Small wonder, then, that the smiles of women in the streets seemed to become more vivid to him as he strode along, and small wonder that in the end one smile seemed more vivid still, and summoned Mr. Dawkins irresistibly, so that it was forty-eight hours before Mr. Dawkins returned to his hotel, without a penny in his pockets, his smart new clothes sadly rumpled and crumpled, and his eyes slightly bloodshot. Mr. Dawkins had crammed a great deal into those forty-eight hours, and Venus and Bacchus had presided over the cramming. He had done a good many foolish things, and said a great many more, although Mr. Dawkins, back in his hotel room with his head in his hands and a nasty pain in his head, could not remember very much about either. And for the life of him he could not account for more than a quarter of the thirty-two pounds he had had about his person before the plunge.
Mr. Dawkins began to feel the uselessness of everything. A further interview with Mr. Carver, in reply to a telephone call from the latter, resulted in a fine large check to stiffen up a sadly flaccid bank-account, and a journey to the safe-deposit to obtain more stones for Mr. Carver to sell, but this hardly cheered Mr. Dawkins at all. Success and wealth were proving vastly uninteresting. Mr. Dawkins did not at all relish the prospect of spending the rest of his days in gilded boredom with nothing to do in a London hotel. What did rich men do when they had nothing to do? Mr. Dawkins asked himself this question in sternly logical fashion, and the answer came pat—they played games or they traveled. Dawkins had played Association football in his pawnbroker’s assistant days, and in the army, but a man can’t play football by himself. Travel? Paris, Italy, Jerusalem? Mr. Dawkins wrinkled his rather arrogant nose at the idea; in his disillusioned mood he strongly suspected that travel for him would be entirely comparable to his present existence in one spot. One idea, indeed, Mr. Dawkins turned over several times in his mind and left unadjudicated upon. That was to fit out an expedition to the Rainless Coast, beard President Eguia in his lair, shoot him if possible, and so fittingly avenge the death of the Hawk. At the memory of the Hawk the hard lines about Mr. Dawkins’ mouth softened and hardened again, for he dearly loved the memory of that fiery little failure—a curious fact, but true.
But, Dawkins remembered, before he could set out on any of these schemes, he must go and hunt up Miss Royle, and tell her of her father’s death, and see that all was well with her, just as he had promised the Hawk when he lay dying of starvation and gangrene in his arms. So far Dawkins had shirked this duty. He could not face having to tell a grave-eyed woman of her father’s death—especially as a daughter must love the Hawk even more dearly than Dawkins himself did. And she must be pretty poor, too, Dawkins realized. The Hawk’s silver mine had only begun to repay the money lavished upon it when Eguia seized it, and Dawkins was sure that the Hawk did not have a penny in the world beyond that.
It took Dawkins a whole day to nerve himself for the effort once he had decided upon it. He had his blue suit pressed and smartened by the hotel valet, and he paid very special attention to the brushing of his hair and the tying of his tie. Well groomed and bronzed, Mr. Dawkins was a very good example of the wealthy man-about-town as he set out for Norwood; he looked every day and more of his thirty-five years, but he felt that his appearance was such that he need not be ashamed of it, even before the Hawk’s daughter.
Field Hill, Norwood, was easily found. So was number sixty-one. It was a tall thin house, badly in need, as were its neighbors, of repainting and repointing. Dawkins knocked upon the paint-blistered front door, and knocked again, and his knockings echoed cavernously within. He felt far less at ease than while swimming out among the sharks to wring the neck of Corporal Barroso.
The door was opened by a shabby little girl. Mr. Dawkins did not look at her particularly closely; he was not interested in little girls of ten with peaked white faces.
“Is Miss Royle at home?” asked Mr. Dawkins. The little girl did not seem to know of a Miss Royle.
“There’s a Mrs. Royle,” she said. “She’s my—auntie. But she’s out just now.”
“Mrs. Royle?” said Dawkins blankly. This was more than he had bargained for; he had come prepared for a daughter, but not for a wife as well; and he had always understood that the Hawk’s wife was dead. And where was the daughter?
“No, it’s Miss Royle I want,” he said. “Is there one, or did one ever live here?”
The little girl smiled, and the smile lit up her peaked face. More than that; it sent a pang like fire through Mr. Dawkins’ heart. For with the smile came a dazzling likeness to the long-dead Hawk.
“I’m the only Miss Royle who has ever lived here,” said the little girl, vastly tickled at her promotion to “Miss Royle.” Dawkins took off his hat and wiped his forehead, and as for words, they failed him entirely. The Miss Royle he was seeking, the daughter to whom he had come to pay his devoirs, was this frail, thin-faced, little girl in the shabby frock.
“Who—who else lives here?” stammered Dawkins, hot and uncomfortable.
“My grandma—at least, she’s nearly my grandma. I call her auntie. And Charlie.”
“Well,” said Dawkins, rallying, “can I speak to—to auntie, then?”
“But she’s out, you know. I told you. And I don’t know how long she’ll be. But of course you can come in and wait for her, if you like.”
“Thank you,” said Dawkins.
Dawkins sat in a ridiculous chair in a fluffy, ridiculous drawing-room, which, if Dawkins had had any eye for these things, he would have seen to be dusty and untidy. On the couch lay two or three open fashion-papers, and protruding from under the couch was a pair of down-at-heel, overtrodden pink slippers. But Dawkins saw none of this; his attention was too occupied by the small girl who sat opposite him on the edge of a chair, smiling shyly but inscrutably. Dawkins was never distinguished for his conversational powers, and he knew nothing whatever about children, so that he was feeling more awkward than his hostess. For a vague second he felt that instead of his fashionable blue suit and gray overcoat he ought to be back once more in an Eton collar and jacket at his first party; it took a glance at his fine clothes and a furtive touch at his pocketbook and check-book, emblems of power, in his breast pocket, to reassure him. He displayed a pathetic frankness.
“I’m awfully sorry,” he said, “but I’m all mixed up. I wish I knew who auntie was, and Charlie—didn’t you call him?—and I don’t know what your name is, although I’ve come all this way with a message about you.”
“I’m Nina,” said the little girl, “Nina Royle, and auntie is Mrs. Royle. She’s my grandma, but I call her auntie. She’s my father’s stepmother, and when grandpa died she said I mustn’t call her grannie any more, but auntie. And I don’t know who Charlie is. He just lives here.”
Even Dawkins’ untuned ear could catch the bitterness in her voice as she said this.
“And what’s the message you’ve brought about me?” asked Nina breathlessly.
“I’d better wait and tell auntie,” said Dawkins, with fear in his heart.
“Auntie?” said Nina. “Auntie? She won’t care, unless—unless ——Is it about daddy—about my father?”
“Yes,” said Dawkins.
“Is he—is he—?” Nina’s tone changed from hopefulness to dull despair as she saw the expression on Dawkins’ face. “Oh, he’s dead.”
“Yes,” said Dawkins, again, unhappily.
Nina’s face twisted with woe, and her hands tightened painfully. She slid from her chair and stood while the tears came, and then she came blindly forward to Dawkins’ knee. He put a big arm clumsily round her frail little body, and she rested her head on his shoulder while she shook with sobs.
But the weeping did not last long. Soon she raised her head and dried her eyes with her handkerchief, and stood looking at Dawkins.
“Was it a long time ago?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Dawkins. While on board the Hammerfest he had devised a good sentence, “His last words were about you,” but it did not seem of use n
ow.
And Nina stood and gazed at this big fair man with the worried expression; she was still racked now and again by a convulsive sob, and although she gazed at him she did not see him. It was only natural that, childlike, she should be full of her own misfortune and calculating the effect on her life of the death of her father whom she could hardly remember.
“I knew he was dead,” said Nina. “That was why he never wrote to me and never came home to take me away from here. And I did want him to. I wanted him to take me away from auntie. And auntie was always saying that he didn’t send any money to keep me, and she didn’t see why she should, and I was no relation of hers. I used to think how lovely it would be if he came home suddenly and now—and now—”
The tears recommenced, and she leaned again upon Dawkins’ shoulder. Dawkins put his arms about her, wrung with remorse, and too troubled to notice what he did. He lifted her featherweight on to his lap, and pulled his big linen handkerchief from his sleeve and dried her eyes.
“There. Sh!” said Dawkins, rocking her as if she were a baby; and his efforts to soothe her troubles were wonderfully successful. The tears ceased, and Nina found herself fingering the lapel of his coat quite calmly and interestedly. Now she began to notice how bright and fierce his eyes were, and how golden and silky was his little mustache. She settled herself more comfortably, curled up on his big knees, and smoothed back her tumbled black hair. She forgot her troubles in the arms of this very real protector, this big man (she was very conscious of his bulk and of the iron hardness of his muscles) with the hurt look, who had come from nowhere and taken her upon his lap. They had nothing whatever to say to each other, but that they did not mind. It was not for some time that conversation began to grow again, and it had hardly made a halting start before they heard a key in the front door, and voices.
“Here’s auntie,” said Nina, scrambling off Dawkins’ lap and hurriedly trying to tidy herself.
Two people entered abruptly into the drawing-room. The first was a woman, short, stout and florid, overdressed, face painted, hair dyed (all these facts were evident even to Dawkins’ eye) and withal conveying an impression of being slatternly—there were hints all over her of missing buttons and untied laces, although actually there was nothing as obvious as that about her untidiness. Trailing behind her came a gawky young man with a shambling step and shifting eye and a receding chin—Mr. Dawkins rightly set him down as the mysterious “Charlie” about whom Nina could offer such little information. The newcomers stopped short at sight of Mr. Dawkins’ vast bulk rearing itself out of his chair, and Mrs. Royle’s beady eyes ran hurriedly up and down him—took notice of the good clothes and the knife-edge trousers creases and the bronzed face and the gentlemanly mustache. There was an awkward pause. Then——
“I’ve come about Major Royle,” said Dawkins.
“Oh, really? Won’ t you sit down, Mr.—er——?”
“Dawkins.”
“Mr. Dawkins. Mister Dawkins? Light the gas, Charlie, and poke up the fire. Run down-stairs, Nina, that’s a good girl. Run along, now, when you’re told. Now, Nina—”
But Nina stood defiant, and edged back beside Dawkins’ chair. So there they were, grouped at once into two hostile camps, Dawkins and Nina on one side, and Mrs. Royle with Charlie standing behind her chair on the other. Dawkins somehow guessed at once Charlie’s position in the household —a passée widow and a young man with a shifty eye made the state of affairs evident; he had probably started as a lodger and eventually found a more economical solution of the problem of board.
“What is your news, Mr. Dawkins?” said Mrs. Royle icily, now. Her attitude had changed at once from flirtatious hospitality to guarded antagonism—goodness knows why, save that it was inevitable.
“Major Royle is dead, I suppose?” went on Mrs. Royle, noticing Dawkins’ hesitation.
“Yes,” said Dawkins. “He—died, nearly two years ago.”
“I thought as much. And did he—is that precious silver mine of his, wherever it is, paying yet?”
“I believe so, but—there was a flaw in the agreement and it has reverted to the State.”
That was putting it mildly, but Mr. Dawkins was in no mood for elaborate explanations.
“So that he left nothing?”
“Not as far as I am aware. But——” The “but” slipped out before Mr. Dawkins was ready for it. This was another of the scenes Mr. Dawkins had tried to visualize beforehand, over and over again.
“Well?”
“I promised him, before he died, to see that his daughter was provided for. He was the best friend I had.”
Mr. Dawkins had actually come to believe both these statements.
“H’m,” said Mrs. Royle comprehensively, and she paused and looked up at Charlie. Then she continued cautiously, “I’m sure I’ve found keeping the child a very expensive business. You’ve no idea how much that child costs in food and clothes. And it’s not as if she were any relation of mine. She’s not my grandchild at all, of course. She would have gone to the workhouse if it hadn’t been for me.”
“It was very good of you, Mrs. Royle,” said Dawkins. Mrs. Royle’s hostility was obviously warring with the prospect of getting something out of a man so clearly moneyed. But a sharply drawn breath from Nina at his side told him that she at least was not in agreement.
“It’s five years since Francis left her with me,” went on Mrs. Royle, “and it’s more than four since he sent me any money for her. That means an awful lot I’ve spent. And of course it will be more still now that she’s getting older.”
There was a light of greed in Mrs, Royle’s eyes, and Charlie behind her was licking thin lips with a thin tongue. Dawkins saw it, and his loathing for the two of them roused him to deliberate action.
“I don’t know who is the gentleman beside you, Mrs. Royle,” he said. “Has he anything to do with this business? It’s private, you know.”
“Oh, Charlie? He’s all right, isn’t he? He’s——”
“He’s not the person I’m here to do business with,” said Dawkins heavily.
“But—”
“Look here, mister,” said Charlie, “I’m here to look after Maggie’s—Mrs. Royle’s—business for ‘er, and see that no one don’t cheat ‘er. See?”
Dawkins played the inevitable bluff, the trick which has succeeded ever since the stone age.
“Then that will be all,” said Dawkins, standing up. “I won’t try to cheat any one.”
That put Mrs. Royle all in a flutter again.
“Oh, do sit down, Mr. Dawkins,” she said. “Charlie, go away for a little while I talk this over with Mr. Dawkins. Go along now, there’s a good boy.”
Charlie went, muttering. But at the instant Mr. Dawkins had risen Nina had seized his hand in panic, clinging to it desperately. She was saying, “Don’t go away, please don’t go away,” all the time that Charlie was being evicted; it was that which decided Mr. Dawkins on a new plan—a wild ridiculous scheme far madder than launching himself upon the Pacific in an open boat. He abandoned his original intention of merely trying to put the fear of God in Mrs. Royle. The twining of tiny fingers about his big ones settled it for him.
“Now see here, Mrs. Royle,” said Dawkins, as soon as the door had closed behind Charlie, “I’m a rich man,”—it was the first time he had ever described himself as such,—“and I shall be spending the rest of my life in England. I think I shall be able to carry out Major Royle’s wishes best by taking entire responsibility for Nina, here, and saving you any more trouble about her.”
A convulsive clasp of the hands which held his told him that Nina had understood what he said and approved rapturously. Mrs. Royle looked at the pair of them; suspicion and relief and avarice and natural cross-grainedness all bore their part in her expression.
“What for?” she snapped. “Can’t I look after her as well as anybody?”
“No,” said Nina unexpectedly. “You know that——”
“Will you be
quiet, you——?” said Mrs. Royle furiously, and then she stopped, realizing that this display of bad temper was as damaging, or more, to her argument as Nina’s denial. There was a highly uncomfortable pause. Dawkins broke it.
“What about it, Nina?” he asked. “Would you like to come with me?”
“Yes,” said Nina thankfully.
“That ought to settle it,” said Dawkins to Mrs. Royle.
Chapter X
Nina had returned from school very unhappy. There was that in the attitude of her schoolfellows toward her which made her unhappy, although for the life of her she could not guess the reason for their sneers. She knew that it was something to do with auntie and Charlie, but Nina was not yet experienced enough to know that the relations between these two were such as to merit the disapprobation of the Puritanical tradespeople whose daughters composed the greater part of the school’s pupils. Most of the daughters, it is true, hardly knew more than Nina, but they had guessed from the hints and nods exchanged by their elders that Nina was fair game for bad treatment, and with the cruelty of children they had turned upon her. The many weeks which had elapsed since the game had first started had not even yet begun to stale its novelty. Nina’s puzzled little brain could not understand why she had suddenly become unpopular, and why there was even an altered tone in the mistresses’ voices when they spoke to her. She came home alone, instead of with the half-dozen playmates who had once accompanied her.
The house was empty when she reached it, and there was no answer to her knock. That she was used to; she took the key from its hiding-place in the basement and opened the door for herself; the house was empty and desolate as a tomb, save where a fire smoldered behind its guard under a heap of slack. She sat down on the floor before it, gazing into its scanty rednesses, to wait until auntie and Charlie should see fit to come in. She was very, very lonely and unhappy—although at ten one hardly knows when one is unhappy if the unhappiness is not so great as to bring tears. She was not old enough yet to connect auntie’s bad tempers with the days when her visits to the sideboard where the decanters were kept were more frequent than usual. All Nina knew about auntie’s bad tempers was that they came and went, and that she was the sufferer from them. For if auntie tried to nag Charlie (as she did, sometimes) Charlie would growl something in reply and walk out of the house, and auntie would be worse than ever toward Nina. And hours afterward, when Nina was in bed, she would wake up and hear auntie and Charlie growling at each other down-stairs.