In Brief Authority by F. Anstey (beach read txt) 📖

I've no desire to remain. I was just going up to change in any case."

She went out with a slightly huffy air, which was not entirely due to baffled curiosity, for she admired Daphne enough to resent being quietly kept at a distance.

"It's about this," explained Daphne, after Edna had made her exit—"a bill that has just been sent on to me." She gave the paper to Mrs. Stimpson as she spoke. "I don't know quite what to do about it."

She looked very young and inexperienced as she stood there, a slim girlish figure with masses of burnished hair the colour of ripe corn, braided and coiled as closely as possible round her small head, but there was no trace of timidity or subservience in her manner. In the slight form, with the milk-white skin, delicate profile and exquisite hands, there was a distinction that struck her employer as quite absurdly out of keeping with her position.

"The only thing to do about a bill, my dear," said Mrs. Stimpson, "is to pay it. But nearly thirty pounds is a large sum for you to owe your milliner."

"It's for things Mother—my adopted mother, you know—ordered for me. Stéphanie was always told to send in the account to her. But this seems to have been overlooked, and the executors have sent it on to me. Only I can't pay it myself—unless you wouldn't mind advancing me the money out of my salary."

"I couldn't possibly. You forget that it would represent over a year's salary, and it's by no means certain that you will be with me so long."

"I was afraid you wouldn't," said Daphne, with a little droop at the corners of her extremely pretty mouth. "So I brought this to show you." She held out the leather case. "It's the only jewellery I've got. It belonged to my father, I believe; he and my real mother both died when I was a baby, you know—and I never meant to part with it. But now I'm afraid I must—that is, if you think any jeweller would give as much as thirty pounds for it."

Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson opened the case, which was much more modern than the kind of badge or pendant it contained. This was a fairly large oval stone of a milky green, deeply engraved with strangely formed letters interlaced in a cypher, and surrounded by a border of dark blue gems which Mrs. Stimpson decided instantly must be Cabochon star sapphires of quite exceptional quality. The gold chain attached to it was antique and of fine and curious workmanship.

She was convinced that the pendant must be worth considerably more than thirty pounds, though she was no doubt right in telling Daphne that no jeweller would offer so much for an ornament that was quite out of fashion. "Besides," she said, "I don't like the idea of any governess of mine going about offering jewellery for sale. Have Edna or Ruby seen you wearing this thing?" she asked with apparent irrelevance.

It appeared they had not; Daphne had never worn it herself, and she had only remembered its existence that afternoon, and found it hidden away at the back of her wardrobe.

"Well," said Mrs. Stimpson, "it is most unpleasant to me to see a young girl like you owing all this money to her milliner."

"It isn't very pleasant for me," said Daphne ruefully; "but if you won't advance the money, and I can't or mustn't sell the pendant, I don't very well see how I can help it."

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Mrs. Stimpson. "I really oughtn't to—and under ordinary circumstances I couldn't afford it, but, as it happens, a great-uncle of mine left me a small legacy not long ago, and I haven't spent quite all of it yet. So I don't mind buying this for thirty pounds myself."

"Will you really?" cried Daphne. "How angelic of you!"

"I think it is," said Mrs. Stimpson; "but I feel myself responsible for you, to some extent. So I'll write you a cheque for the thirty pounds, and you can send it off to this milliner person at once." She went to the writing-table and filled up the cheque. "There," she said, handing it to Daphne, "put it in an envelope and direct it at once—you'll find a stamp in that box, and it can go by the next post."

"By the way, my dear," she added, as she was leaving the room, "I needn't tell you that I shall not breathe a word to a soul of our little transaction, and I should advise you, in your own interests, to keep it entirely to yourself."

"I was quite wrong about Mrs. Stimpson," Daphne told herself reproachfully, after she had slipped the letter containing bill and cheque into the letter-box in the hall. "She can be kind sometimes, and I've been a little beast to see only the comic side of her! I daresay she won't even wear that pendant."

But Mrs. Stimpson had every intention of wearing it that same evening. It is not often that one has the opportunity of doing a kindness and securing a real bargain at a single stroke; and she knew enough about jewels to be fully aware that, if the ornament was a trifle old-fashioned, she had not done at all badly over her purchase.

"It really suits me very well," she thought, as, after putting the last touches to her evening demi-toilette, she fastened the pendant round her neck. "Even better than I expected. It was lucky Miss Heritage came to me. A jeweller would have been sure to cheat her, poor child!"

And she went down to the drawing-room feeling serenely satisfied with herself.

CHAPTER II RUSHING TO CONCLUSIONS

Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, as she sat in the drawing-room, where the curtains had been drawn and the lamps lighted, was occupied with a project which she was anxious to impart to her husband as soon as he returned. Some time before a dull rumble from the valley had informed her that his usual train was approaching Gablehurst station, and now she heard the click of the front gate, the crunch of his well-known step on the gravel, and the opening of the hall door.

"I want to speak to you for a moment, Sidney," she said, opening the drawing-room door. "Come in here before you go up to dress." (Mrs. Stimpson insisted on his dressing for dinner. It was customary in all really good society, and also it would prevent him from feeling awkward in evening clothes—which it never did.)

"Very well, my dear," he said, entering. "Any news with you?" which was his invariable question.

Mr. Stimpson was short and inclined to be stout. What remained of his hair was auburn and separated in the middle by a wide parting; he had close-cut whiskers of a lighter red, which met in his moustache, and if his eyes had been narrow, instead of round and filmy like a seal's, and his mouth had been firm, and not loose and slightly open, he would not have been at all a bad caricature of his Majesty King Henry the Eighth.

"Nothing—except, but I'll tell you about that afterwards. Sit down, do, and don't fidget.... Well, I've been thinking, Sidney, that we really ought to ask the Chevril Thistletons to a quiet little dinner. Not to meet any of our usual set, of course! We could have the dear Rector, who, if he is Low Church, is very well connected—and Lady Harriet Elmslie."

Mr. Stimpson showed no enthusiasm at the suggestion. "Lady Elmslie, Selina!" he cried. "But we don't know her ladyship!"

"I do wish you would learn to use titles correctly, Sidney! Lady Harriet Elmslie—not Lady Elmslie! And you shouldn't speak of her, except to servants, as 'her ladyship'; that's only done by inferiors."

"Well, my love, whatever may be the correct way of speaking of her, the fact remains that we haven't the honour of her acquaintance."

"That's just where you're mistaken! We have, or at least I have;" and she described how she had come to enjoy that privilege.

"Well," he admitted at the conclusion, "she certainly seems to have made herself exceedingly affable, but it doesn't follow that she'd come and dine, even if we asked her."

"She would if it was to meet the Thistletons."

"Perhaps so, my love, but—er—we don't know that they would come."

"Of course they would, if they knew we were expecting Lady Harriet. For goodness' sake, Sidney, don't swing your foot like that—you know I can't bear it. All you have to do is to find out from Mr. Thistleton what evenings the week after next would be most convenient, and I'll undertake the rest!"

"I—I really couldn't do that, Selina. I'm a proud man, in my way, and I don't care about exposing myself unnecessarily to a rebuff."

"Why should you be rebuffed? After all, he's only a junior partner!"

"True, my love, but that doesn't make him less stand-offish. He may be in the business, but he's not of it. I doubt myself whether even old Cramphorn would venture to invite him to dinner, and if he did, I'd bet a tidy sum that the Honourable Mr. Chevril Thistleton——"

"Mr.—not the Honourable Mr. Thistleton, Sidney," corrected his wife, who had studied all such minutiæ in a handbook written by a lady of unimpeachable authority. "The term is never employed in ordinary conversation, or on visiting cards. But, if you won't show a proper spirit, I shall write myself to Mrs. Thistleton and propose one or two dates."

"It would be no good, my love," said Mr. Stimpson, brought to bay, "because, if you must know, I—er—did approach the subject with Thistleton—and—well, his manner was not sufficiently encouraging to induce me to try it again. Not so fond of being made to feel as if I was no better than one of our own clerks. I get quite enough of that from old Cramphorn!"

"You should assert yourself more, Sidney, if you want people to respect you."

"I'm always asserting myself—but old Cramphorn never listens! Just goes on his own way. Won't hear of any changes—what was good enough when the firm started a hundred years ago is good enough for him—now I'm all for new ideas myself—Progress and so forth!"

"That's what has kept us back," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson; "we should have been in a far better set here than we're ever likely to be now if you hadn't given yourself out as a violent Radical, when it's well known that all best Gablehurst people are Conservatives, and several who are not really entitled to be anything of the kind. As it is, I suppose I must be content to pass my life in this suburban hole and mix with none but second-rate people. But I certainly cannot expect Lady Harriet to come here and meet them, so there's an end of it. If she imagines I've no desire to pursue her acquaintance, it can't be helped, that's all! And now you had better go up and dress."

The whole family were assembled by the time Mr. Stimpson re-appeared—his wife was in her armchair by the standard lamp. Edna was at the writing-table revising her notes of the afternoon's lecture, and Clarence was seated close by, while Ruby was whispering earnestly to Daphne on one of the chintz couches.

"All of you down before me, eh?" said the head of the family after the usual salutations had been exchanged. "But I went up long after everybody else. And not late after all—I've taught myself to dress in well under ten minutes, you see!"

"Wish he'd taught himself not to wear a white tie with a dinner jacket!" grumbled Clarence to Edna in an undertone.

"Couldn't you tell him about it?" she replied.

"I could—but what'd be the good? He'd only turn up next time in a tail-coat and a black bow!" said Clarence gloomily. "The poor old governor's one of the people who never learn——!"

Clarence's own type was that for which the latest term is "knut." He was accepted both by his family, his intimates, and himself as an infallible guide on things in general. When consulted as to matters on which he happened to be entirely ignorant, and these were not a few—he had formed the habit of preserving a pregnant silence, as of one who could say a good deal on the subject if he were at liberty to speak. And this in itself denoted a certain degree of intelligence.

In appearance he was well built, though only of average height. He had small green eyes like his mother's; his light sandy hair had a natural ripple, and his pale face expressed nothing beyond an assured consciousness of his own superiority. And yet he was not without a certain sense of humour in matters which did not immediately concern himself, though, owing to particular circumstances, it was just then distinctly in abeyance.

"What time do you get back from the City