Part 27 (1/2)
Paid for; yes, of course, everything must have been paid for. In an instant all her pleasure became trans.m.u.ted to gold. The very strawberries--strawberries at Christmas! What must they not have cost?
And they had been got for her. She felt, hotly, as if she were being bribed.
”If you will finish your lunch,” came Ned's voice in an undertone, ”we can start back as soon afterwards as you choose. Yes! Hirsch,” he added out loud, ”I know I'm done all round. But it amuses people, and it doesn't hurt me. The only use of money is to get rid of it.”
”I never, Mrs. Tressilian,” protested Lady Smith-Biggs plaintively, ”quite understand what your cousin means.”
”I don't wonder,” replied Helen soothingly, then smiled to herself, for, in truth, the lady in question seldom understood anything, but, being the wife of a conservative manufacturer who stood for his native town, thought it her duty to take an interest in social and political questions. ”Ned loves paradoxes, but he really hates being cheated as much as any one.”
”I only meant, Lady Smith-Biggs,” put in Lord Blackborough, gravely, ”that I am quite willing to subscribe--as I am sure Sir Joseph does--to all the great truths which underlie our commercial prosperity. That is to say, first, that everything is worth what it will fetch, and a trifle more for underhand percentages. Secondly, that nothing can be called cheating in an open market. Thirdly, that truth is the affair of the purchaser, or his creator.”
”Bah! my dear Lord Blackborough,” laughed Mr. Hirsch, ”you would have a world without money; it would be a pretty paradise.”
”But,” protested Lady Smith-Biggs again, her diamond ear-rings twinkling--they were so magnificent that they made one forget the redness and the fatness of the face against which they shone, ”I really do not understand. If you have no money, how can you pay your bills?”
”I pay mine by cheque,” remarked Ned with a side-glance at Aura. After her sudden desire to escape which his aside had checked, she had become amused, then interested, by the conversation. And now his allusion made her flush up, then smile, for she was beginning to realise that this curious world, in which money played so important a part, was really the world in which she had always lived. She had not seen the token; that was all.
”But, my dear Ned,” said Miss Vyvyan placidly, ”you can't pay everything by cheque. The bank doesn't like cas.h.i.+ng small sums. I know when I send for my thread to Honiton--I have to send there, you know, it is so fine,” she explained to Lady Smith-Biggs, laying her hand on the tiny black roll which, as usual, was beside her plate, ”I always have to send a postal order.”
”Exactly so,” breathed Lady Smith-Biggs with a sigh of relief; ”so you are wrong, Lord Blackborough. Why! even the very children have pennies. I used to think it rather dreadful their doing so much shopping for their mothers, but Sir Joseph says you cannot train them too early to understand the real value of money. And I am sure he is right, for it is quite impossible to live without it.”
”That is a question which we ought to refer to Miss Graham,” remarked Ned Blackborough coolly, ”I believe she has never even seen a sixpence.”
If a bomb had fallen on the lunch-table it could not have produced a greater effect. Mr. Hirsch sat petrified, his fork halfway to his mouth. All eyes were turned on Aura, who bore the brunt with smiles, for there was something of pure mischief in her host's face which was infectious. Even Ted, over the way, waited, amused.
”I believe she did, once, see a sovereign,” continued Ned. ”Perhaps she will tell you what she did with it.”
The girl's face dimpled with laughter. ”I gave it to the c.o.c.katoo.”
Dynamite could not possibly have been more disconcerting.
”The c.o.c.katoo!” echoed Mr. Hirsch automatically, as, becoming aware that the _sole au vin blanc_ on his fork was dripping on to his waistcoat, he dabbed blindly at the spot with his napkin. ”And--and may I ask, my dear young lady, what--what the c.o.c.katoo did with it?”
”He wouldn't eat it,” said Aura.
”And so,” interrupted Ted rather viciously, ”it was thrown into the stream.”
Aura turned swiftly on Ned. This was news. ”Did you?” she began.
”So there it lies,” remarked Ned, ”as the beginning of a Welsh gold-mine. Make a prospectus out of that, Hirsch; it would be as true as most of them, I expect.”
”But I do not quite understand,” protested Lady Smith-Biggs once more, her pale blue eyes fixed vacantly on Aura. ”What! you have never seen a sixpence--how--how dreadful!”
”That is easily remedied,” remarked Peter Ramsay; ”I believe I have so much in my pocket, anyhow.”
”Stay a bit, Ramsay,” said Lord Blackborough; ”Miss Graham's ignorance is not confined to sixpence. She is generally unacquainted with the coin of the realm.”
Mr. Hirsch's eyes were almost starting out of his head, partly in admiration of the girl whom he now discovered to be exceedingly beautiful. ”Gott in Himmel!” he muttered, ”I believe I have half a crown an' two s.h.i.+llings.”
”Capital!” cried Ned. ”Simmonds, take the plate round, and then bring it to Miss Graham.”