by Berta Ruck
CHAPTER IX
WE MOVE INTO NEW QUARTERS
THE HOTEL CECIL, June, 1914.
I'VE taken the first step towards setting up my new employer, MissMillion, as a young lady of fortune.
That first step was--new luggage!
New clothes we could do without for a little longer (though not for muchlonger. I'm quite firm about that).
But new, expensive-looking trunks Miss Million must have. It would beabsolutely impossible for "Miss Million and Maid" to make theirappearance at a big London hotel with the baggage which had witnessedtheir exit from the Putney villa. My brown canvas hold-all and her tintrunk with the rope about it--what did they make us look like? Irishemigrants!
"Nice luggage is the mark of a lady," was one of my Aunt Anastasia'smany maxims.
So we spent the morning in Bond Street, buying recklessly and wildly atVuitton's and at that place where you get the "Innovation" trunks thatlook like a glorified wardrobe--all hangers and drawers. I did all theordering. Million stood by and looked like a scared kitten. When thetime came she signed the cheques and gasped, "Lor', Miss!"
"Million, you're not to say 'Lor''," I ordered her in a stage whisper.
I turned away from the polished shop assistants who, I should think,must have had the morning of their lives. I wonder what they made oftheir customers, the two young women (one with a strong Cockney accent)who dressed as if from a country rectory jumble sale and who purchasedtrunks as if for a duchess's trousseau?
"And you are not to say 'Miss.' Do remember, Million," I urged her. "Nowwe'll have a taxi. Two taxis, I mean."
One taxi was piled high with the new and princely pile of "leathergoods." Hat-boxes, dress-baskets, two Innovation trunks, a week-end bag,and a dressing-case with crystal and ivory fittings. The other taxi boreoff the small, "my-Sunday-out"-looking figure of Miss Million and theequally small, almost equally badly dressed figure of Miss Million'smaid.
We drove first to the Kensington Hostelry and picked up the old luggage.By the side of the new it looked not even as respectable as an Irishemigrant's; it looked like some Kentish hop-picker's! We made the driverunstrap and open one of the large new dress-baskets. And into this wedumped the hold-all and the tin trunk that seemed to be labelled "MyFirst Place." Then I ordered him to drive to the Hotel Cecil, and off wewhirled again.
Our arrival at the Cecil was marked by quite a dramatic little picture;like something on the stage, I thought.
For as our taxi swept around the big circle of the courtyard of thehotel, as it glided up exactly opposite the middle door and a couple ofgorgeously uniformed commissionaires stepped forward, the air was rentby the long, piercingly shrill notes of a posthorn. There was thestaccato clatter of horses' hoofs, and there rattled and jingled up tothe entrance a coach of lemon-yellow-and-black, with four magnificentwhite horses, driven by a very big and strongly built, ruddy-faced,white-toothed young man, wearing a tall white hat, a black-and-whitecheck suit, yellow gloves, a hunting tie with a black pearl pin in it,and one large red rose.
This gay and startling apparition took our eyes and our attention offeverything else for a moment. Million's grey eyes were indeed poppingout of her head like hat-pegs as the young man leapt lightly down fromthe coach. She was staring undisguisedly at him. And I saw him turn andgive one very hard, straight glance--not at Million--not at me. Hiseyes, which were very blue and bright, were all for that taxi full ofvery imposing-looking new luggage just behind us. Then he turned to hisfriends on the coach; several other young men, also dressed like Solomonin all his glory, and a couple of ladies, very powdery, with cobalt-blueeyelashes, and smothers of golden hair, and pretty frocks that looked asif they'd got into them with the shoehorn. (I don't think skirts canpossibly get any tighter than they are at this present moment of June,1914, unless we take to wearing one on each leg.)
All these people were laughing and talking together very loudly andcalling out Christian names. "Jim!" and "Sunny Jim!" seemed to be thebig young man who had driven them up. Then they all trooped off towardsthe Palm Court, calling out something about "Rattlesnake cocktails"--andMillion and I came back with a start to our own business.
A huge porter came along to take our luggage off the cab. He put atremendous amount of force into hoisting one of the dress-baskets. Itwent up like a feather. The empty one! I do wonder what he thought....
We went into the Central Hall, crowded with people. (Note.--I must teachMillion to learn to walk in front of me; she will sidle after meeverywhere like a worm that doesn't know how to turn.) We marched up tothe bureau. The man on the other side of the counter pushed the big booktowards me.
"Will you sign the register, please."
"Yes--no. I mean it isn't me." I drew back and pinched my employer'sarm. "You sign here, please, Miss Million," I said very distinctly.
And Million, breathing hard and flushing crimson, came forward, leantover the book, and slowly wrote in her Soldiers' Orphanage copybookhand, with downstrokes heavy and upstrokes light:
"Nellie Mary Million" (just as it had been written on herinsurance-card).
"Miss," I dictated in a whisper, "Miss Nellie Mary Million and maid."
"'Ow, Miss, don't you write your name?" breathed Million gustily."Miss----"
I trod on her foot. I saw several American visitors staring at us.
The man said: "Your rooms are forty-five, forty-six, and forty-seven,Miss."
"Forty-five. Ow! Same number as at home," murmured Million. "Will youplease tell me how we get?"
It was one of the chocolate-liveried page-boys who showed us to ourrooms--the two large, luxuriously furnished bedrooms and thesitting-room that seemed so extraordinarily palatial to eyes stillaccustomed to the proportions of No. 45 Laburnum Grove.
What a change! What other extraordinary changes and contrasts lie beforeus, I wonder?
We were closely followed by the newly bought trunks; one filled withancient baggage, like a large and beautiful nut showing a shrivelledkernel; the others an empty magnificence. Million and I gazed upon themas they stood among the white-painted hotel furniture, filling the bigroom with the fragrance of costly leather.
Million said: "Well! I shall never get enough things to fill all them, Idon't s'pose."
"Won't you!" I said. "We go shopping again this very afternoon shoppingclothes! And the question is whether we've got enough boxes to holdthem!"
"Miss!" breathed Million.
I turned from the tray, full of attractively arranged little boxes andshelves, of the dress-basket. Quite sharply I said: "How often am I totell you not to call me that?"
"Very sorry, Miss Beatrice. I mean--S--Smith!" faltered Million. Herpretty grey eyes were full of tears. Her small, bonnie face lookedsuddenly pinched and pale. She sat down with a dump on the edge of thebig brass bedstead. Very forlorn, she looked, the little heiress.
"Sorry I was cross," I said penitently, patting my employer's hand.
"It's not that, Miss," said Million, relapsing again, "it's only--oh,haven't you got a sinkin'? I feel fair famished, I do; indeed, what withall the going about, and----"
"I'm awfully hungry, too," I admitted. "We'll go down to the dining-roomat once. Come along. You go first. You are to!"
"Not to the dining-room here," objected Million, terrified. "Not in thisgrand place, with all these people. Oh, Miss, did you notice that younggentleman, him with the red rose, and all the ladies in their lovelydresses? I'd far rather just nip out and get a portion ofsteak-and-kidney pie and a nice cupper tea at an A.B.C. There is boundto be one close by here----"
"Well, we aren't going to it," I decreed firmly. "Ladies with privateincomes of a hundred and fifty pounds a week don't lunch atmarble-topped tables. Anyhow, their maids won't. But if you don't wantto have luncheon here the first day, perhaps----"
"I don't; oh, not me. I couldn't get anything down, I know I couldn't,and all these people dre
ssed up so grand, looking at me! (Did you seeher with the cerise feather in her hat that the young gentleman called'facie'?) Oh, lor'!" The grey eyes filled again.
So I made a compromise and said we would lunch out somewhere else; agood restaurant was near, where you do at least get a table-cloth. Inthe hall we saw again the young man who had driven up in thefour-in-hand. He was talking to one of the porters, and his broad,black-and-white check back was towards us. I heard what he was saying,in a deep voice with a soft burr of Irish brogue in it--
"--with all those lashins of new trunks?... Million?... Will she haveanything to do with the Chicago Million, the Sausage King, as they callhim?"
"I don't know, sir," said the porter.
"Find out for me, will you?" said the four-in-hand young man.
Then he turned round and saw me (again followed by my sidling employer)making my way towards the entrance.
He raised his hat in a rather empresse manner as he allowed us to pass.
"Oh, Miss--I mean, oh, Smith! Isn't he handsome?" breathed Million as wegot out into the Strand. "Did you notice what a lovely smile he'd got?"
I said rather chillingly: "I didn't very much like the look of him."
And I'm going to try and stop Million from liking the look of that sortof young man. Fortune-hunters, beware!