Lady Jim of Curzon Street: A Novel

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(Harvard University)

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G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS       NEW YORK

LADY JIM of
CURZON STREET

A Novel

By
FERGUS HUME

Author of
"The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," "A Coin of Edward VII,"
"The Pagan's Cup," "The Yellow Holly," "The Red Window,"
"The Mandarin's Fan," "The Secret Passage," etc.

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS       NEW YORK

Copyright, 1906, BY

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

Issued March, 1906

Lady Jim of
  Curzon Street

LADY JIM OF CURZON STREET

CHAPTER I

"We're on the rocks this time, Leah, smashin' for all we're worth. How we can win clear beats me."

With hands which had never earned a shilling thrust into pockets empty even of that coin, Jim Kaimes stretched out his long legs and surveyed his neat boots as he made this cryptic speech. His habit of expressing himself in a parabolic fashion was confusing to his friends. But five years of marital squabbling had schooled his wife into ready comprehension, and she usually responded without comment. On this occasion, however, the subject under discussion irritated even her healthy nerves, and she replied irrelevantly.

"Really, Jim, I wish you would talk English."

"Huh! Never knew I was talking Choctaw."

"You might be, for all the sense an ordinary person can make of it."

"Ah-a-a!" said Jim, with the clumsy affection of a bear; "but you're not an ordinary person, Leah. I'm the common or garden ass, that can't straighten things. Now you can."

"For want of a husband I suppose I must."

"Come now, Leah. Am I not your husband?"

"Oh yes!" she answered, with a flick of her handkerchief across a pair of scornful lips: "my husband, not a husband."

"What's the difference?"

"As if I could waste time in explaining. We have more serious matters to talk about than your want of brains."

"Serious enough," assented the man, sulkily; "but you know how to deal with trouble, Leah."

"I ought to," retorted his wife, with a shrug, "considering the experience I have had since marrying you. I wish I hadn't."

"So do I," confessed Jim; then mended his speech with a dim sense of having overstepped the mark: "No, by Jupiter, I don't mean that. You an' I get on very well, considerin' each swings on a private hook. You are not a bad sort, Leah, and I'm a--a--a--well, you know what I am."

"Not a diplomatist, certainly. Isn't this praise a trifle obvious? You don't mean it, do you?"

She looked at him wistfully, but her candid husband soon stopped any sentimental illusions she may have momentarily entertained. "Oh yes, I mean it in a sort of way. An' good temper on both sides will help us to push through the business quicker."

"You mean the Bankruptcy Court," snapped his wife.

"Perhaps I mean the Divorce Court," was his tart reply, but she was quite ready with an answer.

"On your own part, then; you can't say a word against me."

"Who said I could? You've got the one virtue that gives its name to the rest, and think yourself an angel."

"I had your assurance that I was an angel--once."

"No doubt. It's the sort of thing a man has to say to the woman he is engaged to."

"And never says to the woman he is married to!"

"Marriage isn't all honey, Leah, and----"

"Heavens!" Lady Jim addressed the ceiling; "as if I required telling. But compared with other women, Jim, I am not----"

"I never said you were," interrupted Kaimes, crossly. "I'd screw your neck if you went on like other women."

"Upon my word, Jim, I would admire you more if you did attempt something of that sort."

"Sorry I can't oblige you; but I'm a gentleman and bear an honoured name."

"An honoured name!"

"Sneerin' won't alter facts, Leah. The name of Kaimes has always been honoured----"

"Till you dragged it through the mud," interrupted Leah, in her turn. "The old Duke is all right, and Frith's a kind man, if somewhat dull. But you--oh heavens! to think that such a Saul should be amongst the prophets."

Jim, not understanding the scriptural allusion, thought he was being chaffed, a liberty which his bovine pride resented by two minutes of sulky silence. Moreover, he dreaded his wife's formidable tongue, the lash of which could cut through even his tough hide.

"How are we goin' to get through the business at this rate?" was his next contribution to the conversation. "You don't remember that I've to meet a fellow at the club to see about a bet. An' I haven't got one shillin' to rattle against another," declared Jim, pathetically.

"Well," was the sharp reply, "I have to shop this afternoon with but one miserable sovereign in my purse."

Lord Jim opened his sleepy blue eyes. "I say, you couldn't----?"

"No," said his wife, decisively. "I couldn't and I wouldn't, and I can't and I shan't. Perhaps you'll read the paper and let me think."

"All right," said Kaimes, reaching for the Sporting Times. "I want to see the bettin' on Podaskas."

"Betting will be your ruin."

"Has been," corrected Jim, chuckling; then reverted to his early metaphor: "We're on the rocks this time, Leah, and no mistake."

His wife cast a look of scorn on the pink-and-white face she had once thought handsome. And, indeed, Kaimes was good-looking in a heavy Saxon way. Tall and muscular, with the strength of a bull and the manners of a bear, he was precisely the sort of brutal athlete to attract women. They flocked round him like bees, and gave him more honey than was good for him. He accepted their endearments with the complacent vanity of an egotist, and took little trouble to please even the prettiest, whereupon he was adored the more.

Leah, with her elbows on the breakfast-table, stared at Jim's well-brushed head bending over the pink sheets, and asked herself, for the hundredth time, why she had married him. Physically he resembled a splendid Hercules, but in another sense the likeness was not a speaking one. He satisfied her eyes, and in no other way gave her pleasure. When he talked, he babbled vainly about himself and his doings, to the exclusion of any topic likely to interest other people. Possessed of that easy good-nature which refuses nothing, which costs nothing, Jim Kaimes was looked upon as "a good fellow," a title which covers a multitude of the minor sins. Jim would have been meritorious as a cave-man, and pre-historically perfect. As a civilised being he left very much to be desired.

The subject was neither agreeable nor inexhaustible, and Leah rose with a shrug of her shapely shoulders. Jim looked up.

"Well?" he asked encouragingly.

"Nothing!" said his wife, curtly, and moved to the window.

Here she leaned against the sash and looked at the narrow grey street which was such a good address to impress tradesmen, and so expensive to live in. Not that the question of rent troubled the pair. They paid none, and would have been as much insulted, if visited on quarter-day, as an Irish tenant. The Duke of Pentland at the time of their marriage had presented them with the furnished "10, Curzon Street," but hampered with certain restrictions. They could not sell it, or even mortgage it, nor could money be raised on the furniture. The Duke paid all rates and taxes, and saw to all repairs. Beyond dwelling in this very desirable residence, and calling it publicly their home, Lord and Lady Jim had no interest in it whatsoever. Both thought it was ridiculous that they could not turn the Curzon Street house into money, when they needed ready cash so badly.

And life was so hard to people of their standing and tastes. Leah came of a bankrupt family, and had brought nothing to Jim but her own clever, beautiful self. She considered the two thousand a year which the Duke allowed his second son opulence, until she learned what delightful things money could buy. Then Jim used a large amount of the quarterly payments on his own account, and tradesmen would not give her the delightful things without money. She certainly had bills in nearly every shop in Bond Street and out of it, but even bills had to be paid in the long run. The post brought a good many, and brought also lawyers' letters, not pleasant to read. Between them, this happy pair had mortgaged their income, and the money they had obtained was all gone. Now they had no income and many bills. What was to be done? This problem Jim had set Leah to solve, but clever as she knew herself to be, the solution was beyond her.

"Can't you borrow, Jim?" she asked, turning gloomily from the window.

"Perhaps a fiver," was the prompt response; "every one's as mean as mean. I've tried 'em all. And you?"

Leah shook her head.

"Twenty pounds, for all my asking."

"There's your godmother, old Lady Canvey," suggested Jim. "She's as rich as Dives."

"And, like Dives, won't give a penny to this Lazarus. She smiles, and talks epigrams, and preaches, but as to helping----" Leah shrugged her shoulders again.

The action drew her husband's attention to a very magnificent figure which was loudly admired. Jim had admired it himself before he had got used to seeing it in the breakfast-room. Now it struck him that this attraction might be turned into money.

"You're a ripping woman in the way of looks," he said, throwing down the newspaper; "if you went on the stage--eh?"

"As the fairy queen?" inquired his wife, scornfully: "that's about all I'm suited for. I know the things I can't do, Jim, and acting is one. Besides, think of what the Duke would say."

Jim yawned, and lighted a cigarette.

"He can't say more than he has said," he remarked, lazily. "'Sides, I never go to hear him preach, now."