THE TRENCH DAYS: The Collected War Tales of William Le Queux (WW1 Adventure Sagas, Espionage Thrillers & Action Classics). William Le Queux
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Lady Betty, seated quite near, talking to a dowager-duchess, overheard him. He had purposely spoken loudly and emphatically, with that object.
“Good! Mr Rodwell,” her ladyship cried. “Excellent! I am so delighted that you thoroughly approve of our efforts. We are trying to do our share, in this terrible crisis. You are such a busy man that I almost feared to ask you to help us.”
“I am never too busy, Lady Kenworthy, to help in such a good cause as this,” he assured her, in that suave manner of his which stood him in such good stead at times. “True, I am rather a busy man, as everyone has to be in these days. We, in the City, have to bear our share in finance, for we know that one day — sooner or later — the Government will require a big loan to carry on the war. And when they do, we hope to be as ready to meet it as the industrial population of the country will no doubt be. Still, to us it means much thought. We have no time nowadays for any idle week-ends, or golf by the sea.”
At mention of golf Lady Betty smiled. She knew well that it was the great man’s habit to play golf at Sunningdale or Walton Heath with various important personages.
The conversation regarding the aims and aspirations of the Anti-Teuton Alliance grew general, and everyone was much gratified to hear Mr Lewin Rodwell’s reiterated approval of it, especially the half-dozen ascetic, hard-faced women who made “movements” the chief object of their lives.
Lewin Rodwell smiled inwardly at them all, sipped the cup of China tea offered him by a slim, dark-haired, loosely-clad girl who secretly regarded him as a hero, and then talked loudly, airing his opinion of “what the Government really ought to do.” To him, the huge farce was amusing. Lady Betty was, of course, “a good sort,” but he knew quite well that her association with the Anti-Teuton movement was merely for the sake of advertisement and notoriety — in order to go one better than the Countess of Chesterbridge, who had, for years, been her rival on the face of the social barometer — which, after all, was the personal columns of the daily newspapers.
After an hour, when most of the guests had left, Rodwell rose at last and said to Trustram, with whom he had had a long and very intimate chat:
“I really do wish you’d run in and see me, Mr Trustram. I’d be so awfully delighted. I’m sure we can do something together in order to expose this terrible scandal. Will you?”
“Most certainly. I’ll be most pleased.”
“Good. Can’t you dine with me — say on Tuesday?”
His newly-found friend reflected a moment, and then replied in the affirmative.
“Excellent. Tuesday at eight — eh? You know my address.”
“Yes — in Bruton Street.”
“Right — that’s an appointment,” Rodwell exclaimed cheerily; and then, after bending low over Lady Betty’s thin white hand, he left.
Chapter Two
The Suspicions of Elise
At nine o’clock that same evening, in a well-furnished drawing-room half-way up Fitzjohn’s Avenue, in Hampstead, a pretty, blue-eyed, fair-haired girl of twenty-one sat at the piano alone, playing a gay French chanson, to pass away the time.
Dressed in a dainty little dinner-gown of carnation pink, and wearing in her well-dressed hair a touch of velvet to match, she presented a pretty picture beneath the shaded electric-light which fell over the instrument set in a corner.
Her mother, Mrs Shearman, a charming, grey-haired lady, had just gone out, while her father, Daniel Shearman, a rich tool-manufacturer, whose works were outside Birmingham, was away at the factory, as was his habit three days each week.
Elise Shearman was just a typical athletic English girl. In her early youth her parents were “making their way in the world,” but at fourteen she had been sent abroad to school, first to Lausanne, and afterwards to Dresden, where she had studied music, as so many English girls have done.
On her return to Hampstead, whither her father had removed from the grime and toil of work-a-day Birmingham, she found her home very dull. Because the Shearmans were manufacturers, the snobbishness of Hampstead, with its “first Thursdays,” would have nothing to do with them; though, if the truth were told, Dan Shearman could have bought up most of his neighbours in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, and was a sterling good Englishman into the bargain — which could not be said of some of those slippery, smooth-tongued City adventurers who resided behind the iron railings of that select thoroughfare.
Running her slim white hands over the keys, she began the gay refrain of one of the chansonettes which she had learned in Paris — one of the gay songs of the boulevards, which was, perhaps, not very apropos for young ladies, but which she often sang because of its gay, blithe air — Belloche’s “L’Eventail Parisien.”
In her sweet, musical treble she sang gaily —
Dès qu’arrivent les grand’s chaleurs,
À la terrass’ des brasseries
Les éventails de tout’s couleurs
Viennent bercer nos rêveries.
Car, pour allécher le client,
Le camelot toujours cocasse
En s’éventant d’un air bonasse
Envoi’ ce petit boniment:
And then, with a swing and go, she sang the chorus —
Ça va, ça vient,
Ça donn’ de l’air, ça fait du bien.
C’est vraiment magnifique.
Quel instrument magique!
Ça va, ça vient,
Ca donn’ de l’air et du maintien
Et ça ne coûte presque rien:
Voici l’éventail parisien!
Hardly had she concluded the final line when the door opened and a tall, dark-haired, good-looking young man entered, crossed to her, and, placing his hand upon her shoulder, bent and kissed her fondly.
“Why, Jack, dear — you really are late!” the girl exclaimed. “Were you kept at the office?”
“Yes, dearest,” was his answer. “Or rather I had some work that I particularly wanted to finish, so I stayed behind.”
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