross-examined, made perhaps to contradict herself at every turn, surveyed critically by the boarders at Beaconsfield Gardens, who, of course, would flock to hear the case. She would be flouted, disbelieved if she told the truth, tripped up and convicted of falsehood if she lied, accused no doubt of perjury, perhaps of murder, ordered to the cells to undergo terrible and unknown penalties, while Augusta—the only person who could prove her innocence and good faith—Augusta was a helpless, speechless infant, unable to testify in her favour. Of law, of legal procedure, of what a judge could or could not do, Prudence was profoundly ignorant. All that was plain to her was, that she could not produce her sister in the flesh as known to and recognisable by her acquaintances, and that no one would credit her if she produced the baby and said that was Augusta. Even at the best, if no question as to her sister arose, no suspicion of murder, how bad it looked to have smuggled a child away, and given it to such a person as Mrs. Brown to cruelly use. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on the poor woman’s forehead. No! she would not be mixed up in it; she would not go into court at all; she would get back her sister and flee far away from London, and Mrs. Brown, and the medical lady. In agonised haste she pulled the check string, and bade the cabman drive back at once to the station. She would tell the Inspector that she declined to give evidence under any circumstances—surely they could not force her to if she refused—and bitterly she reproached herself for her unpardonable stupidity in not having done this at the time.

She tumbled out of the cab, and made her way like one distraught to the little office where she had seen the Inspector. Alas! he had just gone out. No one knew where he had gone to or when he would return. Prudence had therefore to content herself with leaving a verbal message with a subordinate, to the effect that nothing would induce her to appear against Mrs. Brown or anyone else, or to enter a court of law under any circumstances. This done, she returned to her cab with a mind rather more at ease, and resumed her journey to the workhouse.

Workhouse porters are not usually chosen for their urbanity, and he of St. Mark’s was no exception to the rule. “It is not visiting day,” he said to her, “and you ought to know better than come bothering here.” He was deaf to her appeals to see Augusta. “It can’t be done,” he said. “You should come on Thursday between three and six. It’s no use your making a disturbance.” As she still persisted, he lost his temper, and told her she had better go, or he would have her turned out.

The frightened Prudence hurried back to her cab, and, sobbing miserably, directed the driver to South Kensington. Worn out by the fatigues and excitements of the day, she arrived at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, in time for dinner.

She would have given anything not to be obliged to put in an appearance at that meal, but she did not dare to remain in her room. Her fear of attracting notice was morbid.

The boarders, for a wonder, were discussing Dickens as Prudence took her place at table.

“Dickens is an author I have never read,” Mrs. Dumaresq was saying.

“Really!” responded Major Jones. “Why not?”

“My dear mother did not approve of his works when I was a girl,” said Mrs. Dumaresq, “and, since then, what I have seen of his writings has not induced me to form a different opinion.”

“But I never heard it said that Dickens had written anything objectionable.”

“Oh, objectionable! Well, not exactly objectionable in the sense you mean,” answered Mrs. Dumaresq; “that might not matter so much, but he deals with people who are not in our set.”

“It says in to-day’s paper that the Princess drove over yesterday to see the motor cars,” said Mrs. Whitley suddenly to Mrs. Dumaresq.

Now Mrs. Whitley spoke indistinctly, and with a lisp, which no doubt accounted for Mrs. Dumaresq’s unexpected reply, for that lady said,

“Oh, yes, to be sure; so she did. They are dear old friends of ours. Such charming people!”

Mrs. Whitley looked astonished. “I’m afraid you don’t quite understand me,” she said; “I spoke of the motor cars.”

“Oh, ah! Yes, to be sure,” said Mrs. Dumaresq, slightly embarrassed. “The motor cars—yes, I have seen them.”

There was a long pause, during which the lady regained her self-possession.

“Have you heard from your sister, Miss Semaphore?” asked Mrs. Dumaresq, after a time, as she ate her soup.

“Yes, thank you.”

“And how is she?”

“Not so well—at least, better. I mean she is not yet quite well, but is better than she was.”

What further embarrassing questions the lady might have put Prudence could only speculate, for, providentially, Mrs. Dumaresq was appealed to by the medical woman for her opinion on some hotly-contested question of Government policy. This was being discussed by Major Jones and Mr. Lorimer, who, it has been said, like most gentlemen that live in boarding-houses, were staunch Conservatives. A new boarder had just given utterance to deplorably Radical sentiments.

Mrs. Dumaresq had not heard, and politely requested information as to the point at issue.

“My husband,” said the wife of the new boarder, “remarked that, in proportion to their means, the poor are taxed far more heavily than the rich, and he advocates reversing this. What do you think?”

“Really,” said Mrs. Dumaresq with lofty sweetness, “I have no opinion on the subject. I know absolutely nothing of politics.”

“Oh! Then you are a Conservative,” said the new boarder’s wife abruptly. “I have always noticed that when a woman begins by telling me she knows nothing of politics, it means that she is a Tory.”

Mrs. Dumaresq looked offended. “Well,” she said, after a brief pause, “my sympathies are naturally with the aristocracy, amongst whom my life has been passed. In military and diplomatic circles everyone is Conservative, so if I have any bias, it is in favour of my friends.”

The wife of the new boarder happened, unfortunately, to be an earnest woman, so she did not let the matter drop.

“But why,” she pursued, “should you, a member of the great English middle-class, set yourself to uphold a system inimical to the interests not only of the poor but of your equals.”

The listeners felt the position to be strained. No one had ever pressed a point on Mrs. Dumaresq before, and all the ladies thought the new boarder’s wife was audacious and ill-bred. She herself, however, was quite at her ease, though eager and interested.

Mrs. Dumaresq smiled rather acidly. “I can scarcely claim the privilege of belonging to what you call ‘the great English middle-class,’” she said. “My relations have not been in that sphere.”

“But surely,” said the new boarder’s wife, “you do not consider that you belong to the working class? That would be absurd. You are too modest. Why, business people on such a very large scale as your relatives might almost rank with professional men. My husband comes from Northampton, and I have often heard your brother spoken of as one of the most well-to-do men in the town. Does he keep on the pawnbroking business still? There was some talk of his retiring from that after he was elected Mayor.”

For a moment Mrs. Dumaresq looked as if she had received a blow. She went white and red in rapid succession, then rallied, and smiled artificially at the unconscious and unconcerned wife of the new boarder.

“I fancy you misunderstood the drift of my remarks,” she said. “And so your husband knows Northampton. Busy town, is it not? Yes, my brother does own—a—a—some business houses there, that were left to him as portion of the vast estate of—um—a wealthy relative, and, I believe that, finding them very profitable, he has allowed them to be kept on. So many people nowadays do not shrink from trade as they used when I was young. This is a democratic age, is it not?”

“Why, I thought it was your father who founded the business,” said the new boarder’s wife; but Mrs. Dumaresq had just begun to tell Mrs. Whitley of a sale of work that she had been to that afternoon, which had been opened by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York, and she failed to hear the observation.

There was an uncomfortable silence. The prestige of Mrs. Dumaresq was rudely shaken. Then everyone began talking together, while the medical lady meditated questioning the new boarder’s wife later, and finding out all she had to tell about the family of Mrs. Dumaresq, whose superior airs had more than once irritated her.