Read Ebook: The Mandarin's Fan by Hume Fergus

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Ebook has 2085 lines and 72194 words, and 42 pages

"Well I did at first," said Tidman sulkily. "I risked my life over the beastly thing, and--"

Forge raised a thin hand. "Spare yourself the recital. I know."

"Why not?" asked Forge shutting his knife with a click.

"Because I want the five thousand pounds for myself. I'm not so well off as people think, and I want"--

"You forget," said Forge gently, "you gave me the fan."

"And have you got it?"

"I have," he nodded towards a cabinet of Chinese work adorned with quaint figures, "it's in there."

"Give it to me back."

"No. I think I'll keep it."

"What do you want to do with it?" asked Tidman angrily.

Forge rose and looked stern, "I want to keep it from Lo-Keong," he said savagely, "there's some secret connected with that fan. I can't understand what the secret is or what the fan has to do with it: but it means life and death to this Mandarin. He'd give ten thousand,--twenty thousand to get that fan back. But he shan't."

"Oh," groaned the Major, "why did I give it to you. To think that such a lot of money should go begging. If I had only known what the fan was worth."

"You knew nothing about it save as a curiosity."

"How do you know," demanded the Major.

"Let me go confound you," blustered the Major, "what do you mean by assaulting a gentleman"--

"A gentleman." Forge suddenly released the Major and laughed softly, "does Benjamin Tidman, old Farmer Tidman's son call himself so. Why I remember you--"

"Yes I know you do, and so does that infernal Pewsey cat."

Forge suddenly became attentive. "Miss Pewsey if you please. She is my friend. I may--" Forge halted and swallowed something. "I may even marry her some day."

"What," shouted Tidman backing to the wall, "that old--old--"

"Gently my good Benjamin, gently."

"But--but you're not a marrying man."

"We never know what we are till we die," said Forge turning again towards the black cabinet, "but you needn't mention what I have said. If you do," Forge snarled like an angry cat and shot one glance from his gray eyes that made Tidman shiver: then he resumed his gentle tone. "About this fan. I'll make a bargain with you."

"What's that?" asked the Major avariciously.

"I'll show you the fan, and if you can guess it's secret, I'll let you give it to this Tung-yu or Hwei or Kan-su or whatever he likes to call himself."

"But you don't want Lo-Keong to have the fan," said the Major doubtfully.

Forge opened the cabinet slowly. "So long as I learn the secret he can have the fan. I want to ruin him. He's a devil and--ah--" he started back. "The fan--the fan--"

"What is it?" asked Tidman, craning over Forge's shoulder at an empty drawer, "where is the fan?"

"Lost," cried Forge furiously, and looked like a dangerous grey rat.

"Five thousand pounds gone," moaned the Major.

"My life you fool--my life," cried the doctor, "it is at stake."

The best houses in Marport were situated on the Cliffs. They stood a considerable way back and had small plots of ground before them cultivated or not, according to the taste of those who owned them. Some of these gardens were brilliant with flowers, others had nothing but shrubs in them, presenting rather a sombre appearance, and a few were bare sun-burnt grass plots, with no adornment whatsoever. A broad road divided the gardens from the grassy undulations of the cliffs, and along this thoroughfare, rolled carriages, bicycles, and motor-cars all day during the season. Then came the grass on the cliff-tops which stretched for a long distance, and which was dotted with shelters for nervous invalids. At one end there was a round band-stand where red-coated musicians played lively airs from the latest musical comedy. Round the stand were rows of chairs hired out at twopence an afternoon, and indeed, all over the lawns, seats of various kinds were scattered. At the end of the grass, the cliffs sloped gradually and were intersected with winding paths, which led downward to the asphalt Esplanade which ran along the water's edge, when the tide was high, and beside evil-smelling mud when the tide was out. And on what was known as the beach--a somewhat gritty strand,--were many bathing machines. Such was the general appearance of Marport which the Essex people looked on as a kind of Brighton, only much better.

Miss Sophia Wharf owned a cosy little house at the far end of the cliffs, and just at the point where Marport begins to melt into the country. It was a modern house comfortably furnished and brilliant with electric lights. The garden in front of it was well taken care of, there were scarlet and white shades to the windows and flower boxes filled with blossoms on the sills. Everyone who passed remarked on the beauty of the house, and Miss Wharf was always pleased when she heard them envy her possessions. She liked to possess a Naboth's Vineyard of her own, and appreciated it the more, when others would have liked to take it. She had an income of one thousand a year and therefore could live very comfortably. The house was her own, bought in the days when Marport was nothing but a fishing village. She knew everyone in the neighbourhood, was a staunch friend to the vicar who was high church and quite after her own heart in the use of banners, incense, candles and side-altars, and on the whole was one of the leading ladies of the place. She had the reputation of being charitable, but this was owing to Miss Pewsey who constantly trumpeted the bestowal of any stray shilling being by her patroness.

Miss Wharf was a lady of good family, but had quarrelled with her relatives. She was a tall, cold, blonde woman who had once been handsome and still retained a certain portion of good looks, in spite of her forty and more years. She lived with her niece Olivia the child of a sister long since dead, and with Miss Pewsey, to whom she gave a home as a companion. But Miss Wharf well knew, that Lavinia Pewsey was worth her weight in gold owing to the way she praised up her good, kind, devoted, loving, sweet, friend. The adjectives are Miss Pewsey's own, but some people said that Sophia Wharf did not deserve to have them attached to her. The lady had her enemies, and these openly declared, as the Major had done, that she was a mass of granite. Other people, less prejudiced, urged that Miss Wharf looked after Olivia, who was a penniless orphan. To which the grumblers retorted that Miss Wharf liked someone to vent her temper on, and that the poor girl, being too pretty, did duty as a whipping boy. This was possibly true, for Olivia and her aunt did not get on well together. In her own way the girl looked as cold as Miss Wharf, but this coldness was merely a mask to hide a warm and loving nature, while Miss Wharf was an ice-berg through and through. However, on the whole, Sophia Wharf was well liked, and took care to make the most of her looks and her moderate income and her reputation as a charitable lady. And Miss Pewsey was the show-woman who displayed her patroness's points to their best advantage.

The drawing-room of Ivy Lodge was a flimsy, pretty, feminine, room, furnished in a gim-crack fashion, of the high art style. The floor was waxed, and covered with Persian praying mats, the chairs were gilt and had spindle legs the settee was Empire, the piano was encased in green wood and adorned with much brass, the sofa was Louis Quinze and covered with brocade, and there were many tables of rose-wood, dainty and light, heaped high with useless nick-knacks.

The walls of pale green were adorned with water-colour pictures, and many mirrors draped with Liberty silk. Everywhere were large bowls of flowers, miniatures of Miss Wharf at various times of her life, curiosities from China and Japan and the near East, and all sorts of odds and ends which Miss Wharf had collected on her travels. Not that she had been to the East, for the evidences of civilisation in those lands came from Dr. Forge and Major Tidman, but Miss Wharf had explored Germany, Switzerland and Italy and consequently had brought home cuckoo-clocks, quaint carvings, pictures of the Madonna, Etruscan idols and such like things with which every tourist loads himself or herself. The result was, that the drawing-room looked like a curiosity shop, but it was considered to be one of the prettiest drawing-rooms in Essex.

Miss Wharf looked too large and too substantial for the frail furniture of the room. She had a double chin and was certainly very stout. Very wisely she had a special arm-chair placed in the window--from which she could see all that was going on,--and here she sat working most of the day. She was great on doing fancy articles for bazaars, and silk ties for such gentlemen as she admired, for Miss Wharf, old maid as she was, liked male society. The Major was her great admirer, so was young Walker, Lady Jabe's nephew. Sophia was not very sure of this last gentleman, as she shrewdly suspected--prompted by Miss Pewsey--that he admired Olivia. Rupert also admired Olivia and wanted to marry her, a proceeding which Miss Wharf objected to. Miss Pewsey supported her in this, for both women were envious of the youth which had passed from them for ever. But Miss Wharf had also another reason, which Miss Pewsey knew, but of which Olivia was ignorant. Hitherto Sophia had kept it from the girl but this afternoon in a fit of rage she let it out. The explosion did not come at once, for Lady Jabe was in the room drinking tea, and Miss Pewsey was flitting about, filling odd vases with flowers. Olivia sat on the settee very straight and very cold, looking dark and handsome, and altogether too splendid a woman for her aunt to tolerate.

"Can't you do something?" said Miss Wharf turning her jealous eyes on the girl. "I should think you must be tired, twiddling your thumbs all day."

"I'll do whatever you wish me to do," said Olivia coldly.

"Then help Lavinia with the flowers."

Olivia rose to do so, but Miss Pewsey refused her assistance in a shrill speech spoken as usual between her teeth and with an emphasis on every other word.

"Oh no dear, dear, Sophia," cried Miss Pewsey, "I have just finished, and I may say that my eye for colour is better than Olivia's--you don't mind my saying so, darling," she added to the girl.

"Not at all," replied Miss Rayner who detested the sycophant. "I never give the matter a thought."

Miss Wharf drew herself up in her cold way. "I fancy that Olivia, few brains as she has, is yet wise enough not to think of marriage at twenty."

"It would not be much good if I did," said Olivia calmly. "I have no money, and young men want a rich wife."

"Chris is out of the question," said Miss Rayner quickly.

"And pray why is he?" asked Sophia in arms at once. She never liked Olivia to have an opinion of her own.

"Because I don't love him."

"But Chris loves you," said Lady Jabe, "and really he's getting a very good salary in that Tea-merchant's office. Chris, as you are aware, Olivia, is foreign corresponding clerk to Kum-gum Li & Co. He knows Chinese," finished Lady Jabe, with tremendous emphasis.

"Oh," Miss Pewsey threw up her claws, "how delicious to be made love to in Chinese. I must really ask Mr. Walker what is the Chinese for 'I love you.'"

"Olivia prefers to hear it in English," said Miss Wharf, spitefully.

"Quite so, aunt," retorted her niece, her colour rising, "but don't you think we might change the subject. It really isn't very interesting."

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