Miranda of the Balcony: A Story

by A. E. W. Mason

CHAPTER XV

[IN WHICH THE MAJOR LOSES HIS TEMPER AND RECOVERS IT]

All that evening Miranda's imagination followed the 6.15 train from Ronda to Algeciras. She looked at the clock at half-past ten. The ferry would be crossing from Algeciras to Gibraltar, and no doubt Charnock was crossing upon it. She felt a loneliness of which she had never had experience. And when she woke up in the morning from a troubled sleep, it was only to picture some stately mail steamer marching out from Algeciras Bay. She was conscious to the full of the irony of the situation. If she had only met this man years ago, seven years ago--that regret was a continual cry at her heart, and not the least part of her loneliness was made up from her clear remembrance of the picture of herself which she had given him to carry away.

She ordered her horse to be brought round early that morning, and rode out past the hotel a few minutes before nine. Major Wilbraham saw her pass. He was down betimes as a rule when he stayed in a hotel, since it was his habit, as often as possible, to look over the letters which came for the different visitors. The mere postmark he had known upon occasion to give him quite valuable hints. There was only, however, a telegram for Charnock, which he genially offered to deliver himself and did deliver, running into Charnock's bedroom for that purpose. Charnock thanked him and read the telegram. It seemed to raise his spirits.

"Good news, old friend?" asked the Major.

"Well--interesting news," replied Charnock, as he lathered his face.

"Well, you shall give me it another time," said the Major, as he saw Charnock put the telegram in his pocket. "So long!"

The Major went downstairs and kept an eye upon the road. At ten o'clock he noticed Miranda returning slowly. He put on his hat and followed her. When he reached the house the horse was still at the door, but Miranda had gone in. He observed that Charnock was hesitating upon the other side of the road. Charnock was in fact debating his plan of action; the Major's was already prepared. The door stood open. Wilbraham put ceremony upon one side, the more readily since ceremony would very likely have barred the door in his face. He walked straight into the patio where Miranda stood before a little wicker table drawing off her gloves.

"Had a pleasant ride?" said the Major. "Nice horse; I am partial to roans myself--"

"What do you want?" asked Miranda.

"To so uncompromising a question, I must needs give an uncompromising reply. I want one thousand jimmies per annum," and the Major bowed gracefully.

"No," said Miranda.

"But excuse me, yes, very much yes. You see, there is my excellent young friend, the locomotive-man."

"Can't you keep his name out of the conversation?" she suggested, but with a dangerous quietude of voice.

"Indeed no," replied the Major, who was entirely at his ease. He looked sympathetically at her face. "You look pale; you have not slept well; you are tired, and so you do not follow me. Charnock is my God of the machine, a blind unconscious God--shall we say a Cupid, but a Cupid in the machine? Let me explain! May I be seated? No? So sorry! On the first night of Charnock's stay at Ronda, I had the honour to follow him while he took a stroll."

"You followed him unseen, of course?" said Miranda, contemptuously, as she tossed her gloves on to the wicker table.

"You take me, you take me perfectly," returned the Major. "I followed him unseen, a habit of mine, and at times a very profitable habit. Charnock walked--whither? Can you guess? Can't you tell?" He hummed with unabashed impertinence. "He walked down a certain road which winds down the precipice under your windows. Ah!"--he uttered the exclamation in a playful raillery, for Miranda's hand had gone to her heart; "he walked down that road until he came to an angle from which he could see your lighted window."

"Show me," said Miranda, suddenly. She walked round the patio, threw open the door of her parlour, and crossed to the window. The window was open, and the Major looked out. The window was in the outer wall of the wing, and was built on the very rim of the precipice. Wilbraham looked straight down on to the road.

"That was the angle, Mrs. Warriner," said he, pointing with his finger. "By that heap of stones he sat him down." Mrs. Warriner leaned out of the window with something of a smile parting her lips. "At the bottom of the bank he sat and aspired. Little Ambrose reclined on the top."

Miranda turned from the window abruptly. "Let us go back." She returned to the patio and took her former position by the wicker table. Wilbraham, upon the other side of it, faced her.

"We could only see the ceiling of the room," he continued, "and the shadow of your head. But so little contents an amorous engineer. He sighed, and what a sigh, and yet how typical! So hoarse it seemed the whistle of an engine; so deep, it surely came from a cutting. He went home singing beneath the stars. He did not tread the ground. How should he? Love was his permanent way."

Miranda had listened so far without interruption, though the Major, had he been less pleased with his flowery description, might have noticed something ominous in the still depths of her dark eyes. "Mr. Wilbraham," she said, "there is a little wicker table between us."

"I see it."

"And on the table?"

"A pair of gloves."

"Not only a pair of gloves."

"Ah true! A riding-whip."

"I was sure that you had not noticed it before."

The Major picked it up and examined the mounting of the handle. "It is very pretty," he remarked with emphasis, and laid it down again. "As I was about to say,"--he proceeded with his argument,--"I thus obtained on the night of Charnock's arrival a very clear knowledge of his sentiments towards you, while you, on the other hand, have been obliging enough to favour me with some hint of your own towards him, not merely this morning, when you asked me to point out the precise point of the road from which he worshipped your window, but yesterday when, in order to give an impetus to his bashfulness, you ingeniously courted myself. If I were, then, at all disposed to make unpleasantness, you see that all I have to do is to walk out of your house and inform the trustful Charnock that Mrs. Warriner is carefully concealing the existence of her husband from the man with whom she is in love."

Miranda took up the riding-whip. The Major did not give ground. If anything, he leaned a little towards her. His eyebrows drew together until they joined; his bird-like eyes narrowed.

"Drop it! Drop that whip," he commanded sharply. "I warn you, Mrs. Warriner. I have dealt with you gently, though you are a woman; be prudent. What if I took the gloves off? Eh?"

"You would place me in a better position," replied Miranda, who still held the whip, "to point out to you that your hands are not clean."

Wilbraham stepped back, stared at her, and burst into a laugh. "I will never deny that you are possessed or an admirable spirit," said he.

"I would rather have your threats than your compliments," said she. "For your threats I can answer with threats; I cannot do the same with your compliments."

"Threat for threat, then," said the Major; "but there's a difference in the threats. You cannot put yours into practice since I have my eyes upon the whip, whereas I can mine."

"Can you?" said Miranda, with a suspicion of triumph.

"I can," returned the Major. "I can walk straight out of your house and tell Luke Charnock," and he banged his hand upon the table and leaned over it. "Now what do you say?"

"I say that you cannot, for Mr. Charnock is at Gibraltar, if he is not already on the sea."

"Mr. Charnock is at Ronda, and contemplating the ornaments of your door at this very moment," said the Major, triumphantly.

But never did a man get less visible proofs of his triumph. Miranda, it is true, was evidently startled; her bosom rose and fell quickly; but she was pleasurably startled, as her face showed. For it cleared of its weariness with a magical swiftness, the blood pulsed warmly in her cheeks, her eyes sparkled and laughed, her contemptuous lips parted in the happiest of smiles.

Wilbraham construed her reception of his news in his own fashion.

"You may smile, my lady," said he, brutally. "It's gratifying no doubt to have your lover hanging about your doors, a wistful Lazarus for the crumbs of your favour. It's pleasant no doubt to transform a man into a tame whipped puppy-dog. There's not one of you, from Eve to a modern factory-girl, but envies Circe her enchantments, and imitates them to the best of her ability. Circes--Circes in laced petticoats and open-worked stockings--to help you in the dainty work of making a man a beast." The Major's vindictiveness had fairly got hold of him. "But in the original story, if you remember, the men resumed their shape; now what if I play Ulysses in our version of the story!--" There was a knock upon the outer door. The Major paused, and continued hurriedly: "Do you understand? That knock may have been Charnock's. Do you understand? He may be entering the house at this moment."

"He is," said Miranda, quietly.

The Major listened. He distinctly heard Charnock's voice speaking to the servant; he dropped his own to a whisper. "Then what if I told him, your lover, now and here, the truth about Ralph Warriner?"

"You shall," said Miranda.

Major Wilbraham was completely taken aback. She had spoken in no gust of passion, but slowly and calmly. Her face, equally calm, equally resolute, showed him that she intended and understood what she had said. The Major was in a predicament. The drawback to blackmailing as a profession is that the blackmailer's secret is only of value so long as he never tells it, his threats only of use so long as they are never enforced; and here he was in imminent danger of being compelled to tell his secret and execute his threat. If Charnock knew the truth, he would certainly lose his extra three hundred per annum. Moreover, since Charnock was a man, and not a woman, he would very likely lose his original seven hundred into the bargain. These reflections flashed simultaneously into the Major's mind; but already he heard Charnock's step sounding in the passage. "I don't wish to push you too far," he whispered. "Tomorrow, to-morrow."

"No, to-day," said Miranda, quietly. "You shall tell my lover the truth about Ralph Warriner, and to help you to tell it him convincingly you shall tell it with this mark across your face."

Charnock did not see the blow struck, but he heard Wilbraham's cry, and as he entered the patio, he saw the wheal redden and ridge upon his face. He stood still for a second in amazement. Wilbraham had reeled back from the table against the wall, with his coat-sleeve pressed upon his smarting cheeks. Miranda alone seemed composed. There was indeed even an air of relief about her; for she was at last to be lightened of the deception.

"Major Wilbraham," she said as she dropped the whip upon the table and walked away to a lounge chair, "Major Wilbraham,"--she seated herself in the chair as though she was to be henceforward a spectator,--"Major Wilbraham has a confidence to make to you," she said.

"And by God I have!" snarled the Major as he started forward. It would be told for a certain thing, either by Mrs. Warriner or himself, and since the slash of the whip burned intolerably upon his face, he meant to do the telling himself.

"That woman's husband is alive."

Charnock's face was a mask. He did not start; he did not even look at Miranda; only he was silent for some seconds. Then he said, "Well?" and said it in a quite commonplace, ordinary voice, as though he wondered what there was to make any pother about.

Miranda was startled, the Major utterly dumbfoundered. His blow had seemingly failed to hurt, and his anger was thereby redoubled.

"A small thing, eh?" he sneered. "A husband more or less don't matter in these days of the sacred laws of passion? Well, very likely. But this husband is a peculiar sort of a husband. He slipped out of Gibraltar one fine night. Why? Because he had sold the plans of the new Daventry gun to a foreign government, being stony."

"Well?" said Charnock, again.

"Well, I know where he is."

"Well?" asked Charnock, for the third time, and with an unchanged imperturbability.

Wilbraham suddenly ceased from his accusations. He looked at Miranda, who was herself looking on the ground, and gently beating it with her foot. From Miranda he looked to Charnock. Then he uttered a long whistle, as if some new idea had occurred to him. "So you are both in the pretty secret, are you?" he said, and stopped to consider how that supposition affected himself. His hopes immediately revived. "Why, then, you are both equally interested in keeping it dark! I can't say but what I am glad, for I can point out to you precisely what I have pointed out to Mrs. Warriner. I have merely to present myself at Scotland Yard, observe that Ralph Warriner is alive, and mention a port in England where he may from time to time be found, and--do you follow me?--there is Ralph Warriner laid by the heels in a place which not even a triple-expansion locomotive, with the engineer from Algeciras for the driver, will get him out of."

"And how does that concern me?" asked Charnock.

"The consequences concern you. It will be known, for instance, that Mrs. Warriner has a real live husband."

"I see," said Charnock. He looked at Wilbraham with a curious interest. Then he spoke to Miranda, but without looking towards her at all. "It is blackmail, I suppose?"

"Yes," said she.

"It is a claim for common gratitude," Wilbraham corrected.

"What's the price of the claim?" asked Charnock, pleasantly.

"One thousand jimmies per annum is the minimum figure," replied the Major, whose jauntiness was quite restored. Since his affairs progressed so swimmingly towards prosperity, he was prepared to forgive, and, as soon as his looking-glass allowed, to forget that hasty slash of the riding-whip.

"And up till now how much have you received?" continued Charnock, in the same pleasant business-like voice.

"A beggarly two hundred and fifty."

"Then if for form's sake you will give Mrs. Warriner an I O U for that amount she can wish you good-day."

Wilbraham smiled gaily, and with some condescension. "Is it bluff?" said he. "Where's the use? My dear Charnock, I have a full hand, and--"

"My dear Major," replied Charnock, "I hold a royal straight flush."

He produced a telegram from his pocket. The Major eyed it with suspicion. "Is that the telegram I brought into your room this morning?"

"It is. To keep up your metaphor, you dealt me my hand. Do you call it?"

The Major cocked his head. Charnock's ease was so very natural; his good temper so complete. Still, he might be merely playing the game; besides, one never knew what there might be in a telegram. "I do," he said.

"Very well," said Charnock. He sat down upon a chair, and spread out the telegram on his knee. "You talk very airily, Major, of dropping in upon Scotland Yard. Would it surprise you to hear that Scotland Yard would welcome you with open arms, for other reasons than a mere gratitude for your information?"

The Major was more than disappointed; he confessed to being grieved. "I expected something more subtle, I did indeed. Really, my dear Charnock, you are a novice! Sir, a novice."

"But a novice with a royal straight flush. Major, why have you been living for four months at an out-of-the-way and unentertaining place like Tarifa?"

"I will answer you with frankness. I wished to keep my fingers upon Mrs. Warriner. An occasional tweak of the fingers, dear friend, is very useful if only to show that you are awake."

"Was that the only reason?"

"No," interposed Miranda. "He wanted quiet; he is translating Horace."

The Major actually blushed, for the first and last time that morning. Accusations, even proofs of infamy, he could accept without a stir of the muscles; but to be charged, perhaps to be ridiculed, with his one honourable project--the Major was hurt.

"A little mean!" he said gently to Miranda. "You will agree with me when you think it over. A little mean!"

"But there was a third reason beyond those two," resumed Charnock. "When I saw you dining at the hotel on the night of my arrival, when I remembered that you had been living for four months at Tarifa, where from time to time I had the pleasure to come across you, I began, for reasons which there's no need to explain, to wonder whether you were causing any trouble to Mrs. Warriner. That night, too, if you remember, when I went for a stroll"--here Charnock faltered for a second, and Miranda looked quickly up--"you followed me, Major. When I sat down at the foot of the bank, you crouched upon the top. You made a mistake there, Major, for I at once thought it wise to learn what I could of your history and character. I accordingly wrote a letter that night to a friend of mine, who also happens to be an official at Scotland Yard. His answer, you see, comes by telegraph, and you will see that a reply is prepaid."

He handed the telegram to the Major. The Major read it through and glanced anxiously towards the door, taking up his hat from the table at the same time.

"I think so, too," said Charnock.

"What does the telegram say?" asked Miranda.

"Nothing definite, but every word of it is suggestive," answered Charnock. "I asked my friend if he knew anything of Major Ambrose Wilbraham. He wires me: 'Yes. Is he at Ronda?' and prepays the reply. If there's a warrant already issued, Major, I don't think I should waste time, but you of course are the best judge."

"Did you answer it?" asked the Major.

"I have not answered it yet. Do you think Scotland Yard will wait for an answer? It does not interest me very much. The one point which does interest me is this. You are hardly in a position to enter into communication with Scotland Yard in order to revenge yourself on Mrs. Warriner for not paying you blackmail."

Major Wilbraham tugged at his moustache. His jauntiness had vanished, and his face had grown very sombre and tired during the last few minutes.

"I get nothing, then?"

"Not one depreciated Spanish dollar."

There was a knock at the door. The Major started; he looked from Charnock to Miranda, his mouth opened, his eyes widened, he became at once a creature scared and hunted. The door was opened; the three people in the patio held their breath; but it was merely the postman with a letter for Miranda.

"I must get out of here," said Wilbraham. "I must get out of Ronda. My God, I have to begin it again, have I--the hunt for breakfast and dinner?"

He showed a dangerous face at that moment. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, his eyes furtive and murderous. Miranda felt very glad of Charnock's presence.

However, the Major mastered himself. He might have taken some sort of revenge by insulting Miranda, on account of her disposition towards Charnock; but he did not, and it was not fear of Charnock which restrained him.

"I go back to the regiment, Mrs. Warriner," he said, "the regiment of the soldiers of fortune. I have had my furlough--four months' furlough. I cannot complain." He endeavoured to speak gaily and to bow with grace.

"Good-bye," said Charnock.

Miranda was implacably silent.

"And they call women the softer sex," said the Major.

"One moment," exclaimed Miranda, taking no notice of his remark. "Mr. Wilbraham has a letter from my husband about the Daventry gun."

"It is mine," answered the Major; "it was written to me."

"I will buy it," said Charnock.

"For a thousand--?"

"No; for permission to answer this prepaid telegram to Scotland Yard."

"In your name?"

"In my name."

"You're not a bad fellow, Charnock," said the Major as he drew out his pocket-book. He handed the letter to Charnock, looked at him curiously, and then laughed softly, without malice.

"O lover of my life! O soldier-saint!"

he quoted. "A great poet, what? Do you know Ralph Warriner? Will you play Caponsacchi to his Guido? You might; very likely you will." The Major took the reply form and turned away.

"It is not always a profitable habit, it seems," said Miranda, "that habit of following."

"A little mean!" said the Major, gently. "Perhaps, too, a little overdone," and as he went out of the patio Miranda flushed and felt ashamed. Then the flush faded from her cheeks and left her white, for she was alone with Charnock and had to make her account with him.