CHAPTER TEN
SAM FINDS A PHOTOGRAPH
SAM, when he came downstairs some twenty minutes later, was definitely in what Mr. Hash Todhunter would have described as the pink. The night had been bad, but joy had certainly come in the morning. The sight of the breakfast tray on a small table by the window set the seal on his mood of well-being; and for a long, luxurious space he had eyes for nothing else. It was only after he had consumed the eggs, the bacon, the toast, the coffee and the marmalade that he yielded to what is usually the first impulse of a man who finds himself in a strange room and began to explore.
It was some half minute later that Claire Lippett, clearing the dining-room table, was startled to the extent of dropping a butter dish by a loud shout or cry that seemed to proceed from the room where she had left her guest.
Hurrying thither, she found him behaving in a strange manner. He was pointing at a photograph on the mantelpiece and gesticulating wildly.
“Who’s that?” he cried as she entered. He seemed to have difficulty with his vocal cords.
“Eh?”
“Language!”
“Who is it? That girl—who is she? What’s her name?”
“You needn’t shout,” said Claire, annoyed.
The photograph which had so excited this young man was the large one that stood in the centre of the mantelpiece. It represented a girl in hunting costume, standing beside her horse, and it was Claire’s favourite. A dashing and vigorous duster, with an impressive record of smashed china and broken glass to her name, she always handled this particular work of art with a gentle tenderness.
“That?” she said. “Why, that’s Miss Kay, of course.”
She came forward and flicked a speck of dust off the glass.
“Taken at Midways, that was,” she said, “two or three years ago, before the old colonel lost his money. I was Miss Kay’s maid then—personal maid,” she added with pride. She regarded the photograph wistfully, for it stood to her for all the pomps and glories of a vanished yesterday, for the brave days when there had been horses and hunting costumes and old red chimneys against a blue sky and rabbits in the park and sunlight on the lake and all the rest of the things that made up Midways and prosperity. “I remember the day that photograph was took. It was printed in the papers, that photograph was.”
Sam continued to be feverish.
“Miss Kay? Who’s Miss Kay?”
“Miss Kay Derrick, Mr. Wrenn’s niece.”
“The man who lives here, do you mean?”
“Yes. He gave Miss Kay a home when everything went smash. That’s how I come to be here. I could have stopped at Midways if I’d of liked,” she said. “The new people who took the place would have kept me on if I’d of wanted. But I said, ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going with Miss Kay,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to desert her in her mis-for-chewn,’ I said.”
Sam started violently.
“You don’t mean—you can’t mean—you don’t mean she lives here?”
“Of course she does.”
“Not actually lives here—not in this very house?”
“Certainly.”
“My gosh!”
Sam quivered from head to foot. A stupendous idea had come to him.
“My gosh!” he cried again, with bulging eyes. Then, with no more words—for it was a time not for words but for action—he bounded from the room.
To leap out of the front door and clatter down the steps to the board which stood against the fence was with Sam the work of a moment. Beneath the large letters of the To Let, Furnished, he now perceived other smaller letters informing all who might be interested that applications for the tenancy of that desirable semi-detached residence, Mon Repos, should be made to Messrs. Matters & Cornelius, House Agents, of Ogilvy Street, Valley Fields, S. E. He galloped up the steps again and beat wildly upon the door.
“Now what?” inquired Claire.
“Where is Ogilvy Street?”
“Up the road, first turning to the left.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Out on the gravel, he paused, pondered and returned.
“Back again?” said Claire.
“Did you say left or right?”
“Left.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Claire.
This time Sam performed the descent of the steps in a single leap. But reaching the gate, he was struck by a thought.
“Fond of exercise, aren’t you?” said Claire patiently.
“Suddenly occurred to me,” explained Sam, “that I’d got no money.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“These house-agent people would expect a bit of money down in advance, wouldn’t they?”
“Sounds possible. Are you going to take a house?”
“I’m going to take Mon Repos,” said Sam. “And I must have money. Where’s Mr. Braddock?”
“In bed.”
“Where’s his room?”
“Top floor back.”
“Thanks.”
“Dee-lighted,” said Claire.
Her statement that the guest of the house was in bed proved accurate. Sam, entering the apartment indicated, found his old school friend lying on his back with open mouth and matted hair. He was snoring rhythmically. On a chair at his side stood a tray containing a teapot, toast and a cold poached egg of such raffish and leering aspect that Sam, moving swiftly to the dressing table, averted his eyes as he passed.
The dressing table presented an altogether more pleasing picture. Heaped beside Mr. Braddock’s collar box and hair-brushes was a small mountain of notes and silver—a fascinating spectacle with the morning sunshine playing on them. With twitching fingers, Sam scooped them up; and finding pencil and paper, paused for a moment, seeking for words.
It is foolish to attempt to improve on the style of a master. Hash Todhunter had shown himself in a class of his own at this kind of literary composition, and Sam was content to take him as a model. He wrote:
“DEAR BRADDER: You will doubtless be surprised to learn that I have borrowed your money. I will return it in God’s good time. Meanwhile, as Sir Philip Sidney said to the wounded soldier, my need is greater than yours.
“Trusting this finds you in the pink,
“Yrs. Obedtly,
“S. SHOTTER.”
Then, having propped the note against the collar box, he left the room.
A sense of something omitted, some little kindly act forgotten, arrested him at the head of the stairs. He returned; and taking the poached egg, placed it gently on the pillow beside his friend’s head. This done, he went downstairs again, and so out on the broad trail that led to the premises of Messrs. Matters & Cornelius, House Agents, of Ogilvy Street.